#lmk if something needs changing!

[boatemboys]

NEW FAVOURITE CLIP

transcript:

Joe Hills: Anyway- timeskip! I forget where I'm going. Oh yeah it's funnier if I fly

(He takes off and hits something)

Ow.

(As he falls into screen and dies, he starts laughing hysterically)

I better go get my stuff...

[clumsypuppy]

updated xin ref

[theribbonmarkedroom]

Post-Beyond the Spider-Verse comic I gave up on 🚶🏾‍♀️(for context, Miles is asking why Gwen didn’t tell him he wasn’t supposed to be Spider-Man)

[stick-by-me]

Shake things up!

+ a really sketchy video of me shaking them xD

[Video ID: a very zoomed in version of the above sticker sheet, out of the packaging, being shaken. The contents of each lava lamp jiggle around rapidly. The audio consists mainly of a high pitched maraca-like sound, but there's also crickets in the background, and some kind of rhythmic thumping. End ID.]

[vulpinesaint]

I really like your writing style. Do you have any literature you can share that you use as inspo?

going to start by disclaiming that from a specifically stylistic approach, i don't know if i have any writers that are distinctly similar. i do have writers that i find inspiring, though! if none of these are helpful for style, i hope they can inspire you in the same way that they make me aspire to achieve fantastic things with my writing :) i am always a poet first and foremost, whether it's poetry or prose (which is often just poetry hiding in a longer form), so most of my recommendations are poems; i have a few books at the end, though, just in case. everything that i link here should be free to access!

i am like 90% sure that anyone seeing this will already know that i keep all my poetry over at @trickstersaint, but just in case you're coming direct from a quiz, that's the place to read more of my writing! now. onto my list of a bunch of other trans poets with tumblr platforms 🖤

keaton st. james (@boykeats), i think, was the first modern poet that i really found and loved. stumbling across some of his dictionary poems as a younger poet was so revolutionary to me, and reading his poetry changed the way that i thought about and approached poetry as a whole. inspiration in the way of seeing the things that someone can do with poetry. opening up all the limits. this is what every good poem will do for you a little bit, i think, but keaton st. james is always my first recommendation for a modern poet. highly recommend his collections growth and light (i personally really love light. guy who is normal about religion voice) and rural boys watch the apocalypse is to me what that one richard siken poem about being in a car with a beautiful boy is to everyone else haha

other poets whose work i really enjoy and admire include silas denver melvin (@sweatermuppet) and dante émile (@orpheuslament)! recommending the poems an impractical marvel and dioscuri from them, respectively. sweatermuppet also has a full collection called grit, and orpheuslament has one called misplaced organs and various saints (this particular one isn't free but linking it here!) :)

my favorite poem since high school has been gravity by maura o'connor. life-changing. that poem is just like me for real.

for more of a narrative style, if you've read + liked my piece aromanticism, i definitely recommend with those we love alive by porpentine! really gorgeous twine piece with a kind of mysticism to it that could definitely tie back into the kind of stuff you'd see in my little quizzes too :)

if you're looking for actual literature-as-in-books, i can point you towards our wives under the sea by julia armfield and white is for witching by helen oyeyemi. both are novels that i've enjoyed for their kind of eclectic and poetic writing recently! i will also take any chance to recommend my favorite book, which is the hours by michael cunningham; regardless of similarity or inspiration, i find the writing of this book gorgeous and heartbreaking and i think it scrapes at the human condition in a way that draws blood. gently. if you know what i mean.

i hope this was helpful! i constantly feel as if i don't read enough poetry so if anyone has any suggestions they want to give me. i am more than happy to hear them <3 happy reading everybody!

[gojo-mochi]

Open Collab For December/January (Since I posted this late haha!)

What's Dilfcember?

Dilf or (Dad I Like to Fuck) is a month for Dilfs of course! All and any kind of Dilfs are invited. Even if they're not technically a dilf, if they have daddy energy they're invited.

Rules and Outline:

❥Daddy Long Dick is landing down in December/January and I want you to help me greet them~

❥Any length of writing is fine~

❥Have to be a Dilf! (Even if it not canon) Gilf are also encouraged...

❥NSFW/SFW/DARK CONTENT is all Allowed! Just make sure to tag accordingly~

❥Open to any Dilfs from JJK or OP~

❥Open Limit for any characters~ Go wild!

❥Does not have to be Mutuals with me to Join!

❥Joining Ends Dec 31st

❥Submission deadline will be end of January/Start of Feb~ (to give people some time)

How to Join:

Comment or Message me with the Dilf you want to bag and a small outline/plot of the story. Include if it going to be NSFW/SFW/DARK CONTENT.

❥Snippet of a submission:

Hello! I would like to write for Toxic!Dilf!Shanks, it would dark content theme, and it would be about Shanks secretly fucking his son's best friend

The Current Line up!!!!!

Softy~ (@gojo-mochi)

ᥫ᭡. Single Dads AU W/Neighbor Reader: Starring~

ᥫ᭡. Choso with little bro Yuji and getting lost in the snowstorm (SFW)

ᥫ᭡. Geto with Mimiko and Nanako taking them to see christmas lights (SFW)

ᥫ᭡. Gojo with Megumi and Tsumiki (SFW) TBA LATER (IMSORRY)

ᥫ᭡."Working hard or hardly working?" You keep running into the hot apartmnet Dilf right after he's done working out... Gym!Dilf Zoro (NSFW)

ᥫ᭡."You're the father?!" You were supposed to babysit Yuuji today but instead you found a stranger in Choso's house...Dilf!Kenjaku (Dark Con) (NSFW)

ᥫ᭡. "Tell me your secrets, & I'll give you my heart" Toji scambling to find the perfect Christmas gift for you but things keeps going awry Dilf!Toji (SFW)

Cille~ (@bby-deerling)

ᥫ᭡. "Meeting your best friend's deadbeat dad for the first time~ Dilf!Buggy (NSFW)

ᥫ᭡. Read here!

Pris~ (@sleepymarimo)

ᥫ᭡. "white christmas" Little megumi has been asking for a baby brother or sister, while you’ve been wanting a white christmas. toji thinks he can do both this year! Dilf!Toji (NSFW)

ᥫ᭡. "under the mistletoe" Little brother yuji has been wanting you to get with choso for a while, so he takes matters into his own hands. (SFW) BigBro!Choso

Honey~ (@honeysworld-offanfiction)

ᥫ᭡. You find out your bf cheats on you. Crying is how your father’s friends, Rayleigh & Edward, find you. Since your dad is away unable to console you, his friends help you instead. Dilf!Rayleigh & Dilf!Edward (Dark Con) (NSFW) (Incest Play)

Stephis~ (@stephisokay)

ᥫ᭡. You’ve never visited your friends home before, he’s always so hesitant. But when he does for a friendly game, you find his dad. DILF!Sukuna (Dark Con) (NSFW)

Poison~ (@anystalker707)

ᥫ᭡. Reader is down but Crocidle is here to try cheer you up~ Dilf!Crocodile (SFW)

ᥫ᭡. Read here!

Instagram Banner by@cafekitsune

[veiledmercenary]

-- {{ Continued from [X] with @asktheevilgeniusesson

Something Chief always worried about when he became known for his work were rivals. Enemies. People who didn't like him for one reason or another. Either because they felt their position or status was threatened by his more honorable work, or because they just didn't want another assassin on their turf. He's even had allies of targets hire hits on him back in the city he's from.

The slider hoped that maybe- just maybe, this new world he had found himself in was different. That it was kinder, even to a slight degree. But when he looked for work to get some money for his normal routine he used to have before, he... He found it wasn't. He found it was the same. Evil-- truly evil people existed just as much as they did back where he's from. And Chief had high hopes for this world.

Chief soon stirred with a groan, his head pounding. At first he was disoriented and confused. Where was he? Why did everything hurt? The last thing he clearly remembers was he was trying to work a job and then--....

Eyes snap open in an instant, locking onto the one other person in the room. The slider couldn't help the primal hiss that escaped him, angry and threatening, five evenly spaced clicks at the end of the breath. Oh he hated those inhuman noises he made, but that one he often couldn't hold back.

The assassin was still disoriented a bit, still just a little out of it, but he was awake. He was at a point where if he had to, he could work through it. And seeing how the stranger was sharpening that blade... He may have to work through it. He knew this was what he'd feared happening just by observing the situation.

[simranxrathore]

status: closed for @tannerkohli

Simran wasn’t expecting to run into anyone she knew, especially not on a Tuesday afternoon when the town felt like it was moving in slow motion. She had just come out of the bookstore with a tote bag slung over her shoulder and a coffee she wasn’t entirely sure she liked. It was halfway to being dumped when she spotted a familiar face just across the street. She blinked, then smiled, lifting her hand in a casual wave.

“Tanner?” she called out, angling her body slightly in her direction. “Hey!”

Her steps quickened just a little as she made her way over. It wasn’t like they were best friends or anything, but there was something easy about Tanner’s presence—something steady that Simran appreciated in a town where everything always seemed to be shifting. “I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve actually seen you,” she said with a friendly lilt, pausing beside her. “You're not avoiding me or something right? Or am I just really bad at being social lately?” Simran shifted the tote on her shoulder and offered a quick grin. “You’ve got a minute to catch up? Or am I interrupting some mysterious errands?”

[snickerdoodlles]

emberfaye replied to your post "choose violence ask game except its just me complaining about fic tropes..."

☕☕☕☕

am going to do my absolute BEST not to ramble too much here, but okay so!! 4 Chay things that will have me back-flipping out of a fic at the speed of light:

babyfication of Chay

i just. ugh. ugh. he is not a baby. he's a 17-18yo guy who half-raised himself due to some shit circumstances and took care of himself entirely by himself for minimum several months. the only difference between him and an adult is that he's not making his own income. Porsche and Arthee doing their best to give Chay as much of a childhood as they can afford him still doesn't change the fact that Chay grew up young and fast just like the rest of this cast. if he acts uwu innocent baby i'm gone. if the author calls him an uwu baby in their notes i'm gone. ugh.

being weird about Chay's or Barcode's age, specifically in regards to sex

as above, i'm pretty shirty about people babying him in general, but fandom is plain weird about Chay having sex. esp him and Kim having sex. 1. their age gap is not that big, and their circumstances have left them on pretty equal footing re the growing up too fast thing. 2. please assess why you think 18 fixes whatever your concerns are with 17yos having sex. 3. teens have sex. dunno what tf was happening with the rest of you but i knew kids even young as junior high who were already fucking. sure, i thought they were fucking idiots for it, but my concerns about people having sex young are rooted in the fact that sex is an inherently very vulnerable act and that's a lot to put yourself thru emotionally during the age range when everything's a wild emotional cocktail. but like. teens still do it. teens are gonna experiment with adult things and sometimes that means experimenting with sex. i personally might not think it's a good idea, but something not being a good idea doesn't inherently make it a bad one either. please stop being weird about it thanks.

calling Chay "bambi"

i just really don't like it. part of it's related to the babyfication thing, but mostly it's just one of those silly things my brain went nOPE on and oh well. back click. 😂

mischaracterizing Chay's anger

so like. this one is tricky because a lot of it comes down to personal interpretation of canon, but also like. a lot of my mischaracterization gripes involves people writing tropes or drama anger instead of Chay's anger, so. yeah. 😂 a lot of people default to writing explosive anger because it's easier to write, but in canon Chay is just. so completely not explosive. and it's not because he's bottling up anger (which!! even if he was, suddenly exploding due to pressure isn't a good thing, gah).

a lot of Chay's personality stems from Needing To Be Okay. a lot of Chay's personal motivations are trying to help Porsche with his burdens and when Porsche won't let him take on extra responsibilities, Chay does what he can to not add to Porsche's plate. and part of not being a burden is quietly dealing with his anger and resentments on his own time. (another factor playing into that is Porsche and Chay really only have each other-- Porsche deals with his anger very quietly too, and it's very characteristic of how they really don't want to hurt each other because they don't have many other people they care about, so they remove themselves from tense/bad situations best they can to reflect on their anger and return to talk about it after they've calmed down.)

Chay is fierce in his anger, but he withdraws when he's pissed and he always tries to talk it out with the intention of achieving clarity. and if i don't feel like a story's going to handle Chay's resentment/anger in a way that feels true to how it was shown in canon (there's a few litmus tests but mostly i'm going by vibes), i just click out because i already know any plot conflict won't feel fully or properly resolved to me in the end :/

[ send a ☕, get a bitchy* fic opinion ]

*personal opinion, I'm not going to be mean

[grimbeak]

Welcome to Night Vale episode 250 "Father Kevin" transcript

Episode description: There is no Night Vale. There is Mother Lauren's Brood. We are loved.

I don’t make the rules. I just gleefully enforce them, even though I don’t have to.

Welcome to Night Vale.

###

There is no Ralphs. There is Mother Lauren’s pantry. There is no hole out back of the Ralphs-- there is Mother Lauren’s soil embrace. There is no Night Vale. There is Mother Lauren’s brood.

We are loved. We are loved! We are--

[Radio interference. It fades in and out between incomprehensible moments of a man speaking, a woman speaking another language, and a band, before increasing in volume and suddenly cutting out.]

Sorry. It is difficult to break free of the malign influence of Mother Lauren. 

We live in two realities. One in which all is well, and one in which we are teetering over an edge from which we cannot return. I speak from both realities. I speak from both sides of my mouth. 

The conflict that roiled Night Vale continues, but in a strange, slow way. Mother Lauren stands on a podium in what once was Grove Park, her tendrils snaking through every part of the town, and through many of the people. The buildings expand, and contract, like lungs. The trees are melting. The people of Night Vale still bravely fight, but like people fighting in a painting; smudgey, and two-dimensional. 

The Boy--who is the younger version of Kevin from Desert Bluffs--stands next to Mother Lauren, holding her hand. His face shows exertion, as if the greatest battle is inside his body. But he cannot move. 

The last time Lauren came to Night Vale, she came as a representative of StrexCorp, here to conquer us in the name of capitalism. This time? Is different. This time she fights with stranger, stronger stuff. I don’t think she is turning us into another Desert Bluffs, I think, if anything, she is making all of us part of her body. She is transcending, and we are fodder for her change. 

Mother Lauren speaks, and her voice rings out from every part of her body-- which is the entire city. “I am bored already of this,” she says. “It was too easy to defeat you. Your loss is not as delicious to me as I had hoped.” 

But all is not yet lost-- there is a plan. Our future lies with Alejandra Nuñez, Ronnie Sharma, and Nanako Barnes of Mr. Prescott’s 5th Period AP English Class, otherwise known as “The Library Tweens”. These brave children have followed in Tamika Flynn’s footsteps, coming face-to-face with a librarian and emerging victorious. Now they must come face-to-face with something maybe…  fifteen percent more horrifying than a librarian. A twisted, cosmic god. 

The kids told me they could not give me the specifics of the plan, only that it involved using ropes and grappling hooks to cross the dangerous city streets through the air, guerrilla-style strikes on Mother Lauren’s weak points, capturing Kevin, and finally attacking Mother Lauren when she least suspects it-- at noon today. She’ll never see it coming. 

As part of the plan, I have been asked to create a distraction so that Mother Lauren and Kevin won’t notice what they are doing until it is too late. They told me it is “vitally important” that no-one notice until the plan has been completed, and so I had been sworn to secrecy-- a secrecy I will break for no-one! Except of course, you, my listeners. I could never keep anything from you. 

I thought a lot about what a good distraction would be, and here’s what I’ve come up with-- Hey! Look over there!

[Cecil runs away from the microphone, his footsteps going right-to-left-to-right, before they fade away. In the distance, after a brief pause, a window is smashed. Several sirens sound, seeming to be cars driving down the street as they fade in and out accompanied with scraping metal. Multiple dogs bark before they fade away as well. A car zooms down the street, seeming to possibly loop around the station before fading into silence. An air-raid siren fades in and out as wind blows, brief chanting is heard, what sounds like an old movie with incomprehensible dialogue plays. The siren stops as the chanting returns, an incomprehensible voice seeming to come from a radio plays, a rumbling is heard, and the Indiana Jones theme plays follows the rumbling right-to-left. Wind seems to blow again and fades out as Cecil’s footsteps return, the beginning few sounding like he just jumped through the window he may have broken. He continues walking over what sounds like metal, and then returns to the microphone, panting through his words.]

So…sorry… little out of breath. …We’ll see if that worked. 

Oh no. Despite what some might say is the best distraction anyone has done in the history of getting people to look away from something important, it appears that Mother Lauren somehow got wind of the plan. She flinched, and the world flinched with her. She glared, and the world swooned. She no longer even has to fight; Night Vale is her thick, sludging heart, her pockmarked lungs-- she has made us part of her disease. 

“I am the universe itself,” she howled, an air raid siren of a voice coming from all places at once. “To fight me is to fight the fabric of existence-- a laughable effort.” 

The Library Tweens were seized by Mother Lauren’s drones--who once were our own citizens, but now are pink, spongy lumps with no eyes, constantly screaming; “Help me! I still feel all of it, there is some vital part of me that remains untainted, I still have a soul!” as they lumber comically towards the tweens. The tweens put up a valiant fight, but they were captured and thrown into the town prison-- which now is covered in a pale, flakey skin. 

The Boy watched this all happen, holding onto Mother Lauren’s hands, enfolded in her multitude of oil-slick wings. Something came over him, and he turned, and struck out at Mother Lauren! With the effort of his entire soul, he resisted her influence, and he stuck a knife into her side! …Without bothering to look his way, she weaved her tendrils around him and he was absorbed into her being. The Boy now stands at her feet, the tendrils fused with his skin, and pulsing sickeningly. His eyes are blank whites. His hands flap about like they are playing an invisible piano. 

Oh, Night Vale… This is the moment of greatest despair. We have not only been defeated, but… changed. We are no longer who we are. 

And to make matters worse, here comes Kevin, unfolding himself from the crowd, strutting up to the podium of his victory. 

He looks around at the city that he has finally driven under his thumb. After years of resisting him, we can resist no more. He sees the bowling alley, enrobed in veins and arteries and malignant tumors. He sees town hall turned into a tongue, covered in white fuzz. 

He sees my own station, my beloved radio station, now entirely made of the same stuff as toenails. He sees all the evidence of his victory. And then he turns, and looks at The Boy. The Boy that he came back for. The Boy that is the younger version of himself, he looks at the helpless boy and he smiles. 

Here, there is a… heavy stillness, but somewhere, thunder. Somewhere, snow. Somewhere, far away, weather. 

###

Weather: Cutting Teeth by Priscilla Snow.

###

Well. 

Okay. 

I don’t know what to do here, honestly. 

Usually when we go to the weather report, a great struggle, or, climactic event happens concurrently with it, and we come back to a problem solved. With my perspective now shifted to the past I can then fill you in on how we made it through yet another dangerous day in our fair town. Now some people mistake this for the weather actually fixing the problem but that’s… that’s not the case. The weather usually just happens at the same time as what fixes the problem, and then I, (utilizing my expert narrative skills), tell you how that happened. 

This time however, everything is more or less how we left it. The Boy? Still captive. Mother Lauren? Still ascendant. And Kevin? Still smiling. 

There will be no victorious shift in perspective. Only a terrifying march through the ceaseless present. And in that present moment, Kevin turns to The Boy. He kneels down, still smiling, and takes The Boy’s hand. Gently, he untangles Mother Lauren’s tendrils from The Boy’s skin. He guides The Boy down from the podium. Mother Lauren, her eyes to the cosmos, is seemingly impassive to the final meager death throes of our little town. 

The Boy looks at Kevin. Kevin smiles at The Boy-- I do not like that smile, but then… I have never liked Kevin’s smile.

 “The last time I was here,” Kevin says, “I said that this was a situation I would not be able to handle alone. And I was right! And I was wrong. Because I can handle it with just me, but, I cannot handle it with only one of me.” 

“I’m sorry,” The Boy says, “but I don’t know who you are.”

It seems that his encounter with the body and mind of Mother Lauren has left him without his memories. He stares blankly at the world like it was a book in a language he took a few classes back in high school, like he should know it, but he doesn’t. 

“That’s okay,” Kevin says, “because I remember enough for the both of us. I’ve never talked much about my father-- he was a jovial man, but a stern man. He was a fair man, but with priorities I did not always understand. I think he did the best job he could-- in fact, I know he did, because, in this moment, I understand him better than anyone has ever understood their own father.”

“Okay,” The Boy says. He clearly doesn’t know why this man is telling him this. He says, “I don’t have a father.” He doesn’t say this tragically, but like he was telling the time to someone who asked. 

“Ah,” says Kevin, “but you do. My childhood was a strange riddle I never could quite solve, and here you are, a neat solution to the question of my life.”

Listeners, I am starting to understand what Kevin is getting at here-- and I’m not sure I like it, but it does have a certain… symmetry to it. Life is rarely fair, but it is often balanced. 

“What are you saying?” The Boy says. 

“Your name is Kevin, and I am your father, “ says Kevin, who is Kevin’s Father. 

“I am? You are?” says The Boy who is Kevin. 

“Yes,” says Kevin’s Father. “I will raise you well, or well enough, or, well, enough, you know? I will see you through.”

He looks up at Mother Lauren. She finally looks down, her tendrils weave through the earth and the bricks and the flesh of Night Vale, her sunny smile clouds over. 

“I thought I was through with you,” she says. 

“You were wrong,” says Kevin, and Kevin’s Father, simultaneously. Kevin’s Father stands tall, and Kevin stands as tall as he can, which is not nearly as tall as his father. Not yet. 

“Dead wrong!” calls a voice from the crowd, and here steps forward Alejandra Nuñez, Ronnie Sharma, and Nanako Barnes of Mr. Prescott’s 5th Period AP English Class, otherwise known as “The Library Tweens”. 

“I thought you were in jail,” I say from my radio booth, because this is all happening in the present moment so it just now occurred to me that I could be an active part of these events. 

“We were,” says Ronnie, “but then, this nice old lady busted us out!”

“I am not old! I’m in my early twenties for God’s sake!” says Tamika Flynn.

“She did a real daring and action-packed jailbreak!” says Nanako. “I wouldn’t have known someone that ancient had it in her!”

“Ugh,” says Tamika. But she does look exhilarated about having once again taken part in an adventure. In one hand she holds a rope, and in her other hand she holds a copy of the novel “Autumn” by Ali Smith. It’s the British first-edition, the one that was printed on a working blowtorch. 

“Point is!” says Alejandra to Mother Lauren, “You’ll have to stand against us!”

“And me,” says Tamika, shooting a menacing jet of fire from Ali Smith’s elliptical portrait of Brexit-era Britain. 

“And me,” says Kevin’s Father. 

Kevin, the young boy that he is, looks around, unsure. This is all a lot of new information all at once. But he makes his decision; “And me,” he says. 

Mother Lauren laughs, and the mountains laughs with her, hollow booms in canyons and passes. She swats at Kevin-- but Kevin dodges. Mother Lauren’s face flickers with concern, she swats again-- nothing connects. The streets roil. 

“I knew you before,” Kevin’s Father says, “I know that somewhere in there is human vulnerability!”

“Laughable!” screams Mother Lauren. She is not laughing. 

Mother Lauren’s drones advance, but a few stop. And then, human faces start to come out of their pink, fleshy lumps. 

“We could neither breathe, nor could we die!” the people inside the drones say. “We were… trapped! In the moment between breaths! It was torture without end!” 

Other Night Vale citizens give them thumbs-up, indicating empathy.

“No! I am a god!” shouts Mother Lauren. 

“Yes,” says Kevin’s Father, “and like any god, you are defined by the belief of your worshippers.”

Mother Lauren’s face screws up in fury. And then she scowls, up again at the cosmos. “Yeah! Okay! Screw it!” she says. “This universe was getting too small for me anyway.” 

And with that, she floats into the sky. The stars open like a door for her. She steps through-- she glances back, for a moment, at the city below her. “One day, I will return,” she says. “Or I won’t. T B D.” And then the stars swing shut behind her. And she is gone. 

Gradually, the city comes back to itself. The people shake off the influence of Mother Lauren. The buildings. and the earth, and the trees return to themselves. All is as it was. Minus those who are dead, or injured, or missing, which is… a good amount of people. 

At the center of all this is a boy and his father. The boy is holding his father’s hand. The Boy is holding his own hand. Kevin is holding Kevin’s hand, and together, Kevin walks back to his home, to live, if not always happily, then at the very least, ever after.

After the Kevins pass through it, Carlos pulls the plug on the portal, deciding that science, while worth some cost, is not worth every cost. Science must be in the service of humanity, never the other way around. It is a tool, not a goal. 

Oh-- he says that the portal made a real cool “zap” sound as it turned off. 

The Library Tweens--as they wish to be called--have declared the creation of a new teen militia, to protect Night Vale from any further incursions from Desert Bluffs Too, and anyone else who might want to mess with them. Tamika Flynn, who knows a thing or two about leading a teen militia, offered to be a mentor, but The Library Tweens put out a statement saying; “Uh, that’s okay, no thanks, ma’am.” 

What lies ahead for Night Vale? 

I cannot say. Our future is an unwritten slate. Our past is a diary scribbled in handwriting none of us can read, and our present is the view through a dirty window-- specifically, for me, the dirty window in this studio, through which I can see Amber Akinyi teaching her son how to ride a bike. I can see Michelle Nguyen and Maureen Johnson taking their poodle-earwig mix (or, poowig) out for a walk. I can see-- ooo, I can see a mysterious van with the symbol of a labyrinth on it with a man who is not tall and a man who is not short inside, driving some unknown cargo out into the scrublands.   

In short, I see the day-to-day of a town who has been through… a lot, but remained, through it all, very much itself. 

I see Night Vale. 

And I love it. 

Goodnight, my favorite town! Goodnight. 

###

PROVERB:  Hit me with your best shot! Ow! Okay, actually, that sucked! Uh, please hit me with one of your worse shots, instead, thank you. Ugh.

[moldcursed]

happy sunday, am i allowed to talk about my o.megaverse au for ethan or would y’all absolutely hate me.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 5 "the field where i died" thoughts

i’m back. i’m back and i’m intrigued. because i'm reading the episode description, and if we get more mulder ex lore here, which the episode description makes it sound like we will, i am… not sure how i will feel on the subject. the term “reincarnation” makes it sound like whoever it was… died. did an ex of his die? and that is a lot of mulder marked by pain and suffering. and maybe i’m getting ahead of myself. but the writers KNOW we want our agents to smooch, so focusing on an ex might make me, the viewer, feel weird. i just need to get all these thoughts out in writing before we begin.

how is he gonna tell if someone is a reincarnated lover? or am i misunderstanding this entirely. 

only one way to find out

author’s note: oh my gosh…… nothing could have prepared me for this. at all. here i was thinking it was ex lore time, but it was past life time, and there are TEARS in my eyes.

(serious author's note: i ask for some grace in this episode recap. there may be some things i word poorly. i am familiar with the terminology used to describe DID, and did my best, but acknowledge that i may have come up short. please understand that this is intended to capture my live reactions to what i was seeing for the very first time. at times here, there are no reactions, just a sort of a nebulous recapping of what i saw because i was feeling So Many Things. so this one might be messy, and i hope that is okay. i don't understand what i am feeling, but i am feeling a Lot of it, and humbly ask for your patience in my clumsy wording as well as some helpful discussion on what just went down)

let us begin, i type as i sniff up some tears

we open with mulder in a field… is he reciting poetry? and looking very sad. 

wait, is he not actually reciting poetry and he just talks like that? while holding two pictures of old timey people. i’d guess civil war era.

okay. so now we jump right to the intro. that was quick. i’m still processing what we just saw because we were really dropped into that one with no context whatsoever.

federal agents break into a temple in tennessee. they’re looking for illegal firearms! and a guy named ephesian.

but mulder sees a window… and he is staring at it… walking out the door as if led by some sort of spiritual quest while scully yells his name and wonders wtf he’s doing. he is not responding to her at all, but she’s chasing after him because she is a good friend.

so he’s hearing things while scully is pulling her gun out, and it does appear that he found a trapdoor!

he busts in, and slaps some poison out of the hand of a woman who was taking sips, and then grabs the dude who i assume is the cult leader. whew… that was close

now they’re at some sort of meeting, listening to tapes, and skinner is here!!! hiiii skinner. everybody say hi skinner!

so, someone on the tape seems to be whistleblowing on this cult- the seven stars or something- saying that the leader is hurting children and stockpiling weapons. mulder looks incredibly pensive during all of this.

oh! someone refers to mulder as “our man spooky”, which is kind of hilarious, while complaining that the reports were weak. scully leans in and asks yeah, how did he know that? while the men are fighting.

and skinner yells KNOCK IT OFF!!!! because the folks at the compound were somehow able to hide all the evidence before they got there, and now they’re forced to hold ephesian and “his wives” on “BS charges”. so now the agents MUST find evidence of firearms and who the informant was NOW because they will try to get an arraignment fast.

woah. no pressure.

skinner comes over talk to mulder and scully- they must look into this ephesian fellow's claims of supernatural abilities. scully says he can use the book of revelations to manipulate his followers, but seems to suspect no real powers. 

they to talk to this ephesian fellow, who says he knew for 9 centuries that scully was coming, and starts going on about the bible, quoting stuff. very scary behavior.

mulder comes in with the fact check. jesus said that at smyrna, not about some church in tennessee! (his knowledge…. it always impresses me)

this dude is being super creepy, telling them to put aside their investigation “for your own souls”, because soon all unfaithful shall “be destroyed by God’s mighty men”. so this is some pretty standard cult rhetoric here. if you've studied religions, you've heard this one many times. it seems that ephesian thinks he and his people shall be the ones doing this violence. a tight zoom in on mulder’s troubled face as he quotes more scripture.

they have 6 wives to question, and mulder says to start with one in particular. interesting… i wonder why that one. is it because she was the one they caught ephesian with in the hidden area... or something more?

her name is melissa, and she says she’s 25 as she smokes a cigarette and dodges their questions. she’s been at the compound and married to ephesian for a year. 

mulder asks if it troubles her that ephesian has so many other wives, and she just recites scripture instead of answering. so scully comes in with the “i’d have a tough time if my husband had so many children with other women”. this seems to begin to get her to crack, as she tears up.

wait... it’s so wrong to hear scully call someone else, who isn't her sister, melissa :(

melissa she doesn’t have any children with ephesian yet... because he has to wait for God to tell him that the right soul is ready to be reincarnated, which is why his children are the most sacred members of the temple. naturally, of course /s

things get quiet when they ask if he had been hurting the children until melissa starts talking with a very different voice and set of mannerisms, and she no longer replies to the name melissa. so scully scrawls “multiple personality” in her loopy handwriting and passes it over to mulder. oh! is this sydney?

(at this point, i shall begin to refer to sydney with he/him pronouns, as this is what mulder does. normally i would stick to my journalistic integrity and keep reporting the things i wrote down incorrectly while watching the episode, but i'm trying to be very respectful- i hope you understand)

but mulder writes back to scully no, this is not a multiple personality case, it's a past life case! his handwriting is very blocky. to prove his point, he asks sydney who the current president is, and he responds that it is harry truman. ah. so, he's a few years off.

mulder claims that “somehow he just knew” sydney was melissa's past life, which doesn’t reveal a lot, but his eyes are very soulful and i want to hold his hand.

skinner says they need to find something to get this case moving forward, and mulder is like dude, we found sydney, the voice matched! i would agree with his judgement that this in fact a sizeable discovery.

mulder is saying that what they have seen matches the criteria of DID in the DSM4 (woah, need to look up when we switched to 5), but scully is saying that some people don’t even think it exists as a condition, and skinner thinks it could be a trap to buy more time for ephesian. so no one is in agreement here.

but mulder is going into his psychology expert mode and is making a very compelling case that this is an example of DID, particularly in the fact that sydney emerged when the topic of child abuse came up, which fulfilled the protector role. scully wants to know more before giving any sort of diagnosis, but she doesn't seem opposed to the hypothesis.

(skinner seems to fumble over which pronouns to use for each personality here)

skinner says to go ahead and take her back to the compound and see if it gets any results in prompting memories that could be useful to the investigation, but scully is mad at mulder! he didn’t even have the courage to tell skinner he thinks they're dealing with past lives here! mulder, who is usually so brave!!

he mumbles that skinner wouldn’t believe him. which is true.

woah, i don’t know how to interpret this line here, so i’ll just write it down for further analysis:

“i don’t believe that you feel responsible for those 50 lives. or melissa reidel. you are only responsible to yourself, mulder”

(is she saying he doesn’t care about those 50 people?? is she saying he has an ulterior motive? is she calling him a liar, and that he is using this case to gain support for his supernatural ideas?? is she calling him selfish? or is she trying to tell him that he can only be responsible for himself and control his own actions, that he cannot place the burden of saving everyone upon his shoulders? is she berating or reassuring him or both? does she think he isn't serious about the lives in danger?)

i can’t figure it out, but he gets up and leaves. (after watching the episode, i still can't figure it out- what did you think?)

so they take melissa back to the temple, and scully asks her to recall the painful memories so they can keep herself and others safe. it is very tense as she walks into a bedroom and sees many photos on the wall of ephesian and his wives. she knocks some of them over and starts crying.

scully still looks furious with mulder. it's as if she thinks his desire for supernatural entities to be proven comes ahead of his desire to save actual lives, and it's recalling her comparison to ahab during the conversation on the rock. she must feel that there is no time for this, that they need to get concrete answers right away or horrible things will happen; perhaps she thinks he isn't focused, is being fanciful. and i understand the pressure of a ticking clock, but after so long, this rift between them, it doesn't feel right.

oh my goodness, we see some horrific artwork on the wall by the kids at the temple. woah. shoutout to the set design team.

melissa is in the playroom sobbing, but asks why she is being called melissa. scully asks what she should call her, and that is how we meet lily. but lily isn’t there for very long before sydney comes back, saying to “leave the kid alone”. mulder says they can all be safe if they just are told where the guns are. then melissa seems to come back, and she goes back out the window where mulder was staring earlier!!! what does this window know?!?

and the score here is really pretty as she walks outside, scully following behind her. mulder is clearly unwell, though, and scully asks what is wrong, which he ignores and walks past her. typical him.

a new alter of melissa's seems to front, now with a southern accent, saying the guns are in a bunker. but… it’s the civil war she’s talking about. she was a nurse, looking for someone who was staying in tennessee. and she found that someone here, dead. then she was hidden in a bunker while the battle raged above her. it is very horrific, what she is describing.

she clarifies that she was there in november 1863, then turns to mulder and says “as were you”. he doesn’t seem shocked by this, but scully is, as this new southern belle proclaims “this is the field where i watched you die” OH!

(mulder, a confederate in a past life… this is deeply unfortunate)

mulder is trying to make a phone call to a hypnotist while they drive melissa back to the police station, but scully figures out he’s trying to do past life regression on her and says not to. and that her life is in shreds, and that is too much for her to handle. i hate to say it, but i agree with her. melissa has been through so much, and with such a tight deadline, i don't know if they have time for such a journey.

OH! mulder is angry. his voice is all growly as he yells “YOU WERE THERE, SCULLY! you saw it, you heard it, why can’t you feel it?” oh my gosh… the way he slammed his hand on the wheel... why can't she see it, it seems so obvious to him... how infuriating it must be...

scully asks why ephesian is a paranoid sociopath for claiming to be in greece years ago, but he isn’t for claiming to have died in that field……. damn…….

(idk what’s going on here between them exactly but i’m stressed. they are stressing me out)

(at this point, we begin a sequence in which i am so enraptured with what is going on, i have no reactions to all of the things i am seeing, and just recount them to you, with occasional interjections of "oh my god"- but i think if you've seen the episode, you get why it had this effect on me)

so they do get a therapist, who is talking to melissa. she begins to answer the therapist's questions about seeing anything upsetting at the compound, talking about a woman named elizabeth and her son scott, who came to live in the temple. and ephesian took the son away. but ephesian caught his mother visiting her son, and “the mighty men” beat her, which brings melissa to tears as she recounts this. and he hit the boy, calling him garbage, beating him.

scully looks very stressed in the background to hear all of this, but sydney is now fronting at this point, saying to leave melissa alone, and that the guns are in the bunkers… somewhere. where they are is a mystery, though.

scully leans down to mulder and says that maybe there is a map somewhere, but mulder says she knows where to find them. and at this she says “mulder…” in a very breathy fashion and i still can’t quite articulate what is going on between them…. but he’s going in.

he says it’s me, melissa, and asks her to go back to the field. “your eyes may have changed shade, but it cannot color the soul behind them”, she says. that they are only to meet in passing in this life. and she misses him. he just stared and stares, before his head falls into his hands

scully is trying to explain to him that this is a product of melissa's illness, and she can’t give any specifics- no names or locations, and they don’t have time to do this, because ephesian’s arraignment is in two hours.

“wouldn’t you, scully? wouldn’t anybody?” <- oh my god…. is he compelled by a terrible sense of duty or by his own curiosity? is she scared to watch him go down this path he cannot return from?

okay, so now he is going back into his past lives. this sequence is almost entirely a close up of his face, for minutes on end, which adds to the intensity. he's really panting as he remembers. “ghetto streets. shattered glass. bodies of the dead. a jewish woman. poland.” oh my god…… 

he says that he is samantha’s mother in this life; “in this life, she is my son”

his father is dead, and… HIS FATHER IS SCULLY? WHAT? i didn’t see that coming. she’s troubled by this, all of this, not just learning he believes her soul to have been his father before.

but he says that his father is waiting now for their souls to come back together, different, but always together, again and again, to learn.

and he is crying. he can’t go to his father. a gestapo man is there, and he is cancer man; “evil returns as evil, but love… souls mate eternal”. and his wife is melissa, who is taken away to the camps. and he’s crying, and scully is watching with great concern.

now, he’s rising above the field, near the bunker. and his sergeant is also dead, and “he is scully”, and we cut to her face of increasing sadness. sarah holds him, who is melissa. she is sarah kavanaugh, and he is sullivan biddle. she doesn’t know that he’s waiting for her, that they will live again. 

scully tries to ask if he sees any bunkers, but he keeps saying his soul is tired, and he wants to rest.

and this is devastating. it was if i was the one undergoing the hypnosis here. i couldn't look away, i couldn't react, i was so entirely absorbed and confused and busy feeling things.

scully is consulting a map in the town records to try and find this bunker where the weapons are stored, and then she looks up the names he mentioned. sure enough, they are in the county records. then she reaches for some photos, where she finds one of sullivan and sarah. 

a lot of things are being processed in her brain, so we might need to give her a minute. i think we can see some long-held systems of belief being challenged in her mind.

but she brings him back the photos of their past lives, even as she is telling him that ephesian is going to be released soon. why would she do this? to comfort him? to validate him without using words?

oh my god, mulder just called her “dana”. wait. hold on. oh my god, hold on.

“dana, if, um… early in the four years we’ve been working together… an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that… we’d been friends together in other lifetimes- always- wouldn’t it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?”

“even if i knew for certain, i wouldn’t change a day”

WAUGHHHHHHHH (ripping my clothes off in grief) WAOUGHHHHHH wouavhhhghhhh……… she wouldn’t change a day….

(and what event was it that he is referring to? is there a certain one...? am i forgetting something from early s1...? damn you, my obsessive note-taking impulses, for not kicking into gear until s2...)

“well… maybe that flukeman thing, i could have lived without that just fine” HDHJSNSME he smiles as she leaves….

(i had to google what that even was because i was like ??? but the flukeman was the season 2 sewer baby!!! for those of you who are going into this whole thing blind and also don't know what the fandom calls stuff! i think to me he was "baby sewer mermaid" or something along those lines... but now we know)

so now he and melissa are in the room together, trying to recall. she says she wants to believe (!!!), and he’s rubbing her hand, but ephesian comes in, saying it’s time to leave. so she rips the photo in half and leaves crying. 

does he know he was supposed to love her? is he mourning that he hasn't? is he wondering if he has time to?

mulder gets up, and leans his head against the wall. scully comes in to say that they are still searching for more bunkers as the temple people return to their home. there is a deep sense of grief.

ephesian seems suspicious. 

mulder is talking to skinner, saying that those in the temple believe that the FBI are the devil’s army, prophesied to be defeated by the armies of god. but ephesian must not really believe that, because he hid the weapons. mulder emphasizes that he may “deny himself”.

back at the compound, all the members are being called to worship. the music is getting scary, and guns are being pulled out. 

scully looks up some bible verses and realizes that ephesian is calling his members to the end of times, which gives skinner the go ahead to launch a raid.

back at the compound, the poison is being distributed to the members of the temple. and a few are shooting at the agents outside, and mulder and scully pull up as the sipping of the poison begins inside. 

NO! mulder puts his hands up and begins to walk into the compound!!!!! WHAT IS HE DOING!!! scully shouts out that he is dead. as we see inside there are piles and piles of bodies, including melissa.

but wait! is she still alive???? she’s getting up!!! 

but no! ephesian is still there watching her. giving her poison to take. mulder is running in as fast as he can, trying to figure out what is going on. and he finds the room full of the bodies while gregorian chanting is in the background. 

he finds melissa, with no pulse, holding onto the photo she had torn. 

scully sees him touching her arm, raising his eyes and crying. 

we end where we began, with him in the field, holding the pictures of his and melissa’s past lives. 

end episode. 

what…..

first thoughts: i don’t quite know what to make of this, but i can tell it is going to tear me apart for the rest of my life.

second and third thoughts are also variations of my first thought.

i feel so sad? to know that mulder has (or thinks he has) lived these horrific past lives, and that he is reunited with the same people over and over again, to learn and lose them. and that scully was there with all of them- but so was melissa, and he said that soulmates are eternal, so if that is true he lost his for this life. and he said he was so tired, so tired... how can he escape the eternal cycle of samsara?

and scully, watching all of this- what did she mean when she said that he wasn't responsible for anything but himself? was it an insult? was she begging him? what was she feeling when she heard him talk about her being there in his past? was she trying to hurt him in their conversation in the car? will they ever actually be able to see eye to eye? does she believe him? can she? how does hearing all of this shake her own faith?

can you have many soulmates that come with you again and again, just in different forms? so would his soulmates be scully, and his mother and father and sister, and this melissa figure? and what are the implications of losing a soulmate in this world? is that a life of feeling that something is missing, until death? do they shuffle roles, but come again and again? is that comforting or horrific? are we to believe him?

and that terrible, terrible ending, him finding the bodies... how are we supposed to interpret that? just more grief on top of already endless grief? or are we supposed to see the poetry moment as an answer to a question that provides relief, even if it is bittersweet?

why did he want to know so badly? was he driven by duty to save? duty to find the Truth? duty to protect his loved ones and seek cosmic answers? are these separate things, or are they all intertwined in him?

i'm... really going to have to think this one over. i would really appreciate hearing your thoughts, as well. i wish i had a solid interpretation. it was very serious and sad, and it was bittersweet but filled with grief. i once again echo my earlier request for fluff. but how do you go back to the way things were once he says she was with him in every life? how does scully rationalize that? what are they to each other?

i'm pondering. it feels like something has shifted. and you can't go back now, even if i can't pinpoint what it is that changed.

i want to go back to daydreaming about apple cider dates. but it feels like you can't, you know? huh.

[beneaththedunes]

AU starter for @prxnceofthepride

ㅤTHE MOON WAS FULL & BRIGHT, shining onto the dunes and sparse flora. Coyote bandits scrambled their paws in the sand, fleeing from the Masked lion. Hidden under that mask would be juvenile Prince Jeduluh, who's ever-growing size and sturdy sword granted him the natural ability to force opponents away. With his little brother hooked under an arm, now safe and sound, he found his way back to his supply wagon. He placed the cub on a stone. 

He leant a paw against the wagon, facing away. The wind carried hints of a growl to the cub. ❝ You could have been ... lost. ❞ Whether or not Prince Bahati knew he meant killed he didn't know. Perhaps the stowaway cub would instead notice the hypocrisy; wouldn't their parents say the same thing to Jeduluh at finding out he himself snuck out from the palace — beyond even the main city — into the heart of the wilderness ?

[windor-truffle]

not me dithering for 2 months on whether to buy the Asobi store-exclusive physical items only for them to sell out 😭💔😭💔😭💔

[noahhwcng]

closed starter @gwendolynwcde

location: fright fest (near the haunted maze)

The crowd at Fright Fest surged through the narrow pathways between attractions. Noah stood near the haunted maze entrance, watching the chaos unfold. A group of kids darted past, nearly knocking Gwen off balance. His reflexes kicked in and grabbed her hand, pulling her safely against him before she stumbled into the path of the running children. "You okay?" he asked, realizing they were still holding hands. Well, this was a change. Not in a bad way, if he had to be fully honest. Back then, she'd been Ellie's best friend—now she was something different, something undefined. He couldn’t even call them friends. Friends didn’t do weird things like feeling he needed to hold hands, which in of itself was ridiculous. He was forty-two, not fifteen.

"I should probably keep holding onto this," he said, looking down at their clasped hands. "For safety reasons, of course. These kids are worse than turbulence at thirty thousand feet." His mouth curved into a half-smile, the kind that rarely appeared unless his twins were around. But there was something about Gwen that made him feel at ease, like he could joke without worrying about the landing. “Where should we go first?”

[shcrtsweets]

@everdawn liked for our muses to make out something cute

josh looked down at maya with a soft expression on his face, leaning forward just a little so his mouth was by her ear. “i really want to kiss you, but everyone’s right outside that door.” he looked to the door in question as he said it before pulling back a little - settling for grabbing her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “i hope it’s okay that i admitted that. it’s not too much, is it?” a pause. “i don’t ever want to be too much for you.”