#in the absence of that scenario

[dokidoki-muffin]

DokiDoki Spice Warning 🧁💖🔥

Ayeeee I recently found out that there's an Ace Attorney collection for the Switch now!!!! So guess what I'm playing once again 🤣🥰✨👩‍⚖️ I'm still in the middle of the first one, I just couldn't suppress the urge to wreck a certain cutie pie 🤭🧐😝 (No text version under the cut ^^)

[blossom-hwa]

in the absence of heartbeats | k.th

pairing: Taehyun x gender neutral!reader genre: angst, fluff, vampire!taehyun, medium!reader warnings: violence word count: 4.8k notes: — been thinking of this idea for a while but the idea of writing a whole fic for it is very tiring so I decided to just write out this scene lol — for some clarification, my definition of a "medium" is just someone who can see and speak to ghosts! nothing more than that :) After a harrowing night, you find comfort in the cold arms of one with no heartbeat, but much warmth in his heart. 

TXT Masterlist

It's close to two in the morning when you finally decide to leave the library. Your eyes are burning from the light of your computer and there's an ache in your neck from hunching over a desk for way too long, so even though you're not quite done with your essay you end up calling it quits. You haven't written anything substantial in the last half hour anyway. 

All the while you're packing up, a prickle of unease won't stop rippling up and down your spine. It doesn't stop when you leave the room, footsteps echoing loudly in the halls, nor does it stop when you actually exit the library and step into the cool night air. A light wind breezes past your face, but it doesn't soothe you like it normally does after hours spent cramped in one of the quiet study rooms. You find yourself tensing up instead.

Experience tells you not to ignore the feeling. If the hair on your neck is standing up, it means something. What it could mean right now, you aren't sure—you've left the library late and made the short trek back to your apartment many times without issue—but something is wrong. 

You look out at your dark campus, its sidewalks lit only by lamps and the moon. You look back at the library and its windows full of warm light. Almost unconsciously, you find yourself drawing the silver knife you always keep tucked away. You feel a little safer with the blade in your hand, but the prickle of unease doesn't fade away.

It's just so...empty. So quiet. Which shouldn't be that weird—it's nearly two in the morning, of course campus is going to be empty and quiet—but something about tonight's silence still feels unsettling. You glance around the expanse of campus again, and then it hits you. 

There are no ghosts. 

Instantly all of your exhaustion disappears, replaced by a heightened wariness at the situation. There aren't many ghosts who linger at your university—not compared to other places, at least—but there are usually a few hanging around. In fact, you've never been in an open place where there no ghosts, period. As you scan the campus perimeter again, your heart begins to race when you confirm that there are indeed no ghosts around, not even one trailing morosely over the quad.

Ghosts go where they wish. They usually tend to linger around their place of death or somewhere important to them when they were alive, but that's by their own choice. They're not bound to any one place like so many people believe. For them all to be avoiding your campus...

What—or who—could have chased them all away?

You swallow. Whoever they are, whatever they are, you don't want to meet them. Which means you need to get out of here as soon as possible.

So you hurry down the library steps, then start speed walking back to your apartment as fast as you can. It's just fifteen minutes away. You'll be fine. 

Except, five minutes in, you realize that you haven't left the strange absence of ghosts behind. 

In fact, it might just be following you. 

You fight the urge to look back. Someone or something must be following you, but who the fuck would follow you from the library back to your apartment? Why the fuck would anyone want to? As far as anyone except a select group of people knows, you're just a regular college student struggling through finals week like the rest of them. The people who know you can see ghosts, or who at least know that something about you is linked to the supernatural, have no reason to follow you home. 

Except...

Except one.

Your heart drops. Sanya. The guy who's been pestering you for weeks—the guy who asked you once if you could see ghosts, and who kept trying to catch you unawares to ask over and over and over again. Each time you said no. Each time you asked if he was feeling alright in the head. You're a good actor and you know it, but he just wasn't buying it for whatever reason until a couple weeks ago when you finally blew up on him and told him to stop invading your damn space. He hasn't bothered you since then, so you thought he finally believed you, or at least got the message to leave you alone.

Maybe not, though. You didn't think he was unhinged enough to have chased away all ghosts by virtue of his presence, but right now you have to consider all possibilities. Desperation can make people do crazy things. Talking to ghosts...you should know that.

You should've stayed back at the library with its warm glow and well-lit rooms. At least there was a security guard there. But you didn't know, and it's too late to go back. All you can do is keep going and hope you make it back to your apartment before Sanya—or whatever it is that's following you—gets you first.

...The streets are really quiet right now.

The sick taste of fear rises in your throat. You're already walking as fast as you can but you try to go a little faster, all the while clenching your knife so tightly your knuckles feel like they might split. With shaking hands, you also pull out your phone and dial a number as fast as you can with numb fingers. Answer, you pray. Please answer, please, please please—

The call goes through. 

"Hey, Kai," you say as normally as you can. Thank god, thank god, thank god—Kai won't ask questions, and he'll catch on easily. "Where are you? I'm just ten minutes away—"

"Y/N?"

That's not Kai. 

That's Taehyun. Taehyun who always felt a little strange to you, a bit like a ghost but physical and solid and real. Taehyun who has no heartbeat. Taehyun who laughed when you confronted him about it, and challenged you to figure out what kind of supernatural creature he is without him telling you. Taehyun who found you talking to a ghost and asked what kind of supernatural ties you have, which birthed the stupid little bet between you two about who would figure out the other's identity first. Taehyun who is infuriating. Taehyun who is kind.

Taehyun, who is a friend and can still help.

"Oh, hey Taehyun," you say, praying your voice stays steady. "Kai's not there?"

"He went to the convenience store and left his phone," Taehyun replies. "Did you need him? He'll be back in a few."

"No, I—just letting you all know that I'll be at his place in ten minutes," you say. "I'm at 117th, was just heading back from the library. Sorry—" And here your voice catches, like an idiot—"Sorry I'm so late, I just got caught up with an essay."

Taehyun remains silent for a second. Then—

"Y/N, are you okay?"

A sob almost bursts out of your mouth, catching you by surprise. You're so scared—your heart is racing faster with every street you pass that is still devoid of ghosts—you hadn't realized it until he asked that simple question, are you okay, but you're scared. So scared. 

"No," you say lowly. "I think someone, or something, is following me." You swallow hard around the fear rising in your throat. "There—there aren't any ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"I'll explain later," you say, panic creeping into your voice. "I don't know who or what is fucked up enough to have them all avoiding the area, but I think it's following me and I'm still like ten minutes away from the apartment and I'm freaking out—"

All the hairs on your neck stand up. 

MOVE.

You don't even think before flinging yourself to the side just as something—someone—barrels into the space you just occupied. 

You're back on your feet in a second but so is the figure that jumped out at you. Adrenaline rushes through your veins and you start sprinting, clutching your knife like a lifeline—and all the while Taehyun's yelling into the phone, asking what's going on, but between the running and the adrenaline you don't have enough breath to answer except with sharp gasps—

Something lands heavily on your back. You go tumbling down and your knee explodes in pain. Your phone skitters onto the street but you still have your knife, which you swing wildly until it connects with flesh and the mass pinning you down lets go, if only slightly, with a sharp yell. Kicking out your good leg, you manage to pull yourself free, ignoring the sick squelch of flesh as you drag the knife out with you. 

You force yourself to stand. A streetlamp illuminates an unpleasantly familiar face contorted in pain as he also rises, blood flowing freely down one arm. 

"Y/N," Sanya says, and you take a step backward even as your knee screams. "Y/N, I just wanted to talk to you—"

"What the fuck?" you snarl. Your hands are shaking so much you wonder how the knife hasn't fallen to the ground yet. "You want to talk, so you follow me home from the library and try to attack me—"

"You wouldn't talk to me otherwise!"

"Because you keep asking me about ghosts, ghost, fucking ghosts—where the fuck did you get the idea that I can talk to them? Where did you even get the idea that they were real?" You point your knife at him, praying that he doesn't see how badly you're shaking. "I've told you so many times to just leave me the fuck alone—"

"I saw you talking to one," he interrupts, lips curling in a snarl. "I saw you—don't deny it! You were talking to one after class, I heard you call it by name. Lilia." Sanya takes a deep breath. "Lilia Taylor. Committed suicide almost thirty years ago. She's dead, and you were talking to her. Don't fucking deny it!"

You can't say anything. Your voice isn't working. You can only stand there in horror, because there is a ghost named Lilia and you've definitely spoken to her before, even if you can't quite remember the specific occasion he's talking about. 

You're fucked. So fucked. In the past ten years, you've only made the mistake of being caught talking to a ghost twice. You learned that lesson from childhood. Taehyun thankfully ended up being harmless. But Sanya—

He must take your silence for affirmation, because his voice turns desperate, more pleading than anything, and it breaks your heart. "Please, Y/N," he begs. "I just—I just want to talk to my mother. One more time. I didn't—didn't get to say goodbye before she died, it was too fast, I just want to talk to her one more time—"

You shake your head. "I can't do that," you say roughly. "That's—that's not how it works. I only see ghosts. I can speak to them but I can't command them to talk to me. I can't even speak to a specific one if I don't know where to find them first, and that's assuming they're here. That they haven't passed on." You swallow. "I'm sorry. I couldn't speak to your mother for you even if I tried."

For a long moment, Sanya remains silent, his head bowed. You hold your breath. He'll understand. He has to. He can't—can't force you to do something you can't do in the first place. Right?

Slowly, he lifts his head. You take a deep breath, ready to continue soothing, until you see the glimmer of menace in his eyes. 

"You're lying," he snarls. "You're lying."

"I am not lying," you snap, anger and adrenaline powering your voice. "I can't do it. If there even is a way, which I doubt, I don't know it—"

"YOU'RE LYING!"

This time you don't manage to dodge. Your fucked up knee buckles and the full force of his weight knocks you straight to the ground. Your knife clatters on concrete. Your head smacks the sidewalk and pain explodes in your skull but Sanya doesn't even seem to register the blood running down your face as he jerks your head back up. "You're lying," he hisses, staring straight into your eyes. "You fucking liar. You know you can, you have to—"

"I can't," you snarl back through the pain. "I can't! And no matter how much you fuck me up, you can't make me do something I do not know how to do!"

"You can see ghosts!" His voice is rising, hysteria coating every word. "You can talk to them! You have to be able to do this, you have to—"

"I can't!" you scream. "I can't fucking do it! What else do you want me to say, Sanya, what the fuck else?"

"I want you to STOP LYING!"

For a moment, there's just the night air, the silence, your heavy breaths snarling through the air. You blink blood out of your eyes, silver flashing in the corner of your vision. Your knife. If you stretch just a little, maybe you can get to it.

You try to focus on Sanya, even though two of him are starting to swim in your vision. "You're crazy," you say quietly, stretching out your fingers. "You're crazy—crazy enough that even ghosts avoid you. You can't force me to do something that I just can't do. You can't bring your mother back." Almost there—you can feel the handle at your fingertips. "You don't even know if she's still here! She's probably already passed on!"

"Shut up!" he screams, and your head hits the sidewalk again with a sickening crunch that echoes in your ears. There goes the knife, you think vaguely. "Shut up, shut up—you're lying, you're fucking lying—"

He raises your head again, and you brace yourself for another hit. But just as you feel yourself going down again, all of Sanya's weight leaves you at once. 

Body numb, vision blurring, you manage to lift yourself up just enough to see Sanya splayed out on the street, a familiar figure standing over him. Your hands aren't cooperating much so you can't wipe the blood out of your eyes, but from this angle it looks like...

Taehyun?

The figure turns just enough for lamplight to fall on its face and your breath catches in your throat. It's Taehyun, but it—it's not. Taehyun doesn't have gold eyes that glimmer in the moonlight. Taehyun doesn't have fangs that extend past his lips, shimmering white against the night. Taehyun doesn't move that fast, doesn't have nails that shred right through skin, doesn't have a voice that could produce that deep snarl from his chest as he stands over Sanya's prone body like a predator in the night.

Out of the muddled mess of your mind, one word emerges. Vampire. 

Of all the times to figure it out, why now?

Your weak lungs heave out something like a laugh. Taehyun's head jerks towards you and then all in a second, you're being gathered up in strong, familiar arms. The fangs have disappeared but his eyes remain a glittering gold, mesmerizing, and your aching head just wants you to sink into them forever but Taehyun's talking and he keeps on talking and it's really hard to just let your eyes close and relax when his voice is so distracting—

"Y/N. Y/N!" He's shaking you now, and fuck that hurts. You must make some sound of protest because he stops, thankfully, but then those gold eyes are suddenly so close to yours and he's talking again. "Y/N, stay awake. You can't go to sleep. Stay awake, don't close your eyes—"

Thinking is so hard right now. So is keeping your eyes open, especially when the world keeps blinking in and out of sight. Why can't you just sleep? You're trying to keep them open, you really are, but it's so easy to just not, and when your eyes flutter shut yet again you hear what sounds like a panicked curse before suddenly you're being lifted up and then you're moving. The night air is cold and so is Taehyun but with the last vestiges of your energy you burrow into his chest, chasing a comfort you never thought you'd find in the absence of a heartbeat.

No heartbeat. That stirs something in the depths of your mind, and then you remember something that, to your muddled brain, is very, very important.

"Taehyun."

Your name comes out in a panicked gasp. "Y/N?"  

You blink again with immense difficulty. Gold eyes, fangs, no heartbeat. "Vampire," you get out.

He snorts, though you don't miss the panicked edge to it. "That's what you're worried about?"

Worried? Why would you be worried? Taehyun would never hurt you. But that train of thought is too difficult to chase down, so instead you focus on what you were going to say in the first place. "...Did I win?" you mumble into his shirt.

"Stop talking," he hisses, something like a half-hysterical laugh rising in his throat. "Stop fucking talking, and don't close your eyes—"

Of course, that's when your eyelids decide to fall shut, and you hear no more.

. . . . .

Your dreams are filled with ghosts, pain, and mesmerizing gold eyes. You're woken up several times and each time is just as annoying as the last—lots of hushed voices telling you to keep your eyes open, things poking you in different places, and at some point someone is shoving something at your mouth and you think it might be someone's wrist? Which is stupid, because why would anyone be shoving their wrist at you, but then something tangy and metallic starts entering your mouth and even though the taste is terrible a voice that sounds a lot like Taehyun's is whispering for you to swallow, please, please, please so you do, even though it's fucking gross. 

When you finally wake up for good, it's to a dim room, lit only by a small lamp in the corner. Your head feels like it's been filled with cotton, your eyes are crusty, and your mouth tastes like something died in it. You try to speak but all that comes out of your parched throat is a dry croak. 

"Y/N?"

You turn your head to the sound of the voice and come to three conclusions.

One: Moving your head hurts a lot less than you thought it would. 

Two: Someone is sitting by your bed. 

Three: Taehyun is sitting by your bed, holding your hand. 

"...Taehyun?"

Relief cracks across his face. "Oh, thank god, you're awake." He turns to a nearby nightstand that holds a pitcher and an empty glass. "Are you thirsty?"

You do your best to nod. The glass of water that Taehyun pours you tastes like heaven. 

Several glasses later, you aren't so thirsty anymore, and your mind feels a little more focused. You look around the little room, then at Taehyun. 

"...Your eyes aren't gold anymore."

"What? Oh." He blinks. "Yeah. That only happens when I'm...in my other form."

"As a vampire."

He nods, a little smile curving his lips. "Yeah. And before you ask again, yes, you did win our bet."

Fuck yeah. You beam up at him. "Sick." Then you frown. "Wait, have you not figured out what I am? I thought the ghosts gave it away."

"There were still a few options, even with that hint," he says, taking your hand again almost absentmindedly. You glance down but decide not to say anything. It feels nice, anyway. "Necromancer. Medium. Witch, maybe."

It would be funny to keep him in the dark, but that's also a little cruel. "I'm a medium," you admit. "I talk to ghosts. Can't really do much else, though."

"So you weren't just talking to yourself the day I caught you," he says with a little snicker. You snort, but he's not done. "Did that guy find out? That's why he was after you, wasn't it?"

The room suddenly feels cold. You shiver underneath your blanket, hand squeezing Taehyun's almost involuntarily. His skin is also cold, but the pressure of his palm against yours comforts you more than the thin warmth of the blanket. 

"Yeah," you get out. "Yeah, he...he'd been bothering me for a while. Asking if I could see ghosts and whatever. I lied, obviously, and at some point I thought he got the message to leave me alone. But he saw me talking to one of them. I didn't know." You take a deep breath. "He thought I'd be able to help him talk to his mom. I told him I don't know how to summon specific ghosts. I don't even know if it's possible, at least for me. But, uh." You try to smile, but it fails. "He didn't really like that."

Something like a snarl sounds in the back of Taehyun's throat. "I could tell," he says, and there's no mirth in that statement. 

A blurry memory comes to the forefront of your mind. Sanya lying in the street, arms and legs splayed at strange angles, Taehyun standing over him. "He's...is he dead?" you ask, mouth dry. You're not sure if you want to hear the answer. 

"No." Taehyun spits out the word bitterly, like he almost wishes the opposite were true. "No, he's not. I didn't kill him." He looks at you almost hopefully. "But if you want me to, I can finish it."

You swallow. Relief and fear do a strange little dance in your chest. "No, I don't think I want him to be," you reply, and Taehyun nods, albeit a little disappointedly. "But I don't really want him coming after me again, either."

"Don't worry. Kai said he would take care of that, if you decided you wanted him alive." Taehyun gives you a half smile. "One of our friends is a witch. Memory alteration spells can go a long way."

Most of the fear dissipates, and you let out a sigh of relief. "That's...good." You stare at the blanket. "He just wanted to talk to his mother. Grief can drive even the sanest of people mad."

"...I know."

A little silence falls. "Where am I, by the way?" you finally ask. "Your apartment?"

"Yeah. It was closer." Taehyun shrugs. "Also, I hope you don't mind, but I called my witch friend over to take a look at you earlier. His name's Soobin."

Hm. You vaguely recognize that name from your intermittent wakings. Which brings back the memory of something else, a tangy and metallic liquid in your mouth. Instinctively you wrinkle your nose. 

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh, I just remembered a dream I had." You shake your head. "I was drinking something really weird. It tasted bad."

Taehyun's face turns a little sheepish. 

"...Not a dream, I guess," you get out. Right, in dreams you can't taste anything. How did you forget? "What was it?"

Taehyun raises his wrist, revealing two fading marks against his skin. "Vampire blood has healing properties," he says guiltily. "It was the only thing we could think of without sending you to the hospital. You had a major concussion and your knee was pretty busted, too."

You stare at his wrist, at the marks that seem to be fading before your eyes. "I drank blood. From your wrist."

"...Sorry?"

"No, no, don't be sorry." You pinch the bridge of your nose for a second. "I...appreciate it? It kept me alive. I'm just trying to process things." Then you realize something. "God, I haven't even thanked you for saving me." All at once you remember the fear, the terror, the pain, and then it hits you, really hits you, just how close to death you came. "Thank you, Taehyun," you say in a much smaller voice. "I...I really owe you my life."

Taehyun clasps your hand between both of his and looks at you, his dark eyes deep and serious. "You don't owe me anything, Y/N," he says quietly. "I came because I was worried. Because I didn't know what was happening, and I was scared for you. It was my choice to come," he says, voice brooking no argument. "I don't believe in exchanging lives. I'm just glad that you were okay, in the end."

That does it. Just like his simple question when you were walking home—Y/N, are you okay? His words release the floodgates and all the tears start falling, the full terror of the moment hitting you like a truck—but he's holding you, cradling you close, and you're curling into him again as you soak his shirt with tears, finding comfort in his voice, in his arms, in the absence of a heartbeat in his broad chest. 

By the time you're cried out, you're exhausted again, but you don't really want to go to sleep just yet. So instead you stay curled up against Taehyun, his arms holding you close, and take in shaky breaths until you feel a little steadier. "Sorry for crying," you mumble, even though you make no effort to pull away. "Your shirt's going to be gross."

"I don't care about the shirt," Taehyun says sharply, though his voice softens when you look up, startled. "Sorry. I just meant that...I can replace the shirt, Y/N." He takes a breath, and you notice he looks a little nervous. "But I can't replace you."

His words strike a chord deep within your heart, bringing a sort of funny feeling to the front of your chest. "Damn right you can't," you try to joke, but it falls a little flat. 

"I'm serious." And then he's pushing you away a little, but only so that you have the space to look him in the eyes. "I'm serious," he repeats, large eyes dark and somber. "You almost died, Y/N. And if you...if you did die..." He swallows. "You know why I agreed to that stupid bet?"

You blink. "...For fun?"

"No. Well, yes." He huffs a little. "Y/N, I wanted an excuse to talk to you more."

A little warmth curls in your chest, spreading slowly outwards to the rest of your body. You don't say anything, though.

"You're a fun person to be around, Y/N," Taehyun says, and he's smiling a little in a way that's more mesmerizing than his golden eyes. "I liked you. I wanted to be around you more, and talk to you more. I'll admit, I was definitely curious about what exactly you were, but I didn't care about that as much as I pretended to." He leans in a little, and you don't flinch away. "I like you a lot, Y/N. And before you have—I don't know, some other near death experience—I wanted to tell you that." The smile slips away. "If you died, I never would have told you. And I would have regretted not telling you for a very long time."

He's looking at you in a way that warms you, even though his hands are cold, even though there's no heartbeat in his chest. So you let the quiet warmth of his gaze spread through your body, let yourself lean into him a little more before you press your lips softly to his. 

Taehyun kisses back firmly but gently, never pushing, never yielding, as steady as his arms holding you against him. You don't kiss for very long, but when you do break away, you're warm all over, and you can't stop smiling even with eyes still sticky from crying. 

"I'll tell you that I absolutely cared about this bet as much as you thought I did," you say, and his laugh only makes you smile more. "But I can't lie, Taehyun, I liked you a lot too. I tried to dislike you on principle. You were so fucking annoying about it," you emphasize, eliciting another lovely laugh from his lips. "But I couldn't, because you were sweet, and kind, and even though you teased me all the time, you were still always there. Even when I almost died."

His eyes on yours, dark and sweet. Like the lamp glowing softly in the corner, gentle and quiet. 

"You may not have a heartbeat, but mine can beat for both of us," you say quietly. "If you'll let it. If you'll let me."

Taehyun kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips. All feather soft, like butterflies lighting on your skin. "Is that answer enough?" he asks.

You smile back in reply and curl back into his chest. Taehyun's arms close around you again, his head coming to rest on top of yours, and there you sit, and breathe. 

One heart beating for two, two breaths sounding as one.

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

[kidokear]

I just thought about how Gabriel's victories have been tied- and even attributed- to God and his faith of the said God. Do you know how many things can be done with this??

Right now I'm thinking about his first win (against anyone) after realizing that God is gone or dead. How would that hit him? God is not there so he can't say he won a battle due to- or for- him. It would be Gabriel's victory, fully and completely Gabriel's. Were any of his previous battles won with God to begin with? Was it always him? Would that give him a crisis or would it make him happy? maybe a mixture of both?

One thing for sure. It would reassure him that he will be fine.

[shadystranger]

Why did they use the most romantic soundtrack I ever heard in this show on a samdean moment

[bumblingbabooshka]

What Kirk & Spock are doing in Dagger of the Mind is Gay as Hell. Fyi.

[posies-and-bundles]

Introducing Zoot's mom, Lena!

Lena is a businesswoman working in the film industry, advocates for muppets receiving more roles in movies and TV shows, especially ones that aren't comedies and where muppets aren't the butt of the joke

She is Puerto Rican and divorced twice over, she has two other kids beside Zoot, but she only ever sees them half the time

Lena and Gabe were fairly young when Zoot was born, and they tried to make it work, but unfortunately, it didnt

Lena loves Zoot and Gabe very much, but she did fall out of love with Gabe romantically and agreed to split if off. And to support Zoot individually rather than pretend for their son's sake and be miserable

This plan worked well for the first few years of the divorce, until Lena got remarried. Her second husband was manipulative and possessive, convincing her that she needed to be focused on him and their children, even threatened to ruin Lena's career and her family's life. Quickly after that she cut contact and moved.

Gabe did try and talk to Lena but there was a lot of stress in the situation and he eventually gave up. He didn't even demand child support because he was to emotionally exhausted and felt like he could handle it on his own.

Gabe knows why Lena cut contact for the most part but still doesn't like talking about her. He's told Zoot about his mom and his half siblings at some point, but Zoot always ends up forgetting anyway.

Lena of course divorced her second husband eventually, and did think about regaining contact with Gabe and Zoot, but she felt it was too late. She had already caused so much pain and it had already been so many years, she felt like the best she could do was stay away.

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i have this fic in my brain with like. two parts. possibly three. and that's 1) ted teaches trent, of all people, how to make his famous biscuits. this implies a few things:

a) trent is now the biscuit successor. ted's always handing out biscuits. trent finds himself doing the same thing. (this would be the hypothetical third part, if you'll forgive my nonlinearity--trent, and the community, and biscuits.)

b) i like to think trent would enjoy making it bc Autism. idk about yall but i love following a list of precise instructions with little treats along the way with the end result of a thing i can not only hold in my hands but eat??? anyway trent gaining a new hobby for his spare time (that his daughter LOVES to "assist" with lol) and maybe he even starts experimenting himself--the biscuits are never going to be exactly like ted's, but they have something special of their own, too. (and it's still made with love :))

c) ted and trent baking together and the cute (but ultimately bittersweet) shenanigans that ensue.

2) rebecca is missing biscuits with the boss and girl talk, now that ted's gone, when trent hesitantly ducks in with a pink box.

3) again, as beforementioned, trent inadvertently getting roped into making these regularly. first it's one off thing--cheering colin up or it's mentioned that he used to make them for someone ELSE'S kid's birthday and trent knows from experience that's not to be missed, and then it's just. becoming a thing. he is regularly making biscuits now. he is ted's biscuit man successor.

[spriteofmushrooms]

Eternal Yue Qingyuan feelings stored in the animatic I'm plotting to Muse's "Madness" every moment of every day.

[divinekangaroo]

it's interesting how characters do take on a certain position in headspace as you write. i've been trying since june last year to find a scenario where lizzie would legitimately wear tommy's clothes while they have sex, including having him very lightly imply this might be possible in passing at inappropriate intervals (the night of his daughter's death was a terrible time for him to do this really, even if i buy into the whole 'please be me because i can't cope with being past me or current me right now' that motivated [me to write] it), but...

lizzie is just so femme she doesn't even have a framework to acknowledge these suggestions are anything other than tommy putting random words one after the other. wear some boxy unfitted man's suit instead of her amazing, cutting edge fashionable dresses? not lizzie

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

Did I ever come back here and say that in our last CoS session, Wyn actually ended up chasing after the child-possessing demon and exorcise it with the help of our wizard? It was good! And she's feeling a teeny tiny bit of gratitude to the wizard and the fighter who followed her to help, because they very much did not have to. And then we bluffed our way out of getting in trouble with the guards and managed to get an ally in the headmistress of the orphanage! Nice things all around!

And now we're hanging out with Lady Wachter. I'm sure this won't go sideways in ANY WAY. :>

[scalproie]

multiple people from all around fighting to the death in a tournament for the survival of their country. call that m. call that morta. call that mortal k

[artheresy]

Started to make a post ranting about wanting to see an indepth look at Chuuya’s grief over his life in a fic and how they overlap etc. and I think I just came up with a fic idea through all of that ranting h mm

Going to,, keep this post up to save my thoughts in the tags dont mind me

[halforcdad]

Thoughts on how they will explain a possible 3 episode Lucy absence?

The first thing that comes to mind that makes sense to me is Lucy's family.

We don't really know much about Lucy. Take it from her, her entire life is just work, gym, and Kate. She doesn’t really have anything else going on (I really thought her being a junior agent and wanting to follow in Tennant's footsteps was gonna be up there, but they seemed to randomly drop that after they futzed with the timeline to give us that Kacy backstory). The only thing we really know about her is that she has issues with her rich family and potentially burned that bridge when she left Texas. Given NCIS: Hawai`i's focus on ohana and the crumbs she was dropping last season (they were her third-most talked about thing behind work and Kacy angst lol), Lucy’s family troubles seem to be shaping up to be her other big long-term storyline. 

Among the bits of bts we've gotten from 2x07 (presumably the last episode she would be in if she were to be absent for 3 episodes) was this interesting little sneak peak:

(from a bts video a crewmember uploaded, these are tori and yas's stand-ins while the crew is setting up the shot)

Looks like the perfect set-up for them to get personal, like talking about Lucy’s fear of the water or quietly reflecting on her insecurities or her family/childhood (we already have a Whistler focused episode so this could be Lucy’s moment). Like something on the same level of seriousness as the scene where Lucy’s comforting and encouraging Kate outside of the FBI BBQ, but maybe with less anxiety and more chill vibes lol. It could be a great opportunity to finally introduce some substantial Lucy backstory and or a long-term background storyline that isn’t just about her and Kate.  

I know a lot of people theorize that her family has cut her out completely or vice versa, but NCIS: Hawai'i already has one parent-child relationship that started out like that with Wally and Kai so maybe they want to differentiate a little (though they could use that similarity as an opportunity to get them to bond over it whenever that storyline happens, a more in-depth version of 1x04). I could see her not reaching out, but not having their numbers blocked either or still keeping minimal contact with them, birthdays and whatnot. Maybe something happened with a niece or nephew or her parents and she needs to go back and see them. It would warrant Tennant giving her extended personal time to take care of it. Plus, it would be easy to explain why she’s not in the episode at all if she’s back on the mainland and if they wanted to, they could include her without her needing to be on location/the sets via either phone or video calls and she could record all her scenes ahead of time. Though, the cons to this would be that if Lucy was absent from the episode, that means we wouldn’t get to see any of the angsty family scenes! (unless there were flashbacks shown later) and it could turn into a lot of tell not show type story writing which I hate. It would be a neat way to introduce angst though if Lucy is keeping it all in and not telling anybody about what happened even though its clearly affecting her (or if Kate feels hurt that Lucy didn't want her to go with her/isn't telling her either). It would be an interesting bump in the road in a season where she's been building trust and communication with Kate. My dream would be for it to progress slowly, more mentions of her past here and there, her family slowly becoming more present in her life (good or bad), maybe a brother or sister shows up in an episode down the line as a suspect or to visit and that throws her off, but I want the parents showing up to be an unexpected monumental thing that doesn't happen until like at least late s3 or s4.

Each of their cases takes places over the course of a few days minimum and that’s not even accounting for the amount of time that might take place in between them. Unless they threw in a few Nightwatch type cases (which they solved in one friday night and one entire saturday) then I don’t see how you explain away that big of an absence in-story unless you introduce a big storyline like Lucy needing to go back home for some reason. 

Another possibility I’ve seen floating around is Lucy getting hurt in the upcoming episodes, which is very doable and I would not hate it at all. My only potential concern with that is I would want her to have scenes with the whole team and not just Kate while she's recovering. So maybe if she’s in the hospital, Tennant comes by to see her and tells her about the case or the boys throw her a little party in the hospital or they video call her because she’s bored out of her mind. Though, since Lucy’s in the crossover, I don’t know how keen Tennant would be bringing an agent who was recently seriously injured with her to LA on a mission like the one being described in the crossover (Noah is also listed as being in the crossover, but I don’t know if I’ve heard or seen anything at all about him filming out of state). IIRC, the synopsis mentions something about agents being targeted so Lucy being separated from everyone while in Texas could make her an easy target? Or if she hears about Tennant going to LA, it would make sense why she’s the one accompanying her because she’s already on the mainland and would probably be looking for an excuse to leave her family (or maybe she wants to leave Texas to protect them since she’s a target). 

Hell, since we're speculating let's just throw shit at the wall. Maybe they do something wild like Lucy went on a long undercover thing or oh she's suspended because she fucked up.

Of course, they could still go with, “oh Tennant just shipped Lucy off to help another division since she's the only one who doesn't have family they need to take care of in Hawai’i or Lucy needed to help a friend or something it’s nbd,” and have her come back like nothing happened. 

tldr; keeping up with the taras, she gets hurt, they just brush it off casually, or they throw something out of left field

(i am in the camp that if she were to be absent entirely, id lean more on it only being a one or two episode absence at most)

[chicago-geniza]

"Say the line, Raya"

She's just like me for real 😭😭😭

[irascible-iridescent]

We need more girls to be obsessed with wlw couples like lots of them obsessed with mlm couples rn. Only this way we can finally see a yuri Renaissance

[captainkurosolaire]

I’m always impressed by the quality of your writing and the sheer creativity that you put into everything you do. If I could be one tenth as talented I should count myself blessed indeed. Plus you are kind and supportive towards others in a manner which does you great credit.

ANONYMOUSLY TELL ME YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT ME. I CAN’T REPLY, JUST PUBLISH.