#its a miracle I can have a coherent thought

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

Name every tv show/movie francheise you hyperfixated on in order

Ok I'll try

I think Spongebob, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer were the very first ones (like when I was just coming out of toddler age)

Then ICarly and Drake and Josh came next (5-7)

First EXTREME hyperfixation was Special Agent Oso (5-8)

Then my brain latched onto Cyberchase and Wild Krats (5-8 but moreso Cyberchase. One of my earliest memories was sitting at the computer eating my lunch and watching cyberchase episodes on the pbs kids website)

Then tmnt 2012 happened, became the longest hyperfixation ever (8-13, the hyperfixation fell dormant when Rise began airing and exploded back into existence last year)

Then there was The Legend of Korra and then Avatar The Last Airbender (8-11, yes I started watching Korra before Avatar, only because by the time I was forming actual memories and had mostly graduated from Nick Jr and Disney Jr, Avatar was already finished and Korra was just airing, sue me)

Power Rangers also happened around this time (8-12, second longest hyperfixation after tmnt 2012 but it died after Power Rangers Dino Charge ended and unlike tmnt 2012 didnt explode back into my brain)

Also happening at this time, Winx Club and Monster High hyperfixations. (Though Monster High lasted longer than Winx Club did, mostly because Nickelodeon wasnt airing all the episodes goddamn it nick)

Then the Star Wars hyperfixation began (12-14/15, this one has the most random start. I got into Star Wars because of Angry Birds Star Wars 2 and Im not kidding. I was really into Angry birds and that one looked cool ok?)

The Supernatural (13-16 ok this ones weird because technically I was watching it with my dad when I was young child but didnt remember ANYTHING before season nine so...idk)

Brief Steven Universe hyperfixation (15) but dropped it because Steven Universe Future didnt look very appealing and this was around the time when Steven Universe was getting dragged through the fucking mud (like it still is :/)

Tried to get into the original Teen Titans cartoon but the only time those episodes were airing was early in the morning and I could only manage to watch one or two before I had to leave for school, and they werent always airing either.

Also tried to get into Miraculous Ladybug but I just found the season 1 episodes to be so repetitive and annoying :/ also Nick was hardly ever airing them so idk.

(Honorable mention, Hamilton the musical. And before you ask, yes I was one of those people. I now cringe remembering my 15 year old self. Thankfully that hyperfixation was very brief as it only lasted about a year and got quickly overshadowed by Batim, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Epic Mickey and Steven Universe hyperfixations happening all at the same in my silly little brain.)

And now the tmnt 2012 hyperfixation is back in absolute full force and probably isnt leaving anytime soon

[spicyraeman]

why must writing be hard why must brain think in pieces

[whorety-k]

Ebony Coasts [Part 5]

Batten down the hatches, my friends. This one is a L O N G one but it was so worth it.

Pairing: Merfolk!Corvus Corax x fem!Marine Conservationist!Reader (second person POV)

Song recommendation: Unloveable - The Smiths

“If I seem a little strange / well, that’s because I am /

But I know that you would like me /

If only you could see me / if only you could meet me /

I don’t have much in my life / but take it, it’s yours.”

Warnings: Ocean mentions / thalassophobia, culture shock and misunderstanding between species, hospital mention, blood / injury descriptions, AMERICAN HEALTHCARE, more horrors of a nine-to-five (Dolly Parton would have words), extreme weather, angst, hurt / comfort

Word Count: 3.9k (SORRY)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 6] [Part 7 (NSFW)]

Driving on uneven roads is difficult enough on its own, and having only one hand while amped up on adrenaline and preoccupied about potentially having lost Corvus forever makes you downright reckless. A particularly hard thump! has you worried about your car’s alignment but you simply add it to the list of things wrong and continue down the road.

The emergency room sucks. You’re not even fully in reality by the time you finish checking in, clutching your still-bleeding hand in your lap with not more than a couple pads of gauze and a random towel you had laying around in the back of the car. It’s a miracle how a human can bleed for over two hours and still be fully coherent enough to lie to their nurses and doctors about a knife slipping while cutting twine.

They don’t believe you for a second, but they both aren’t paid enough and are over-worked enough not to care. Everyone lies in the ER.

A shot of lidocaine and eighteen stitches later, you’re sent on your way with opioid pain meds you won’t be taking and a deep appreciation that Corvus hadn’t scored your dominant hand. It’s still irritating when you get home and try to undress to shower, unable to flex your injured hand at all. You straight up decide against actually cooking, heating up a frozen meal in the microwave and sitting on the couch to overthink everything once more.

The look of complete dismay on Corvus’s face before he left haunted you. 

You had long accepted that the black betta mer wasn’t the most emotionally expressive individual. His carefully neutral countenance rarely gave way to more than a quirk of a brow or occasional lip-turn, so the twisted look of open terror on his pale face shook you to your core both now and then. Hell, in the moment you had even been able to forget about a two and a half inch long laceration in your palm from sheer worry for him. 

You never would have expected a creature so powerful to run.

Another cold spoonful goes down roughly at the thought, and, dissociated, you decide you’ve had enough sustenance. You crawl into bed, exhausted, and feel your limbs sink heavily into the mattress as a deep sigh leaves your lungs. A hollow feeling permeates your chest.

You can’t help the rush of emotions that suddenly overcomes you, choked sobs racking your body as you curl up into a miserable ball around your pillow. The action brings only scant comfort to the throbbing ache in your chest. You don’t remember falling asleep.

The beach is cold, but you don’t care. 

You felt stupid coming back to the shoreline the day after everything, so you waited. Your Monday rolls around and you try to go back to the coast before work, briskly searching high and low for a glimpse of black fins and a glittering night’s-sky of scales. The tides grant you no such favors, and two hours are wasted on nothing when you’re forced to leave. You deflect every question from your coworkers with lies about a kitchen accident.

The next day is scarcely different. You finish your shift in the office like a reanimated corpse, putting in the bare minimum to not have anyone look twice in your direction. You can’t even remember more than the gist of the report you had just read on illegal fishing activity a hour south of you, another damned case of foreign bodies trying to use nonexistent loopholes in the law to talk their way into overfishing protected areas. It was a Coast Guard issue and never should have crossed your desk to begin with, but here you are, tangled in another mess outside of your depth.

You slam the door of your Bronco shut before you stomp onto the dark shore, not bothering to take the cliff down to Corvus’s den this time because you know you don’t have the brain capacity to even think about scaling the rocks. The extra five minute trip down and around the cliffside riddles you with nausea that intensifies when the light of your flashlight finds the entrance to the cavern. 

Of course Corvus isn’t there; you weren’t expecting him to be, yet still it anguishes you. Three days without the merman in your life and you’re already starting to fall apart? It makes you feel pathetic for having grown attached to him so quickly. 

But Corvus had never made you feel that way. Never once had he made you feel like your presence had been a burden to him, eagerly listening to every word you had said to him. He always replied with a caring thoughtfulness to any query you gave him, firm with his boundaries yet forgiving to the innocent faults that had occurred. 

Corvus had a way of making you feel genuinely listened to, even when he didn’t always reply. It was weird to describe someone like him as warm, given his penchant for reserved silence and generally closed-off nature, but the sincere cordiality he had with you had never failed to stir emotions in your chest that you had felt far too anxious to put a label on at the time.

You realize just how taken care of you had always been with the merman. He offered to hunt for you, even if the incident with the ducklings had been an awkward misunderstanding. He made a place for you within his den that could never have any functional use for him as his size. Hell, he would stride along you in the sand instead of asking you to join him in the waves because it was easier for you. You’re wearing a piece of his hoard!

He cared about you.

Your hand gently grasps the raven head pendant, and you sit down in the rickety chair that Corvus has specially gotten for you. The luminescents on the walls seem dimmer than before, and you notice how wilted they’ve become in Corvus’s short absence. Pushing aside the thought that the mer had been putting in actual maintenance to accommodate for you, you brush your hand against the cerulean phosphorescent flora. 

Corvus had taken care of you when you hadn’t asked for it, so you were going to do the same. 

Searching the den for anything vaguely cup-like to transfer water with turns up nothing, so you resort to cupping your healthy hand in that small stream leading into the den. You punctiliously pour the brine over each of the parched plants until they’re saturated. By the time you’ve finished, you notice the vegetation you had started with has already begun to glow brighter. You glow brighter than the cave in that moment.

Wednesday still bears no sign of Corvus, but it does teach an important piece of information: this den had not been abandoned like the others.

You finally gather the courage to check inside of the decorated bed space at the back of the den for the first time since the giant’s disappearance, and you’re flooded with relief when you see the large cache of dazzling objects still lining the walls. Corvus hadn’t left, per se. He just hadn’t returned yet. 

In your jacket pocket is the trusty metal pen Corvus had fixated on so long ago, and in a moment of weakness, you leave it on the stone shelf at the center of the cavern. You had other pens. This one should be his… even if he can’t use it.

You keep coming back to maintain the cavern: wetting the algae and mushrooms, clearing the space of any excess sand the tides brought in, polishing the corroded metals in his collection— nothing escapes your watchful eye. You’ve even accidentally fallen asleep on the bed of furs and grasses, waking up in a flurry to see that you were late for work and needed to leave now, even if you dreaded doing so. 

You always leave a new trinket behind on the round stone ‘table’. Old jewelry, a piece of abalone shell, a tea ball you haven’t used in ages, rose quartz, an entire abalone shell (that you’ve now started to use to hold everything), cool brooches you found at another beach, an enamel pin in the shape of a flying crow, and many other items from around your apartment make their way into Corvus’s den. You rearrange the items into a nice display before you leave.

A week passes. Half of a month. An entire month. The gash on your hand has healed well, the stitches removed with strict instructions to keep the area clean. 

Each day, no matter the weather, you return to Corvus’s beach. The den is monotonous, and recently, you’ve begun to avoid going inside of it lest you have to face the untouched items on the rock shelf more often than necessary. The physical effort to place something in the pile is nothing by now, but mentally, it wears on you.

What if all of this had been for nothing? You had been forcing such doubtful thoughts out of your head for a month faithfully, always trying to look on the bright side. You’ve waited longer for a pay-off before, haven’t you? 

Why was this any different?

…because it hurts. No matter what pep talks you give yourself or happy memories you relive, coming back to the beach hurts.

You’ve been persistent to the point you’re starting to think that you’re nothing more than an annoyance instead of the oh-so-great protector of the coasts you had foolishly thought yourself to be. What a sick fantasy, you think, meddling in the life of something so obviously beyond you. The delusion that you could ever be a part of Corvus’s realm has poisoned you to the point of desperately coming back to the barren sands for even a hope that you’ll see more than the black apparition in the reveries of your mind.

The apartment is a mess. Unfolded laundry piles in the basket, dirty clothes along the floor. You’ve used the same towel to shower for long enough that it’s starting to smell of mildew, but just thinking about the effort of washing a load of towels makes you feel like lead. It took an infestation of ants for you to do the mountain of dishes that piled in your sink. Everyday tasks become chores, and chores feel impossible. 

Still, you drag yourself out to work again today. The weather is awful: torrential downpour with gusts of wind that nearly knock you off of your feet. No one is working in the field today lest OSHA get a taste of blood in the water (literal or metaphorical). You drum your fingertips across the wooden desk as you read a private request for development nearby a protected habitat, opposite hand fiddling with your necklace. You can’t bring yourself to take it off, even if it hurts to see in the mirror each day.

You’re in the middle of a paragraph about intended waste management when a heckling voice jogs you out of it. “I didn’t take you for the goth type,” it jeers, and you look up to see one of the environmental science team leads. A man twice your age. What was his name again?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you retort, audibly weary.

 “The necklace,” he gestures at your throat. Your coworker sits against your desk, uninvited, looking down at you with leery eyes. “Haven’t seen you in that number before.”

You simply shake your head and look back down at the paper, uninterested in the conversation. He doesn’t take the hint.

The lead continues, “You haven’t been as chipper recently. Where’s your spunk? Your fire?—” he follows the words with a ridiculous hand gesture— “Those bags under your eyes could be checked in at the airport.”

You’d laugh at his joke if you weren’t already in such a piss-poor mood. “I’m just tired,” you state, not turning your head to look at him, “I’ll be fine.”

A hand on your shoulder causes you to jolt. “Look, kid, we’ve all got our bad days, but I can tell when someone needs a break—”

You throw the offending hand off of you and stand up roughly, throwing your chair back into the wall in the process. You feel heated. “I told you, I’m fine!” Your words are laced with venom, scratchy and raw and bitter. 

The commotion causes the lead to recoil, distaste written on his face. Other people in the office are starting to stare, and you meet each of their gazes individually. Maybe that was a bit too far.

You sigh, shoulders slumping and head falling forward. Everything aches. “You’re right,” you admit, offering an apologetic look to what’s-his-name, “I’m not feeling well.”

It takes no more than a few minutes to submit your request to leave early. As soon as it’s approved, you rush out of the building. The torrent building inside of you has nothing on the rain around, and you high-tail it out of the parking lot. 

Truly, you didn’t mean to end up back here today. The ocean is too rough, the cliff perilous, the beach an utter mess. The thought of just how stupid your actions are does nothing to stop you, though. 

You run down the embankment to the dock, shoes getting soaked from the crashing waves as you search the water. 

Nothing.

You scramble to the den, slipping and falling down the rocky slope and barely catching yourself before you hit your head. 

Nothing. 

You claw your way through the sands— up soggy hills and over rocky ledges, around complex twists and turns in the sandstone, under and over jutting stones, looking anywhere for alabaster white. 

Nothing.

You’re back at the dock, watching the serpent of metal squirm and thrash in the storm. With unstable footing, you sloppily traverse the writhing mass of steel, barely able to hold yourself upright as you reach the end of it. The storm forces you to your knees, and you place your hands on the lip. Despondency grips you, tearing at your throat.

“I’m sorry!” you cry, voice drowned out by the thundering of rain. “I don’t know what I did but I’m sorry!” A black wave pummels into your small body, the force of an ocean threatening to knock you off of the dock. Still, you cling. You duck your head against the chilled metal, letting out a hissed breath before inhaling a mouthful of seawater. Blubbering, coughing, you rise back up and look out over the waves. They are cold and unflinching.

When the fury of the storm lulls, you force yourself to continue, hoarse. “I messed up and I just want to know how, okay? I don’t know what I did, I—” you choke off a sob, shaking your head, “I-I…” Muscles cry at you to stop, body begging you to return to the car for warmth. You persevere. You have for the last month. 

“I miss you, okay!” The wail carries across the ocean, echoing across the tides back at you like a taunt. Even in the calm of the storm, rain batters against you. The dock stops squirming so intensely, and you take the moment to catch your breath.

Even in your honesty, even in your raw vulnerability, screaming to the heavens for an answer, you receive nothing.

You turn away from the ocean and sink down onto yourself, defeated. The sobs you had been holding at bay spill out, and you hug your knees as you bawl into them. Your clothes are soaked, the wind is cold, and your chest feels miserable. 

Even with the storm beginning to pass by, you feel no better. You will away the tears eventually, wiping wet tears with a wet sleeve that feels like sandpaper, and ready yourself to leave.

The utterly shattered face of Corvus Corax looks at you, a few feet from the edge of the dock, just barely above the water. Eyes of onyx lay wide with guilt, grimacing.

You do not hesitate to throw yourself into the choppy water at him.

Corvus has no time to react to your actions before you wrap your arms around his neck clinging onto him as you gasp like a fish, clutching the coal-and-bone giant close to you like a lifeline. Right now, in the swell, he was.

Tentative arms snake around your midsection, slowly but surely pulling you closer to him. You feel the merman press his face into your soaked hair, taking in a deep breath of your scent before a rumble leaves him. “This is no place for you,” he whispers, and you can only feel him fly through the water like a bolt of lightning, unable to look up from his neck with how firmly he holds you. When you can finally move your head, Corvus already has the both of you on land, beelining it for the den with a look of conviction on his face. 

You didn’t even know you were trembling before you got inside, the surprising warmth of the cavern thawing the numbness in your arms and legs. The frantic betta strides right past the chair in the main room with you in his arms, heading straight for the bed space. It’s only when he gets to the ‘bed’ that he abruptly stops, looking down at you.

“You’ve rested here before.” It’s another half-question, half-statement, and once again it’s correct.

“I fell asleep after taking care of the algae, I’m sorry—”

Corvus cuts you off by hastily lying the both of you on the furs and feathers, the action causing you to let out an ‘oof’ as the air is forced from your lungs. The way he curls and desperately clings to you like a lost child has you feeling all sorts of complex emotions, but you do not fight it. When you open your mouth to speak, he gently shushes you with a shake of his head. You rest beneath his chin in silence.

For the first time in over a month, everything feels okay.

“I hurt you,” Corvus’s gentle voice breaks the silence, barely audible. It’s laced with sorrow so deep that it cuts into your heart. With a shaky hand, the giant mer peels you away from him, looking your entire form over. 

You show him your scabbed and scarring palm, the area pink but almost fully healed by now. You jump to reassure him, “The doctor said it was a clean cut. Easy to heal. I’m okay.”

Corvus shakes his head again, gently taking your injured hand in his. He holds it to his chest, over his beating hearts as he looks deep into your eyes. The downpour inside of him has yet to quell. 

“I hurt you, and I could not bear it,” he restarts, twin hearts pounding in his ribcage. A heavy pause follows as Corvus thinks, wanting to explain himself properly yet lacking the experience to do so. His ear fins twitch up and down as he debates how to continue. Eventually, he sighs, looking around the walls of the bed space. "In fleeing like a coward,” he laments, “I have only hurt you more.” 

The sentence causes the tension to snap inside of you like a wire. “I came back here every day looking for you. Every. Single. Day,” you admonish, tears welling in your eyes, “I took care of the plants. I swept out the sand. I even polished everything so I could keep myself busy!” You go on a total tirade about your activities, Corvus’s gaze not once leaving you as he takes the brunt of it all. Falter, your words catch in your throat as tears spill. “...because I was so afraid to lose you that I couldn’t bear to be anywhere else.”

Corvus’s eyes soften with guilt, expression falling. He makes to respond, but you beat him to it.

“But I’m so glad you came back, because I don’t know what I would do if you didn’t.”

The merman’s mouth shuts, and his gaze returns to you. He does not hesitate to pull you close once more, gorgeous charcoal fins blanketing you. You run a hand over the appendage, unable to stop yourself, and Corvus lets out a blissful sigh. “I was afraid, so I fled without thinking of the consequences,” he explains. You do your best to sit back to watch him talk, but Corvus doesn’t allow you much room to move. He continues, “I am already… an anomaly amongst my kind. I was not created to have these sorts of simple domesticities, and I feared what would occur if I overstepped my bounds.” His words leave you with more questions than answers, but you know better than to prod the mer. Anomaly amongst his kind? He had mentioned brothers before his disappearance. You wonder what the others may be like.

Seeking to comfort the giant as he speaks (and partially out of scientific curiosity), you run a hand over his gill covers again. A soft gasp leaves the merman before he catches your hand in his, withdrawing just enough to look down at you. You give him a shy, cheeky smile.

“...as you are now,” he jests, raising a playful eyebrow.

“Sorry,” you say, not even remotely apologetic.

Corvus lets out a soft huff in response, when his eyes focus on the silver chain around your neck. He uses a talented claw to fish the raven pendant from underneath the neckline of your shirt, gazing upon it with the same fondness you had seen just before he fled. Before you can question the look, you’re shocked by the smile he gives you: a genuine grin, eyes crinkled at the outer corners and sharp teeth visible. For the first time, you see that he has fangs, the tips of canines poking into his lower lip. 

His eyes flick back up to yours, and his smile softens. Corvus croons, “I must apologize again for what I have taken from you.”

You’re confused by his statement, tilting your head at him. “What do you mean?”

The merman gently tips up your chin with a knuckle, keeping his claws away from the skin of your delicate neck as he leans forward to place a chaste kiss to your lips. It’s unpracticed and clumsy, Corvus being so much larger than you, but the cold taste of the sea and ocean minerals has you addicted. A delicate hand cradles your face when you lean into him, and the moment ends all too soon.

“I am here, and I will not be pulling such an imprudent stunt ever again,” Corvus promises as he pulls away.

“Thank you,” you whisper breathlessly, before nestling yourself into the crux of his neck and shoulder. 

The tender moment warms you, the shaking in your body finally coming to a stop. Your clothes may be soaked and salty, but the soft bed beneath and gentle embrace of the mer ease you. You let out a soft giggle that catches Corvus’s attention, and when the merman lets out a questioning hum, you remark, “If you ever do that again, I’m getting my boating license and hunting you down myself.”

Corvus hums from above you, knuckles tracing up and down your back. “From what I have learned, I should expect no less.”

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

HI PLEASE DON'T BE MAD AT ME FOR THE ENDING OF THE LAST FIC I PROMISED I WOULD FIX THINGS

This took far longer than expected I am so sorry but I hope everyone likes it!!

[Part 6]

[chainsaw-raven]

Reverse hot take: Harrow and Crux's relationship?

Oh this is a fun one. I love me some weird caring paternal units in fiction. I don’t have many coherent thoughts so bear with me.

On the surface he’s kind of just this crusty old punching bag who should be fun to hate, but then you get this snippet into their past in HtN and its suddenly oooh. Like yes, he is a rotting old man corpse, but hes a rotting old man corpse with a heart, and that heart belongs to the poor little meow meow Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

it gives depth to both their characters.

He’s sort of like Marcus from Arcane, he’s there, you don’t have any love or notice for him, but if you revisit the story again and give more time to it, he has to catch your attention. They’re both characters who read very strongly as “I’ll do anything for my daughter”, even at the expense of others.

Harrow and him at a certain point in their lives had only each other to care about, maybe not healthy or wholesomey and with a very strange dynamic as he was both her keeper and her inferior, but still. They had a very tight orbit. I do think he saw her a bit as his child and that this paternal feeling had to be reckoned with also a reverent feeling. Where as Priamhark saw her as a sin for which he was damned, Crux saw her as a miracle to whom he was indebted. He saw her as a living being, and played a large part of taking care of Harrow, lemon water when she was sick, being a confident, confirming reality from hallucinations both draw weirdly on the heart strings. He was a fraction of Something she desperately needed, I don’t think there would be either a Harrow or Ninth house without him being the child puppeteer’s parental-apprentice. I do hope those sweeter memories arnt post lobotomy write overs and actual memories. It will be interesting to see how she reacts to his death in AtN. It would show quite a lot of growth for her to be able to directly grieve someone and actually accept someone dying, instead of trying to hold on to whatever scraps she can manage. (Gideons soul, her parents bodies)

Harrow has seen everyone who should love her/she loves, show love by dying for it, often in front of her own eyes. Going back to what you said about Paul taking place allowing for griddlehark to remain separate entities for foil reasons, I think that Crux might provide a minor foil along with her parents to Gideon/Kiriona being allowed to show love for Harrow by “living” (..or at least existing since Jod + Fence =Mega Dead Walking Talking Corpse Prince Hours. )

[fancifulplaguerat]

My Nina/Polyhedron thoughts have afflicted me with considering how Aglaya’s hellbent mission to destroy the Polyhedron informs her hatred of Nina and vice versa. I want to structure this around this dialogue between Clara and Daniil:

“Aglaya sees the Polyhedron as Nina Kaina's infernal gift. She thinks that Nina rose high, but her pride drew down the wrath of heavens. Aglaya believes that her duty is to destroy this challenge before it has lead to more evil. Or maybe she doesn't even believe that […] She desperately, hopelessly abhors her sister. Even stronger than her worst enemy. When I got to uncover this secret and looked into her soul, my hair stood on end! Aglaya believes her sister to be the devil himself, a deathbringer.” 

I feel it is a little pointless to establish how much Aglaya hates Nina because lol. lmao. Aglaya put her whole heart and soul and pussy too into hating Nina’s guts it is not difficult to parse. But I do want to point to two dialogues which reference this. An Herb Bride claims that “[Nina and Aglaya] hate one another. Or rather the inquisitor hates the Mistress. I think Nina probably disregarded her,” but Victor states that “[there was a] mutual grudge between the sisters that persisted despite the difference in age. It’s a terrible, hopeless feud that even the elder sister’s death has done nothing assuage.” I am inclined to follow Victor’s claim, given that he was undoubtedly closer to them.

As for *why* Aglaya and Nina were perpetually at odds, I think it is foremost because Aglaya considered Nina cruel for her disregard of human life. While Aglaya is rather sharp-tongued and harsh, she is highly motivated by a desire to help and protect others. Indeed she spells it out in some instances, saying, “I am a humanitarian. My duty is to save people, not kill them,” and “I only wish to do good; not specific, targeted good, like that Clara, but overarching good.” She likewise tells Clara, “Human lives are valuable to me. To this day, I’ve been paying for my kind-heartedness.” Which. I am routinely obsessed with that last sentence. In my opinion, it implies Aglaya is prone to sympathy or kindness, that she perhaps even resents this feature of herself. That in turn suggests to me that this kind-heartedness is a prominent feature of her personality, if it is something that (by her admission) routinely bites her in the ass. And I can see sympathy being an issue for her, being an Inquisitor. Despite her ruthlessness, Aglaya cares for others; thus her resentment for Nina seems rooted in her conviction that Nina is an opposing force for absolute evil and harm, just as Aglaya conceives of miracle and the Polyhedron.

Aglaya characterizes herself as a servant of the law, one who “restore[s] the mechanics of the Universe.” She defines the Law as balance and harmony—anything which ruptures that homeostasis has violated the Law, and this is what Aglaya deems “evil.” Aglaya repeats this viewpoint to all three healers, but I think a prominent example is when she tells Clara that “Miracles violate the world; they're abusive in nature. When the world was conceived, it was conceived as a coherent whole, without contradictions. Harmony is the main, indeed the only component of any Universe. However ugly a world may be, however unfair it may seem—it is nonetheless harmonious!” She likewise states that “When mysterious evil emerges from nonexistence, it’s a clear sign that [the Law] has been violated. Disease is a retribution for trespassers. It’s an attempt to restore the balance.” She further says: “In accordance with the Law, the very logic of our world inevitably dictates the destruction of anything unnatural: anything that tries to break its own, non-capitalized laws. The disease is nothing more than a tool. It is an instrument of inevitability.” This logic informs her motivations in-game, with several dialogues across routes telling the player that Aglaya seeks to destroy the Polyhedron rather than end the epidemic. This aligns with Aglaya’s conception of the universe, the Law, and justice; after all, Aglaya views the Sand Pest as an instrument of the Law, retribution for the Kains’ miracle—as she says, “The Law stipulates a harsh punishment for an attempt to capture a miracle.” Thus to Aglaya, it is the Polyhedron which presents the true evil, not the disease.

It further interests me that Clara claims that to Aglaya, “there are no such things as miracles; that’s just the way she was made.” That fundamentally Aglaya cannot conceive of the miraculous, unlike her sister, who was predisposed to it. This reinforces that to Aglaya, the Polyhedron cannot be a miracle, only a violation of the Law which thus spawned the plague as punishment. I think Aglaya could likewise consider the Polyhedron and Nina as one and the same, which they are, to an extent—even without my preferred interpretations, Nina is playing musical soul chairs in that thing when not haunting her husband bodily. And given that Aglaya is a self-described servant of the Law and Nina functionally Utopia, I feel that one could view the two sisters as representative of these respective entities perpetually at odds with one another. Yet even with Aglaya and Nina in contrasting roles, I still hold that there is much similarity between them, but. This post is plenty lengthy already, so I shall save that for a later date :,) I wanted to end, instead, with some speculation about Aglaya’s sense of revenge, in particular given that last sentence of Clara’s dialogue—“Or maybe she doesn’t even believe that.”

Returning to that conversation with Victor, I am struck by his response when Artemy asks who could have motivated Aglaya’s potential schemery in Town. That is: “Not a ‘who.’ A ‘what.’ Despair.” This, in my mind, echoes Aglaya’s dialogue when she discusses Block. She claims that, “For a moment, I thought he was driven by the same feeling that I am: a great man, when unexpectedly betrayed by the people he loves, will often seek to fill the whole universe with his blind spite. Yes, the feeling is indeed familiar…” And that line goddamn haunts me. There seems a suggestion, if minimal, that Aglaya’s anger may be influenced by a sense of wounding or betrayal? Not solely her own death or trying to drag Nina down on her way to the grave (it makes me unwell that Clara says Aglaya wants to destroy the Polyhedron “As her final word.” Insanity. Btw.) I suppose Aglaya’s despair or betrayal could broadly refer to some capital confidants of hers, but I do wonder if it references Nina somehow? If only from a narrative standpoint, given that Nina informs Aglaya’s revenge and thus main drive in the story. Once again, characters reiterate that Aglaya’s Inquisitorial duty in Town is a mere means to the end of destroying the Polyhedron; for instance, Daniil states Aglaya “tried to settle personal accounts with her deceased sister” rather than fulfill her duty.

I have no answer to this, I only wonder—does Aglaya somehow feel betrayed by Nina? Did Aglaya even have enough attachment to Nina to feel betrayal to begin with? Maybe one could interpret that, given Aglaya’s description of herself as motivated by blind spite incurred by an unexpected betrayal by people she loves. I don’t know. But I find that far more compelling than Aglaya hating Nina without question, in particular when considering their relationship through the lens of Aglaya as the Law and Nina as Utopia.

[takeyourcyanide]

This is going to be difficult for me to coherently put, but I’ll try.

The Mind Electric (Miracle Musical) means a lot to me - which is really saying something. I’ve been religiously listening to it for years now, and I only wish I could’ve discovered it sooner, as little me would’ve been astounded at just how relatable it was. It would’ve been a sort of comfort, just as it is now.

I don’t know if this was what they were going for when writing the song, but it is possibly the most accurate and respectful depiction of schizophrenia I have ever seen within any form of media. And it’s only more impressive if none of the members of the band happen to be on the schizophrenic spectrum themselves.

(A lot of rambling about the lyrics and shit and the song below the cut)

I don’t even know where to begin with the song itself. It is the most profound and excellent piece of art I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. It expertly tells its story through not only what are some of the best lyrics I have ever heard, as someone who listens to everything under the sun, but also through all of the background noises and conversations that even play during the singing itself. The distortions are representative of not only fading, incoherent, burning (caretaker reference), and non-chronological memories, but also the desire to possibly not think of oneself in a certain way or simply not seeing oneself in a particular light (the referring to himself as insane) but being forced to, or struggling to recall one’s memories. The way in which the song builds up, only to hit at the end is masterful. The way in which he begs, he pleads for just a semblance of sympathy and understanding - for the help he has become so utterly desperate for… There are no words that can convey what I’d like to express. The background noises can also be representative of not only the electric chair (various zaps and such), but also hearing whispers and indiscernible sounds at random times (schizophrenia). I love how they depict just how the judgmental, pompous, and stigmatizing nuns, judges, and doctors can ultimately be, especially towards those with a mental illness - like in the lyric “here in my kingdom I am your lord I order you to cower and pray.” In the lyric video, pray flashes between pray and prey, which can be interpreted as both these mental health professionals preying on their patients, especially at the time the electric chair was thought to be a good form of treatment, but can also be interpreted as your own brain preying upon you, you being the prey in its kingdom. Oh and this also goes along with the line “condemn him to the infirmary.” It is detailing how patients are treated in psychiatric wards and hospitals and such, of course. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. They wonderfully depict how cognitive decline feels - how it feels to observe as you agonizingly deteriorate before your own two eyes, and how no one seems to understand what is ultimately happening, simply settling on essentially torturing you (electric chair), not taking you seriously or listening to you because you’re below them and “insane.” I love how, at the end, he says “Doctor, I can’t tell if I’m not me.” A constant in and out, losing yourself and gaining yourself back momentarily, only to feel yourself being taken away by the static once more. You’re too distracted by the incessant noise, by how difficult it is to simply live to even bother with whatever you used to, only making it more difficult to live - a constant cycle, a constant battle. By the end, there will only be a shell of what was once you. You can either accept their “miracle cures” or die. You can tiene accept their scrutiny or face the most horrifying death imaginable. Because you have to live and watch as you still have your body, but not longer yourself. I love the line “see how your brain plays around and you fall inside a hole you couldn’t see.” Precisely. You don’t even realize when you fall into the hole. Things are just exponentially worse, but it’s as though it’s always been that way, and you know no else. “Please help me understand what’s going on inside my mind.” At this point, you’re willing to accept their medication, their torture, because you can’t fucking take it anymore. It’s a desperate plea. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I so different? Why I am struggling so much? You cry out for help only to be either turned away or judged throughout treatment, treated like a dog needed to be whipped into submission.

And GOD do I love “see how the serfs work the ground and they give it all they’ve got and they give it all they’ve got and you give it all you’ve got til you’re down.” BECAUSE YES. Absolutely. You give it everything, but you’re essentially fighting a losing battle. You walked into a war you knew you were going to lose and fought like hell anyway, only to end up institutionalized, or unable to simply exist anymore.

Just every single lyric. Every single fucking lyric. I could go on about this forever with anyone who would be willing to listen. I have more to say.

Not to mention nuns being involved, as religion was often viewed as its own cure if I’m not mistaken, like schizophrenics used to be thought of as demon possessed. It’s clear this is set somewhere in most likely the nineteenth century, as many source say electric chairs/electroconvulsive therapy were in use primarily from the 30s to the 70s. They declined in the 60s and 70s, but apparently saw a resurgence in the 80s. Anyway. The way it begins with the whole song in reverse? Anyway, I am done for now.

[general-du-vallon]

i started making a fic once where aramis holds his baby and thinks like 'well i did one treason how worse could it be if i stole this baby away', and he thinking about he could put another baby in its place and then i thought WELL WHY NOT

Anyway now am thinking about the stolen baby au

Porthos waiting on a horse to spirit the baby away (just have the image of him waiting in the dark. He takes the baby cus like i s2 final where he rides off alone to be heroic)

Aramis having a moment to talk to Q.A (quee ann) before the baby is born and saying it as a joke and they both just look at each other

the other musketrs being like 'u decided what now with Q.A?!'

where they gonna get a baby?! well. Porthos can be like 'i know a guy'. I'm sure Flea could find them a baby needing a nice home.

Aramis being like '...and then i will slide the baby in' and Constance being like 'uh huh mm hhmm. WHILE THE QUEEN IS HAVING THE OTHER BABY?!? HM?!? u gonna GO IN THERE WHILE SHE PUSHES A WHOLE HUMAN OUT OF HER?!'

aramis after constance rant, as if there been no interuption 'and then constance will swap them' and constance being like THAT IS WHAT i THOUGHT

I mean the baby is already not king of france so who cares?! it could be ANY baby. Who says this ISNT what hapened?

anyway one of the big reasons i think this is hilarious is we already know there's a safe place for accidental french not-quite-heirs cus that's where Agnes and Henry went.

Aramis and Agnes and king of france (but louis did it instead) and the king of france (but random baby from court of miracles did it instead).

aramis giving in his commission; 'GONNA GO UH.... JOIN A MONESTARY. THATS IT. THATS RIGHT. THAT'S WHERE IM GOING'.

imagine in s3 if he was in that monestary and the others staring around at the hundred of babies aramis is sherpherding about like 'is it that one... is it that one... is it that one' (I know this is diff to the living in bliss with agnes plus king 1 and king 2 like the cat in the hat. but whatever. Did i say it all has to cohere?!?! HUH!?!)

it is actually surprising to me hwo much i could just... slide this into canon. That's really funny. Aramis coming back to paris with a couple of refugee babies and beingn like 'and this one I'm keeping FOR NO REASON he gonna live with me. um. better. really. nenver ever go to the palace. eek'

It would be fun reversal. Q.A sneaking into the garrison to see her baby. aramis being like 'you so really absolutely totally cannot be here' standing at the end of a corridor full of men used to living in barracks like not entirely dressed and sort of being awful all like O_O O_O O_O like those picures where the light in rats eyes.

Q.A being like 'and now this is aramis he is coming to court to be honoured and the king has decided in his generosity that aramis's baby is coming also and oops louis jr just happened to meet him oh look at that oh dear i tripped over and my two babies are friends what a big oopsie daisy no aramis i didn't do anything at all'

Q.A loves BOTH her babies. for the record. baby number 2 is GONNA BE LOVED.

I think porthos watching the king dote on miracle court baby would be fun. Porthos "shall we show him what being poor in paris is really like" du Vallon.

the king doesn't know. the king doesnt care.

the rest of the show can be p much the same. tbf i only watched bits of s3 and skipped a lot of the more plotty stuff so i dont actually know this. the version I watched could fit this change easy and who cares what other ppl watched.

Sylvie being like 'he is the king of france' abt the dauphin and constance being like '....well. technically u r correct. but. uh.' and sylvie being like 'this is another of those treason things isnt it' and constance like 'a bit' and sylvie like 'yesssss tell me tell me'

[narwhalandchill]

ok not to randomly go off on a somewhat negative ramble But. (general genshin story direction worries basically)

while there are a bunch of stunts i fear the genshin story slash lore could end up pulling that would serve as not only disappointments but to varying degrees also just retroactively ruin a lot of games writing for me. i dont think theres anything that im as genuinely concerned about as the possibility of like. completely losing their narrative marbles to an overdone time travel/temporal manipulation in one way or another like just the thought of that shit haunts me

bc like. while i dont find them particularly compelling as an argument for that to be the case regarding Everything in the narrative in current lore/theory circles (like. makoto n ei teaming up w istaroth once doesnt automatically establish universal time travel). it is unfortunately true that in canon lore there are many of the kind of lore pieces present that you could use to set that kind of reveal and complete restructuring of the story up. istaroth and the sacred sakura and some shady things said by various characters and how you could argue Any time loop or travel adjacent is just hidden by the irminsul 5head (another piece of writing whose potential misuse seriously alarms me, mind you). and so on.

and i am just. Not about any of that shit. like. for me absolutely any plot device or element that has the risk of fundamentally fucking up a storys continuity and coherence sideways to the degree BOTH the

"genshins gonna turn out to be ALL time travel/time loop/simulation to make [sudden endgame twist X heavily at odds with what was established in the central lore prior] appear sensible"

and

"celestia just irminsuls away all evidence for [that twist X again] so achsually it was always genius and compatible with lore"

tier of nightmare scenarios will have. is just. Not fucking worth it. this shit has ruined countless stories with vastly better writing and way more competent authors because its just. not the kind of stuff you can just insert in a massive fucking story willy nilly to explain away the mystery box you didnt bother to set up together so it ultimately comes together in a cohesive way that Doesnt need to be broken on multiple levels to scrape together some conclusion. and its just hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and like ive never expected some massive masterpiece out of genshin like at best its gonna be one of those stories that once finished gets some really fucking banger fanwork as its community expands upon and explores a solid but flawed canon groundwork. theres fundamental flaws and limitations to its storytelling and format and that cant be helped. so im expecting no miracles on that front.

but the one fucking thing i dont want them to fall for is that misguided at best and outright pretentious and disrespectful at worst allure of. SEE! we outsmarted the audience! the theories! we broke our own story continuity to force a twist because our established worldbuilding technically makes it an option! isnt this smart!

like just please. no. no clue how unpopular this is but im already quite conflicted on the established use of irminsul in sumeru and how it arguably voided a lot of important characterization (nahidas inferiority complex) and narrative potential (scara literally becoming a non factor in the grander story more or less) for good but like. for now. fine. it hasnt become overused yet. i dont think its inherently bad as a factor of worldbuilding. i like how it recontextualizes fact and fiction and the significance of stories that appear mere fables in the world of teyvat. but as it stands the irminsul is still a deus ex machina. and thats a dangerous tool for any writer to have in careless use. and when combined with the sprinkles of lore involving the possibility of time manipulation and such to be further explored. its like powder and keg. two tools that can absolutely gut a story of its narrative cohesion and the weight of its stakes in an instant. its really fucking worrisome.

genshins writing is flawed but the one thing this game has going for it that i REALLY hope the writers will understand to respect is its world. how much the marriage between this massive and beautifully crafted immersive open world and the intricacies of lore and history afforded to all corners of it truly do in tandem to establish the world of genshin as more Real. as weightier. as a place you grow and remain attached to even when the main storys writing stumbles. the world is so important and to let it remain feeling real is just. i hope they understand how fragile of a gem that is.

featuring an artificial world order established by fraudulent divinity and that involving some degree of cosmic fuck-uppery of the natural order and all-encompassing illusion to maintain it is fine. this is a story heavily referencing gnosticism that theme is literally a given. but it needs to be an artificial world order imposed on a real world that remains feeling real the entire time through. and for that to be preserved it needs to remain grounded.

but the problem is that once a story truly commits to the "anything could be altered and fundamentally reversed with the right mcguffin at play with seeming impunity" there is no going back. it becomes very fucking difficult to keep the figurative feet of a narrative even touching the ground for even the most skilled of writers afforded absolute creative freedom to work with (which genshin does not have). and just that much more easier for the stakes to be lost completely. and i dont want to see that scenario become reality

[earthstellar]

hey! i just wanted to let you know that i really enjoyed your post about the mutiny on the L.L and your deeper dive into the social dynamics and inner thought processes involved there. especially when it comes to megatron being put into the lost light and how it was done with absolutely zero regard to not only the crew, but to rodimus specifically. OP put megatron on a ship in a position of power over rodimus (noting the whole "co-captain" thing and it going back and forth on whether its an actual title) and the entire crew, and it's honestly somewhat of a miracle that the mutiny even had time to develop as it did. like you said, there were a hundred other ways it could of played out. your post was a very interesting read and i really enjoyed it, kudos!

i do have to say though that the mech in the post isn't hound- it's hoist. (i get them mixed up so often as well it's not even funny, both green bots with 5 letter names starting with 'ho-', smh.) but overall your point still very much stands that there isn't just a surface level unhappiness with rodimus- there are many other factors playing into why someone would be a mutineer or how someone who is already isolated and vulnerable can be nudged onto that path by an outsider force. again, very good read, thank you for sharing!

LOL YOU'RE SUPER RIGHT ABOUT IT BEING HOIST

This is what I get for trying to check Tumblr and write a whole thing at 6 AM while working and getting ready to move at the same time!! My brain is cooked!!

That's the funniest mistake I've ever made, thank you for bringing it to my attention. Genuinely this is the most I've laughed in like two months, thank you. <3 I got so into it and never even noticed. LOL

I'll edit the post to highlight that I fucked it up but I'm not going to delete it because honestly I'm proud of how almost-coherent I was while this severely exhausted.

Anyway, thank you so much for the lovely comment, and I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it anyway! :) <3

I definitely wanted to highlight the panel as a general example of other factors and how they play into what might motivate an individual to mutiny, so the general point hopefully still holds up despite my very sleep deprived character mix-up, lmao.

But I'm glad the first half of the post is a little more coherent, as I think the disregard Optimus had for the command and crew of the Lost Light is one of the first and most significant single decisions that contributed to issues that persisted and affected other outcomes etc. and it's interesting to see how it all cascades together to contribute to the circumstances that fostered a mutiny.

I'm happy to hear you liked it, thank you so much for reading through it even though I was clearly very tired when I wrote it and rambled on for quite a bit! :')

[with-my-murder-flute]

One of the things I really like about Alpennia's ~magic system is that it's historically coherent with Western history, where the Catholic church held total supremacy over much of Europe for over a milennium, BUT, you can definitely see the cracks that mean an alternate interpretation would totally blow the whole system wide open.

One of the things about being an ex-Catholic history nerd is, it's hard for me to really invest in "our world, except magic" AUs where magic is this totally separate branch of institutional power in Western society, where there is the monarchy/government, there is the Church, and then there is The World of Magic—because the Church, being the largest branch, has always tried to eat its lesser kin; there has been so much warfare about whether the Roman Catholic Church holds precedence over secular governments, or whether secular governments can tell the Church where to GTFO. So it is very fundamentally implausible that, if magic truly exists, the Church has not annexed it and claimed to be its only true source.

Daughter of Mystery is about the "mysteries" of the saints, where "mystery" means both "a secret ritual" (like the Elusinian mysteries) and "an act of religious ministry" (like medieval "mystery" plays). It's an adaptation of things that exist in our world, where Catholic veneration of the saints has always included asking different saints for different things, and honouring them with specific actions, prayers, pilgrimages, and items. That means everything from walking hundreds of miles with bare feet to worship at a shrine, to sighing and chanting, "Anthony, Anthony, turn around, something's lost that must be found" while spinning in a circle, before continuing to look for your car keys.

In this world, the mysteries work. Not all the time, not for everybody, but just often enough to be miraculous. And the Church traditionally holds that God and the Saints are just very choosy about when they bestow those miracles, and it's the job of ordinary people to pray humbly and dutifully and bow their heads when the blessings fall down.

But slowly over the centuries, theologians, philosophers, and eventually, thaumaturgists, have been observing that there is a pattern to when and how the mysteries generate miracles. There are some people who are especially sensitive to seeing or hearing the working of miracles, who can say whether a prayer was answered or a mystery was successful; and there are some people who, much more reliably than others, have their prayers answered. If they work together, they can use trial and error to create far more effective mysteries that produce more reliable results.

This has led to the creation of "mystery guilds", because the guild was the medieval framework for a closed group of people who meet to work together for a specific cause; in this case they were not tradesmen regulating a profession or philanthropists raising money for a cause, but people working to celebrate mysteries in hopes of creating a desired miracle. (I don't know if it comes up in later books, but I imagine the Freemasons in this world are buck wild.)

The Church officially condemns what is called "the mechanistic heresy", which says that miracles don't come from God, but are the sum of the people involved and the thoughts and words and actions they perform. Thaumaturgists have to step very carefully around this issue, because it is actually pretty clear that either case is equally possible, but they want to not die at the hands of the Inquisition. So there's this very real tension where thaumaturgy that was scandalous and near-heretical in its day (which I'm guessing to be the 12th century?) is now essential to understanding modern philosophy, so a nun who disapproves of the field as a whole nonetheless has to teach parts of it if she wants her student to understand why Christian thought and worship of the early 1800s is the way it is—but she won't give that student access to the entire book, just carefully chosen excerpts. And even if that book can be obtained from other libraries, other books of thaumaturgy are so at risk of being deemed heretical that reputable printers won't print it, and reputable booksellers won't sell it.

It reminds me a lot of the practice of human dissection in European history. During the Early Middle Ages, the Church discouraged the practice, which had been more common in Ancient Rome; it held that human bodies were sacrosanct, and could not be in any way damaged or altered after death, because when humans will be given our "new flesh" on the day of the Resurrection, it will be our actual physical bodies that will be revived—so your body had better be in a revivable state, and not cremated or taken apart or anything else.

But slowly, in the 11th and 12th centuries, it became clearer and clearer (thanks in part to physicians from Jewish and Islamic traditions) that dissection was a necessary part of medical science, because doctors and surgeons will just be fundamentally worse at their jobs if they don't have the kind of detailed knowledge of anatomy that only human dissection can provide. So in fits and starts, various regions and bishops and popes made the procedure more legal, even as they limited who could be dissected to those least likely to be deemed fit for the eternal hereafter.

Which, like... it is completely off the chain for us to live in a world where autopsies are performed on everyone, good citizen and hardened criminal alike, in the case of suspicious death; where it is routine to take the vital organs of a dead person out of their body and transplant them into a new one. We couldn't imagine law enforcement without forensic pathology, and we're comfortable with medical science experimenting with the human body in a way that treats nothing as sacrosanct, except knowledge and truth.

So Alpennia is at the jumping-off place for this brave new world. They've been a solidly Catholic country, wedged between France and Switzerland, only slightly touched by the wilder excesses of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; Napoleon's wars ravaged them somewhat, but a new generation that barely remembers them is coming of age, with the knowledge that all the old truths can be thrown down—if you throw hard enough.

These books are so deeply nerdy. So very much. I love them so.

[mushtoons]

YOU HAVE NO FUVKJN CLUE WHAT KIND OF SHIT LEONARDO HAMATO DOES TO ME. GODDAMN. theres a reason im obsessed w this boy and those reasons are Many. hes just like every other leo if they got a moment to be a person and it drive me fuckin nuts. bonkers, even. hes still analytical he still cares with all his heart hed still do anything to keep them safe and hell still do it alone he still cares about tradition and the status quo and he refuses to show that he cares both because he doesnt want to break that status quo as hes not the eldest anymore and because he doesnt want to stop being able to be carefree and happy. but hes still made up of a leader (he still wears red beneath his blue, a mask that doesnt hide a thing-and the leader wears red, doesnt he, doesnt he?) and god, hed still do anything to keep them safe. hes still the head, and the legacy, and. karai. you are not alone. and yet, both her and leo, they readily threw themselves into a prison that they thought theyd never escape from. no one is alone. except for them. because they have to, this is their duty, this is their comeuppance, they have to be a hero, they have to be the savior. and leos closeness with karai and. and when they leave karai and then when they leave raph, both times, he has to be dragged away. and he locks himself in a prison dimension. and hes calling casey 'case' by the end of the movie, and his supposed last words to him are to say hes proud. and hes so bright and kind and annoying. and. theres just. god theres so much i could say about leo. i use jokes to cope, with my last breath i told you so, hero moves are totally your style, youve been portal chopped. and he only cries in the prison dimension. the moment that portal opens he stops. and he doesnt say a thing between youve been portal chopped and. and, 'took you guys long enough'. like he knew theyd save him. and mikeys portals were a miracle. and he left a katana there. and its a belief of mine that, afterwards, hes more subdued and careful and out of the way. its not about me. and maybe he pushes that too far. and maybe, hes always worked hard to keep his hurt from them, so they dont have to bother with it. mikey needs more help, donnie is more sickly, raph is trying so hard. that last thought was off the hook idk abt that one yet dont take it too seriously. but anyways i think a lot abt him and caseys relationship too. the gentle carefulness that could bloom there alongside bright burning youth and love and hope. and casey was their final stand, and he did it. and he told him, i dont wanna lose you again. and like..just. leos everything. the masks he hides behind and the person underneath and how its clear he cares and..leo is the soul. mikey is the heart and donnie is the mind and raph is the body and leo is the soul. tuning the background noise and guiding them, quiet or loud, whatever he needs to be. and just..the way he always quietly led them and his smarts and how he got to be someone and how he still tries to throw that away and how clear it is he doesnt care for himself the way he does others and how that reflects in future leo concepts and how much I know he would care for this younger versions of himself and. and how bright he is, how annoying yet loveable and so, so interesting he is. this was so scrambled but idc i love him so much. if you want more of my coherent leo thoughts point a thing out this was summary and i DO have SO many thoughts on the prison dimension as a whole (four poems actually), casey and leos relationship (a whole post and then a much larger section in a doc), the peepaw and leo (again A WHOLE DOC for peepaw concepts), and general analysis on the boy (yet again a whole doc). also sorry if this was a bit much lmao he means a lot 2 me

DHDHDJD HOLY SHIT THIS IS A LOT /POS

LMAOOO WE CAN TELL WHO YA FAVORITE IS /LH BUT THIS IS SO DJJDJFDJDJD SO DETAILED AND JUST ❤️❤️

[antlerx-art]

GOOD OMENS 2 EPISODE 5 REACTION - CONTAINS SPOILERS‼️

predicting the wait and see in this one

“can i watch” hehe crowley just wants to be with aziraphale

HE MENTIONED DOCTOR WHO and “the doctor” is right behind him ahhhh british people youre so british

lol the demons just went from 10000 to 70

AZIRAPHALE STOP GIVING BOOKS AWAY

oh i love how he’s not assuming the spouse’s gender

eric you’re about to die i’m afraid

crackling at aziraphale being so stubborn about knowing french 💀

NO WAYY crowley asking the same questions as the fandom about aziraphale’s french he’s so us this season

NINA ASSUMING THEYRE TOGETHER YES YES FINALLY

“he’s not my bit on the side he’s far too pure of heart to be anybody’s bit on the side” CROWLEY YOURE. STOP. IM FINE IM FINE THIS IS FINE (this is, in fact, not fine)

uhhh crowley what are you trying to do with that rose and that wineeeee hmmm

“smitten 🥰” aziraphale please teach me irregular verbs with that smile

yes i also had this theory of gabriel faking the amnesia but that’s not likely

“you’re being silly😊”

protective crowley MORE PROTECTIVE CROWLEY YES GIVE IT TO MEEEE

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHY ARE YOU REVEALING THE TRICK IN S1

oh shit i’ve been dreaming about this moment “when you told my only friend to shut his stupid mouth and die” YES YES YESNYES CROWLEY SAY IT TELL HIM LETS GOOOOOOOOOO he took off his glasses shit shit shit

naur gabe is sad

“jimmy boyeeh”

JUMP OUT OF WHAT

he’s gonna stop him right

yep

RIGHTTTT THE MATCHBOX I FORGOT

HAND ON THE BACKKKKK

THIS MUSICCC so romantic i can’t wait to see the dance AND CROWLEY IS LOOKING AT HIM THROUGH THE WINDOW

mrs sandwich !! did she just change clothes

ohh what a pity Lindsay is your former partner🙄

so i wasnt hallucinating they actually change clothes as they get into the shop

gabriel’s fancy suit HELP

NOOOO MAGGIE YOURE IN TROUBLE

yes crowley put those demons in their place SHOUT AT THEM

ITS ABOUT TO HAPPEN THEYRE ABOUT TO DANCE

aziraphale also made a miracle to make everyone speak like they’re in the 19th century?

MAGGIE AND NINA MOMENTTTT it’s the scene ITS THE SCENE FROM PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

okay now give me aziracrow dancing

crowley stop worrying and think about the ball challenge

AZIRAPHALE PLEASE GRAB HIS ARM AND MAKE CROWLEY DANCE WITH YOU thanks bye

ohhh andrew o’neil is mutt’s (?) spouse that’s why azi used they/them before I LOVE THIS CHARACTERRR I LOVE THIS SHOW

WHY DOES JIM HAVE TO BE SO FUNNYYY

OH

MY

GOD

“well perhaps you could tell me while we dance” IM GOING TO DISCORPORATE

OH SHITTTTTT

HE DID IT HE GRABBED HIS HAND THEYRE ACTUALLY GOING TO DANCE

hi shax can you please come back later this is too important

I CAN SEE THEM IN THE BACKGROUND

“i don’t mind hard work” MAGGIEE you’re so sweet

THEYRE DOING IT THEYRE DANCING AZIRACROW DANCING THIS IS REAL THIS IS HAPPENING IN FRONT OF ME IT’S REAL REALITY IM SEEING WITH MY EYEBALLS IVE ALMOST FALLEN OFF MY CHAIR

THEIR HANDS ARE TOUCHING AHHHH I DONT KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS COHERENT THOUGHTS

I MADE A FANART OF THIS WITH THESE EXACT COLOURS OHHH I HAVE TO PAUSE FOR A MOMENT

shax interrupted the ball HOW DARE YOU????

surrender the angle 📐

no stop don’t harm humans

GABE WHAT ARE YOU DOING!

THE FLUFFY COAT WHY SO DRAMATIC 💀💀

NOOOOOO THEY CANT RECOGNIZE HIM

YESS CROWLEY HAS STUDIED LAW!

i cant believe he’s democratically telling them that they can’t attack

OH I SHOULD HAVE REALIZED HE JUST MADE IT UP LOL

“happy anniversary love” AWH

“you’re a good lad” / “not actually, either” GENDERFLUID CROWLEY MY BELOVED

“why don’t you stand up for yourself? make your own plans” / “i am, but rescuing me makes HIM SO HAPPY” SHUT UPPPPPP AZIRAPHALE I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE I KNOW YOU LIKE BEING RESCUED SHUT UP this show is so not real it can’t be

HELLO AGAIN MURIEL! police officer moment

“ARREST ME”? GIRL WHAT

THIS DIALOGUE IS SO CUTE I LOVE ALL THIS CROWLEY CONTENT

angel crowley on his waaaaay

FINISHED EP 5 OOHHHHH WHAT A ROLLER COASTER I CANT BELIEVE I ONLY HAVE ONE EPISODE LEFT THIS CANT BE ALMOST OVERRRR

(I had to rewrite some of this since tumblr decided not to save my post, but i could remember the best bits of the deleted part so it is authentic)

[funsizedcrow]

Who is your favorite oc and what's their deal, and who are their friends?

ok first of all thank you for asking about my ocs I love to talk abt them even though I don't really do it a lot. they r so real to me...the plot and story is like mostly fully formed inside of my head (although only partially written down.) and i forget sometimes that they aren't real characters that everyone knows about...but now you can know about them! (sorry this is kind of rambly and not all that coherent. I have a lot of thoughts jumbling around in my brain)

(the rest is under a cut bc i wrote a lot)

so my main oc story (which is called teen spirit for now, but i might change it in the future) has a main cast of 5 people. Cat, (they/them) Caleb (he/him), Juno (she/they), Nathan (he/him), and Ellie (any/all). But out of all of them my favorite will always be Cat <3

Some fun facts abt Cat: they exclusively dress in warm winter clothes, no matter the weather. Puffy jackets, thick pants, boots with fur lining. They claim not to feel the heat. One time they end up in arizona and almost die of heatstroke. Cat pretends to be the braincell of their group but the truth is that they are just as impulsive as the rest of them, and its honestly a miracle they haven't been arrested yet. Anyways plotwise Cat has some sort of connection to the supernatural.

Ok first of all heres some basic lore. So there’s a mortal realm (regular old earth) and a spirit realm. Basically when someone dies they’re given five years as a ghost to tie off any loose ends. The only people that can see ghosts are people connected to said loose ends. Spirits are immortal beings that live in the spirit realm. Their job is to watch over the ghosts in the human realm, and run the real afterlife.

Anyways so Cat is connected to the supernatural. And later in the story this leads to them basically becoming a ghost magnet, which leads to fun things (losing the ability to distinguish whats reality and whats not) but anyways at the beginning it is easy things, such as finding a ghost in the basement of their school, where they broke into with their friends caleb and juno (i'll get to them. later.) and anyways the ghost they found was nathan, cast member number 4!

Cast member 5 is relevent now. Her name is ellie (any pronouns) (ellie is not his actual name, her real name is unpronouncable to humans.) So Ellie is a Spirit, but was punished by being sent to earth to live among humans as a mortal because she did the forbidden, brought a person back to life. (said person was juno's mother actually which leads to a lot of drama and tension between them.) So Ellie ends up crashing in Cat's backyard, creating a crater that is. difficult to explain to their parents. And ellie's appearance is not very long after they discover Nathan's ghost in the school basement. This is interesting because Nathan's death was not, in fact, due to natural or normal causes. It's because he, like Cat, was connected to the supernatural, and ended up seeing things that he was not supposed to be able to see. So the afterlife system decided the best thing to do was kill him! But he still has to get his five years on earth over with for his loose ends. (there was debate in the bereuacracy over whether they should bother with that or just send him straight to the afterlife, but they ultimately decided that the circumstances of his death were unusual enough that they should stick to standard procedures instead of changing more things.)

Anyways proximity to Cat allows Juno and Caleb to also be able to see nathan. And Caleb and Nathan specifically become very close. (its the tragedy u see. Nathan is dead. Nathan can't stay on earth forever, he's going to have to leave. He's not alive anymore but being with caleb makes him feel more alive than he ever was. They love each other but nathan continuously pushes back, doesn't let himself get too close because he knows it won't last.)

(i am talking a lot more than i intended to. oops) anyways the main plot is well it starts out with them trying to help Nathan tye up his loose ends so that he can just go to the afterlife sooner instaed of just hanging around for another couple years but then it shifts to realizing the fundamental issues within the afterlife system, which is exacerbated by Cat's interactions with the ghosts that they encounter (btw can u tell that the good place is one of my favorite shows.) They also just do fun high school shenanigans for the other half of the plot because my favorite genre is when something is a comedy with serious and tragic elements.

Characterwise the main dynamic between the original trio (cat, emily, and caleb.) Juno comes up with the dumb and reckless ideas. She is the one that encourages them to break into the school's basement in the first place, because she wants to see if the ghost rumors are true (they are). Cat is the one who makes the actual plans, who ensures that they don't get into any real trouble. Caleb is the anxiety, he's the one who actively discourages the plans, who voices the concerns. Except for when it comes to certain things, such as his not-so-secret obsession with the paranormal. When it comes to that he and juno are opposites, Juno is terrified of ghosts and hates the supernatural, caleb loves it, while with nearly everything else Juno is fearless and Caleb is terrified, and Cat provides the middle ground between them, as well as negotiating with the cops when they need to, which happens more than their parents would like.

I have more things I could say but this is getting out of hand so i will wrap this up but i love my ocs so much <3 I really should start talking abt them more lmao.

Anyways here is a collection of drawings of (mostly) cat from the past year:

[acidmatze]

Its funny (not literally but you know what i mean) that "xyz struggles with talking and mostly doesnt talk at all UNLESS its about xyz's special interest then xyz speaks very fluently and well and doesnt shut up" is a very common thing in autistic people. But for me its exactly the other way around. And i havent met another autistic person like that. As of now i feel like im the only ND person who CANT talk about heir special interest.

I just.. cant. I want to. I would LOVE to. Im always like "Oh god please talk to me about Trigun!!!!" yet im dreading that someone might actualy Do because I dont know what to say. Its not that i dont have opinions and thoughts its... i just cannot put them into... Understandable Words. There is just So Much going on whenever i think about my special interests that it becomes too overwhelming for me to translate my thoughts into anything that could be communicated in some understandable way. I wish telepathy was real so i could just beam my thoughts into someone else's head but i dont even think that would work unless they Think Like Me. Also the onslaught of information they get will probably be too overwhelming. So i desperately WANT to talk about my special interests (please talk to me about Trigun but understand that i wont be able to answer in any satisfactory way) but i CANT. I cannot communicate my thoughts in any form that can be understood by humans that are not me. If thoughts are like files on a computer my thoughts dont come in neat categories they come as a zip file you gotta unpack first and then get the entire thing at once. Well.. I dont need to unpack them cuz i know whats inside. But if i wanna communicate them i have to unzip that package and then go through every single file one by one and pick out the relevant parts. Only the relevant parts. What is important and what is not? Who knows, not me, im already despairing. So i usually just give up and dont say anything which is kinda not helping with the whole Conversation thing. Which is also why i dont do meta posts or anything... relevant. I cant give you a single coherent sentence about Trigun how am i supposed to write meta? The best i can do is like... dig out panels and point at them and yell. Maybe when a miracle happens i could get single words out that wont form any sentences whatsoever and you would have to puzzle them together. Have fun.

Fun fact! Sometimes this doesnt just happen with my special interest but with any random thing. Today i was unable to tell my Boss why i have to sit down more often than others. Has nothing to do with my special interests. Still wasnt able to start the damn sentence. Talking to me is probably a chore no one does gladly. Honestly i wish i could just... find someone whos willing to communicate with me even when i just give sentence fragments or just words and they are willing to piece them together. But lmao. As if. Even if someone WOULD say they would be willing they probably would try to talk to me once and if i actually Do Talk Like That they would go "Yeah nah this was a dumb idea lets never talk to this guy again."

[sharkface-daydreams]

if i give you the word shark is that cheating

probably but i am going to do it anyway >:} there were like two instance i found of shark being used not as a name

"Is there a reason we're still doing these… ‘sessions’, Counselor?" Sharkface seemed to be less hostile specifically to him after getting Aiden to admit he'd kill those who had gotten him imprisoned, and after the revelation of his involvement with the Freelancer program there had been a negotiation of boundaries that seemed to comfort both of them. They parried each other well enough, but sometimes, Aiden admitted to himself, their conversations still felt like being circled by a hungry shark.

-

Locus and Sharkface enjoy the aquarium although both question Felix's wanting to come along because he mostly just complains that nothing has enough teeth or isn't vicious or poisonous enough.  "Gates, you're making it real hard not to beat the shit out of you."  "I'd like to see you try, Fishstick."  Sharkface drags them both to the shark exhibits ("C'mon, knife boy, let's go find something that's more your speed.") and it's there that Felix finally finds something worthy of respect: an unholy cross between megalodon and ancient crocodilians.  Locus watches his partner and partner argue in front of the huge, wide wall of the tank, and sighs in exasperation.  "Now that's what I'm talking about," Felix says, gesturing to the megafauna teeth-and-scales nightmare swimming slowly across the huge wall of the tank.  Sharkface nods appreciatively. "Five rows of teeth and jaws that—"  "I swear to God, Fishstick, if you ruin this for me with your nerdery I will cut out your tongue."  "Fuck you too, Jesus. Woulda thought the fact it can crush another of its species just with jaw strength alone woulda piqued your interest."  Felix pauses, puts a finger up. "Ok. That's fucking sick. But nothing else. I just wanna look at it for a bit."  "Alright." Sharky goes to hold Locus' hand and look at the other scary sharks in the tank.

also i didn't find any of the other words in my SharKey AU but i love that one so i found an excerpt I liked :)

Once the meeting concludes, the three of them book it and head for the lounge in their hotel to drink away the stress of having to talk to Hargrove.

"Thought that smug asshole would never shut the fuck up," Sharkface grumbles around his fourth glass of disgustingly expensive wine.

"Imagine how we fucking felt having to kiss his ass all those years," Felix says, waving his hand expansively.

"At least it's done."

"Locs, let's never take a stupid fucking job like that ever again." Locus raises his eyebrows. It had been Felix who had talked him into it in the first place, but he simply nods in agreement.

Felix and Sharkface finish off the third or fourth bottle of wine (who's counting?), mostly quiet but occasionally commenting on people around them or random bullshit.

Drunk Locus excuses himself for the evening. Drunk Felix follows after a bit, knocking annoyingly on his door and asking if he wants to fuck. Locus frowns at him and closes the door. 

Felix wanders sadly back down to the lounge where Shark is finishing off the bottom of the wine bottle and looking up flights to Celaris.

Sharkface stiffens as he feels arms wind around his shoulders from behind. “Sharkyyyy...” It's just Felix, drunk and sad. He sighs.

“What do you want?”

“I hate your guts and I hate your face,” Felix whines.

“Hate you too," Sharky murmurs, not looking up from his screen.

"And you guys have been looking so fucking hot in those suits all night and I need to get dicked down hard and Locus said no so I need you to do it," Felix manages to say. It's a miracle it's coherent at all because he's mumbling all this into Sharkface's shoulder.

"Thought you'd never ask," Sharkface growls, yanking Felix up with him as he stands from the chair. “Your place or mine?”

[the-whispers-of-death]

sylvester: *finally comes back home after that interruption, like 8h later, and unlocks the bedroom door*

kali, while basically torturing stone with how soft he is: oh hey man. stone, baby, gonna say hi to your daddy?

stone, drooling with no coherent thoughts: hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii <3 <3 <3

sylvester: ... hey, thanks. im gonna go make dinner. kali, you can stay by the way.

bros so casual about this all its kinda funny. the girls are lucky ive arbitrarily decided to send them all to katie's mansion so they dont have to listen to. that. cuz soundproofing doesnt work 100% of the time. at least they can be loud now

~ rusty

It's a miracle Stone is able to still speak. But I'm sure he won't be now that Sylvester's home.

Kali definitely stays because why not? It's not like he has much to do at home now that the work day's over and he definitely doesn't want to deal with his parents.

Kali, baby, why do you still let your parents stay at the ranch? It's literally in your name now because they didn't want to deal with any part of it anymore. Honestly, why are they even alive at this point, I should just kill them off.

How shall we kill off Kali's manipulative parents? I know Stone has many ideas.