#okay hopefully this is enough tags

[theshadowrealmitself]

You live in a crummy apartment, you don’t talk to your family anymore, you don’t have time for friends, you mostly just go to work then go back to the aforementioned shitty apartment.

The only people you really talk to these days is your rude coworker you’re pretty sure has been stealing your lunches, and a neighborhood kid that has “behavioral problems”, but it’s obvious that he just doesn’t have a good home life.

He’s actually a pretty sweet kid once you get to know him. He shares his snacks with you (seriously, you’re gonna kill your coworker one of these days) and tells you all the neighborhood gossip. He’s just a bit impulsive, honestly

He has this fluffy dog he lets you pet, and him and his dog go around searching for aliens. (Kid is obsessed with them.)

You share your food with him on the days you actually have it and keep an eye on the little guy, since it’s obvious no one else is.

It’s not long before he sees you as some kind of big sibling, and you’re proud of it, this is your little brother, you’ve decided, and you’re gonna keep him safe, no matter what.

—

One day he comes in and swears he’s seen the aliens, claims they’re hiding as humans who’ve just moved into the neighborhood.

Now, you haven’t actually talked to them, and they did seem…odd when you passed by, but they’re definitely not aliens, that much is obvious to you.

Still, you don’t wanna upset your little bro by not taking him seriously, so you just ask him why he thinks that and listen to his reasonings.

After a bit, he holds out a walkie talkie towards you, “just in case,” he says, so that he’d have a way of calling you in case something goes south.

You really don’t wanna take it, worried that if you do you’ll just be encouraging him to do something stupid, but this feels…significant. You can’t explain it, but something insists that you take it, so you do.

Eh, you figure that he’d probably get in trouble either way, and now he can get ahold of you.

Just in case.

—

Yelling wakes you up a few days later, it’s coming from the walkie talkie.

You jolt out of bed and grab it, your little brother’s panicked voice calling for help through it and feeling your body with ice cold horror.

You try to get him to calm down and get information out of him.

He’s at the new family’s house, in their basement, he’s injured and crying that they’re going to experiment on him, before his voice cuts out.

You cuss, slip on your shoes, and grab the bag that holds everything important to you, stuff like your mementos and your wallet (just in case this shitty place falls apart and you need to leave quickly), thinking that you might have a first aid kit somewhere in there since it is your emergency bag, and then you book it.

—

Soon, you’re outside that house, about to knock on their door and explain everything, but there’s that feeling again, that feeling that this moment is significant and you don’t wanna take that action, so you jog around back and find a window leading to a basement.

You’re still not sure if you actually wanna break into these random people’s house, but you can hear the kid quietly sniffling, and it drives you to force yourself through the tiny opening.

You land softly on your feet and when you look around you’re entire worldview shatters.

The room is filled with…test subjects.

It’s the only way to describe what you’re seeing. People, at least what you recognize as people, not that they look completely human, passed out in clear tubes, suspended in weird liquids.

Your eyes eventually land on your little brother and his pet dog, locked in a contraption of some kind, and it knocks you out of your stupor. You don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not going to happen to him, you promised to keep him safe and you’re damn well gonna do that.

You break them out of it, and shove the both of them through the tiny window. He begs you to climb out now, and you just demand that he runs off, to not wait for you, it’s gonna take you longer to pull your way through the window.

And besides, you can hear the door opening behind you, you already know it’s too late for you.

—

You wake up. Eventually. Apparently a thousand years later. The people who grabbed you are long dead.

And so is your brother.

Turns out, he was right, they were aliens, going around abducting people off of different planets.

Their fucked up research vessel eventually got discovered, and you were woken up.

It’s not so bad, the future. It’s…an adjustment, for sure. But not bad.

You have friends now, and a job you don’t hate. On a spaceship of all things. And you get to see the stars and have dreams now. It’s new and it’s wonderful and some days it’s so blindingly optimistic that it…hurts.

You eat 3 wonderful meals everyday and think about stale chips being offered to you by a scrappy young kid with a loving stray who looked up to you like you were their hero.

—

You see those eyes again one day.

“An alternate universe,” your captain breathes out with excitement. But all you feel is pure shock as you see your brother. He looks healthy and cleaned up, and so does his dog, still loyally by his side you note, as they throw themselves into your arms.

You’re both sobbing as you hold onto each other like the other one’s going to dissolve any second.

Meanwhile, his pup is giving doggy kisses and trying to knock the both of you into the ground.

An alternate universe.

One where you didn’t accept the walkie talkie and he couldn’t call anyone from the basement.

He sobs and apologizes for breaking his promise to you about not being reckless.

You sob and apologize for not being there for him when he needed you.

He has to go back, sooner than either of you wanted, but it’s better that way. It already feels like your heart’s breaking, it’ll just be worse if you get more attached.

You let him know you’re proud of him, and you love him, and to just focus on being happy, and you see something in his shoulders loosen, and know that this trip was cathartic for him.

Then the transporter fizzles and you’ve lost your brother again.

—

You come to find out that your brother being the one to end up in the future is the default.

You keep running into alternate versions of the ship you’re on and meeting him.

Sometimes, it’s that you don’t take the walkie talkie.

Sometimes, it’s that you do, but you don’t check the basement, just knocking on the door of the house and believing them when they say he ran off.

You’re the anomaly.

It makes sense, a young boy with a dog at his side having space adventures. That sounds natural. It sounds correct.

You don’t know if it’s better this way. If it’s better that you’re the one being abducted instead of him. You know his home life was shitty, but you don’t know if having universe hopping adventures after getting kidnapped is actually good for him.

You don’t know what you left behind, if he’s okay in the past after you’d been taken from him. But you can’t change it either way.

So you just hold all these new versions of him tightly for as long as you can, and let them know you’re sorry that you didn’t believe him, and that he’s loved.

[spoonsisland]

MePhone 4 after learning about nonbinary people midway through season 2: OHHHH so THAT’S the word i was looking for [updates Paintbrush’s toyhouse page]

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 4 - Nuthin' but Boothill Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]

[strangewastelandturtle]

oh noooo his hand slipped

[loveydive]

The Tragedy of Hayakawa Aki - chainsaw man, tatsuki fujimoto

grief lessons: four plays by euripides, anne carson // chainsaw man, tatsuki fujimoto // deathless, catherynne m. valente // “untitled,” 2016, ink on paper, kara walker // james, clementine von radics // slide tackle, japanese breakfast // how to cure a ghost, fariha róisín // red glove, holly black // the letter, richard paul evans // interview with james hall, richard siken // ptolemaea, ethel cain // iq84, haruki murakami // the godfather, mario puzo // god's silence, franz wright // crush, richard siken // tumblr user ojibwe // when i was done dying, dan deacon

[skrunksthatwunk]

ding ding ding

of all the things ash gets compared to (lynxes, beasts, demons, wives), colonel fox is the only one to call him a leopard, the thing ash views himself as, at least within the context of the snows of kilimanjaro visual. also note that eiji is the only one to respond directly to that visual, insisting that a) humans have wisdom leopards don't (don't die on me for nothing) and b) ash is not a leopard, anyway (seriously ash don't die on me for nothing)

to fox and to ash, ash is someone whose life of violence (+ inability to leave it, stubbornness, whatever he's searching for that keeps him going down this path, etc) will inevitably lead to his death. eiji's an optimist (perhaps more accurately, he believes in ash) and tries to steer ash from this, but he's more resigned to it than he's willing to tell eiji. and the fact that fox understands that about ash immediately is just. ough. and of course in the end, ash is the one who seals his own fate. it wasn't inevitable, to eiji, to the audience, maybe to the world. but it was inevitable to ash, and he finally surrendered to it. he couldn't believe in his ability to escape like eiji could (or, imo for a slew of reasons i'm not getting into, he chose to die in a comfortable place and time, surrounded by hope and love. before things got bad again. etc)

[chacerider]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃

[blinding-metaphysics]

MCSR Choose Your Own Adventure!!!

The first ever MCSR CYOA game!

I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time on this so please give it a try. (its like a quiz/otome game pspspsps)

Also if you play please reblog with what character(s)/ending you get. I am SO curious to see what everybody gets in their first try!

[bookinit02]

in honor of my s5 announcement this week, here’s one of the scenes from the first episode! hope you all like it🫶🏻

[marcmorrigan]

@fenglianweek day 6: memories/growing up

the best thing thats ever been mine

[lovedtogekiss-art]

attack for @2-wuv :)

[carpe-dulcis-solis]

i love my small and ever-growing collection of Star Trek memorabilia! in no particular order we have:

A t-shirt with McCoy's face on it and the text 'Are You Out of Your Vulcan Mind?!' written underneath it. a favourite of mine, i wear it way too often

My Star Trek mug with Spock and Kirk on it that has the quote of 'It's life, but not as we know it' written below them. thank god they got the proper quote (idk if i wrote the proper quote but its on there!)

a Voyager VHS tape that was upcycled into a light. legit the coolest thing i have ever owned and well worth the 8 quid i spent on it

a limited edition Deep Space 9 VHS tape which has Emissary and a behind the scenes hosted by Terry Farrell on it. has a cool little booklet inside of it with Sisko's face on it that has some funky information on the show and the characters/actors. very neat, and it only cost me like 3 quid

my 3 Star Trek books (i currently own Grounded, Dreams of the Raven and The Price of the Phoenix). only read DotR so far but can't wait to read the other two when i get the time

[coffeeastronaut]

M*A*S*H - 4x01, Welcome to Korea / 11x16, Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen | Red vs Blue - 10x19, Party Crasher / 9x20, Hate to Say Goodbye, 10x22, Don't Say It | Doctor Who - 9x12, Hell Bent, 60th Anniversary Trailer | Mort, Sir Terry Pratchett | Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

[blood-mocha-latte]

excerpts

[catboylister]

lister bird the type of guy to self sabotage when a relationship is going too well because he has a chronic fear of commitment and and abandonment issues 🫶

[thatvampireenthusiast]

*shows up to the finale a day late with take out*

WOW was this. a ride. i went through. SO MANY EMOTIONS and also that boss fight was *oof* it took me a few tries though not as many tries as magical girl transformation jaania

but!!! just!!! the mage trio!!! who we have to leave behind!!! who is depending on us to get them out of there!!! aequillibria and everything it entails!!! i'll be glad to slow down with dragonfable for a bit now that i've caught up (except for everything with roirr and the first weaver stuff i didn't actually. get to that. but i will. i have Theories about what exactly happened there given it's placement in the timeline or rather, what the consequences of it were (aka i think i know what broke the magesterium or at least who broke the magesterium)), but i'm also super excited for what may come next!!!

we've got all these new tiny fissures, we've got the rift still open in the deadlands, we've got aequllibria to figure out, there's of course several open-ended side stories that still need closure like the fear saga and six heroes... and there's so much more of lore to discover! obviously there's more of the continent across the sea, but what about the lands to the south? the other side of the world where uaanta and notha come from! so many possibilities!!

but also the finale itself was so satisfying. it tied up some more threads, left other stuff open for the epilogue and for the future book 4, made me cry over the mage trio and then made me lose my mind over cysero and his big red (reset???) button (dragonfable devs please you can't keep doing stuff like this to us you've put so many mechquest references in book 3 we're gonna lose it (i still actually have to. play through mech quest. hopefully in a more sedate manner than i have torn through dragonfable). duality of video game, tonal whiplash my beloved

...i don't know where i was going with this but in conclusion i love this game and i'm still having emotions about everything

just. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH