#i was literally just talking to a friend about how cagey i can get with my wips but i guess it depends on the wip lmao

[msmargaretmurry]

Eldest daughter Quinn Hughes :)

eldest daughter quinn hughes is my cisswap quinn/brady concept (quinn is cisswapped; brady is not, he's still his cis dude self) that i love SO much but have tragically gotten a little stuck on, writing-wise!! i talked a little about my eldest daughter quinn thoughts here; also here is a little snippet, set at the ever-convenient location for bad choices, the hughes michigan lakehouse:

Jack and the boys, traveling in a pack, make a racket that would lead Quinn’s mom to make a pointed comment about elephants. They’re laughing and chattering, and Quinn, lying there under Brady, has a brief moment of panic that maybe the door to her room is open, showing off her very empty bed. But no, she closed it. She knows she did. Still, she sighs in relief when Jack loudly shushes everyone.

“Quinn’s sleeping,” he admonishes.

“Old people go to bed so early,” Cole says, loud enough that he’s clearly trying to be overheard.

Right in Quinn’s ear, Brady whispers, “At least one time while I’m here we have to drink them all under the table. We have to.”

Now that feels normal. Except for the way his erection is pressed against her. And the way he has one hand halfway up her t-shirt. And the way his mouth is red from kissing, his eyes somehow bright and dark at the same time. The closest to this she’s ever seen him before is stumbling back to her at a party after drunkenly making out with someone else in a corner, but that’s not the same at all. Quinn’s stomach turns when their eyes meet, but Brady just smiles and leans in to bump their noses together again.

He’s so damn soft. In any other situation, Quinn would chirp him about it.

“We can do that,” she says belatedly.

“Oh, good,” Brady says. “Would hate to get sloppy alone.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Quinn scoffs. Brady mimes an exaggerated shushing, holding one finger to his lips. Quinn rolls her eyes but lowers her voice back to a whisper. “I’m just saying.”

“And here I thought you thought so highly of me,” Brady whispers back. Quinn could retort, but she wants to get on with it before she gets in her head again. 

“Do you want a blowjob?” she asks.

“Jesus, Quinn,” Brady says. “Yeah, if you want.”

“Wouldn’t offer if I didn’t,” she says, shoving him in the chest until he rolls off her. She can feel his eyes tracking her as she sits up and fixes her ponytail. Not because she’s nervous. Because she doesn’t want to get hair in her mouth. 

“Show some effort,” she says. “I’m not taking your pants off for you.”

[mediumgayitalian]

previous chapter

———

“Take the exit here.”

“How come?” Nico asks, dutifully putting on his blinker and merging into the right lane. “We’re not even at half tank.”

Will clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s, uh, not for gas.”

A pause.

“Oh, Solace, you’re fucking kidding me.”

“I’m sorry!”

Nico throws his hands up, ignoring Will’s screech of both hands on the wheel, I value my life! “There is no possible way you have to piss already. You had half a slushie!”

“...Well.”

“William Andrew Solace, I swear to God.”

“I got distracted!” Will cries, eyes big and round as he pouts. “The Abstract Iron Centaur is a monument, okay, I forgot what the point of the rest stop was for.”

Nico groans. “I’m not sure you should be allowed to go to medical school. You’re going to forget a scalpel in someone’s lungs, or something.”

Immediately, he knows this is the wrong thing to say. The sheepish grin vanishes off Will’s face, replaced with something despairing, before it’s hastily shoved back on.

The winding road finally gives way to the advertised rest stop, partially obscured by a Welcome to Georgia sign with a modernist-style image of a peach that annoys him for no reason. We’re glad Georgia’s on your mind. (False. Georgia is never on his mind, except for how Will can’t say Georgia without slipping into his accent and Nico has to take that golden opportunity to mock him. And then die.)

“Right,” Will says finally. He forces a laugh. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, then gets out of the car without so much as a word.

Nico watches him go. 

“Well,” he mutters to himself. “Shit.”

He waits in the car as long as he physically can, which is anything between thirty seconds and four business days. A glance at his watch informs him it’s closer to two minutes. 

He kicks a stone across the parking lot, debating the implications of searching for his friend. It hasn’t really been that long, so he’s not sure it’s socially appropriate, and then he wonders when the hell he started caring about being socially appropriate. They are friends, after all, because in a group icebreaker question about siblings in seventh grade, Nico had growled none, on the account that she was killed by a drunk driver when I was ten and Will had laughed, brightly and morbidly, and said hey, my brothers were murdered, too! Twinsies! and killed the vibe rather brilliantly for literally everybody else in the room. 

He gives into his impulse eventually, striding onto the surprisingly soft grass and looking, halfheartedly, around the spacious grounds (he’d decided searching the bathroom would be a touch too far). His mission gets sidetracked, however, because the heat is less oppressive under the shade of tall, weeping willows, and there’s a small breeze, and he is struggling to shove his various musings into the Repression Box where they belong. 

Will, starts one of said musings, has been acting weird as shit long before he showed up at his house in the middle of the night.

It had started around January? If he had to guess. But Will is always kind of weird in the winter, so he hadn’t thought much of it, just offered to break into his house more often so he didn’t feel too suffocated. The usual. But the strangeness had persisted through the spring – the sudden drops in mood, the hair-triggers to clam him up. Both of which are usually a Nico thing. Will, more often, just shoves all his negative emotions down to the bottom of his soul until he gets one half-mark wrong on a test and sobs himself sick about being useless while Nico stands guard outside the bathroom door, agonised, unsure how to help. And then the two of them never talk about it again. 

Over the last few months, things have been a little less balanced. 

“Hey.”

Nico jumps. Will stands slightly, shoulders still hunched slightly, but definitely less cagey than earlier. He holds out a cup of coffee Nico recognises as from a vending machine.

“Hi,” Nico says softly, smiling tentatively. He takes the coffee. It’s black, and too hot, just how he likes it.

“You are going to stain your teeth,” Will observes, as he always does.

“Bite me,” Nico responds, following the script.

A genuine smile pulls at his face.

“You ready to get back on the road?”

“Yep.”

They fall into step in their hike back to the Jeep – Nico hiked farther than he meant to. Will’s flip-flops slapping rhythmically against the packed dirt of the trail is a familiar sound, and it eases some of his own tension, putting a bit more prep in his step. When he glances quickly over, Will is breathing normally, shoulders slack, much calmer expression on his face.

“You should let me drive,” he says as they approach. “You’ve been behind the wheel since practically dawn; maybe you should take a nap or something.”

Nico shakes his head, waving a dismissive arm. Frowning slightly, Will acquiesces, climbing back into the passenger side.

“I’ve had two coffees and half a slushie,” he explains, resting his hand on the back of Will’s seat. He cranes his neck behind him, careful of the family walking an unleashed dog as he pulls out. “I’m good forever.”

“Caffeine doesn’t work on you,” Will points out.

Nico pauses. 

“...True.”

He hadn’t realise Will had noticed, actually. Although he supposes it’s not too surprising – Will has known him a long time, Will is observant, and Will generally enjoys lecturing people about anything he can get away with, up to and including their general health and safety. Nico, in all his bad choices, is a favourite target of his. He can probably recite his solo midnight speed driving from memory.

“It’s just –” Will stops, waiting until Nico’s safely merged back on the highway before continuing. “It’s three and a half hours ‘till we get to Atlanta, Neeks, and it’s already three-thirty. We’ll have to stop again for food, probably, at one point, and we’ll have to stop for food, soon, and who knows what the traffic will be like –”

Carefully passing the person going sixty in front of him, finally breaking into open road, Nico takes half an eye off the road and digs through the centre console.

“– I mean, if it’s bumper to bumper, then what? It’ll be rush hour soon, shit, I shoulda planned for that, shit, do we have a jerrycan? We should have a jerrycan, remind me to get a jerrycan for the trunk –”

Finally catching sight of the CD he’s looking for (and barely managing to swerve and avoid a massive pothole that would have for sure cut their trip short, but he managed, so take that, Reckless Driving Lecture Will that lives in his brain, who’s God now), he hands it to Will. Still actively stressing about literally nothing, he opens it, polishing the disc on habit and sliding it into the slot without so much as pausing. 

Nico smirks. 

Yeah, maybe he knows his friend, too.

“– I mean, just blankets and a first aid kit is not enough. Really, we should have some provisions in there. Oh, and rope, ‘cause what if we get stranded in the mountains –”

The radio clicks as it reads the disc, then, suddenly and without warning, the stereo rumbles with heavy bass and pounding beat.

Will cuts himself off. “Hey, is this –”

Nico smirks wider. He chances another look away from the road, just in time to watch a magnificent smile break across Will’s face, wide and a little crooked, showing all his molars – a real one, the one he gets when he’s caught off-guard, the one that makes his hands fluttery.

“You’re playing In The Zone!” he exclaims, laughing delightedly. “Without complaining!”

Bingo, Nico thinks. 

“Technically, I didn’t play shit.” He gestures at the empty CD case in Will’s hand. “You’re just like a hermit crab. I hand you things, you hold them.”

“Shut up.” But there’s no bite to the command, smile still stretching wide. If Nico looks, he can see the tiny snag of his barely crooked front tooth, but he doesn’t look, because he doesn’t care about that, obviously. He has his eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, fully focused.

Obviously. 

They do get into disgusting traffic. Will is distressed about it, up until someone cuts them off so closely they both nearly actually and genuinely die, and he is immediately lit up in a rage so incandescent Nico wonders if he will ever be able to look away from straining biceps and a clenched jaw ever again. More distantly, he wonders if and I hope you get three consecutive aneurysms and your family leaves you to fucking rot in a hospital bed, you leprous shitdick will be on loop in his head for the rest of time. He kind of wants to put it on a shirt. Will’s linguistic talents should be studied. 

“Stop thinking about it,” Will demands, socking him (hard! What the shit!) in the shoulder. His face resembles, quite exactly, the shade of the setting sun. “Purge it from your memory.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Nico responds, smirking.

“I wasn’t –” A pause. Nico bites back a snort. “Cutting people off is just so rude.”

“Oh, of course.”

“I mean! I mean.”

“Indeed.”

“If it was – an ambulance, or something, I would understand, but he cut us off just to get immediately stuck in the same traffic! I don’t understand the point!”

“Truly the behaviour of a leprous shitdick,” Nico agrees. His grin starts to genuinely hurt his face, but he ignores it in favour of snickering.

Will sinks into his seat, pulling his hoodie over his eyes. His ears, as usual, stick out a little, and they’re red, too. Nico nobly resists the urge to flick them. 

“I hate you.”

“I think you’re quite attached to me, actually. After all, I’m not a –”

“If I hear the word leprous come from your mouth one more fucking time, di Angelo, I’ll give you leprosy. For real. I’ll find it.”

Will probably could find a vial of pure leprosy somewhere, actually, so Nico shuts up. (He’s seen Will’s weird vial collection. Most of it is just, like, various bacteria, he’s pretty sure, but Will is kind of morbid and Nico knows his sense of humour is garbage because Nico’s sense of humour is garbage, and there is a reason they’re friends, and if Nico found a vial of leprosy somewhere he would keep it, too. Can leprosy be vialed? Who knows. Will, probably.)

Once he’s sure Nico is not going to tease him anymore about his temper tantrum, or at least for the moment, he turns back to his book. Every so often, he looks up, observes the three miles per hour they’re crawling, and sighs, loudly and lengthy to himself, muttering something about railway systems and zoning laws and government incompetence. Nico doesn’t ask. He was free from the jail that was history and geography lessons last month. He is determined to learn absolutely nothing for the next six months, at least. 

“I’m paying for the motel or hotel or inn et cetera,” Will says, randomly. 

“No,” Nico replies, easily. 

Will reaches out, calmly, and pinches him on the thigh. Nico does not yelp indignantly because he is a Man, and can handle Will’s weirdly pointy fingers.

“You paid for gas.”

“Yep.”

“And you have car payments.”

“Mhm.”

“And you bought Dunkin’s.”

“True.”

“Nico,” Will says exasperatedly, “this whole damn trip was my idea. Let me pay for shit.”

“I enjoy wasting my father’s money,” Nico counters, and Will pauses, considering. “Come on, commie. I know the idea of spending a banker’s money on stupid shit pleases you.”

He knows he’s starting to win, because Will sighs in a very particular way that Nico has identified as why am I letting this dumbass get away with this again, says, “Spending money is capitalist, Nico,” and turns, begrudgingly, back to his book.

Poorly hidden behind the pages, he’s smiling.

Nico tallies his victory.

The traffic finally eases by around eight o’clock. Victorious, surely, except that they’re still quite a ways from Atlanta. He considers getting off at one of the various exits promising shelter, and in fact decides he is going to, but for some reason, his hand never drifts to his blinker. Never turns the wheel slightly to merge, never eases off the gas. He keeps going, an going, and going, music playing softly, stars beginning to shine through the darkening sky.

Beside him, Will lets out tiny puffs as he exhales, even and sluggish.

“You are a grandmother,” he whispers fondly, shaking his head. In the quiet of the road, interrupted only by the whipping whipping winds – he should have pulled the roof back up when they were stuck, shit – and odd flash of headlights of a passing car, he lets himself soften, sighing back against his seat and easing up slightly on the gas.

Will glows, faintly, in the moonlight.

It’s funny, ‘cause he’s a sun child. Nico has teased him about it for years, in fact; his hair, his bright blue eyes, his stubborn clinging to his aesthetic of wannabe surfer boy. The gold ring he wears on his thumb, the sun pendant that rests on his heart. Swathed in yellows and blues and golds, all the time, with a sprinkling of bright green and neon orange just to remind everyone that yes, he is red green colourblind, and no, that will not stop him from making fashion choices. 

But the silver suits him. It softens him, instead of washing him out, reminding Nico that the sun shines white. The low light casts gentle shadows on his face, too, drawing attention to his strong brow and straight nose. 

Forcing his eyes back on the road, where they should have been the whole time, Jesus, he notices the giant green Downtown Atlanta sign, and follows its arrows. The first exit he sees, he turns, getting lost three times before he finds the hotel that was advertised.

Pulling into the largely empty parking lot, he shuts off the car, then turns to Will, screwing up his face. He has to wake him up, at some point. Obviously. Unfortunately he cannot simply melt into the shadows and reappear in a hotel room. As awesome as that would be, with his luck, he’d pop into an occupied one, and that’d be a whole host of problems. 

Deciding he’ll actually get them a room first, he heads inside, speaking quietly with the desk host.

“Single or double?” they ask pleasantly, voice similarly lowered for the hour.

“Uh,” Nico says, “double?”

The host pauses, eyebrows flicking up at his hesitation. “...Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Nico flushes. He adds, belatedly, “Please.”

Eyebrow raised in amusement, the host reaches into a drawer and pulls out two sleek key cards, tucking them into a little envelope thing and handing them over. “Room 409,” they say, nodding towards the elevator. 

“Thanks,” Nico responds, and walks out the door. He realises, as he exits, how much of a general failure he is at communicating with people who are not Will, and considers climbing through the window of his sixth floor room out of sheer embarrassment. The realization that he does not have the skill to drag Will up there with him is the only thing that stops him.

“Sunshine,” he murmurs, once he’s gathered their bags and some of the red has faded from his face, “we’re here.”

Will hums a little, voice gravelly. Nico’s lip quirk up.

“Where?”

“Somewhere to sleep.”

“‘M sleepin’ jus’ fine.”

His accent is so, so heavy with sleep, and it’s just – God, he wishes Wil hadn’t trained himself out of it. In Nico’s professional opinion, Will should talk like that all the time.

Authenticity, and all that.

“C’mon, Will.”

After another minute of coaxing – which Nico indulges purely because he knows for a fact Solace will have no memory of it in the morning, in any other circumstance he’d poke him awake – Will uncurls enough to stagger to his feet, stumbling as he gets out of the vehicle. For his own safety, Nico wraps an arm around his narrow hips, guiding him up to the room. 

“Mnhgh,” he mumbles, the second the heavy door closes behind them. He walks two steps to the nearest bed, face plants in the middle of it, and starts snoring, feet hanging off the end, one flip-flip still stubbornly clinging to his foot.

“Dork,” Nico murmurs. He gets ready like a normal person, tugging on a sleep shirt – might be an old one of Will’s, actually, because Nico certainly never bought a Shania Twain concert t-shirt – and wrapping up in the wonderfully plush blankets. “Goodnight, Will.”

He gets a snore in response. He burrows deeper into the covers, smiling, drifting off to the sound of his best friend’s rhythmic breathing.

———

next chapter

[tacky-optic]

SINNERS, ALL OF 'EM

the seven deadly sins + the gang = way too much overthinking

Lupin's Gluttony The world's his for the talking, yet he can never be satisfied. That'd be a real bummer if he were anyone else, but that hunger for more challenges, more adventures, seems to only add more fuel to an already roaring fire. He's a Glutton for a lot of things: Punishment, mainly. But also attention and experiences. His curiosity is insatiable. The only issue with Lupin's Gluttony is that he isn't inherently wasteful, which is a pretty glaring caveat. In that case, the big question would be "does the damage he leave in his wake outweigh that which was stolen in the first place?"

Jigen's Sloth/Envy "Man, I'm too old for this shit" incarnate, with a little dash of "I'm still going to silently judge you from my dark little corner, though" on top. It isn't Sloth "I'm gonna take a decade to get to this" so much as it is "I'm gonna do what you want me to do so rapidly and effectively that you're gonna think twice about waking me up again after I get back to my nap." But he really doesn't do jack-all if it isn't Lupin-related. If it were just him all on his lonesome, he'd kind of just rot. He is indifferent to his effectiveness. Bored, even. His loyalty to Lupin is an inherent aversion of his responsibilities as an individual.

His Envy brings him to action. He's a man of a lot of subtle wants and no willpower to take them, but with the right motivator, he'll bring down armies. Fujiko is a pretty good spur-on, as well as anything that remotely puts Lupin in the line of inconvenience or danger. If it's for one of his very, very few friends, he'd go through hell and high water just to get them a decent sandwich or something. Just be thankful his Envy's benign instead of malicious...

Goemon's Pride Mr. "Once again, I have cut a worthless object". There's literally an entire movie about his ego getting so utterly shattered that he gets all cagey/stabby mode about it for the rest of the movie, on top of training so hard he rewrites his entire goddamn nervous system just so he can do said stabby better. It's fantastic. To dedicate oneself so fully to one skill, then to restrict it to your own judgement as to not tarnish it, feels like the antithesis of humility. Pride, in a biblical sense, is to sever oneself from God; to become so wholly individual and confident in said fact that you forsake conventional belief in favor of your own. So congrats on netting the literal Worst sin, Goemon, you've earned it. God ain't shit when you can cut through anything.

Fujiko's Greed Does... does this even need elaborating. She's a woman that knows exactly what she wants and exactly how to get it, plain and simple. Why settle for anything less than the best?

Zenigata's Wrath/Lust What a wombo-combo, damn. This guy's the definition of love/hate. He's a man simultaneously impassioned and overwhelmed by his emotions, yet they lend so heavily to his professional and personal effectiveness that without them, he wouldn't be him anymore. Wrath and Lust go hand in hand, in a roundabout sort of way. It's about loving something so much that you want to crush it. A brutal dimorphous expression of emotion. To long for something to intensely, so vehemently, that it guides every action, fuels every decision... Underneath it all, would it even be possible to know what you are if that drive is all that defines you? Could you even call that living? We're talking about a guy who unironically wears heart boxers and almost exclusively eats cup noodle, people. This symbolism's very disturbing...

That's A Wrap You can always argue other sins for each of the cast members, of course. Lust for Lupin, Wrath for Jigen, Envy for Zenigata-- whatever. At the end of the day, they're all objectively terrible people. It's semi-safe to say that outside of religious contexts, the seven deadly sins have grown subjective in common culture/media. So why not take liberties? I sure as hell did. It's a goddamn miracle these managed to turn out so succinct.

[missdirectiontv]

tips for finding abandoned places.

- google maps is your best friend for this.

- look for railroad tracks, and look along them for any splits that end suddenly.

- on google maps, change to satellite view and zoom in alongside country roads until you find something that looks like it has holes in the roof. you’ll know it when you see it

- zoom in on a small town and then check the outskirts. no matter how old it is there will always be some evidence of a road or trail to it.

- when on google maps looking for homesteads go for discolored spots, faint driveways, and gardens full of weeds. BE SURE that there are no active farms nearby that could own the property. a lot of these homesteads will be closer to the center of a field instead of the road.

- mines are almost always in mountains. follow the main mountain road and find weathered roads or trails that branch off from it. follow that and you’ll probably find a mine eventually. they’re easy to spot due to the clearings that surround them. most of these can be applied in person as well

- relating to mines, if you see a bunch of trails intersecting that’s often a mining camp. there will always be something there, from my experiences.

- if looking for homesteads, look for a rural area that still has evidence of people around. the more remote the area is, the less likely it’s private property

- farming areas are nice for searching, so look for places near them that are overgrown or areas with trees placed to block off sight from the road (you know, like sometimes you see trees just around this one big house).

that’s the google maps stuff done

- talking with other explorers is nice, though people tend to be a bit cagey with their locations and for good reason, as people tend to graffiti in abandoned places. DO NOT do so, and if someone seems like they might, don’t tell them about the place. be careful. additionally, don’t break anything and practice leaving no trace, and you can build up a bit of a rep for being at least respectful.

- if you get permission, then it’s legal and not trespassing

- quite literally just driving around rural areas is an excellent way to find them

- if you don’t want to get arrested, go remote. the more so the better.

one final bit of advice when looking for ghost towns. when looking for ghost towns, again search on google maps for small towns in the middle of nowhere. towns like these are often the reason why ghost towns exist. sometimes a marker will come up on maps. at least check these out as you know there’s something there

thanks for reading! i wrote all this out for my friend @thatpocketninja and thought i’d share it to the world. feel free to add on with your advice, and PLEASE remember to practice leave no trace. see ya!

[m1lkt00th]

Im asking you to go feral and explain swap x outer [3

Do what you must ,,úчù,,

going to self indulgent here and explain why i think a specific song i placed into their playlist makes me think of them. it’s pretty long (like ten minutes) but the mental imagery always captivates me

it’s the thought of swap being alone. someone different in the face of the multiverse. bc he’s the ‘old one out’ in a (very literal) sense. there are so many variations of ‘swap’ out there. even a bastardized version that was caused by a popular series of misconceptions.

the repetition of “hey space cadet” followed by some form of declaration of loneliness. im going to be breaking down the entire song here! or at least the lyrics that are significant to me lol

It is 2014 and I have no idea what is going on in my life

Heavily vibes based. leaning into swap’s (or outer’s) confusion regarding the multiverse. kind of plays into how old their aus are respectively

Hello hello hello hello -> I got a little drunk before I came here

outer or swap being introduced to the multiverse in some way. being hopeful or wary. their perception of the multiverse being VERY narrow. the echoing "hello"s could signify the other outcodes greeting them or other past residents of aus. also plays into sans' "knowing more than he lets on" trait where they probably had some idea of alternate universes existing before being directly introduced to them

frozen margaritas in Austin -> the birthplace and deathplace of Elvis

really just vibes. imagining them talking to out-codes (namely dream or error) and becoming more warmed up to the multiverse. visiting the omega timeline too

(and I’m so far away from home) -> (route seven)

the slow pace of it up to here makes me think of swap or outer or both missing their homes. possibly missing their narrow view of the universe. missing when the world (still endlessly big) was a little smaller

Hey, space cadet. you can’t hang out with your friends, even when you are with them

to me is about swap joining/formulating the star sanses with their first multiverse friends. but the connection they NEED isn’t there. the connections theyre craving arent there. dream themself is still getting used to forming those deep connections or refuses to due to the influence of their aura and the potential codependency that may develop due to it. and ink is not looking to view these guys as more than "characters" (for his mental safety tbh)

Hey, space cadet. you’re gonna need a lot of love but not the kind you’re thinking of

swap wants that connection though, he wants friends that he can go to and hang out with. he's desperate for that validation and acceptance, as someone that's so different. he wasn't taken seriously (enough to become part of the guard) in his universe so why did he expect differently here

and the times when i feel fine -> had to come and write this song

swap possibly sorting through their feelings. he begins seeking out other friends, or places he can relax outside of his home universe. at this point he knows of error and their interests. or outertale was mentioned at some point. either way, he seeks comfort in that universe

hey, space cadet. didn’t think it’d be this far but that’s the price for being a star

this is swap directly communicating his feelings to outer after forming that bond. outer themself rarely left their home universe, opting to welcome monsters that visit the place. outertale is like a tourist stop in that way or at least a place frequently visited by others. it took some time for outer to move past cagey and distrustful to being more open (which isnt by much)

i met you through the television screen. i fell in love with the guy smiling at the audience. and now this love is praecox feeling. and now this love is aspect dawning

swap thinking about ink. possibly learning about ink’s ‘mentality’ and how he only sees them all as ‘characters’. swap’s idolization of dream too! believing that they had the full picture for everything.

swap saw these two as gods almost. beings higher than him. their treatment of their relationship (not deepening their bond past 'coworkers') didnt help to dissuade swap's initial idolization, causing it to snowball into something more severe and possibly toxic.

i can also see this as swap developing a crush on dream but thats pretty 'straight-from-the-lyrics' to me. and i personally view them as best friends

hello hello hello hello -> we should fit like a glove and a hand

swap witnessing the star sanses fall apart possibly! being so upset bc their best friends’ conflicting moralities drove them apart thus, dissolving the group

after this, swap has nowhere to go. he doesnt have a 'job' anymore and his interest in becoming part of the guard in his home universe is so small in comparison to what he was before. he retreats to outertale or the omega timeline to think

Hey, space cadet. The things you see inside your head. You'd better make other plans instead

It's alright to want to dream. It doesn't mean reality is mean, oh

outer or papyrus or dream or swap himself telling swap to let go of his past expectations but to experience the multiverse for what it is

Hey, space cadet. it’s time to show them what you can. what can you do, man, what can you do?

they could be talking to either. outer’s space based powers and magic. swap’s general potential and how theyre underestimated GREATLY

Love isn't love enough -> Love isn't love even at all -> At all, at all, at all

No real explanation abt why this fits besides vibes again. swap struggling with abandoning this mentality and outer bearing witness to it (also dropping my headcanons: swap is ace and outer is aro)

(Space cadet, you are now crashing in space. You've waited for this, now, you're off)

(Kind of a side tangent) But blueberror to me. Swap being Error-d leads to swap letting go of his expectations and past attachments. either protecting aus or destroying them with this new turning point

Hey, space cadet…

this final ‘echo’ at the end just SINGS starryknights to me. the longing, the grief, the agony and the comfort they can seek in each other. the audio for it says so much more

this felt like a mostly swap to outer dump though. outer mostly stayed within their universe and didnt develop that many multiverse affecting friends (like dream or ink or error) outer mainly hangs out with sans, fell, swap, horror, dance and epic at the very least.

error is around too but they dont exactly talk too much. silent acknowledgment and mutual "youre alright" relationship. i can definitely see outer drawing someone like nightmare to them bc of the quiet atmosphere and lack of an ulterior motive

also outer being friends with another character that mostly sticks to their home universe: ccino :3

[digisurvive]

Refreshing honesty

In which I contrast Saki and Mimi for fun lol

[Image id: Screenshot of Saki looking upset and leaning forward]

Saki getting compared to Mimi is inevitable given her character was crafted to be outwardly similar: they’re both in the lower age bracket without being the youngest, they have a cheerful, sensitive disposition, distaste for violence and a tendency to bluntness in a way that’s refreshing~. Therefore, certain expectations on Saki are placed: that she would be self-centered and learn how to get along with others and consider their needs, that she’d be outspoken and open and that she’d have to learn how to endure hard tasks and stand firm before adversity.

However, Saki’s very introduction scene subverts these expectations— after all, we first see her tagging along with Ryo, who has a combative and nasty disposition. Her patience in dealing with him makes Aoi and Minoru remark that Saki could get along with just about anyone, which already sets the first point of contrast with Mimi.

As we learn further down the line, Saki has a very keen eye for people: upon Ryo’s death, she reflects that he was lonely and had trouble expressing himself, which showcases she’s able to look past his unpleasant and selfish behavior and understand him to an extent. The degree to which she related to those traits, albeit in a different manner, is shown in her Wrathful flashback, where she talks about how lonely she is (If someone like me disappeared, I doubt anyone would miss me...!) and how she lost her friends to a fight, which seems like a recurrent event in her life given her strong fears of rejection underlined in her moral shadow event. This information recontextualizes some of her dialogue during Vegiemon’s evolution scene: “I did it because it was the ‘good’ thing to do, I didn’t want others to hate me…”. This shows that she chooses her words carefully using her keenness to navigate the world and fit in, even though she still gets it wrong at times.

This continues to hugely set her apart from Mimi, who could be a bit thoughtless in her honesty, either hurting Palmon’s feelings for not being ‘cute enough’ or making it hard for her to get along with people she deemed difficult (Koushiro). Mimi is naturally charismatic and doesn’t have trouble socializing and being accepted by others. Unlike some of the other adventure kids, she has her own friend circle before the summer camp started and her home life is very stable, so her outspokenness comes from a place of being a well-adjusted kid who isn’t afraid of expressing her needs and opinions, which is another point of contrast to Saki. As we learn over the course of the game, Saki is very ill and tires easily. However, she’s very discreet about her needs, only voicing them until she has no other recourse (until she literally couldn’t keep going during the trek to the amusement park in part 4). Saki is generally cagey and avoidant to talk about it at all, even as it permeates every aspect of her life (her wistfulness over her missed experiences when wandering around the amusement park, her comical vague excuses when explaining Takuma she won’t be able to meet with them after camp due reasons~ in part 7).

Despite her bluntness, Saki has trouble talking without reservations about her worries and problems, and it takes a lot of work showing her she’s accepted for her to open up— first to Aoi and then to Takuma, who are both people who are very attuned to others’ emotions and taking care of them. Thus, Saki’s own bluntness isn’t necessarily straightforward honesty, and it’s something that can either be born out of her social inexperience (her passive-aggressive remarks to Shuuji in part five only antagonize him further and form part of what makes him dig his heels, instead of helping her stand up for herself and the group) and her strong sense of justice: that she will speak up when things are unfair (she shows strong ethics when rejecting Minoru’s idea to make a tally about whether to look for Miu or not, arguing it’s immoral to take a vote on a human life). Where Mimi is accepted and has to grow to be committed to her community in order to stand for it (her crest activation literally hinges on this), Saki already has strong values and needs a supporting community to be able to act on them.

[souridealist]

okay so apparently this is the year I get fully and properly into Final Fantasy VII, a phrase which currently means the original + the remake (so those are the only things i’m really analyzing in this post, ftr), and oh boy this is a wild ride huh and I have a LOT OF THOUGHTS on a LOT OF THINGS, including the little glimpse of Sephiroth we get before he snapped (raise your hands if you’re suprised... anyone? yeah that’s what I thought) and on how thoroughly I love Aerith and how much I would like to join the long line of Aerith fans who have Some Notes for her portrayal in certain spinoffs, but

instead I am making a post about a very specific thing that I am INSANE ABOUT

which is that throughout the backstory of the game, Sephiroth and Aerith were one degree of separation from each other four separate times over, and not in minor ‘passed each other in the grocery store’ ways either.

First: Zack! Aerith was dating Sephiroth’s friend; Sephiroth was friends with her first real love. (And Sephiroth does not exactly scream ‘had a lot of friends’ either.) Given that the single most clearly established facet of Zack’s personality is that he could talk the ears off a stone statue, he probably talked about them to each other, or at least, chatted to Aerith about Sephiroth -- the flashback implies that Zack was pretty cagey about Aerith, given the whole fugitive thing. But he might have mentioned her, if not by name. And it seems really likely that Aerith would’ve heard Sephiroth stories once in a while.

Second: as best as I can tell, the time that they were under Hojo’s extremely dubious overlapped for several years. Given that they were both tied to Shinra’s studies of the Cetra, I almost wonder more why they weren’t raised near each other. Maybe Hojo didn’t want them influencing each other, especially given he’d learned that Jenova wasn’t really a Cetra? Maybe he was just being a controlling bastard? Or, you know, maybe he didn’t keep them entirely separate after all. I spent a while turning this one over but ultimately I do think Aerith would have said something if she’d known Sephiroth, in Kalm if at no other time, but she was pretty young when she escaped. She just might just, in very ordinary ways, not really remember. I wonder what it would have been like for her to have someone to talk to who already knew what her childhood was like; to share that with someone. Even Nanaki/Red didn’t grow up under Hojo.

Third: Professor Gast. Aerith never got to know her father, but Sephiroth did and remembers him fondly enough to bring him up multiple times over the course of the Nibelheim flashback! Which: going by Aerith’s age on the wiki, Professor Gast had been dead for seventeen years at that point; the last time Sephiroth saw him would have been when Sephiroth was a little kid. And yet he’s clearly someone Sephiroth thinks about often; this is someone who was important to him. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to say that if some circumstance had led to him meeting Aerith as Professor Gast’s daughter, that would have mattered a lot to him; he might very well have been honored to be able to tell her about her father. And it makes a lot of sense that that would have meant a lot to Aerith too, but that’s only a guess, because instead Sephiroth - or what’s left of him, but that’s another post - kills her before we make it to Icicle Inn, and we never get a chance to talk to her about her father.

And last - and, okay, maybe this one is a little tenous, but it fucks me up regardless: Sephiroth isn’t part Cetra, but at Nibelheim he believed he was, and at that point he’s identifying with them pretty intensely. He’s angry on their behalf; he frames himself as their agent; he even makes a point of using their own term rather than Shinra’s. Considering that the last time we saw him he was pretty violently afraid of being a monster in a very literal biological sense, and he was pretty implicitly afraid that was why he felt separated from other people (“Am I the same as all these monsters? [...] I’ve always felt like I was different from the others. Special, in some way. But... not like this...”) well, to me it looks a lot like he’s grasping for an alternate explanation, and for a connection to something. See also the, you know, Mother thing. If somehow, somewhere in there, someone had said “oh, there’s another Cetra you can talk to” - what might that have derailed?

Just - I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But for me, at least, it’s... really, really easy to imagine a world where Sephiroth would have jumped in front of a sword for Aerith instead of killing her. And that’s haunting.

[paluimbel]

So some things have come up recently with my kind-of source(?) that have led us to do some thinking about how the fictives in our system experience exomemories, and I thought I'd post it here because we haven't seen anyone else talk about similar experiences. Disclaimer, I have a bit of a tendency to ramble, so this could get a bit long.

First of all, I'm from an AU in which my home got invaded by, like, basically the Borg, from Star Trek, but not quite. It's a bit complicated. Anyway, nearly all my friends died, and then I thought my closest friend died, and then I ended up in a parallel dimension full of vampires and werewolves.

Now, the main reason I know any of this is because the knowledge carries over from other system members reading about my source au. I don't remember basically any of this from my POV. But at the same time, I still kinda do? And out of all the fictives in my system, as of right now, I have the strongest connection to my source.

The main reason this came up was because a recent crossover event in the non-au version of my source meant that that verson of them got trapped in another dimension, seperated from her best friend, just not having a good time. All of which was... concerningly reminiscent of my source, at least emotionally.

As a result, I've been having these not-quite-flashbacks (similar to emotional flashbacks to stuff that happened to the body, just a lot less intense), this got us talking about how different fictives in our system experience exomemories.

I primarily experience things that happened to my source like deja vu But Bad. Additionally, while I know my best friend in my source is alive, my source doesn't, and as a result I still emotionally feel like I'm grieving her a lot of the time. I miss her.

Impulse has basically no memories or specific story he's attached to. He misses and feels a connection with people from his source, mainly Tango and BDubs, since we also have fictives of Pearl and Gem who are around fairly frequently. His primary coping mechanism for this has historically been fanfiction; however, as far as I can tell, he's spent most of his time with Gem and Pearl since they showed up.

Most of our other fictives are in the same boat. Herobrine and Eret miss Foolish and also that one kid from their source (another AU, long story). Phil misses Techno (Wilbur complained about Phil not missing him to which Phil pointed out that Wil was literally right there). Wilbur doesn't quite miss anyone in particular but does miss the roles certain people played in his life.

Pearl is pretty canon divergent and Gem hasn't been here long enough to know herself as an individual super well, just enough to get a vague sense of missing someone without knowing who, but they're both almost instinctively tight-knit with Impulse. Stress has basically no connection to her source. Scott technically kinda wrote his source? He misses people from it but not really in the same way the others do. Sam got super cagey when we tried to ask him, and despite everyone having access to all his memories in front, he doesn't actually do much unprompted self reflection, so we don't really know what's going on there.

I don't really know how to end this. Just thought it was kinda interesting and wanted to see if anyone had any similar experiences, since we haven't seen this talked about much.

-Joe

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

I think it would've been funny if Mary was on a solo hunt and met Claire, with her curly blonde hair and big blue eyes and tough attitude and wearing a shirt she stole from dean that dean stole from john, and Mary's like 'oh. interesting. I'm a grandmother. nightmare scenario.' and this is post the bmol reveal so Dean is fully not talking to her and she thinks he didn't tell her he has a daughter because he didn't trust her so she decides to get in Claire's good graces. 1) because her granddaughter seems to have the impulse control of an irritated bull and she definitely shouldn't be hunting alone and 2) she gave Claire a fake last name so she wouldn't figure out their relation so by the time Dean figures out they've met Claire can help sweeten him up so Mary can fix things with him. Claire meanwhile is annoyed that this random woman keeps following her around but she's already resigned to the fact she attracts parental figures like a magnet.

so they're a VERY chaotic hunting team for awhile. Mary also keeps trying to needle out details about Claire's life- she figures she might blow her cover if she asks too much about her father, so she asks a lot about Claire's mother but she's very cagey about the topic. then one day Claire let's Mary use her phone for something and she notices the background is a pic of her and Cas and Claire doesn't wanna get into the whole angel thing with this woman who won't get out of her car so she's like 'oh yeah that's my dad'. and Mary's IMMEDIATELY just like oh God oh fuck I almost got my son in law killed no wonder Dean hates me. she's fully spiralling about her kids not trusting her so much they're hiding an entire family from her. even BEFORE they knew about the brits Dean didn't tell her?? she spends all night on google taking like those dumb 'am I homophobic??' quizzes to see if she said or did anything to make him uncomfortable and she literally goes to a library and prints out articles about how to support your gay child. turns into one of those hardcore gay rights moms over night. Claire just thinks Mary's doing this because she's figured out Claire's a lesbian and she finds it sweet.

Dean eventually starts responding to Mary's texts again and Mary just wants to tell Dean she knows everything so they can Properly make up and move forward but all the parenting books she's been reading insist that she needs to let him come to her with this. she starts dropping hints though, like 'oh I'm working with this hunter named Claire', thinking he'll take the bait and tell her he's Claire's father but he's just like 'tell that criminal she has 32 hours to return my ivory grip gun or else I'm actually filing a police report against her' and Mary's not in any place to critique parenting styles but she's like 😬 and tells Claire who's like 'tell him they'll never take me alive' and Mary ends up in the middle of dumb banter between these two while Claire's driving but neither of them will admit they're father and daughter and it's driving her INSANE. she just wants to be trusted!!

skdhdj Claire has a p.o. box and one day they stopped by and there was a head of a stuffed unicorn in there as a godfather parody, and Claire calls Dean like 'THAT WAS ALEX'S!!' and Mary hears him cursing over the other line and after they hang up she asks who Alex is and Claire's like 'oh my sister' and Mary's like. YOUR WHAT.

then all the shit with the brainwashing and apocalypse world goes down and by the time she's back in the bunker she's SO over waiting she just wants as normal a family dynamic as she can possibly get so she makes a big show of like getting Dean alone and she has a whole apology speech AND a gay rights speech that she had kids from a local lgbt community group proof read and edit for her. and Dean king of the closet is like thanks! but what the Fuck. and people are fully walking into the library now Sam has popcorn and Mary's like listen sweetheart I know I haven't given you a lot of reasons to trust me but at the very least you could have mentioned I'm a grandmother, I mean the resemblance is uncanny- and Dean's like 'shit you met Ben? is he okay?' and she's like. WHO?? WHAT? HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE YOU HIDING. And he's like well Emma's dead ('WHAT') so who else could you POSSIBLY be talking about?? And Mary's like 'Claire!! obviously Claire!!' and Claire, who's on the other side of the room yells 'EW?!' in a put on offended tone and Dean's like 'no she's Cas' brat?!' and Mary's like. 'well she's not a nephilim like Jack! I know you and Cas are together Dean-' and Dean and Cas are like. um. what drew you to that conclusion. pay no attention to the fact we're blushing and now refusing to make eye contact with each other we Swear we are only simply platonic friends we are NOT in a romantic relationship. and then Jack and Claire are both like 'WHAT YOU AREN'T?!?!' and the night is lost to many many confusing confrontations. this post got away from me.

[fairy-pd]

Asa Emory but he's not that bad

GN reader, sort of a crack fic cus I cant take his avocado mask seriously, sfw but really dumb lmao

notes: i wanna simp for the bug man without feeling guilty so Im gonna deviate from the 2009 and 2012 cannon slightly and defend this version of him till I die. Picture Juan Fernandez's Asa cus that's who Im talking about muah muah goodnight

So in my head, Mr. Cockroach is just a silly little nerd. A goofy fella with social anxiety. He is the definition of a poor little meow meow- smart but pathetic, a self absorbed mess

Picture a pinscher with a cold. That's him

He has managed to get himself to pretend he's somewhat well adjusted, but even tho he can make small talk, buy groceries and order pizza from time to time he still comes off as cagey and awkward

Definitely kept dead bugs in jars in his room as a kid, did not expect them to rot, learned nothing from this experience and still does it

Which means he smells bad. But purposefully now

I think Asa identifies as a bug tbh, but not literally

He loves humans like you maybe love cars, or art.

He doesn't relate to people. He doesn't get what's like to be one. But he loves us so much, he admires us so much, like you admire a vintage Lamborghini in perfect conditions.

He loves us from afar, like an admirer, an outside observer, wanting to learn everything about us because he doesn't understand but loves how strangely endearing we are, like the entomologist he is. Its almost like a fetish, but not sexual- objetification meets cold adoration in the hands of a scientist

This is specially noticeable (like another poster said) when we see various scenes where he's gently craddling his victim's faces or taking "care" of them. He looks at them in awe, like he could (cus he really could) break them, he wants to see them break to learn one more thing about them

He sees his victims not as people, not as complex universes, not as concepts, but as animals. He understands you have a life and opinions and friends, but he compartmentalizes these as normal behavior for your species

He cannot physically take his headphones off during the day cus it's so fucken noimsy outside and it hurts his ears

He likes to listen to anything repetitive and loud, nothing with discernible lyrics

His house looks like one of those ikea display rooms, except it smells faintly like formaldehyde and rot

He has a massive sweet tooth

He has a love for psychology, human anatomy and thanatology

Actually any field of knowledge that could explain human behavior is fair game to him

He absolutely hates spending money in "unnecessary" things, which is why he has plenty of diy projects around his place

He doesn't really have an opinion of people or of himself. He isn't one to judge, to classify people into groups. He thinks we're all fascinating, and he spends a lot more time trying to teach himself things about us than thinking about his own life

He doesn't have an internal voice inside his head

Absolutely has a God complex, but more in a "I Cannot Relate To Any Of My Beloved Creechures" than "my milkshake is better than yours"

Has a degree in entomology, and chose to become a certified bug serial killer cus seriously,,,,ppl will just give their house keys to a stranger for days????? how could he not take advantage of that????

100% a virgin. Does not have any interest in romance or sex, does not understand most people's need for it, could not feel more uncomfortable than when his victims offer to "help him" in exchange for their freedom

Never had any friends

Was raised by his extended family who sent him off to college as soon as they could

His favorite place in the whole wide world are cemeteries (silent, and he can spend time with his beloved lil humans as much as he wants)

Never takes anything personally and is completely unfazed by morality. Again, whenever anything happens he just sees it as part of the behavior of this particular species, like he isnt an active participant in the world, just a bystander

Hates pillows. His bed is as firm as a wooden table (might actually be one), only wears blankets when its absolutely freezing and he has no other choice

Walks around either on all fours or on his tiptoes

He doesn't? really? get? why people hate his trunks so much. He finds small spaces quite soothing and attributes his victim's screams to panic or anxiety of being caught, not also cus they're yk stuck in a tiny box with no chance of getting out

He has quite a few "animalistic" quirks, like the growling and purring thing. Some come naturally, some he picked up from his early subjects when he was a student

Knows how to crochet, and how to sew up small tears or holes in clothing

[marssie]

thinking sooo fucking hard abt latest cough syrup update (chapter 25 i hold u gently...) thoughts. VVV

okay so first of all. ides outdoes himself Yet again. love the tying together of the jack vs tommy conflicts with tubbos relationship with the both of them, bc as far as im aware, i dont think thats pushed at all in the dsmp canon? i could be dead wrong, but i Love the plot point of tubbo being used as a go-between. like. god. felt. it feels soooo very cstubbo to try to mend his friends relationships from the inside out. what the fuck. hi.

and then the other side of it!!! where cstommy explains his side and gets very defensive about it!!!! tommys emotions r shown literally So well im going a bit crazy about it. and tubbo's diffusing skills for the both of them. hi can u hear me im kinda losing it.

well and what else am i going crazy about. the Constant family trauma brain processes, tubbo thinking himself a lost cause because when schlatt was doing similar things everyone hated him!!! augh. pain. agony, even. and the brief reflection of- hey yeah, ranboo means well when he says "talk to phil" but he doesnt really KNOW what its like!!! he doesnt know its not that simple!!! i rlly liked the brief acknowledgement of that.... just.... yeah.

also acknowledging that csranboo is a CAGEY MFER. and the 'hmmm. that is... disconcerting.' ghe urge to just go to ranboo and be like WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH U RN. the walls are cracking etc....

and the awkward bitchy car ride with the almost legal brother that u barely talk to without your mutual brother.... i dont have anything to add here but Literally. also the brief bit about techno standing outside of doors for upwards of five minutes. Please... djdmkgkwkf. like i knew we talked abt this before but it still fucking gut punched me thats so funny. and tubbo literally just constantly worrying abt his friends. Help him he is literally sinking. this guy is sinking help him.

@nightmare-rivulets u dont understand how much ur writing makes me lose it a little and i am bad at conveying in words but!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its v good, rlly dont worry abt ur stuff "decreasing in quality" its still like. Literally genius!!! also hi btw hihihi <- has a disease thst forces me to say hello in every interaction

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

ik this is very out of nowhere ask but honest to god i think youre the only person in this fandom who could see the appeal of 2016/7!thomas with 2020!sides and vise versa... i think about it all the time but i have no one to talk about it with. I just had to say it to someone before I went crazy

[clasps hands together] RIGHT. so. obviously for the sake of this we’re ignoring the fact that thomas is the sides and vice versa and any change to one would mean a change to the other (e.g. 2020!thomas’s sides would change to reflect him in that moment, probably) - that’s cool and good, i just needed to get this out of the way. presumably this is like a time travel thing, or maybe we’re just doing a casual hand-wavey magical swappage thing. i don’t think the exact details matter. Let's get straight to the juicy stuff.

2020!Thomas, og sides:

Current Thomas is, paradoxically, somehow More Balanced than his 2016 counterpart AND a million times worse off, mental health-wise

Fuck imagine how completely baffled Janus would be that Thomas not only knows of his existence but also his NAME.

Thomas, despite being very confused and kind of frightened (they're all wearing their old costumes?? They're all referring to each other by DAD and ANXIETY and LOGIC what's going ON) is kind of absolutely delighted that for once, he knows many things that his Sides do not. Especially Janus. He gets to be cryptic and ominous towards Janus. He probably shouldn't be enjoying this as much as he is

I like to image Remus had been carefully saving up all of his best material (including his big musical number) for his grand entrance in DWIT. Which is why he's kind of bewildered when (after being summoned so, so much earlier than he ever thought he would be) Thomas only just kind of winces at 'have you ever imagined killing your own brother' and shapeshifted Joan eating a severed hand. I mean, rude? What's going on - wait, is Thomas harmonizing with the gory bits in Forbidden Fruit? Nevermind, this fucking rocks he's all for it

Current!Thomas: :D!! VIRGIL!!! 2016!Virgil, who is a grumpy sardonic cagey edgelord who's never known anything but mildly disgusted antagonism between him and Thomas: fucking what

Thomas is so weirdly nice to Anxiety that literally everybody there is suspicious. Are we sure this is Thomas. Is Thomas having some sort of weird midlife crisis.

Thomas, who has been keeping an obsessive list in his head of Literally Everything That's Gone Wrong In His Life Over The Last Four Years: okay so first of all we're going to have a serious talk about dealing with repression, but the moment we're done with that we're going to mess with the timeline so that my friends' wedding falls on any day but the homestuck day -

current!sides, 2016!Thomas:

Obligatory 'what the fuck who are these new people and what are these new outfits and WHY DO YOU ALL SUDDENLY HAVE NAMES I THOUGHT THIS WAS JUST A FUN GOOFY QUIRKY THING OF MINE' but that's kind of obvious

Virgil: hey so Thomas: ! anxiety >:(((

Virgil, suddenly recalling all of his character development over the past few years: oh boy. Well, this isn't going to be fun at all huh

Roman trying to make the most of fouryearsago!Thomas to spend time with him and impress them because at this point Roman Is Still His Hero and he doesn't want to let that go

Logan, who has been keeping meticulous records of Thomas's Recent Downwards Mental Health Spiral For The Last Four Years: My Time Has Come. Thomas, here's what you need to do -

Patton, who is fully aware how skewed his perspective has been and how much that's affected Thomas's mental health: okay, kiddo. Time to have a very very long talk about not relying on my morality perspective

Roman: oh and don't bother trying to get a new location for filming, the echo in the Mind Palace set fuckin sucks

Remus gets a second chance at doing an intro, and he is living for it because now he can fix literally every little thing about DWIT that he ever thought about changing, and also crank the dial up to one million now that he knows how Thomas is going to react. Almost nobody else is as enthusiastic about this as he is

Thomas: and who's this guy Janus: i am your overwhelming honesty and also your favorite, hello Virgil: >:|

[dumbass-extraordinaire]

Abuse Survivor Representation in Wilde Life: Clifford Norman (Part I)

MAJOR content warnings for an in-depth discussion of physical, mental, and emotional abuse of a minor under the cut, so proceed with caution if that’s a trigger for you.

Page 53: Cliff is shown with handprint bruises on his right wrist and shoulder.

Page 56: Nora mentions he's been getting into more fights, even though we never see Cliff get in a fight besides this chapter, and also says he’s been running away from home more often.

Page 66: Cliff has a black eye and blood on his shirt prior to the fight with the werewolves; he quickly establishes that he doesn’t like being touched.

Page 88: Although he doesn’t like others touching HIM, he has no problem touching others. Generally, this just indicates that his real problem with being touched is different from the reason he's given Oscar (he says it's to hide that he's a werewolf, but Oscar obviously already knows he is one at this point).

Page 91: The first mention of Carl where Cliff says his stepdad will be pissed if he's home late. Also significant that even at this point (about 40 pages after meeting him), Cliff is still suspicious about Oscar. He doesn't trust authority figures (particularly males ones) easily.

Page 143: Cliff mentions getting in trouble if he's late again.

Page 158: Cliff says he doesn’t like being home alone with Carl on Saturday mornings and that he can't wait until he's 18 so he can move out.

Page 170: Cliff comes back on a Saturday morning again (to avoid Carl).

Page 172: Cliff has a very loaded convo about whether or not his mom knows about him being a wolf that could double as a conversation about Carl's abuse. At one point he also says “there’s tons of stuff she doesn’t know” because she works a lot, implying that this conversation is about more than just the wolf thing.

Page 207: Cliff says that the best he & Carl got along was when he didn’t talk for a month to hide a tongue piercing. We've heard about Carl multiple times now & Cliff has never ONCE said anything even slightly good about him. We should take him at his word that his stepdad is a dick at this point.

Page 274: The trash incident where Carl a) yells at Cliff for allegedly not doing something he actually DID do, and b) grabs his arm roughly when Cliff tries to defend himself. Cliff then makes the comment that Carl is “getting pretty brave”. We can infer he means that Carl is brave getting physical with him while his mom’s in the other room. Which implies that he's gotten physical with him when his mom wasn't there.

Page 299: Cliff's mom says he hasn’t gotten in any fights since he started hanging with Oscar. Or maybe just because he's no longer home alone on Saturday's with Carl?

Page 409: Cliff says “if I get bad grades my stepdad gets real annoying.” Again, not significant on its own, but it's once again important to point out that Cliff ONLY brings up Carl in regards to worrying about being punished by him.

Page 433: Cliff has a black eye & also gets cagey when Oscar asks him how he got it. He has one after Oscar has been missing for a week. Aka, he wasn't around on Saturday that week for Cliff to hang out with/avoid Carl.

Page 435-436: Oscar freaks Cliff out by grabbing him suddenly. Cliff's initial reaction is normal, but after it happens and Oscar apologizes, Cliff averts his eyes again and lies, saying “it’s fine” even though he a) still clearly looks uncomfortable, and b) it's very normal to get startled when your friend grabs you out of nowhere. Cliff isn't comfortable with voicing how he truly feels (and in particular, how he feels in response to someone grabbing him suddenly) to Oscar even NOW, after months of knowing him.

Page 453: Carl pushes Cliff out of the way for no reason other than to assert dominance while meeting Oscar.

Page 455-456: Cliff has an important convo with Oscar about his stepdad. During the conversation, Oscar says “he cares about you” even though we’ve a) seen literally zero indication of this, and b) Cliff has said the exact opposite every single time he has brought Carl up thus far. Cliff corrects Oscar on this. After this, Oscar seems to believe Cliff's take on his stepdad when he apologizes & points out that this is a very shitty situation for Cliff. Oscar's sincerity here is also the only thing in the conversation that makes Cliff’s bravado/facade fall.

Page 485-486: Cliff gets upset that Oscar isn’t MORE mad at him (very common in abuse survivors). Cliff also says here that the reason he wanted to keep investigating is because he didn't want to go home.

All of Chapter 9: Cliff does not seek help AT ALL when being stalked/harassed by Raven, even though it’s clearly a threat to his safety / possibly life.  This is another clear example of his distrust of adults/authority figures, which is common in abuse survivors.

Page 615: Another example of Cliff's reluctance to tell his mom ANYTHING that's even close to the truth.

Page 795: Cliff flinches when the relic man goes to clean his wound, and then immediately tries to minimize/explain away what happened.

(Source for the Above: Rose D’s comment on page 868 of Wilde Life)

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Wrong Number, Asshole - A Bakugou Katsuki Soulmate AU

All Parts

Part 11:

“So, what, you’ve just known about your soulmate for over a week? And you didn’t tell me!” Your best friend huffs, slouching into the booth across from you. 

The café you had decided to meet Selene in seemed abnormally loud today, but even through the noise you could hear her frustration. And you understood it too- she’d been listening to you fantasize about your soulmate for years now, so much so that it must have gotten annoying. But she listened anyway, and apparently you repaid that favor by not even telling her when your tattoo appeared, nor when you actually met him. 

You couldn’t help it though. As much as you wanted to gush about it to everyone, another part of you wanted to keep it a secret. You didn’t wanna share Bakugou yet, as selfish and ridiculous as that sounded.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry; but honestly, it was just super surreal. Like I didn’t know how to talk about it.” You meet her eyes, grateful to see that even through her frustration, Selene still just looked happy for you. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Had to give you a little shit, but really I’m excited for you.” She takes a sip of her drink, leaning forward on your elbows. “Can I see the tattoo?”

You pale.

It really was an ugly tattoo. Messy and scribbly and poorly drawn, and odd even  as far as soulmate tattoos go. Every other person you’d known with a soulmate tattoo - which, granted, wasn’t many- had a name. Even your soulmate himself had your name! But you didn’t. You had his phone number, and no matter which way you thought about it, you couldn’t figure out why that was.

“Yeah, it’s uh, on my collarbone.” You unzipped your jacket, pulling it to the side to reveal the tattoo. 

“It’s- it’s, um, not what I expected.”

“That’s what I said. It showed up on my birthday,” You shrugged. “Wasn’t there the night before, but when I woke up it was just sitting there.”

“Why a phone number?” She questions, poking at the mark with a gentle finger. “And why does it look like-”

“Like that?” You chuckle, pushing her hands away and zipping your jacket up once more. “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve never seen anyone else with a phone number before; even Bakugou has my name.” 

“Um, who?” 

“His name’s Bakugou. My soulmate, I mean.”

“Wait- you talked to him? And you still didn’t tell me? You bitch!” Selene throws her head back, a laugh tumbling out of her lips. “I thought you’d just been hiding the tattoo, I didn’t know you were hiding him too!”

“Shut up- you’re being so loud!” 

“I can’t help it! This is just so exciting!”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Y/n,” You watched your friend straighten, a wicked smile crawling across her lips. “What’s that look about, huh, does somebody have a crush?”

You can feel you cheeks and ears flushing, but you don’t say anything. Selene just stares at you, wide manic grin across her face that just seems to make you blush even more. It’s a stalemate until she reaches across the table, poking at your red cheek. You break.

“God, fine, maybe- I don’t know, okay!” You huff, looking down to avoid her eyes. “We’ve talked like everyday since my tattoo came in, but I still feel like I don’t knowing anything about him!” 

“Huh-”

“He’s so, like, dodgy- about everything I ask him. It was like pulling teeth just to get his name! And it’s not even his full name! Just his last.” You pulled at your jacket, sinking into your seat. “Bakugou just like, avoids everything I ask him! I’ve told him about my quirk, and what I’m studying, but he won’t tell me anything! He just like gives me a two-word answer or calls me a name- which is fine, I actually find that part funny- but still. He gives me nothing. Absolutely fuck all nothing unless I literally beg for it!” 

“Woah, okay, breathe, Y/n. ” Selene holds a placating hand towards you. “Look, I’m sure he has his reasons. I mean, they’re probably shitty reasons since he’s like a 20 year old gu-”

“21.”

“Yeah, okay, since he’s 21, and definitely immature, but they’re still his reasons.”

“Who the fuck cares about reasons? I mean we’re literally soulmates. We’re gonna know everything about each other eventually, so I have no idea why he’s being so cagey! Actually, now that I think about it, it’s really kind of irritating!”

You gasp suddenly, not realizing how involved your rant had gotten. Apparently you were more upset than you realized, or at least significantly more annoyed.

You think back to how you felt yesterday- after you’d read Sunshine at the end of his text. You were light and airy and happy, but all of that seemed to have faded. God, what you wouldn’t give to feel like that now.

Selene waves a hand in front of your face, up and down in front of your eyes until you meet her gaze.

“I get that. I understand where that would come from, but all that really matters is whether or not you like talking to him- do you like talking to him?”

“Yes.” You say simply, surprised by how easy the conclusion was to come to. “I do.” 

“Then don’t stress, sweetie.” Selene pats your hand. “Tell me about the things you do like.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Your smile is small, timid, unsure, but you find the words come easy. “I like that he’s funny- and that he swears a lot. And that might be even more funny, because sometimes I’ll look at my texts and I swear it’s like there’s a 12 year old on the other end.” 

Selene just smiles, nodding to urge you on.

“I like that he gets super shy if I say anything nice to him- it’s like he freezes up and just swears everywhere and types in all caps.” You feel your cheeks heating up as you speak, but that doesn’t stop you. “I like that he’ll text me if I don’t text him- and that he responds fast when I do. And I like that he’s blunt- there’s less words for me to get anxious over that way.” 

“Alright. I’ve decided.” 

“Excuse me?”

“I like him for you.” She shrugs. “And I have good opinions so don’t argue.”

“But he still-”

“Yeah, I get it. But at the end of the day he’s still your soulmate, right?” She leans forward, tapping your forehead. “So stop overthinking it. You wouldn’t have that tattoo if he wasn’t supposed to be good for you.”

“Yeah.” You feel the sudden urge to hug her, overcome with yet another reason why you loved her so much. “I was being sort of ridiculous wasn’t I?”

“No, not ridiculous. It’s a valid complaint.”  

You nod.

“He does need to start telling you more, especially if you’re already telling him about you.” Selene brushes her hair back with an errant hand. “But I also think you tend to fixate on reasons to leave instead of looking for reasons to stay- and I’m not gonna let you do that this time.” 

You just look up at her, finding nothing but Selene’s gentle smile. 

It hits you then that she’s right. You did always search for the bad instead of making your own good. With relationships. With friendships. Even with school- but she was right. You couldn’t do that this time. It wouldn’t just affect you, it’d affect Bakugou too. 

“Hey, I love you, you know?” You suddenly tell her.

“I know. You’re my ride or die, bitch, of course you do.” She laughs. “Now c’mon, lets go actually order, and you can let me read through all those texts you were talking about.”  

“No!” 

She just laughs, grabbing your hand and dragging you towards the register.

--/--

Later that night you’re sitting with your phone in hand, nerves making a tangled mess of your insides.

You were stalling.

There was a part of you, a big part of you that just wanted to ask him. Ask him about his full name, and his quirk, and his job, or his school if that’s where he was- about his life, and just not take no for an answer. Wanted to needle and pry and be annoying until you had one fact about him to match every one you’d already given him about yourself.

But there was another part of you too. Another part that wanted to see him call you Sunshine and keep him happy instead of possibly irritating him. And that part was screaming just as loud.

You groaned, setting your phone down once again, and rolling onto your side. Your eyes caught on to the TV. You’d switched it on earlier, hoping the background noise of the local news could help settle your nerves, but it didn’t work. As of now though, you were quickly held captive by the footage you saw.

On screen was a recap of a battle that had occurred a few days ago- and it didn’t look good. The villian was terrifying; a black, oozing mass of tar that seemed to swallow people and objects whole. It was running a rampage through the city, it’s undeniable strength completely unchallenged by the police force- until suddenly? An explosion. Multiple explosions. Big, loud, noisy explosions and chaos and bright light until the villain was shot clean through with a grenade blast. The villain fell, engulfed by a cloud of smoke and debris.

You watched as the smoke cleared from the camera footage, only seeing the vaguest outline of a man before they were jetting offscreen by the force of their own explosions. 

“Burgeoning pro-hero Dynamite yet again saving the day, and then quickly leaving the scene.” The newscaster announced, voice drowning out the sound of the disaster footage. 

The scene switches as the fight recap footage ends. The usual roundtable of reporters is shown instead, and they quickly begin discussing the fight.

“It’s not altogether surprising,” A woman says. “In fact, it’s almost better if he leaves, don’t you think? I mean, surely no one’s forgotten what happened in Hosu right?”

Another reporter winces. “Yep, definitely not. Even a year out from the incident it’s still hard to see him in the same light as before.”

You shift on your bed, suddenly scared half to death by the loud sound of your phone hitting the floor. 

Fuck. 

Even after the quick break, you still couldn’t decide what to say to him. 

Luckily, he didn’t let you worry about that for much longer. 

[kitkatpancakestack]

"Universe denotes, etymologically, 'turned into one' . . . 'whole, indivisible.'" (Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto)

Yeah, you can probably guess what this one is about. And to think I told myself I was done with metas until S5. I blame you, @ktinaj (affectionate). But anyway *pours vodka* who wants to spiral some more about the Universe Theory?

(Quick PSA: I totally lied in an earlier post about when the mobile first showed up in Christopher's room. I thought it was in S3, but it's actually the second episode of S4. Which is even more bonkers.)

Let's start at the beginning. We will, of course, be operating completely under the assumption that this Universe Theory is legitimate and not a collective fandom-induced fever dream. Just humor me. Sorry this is long I can't brevity:

4.02 || The universe mobile appears first when Chris and Eddie are listening to Carla on the computer read them a book about invisible strings connecting people who love each other.

4.06 || Jinx is just a weird episode in general, regarding Eddie's character arc. In an episode about supernatural forces and control vs. powerlessness, it's extra interesting that this is when the writer's chose to kickstart Eddie's romantic arc.

"It's like the universe is screaming at you and you refuse to listen."

"The universe does not scream."

4.08 || So! Interesting! That the writers chose to kickstart Buck's romantic arc a literal! Episode! After Eddie's! And it continues so conspicuously into Breaking Point.

"Do you ever think you just need to be patient, wait for the universe to come to you? . . . Didn't think so."

"We all miss the signs now and then."

We get our next glimpse of Christopher's room in this episode, twice. First at the beginning, after Eddie's date, and again near the end, when Christopher has run away. Both times the universe mobile is in plain sight. Both times Christopher is wearing his universe-themed pajamas. In the first scene, Eddie and Christopher talk about his friend and Eddie is cagey as hell about it. In the second scene, Christopher tells Buck what a great friend he is, and Buck clearly is not in agreement with this sentiment.

4.10 || This is only distantly, distantly related to the universe theme, but I'm including it for the scene at the end with Eddie and Ana on the couch watching a movie, and Chris joins them, and he is not wearing universe pajamas. They are dinosaurs. How INCH resting

4.13 || We get yet another look into Christopher's room in this episode, with Eddie, Carla, and Christopher inside, and Ana eventually coming to stand in the doorway very much separate from them. There's a weird universe-esque poster that appears on the wall of Christopher's room in this scene. I say appear because it is literally non-existent before this episode. It's placement is important as it is specifically shown in the framing with Chris and Eddie.

Big thanks to @ktinaj for pointing this next one out and making me lose whatever sanity I had left. I can't believe I'm saying this, but after Ana comes into frame and whisks Eddie away, the camera pans up enough to show that - gasp - the universe mobile is in fact missing. Almost as if Ana isn't the missing piece of Christopher's universe, almost as if there is somebody else who has been hinted at fulfilling that role this whole season. Tim I am looking through your window.

4.14 || The next scene we get of Christopher's room is Buck going to talk to him about Eddie getting shot. Buck standing in the doorway, Buck entering the room, Buck occupying Christopher's space with him with practiced familiarity. Nevermind that the universe mobile has suspiciously returned to its proper place and is put in frame. But the weird universe-esque poster that popped up in the previous episode is still on the wall, only it's been moved to a different location so it can share the frame with Buck and Christopher. I mean what kind of bullshit —

And of course, the scene with Christopher waking Buck up on the couch, wearing that damn universe pajama shirt.

Is this a meta or just a bizarre preponderance of evidence? Idk. Either way, I'm not saying I'm not crazy, I'm just saying I picked up on this and other people picked up on this and for all the little mistakes TV shows are prone to make (9-1-1 in all its brilliance is far from perfect) . . . this is just difficult for me to wrap my head around. I know we essentially circulate the same dumbfounded posts around because we're all still in shock . . . but that should say something in and of itself.

Oh well *pours more vodka* until my sweet validation I will just be sitting here like

[albatris]

@polyacery​

:D!! yes!! ok!! yes!! please forgive the much-much-much-lengthier-than-intended ramble sorry thank you love you <3

first off, two facts about Noa and Kai:

they care about each other a lot

they cannot fucking STAND each other 90% of the time

they struggle a lot when it comes to teamwork, their personalities don't mesh well under pressure and their approaches to problem-solving differ wildly, so they often end up getting on each other’s nerves and being quite tense when they have to work together :P nothing, like, dramatic though, and nothing that escalates beyond general bickering and annoyance

that being said, on a personal and social level they do view each other as close friends and (can) get along well, though you’d be hard-pressed to get either of them to admit it. they share a lot of similarities (some of which I’ll go into) and both value the other as someone they can be open and honest with and drop their guard around, which is sayin somethin ‘cause openness and honesty are notoriously difficult for both of them lmao

in general I would say hmmmm

Noa views Kai (fondly) as a bastard and a swindler and possibly the most infuriating person she’s ever met, an opinion which does not change even as she grows to consider them a friend. like, genuinely? she fuckin hates their guts. and their ridiculously charming smile. and the way they can sweet talk their way into or out of any situation. she’s a little bitter about the way people just seem to hand over whatever Kai wants just ‘cause they’re a smooth-talker and good at pulling strings, ‘cause that level of uhhhhh sneaky interpersonal finesse is not something she’s ever really been able to access and it strikes her as cheating ahaha

that being said, though she finds their personality grating and their face punchable, they’re a person who cares intensely about people, not in an abstract theoretical all-talk-no-action kind of way, but in a concrete, physical, motivated “hey let me help you with that right now” kind of way, which Noa will never have any beef with. too many people sit around talking about what it means to do the right thing. not enough people get out there in a van full of interdimensional crime and pull off elaborate heists for the greater good

Kai has a similar take on Noa in that regard, as in, like. she’s kind of hardcore, yes. but. there are too many people sitting around talking about what it means to do the right thing, not enough people getting rightfully fucking unhinged and charging headfirst into injustice and cruelty and punching the shit out of it. her methods are a little too impulsive and headstrong for Kai’s tastes but it works for her n they’re cheering from the sidelines lol

but ye, Kai views Noa as. hm. a very very very intense person who is a lot of fun to mess with. pretty much as soon as Kai realises Noa isn’t going to be a threat in any capacity they’re like “sick now I have free reign to be the most annoying person in the universe” and they absolutely follow through. they find her passion and intensity amusing but admirable, and they were sold on the fact that she’s a good, kind person no matter her prickly exterior the second they saw how much she adores her mum c:

so, arguably, half of the next part is just,,,, me elaborating to an excessive extent,,,,, but this info used to be at the start of the ramble so I’d already written it before being like “hey wait a minute” so to hell with it I’m including it anyway

these two don’t get a lot of screentime together till the second half of the book and they have a pretty rocky start imo

like, Noa’s first impressions of Kai on two separate occasions are “that bastard who robbed me while I was on the clock” and “that random weirdo who somehow charmed my best friend into thinking they’re cool even though they sound like the shadiest motherfucker on the entire planet and I’m pretty sure they’re a serial killer”, which then culminate into “oh shit these are in fact the same person and they’re definitely bad news”

Kai never dislikes Noa the same way Noa dislikes them, but they are wary of her and have a healthy degree of fear regarding the threat she could pose to them.......... Kai and Noa’s different career choices put them at odds with each other right off the bat, what with Noa working for the Department of Interdimensional Instabilities and Kai operating a significantly less legal business that’s essentially the antithesis of the DII

plus Noa in general has a reputation for being Kind Of Fucking Terrifying

initially I would say they both view the other as “potentially a legitimate threat” and “not to be underestimated”, but post-mid-story-heist they get to spend some proper time together and form more grounded opinions of each other :P though arguably still for a considerable while the only reason they put up with each other is because Tris is like “:D” at them both and they’re like........ aw no I don’t wanna make him sad

Kai warms to Noa a lot faster than Noa warms to Kai, ‘cause Kai warms to most people pretty quick provided they’re not literal axe murderers. Noa starts to warm to Kai only after careful observation and assessment leads her to conclude the following two facts with reasonable certainty:

Kai does appear to be in possession of a solid moral compass

Kai has no ill intent towards Tris whatsoever

which tips the scale in their favour enough for her to be like “okay fine”

there's a level of distance and awkwardness between them for ages 'cause like, yeah, they're friends they guess but not like, friends-friends, there just seems to be something that's not clicking, n the main reason for that is just like

(handshake meme)

a deep-seated terror of being emotionally open and vulnerable resulting in a pathological need to project a loud outgoing persona that masks every ounce of insecurity and fear and prevents anyone from getting close enough to Know You: Noa 🤝 Kai

as soon as THAT realisation clicks for both of them n they're like "oh shit you're just like me and I know exactly how you feel" it instils a sense of connection and camaraderie between them and solidifies a kinship based on Something rather than simply "mutual friends" and "sometimes we're in the same place"

n like, obviously the others Know about the whole. situation. with Kai’s backstory but Kai’s still pretty cagey about it emotionally speaking.... I’m pretty sure Noa is?? the only person they manage to completely drop their guard around over the course of the story? in terms of like.... having a genuine heart-to-heart about the emotions involved and the fear n guilt

and like. yeah. yeah. Noa hasn’t made a friend besides Tris in like ten years n she’s also notoriously cagey with her emotions and her being genuine and vulnerable is just....... not a thing that happens very often or very easily.... and even less through a lot of the story

idk man. they’ve just got good vibes together

they offer each other a Safe Place and a level of understanding that maybe the others don’t quite grasp. even though the others r still empathetic and care for them a lot n have equally important things they bring to the friendship. Noa and Kai just have a vibe yeah

even though they’d sell each other to satan for one corn chip