#i think i am acknowledging it as a thing that happened but less manic or smth?

[ephedrathirsts]

Teach me

Synopsis: Your best friend asks you to take his virginity. As the both of you spend more time intimately together you are forced to acknowledge your feelings for one another.

Contains: idiots in love trope, friends to lovers trope, lovers in denial, one-bed trope, crack and sarcasm, mutual pining, eventual smut, fluff, afab reader, eventual angst, anger issues

Pairings: Hunter Sylvester! x afab! reader

Word count: 4100

Parts: I, II

 You were preparing for bed, cleaning off the makeup you had put on for hours, feeling a little embarrassed. You had been stood up. It wasn’t the end of the world but it was a little humiliating. You shaved for absolutely nothing, put on a matching pair of bra and panties, wore one of your favorite gowns. You didn’t ' have game' per se but you weren’t doing bad either. At least you thought you weren’t.

 You decided to stop your playlist and embrace defeat as you heard the sound of rustling leaves and the stomping of boots on the side of your house. That wouldn’t have been him, right? He knew your parents were out of town. There was no reason to go through all this trouble. That’s when a silhouette showed more clearly.

  You freaked out, got to your feet, and locked the window, trying to come up with the most elaborate escape plan on the face of the planet but falling short as your panic clouded your judgment.

  "Let me in, please. I think I scrapped my knee pretty badly." a familiar voice came through.

  You were on edge still, shaking in place as you slowly dragged your arm to open the window.

 Hunter came in with a swift motion, panting heavily, with a manic look on his face. As he collected his breath, he finally saw your expression- you seemed furious, steam coming out the top of your head. You were throwing mental darts, aimed at the boy and shaking your hands furiously.

 "What the hell are you doing here?! In the middle of the night, unannounced! I thought I was going to get murdered."

 "I knew you weren’t going to be asleep so I thought this time was as good as any… wait… are you expecting someone?" his gaze drifted off to your tight-fitting slip dress.

 All of a sudden, he noticed the mood lighting and he remembered not seeing your father’s car parked outside. He felt a little uneasy now but he tried his best not to show it. Maybe him coming to you was a terrible idea after all.

 "Nope.. it’s just me… no one's coming…" you squeaked, not wanting to share more of the story.

 "Ok, good, because I need a favor and I know that this may sound weird and it might make things awkward between us but I trust you so I think you.." you interrupt his nervous spiel with a concerned look on your face.

 "Are you not going to apologize first? You know, for scarring me to death." You replied through gritted teeth.

  "Yes! Of course, how inconsiderate of me. I truly am sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but it’s an emergency. You are the only one I trust with this. I can’t just not try, the thought of it will haunt me for months on end and I really need this…"

 "Wow, dude, slow down for a minute. You didn't have any of the funny juice again, right? Don’t tell me I have to pee in a cup. I’m not doing it."

 "That was a one-time thing! An honest mistake, if you must know!" He said defensively- "I would never do that willingly.’"

 "Sure thing, buddy." You replied with a smug smile on your face.

 "What was so important it warranted you climbing up my window during the witching hour?" You said playfully, trying to calm him down.

 "So... I've been thinking a lot about the future and how we have less than a year of high school left and... You know I'm high in demand and everything but.." He blabbered on.

  "It's ok, I can help you pick out a collage. I am the wisest out of your friends after all. You can trust me, buddy." You declared knowingly

 "No, fuck that. I'm not going to college." He brushed it off.

 "Nope, you definitely are!" You demanded.

 "No, not a chance that's happening." He replied, sounding a little distracted.

 "Ok, we will continue this conversation later. You are going, by the way, but let's not get sidetracked. Tell me what's on your mind."

  Hunter started blushing for a minute, uncertain of how to express himself.

 "You know how last year you and Kevin were making fun of me for being a virgin.." he explained hastily.

  "Yeah, I'm so sorry for that. It was funny as fuck but there is no shame in being a virgin. I mean, I was one up until five months ago." You confessed.

  Hunter's cheeks became even rosier, embarrassment written on his face.

 "The thing is… I still am one.." He blurted out

 "Oh? So do you need me to hook you up with someone? I guess I could make a good wingwoman, I can look around, do a little research." You got all serious and concentrated, lost in thought.

  "Puff, no. I'm the singer of a semi-successful metal band and like I previously mentioned I am high in demand." Hunter grinned proudly.

 "Ok then, I don't understand the issue."

 "Look, when I do decide to pursue any of my many.. and I mean many groupies.."

  "Uhuh.." You dozed, rolling your eyes at him.

 "I want to be certain of what I'm doing. I have a reputation to uphold. I'm not a washed-up indie singer or something. I am supposed to be a master in the arts of sex.." He rambled.

  "Ok, I'm losing you. Stop stretching out the conversation and get to your actual point." You chirped a little annoyed.

 "I want you to teach me." He spat out.

 "You want me to take your virginity?" You asked a bit taken aback.

 "Nope, I want you to teach me. You know how when you practice something, you get better at it? I have been playing the guitar for years and that's how I built upon my skill." He explained, hoping you were paying attention and reading carefully between the lines.

  "I don't catch your drift."

  Hunter's face dropped. Guess he had to spell it out for you.

 "I don't want you to take my virginity and then never do it again. I won't learn anything from just one lesson. I need a proper course. Maybe like a month-long or something. I'm willing to do whatever you want if you agree. And if you don't and try to tell anyone about this interaction, I will deny everything I said up until this point so it will be your word against mine and..."

 "Ok, ok mister 'Law and order'. Slow your horses. I'm not going to tell anyone."

  A rush of relief washed over Hunter's face.

 "So basically you want me to have sex with you in the pursuit of learning..?"

  "Yup, exactly."

 "Like scheduled, strictly mechanical. Just so you learn the woodwork?" You said a bit confused.

  "No, of course not. What's the point in that? In real life, people don't show up and have sex out of nowhere. This isn't porn. I want to do the entire thing right- foreplay, intensity, passion, mood lighting, music, etc. I'm not about to half-ass it." He said confidently.

 "And why do you want to do it with me?"

 "I know you, I trust you and you are pleasing to the eye. That way I won't feel so weird or embarrassed."

  " 'Pleasing to the eye', don't be busting out the compliments just yet, you don't want to make me all flustered and shit." You said sarcastically.

  "Ok, I'm sorry. That sounded douche-y. What I meant to say is you’re hot and you are basically the only person that matches my energy."

 "Yeah.. that sounds wayy less douche-y," You replied, unamused.

 "I'm sorry, I'm having a pretty hard time here. If you think of a more appropriate way of phrasing it, please do let me know." Hunter retorted a bit defensively.

  "This is such a bad idea, dude. It can go off the rails, you know."

  "Can't you help a desperate friend out? Please, I really need this." Hunter pleaded, looking like a sad puppy.

  You had to think for a second. This was such a bad idea. For one it could ruin the friendship, make things between you two uncomfortable, but you could see the strained expression on his face. You couldn’t just leave him hanging. Maybe he was going to back down, change his mind if you were to actually agree, so against your better judgment you went along with it.

 "God, good thing I feel bad for you after this pathetic pitch you tried to sell me. Guess I'm not as wise.. uh.. sure I will do it, but I have to warn you that I do have some ground rules, some extremely important 'Do's' and 'Don't's'..."

 Hunter got all excited and giddy after hearing you that he cut you off mid-sentence. "You will do it! Fuck yeah, thank youu! You are truly the best!" He said and then quickly kissed your cheek.

 "I will be considerate of your 'Do's' and 'Don't's' and make sure to make you feel as comfortable as possible." He said matter of factly while saluting you and climbing back out of your window.

 "I'm already regretting this." You croaked out to yourself.

 Hunter was sitting on your bed, propped up on his elbows with a notebook in front of him and a pen sticking out of his mouth while you were going on your merry rant.

 "Don't overdo it with the dirty talk. Don't name any of my body parts. Don't give me a nickname. Don't call me 'mommy' and don't expect me to call you 'daddy', I'm not into it. Don't grab my neck out of nowhere. You can't just go around choking me unannounced!" You scolded.

 "So if I announce myself I can choke you?" Hunter's eyebrows raised playfully.

 "We'll see about that.. Don't call me a 'good girl' or whatever. It makes me feel weird. Don't tear any of my clothes, I'm pretty attached to them. Don't touch my feet. Ass area is off-limits! I'm not kidding, don't slap it, care about it, try to put something up it, don't even acknowledge its existence!"

 Hunter scribbled something in his notebook, highlighted it, and mouthed "no ass".

 "Is this all? Or are there more 'Don't's'?"

  "I guess there are but they will come up with time depending on the situation. Communication is key after all."

 "Ok, what are the 'Do's' then?"

 "A lot of attention on the neck, hips, and thigh areas. Reciprocal scratching is encouraged. The same applies to light hair pulling, biting, and slapping at times..."

  "Wait, slapping?" Hunter got a little alarmed.

  "I'm a very passionate person. I'm not only passive-aggressive. I can also be actively aggressive and sex is a productive way to channel it, ya know." You answered coyly

 Hunter wrote down "Surprisingly both a sadist and a masochist."

 "I like attention, I like eye contact, I like feeling like a gem. Like I'm God-sent or something. I know how it sounds but I'm being honest, it turns me on. That probably has something to do with my self-esteem issues.. well yet another thing to bring up with my therapist" you drifted off.

 "The fact you like to be validated during sex?" Hunter chuckled.

  "Yeah.. maybe.. maybe not." You said after sifting the thought through your brain.

 "I can be mean during sex, by the way, sometimes I can get nasty." You warned.

  "Only during sex?" Hunter teased and you hit his shoulder.

 "Oh yeah, teasing is a must! I both hate it and love it so much. Banter is extremely erotic when done right and it has to be incorporated."

 Hunter circled "probably has anger issues and gets her panties wet by arguing"

 "That's kind of a mischaracterization of what I said but yeah, sure.."

 "It's ok, I have anger issues too. I get you, girl." He put his hand on your shoulder while mock empathizing with you.

 "Don't ever say that again."

 "Ok, putting it in the 'Don't's' section right after the ass stuff." He said all knowingly.

  "Oh God, how am I supposed to keep going when you’re not taking anything seriously and acting like such a little brat?"

 "Don't get all worked up now babe, we haven't even taken our clothes off." Hunter coughed out and winked at you.

  You went on without paying him much attention.

 "I also like to take things slow. But that mostly happens when I have developed feelings for the person. Wanting to be in the moment with them."

 "So you were the one half-assing sex?"

 "Wait, what? I beg your pardon!" You screeched, offended at his suggestion.

 "It is all about being in the moment. If it isn't clicking you simply don't go through with it. But sex is all about some basic type of connection between people. It's not only about feelings, it's about respect, it's about dignity. Getting to know someone more intimately, not only for your pleasure." Hunter explained all focused and mentor-like.

 "If you know all of this already, what do you need me for?"

 "You can't just go around the world with knowing stuff you can’t put to use," Hunter answered like he had thought about it for a long time.

 You were quite impressed with him. You had known him for a very long time and you were already aware he wasn't showing everything there was to him to others. Yes, he could be impulsive and childlike, a pain in the ass, and a cocky son of a bitch but he was always strangely emotionally Intelligent at times, and that surprised you. Guess therapy was working for him, huh?

  "So, is that the end of our lesson for today?"

  "I think so. It's good that the two of us learned some new information today." You smiled, feeling proud of your student.

 "Yeah, I now know not to call you 'mommy'. It's information that will shape me for the years to come." He said sarcastically.

 "Oh, shut up asshole. You asked for this, remember?" You retorted

 "And you were the one that strongly encourages teasing, weren't you." He whispered huskily as he leveled with your face and kissed you, slowly and tentatively. Your cheeks flushed with shock. He opened his eyes to look at you and chuckled softly.

 "May I kiss you again?" He pleaded. Your breath caught in your throat. You did agree to this, yes, but there was still some disbelief there.

 "He'll probably drop it. He doesn't mean it seriously. It won't come to anything physical, I'm sure of it..." you had already convinced yourself.

 You didn't expect anything to actually... Well, happen. But he was only asking for a kiss and he looked like such a sad little puppy, there was no denying him.

  "Yes.." you gulped. "You may kiss me." You nervously shift your gaze from his eyes to his lips.

   As if he was reading your mind he replied: "Don't worry, I'm anxious too."

   And then it was all silence as he closed the distance between you, his lips gently caressing yours. He was holding you tight- one hand on the small of your back and the other on your cheek as he slowly deepened the kiss. He was hesitant with his movements but was trying to impress you. With his tongue fully in your mouth, engulfing you steadily. Savoring every little bit, every time you brushed your fingers through his hair, every time you pressed your palms against his chest or tickled the sides of his face with your fingertips.

 He held you like you were made of porcelain, not because he was afraid of you breaking but of you changing your mind, your touch being too infectious to let go of.

 Both of you parted to catch your breath and Hunter smiled at you sheepishly, held up your arm to his face, and planted a quick peck on the back of it.

 "That was quite the kiss."

 "Yeah.. it definitely was." You agreed, flustered, gazing into his eyes.

 You were sitting on Hunter's bed, trying your best to focus on doing your homework while Skullflower was practicing. They were getting pretty good, their sound coming off as more refined and confident. Hunter had worked hard on their debut album to the point that even the demos of their songs were professional.

He was very serious when it came to his craft. You could see it now- how particular he was about the acoustics, how much emotion he put in while he sang, and how concentrated he was while strumming on his guitar. He was truly in his element while playing and you could see all of this passion radiating from him. He was in the zone, huffing, and sweating, looking down at the strings and plucking them one by one with his fingers.

 Your body tensed at the sight, his long hair swishing, complementing the sharpness and edges of his face. And his eyes looked so.. uh... so... what were you thinking about?! Snap out of it! You were doing homework; you weren't drooling over your best friend. That's nonsense!

 You were so focused on expelling all of the non-platonic thoughts out of your head that you barely even noticed that the band had stopped playing and Kevin and Emily were nowhere to be seen.

 "Are you done with your homework?"  Hunter asked while putting away his guitar.

 "Yeah, you could say so. I made a lot of progress." You answered embarrassedly.

 "That's good, hard work should be rewarded," Hunter whispered as he started coming close to you.

  "Yeah. I should treat myself to desert or something." You fidgeted with your fingers and avoided his gaze.

 "I was thinking of something more along the lines of this." He was in front of you now, grabbing your cheeks with both of his hands and kissing you passionately. He then broke away and started gently stroking your hair and playing with the ends.

 "You looked pretty all concentrated and serious." He confessed. "But I think it's time for you to take a little break and relax."

 "I'm not that tired." You gulped impulsively.

 "Good, me neither." He put his hands on your waist and kissed you again so drawn out that it made you weak. It took everything out of you not to whimper at the feeling. If you were none the wiser you would have confused the feeling in your stomach for butterflies, but there was no way Hunter could be causing such a reaction. Definitely not.

 "Do you want to hang out, watch a movie, or something?" He suggested nervously.

  "Yea-yeah... Sure..."

  "Oh wait, I know what you need!" He whispered and wiggled his eyebrows.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, what was he going to do? That was too much. Your heart was racing and you could feel how increasingly anxious you were getting.

 As your mind was spiraling, he put on TLC and turned to you.

 "Pick your poison. I'm gonna order junk food and we can make fun of whatever show you want " You melted. He knew you so well. Just because you were swapping DNA samples with each other now didn't mean he didn't remember how it was before. He got you.

  Hunter could sense you were a little tense and he didn't want to put you off. He wanted you to remember what your relationship was all about- you two goofing off, being idiots, being assholes to others and to each other sometimes but still carrying deep care and understanding for one another.

 "That sounds amazing, but it's getting kind of late. I need to go home." You whispered, regret washing over you.

 "You can stay over, you know? It's not a school night and for some bizarre reason, your parents are chill with me. Come on captain Crunch, please stay." He looked a little desperate and sad. He wanted you here. He needed you to stay.

  "One time I choke on cereal and have it come out of my nose and I never get to hear the end of it, huh?" You answered, acting as if you were upset. "But yeah, ok, I will stay over."

 Come to think of it maybe that was exactly what you needed- to remind yourself of what your relationship with Hunter was so you stopped acting as if you had a crush on him, because one thing was for certain- you didn't, nope.

 The two of you ate pizza as you laughed at the terrible attempts at flirting made by some poor soul on 90-day fiancé.

 "Don't worry about it, beautiful. When we get together, I will buy you an ass." Ok, not such a poor soul after all.

 "Boo, who the fuck would actually say that?" You screamed at the TV.

 "She is only in on it because she wants to get a green card, you can't get too mad at the guy," Hunter explained.

 "Are you defending him?!" You replied dumbfounded by his words.

 "No, fuck no. The dude is a total tool." Hunter snickered.

 "Good, I was getting worried for a second there."

Hunter held up one of his hands to his chest and declared: "Don't worry sweetheart, I would never even dare to mention your ass." He laughed and you laughed as well, punching his shoulder lightly.

 "Oh, fuck off." You spat out, still unable to stop yourself from giggling."I think it's time I call it a night. I'm pretty tired. Toss me one of your tees and some sheets so I can make the sofa..."  Hunter interrupted you.

"What are you saying, you're sleeping with me. I can’t have you sleeping on the sofa. We have done this so many times before, there's plenty of space for the both of us."

 "I know.. but it hasn’t happened in such a long time." The nerves were returning and a flush was creeping up your cheeks.

 "Yeah, that’s true. But you are aware of how comfortable my bed is." He reminded

 You could share a bed with him. I mean it was just Hunter. Good old Hunter- your FRIEND. Nothing more, nothing else. What was the point of making a fuss?

 "Fine, just give me something to wear, please." You said trying to sound a bit annoyed at the situation.

 Hunter gave you one of his band tees. You went to the bathroom to put it on, your toothbrush still being there from previous sleepovers. But was this a sleepover? What if he tried to do something? What if you tried to do something yourself? No, that was nonsense! Why would you, it's not like you desperately wanted to. You can behave yourself!

 You came out of the bathroom wearing only his T-shirt and a pair of underwear.

 "I know how you like to sleep on the left side but my phone is charging on the bedside table and I'll need to switch the do not disturb mode on at some point so..." He froze as you came into view, looking extremely casual and comfy with your hair down and his shirt adorning your body, ending just at the beginning of your thighs.

 "Yeah, that's ok" you whispered.

  Was he blushing? He couldn't be, right? There was no way you could make him this shy.

 You climbed into bed with him. He also had a shirt on and you couldn’t tell whether he was wearing anything underneath but as your leg unintentionally brushed over his you knew for a fact, he was also only wearing his boxers.

 "I'm sorry," you said coyly.

  "It's alright." He replied.

 To the both of your surprise, you put your hands on his face, pulling him towards you, and kissed him gently. He was so shocked he had his eyes open for a bit, but as the initial feeling warn off, he wrapped around you with both of his arms and held your chest close to his as his tongue slowly came into your mouth. Your legs were tangling between his, and without even thinking of it your grip landed on his shoulders as you tried kissing him harder, more passionately.

 You broke away to catch your breaths, with your head laying on his chest. He caressed your hair and planted a kiss on the top of your head while lacing his fingers through yours. Your heart was racing and you could hear his was too. You liked it, how comfortable you felt in his embrace. How well you fit around him.

You reached up to lightly stroke his face and kiss his cheek. "Goodnight, Hunter’’, you put his hand on your waist and turned on your side, making him spoon you.

 "Goodnight." He whispered tentatively into your ear.

[robotnik-mun]

Alrighty, so I juust watched the documentary of the unmade Fourth DIC Show, and my God... I feel like I may actually be losing my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-cp0dtX27I

Instinct tells me this isn’t real. This CAN’T be real. BUT IT IS.

And since I’m a generous soul I’m gonna recap, but trust me when I say you need to see it to believe it.

To start with we learn some details about what could’ve happened with Adventures and Underground!

-In AoStH, there were plans to include another main character... and in the mother of all coincidences it was going to be a sorceress named Merlina, who would be a descendant of Merlin and generally serve as a foil to Sonic! YEP, THAT’S RIGHT! WE ALMOST GOT A MERLINA BEFORE MERLINA!

-I find it interesting to note that SatAM also toyed with the idea of there being a magical hero, namely the original conception of Nate Morgan.

But anyway, while that was a bit weird, its not especially weird given what AoStH was like. Underground on the other hand... oh boy, Underground. You thought it was weird as it is? That’s nothing compared to what COULD have been.

-Sonia was initially going to be the only sibling Sonic had, and described as a ‘sexy, Jessica Rabbit’ like character while having an attitude like Sonic’s own.

-Sonic would have also had a Porcupine sidekick called ‘Quilley’, who would have a crush on Sonia. Am I having a stroke? I think I’m having a stroke.

-Instead of Sleet and Dingo, the bounty hunters in the show? Were going to be Scratch and Grounder! Okay, that’s actually kind of a neat idea, I admit it.

-Less neat though was that they would have been lead by Robotnik’s evil-er twin brother, Grotty. Yeah, you read that right. Evil-er twin brother. Named ‘Grotty’. I swear to God there was something in the water at DIC’s facilities...

-Aleena was originally going to be called “Rachel”, and Manic had the prototype name of “Edsel”.

-And evidently they were actually going to make the father of the royal hedgehogs a secondary subplot. Admittedly it would have been nice to see that one addressed, but otherwise yeah... we dodged some pretty significantly sized bullets. How insane is it that we are LUCKY to have gotten the Underground that we got?

And then there’s the unmade fourth show itself... Super Sonic Sisters. Oh, where do we even BEGIN?

-Well, we begin with the fact that they are not Sonic’s sisters. They’re his cousins. Who are twin sisters, Monica and Isabelle, who have an Odd Couple-esque dynamic going on. They live in space, on an Australia-esque asteroid. Yes, you are reading all of that correctly. No one has spiked your water. This was planned as a Sonic spinoff.

-The pair attend a high school, IN SPACE. There they are part of the school news program, IN SPACE. They also solve mysteries. IN SPACE!!!

-Their parents run a kind of interstellar truck stop/malt shop, with their mom being the mechanic and their dad being the chef.

-In addition to solving mysteries, they would also deal with Robotnik’s young nephew, Obnotnik. Obnotnik would attend the same school as them and is described as a ‘delinquent with pull’, who is their rival in the school news game.

So. Yeah. I think I finally know what it feels like to take mind altering drugs. Without taking mind altering drugs. I am having an out of body experience right now. How could anyone have thought this was a good idea. HOW? The fact that this ORIGINATED as a Sonic show rather than being repurposed from elsewhere is madness on a level I am not ready to acknowledge. I feel my eyes bleeding. I hear the call the Cthulhu.

.... I’m totally plundering at least some of this stuff for my own ends, but point of order! The DIC portion of things nearly went in a weird-ass direction that defies rational thought.

[dadrielle]

Was rewatching bits and bobs of the last episode (again) and thinking about Ashton in that conversation with Laudna and how I think it shows that more than just being afraid of caring,  they're afraid of being understood.

There’s this thing that happens sometimes when you’re lonely and in pain and closed off where you start to come up for reasons why your pain is unique. It’s not like, a morally bad thing, but it is a trick you can play on yourself, thinking that since no one has all your exact same experiences, there’s no way anyone can get you. It’s a way of giving more meaning to your loneliness, you know? It’s special. And it’s another layer of crunchy shell to protect yourself - if you think it’s not possible for people to understand you, it hurts less to not be understood. Ostensibly. Which means accepting that your trauma, and what you know as a result of it, isn’t wholly inscrutable to others, means letting another layer of your guard down. Of acknowledging that hey, that loneliness and jealousy and hurt don’t have to be the way you live. You can be understood if you let people in. You just have to be vulnerable. Isn’t that terrifying?

Their speech here is riddled with caveats. They’re the only one who knows what it's like to not have a past - well, except for one (FCG). They know the truth of people none of the others do - well, except for one (and I think this means Imogen, since she hears the worst of peoples’ thoughts). They know loneliness none of them know - except you know things Laudna, too, don’t think they don’t know that. I’m not surprised he was having arguments with people who weren’t there at the end of the episode - even as he made his speech, he was letting a bit of argument with himself seep in.

What’s worse, each of those people have dealt with that shared understanding in a different way than Ashton.  FCG doesn’t know their past, but that drives them to look for purpose, rather than a low impact life. Imogen has seen into peoples’ heads and knows the worst of them, but she still thinks “good people” exist, enough to be fretting over it constantly (don’t think I didn’t notice that that’s the first things that sets Ashton off, her asking if the gods are good “There’s no such thing, everyone is fuckign selfish-”). And Laudna has known a kind of loneliness that is truly unfathomable - but she’s secure now in the comfort and knowledge that she has her people. Which means that Ashton could start looking at their own shit in different ways. They could make a choice to let people in or see the good in ways they haven’t, and that’s some scary ass shit. I think there’s been a bit of a panicky, manic edge to the kindnesses Ashton has been displaying since they got Laudna back. I think they’re white knuckling their way through caring about the Hells and they are freaked the fuck OUT.

So I think Ashton was being an asshole by telling Laudna she didn’t know loneliness. I think even as he half-believed it as a holdover from that “I am wholly unique and uniquely alone” coping mechanism, he knew it was an absurd thing to say. But I think they did it on purpose. I think they are so terrified by how much they care about the Hells, and what’s more how much they understand and can be understood by them, that they wanted to push her into not caring by writing them off as a jerk. But Laudna’s more emotionally savvy than that. She won’t let him get away with it, even as she gets rightly angry at his downplaying her own experience in the moment. She knows they care, and she’s not going to let them push that away. They’re just going to have to deal with the fact that they’re a softy underneath it all. They’ve been given possibly the last push they need.

I would be 0% surprised if they finish arguing with themself about this by the next episode and their lil project Tal mentioned ends up being like. Fucking. Matching team patches for the Hells. Because they are all in now.

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

The great regular sleep experiment of 2024 part "I think I'm fucked"

Well, I went to be around 8pm, slept what felt like a decent 4 hours, started having weird vivid dreams that happen when I'm done getting restful sleep, and then when I got up and looked at the clock it was only 11:30, after laying around in bed for a while trying to go back to sleep.

So one REM cycle... 2 hours -ish

The weird things are that:

It did actually feel like restful sleep, even if my body is sore

I feel perfectly alert

If I was hyperthyroid enough to cause this level of insomnia, I'd be having extreme cardiac symptoms all day even before what covid did to my heart and that isn't happening [not that I am getting zero chest pains]. I'm running a little hot and hungry but not even problematically asides from it contributing maybe to not sleeping.

I'm not having to force myself awake anymore except occasionally just after 5 am during grocery time

I am not getting the extra *symptoms* insomnia usually comes with anymore, I would actually not realize I wasn't sleeping if I wasn't paying attention to the clock, currently [and maybe the sleep headache thing].

So unless I slept from 8pm on the 10th until past 11 on the 11th without noticing... I am getting what feels like actually restful sleep for at least 2 REM cycles per day, one in the morning, and one at night... But ONLY that much. And my morning shift is fucked up now too when it was stable.

The 6th weird thing is while I am sore in a way I would compare to doing crossfit face-first... I am not nearly as sore and not at all sleepy, compare to what I should be for sleeping less than 4 hours per day.

Usually this level of mental alertness on this little sleep is what happens when I take certain anti-depression meds and metabolize them weird. And -regardless of how it's happened- usually comes with something akin to mania, that has had me misdiagnosed as bipolar or manic depressive before [before they acknowledged the upswings were too slow, stable, and lasted months at a time and were my thyroid]. But like, I do not feel manic, or like I am acting or communicating in a way people would describe that way, and I always could before, I could feel it happening to me, feel the nervous energy and how fast I was talking etc...

Like I managed to make myself do chores almost every day without it being a struggle like usual to get started. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like I am forcing myself to do them.

And you might be thinking "well maybe it's the extra caffeine from the coke you've been drinking" NO! I ran out of the cherry cola 10 days after I did groceries!

The only thing from them that could still be in my system is phosphorus from the phosphoric acid. [coke brand cola is actually the cheapest way for me to even get bio-available phosphorus in my diet, so I am hopping we don't need another boycott, because supplements do not work the same way, and they and pork are expensive AF]

And as much as I have been trying to add a second cup of tea to my day I keep forgetting about it long enough that I am averaging closer to 1.2 bags of tea per day.

Which leads me to the only convincing theory, to me, right now, that I was low key "treating" insomnia by being at least somewhat phosphorus deficient most of the time, and that's why drinking coke would have me feeling more energetic for days at a time after the caffeine should have worn off [but ONLY coke brand coke], and this might only be possible because -in theory- part of my chronic fatigue could be that I'm one of the people who has a really hard time making Adenosine back into ATP, and needs extra phosphorus to make sure I am doing it as best I can.

The only hiccup in that theory is i think you mostly convert Adenosine back into ATP in your sleep, but I am getting 4 hours that feel actually restful for once, and I am unclear on whether your body also does this at a certain level of rest, even while awake.

This *could**** mean that drinking cola more regularly would mean having the energy to at least keep on top of housework without feeling like I have to force myself to do it every day. This sleep experiment may have inadvertently confirmed THAT suspicion beyond a doubt. It would of course be super helpful to have a doctor willing to IMMEDIATELY check my thyroid and ATP levels on request the moment I request it, so I can confirm things like this.

And I do think eating more ground beef is helping my iron levels.

But the problem is I need to sleep more than this. If I was feeling awake and alert off 8 hours I wouldn't question it... But this is 2 hours at a time twice a day at best. I'm not having terrors, or sleep adjacent hallucinations at present or "mis-seeing" things out of the corner of my eyes or anything... Which is great, because usually those symptoms would be more... Insistent for a lot longer... but I HAVE to doubt my judgement and ability to form memories properly on less than 4 hours of sleep per day, and I am starting to get a persistent headache threatening to be a migraine -and fairly constant tinnitus- that haven't been even this bad since I was last employed.

The fact that -at present- I mostly just feel pain/ache in my face and muscles as the only symptom of sleep deprivation doesn't mean I am not sleep deprived, and this isn't sustainable for someone with CFS... Usually any time this has carried on for any reason, there's a crash at some point and it's nasty.

In the meantime I AM going to be using this as best I can to get on top of housework and settling in, and getting things arranged and out of boxes... Because taking advantage of these upswings was how I was managing that kind of "catching up" for years before I stopped getting them. Is that ADVISABLE? WHO KNOWS!

[that-peach-anon]

Did no one say Sam and Max coraline au? Ahaha i wrote for it anyways (:

Almost 3000 words of Geek angst because i adore her character kahshdkshs

This was written based on @lesbialien 's coraline au and i hope y'all enjoy it!

---

Geek had never been one to depend on others. She had grown up in the basement after all, and being a kid genius, she knew how to take care of anything necessary for survival.

Not that she had been taken care of before. Not many people are interested in adopting the kid that was busier studying bugs' corpses rather than playing dolls with her peers. But that was okay too. She'd much rather be left in the orphanage where there were no parents to smother her and distract her from her studies, she was a person of science after all.

And then came Sam and Max. A duo that called themselves “freelance police" but had much too twisted morals and messed up ethics to be considered any sort of responsible and trustworthy employees. And that was okay. Geek didn’t have that many worries about ethics and morals, after all, to learn things, sometimes morals and ethics get in the way. If she had been adopted by normal people, they would have insisted for her to stop with the dissections and chemically hazardous experiments because that's “not for kids", and that would have been awful. But no, Sam and Max didn't care about that, in fact, most of the times they were the ones in danger, where Max would eat dead animals or consume poisonous chemicals, and Sam would just laugh it off and never get angry at Geek for them allowing Max to do so.

And that made sense. They weren't her parents, so why should they berate her for doing whatever she wanted. She more or less worked for them, only seeing them every few times that they needed some wacky gadget for another case. And that was totally fine with geek. Yeah. They didn’t care if Sam and Max were always busy, they were just her employers, more or less. So it was fine that they didn't spend that much time with the duo, she was only there to make stuff for them, and that was okay. Or at least she liked to pretend so.

But then something changed. One day, the rabbit and dog approached her looking rather embarrassed, which wasn't common for them, and asked to talk to her. That had triggered some alarms. They never were serious or mature enough to have talks instead of just being ignorant to everything, so this meant they were about to do something drastic that involved her. And that wasn't bad, per say. They were glad to finally be able to spend some time with the two, but she wasn't sure if this was going to be time spent doing something enjoyable.

Maybe they had decided that her services were no longer necessary? Or they had found another child genius that was happier and more energetic than Geek will ever be, and they were about to trade her for them? The possibilities were endless. But nothing had prepared them for what truly happened.

Across from them sat a beaming Sam and Max, signed adoption papers on top of the table that stood between them. Adoption papers for them. They had adopted Geek. They were her parents. This wasn't really what she expected out of all the unpredictable things they could do.

“You two… adopted me?” Her voice had been quieter than she wanted it to be, barely able to fight back the nausea slowly crawling up their throat. “Officially? As in, legally?”

“Well, yes.” Sam looked rather calm for what was supposed to be a tremendous occasion for her. “Me and Max were talking during a case and we thought it would be a good idea to adopt you, so we did.”

“Plus, the orphanage was being annoying as hell and kept bothering us about if we were gonna adopt you or else you had to go back!” Max added, apparently picking something off the sharp blades he had as teeth. “And we don't wanna look for a replacement, so this was the least troublesome thing we could do.”

If she didn't know Max better, they would think he didn't care at all, but she could see how his left foot was bouncing in place, a nervous stim he had whenever he was anxious. Max always had a soft spot for kids, so she knew he was just trying to look calm while he panicked on the inside.

“Am… am I supposed to call you two dad and father from now on?” She asked, bunching the end of her skirt in one hand.

“Do whatever you want, kid.” Max answered dismissively, Geek ignoring the way he had one of his hands holding Sam's, another telltale sign of nervousness from him. “We don't care.”

“Okay.” Their usually strong voice was now soft, barely leaving their tongue as it weighed down like lead. “I'm going back to the basement if you don't mind.”

“We'll be here if you need to talk, alright, kiddo?” Sam had asked, already stretching as he got up from the chair. Geek had done nothing more than give a dismissive hum, already having their mind in a turmoil, thoughts thrashing around like a hurricane, making her head spin and stomach tighten.

  That conversation had happened a few days ago, already just a sour memory she kept repeating in their head as her thoughts bothered and invaded her mind. Not much had changed noticeably. Now they would sometimes check up on her before grabbing a gadget and leaving, or tell her about a case before already going to another, leaving her alone for hours on end. Now Sam used more nicknames like kiddo and champ, and Max had taken to calling them kid instead of Geek. And that wasn't bad, Geek just couldn't bring herself to act with them as if everything was fine and nothing changed.

Were they going to stop her from doing her experiments because it was too dangerous and they had to make sure she stayed alive? Would they not let her do anything dangerous in case she could get hurt? Or maybe they would try putting her in school, even if she had already attended college at this point. Or they'd simply stop her from being herself and make them act like a normal child.

That would be way out of character for Sam and Max, but maybe this wasn't something she was scared of, but rather something she hoped for? Perhaps she longed for the two of them to worry about her and care about her instead of only herself being the only one that actually cares about what happens to them. Maybe she wanted a break from having to take care of herself while still a child and have someone else be the one caring for her.

But she couldn't ask that from Sam and Max, they had reckless personalities. They only really showed direct worry when something truly bad happened, like when one of the duo went missing and the other went mad trying to find them. To be honest, she didn't think they truly had showed any direct worry. Whenever they asked about how she felt they always dismissed her answer because they were more entertained by something else. They truly did try to care for them, but the two of them just weren't used to not being in tune with someone's feelings like they were with each other’s. She doesn't remember the last time one of them had to ask the other how they felt, they just usually knew.

She knew they didn't do it out of malice, they just didn't really know how to communicate. The two had never been the most in tune with feelings, barely acknowledging their own in favor of living a blissfully ignorant life. Their attempts at “parenting" Geek never quite worked out. She supposes it’s because they don't really know how to take care of something that has the capability of human thought. The most difficult thing the two had truly raised up until now was a crocodile, and he had had to be left in someone else's care in the end, so maybe it didn't count. But they tried, or at least tried to try.

The blame couldn't be placed only on the two, though. Geek's internal conflict also served as an incredibly unhelpful existence. While she did long for this whole family thing to be normal, it never did feel quite right. She felt like an intruder in the dynamic of the duo, like her only reason to interact with them was to provide a place where their gadgets came from. They felt… like a side-character, like someone who didn't belong. Maybe Sam and Max forgot about her whenever they weren't talking to her directly. I mean, the two barely knew she existed half of the time, so it was a possibility.

Anyway. So, listening wasn't their strong suit. But that's okay, at least they cared to ask, even if it did upset Geek when they found out none of them had truly listened. But that was alright, she could deal with being ignored, she already lived with that for 13 years. It was fine. She could just care for herself.

Which, wasn't something she was currently doing while dissecting a bass. In fact, she was so lost in thought, reminiscing over the words that kept playing in her head, that they had no time to notice as the scalpel slid and cut open a gash in their palm.

“Ow! Goddamn it!” They shouted in pain, the cutting tool falling on the tray next to her, letting out a loud bang as metal met metal.

Using a nearby tissue, she pressed it against the palm, grumbling at how much blood was seeping out and how annoying it would be when trying to move their hand. It was a bit deep; she probably would have needed to bandage it up but that was fine. They had created a gadget meant to cauterize wounds, so it would be healed pretty quickly.

Rummaging through the gadgets in their desk, she ignored the blood dripping and staining the tiles beneath her feet, sighing loudly when they remembered where the gadget was.

Max had taken it a few days ago to test his theory. The gadget looked like a simple butter knife, but it heated up dangerously, so the lagomorph had wanted to see if by stabbing someone with it, the wound would cauterize and it would be a good torture method. She hadn't been able to get in a word before Max had run away with it, a manic smile already on his face.

And just like with all the other gadgets they got from her that they didn’t end up destroying, it was most probably thrown half-hazardly into their closet, added to the junk pile they had, ranging from memoirs from their cases to just random crap they found and decided to keep.

Arriving to the office, she opened the door with her elbow, already prepared to apologize for all the blood falling from her hand, but just like every time Sam and Max left for a case, the office was empty, the only noise coming from the still on ceiling fan. Closing the door with their back, Geek looked around to examine the room, cringing at how everything was either littered with bullet holes or just plain destroyed.

Opening the closet with her foot, she pulled on the string that hung from the ceiling, closing her eyes as the artificial yellow light invaded their vision, fluorescent shine illuminating the room. Blinking to adjust, she stepped further in, eyes jumping around to try and spot the object she was searching for. Where would a gadget hide in such a messy-

The object she was looking for fell in front of her, startling them as it rolled away a bit. Sighing, she knelt down to grab it, eyes snapping up as she realized that before her stood a small purple door with a gold doorknob. It was one of the memoirs from a case that Sam and Max had gone on, a fight against a gigantic banana slug in a mostly inhabited building. In the end, the owner of the building, a nice woman named Coraline, had decided to destroy the place, claiming it had too many child disappearances and was no longer safe. Since the slug had left nothing, they both stole a door that was in the wreckage, just chucking it into the closet and forgetting about it.

But now, instead of being fallen as it had been before, it was vertical, attached to the wall, with a dim blue light coming from beneath it. Geek had seen stranger things in her life, so they simply shrugged it off and turned to leave.

“Geek.”

Freezing in place, she turned around as a lulling voice came from the door. How did it know their name? Putting the gadget down, seeing as the wound had already stopped bleeding, she stepped closer, already grabbing the knob to slowly pry the door open, tilting their head as inside there was only a long blue tunnel, similar to those fabric tubes cats and young babies played in.

This was new. It definitely wasn't her making, and Sam and Max aren't smart enough to make a whole dimensional portal, so this wasn't part of their knowledge. Crouching down, she started crawling through the tunnel, only looking back when the door clicked in place as it closed by itself. At the other end was a door almost identical to the one she had gone through, except this one held what looked to be like claw marks.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open, sighing in disappointment as it led back to the office. Stepping out, she gasped as they realized that Sam and Max were there now, both looking to their respective tasks as they worked away, Sam typing while Max carved something onto his desk. Above them hung a “welcome home, Geek!” poster, slightly crooked to the left as it held on by two thin nails, one in each of the top corner.

Hearing the door close behind her with a slam, both Sam and Max turn to her, Geek immediately turning around to look at the small, purple, closed, door.

“Geek! Where were you? We were worried sick! We were waiting for you to tell us about your gadget you're making but we couldn't find you anywhere!” Sam spoke, stopping his typing as he pushed the chair away from his table, already standing up to greet her.

“Yeah, I wanna know if I can kill someone with it!” Max shouted, jumping up from his chair as he tried scrambling after Sam, in a spider like way, crawling onto his shoulder.

“Sorry about disappearing, I was just going through that door in the closet.” She explained, turning back around and looking down at their feet. “I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, kiddo! Just tell us next time so we don't worry so much.” Sam ruffled her hair as he spoke, Max jumping down from where he had perched himself to hug Geek, making her tense up.

“Yeah, we missed you lots!” Max spoke, seeming not caring about how tense Geek was in his arms, or the way she was barely breathing.

Looking up at Sam, she let out a shout of surprise as they spotted the black buttons that substituted his eyes. Pushing away from Max, she stepped back, looking at him in horror to find Max, too, had button eyes.

“What's wrong, kid?” Max asked, tilting his head at them. “Got something in my teeth?”

“You're not Sam and Max.” She affirmed, backing away and already grabbing the doorknob once again.

“Well, of course not! We're Other Sam and Other Max!” The tall dog replied in a duh tone, as if it was obvious. “We're just like them, except better in every way! Now come on, tell us about the gadget.”

“Okay.” Even when talking only to what seemed to be imitations of Sam and Max, she couldn't bring herself too not be polite. Kids were supposed to obey their parents, according to all the movies and series she watched as a way to know how children normally behave. “It's a neutron destabilizer-"

“Ooooh, neutron destabilizer, huh? Sounds fun!” Max exclaimed, hanging off of one of Sam's shoulders, smiling.

“Do you even know what neutrons are?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“It's a part of the atom just like electrons and protons and all that sciency stuff.” He waved her off, and if he had actual eyes, she was sure he'd be rolling them.

“Yeah… anyway, I think the name is pretty self-explanatory so you must know what it does and-"

“But how does it work?” Sam interrupted, leaning back against his desk.

“You… actually want to know?”

“Of course, we like hearing about your day!”

“Oh.” She absent mindedly let go of the door, giving her full attention to them. “Well, it works by-"

And this was how she spent the rest of the evening. And sure, this Sam and Max weren't the real ones, but it actually felt nice to be heard once. Besides, they didn't seem to be hostile, so it didn't look as if they would be dangerous. So yeah, they did end up convincing them of sitting down to talk about other projects, but it was okay. It's not like she was going back. Visiting them was a one-time thing, right?

[mircallablue]

So, in the wake of BeauJesters seeming passing, I’m going to take a moment to be more than a little self-indulgent and explain why I love these characters and their unique dynamic so goddamn much, as well as why I’m so disheartened by the way the show seems to be taking them. Warning: essay ahead lol. This is just a rambly rant that I’m writing because it’s cathartic to vent a little bit of frustration, and I love these characters so much. (and I love the entire cast, every goddamn one, and every other character in the show too. This is about love, not hate). 

So, for a few brief and wonderful episodes in this campaign, I actually believed that I was being told a love story about falling in love with your best friend, and figuring out your sexuality, while also unlearning all of the untrue lessons that the world taught you about love while you were growing up, and in so doing, finding value in yourself. Which, for me personally, is just super relatable. Like, that ticks every damn box I have lol, which partly explains why I love BeauJester so much, and I know a lot of B/J shippers feel the same. I’ve shipped B/J from super early on, but I never in a million years really believed it would happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly homophobia, biphobia and heteronormativity. But I enjoyed their dynamic nonetheless, even though I thought (and was often TOLD by other shippers) that it didn’t stand a chance in hell of happening. 

So you can imagine how VALIDATING it was when Marisha, both in character and out of game, confirmed that Beau had very significant romantic feelings for Jester. All of the crumbs we’d collected over the course of the campaign were finally coming together and all of the gaslighters who told us we were delusional suddenly had to acknowledge that there was something there. And once it had been acknowledged, it was OBVIOUS. Omg it was so obvious and I loved every second of it. It was so undeniable for the next few episodes, and in hindsight, that there was something building there between them, there was potential. There was definitely a connection between these two characters. And for a few weeks, it was great. 

Then Liam - out of character - mentions that Caleb is in love with Jester. And it is immediately, fandom wide, treated with more respect than Marisha and Beau. 

I know a lot of people get very very angry when this is brought up, but it is just the ugly, unfortunate reality that a lot of people in this fandom treat Jester like a manic pixie dream girl. Even the people who do not consciously believe her to be that (and I don’t think there are many that genuinely believe it), are perfectly fine /treating her/ like one, as long as it serves one of the straight men that they love so much, usually Caleb. And this is where the heteronormativity comes in. Because even though it was an out-of-game confession with no bearing on canon, Calebs feelings immediately took precedence over Beaus in terms of the fandom narrative. 

I personally have never liked the way Liam handles romance in game. He did pretty much the exact same thing in campaign 1 as well, where his sad boy pines after the happy girl from afar until he’s uncontrollably in love with her, and then with no warning he drops it like a bomb. He just happened to drop it out of game this time. The main reason I don’t like this style of romance is because of how (unintentionally) manipulative it is. You see it in bad romcoms all the time. The guy makes a public declaration of love that pressures the girl into reciprocating or looking like the bad guy. But the main reason I don’t like /this particular/ declaration is the timing. 

Liam - who has always said he likes things to come out in game - inexplicably decides out of game reveal something as major as Caleb being in love with Jester, right after Marisha IN GAME took steps towards Beau and Jester being together. And it completely changed the narrative. Suddenly it was “top table top table”, and that's if Beaus feelings ever got mentioned at all. It was not at all helped by the fact that a lot of cast members (sam) still pushed Fjorester HARD, even with Jester telling Nott to stop, which must have sucked for Marisha/Beau. But even as recently as episode 99, Beau was still flirting with Jester, and there were definite hints at Jester maybe having unacknowledged feelings for Beau.

Then the hiatus happened. When we return, Beau is throwing herself at Yasha, and there’s not even a song for Jester on her playlist.  And then Travis reveals (also out of game, like Liam) that Fjord has feelings for Jester (in a playlist heavily curated by known fjorester, Dani Carr). And even /that/ is treated with more weight by some fans than Beaus in canon confession. And Yasha is having all of these super convenient dreams where Zuala tells her its ok to move on, and Beau and Jester are barely speaking. And now Beau is calling Yasha her GIRLFRIEND? WHAT??? Did I miss 20 secret episodes that aired during hiatus or something???? Beau and Yasha have still, in 107 episodes, only had ONE meaningful conversation and yet their relationship is being treated as deep and inevitable. Sure, you can read into their other interactions if you want. But as a queer person, I am sick to death of my love needing to be represented as subtext.

And so it has become pretty clear that the cast has decided out of game to go in a different direction. And of course they are well within their right to do that. But I just can’t help feeling incredibly disheartened, and again, more than a little bit gas-lighted. It really does seem as if Beaus' feelings for Jester have just been scrubbed from canon - as if they never even happened. All, seemingly, to make way for a typical happy-girl-sad-guy relationship with either Fjord or Caleb, and a typical pair-the-spares barely-any-depth relationship between the two out lesbians because its easy.

For the entirety of campaign 2, BeauJester has been treated as one thing - inconvenient. Inconvenient by the fans, who prefer other ships and have treated BeauJesters terribly, and now it seems, inconvenient by the cast, who have seemingly discarded it and scrubbed it from canon. 

And one thing that really upsets me is the amount of genuine viciousness and vitriol coming from (some) BeauYasha shippers. I really wish BeauYasha was something I could get on board with, I do. And a lot of people who are sending me hate seem to assume I don’t want them to end up together. But I would be fine with that. But as it stands, they’ve literally only had one real conversation in 107 episodes, and they’re calling each other girlfriend? While literally having not spoken about anything like that? While one of those characters is supposed to have canon romantic feelings for another woman? Imagine that situation with any other characters and it would be comical.

I swear, the queer ladies in this fandom have been done dirty. All of us. Imagine if, in campaign one, Grog and Keyleth, in episode 107, started calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend in the middle of a battle. (I picked those two because they probably had the fewest moments together of any VM pairing). That’s pretty much what happened here, and we’re supposed to like it - be grateful, even - because it’s wlw rep? And I swear, the number of times I’ve been called lesbophobic in the last month is absurd - all because I’m not comfortable with a canon lesbians canon feelings being swept under the rug. All because I want wlw relationships to be allowed to have the same depth and growth as the straight ones. Yes, even if that relationship is B/Y. We should not settle for less. Imagine if they had done this with any other character's canon feelings for another. People would be angry.

And I know there are going to be a lot of people saying “It’s their game, they can do what they like”. 

True. I never said otherwise. But it is also a show. It is a product. They sell merch. It is something that they have taken the time and the steps to make sure that we care about. And this is what that looks like. 

I know what happened here isn’t technically queerbaiting, but damn if it doesn’t cut the same.

[theonceoverthinker]

I wish I could be happy, but I’m not

(I made a thread of this on Twitter this morning, but I’m going to elaborate on it here because as you’ll see in a different sense on this post, character limits are BS)

So I'm not gonna lie, I think the line about Clover that many in my neck of the fandom are getting excited over isn't the loving acknowledgment of how Qrow felt about Clover that many seem to think it is. 

Follow me on this one:

Is it good that Clover was finally explicitly brought up? Yes. 

Did they do it in a terrible way? YUP, and I'll explain how in just a moment. 

Am I surprised? Less than I ever wanted to be.

Actually, before I begin, because I KNOW people are gonna come after me for this post one way or another, I just want to ask those people if they think I LIKE being this negative? Do they think I LIKE being so cynical towards a show that I used to have so much fun with, a show that I was starting to trust? Don’t you think I want to be excited about Volume 8 with everyone else, and that prior to Volume 7, I wasn’t having the time of my life thinking about and enthusiastically waiting for the new episodes.

No, believe me, I’d be thrilled to enjoy this new volume with everyone else, but after the waking nightmare that was 7X12 (An episode that keeps getting worse and worse the more you look at it, as if an evil version of a Where’s Waldo artbook), CRWBY made it pretty apparent to not trust them as far as I can throw them, to guard my heart, and to temper any positive expectations I have for this show because they can and will likely let me down.

Full disclosure: I’m not watching the volume itself in the traditional sense: I’m having the context of the scenes explained to me by a wonderful friend, and seeing and reading the dialogue and facial expressions of the scenes through gifs, pictures, and the like on various Twitter and Tumblr blogs. That having been said, I take confidence that I am getting an accurate and complete understanding of the Qrow scenes.

Okay, let’s go...under the cut because this got LONG!

The line that starts with "The thing that really stings..." is the line in question, just in case there was any doubt since Qrow speaks a fair bit in this episode (Yes, I’ve read through the full line, but this post is already gonna be long enough without transcribing the whole thing, here it is if you haven’t checked it out yet). It comes up right after Qrow talks about Clover's death.

“The thing that really stings” is a crucial opening line. It implies that on a list of important matters pertaining to the given topic being touched upon, what he’s about to state is the most important of them.

And what does he go on to talk about after that opener? 

Semblances. Just semblances, or rather, just his semblance.

Qrow talks about how he was finally entertaining the notion that there was somebody he could be around without having to worry about his semblance complicating things, but that he now believes that possibility was nothing but a childish dream.

This line (which I HOPE is just accidentally clunky because I DO want the Staff Theory to be true so we can start to recover from all this BS in a way that lets me keep enjoying this series) is a lot more harmful to the Fair Game relationship than anyone in the Clover and Fair Game fandom seems to think it is. I genuinely don't want to rain on anyone's parade because I know a large part of my fandom is pretty excited about it, but I can't leave this alone. 

I'll be frank: This line implies that Clover's death on it's own (The act of the character of Clover dying, his entire being, personality and all) isn't as important to Qrow as what that death symbolizes. All it does is just talk about how Clover meant he could be around someone and not have his semblance mess things up.

It doesn't discuss the bond they formed over their time in Atlas together. It doesn't discuss how Clover was someone who was addressing his self-loathing and absence of a team or how they cared about each other. These things would imply that Clover meant something to him as a person outside of his semblance.

Now did the paragraph need to go into detail about or even discuss Clover and Qrow’s bond? Not necessarily, but with a line starting with "what really stings" that only on to talk about Clover as he relates to his semblance undercuts what made Clover's character so beloved in the first place.

Clover fans didn't fall in love with Clover because of his semblance. It was an interesting aspect of his character, sure, but it wasn’t the only one by a long shot.

We fell in love with Clover's unique personality, how he was cocky without the pompousness or bullying that tends to come with that cockiness, as well as his emotional softness and how it contrasted with our expectations at every turn, even extending to his support-suiting weapon.

We fell in love with how Clover, even dealing with people he was technically sort of opposed to like Robyn Hill, he made every effort to be diplomatic, careful towards her election, and sincere. 

We fell in love with how Clover, unlike the rest of his team, was the notable exception to the rule of the Ace Ops not being friends with their teammates.

We fell in love with the many, many interesting visual aspects of his character design, both individually as well as how closely they mirrored Qrow’s.

We fell in love with the concern he had for Qrow, someone who Qrow was finally on an equal playing field with and could grow to trust as well as willingly and happily team up with.

We fell in love with Clover’s persistence in getting close to him and having Qrow come to a place where he could acknowledge his own worth.

So understand that this line says that the thing about Clover that left the biggest impression on Qrow (And by extension in terms of the show’s meta narrative, the audience) was not that character that we cared for because of who he was, but instead that Qrow cares more about how Clover benefitted him personally on a strictly utilitarian level than the actual connection he and Clover shared as people.

That sentiment does an incredible disservice to Clover's character. Despite what those who defend 7X12 felt, Clover was a character with dimension (And by no means was an Adam, just to stop that garbage comparison in its tracks before it comes up again). What that line does is callously strips away that dimension to make Clover almost something closer to a one-note manic pixie dream boy, and only for the purposes of his semblance, at that. 

That’s not good writing, and it shouldn’t be as revered as it presently is (I know the episode’s only a few hours old at the time of writing this, but this seems to be the line’s perception by the Clover and Fair Game fandoms).

More than anything -- more than the possibility of Jailbirds becoming canon, or the lack of connecting Clover and the staff this volume -- this sentiment that Clover’s only worth came from his semblance said by Qrow himself (The character who spent a lot of time bonding with him) makes me worried about whether or not we will actually get a Clover revival. 

Again, I don't want to ruin anyone's fun (Though I know I risk it just by making this and will probably be subject to all manner of online torment as a result because that’s just the way things go around here), but I think we Clover fans need to acknowledge the dangerous wording of this line and temper our expectations accordingly.

Today's Clovember theme is 'wish.' I'm not gonna stop wishing for Clover's return. I'm not gonna stop hoping for Clover's return, either. 

However, I don't want another 7X12 to happen to myself or the various others in the fandom that I’ve grown to care about this past year again. I can’t ignore a bad sign when it’s staring me in the face, leaving such a foul taste in my mouth in the way that this is. Fair Game Buddies and Clover fans alike, please just be careful. I love you all.

[jess-rewatches-prodigalson]

Head Case (S2, E6)

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:03 - This clip of Malcolm in the car is from the pilot episode. I was so betrayed by this clip. Full disclosure - I’ve always had a thing for Malcolm’s jacket from the pilot episode. I just love it and I think Tom Payne looks cute in it. BUT - I was betrayed because Malcolm isn’t wearing my favourite jacket in the next scene (I was disappointed but not surprised). Rant about wardrobe over. 

0:20 - This is weird to me. In the clip right before this, when Malcolm was coming to Claremont (wearing the awesome jacket) - Malcolm is clearly in emotional distress. He’s not in a good mood. BUT right here, when Malcolm is chatting with Mr. David he seems like he’s in a good mood. Not one of his manic good moods - just a regular good one.

0:32 - Anyone else notice how visibly uncomfortable Jessica AND Malcolm are? This whole Ainsley situation is literally going to destroy them both. :(

0:34 - sooooo Mr. David knows by now right? He has to? ALSO when the European FBI guy shows up in a few episodes this is going to be bad for Malcolm and Jessica right? The FBI guy will probs talk to Mr. David who will be like - oh yeah, they’ve had more ‘family meetings’ in the past 6 months than in the past 20 years. 

1:22 - Sooooo this whole family honestly thinks Ainsley’s going to become a serial killer. From the tidbits of her childhood that we’ve seen, the way she treated Malcolm in Q&A, and generally how she acts when she wants to get a story - I’m not surprised. Read my thoughts on older episodes (1x7, 1x20, 2x5), I’ve always thought Ainsley was a sociopath or psychopath. The girl doesn’t show a lot of moral backbone or sympathy for anyone. 

1:33 - Wait. Does this montage of Malcolm’s erratic behaviour mean that Malcolm killed someone as a kid? And doesn’t know it? Or is this just a reference to the whole ‘girl in the box’ trauma arc from last season?

1:44 - “I wish I didn’t know that you were a killer.” Anyone else get major flashbacks to the movie Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause? “I wish I had never become Santa at all” then we get an AU for 40 mins? Just me? Cool - excuse my bad taste in Christmas movies. 

1:50 - hahaha Martin is so bitter.

2:25 - You know, as much as I love to hate Martin - he has a point. Malcolm loved his Dad (still does whether he wants to admit it or not) in 98′ - why is Malcolm chill with Ainsley killing but not Martin? Is it because with Martin, he found a poor girl tortured in a box but with Ainsley he saw her kill a man that was threatening their family? Or was it because Martin tried to kill Malcolm but Ainsley hasn’t (yet?) **honestly - that would be such an interesting episode - if Ainsley tries to kill Malcolm**

2:33 - THANK YOU. Someone finally thanks Malcolm for trying to protect Ainsley (and in extension Jessica) from the emotional trauma he’s been dealing with since the age of 10. EVEN THOUGH PROTECTING THEM IS MAKING HIS MENTAL STATE WORSE. Seriously - Malcolm is going to snap soon I honestly won’t be surprised if we get some suicidal ideation from him this season (especially if things don’t improve). Look at those big sad puppy dog eyes when Jess thanks him.

2:38 - hahahaha that side-eyed glare directed at Martin. 

2:53 - I know Jessica had good intentions here - she’s trying to protect both of her children but honestly, this whole interaction was probably super upsetting for Malcolm. Think about it - BOTH of his parents haven’t tried to have a serious discussion with him at the same time since he was at 10 years old or younger. This interaction is probably bringing up some memories for Malcolm and making him grieve for the childhood he lost all over again. 

3:06 - “You’re gross.” followed by a very regal wave at Mr. David. YES. Queen Jessica. <3

3:25 - Malcolm startling JT is pretty freaking cute. Look at how JT’s expression immediately changes from startled to concerned. I don’t blame him. Malcolm gives off major manic energy in this scene. The visit with the parents did not leave him in a good place. Also - Malcolm straight up admitted that he’s had a ‘rough morning’ this boy almost never tells the truth when he’s struggling. He’s fine. He’s always fine. 

3:30 - “Rough month.” IS THIS IT? IS THIS ALL I’M GOING TO GET? JT had a baby THREE EPISODES AGO. ‘rough month’ is a reference to the fact that he’s a new dad and he’s struggling with lack of sleep, leaving Tally alone with the baby while he’s a work, being a good husband, adjusting to dad life, ect. RIGHT?!? We’ve literally had no mention of the baby since 2x3 and I’m losing my mind. I just want someone to say, “Hey JT, how’s the baby?” that’s it. I want 5 seconds of dialogue. Just an acknowledgment that the child exists. 

3:54 - “Sooo bring me up to speed.” OMG. That smile is both extremely manic and completely adorable. Seriously - why is no one on the team more concerned about Malcolm during this episode? AND WHERE THE EFF IS EDRISA IN THIS SCENE?!? We’ve been robbed. 

4:21 - “What? I liked math class.” OMG. JT is a closet math nerd. You can’t take this headcanon away from me. 

4:24 - hahahaha look at Malcolm absorbing the new information about JT. He’s like.....yes. I will keep that information for later. Very good. Will pry further. 

5:04 - I love Dani. She’s perfect. She can see that Malcolm just checked out into his own horror of a memory. So she gently teases him to bring him back to reality. <3 This is true friendship. <3

6:00 - Was I the only one who thought it was weird that Gil asked Malcolm to help with the canvasing? Like - doesn’t Malcolm always help? Isn’t that part of what he does to build his profile?

6:12 - “KGB agent” Yes. Malcolm is still annoyed that Ainsley was so competitive about a literal murder last episode. I promise you. Ainsley’s probably still annoyed too. 

6:26 - This is why Malcolm is considering telling Ainsley the truth. He’s already losing her. May as well rip off the band-aid. She might not react as badly finding out from him as she would finding out by herself.

6:51 - “That is my vagina.” hahahahaha OMG. As a woman I must say: HOW?!?! As someone who adores JT:  hahahahahahahaha OMG. 

7:23 - “You’re getting a lot of mileage out of that tidbit”. lol. JT gently teasing Malcolm is one of my favourite things. Hands down. Especially since they’ve reached a point in their friendship where Malcolm doesn’t seem scared or offended when JT makes fun of him. They’re acting like brothers and I LOVE IT. <3

7:25 - “That’s the tip of the iceberg my man.” I have no idea why I am so amused by someone calling Malcolm “my man” but I am. 

7:36 - “The Bowery Ripper” hahaha the look that JT and Dani exchange when Malcolm starts nerding out.

8:00 - Wendell is kind of creepy. But like a weird, non-threatening creepy?

8:22 - OMG. JT let the vagina sculpture go. hahaha Look at how grossed out Dani is hahahaha she’s like, “Ugh. Men are gross.”

8:30 - This is why I love JT. He knows that that elevator is sketchy as hell. Plus it’s some (less than subtle) foreshadowing for what’s to come in this episode. 

8:41 - How did Dani find out he was at Claremont?! Does Mr. David call Gil every time Malcolm visits?!? ......this is my new headcanon. You will have to pry it from my cold dead hands. 

9:00 - This is a really cute moment between Dani and Malcolm. Regardless of whether or not you ship Brightwell - it’s really sweet to see Malcolm interacting so honestly with someone. He’s telling Dani the truth about something and she’s not making him feel bad about how messed up his family is or how weird his situation is. She just listens and teases him to make him smile. That is a good friend. IDC how you feel about Brightwell - right now - this is a GOOD FRIEND moment and Malcolm deserves more of them. 

9:10 - Annnnnnndddd this is why Brightwell shouldn’t happen (right now). Dani is still hurt that Malcolm doesn’t trust her enough to tell her everything. She still doesn’t completely trust him after what happened last season. A romantic relationship without 100% trust will fail. End of story. They’re great friends but right now they can’t be in a romantic relationship. It’ll end poorly. (Damn, I hope Brightwell is endgame though).

9:38 - hahaha Greta Swan is a perfect comedic relief for the Dani/Malcolm tension we just witnessed. This girl is a little nuts and a lot funny. 

10:00 - “Dad’s lived here his whole life” - wow. The writers really left us some big bread crumbs. We go from the scene where someone mentions a serial killer who killed someone (who was abducted from this hotel) in 1963. THEN we find a strange, gossipy woman and her grumpy father who has lived there his whole life. Coincidence? Nah. 

10:17 - SERIOUSLY?!? The Whitly home is ENORMOUS. WHY IS JESSICA LETTING AINSLEY WORK IN THE MURDER BASEMENT?!?!?! We literally just found out that Jessica has a SOLARIUM somewhere in this house. 

10:40 - “The guy definitely seems like he kills people.” Oh the irony here. 

10:55 - “Are you upset with me?” This is soft and I love it. Malcolm is being vulnerable with his little sister and it warms my heart. 

11:07 - “Insomnia sucks.” “Who knew?” Again. Irony. 

11:18 - “Anything you want to talk about?” This is precious. Malcolm loves Ainsley SO FREAKING MUCH. He has major Dad/Big brother/concerned school counsellor energy here and I’m here for it. 

11:38 - Malcolm’s soooo going to replay this conversation in his head about a million times. He’s going to blame himself for Ainsley’s murder victim of this episode. He’s going to play the “what-if” game. What if - he told her the truth here? Would she still have killed someone tonight? 

11:52 - Look at Ainsley’s face here. She seems sort of confused and comforted? Like maybe the fractions of memories that she’s admitting to having are making her believe that she killed Endicott and it scares her. Malcolm telling her otherwise is probably comforting on some level. It’s helping her convince herself that she’s done nothing wrong. 

12:25 - According to IMDB - this isn’t the episode LDP directed SO WHY IS THERE SO LITTLE GIL CONTENT IN THIS EPISODE?!?!?!

12:27 - What the hell is the puddle on the floor btw? Is it paint? Tar? Blood? I thought construction hadn’t started on the hotel yet?

14:14 - Malcolm. You. Are. A. Moron. Why go towards the creepy elevator that opened by itself? Why did you think that was a good idea?

14:29 - The Bowery Ripper is pretty strong for an old guy. I mean, Malcolm isn’t that big and he was caught off guard but still.

14:38 - I wanted this scene to be reality SO SO BADLY. I don’t even care about the Brightwell interaction in this scene. Malcolm is on a hospital bed. With an ice pack. I could’ve watched 45 minutes of “Malcolm in the hospital” content. The fact that this boy didn’t spend longer than a 30 second scene in the hospital is a CRIME. Why does Fedak hate giving us the whump aftercare?!? WHY?!?! Doesn’t he know like half the fandom LIVES FOR IT?!?

14:40 - You know how I knew this was the start of Malcolm’s AU dream? 2 reasons: 1) Dani has her hand on the ice pack on Malcolm’s head, even though he totally doesn’t need her help to hold the ice pack to his head. 2) GIL ISN”T HERE. .....although this episode did us dirty with the lack of Gil content (I miss Papa!Gil so much)

14:46 - There’s something about dream JT. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Real and dream JT are almost identical. But dream JT seems to be more open with Malcolm? IDK - he’s more relaxed around Malcolm? I can’t quite describe it. Did anyone else notice that there was just something a little bit different about dream JT? Not even in a bad way. Just different. 

15:15 - “Noooo she said it could’ve been worse. Not the same.” hahaha YES DANI. Good looking out. Call out this boy for neglecting his health. 

15:24 - This whole scene where Dani and Malcolm do a joint interrogation was awesome. They were talking pretty fast which I found a little distracting but JT said it best, “They were on FIRE”.  One thing I REALLY liked about the scene was the dynamic between Dani and Malcolm. Neither one of them was really taking a lead in the interrogation. They were equal partners and I think that says a lot about Malcolm’s romantic desires. He doesn’t want to dominate anyone. He doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. He just wants someone he can trust and respect. Someone who will trust and respect him. He wants a partner. An equal partner. I think that’s a really healthy desire for anyone in search of a relationship. 

16:12 - an affair? Did we know that Lyle and/or Katrina were married?!? If they weren’t married it would just be a relationship. Not an affair. 

17:01 - Is this honestly the first time Dani has called Malcolm by his first name? In 26 episodes? It must be right? Because I swear I was so shocked my heart skipped a beat (also my Brightwell heart melted but that’s a whole different thing). 

17:06 - .....so in Malcolm’s dream does he still work for Major Crimes? Is JT running the department? I need some more details here. 

17:12 - Soft!JT <3 <3 <3 How cute is it that in Malcolm’s AU dream, JT (and Dani) don’t actually change (in terms of personality). Their roles in his life just intensify. Dani becomes his significant other and JT becomes a much closer friend/brother. It’s precious. <3 <3 <3 

17:52 - Something about the fact that Jessica isn’t drinking liquor in the AU is hilarious and depressing to me. It’s funny because, well, it just tickles me. It’s depressing because Malcolm understands that Jessica drinks to dull the pain. In this AU, she isn’t in pain. She’s happy. Therefore, she doesn’t need alcohol. I don’t know about you but the fact that Malcolm’s subconscious wanted his mom to be happy so badly that she became (more or less) sober - is heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. 

18:11 - “No one in this family is scared of a little blood right?” The irony here is THICK.

19:23 - The fact that Ainsley is a doctor just like Martin in Malcolm’s AU is terrifying and hilarious. This whole “I watched Ainsley kill a man” thing is really destabilizing Malcolm’s questionable mental health.

19:27 - “Please Ainsley is the talented one. I’m a distance second.” ....does this mean that Endicott isn’t the first person Ainsley has killed? Does this mean subconsciously Malcolm somehow thinks that Ainsley is a better serial killer than Martin?

19:56 - “No phones at dinner okay?” Something about the way Martin is looking at Malcolm at this moment and Martin’s tone of voice made me think - “Shit. Martin’s still a serial killer in Malcolm’s AU.” Especially since they Ainsley literally just announced to the room that he’s getting a from Claremont. 

20:06 - Yep. That’s a nightmare. From the back, Claremont!Gil probably looked like Martin circa mid-2010s for Malcolm. 

20:09 - Look idc who you ship on this show. But I will fight you if you don’t think that Malcolm being comforted after a nightmare by someone he loves is the sweetest thing ever. Look at how Dani gently rubs his arm and back. Ugh. This is the kind of safety Malcolm DESERVES. 

20:43 - Dani lying on Malcolm’s chest. <3 It just makes me so happy. Not even necessarily because it’s Dani (although I do ship Brightwell as end game) but because Malcolm’s subconscious is showing us his ideal relationship and we don’t see anything wild or questionable - we just see G-rated cuddling. And damn if that doesn’t say a lot about how much Malcolm just wants to be loved. 

20:53 - .......Can we have a full episode’s worth of footage where Malcolm is unconscious on the floor? I know I’m a basket case but it would make my whump heart so happy.....even happier if that footage was immediately followed by 40 mins of hospital care/comfort footage.

20:59 - I know that time has sort of slowed down for the purpose of plot in this episode but ngl - every time we saw the elevator approaching passed out Malcolm all I could think was “this is the slowest elevator in the world.”

21:26 - Malcolm is so so relaxed and comfortable in this scene. I want him to be this happy forever. 

22:07 - “You deserve all of it.” Malcolm subconsciously just wants permission to be happy. He doesn’t think he deserves to be happy (especially after Endicott). That little revelation broke my heart. Also the Brightwell kiss was adorable. Dani takes control because, Malcolm wants to feel wanted and this is how his subconscious is manifesting that desire. I will argue that Malcolm doesn’t necessarily want a relationship where his partner takes charge or dominates him. He made coffee of both of them. They’re living in his apartment. They’re having calm, mature, adult conversations. They are both equal partners in his dream relationship. 

22:45 - Dani isn’t scared of Malcolm when his hand starts shaking. She isn’t judging him. She’s just concerned. <3

22:47 - “Existential ennui”? Soooo much french in this episode. Damn. “Jamais vu”, “Quelle suprise”. Now “ennui”. 

23:35 - “I don’t fit your profile.” ....am I expected to believe that Malcolm didn’t realize this was a dream until this moment? Dani calling him “Malcolm Whitly” in the last scene wasn’t a red flag? Or the fact that Ainsley is a doctor. Or that Martin isn’t in Claremont? Or that Jessica isn’t drinking booze by the bucket? I mean, I know he has a head injury but these are big red flags. 

24:15 - Sooooo is Wendell dead irl? Because this is technically a dream. 

25:02 - “I thought we were looking for an inexperienced psychopath. A first time killer.”......this is him projecting about Ainsley right? Am I overthinking this? And now he says, “I was wrong”. Is that supposed to suggest that Malcolm thinks Ainsley has killed someone before Endicott?

25:07 - “The blows are confident. They were having fun.”.....couldn’t the same be said about how Ainsley stabbed Endicott? They were definitely confident stabs (plus a confident throat slitting). 

25:14 - “We’re looking for a serial killer.” Istg the writers are hinting that Ainsley is a serial killer (or will become one soon).

25:27 - Mr. David appears in the AU but Edrisa doesn’t. We were ROBBED.

26:07 - I’m not the only one who thinks that beard makes Gil look like a werewolf right?

26:33 - Claremont!Gil is creepy. LDP’s performance here is really really good. Also - I hate it. Because serial killer Gil is just not my Gil and it upsets me to see Gil chained to a wall. 

26:56 - Sooooo in the AU “The Surgeon” is still at large right? ....you’d think Malcolm would be trying to solve that case with Dani and JT. You know, an active prolific serial killer in New York?

27:34 - The way that Martin, Gil, and Malcolm interact in this scene is really interesting to me. In a lot of ways, this isn’t an AU. Think about it. 

In the dream: Gil is frantically trying to convince Malcolm that Martin is a serial killer. In a way, Gil is trying to protect Malcolm from Martin.

In reality: Gil just shoots Malcolm disapproving looks when he mentions seeing Martin. Gil desperately tries to protect Malcolm from Martin.

In the dream: Martin is trying to convince Malcolm that Gil is a monster. He’s trying to convince Malcolm that he’s a Good father. That he would never hurt Malcolm. That he loves Malcolm. 

In reality - Martin is the same. 

The only main difference between AU!Martin, AU!Gil, and their real counterparts is their temperaments. AU!Martin has Gil’s calm, comforting, and rational temperament while AU!Gil has Martin’s angry, manic, and controlling temperament.

What is the same between the AU characters and their real counterparts? 

Martin is still a manipulative killer.

Gil still shoots Malcolm looks of concern (27:45). 

Gil and Martin still hate each other. 

28:30 - Even dream Martin tries to gaslight Malcolm. 

28:56 - “You can always count on Dad.” ....is this how Malcolm really feels about Martin subconsciously? It kind of makes sense? Who did Malcolm turn to when Ainsley did the unthinkable? Not Gil or Jessica. Malcolm said it in 1x12 - (I’m paraphrasing) “The child in me thought he cared. Loved me even.” I think there’s still a part of Malcolm that believes that. Or at least a part of Malcolm that desperately wants to believe that. 

29:17 - “I’ve never been to a crime scene before.” That’s because you create the crime scene, Martin. In all versions of reality. 

29:20 - annnnnnd AU Martin shares regular Martin’s weird fascination with Dani. 

31:00 - JT being buddy-buddy with Martin is hands down the most horrifying part of the AU. 

31:10 - “I think he’s having a psychotic break.” ......I want this to be foreshadowing so so so badly. I think it would be so interesting to see how the team, Jessica, Ainsley, and even Martin deal with Malcolm just having a total breakdown. Maybe not a full psychotic break. Maybe a nervous breakdown? Or he succumbs to his suicidal ideation? Probably a little too dark for network TV though.

31:34 - “I’m very protective of her and her boots.” Does Malcolm see himself as the Bowery Ripper, trying to protect Ainsley as opposed to his daughter? Or is the Bowery Ripper supposed to be a metaphor for Martin protecting Ainsley? Is Malcolm going to take the fall for Ainsley and all her murders?!? 

32:45 - “Why did you kill again? After all these years.” istg this is hinting that Ainsley killed someone as a kid and Martin knows about it.

33:00 - “I can’t let my daughter know what I was.” .....is the Bowery Ripper supposed to be Ainsley? Is Ainsley killing people to try and protect Malcolm? Ugh. I’m totally overthinking this.

33:02 - Even in his dream, Malcolm can’t bring himself to kill his father. Wether that is by cutting off contact with Martin irl or letting the Bowery Ripper kill him in the AU.

33:07 - Actually though - why doesn’t Malcolm carry a gun IRL? We know he’s trained to use one. We saw him use one in the pilot on a case for the FBI. Is there some sort of NYPD rule about consultants carrying weapons? Is it a rule that Gil has imposed on Malcolm? Is it a rule that Malcolm has imposed on himself? A mixture? I want to know. 

33:38 - OMG. Is Malcolm going to try and kill Ainsley?!?! What a twist that would be. AU Malcolm just killed a killer. He doesn’t seem to feel bad about it and he agrees with Martin that “everything is okay now”. 

33:55 - This hug deeply moved me. Malcolm is fully aware that this hug isn’t real but he looks so content to be hugged by his father. Malcolm is finally getting a proper hug. <3 It honestly makes me wonder what Malcolm would do IRL for his father’s approval though. He’s clearly sooo desperate for Martin to love him. Who knows what Martin will be able to convince Malcolm to do in this season? Malcolm’s not all that mentally stable right now and he’s really vulnerable emotionally. I’m worried.

34:26 - “Not that it’s a competition.” ....yep. Ainsley wants to be better than Malcolm even in Malcolm’s own subconscious. 

35:00 - Heart. Breaking. Watching Ainsley, Martin, and Jessica tell Malcolm how good they think Dani is for him breaks my heart. Look at how happy Malcolm looks. Look at how desperately Malcolm wants this to be real. Ugh. My heart is shattered. 

35:20 - “You’re the best, big brother.” Even Malcolm’s subconsious knows that he’s an excellent big brother. Seriously, I love my younger brother but I don’t think I could ever cover up a murder for him. Never mind dispose of the body. Maybe I would? IDK the situation has never come up (thankfully).

35:25 - .....aaannnnnndd we’re back to the Girl in the Box.

35:58 - “Why would you ever want to leave?” “Because it’s all a lie.” Isn’t Malcolm living a lie IRL too? He’s pretending that Ainsley is a law-abiding citizen. He’s pretending that he isn’t an accomplice in a murder. He’s living in constant fear because of his secrets. They’re going to destroy him. This is why I think a suicide attempt is a possibility for this season. This trauma is a lot bigger (in some ways) than last season’s. Plus - Malcolm has a lot of pre-existing trauma. This could be the metaphoric straw that breaks the camel’s back.  

36:45 - “Even in my wildest dream. I’m still a detective. I need to seek the truth. No matter how painful.” That’s it. That’s Malcolm’s character in a nutshell. “Traumatized boy who intentionally puts himself through more trauma for the sake of seeking the truth.”

37:01 - “You’re right. I need to work on that.”.......if Malcolm tells Gil and/or the team about Ainsley next episode I will lose my mind. 

 37:15 - TOM PAYNE. YOU ABSOLUTE TREASURE. THIS IS SUCH A GREAT PERFORMANCE. THOSE UNSHED TEARS. THAT DESPERATE ANGER. THAT HOPELESSNESS AND DESPAIR.  <3 <3 <3 <3 

38:21 - Look, I’m a mechanical engineering student (not an expert) but if that was a wooden stick like I think it is - that would’ve NEVER stopped an elevator (at least, not long enough for Malcolm to escape). But I’ll overlook it for whump. Because Malcolm has a head wound and I’m loving it. 

38:33 - I’ve rewatched this clip of Malcolm with a bloody face meeting JT and Dani about 50 times (wish I was exaggerating that number). There is something so gorgeous about this scene. I mean - the fact that Malcolm is clearly in physical and emotional pain is enough to make my whump heart sing but it’s more than that. Listen to the genuine concern in JT’s voice when he says, “You okay?”. Look at Dani’s concerned face. Listen to how soft and desperate Malcolm’s voice is when he says, “When was the last time I talked to you?” Look at how concerned and confused JT and Dani are when Malcolm says, “I know who the killer is.” They’re not scared of Malcolm. They’re scared for Malcolm. Malcolm just showed up covered in blood, he can’t walk straight, he’s clearly confused, and now he’s claiming that he’s solved the case. They’re worried about him and they have every right to be. Listen to how broken Malcolm sounds when he says, “Long story.” <3 <3 <3 I’m in love with this scene. 

39:19 - “Are you sure about this?” “I have no idea.” This. Is. Important. JT and Dani have every reason to believe that this old man isn’t a killer but Malcolm’s head injury is making him confused. BUT they choose to trust Malcolm (or at the very least, humour him). They trust him enough to take a risk on him and I think that’s beautiful. I think that’s exactly what Malcolm needed after his nightmare of an AU dream. He needed to know that they care about him IRL. I hope he notices their behaviour despite the head injury. 

39:35 - Malcolm puts the skull down with his ungloved hand. I’m blaming the head injury. 

39:55 - Look this was a really moving scene. The parallel of Malcolm arresting a serial killer in front of the serial killer’s child and Martin being arrested in front of Malcolm is haunting. HOWEVER, when that old man stood up from the wheelchair my stupid brain went “THAT ASSHOLE NEVER EVEN NEEDED THE WHEELCHAIR?!?”.....even though he literally wasn’t in a wheelchair in Malcolm’s dream. 

40:40 - WE WERE ROBBED. I want to see the scene where Malcolm explains his dream to the team. I want to see GIL. WHERE THE EFF IS GIL IN THIS EPISODE?!?! FURTHERMORE - I WANT THE IRL VERSION OF “MALCOLM GOES TO THE HOSPITAL FOR A HEAD INJURY” SCENE. WTF FEDAK. GIVE ME THE AFTERCARE. 

40:47 - “That man will be buried in a turtleneck.” hahahahahaha OMG. Iconic. 

41:27 - “Goodnight Malcolm.” <3 <3 <3 She called him Malcolm IRL. Excuse me while I go and stoke my slow burn Brightwell fire. 

41:36 - “Goodnight.” This is the face of a man who just accepted the fact that he will never be happy. Malcolm honestly doesn’t think he deserves to be in a relationship. Especially with someone as beautiful, kind, and talented as Dani.

41:40 - THAT HAT. Was this really in Season 1?!?! I don’t remember it? But holy hell - I want to see Malcolm wear it. Like now. It’s going to make me laugh. I can feel it. 

41:53 - Immediately you can hear that something is wrong in Ainsley’s voice. She sounds distracted, dissociated, and scared. 

42:14 - Give. Tom. Payne. An. Emmy. Listen to his voice breaking here. He’s so close to tears and it’s genuinely beautiful. Such an astounding performance. 

42:51 - I honestly think Ainsley is shaking her head because she realizes that she made a mistake. She came to Malcolm because she thought he killed Endicott. She thought that he’d be able to understand. That he’d be able to help her because he had committed the same crime she just committed. She was wrong. He can help her - but legally, he really shouldn’t.

43:08 - Look. A new scene for Malcolm’s night terrors. 

43:15 - Yep. This is going to drive Malcolm into a mental breakdown. This is bad. 

43:20 - There’s a part of me that wants Malcolm to tattle on Ainsley. Just so he doesn’t have to keep the secret any longer. The secret is killing him. Telling won’t make the situation any better though. Gil and the team will react horribly and it’ll make Malcolm feel like garbage. Plus I can only imagine how the press would scrutinize the Whitly’s again. It won’t be good any way you slice it. 

I have a love/hate relationship with this episode. On one hand - it’s the cannon AU episode that every fanfiction lover dreams of. It’s also a really compelling episode complete with some excellent acting and great insight into Malcolm’s psyche. HOWEVER: 1) not enough Gil, 2) WHERE IS MY WHUMP AFTERCARE?, and 3) I wanted to see Malcolm at the base of that elevator for longer. The whump wasn’t prolonged enough for my sick soul. 

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Hello 👋🏼, sorry if I’m bothering u but ever since the recent chapters of BNHA I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the Todoroki family. Not many of my friends are into this anime and I just couldn’t stop myself from sharing this with you because I need to let this out.

[SPOILER ALERT 🚨!!! IF U DONT READ THE MANGA THEN U CAN JUST IGNORE THIS]

First of all:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

(I’m still screaming as I write because the backstories RUINED me.)

Poor Touya having this horrible obsession over heroics and having his father acknowledge him but ever since his quirk started reacting against his body the whole family got negatively affected by it.

Rei and Enji wanted to stop at two kids but with Touya’s sudden disadvantage and the latter’s craving for power, Natsuo and later on Shouto was born (the youngest getting titled as the perfect heir from the moment he was born). I got torn seeing Touya’s eyes succumb to absolute madness at the birth of his younger brothers.

What scared me the most was how when it was just Touya and Fuyumi, the two hardly interacted despite being only a year apart in age. Touya claimed that ‘girls just don’t get it’ this small foreshadowing was later brought to light in the most recent chapter where he once again rejects Fuyumi’s company in favour of ranting to only Natsuo and where he disregards his own mother— another ‘girl’ that doesn’t understand his obsession passion for surpassing All Might and someone who plays along to the acts of those stronger than them. Touya saw his mother as a weak person who had no choice but to marry for the sake of her family and have custom children. Little Touya firmly believed his very existence depended on getting acknowledged my his father and defeating All Might but it sadly didn’t come true😭😭

Also..... LOOK AT THE BABIES!!!! They’re all so CUTE!!!

Chubby Fuyumi!!!

Natsuo with a running nose

And Baby Shouto with a meme like face since the day he was born🤣🤣🤣🤣

So ADORABLE!

And another thing. FUYUMI WAS EVEN YOUNGER THAN I THOUGHT TO HAVE STARTED ACTING LIKE A SECOND MOTHER TO HER BROTHERS!! Look at the way she defended Natsuo when Touya went on a rampage and tried to attack Touya! And during moments when Enji and Rei fought the two most notable heroes were Shouto and Fuyumi; the former fighting on the frontlines to face his father while the latter stood behind to once again care for her remaining family that though weren’t involved in the fight, they still needed emotional support to get through it.😭

I AM SO SORRY TO BE GETTING TO THIS SO LATE ANON BUT I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY!!!

TW: Spoilers, Brief Mention of Child Abuse (Physical, Emotional and Mental), General Fandom Wank

So, like, SO MUCH HAPPENED in those chapters and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE ALMOST ALL OF IT! There’s obviously all the things you mentioned above that were just amazing to see and learn! I know that a majority of the fandom has been absolutely livid about the reveals involving Touya being drastically different than what fandom thought they were all this time, but I think it honestly highlights how smart Horikoshi’s writing really is.

In Shoto, we see the effects of physical and mental abuse on a child, and how easily he could have ended up going down a troubling road much like Touya. Shoto’s saving grace is facing off against Deku in the Sports Festival, giving him an outside perspective and makes him realize that he can choose to be better, but that doesn’t just magically fix all of Shoto’s problems. Shoto still struggles with his feelings towards his Father and how he is perceived by simply being Endeavor’s son. We see that in the Provisional License Arc, where Shoto is so thoroughly rattled by Inasa. It’s even further pushed through how Shoto struggles with his feelings about Endeavor trying to better and whether or not he should forgive him. I feel like Shoto’s arc is incredibly strong and that his struggles are very realistic, which is why people love him so much. This whole concept is another thing I could rant about but I’m going to leave it here.

Meanwhile, with Touya, we see the effects of mental and emotional abuse on a child and how it can completely destroy them. I think people that act like Horokoshi “down played” and “ret-conned” Endeavor as a character to make him more sympathetic/ redeemable or that he’s simply writing Touya as “always being a bad seed” are missing the mark. This is, admittedly, something you see a lot when it comes to victims of abuse in the real world as well; the idea that if you weren’t physically or sexually abused on top of emotional or mental abuse, your abuse is somehow less “valid.” Now I’ve seen more voices speaking out against this mentality - which is relieving and positive - but it’s still a problem. The way Touya was abused is no less valid or scarring to himself as a person as what Shoto has been through was. Touya and Enji clearly had a deep bond as father and son. Hell, the fact that Enji is sobbing and saying he “can’t fight his own son” in regards to Touya, but clearly had less issue training Shoto until he got ill or passed out says a lot.

Touya was put on an incredibly high pedestal by Enji’s constant praise and attention. He was the apple of his father’s eye until the limitations of his Quirk were discovered. Enji had filled his head with promises and goals for what his future would be, essentially selling him what turned out to be a lie. We see Rei herself tell Enji that Touya “knows you expect something out of the kids.” Touya’s whole life up until that point was being told of all the great he would someday accomplish, and equating that to being deserving of his Father’s love, attention and affection.

And then he couldn’t live up to that expectation. And then his parents had two more kids following that revelation. The idea that Touya doesn’t realize that Natsuo and Shoto were meant to be his replacements - unbroken models that “deserved” Enji’s love - is clearly not missed by him. It’s evident in the way he looks at Natsuo after he’s born. He sees this as a sign that he is no longer deserving - no longer worthy - of love or support from the parent he absolutely adores.

We see this mostly from Enji and Rei’s perspectives, so we know the reasons they did it, but it’s clear they didn’t stop to think about the way this would be interpreted by Touya himself. This whole matter is only worsened by the fact that Enji refuses to make sacrifices for the sake of his oldest son. He pushes Touya to live a life outside of Pro Heroics while Enji himself refuses to do the same, thus setting a positive example and showing solidarity with his son. He instead pushes him away and distances himself, loses himself in focusing on Natuso and, once his Quirk turns out to not be what he wants, Shoto. Touya continues to push himself despite his limits in a desperate bid for Enji to look at him the way he used to; with pride and love. 

What caused the fire that “killed” Touya? His anguish over being neglected and abandoned - left unloved - by his father yet again. It’s clear that Touya’s mental health is in need of some real focus that he has never gotten - due to both his parents negligence as well as the fact that mental health is highly stigmatized in Japanese society - and pairing that with the emotional and mental abuse he suffered at Enji’s hands broke him.

So many people are claiming Horikoshi is trying to make Enji “more redeemable”, but how do you get that? Enji abused Rei, his own wife, physically and emotionally and mentally until she had a psychotic breakdown, hurt their youngest child, and then robbed her the right to mother her children further by having her locked up in a psych ward for the next decade or so; built their oldest son, Touya, up only to then emotionally and mentally abuse him to the point he damn near killed himself in a frantic bid to garner Enji’s support only to return years later completely unhinged and looking to murder his entire family out of spite; neglected Fuyumi and Natsuo to the care of each other and hired help; alienated Shoto, his youngest son, from his siblings for his entire formative years, physically and mentally and emotionally abused him, groomed him to accomplish a task he never wanted, put him through such extensive physical training that Shoto would get sick or pass out.

Enji was a shitty father. He has a long ass road to continue walking if he ever wants redemption. The fact he didn't physically hit Touya doesn’t mean that Enji didn’t abuse his son and it doesn’t make Touya any less of a victim.

* End TodoFam Rant*

On a slightly lighter note, I also like all the information with Hawks’ past and all the parallels we’re seeing develop!

I’ve rambled briefly about this in other places the Huwumi discord but I want to expound upon this a bit more here.

I feel like Touya/ Dabi and Keigo/ Hawks are meant to be parallels to one another.

Back to back, we had proper name claims by these two characters. We had Dabi reveal his true identity as Todoroki Touya and then we have Hawks choosing to abandon his hero name to instead step up to fight as Takami Keigo.

I feel like “Dabi” was always a mask, of sorts. Dabi is typically pretty calm, cool, composed with the occasional bites of snark and cruelty. Meanwhile, we see Touya emoting and moving in a manner more akin to himself as a child, dancing about in manic delight over revealing his true identity and intentions. The pair of them are two drastically different people when you stop and look at it. “Dabi” was the mask he wore to gain ground to enact his revenge, and now that he is there? Now Touya can burn everything tethered to it down to ground.

Meanwhile, we have "Hawks” as he was forced to become as per the Hero Public Safety Commission. We had it revealed quite a while back that Hawks was a man of many faces, jumping from laid-back and chill to serious and focused quite frequently. “Hawks” is the presentation for the public and the Commission, groomed to be the perfect little canary in the mine that was Pro Heroics. The reveal of his true heritage, however, is not the killing blow Touya wanted it to be. Instead, it allows Keigo, the one who wanted to be a Hero to help people, the chance to truly dedicate himself to that. In being freed from the cage of “Hawks”, he is given the change to really soar as Keigo.

Now, I feel that “Dabi” and “Hawks” are most certainly parts of Touya and Keigo as well, respectively. Even though those titles were masks, they were masks made from parts of the men who wear them. I think what we’ll see going forward is the true elements of those masks bleeding back into the whole, and seeing the truest forms of each character.

For better or for worse. 

[apocryphalfemme]

Designatory Date Night

Well, I lied.  I finally played Mass Effect: Andromeda a week or so back and I’m here to report that I love Vetra Nyx so completely that I was inspired to write some simply brain-rotting fluff.  (An entire two years ahead of schedule, I know!)  Und so, I give you Designatory Date Night.  Read it below the cut, or on AO3.

Love,

Clithroe

““Pathfinder?”

“Yeah, SAM?”

“If I may ask, what is it you’re thinking of doing?”

“I’m thinking...”  As she recalled her earlier train of thought, Ryder’s face lit up.  “I’m thinking I’ve got an idea for the best date night, ever.””

Or

Ryder leverages the privileges of her job to show Vetra a good time.

“Anwar, what the hell am I looking at?”

“It appears to be a... a solar system, Pathfinder,” Suvi murmured.  “The solar system, in fact.  I believe we’ve found Avaarus.”  Ryder drummed her fingers against her console, brimming with nervous anticipation. 

“But it’s in the middle of nowhere.  We’re not even in Heleus space anymore, right Kallo?” she asked.

“Confirmed, Pathfinder.  We’re in deep space, just a ways outside of home.  I should mention that the next known celestial cluster is the Boone Traverse and we’re not getting anywhere near there without a mass relay,” Kallo said.  “Whatever this is, it’s a lone entity.”

“So... what?” Ryder breathed, disbelieving.  “Heleus just lost an entire star and a handful of planets?  Did it wander off when the angara weren’t looking or something?” 

“Ryder,” Suvi piped up. “It’s possible that what we’re seeing here is one of the more dramatic effects of the Scourge.  If Avaarus really was originally located where angaran maps say, then the system may have been wholly ejected from the cluster as the Scourge spread.”  Their pilot chirped an incredulous noise.

“Is that even possible?”

“Come on Kallo, two whole years in Andromeda and you’re still asking questions like that?” Suvi teased.  Kallo cut back with something sarcastic, but Ryder wasn’t listening; her attention had been caught by what was orbiting their runaway star.

“Okay, no, that can’t be right.  Avaarus is supposed to have four orbiting bodies.  That,” she pointed, “is at least seven.”  That got their attention.  Kallo and Suvi’s conversation petered out as they each ran their own, individual counts of this bizarre, seemingly truant system.  Kallo was first to break the silence.

“With eyes alone, I’m actually counting nine, Pathfinder”

“I think I’m seeing thirteen,” Suvi reported.  SAM’s vox crackled to life over the bridge speakers, only to prove them all wrong.

“Pathfinder, there are at least sixteen distinguishable celestial bodies orbiting this star.”  Kallo gaped, shocked into silence.  Suvi giggled, a tad manic.  Ryder swore.

“Holy shit.  SAM, what… are they?  Where did they come from?”

“The majority appear to be planets in varying states of compositional decay, Pathfinder.  Preliminary scans indicate that many may have once been capable of bearing life.  Cross-referencing with what remains of old angaran star charts and the inferable ejection path of the star Avaarus, I believe it is possible that we have discovered what happened to several planets that the angara report as having mysteriously disappeared over the last several centuries.”

“Holy shit,” Ryder swore again, for good measure.  “So if this really is Avaarus… I guess our friend here decided it wasn’t going out alone, huh?  Stole a few planets on the way out the door.”

“Ryder, the implications of this are incredible,” Suvi babbled, ecstatic.  “We knew the Scourge was powerful, but to learn that it can generate gravitational effects significant enough to move entire stars… forget terraforming, this is stellaforming!”

“Tann’s going to have an aneurysm,” Ryder chuckled.

“Don’t forget why we’re here, guys.  We’ve still got a job to do,” Kallo said, gently reminding them of their purpose in hunting down this most elusive system.  

“Right, yes.”  Ryder ran a hand through her hair before tapping her mic.  “Jaal, can you come up to the bridge?  I think we may have found what we’ve been looking for.”  Their resident angaran’s voice crackled immediately back.

“Oh, really now?  Of course!  On my way, Ryder.”

“God, it isn’t half pretty, is it?” murmured Suvi, completely ignoring her instruments panel in favor of staring at the solar system projected before them with a slightly glazed look.  

Ryder had to admit that her science officer’s assessment was dead on: Avaarus was a gorgeous system and that was putting it lightly.  Around the titanic, vividly blue-white star, sharply violet shades of gas spiraled out in a tight corkscrew.  At the edge of the heliosphere, thousands upon tens of thousands of asteroids spun in a truly magnificent debris disk.  All throughout, a plethora of mostly ringed planets hung suspended in the void, bathed in astral gases, caught in the midst of their aeons-long cosmic dance.  It was a perfect celestial tableau.  The fact that Ryder had seen dozens of equally stunning systems did nothing to detract from the moment; this sort of thing was enough to steal the breath from your lungs and, for her, it still did, every time.

Vetra would love this, she thought.  Before that particular idea could go anywhere, however, the quiet reverie they had fallen into was interrupted by the opening whoosh of the bridge doors.

“Alright Ryder, show me what you’ve got!” Jaal called cheerily, sauntering up to them.  Ryder turned and grinned.

“Hey, Jaal.  Allow me to present, for your consideration... the long-lost Avaarus system!” she said, spinning back to fling her arms wide.  “Or at least, we think it is.”  Jaal laughed.

“It’s a start, to be certain.  Any luck in finding the colony?”

“Anj Guhloan was supposedly on the fourth planet from Avaarus, right?”

“Correct.”  Ryder hummed an acknowledgement and cast a critical eye upon the projection.

“Right, then.  SAM, scan everything that could be big enough for an angaran settlement to hide on.  With all the crap this star picked up on the way out, who knows if Avaarus IV is still where it should be.”  Only after the merest second of delay, her AI chirped his response.

“Done.  I have identified what may be the remains of an angaran satellite in orbit around the fifth planet.”

“Bingo.  Kallo, I know this place is a minefield, but can you get us in closer?”

“Oh, please,” Kallo scoffed.  “I could fly through this blindfolded.”

“As entertaining as that sounds, I’d rather not be on the ship while you attempted it,” Jaal protested.  Kallo chuckled to himself.

“Have it your way.  Approach vector clear, Pathfinder; taking us in.”  The ever-present hum of the drive core pitched up a little as Kallo wove through the debris disk and into the core of the heliosphere.  Ryder had to hand it to him: while he could be a little over-sure at times, he was, inarguably, a pilot of sterling quality.  The Tempest progressed at a healthy pace through a chunk of space so dense with detritus that a lesser navigator would have been reduced to crawl.  

It was only a few short minutes before they were close enough to the planet in question for Suvi to start taking more detailed scans.  Ryder was less than thrilled to see her science officer’s face falling as she pored over her gathered readings.

“That’s not a happy expression, Anwar.  What are you getting?”  Suvi muttered something unintelligible and tapped her mic to ping their AI.

“SAM, can you get me a scan of the star, please?”

“Of course, Ms. Anwar.”  As her eyes flicked across the new influx of data, Suvi spat something foul.

“Keep us in the loop, Suvi, what have you got?” Ryder asked.

“Bad news, I’m afraid.”  Suvi twisted in her seat to face them.  “It looks like the star Avaarus is well on its way to becoming a superluminous supernova; this system’s going to go off like a firecracker sometime in the next couple centuries.  Avaarus IV - or, Avaarus V now, I guess - if it ever really was Anj Guhloan, has been a molten, liquid hunk of rock for a long time now.  I’m sorry, guys.  The planet’s cooked.”  A hand pressed to her forehead, Ryder sighed.

“Damn.  I’m sorry, Jaal.  That is not the news I wanted to give the angara.”  She was surprised when Jaal smiled at her, apparently far less distraught than she had expected.

“Do not worry, my friend.  The angara, myself included, have accepted that, between the Scourge, the kett, and our own occasional stupidity, many of the settlements that once were are now undoubtedly gone.  Though I am disappointed the lost colony of Anj Guhloan was not waiting for us, I am thankful to have borne witness to its fate.  The angara who lived here will not be forgotten, for we now know what happened to them.”  Ryder smiled wistfully back.

“Well, I’m glad we could at least give you that.  SAM, send a report to Aya and update the Initiative’s maps.”  Ryder rolled her neck, eliciting a disconcerting crack in the process.  She groaned.  “And on that note, I think we’re done for the day.  Kallo, Suvi, go eat something and get some sleep.  And…” she trailed off as she checked her omnitool.  “Oh my god, guys, tell me when we’ve been going for longer than eight hours!”  Kallo and Suvi, now standing and working out their own muscular kinks, looked at her in surprise.

“I, uh… I didn’t notice, Pathfinder,” Kallo murmured.

“How long have we…?” Suvi asked.

“I believe you three have been up here flying for more than ten hours, actually.  Last I checked, that is,” Jaal said, grinning.  Head cradled in her hands, Ryder heaved another groan, this one infinitely more weary than the last.

“Then remind me instead to set an alarm next time, or something.  Alright, clear the bridge you lot, I’m going to get enough hell as it is from Lexi about overworking you.”

“Oh, come on, Ryder,” Kallo argued.  

Suvi cut over him, to say: “This is what we signed up for!”  Ryder pointed at the door, but couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face.

“Out, now!  Food and then bed; we can poke around the system in more detail tomorrow.  Jaal, make sure they get some of that roast Drack made yesterday down their throats?”

“You’ve got it, Ryder.”  Saint that he was, Jaal gently but firmly shepherded her protesting bridge crew out and down to the galley.  The door slid shut behind them, leaving the Pathfinder by herself.  

Sometimes, you don’t realize how tired you are until you’ve a second to yourself; the newfound silence afforded Ryder both a blissful moment of recuperation and the recognition of the fact that she was, indeed, knackered.  She stretched her arms - damn, if she wasn’t stiff - and turned her attention back to the now rediscovered Avaarus system.  Exhausted as she was, she didn’t quite want to leave it yet, especially for something so trivial as sleep.  (Yes, she was entirely a hypocrite).  There was something equal parts forlorn and magical about watching the silver-blue star floating alone in the void; so far away from everything.  And yet, as if in defiance of its exile, Avaarus burned all the more beautiful.  Though, it wasn’t really alone, was it?  It had its stolen planets to comfort it through the coming explosion.  In much the same way as the ultimate fate of Anj Guhloan was beheld by Jaal, so too would the fate of Avaarus be beheld by its stolen audience.  It was a strangely reassuring thought.  As she gazed at the plethora of elliptical orbiters, a thought occurred to her.

“Hey, SAM.”

“Yes, Ryder?”

“What’s the plan for these planets?”

“Initiative protocol dictates that they be scanned, designated, and marked on Initiative maps.  Planets of note - those that could be potentially habitable or those with valuable resources - will be highlighted and the relevant officials made aware of their existence.  In the case of these particular planets, considering they are molten slag bar none and located a significant distance from the Heleus cluster, it is unlikely the Initiative will take any interest beyond the academic.  There may be some investigation into the stellaforming effects of the Scourge, as Ms. Anwar puts is it, but that is where it will likely end.”

“So this is as far as things go for them, huh?  At least, as far as we’re concerned?”

“That is correct, Pathfinder.  The Initiative has more immediate concerns.”

“That’s kind of sad.  Something so beautiful deserves a bit more attention than... wait, SAM, what exactly are these planets being designated?”

“I have tagged the orbiting bodies, in order, as H-977, H-978, H-979a, H-979b, H-.”  Before he could get too far into his alphanumeric monologue, Ryder cut him off.

“Okay, right, thanks SAM.”  Chewing at the inside of her cheek, she stared off into space, thoughtful.

“Pathfinder?”

“Yeah, SAM?”

“If I may ask, what is it you’re thinking of doing?”

“I’m thinking...”  As she recalled her earlier train of thought, Ryder’s face lit up.  “I’m thinking I’ve got an idea for the best date night, ever.”

“Ah.  I believe I understand.  Would you like me to ask Ms. Nyx to come up to the bridge?”

“Nah, I’ll go grab her.”  Ryder turned around and made for the door, but was arrested in her escape by SAM once more.

“Have fun, Ryder.”  Ryder beamed.

“Thanks, buddy.”  

With a hop, skip, and a slap to the face to keep herself awake, Ryder was away.  She didn’t bother with the ladder to the lower deck - as she jogged onto the clear plex of the catwalk, she unceremoniously jumped off the side to land on the ground below.  A combination of her biotics and sleep deprivation was enough to negate the jarring impact entirely and in the span of a heartbeat, she was off down the hall.  As she hustled past the med bay, she caught at the very edge of her vision Lexi’s head poking out to investigate the noise.

“Ryder, what on earth did you just-.”

“No time, doc!  Everything’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Ryder, you know full well that your telling me not to worry about something only ever makes me worry more!”  But Ryder was gone and heading into the cargo bay before Lexi could get too far into giving a proper scolding.  Lucky for her, it looked like just about everyone else was asleep - no one was around to see her eager jog over to what had become Vetra’s office.  

Slowing to a stop, Ryder took a moment to catch her breath.  She didn’t want to look excessively keen - though in a committed relationship she and Vetra may have been, she still had a calm and collected reputation to maintain.  It didn’t matter that Vetra knew it all to be, by and large, a conscious affect: it was the principle of the thing.  The Pathfinder was always composed - even in the face of giddying affection.  Once she had herself together, Ryder headed in.  The door slid open to reveal Vetra hunched over a mess of crates.  She was, quite impressively, stacking them with just the one hand while simultaneously checking them against the list projected on her omnitool, all while muttering obscenities under her breath.  Ryder crossed her arms and leaned against the frame, indulging in having caught her partner unawares and in her element.  Vetra was much more relaxed when other people - Ryder aside - weren’t around and it gave Ryder a sort of tender joy to see her so at ease.  But of course, such sappy sentiments would never stop her from teasing her girlfriend, not at all.  As Vetra straightened back up, Ryder announced her presence in as serious a tone as she could fake.

“Ms. Nyx, your assistance is urgently required on the bridge.”  Vetra turned around to meet Ryder’s gaze, crossing her own arms in the process.

“Is it now, Pathfinder?” she said, with a poorly constrained smile.  

“Indeed.  Life and death situation; fate of the cluster at stake.  The usual.”

“Mmm, I’m sure.  Unfortunately for you, Ryder, it just so happens that I’m currently having the time of my life processing requisitions.  Can your little ‘situation’ measure up to the sheer euphoria of cataloguing rolls of toilet paper?”  Vetra deadpanned the statement so completely that Ryder found herself staring at her partner in disbelief, mouth dropping.  Vetra, clearly delighting in Ryder’s bewilderment, had the gall to wink at her.  Too tired to retort, Ryder finally broke.  She sprang forward, proffering a hand and letting all her excitement shine past the bit.

“Oh my god, come on already, you silly turian, I want to show you something!”  Vetra smiled in turn and reached out to take said hand.

“Yeah, alright, I was getting pretty sick of checking for delivery discrepancies anyway.  So what have you - whoah!”  As soon as she had a hold on her, Ryder tugged Vetra into a jog, pulling her out of the office and around onto the cargo lift.  She punched the ascent and the thing began its slow, clunky climb.  Unfortunately, slow and clunky was something of an understatement; Ryder found herself tapping her foot with impatience as they rose ploddingly.

“Excited, are we?” Vetra poked.

“Trust me, babe, you’re going to love this.”  

“If it’s whatever’s responsible for you smiling like this, then I’m sure I will.”  Vetra slung an arm around Ryder’s shoulders, who in turn threw an arm around Vetra’s waist; overt affection came more easily when they were alone.  Additionally, being wrapped around each other had the added benefit of slowing Ryder down a bit: pulled close to Vetra’s side, she was forced to adopt a slightly more sane pace as they made their way back through the ship and up to the bridge.  Ryder didn’t mind.  It was totally worth trading speed for.  When they eventually came up on the bridge doors, Ryder called a halt before they could enter.

“Okay, close your eyes.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, I did it that time you tried to kill me with a blackened piece of cow.”

“Fair point.”

“Look, I’d cover them for you if I could, but I can’t help the fact that you’re absurdly tall.”  Vetra grinned evilly down at her.

“Well, I can’t help the fact that you’re a shrimp.  And don’t pretend you don’t love it, short stack.”

“Yeah, I do, now close ‘em, Nyx!” Ryder muttered, her face flushing a little as Vetra eyed her.  Apparently sufficiently appeased, her partner deigned to close her eyes.  Ryder guided her temporarily sightless charge through the doors and to the fore of the bridge.  With her implant, she signaled SAM to collapse the navigation panel and guided Vetra to sit on the now available ledge before joining her by her side.

“Okay, you can open your eyes.”  Vetra did so and promptly gasped.

“Oh, wow.”

“Right?”

“That’s...”

“Right?!”

“Hot damn, Ryder.  That’s gorgeous.”  Ryder hummed an affirmation, thoroughly pleased with herself.  “You know how to pick ‘em, babe.”

“What can I say?  I’ve got exceptional taste in star systems.”  Vetra elbowed her affectionately.  

“You sure do.”

“So... do you wanna name them?”  Vetra spluttered, incredulously amused.

“Be serious.”

“I am serious!”

“Ryder, is that even something you’re allowed to do?”

“Aw, c’mon, I’m the Pathfinder.  If anyone can get away with naming a couple of planets, I think it’s me.”

“You’re ridiculous.”  Vetra shook her head, but Ryder knew she just about had her.  Her partner just needed the right incentive.

“I’m giving you dibs on naming the first one.”  That got her.  Vetra opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and peered curiously into space.

“Which one’s that?”  Ryder snorted and pointed.

“Purple-blue ice giant with the three moons, very edge of the heliosphere.”

“Oh, you spoil me.”

“I try.  So, give us a name!  What are you thinking?”

“Hmm.  I’m thinking… Not Dead Yet.”  Ryder stifled a chuckle.  

“Why that?”

“Looks like it’s almost been ejected from the system, but the big bastard’s clinging on something fierce.”

“A name the Initiative can relate to, I’m sure.”

“That’s the idea.  Alright, your turn, oh mighty Pathfinder.  What’re we going to call that one?”  The planet in question was a chthonian-in-progress; a gas giant in close orbit to Avaarus, its emerald-colored atmosphere in the process of being stripped away to reveal the molten aluminum-iron core.

“Stinky.”  Vetra burst out laughing.

“What?! You’re messing with me.”

“Look at it!  That thing is trailing bright green gas like no one’s business.”

“Ryder, I’m no scientist, but I’m pretty certain that’s burning atmosphere.”

“Yeah and it’s stinking up the neighborhood as it goes.”  Vetra heaved a much-put upon sigh, but the breadth of her toothy turian grin and the fluttering of her mandibles betrayed her amusement.

“Alright, fine.  Stinky it is.  Which one next?”

“That one.  Whatcha got?”  The planet Ryder was indicating was another gas giant, though this one was significantly prettier than the newly-dubbed Stinky.  Ivory clouds of gas billowed across it, cut though with the occasional twisting carmine storm.  It was a bloody, alabaster gem, stark against the black.  Vetra considered it thoughtfully.

“Would I sound crazy if I said it kind of looks like my sister?”

“Y’know... no, I see it, it kind of does.”  Ryder and Vetra gave each other a dubious, slant-eyed look at exactly the same time and erupted in giggles.

“Spirits, babe, Sid’s going to flip if I tell her I named a planet after her!”

“All the more reason to do it!”  Vetra huffed.

“Screw it.  Planet, I dub thee Sidera.”

“She’ll be thrilled.”  Falling victim to a yawn of massive proportions, Ryder leaned her head against Vetra’s shoulder and fought to keep her eyes open.  “Go on, you can do the next one too.”  Vetra cast her eyes around the system, searching for her next victim.

“How about that protoplanet?” she asked.  As Ryder murmured her sleepy approval, Vetra curled an arm around her.  “Well, as long as I’m being all sentimental… Prag’rath.”  Ryder scrunched her nose in confusion.

“Prag’rath?”

“The batarian mercenary who taught me to shoot.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.”

“She’d kick my ass for it.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”  Though there were yet planets in need of names, tiredness and the sheer splendor of the system had Vetra and Ryder lapsing into a warm and comfortable silence, pressed close together.  The Avaarus system slowly and silently spun before them, its striking beauty framed by the stars so incredibly remote in the distance.

“Is this something normal couples do?” Ryder asked.  Vetra peered down at her.

“Naming planets?  I mean... no, probably not.”  Vetra brought Ryder’s hand up to her lips, pressing a kiss to the back of it.  “But I’d like to think it’s very us.  This was a lot of fun, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m glad.”  Ryder settled further against her partner and finally stopped fighting the exhaustion of the day, letting her eyes droop shut.  Though already half-asleep, she whispered, “Vetra?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“I love you.”  The last things Ryder registered before finally succumbing to sleep were the pale, sparkling light of Avaarus and Vetra’s voice, murmuring in her ear.

“I love you too.”

[casualmaraudering]

digging my own grave and publishing a multichaptered fic when i have only one chapter written oh boy

i feel i might regret this sometime in the near future but i’m very excited for this still!! here’s the first chapter of what started of as that coffee shop au

**

Sirius is running on two hours of sleep within the last 48 hours, seven cups of coffee - or was it eight? - and too much Panic! At The Disco when he meets the love of his life.

Now, mind you, he’s only 19, and he doesn’t even know the guy, but he already knows they’re bound to fall in love, get married, buy a house with a picket fence and have three children. And a dog. A big dog.

Anyway. The point is - love of his life. Right there in this small, suburban cafe.

“Reggie, I’m in love,” he says instantly, not taking his eyes off of this angel of a man. He’s got the smile of an angel, anyway. And hair, too - angels have curls, that’s just scientific.

“The fuck are you on about?” his brother replies, with too much snarky confidence for a 14 year old. He’s been spending too much time with Lily, Sirius reckons. Bad influence and whatnot, that girl.

“That guy in the corner,” Sirius still hasn’t taken his eyes off him, by the way. “The curly haired one, with the laptop. And don’t swear.”

“Who’s he? Like a boyfriend or something? I’m leaving if you dragged me here just to make out with your stupid boyfriend, you were supposed to help me study!”

“What? No, he’s not my boyfriend, I’ve literally never seen him before.”

Regulus blinks. “And yet you say you’re in love?”

“Yes, I’m quite positive I am. Don’t you think our kids would look beautiful?”

“You’re insane.”

“You think they’ll have curls? I hope they will. Or the freckles.”

Regulus sighs and runs his hand through his hair - now that’s a habit he’s picked from James. Sirius really needs to find more respectable friends to hang with when he’s minding his little brother. Not like Regulus really needs minding to anymore, but still, Sirius is responsible for him, so he guesses he should find some positive influences.

Love Of His Life seems like a good sort, which is fantastic. Sirius can bet he studies something smart like literature. Or maybe physics.

“Listen,” Reg says, punching him in the arm. “You’re a fucking mess but-”

“Don’t swear,” Sirius says, absentmindedly - he’s really wondering what Love Of His Life’s taste in music is. He seems like an Ed Sheeran type, and Sirius definitely doesn’t mind that. He could learn some Ed Sheeran songs on his guitar - that’s quite romantic, isn’t it?

“- go ask him out or whatever. I’ll get us something, and then you’re helping me.”

With that, and an eye roll - honestly, way too much time with Lily - he leaves Sirius to his own.

Usually, Sirius wouldn’t just saunter towards a guy that fucking cute, oh no, he’d need some sort of back up or pep talk, from James, preferably. But today, he’s a mess, and lack of sleep makes him incredibly reckless and equally detached from reality, so indeed, he walks towards the table.

Love Of His Life looks up at him when he sits down on the other side, confusion spread on his face.

“Hi,” Sirius says, smiling. He hopes he doesn’t look as messy as he feels - his hair might be a bit wild, but he’s been told that looks hot, so he figures it’s fine.

“Hi?” Love Of His Life replies.

“So I noticed you sitting here, and I thought I’d say hi. Which I already did. But still. Hello.”

He raises a brow at Sirius. So Sirius, as he tends to do when both sleep deprived and thoroughly caffeinated, just keeps on talking.

“I’m here with my brother - helping him with homework, like a responsible older sibling and all that jazz. What are you working on? I bet it’s something smart - you look smart, at least. It’s the jumper, y’know? You wouldn’t mind if we sat with you, maybe? I just thought - you’re sitting alone, I wouldn’t mind the company, for sure, and you seem smart and nice so who knows, maybe Regulus will learn something - I’m the one that’s supposed to be teaching him but I know fuckall about history, honestly - I’m doing art, actually. Are you a history guy? You seem like a history guy?”

“I’m so sorry for him,” Regulus says, sitting down next to Sirius - and kicking him, definitely on purpose. He sets down a cup of coffee for Sirius, and a hot chocolate for himself.

“Is he high?” Love Of His Life asks. Sirius giggles to himself.

“He’s sleep deprived and had too much coffee. And also he’s gay.”

Love Of His Life blinks at that. “And that’s relevant how…?”

“Well, he gets like that around guys he likes. Idiotic, I mean.”

“Oh,” Love Of His Life seems startled, but Sirius can see a blush on his face, and he’s suddenly not mad at Regulus being here anymore.

“Are you single?” Sirius asks, because again - too much caffeine. Whatever filter he has is long gone.

“I really am sorry, he’s a fucking twat when he doesn’t sleep.”

“Swearing, Reggie.”

“You swear all the time!”

“I’m the big brother, I can.”

“And yet I have to do this shit for you,” Regulus says with a huff. “Listen. He likes you, and I promise, he’s actually surprisingly tolerable when he’s had enough sleep and no one lets him touch caffeine. So if you’d humour him and give him your number, or whatever, we’d get out of your hair now.”

Love Of His Life blinks in confusion again. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Sirius cocks his head in what he hopes the guy considers cute. “Don’t be like that. If you’re not gay, I get it. But if you are - even a little bit, what’s there to dislike about me, huh? I’m obviously the best looking guy you’ll ever find.”

“And bloody humble too,” Regulus mumbles to himself - Sirius kicks him.

Love Of His Life - Sirius should find a shorter nickname, or ask for his name - laughs at that.

“I don’t really care much for appearance.”

“Oh, everybody says that but deep down I’m sure you wouldn’t hate dating someone with a face like mine.”

“I’m blind.”

Oh.

“Shit,” Regulus says - Sirius kicks him again, more out of habit than anything - “sorry, I-”

“I get it, hard to notice. I don’t mind,” he smiles that cute, soft smile again - Sirius remembers why he fell in love all that 15 minutes ago. “Are you still so set on dating me?”

“Yes,” Sirius says without a further thought. “I don’t care. I’m in love with you.”

Angel - shorter, but still not ideal - laughs again. “Leave that for when we know each other a bit more and maybe you’ve had more sleep.”

“Get used to this,” Regulus sighs. “Clinical insomnia, and all. Happens rather often.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says softly. “So, Regulus, you said?”

“And my idiot brother is Sirius.”

“Parents were really into stars, huh?”

“You could say that,” Regulus mumbles half-heartedly.

Their family is still something they rarely talk about. Ever since they left home - the moment Sirius turned 18, he packed their most important belongings and dragged Regulus out of that hellhole - it was something they just didn’t speak of. It’s a bit less touchy, now, but they mutually agree it’s best left alone, to discuss at a later date, maybe when Reggie is a bit older.

“Mine were into mythology. It’s Remus.”

Sirius smiles brightly, and Regulus groans.

“Stop being so gay,” Reg hisses.

Remus laughs. “You said you’re learning history, right?”

“Yup. French revolution at the moment.”

“Just so happens I’m majoring in history. How about Sirius gets me a hot chocolate, and I’ll help you out?”

Sirius blinks. So does Regulus.

“Will you go on a date with me, then?”

Remus shuts his laptop and scoots a bit closer to them.

“Let’s start with my number first. Ask me again when you’re functioning like a normal human.”

*

The time in the cafe flies by like nothing.

Remus has a lovely voice, Sirius comes to realize. Even when he’s talking through decapitating French monarchy, he makes it sound soothing in a way. Sirius almost thinks he could fall asleep while listening to it, and that’s a gigantic compliment.

He’s also unlike any teacher Sirius has ever had. He’s patient in explaining everything to Regulus - he pauses to let the kid take notes (either when Reggie tells him to, or Remus himself can hear the pen scribbling away on a notepad), goes into further detail or repeats things when he’s asked, hell, even the gentle expression on his face is unlike Sirius’s memory of school. It was always harsh, private tutors, and he either got things right or got smacked with a wooden ruler.

Probably shouldn’t point that out, though. The depths of his childhood drama aren’t exactly something he wants to share just yet.

Mostly cause he really wants Remus not to run away. Skipping the fact he’s incredibly gorgeous and Sirius is positive he’s in love (Remus is going through the exact timeline of the revolution, date by date, when Sirius names all their future children in his head), he seems like a cool guy all around, and someone that can actually properly help Reggie out in school - Remus has done a better job during the last two hours than Sirius has for the entire year.

And, Remus is still here, even after the first hand experience of Sirius, caffeinated and sleep deprived. Not many people can handle that - which means maybe, just maybe, the whole insomnia thing won’t turn into a big deal. Sirius does acknowledge it, but he doesn’t like to think of it as much - he can’t fall asleep like a normal person sometimes (‘sometimes’ being usually four days a week), so what about that? James and Lily make it seem like it’s going to kill him, but it’s not like it’s a drug addiction or anything. He’s just a little manic sometimes, and depressed other times. And then unable to concentrate and constantly exhausted most of the time.

Point is, he can deal with it, therefore it’s not a big deal. So Remus shouldn’t be coaxed into thinking that it’s a big deal, because Sirius likes him the way he is now - not making a big deal out of Sirius being, well… Sirius.

“Hey, asshole!”

Then there’s the fact that lack of sleep makes him a bit detached from reality, so he hadn’t realized Regulus was trying to get his attention until just now, when he jabbed him with his elbow. That’s just something Remus has to get used to.

“What? Are you guys done?” he says, blinking to try and get some sense of his surroundings.

Regulus sighs in a way so dramatic it can only be achieved by a 14 year old boy.

“You’re crashing,” he says. “Which means we should leave.”

Sirius makes an offended sound. It’s as if Regulus thinks he’s the older one!

“I’m not,” Sirius says. “I’m just… thinking. About things. Important things, I’ll have you know.”

“You’re spacing out, is what you are. Which means you’re finally gonna go to bed, I fucking hope.”

“Don’t swear. And I just had coffee!”

“I got you decaf.”

Sirius blinks. “And why would you do that?!” Sirius says, offended, because honestly, there’s no greater offence than decaf coffee. The caffeine is the whole bloody point!

Sirius’s brain functions are lowered due to lack of sleep, so he doesn’t even register that somehow he didn’t notice it was decaf while drinking (if he did realize that, he would be greatly offended with himself - 4 years of being addicted to caffeine and what did that give him? Not being able to taste decaf?).

“Maybe,” this time Remus speaks, seemingly highly amused by the ongoing conversation. “he’s, uh, concerned about your sleeping habits and wants you to go to bed?”

“I’m an adult, I go to bed when I want to!”

“The last time you slept was when James drove us to Ikea, and that was yesterday evening. For like 30 minutes.”

“How do you know I didn’t sleep at night, huh?”

“I could bloody hear you pacing around in the kitchen, and you were there when I woke up too. We’re going home before you fucking pass out.”

“Don’t swear. And I’m fine, honestly.”

He yawns, then, so his body doesn’t seem to think so. Regulus rolls his eyes, and Remus giggles.

“I think it’s best you go.” Remus then pulls his phone out and hands it to Sirius. “Put your number in, so I can make sure you did as you’re told and slept for at least a few hours.”

Sirius beams at that, grabbing the phone with probably too much enthusiasm. He makes sure he’s put his number in correctly three times (and sends himself a text just in case) before he carefully places it back in Remus’s hand. With that, their hands touch, and Sirius feels a shiver go up his spine - Remus’s hands are smooth and so warm.

Sirius definitely wouldn’t mind them in his own hands. Or on his body. Or around his-

Okay, yeah, definitely time to go home before he gets too carried away in any fantasies, next to his little brother as well.

“Oh, uh,” Sirius finds himself saying when he gets up. “D’you… need help getting home? Or something?”

Remus smiles at him. “I came here by myself, you do realize that?”

Sirius feels his face flush. “Yeah, I mean! I don’t want to sound rude or stupid but I thought I’d just ask, I dunno, I’ve never known a blind person before so I kinda have no idea what’s the socially acceptable thing to say but it seemed rude to just leave you. Even though I know you’re an adult that can mind himself and I’m sure you’re capable of traveling by yourself I didn’t want to imply you don’t-”

“Stop. Talking,” Regulus hisses, pulling Sirius out of the booth. “You’re being an idiot again.”

“Ah, no, I don’t mind, honestly. Takes time getting used to it, I know. I’ll be fine, though, I promise.”

“Next time,” Sirius says. “I’ll get you a ride home on my bike.”

“Bike? Like a motorbike?”

Sirius beams proudly. “Yup! She’s my baby - built her myself.”

Remus’s brow furrow. “Please don’t tell me you drove here with your younger brother while you’ve slept for a total of half hour since yesterday.”

“Oh, please, who do you think I am?” Regulus asks. “I’d never let him drive the bloody thing when he’s like that. We walked, we don’t live far.”

“Good. Let me know when you get home, then,” Remus smiles the gentle smile again, and despite the caffeine crash and his body screaming at him from fatigue, Sirius feels he could run laps around the building right now cause of the happy, bubbly feeling in his stomach.

“You too. I’ll see you around, Remus.”

Sirius and Regulus walk home in silence - mainly because, as much as he hates to admit Regulus was right - Sirius really is crashing. The manic energy he usually has whenever he surpases 30 hours of no sleep is through and gone, so now he’s nothing left but the overpowering fatigue.

His whole body feels heavy; Sirius is glad Regulus is there, supporting him while he walks, cause he finds it hard to concentrate on going straight - his eyelids are closing by themselves, and there’s a dull ache starting to build in his head and nausea creeping in.

At least he knows he’ll sleep. Not for much, but maybe he’ll get a few hours, at least.

He doesn’t register them walking up the stairs, or Reggie opening the door to their apartment - it’s small and cramped, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a lounge-slash-kitchen; the sink breaks way too often, the walls are paper-thin, and the shower is not meant for Sirius’s height so he bumps his head into the showerhead every night without fail. It doesn’t compare to Grimmauld in the slightest, but it’s theirs, away from their parents, so neither of them ever really complain.

Sirius wiggles out of his shoes - he curses the fact his motorbike boots are almost knee high and have seven or so straps; they’re a pain to take off, but damn him if they don’t look good. He then throws his jacket onto the couch, and heads towards his bedroom.

“Will you be okay for dinner?” he finds himself asking - he’s not sure if he’ll be awake til later at night, and the fridge is probably empty (he notes in his head that he needs to go grocery shopping first thing tomorrow before work). He might be dead on his feet, but he’d hate himself if he didn’t make sure his brother is okay.

“Yeah, I’ll call Lily and ask her if she’ll pick something up for us,” Regulus says, waving Sirius off. “Just- go to bed, kay?”

Sirius feels a strange sting at that - Regulus shouldn’t have to rely on Lily. Sirius should be the one sorting out the food, and his homework, and making sure all is right with his brother. But his stupid fucking sleep deprivation makes it so he can’t, so James and Lily have to check in with Reggie, and then Regulus has to worry for Sirius, when he shouldn’t have to.

Sirius is the older brother, the one that should do the worrying. The one that should be responsible. How is he better than their bloody parents if he can’t even take care of Reggie?

“Mhm,” he settles for, because he feels his throat squeeze uncomfortably, in a way too familiar manner.

Sirius takes one last look at his brother - who’s unpacking his schoolbooks onto the kitchen table (his favourite place to study, cause he’s in close proximity to the kettle) and with that, he sleepily stumbles towards his own bedroom.

He only bothers to take off his jeans and socks, and then he crawls under the duvet and collapses onto the bed.

Sirius somehow remembers to text Remus - it lifts his mood a little, to remember that, despite the probably uncomfortable amounts of pestering, Remus still wanted Sirius to text him; there’s hopes for an actual friendship there, Sirius thinks. Remus doesn’t reply immediately, so Sirius plugs in his phone to charge and leaves it on the nightstand - he’s too tired to wait up for a text back.

He’s exhausted enough to know he will sleep, so thank God for that. And maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll dream of something nice.

Or, if he’s extra lucky, someone nice.

[365days365movies]

February 5, 2021: The Notebook (2004)(Part 1)

...Do I have to?

...The year was 2004. I was 13, my Mom was still into romance movies, and we had a Hollywood Video nearby. God, I miss Hollywood Video, you have NO idea. Anyway, I obviously didn’t watch this movie (or I wouldn’t be watching it now), but I do remember kissing in the rain...or was that just the DVD cover? Other than that, I got nothin’. Still, I like both Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in other works, so I guess we’ll see.

I also can’t start this without acknowledging the fact that this is based upon a Nicholas Sparks book, and...I’m not into that. Sparks sucks, man. Sappy, overemotional, and constantly predictable folderol.

OK, Nicholas Sparks, let’s get this over with. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

We start with scenic shots of a boat rowing through a marsh, being visited by a flock of snow geese. As they fly off, an elderly woman (Gena Rowlands) looks out of a window over it. The woman is in an old-folks home, and is visited by Duke (James Garner), another resident. He’s here to read from a book, despite it not being a “good day,” according to the woman’s attendant.

The story in the book begins on June 6, 1940, at a carnival in South Carolina. There, Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) sees Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams), and it’s infatuation at first sight. He’s a lumber yard worker, and she’s a rich heiress. He’s also EXTREMELY forward, and she’s EXTREMELY not interested. He approaches her for a dance (at a...carnival), and she says no, having literally never seen this guy before. He responds to this rejection by...butting into her date with another dude of a Ferris Wheel? 

And when she once again rejects his offer for a date...he, uh...he threatens to kill himself off of the Ferris Wheel?

Um. Yeah, no. That’s a new level of manipulation. She pants him on the Ferris Wheel and humiliates him, but JESUS CHRIST, this dude is a lot. That’s compounded the next day, when he continues to pursue her, and she continues to be EXTREMELY not interested! DUDE. GET A GODDAMN CLUE HERE, she is NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR SHIT.

Is Noah the first simp? Because he’s really starting to seem like it. Anyway, Noah and his friend Fin (Kevin Connolly) basically set her up to go on a double date with Noah, and he continues to be overly forward. Maybe this is supposed to be romantic, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it to me.

We find out that Allie is a quite well-educated young woman, whose schedule is basically completely controlled by her parents, who want her to go to college as well. Noah questions why her life is so restrictive, nothing that she should be free, which she insists she is. He then lies down in the middle of the road, watching the street...lights…

Holy shit, he’s a manic pixie dream boy. HOLY SHIT HE’S A MANIC PIXIE DREAM SIMP. He does all these quirky things, and breaks the girl in the restrictive lifestyle out of said lifestyle. Even if his dumbass actions nearly get him and Allie killed. See, she lies down in the street with him, and they nearly get run over by a car. And this second near-death experience is apparently SO romantic, that Allie’s won over, and they...just dance in the middle of the street. Because Ryan Gosling has no idea where to dance, apparently.

Billie Holiday sings “I’ll Be Seeing You” in the background (which, yes, I love), and we cut back to Duke reading to the elderly woman, who correctly guesses that they fell in love. And yeah, they go head-over-heels, apparently. Which is symbolized by, just, the most graphic of PDAs over, lord. 

Allie meets Noah’s father, Frank (Sam Shepard), a seemingly nice man and poetry fan (he’s a Tennyson man apparently). He asks her if she wants breakfast-for-dinner, and he’s my favorite character so far.

However, as if to set up the conflict to come, we’re reminded that this is a summer romance, and that they come from two different classes and worlds. Because of course they do, but whatever, moving on. That is when the following scene takes place.

...Look, I’m a bird guy by trade, and even I think that was weird.

We get more glimpses of their romance, including them dancing at a gathering with...a bunch of black peopNOPE. HOLD YOUR TONGUE, 365, WAIT FOR THE REVIEW TO TALK ABOUT THAT SHIT. At the end of this montage, we meet Allie’s father, the uppity and rich John Hamilton (David Thornton), and his GLORIOUS mustache (mustache). 

He invites Noah to Sunday brunch, which is being attended by...black servaHOOOOOOLD. NOT NOW 365 NOT NOW. We also meet Allie’s controlling mother, Anne Hamilton (Joan Allen). When Noah tells them how much money he makes, they immediately look down on him and his poor, poor ways. Anne reveals that Allie is headed to Sarah Lawrence, an all-girl’s school in New York. Which is, uh...NOT close.

Anne very much disapproves of her relationship with Noah, seeing him as a low-born of little consequence. Not that it matters, because the two head to a DEFINITELY HAUNTED house in the woods one night, which overlooks the marshlands. The bats from the Scooby-Doo intro fly by as the two walk in to, again, AN ABSOLUTELY HAUNTED HOUSE. This is the 1772 Windsor Plantation, home to...the Swamp Fox? Huh. Didn’t expect a crossover with the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot, but OK then.

The two talk about their house in the future, and somewhere in the house, a painting’s eyes move mysteriously. Allie plays a tune on the piano, which 1) sounds AMAZINGLY creepy, and 2) I’m pretty sure is the opening song, which is a neat touch. Guess that’s the theme for the movie, or possibly Allie’s leitmotif.

Anyway, it seems that the ghostly wails of Old Man Marion have gotten them both all hot and bothered, and they prepare to make love, right there in the old haunted house. The two undress while social distancing, then approach, significantly raising their risks of contracting COVID-19. Allie is CLEARLY very nervous, and as they attempt to begin the dirty deed, Allie can’t stop rambling about the current situation. Which is clearly putting Noah off the mood, but the two still clearly care about each other. It’s weirdly sweet, considering the fact that there’re, like, 50 ghosts watching, and God knows how many of those are slaaaaaaaAAAANYWAY

Fin suddenly bursts in, as it would appear that Allie’s parents have every policeman in town looking for her. Her parents are clearly upset, and her mother demands that Allie stops seeing Noah, whom she literally describes as “trash.” Jesus. And they aren’t exactly quiet about it, as Noah hears the entire conversation. He understandably leaves, and is also clearly disheartened by the whole situation. 

When Allie catches up to him, he says he has to think about this whole thing, including the fact that she’s going to Sarah Lawrence, and he’s staying behind. And I’m not gonna lie, he’s actually being realistic about this whole thing, and she’s acting FAR less rational. She actually breaks up with him right then and there, and as she’s literally physically assaulting him, I realize that SHE is actually the psychologically unstable one, HOLY SHIT. Emotionally compromised or not, Allie goes BONKERS here.

The next day, her folks decide that they’re leaving, that very day. Allie doesn’t want to leave without making amends with Noah, and she’s regretting her actions the previous night. She goes to Fin, and tells him to tell Noah that she loves him, and that she’s sorry. Noah shows up a little too late, and goes to return the comments, but Allie’s already gone.

Noah somehow gets her address, and writes her 365 letters, one letter every day. He never gets one in response, so he gives up and moves with Fin to Atlanta. Allie’s mom is seen getting the mail, so we know EXACTLY what happened to those letters. Meanwhile, it’s now 1941, and it’s time for World War II for the USA! Fin and Noah fight with Patton’s troops, and Fin doesn’t make it.

Allie, meanwhile, is in college, and works as a Nurse’s Aide for war veterans. She sees all of them as Noah,,,which is weird because she hasn’t gotten any of his letters, so she wouldn’t know that he went to war, but whatever. One of these injured men is Lon Hammond, Jr. (James Marsden). And...aw...AWWWWWWW. Did I just type James Marsden? GODDAMN IT HE’S GONNA GET CUCKED

James Marsden seems to have only one role in movies, and that’s to be overshadowed by another dude, even though in many instances, he’s a totally fine guy. The X-Men films, Superman Returns, Enchanted, the Westworld series in a way, TELL ME I AM GODDAMN WRONG. Dude’s always in movies where he plays the love interest to a girl, and that girl is pursued by another guy, and he ALWAYS LOSES TO THAT GUY. You could argue that Cyclops in the X-Men escaped that fate, but need I remind that first, Jean died, and then she came back AND KILLED HIM. STOP SCREWING OVER JASON MARSDEN’S LOVE LIFE, MOVIES!!!!

Seems like we’re once again headed down that path, though, as the very injured Lon asks Allie out on a date while in recovery, then takes her out once he’s healed. And, since he’s about as forward as Noah was, but less crazy when asking her out, she falls in love with him quickly. And it’s Duke that makes that assessment, not me. And, OF COURSE, he’s a rich Southern boy, meaning that her parents are going to approve.

At a dance club in the city with...black performDEAR GOD IT’S GETTING HARD TO HOLD ON BUT I GOTTA DO IT MOVING ON

He proposes to her, with her parents’ full permission (of course, because he’s rich and southern, gross), and she gladly accepts. He jumps on stage and announces to the entire club that they’re getting married. However, she’s still missing Noah subconsciously.

Speaking of, Noah comes home from war, presumably in 1945, and finds that his father sold him the house in order to buy the Windsor Plantation. Around the same time, Noah finds out that Allie’s moved on, and is with Lon. So, what does he do? The only logical thing: he restores the entire plantation by himself in order to win Allie back FUCKING REALLY?

Dude, you rebuilt an entire house on your own, your father died, and you could EASILY get rich off of selling the house and continuing to restore other derelict properties in the area! Upwards mobility, my man! You don’t even need to stay in town anymore! Hell, THAT’S a better plan to win both Allie’s AND her parents’ approval! STOP SIMPIN’, AND IF YOU’RE GONNA SIMP, DO IT RIGHT!!!

He’s also sleeping with a war widow, Martha Shaw (Jamie Brown), and STILL thinks only of Allie, and her sweet, sweeeeeeet bathwater, probably. Speaking of, Allie’s trying on a wedding dress, when she sees a photo of Noah in the paper in front of the plantation, which certainly shocks her. Confused, she goes to see Lon at his job as a stockbroker, and laments to him her lost romantic whimsy, brought up by seeing Ryan Gosling (AKA a natural response). She tells him that she’s going to Seabrook to “clear her head.” Lon asks if he should be worried. She says no. SHE LIIIIIIIIIIES.

Halfway mark, and this is a good place to cut! See you in Part 2!

[bekaroth-reads]

Reqeskers i like it xD That is a thing now🤭 How about you have been dating him before Resi 1 and after his "death" he comes back to you to take you away? Or something like that😁 Maybe he shows his animalistic side?😏 Please and thank you❤

[I am so, so sorry this took so long to get here! I’ve had a heck of a time writing stuff lately! I hope this is what you were thinking of]

There was a sudden bang at the front door of your place that woke you from sleep. You were already on edge because you were alone as Albert was on a mission. Though the place you were at wasn't in too bad of a neighborhood, you did still live in Raccoon City; unless you were in one of the ritziest parts of the city where people could afford things like surveillance cameras or guards there was always the chance that someone was trying to steal something.

You went to grab the hunting knife that Albert had given you as a means to protect yourself, but before you did you actually heard Albert himself hiss out, "Shit!" The bang at the door and his reaction made you fear the worst. The mission that he was sent on was one of those ones that he couldn't even tell you about; usually, those came up in the news about a week or so after the fact and they were absolutely horrific. To say you feared the worst had happened was an understatement.

Wasting no time, you rushed to where the door was located in the kitchen and looked around. The first thing you noticed was a disheveled and bewildered-looking Albert looking at where the door was at the wall. You ran to him quickly to see if there was anything wrong. There had to be some reason that he was here, and still in his uniform no less. When you were remotely near him, he pulled you into a literally crushing hold. "Albert!" You whimpered as you felt the integrity of your ribs being threatened. He simply gave a hum to let you know he head you and loosened his grip slightly. The whole time his eyes never left their gaze at the door. "Albert, what happened? Are you alright?" You questioned franticly as you tried to maneuver out of his hold enough to properly look at his face. "I don't... I don't know. I'm having trouble remembering everything. It all happened so fast." He mumbled seemingly in a haze.

Albert seemed to be on more of an adrenaline high than actually hurt, but you couldn't be sure. He pulled you into a kiss that was almost painful with how rough it was. His hold started to tighten once again, but would ease every few moments; you supposed when he caught himself squeezing too hard. It wasn't typical for him to be this needy, but you again figured that this was another effect of his nerves. Eventually, you pulled away from the kiss to breathe, much to the chagrin of Albert, who quickly tried to pull you back. "Albert, please. Try to settle down." He relented his efforts for another kiss with and acknowledging hum. You just thought that taking things that direction while he was a bit out of it wasn't the best idea.

You turned your head to look at the still-open door to see if you could spot what he was looking at. It seemed like in his rush to open the door, he went too hard and too quickly and sent the inside doorknob straight into the wall. It seemed a bit unusual, but he was a strong guy and the drywall here was somewhat older, so it wasn't totally impossible for something like this to happen. What you saw next was what confused you; the knob on the outside of the door that he would have used to open it was completely crushed like a soda can. There was no way that should have been possible.

Right as you were about to ask him what happened something else caught your attention. Where you had your hand resting on his abdomen you felt his skin. Albert was wearing full tactical gear including a kevlar vest, so there was no way that this should be possible. You looked down at the area and gasped when you saw the giant gash that seemingly only caught his clothes thankfully. Oh, god, you almost died!" You broke down and wrapped your arms around him tightly. "No... I did die." Albert corrected, a tone of absolute clarity coated his words. Your confusion and worry weren't helped when your hands felt another large gash in the back of his outfit as well.

"Albert... are you alright?" You questioned as your panic was starting to give way to a deeper form of indescribable fear. "I'm more than alright. I'm better than I've ever been! Better than anyone ever will be!" He finally looked down at you, and you started to scream. His cool blue-grey eyes had been switched for animalistic looking, burning red ones that looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Albert was quick to cover your mouth with a bruising force. "Listen, you are one of my favorite people and I know this is all new to you, hell it's new to me, but if you don't stop screaming right now I will snap that pretty, little neck of yours!" You did your best to oblige, but little, frightened whimpers still escaped every so often.

Once you had quieted down, Albert gave you a look that would have been the familiar, teasing grin he often wore, but there was something more manically unhinged about it. "There we go. No need for all that noise. Now, we should get going before people come looking." This sent a chill down your spine. There was something wrong. Before you could even think of a way to assess the situation, there was a sudden, dull pain at your neck and everything went dark. Albert picked you up more properly and started out of the door. He had plans for the future and he wanted to be sure he and you were far away from Raccoon City long before they were set in motion.

[treacherous-dwarf-of-the-seas]

I had a lot of Thoughts about the Steven Universe Future finale

It’s exactly a month after its premiere, but I still have a lot of feelings and I wanna organize my thoughts a bit so I can have them somewhere, perhaps for any future ideas I may have. I think I’m just gonna list my thoughts on the 4 individual episodes, the finale (and season) as a whole, etc. Overall, I liked most of it, but I’m gonna get a bit su critical because although I absolutely loved many things about this finale, Oh boy. Some things I downright Did Not. Spoilers ahead I guess, this is a long one. 

This is my favorite part of the finale by far. To me, it did almost everything right.

I loved picking up right after Fractured, and Steven’s expression and body language, *chef’s kiss*

Poor Jasper gets killed *twice*

Homeworld looks so good! It’s all gardeny and disorganized in a good way.

Purple pearl?

SPINEL’S BACK!!!

Edgy theories that spinel and the diamonds were a disaster waiting to happen (I agreed with these) were wrong and this makes me happy. 

Steven’s reaction to Spinel kissing him? Was a tad strange//

SO GOOD to see Spinel being mentally healthy and happy and while still being herself.

The Diamonds! Actually working to better themselves!

I love the idea of diamond powers “working in reverse”. Like, Yellow diamond can change bodies and destabilize bodies, Blue can change emotions for better or worse, White can take over others or let others in. Honestly the idea that Pink/Rose could bring random plants to life and basically heal anything always struck me as so overpowered and random. The context that she was a goddess of destruction that changed into a goddess of creation makes the concept make a bit more sense to me, I appreciate that. 

I’m so ambivalent about Yellow’s scene. 

Like, its so satisfying to see. The thing that everybody (including me) was complaining about was that the diamonds’ redemption did not change the millennia of shattered, corrupted and amalgamated gems and suffering they had directly caused. Its very nice to see them putting their money with their mouths are. There’s acknowledgement that redemption isn’t just saying sorry and being less of a dick than you were before, it’s also correcting past wrongs and making it up to the people who were hurt.

However, I’m not totally sold on the idea of healing every shattered gem and the cluster. Like, I guess it makes sense considering a shatter is just a crack that’s been finished, and cracks in gems can be healed. But I don’t think it should be as easy as it is, and in any case, it just feels like it cheapens the impact of shattering, and even the forced fusions when they were so impactful in the original show. I wish the healing could still be done, but in a way that respects how awful and impactful the harm was.

I totally understand Steven in the Blue Diamond scene. I had had mental health problems where my mom had just offered drugs instead of talking to me or trying to help in a way that showed she cared about the issue, so this scene hit a bit hard.

Blue gets a song!

White, by far, my favorite scene in all of Future. 

Spinel White, no joke, gave me nightmares. 

The little moment of Steven yelling at himself for being a diamond is exactly what I wanted and I needed so much more of it. 

Triggered by everything White Diamond does. *chef’s kiss*. I especially love the little subtle moment of looking uncomfortable and pushing away white’s fingernails.  

Finally seeing similarities between Steven and White is canon, though I wish it was more explored. 

THE HALLUCINATION

Zach Callison is Intense(TM). This man always goes so hard and deserves mad respect.

TOO BAD.

Intrusive thoughts being represented in this way is amazing.

I still wonder if White knows what happened. Can she read thoughts in that state? 

He used White Diamond’s power to go into her body, and then while in her body, used her power of possession to take over his own body to puppet himself? I actually love the twistedness of this concept. It shows how twisted Steven himself has become. It’s so much about self-harm, while also not being self harm? vengeful thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anger, just everything. This moment could take all day to analyze, and I think it is way more thematically relevant to Steven’s internal struggle than the corruption.  

Love that the diamonds were still willing to help and only seemed concerned after how Steven was acting. They have changed!

Fairy tale imagery, noice.

This one is odd in the best way.

My favorite scenes in anything with supernatural beings is when they look at their own eyes in the mirror and realize that it’s not human or changed from what they should be. The way this scene played out was in a way I’ve only seen in fanfiction, and I am Here for it. The horror on Steven’s face when he’s looking at his own appearance is just wonderfully done. 

Very uncomfortable that there is an actual painting of Steven as an angel in his own room. I love how it ties into this episode, but I genuinely feel uncomfortable that he was thought of in that way at all. 

The flat out denial that he had just done the things he had done simply by virtue of who he is, I love the idea that “Steven Universe” has become more of a concept/symbol to him rather than being his own name. It reminds me of his concept of his mother and how her name is more of a symbol to Steven than a person. I just love the subtle parallel. 

I love the fact that “toxic positivity” is being explored in this show. I never really see it being discussed, and in a show so centered on being honest about emotions, no matter how painful they are, its so wonderful that the protagonist’s main character flaw is the exact opposite, to the point of being forcefully happy and smiling and actively ignoring things going wrong. It really strengthens the message by showing the opposite extreme.

I love the recontextualization that is present in suf. The criticisms of Steven being “too happy” during the cluster arc, being strangely positive after Lars’ death, etc. Although it was uncomfortable when those episodes came out and those events were all but ignored, I’m happy that it is being addressed as this culmination of madness in Steven, being so forcefully happy that its obvious that those episodes weren’t trying to ignore the problems, Steven was. 

I’m also happy to see a genuine “hero complex” in a protagonist. (usually the term is used incorrectly to mean “anyone who is a hero who works too hard.”

Steven talking to himself in typical protagonist fashion. 

The crystal gems staging an intervention, good shit.

“Steven’s here to help. Steven help. Help Steven.” Not subtle, but I’m always a slut for the glitchy messages. 

The confession of his crimes, love that we get to see the gems react to that. 

The whole monologue. Once again, Zach goes hard. I love the manic energy and still the ending is so raw and broken. 

“Oh, don't worry! I fixed that too! I can fix anything. I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever, and you'll never have to know or think about any of it! How messed up is that? That I've gotten away with this for so long. You have no idea how bad I am.”

 It honestly feels like some projection? (Idk something to do with that). It feels like hes a little put out by the things he learned in Homeworld Bound. Like, maybe he feels the same way I do? That the diamonds got off too easy? Maybe it’s simply that hes put out that they’re getting better and he seems to be getting worse. Maybe even, into the worst parts of his mom? I mean from his perspective, his mother had reverse character development and went, in his mind, from a goddess to a petty teenager, to an actual monster. How upsetting would it be to see the galactic dictators who got to live, do so many awful things, worse things than her, and just get to make everything better, to the point of total reversal of their crimes, while pink just ran away and left steven to deal with the mess.While he had to deal with the aftermath of EVERYTHING. Everyone seems to just be okay with the diamonds now, the monsters he feared for so long, so how come he has to be the bad one? How come he has to be like them now? Maybe it’s even coming back to his whole theory that he’s just a reincarnated version of his mom. (I know that he knows it isn’t true, but old fears and old habits can come back during a manic episode, and he spent a long time thinking that he was just there to clean up his mom’s mess and thinking that he was her in disguise.) If you look at what he’s saying, it’s a little strange that he’s talking about how bad he is and how he messes up and then fixes the stuff and no one has to know. It doesn’t even sound like he’s talking about himself, not really.

This sounds like a hysterical realization of what being a diamond means for steven. This is better explained in this post here :https://pennylogue.tumblr.com/post/613441610438590464/steven-is-a-diamond-and-thats-okay . Like, he is panicking that being a diamond means that he can just destroy everything and just fix it like the other diamonds. It’s terrifying that he can just destroy anything and hurt anybody, and people will still worship the ground he walks on just by virtue of who he is. (This isn’t true, obviously, but after what had just happened with jasper, a terrified mind would latch on to that.)  

 Dude, I could just go on all day this monologue is just fascinating. 

Love the parallel of Connie’s “backpack butterflies” and Steve’s back exploding. Its like a subtle way to show that the thoughts are “suddenly swarming.”

Oh god. I’ve gotta be honest. I hated this one. But I’ll start off with things I liked. 

The general concept is okay, but I feel like it is not thematically consistent, which I will get into later. 

The moment when the gems tell Greg to leave, and he stamps his foot down saying he needs to be with his son, I like that it is very apparent that his stomp makes almost no sound or impact, which really shows how different Steven is from him, aka, his separation from his own humanity that has been building up. 

Connie being amazing as always. 

“Yoo hoo! Steven! Is this a bad time?”

Spinel’s entire thing, from her reaction to seeing pink godzilla to her thinking that she is the main villain of steven’s story. It reminds me of Peridot’s “leader of the crystal gems, traitor to homeworld” thing and it makes me so happy. 

“WHy is something like this always happening when we show up for a visit?” 

The ending. Jesus. Zach always goes so hard I don’t doubt he was actually sobbing. I wish I could have cried during this moment. 

I respect the message, that it’s not about fixing it, it’s about being there for the person struggling, and Steven wasn’t cured, he finally hit a breaking point. I understand that the problem was not “solved with a hug” as so many say.

I love that before I saw the episode I saw pics of Garnet being as big as the kaiju and actually said to myself, “Wow the heights really ARE inconsistent.”

I don’t like that Connie included herself as one of the people that depend on Steven. They are the healthiest relationship in the entire show and Connie is always there for Steven? sometimes even more than he can be there for her? Where is this coming from? She has literally always been there. Her calling everyone out did clear my skin and water my crops though. 

Also, where is Connie’s emotional resolution? Didn’ she go through alot of the same trauma as Steven?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable that a diamond, Steven, could corrupt themselves. It’s not necessarily a bad ending to have Steven be corrupted into a giant monster. However, I don’t think it’s the ending that was really built up to. The only real build up was the presence of “Wyrm boi” in the theme song, and that’s about it. It’s not as prevalent as eye symbolism and foreshadowing of someone (Steven or Connie) losing a hand or an eye.

The episode itself was 11 minutes long, and the monster was very underwhelming and way too quick. I feel like the emotions were too rushed, and although everyone else seemed to put in their emotional 2 cents, I feel as though Steven did not get the emotional climax that he really needed. 

Also why didn’t we have a sweet little moment of connection with Nephrite Jade/Centipeetle? Wouldn’t that have been such a bittersweet parallel? The whole “being there for Steven like he was there for us?” So where is she? 

There was so much imagery and thematic elements in both Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future, that did not build up to the kaiju monster in the way that it was.

The imagery with one eye, the eye patches, cat steven, the heterochromatic eyes with Onion’s doll, Cookie cat, split Steven, etc etc, most people have many many more examples. I feel like someone could have lost an eye, or maybe Steven could have had a corruption scar that left his eyes permanently heterochromatic. It also would have been thematically relevant to have Steven come out of this with more of a balance of his gem half and human half. This never really becomes relevant in “I Am My Monster.” His gem half turns him into a monster, his gem half helps him turn back. It’s nice that his gem and human family were there as support, but there was never a sense of balancing both sides of himself in the fact that they are there, as there are only two humans and mostly gems there, and this lack of balance and security with both parts of himself was one of the major themes throughout the series and one of the sources of Steven’s identity crisis. 

Connie is always a parallel to Pearls. Our Pearl and Pink Pearl. I wish something had come of that. (There are amazing comics that show her losing an eye like Pink Pearl, as it seemed to be foreshadowed in Open Book and Sworn to the Sword.)

This idea isn’t mine, but I’ve seen it done really well and I feel like it would have been a better ending than 10 minute godzilla monster. I wish I could have seen Steven split up again. I am personally fascinated with the otherworldly enigma that are Steven’s two halves, but I feel that that would have tied into the themes better and tied up more loose ends. By the end of the series, we don’t know Steven’s opinion on his mother, and last time we heard him mention her it was in a negative light. This is connected to Steven’s conflict within himself, his desire to understand his human side better, his fear of his power as a diamond, his insecurity and loneliness as a totally unique being. Homeworld Bound was the closest we got to seeing Steven talk to himself, and confront the two sides of himself. This was also the closest we’ve seen Steven come to being honest with the diamonds about how he really sees them. However, this ended with Steven hurting himself, (wanting to hurt White was a response to trauma as well as symbolically confronting his own diamond self), and running away. We never get to see the resolution to that conversation. We never see Steven accept that he is a diamond and that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond is not resolved. The negative character development took a huge toll on her character. Not only does the audience think of her as a terrible person, but the characters also forget her positive character development after hearing about all the mistakes of the past. Rose/Pink’s redemption arc still happened. I think it would have been fitting to remind us here, like all the other diamonds get their moment in this special. I feel like having Steven split up would tie up these loose ends. It would be a dramatic ending while also being a way for Steven to confront these issues within himself in a grounded way, while also making genuine peace with Pink Diamond. We could have Steven talking to himself, maybe starting out the way he did with White in Homeworld Bound, then steadily coming to terms with the sides of himself that he is afraid of, maybe how both sides help each other, how Pink Diamond is not a symbol of all that is wrong in his life, but just a person with flaws who was able to be better, like he can be better, too. This was touched on a little in Change Your Mind, but I would love to see Steven’s thoughts on Pink after the events of Fractured and Homeworld Bound, as there has to be some difference in perspective there. I feel that if Steven split into his components, these themes and ideas could be explored more and we could have a better climatic resolution for Steven’s character arc.  Even if Steven came out with no scars, even with both his eyes, the imagery and thematic elements would still be satisfactorily resolved if we got to see the two halves of Steven actually talk to each other. This also explains it better. https://scatterpatter.tumblr.com/post/615024679798915072/hmmmm-okay-so-i-just-watched-one-of-those-rose

Btw, if anybody has fanfiction recs with this concept, please hmu. 

I think I hate the kaiju ending because it seemed like such a waste of potential and didn’t really resolve any conflict besides functioning as a sort of breakdown.

The Future. aka: Welcome to another episode of Crying Breakfast Friends!

Boogle

The cookie cat rap. Pearl obviously kills it because she’s awesome and I was dying the entire time. 

Steven/Therapy is canon!

I like that Steven puts up a poster of Kerry Moonbeam in his room that he’s giving to his dad. It’s like he’s made peace with the whole “mr. universe thing” and it makes me happy to see that he’s not holding it against his dad or even avoiding the subject. 

I appreciate alot of little moments with the family while it still lasts.

It is genuinely like watching Crying Breakfast Friends. 

Steven gets to be “petty” with his emotions! He is finally honest with his family. I do appreciate the subtle resolution to his character arc (despite my opinions of the climax).

My favorite thing about Steven and Connie is that the fact that they are “canon” has basically always been true. Like, they’ve always loved eachother as best friends and they still do, it’s just that they get to kiss now. I absolutely love that its not a huge dramatic thing, its just Steven and Connie and they are otp for life. 

The fanfic potential is strong with this one. 

I wish I could have seen a therapy session or at least meeting the therapist. Maybe Steven walking into the office with his family behind him and its a moment of doing the first steps toward getting better.

But as is, this one is fine. 

Love the idea of a road trip with our little weirdo interacting with normies. 

Time to hit up Gravity Falls, lmao. 

TLDR:, the finale was good, but I did not particularly care for the climax. I am genuinely sad to see this show go. I was not a fan until I was already 18, but even after 5 years this show has taught me so much about self love, acceptance, tolerance, emotional honesty, etc. (I’ll probably do another post about it because holy shit this is long.) But this season, or epilogue series, has gotten me through such a difficult time in my life that is still happening, and has given me the tools to get through it. I sympathize with Steven so much, and I know alot of other people did too. It was so nice to be part of a community that just adopted this feral child. Some of future was rushed and of course it wasn’t perfect, but I greatly respect what it was doing. Bringing up PTSD and mental illness in this way in something like this was not something I was prepared for, even in this show, and I certainly couldn’t have imagined it even 5 years ago. Even with its missteps, this show took so many risks and was so incredibly detailed and it was obvious that it was made with alot of love and the fans in mind. I criticize because I love this show and while I feel it is necessary to acknowledge its flaws, I have so much love for the possibilities that this little world makes me dream of. These four episodes in particular was an emotional roller coaster and I am so sad to see it go, but I enjoyed the ride. Thank you, Crewniverse!

[disgraceddogstar]

Sirius Orion Black III

birthday: november 3rd house: gryffindor blood status: pureblood loyalty: order of the phoenix clubs: astronomy, astronomy homework, dueling zodiac: scorpio mbti: enfp-t (campaigner) alignment: chaotic good

✓ Humor ——- “Did you like question ten, Moony?”

He is barking laughter and poorly timed jokes, puns upon puns - seriously. A grin as wide as the day is long, carefree and easy. Light in the black of war; white sheep in the Black family. His good humor has covered him and carried him through all that he’s seen. It’s as much a shield for himself as it is those with whom he surrounds himself.

✓ Loyal  ——- “Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!”

He is fierce, heart full for those he holds dear. Not many are kept that close, but there is no hesitation when asked to give his life. Warmth and comfort, in the crook of his smile and the corners of his eyes. Brilliance and steadfast companionship: a dog is man’s best friend.

✓/✕  Strong-Minded | Judgemental ——- “Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.”

He is a tree rooted to the earth, tall and proud. Unmoving and firm against the hailing storm. Beliefs, unwavering, unwilling to hear. Opposition is wrong, and he knows it as well as he knows the stories written in the night sky. He is strong-willed and stubborn; a brick wall would be more receptive. He thinks himself open-minded, but it is only another belief.

✕ Impulsive ——- “What is life without a little risk?”

He is snap decisions made in the heat of the moment. Turbulent and emotional, judgement shifts as easily as debris caught in the tide. Words, biting, leaving scars as easily as laughter erases them from his mind. Passing thoughts in an endless stream of chaos - why waste time paying mind to outcomes when you can just act?

✕ Rebellious ——- “There are things worth dying for!”

He is 2 am, leather, and a mess of discarded liquor bottles scattered about the floor. Blood-kissed knuckles and knuckle-kissed jaw. Smirks and sighs toppling from carved lips. Caught in a tempest, winds whipping his hair about his face, unable to see, blindly stumbling along, deafening roars threaten to consume him - one foot in front of the other. Raw magic crackling in the air, electricity against your skin; a beautiful sight when it implodes.

headcanons: (tw: mania, depression, alcohol, slurs, mentions of dysphoria, mentions of abuse)

Patronus: It’s commonplace that a Patronus will match a witch or wizard’s Animagus form, if they happen to be such, and Sirius is no exception. His Patronus takes the form of a dog, matching that of his Animagus counterpart: a bear-like German Shepherd. German Shepherds are known for being intelligent, loyal, and fiercely over-protective. Any close friend of his would attest to the fact that Sirius exemplifies those qualities. He is a bright wizard, and he would do anything for those he cares about.

Wand: As badly as Sirius sometimes wishes his wand was made from Dogwood (think of the irony! the puns! the beauty of the universe!), he was chosen by a Cypress wood wand with a Dragon Heartstring core, 15 inches, rigid.

“Cypress wands are associated with nobility. The great medieval wandmaker, Geraint Ollivander, wrote that he was always honoured to match a cypress wand, for he knew he was meeting a witch or wizard who would die a heroic death. Fortunately, in these less blood-thirsty times, the possessors of cypress wands are rarely called upon to lay down their lives, though doubtless many of them would do so if required. Wands of cypress find their soul mates among the brave, the bold and the self-sacrificing: those who are unafraid to confront the shadows in their own and others’ natures.”

Sirius won’t think about the wandlore behind cypress wands and their masters dying a heroic death until the fleeting, infinite moment in which he begins to fall in the Department of Mysteries. He will think it ironic, then, that his death is hardly heroic at all; that, naturally, James and Lily had far more heroic deaths than him. (He will also think about finally, finally reuniting with them again, and he will think of how sorry he is for leaving Remus and Harry behind, but James, here I come.)

“As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.”

It is of interest to note that dragon wands tend to be easily swayed towards the Dark Arts. Sirius thinks it should be noted, and then he will tell it to fuck right off, thank you very much. He knows that, had things gone just a little differently, he wouldn’t have had any difficulty using Dark Magic; in fact, he’d have been rather adept at it. Sirius laughs at the notion - and would like to tell the Dark Lord that he can fuck right off, too.

Sirius is a very quick learner. He is intelligent and, when he puts his mind to a task, he is able to stay determined and focused. Magic runs strong in his veins, so it’s only natural he be paired with a wand that is able to keep up with him and his raw power. That being said, however, Sirius’ magic is - too often - unpredictable. It has been since he was a child, and he still experiences outbursts of unintentional magic when his emotions get the better of him; the dragon wand nurtures his accidental magic, at times.

    &--------Little Lion Man

He is named for the Dog Star, the most brilliant star in the sky, visible from anywhere on Earth - an actuality he embraces and carries with him from the moment he is able to understand its meaning. Ancient namings signify he is scorching, sparkling, bringing destruction and rebirth. He is important, and his name informs everyone of such.

But he is the point of Canis Major, a hunting dog, ever looking towards his master, Orion. Later, he would think it ironic that he was intended to obediently follow the hunter across the sky. When he was young, though, he did follow his father, his master, with wide eyes and a thirst to learn, to emulate. He did, after all, carry his father’s name as one of his own. He thought it only right that he be his hunter. He learned quickly enough to leave Orion Black be.

His name embraces the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - a reality he despises when he is older. He is taught to believe that to be a Black, to be a Pureblood is to be royalty. He believes it.

He spends the majority of his childhood being trained to be the perfect Pureblood heir, to be the perfect Black. He attends many Pureblood-only balls and events, and is taught the proper way to mingle with other Purebloods. He learns manners and etiquette, and he is expected to be a proper child. There are never many other children at the balls, but he is reminded that it is improper to run about and make a fool of oneself like ordinary children; he is, after all, anything but ordinary.

How could he be? His name attests to his brilliance.

    &--------My Manic & I

Sirius is living with undiagnosed Bipolar 1 Disorder. It won’t ever be diagnosed or named in-game since they’re living in the 70s (it’s still fairly misunderstood now), but it definitely affects him. I feel like his upswings are pretty intense, and it usually results in him wanting to be out all the time and doing things, and he feels infallible and invincible, and he’s a lot more likely to be reckless (even more so than what is typical for him) and make snap decisions. He definitely has a tendency towards dangerous ideas that he thinks are absolutely brilliant (see: the Prank with Snape). On the other end of it, though, Sirius’ lows are very low, and he self-medicates with alcohol when he’s suffering from the worst of his depression (see: pretty much all of Order of the Phoenix). But I don’t think that Sirius recognizes the depression as such. It’s a lot easier for him to acknowledge when he’s feeling great and on top of the world as opposed to when he’s feeling like shit and struggles with getting out of bed in the morning. He’s a lot more likely to hide that side of himself, too, and play it off with a smirk and light-hearted joke at someone else’s expense. He became an expert at hiding his emotions at a young age, after all.

     &--------I Want to Break Free

If someone were to ask Sirius his gender and sexuality, he would quirk a brow and scoff and let out a bark of laughter because what sort of daft question is that? But, secretly. he enjoys the company of both men and women.

Sirius doesn’t remember the exact moment when he realized that he was attracted to men. Maybe it was sometime in his third year, when he had accompanied James to watch the Quidditch team practice. Maybe he had caught himself staring at one of the seventh years - a boy with shaggy brown hair and a strong jaw - as he flew around the Pitch. Maybe he had felt the distinct swoop in his stomach as he had watched, and maybe he had imagined what it would be like to kiss the older boy.

But Sirius only really remembers being too afraid to say anything to James, Remus, and Peter, being afraid that it would change everything and they would think him a freak that they didn’t want to be friends with, anymore. Especially after his “prank” on Snape in 5th year, Sirius doesn’t want to do anything that could again alienate him from his friends. They’re all he really has.

Something else he would never admit to is the many times he has passed frilly shop windows and imagined being able to wear whatever clothes he wants that he sees, or wished he could be as comfortable in his own skin as David Bowie, or Freddie Mercury. Sirius doesn’t always feel exactly right in the body he has, and he doesn’t understand it even a little bit. After all, it’s hard enough to deal with the war; he doesn’t want to even begin to focus on the whole gender bit.

In modern terminology, he would identify as gender-fluid demiromantic pansexual, but that’s too fancy and way ahead of his time, so all he knows is that he’s queer - just another way in which he would have disappointed his family.

     &--------The best thing that has ever happened:

“I know that you will make us proud, Sirius.”

No one ever expected Sirius to be a Gryffindor; he certainly hadn’t when he had stepped up to the stool to be sorted his first year at Hogwarts. His entire family had come from Slytherin. He even knew that, somewhere in his lineage, he was related to Salazar Slytherin himself. But as Sirius’ attention had drifted to the far table of green and silver, he had felt a tug in his stomach that he hadn’t really understood.

….“GRYFFINDOR!”

He ignored the shouts and jests coming from the Slytherin table to rightfully take his place amongst the lions of Hogwarts. He was joined, thankfully, by James and the redhead he had met with the greasy boy (he was grateful - and always would be - that the greasy one ended up in Slytherin).

It wasn’t before he was whisked away to his dorm and he got to know his fellow dormmates: one sickly-looking boy named Remus and a short, ordinary boy named Peter. Sirius thought he could do without Remus and Peter. Who needed them when he had James, his best friend? But Remus and Peter did prove themselves when they turned the greasy boy’s hair a bright shade of pink for a week. That, Sirius decided, was enough to earn his respect.

The four of them quickly became inseparable, and Sirius decided that being a Lion was worth the consequent Howlers he received, even if meant returning from the Christmas hols with bruises hidden beneath scratchy sweaters.

    &--------And the worst:  "Blood traitor! Filth! Scum!“

He tried not to cry out as his mother punished him one final time for being an insolent disgrace; he wouldn’t give her the pleasure. He was worse for the wear, however, when she finished with him and sent him off to think about his disobedience. Again. Sirius sat, on the edge of his bed, trembling; it was out of his control. He thought, but it didn’t take long for him to realize what he must do.

He needed to leave.

He hastily threw what belongings he could into his school trunk, gathering up anything he deemed important. He was able to perform a simple expansion and levitation charm - he decided he could deal with the Ministry later - and led his trunk out of his room. But he knew he needed to stop at his brother’s room before he left.

Sirius loved his brother and he has always loved his brother, but Regulus was not like him. He was weak-minded and bent to the wishes of their parents. Sirius always wanted to keep Regulus safe from them, from Mother, but he went to school and was sorted into Gryffindor and it changed. He became the disgrace, and it had been up to Regulus to be the perfect son. Sirius never wanted that for him, and he didn’t want that for him now. So he tried to bring Regulus with him. He wanted to ask, wanted him to leave and escape the hell they had grown up in.

But Regulus didn’t leave with him. He wasn’t like Sirius. He was an idiot, and he didn’t leave. So Sirius goes. But not before he watched as his mother blasted his name from the family tree.

(Sirius will always regret not making Regulus leave with him.)

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

I haven’t written to you in a long time, it’s been over a year. A lot of stuff has changed but I can’t really say for the better. I’ve written and rewritten this too many times and I don’t feel like telling you all the bad shit that’s happened because it would be too much. I don’t feel like explaining all of the things that got me to this point because nobody cares. I guess the gist of it, as it always is with me, is that I’m sad. I’m so fucking sick of having to say that but there’s nothing else. A lot of the time since I’ve first written to you, I’ve been sad. All the contents of the letters I’ve sent you have been about me being sad. I wish there was something else for me to tell you and I wish I wasn’t running out of ways to say the same thing. I guess I can give you the short version, if that’s possible, about what’s happened.

The last time I’d sent you a letter, I had stopped taking my medications. I didn’t like how I felt on them because they made me feel like a zombie, even though I’d been on them for almost four years (I’m angry it took me that long to figure it out, but that’s another story). I stopped taking them completely cold turkey — no weening or tapering — and hadn’t talked to my therapist in months because she closed her practice (another different story).

I was manic after they were out of my system, so I thought I felt better. When I went back to school in the fall, I ended up spiraling about a month into the semester and barely ended up passing my classes. I’d be too depressed to leave my dorm or really do anything that wasn’t lying on my bed and staring at nothing. It might’ve been the worst depressive episode I’ve ever had, but I can’t really say that because this time I didn’t go to the hospital for swallowing four bottles of pills (even if I’d been planning it). Either way, I dropped out of college.

At the time, I just thought I’d withdrawal for the spring semester. I told my family how shitty I was doing — well, just my brother because he was the one who talked to me most when he’d drive me back to campus after weekends home — and they said that I should do whatever I need to feel better. They didn’t say it, but I think my parents were angry.

I’ve been living at home since. I got a new therapist and I’ve been seeing her for about six months. Recently, she had me book an appointment with the psychiatrist she works with and, let me tell you, having a competent psychiatrist makes it all the more obvious of how incompetent my last one was. Seven years of therapy, medications, and hospitalizations but I could never get a solid diagnosis that felt right until now. It took him a thirty minute session and the notes my therapist gave him — he had a diagnosis by the time I finished explaining my history of mental health. He thinks I have Bipolar Type II — I didn’t even know there was different types but, after he explained, it made a lot of sense to me. I know it might take a while to find a medication or three that can even me out. We’ve already tried one prescription and that ended up making me feel worse, but at least he knows his shit.

There’s other stuff I’m leaving out, either because I forget or I don’t feel like going into it, but that’s the gist. I know the last letter I wrote talked about Jack. Rereading it now makes me feel stupid and talking about it makes me feel weird, but I don’t love him anymore. It’d be downplaying it and invalidating to myself if I said I never loved him at all, but I do feel that way. Things are good with him though, we’re still friends and nothing’s really changed. We kind of just pretend that the whole “I got high one night and confessed to being madly in love with you over text at 3 am” thing never happened and, I have to say, I’m glad.

Everything else is pretty much the same, so I guess this is gonna sound like every other letter I’ve sent. Except, this time, I don’t have the energy to make it sound beautiful. I did that a lot, I know. I would type out every ugly thought in my head and tried use words so beautiful that maybe people reading would forget how horrible what I said was (if people could even stomach to read such depressing shit). I wish I had the energy, I really do, and I’m still going to try; it might not work, but it’s entirely possible that it never did.

You ever talk to your siblings and find out they’re way less traumatized by the way your parents raised you than you are? Because I did recently. My sister and I tend not to talk about personal stuff, but the conversation sparked up anyway. It turns out that, of the three of us, I’m the only one who has a constant, underlying resentment for our parents. I already knew it was different for my brother because he only started living with us when he was sixteen, but I didn’t know that it was different for my sister.

She forgives them for way more and gives them the benefit of the doubt whenever she can. I’ve never been able to do that, at least not for about ten years. I know she has different experiences than I do too, but I thought that she was angrier than she is. That’s just me, I guess. Her relationship with them is good, if not great now; her and mom are the closest they’ve ever been and she’s in an alright place with dad since she was stuck in Virginia for a few months during quarantine. I feel like I’ve never been in such a bad place with them. Ever since I started talking to my new therapist, I’ve started realizing how fucked up the way they raised me was and that it still manifests itself in the things I do. How do I not resent them after that?

She suggested having the three of us sit down with my therapist and talk about it — and that’s just about the last thing I wanna do, but it’s gonna end up happening because I don’t want to hate them. They aren’t bad parents. It’s hard for me to say that, but they aren’t. Lately, since I’ve started thinking about all this, it’s been difficult. I have a really short temper with them now, the littlest things they do can piss me off and it’s next to impossible for me to be in a good mood around them. This didn’t used to happen. Who can say if they notice too? You’d think they would pick up on a sudden, negative change in their kid’s behavior but, then again, they were oblivious to the fact that I was depressed until I told my gym teacher I was going to kill myself.

It can go one of a few ways — either they surprise me by acknowledging what they’ve done is horrible and apologizing whether they remember doing it or not, they cry and make me feel guilty, or they defend what they’ve done and we’re left off in a worse place than before. Either way, they’ll know how I feel and I don’t care for that shit at all. She suggested I write a letter and is holding me to the fact that I wanna do this before the month ends (except I forgot that mom’s going on a week-long vacation starting Monday and then dad is going on a different vacation the same day she gets back, maybe I’ll just do it separately, it’ll probably be easier that way).

The thing is…I feel like, even if they did apologize, I wouldn’t stop being angry. They’ve traumatized me in ways I don’t know if I can heal from and I’ll never know what it’s like to not live like that. What makes it worse, at least to me, is knowing that I’m the only one. They didn’t treat either of my siblings the same way they treated me. I’m the only one they first started calling a slut at age ten. I’m the only one they accused of being pregnant each month  I’m the only one whose stuff they went through and journals they read. I’m the only one they accused of doing drugs for trivial shit like an empty ziplock bag under my bed or going to a costume party. I’m the only one whose messages they’d “sneakily” read. I’m the only one they instantly and consistently assumed was doing something wrong and then punished because of it. I’m the only one they shamed about their weight or humiliated after puberty started. I’m the only one whose interests got made fun of or invalidated when I got excited about them. I’m the only one who was (and still is) held to ridiculous standards for school, even after it was known that I was mentally ill. I’m the only one they’d complain about not having friends, but turn around and refuse to let go to a friend’s house when I’d ask. I’m the only one they’d get angry at for being depressed.

I’d still be angry if I knew they did that to my sister too, because that’s just a fucked up way to treat a child, but it makes me even more angry that it was just me. Because, what the fuck? I never gave them a reason to not trust me. Shit, the craziest thing I’d done as a kid was make a “potion” out of rainwater and berries in the backyard (and it’s not like that’s an exclusive thing, I know tons of people who did that too). The craziest thing I’d done as a teenager was want to die, but that was after all this had started — even if it wasn’t, that’s not an excuse, they shouldn’t be mad at me for having mental health issues.

But, I’m still dealing with the repercussions of all this. I can’t think about sex without feeling so guilty I want to hurt myself, I can’t see them near any my things without being paranoid they’re going to go through them, I can’t fucking do or say anything when I’m around them without being worried their reactions will be to humiliate or try to punish me. I’m twenty fucking years old and I still think like that.

So, I don’t want to talk to them. I know I’ll never stop being angry without an apology (if I can stop being angry at all), but that’s the thing about instilling communication issues in your child because they’re so afraid of how you’ll react that they decide never to share anything at all — they don’t wanna talk to you about anything! I don’t wanna talk to them but I know I have to, because my therapist said, eventually, I’ll hit a wall that will prevent me from ever moving forward with them. I already see it happening, but I’d be lying if I said that helps at all.

Love Always, The Reversed Star 07 | 24 | 20 P.S. yeah, I’m using a new pseudonym again