#need to start tagging episodes...for me to skim through

[daily-lightbulbii]

[setmeatopthepyre]

moodboard: antarct-fic [wip]

tagged by @beanarie <3 this was so much fun to do!

rules: Either: choose one of your published fics (or a WIP if you'd prefer), create a moodboard for it and share it along with a snippet. Or: Create a moodboard for your fave episode of the show, fave character, or a fic someone else has written that you love, and share it with some sentences about why it's a fave! (and tag people!)

It starts as a joke, is the thing. More accurately, it starts with Lucy dragging him to a cocktail bar, and Tommy moping into his third Sidecar (“Please tell me that’s some sort of gay army euphemism”) while he contemplates, for the millionth time, calling Evan. “So.” Lucy covers his phone with a menu. “Holiday plans?” “Does researching ‘most remote places on earth to wallow’ count?” She sips her old fashioned thoughtfully. “Well, if you really wanna get out of cell range, my buddy says they always need pilots in Antarctica.” It’s a joke. No one spontaneously decides to spend the holidays at the South pole. Two weeks later, his paperwork is filed and he’s on his way.

[read more in my antarct-fic tag]

tagging: @sugarpenchant @leashybebes @epiphainie @ambernotember @trombonechurchill

moodboard text snippets are from an absolutely amazing (and educational and funny) polar manual from 1965 I found this pdf of. highly recommend skimming through it. how else will you learn how much milk is in a dead walrus? / nearly all photos from the antarctic sun

[reigraceee]

(Out of Context) Notes from a first time Severance viewer Pt 3

Part one / Prev part / Severance notes tag / Next part

Right, here I am back at it again: sharing the notes I took while binge watching Severance a few days ago and reflecting with some additional thoughts. We left finished Season 1 in the last part, so this part will pick up at the start of Season 2 and cover ep 1-3.

ep 1 I crash out in confusion, anxiously wait for mdr to reunite, and try to find out what's going to happen between Mark and Helly since I ship them big time. I started having fun again once the team was back together again lol. I also totally was so invested in Mark x Helly that a lot of the... signs. went blissfully over my ignorant head lol

Since I'm covering 3 episodes (because ep 4 needs a dedicated post) it'll be longer one, but feel free to skim

^I was pretty confident that mdr wouldn't get off that easy, but luckily there wasn't some extreme next level breakroom for them to endure or anything lol

^see I was not about to take Milcheck's lies lol.

^this was me trying to figure out why one of the mdr replacement's description of his workplace didn't sound like the one we're familiar with *at all*. then later on it was confirmed that there are dozens of Lumon buildings, so that case is closed.

^I was crashing out because this episode was so different than what I expected. I can't imagine waiting years for the next season and the writing continues to tease you by not letting you know what the outies did post-finale and not having the mdr reunite until halfway through the ep lol

^Notice how I'm asking the important questions. This one stayed in my head for a very long time. Until ep 5 (I think) where Mark opened the fridge while talking to Helly. That was a good enough answer for me lol.

^idk if you can tell but I really like Helly. I was so excited to see her again that I ignored ~the signs~

^the stop motion video killed me lmao

^when I say I was crashing out while I watched this episode I mean it lol

^notice how I didn't bring up any suspicions lol. For the record, I did pick up on when "Helly" acted weird, I promise lol.

Like when Helly stood still for a couple seconds before hugging Mark back when she first ran out of the elevator (actually, I'm not sure why she was running in retrospect and that drives me crazy)

Or when she said "Mark, are you okay?" a little more heavy handed than felt natural

Or how she seemed too salty to be the sweet Helly I knew. Suddenly Helly was awkward and more serious than before.

I just assumed it was because she was really upset about being an Eagan, but looking back, I think Helly R has enough separation between her outie and herself to handle the reveal. Helly already thought of her outie as a separate person, so it shouldn't have made sense how bothered she suddenly seemed about who her outie was.

^yeah, I was kind of bothered with Irv's writing in s2. I really liked Burt and Irving and I understand how big of a deal their relationship was to Irv, but it was just giving me too many war flashbacks to when I (an isolated feeling aroace) would have to be around kids/teens that took their handholding-level relationship wayyyy too seriously (I thought, at least). I just felt like there was a way to approach their relationship without it being to over dramatic, but that's probably a me issue lol.

^yeah. I just spent a whole upset and stressed over a really seemingly mundane setting just to turn around and I say I loved the show. don't let my seemingly unhappy notes fool you, I was having a blast and I'm in love with every one of the characters lmao. that's how we play it here.

^you know what. I've come around to Helena. I can talk more about it in a separate post, but the more I think about it, the more I empathize with her. And she should totally reintegrate because it would be fun for me lol

^to this day I'm still battling to figure out how much of a subconciousness the outies and innies share

^notice how I'm asking the really important questions here lol

^rip Helena you would have loved the sims etc etc

I was having so much fun watching Helly and Mark's relationship and trying to figure out where they could be going that I totally didn't pick up what was really going on here

Idk what I seriously thought that Helena was doing, but looking back she was definitely trying to figure out how to emulate Helly R. I would also argue that was jealous of Helly R and her relationship with Mark, but that's another conversation so whatever lol

^idk what kind of phone Mark had, but it was most certainly not an apple product lmao

^not sure what I mean by "all the sudden". Really, I'm not sure. Mark has always been #1 diva from day one lol

^we all talk about how cool Milcheck's dance moves are but now I want to talk about how cool it is that he's a leather jacket, motorcycle riding kinda guy ON TOP of that lol

^we need an mdr outie get together STAT

^I could not stop throwing Ms. Cobel shade lol

^I'm slow I know. A while after realized that we saw Ms. Casey going the elevator in s1, but I didn't make the connection before lol. I've also realized that the in-intro sequence, the woman in the elevator flashes between being Gemma/Ms. Casey and being Helly! Which was a pretty cool detail to discover lol

^Mark S sounds nerdy is what I'm trying to say. And he does, he's an absolute dork. I've also listened to Adam Scott talking about he was trying to emulate code switching, which is when you talk differently with the people you're comfortable with (Outie Mark) vs. the people you want to impress (Innie Mark). Which is pretty cool! Mark's innie and outies also have pretty different body language, Innie Mark being more confident and energetic and Outie Mark being more downcast and burdened. Idk why it took me so long to put words to the difference lol

^see, another example of me noticing Helly acting weird and not completely thinking it through lol. I'm so embarrassed how much went over my head, but I guess that's what happens when you binge watch a show instead of watching it episode-by-episode with community conversation in between lol

I think that the real Helly would have kissed Mark, for sure. She's an initiator and she's more familiar with Mark's boundaries. I don't think Mark would have ever needed to take initiative with Helly.

^because she's cute and charming. I figured it out.

^no Petey in s2 was awful.

^talking about Getchen here. I really like the scene between them. It was awkward, but also funny and cute

^still wondering if the goat people ever leave

^seriously. it's a good one

^talking about Dr. Reghabi here lol. The way she just pops up with no backstory or anything and steals the show every time lol

^The basement brain surgery scene was so good lol. I also kept becoming increasingly sure that Mark x Helly wasn't going to happen. Which was fine. I accepted it. I shipped them not expecting anything to manifest, anyways.

Well just wait until I lose it next episode: Woe's Hollow.

[traineecryptid]

NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 2

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st.

Folder with screenshots and big compilation google doc is here. Part 1 is here.

1536

Q: Shu, why was the patriarch's item changed from the bronze bell to the Heavenly Staff ? Is it to match Tianshou? (T/N: Tianshou could be translated as Heavenly Orders)

A: I’ll explain it like this. If Wu Xie wanted to tell this story to someone else and this story was then retold by that someone else, it would certainly differ in certain details from the truth in his notebook. Perhaps it is to keep people from knowing the full story or perhaps it is so that others could better understand it, or perhaps [he] didn’t want to explain too much.

1539

Q: How do you manage to have both actors that fit the roles very well and actors who don’t in every show?

A: Problem with availability. 

1540

Q: Which is the most tragic character in ZHH aside from Xiaoge?

A: Wah, this is a good question. You have to keep watching yourself because this is a very hard-to answer question.

1541

Q: The dramas suck doesn’t mean that your books suck. Don’t worry at all. A: If the dramas really suck, could I have kept making one after another?

1544

Q: Sanshu, is there any way to make Wu Xie and Pangzi immortal? I can’t bear to see Wu Xie die. It would be hard for Zhang Qiling to adapt, right? A: When I was little, I also hoped to have this kind of medicine to give to my grandmothers.

1545

Q: Sanshu, Xiaoge had already inserted the Heavenly Staff and cured everyone from the Tianshou sickness. So why Xiaoge wasn’t cured?

A: Not only wasn’t he cured, all the Tianshou was borne by him alone, fragmenting his memories.  

1546

Q: Sanshu, Wu Xie’s dream house is a courtyard with a moss pond. What kind of living environment would Xiaoge and Pangzi like? A: Tianzhen still breathing when they wake up is considered heaven (ptsd) for them.

1547

Q: Sanshu, what do you think is Wu Xie’s greatest specialty? Is it his long eyelashes like Xiazi said?

A: His little boss spirit. (T/N: according to this article I skimmed, little boss refers to the kind of boss who is very lowkey, keeps themselves on the same level as everyone else and focuses on their business without prioritizing growth.)

1547

Q: In the most recent episode of ZHH, why does Zhang Jiuri and the others hate Zhang Qiling so much?

A: It will be explained right after this.

1548

Q: The universe’s man crush, I would like to ask: When Xiaoge saw Wu Xie treating him all friendly in the beginning, did he not dare to believe that there was someone who solely cherished him and wanted to protect him without any ulterior motives?

A: Zhang Qiling could see through a person’s heart with just one look. Not because he’s smart, but because he has seen a lot. People are a very simple thing for Zhang Qiling.

1550

Q: The universe’s man crush, the world’s man crush, can you tell me what Zhang Qiling would think if he knew that Wu Xie had called him “Menyouping-needing-a-thousand-cuts” before? (T/N: “needing a thousand cuts” is similar to “damned” as in “that damned troublemaker” and is apparently very rude… since i guess you’re cursing on someone to be tortured?) A: A thousand cuts? Are you a candle? You think I’ve only taken a thousand cuts on your behalf? I took your 60 million but I’ve never ever asked you for a single cent more!

1552

Q: Are there any fixed requirements when casting actors? For example, the Iron Triangle.

A: No. As long as the platform approves, the actors approves, the director approves and the original author approves, then it’ll be OK.  It’s not that difficult. 

1552

Q: I feel like ZHH is a very close reproduction of the novel and it even elaborated on some scenes. I feel like I know the characters better and understand them more now.

A: Thank you. It took very long to write.

1553

Q: Actually, Shu, I watched ZHH and I feel that it’s a close reproduction of the novel. Of course, I read the novel a few years ago and some parts have gotten blurry. But when I was watching the drama, I would suddenly remember the scene. Undeniably, some parts have changed but the majority isn’t that different. It’s really, really the best when an adaptation follows the original closely because Shu, your novels are the foundation and the novels are very well written! Although I don’t know why [people] won’t let go of the question of actors, neither were there praises for the scenes. The requirements aren’t high, it’s enough that I can recall the scenes in the novel while watching the drama. Sanshu, remember, no matter which drama it is, it has to follow your novels. The novels are really, really the best! I’ve always felt like actors were a type of feeling, they won’t be able to convince people no matter who plays the part. But the scenes would always resonate with people! A: Everyone has the right to express their own opinions. I also have the right to work hard at promoting. It’s a difficult world. It’s enough that we be ourselves and not leave regrets.

1553

Q: Sanshu, there are already changes to Wu Xie’s blood and he could deter bugs like Xiaoge and all that. Would Wu Xie live forever without aging with Xiaoge?

A: Wu Xie’s only works now and then. Maybe it has something to do with what he eats.

Here's another 15, this section seems to have a lot of longer questions. Can you believe that we're only an hour into the questions? There's like... an amount more. Thankfully NPSS has slowed down.

[bellygunnr]

Cold Hands

A KR08 piece. I forget which episode this is meant to tag, but it's just also trying to get into KITT3's head.

The command center, for once, is empty. Or as empty as it can be, with security protocol dictating that at least one member be occupying it at all times, especially in the dead of night. Tonight, it is Mike Knight as the lone sentry. A curious development-- a deviation, even, in his behavior. Perhaps Mr. Graiman's absence is an influence?

You ache to know. Silently, you switch on your scanner lights, upping the output until the stretch of the stone bunker you're facing is crimson. Mike's heart rate increases immediately. His breath, once even, hitches, and he turns to face you.

"I thought you were asleep," Mike says. "What's up?"

He abandons his post by pushing out of the chair and coming to stand by your fender. His left hand ghosts across your roof line, but the rest of him is held at arm's length. He looks strange, stretched out like that, like he's nervous to get close.

You consider drawing him in with humor. But the hour is late and he may be exhausted enough to grant you some mercy with your prying.

"You do not usually take the night shift," you say. "Particularly after arduous missions like today."

Mike tilts his head back. This is what he does, you know, when he is posed with a fact he wasn't expecting to confront.

"I just knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, KITT. I got a lot of guns pointed at me today."

Indeed.

You do not know how to compute that. He always has guns pointed at him. Up until this moment, you hadn’t considered it disturbed him.

"So you would have trouble sleeping," you surmise.

He smiles, head still tipped back, gaze fixed on the ceiling. His boots shuffle across the ground, bringing him closer to your chassis, which you start warming to the touch. The nanites are one of the few things that listen to you and you alone.

“Yeah. Yeah, but who doesn’t in this line of work?”

You briefly run the numbers. Not because his rhetorical question forces you to, but because you are curious. You only have organic data on the Graimans, Mike, and the few operatives blessed to have joined You previously. Sarah rarely sleeps soundly. Statistically, disturbed sleep is apparently common in “this line of work.”

Fascinating.

It is so utterly out of your control.

Yet you ache to be of assistance. You crunch ever more numbers and find yourself wanting. Mike leans more heavily against your body, until his torso is flat against your door, arms folded over your roof. He is warm. Perhaps he finds you warm, as well.

“You should rest here. I have been told my seats are quite comfortable.”

They should be, anyway. You can manipulate their form at will.

Mike laughs a little. It echoes. You capture the sound.

“Won’t I get in trouble for sleepin’ on the job, KITT? I thought you didn’t like it when I slacked off.”

You do not like it. His inability to focus on the job left you taskless and bored at the best of times. But just a month ago, he’d flatlined in your care, and just eight hours ago, he’d almost left you again. Conclusion: concessions must be made. Humans operate poorly when their needs are not met.

You open the driver’s door. Mike laughs again, hearing it, and strides around your hood. His hand drags lightly across your scanner cowling, sending reams of data through your processor. All of him leaves flashpoints of color across your matrix as he caves in to your plea and settles into the driver’s seat. 

Several unformed ideas and thoughts skim your brain. You dismiss them harshly.

“Good night, Mike,” you murmur into the sound system.

He mumbles something in acknowledgement, but he’s asleep the moment his head drops back against the seat.

[halfmillionreasons]

Half a Million Reasons Episode 6: Cash Rules Everything Around Me Apple Podcasts

Bernard contemplates what to do with the suitcase of cash he discovered in the river.

Transcript:

“Need anything from the market?” Edith asked, already fishing through her purse for the shopping list she’d forget she left on the countertop.

Bernard sat slouched on the couch, a book open in his lap, eyes skimming the words but not really reading. His mind was elsewhere. Out in the shed. Locked up with a suitcase full of cash that didn’t belong to him.  

He cleared his throat. “Milk. Captain Crunch. Something to snack on later, maybe.”  

Edith exhaled through her nose. “Too much sugar, Bernie.”  

He didn’t look up. “Well. Then, surprise me.”  

She shook her head, the universal signal for she’ll do what she wants anyway, grabbed her purse off the counter, then her keys, then made for the door without another word.  

Bernard listened.  

The door shut. The screen clattered behind it.  

He waited. Counted the seconds.  

Then, the car engine rumbled to life. Tires crunched down the gravel drive. Faded into the distance.  

Still, he sat.  

Waited.  

Just in case she doubled back for something. Coupons, her checkbook, that weird little notepad she used to write down gossip from the church ladies. Women had a way of remembering things at the last damn second. 

But the driveway stayed empty.  

Bernard stood, stretched, moseyed toward the front window, peeking through the curtain like a man checking for the rapture. The coast was clear.  

He cracked his knuckles.  

Time to go see about that suitcase.

A part of him prayed it wouldn’t be there.  

That this had all been some weird, fever dream. That he’d gone out onto his boat this morning like always, sipped his coffee, let the sunrise spill gold over the Foxfire River, and then came back with nothing heavier than the usual quiet in his bones.  

But when he pulled open the shed door, the scent of damp wood and old gasoline hitting him, there it was.  

Right where he left it.  

Tucked into the corner like a stray dog, waiting to be noticed.  

Bernard swallowed.  

The suitcase hadn’t moved. Hadn’t grown legs, hadn’t vanished into thin air, hadn’t absolved him of whatever this was going to turn into.

It just sat there.  

Heavy. Unopened. Real.

He exhaled, rubbing his palm against the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the thing like it might lunge at him if he blinked.  

Maybe it was still full of money. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe someone had been here while he was inside eating a sandwich and pretending to read his book, flipped it open, saw what was inside, and took off with it.  

Maybe he wasn’t the only one who knew.  

The thought put a cold weight in his gut.  

Slowly, carefully, Bernard took a step forward.

The cash was still there.  

Stacks of crisp, neatly banded hundred-dollar bills, packed tight, like they’d been waiting for him all along.  

Bernard let out a slow breath, kneeling down, running his fingers over the edges. It didn’t feel real. Money like this belonged in bank vaults, in armored trucks, in the hands of people who made deals over steak dinners and never had to look at price tags. Not in his shed, sitting next to an old lawnmower that hadn’t worked in two decades.

He started counting.  

One stack. Two. Three.  

By the time he hit fifty thousand, his stomach tightened.  

And there was still more.  

A lot more.  

He leaned back on his heels, exhaling sharply through his nares, eyes dragging over the layers of cash still untouched. His heart thudded a little harder.  

There had to be close to half a million here.  

Maybe more.  

His fingers twitched. His mouth went dry.  

This wasn’t a lucky break. This was a problem.  

Because nobody loses this much money without noticing.  

And nobody forgets to come back for it.

He could take it back to the river. Toss it into the current, let the water swallow it whole. Make it someone else’s problem. Or no one’s at all.  

He pictured it now. Squeezing some bricks inside, watching it disappear beneath the murky surface of Foxfire River, sinking to the bottom where it would sit forever, lost among the old bones and forgotten things the river had claimed over the years. 

He chuckled to himself, the kind of laugh you let out when you’re teetering on the edge of a bad idea. What if the suitcase of cash became another Hickory Bend legend? A bedtime story to keep the kids from wandering too far into the woods. Like Henry Cawthorne’s stolen gold. 

Ah, Henry. A drifter with dirt on his boots and a silver tongue sharp enough to split wood. He blew into town a hundred-and-some years ago, back when Hickory Bend was still more trees than people, and tried to make his escape with a sack full of gold nuggets. Folks said he’d mined it himself; others whispered he’d sweet-talked it out of a widow with a bad case of loneliness. Either way, he ran. 

The law chased him right up to the Foxfire River, its black water swirling like a secret. Henry made it about halfway across before the current or the cold or the hands of the damned reached up and pulled him under. Some say his body washed up three miles downstream, waterlogged and pale as milk, but the gold never did. The bag slipped through his fingers, sank like a stone, and settled into the riverbed. They say the river got a little meaner after that, its banks a little softer, a little more eager to swallow up anything, or anyone, who dared to temp their own fate. 

If the suitcase went missing, if it vanished into thin air or into the muddy claws of the Foxfire, he could already hear the whispers. The legend of the Cash That Slipped Away. And he’d sit back and watch as the town tried to peel back its own skin to find it. All while he sipped his coffee, the kind of hot that burns all the way down, and waited for the next poor fool to take a plunge.

That would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing. Just ditch the suitcase and get on with his life. 

But then, his mind drifted. Shifted. Started doing the kind of math that comes naturally to a man who’s spent too many years just getting by.  

He thought about his mortgage. The overdue electric bill. The credit card statements he stacked in a drawer, unopened, like ignoring them might erase the debt.  

He thought about the price of gas, the way groceries seemed to get more expensive every damn week, how every trip to the mechanic came with a sigh and a well, I got some bad news for you, Bernard.

He could keep some of it. Pay off a few bills. Just a little, enough to breathe. 

Nobody had to know.  

He could bury the rest in the backyard, behind the shed, under the old oak tree where nothing ever grew, and go unnoticed for decades.

Bernard exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face.  

He tucked the suitcase back where he hid it, and threw some old rags over it, to give it some extra protection. No one ever comes out here, but what if Edith decided to touch up the bathroom walls with some paint. Fat chance, but stranger things have happened. Like finding a suitcase of cash in the river, to name one. 

Bernard made his way back into the house, feet dragging a little more than before. His hand lingered on the doorknob a second longer than necessary before he stepped inside, moving on autopilot.  

He went straight to his desk, pulled open the drawer.  

Envelopes.  

A lot of them. Most unopened, their edges curled, their contents avoided. He grabbed one at random, tore it open with his thumb, and pulled out the slip of paper inside.  

His eyes scanned the balance due.  

Just shy of ten thousand left on the mortgage.  

His stomach twisted. Not because of the number itself. He’d seen worse. But because for the first time, he wasn’t looking at it as a burden. He was looking at it as something he could erase. 

What would they say if he paid it off in full?  

Would that raise a red flag? Would someone ask questions? The kind of questions that led to other questions, the kind he didn’t want to answer?  

He could play it smart. Smaller payments. A few thousand here, a few there. Keep it quiet. Keep it casual. Or, he could pay off a smaller debt. Something less noticeable, like the insurance policy on his home. 

It shouldn’t raise suspicion.  

Then another thought crept in.  

Edith.  

Would she notice?  

He reckoned she wouldn’t. She didn’t keep track of the bills, wasn’t good with numbers. She thought "interest rates" were something they talked about on the news when the stock market got mad.  

No, she wouldn’t know.  

And what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.  

Bernard sat back in his chair, rubbing his jaw.  

This was starting to feel less like a decision and more like something that had already been made.

[great-tusk]

hii iris🙋🏽 so about these tags:

if you ever want game anime season or any other poké media recommendations I've played every game and-

watched almost every season of the anime AHAHAHA

I am here for recommendations🗣️ if you don't mind lol

I watched this 4 artist video where they made fake pokémon and gym leaders and it was sooo cool!!✨ I really wanna get into the lore because it's such a fascinating and intricate world, but there's sm content I'm a little overwhelmed😵

I'm not very good at games and I don't have much time so I'd really appreciate any media recommendations that I can watch🙇🏽‍♀️

take your time responding and have a great day🍀✨

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic

@i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic OKAY OKAY OKAY SO! (<- incredibly excited to talk about this.) The anime and games take place in essentially the same world (but different timelines), so the world-building is similar, with a few notable exceptions. For example, most of the characters and their stories not overlapping, and a lot of ages being changed. (For example, anime Serena is 10, but game Serena is implied by other characters to be an older teenager.) There are also a few anime-only characters and a lot of game-only characters and characters who overlap having different personalities.

You can watch the anime here. The website seems to be ordered in reverse chronological order, so just scroll to the bottom if you wanna start at the beginning. Indigo League (the first season) is my favorite. I also really like Orange Islands. Diamond and Pearl is also great. You don’t have to watch the seasons in order to understand things, because most plots don’t span across multiple seasons. You can even skip around a little in seasons, but you might be a little confused about little plots. I do recommend at least watching the first few episodes of a season before other episodes to get acquainted with the characters and their dynamics. I remember that X and Y have some overarching plots that are pretty important to the story, so that one is probably a little harder to watch out of order.

Pokémon Concierge is also amazing. It’s stop motion and very pretty and made me cry. I can’t find a place to watch it online, but it’s on Netflix if you have that. (Or I’m sure that it’s online somewhere.)

You can also watch playthroughs of the games. For the most part, though, people in them do not go too into the little details of the games and will skip through dialogue. I looked around for some, and I’ve never watched his videos, but I skimmed through, and this guy seems to have done a pretty detailed playthrough of Sword. He’s also done Pokémon Scarlet! It seems like he narrates all of the lines, too, so you can even watch while paying half-attention. Another guy seems to have played Black and White, and Black 2 and White 2 in a similar style. I’ve never watched his videos, but he’s a pretty big YouTuber. B/W and B2/W2 are the absolute best games in the franchise in my opinion.

For the games, they are almost entirely standalone. You don’t need any knowledge of a previous game to understand what’s going on. The only exceptions are the rare occasions in which there will be a cameo of a character from a previous game. (For example, Red and Blue show up in the Alola region, and Ingo shows up in Legends Arceus. Although you don’t actually have to have played their games to get what’s going on. They’re introduced like any other character. Just fun Easter eggs.) Or in the only case of like a true sequel in the series, which is Black and White to Black 2 and White 2.

My personal favorite Pokétubers are these two. They don’t really do lore stuff, but I love their content. WolfeyVGC does official competitive, and has won the World Championship before! And FlygonHG is an amazing Nuzlocker and super funny. (If you’re unfamiliar with what a Nuzlocke is, it’s a challenge run where if a Pokémon faints, it’s dead forever, and you can only catch the first Pokémon you find per route.) They’re definitely not required watching or anything, but their stuff is really interesting. Wolfey talks a lot about which Pokémon are competitively viable, and Flygon has super suspenseful runs, and even manages to make the most of Pokémon that aren’t very good when it comes to battling in his runs. I love the stories and characters in the games, but I’m also super deep in the more hardcore community-focused battling and challenges, and these two fall into the latter category.

There are also a bunch of others who fall into a bunch of different niches. Here are a few guys who I watch who do pretty funny battling content with their friends.

I know this is super long, but I hope it helps.

As thanks for reading all of it, you can look at this Pokémon Rumble Rush Axew.

[chornayadrakoshig]

Tagged by @1lostsoul0fishbowl <3

Last song: the random shuffle on my playlist brought Tempo Bay - Manly Talk while I was finishing writing this

Last book: it's a bit embarrassing but I don't remember the last time I finished a book (I either read a shit ton of fic or like, skim through textbooks on creative writing). But the last one i was reading was Dragonlance series (not finished yet). I started it as a recommendation by my husband (I rarely read fantasy so I don't know a lot of books in the genre). It's very captivating and I read a few chapters at a time when I actually seat down and read it which didn't happen in a few month.

Last show: Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld. I think I'm on episode 5 or 6?

Last movie: rewatched the first 3 movies from Pirates of the Caribbean, has a blast

Last thing I looked up: eh, checked spelling for a few things on this post xD

Favorite color: yellow! has been for a while xD

Spicy / sweet / savory: tbh I love salty food the most but from these I'd pick sweet.

A beautiful relationship in my life right now: me & some old friends finally signed to Fandom Kombat this winter (it has been my dream for 10 years at least) and we had so much fun creating fanworks for CL fandom

Current obsession: I spend too much time on that mobile puzzle game even though it annoys me with the amount of ads it has. I probably need to uninstall it because I'm already on level 265 after a few weeks, I play it all the fucking time xD

Looking forward to: my birthday on Sunday!

Last animal encountered: I often birdwatch from my window and this morning I saw a pair of crows walking on the lawn (the fact that we had snow laying on the ground for maybe 5 days of the winter is fucking diabolical and I've never seen such a warm winter but hey at least I see the birbs walking. on the green grass. in january in fucking eastern europe).

[aceofwhump]

U got any good whumpy the mentalist fanfics? Btw i love uour account, you got me watching the mentalist!

I'm not gonna lie, I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to post all the fics I've read since I started my Mentalist rewatch. There are a lot lol. Her ya go! Enjoy!

Sailors Take Warning by altschmerzes Summary: One moment, Red John has left Patrick Jane alone in an abandoned theater, restrained and traumatized. The next, thanks to a two-day time skip, he is back at the CBI office, sitting on his couch.This is what happened in-between.(Or, the one where I give us the rescue scene we deserved.)

The Pale Warrior by swenglish Summary:  " Patrick Jane never gets sick!" That's what everyone thought until one day it happend Fill in scene from episode " Black Market" s7e04

Episode Tag 7x04 Black Market by kykkio Summary: Lisbon kept her promise to check on him the day after

Drifting by  Vinividivinci Summary:  He felt her hand gently skim over his hair and sighed, wondering if she would hold his hand if he asked. He tended to avoid touching people because it brought back to him how much he missed human connection – but in Teresa's case he would make an exception. Jane whump

Blindness by  missingJane Summary:  Going 'way back to the first season of The Mentalist, I loved the Bloodshot episode. I thought there was a lot of room in that episode to further explore how Jane's sudden blindness affected him. We only saw his brave front in front of Lisbon and Cho for a short time in the hospital. Here is my attempt to fill in more details of that difficult time for him in the hospital.

Blue Frog by  JosieStyle Summary:  Jane was doing a wonderful job investegating a murder, but then something happened. Jane is rushed to the hospital, leaving the team very concerned about his status. Because... there was no cure from getting poisoned from a frog like that. (story set when the old team was still together)

Bagheera and the Little Prince by  Idan Summary:  Tag to Bloodshot, 1x16. How did Lisbon and Jane get from Van Pelt's wrecked car to the couch scene the next morning? In my mind, the path ran through a hospital, a diner, and several literary allusions.

The Red Mile by  hoppa12345 Summary:  I never quite believed that Jane was totally unaffected by the events that took place in the closing scene of 3.18. How could he be? Warning: mentions of suicide. 4 chapters, one posted every two days. COMPLETE

At he end of the hall by  Lastavica Summary: Patrick experiences a painful flashback less than two weeks after Teresa gives birth. (one shot)

This I Promise You by  Shoebuckle Summary:  SECOND CHAPTER ADDED: Tag to 7x12 — set just pre-White Orchids. Lisbon and Jane deal with the aftermath of the explosion at Lazarus' house, and have a much-needed discussion about their future. Later, Lisbon forces herself to confront a daunting question, the answer to which she perhaps knew all along.

Therapy by  heclosescases Summary:  Preparing for the future, Jane appears to be doing good, now that he has left the FBI behind but Lisbon is concerned about the trauma of his past still causing him anguish and she doesn't want their child to have to deal with a parent with unresolved psychological issues like she did so she persuades her husband that therapy is a good idea. AO3 - Easily Obsessed Twt - heclosescases

Wounded by  heclosescases Summary:  Jane gets wounded in the field which makes Lisbon re-evaluate aspects of her life and determine what her priorities truly are.

nothing new by morimaru Summary:  Jane is rarely wrong with his hunches, but it takes one mistake to get hurt. During a routine interrogation, Jane miscalculates just how aggressive an outwardly unassuming, hundred-pounds-when-soaking-wet woman can be when accused of murdering her own child. His suspicions aren’t unfounded, but the way he proves himself to be correct probably isn’t the best.

Firewall by Kerkerian Summary: Pain is in the mind, according to Patrick Jane. When one's defences are down, however, it's rather the emotions which can bring a man to his knees...

Belladonna by Easily_Obsessed Summary: AU set post S5E2. TW - mentions of suicide.Jane ingests belladonna for the second time in a matter of days but this time it is on purpose. He wants to try and see his daughter again. Lisbon is the one to find him unconscious.It is difficult for two people who are very tightly wound and emotionally constipated to have deep conversations about mental health, but they sure are going to try. Their friendship is too important.

Clair de Lune by lovemedaisydo Summary: Mid season 6 and Lisbon is dating Pike. When she goes back to the FBI office at night to look for her phone, she finds Jane in poor shape. There's two chapters only, but if you feel like a bit more let me know. Open to suggestions.

Almost by Easily_Obsessed Summary: A quick one shot. A moment of vulnerability.

Tangible Demons by Easily_Obsessed Summary: A case hits too close to home for Jane.

Invisible Machinery by altschmerzes Summary: Patrick Jane doesn't know what's stranger - the way they've been touching him since his sight was compromised or the fact that he thinks he's going to miss it when it stops.(jane loses his sight, the team gets protective, and jane has a little trouble processing this)

Miles to Go by foxy_mulder Summary: Jane can't sleep. The team notices more than he thinks.

Red Witness by hellblazeit Summary: What happened just after Jane remembered. (or, Lisbon picks up the pieces.)

Scarlett Blade by CindyT63 Summary: This is an alternate ending to Season Two, Episode 2, The Scarlett Letter. Why did Jane say "No…" when Lisbon told him to chase after the janitor? What if he had a good reason? What if Lisbon doesn't figure it out until it's too late?

Gathering Storm by the old oak tree Summary: A heavy storm hangs over Sacramento but it is Jane who finally breaks.

Little Stars by Kourion Summary:  It's a three week countdown to find a serial killer and his most recent victim: a psychologically damaged little girl with a remarkable likeness to Charlotte Jane. So of course, Lisbon's stressed and Jane's obsessed. Noncon/ Jisbon overtones/Hurt-comfort/ NEXT TO BE UPDATED :) I haven't forgotten about this!

Running Through Red Lights by yaba Summary:  She's ruining all his plans to remain aloof and vengeful and he finds himself liking it. Post: Red Badge. Jane/Lisbon.

Prestidigitation by TheHousekeeper Summary: It's not a power he wants, to be so skilled a magician that he can bring anything into the world, take anything out of it.Or, a six-thousand-word 6x15 post-ep based on the quarter-second in which Jane double-checks that he still has all his fingers. Jisbon friendship, pretty much, but you could squint at it a bit.

Comatose by Easily_Obsessed Summary: “He is going to lose a child he didn't even know about.”An AU to Brown Shag Carpet/White Orchids.

Lisbon's daily troubles by waltraud  Summary: Days at the CBI could already be stressfull enough, but for Lisbon and her Team, they has another challenge to take, as they have adopted that not very self-caring consultant to their team.A little collection of the new troubles the teams has to deal with. Mostly whump (sickness, injury...), no sexual content planed.

Bottles of Crimson by Easily_Obsessed  Summary: The Crimson Hat AU What if Jane did actually crack up and it wasn't all a ploy to catch RJ? Six months after he left the CBI, Lisbon goes in search for her missing consultant and is horrified about the state she finds him in. It is going to take some convincing for him to accept help which not only takes its toll on him but her also. Helping him may be one of the biggest challenges she ever has to face.

You Are Not Alone by Thadeus Summary: A serial killer targeting children, and there's something wrong with Patrick Jane. Lots of Jane Whump, and fluffy friendship between him and the team. One-sided Jisbon. Fluffy Jigsby.

one more troubled soul by The_Bookkeeper Summary: The team drives home after a rough case. Jane falls asleep.

Red in Tooth by Drogna Summary: In which Jane gets bitten by a snake but still manages to help solve the case, Lisbon spends a lot of time worrying about Jane but still manages to help solve the case, and the rest of the team end up hunting down both the snake that bit Jane and the murderer.

Almost by Easily_Obsessed Summary: A quick one shot. A moment of vulnerability.

Redwood by bromfieldhall Summary: "We're up, guys. Another body has been found dumped along the 299 a few miles south of Willow Creek this time."Jane and Lisbon are forced into a deadly game when they try to catch what they think is a new serial killer.JANE/LISBON. Set some time after season five episode, 'Red Sails in the Sunset'. Goes AU from there. Some minor spoilers.

[mageofseven]

Repressed Love: A DiaLuci Love Story

Chapter 23

Tag list: @astroseuss @zarakem @brielle043 @missloserqueen

•▪︎▪︎◇°●♡●°◇▪︎▪︎•

Both of Luce's children were surprised the next to see Lord Diavolo so...different.

Audriana handled it the best; her papa told her he 'just wanted to try a new look' and asked his daughter if he looked pretty

And of course, the sweet girl said yes! She didn't understand why her papa looked different, but he was smiling and said he liked his new look so everything must be okay!

Satan...oh boy.

The blonde couldn't even look the prince in the eyes anymore and would rush out of any conversation Dia would try to start with him.

Diavolo worried about this. Did he somehow make his relationship with his almost-stepson deteriorate quicker? What did he do wrong? Since changing his form, the prince became a lot more sensitive and fretted more openly about the blonde.

Lucifer assured him that wasn't the case, but honestly...he wasn't quite sure what was going on in the young man's head.

The pride demon debated on whether it would be wise to ask about it though.

Satan's...condition was fragile. Yes, being around Lucifer certainly helped, but upsetting him too much has shown to still push him into those blurry episodes, for lack of a better term

And so, the two continued their day as usual. When Audriana took her nap, the father-son duo headed to the library vault as usual to search through the books and documents.

While Lucifer searched for answers to his son's condition, Satan read whatever he pleased, as per usual

But the blonde didn't seem much like himself today; he seemed to stare into space more than he read anything in particular.

Eventually, the father sighed and returned the document he was skimming through back in its rightful place before sitting by his son on the usual bench.

"Satan..."

In truth, the pride demon didn't know what to say, but was giving his son a chance to speak, if he was willing.

The blonde didn't say a word, just continued to stare down at the ancient mosaic tile at their feet.

Luce gave his son a light shake to his shoulder, causing the other man to jolt from his thoughts.

"Satan, what is with you today?" The father asked, eyebrows raised.

The blonde pursed his lips.

"He...he changed..." The younger demon said softly. "He was supposed to make you change but...he changed his form so you didn't have to."

"Diavolo never wanted me to change my form." He told his son. "In fact...he begged me not to sacrifice myself for all of this. He wanted to be the one to do so in order to protect me."

Satan closed his eyes, looking pained.

"He needs to be bad; he needs to be a selfish man I can hate."

"And why in the realms does he need to be as such?"

The blonde opened his eyes and looked to his father.

"Because it's so much easier to hate him that way." He told him. "And...what if me hating him...what if that is the last thread that's keeping me alive?"

Luce stared at his son, unable to speak at first.

With hate comes anger and anger...it was the glue that kept him together. If he loses this hatred and, by extension, the last bit of anger in him... they'll be nothing left to keep his son's soul together.

Could his son's hatred of his fiancé...be the only thing keeping the younger man alive?

On one hand, he wanted both Satan and Diavolo to get along so neither had to hurt over this anymore

But on the other...maybe he's right; maybe helping him through his confusion and pain on this topic will just kill him.

To let his son suffer or to let his son die...was that really the only option the dad had?

"-cifer. Dad?"

The pride demon zoned back in after hearing his son's voice, his green orbs staring up at him in concern.

"I...I should get back to searching." The father went to rise from his seat, but his son grabbed his arm.

"Could you listen to this first?" The blonde asked, lifting up the small scroll in his hand.

The older man stayed seated and waited as his son scanned the paper for the line he needed.

~

Children of sorrow, children of pain

Absorb trauma to make the parent sane.

Full of love, full hate

Personified of the disgraced.

Become unraveled, become undone

For soon you will have won

The peace you so deserve

By ending the cycle of the cursed.

Lose the pain, find the grace

Or lose yourself in the maze.

Abyssal greetings call your soul

If you cannot pay life's toll.

~

"Doesn't it sound like me?" The son asked after reading it aloud. "It seems as if it's describing my...condition in a way."

"Let me see that."

Satan handed over the scroll to his father.

The first thing the pride demon noticed was just how burnt the scroll was; so many other paragraphs burnt and smudged with ash, no longer legible.

All books and documents in this library have an anti-degradation charm on them, preventing damage caused by age or outside sources

Meaning this scroll was burnt before the Royal Family got their hands on it

Yet they still deemed the remaining paragraphs important for preservation.

Why? What was so important about this poem?

Speaking of which...

"Satan..." Lucifer said carefully. "This is Ancient Celestial. When did you find time to learn the language?"

Ancient Celestial was the angelic language from the early Era of Seclusion. Lucifer knew it well because all angels were taught it as children; it was basically the equivalent of how many students in the human world who went to Catholic school had to learn Latin.

Silence.

Lucifer turned to meet his son's gaze, whose expression shown confusion and hints of concern.

"Satan?"

"...I didn't." His son answered. "It just looks like normal Devilish script to me."

This was...very concerning, to say the least.

Not only was the only document they found mentioning his son's condition burnt, but his son was reading in dead language he had no knowledge of.

Just what the devil is going on here?

[teruthecreator]

As someone who started reading Side Quest based on the fanart I saw and was blissfully ignorant to most of the problems you pointed out, I just wanted to thank you for your post. The thing that stuck out to me while reading that fic was the entire Toichiro rewriting. Every interaction he had made me so angry while reading and looking back I think a big part of that has to do with how out of character he's been. I had been partway through chapter 11 when I stumbled upon your post and decided to finish it through that new perspective. Tbh, I don't even think I would have needed it to ask myself wtf was going on because once it hit Reigen encountering Toichiro in the tower Toichiro instantly starts calling Reigen a slut. This chapter was already kinda slow compared to the rest because it was just a retelling of what happens in the episodes, and what was interesting about this fic when I first read it was the new scenes that were added, but simply adding unnecessary comments to a known scene and focusing on how Reigen doesn't have sex and doesn't know where he got these accusations from was very off-putting.

As for everything else, aside from not having dealt with anything like that and not immediately noticing how things were worded, I want to say I likely chalked it up to plot. I think I read a lot of things passively just to see what people write about without thinking too much about how they're writing about it. And maybe that's a flaw on my end, just being bored and randomly throwing a dart on a dartboard to consume more media regardless of what it is (mostly, I do have limits).

But I do agree that the author should be more ridged with her tags. I've written fics before and I always try to include every little things I can think of in the tags, even if that might get me less views or "spoil the story" because I'd rather everyone know what they're getting into instead of them getting surprised by it. When I first started reading I was surprised to see that it was labeled "explicit" even though none of the tags clued me into why it was written like that, unless the grooming was more intense than what my baseline thoughts on grooming are, but if said grooming does lead to anything more then it should be tagged as such.

Another thing that has been bothering me about this has been the fact that since chapter 9, the author has mentioned that "there is a fairly explicit scene, marked by <3... it's not just porn... etc." I can somewhat understand not fully tagging an unfinished work, since in my experience I didn't think I'd post a second part to one or I started posting without having the entire story fully fleshed out so things take a different direction than what I originally expected, but I always go back and make sure the tags are fully updated every time I post. The fact that this was mentioned and then nothing in the tags were updated was kind of strange. I skimmed through chapter 12 since it was posted yesterday to see if this scene was finally going to be put it, and low and behold I did see the <3. There's something about continuously reminding people to watch out for the explicit sign each chapter and then it not appearing until 4 chapters later. What's the point of unnecessarily making your reader expect this to show up after every paragraph they read only for it to be 40k or however many words away. Personally, I'd understand warning of this the chapter before it happens and the chapter of (or, you know, in the tags as well), but that far away feels like you're trying to string the readers who want to get to that scene along and just scaring those who are ready to skip it. I haven't read it so I can't say what the scene is about and how fair this warning is, but again being surprised about the fact that this fic has an explicit scene somewhere is something readers shouldn't have to deal with if tagged properly.

This turned out to be a way bigger reply than I originally intended, but if you'd like a few more screenshots to add to your collection here's all of the out of pocket Toichiro replies:

first off, you rlly don't need to thank me for that post, but i appreciate it anyway :-) its something thats been on my mind for a while, and with its rapid popularity i was simply confused how people weren't seeing what i was seeing. i do wanna say that nobody should feel bad/guilty for reading this or liking it without seeing the content i mentioned. as i mentioned at the end of that post, people's personal experiences will inform how they consume media and what blindspots they may have, and i'm certainly not here to judge anyone for that. i Am happy to hear that someone who had been reading the fic was able to hear my criticism and consume the fic in a new light, so thank You for sending this ask!

you brought up a topic that i wanted to touch on but didn't rlly have room on the other post, but yeah toichiro's characterization throughout this fic is strange and Extremely ooc. it feels like she was purposely building him up to be the worst character in the story--a true villain, as it were. which is funny bc mob psycho doesn't even have true villains bc the show is about second chances and connections and trying again. but with the racism, plus the eugenics/creepy remarks, plus the overtly sexual manipulation and grooming, she turned toichiro into a kind of cartoon caricature of a villain. which was wholly unnecessary and, in fact, creepy! and not funny! and strange!

but the thing that annoyed me more than that was how she tried to walk it back. there are several moments where toichiro is calling out to his ex-wife in his sleep, asking for forgiveness and shit. which, for one, would not have happened at this point in the story. it is very explicitly shown through wd arc that toichiro's First moment of realization is when he's down in that basement area with mob, when he flashes back to his ex wife leaving and suddenly realizes what he missed. toichiro before this moment was not thinking mournfully about his wife. he wasn't thinking about his wife At All. he pushed the memory of his family out to make way for his plan, something that then becomes a key point to him accepting help from other people! so like. there's that. but Also having toichiro have these quiet moments of vulnerability feels like the author's way of rolling back her own characterization, which just makes the whole thing messy and hard to read. from the way she's written him, toichiro is NOT a character people should be empathizing with. he is a groomer and a racist and a creep and all of that together is like. a recipe for someone who needs to just be shoved off the face of the planet. but she works in these moments of "humanity" to try and bring toichiro back to where he's at in canon, likely so she can write out some kind of silent redemption (or hint at redemption) like how canon does. but in this case that redemption would feel gross because she turned his character into something so statically evil that it feels impossible to forgive.

and yeah, those quotes are absolutely ridiculous. like they border on comedy, but really they just sound awful coming out of his mouth. i know this phrase has been used a million times over but HE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!

also to talk on the topic of tags (which i do agree with you on), i do find it strange that she refused to put ANY tags on the fic with the proper warnings for explicit content, but seemingly had the time to make that reminder each and every chapter. because in reality she really only needed that warning on ONE chapter--the chapter that has the explicit scene! but i do agree that simply tagging it would save her readers the emotional labor of having to keep an eye out for a sex scene they might not be ready to deal with. especially with the content of some of these later chapters (the ones ive seen, anyway), having the looming threat of an explicit scene could make some readers uneasy!!! (im talking specifically abt the chapters where toichiro is making moves on serizawa in an effort to manipulate him. i understand the author did mention in an authors note that this wouldnt happen, but i'd also like to point out that she HID THIS PART OF THE AUTHORS NOTE. so you had to make the decision to "spoil" yourself just to see if someone was going to be sa'd or not. which i think is wrong; an author should always prioritize the safety and comfort of their readers above any potential "spoilers")

and to wrap up with one last thing, just a more general thought: i think there is a difference between content that includes dark topics in a thoughtful way and content that includes dark topics in an edgy way, and this fic definitely leans towards the latter. a lot of these outlandishly mature topics are treated like throwaway jokes or shock value items, which feels inappropriate when we are dealing with topics of such weight like racism, transphobia, child impregnation (again. What.), etc.. i am not trying to police people on what content they are or aren't allowed to talk about--i am saying that, if your story NEEDS to have this content in it (which i would argue that here it doesn't), then you need to treat it with the care it deserves to be treated with. if not for your own sake, then for the sake of your readers. at the end of the day, i just want people to be safe out there

thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, and thank you for being so respectful <3 have a wonderful day!

[onewomancitadel]

As a preface I just wanted to say that I'm really glad I stumbled on this page; I had dropped RWBY but your analysis and Skimming Eye (which is incredible btw) pulled me back in. I'm curious as to your interpretation of the Paper Pleasers and Jaune (aside from the dad angle, which is kinda fun to think about). I personally saw it as a setup for Jaune's Ascension, allowing him to regain purpose after being disillusioned and return to youth (hopefully with the hair). Thank you for your time.

Yay, enrichment in my containment. Thank you anon. That's very kind of you to say, and thank you for reading my fanfic.

I admit to being delighted it made you watch RWBY again, though I take no responsibility for the emotional damages. tee hee

I don't commit to any premature conclusions; there are a few ways they could play it yet. The idea of rebirth (which Jaune currently rejects) is significant. The set-up right now is that Jaune is old and disillusioned and has lost his life; he's given himself to waiting.

Would you marry a literal rebirth (magical transformation) with a symbolic transformation? Yes, and most prominently - I may be repeating myself here - this is the set-up for other characters in the story (Cinder, Oscar) who will go through the same thing. What happens to him will tell us what to expect with them. Even Penny has already given us the foreshadowing of what may happen to Ozma.

They've set the stage-and-scene, so it's just a matter of following through. Once you consider the evidence (king reborn as a prince) and how that can be followed on through, it does make one wonder. The problem is that the prince doesn't remember his life as the king, but I doubt that will be the case in Jaune's context (and separately in Oscar's, he similarly has 'too much life'). I think the threat he might forget is just to give more narrative weight to whatever twist eventuates.

You might see under my Jaune tag that I've written about rebirth as a theme in his character arc and the connected autumnal imagery, and I still think this is significant with him. So right now, with what they committed to this episode, a depressing resolution is off the cards. I would tentatively assert that. It's not fair he's been alone, it's not fair he's been left in Ever After, we know martyrdom has been rejected with him, right now he's terrified of rebirth and change and confronting who he really is, so that is the organic direction to take him. It's just how that's in question, so then you need to start asking practical questions.

Of course, as I remarked briefly in an errant post, if it's as simple as a magical fruit that makes him old, it may not be all that complicated. The psychological journey is the hard part. Practically whatever form it eventuates will convey the ideas we need.

Right now Jaune and Ruby are most closely going through separate awakenings to spiritual aridity. So his transformation is probably going to happen in respect to hers. That's at least how I would tie it, and how it's been tied so far. What does that tell us about the things they'll have to do, and the ideological evolution of them both? I really think it's an exciting direction to take them, especially depending on future narrative developments. What heroes do they want to be? What do they have to confront to understand themselves, and the people around them? How do they accept the pain of being truly alive?

I agree: hopefully with the hair. I think that if they did keep that, honestly, it would visually represent a merging of him then and now. No exaggeration, when they revealed his new hair back during V7 I was like, oh okay they've abandoned Jaune because this makes him look like a joke, and I don't know if this happens to be a course correction in response to that, but it is conceptually interesting. It's possible to twist that into something meaningful, anyway, if I were writing by the seat of my pants.

My summary of how much has changed regarding his character this episode: really I think this has struck the possibility he won't be saved off the books, and a physical transformation to represent a symbolic idea is clever. Then you get the interesting interplay of an older character who's also young, which is like Oscar, with an experience which has alienated but also empowered him. Suffice it to say, it sets up a lot narratively. Who else has been alone, tormented, and isolated for that long?

[daisyachain]

been a while since I did one of these! Takes me back

tagged by @kareenvorbarra

Last song : Númenor - Oonagh (Nightcore). No comment.

Last show: The Expanse! It’s as good as they say. Had a blast watching it with my equally-invested mother and spotting which actors were Canadian. I’ve had it on my to-watch pretty much since 2018, so I’m glad both to experience a fantastic hard sci-fi and to end the long wait. Also just finished a simultaneous watch of Run With the Wind/Kazetsuyo, an unconventional little sports anime well worth the watch.

Last movie: Has to be Revenge of the Sith as I forced my friend to watch the Skywalker Saga front to back (with The Siege of Mandalore and Rogue One coming up before the OT). I need to find and burn the soundtrack.

Currently watching: Wolf’s Rain, my very first anime. I’ve done a full rewatch maybe once? But I don’t remember it at all. Because it’s a calm and episodic show I’ve roped mom into it as well. On the B-side I’ve started KyoAni’s archery venture Tsurune and I’m rewatching Given in dub. It’s a good time with all.

Currently reading: Critically acclaimed psychological thriller Naoki Urasawa’s Monster and alt history drama Ōoku on the manga front, 00s smash hit Haruhi Suzumiya (reread) on the Light Novel front. I’m on a prose holiday after Wheel of Time, but in between I’m reading a few Murakami books at my best friend’s sister’s roommate’s request.

Current obsession: Um. Recently ended manga Dr. Stone. It’s not good. I don’t advise reading it. The women are some of the worst-treated I’ve seen (art). The production design ditto. I myself have only experienced it through vol. 1 (tried out at the library, bounced off, looked at what happened in the rest of it out of confusion, made fatal mistake), snippets of season 1 of the adaptation, and a skim of 2 arcs online.

So as one does I barely know the plot. I know half the characters and half of those are by accident. The way in which it’s bad isn’t appetizing. It may well have been written by an EU trade committee with how the politics are handled. However the Thoughts it expresses on science, technology, society, pacifism, economics provoke a reaction and I’ve Reacted.

tagging @feathertayl, @emberstreak, @licilou22, @aredhel-of-doylkien, @lamalamam? I’m sure I’ve missed something

[danniburgh]

Rushingly Bittersweet (Javier Peña x f!reader) part 20

Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc//f!reader with name.

Summary: After the fall of Escobar everything starts happening way too fast for Javier; his raise, his new office, his new team, the Cali cartel’s operation, the sudden arrival of a new agent that was transferred to his team for no apparent reason, the way he was falling in love with her almost unintentionally.

And he couldn’t seem to stop any of that.

Word count: +4.3k

Chapter warnings: more feelings, the whole truth, brief mention of drugs, a lot of tears lmao

A/N: This chapter is set after season three, episode nine. // I AM SO FUCKING SORRY in advance, i think this and the next 2 are gonna be heavy for me and you so... yeah, WE ARE ALMOST DONE GUYS KEEP YOUR CHINS UP THIS IS GONNA END WELL!!!!

ao3 // fic index // Masterlist // fic playlist

comments and reblogs are eternally appreciated 💓 let me know if you wanna be tagged

←previous // next→

gif: @bestintheparsec​

If Javier hadn’t seen you cry like you were crying in front of him, he would have thought it was a joke.

A bad, sick, horrible joke.

But there you were, shaking and crying and bracing yourself and standing in front of him telling him you knew things he didn’t know and your name wasn’t your name and he wasn’t even your boss as if he not only needed to know he was being used but he deserved it. As if he could avoid to think everything you had told him before wasn’t a complete lie. Bullshit.

He stood up straight and took his eyes off you. He couldn’t bear to look at you shaking like a small puppy trapped in the cold rain, he couldn’t bear to look at you like that because he was fighting with himself and the need to rush and hold you and tell you everything was going to be fine when he knew and you knew and he knew you knew nothing would be the same. As if he wasn’t angry, furious, infuriated.

You let out a sob, because you knew he was about to avoid looking at you at all costs.

“Well,” Javier let out, “I’m sorry if I don’t say it’s nice to meet you,” and then he laughed bitterly, shaking his head, “who the fuck are you?” his face quirked in something you, between tears, could recognize as anger and pain.

“I–” you mumbled, but he cut you off.

“I’m giving you one chance to explain everything to me,” he hardened his voice and you couldn’t seem to stop yourself from crying, he lifted a finger in front you, “just one, take it,”

“Javier,” you whispered, and he shook his head.

“Are you even DEA?” he scoffed and crossed his arms on his chest, “since you knew things I didn’t and your name isn’t your name, are you even an agent?” you only got to nod “so why,” he breathed in before continuing “why are there CIA reports with your signature?” he turned with a scowl on his face and with one hand he skimmed through all the pages on that file, “you kept tabs on me,” he said, purposefully not looking at you “fuck,” he tapped several times on the last one “you did fool me.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” you sighed out, it was really hard for you to breathe.

“What wasn’t supposed to happen?” he chewed out “you telling me? or you with me? or you in my bed? or me fucking you? what?”

“Stop,” you pleaded, not having the energy anymore to chase his eyes “let me explain,”

“No,” he shook his head and flared his nose in anger “you’re not worth listening to, get out,”

“At least let me tell you the truth,” you pleaded again.

“I have it here!” he smacked his hand on the files and you jumped out, startled at the way he raised his voice out of the sudden. 

But you didn’t blame him, you only blamed yourself, but that self-preservation instinct inside of you was forcing you to keep on pushing him to listen to you and your reasons. It was forcing you to keep pushing him, even when you knew he was already at his limit.

“Please, let me explain everything,” you pleaded again. Javier shook his head and fought himself harder to stop from looking at you and reach for you and hold you because you just sounded so broken. But you were breaking him.

“Get out,” he whispered, half a plea and half a demand, you shook your head.

“Read them,” you sniffed and cleared your throat “read the last few reports, please,” you were hating how much you were shaking and he glanced at you for less than a second, and you cried at how short it felt. Javier took you in with that glance and as if it wasn’t enough, his chest tugged at the sight of your puffy eyes and the tears that dampened your cheeks. He indulged and skimmed through them “see how they get shorter? see how they get briefer? how they get–”

“Shittier? he cut you off “so you did a bad job, what about it?”

You bit your lip and breathed in and out twice.

“That was the point!” you let out, “fuck, Javier,” you finally found your voice inside your chest and you went off “I’ve been wanting to tell you everything for the longest fucking time, I just couldn’t, I swear I wanted to tell you ever–”

“Since when,” he cut you off again. You looked at him and tried to get him to look at you but he didn't. 

“There were so many nights where I just wanted to tell you everything, but it just wasn’t safe for either of us! I swear I did planned to te–”

“Since when?” Javier raised his voice again and you sighed.

You closed your eyes for a few seconds, feeling more tears sliding down your cheeks.

Javier allowed himself to glance at you in those few seconds that you closed your yes, and tightened his jaw. How the fuck he had allowed all that shit to happen? He had asked you a question he wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer off, but then you opened your eyes and he painfully unglued his gaze from you.

“Since the first time you kissed me,” you muttered out. Javier shook his head several times and turned around to stop seeing you.

“Get out,” he pointed to the door.

“Javier, please,” your voice broke again and you saw his shoulders raise and drop several times.

“I don’t want to listen to you,” his voice was low and deep and hurt and you bit your lip again to stop your sobs from coming out. You threw your head back and looked at the ceiling, fisting and releasing your hands at the impotence you felt because he just didn’t want to listen to you.

And you knew this would happen, you knew it. How could you’ve been so stupid to think that if you explained everything to Javier, he would just take it as the historical truth and just… forgive you? How could you’ve been such an idiot to believe so little of him?

Since the first time you had seen him you knew he was a man of straights and grays, you knew he hated lies; you knew he hated liars. Hell, he hated himself for being one. But somehow, deep in your chest, in your… heart, you thought, you imagined, you hoped he would make an exception for you.

But he wasn’t, not for you, not for anybody, not even for himself. 

He just wasn’t.

Javier closed his eyes once he had you out of his sight, he had so much in his head, the thoughts were pouring down like the restless stream of an overflowing river cascading to a bottomless drowning lake; so much to think about, so much to say, but nothing was coming out.

He was hurt, he recognized that one emotion. Pure, deep, raw hurt, he could feel it burning his insides and turning his guts into ashes. Fuck. He didn’t like the pain, he had spent years and years of his life running away from the pain. How could he had been so stupid to allow himself to get to that point? How could he had been such a fucking idiot to let you do that to him? How? When he had become an expert at running away from his own emotions? Why?

He brushed a hand through his hair and tried to regain his composure, but it was nearly impossible. The pain inside him started to feel physical, it was as if someone had shot him directly on the chest over his kevlar; the air knocked out of his lungs. He was struggling to breathe properly. He was about to burst.

He felt a foreign sting inside his throat that he knew exactly what meant. He wasn’t about to cry. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of showing you how much he cared.

Even if you already knew.

“Javier,” you called him.

“Get out,”

“I will, I promise I’ll go,” you sobbed out and Javier felt disgusted by himself for being so weak at the sound of your sobs, he rolled his hands into fists and forced his body to stay put in place “I just want you to understand why I did it.” Javier rolled his eyes and raised a hand to press his eyes shut.

“Get the fuck out, please just get out,” his voice sounded like a plea and a beg and a demand altogether and you snapped at the way he was just trying to escape from an explanation that you were more than willing to give him. An explanation he deserved.

“No!” you raised your own voice, “you dragged me into this! now you have to listen to me!” you accused. Javier turned around, his face quirked in confusion and bewilderment and pain and anger.

“Me?” he raised his voice as well, his finger landing on his chest several times “I dragged you into this? you’re not a child! you made a choice!” he let out, shaking his head.

“I tried to grab onto any excuse to not start this, Javier, you know that!” you reminded him, and he let his hands rest on his waist “Javier, it was never my intention to hurt you.” 

Javier barked out a laugh.

A stinging, humourless, deep hurting laugh that landed inside the crevices of your chest and hung from every nerve of your being. 

“Well, I’m hurt,” he said, finally facing you “you lied to me,” his face was a mess of emotions you couldn’t read “you lied to me on my fucking face.” he gritted out, walking towards you.

“I know, and I’m sorry” you said under your breath, his face was inches away from yours and he frowned and shook his head. You closed your eyes because out of the sudden his cologne invaded your nostrils and you cried harder at the thought of never getting to smell him again.

“And you know what’s even worse?” he rhetored, you opened your eyes and quickly his eyes were on yours, but that time, his brown, soft eyes were hardened, as if fossils had taken over his orbs and his face was a mean scowl and his hands were so far away from your body rolled into fists that it ached deep in your chest how much you were hurting him, “that I fell for it, for all of it, and I fell for you.”

Javier didn’t seem to realize what he had said, but you did and as he put distance between him and you, your eyes filled with thick tears once again, and you didn’t try to stop them from falling and falling and falling.

He fell. He fell for you.

How? How could you let everything go to that point? You knew you knew it, you fool.

Crash, crash, crash, crash.

Ugly, messy, bloody, heart wrenching.

“Was it worth it?” he asked, putting his hands on his waist once again, looking at you, expectant. You shook your head. “then why did you do it?”

His eyes on you were heavy, you remembered that time he looked at you in a crowded elevator and made you forget everything about yourself, and that time you wondered if he was ever going to look at you like that. And there, with him expecting the explanation you were offering, you had your answer.

And you saw him, standing before you, hands on hips, his thinking stance, waiting for you to finally deliver the so-called explanation you wanted and pleaded to give him. But your throat was closed, your voice was nowhere to be found, and you wanted to crawl into a ball and just rock yourself to a deep, all-forgetting sleep.

God, you were so tired.

It took you an entire minute to find your voice from the deep confines of your voided, pained chest.

“Re–remember what I told you the first time we mad–the first time we were… together?” you sobbed out. He closed his eyes and nodded.

How he could fucking forget? It had elated him, that entire fucking day, everything seemed so hopeful, he remembered thinking that he didn’t want to do what he did to you with anyone else. Before you could continue, he allowed himself to grieve that moment and you saw him raise a hand to his chest.

“That was true, most of it,” you assured him. Javier didn’t look at you once he opened his eyes and you, yet again, tried to search for his eyes. Fuck the hour you had let them become your comfort. “after what happened in México, I did get suspended and, fuck,” you brushed away your tears, freeing the way for new ones to fall “I really liked this job,” you chuckled sorely to yourself “but the drugs, and… everything else, I just knew I was screwed,” you sniffed. Javier bit the inside of his cheek and sighed.

Yet another fucking thing you two were more than alike.

He was hating it, loathing it; the way he wanted to brush every single goddamned tear that was falling down your face, the way he just wanted to reach to you, to let you feel him, the way he fucking needed to touch you and then wake up for whatever new fucking nightmare he was having.

“I was marked,” you choked down another sob and sniffed again, you hated being this vulnerable, this exposed, you were dropping your mask and the process of peeling it was so wretchedly painful. You hated that your vision was so flooded with tears you weren’t able to read Javier and just get a glance, a tiny peak at what he was feeling, “marked not only for being a woman, but by every single shitty thing I did up there,” he sighed “so, the CIA approached me, and took advantage of my situation.”

Javier wanted to scream, wanted to punch something, break anything, he wanted so much to stop relating to you and your reasons. It was as if he was looking at himself in the mirror and he didn’t like it. It was as if some all mighty God had already realized what he had done in the past and just started to punish him. And he was so angry that you were that punishment, that you, of all things, of everything he thought good, were the one chosen to deliver his punishment. 

You, oh so perfect you, so beautiful, so smart, so good, so strong you. You were the one chosen to break him. He wanted to stop seeing the undeniable parallel between you and him being forced to do things by the pure nature of your jobs, by leverage and advantage and just be angry, he just wanted to feel his anger and allow himself to hate you, but he just couldn’t. Not when you were there, standing in front of him, bawling out everything for him, undressing yourself to him, yet again, passing him the control of things. Ironic. He thought, he always had the impression he already had it.

“A precarious situation,” you explained, wetting your lips and taking a deep breath “they assured my job back if I took a six-month assignment for them, they wanted me to ke–”

“Keep an eye on me,” Javier cut you, looking at you with hardened, glistening eyes. You had to drop your gaze to the floor. What the fuck were you doing to him?

Fool, you fool, you stupid, horrible fool. Don’t you see you’re hurting him? Just leave him alone!

“Yeah,” you sighed out, sniffing again, seeing how your tears dropped straight to the floor, “and report all your movements back to them to… shit.”

“To what?”

You shook your head, not being able to lift your gaze from the floor, Javier looked at you and studied what he thought he knew about you. Which at that point he thought it was nothing but your actual name and the way your body quirked and spasmed under his touch. But maybe that was fake too. He saw the way you were hunched under yourself and an amazing yet brief moment of clarity struck him and he knew what you were going to say, fuck he knew, and he let himself smile at the expectation of your answer. For once having a little bit of a leverage.

“To avoid another Los Pepes scenario.” you whispered.

He laughed bitterly. And your chest shrunk at the sound.

Of fucking course.

That’s how you knew, that why you asked him about that the same fucking day you had told him about why you were in Colombia, the day you lied to him, to his face, on his bed, in his arms, after he had let you fuck him, after he had devoured you for the first time

Fucking shit, how he wanted to scream.

His smile became a snarl as soon as the memory of your body pressed against his came back to his head.

“Fuck me,” he shook his head and tightened his jaw.

“I didn’t understand at first why they looked at you like such a menace,” you said, not daring to look at him, and Javier hated it, he hated how you had hung your head low and looked at the carpeted floor, he hated it because he had seen you in your most confident self so many times, he had engraved in his mind the way you would handle yourself as if you were the owner of every building you ever stepped on, but then? right there? you just looked like a selfless child, like a hurt, abandoned girl. Fuck him. How could he keep thinking about you like that when while you looked like it you were destroying everything he had ever thought of you and whatever the fuck it was you two had? “then I met you.”

“So I’m a menace?” he snarked.

“For people like them? of course you are, Javier,” you let out a sigh and shook your head “they painted you as this… monster, that didn’t care about anything but getting shit done in any way you could,” you shrugged and lifted your head to look at him “but you do care, you care a lot.”

He didn’t say anything at the last statement you blurted out.

A thick, foggy silence fell upon you, you could feel it prickling around your face, eating your tears, you were sure that if you pulled out your tongue you could taste it, you could feel it, sneaking inside your ears and screaming at you. You never thought a silence could be so loud. But it was, a deafening silence.

Javier turned and walked to the desk, sitting on the edge and skimming through the other files that you had handed him, some of them were just more information about the corrupt politicians and some more about the cartel in itself. He didn’t say a word about the obvious and illicit origin of the files and for that you were grateful.

“I really thought,” your voice broke the silence again, and he seemed to ignore you “I thought I was doing good,” you closed your eyes, he wasn’t looking at you, yet again, “and then I got to see how things really were down here and… I knew instantly everything was just bullshit, just a fucking game,” Javier kept looking at the files and reading them and you wanted to beg him to look at you, you wanted to rush at him and grab his face and make him look at you in the eyes and tell you something, anything, to yell at you, to scream at you, because at the way his silence felt you were sure his screams would hurt less, “they played you, and they played me, and… I’m sorry.” 

“Why a DEA agent?” he questioned, closing the file he had just finished reading his hand resting on his thigh and the other on his hip, you frowned “why did they send down someone from the DEA instead of one of their own spies?”

You bit your lip, looking at the way his eyes were empty, void of any display of emotion, looking at the way he turned his face sterner, just as it was the first day you’d met him.

“Uh–because it was cheaper, to just create some sub-identity and I already knew the protocols.” you explained slowly, more for it to sink in to you than to him.

Javier hummed and returned his eyes to the next file, the one with your file. The real one.

You stood there while he read it. Trying to figure out what was going through his head, but as you were so emotionally spent you really couldn’t for the life of you read him anymore.

Javier felt his breath hitch as he read your real name, where you went to school, the fact that you had a master and the amount of time you had spent in México.

And then he chuckled. Under the name of your DEA adjacent’s name and your assigned partner there was your callsign: Flor.

He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and pointer and took a deep breath.

“What about your partner?” he cleared his throat “the one that sent you all that intel.”

Your chest dropped again and you felt your eyes fill with tears. Pure guilt and sadness.

“No one in México knew I got suspended, they just thought I got transferred, y’know?” you brushed the few tears that escaped your eyes “so I really did ask them for help, to give us anything on the narcos as we were aware of the connection,” Javier then saw you cover your mouth and sob “I fucking got Marcos fired.” your voice was muffled by your mouth and Javier had to, once again, fight the urge to grab you and pull you flush against his chest and comfort you.

“What else did you lie about?” he asked, not waiting for your sobs to die down, you shook your head.

“No–nothing, I sw–swear,” you sobbed out.

“Okay,” Javier stood from the desk and walked towards you. And for a second, a brief second, you allowed yourself to imagine that he wasn’t going to ask you what he did, and instead, he would brush your tears away, hold you or tell you that he forgave you. What a stupid little thought. “I think we’re done here.”

“Javi,” you called him and he flinched at how high pitched your voice became from the sobbing, he wasn’t looking at you, not really. His eyes were looking past you, “can you look at me?” you begged.

Fuck the hour you had let his eyes become your comfort.

“Get out,” he said, serious faced, lookin at nothing and everything but you.

“Jus–just, look at me? please?”

Javier closed his eyes, bit his lip and shook his head.

And pointed at the door.

“Right,” you tried to control the incoming sobs that were inundating your chest and throat and stood up straight, lining your shoulders and closing your eyes at how hard it was to leave, it was as if you had him glued to you and then you had to peel him off you, you looked at him one last time before turning around and walking towards the door, grabbing your bag in the way.

You didn’t even reach the door to the hallway when you exploded; you had to cover your mouth as you turned away from the entrance and propped yourself on the wall.

You felt like your heart might have actually stopped and you could only imagine how Javier felt.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you mumbled out, as if he had been still in front of you, as if he could listen.

You had to force yourself to walk into the open elevator and press the lobby button, because you knew that if you didn’t, you would’ve run back to his office and begged Javier to hold you, beg him to forgive you, even when you knew you didn’t deserve it.

Javier saw you walk out and watched your figure shrink at the office door, he had to close his eyes to stop from seeing the way you broke after everything you had told him. He had to turn around and grip the edge of the desk to physically stop himself from running to you, anchor himself to you and tell you he needed you.

Fuck the hour he had let your body become his comfort.

Once he was sure you weren’t there anymore, he opened his eyes, the files you had handed him were in front of him, one last file left to open.

Reluctantly, he took it and opened it.

“Shit,” he whispered. Feeling his breath hitch and his heart stop beating for half a second.

It was your resignation letter.

Just then, and only then, Javier let himself drown in his pain.

“Shit,” he spat through gritted teeth.

God how he wanted to hate you, he really wanted to hate you. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn all the love he had for you into hate. He couldn’t even when he really wanted to.

The guard at the front door didn’t even glance at you when you walked through the embassy doors, and for that you were grateful. When you realized you had driven with Javier to work, you had to cover your mouth again to muffle another sob.

You weren’t even outside the building yet and you were already missing him like crazy.

←previous // next→

pedrito's perma list: @queenofthefaceless​ @northernpunk​ @pascalesque​ @sleep-tight1​ @cheekygeek05​ @bii-aan-ckaa​ @letaliabane​ @starlightmornings​ @mouthymandalorianalso​ @supernaturalgirl​ @metalarmsandmanbuns​ @purplepascal042​ @asta-lily​ @greeneyedblondie44​

Javi's babies: @pulplorrd​

RushBit tag list: @shestillwrites1​ @absurdthirst​ @alliterative-albatross​ @disgruntledspacedad​ @thoughtfulpandawasteland​ @wifeofdindjarin​ @lank-sextburg @the-ginger-hedge-witch​ @helloannbananalove​ @diogodxlot​ @pascalslittlebrat​ @sarahjkl82-blog​ @pedritobalmando​ @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan​ @mamacitapascal​ @dobbyjen​ @callsigncatfish​ @feminist-violinist​ @jasmincita​ @pascalove​ @eury-dice3​ @gingaahhhh

[magireco]

Would love to hear more thoughts on how these girls have understandable teenage motivations (A+ tag analysis by the way)

1. Thank you!!!!!!

2. ALRIGHT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS (shuffles my papers). i’ve gone off about homura’s motivations in depth before but i think it was only in dms/groupchats? anyways i’ll go in order with All the girls bc i think about this all the time as a teenager who grew up mentally ill and had their perceptions skewed because of it, and also i don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough for the others, at least on my blog... so, buckle up!!! this is REALLY LONG!!!! 

3. i tried writing like, an individual thing for every member of the quintet all together in this one ask, but i ended up talking a little too much about homura and now i’m going to split up all the different analysis stuff for each character into the reblogs and work on it every so often! you’re free to kinda skim of course because i really did write a whole novel but here we go!! read under the cut. :3 this is literally essay length btw. i did NOT expect it to get this long but if you want to read it all i’d recommend it but i don’t expect most people to

First: Homura Akemi

okay so i’m going to kind of summarize everything but from the perspective of empathizing with her so if you don’t want to reread a whole recap you can skip to the ending few paragraphs

Summary

first of all, in episode 10, homura’s past is explained for the viewer. she was a shy, unsure girl who had been bedridden for a long time. she was clearly unsocialized, not to mention she went to a catholic school and those can be brutal, esp in japan... that’s all we know about her in that episode, but it’s revealed in one of the drama cds that she was bullied as a child(& further at mitakihara middle), her parents never were mentioned ever (i assume them to either be dead or neglectful, considering she lives alone and unchecked), and in magia record, homura says to natsuki that she’s never had friends before, she hasn’t been on vacation before until the beachside bonds event, hasn’t ever celebrated valentine’s day, has never celebrated new years, etc... 

clearly, she’s missed out on a lot not only because of her sickness and hospitalization, but because of her isolation as a child at school. judging by her demeanor and the way she reacts when madoka comes up to her without being asked to, something like that had never happened to her before. it’s clear to me that madoka was many of homura’s “first’s”, her first friend, the first person who reached out to her, the first person to compliment her name honestly(validating her, disproving her dislike of her name), the first person to regard her so kindly rather than judging her based off of her appearance and demeanor (like other students had apparently done, this is also shown when the other students at mitakihara middle make fun of her for being tired after only being able to run one lap). AND, madoka (and mami, but homura knew madoka better at that time) saved her life, even though homura was so willing to die, just in that moment... i’d assume it made homura feel like someone believed in her even when she was at her worst. it’s really clear by the glimmer in her eyes that these are nice people that made her feel happy and welcome... and then walpurgisnacht came. she didn’t know much about magical girls and just believed in madoka and mami to be able to defeat the witch because she saw them as strong and saw the witch as defeatable, despite its size. and then mami died, right in front of her and madoka... 

this kinda seems headcanon-y when i phrase it this way but it’s practically proven in her actions but i really think homura is scared to be abandoned, especially by someone who was as overtly kind and nonjudgemental to her as madoka... it’s in the way she cries her name and says “don’t go” before madoka runs away to fight walpurgisnacht. OH ALSO, i need to address this one thing really quick because people like to assume that homura didn’t care about mami from the beginning and only liked madoka. it’s not that she wasn’t sad when mami died, she was clearly terrified and didn’t want the same to happen to madoka, also mami LITERALLY WASN’T IN HER CLASS OR HER GRADE so i assume she spent most of her time with madoka considering they were in the same grade and class and probably shared most of their periods with each other... but also, once again, mami is older than both of them and homura probably saw her as more of a mentor/teacher that she needed to impress rather than madoka who was more on her level, i guess?

anyways, moving on... homura had to see madoka die (& experience the crushing guilt she felt for “letting madoka go” even though there was nothing she could’ve done) and literally says “i’d rather you had lived than saved someone like me” ... her self worth is below zero. she makes her wish to be strong enough to protect madoka(because she sees madoka, her first friend, who saved her life which she felt had no worth, as so strong and noble) which causes her to go back in time, etc. etc., you know the deal. okay before i move on to talk a little more abt the timelines and the personality change i’m going to address why it’s reasonable that she’d be attached to madoka.

i mentioned before that homura said herself that she had never had a friend before. just like, put yourself into her shoes for a second. this girl has no idea how to make friends; it was never taught to her. it’s literally rational that she’d get attached to her first ever friendship. it’s not “normal” the way she views madoka, but how could it be? this is her first time having a friend, she’s afraid of being abandoned by her, but she’s had to see her die over and over again anyway. she doesn’t want to lose madoka. even if she doesn’t go about it in the right way, there’s no way she would’ve actually known how to Do relationships. no one taught her. i think that needs to be empathized with more...

i kinda feel like i need to summarize all this just bc if i word it right it kinda reminds you & puts into perspective just how terrible and scary all of this was.

anyway Again, i would skip straight to the end of timeline 3 (where a New Flavor of trauma is given to homura) but i need to first address timeline 2 for a second. it was homura’s first time repeating the timeline, she trained with madoka and mami again, she was still hopeful despite what happened, etc. kinda just bonding further with madoka Again... and then it’s at the end of this timeline that she watches madoka turn into a witch, just in front of her very eyes... and realizes the true fate of magical girls. when she resets the timeline again, it’s up to her to start anew and break the truth to the group when she sees them again. when she tries telling the truth, sayaka immediately shoves this aside, claiming homura was just trying to split everyone up. it’s clear that that hurts homura. (also the little shinies in her eyes were wavering which is anime-code for sad) her feelings were immediately disregarded by sayaka and she couldn’t defend herself, but madoka did for her, and mami tried to diffuse the situation. 

after they all find out homura was right when sayaka turns into a witch, mami kills kyoko and ties up homura in her ribbons and aims a gun at her, and this, rightfully, ignited a fear within homura... madoka is forced to kill mami in order to save homura, leaving only the two of them to fight together. then, when walpurgisnacht comes that time, The Promise is made... madoka tells homura to go back in time and save her from becoming a witch (because she doesn’t want to curse the world that way, she still sees beauty in it) and homura agrees, saying she’ll never stop until she saves madoka, and then... homura has to mercy kill madoka before she becomes a witch. she cries loudly and shoots madoka’s soul gem... it’s literally so heartwrenching and (usually) brings the viewer to tears, or puts something into perspective for them...

then we assume the personality change happens in the timeline right after. this personality change causes a lot of discourse because sometimes it’s seen as kind of irrational, but personally, i think even moemura had at least SOME resent for the world around her considering what she’d been through. it’s madoka’s repeated deaths that finally push her over that edge. i could get further into the coolmura arc but that’d take a WHILE, so i’ll just kind of explain something briefly though -- why homura ended up becoming even MORE focused on madoka. and i’m also going to debunk the claim that homura doesn’t care about her other friends as fast as i can before moving on.

also, ONE LAST side tangent, for those that think homura really did do a 360 degree personality turn are wrong. it’s shown explicitly in homulilly’s labyrinth that there’s this... “core” homura, a shadowy purple silhouette with braids. every time the series depicts homura’s internal self, it’s always glasses+braids, symbolizing her “child” self, who she truly is. she never stopped being that person. she doesn’t want to kill. ...but i can get into that in a rebellion analysis later! this is also shown in wraith arc bc the person inside her soul gem has glasses+braids. anyway let’s get to the next part i’m going to rant about

Homura’s Love for Madoka, but Otherwise Apathy

homura has seen many different, yet all similar, versions of her friends. the first claim i’m going to talk about which i saw brought up quite a few times before is in regards to homura and mami. first of all, homura absolutely still cares for mami, and not just in the “i only care about your life if it affects madoka’s” way. one part that always gets me is when mami ties her up in the series timeline after homura frantically warns her that this witch isn’t normal, to which mami IMMEDIATELY brushes this off, without even giving homura a chance. then, when mami’s ribbons fade away, homura looks horrified and just goes “oh no...” and it’s kind of obvious to me that it was in response to mami’s death rather than madoka’s reaction. this is arguably up for debate i guess because i’ve seen different takes on that reaction and it’s ambiguous, i guess? but i’m about to get into something extremely similar and that’s the sayaka situation, where madoka throws sayaka’s soul gem onto a moving car. homura gasps and immediately pauses time and disappears, running in literal open traffic and climbing on top of a moving car to retrieve sayaka’s soul gem. one could argue that this is ALSO only just because homura wants to save madoka (and kyoko) the fear, but don’t you think her expression would be different? if homura truly didn’t care for sayaka’s wellbeing, wouldn’t she be making an expression more similar to like, “oh, this shit again...” instead of the frantic one she was making in the scene? this kind of thing Also happens when kyoko asks homura to leave while kyoko’s about to sacrifice herself in oktavia’s labyrinth, and homura looks up sadly at kyoko and then back down at madoka, and once she knew kyoko was dead, she just quietly said “kyoko...” to herself. she usually refers to them as [last name, first name], but she dropped that during that moment... it otherwise sounds like a bare minimum thing to do, but keep in mind the timeline we’re shown in the series is implied to be like, the 110th timeline, i think? like, this is the last timeline, she’s worn down, but she still does have empathy -- or at least sympathy -- for the others. she still loves them. 

homura promised to be madoka’s protector, she dedicated her life to her, and also she doesn’t have a choice not to dedicate her life to her anymore, even though that’s not fair to her... homura is in a really hopeless situation and madoka is her hope, and madoka is the one that judges her the least out of the quintet (like saying “i’m sure homura is good” to herself) upon first impression. also okay i mentioned this already in my last post (which you saw) but i’m going to bring it up one more time, homura is not mentally 26!!!!!! she is still 14 mentally!! in order to be 26, you have to have experienced 26 years of new life experience. maybe you acquire that through school, maybe you aquire that through friends, whatever it takes. but homura just repeated the same month over and over, and it’s not like her body (canonically) ages ever. she just kind of gets transported back into her body in the hospital again considering she’s back wearing her braids and pajamas... so, yeah. no mental development there. i also mentioned this here but i’m gonna say it again, that just makes it even harder for her to actually age correctly... it stunts her to 14. imagine being 14 for 10-11 years...

In Defense Of My Own Claims

btw before you think i’m just going full-on radical homura apologist, i’m not explaining all of this to be like “homura made ALL THE RIGHT DECISIONS because her trauma gave her an excuse!!” because like, Obviously, she did a lot of bad things, she killed people, did a lot of callous things, a lot of thoughtless things, a lot of things that make her seem emotionless, etc. but i just have trouble blaming her considering how things ended up, and it’s not like she enjoys killing people. she’s not sadistic... she ends up becoming short with all the others not only because of her (extremely) weakened trust in them, but also because the amount of times she repeated the timeline. i’d imagine it makes her feel like the others can’t truly die because she can just go back and see them again. (this is also why wraith arc/post-tv series must’ve been hard for her because she can no longer turn back time, things are permanent now, deaths are forever) she’s become so worn down that she’ll do anything to escape the loops... also considering she has no choice but to continue? although it shouldn’t be, it’s technically her job as a magical girl to defeat all witches and walpurgisnacht counts. it kills magical girls and tears up the whole city and she’s usually the only magical girl left... her choices, when defeated, are either to give up and die or to go back and try again, and she made a promise to her first ever friend to do just the latter... i just don’t understand how this isn’t easier for people to comprehend, that all of this trauma and stress and responsibility on top of an already traumatized 14 year old does not mix well. ever. she had to figure out all of this by herself.

TL;DR:

homura was a previously traumatized, unsocialized 14 year old with (very)low self esteem & self worth whose first friend (and first love, really, let’s be honest) died in front of her in horrific ways and she watched as she (and the other friends she came to make) drifted slowly apart from her in her endless and futile attempt in saving her from what proved to be an inescapable fate. also she’s 14 and also she’s (canonically) mentally ill and a lesbian. not a monster, not evil, not “psycho”. and that’s that!

[land-of-holly]

Okay, here are some of my thoughts/predictions in advance of the finale:

(I tried to skim the tag to check if I missed any major questions, but it just made me depressed, so if I forgot anything I apologize)

In no particular order:

All the Vibes point to the Stranger being Gandalf. The writers have already proven they belive that anything before roughly T.A. 2000 is fair game to count as Second Age, so whatever. In my opinion it would be slightly boring but well supported by the narrative. In any case I don't think the full reveal will happen this season; we might learn that he's a wizard but not which one.

I have no earthly clue what is going on with the creepy cult ladies but signs seem to point to them working for Sauron?

There are obviously a lot of hints that Halbrand is Sauron for those who want to see them. I personally think it would be a waste of a perfectly good character arc if the entire persona is revealed to be nothing but lies. A theory I like that I've been seeing bits and pieces of here and there is that when Adar "killed" Sauron, he claimes to have "split him open", so maybe there's like, a piece of Sauron in Halbrand, Voldemort-style.

Honestly I'm still mostly on team "Sauron is already in Eregion fucking things up" because it's the only possible explanation for Gil-galad's utter assholery. I'm holding out hope that "the elves will all be dead by spring and only mithril can save them" is just a deception spread as the first step in Sauron's evil plan.

GALADRIEL IS NOT ATTRACTED TO HALBRAND. Say what you want about his feelings for her but SERIOUSLY THERE IS NOTHING THERE. Oh my god, is this what straight people feel like all the time?? When we're clearly picking up sexual tension between two same gender characters and they just don't fucking see it?? Idek anymore. This will never be "disconfirmed" because there was nothing to confirm in the first place; as far as I'm concerned her mentioning already being married is all that needs be said.

That said, I think if we're LUCKY we'll see a tiny glimpse of Celeborn in episode 8 without really knowing where he is or what he's up to. I really have not a fucking clue what would keep him from rejoining his wife for hundreds to thousands of years, so I guess prisoner of the Enemy? Amnesia maybe?

"Who is Theo's dad?" is something that was clearly teased as a possible reveal when he and Bronwyn were introduced, but at this point I don't think we're getting an answer. I doubt there's a satisfying one out there anyway.

I don't think Disa's gonna do a Princess Ursa and regicide King Durin in order to save her husband's best friend. I mean, I believe she COULD do it, and if she did I would support her, but I'm not quite getting that vibe from her. Murder's like plan K, and they've still got plans D-J to get through first.

Isildur will not be reunited with the rest of the Numenoreans until next season. Sorry, Elendil. He'll hang around Middle-earth for a while, maybe do some surveying for a fortress on the outskirts of Mordor, then meet up with the army when it returns.

I'm actually having a hard time figuring out what the last episode is going to look like, because they seem to be wrapping up a lot of their plotlines already. I would not feel like I was left hanging if we didn't hear more from the Harfoots or the Numenoreans; they already seem poised to set out on their next major story arc. Same with Adar and the Orcs; they got what they wanted, so there's no real plot left in them unless, say, the creepy cult ladies show up and start to stir shit up.

It's entirely possible that we'll see the forging of at least one ring of power in episode 8, maybe from Elrond's little mithril chunk, but whether it's a prototype or one of the Great Rings remains to be seen; probability of Great Ring goes way up if Sauron is already hanging around Eregion.

Oh! The Stranger (and thus the four Harfoots) are going into Greenwood the Great. Maybe we'll meet Oropher? That would be cool.

Okay I think that's all I got. See y'all on the other side!