#part of everything alive again

[chetungwan]

I wish I could reliably find goddamn His Dark Materials fics. But unfortunately, someone, somewhere made daemons in a fucking trope and now everyone fucking tags their little AUs with it and most of them don't even so much as Dust, much less multiple universes

[tackykachowch]

Silco SO should've haunted the narrative in s2 I can't stress this enough. Like, we knew Vander, Mylo and Claggor only for 3 episodes, but their presence was felt aaaall throughout s1. And now you're telling me that a PRIMARY ANTAGONIST of s1, a leader of Zaun, Jinx's dad and The person who started the negotiations with Piltover for Zaun's independence only got a couple of mentions?? Which aren't even relevant to the plot or character motivations??? Are you LEGIT FOR REAL kidding me???? I still can't believe this happened chat.

He's literally a part of the main cast. He literally was present in every single episode of s1. And again, given just How Much was tied directly to him his death should've had just. Massive consequences. For almost every single character. And yet.

My honest reaction to this information:

[captainkirkk]

Truman Show AU

In the Truman Show, everyone was pushing very hard for Truman to have a kid, but he was too busy trying to escape. But what if they HAD had a baby? Maybe Truman gave in, or something more sinister happened (there's already so many human rights violations in this movie, I wouldn't put be surprised if Hannah ""forgot"" to take birth control and whoops, now there's a baby!)

Truman watches the way people interact with his baby girl, and he realises that they're treating her just like they treated him. She's now a prisoner in this cage too.

It's a lot harder for Truman to break out of the dome with a baby (especially with even MORE cameras pointed at the both of them), but he vows to do it. For her.

[grabby-smitten]

*giggling and kicking my feet*

[youkidding-me]

my angst-lover ass: dorym one-shot fanfic orym pov of dorian organising cyrus's funeral RIGHT NOW

[snevinsspn]

dean being older than sam and having experience with an apple pie life “pre-hunting” is so incredibly fundamental to their characters and the way they function (especially in the early seasons) it’s insane.

dean knowing how their family used to be before losing mary and spending his whole life trying to desperately piece it back together because it’s the only good he’s ever had and he romanticizes it even though he knows it wasn't perfect because it’s so good compared to what they have now vs sam knowing nothing but hunting and the family fractured by grief and wanting that same normal life by escaping because he can’t picture his family ever being like that.

like dean trying desperately to stay the loyal soldier to his father and look after sammy and do everything that’s needed of him for his family because he saw how it crumbled and how mary’s death tore them apart vs sam feeling constantly slighted his entire life because he’s never seen his family be a proper family that treats him the way he deserves. he has no history of happy family so he lashes out because he doesn’t feel there’s anything there to preserve. he has no hang ups on telling john how it is because he has no twisted up loyalty to a now broken and dysfunctional family.

it also explains so well how they view hunting and getting out. like sam hates it and wants out so bad because he views hunting as the source of all his family's problems and if they had never started hunting they wouldn't be "like that". he wants out because he believes the only way to be happy and have a good life is to not be a hunter. meanwhile dean knows that their family wasn't perfect before losing mary and starting to hunt ("their marriage wasn't perfect until after she died" and that entire scene show that really well). he knows that really there are problems everywhere and that family is complicated and that the issue lies more with their family than with hunting. he doesn't wish desperately to get out the way sam does because he knows there are problems with life no matter what and the only thing he's ever had in his life that was good was his family so he works so desperately to fix it and keep it together.

like dean looks at their family and says “this used to be so good and its the only good i've ever known and that’s buried here somewhere and i can get back if i’m Good Enough” vs sam saying “this has never been anything but a disaster and will never be anything but a disaster so if i want something perfect i have to leave”

[abitofboth]

no HANG ON the fact that original timeline loki sacrificed everything to save the universe against thanos. and this timeline’s loki saw himself die saving his brother, his universe, in that time theatre, and he did it again. he sacrificed everything again to save the multiverse.

in both timelines, he went from having nothing, to having everything- a love for thor, for asgard, the universe, and a love for mobius, for the tva, for the multiverse- and his love for for everything was the very reason he sacrificed himself and went straight back to nothing again.

Loki could never be a villain again. his heart is too big for that

[swordheld]

hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?

hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].

but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.

it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.

and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.

the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.

an emptiness, like you said.

but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.

you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.

he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.

but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.

how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.

the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.

think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.

i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.

but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one. wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.

as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

THIS IS A CALLOUT POST FOR MY DMS @themilokin AND @phoenix-failing FOR HITTING US WITH A SCENARIO SO FUNDAMENTALLY HEARTBREAKING IN ITS IMPLICATIONS THAT WE SPENT THE ENTIRE SESSION ARGUING ABOUT WHAT TO DO AND ALSO LIKE THREE OF US STARTED CRYING. AND THEN, WHEN WE FINALLY MADE OUR DECISION, AND WE HAD TO SAY GOODBYE TO A BELOVED NPC THAT HAS BEEN WITH US ALMOST SINCE THE BEGINNING, THEY HIT US WITH A TWIST SO GRACIOUS AND UNEXPECTED THAT WE STARTED THREATENING THEM WITH PHYSICAL VIOLENCE (EXTREMELY AFFECTIONATE)

HOLY SHIT, WHAT A GAME.

[sandstormjoneshusband]

I’m always thinking about the implications here. What did martlet end up doing. First of all, she puts in her two weeks very soon after this. She can’t really continue to take advantage of her connection to alphys if she’s severed it. That’s a speedy investigation. Second, did she like, straight up just try to break into the true lab again, like she did when she took the DT? Or did she actually try to question alphys about it directly? What came out of all this?

[quirkle2]

more zombie au :] (1.2k words)

The odor of rot has joined the damp growth of life from pots. Even if some things die off without human aid, there are always stronger elements that thrive in their absence.

The aisles are overgrown. Ritsu brushes past the vines as gently as he can, wooden floor groaning under his worn soles. There’s a gap of empty space in the middle of each aisle that he slots through, eyes roaming the shelves of largely useless things. Stronger stems snag onto his backpack and he tugs distractedly while perusing the labeled pots along the tables.

The barn is quaint, and Ritsu thinks he would love to stay. Moss eats at the boards under his feet and bugs swarm around him in the hot air incessantly, but it’s peaceful and there’s a constant sprinkle of sound to his ears that have grown so used to silence. Whoever owned this place beforehand put up a few wind chimes indoors—they must’ve always had the front entrance open for customers.

It’s a quiet little homemade garden center, or something similar, on the side of the highway. It’s an overgrown property with something dead in the backyard that Ritsu refuses to acknowledge or let Shigeo near. The shingles and boards in the roof have been replaced with polyethylene sheets—a barn-turned-greenhouse, uprooted from the hay and cattle it likely used to house and settled back into the Earth to be a paradise for plants.

There’s a large branch hanging through a hole poked into the plastic overhead. It sways with the wind and the chimes that follow, and Ritsu whistles with the leadless melody and gives it a direction while he studies old seed packets.

They didn’t stop here for any particular reason—a garden center doesn’t have much for apocalypse survivors, but Shigeo has always liked overgrown things. He’d always enjoyed taking care of their mother’s plants back home, and then Reigen’s at the office. His brother likes the humidity of greenhouses and the smell of soil and dirt and must.

He sees the top of Shigeo’s head over the aisles, across the barn. He walks past a shovel hanging on the wall and yelps out a grunt when it clangs to the floor behind him. Ritsu shakes his head and smiles, running his fingers along faded price tags.

The feeling of greenhouses has always had this… wet fullness, to Ritsu.

When he breathes in it’s like he can taste the life that breathes out and it feels like a conversation, a question and an answer, both of which he’s not sure how to articulate. The leaves wave to him and he waves back, the once-active sprinklers pepper his skin with dots, with compliments, with proclamations they are eager to share. The vines weave between fencing just to reach him, just to talk.

He understands why Shigeo likes it, and why he’d always asked to accompany their mother on trips to get new seeds. Ritsu hadn’t really understood, then, how pretty it could be, how full it could feel.

Shigeo had always been right about loving the little things. Ritsu wishes he’d seen that sooner.

His brother ambles down the aisle ahead of him and he listens to the quiet patter of his sloppy footwork, moving around a table of seed trays. His whistles carry across the barn, sort of aimless in their own right instead of leading the wind and the chimes somewhere worthwhile, but the sounds soak into the overhead plastic nicely, so he keeps going.

He pulls back a layering of vines and leaves to scan the contents of another shelf, and then he notices Shigeo stop in his peripherals. His dirty shoes stay planted in the corner of his vision, leaves burying the toes, and Ritsu looks away from the products.

He means to say something, to ask him what’s up even if saying things to Shigeo very rarely results in productivity, but he stops when he realizes his brother’s head is… tilted.

He’s looking at him with as much inquisitiveness as his dulled down awareness can muster, pale eyes flickering across Ritsu’s face like he’s working out some puzzle. He instinctively stops whistling, brain lagging behind on this new info of this new behavior, and the sound fizzles out into a little huff of air that leaves the greenhouse feeling oddly empty.

Shigeo studies him for a moment longer, blinking slowly, and then he straightens his head out as Ritsu stares back. His brother’s gaze lingers there on his mouth, like he’s still confused, like he still expects something to happen.

Ritsu blinks once, twice. The wind chimes call as wind pokes at his greasy spikes, as it prods at the ends of his jacket and fills the silence with a different flavor of itself. The interest in the zombie’s eyes fades a little, gaze straying to the vines around them.

Very tentatively, Ritsu wets his lips and blows. The whistle grabs his brother’s attention immediately, and he’s suddenly tilting his head like a curious dog.

He can’t help the laugh that spills out and makes the whistle a mess of exhales. His shoulders shake a little and he hurries to keep the tune steady and consistent; a few seconds pass and Shigeo tilts his head the other way, exhausted eyes big and more alert than they’ve been in days.

Ritsu experiments, and ventures around with the sound—goes lower and higher and watches his brother twist his head back and forth like he’s trying to understand calculus. There’s something very innocent about it, about the look in his eyes that reminds him of when they were kids and their father would show them magic tricks.

It’s muted by the ever-present fog there in his pupils, but Ritsu thinks he sees a spark of that life in them, of that curiosity born from a mind that knows little. He gives him a simple sensation, a simple experience, and his brother is eating it all up like he’s four again, like he’s new and everything is colorful and unknown and big.

Ritsu watches Shigeo tilt his head back and forth, watches the rusty gears behind his window panes move. He changes tactics, because some sad part of him tells him to, and whistles Shigeo’s favorite song instead.

He remembers the name, but he doesn’t need the name because when he thinks of the tune he thinks of his brother, and that’s all that matters. It’s happy, because Shigeo likes happy music. It’s chipper and yet it meanders, like it’s willingly getting lost, like it’s wandering where it wants to and it’ll eventually find its roots again. It’s happy the whole time. The whole adventure.

Shigeo stops tilting his head, and the gears behind his eyes churn a little bit faster. His gaze clings to Ritsu’s and his brother makes actual eye contact, sinks his own being into Ritsu’s head when he’s least prepared for it. The recognition in his gaze has his soul souring.

He keeps whistling. He doesn’t want to stop, because Shigeo feels like Shigeo right now, and he doesn’t want that to stop.

His brother stares. Ritsu’s grief tints the music.

[forcedhesitation]

crazy how he just ignores everyone else and speaks directly to wyll. it's like wyll is like one of the most important characters in this game, or something.

[goldkirk]

.

[primus-why]

The Problem with Pax

hhhhhhh please I can't stop thinking about the inherent MegOp angst of an extended Orion Pax arc... especially when you imagine Orion fighting the Autobots and almost getting captured-- and calling out to Megs.

And you know Megs would answer his cry by immediately stopping whatever he was doing and going into a vengeful tunnel vision. He crushes anything in his path on the way to rescue Orion (and quite frankly, that ferocious single-mindedness disturbs all other Cons and Bots who are present.) Like the dude is obsessed!

Once they're back and safely on the Nemesis, Soundwave gets a moment alone with the Decepticon leader. He doesn't have to say anything aloud, just the fact he's there after what had transpired already speaks volumes.

"... I know," Megatron grounds out, "I was... callous today. I hadn't considered such a light skirmish could result in Orion's capture. But we will be better prepared the next time the Autob--"

Soundwave interrupts him with a clip of his own voice-- Megatronus' voice-- from many vorns ago.

"Orion Pax will not be a distraction."

Megatron's gaze becomes a glare. Soundwave merely crosses his arms, firm and admonishing.

It's as clear of an 'I told you so' as Megatron will get out of his mute TIC. He opts for a different angle.

"What Orion Pax contributes to the Decepticons is valuable, is it not?"

Soundwave didn't move, so Megatron continued.

"It would be a detriment to the progress we've made on decoding the archives if he were captured. Besides, we wouldn't want Orion's knowledge and skillset to fall into the hands of the Autobots, would we?"

"We cannot afford to prioritize any one mech." Again, his own voice is spat back at him. "Sacrifices must be made in times of war."

"This is different--" He starts to say, but he visibly struggles to find more words to explain why. He knows Soundwave is perfectly capable of decoding the archives-- that Orion Pax is not the best fighter, nor can he mine energon or provide ship repairs. He can't even tap into any hidden Prime abilities. By all accounts, Orion isn't particularly exceptional. If anything he could be considered a liability.

After some blatant hesitation, "... if the Autobots were to take him, he might be reverted back to Optimus Prime." He says a bit too quickly. 'Yes. Of course. Depriving the enemy of their beloved leader is of utmost priority... my logic is sound.'

Soundwave uncrossed his arms, this time choosing to cobble words and phrases together for his reply.

"Optimus Prime-- may be-- reverted back-- here."

Megatron's servos clenched into fists.

"And should that come to pass, we are perfectly capable of subduing him. The Prime would be grossly outnumbered, stranded with no way to contact the Autobots while on our own ship." He regarded his TIC for a moment before continuing, "As always I appreciate your concern and watchful optics, Soundwave. I'll personally see to it that we have a cell with the Prime's name on it... just in case."

Soundwave imparts some final wisdom from one of the older gladiators who had trained them for the arena:

"Distractions get you offlined."

Once alone, Megatron groans and stares at the ceiling, his processor working out potential scenarios Orion might encounter and solutions on how to evade them.

"I know, old friend."

Having said his piece, Soundwave finally turns on his heel and takes his leave.

'There has to be a way I can make this work.' He thinks, 'I will not lose him again.'

[helioptilie]

I have very mixed feelings about The Fall of The House of Usher. As much as I loved Carla Gugino’s performance, I think connecting everything to Verna and The Deal lessened the impact of all other storylines. Edgar Allen Poe follows similar themes, but his works are short and distinct. The Black Cat, Murder in The Rue Morgue, and The Raven; all involve death, but have different approaches to the subject and a different end effect on the audience. Idk it worked well to make the show cohesive but I feel as though it might have been better to keep it as an anthology.

[fingertipsmp3]

I’m gonna challenge my subconscious to a fist fight and I’m gonna lose