#information theory and physics and fire and all

[thelovelywriteress]

DEVIL MAY CRY: FILM INDUSTRY AU! GOSSIP SPECIAL

Step aside, Film Industry—Hell just got hotter. It isn’t just burning with fire—it’s burning with jealousy, flirtation, and forbidden affection. Rumors are flying! The superstars twins: Dante and Vergil, are now not just competing for films anymore—they’re both aiming for the same heart, the heart that belongs to the same level popular star (name)!

And you know how things get between fans especially Vergil and Dante fans, who like their idols are always on the other side of rope─competing for the spotlight. Love triangle among the twins and the (name) is just turning fans crazy and their theories to evidence even crazier!

As we say before the fandom is currently split right down the middle: #TeamDante, #TeamVergil, and of course, the rising rebel group known as #TeamThrouple. (Ahh yes the old-why choose only one? when you can have both!). Ever since Dante, Vergil, and (name) started dropping suspicious crumbs all over the place, their fandom has split into hardcore camps—and the battles for who's the "real" couple are peak chaos.

#TEAMDANTE

“You cannot convince us otherwise. (name) literally laughed at Dante’s joke that wasn’t even funny. That’s LOVE, baby.”

── Behind-the-scenes footage where Dante "casually" wipes something off (name)’s cheek.

Let's be real chat, no matter how flirty and mischievous Dante is, we had never seen him getting close to other stars rather than few verbal remarks but with (name)? He is just all about physical contact! And plus you see (name)'s reaction? They both have so relaxed reaction like it's every day thing for them. Now you won't be this casual with someone you are not dating now will you?

── (Name) and Dante literally had been top choices for all rom-coms! Most of their early films were even with each other.

It is no lie that many directions have bluntly confessed that (Name) and Dante were their first choice for any film that involves "romance" and Dante, who unlike his twin got only in spotlight after this two blockbuster romantic films which includes "(name)". So they know each other from long time and old friends to lovers is not a new troup to see anyways.

── (Name) and Dante have post many pictures together and show preference to spend time with each other.

Okay so is now everyone either blind or straight up idiots! Like what proof do we need more to see, these two definitely got something going between them which they wants to hide from public (their choice!🙌) but come onnnnn you can't be this blind to ignore the oblivious signs. in some interviews stated how they likes to hangout (informal word for 'date') together as they find each other's 'presence's fun'.

#TEAMVERGIL

“Vergil and (name) spotted in park together in disguise. They sit on a bench. At one point? They bump shoulders and he doesn’t move away??! Bro they are literal comfort zones of each other.”

── Vergil posts about being excited to work with (name) on their new film.

Okay we all know despite being a wonderful and famous actor─Vergil is still such awkward especially when it comes to his other fellow stars. He barely post anything on his socials or rarely even mentions other celebrities so you should get gist by now that how much significance (name) hold that 'he.is.excited.to.work.with.(name)'

── (name) who jokes about being lucky to get chance at acting cause their academic life sucks, are now suddenly posting quotes from classic literature.

(name), who in past have often criticized their academic skills and even state reason for coming into acting (media from random youtube, og interview is no where to be found): "I had many books those's plot interest me but I couldn't just find the focus and attention to read them, so I hope one day I can act or direct all those books so can I watch them instead!" An actor who once's couldn't find focus and attention to read is now posting quotes from orginal classics? Suspicious, isn't it? More suspicious it becomes when you realised in our industry only one other person is known to read classics (and oddly same classics (name) post's about) who is Vergil and another point that (name) start to show interest in literature around the same time their blurry photos in the park started to get viral.

── Many directors have state that (name) and Vergil work most efficiently together.

Guess who despite not even getting cast in couple roles still acts more naturally together? Yes, (name) and Vergil! Many directions seem to believe that they both respectively work more better when other one is around and due to this reason even if one isn't in the film, they will still cast other one in minor role interaction with major role so they will give their best. And while it might see casual for (name) but Vergil often accompanies (name) throughout the film on set even if his role is already done. These guys are just straight up example of those obvious couples who won't just agree that they are dating!

#TeamThrouple

“Why don't they all just accept each other's feelings for each other and start being poly! It's big 2025─everyone deserves love.”

Umm we don't say much about it but hey atleast this way everyone's fan will be happy! Now that's a pro.

What’s really going on behind the scenes? Is this a clever PR move, a real messy love triangle, or are we just projecting our shipping fantasies onto three ridiculously good-looking people who accidentally created the most intense slow-burn romance in the industry?

Now that's something we still have to find but seeing how interesting things have turn─It looks like this one gonna be on trend for while.

So stay tuned with us as we search our best on this trio and bring you the newest evidence about who is kissing whom, who got dating whom!

Now, now fellas don't ask me what was I smoking while I write this but hey! isn't this a nice one tho. (⁠◠⁠ᴥ⁠◕⁠ʋ⁠)

So this thing is inspired about by i. me and my friend in our school days, making exaggerated gossips about boys and girls separately (yes yuri and yaoi fans can be friends 😔✊) and just laugh to ourselves and ii. that asking chatgpt to make love island with your friends reel.

And ofc the literally inspiration─I was scrolling through tiktok and then saw few fan edits of actor-actress, saw the comments under it and was like damn this is fun and here we are sir🫡✨

Through isn't it fun fellas? Seeing how crazy the fanbase is about whom do you get chemistry with more(⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆

[incitomniaveritas]

Taking into account the testimonies and opinions of all three women, he notices one outlier amongst them. Not just her stance with the planet and with her position of power, Aethel stands out the most. With her keeping this information from them when they had first begun looking through the rubble it had set them back some theories and honest responses between them. While Ratio had previously no resentments towards the woman, his hypotheses that he should not trust her judgement outright had held some water.

He puts one foot in front of the other, trailing them as it is best to retreat as they say, even Ratio had already stayed past his perceived limit. He looks through the papers he had tucked in his codex, and one still catches his eye as they retreat. The report.

"So the entirety of Empyrea is likely to be under some sort of fire and you continue festivities as if nothing was to happen? People disappearing should have been enough, but the scuffle at the mixer and now endangering the remaining lives here as," He holds up the report and taps it rather harshly, his agitation broadcast. "not only is the city filled with usurpers, your unable to contact help and have basically isolated us in this section of Empyrea, and on top of all that this place is targeted. An explosion was heard when we were outside, Ms. Aethel, towards the city. The Fragmentum in the walls is usually followed up by monsters and corrosion. This place is under attack, somehow and somewhere, and sticking our head in the sands will only—"

His scolding was cut short as his heel caught in a particular crack, and no matter how careful he would or could try, the weight was just too much. The crack becomes a hole and Ratio is forced down to one knee as his foot falls through, but he quickly catches himself. In his peripherals the statue he had created to hold the doorway up symbolically cracked down the center of its face, the mimicry of his bust head split in half as a precursor to the shaking.

A rattling climbed from the top of the tower down, the sound of pipes bursting and the electrical system upstairs popping like fuses in mass cacophony's. The dust that fell with shifting architecture as it could hold no more and was slowly giving them their final seconds.

From his years of physical training he pulls himself from the hole and even if you didn't need the incentive to run already, his doomed and stern tone was unavailable. "It's coming down. Out!" And the mad dash begins for the way they once came.

@icyqull

Hotel Reputation in Tarnish

Muy Hotel ┆ Emphyrean Week 2 ┆ Raiden Mei, Shenhe, and Dr. Ratio

[lilliesinthevalley]

does suguru canonically smoke? i like to imagine that if he does, satoru double-takes whenever he catches the smell of tobacco on the wind, spins around in the middle of busy city streets, ignores the way his heart thuds at every flash of long black hair. he buys a pack of cigarettes on suguru’s birthday the first year after, lights one just to watch it burn. he used to complain about the way the scent of smoke would settle into suguru’s clothes. how his mouth would taste like nicotine late at night. how his hands were dotted with burn scars after years of fumbling around with cheap lighters. and satoru has six eyes, has a brain that cannot stop conjuring suguru in all of his blind spots. but the lack of light after the last cigarette in his pack burns out to ash is as close to nothing as he’s ever seen.

[alex51324]

So, the NDA signed by producers of The Apprentice just expired, and one of them has published a tell-all article. Most of the article is about how they used standard reality-TV tricks to portray Trump as being wealthy and intelligent, when in reality he was, and is, a deeply indebted buffoon.

The money shot, however, comes when Trump and the producers are preparing for climax of the final episode, when the winner will be decided.

Per the FCC's rules for game shows, producers could not be involved in deciding who would be fired each week, or who would ultimately win: it had to be Trump's decision alone, like contestants and viewers were told it was. The producers could, and did, give him a presentation about the strengths and weaknesses of the contestants each time he had to make a decision. These were recorded, in case questions ever arose about whether the producers had crossed the line.

So, for the final episode, there were two contestants remaining. Both were men, one white, the other Black. They'd both done well in the final challenge of the competition. As the producers were summarizing the points for an against each candidate, this happened:

“Yeah,” he says to no one in particular, “but, I mean, would America buy a n— winning?” Kepcher’s pale skin goes bright red. I turn my gaze toward Trump. He continues to wince. He is serious, and he is adamant about not hiring Jackson.

In the finished program, Trump chose the white contestant as the winner.

(Four years later, Trump would propagate the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a native-born US citizen and therefore had not legitimately won the presidency.)

The article also describes how women working on the production faced discrimination based on whether or not Trump wanted to look at them while they did their jobs:

While leering at a female camera assistant or assessing the physical attributes of a female contestant for whoever is listening, he orders a female camera operator off an elevator on which she is about to film him. “She’s too heavy,” I hear him say. Another female camera operator, who happens to have blond hair and blue eyes, draws from Trump comparisons to his own Ivanka Trump. “There’s a beautiful woman behind that camera,” he says toward a line of 10 different operators set up in the foyer of Trump Tower one day. “That’s all I want to look at.”

And there's a third anecdote where he pressures a woman producer to break the FCC rules, while being casually misogynistic toward a contestant:

Trump corners a female producer and asks her whom he should fire. She demurs, saying something about how one of the contestants blamed another for their team losing. Trump then raises his hands, cupping them to his chest: “You mean the one with the …?” He doesn’t know the contestant’s name. Trump eventually fires her.

This information is pretty unlikely to persuade anyone who wasn't already persuaded by any of the other things Trump has done and said, which would for anyone else be a career-defining scandal. But it is a useful reminder of who we're dealing with.

(Link is to Slate, an x-number-of-free-articles-a-month site, but the incognito window trick works.)

[gghostwriter]

Pressure Points

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Summary: After a traumatic event, Spencer coaxes you back to the land of the living, right by his side. Trope: Comfort w.c: 1.6k a/n: TRIGGER WARNING FOR TALKS OF MASS CASUALITY DESCRIPTIONS. Not proofread. No use of Y/N, instead Spencer calls reader as ‘angel’. Recently been watching ‘The Pitt’ so you can definitely see where this was inspired from. Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! ��� masterlist

Spencer knew right away that something was terribly wrong.

Keys rattling as they settle on the hook by the apartment entrance, the only sound that greeted him was running water from the ajar bathroom door. Its’ fluorescent light streamed across the living room, leaving a streak of path for him to follow.

“Angel, I’m home,” he called out worriedly, aligning his outside shoes by your scuffed and bloodied sneakers. 

Silence.

Garcia was the first to share the devastating news as the team was backing up to go back home from a case well done. Truthfully, he was done with his and was busy theorizing the launch of his film canister all the while Morgan was busy teasing Emily with the sleazy police officer from the most recent case that tried to flirt with her.

“Someone opened fired at the Fairfax Music Festival,” Garcia informed to the few agents available on the floor.

Spencer felt his breath lodge in his throat, he knew geography like the back of his hand. The park where the festival had been situated was included in the zone of your chosen hospital residency. 

Hands blindly reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone to send a message before quickly shutting it close. No, you’d be busy by then, he rationalized. You’d be safe as its protocol that the local police and SWAT establish safety and protection to hospitals receiving casualties.

As the hours ticked by on the clock, the more Spencer could feel his worry and unease rising. The lack of updates regarding the situation, specifically yours, heightened his consciousness to all the possibilities of the shooter heading your way. Einstein’s theory of relativity had made him acutely aware of how right the physicist was in his belief that times moves relative to its’ observer. An object moving fast experiences time slower than the rest and that was exactly what he felt as his foot tapped from agitation, waiting for the train ride back home.

He breathed a small sigh of relief, spotting your sneakers propped haphazardly on the shoe cabinet. You were home, physically safe yes, but mentally was another delicate subject.

The faint metallic scent of coppery blood wafted through as he pushed the bathroom door open and there you were, standing under the scalding shower head still in your intimates, staring at the green tiled walls as if they weren’t completely there at all. 

Dissociation.

Shock.

“Angel,” he softly muttered, not wanting to scare you back to reality.

There was no flash of recognition in your eyes.

Spencer reached across to shut off the pulsing water, your skin already turning pink from the temperature. Quickly chucking off his satchel and clothing, leaving him in a set of checkered boxers, he maneuvered your unresponsive body to sit up on the bench, against the wall in the shower, set the water temperature into a warm and aimed the nozzle over your titled head, making sure the rivulets don’t run on your blank face.

“It’s alright, Angel. I’ve got you,” he repeated over and over again. Grabbing hold of your wash cloth and body wash, he cleansed away the dried splatters of blood your scrubs didn’t catch and massaged the scalps of your hair, hoping to revive you back to reality.

“Spencer?” You hoarsely muttered in confusion, vacant eyes meeting his.

“I’m here,” he replied. “I’ve got you. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”

You slowly nodded, eyes closing. The film clouding your brain dissipated further as his gentle presence warmed the cold remnants of death you’ve seen in the emergency room. 

The never ending gurneys being wield in, the multitude of wrist bands all meaning injured—some knocking on death’s door while a few were already in death’s presence. Red blood splattered on the white tiled floor and hospital workers sprinting from one patient to the next. 

You shuddered, it was a view you wouldn’t wish for anyone to see.

Thinking your reaction was from the shower, Spencer shut off the water and guided you to your feet. He made sure you were stable before wrapping you in a clean fluffy towel and drying you off.

Gingerly, he assisted you to sit on the foot of the bed, uncaring of the droplets of water along the wooden floor, all he cared about was making you feel better.

Spencer padded back to your side, a cup of warm tea and a bar of chocolate on hand. 

“Drink it slowly, angel,” he coaxed you, nodding his head in approval as you silently followed his instructions.

You assessed your boyfriend as he enclosed your other hand in his and started massaging.

“Did you know that there’s 8 pressure points on our hands?” He asked. “Although acupressure lacks the backing of scientific studies, people still rely on these due to limited side effects and ability to promote relaxation. Perhaps it’s actually a psychological aspect—they believing it would work and in return, it does. A placebo but I believe it still has its uses—” his thumb and pointed finger pressing in the valley point between yours. “—like grounding you to the present.” 

The corners of your lips quirked into a small smile. “Is that what you’re doing with me?”

“Is it working?”

“Yeah. A little bit, Spence,” you breathed out, feeling completely grateful for the kind of man Spencer Reid had become. Perhaps you should send Diana a bouquet of flowers and a rare book as a thank you for her son or perhaps to the rest of his team that guided him, and is still guiding him, to the right path? 

A different kind of pressure halted your train of thought.

“Oh,” you groaned out, eyes opening to the sight of Spencer pressing kisses to your palm and then to each of your knuckles.

“I love you, Angel.”

You hummed in reply. “Thank you for helping me tonight.”

“I’ll always be here to catch you when you falter, I promise.” 

Placing the empty cup back on the tray beside the slowly melting chocolate, you cupped is his cheeks into your warm hands, the subtle nudges from his nose melting you into a puddle of vulnerability and intimacy.

“There was so much blood, Spence. So many patients who could have made it should they have come in any other day. We even had to ration our supply of blood and I—I joined medicine to save as many lives as I could and there is a lot of that in day to day, but I can’t help but wish these casualty days come few and far between, better yet if none at all. I want to work in the ER, I really do, but sometimes I end up thinking if I’m not cut out for it, if I’m better off somewhere else.”

His thumb drawing abstract patterns on your smooth cheek, Spencer understood where you were coming from. During the beginning of his journey as an FBI agent, he was plagued with those thoughts of never feeling like he belonged, like he was a puzzle piece from a different set trying to fit in. Always trying, always an outsider, he once believed. 

“Angel, it’s alright to have those thoughts. We’re only human, after all. If I could give you the same advice as many of my mentors have said to young me, I’d tell you that those voices in your head, questioning your worth and direction just mean you’re in the right path. No correct way comes easy, just know I’d be behind you every step of the way—run back to me for strength if you have to, it doesn’t make you weak. In truth, it makes you smart and strong in my eyes.” 

You nodded, his words easing this pressure from today’s events inside of you. It was as if the knots in yourself, the disappointment and regret of not having saved one more patient started to fade away.

“Now, I know I can’t always be here during your bad days at work but if I am, just let me know. Text me or call me and I’ll try my very best to come running.”

“But Spence, your job is as demanding as mine is—”

He shushed you gently.

“I know that but you come first in my list, okay?”

You sat there dumbfounded with his offering running again and again in your mind. It was something no one had given to you before. Being born as the eldest, you had to be the pillar—the strong one your siblings and sometimes even your parents could lean on. Never had another being offered their back to shelter you from the bouts of weakness and yet, here was one in Spencer Reid. There was no need to always be tough, he was telling you that. 

“Okay,” you whispered. “I understand.”

He pressed kisses to your forehead and cheeks. “Good, that’s good. I love you, there’s no need to be embarrassed about needing me by your side. I’m your partner, through thick and thin, okay?”

You nodded, the lump on your throat lodging itself further in. You briefly wondered why this perfect specimen of a man had decided to fall in love with you, how had no one come before you to see all the good he had to offer. 

“Do you need to cry, Angel?”

Your tears had started to escape, creating a clear path down your pink stained cheeks.

“Then go ahead and cry. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”

And you wept. 

Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

[furbygoblinxiv]

When I've read Dracula in the past, I always found it annoying that the dude squad decide to try to leave Mina out of the rest of the fight against Dracula. But idk, listening to re: Dracula these past few days kinda made me realize how it makes sense from their perspective.

Van Helsing mentioned that Mina is recently married, and thus, is potentially pregnant. With that thought, there'd be even more reason to be protective of her physical and emotional well-being.

Lucy very recently died. Lucy was someone that they all loved to varying degrees, and she was someone who died barely a week ago, and was actually killed a few days ago. They saw how the soft one they loved got twisted into a monster, which they wouldn't want to happen to Mina.

They left her in a house full of people that they thought was well defended, and they didn't realize that Dracula had anyone in the house to invite him in since Mina doesn't sleep walk.

She was present when Van Helsing listed out all of the powers and weaknesses of the vampire, and she transcribed Seward's diary of the account of how Lucy died. In theory, Mina should know what symptoms to look for in a vampire visit. She even makes comments about how it's like Lucy's comments about her dreams, which should have been a red flag for the girl who's cause of death was "vampire". But, again, she's in a full house that theoretically has no way for Dracula to get in.

This is also the inverse of Jonathan's sealed journal. Mina didn't read it, and after she did, she waited until after Van Helsing confirmed it was true to talk to Jonathan about it. She didn't want to upset him in a way that could hurt his mental state, and this is essentially a higher stakes reverse version of that imo.

Like yeah from a feminism and a reader standpoint, it's shortsighted and frustrating that they don't give Mina all of the information before it's too late. But from an emotional standpoint? If I saw what I thought was a chance to take someone I loved out of the line of fire, I'd do so in a heartbeat to protect them and relieve some of their burdens 🤷‍♀️

I don't see it as a writing issue, or Van Helsing being a raging evil sexist who's getting people killed. I see it as characters trying to protect someone they care about deeply and being flawed in their approach, and very quickly being proven wrong and admitting to their wrongdoing

I feel like re: Dracula is making me empathize with everyone more lol

[contract-crawdad]

The gang's all here!

What's the deal with these guys? What do we know about them?

Let's dig into it.

The Nightmares. The Shadows. The Darkness. They've got a lot of names, but none of em are official. Their overworld sprites are referred to as 'shadowmonsters' in the game files, but that's almost certainly not their intended name. One key detail is that Dan’s chat will identify them as ‘shades’, but that’s now what they ARE, just what type of enemy they are, like how Jennifer is listed as ‘cursed’ even though she’s clearly a human/house centipede hybrid. So the closest thing we have to go on is the fact that their battle sprites are referred to as 'danger(insert number)(large/medium/small)' in the game files... which is similarly very utilitarian, but I think it's very fitting.

Danger. The Dangers. That's what they are. That's all they can be.

It’s also a bit more distinctive of a name than ‘Shadows’ so I’m gonna stick with that. Not one single line of dialogue in the entire game acknowledges the Dangers directly. Part of the difficulty in analyzing these guys is just how little is concretely known about them, but that's not to say we don't know anything!

The most relevant piece of information to keep in mind is that they can appear all over the place, with odds influenced by your danger meter. The higher it is, the more likely you are for them to appear. This has led some to conclude that this implies Dangers are a shared hallucination by Sam and his party, but I do not believe that to be the case for reasons we will circle back to.

…And that’s it! That’s the only relevant spawning criteria! A few sources claim that nightfall or stress are relevant factors, but this doesn’t seem to be the case at all thanks to information from my sources. All that matters is the danger meter!

Dangers on the overworld (even when you can see them) are notable for their rapid flickering in and out of reality. Where they're flickering from and to is unknown, but they make a lot of eerie hissing and clicking noises while they do it. These noises are evidently Quebec curses played backwards, which is funny, but certainly does seem to imply that these things used to be human!

That said, we cannot accurately say whether or not Dangers are cursed! Don't get me wrong, they're definitely associated with the Visitor somehow! But I think it's either a Frederick situation where some as of yet unseen cursed human is creating more Dangers, or a Baby Teeth situation where a cursed human is actively spreading their affliction. Otherwise, it seems unlikely that so many humans would warp in such specific and similar ways entirely independently from one another.

Support for the theory that something is spawning the Dangers lies with Dan’s chat system: while his chat lists the small and medium Dangers as ‘shades’, the largest sizes are actually listed as ‘cursed’, possibly implying they were once humans that saw the Visitor, and are spawning the lesser Dangers! This one’s far from explicit canon, esPECIALY since Dan’s chat has a lot of labeling errors (for example, none of the botanical monsters having an enemy type listed at all despite clearly being cursed), but it’s certainly something to keep in mind.

In combat, any Danger can perform basic melee attacks, absorb stamina, and have between 0-2 skills entirely unique to them. Their basic attacks have the ‘shadow’ element. Additionally, they are resistant to crushing, slashing, piercing, bullets, and cold damage. They are weak to fire and to explosives. Compared to other enemies, they have abnormally high evasion (20% compared to the 5% pretty much everything else has). They generally give very little EXP for how difficult they can be, and have a chance to drop a 'Black Ooze' on defeat, with the largest Dangers being guaranteed to drop it.

These basic facts, while limited, actually give us a lot to work with!

Dangers are able to physically harm humans despite their strange habit of dipping in and out of existence.

Dangers all have the same resistances, implying that they are all made out of (approximately) the same stuff.

Dangers are able to inflict various statuses through a wide variety of physical and mental means.

Dangers DO HAVE unique attributes from one another beyond appearance.

Dangers leave behind a physical trace of their existence when killed.

The fact that Dangers have the same resistances and weaknesses is especially interesting because it implies that Dangers do have some kind of biology/physiology to them! This alongside the fact that their damage is considered shadow element is primarily what kills the 'they're hallucinations' theory... well, that and the black ooze.

Black ooze, oh how you vex me.

This stuff is the most solid evidence that the Dangers aren't purely psychological terrors, that they are instead very much REAL. While black ooze can be 'used' on a character, all it does is deal a massive chunk of damage, somewhere between 72% and 108% of a character’s max health. Ouch. No shopkeeper in the game will buy it, and it is left up to interpretation whether they simply do not want otherworldly filth (understandable), or if they can't even see the stuff. Which is very possible!

No character other than Sam will ever react to the presence of a Danger. For example, one can appear in Lyle's room, but it ignores him and he ignores it. There are other examples of rooms with NPCs that can have a Danger spawn near them as well, but the key is that these characters are in their homes. And where is the one place you are always safe from Dangers? That's right. Inside your home.

I propose that the primordial feeling of safety being home provides is an active shield against the Dangers. Resting at home, even, is enough to make the Dangers either unable or unwilling to attack you. But the Dangers are still there, one must assume.

Look Outside is not a game that pulls 'it was all in your head' twists. Ultimately, it's more horrifying that the Dangers are real and we just have absolutely no clue what they are. But they're all over the building, even if you can't always see them.

But they can see you.

And they just cannot wait for your fear to allow them to touch you.

------------------------------------------------------------

Thus ends the compilation of all known information! I could have mentioned the possible connection between the Dangers and the Shadow, or the idea that the Dangers could be connected to the teased 'infinite dungeon' that the creator wants to implement, but those are nothing but raw and unfiltered speculation on my part!

Did I miss anything about these goobers? Feel free to let me know!

Credit to @goawaypopup and @lily-wisp for some juicy 'under the hood' information, as well as @nastymajesty! Compilation images of all the Dangers are by me, feel free to use em.

Here's a bunch of Dangers exposed to the light as a reward for making it all the way through! Look at them. Nakey.

[cryptotheism]

Cant totally agree there honestly. Yes jung was totally far more of an occultist than a man of science, but saying the psychological reading of alchemy isnt there is a bit dubious to me. For instance the chymical wedding of crc are basically entirely focused on alchemy as self improvement and make it fairly clear physical matter or immortality is not the goal

From day six, after all but three alchemists are deceived from participating in the real final stage of the great work - “Here we had leisure to look a while at our companions through certain crevices made in the floor. They were now very busy at a furnace, and each had to blow up the fire himself with a pipe, and they stood blowing about it like this, as if they were wondrously preferred before us in this.”

And shortly later: “Now it was also time for the Virgin to see how other artists behaved themselves. They were well pleased because, as the Virgin afterwards informed me, they were to work in gold, which is indeed a piece of this art, but not the most principal, most necessary, and best. They had indeed too a part of these ashes, so that they imagined nothing other than that the whole bird was provided for the sake of gold, and that life must thereby be restored to the deceased.”

And in day seven, as the order is given their vows- “(5) That you shall not be willing to live longer than God will have you do. At this last article we could not choose but laugh, and it may well have been placed after the rest only for a conceit.”

The rest of the text makes it fairly clear that it is concerned with an inner journey/self improvement/understanding the nature of the self. For instance there isnt any subtlety made about ‘the virgin’ being the protagonists feminine reflection.

So its certainly there. Does jung carelessly knock everything else off the table to focus on it? Perhaps, but still.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL READING OF ALCHEMY DOESNT TAKE SHAPE UNTIL PARACELSUS IN THE 17TH CENTURY.

Chymical Wedding is a result of the post-paracelcian shift. It is clearly intended to have a personal spiritual reading akin to how Jung reads it. I would go so far as to say Jungian psychology barely diverges from the theory of the self put forth in Chymical Wedding. It's dope. It's one of my favorite occult texts of all time.

JUNG was not just applying the psychological reading to Chymical Wedding. He was applying it to fucking ZOSIMOS. Who was writing in fucking 300 AD. He read Chymical Wedding, and retroactively applied his reading to the previous 1600 years of alchemical history, making the case that ALL alchemical texts were actually just ancient psychological textbooks. Which his bullshit.

[thegayguard]

The Old Guard (comics + movie) Comprehensive Timeline

Edit: 16 Feb- reformatted to make it easier to read

I spent way too much time spent researching the comics one night resulting in this, my TOG magnum opus, including every confirmed event up until the beginning of the movie. If there's anything I missed let me know (I did misplace my copy of Force Multiplied but I don't think they did many flashbacks iirc). This is mostly for my own purposes, but absolutely feel free to use it for your own fics/art/meta/etc

Also thank you @yumekuimono for the putting together the photographs on Copley's hyperfixation board, which inspired me to make this.

It's long, so it's all under the cut. Enjoy!

4500s BCE:

Andromache is born in the Western Steppe, later known as Scythia, now known as the Ural region, mostly. Fifteen or so years later her mother(figure) gifts her an axe, naming Andy as her successor instead of her sisters. Five or so years later Andy's mother plans to have her killed out of jealously. Andy doesn't die, though her mother is killed in the conflict. Andy kills her attackers in revenge, then goes back to lead her people as a pseudo-god for an unspecified number of years.

500s BCE:

Quỳnh (Noriko) is born in modern day Vietnam (Noriko in Japan).

330ish BCE:

Lykon is killed for the first time following Alexander The Great to Judea. Andy meets him not long after (comic only canon, the movie doesn't specify when Andy and Lyon meet except to say it's after she meets Quynh).

Note- There's no firmer information on Yitzhak aka Isaac Blue at this time, apart from him being Jewish, a contemporary of Lykon, having been with Andy in the year 1950, and now living in Alaska. There's a wonderful analysis of his likely timeline by @nevermindirah who places him around the time of the Second Temple, somewhere between 500 BCE and 70 CE.

630s CE:

Andy meets Quynh in Alexandria while fighting with Amir ibn al-As. They become inseparable and travel with Lykon and Yitzhak for a time as roaming soldiers (anything about Yitzhak, so far, is comics only canon)

1066:

Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani called al-Tayyib is born in Maghreb, North Africa, to a family of merchants

1069:

Nicolò di Genova is born in Genoa, Italy

1099:

Joe and Nicky meet and kill each other and, according to word of god (aka Greg Rucka), get on to the more pleasurable type of physical relationship very quickly after.

1100-1230:

Andy and Quynh are spotted around the crusades, likely to find Nicky + Joe

1200s:

Noriko (comics only canon) is killed many times fighting rogue samurai around feudal Japan

1550-1600 (Renaissance):

Lykon dies for the last time, Joe saves a young artist from a fire in Genoa, forcing them to avoid Italy for 100 years

1500s (late):

Quynh and Andy attempt to free people from the witch trials and are caught themselves, leading to Quynh's underwater imprisonment

1700s (late):

The Guard are in London for a time. Joe saves a coffee shop owner from the stocks, Andy gets a new axe (that is still very much the same axe, to her).

1770:

Sébastien LeLivre is born in Marseilles, France.

1789-95:

Andy, Nicky, and Joe are at the Paris Commune. Nicky and Joe aren't speaking at the time.

1790s:

Andy meets a former West Indies slave turned British soldier turned highway robber named Achilles. Andy follows him to Australia, starts a life in a small town.

1812:

Booker dies in Russia while following Napoleon. He's hanged for desertion. The Guard meets up with him a few years later. (Note, it's very likely Booker was conscripted in the place of a richer man in exchange for a fee, or as blackmail material, given that married men were exempt from the Grande Armée and even the Imperial Army's levée en masse. My theory is he was caught by a banker or shop owner for his forgeries, and was therefore forced to take the man's place in the army).

1830s:

Booker hangs out with his youngest son Jean-Pierre, likely towards the end of his son's life, at a Parisian restaurant. Andy leaves Achilles for an extended amount of time to go to Jamaica, likely for the Baptist War. She comes back to find him dead, killed by their neighbors. She then razes the entire town in retaliation.

1834:

S��o Paulo. Joe jumps through a window as a distraction for reasons as yet unknown.

1853:

Joe and Nicky spotted on the ground of the Crimean War

1863:

Nicky goes undercover of sorts in the American Civil War as a Confederate soldier in Pennsylvania. Joe is helping the slaves Nicky frees along with the Quakers in York. The Guard appear at the Battle of Gettysburg

1870, September:

Booker and Andy meet in San Francisco after Booker unknowingly saves Merrick's great grandfather in a frontier town because of an inexplicable feeling he should stay to help

1887:

Nicky and Joe save a young person in Zanzibar, presumably the victim of a hate crime

1904:

The Guard prevent a coup in Haiti

1914-18:

The Guard fight in The Great War. Joe saves a little girl who becomes the youngest Nobel Laureate in Medicine. Andy fights in the Gallipoli campaign and in France

1916:

Andy saves a refugee family in Montenegro, one of whom goes on to develop early diabetes detection.

1917:

Andy takes part in a battle in Passchedaele, Belgium, and adopts an orphaned boy, Zeus

1932, November:

Joe and Nicky go to a bar in Berlin, run into the person they saved in Zanzibar, and punch a Nazi.

1944:

Andy is involved in the French Resistance in WWII

1945, August:

The Guard prevent a third atomic bomb

1950:

Andy and Yitzhak eat a meal made for them by Zeus somewhere not in the US

1956-59:

Joe, Nicky, and Booker are spotted helping the Cuban Revolution

1968:

Nicky and Andy appear at MLK speeches separately. Joe and Nicky rescue a man from a cave (poss. Onyx Cave, AZ in Oct. or Gory Hole, IN in Nov. -US cave incidents are very well recorded)

1969, July:

The Guard take down a pedophilic serial killer in Minnesota (possibly based on Stanley Rice). Nicky and Booker stay to track down everyone who knowingly let the killer go free. Joe and Andy head on to San Francisco to watch the moon landing at a bar.

1975, April:

Andy helps in Operation Babylift in Vietnam

late 1970's:

Andy lands in Cleveland, not knowing where she is after a job. Coincidentally, she cleans herself up in a restaurant owned by Zeus, who she hadn't seen in decades.

1978:

Booker gets captured by a cult of murder- and sex-obsessed nuns in NYC. Three months later Andy rescues a reluctant Booker from the nuns' compound in Guyana

1989:

Andy helps people escape East Germany

1992:

Booker serves as a combat medic in Sarajevo. Nicky attends university under the name N Smith (likely a graduate school given the wording of the ID. My guess, either for medicine or computer science, both of which were rapidly evolving at the time)

1994:

Nile Freeman born, South Side of Chicago, IL

2000s:

The Guard rescue children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are also linked to the US 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan.

2005:

Nile's dad killed in action on the ground as a Marine

2012:

The Guard take a CIA assignment in Surabaya, Indonesia, with Copley and Booker as the point persons

2013:

Andy goes by the alias Alexandra Black in the Czech Republic

2014:

Joe goes by the alias Joseph Jones in Germany. The Guard is seen in Syria near an USAF F-22 bombing site.

2019:

Andy takes a break to travel. Joe and Nicky travel to Eastern Turkey. Booker is contacted by Copley on behalf of Merrick Industries.

2020:

Nile dies for the first time in Afghanistan at the hands of an enemy insurgent. Official record has her killed in action. The events of the movie (aka comics Opening Fire 1-5). Booker returns to Paris in his exile, where he is contacted by Quynh.

[atlaculture]

Cultural Architecture: NWT Totem Poles - The Specifics Pt. 2

Among most of the totem poles we see throughout the Northern Water Tribe (NWT), four representations appear consistently throughout. For this post, I will be covering the final two.

Koi Fish

The third totem is clearly a koi fish with long whiskers and a marking on its forehead. In other words, it's a reference to the physical forms of the moon and ocean spirit. I can't help but wonder if Aang's realization of Tui and La's true forms was unconsciously informed by the all the koi head totems omnipresent throughout the NWT.

Culturally, koi fish are yet another example of the Chinese influence in the NWT. In Chinese culture, koi represent fame, family harmony and wealth. There's also a famous Chinese folktale about koi fish and other carp:

Along the Yellow River, there is a legendary waterfall that cascades from a magical mountain top known as Longmen (登龍門), meaning the Dragon's Gate. If a carp can swim upstream against the currents and hop over the waterfall into Longmen, the fish will transform into a dragon.

Thus, koi fish can also represent determination, courage, and perseverance. The connection between koi and dragons also strengthens the fan theory that the dragons Ran and Shaw might be the Fire Nation's equivalent to Tui and La. Perhaps the dragons are the spirit of Sun and Fire respectively?

Wolf

The totem beneath the koi depicts a wolf. The wolf head totem also bares a striking resemblance to the headdress that Sokka wears in "Day of the Black Sun" (Season 3, Episode 11). Wolves are prominent figures in the mythologies of many Indigenous American cultures, particularly those whose societies were oriented around hunting.

Within different Inuit groups, wolves are called amarok (multiple groups), amagok (Inuvialuit), and amaguk (Inupiat). These names refer both to normal wolves and to the gigantic, supernatural wolf of Inuit religion. There are two Amarok-focused tales that I'd like to detail in this post:

A persecuted and physically stunted boy seeks to increase his strength. When he calls out to the lord of strength, Amarok appears and wrestles him to the ground with its tail. This causes a number of small bones to fall from the boy's body. The Amarok tells the boy that the bones had prevented his growth; he instructs the boy to return daily in order to develop his strength. After several days of wrestling with the Amarok, the boy is strong enough to overcome three large bears, thus gaining him the esteem of his village.

The land was once full of caribou; the people lived well and were happy. But the hunters only killed those caribou that were big and strong. Soon all that was left were the weak and the sick. The people began to starve. And so they called upon Amorak, the spirit of the wolf, to winnow out the weak and the sick, so that the herd would once again be strong. The people realized that the caribou and the wolf were one, for although the caribou feeds the wolf, it is the wolf that keeps the caribou strong.

From these two stories, we get quite a nuanced conception of what the wolf represents in Inuit culture. While wolves represent strength in many cultures, these tales really emphasize the wolf as a creature that strengthens those around it. Through this worldview, we understand strength not as an innate or individualistic quality, but one that's nurtured through mentorship and interdependence.

This makes Sokka's adoption of wolf imagery during "Day of Black Sun" all the more appropriate. Sokka is certainly not the most powerful character in the show, but his role as the leader strengthens the group as a whole.

Like what I’m doing? Tips always appreciated, never expected. ^_^

https://ko-fi.com/atlaculture

[no-phrogs-in-hats]

Sweet as Sugarcane

Chapter 5: The Constellation Andromeda

Agatha Harkness x Fem!reader Old West/Oregon Trail AU

Word count: 2,605

Summary: As a New York politician's daughter, you're accustomed to a way of life that many people aren't privy to. But after your mother dies and your father sells everything, the only life you see ahead is on a dusty, deserted trail out west--until you meet Agatha.

Warnings: minor physical violence, blood, alcohol, and of course internalized homophobia

Spotify playlist here

Ao3 here

Masterlist

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6 |

Water splashes your face as you beat your sodden clothes against a rock–just one of the many chores you’ve done since waking up this morning. The women around you do the same, chattering away with each other, but you’re quiet.

You’re very quiet.

You wipe the water and sweat from your forehead and huff. Your mind is going a thousand miles an hour. So much has happened within the past two-and-half days. From the wagon breaking and then one of the mules falling sick, and now…Agatha.

She hasn’t left your dreams. She’s stuck in your head. You had hoped the dream would’ve been the only one, but last night after your afternoon spent with her–the lingering touch on your back, her voice low and breathy in your ear, the heat that spread your face when she smiled at you–all you could do was imagine falling asleep in her arms. 

And now, after her informal invite to see her at the saloon again, you were almost panicking. Between the night guards at the encampment and having to sneak off, your stomach is in knots.

But you’re aching to go. You’re aching to see her again, even if it pains you. Even if it makes you want to crawl out of your skin from shame.

And what if your mother is watching you? What if she’s watching you make every mistake that would bring shame upon the family if you were caught? It kills you to think you’re disappointing her, the woman who you admired so much, and who, even a year after her death, you’re still trying to make proud. 

“Just be happy, my dear.”

“And whatever you choose to do with your life, I could not be prouder of you.”

But would she be proud?

Would she still want you to be happy if it was in the arms of a woman? A woman who’s treated you better than any man has–or any other woman for that matter.

Do you bring shame to her grave as much as you bring shame to yourself?

It hurts. It’s excruciating. But, oh, how it hurts so good. 

The day drags on, and by the time you’re done with the laundry, it’s only midday. The men in the group have been all up in arms after you and your brothers returned empty-handed, but the information that the woodworker could have the new axle done in less that two weeks placated them a bit.

Everyone had pained looks on their faces when they realized you’d be here for at least a week. Even you played along, but deep down–not even deep, it was surface level–you couldn’t have been happier. Walks to the town for supplies could now be a daily endeavor, and with a saloon so close by, the men are guaranteed to be there tomorrow night. The women in the other groups barely acknowledge you, and if your father and brothers are off with ome of them, it’d be fairly easy to sneak off..

By dinner, you’re becoming more antsy–like sneaking off was no longer a theory but an actual plan you’re going to act on. And for her, you might just do that.

The sun sets sowly and at nine, you climb into the wagon with your littlest brother, tucking him in tight with a blanket. You stay with him by the lantern, reading while you wait for him to fall asleep. The voices of men by the fire carry to your ears and you’re suddenly hyperaware of every noise around you–the whisper of rustling brush against the wagon, your brother’s soft breathing, the chirping of crickets of the dark Wyoming night. 

When your brother’s breathing evens out and his jaw slacks enough that his lips part in his sleep, you carefully shuffle along the floor of the wagon. Your breath is shallow and quiet and after you drop slowly to the ground, you reach for the lantern and lower the fuel to dim the light.

With your heart pounding, you look back to make sure no one can see you. When you’re certain there’s no one to spot you, you hurry off with light footing, using the brush as cover. Your hair, no longer contained in a bonnet, flows freely in the summer breeze.

You use the light of the lantern to guide you when you’re far enough from the camp. Knowing you’re late, you walk quickly through the dry grass and rocky terrain. The town approaches quickly and you can feel your heart jump to your throat.

When you’re close enough, you can just barely read the churchbell clock. It’s almost eleven but the town is glowing with life. You hurry forward on the path that winds through scattered log houses and make your way into town.

You can hear the rabble in the saloon before you even get there, and when you do arrive, you spot Agatha immediately. She laughs loudly at a poker table and knocks back the rest of her whiskey before tossing her winning hand of cards onto the table. 

As she reaches for the pile of biddings in the center she pauses and looks at you. You can just barely hear her over the sound of the piano and other patrons dancing and laughing, but you can make out, “I had fun, gentlemen, but I’ll leave the rest of the night to you.” 

When she pockets the money, she stands up and crosses the room, a sly smile on her lips. “Thought I wasn’t gonna see you tonight, sweetheart. Let’s get you a drink.”

Her hand comes to your lower back and you want to melt. She guides you over to the bar and orders two whiskeys, handing you yours with a clink of your glasses.

“What took you so long?” she teases. 

You smile back, “It’s quite hard sneaking out of a camp with twenty people.”

“You snuck out, huh?” she asks, raising her eyebrows and taking a sip of her whiskey. “I guess you were right. You aren’t a good Christian girl…”

After your first drink, you’re less tense, and when the fiddler begins to accompany the pianist, Agatha offers her hand. “Care to dance?”

You set your second glass of whiskey and hesitate, “Well, I’ve never–I don’t know how to dance,” you chuckle. “Not like this.”

“That’s no problem, darlin’,” Agatha reassures you. “Just follow my lead. You’ll do great.”

You take her hand and she drags you to the center of saloon where men and women dance together. It all happens quickly. When her right hand drifts to your waist you can feel that pit in your stomach form. Your own hand goes to her arm and you hold on tightly as the quickstep begins. 

You squeal and laugh with her as she guides you around the room. She holds you close and you’re hyperaware of the way her hands tighten on your waist and in your grasp. You’re out of breath and your face burns from how hot it is inside the saloon.

Bargoers that aren’t dancing stand on the sidelines and clap along to the rhythm of the music. When you look up at her face, she has the brightest smile you’ve ever seen. The crows feet at her eyes crinkle with her laughs and here, in her arms, in the warmth of the saloon, you feel safe. 

When the music finally stops, you clap with the other people, catching your breath but unable to stop laughing. You’re brought back to the bar with Agatha’s hand still on your lower back.

You laugh into your glass as she takes a sip of hers, “I’ve never danced like that before!”

Agatha giggles, “You certainly seem to be having fun.”

When you open your mouth to respond, you’re shoved harshly into Agatha and feel the wet splash of beer in your hair and down your back. You gasp and Agatha moves you behind her protectively. 

When she confronts the man responsible, there’s clear anger in her eyes but he looks entirely unbothered. “Are you going to apologize?” she asks for the second time.

“What are you–gonna–do about it, bitch?” he slurs, and then drunkenly spits right on her boot.

With no hesitation, her fist meets his jaw where a rough beard is growing in. He’s on the ground instantly and the bar patrons step back quickly with gasps and murmurs. Your hands are over your mouth as he lies on the floor motionless and you look from him to Agatha. 

“Agatha, what–?” She shakes out her hand, seething at the pain, and you notice the blood on her knuckles. “You’re bleeding!”

“I’m fine,” she scoffs, brushing you off. “Let’s go.”

She tips back the rest of her whiskey and slams the glass back down, taking your hand and weaving through the crowd. The cool night air hits you and you can finally breathe again.

“Agatha, you’re bleeding!” you say again. “Please, let me help. You need to clean–!”

She stops walking and huffs. “Fine,” she says, still heated from the interaction with the man. When she realizes her tone and sees the worried look in your eyes, her shoulders relax and her voice softens. “There’s a water pump not too far down here.”

At the water pump, you sit Agatha down on a wooden bench and rip a piece of your underskirt off. You pump the water and reach for her hand, running it under the cold water. Your fingers massage the knuckles and wash the blood off, and you hear Agatha’s breath stutter. You can feel her eyes on you and you keep your head down, focusing on washing the wound. When the blood is cleaned from her skin, you take the piece of cloth from your skirt and tie it around her knuckles. 

When you look up from her hand you meet eyes and she smiles softly. Her voice is quiet and she squeezes the hand that’s in hers, “Well, don’t you make a fine nurse, sugar.”

Your heart swells and your throat tightens with tears. Agatha notices the second your expression changes and her words are nothing but concerned, “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Is it something I said?”

“It’s nothing,” you sniffle, smiling as you remember what your mother told you. “It’s just…my mama said almost the exact same thing to me before…” You trail off, somehow not able to utter those words.

“Before?”

“She…before she passed on,” you finally say. “She was sick…last year. The doctor said it was typhus. I stayed by her side the whole month.” You avert your eyes and your words are watery, “I don’t think I slept a wink the entire time.”

Her smile is sad and you know she’s trying to figure out what to say, but instead of offering her condolences like the rest of the parrots in New York society, she says, “Can I show you something?”

You smile and nod, “Of course.”

Agatha leads you back to the saloon and to a tall, brown horse tied out front. She climbs on and reaches her hand out, “Well, climb on up, hon! Let’s go!”

You take her hand–warm and soft–and slip your boot into the stirrup, climbing onto the horse and sitting behind Agatha. When she lets go of your hand, you almost find yourself missing it, but you don’t dwell on it, because she says, “Hold on tight, sugar.”

And you do. You wrap your arms around her waist and hold onto her tightly. She turns the horse to the right and soon, the town is growing small behind you. 

You’re galloping on a dirt path now, avoiding trees and brush, and the whole time you’re smiling into Agatha’s shoulder. You can smell the musk on her leather jacket, woody and masculine, and so comforting. 

You’ve tried so hard to keep this feeling down. To stop thinking of her in this way, to stop dreaming of being in her arms, and to stop looking at her lips and imagining what they’d taste like. But now your arms are wrapped around her waist, and she’s taking you through the plateaus of the Wyoming territory. And you now know, that no matter how many times you try to push them down, there’s no getting rid of your feelings for Agatha Harkness.

After the horse slowly comes to a halt, Agatha hops down first and then helps you. She holds you close when you get down and you have to force yourself to separate. 

“It’s quiet,” you murmur. And it’s true. The only sound is the buzzing of cicadas and the chirping of crickets, with the occasional swishing of the horse’s tail as it grazes.

Agatha sighs contentedly, “It is.”

The view from the hill is amazing. In the distance you can see the town, still lit up with revelry, and behind that, the Black Hills on the horizon. You’re speechless, almost emotional with how vast the world before you is. “This is extraordinary, Agatha.”

You can feel her behind you, almost pressed up against your back. She leans into your ear and her voice is breathy, “Now look up.”

Above you is the most incredible sight you’ve ever seen. Hundreds of thousands of stars twinkle above you, oblivious to the events unfolding beneath them. You feel Agatha’s hand trail down your arm softly and take your hand. She outstretches your arm and leans in close. You can feel her breath on your cheek as she points your finger for you and tracks the constellations.

“Do you see that ‘W’ shape?” she asks softly, tracing the sky with your pointer finger.

“Yes,” you breathe back.

“That,” she says, “is the constellation Cassiopeia–the vain ruler who bragged about her daughter’s beauty. And if you go below…there’s the constellation Andromeda–bound in chains as a sacrifice for her mother’s words…and just over here…is the constellation Perseus–who slew the sea monster to save Andromeda, and ran off with her to marry…”

“It’s incredible…” you breathe. “I’ve never seen so many stars in my life.”

You drop your finger and her hand clasps your, curling you arm into yourself, and she holds it there. You lean against her, pulse racing as she takes her other hand and rests it on your hip. 

“Your pulse is racing,” she whispers, lips brushing your skin with each word.

You let out a shuttering breath and turn your head slightly, looking her in the eyes, “Agatha, I’m…I’m terrified.”

And you dont need to elaborate, because she knows why. 

“You don’t have to be terrified,” she mumbles back. “Not here. Not with me.”

And that’s what does it–her quiet reassurance. Her gentle promise and the way her thumb caresses the bare skin of your hand. 

Your breaths tie together. You glance down at her lips. She does the same. Your eyes meet again and you feel her hand leave yours and take your chin. The next thing you feel is her lips on yours as you turn toward her and clutch at her jacket. 

As the kiss deepens, her hand drifts from your chin and tangles in a dry patch of your hair. Her other tightens on your waist and when you feel her tongue gently prod into your mouth, you breathe deeply and let it in.

Your hands travel further up and then down her biceps to hold her forearms. When you pull away slowly, your noses brush and she smiles softly. And through the buzzing of the cicadas and beneath the canopy of stars, she hums and softly caresses your cheek, searching your eyes.

“You taste exactly as I imagined,” she mutters. “Sweet as sugarcane.”

[sugar-grigri]

I think I remember you making references to Fire Punch in a few analysis post so I assume you've read that one, but have you read Goodbye Eri, and if so do you have any particular thoughts you want to share on it? It might be my favorite, although it's hard to rank Fujimoto's works because there's something different I like about all of them.

Hi Yuta! or is it Fujimoto?

2022, Goodbye Eri is released and I'm in for a huge slap in the face! I've finally got the chance to talk about it, so thank you!

It's hard to come after the war after this one-shot has been the subject of so much analysis, interpretation and criticism. But I think it's a work that's deliberately designed to be a trap, and the first mistake would be to try absolutely hard to determine whether Goodbye Eri is true or false. 

Trying to detect the true and the false is futile, not that it's really impossible, but arguments could be several pages long and the theories put forward would remain mere hypotheses because no explicit confirmation is given. Quite simply because this is not the aim of the work, nor a satisfactory way of reading it. 

For example, when Yuta's father seems to be getting angry with Eri, we understand from Eri's "And Cut!!!" that it was all a set-up. So, as a good reader, we can only assume that what follows is pure reality. However, the father, now an actor, if he should play his line differently.

As another illustration, when Eri is close to death and Yuta are talking, there are a few hints that they might have a relationship, but this is denied by Yuta himself, in a discussion with Eri's friend. 

The film plays with this to such an extent that all sorts of theories are possible. It could just as easily be interpreted as there being only two films (on Yuta's mother and then on Eri's death), two films but in different ways: one about Yuta's mother and a second film about Eri, as a vampire, with the end scene played by Yuta's father and by Eri before her death.

This explains why, even after Eri's death, Yuta continues to film because the film isn't actually finished yet, the editing being there to reverse the scenes played chronologically, to make it look as if Eri was still alive, and so on. ..

As you can see, it all makes sense, and our preference is purely personal because they all work. But I'm not going to play that game, because it only shows me one thing, and that's that the plot surrounding Eri is deliberately obscure. 

I've seen a lot of people describe Goodbye Eri as a work about dealing with death - the way we want to remember those we've lost, etc... It's about mourning, symbolically saying goodbye, hence the title. Which is true! But it goes further than that.

Eri's plot is deliberately obscure because the right way to appropriate the work is not through her. She's the character we know least about. Physically alone, we learn that she wore glasses and braces. Mentally, she was more annoying than she seemed in the movie. Eri is a mirage in which we won't find answers, so we have to learn to say goodbye.

The only reliable information given in this OS is that everything is filmed by Yuta's phone. And in reality, you know Yuta better than Eri, so it's him you should turn to...

Hi Yuta!

Yuta is almost never shown in this OS, as he is always filming. And when he is shown accurately, it's when he's inspired by other films by watching them with Eri, in other words, he's continuing to work on his own film by watching others. 

Yuta's first film began as a result of his mother's narcissistic desire, as he was celebrating his birthday, discovering his gift, a smartphone, all of which was directly taken over by his mother, who asked him to film her until she died.

By keeping only the good sides of his mother, ignoring all the abusive parts of her, Yuta does not follow his parent's wishes, he does it for himself, showing what he himself wants to retain from his childhood, his story, in order to move forward properly.

But as everything is filmed, it gives the impression that the videos have been passively lined up without any sorting, without any choice. Yuta takes his revenge because he refuses to film his mother until the day she dies, stopping before then, preferring an explosion to conclude his film. It's brutal because it's as if Yuta's tastes, his little touch of fantasy, are suddenly surfacing, while the rest of the film is just as personal, just as him. So when his film is mocked, it's a work so personal that Yuta wants to die. 

It's not insignificant that it's Eri who intervenes, whose only certainty was that she loved not only the films but also Yuta's, simply because she saw not only Yuta's mother in this film but also him, whom she considered to be the best character. She wasn't revolted by the ending, because she was aware of Yuta's touch throughout the film. The same ambiguity then resurfaces, we don't know if Eri is in love with Yuta, she corrects him to say that it's these films, the two are so linked, that liking Yuta's films is tantamount to liking the teenager. 

Yuta follows Eri's desire to produce a film that is above all personal to him, to the point that when Eri sees her last moments narrated by him, she sees Yuta more than herself, because she is seen through someone else's eyes. 

For me, there aren't two or three films, but just one from start to finish. Because you see, we've said goodbye to Eri, we've got out of her tricky story to reflect on Yuta, but we still haven't stepped back enough. Because you know who made the film, and it's not Yuta, it's Fujimoto. So, third stage :

let's salute Fujimoto. 

The film we've just seen in this OS deals with a number of overlapping themes, the way in which a loved one is portrayed, the relationship with others, death, creation, but above all, the extent to which a work is personal. Goodbye Eri is a pretext for Fujimoto to show us the extent to which even the cutting is the fruit of reflection, is already a message.

In this OS, all the boxes are in the video format of a smartphone, each moving, static shot depends on Yuta, just as each shot is in the third row, drawn by someone.

People make the mistake, like the first audience of Yuta's film about his mother, of relating to works as linear stories to be trusted, even if they film his mother every day, Yuta's editing is his way of counting a story, it is certainly not the truth in all its neutrality. It's only at the moment of the explosion, which expresses the most of Yuta's personality, that people get upset.

This offbeat, absurd explosion is something that Fujimoto punctuates in his works, yet they are both thought out and personal to him. But they are often mocked as a way of poking fun at his work. What Fujimoto is saying is that the work doesn't become brutally personal for the controversial, offbeat moments, just the way he depicts a scene from life is personal. 

People believed this version of the author's mother, otherwise they wouldn't be outraged by this disgraceful way of portraying this nice woman at the end, so in itself, Yuta's film worked. But all this is just a pretext for Fujimoto to point out that he is the author of all his other works, CSM, Fire Punch, Look Back, Just Listen to the Song... They are just like another film made in response to the positive or negative reactions of the others.

Fujimoto likes to trace the common ground between these works, which respond to each other. Each one, placed side by side, is an attempt by Fujimoto to upset his audience a little more, a second or third try.

The mistake is to separate the author's touch from his work, just as we are tempted to focus more on Eri than Yuta. Just as Fujimoto reminds us through this OS, who writes, draws Goodbye Eri. The first part of CSM was turned upside down by the fact that Makima was a demon from the start, abusive to the point of being the antagonist.

A violent and abusive maternal relationship. The design of the mother is also a bit similar. Mentions of the breasts, something that also went down quite a bit and left its mark on a lot of readers because it was so out of sync. The emphasis on cats... A rejected boy. A work focused on female characters.

Goodbye Eri is a work in which Fujimoto makes fun of himself, his works and the things that bring them together. Yes, there will be an explosion if the author so decides. Yes, Eri can live again, be a vampire, if the author so decides, but what's to stop him making his characters die, and then bringing them back to life a few pages later? 

The characters' plots are the authors' playgrounds, whether you like it or not. You can't detach works from their authors, or read works as unrelated things because they were written by the same person. Talking about death, life, mourning, love, with a touch of fantasy is what Fujimoto does in each of them. 

So if you're lost, remember that what you're reading isn't in the title but in the author. 

[craving-for-chaos]

Let's talk about the music video.

So. I guess I'm a prophet now. That's neat 😭 But anyway, analysis time!! Get ready for a LOT of photos to illustrate my points.

First of all, seeing Phoenix + Mary and Reyna + Lucia right when First Light happened was fascinating. Specifically in the case of Lucia, this proves that her sudden illness was directly caused by gaining Radiant powers. And, though this was pretty much already established I believe, this also confirms that First Light happened quite a while ago (as we can see by the noticeable difference in the ages of the agents in the flashbacks vs. the present).

One shot in particular that intrigues me is this one:

Obviously the Kingdom Corp. logo is in the background, and there seem to be agents (not the VP kind) ready to incapacitate Phoenix; notice how they're holding guns and speaking into phones/walkie talkies. And on the right there's firefighters (And Mary, though she's not visible in this screenshot). This implies that Phoenix may have been detained by Kingdom immediately after causing the fire at school—unless this is more metaphorical, but in that case I'd imagine we'd see the Valorant logo in the back instead of Kingdom Corp's.

Okay, now to move on to what I'm sure most of us are going insane over: Sage.

The first thing I noticed was in this shot, Sage's powers are creating crystals wherever she steps:

Personally, I'm not attributing this to her healing power directly, as we know (via her walls and slow orbs) Sage can simple create crystallized structures. However, I find it interesting how almost automatic this seems. We see in the frames after that Sage is already preparing to revive Killjoy, and in that case, could this be her powers "spilling over," so to speak? There's other frames in the MV that make me think Sage could be having issues controlling her powers overall, but we'll get back to this in a second.

I want to bring attention to this transition, for a moment:

In the first shot, KJ is being held by Brimstone, and all of the mission's agents are close to one another. Yet in the next, I believe we're seeing the situation from Sage's POV; the others disappear, and she instead sees KJ's corpse/soul crystallized. She's even looking directly at it in the shot. Reality has fallen away, and from here on out, everything except for KJ coming back to life and the consequences of Sage's powers isn't actually physically occurring. It's in the agents' heads, a manifestation of their traumas. It's possible Sage is actually experiencing these things, but if she is, she's the only one.

Here, notice how the others are still absent (they've been mysteriously teleported elsewhere) except for Raze, and these crystal "monsters" are beginning to rise up and turn hostile. Sage, meanwhile, is making direct contact with crystallized KJ and seemingly funneling all of her power into her.

I'm going to omit the shot of Reyna holding Lucia and Phoenix with Mary in the background because, like I said, they're heavily figurative moments, and don't present us with any new information. What I WILL highlight, however, is this shot of Brimstone:

You may have missed this on first watch, but do you noticed whose face is in the background? KAY/O. Paired with the shots of Brimstone holding his dead friend earlier in the MV, not to mention KAY/O's odd familiarity with and affection for Brimstone, this may lend some more credence to the theory that Brim's dead friend is somehow the "soul" or personality within KAY/O. Now then—back to Sage.

It's this next part that leads me to believe that Sage is either having trouble controlling her powers, is "running out" of life to give, or some combination of the two. We'll go nearly frame by frame.

Notice how, in the first and third images, Sage's eyes are brown. Her powers are flagging, and she has to consciously take deep breaths and gather strength to push out enough power to revive Killjoy. And—something you may or may not have noticed—we can actually see the crystals on Sage's skin forming more and more with each "push." In the second image, her slightly glowing eyes directly correlate with the slight glow seen in the gap of her bangs; the first appearance of the crystals. Then, after her power fades and she has to gather strength again, she bows her head, closes her eyes, and we see the entirety of her cheek + jaw glowing as the crystals form. Lo and behold, when she looks up again, her eyes are glowing brightly, and during her final surge of power, the crystals on her neck are also visible.

She also looks visibly tired and frustrated whenever she "fails" and has to push harder. We see her grit her teeth and thin her lips in irritation in both shots where her eyes are brown. And, to top it all off, she's visibly breathing heavily this entire scene, not to mention how her position (leaning all of her weight on crystallized KJ and literally pushing) also communicates how she's giving everything she has into this. Along with what I pointed out earlier, this could be evidence of her control over her powers slipping, it could simply be evidence that she's pushing herself too far, or it could also mean that the longer someone has been dead, the more damage is done to Sage if she revives them. Or, of course a combination of the three. Either way, it doesn't bode well for Sage.

And then we have this scene. Sage isn't surprised. Sure, she's hurt and frustrated, and she even tries to brush off Reyna's attempt to help, but there's not an ounce of fear or shock in her behavior here. Also of note: not only is she taking deep breaths, wincing, and both of her hands tremble, but she's also hunched over and crouched down. It's clear she's in a lot of pain, and though she isn't quite brought to her knees, it's a damn near thing. The crystals—which, by the way, are still glowing (and perhaps burning her?)—on her neck also disappear under her collar, so we don't actually know just how much of her skin they cover.

We're also firmly back in reality now. All of the agents are still really close to one another, as they were earlier, and none of them are even armed. We're back in Valorant HQ's hangar, not a crystal structure in sight. This further supports the idea that that was all in Sage's head.

....And aside from the burn scar on Mary's face showing us that Phoenix burned her by accident in the fire, that's all I got.

God, this music video was JAM-PACKED with lore. We've now gotten every agent on the loading screen(s) shown except for Viper and Chamber, and I can only imagine how they might show up in the upcoming updates...

[sokkastyles]

I think it's implied that Azula started firebending before Zuko did, and not even just that Zuko started at a later age than Azula. If Azula 5 or 6 in the flashback in Azula in the Spirit Temple when she first starts firebending, then I think Zuko hadn't started firebending yet as a 7 or 8 year old. And that probably informs the reactions we see in the comics from their parents as well.

I mean, I think Ozai would have very much held Zuko's lack of firebending over his head. My theory is that Ozai's disfavor of Zuko began to fester as soon as Zuko was born, due to Ozai protecting his own insecurities onto Zuko (and also being jealous that Zuko divided Ursa's attention). This would be easy for Ozai to do since Zuko is both his firstborn and a boy.

So by the time Azula comes along, Ozai is already convinced that Zuko is a failure (and it's possible that there were disfavorable omens when Zuko was born that fed into that perception, maybe Zuko was late learning to walk or talk, etc.) and that he will be a late bloomer, or maybe not a bender at all.

And poor Zuko, for his part, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as kids often do when they live in a household where the adults in their lives don't expect them to flourish. So every time Zuko failed to hit a certain milestone, Ozai would use that to either torment him or Ursa on how her son was a failure.

So when Azula is born, Ozai is determined that she will be everything Zuko is not. And maybe Azula does things that encourage this perception. We know she's precocious, and again, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ozai gets pleasure out of giving Azula every praise and advantage he denied to Zuko. How long before either of the children began to make a single spark do you think Ozai was telling his family how sure he was that Azula would firebend first, and rubbing it into their faces how that meant Zuko was a failure?

I think this fits with both the reactions we see from Zuko and Azula as young children in the comics. A lot has been made of that scene in Azula in the Spirit Temple when Ursa reacts with fear and disappointment on seeing her daughter bending, while Ozai is exuberant and demands Ursa praise their daughter. We, the audience, know who Ozai is. We know his excitement for his daughter's firebending skills is not out of caring or pride for his daughter, but all about himself and the weapon he wants to make Azula into. There is reason for Ursa to be fearful, here, but it's fear of Ozai, not fear of her daughter. And, as the comic also states, fear for Azula.

I also want to go back to that scene in the Search where we see young Zuko coming to his mother, waking from a nightmare where Azula has set his room on fire. Both Azula and Zuko are very young in this scene, and of course Zuko's fear is ridiculous. Neither of the children have started bending yet.

But if Ozai had already been telling his family how strong Azula was going to be, and how weak Zuko was in comparison, that explains very well Zuko's fear.

There's also something here of fire as an element both prized and feared by those who wish to control it, and I think both children learned very quickly the dual nature of fire and made it a core aspect of their personality.

I think about that image of baby Zuko in awe of Iroh's flames in Legacy of the Fire Nation. How long before the wonder of fire turned to fear, and anxiety because he just couldn't seem to measure up?

Can you imagine how terrifying it was for all of them living with Ozai? Not because he was physically violent, but because of the violence in his threats, the subtle reminders of how his rage could be turned on those who didn't meet his expectations at any moment. And he'd already made up his mind that Zuko would never meet his expectations and that Azula had to. No wonder Zuko learns to fear his sister at an early age. No wonder Azula learns that it's better to be feared than to be a disappointment.

[eco-lite]

I’m once again returning to do god’s work by bringing you delightful moments from Spock’s World by Diane Duane.

[Text ID: “Spock was bent over [the Science Station], making some adjustment. ‘Readout now,’ he said, straightening and looking over his shoulder at the large, shaggy-fringed rock that was sitting in the center seat. Some of those glittering fringes stroked the open circuitry of the communicator controls in the seat’s arm. ‘Point nine nine three,’ said a scratchy voice from the voder box mounted on the rock’s back. ‘A nice triple sine.’ ‘Nice?’ said Spock. Jim raised an eyebrow: you could have used Spock’s tone of voice to dry out a martini.” End ID]

There’s a Horta crewman on the Enterprise now and they’re great!

[Text ID: “Still working on her doctoral thesis, Jim thought. Uhura was busy working on improving universal translator theory, mostly by taking the old theory to pieces and putting it back together in shapes that were causing a terrible furor in academic circles on various planets. Jim vividly remembered one night quite a long time ago when he had asked Uhura exactly how she was going about this. She had told him, for almost an hour without stopping, and in delighted and exuberant detail, until his head was spinning with phoneme approximations and six-sigma evaluations and the syntactic fade and genderbend and recontextualization and linguistic structural design and the physics of the human dextrocerebral bridge. The session had left Jim shaking his head, thoroughly disabused of the idea (and ashamed of how long he had held it) that Uhura was simply a sort of highly trained switchboard operator.” End ID]

Uhura continues to be a total badass and is amazing at what she does.

[Text ID: Chatroom title in all caps: “COMMON ROOM OPINION, INFORMED AND NON- RANTING AND RAVING PERMITTED NAMES NOT NECESSARY” Regular text: “It was one of the places he came to find out what his crew was thinking. Messages did not have to be attributed to a name or terminal, but they could not be private. The office of the common room system operator rotated through the crew, offered to various members on the strength of their psych profiles in areas like calm reaction to stress and anger. The common room syops tended to be closemouthed and dependable, the kind of person that others refer to as ‘a rock.’ (Once it had actually been Naraht, to the amusement of just about everyone.) Here tempers could flare, awful jokes be told safely, suspicions be aired, rumors be shot down. The common room was sometimes a peaceful place, sometimes a powderkeg. Jim never ignored it.” End ID]

The Enterprise has a dumpster fire chat room that has just as much shitposting and vitriol as twitter.

[Text ID: “Jim bowed over her free hand. ‘It’s been too long,’ he said. ‘It’s good to be back,’ Amanda said. ‘And in the middle of a party as well.’ She looked a little wry. ‘A little entertainment will be pleasant before the deluge.’ Sarek’s eyes flicked to Kirk, a considering look. ‘My wife speaks figuratively,’ he said, ‘in the tradition of her people. Deluges are not common on Vulcan.’ ‘My husband speaks circumspectly,’ Amanda said, just as dryly, ‘in the tradition of his.’” End ID]

Amanda and Sarek are as charming as ever.

[Text ID: “Jim was mildly surprised to see that to his other rank tags and decorations, McCoy had added a small, understated IDIC. ‘If I didn’t know you better,’ he said, ‘I’d think you were going native. When did you get that?’ ‘Today in the gift shop, when you were looking at the snowball paperweights with Mount Seleya in them. Tackiest things I ever saw.’ ‘Yes,’ Spock said; ‘they were imported from Earth.’ ‘You be quiet. We can’t let these people leave the Federation, Jim. At least not until they teach us how to make tasteful souvenirs.’” End ID]

Just this.

[Text ID: “There was Sreil, the burly, brown-haired biologist from the Academy, and T’Madh, a little bright-eyed woman of great age and curiosity, a computer programmer; and her son Savesh, who when asked what he did, said, ‘I am a farmer,’ with a sort of secret satisfaction that hinted he thought his job better than any of the more technical ones that the people around him held. Jim had to smile; the thought of a Vulcan farmer was slightly funny, even though there naturally had to be some. But the image of a Vulcan in coveralls, chewing on a stalk of hay, kept coming up and having to be repressed.” End ID]

I love Savesh the Vulcan farmer!

[Text ID: “’Jim,’ he said, ‘the best translation of nehau would be an old word: “vibes.” The feeling-in-your-bones that something gives you. It’s highly subjective.’ ‘Right. Go on, Savesh.’ ‘Well, Captain, I have heard numerous Vulcans say that losing the Federation and the Earth people would be no particular loss, because they had bad nehau, and that could not fail to affect us sooner or later.. But I must tell you that I find your nehau not objectionable at all; pleasant, even.’ End ID]

Vulcan wanting to leave the Federation because the ~vibes~ are off.

[Text ID: “His grasp of dialect and idiom as amazing for anybody, off-planet or on. He once reduced the President of the United States—then a ceremonial post, but one much loved by the people who lived within the old borders—to tears of laughter at a state dinner, by delivering a learned dissertation on computer data storage technology in a flawless Texan accent. The lady was later heard to propose an amendment to the Constitution to allow off-worlders to hold high public office, so that she could have him for her running mate in the next election.” End ID]

I would give anything to hear Sarek do a perfect Texas accent.

[Text ID: “—but when Amanda became annoyed over what she perceived as his smugness about being right, her eyes would flash and she would become splendidly insulting, usually in bizarre Anglish idiom that Sarek found as refreshing as it was annoying. She caused him to laugh out loud for the first time in many years when she told him, after a disagreement over the translation of the word for war, that he should only grow headfirst in the ground like a turnip. Later that month, when he was right about something again and made the mistake of not immediately down-playing it, she issued him with a formal malediction, wishing that the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind orphan children might pursue him so far over the hills and the seas that God Almighty couldn’t find him with a radio telescope. Sarek laughed so hard at that that he entirely lost his breath, and Amanda panicked and started to give him cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which was useless, because his heart was somewhere other than the spot on which she was pounding. It took him nearly an hour to recover: he kept laughing. He had never been cursed like that before, not even by union leaders, and it was very refreshing.” End ID]

This dynamic is perfect, no notes.

[Text ID: “The next night they sat in the Rec Deck again, in the middle of a large impromptu party that was going on around them by way of celebration. The sense of relief in the ship was palpable. A group of about a hundred crewfolk, mostly human, had surrounded Spock earlier in the evening and sung ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow,’ accompanied by twenty crewmen on kazoos. Sarek had been given champagne.” End ID]

I really hope the TOS Enterprise has crew performances like on Next Gen. This kazoo band needs to be heard! Also, I can perfectly picture Spock’s annoyed-but-tolerant expression as he resigns himself to the kazoo serenade.

Thank you @dianeduane for making me laugh!

[izxz-is-deranged]

Baptism by Fire | Matt Murdock x BAU!Reader

Summary: You love your position at the BAU, but your life is uprooted when Hotch sends you on a temporary assignment to the FBI field office in New York. Apparently, someone had the bright idea to make a deal with a crime boss named Wilson Fisk, and now it's your job to build a profile to determine if the information he gives can be trusted. As you realize quickly things aren't as they seem, you must find a way to protect yourself- If protecting yourself has something to do with a masked vigilante... That's no fault of yours.

multiple crossovers | slow burn

A/N: Starts about ep3 of S3 of Daredevil! Reader uses a fake name, and can be seen as an original character if desired. Future storylines may involve Reader's past coming back to haunt her (Supernatural) and the trials and tribulations of her day job (Criminal Minds)

< ao3 link > <Masterlist>

4: Vigilantism Makes the World Go Round

It takes another 2 hours of talking with Karen, 3 calls to Garcia, and one bitter office coffee to get everything figured out. Once she posed her initial theory about the previous owners, the Kazemis, you sat with her to help investigate. It was refreshing to dig with someone new, especially someone as quick as Karen. You had traced empty shell companies and offshore accounts around in circles, but it all lead back too two things- Red Lion Bank and Donvan and Partners…

Fisk's lawyers.

As much as you wanted this to prove something, it was still speculative, but as you were leaving, you assured you’d bring it up with the other Agents. If there was even a chance Fisk was working the system, they needed to know. Karen promised to call if she found anything else, but couldn’t promise she’d keep it out of the papers. It was getting darker by this point, but all you could think about was getting across town to deliver your profile to Nadeem. 

You rode in the back of the taxi cab and let your thoughts wander. Was it some sort of cosmic coincidence Fisk killed his father when he was a boy, just like Bobby had? You found yourself comparing the crimes, and the men they produced. How does one become the kingpin of a criminal empire and the other save people’s lives on the regular? 

It got to be in the Mothers.

Bobby had gotten drunk one day, very soon after your Mom died, somewhere in your early teens, and spilled everything to you. The effect of the bottle made the confessions come hard and fast. He didn’t know how to be a parent, was scared to death of having kids. That he was afraid he’d turn out just like his father: Mean and drunk. When he told you about that night, with the spilled milk and the gun and his 10 year old finger wrapped around the trigger, he said his mom told him that God would punish him. 

And looking over at Fisk, a man who took a more hands on approach. A physical attack with a hammer. Close up. Personal. Angry. A man that learned his rage from his father, but was then affirmed by his mom. She told him he did the right thing, helped him cover it up, and the trauma that would’ve left on a child… Piece by piece you dispose of your father into the river, and when you walk in the door after it’s over, your mother smiles and praises you for a job well done.

A shiver runs up your spine. No wonder Fisk was the way he was.

There was more traffic than you bargained for, and you got out about 2 blocks from the hotel. Almost as soon as you step out onto the night streets, a call comes through your phone. Nadeem. You answer. His voice is quick and out of breath.

“We have a situation. A man just attacked Fisk’s lawyer in the parking garage. We have agents on the way down, but you’re the only one on the outside- How close are you?”

Shit. This was the last thing you expected. 

You quickly give an answer, and break off into a sprint, thanking some unseen force you wore boots instead of heels. The parking garage fed out onto the street, but you assumed the attacker would duck into the alley if he tried to escape. You unholster your firearm, leveling it in front of you as you reach the dim opening, sterile luminescence from the garage not quite reaching far enough.

Striding through the center, calm and collected, was a figure clad in black.

“FBI! Don’t move!” You yell, subtly catching your breath as the figure stops. You readjust your grip on the gun, heart kicking up. “Hands where I can see them. Step into the light.”

Surprisingly, he listens. 

The man that steps backwards to you was dressed head to toe in tight black athletic gear, fingerless black gloves and combat boots. Even in the low light you noted the toned muscle barely cloaked by the fabric. His hands raise above his head, with his back turned to you. The most notable thing about him however isn’t the slow, calculated movements as he turns his head towards you, or even the blood glistening on his knuckles, no… it was the wrapped, black mask covering the upper half of his face.

You let out a shaky breath, muttering under your breath, “ Shit, it’s you.”

You swear you see his lips twitch upwards.

Digging into Fisk’s history, it was impossible to avoid the tales of “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” aka… “Daredevil”. You’d seen photo after photo (Mostly blurry surveillance screencaps, like he was some sort of cryptid) of a man either dressed in all black with a mask, or a deep red devil suit. If you hadn’t been so one track minded with Fisk, profiling him would be a field day . Who goes out and intentionally dressed like the Devil to beat up criminals? Somebody with issues.

He stands still, expectantly, almost like he can hear your thoughts.

“You gonna arrest me or what?” 

You can’t help the way your eyes widen at his voice, deep and a little rough. It suited him, and it stirs something within you, deep inside. 

“Actually, I’m gonna hold you here until my backup arrives,” You lie through your teeth, though you’re not sure why. Maybe it’s because you learned all about his help in arresting Fisk, and people he’d saved… You didn’t really want to be the dick who arrests a hero.

He tilts his head. “You haven’t called for backup. You don’t have a radio.”

How the hell does he know that?

“Are you trying to convince me to arrest you on my own?”

“No. I’m stalling.” 

The man moves quicker than you’ve ever seen, and your heart freezes. He goes for your gun, spinning round to grab it. You brace yourself for the shot, stumbling backwards, but he just disarms it, and tosses the useless hunk of metal off to the side.

You both stand quietly.

“...Well, I wasn’t going to shoot you anyways,” You snark, lightly rubbing the wrist he twisted.

“Can’t be too careful. Have a good night, Agent,” He says, casually before turning and walking down the alley.

Your face contorts in confusion. The audacity of this guy. “Hey!”

You spring forward to catch him, but as soon as your hand lands on his shoulder, he pushes you off, arm swinging wide. You hurriedly take the opportunity to jam an elbow into his shoulder, and land a hit directly onto his chest, giving him his own turn to stumble backwards. He groans.

A surprised but tired laugh escapes him. “You don’t want to do this,” He grumbles, straightening.

“Well, I can’t let you walk.” You take your defensive stance. Look, you took your basic self defense classes at the FBI, but those had nothing on the ‘fight for your life’ sparring matches Dean would make you do. You could take him. “I’ve got a job to do.”

His mouth quirks, like he’s smirking. It burns a hole inside of you. You needed to get inside his head. 

“I’m not gonna punch you,” he breathes out.

“Bullshit! Why? ‘Cause I’m a woman?”

“No-”

He drops down, a rotating kick sweeping you off your feet and knocking you on your back. You gasp, all the air leaving your lungs.

“-It’s cause you’re expecting it.”

Fuck . Ow.  

You see him stand over you for a moment, while you find your breath. For being a strange man who just kicked your ass in the middle of the night, something inside you didn’t find him scary. With all your work with serial killers, this fight could’ve been much worse. The fact he hadn’t used your gun against you told you he didn’t want to kill you, and Jesus, to be dark, he had every opportunity to do something worse while you were laying flat on the dirty concrete of the alley. Your brain ticks a mile a minute, trying to understand the vigilante as he begins to walk away.

“T-Typical vigilante profile states that they or someone close to them, a friend or family member, were a victim of a violent crime where…” You croak out, sitting up slowly with just enough time to see him about to scale a fire escape. “Justice wasn’t served.”

He stops, cocking his head to the side. 

“Mostly, they work in the justice system. Cogs in the machine, trying to do good… Cops, judges, Lawyers,” You continue, rolling onto your knees almost in a prayer position.

“What are you doing?” He demands, a gritty urgency lacing his voice.

“But it’s not enough. It doesn’t help. Their sense of justice is too heightened, and the system fails, time and time again-”

“Stop it.” His feet are back in the alley, all focus locked on you.

“So they have to take matters into their own hands. They alone can deliver the evil. They alone dole out punishment. They believe it’s their God given duty to-”

Without warning, his hands are on you, gripping your jacket lapels to pull you forward to him. His knuckles are white under the drying layer of blood. Kneeling on one knee in front of you, his breathing deep and ragged. You’re close to his face now, and can trail your eyes across his stubble encrusted jaw as his breath caresses your own.

“Don’t,” He starts, tone low and dangerous, “Don’t pretend you know me.”

Your eyes flick across his face, trying to map where his eyes would be under the mask. “My mistake,” you half-whisper, “I was just wondering why God cursed the Devil with the burden of vigilantism.”

It was quick, a blink and you’ll miss it tightening of his jaw. Profiling on the fly wasn’t hard, it doesn’t take a professional to assume this man had a complicated relationship with religion. You think he’s about to respond, until his head perks up, attuning into something behind you, a few seconds before you hear the shouting of other agents.

“ I got eyes on her! She’s in the alley!”

Like lightning, the Devil sprints from you, dropping you without thought and scales the fire escapes of the alley to reach the rooftop. All you can do is blink in awe.

The next hour is a blur. You weren’t significantly hurt, but the agents that went toe to toe in the garage looked like they went through a trash compactor. He had the capability of doing that to you, especially after you provoked him, so why didn’t he? After a long, drawn out report, Nadeem tells you to call it a night. The Fisk profile can be delivered in the morning.

You agree.

Sleep doesn’t come easy. You lay awake in the unfamiliar bed of the hotel. Your life wasn’t exactly normal, so why the hell did today feel so surreal? Perhaps it was the stakes of this job. Typically you shared the weight of it with your team. It’d only been a day away from them. It boggled your mind that this time last night, you’d been given the assignment from Hotch. God. Maybe the days coming will be calmer…

You had a feeling they wouldn’t.

Whenever you closed your eyes, the inky black of the back of your eyelids morphed into the black mask of the Devil. You’ve never encountered a vigilante before, at least, one that wasn’t a serial killer. Hell, he could be, but god, he had every chance to land a killing blow or steal a gun in the garage. Even with you, he could’ve killed you the second he disarmed you. You wonder what information he’d wanted out of Fisk’s lawyers, but it wasn’t surprising he was interested in what was happening. Imagine you’re a hero, and your arch nemesis, the person you loathe more than anything in the world, went from a jail you threw them into an Architectural Digests ad.

Still, the more you thought of him, the harder it was to pull your mind away. Before he’d been a footnote in the files, now, you can’t get the sound of his voice out of your head. Perhaps it was the mystery. You were a sucker, an investigator, hell it was your job to know. The scene replayed over and over, and you couldn’t help but wonder who was under the mask. Your profiling instincts said you hit home with just the basics earlier, especially with his reaction. You tap your fingers on the bed sheets.

Maybe a little research wouldn’t hurt- After all, you were sure this wasn’t the last time he’d make himself known.