#sure he's the same in the canon so i should have beef with him too

[sherlock-is-ace]

I have mixed feeling about the Sherlock & Co. watson. Like, he is very funny, adorable and caring. He's a great version of canon Watson, I think they write him beautifully! But my hate for true crime podcasters...

[astermath]

nemesis; part two.

pairing: carmen berzatto x fem!reader

summary: with carmen reworking the restaurant, you’d think his mind would be far too occupied to even think about anything else. yet he can’t shake the guilt from what he’d put you through a month prior. after some talks in therapy, he decides to take a leap of faith and see if he can talk it out with you. he not only wants to convince you that he can be better, but he's got an offer for you too. one you truly can't refuse.

♡ landing page ♡

word count: 4.9K

tags: carmen being unsure about his feelings but trying to be better episode 3265742, letting reader in a little more, APOLOGIES!!!, cursing ig, carm goes to therapy yippee, syd being the absolute realest, regular font below!

notes: sorry this took literally forever omg, I lost my carmen muse for a bit but we are SO back baby. I missed him so much and so sorry if some things don't follow the canon completely (I've been watching season 2 on and off bc I've been so busy lol BUT my fics never follow the canon completely anyways),, hope u guys enjoy and let me know if you'd like a part three ;))

lmk if you'd like to be added to the tag list for further carmen berzatto related content! comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

Carmen’s life hadn’t known a moment of mental rest in ages. If you asked him when he last sat down with his thoughts or acknowledged his mental anguish, he probably would have said he couldn’t remember the last time. If ever.

With plans to completely revamp The Beef and everything that came with it, now his feelings should be the last thing on his mind. Renovation plans, unforeseen costs and a completely new menu, sure, he could worry his ass off about those, but feelings? Absolutely not. Good thing he was usually so good at suppressing those anyways.

So why was it that he couldn’t shake the thought of what he did to you?

Why, every time he had a moment to himself, would he be overtaken by this intense feeling of guilt? He didn’t even have to be alone, just a second of quiet and the image of you crying in distress would intrude on his thoughts.

It was getting to a point where he’d told his sister, Natalie, about it. Well, not all of it, he wasn’t even sure if he knew all of it. Just that he knows he hurt you, and that coming to terms with what he projected onto you might be a good first step in understanding himself better.

Or maybe it was something more along the lines of “I gotta talk my shit to some people”. Probably that.

To his surprise, it was actually helping. Besides the group therapy sessions where he’d talk about Mikey, the business and his future, he was talking to other people in his life too. Even told Sydney about you, kind of on accident. The words just seemed to… Flow out. It was probably the exhaustion doing its thing.

“I guess I just felt like,” he kept his eyes on the floor he was sweeping, “she was doing it all to fuck with me. I don’t even know where I got the sick idea that she had some obsession over me, but it— it drove me at the same time. It’s like her being on my heels at every aspect of culinary school just made me want to try even harder.”

“Maybe you painted her in that light because you knew it was a good way to keep pushing yourself.” Sydney spoke almost absentmindedly, sweeping the other side of the room. She listened to everything he said in the meantime, and though what he was telling her was a bit worrying, she was glad they got to have talks like this. Carmen often doesn’t like to bring up his past like that.

“Huh,” he paused sweeping for a moment, “yeah… yeah, maybe. Or maybe it was something else.”

Sydney wasn’t even sure he knew what he was referring to. It sounded like something entirely different, like a crush, but what kind of person treats their crushes like that?

Probably an overworked, pressured, overachieving culinary student with a dangerous need for validation. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“So yeah, I visited her restaurant, and… It just felt the exact same as back in New York, you know? Like she was rubbing it in my face again, and— and I know that sounds insane, or conceited, but I just can’t let it go. It’s like the thought of her is stuck to my brain like a stubborn piece of gum.” He wanted to smack himself for that stupid analogy, but what was said was said.

“So how’d you handle it?” Sydney’s head perked up, some of her braids now draping over her shoulders.

“Handle what?” Carmen became more and more uneasy the more he talked about you. Like his chest was tight, it was uncomfortable, but not in the way he was when the health inspection came by, it was different. Weirder. Unfamiliar. He didn’t like it, because he didn’t understand it.

“The talk with her.” She emptied the last bit of dust into the trash bag.

“Oh,” his mind took him back to the parking lot a month ago. The way he could almost taste the tears of your skin from how close he stood, he could hear the shakiness of your breath and the profound desperation in your voice when you apologized to him, when you really had no reason to.

If it was still so clear in his mind, then what must it be like for you?

“Carmen?” Sydney snapped him out of his oncoming train of thought.

“Yeah? Sorry, I— Uh, I don’t know it was…” He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly finding it in his best interest to look anywhere else but her face. “Bad. It was— It was bad.” He looks a bit shameful when he meets her eyes. “I fucked up. I like, went all New York boss on her. And then I just… Left.”

His colleague just stares at him for a moment. She knew what he was like when he snapped like that, but that was with his staff, people he liked. So how badly did he snap on you, a person he’d been resenting for years?

“I’m gonna go take out this trash, and uh… Head home.” She lifts the grey plastic bag she was holding. “But uh, Carm?”

“Yeah?”

“You got issues, man.” She has a bit of an awkward smile on her face, but he knows she means it. He knows she’s right. She usually is.

He nods, silently, letting her words sink in. He did have issues, everyone knew that, but most people didn’t just say it. That’s why he liked Sydney, she was so real, so honest. She was so good for the business, for the kitchen. And maybe her saying that to him was all part of grounding him in the reality of it all. Of his issues, just that they existed.

“Heard.” he says. His voice comes out raspier than he expected, like he’s struggling to say it.

“Goodnight, chef.”

“Night.”

He’d thought about what Sydney said the entire night. He does have issues, he knows that, he’s just mad at himself for letting everything get this far before seeking help. It scares him. Because it reminds him too much of Mikey. Or what he heard about him when things got bad.

He doesn’t want to make the same mistakes his brother did. Lock people out of his life just because it seems easier, because it’s better to minimize the damage than to figure out why you’re doing damage at all. And yes it’s uncomfortable, yes it’s scary, terrifying even. But he keeps being reminded of how it must feel for you.

It’s something he’d never considered before. He always thought he had you all figured out, all fake smiles and backhanded compliments to distract him. It never occurred to him to just… Ask. It was always just easier to assume. It fit his view of you and it kept him going, even if it was at the expense of ever getting to know you at all.

He’s hoping he can change that with a few text messages and a long, probably uncomfortable, talk over coffee. Just hoping, trying, that’s really all he can do. He’s well aware of how bad he is at communicating, but he has to give it a shot. For you, at least.

He stares at his phone screen for far longer than is necessary, continuously rereading the messages he’d typed. His eyes keep flicking to your contact, making sure he sent it to the right person. The only thing you two had texted about before was a time and place for him to try your new restaurant. His heart aches at the exclamation points and emojis you’d sent; you were so excited, and he drove all that excitement straight into the ground.

He closes his eyes and shuts off the phone. His chest hurts, like he’s been holding his breath the entire time. Maybe he has. You could have that effect on him, making it harder to breathe. He always wondered why he had such nervous reactions around you specifically. He always figured it had to do with your one sided rivalry, but it feels… Different. More complex.

Your eyes are finally peeled off your computer screen when numerous phone notifications alarm you. Truth be told, you’ve been trying your best to keep yourself occupied as much as possible. That usually helps when you get waves of emotions like this, keeping busy, distracting your mind from overthinking.

Ever since your last encounter with Carmen, you’ve been so on edge. Always trying to do something, anything, so you wouldn’t have to think about what happened, why he acted like that to you. Because you know if you did, you’d just start blaming yourself again, and you’d be back to square one.

Your eyebrows raise at the name of the contact. You were sure he’d blocked you, or at least deleted your number after last time. He was avoidant like that, and frankly, you weren’t sure if you wanted him to talk to you again after that anyways. Maybe it was just to drive the point home, make you feel even more worthless.

Still, you were curious. Even if it was just to cuss you out even more, at least you knew what to expect, right?

[carmen]: hey, I really want to talk to you about what happened last time.

[carmen]: well

[carmen]: I want to apologise

[carmen]: but I can’t do that like this

[carmen]: I’d much rather do it in person

[carmen]: if you’d let me

[carmen]: meet me at odette’s tomorrow around 10? coffee’s on me, I just want to talk

[carmen]: please

The last message was sent minutes later than the rest, while you were reading them. He was desperate for an answer, and though you wanted to hear him out, to talk to him, something in you felt off about the whole thing. Like he was just doing this to clear off his own guilt, only to then ditch you just like he ditched you after culinary school. Because you’re rivals, apparently. That’s what you do.

But then there’s something else in you too. The part that’s still nostalgic about New York with him. About the glances back and forth when you were timed on preparing certain things, about the way he’d stare at you when you got feedback, the ignorant bliss you lived in. When you still believed he might have liked you just a little.

That part of you takes the upper hand when you reply and take his offer. Your heart is in your throat, nerves overtaking you already and you weren’t even with him yet. He had that effect on you sometimes, making it harder to breathe.

You wondered what that meant.

Carmen sits alone at a booth, all the way at the back of the café he’d chosen. It’s rather quiet, as most Mondays are, yet at the same time, it’s so loud. Loud in the way he hears the clinking of every spoon against porcelain cups, the crinkling of a napkin and the not so subtle ticking of the clock above the entrance. 10:06. You were late.

Suddenly he's filled with more regret than he's ever felt before. He's not ready to see you again, only to be reminded of how he made you cry, and of his own tumultuous emotions and shortcomings that lead to this moment. It's surprising how fast the emotions he associates with you changed; he's not angry anymore, he's scared, guilty, nervous. He wants to see you so bad and yet he feels like you'd be better off never talking to him again.

It's too late to make a run for it when you finally walk through the door. Hair a little damp from the rain, just a bit disheveled from what he could only assume to be rushing over to the café. And that same angelic smile you offer to the barista that greets you, the same one you'd offer him every morning, whether he looked at you or not.

He had no choice but to look now.

Your smile falters into something more nervous, a little melancholic, when your eyes meet his across the café. Though you knew he was going to be there, something in you feels surprised to see him again. Maybe it’s because he isn’t yelling at you or throwing insults at your head this time. Or maybe because he’s actually looking you in the eye. Since when did he get so good at that?

You sit down across him, taking off your coat and putting your bag besides you.

“Hey.” You smile again, much more awkward this time.

“Hey.” He returns the same thin lipped smile.

It’s quiet for a few seconds. Carmen swears the whole café has gone silent in that moment, leaving the two of you to listen to the sound of your own breathing and heartrate picking up. You’re not sure where to look, not being used to being in such an intimate setting with him.

“Do you want a coffee?”

“Sorry I was late.”

You both talk over each other, and the urge to chuckle about it overtakes you. Carmen can’t help but smile as well. You seem nervous, and somehow that puts him a little more at ease. Like he’s not the only one who’s in their head about it.

“Sorry, I, uhm, yeah— I would like a coffee.” You scramble over your words. “Please.”

“Sure,” he nods, “and no worries.”

“Hm?”

“That you were late. I haven’t been here that long either.” He lied. He’d been there half an hour early, cursing himself for letting him sit along with his thoughts for that long and psyching himself out into almost leaving.

You both order and another heavy silence sits between you two. You both know why you’re there, what needs to be talked about. Yet neither of you know how to bring it up.

You’ve lived most of your lives believing this version of each other you had in your minds. Because it kept you grounded. Because it was easier. He never let you in and for the longest time, you were at peace with that. You could have a slightly distant view of who he was, your classmate, your rival. And he could do the same. Keep you out, pretend you were there to keep him on his toes, to always try to outdo him.

Those facades of each other don’t work anymore. The real world has forced you to reconcile with each other, whether you liked it or not.

Your coffee gets brought to your table, and both of you feel this urgency to say something, anything, at least.

“The pastries here are good too, if you want to get one.” He finally broke the awkward silence. He can start with talking about food, something he knows. If all else fails, resort back to that.

“I haven’t tried a pastry besides my own in a long time. Maybe I could learn a thing or two here.” You admit. He knows that feeling. He’s not nearly as adventurous with his food choices as he wants to be, but as a busy chef on the brink of a new entrepreneurship, it’s usually beef sandwiches and frozen meals.

“I think yours were better though.” He takes a sip of his coffee.

“Huh?” You look up, realizing you were avoiding eye contact by staring into your cup.

“The danish I tried at your place. It was fire.”

“Oh. Right. Thank you, we make everything from scratch.”

“I could tell.” He takes another sip. “I guess I— I kinda forgot to tell you that. In the heat of it all.” He huffs to himself. “Food was so good it made me upset.”

“Upset?” His word use frustrates you. Upset is when they forget to give you your sauce with your order. What happened back there was not upset. That was rage. Wrath. You raise an eyebrow and he realizes he said something wrong.

“Well, more than upset. Listen, I— We need to talk about what happened.” His blue eyes peer into your own. They’re almost distracting enough to avoid you noticing his fidgeting hands.

“I’m listening.” You lean back slightly in your seat. You’d played nice with Carmen all your life, given him every chance to return it. Now it was his turn to try.

"Right." Of course he has to talk. It's his fault, isn't it? He's the one who snapped-- why did he even imply you'd have to explain yourself? He runs a hand through his hair, and there he goes again, eyes darting across the café to find something to focus on as he sought out the right words. You'd almost find it endearing, how bad he is at this, if it wasn't so important to you.

"You don't do this often, do you?"

"What, like-- meeting up for coffee?"

"Talking about stuff. Your feelings and shit." You hid your slightly amused smile behind your coffee cup before taking a small sip.

"Oh. Yeah, no, I-- I don't. Not until recently." He takes a deep breath. Just like they had told him to. “I’ve been going to this therapy thing my sister recommended. S’not much, but… It’s a start. Talked about the restaurant, my brother—“

“Your brother?” Your eyebrows raise slightly.

“Yeah, my— my brother. Mikey.” He looks a bit surprised. He’s come to the shattering realization that he’s never told you anything about his personal life, ever. You don’t even know about one of the most important people in his life, his main drive. You’ve known each other for so long yet you know so little. “I never told you about him?”

“You never told me anything.” You answer curtly. “We never really… Talked, you know?”

“Yeah— yeah, you’re right. I just thought… Wow.” He smiles, more out of shock than anything. He feels so stupid. How immature is it to be feuding this much with a person who doesn’t know anything about you?

“I guess I really don’t know much about you either.” His fingers rake through his messy curls again. “Makes me feel like even more of an idiot for going off on you like that. Like I had you all figured out.”

“Yeah, that was uh... That was something." The mood shifts a little. His smile fades as soon as he sees the melancholy in your eyes return. Of course it wouldn't be that easy for you to forgive him, to feel better about all this. "You know, I never knew you thought of me like that." A small smile graces your features. Somehow it's sadder than the expression you had before.

"I mean, I knew you didn't like me. I was pretty much at peace with the fact that you were never going to like me, either. But I never thought you hated me that much." You sniffle, trying your hardest to blink away any oncoming tears. "Like your life, your entire career, would have been easier without me there at all."

His heart aches at the sight of you, all teary eyed and trying to be brave. You're much braver than him. Sadness is a much harder thing to express than anger. He's starting to figure that out more and more.

"I don't hate you." He starts. He sees the confusion contort your features, and he knows he's not making any sense. "I mean I did-- I did hate you. Or, maybe not you, just... The fucked up idea I had of you. And-- and that was on me, that was my own fault." He feels an urge to touch you; to rub your back, hold your hand, anything to comfort you. It's tearing him apart to know that he's the cause of all this.

"But why?" A single tear rolls down your cheek, leaving a wet streak on your skin in its wake. "Why did you think that about me? I-- I get that we had a little rivalry going but jesus Carmen, did you really think I spent my whole culinary school career trying to outdo you?"

"To be honest... Yeah." He feels ashamed. So ashamed. He hopes the waitress doesn't walk by and listen to any of this, see you crying, and make you feel even worse. "Cooking was always just... My thing. If I was good for anything, it would be that. So seeing you do so well at something I'd started to base my whole existence around, it made me jealous, so fucking jealous." He meets your eyes, even if it's hard. You have to know he's being sincere.

"And it's-- it's unfair, it's so unfair to you, I know, and I'm really fuckin' sorry. I'm trying to work on myself, on everything, and I hope I can prove that to you." His face has that red tint you recognize whenever he's nervous or stressed. You can tell this is taking a lot from him.

"Is that really all? You were just jealous?" Your voice is quieter, fragile almost.

"I don't know. I wanna think it's that simple but I really don't know. There's a lot I don't understand about me, or you, or us. My mind doesn't know how to react when I see you anymore I think, now that things are different." He takes a deep breath, like saying that took a physical toll on him. "You have this-- this weird effect on me, and I don't know how to cope with it. I think it was just easier to be mad at you than to be anything else."

Anger is easier to express than sadness. The easiest out of all emotions, actually. Sometimes a little too easy.

You look to the side, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand. You huff out something close to a laugh, and though he’s caught off guard by it, he doesn’t mind it. Even if you’re laughing at him, at least that means you’re not crying.

“You’ve got issues Berzatto. You know that?”

“Yeah. I’ve been told.” He smiles, and it’s heartfelt this time. Not nervous, or sad, or awkward. He’s happy to see you a little more at ease.

“It’s just really crazy to me.” You trace your finger over the edge of your coffee cup as you talk. “I spent so much time in culinary school looking up to you. And then I find out you were always just trying to keep up with me.”

Carmen’s eyebrows raise a little at your words. “Looked up to me?”

“Yeah, like… Your drive, your passion, it’s so impressive. Always looking to improve, to do better, it just— it inspired me to do better too. As cheesy as that may sound.” You smiled. “S’why I opened up in Chicago, you know.”

“Really? Huh.” He leaned back in his seat.

“Because I wanted to work with you. Or for you. Either would have been fine with me.” You sigh. “I like owning my own place, but… I don’t know, for some reason I always imagined us working together.” You smiled. “Is that stupid?”

“No,” he replied quickly, “no not at all, I— I totally get that.” He’s quiet for a few seconds, and you can practically hear the gears turning in his head when he stares at you for a moment.

“I mean you’re a remarkable chef, really, like— insanely remarkable, and, well, we’re revamping the restaurant completely right now. We need people— more people, new people, and so, I was wondering— or I’ve been thinking—“ He stops himself from losing his breath from all his rambling, before he freaks you out even more than he already has.

“I want you to come work for us at the Bear.” He puts his hands together, as if he’s about to beg. “Please.”

You can almost hear yourself blinking out of confusion. There’s suddenly no more loud silences, no, the café seems dead quiet for once. All you can do is stare at him, wait for a laugh, because clearly this was a joke right? There’s no way Carmen Berzatto, chef supreme, arch nemesis of yours, would want you anywhere near him, let alone work in his own establishment.

“I’m sorry?”

He feels stupid already. You had every reason to say no. He’d been the biggest asshole in the world to you, he’d kept his distance all his life, and now he expects you to be his employee. Or, well, colleague, more so.

“I’m uh— we’re redoing the restaurant entirely. New equipment, new staff, new everything.” He swallows; the thought of everything that needed to be done arises for a moment. “We need people that work hard, who know what they’re doing and who are passionate about it. And I barely know anyone who’s better at what you do than yourself.” He pauses, waiting for you to stop him. But you don’t.

“So I’m asking if you’d work for me. With me. It won’t be anything like old days, if anything I— I need to learn from you.” He scoffs at himself. “Could take a thing or two about how to communicate with my staff.”

You smile, and he genuinely thinks you’re about to start laughing at him. You chuckle, but it’s not mean, it’s honest. Cute.

“You know, you have great timing.” You grin.

“I do?” the smile on his face reflects the hope he feels.

“One of my chefs wants to take over the place for me. Well, has been wanting to. I haven’t had an exact reason to say yes to her yet.” You shrugged. “Guess I do now.”

“…Is that you saying yes?”

“It’s definitely not me saying no.” Your eyes meet his, and there’s something between you both that’s different now. It’s not like there’s a switch that’s been flipped. It‘s more like this conversation was the turning page of a new chapter.

“I’ll think about it. I want to see it first. Maybe talk to some of your staff.” Carmen’s chest strains a little when he thinks about you interacting with Richie. Then he’s reassured when he thinks about you interacting with Sydney or Marcus. You’d fit in well, you have great feeling for people.

“Yeah— yeah, I get that. Totally. I can arrange that. Uhm, we’re renovating right now, actually, it’s all really kinda wild, but if you wanna stop by, chat with Syd, or Nat, or talk about the plans, let me know. I’m sure they’d love to talk to you.” He’s not lying, you seem like you’d get along well with them. Especially Sydney. Your thinking processes are very similar to each other. And to his.

Carmen gets the bill, even though you try to pay for it.

“It’s just a coffee, just let me get this one.”

You let him have this one, simply because you can’t argue with him after the conversation you just had. You’re in too good of a mood after his proposition too.

He walks you to your car, hands in his pockets when you reach it. It’s cold outside, and his breath comes out in visible puffs of air. His nose is a little red, but you think it looks cute.

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” he starts, “I know you didn’t have to. Like— after how I acted to you. But— But I really do appreciate that you’re givin' me a chance here.” He’d always been confused about how positive and faithful you were in people. He never thought he’d be grateful for those exact features too.

“No worries, I… I had a good time. I’m glad we talked.” The keys jingle as you fidget with them. Among them is a keychain in the shape of a cherry, he recognizes it. It reminds him of how little you’ve both changed. And how much.

“Yeah.” He sighs. Relieved, almost. “Me too. But I’ll let you leave, might wanna tell your chef the good news.”

“Good news?” You quirk an eyebrow.

“That you’re selling them the business.”

“I haven’t decided yet, Carm.” You scoff. But he can tell you have, you look too excited about it all to not have your mind made up yet. It excites him too. Scares him a bit as well, but what’s a new chapter without a bit of tension?

“Right. Sorry.” He huffs. “Just text me when you wanna head over to see the place. It’s uh… It’s a work in progress, but it’s getting somewhere.”

“I believe you. I’m looking forward to it.” You lean back against your car a little.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“See y’around?” You unlock it and walk up to the driver’s side.

“Course. Uh, don’t be a stranger.”

You grin, leaning down to get into the vehicle. “Never with you, Berzatto.”

He watches you drive off, standing in the cold for far longer than any sensible person has any business standing there. But he feels good. He feels warm.

He thinks about what you said to him before you left. You were right, you were never a stranger to him. You were always like a constant in his life; whether you were actually present or not. And even if he didn’t know that much about you, which he was insistent on changing, you were never a stranger.

Never with him.

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[omgrachwrites]

World on Fire - Chapter Two

Pairing: Carmy Berzatto x Reader

Summary: A funeral and a job offer pull you back to Chicago. Back to him.

Warnings: fluff, angst, swearing

A/N: I know that non of this fits with canon but lets just go with it! I hope you guys enjoy this and please let me know what you think! I love you all! xxx

Chapter Two

The smile you threw Meg was apologetic as you dragged a comb through your hair and ran down the stairs in search of your shoes. You’d had a crazy twelve hour shift at the hospital – Meg was thrilled to have to stay with your parents – and you’d overslept. Meg looked so much like her dad as she narrowed her eyes at you and folded her arms.

“I’m sorry baby,” you kissed her forehead, “you look nice. Ready for the party?” Meg was having a good time in school – despite her complaints about it – she’d been invited to her best friend’s brothers party that ‘The Beef’ was catering for.

“Mum, we’re gonna be late!”

“We won’t be, sweetie, I promise. I’m ready,” you toed your shoes on and then you were out the door.

Thankfully, you had missed the early morning rush and you made your way through the streets without too much hassle. You glanced over at Meg who was gazing out of the window, she’d taken to Chicago a lot quicker than you thought she would have. Better than you had taken to it anyway.

“Called your dad today?” you asked.

Meg hummed in response as she glanced back at you, “yeah. He says he misses us, misses you.”

You sighed as you glanced back at the road, “Meg, me and your dad are not getting back together. We tried, it didn’t work.”

Meg made a face, “then you need a date.”

You laughed, “what makes you think that I need a date?”

“Because you’re cranky.”

You raised an eyebrow as you pulled up outside the house, “I don’t think so,” you scoffed as you looked over at her, “I’ll pick you up at 6, okay?”

Meg nodded, “are you sure that you don’t want to come in? Your friend Richie will be there.”

You smiled as you tucked a flyaway curl behind her ear, “I’m sure baby, you have a great time.”

Meg kissed your cheek and got out of the car, you watched her head up to the house and made sure she got in okay. You didn’t restart the engine, you sat there for a couple of moments, looking up at the house as you debated on whether you should actually go in or not. After a good few minutes you decided to listen to your daughter and join the party.

It was Richie who opened the door, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth, “hey,” he grinned, pulling you in for a one armed hug, “good to see you.”

You laughed as you hugged him back, “and you. Jimmy won’t mind that I’m here, right?”

“Nah, course not. C’mon, let’s go and grab some food.”

Richie led you through the crowded house and into the backyard. Meg was talking to a guy with curly hair who was cooking hot dogs on the grill. As you came outside with Richie, Meg turned to look at you.

“Mum, you came!”

The guy Meg was talking to turned around and you felt the smile slip from your face as you stared at the handsome man. His hair was a little longer than it had been in high school, a couple of scars littered his cheek and he’d gotten some tattoos. His eyes though, his eyes were the same.

“Y/N,” he breathed, you didn’t know how to feel about him saying your name like that after so long. You wanted to hate it, you wanted to hate him. But you didn’t.

“Carmy, you’re back,” you didn’t know what else to say. Why hadn’t Richie told you he was back? Carmy nodded as he stared at you, the atmosphere was a little awkward. That was until Richie spoke.

“You gonna fuckin’ stare at her cuz, or are you gonna get her a hot dog?”

You laughed as Carmy rolled his eyes and he began to make you a fresh hot dog. Meg went over to join her friends as Richie poured you a cup of the luminous green punch.

“This meant to be the shit from Ghostbusters?” you asked, giving it a tentative sniff. Richie nodded and you took a small sip, “it’s good,” you laugh.

Richie went to cause chaos elsewhere, leaving you with Carmy. You thanked him as he passed you a hot dog and you slathered the sauce on top.

“So, you’ve got a kid huh?” he started with a raised eyebrow, when you nodded he busied himself with dishing up more hot dogs for the kids, muttering beneath his breath, “never knew that you wanted kids.”

You scoffed as you took a bite of the hot dog, trying to ignore how good it tasted, “well you know we never really got to have that conversation did we?” your voice was unintentionally bitter and you saw Carmy almost recoil.

“Yeah I know. Look, Y/N, I’m,” you cut him off, you didn’t have time for this.

It was funny, you had waited years for an apology but now, you didn’t want to hear it, “Carmy, you don’t have to say anything. Y’know, I can’t blame you for how you felt.”

The guilt was clear in his eyes and that honestly wasn’t your intention. You couldn’t say that you were necessarily happy to see him back but you weren’t going to be a complete child about it. You took another bite of the hot dog as you let the silence stretch between you, the only sound was the sizzle of the grill and the party going on inside the house.

“I’m really sorry about Mikey, Carmy.”

He let out a nervous laugh as he bent over the grill, refusing to look at you. He’d always been that way when he was nervous, “thanks, that’s er, that’s really nice of you. I know how much he meant to you as well, so y’know, I’m sorry too,” he smiled as he finally met your eyes, looking vulnerable and lost, “he left me the restaurant, Y/N. In his will.”

You couldn’t say that you were surprised, Mikey loved that restaurant and he loved his brother even more. What did surprise you was the bitter look on his face, it seemed as though a lot had happened while you were in London. But, you weren’t going to unpack that right now.

“That’s why you’re back?”

He nodded as he ran his hands through his hair, looking conflicted, “need to get the restaurant up to scratch.”

“And then?”

Carmy scoffed, rubbing a hand down his tired face, “and then. I don’t know,” he swore beneath his breath as he tried to squirt some ketchup onto the hot dogs but none came out.

You laughed a little as you watched him shake the bottle, his brow furrowed, “need some more ketchup?”

“Yeah, yeah, that would be great thank you.”

You nodded at him as you walked back into the house, managing to make your way through the group of pre-teens as you headed for the kitchen. You opened the fridge and found a half empty bottle of ketchup towards the back of the fridge and you grabbed more relish in case Carmy needed it.

As you turned to go back outside you saw Richie arguing with Jimmy and you walked over to them. Jimmy greeted you with a welcoming smile, “hey kid. Good to see you.”

“And you, Jimmy,” you smiled before you glared at Richie, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Carmy was back!” you hissed.

Richie held up his hands in mock defence and plastered an innocent look on his face, “it didn’t seem important.”

You scoffed, “didn’t seem important? Oh, and I suppose you told Syd not to mention anything either?” you’d met Syd at the restaurant on a day when Carmy clearly wasn’t there and you guys had become pretty close.

“Look, Y/N! I don’t know what you want me to fuckin say, you were heartbroken when you and Carm split. Sorry if I didn’t want to upset you.”

Richie’s words made you feel guilty but you pushed it right down. You shook your head as you pushed past him and went back outside to Carmy. Natalie was out there talking to Carmy but she looked pissed, she’d told you that she wasn’t coming and had conveniently left out the part about Carmy being back. Did everyone think you couldn’t handle it?

She waved at you as you came outside and she pulled you into a hug, “hey, you.”

“Hey,” you smiled as you put the bottle of ketchup and relish on the table, “good to see you. Thought you weren’t coming.”

She shrugged as she glared over at Carmy, “thought it was stupid not to come just because I’m pissed with Carmy. I’d never go anywhere if that was the case,” she laughed, when she realised what she’d said she shot you an apologetic look before she quickly changed the subject, “how’s work?”

You made a non-committal noise as you poured yourself another cup of the punch, “it’s going pretty well. Meg isn’t exactly thrilled with having to spend the nights that I’m at work at my mom’s.”

Nat laughed and pulled a face, you knew by her look that she remembered what your mom was like, “I’ll take her when you have to work.”

“No, Nat. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

She laughed, “well that’s good because you’ll notice that I didn’t ask, she’s a great kid.”

Carmy nodded in agreement as he looked up at you, “she is, looks a lot like you.”

You laughed as you watched your daughter with her friends, “yeah, she’s got her dad’s attitude though.”

“Is he awful?” Carmy asked.

You looked up at him, his cheeks and nose were red from the cold and his curls were blowing in the wind slightly. There was genuine interest in his blue eyes as he waited for you to answer his question.

You sighed and looked away from him, shaking your head, “no, her dad’s great, we just um,” you trailed off, “let’s just say Meg was the only good thing to come out of our relationship.”

Carmy opened his mouth to reply but he was cut off when Meg walked over, “Mr Carmy, can I get another hot dog?”

Carmy grinned, “sure kid.”

You watched with a smile as Carmy quickly whipped up a hot dog, helping her put on the mustard along with the crispy onions and relish. When you and Nat approached Meg with the idea of her staying with Nat while you were at work. The look of relief on her face unfortunately told you that your mom was just as awful to your daughter as she was to you.

After the party you were driving home and you couldn’t ignore the happy look on Meg’s face as she ate another hot dog. Carmy had made her one for the road.

“You know mum, if you’re not getting back with dad, you should date Carmy.”

You laughed, “oh god, you don’t think he’s cute do you?”

Meg made a face, “ew no! He’s old like you but he’s really nice mum, he’s really nice to you.”

You held back a scoff, if only she knew. You hadn’t forgiven Carmy, and you probably never would, “yeah, maybe.”

[akaisenhatake]

behold my hpma ocs, they've been reborn at last

they're not the mc but dw ill post my mc next time

Summarized Info below:

Name: Lan Wang

Alias: Bark

BoD:??? [1996]

Blood Status: Pure-Blood

House: Slytherin

Wand: Cherry wood, 10 1/4 inches, Dragon Heartstring

Best Subject: Care for Magical Creatures

Worst Subject: History of Magic

Friends(?): Cassandra, Frey twins, Sand [@/stupendousbookworm]

Enemies: Whoever he starts beef with.

Other info:

Very Competitive [mostly duelling but he'll challenge you to a speedwalk contest too. Gets mad easily when he loses]

Experienced in Duelling

Raging Simp [ Is constantly fighting with frey twins on who gets to impress cassandra]

Quite tall [taller than the twins and enjoys rubbing it in their face]

Dislikes Ivy [wish he could pick her and toss her out of the window from the tallest tower. Reason is unknown.]

Goes to The Forbidden Forest often [I mean. For one, he wants to practice his spells without sending another student to St. Mungos. Second, he wants to see a dragon. Third, breaking rules are funny]

Protective [He's a ladies man only to cassandra, literally but those fists and spells are gender neutral to his rivals if something happens to Woof]

Parental issues, yes.

Afraid of bugs [will set the room on fire if necessary]

Wears Leather Jacket 24/7 [school uniform ugly]

METAL [he has the vocal point for it, screaming is his talent]

Name: Lan Qi

Alias: Woof

BoD:??? [1997]

Blood Status: Pure-Blood

House: Hufflepuff

Wand: Ash wood, 13 3/4 inches, Dragon Heartstring

Best Subject: Charms

Worst Subject: Potions [Allergic to some ingredients / smell of potions]

Friends: Slythetin Gang, MC & some of the main casts(?)

Enemies: [Doesn't want any]

Other info:

Small & Short

Sleeps in Class [Mostly nocturnal]

Wears Mask [Dislikes her teeth, so she hid it]

Kinda Chill [Makes her an easy target to be bullied but she's used to it by that point]

Decent at duelling [sharp observation]

Ukelele nice :)

Lonely [despite her preference of being left alone, she still can't help but feel lonely

Always wear long sleeves [It's cold outside]

Broom surfing nice :)

Friendly [Though she doesn't go out to make friends, she doesn't mind others wanting to do the same for her.]

Goes to the Forbidden Forest often [Huh, for what? it's not like she can collect potions ingredients or practice burning acromantulas. She doesn't like taking care of magical creatures either. Sure you can say she probably only wants to accompany Bark, but they go there on different times.]

Height Difference

Backstory

Most of the contents about their past life are currently unknown, as they avoid sharing their personal life. Though, Bark constantly complains about how relieved he felt to 'not share bed with other children', solidifying the idea both siblings used to be in an orphange. He also appears to have gotten his eyebrow scar from a 'fight' while he was exploring the woods right before starting Hogwarts.

Current Story

While their existence don't change much of the plotline, MC and the casts will have to deal with another Slytherin twat for the time being. Bark, being the most aggressive out of the three, probably starts more fights and arguments. Although he doesn't win in most of them, they should still keep an eye out on him, as quoted by his sister.

Woof in the first few years mostly lurks around behind, considering she doesn't have much to do with the events happening in the current plotline. She appears in a few class sessions with MC, but it's only her sleeping in most of them. They might bump into her while exploring the Forbidden Forest, but she'll excuse herself to continue whatever she was doing before interrupted.

Profile content will change as the canon story progresses.

[triglycercule]

what do you think of murder time trio poly

i thought someone would never ask.

murder time trio poly is like the sun is to a plant. me being the plant of course. without it i simply could not live a satisfactory life and would die out. i have so much to say about them

see now WHY is the ship so damn good?? because they're practically made for each other without even knowing it like hello why are these three characters with the same origin point so perfect for eachother despite having different backstories and personalities. the creators were all across the world yet these three fit so well together you might as well think that SAS rahafwabas and askdusttale communicated telepathically to place all these parallels and dynamics into theri aus. they have so much chemistry together even when theyre not being shipped it's unreal. you will never see them apart in art because they're the mtt. they literally have their own trio name that's how iconic they are together (they mightve stolen it from the bad time trio but its ok its ok they deserve it). you don't see any other characters beings referred to those names aside from the bad sanses and star sanses so that just shows how awesome they are together

they don't even have to be in love to be good with eachother like hello. even in their duos theyre so good for eachother but it feels incomplete without all three. and the best part is that they don't even know eachother canonically so it's completely up to personal interpretation how you think they would be together. like canon is already juicy enough already but theres still so many other interpretations based on aus or headcanons or literally just who is thinking about them (i love seeing other people's interpretations of the mtt because its always so different. you will never find two versions of them that are the same from two different people)

dust and killer have their beef with eachother where they hate the other for what theyve done but it's onesided mostly from dust. dust doesn't like him but he tries to avoid him (canonically. ya i read the dusttale blog and you should too) and yeah killer has a grudge against him because dust is an asshole but he just keeps bothering him and getting up into his business because hes curious and needs entertainment to distract himself and slowly but surely they start warming up to eachother and become frienemies. they will NEVER truly become full friends because they simply are too traumatized to do so. dust will always resent killer for teaming up with the human and killer will never be able to get dust to forgive him because he is permanently stuck as killer sans but they can try. they can try to be friends even if they fucking hate eachothers guts. they can stab eachother and then go patch themselves up. they won't help the other tend to their wounds but they will offer some offhand comments here and there if killer misses a gash or dust forgets about a bone he needs to fix. this is as healthy as they get but it's okay. the mutual rage is what makes kist work

like kist horror and dust don't like eachother either. it's a mutual thing for all three of them that they fucking hate eachother. but unlike kist (or horrorkiller aswell) horrordust are the "nicest" to each other. dust pities horror. he feels bad that horror had to go through something terrible all at the hands of a human just like he did. he knows that horror did some questionable things (why in horror's not so right mind did he think feeding papyrus HUMAN FLESH was a good idea. he understands why and all but it still upsets him) but it's not like dust will comment on it. dust doesn't have the right to after all the bullshit he did. but horror hates this he hates that dust pities him. he KNOWS what he did was wrong and he absolutely resents being reminded of what he did, or even getting the slightest bit of pity for himself (because nobody should feel bad for him especially after all he did. he doomed the underground and ruined his papyrus and changed everyone for the worse out of rage). horror and dust mutually avoid eachother (dust out of respect and horror out of disrespect 💀💀) but they eventually have a few interactions. they get along FINE. they have some passive aggressive bickering mostly started by horror and dust fires back but overall their relationship is courteous. they do get into fights but unless both of them are in a REALLY bad mood theyll likely just leave the other before it gets physical. they would get along fine if they could just fucking trust eachother but they don't. that tension will always be there where they judge eachother

horrorkiller is similar to kist. except not. like with dust, horror probably really doesn't like killer for similar reasons and killer probably bothers horror out of curiosity too. except the way they react is different from kist/horrordust. horror doesn't explode like dust does when killer riles him up. instead he just insults him back passive aggressively with no fire behind it because he knows that killer's just looking for entertainment (he also thinks killer's below him. probably.) killer is ngl intrigued by this. he wants to know what will make horror snap just like dust does at him. so he tries to make his insults more and more mean, but horror can actually spit back without getting mad and it bothers killer. he tries sabotage (pranks) but it turns out that horror likes pranks. what will it take for killer to piss him off??? (it's insulting actions like killing a papyrus literally infront of horror and making it a mockery it's disrespecting food in front of horror with intent to piss him off etc etc) but it takes killer a long ass time to figure this out and by then hes kinda become somewhat decent friends with horror (friendsISH. a canonesque murder time trio will never truly become friends with eachother)

"okay but triglycercule you fiend. none of this is about murder time trio POLY. this is about them as friends and you should never speak again." i hear you disembodied voice in my head but let me tell you this: mttpoly is literally just them as friends. and you wannanknow why its because of qprs. yaaaa personally i don't think that a canonesque mtt would be anything more than a qpr. dust wouldnt be interested in romantic partners (i think dusttale blog said that. dusttale blog i love you.) horror would rather die and have bis corspe fed to undyne than even think of doing anything non plstonic with either of those losers and killer just does not give a damn about the specifics of their relationship (because he's cool like that) and ya sure there are versions of them out there who might be more than a QPR and i wholeheartedly love those idas because i love these three but my personal canon(ish. nothing is truly canon unless it comes out of the holy mtt trinity of creators) interpretations. also none of this even considers the whole boatload of aus and personal hcs and other stuff that other contexts and people who can take these templates of characters that have never met and make them into something amazing with their interactions

but yeah. i just think theyre neat

[yonderlyporcupine]

haha something I find hilarious that no one else seems to mentioning but I’m pretty sure the implication is that Alastor sabotaged that chandelier that fell right before Lucifer’s big musical number in Dad beat Dad. Hence why he wasn’t surprised when everyone else was and his really pissy expression right after it hits the ground without succeeding in taking Luci with it. 😂 he was trying to kill him 😂😂

on the subject of Al’s untoward beef with the king of hell: while I entirely understand and even agree with the sentiment that it is most likely related to his ties with Lilith, I can’t help but suggest in jest a simpler explanation. Has no one considered that he just might hold some contempt for the ruler and supposed protector of hell for folding his hand and agreeing to a mass genocide of sinners - of which, of course Alastor is a part of? Maybe he’s just a little miffed that he has to spend any amount of time contemplating his own survival once a year during an Angel blitz attack 🤷‍♀️

In all seriousness y’all know that’s why Lilith and Lucifer divorced right? Like Lil loved hell in that cute little story from the beginning. She adored her kingdom and it’s citizens and the fact that her husband just said (in simple terms bc it does seem like he fought a hard fight against heaven about it) “just go ahead and kill everyone” - that would break Lilith’s heart. And I imagine her trust in him too. I wouldn’t want to stay married to that. And if Lilith owns Alastor - and we know from experience that contractor’s beefs are transferable to the souls they contracted (the vees should have just as much of a problem with Husker and Nifty as they do with Al) then Alastor hating Lucifer makes perfect sense. And we know Al’s clever and manipulative, so the whole “your kid calls me dad” shit is 100% just him trolling Lucifer.

anyway, the flack I’m seeing that episode get is funny to me because it seems to be from the same people who like to cherry pick what Hazbinwiki facts they think are canonical and ignoring any of the rest 🤷‍♀️. I liked it, I thought it was very tongue in cheek. And I get a kick out of having the wiki trivia payoff but I didn’t feel it was necessary. For those of you wondering it is stated in his trivia that Alastor dislikes Lucifer because he finds him cloying - he thinks respectable men should act respectably and feels Lucifer does not. And he’s a word class troll so he had some fun. There is probably more to come if that as the story/show unfolds but that’s the context y’all are missing.

one more thing: Alastor was already furious when he got out to the parlor. He’s grumpy before he even sees the decorations. I would go as far as to say he even seems tired and stressed the whole episode (that sigh at “what is it” to Husk, my man was fighting for what little sanity he came to hell with). Who else do we know who’s a contracted soul who gets grumpy and trigger happy at certain times? Angel comes home from shoots usually ready to fly off the handle. Alastor is already pissed to high heaven to be involved in the hotel (or at least he seems to be at times), add a long night of working for his contractor… that temper is a trait he canonically keeps well under wraps usually. He definitely didn’t mean to let loose on Husk like that, only because he gave away far more than he meant to, not because he genuinely feels bad for Husk.

[orionsangel86]

About the twinklify the twink? That's why I don't go full Dreamling. I have nothing against it, but they way they get twisted 90% of the times is just "uhh that not my Dream" for me. And same with all the Dark Morpheus x f/m reader. "That's not my Morpheus" and it's ok, because a) fanfiction keeps the media alive until the next piece we can get and b) fanfiction keeps people alive too, no matter what they picture. So, it's ok to feel like this, I guess.

I think that's the main takeaway from this. YKINMK after all. I'm a firm believer of "do what you want always" though of course, that doesn't mean you should be free from criticism, it just means maybe don't take criticism to heart ya know? This doesn't mean people should go onto others posts and fanfics and complain! God no! But people should be allowed to complain in their own posts - so long as anything particularly harsh isn't put in the main tags or is tagged accordingly. Like of course people aren't always gonna love everything you do, and sometimes when certain headcanons and ideas get bastardised by fanon echo chambers they become so far removed from canon that you are basically writing an OC with your fave characters face, but that's okay if it brings you joy. Just don't expect everyone to love and adore it ya know?

The problem I have with the extra twinkification of characters in ship dynamics is that I have a problem with m/m ships being twisted so far away from their canon counterparts that one party becomes obviously "feminine" and the other obviously "masculine". By which I mean one character is made extra skinny frail and delicate, submissive, virginal, pure, and always ALWAYS the bottom. The other character becomes huge and muscular and hairy and masculine, and take the role of protector and dominating and experienced and is ALWAYS the top.

Do you see what I mean? This has been prevailent in fandom culture since day 1 of course, and its a huge pet peeve of mine. I do view it as somewhat problematic because it feels like trying to fit a mlm ship into a heternormative box. Its a layered mess of misogyny and homophobia wrapped up in a fandom bow. It was worse years ago, during the SuperWhoLock days, and I will forever be grateful to Misha Collins for beefing up so much he enabled Cas to beat the effeminate twink allegations (knowing Mollins he probably came across a particularly bad fanfic or fanart and then spent several hours staring at himself in a mirror before throwing himself into an intensive gym routine).

I don't think its too prevailent in Dreamling fics, though I guess when you have a whole episode devoted to showing how Dream is pale, thin, beautiful, ethereal, completely hairless, and trapped, its easy to see why fandoms minds went to "twink" and then to "we need to find him a saviour". But I do wish the power dynamic would be a bit more balanced. Dream is no wilting flower. He is all pure lean muscle. He is no frail delicate thing. He has the body of a long distance marathon runner. He is power and self righteousness and fury and control. Yeah, he may be submissive with his lovers, but he's hardly inexperienced.

Hob is also in no way a macho man. He's hairy sure, but that's basically it. He actually isn't all that more muscular than Dream, he's only slightly broader, and he's not taller - I think they are the same height? Again, to stress, people can do what they want always. But please do take time to branch outside of the fandom echo chambers and refamiliarise yourself with canon once in a while. Especially when those echo chambers are leaning towards problematic dynamics like those mentioned above.

This is by no means a dig at any individuals, at any creative works I have come across or anything else of the sort. I just sometimes find the fanon echo chambers and widely accepted headcanons a bit irritating, especially when they don't fit with canon. It's fine on a small scale. I am not the person who is gonna comment "he would not fucking say that" because its mean and those posts are mean. It's when the whole fandom seems to adopt certain ideas, and suddenly any deviation from those ideas seems wrong to fandom at large. It becomes difficult to counter those ideas without suddenly being labelled a hater. Look at all the ridiculous discourse in Good Omens fandom because of how deeply far removed from the original source material the fandom took the characters over the 4 year gap between seasons? They were literally going into Neil Gaimans inbox complaining when season 2 deviated from widely accepted fanon headcanons! To the point that Neil had to clarify that what they were complaining about was never canon to begin with!!

Anyway, this post is probably controversial enough without me prattling on any further. Let me stress one last time that you can do what you want always, and everyone should be able to play in the sandbox however they want - just please check yourselves and your prejudices and do consider if the tropes you are encouraging have any harmful implications before throwing yourself into them.

[disclosed-spire]

1, 9 and 10 for the ask game.

1. the character everyone gets wrong.

To me, it'd be Rivulet or Artificer.

Rivulet because I don't think people actually take into account how smart they really are. Rivulet isn't some ADHD fast slugcat on rain world's mushrooms or anything. Riv is fast not because they're hyper or something, but it's because they have death constantly looming over their shoulders because of the rain. They practiced being fast so they wouldn't die. Not only that, but Rivulet performed the iterator equivalent of a heart transplant, and in my head, that would be extremely difficult to do. Rivulet is extremely smart, and I don't see them get a lot of credit for this

The other one would be Artificer. Even though Arti has a lot of grief on her shoulders (and I get it. Artificer did NOT have to go through that. What she went through was absolutely horrible, and nobody should have to), I feel that trying to kill an entire species is taking it way too far. Artificer isn't badass for killing every scavenger on sight, she's actually just committing reckless murder because the victim so happens to be a scavenger. Cheiftian Scavenger didn't even know Arti or what happened, Arti just killed an innocent scavenger out of blind rage. This is hinted at multiple times in Arti's campaign as well. Arti's dreams about killing scavengers have the most twisted music to accompany them, Arti is stuck at karma 1 as punishment, Five Pebbles even calls Arti out saying that he finds it appalling. I'd say that Artificer has gone way too far with killing scavengers, as I think she became obsessed, given the dreams. I love Arti, don't get me wrong! It's just that the cannon existence of Arti is extremely messed up though because of the reckless murder.

This is also why I love the interpretations of Artificer trying to make up for the past mistakes, and not going through with killing Chieftain.

9. worst part of canon.

Hm... This one is a tough one. I like almost everything about Rain World, and like to see the positives for even the things I dislike strangely enough.

I'd have to say Saint's ending. If anyone hasn't guessed by now, Saint is my favorite slugcat for a multitude of reasons. I just dislike the ending. Saint is stuck in a permanent hell basically, and it drives me nuts trying to think about what happens in the future future. When the void sea finally eats away at the world, does Saint fall into Rubicon, leave, then only to fall back in again because there's no solid ground? What happens when every iterator is finally ascended? Do they just wander the world ascending the smaller creatures instead? What happens when there's nothing left? A lot of these are probably irrelevant, and might not make sense, as I also doubt some of the questions too. (Mainly the void sea eating away at everything one, and the nothing left to ascend one too) Saint's ending leaves me with more questions than answers, and leaves me generally confused.

Despite this, I also still like Saints ending at the same time. The game leaves it up to headcannons to find out what happens to Saint, and I've got my own headcannons with it to ease my own mind

If you mean only PURELY dislike, I'd say Rain Deer AI, but that's cheating bc almost everyone hates it.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I think The Cheiftian Scavenger needs more love. I like to think that they're kind and that they make sure that their scav colony thrives, and cares a lot about their people. Five Pebbles having beef with the scavengers is actually just a huge miscommunication, and if he communicated with the scavengers better, I'm sure they would've understood.

If the scavengers can understand and set up pearl tolls, echoes, and make graffiti, I'm sure they would understand that they're actually hurting Five Pebbles, or at the very least, putting him in distress. Five Pebbles just didn't communicate it well enough. *cough cough* Not the first time he failed to communicate either *cough cough*

If you want to have a friendly debate with me about these, go ahead! I'm open to hearing other perspectives and changing my thoughts!

[cherryblossomsandhydrangeas]

Sk8 Rewatch Ep4

Cherry, babe, you should focus on more important shit than this asshole. He’s not worth it anymore. Dare I say, he’s never been worth it.

God, my skin is crawling. Move away from the children you son of a bitch. Now I remember why I could only watch a couple episodes at a time the first time I watched this.

Joe, babe, you don’t really think that three bowls of ramen are gonna be covered by a 1000yen do you?

Aww, Miya not wanting Reki to get hurt. 😢😢😢

So, Shadow would have had to stop by his house to get his costume and makeup before taking the boys to S. I wonder what the kids thought of his house.

Ok, so in the previous ep, Adam was pretending not to know Miya, but then it’s revealed in this one that Adam just, talked to him from above the training area and started showing up every now and again giving advice. Ok. Wanna tell me how nobody thought it was strange (Miya’s coach mayhaps who should be watching him) that this politician kept showing up to talk to this one kid like a devil over his shoulder.

“So he’s [Langa] the reason Adam returned?” Kaoru, darling, playing ignorant is not a good look for you.

Shadow probably worked a long shift at the flower shop so it’s no surprise that he fell asleep in the car while Reki practiced, but it is still cute and funny.

I wanna have a word with Miya’s parents and coach about this so called “diet”.

He just...gets ready in the car like batman.

Tadashi: Hey, you have work in the morning. You sure you don’t want to postpone mauling this teenager? Adam: Shut up, dog, this won’t take long!

So, Adam was slightly considering beefing Cherry and Joe at the same time before Reki interrupted. Cherry said Adam already knew what they were betting, and Adam pretended to forget, and then Adam was about to put his own bet on the table.

Cherry is far stronger than me. I would have swung on his man, swear to god.

Love how Adam’s is gonna call Cherry boring later for using Carla, but he relies on Tadashi to tell him where skaters are on the cameras. It’s almost as if he was talking out of his ass.

Please release him, oh my god!

Langa stole that guys bike (and his phone) to save Reki. Oh no, baby, you’re gonna be too late.

Adam devoured Reki’s blood. Canon demon and there’s nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2022 Anime Overview: Some More Good Food

I’ve talked about three interesting anime about awesome girls from the Spring 2022 season, but what about the rest of my watch list? Well, Spring was smorgasboard of scrumptious shows and here are my thoughts on the rest of what I saw!

(Note I left some in the backlog because there was SO much good-sounding anime this season and I had a feeling summer season would be pretty barren in comparison...and it is. So I’ve recently started Ya Boy Kongming and will probably watch Aharen-San too, but they won’t be getting reviews)

Spy x Family

This one was such a smash hit I don’t feel like I need to say much about it. The golden premise is that we’ve got a highly fictionalized, extremely loosely cold war inspired setting in which a spy needs a fake family to infiltrate a fancy school and stop a war. For this purpose, he just so happens to adopt a daughter, Anya, who’s a telepath (he does not realize this), and then (in part thanks to Anya thinking it would be cool and setting it up) he ends up fake marrying an assassin (without either of them realizing it). The entire family is keeping secrets to each other and desperately trying to pretend to be normal, but despite all the subterfuge, they develop a love for each other that’s clearly real, and find people who can accept them for their weird quirks.

Spy x Family is just a good time, a great mix of action and comedy with loveable characters. It has an extremely broad appeal and the animators clearly knew they had a hit on their hands, because they bought their A-game when it comes to beefing up both the action scenes and the comical expressions and jokes. It’s a top quality treat to watch all the way though.

Pretty much the only thing to watch out for in this anime is the sadly all-too-common character who’s way too obsessed with his sister (and he’s a member of the secret police, so all around garbage person), though since the sister in question is married, much stronger than him, and they’re both adults, it’s far less…horrific than anime can usually get about it. (I will say his dub actor makes him unhinged enough I found myself laughing at some of his lines, and he did fulfill his role as a catalyst for shenanigans).  Having read ahead in the manga, he also doesn’t show up too much.

Overall, SXF is an easy rec. Whether you’re here for ass-kicking, cuteness, or to laugh a bit, it’ll scratch that itch.

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War Season 3

Speaking of animators who always bring their A-game, Kaguya-sama is back and as always it’s a spectacle. Especially the rap episode, which was bonkers and has to be seen to believed. Glad it’s canon Chika said motherfucker...twice. It’s still very funny, but doesn’t quite reach the hilarious heights of the second season and there were a couple more uncomfortable jokes- namely the series’ first ever mention of queerness is Chika mistaking Shirogane and Hayasaka-in-disguise-as-a-boy as being in a relationship and getting excited nosebleeds over it while also mentioning once that she’s “not sure if I should stop them or cheer them on”, so, not great.

However, on the character development front, this season was really great for almost everyone (except Chika, weirdly, because as the other characters have gotten nicer and gained depth, she stays the same and thus comes off meaner. Still pretty funny though!) We got to see Hayasaka assert her needs more with Kaguya, both Kaguya and Shirogane reevaluate their priorities, Ishigami continues the develop in a positive direction and…we make REAL PROGRESS on the central relationship. That’s right, actual solid progress on a will-they-won’t they rom com and the central premise of the series itself is challenged in a satisfying (and fun) way.

One thing that always bugged me a bit was that while we see a lot about what Kaguya sees in Shirogane and how she’s changed because of him, we don’t see her from his point of view and why he likes her as much, and this season actually fixes that by showing how he fell in love with her and how she inspired him and shaped a lot of his time in the school. There was solid growth for the characters and it will be interesting where they go next!

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie

Sometimes you just want to watch a show about good kids being sweet and adorable, and that’s exactly what this series is. Anyone who comes in expecting a strong comedy will be disappointed, but if you’re down for a soothing, slower paced romantic slice of life, you might end up liking it.

The central idea of the series is Izumi is a very terminally unlucky, danger prone soft boi who has a cool, princely girlfriend who protects him, and a I’ve seen a lot of people react like “ugh, are gender roles so restrictive that even having a girl who’s cool AND cute is considered subversive enough center a comedy around” but that like…clearly misses the point of the series, which is allow you to imagine being in the the position where you can watch your girlfriend be cool and dashing and sweep you up in her strong arms, which as a lesbian, I 100% am here for.

‘Cool Girlfriend’ fantasies are nothing new, but what sets Shikimori apart as enjoyable is it doesn’t go into the aspects of that  fantasy that usually lose me- like the part where the average joe boy stumbles into being better than the cool girl at everything, because he can only be worthy if he outdoes her, or the part where the boy doesn’t have to put in any effort while the girl centers her life around him, or the part where she gets her clothes shredded…you get what I’m saying.

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie works because Izumi works just as hard to make Shikimori happy as Shikimori works for him. It’s clear WHY she likes him- he’s genuinely very kind and, despite being cursed by the universe with bad luck, he spends most of his time thinking about the people around him and doing his best with what he has rather than being resentful. He also appreciates Shikimori for who she is and loves her dashing nature. Shikimori and the supporting cast also have enough interiority we’re actually able to spend an entire episode without Izumi in it at all.

Granted, Shikimori’s backstory- “I was just following along imitating other people in my family, which very coincidentally meant I was being more traditionally masculine and doing more masculine activities, until I discovered my TRUE dream (after reading a single chapter of shoujo manga), which just very coincidentally involved being more feminine”- is such a eyerollingly common cliché in anime that Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun parodied it, but the end result is Shikimori discovered she didn’t have to hide the protective, rambunctious “cool” parts of herself even if she wants to be cute too, which while a common ending to this cliche backstory, isn’t a bad message.

It also did that thing I really love in anime like Kimi ni Todoke where two girls are set up to be romantic rivals, but instead a girl is like “well, liking this guy is something we have in common, actually, how could I hate you for having the same feelings I do?” and it becomes a point of bonding and reason for them to be friends. Look, is a little idealistic to hope for that for messy teenagers? Yes. Does it make want to cry and do I still absolutely love seeing a story where, where the cliche of women fighting over a man instead becomes a point of solidarity between girls? Also yes. Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie is a world where good, sweet kids support each other no matter what, and it’s heartwarming to spend time with them. 

In this cute friend group, Shikimori isn’t shamed for being traditionally masculine in some ways and nobody ever gets on Izumi for being in a more traditionally feminine role either. It’s not anything earthshattering or amazing, but it’s a sweet anime and sometimes it’s nice to escape to a world like this and enjoy the chill vibes.

Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 3

Unfortunately, I found this entry of Bookworm to be a lot weaker than its previous seasons, perhaps because of it’s truncated 10 episode runtime. It’s still a good show with interesting world-building and there’s a lot of big status quo shakeups for Myne…but it all feels pretty rushed, especially considered how huge and sad a lot of things that happen at the end are. Light novel fans have mentioned it does dash through the plot comparison to the source material, and that makes me curious to check them out. Basically, still good, had some shakeups, but I was left just a little wanting- that’s really all I have to say about it.

[pokimoko]

🍒 🍊 🍍 n 🥝!

Thank you for the fruit, my fruit. 💜

🍒 What’s your favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)

Platonic for sure! Anything found family is my jam, and I particularly love writing sibling dynamics, blood-related or otherwise. I also like writing F/M friendships because I enjoy them and I think they should be normalised more, honestly (though, truthfully, those always end up falling in the sibling dynamic category as well). I also like writing QPRs, though I haven't really had the opportunity to write many, but they hold a special place in my heart.

🍊 Who’s a character you don’t write for that often, but keep meaning to write for more?

Bucky Barnes, definitely; sure, I wrote one fairly long fic about him, but that was one fic; I was obsessed with the guy long and hard enough that there should be at least a few more. But nope. I did plan out a whole sequel to said long fic as well as prequels but those never really came into fruition unfortunately. Not sure if I'll write for him anyone soon but god I've had so many plot ideas about the guy over the years that I just never wrote. Still fond of the 'Bucky bonds with Cosmo the Space Dog' idea I came up with back in 2021. I wrote a post it note but nothing more. Ah. Maybe one day.

Aside from him, I'd say Jake Lockley. I definitely need to write more of him and I want to. He can be a bit hard to pin down character-wise because we were given nothing more than crumbs, but I also enjoy the freedom that offers too. He definitively hasn't been getting enough love from me. But hopefully that will change soon.

🍍 What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

I generally avoid AUs; in fact, I exclude most of the more popular ones (Collage, High School, Coffee Shop, etc) from my searches because I'm really not fussed about reading them. I just find writers often strip the characters of any distinguishabilty to the point of them being basically a different character (not their fault, really; changing the setting and origin changes the character's experiences and dynamics, which fundamentally changes them, and that can be a difficult thing to wrangle). Some people, though, absolutely excel at using the AU and the worldbuilding therein to explore deeper into the character, their dynamics and motivations from a viewpoint that is different yet still feels like it aligns with what's been established in canon, and I love when it's done right. So I don't avoid AUs completely. Just really picky about them.

As for the ones I like, I like Alternative Universes in the most classic sense of term, where universes are defined by a path not chosen, a mistake not made. That is to say, I really like Canon Divergence and What If? scenarios. Anything that keeps the characters and world somewhat familiar but their dynamics and/or motivations altered. (Also love when alternate selves—or even selves from different points of the same timeline—meet and get to see the verion of themself they could have been if things had been different and/or interact with who they were before that Great Terrible Thing changed them.) For more extreme alterations, I'm not against a well written Fantasy/Sci-fi AU or Fusion AUs (so long as it's not an all-out crossover and the fusion is not all-consuming).

I am not a fan of No Powers/No Magic/Human AUs (or Modern Setting AUs if the original setting isn't modern). That's Just Some Guy in a Just Some Guy world now (which always looks suspiciously like our own). And powers/non-humaness is generally tied up a lot with the character themself, so stripping that from them removes a lot of who they are, in my opinion. And as we established, I'm really picky about characterisation. I don't much care for Soulmate AUs either, but that's a whole amatonormativity essay I won't get into.

Also I wouldn't say I have beef with Coffee Shop AUs, I just will never understand them, and I don't mean in a "urgh why is this so popular" kind of way, I mean I literally don't understand. I don't drink coffee and I've been inside Starbucks maybe once (mostly to gawk because I rarely come across them, even in the city), so words like venti and frappe and just coffee culture in general flies over my head, and I do not care enough about coffee to learn. It is simply a fic space I am not meant to inhabit. I have made my peace with that.

🥝 What’s your favorite trope/AO3 tag to write?

Character Studies are my happy place, my life blood if you will. Is it obvious yet I'm obsessed with exploring characters and their dynamics with others? Because I am. I am nothing more than a clockmaker taking these characters apart to see what makes them tick, and how the gears of the world and those around them fit into it all. Other tags and tropes I'm fond of are and that show up a lot in my writing include: angst (duh), unreliable narrators, memory loss/amnesia (guilty pleasure), dream sequences/unreality, hey! let me patch up your wounded hand, forehead kisses, extended metaphors, horror as a metaphor because I'm pretentious and was fundamentally changed as a person by being taught Gothic and Romantic Literature in my senior school years, and finally mind control/posession (guiltier pleasure).

---

Always a blast getting to answer questions like these, thank you! :D. There's more fruits/questions here if anyone else wants to send some in.

[heygutlcss]

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion  

@angelsweeps​  ASKED: 🔥 wss ships bc i’m curious

I don’t think Riff x Anita should have gotten as much hate as it did. Especially since Bernardo x Riff is a ship that exists without the same amount of both Anon and direct hate. I personally don’t ship either of them, but I can respect other people’s ships and i don’t mind going along for the ride. The fanficiton Fight or Flight on AO3 was Riffnita and I really enjoyed it. Still not my go to ship though.

West Side Story is a story about love overcoming hate and starting an ongoing conversation about the nature of hate. The problem is if you gate keep Tony x Maria but reject any other noncanon ship because of racial issues, then you shouldn’t ship Tony x Maria.

Tony and Maria are a very safe ship. Sure, we have a clash of cultures and by the context of the times Maria is a person of color, but that’s only because  America rejected the white/black conflict that was going on in Latinx  and spanish communities. Racism isn’t exclusive to America. white privilege exists down there too.

To top all of that off, Maria has almost always been played by a non-latinx white woman. So to say “ i love west side story because its so daring in its exploration in love overcoming hate and its open discussion of racists and racisim in America” but send hate and death threats to other online users who say they ship other characters who are of color, or want to put them in an interracial relationship because one part might be a racist and racists are “nonredeemable characters”... doesn’t that gate keeping then make you a racist, because the canon ship is essentially a white ship? 

I think i need someone to explain it to me, because the most common argument i’ve seen is that having an afro-latinx person be in a ship with a white person ( which is to say ethnic non-white by the story’s time frame and social status compared to how the police treat them within the narrative) would hurt afro-latinx people because their sole purpose is to fix the racist. Isn’t that whats going on with Tony and Maria? because Tony is a racist, too.  He canonically started the jets, in both versions he is a vicious fighter( tho his himbo-ness doesn’t help convey that) and in the new version, we know he is in jail for gang warfare with people of color ( I still have beef with them using the egyptian kings as a plot point but that’s another story). So  if the biggest complaint is that in this story shipping an interracial ship ( which would be the current story) shouldn’t happen. but Tony and Maria is okay. So does Maria not fix him? Is she not a person of color?  I’m so confused as to why one is okay, but the other is not. Is it because we are told all these things about tony but don’t actually see them? i mean in the new version we see a tony that simply doesn’t care about anybody and the girl he sees dancing in the gym sure a hell looks like the jets around her.

I’ve noticed in my research kickback against suggestions from both the puerto Rican community as well as avid american broadway fans against casting an afro-latinx person as maria for much of the same reasons. it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I mean I know WSS is part of the racial discussion triad which includes Show Boat and South Pacific, but we face much of the same problems. In Show Boat Julie, a biracial character, is left by Steve by the end of the show, her white husband. In South Pacific,  Joseph Cable, a white GI, dies in action leaving Liat, the Tonkinese(northern  Vietnamese) girl alone in the world. Sure Nellie , the white nurse, decides to marry Emilie, the rich french man, but the show never has her touch his biracial children, and she never has more than a polite conversation with them, they get passed off to the nanny. 

We can’t have progressive musicals  be progressive without being willing to address the fact that people can grow and can change. Maybe not overnight, but gatekeeping people from shipping something like Riff and Anita based on the canon white ship, despite it being considered interracial just seems ludicrous to me. Ship what you want! Push characters out of their comfort zone and into personal growth, that’s how we better mankind! 

[stratuscloudsurfer]

I'm not sure if it applies with your AU, but I thought. (Warning: Some angst.) The Submas Twins are likely the liveliest with each other outside of MC giving them a proper battle. Which they don't notice at first because whenever they're in the same space, they either argue - so of course they're lively - or leave because they're annoyed with each other. Even anticipating each other pulls them into the present.

And so it sounds silly to both of the brothers when people say that the other usually seems lost. They've only experienced the other at his clearest.

They're better than in canon because of each other. But they don't see each other that often, and the trauma is keeping them from remembering despite interaction. They're often in states of daze, mind elsewhere and also nowhere.

So imagine when, for example, Emmet sees Ingo from a bit far away one day outside of Warden-and-clan business. Maybe after they got over their dislike after the Alpha incident? Ingo doesn't notice him. Emmet doesn't know why he stays but he watches Ingo, how other people interact with him.

Expecting him to get loud, be a spoilsport, etc.

It doesn't happen. Even talking and directing the people, when he straightens up to point, Ingo's eyes stay empty. And when nobody's interacting with him, he returns to his slouch and stares into nothing.

It unnerves, maybe terrifies Emmet. Is this what he looks like when his own thoughts drift away? Is Ingo experiencing the same? Deep in his core, his heart breaks because Ingo shouldn't be like that.

And a similar realization could happen to Ingo about Emmet. They might be needling (playfully) each other even more just to make sure that empty look stays out of their eyes.

Ooooooh very interesting thoughts here...

( And I’ve got a lot of thoughts too, heh, sorry in advance for the long post )

I'd say that definitely the brothers are at their most animated around each other. They somehow manage to bring both the worst and the best out of each other. 

I feel like the difference in personality when they're around vs. not around each other would be much more noticeable in Ingo. He gets so fired up and loud around Emmet that its as if he is a completely different person. I feel like it would be a less dramatic shift with Emmet because 1. he arrived after Ingo, so he doesn't remember a time when Ingo wasn't in Hisui at the same time as him, and 2. He's a part of the Diamond clan where there is so much chaotic energy, what with Sabi and Melli and even Adaman around. These are just my own personal thoughts here, but I feel as if the Diamond clan is more open than the Pearl clan because Adaman doesn’t think time should be wasted on subtext and subtlety. He encourages the members of his clan to express their feelings openly, which leads to a lot of lively discussion. If a member of the Diamond clan has a problem with you, they will tell you to your face, holding nothing back. It’s the perfect environment for Emmet, who is blunt to begin with, so he thrives there, and in general feels more like himself.

In contrast the Pearl clan is relatively reserved. Irida values a calm and peaceful space and steers her clan members away from conflict. Therefore, if a member of the Pearl clan has a beef with you, they are less likely to outright confront you about it. There are far less confrontations, but consequently gossip has a tendency to spread (as evidenced by how they treated Palina with the whole Growlithe situation). 

Ingo already has a natural, overwhelming sense of responsibility from being the oldest sibling, but in the Pearl clan, he has no outlet to escape from it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he likes being in the Pearl clan, and especially admires and respects Irida, but he doesn’t feel as if there is anyone he can really talk to about the crushing pressure that he feels sometimes from having so many people relying on him for so many things, and besides, he doesn’t really want to end up like Palina (poor Palina btw, she’s a queen and didn’t deserve being trash-talked behind her back). Not that he would burden any of the other Pearl clan wardens with his feelings anyway. I mean... that would be unprofessional, right?

The only time he feels like there is no point hiding his frustration is when he is fighting with Emmet. He has no idea why he gets under his skin so much, because usually not even Melli fazes him, but he just does, and It all explodes out at once, and he gets loud, but Emmet can handle loud because he is loud, too. He leaves every encounter with his brother feeling irritated but oddly relieved at the same time, like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. 

Maybe once they finally start getting along, he confesses some of these frustrations to Emmet. How he wishes that Kamado would stop piling up work for him to do at the training grounds on top of his regular warden duties even though he doesn’t even work for the Galaxy Team. How Irida doesn’t seem to understand how hard it is to be present at a mid-morning meeting after tending to largely nocturnal Lady Sneasler all night. How if he hears Gaeric tell him that he really should join him for his ridiculous workout routine one more time, he is going to lose his mind. Emmet encourages him to keep talking by agreeing with him (”Yes, you’re right, that is verrry annoying”) and casually shit-talking the people that annoy Ingo (”Sometimes I think that Gaeric has more muscle than he does brains”).  Afterwards, Ingo gives him pointed look and tells him, “Don’t tell anyone I said that. They absolutely cannot know,” and even though there are, as a rule, no secrets in the Diamond clan, Emmet doesn’t dare tell Ingo’s. 

I imagine that once Ingo has Emmet to talk to about these sorts of things, his “old” personality returns. He is louder, more confident, and smiles more (although its still rare). Its a slow change, but everyone notices it, and Emmet can’t help but feeling a little relieved (although he can’t quite put his finer on why). 

[castiel-left-his-mark-on-me]

Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖

[crow-summoner]

Darklina Week Day 2: Role Reversal

Sun Summoner!Darkling and Shadow Summoner!Alina

Alina, a cartographer for the Ravken Army, undertakes a dangerous mission to stay by her only friend’s side. They must cross the Forge, a hellscape of intense heat and unrelenting light that has torn their country in two. Nothing can survive the Forge for long. Nothing but the monsters that call it home. Alina thinks she and Mal will make it as long as they’re together, but when their mission falls to pieces, Alina discovers something shocking about herself. She can banish light. Her powers draw the attention of the Golden General, a military leader who scares and intrigues Alina in equal measure. One thing’s for sure. Alina can’t go back to life of a mouse, and the General’s her best option to fight for something more. Can Alina save her world, or will she die trying?

Or, an AU where light powers aren’t necessarily good, and shadow powers get to be heroic. Content warning for some volcra expy related gore and some canon-consistent sprinkles of Malina at the beginning. There’s plenty of Darkles after that, now with extra sparkles.

Story under the jump

The Forge

Alina sits at the inn window, adding the last buttery yellow lines to her painting. For being such a blight against their nation, the Forge made a lovely landscape. She dons her fabrikator sunglasses, and turning her back to the unrelenting sunlight, she lifts her tented mirror up to compare her painting to the real thing. Her superior officers would kill her if they knew what she was using their equipment for, but the Forge is too bright to look at directly. Her superiors may not appreciate art, but if she’s going to risk her life for more supplies, she wants to leave a memorial for herself.

“It looks too much like a vacation spot,” Mal says, dragging up a chair so he can sit next to her. He’s already wearing his glasses and darkened veil, which will supposedly keep the Forge from boiling their eyes out and trap moisture near their faces. Alina would be happier if more than army issued fashion stood between her and certain death.

“You make a pretty bride, you know that?” Alina says instead of responding to the criticism. There were enough horrors in the Forge. She wanted make something pleasant. She places her canvas between the shelf and the wall, hoping that someone working at the inn will find it.

Mal huffs. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw the bags under my eyes. Don’t know how people sleep around here.”

Alina supposes people can get used to anything, even perpetual daylight. She secures her mirror and knives to her belt and dons her veil and gloves. She shimmies down the narrow walkway as if showing off the latest fashion. “What do you think?”

Mal makes a show of considering it, rubbing his chin under the veil. “I think the sveta will be too smitten to eat you.”

Alina tilts her head in mock coyness. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.” She leaves it unspoken that she wishes someone else was smitten with her.

“Come on,” Mal says, taking her by the arm. “I want to be on time for once.”

By the time they reach the skiff, Alina and Mal are five minutes late. Thankfully, Alexei, her fellow cartographer, covered for her.

“You owe me,” he says, shoving her maps into her hands.

“I’ll bake you a cake,” Alina promises.

“You already owe me twelve cakes!”

“Then I’ll name my first born after you.”

Alexei snorts. “Like any of us are going to live long enough to have kids. We’re all going to be beef jerky in a few hours.”

“Squeak. Squeak, Alexei.” It’s the code their cartographers have for when Alexei’s boundless optimism is bringing them down.

Normally, Alexei would grumble but acquiesce. Today, he just stares at the skiff. “Do you really think the sveta are real?”

Alina shrugs. “What else could eat our men out there?” Admittedly, invisible creatures made of light sounded farfetched, but she’s seen the battle scars. Other soldiers had claw mark scars across their chest and spots where something inhuman had taken a bite out of them. The light could blister, burn and tan flesh, but it couldn’t do that.

“I dunno. Maybe him,” Alexei said, eyeing the golden carriage in the distance. “The Geldling.”

Alina quickly hushes him. General Kirigan tolerates others calling him the Golden General, but he does not take kindly to the Geldling. Sure, the epitaph was based on an old Kerch word for gold, but gelding is also what one did to a prized horse to keep it docile. It was as good as saying their leader is a ballless pet, and everyone knows it.  

Sure enough, one of the heartrenders lifts his veil and glares at them. He might have been handsome once, but his sour expression makes the lines on his face hard.

“Captain Herring may be rough, but he’s not a cannibal.” Alina hopes this is enough to cover over their mistake. The heartrender doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t fight them either. That suited Alina well enough.

“Watch what you say,” she whispers to Alexei. “We have to depend on these people to survive. Don’t make them mad.”

Alexei nods. “Sorry.”

Thankfully, the rest of their time at the dock goes smoothly. Soon, all the soldiers and Girsha gather inside the metal skiff, ready to take off. A tidemaker hoses them all down, making Alina feel like a drenched rat, but the water is important in such a hot place.

Alina makes sure to stand by Mal, gripping his arm for support as the skiff slides along the sand. There’s enough space to move around, but something about the lack of windows makes the room feel unbearably tight. It’s like one big coffin.

Squeak, squeak, Alina tells herself. No one’s going to die today.

The skiff rattles as they pass over marker zero. They’re officially in the Forge. The panels in the side of the skiff slide up. Rows of dark nets allow squallers to force air out without letting the light in. They’ll have to use the tinted mirrors along the sides of the skiff to direct it.

Alina fans herself, wishing the nets could ease the heat. She was drenched just minutes ago, but her uniform’s now bone dry. Sure, the tidemakers periodically release a mist from their fancy containers and push it around the cabin, but that’s like giving a starving man a single bite.

“I bet I can sweat more than you,” Mal jokes, and she’s sure it’s to help distract her. Even the dumbest man in their unit wouldn’t brag about that.

“No way. Sweat more than that heartrender over there, and you have a deal,” she whispers back. It was a hard challenge. The heartrender already smelled like he’d bathed in nothing but used socks for years.

Mal leans back in shock. “Yikes. Are you trying to kill me? I can’t beat that.”

Alexei sniffs beside them, rubbing under his veil. “My lids are scraping my eyeballs.”

Alina reaches over and slaps his hand the way she used to do with the younger kids at the orphanage. “Then stop picking at them.”

Alexei mumbles. He’s a good cartographer, but he also comes from money, and that didn’t always make for a good soldier. Alina wonders if she should have erased his name instead of Ruby’s. This mission called for two cartographers, and Ruby could withstand discomfort better than he could, but Alina wasn’t thinking rationally. Mal was going to go into the Forge by himself, and Alina needed to remove someone so she could forge her own name on the mission papers. Mal wouldn’t give Alexei a second glance, but Ruby had red hair and a slim figure. Alina couldn’t risk Mal having “glad we’re still alive” sex with her after the mission. It was petty, childish even, but Alina couldn’t help herself. If they all survive the skiff, she’ll woman up and tell Mal how she feels. Lord knows hanging in this middle ground wasn’t doing either of them any favors.  

The skiff shakes, and Alexei grabs the walls. “Saints! It’s the sveta.”

The squaller at the helm shushes him. “Just a bump. Don’t call attention to us.”

Alexei’s shoulders slump, but he retakes his position behind the squaller without another word.

Alina can’t help but lean around her squaller to peak in her mirror. She’d heard about calcified roots surviving the Forge long after the crops perished. The real thing must be prettier than the paintings. Instead of a root, Alina finds the fragments of a skull and the front of a skiff.

She steps back, her stomach sinking into her boots. It’s one thing to know the odds, but it’s another to stare the evidence in the face. Better men than them have failed to cross.

The crew stand in silence as the skiff passes the first marker. Alina gives her squaller the proper directions and distances, and soon they pass the second marker. The third. The fourth. Alina allows herself to hope. Just eleven more and they’re home free.

She scratches her arm, and flakes of dry skin come off. No wonder the skiff regulars look like leather. She’d rather go AWOL than do this again. Then again, she didn’t have be here this time either. She has no one to blame but herself.

The skiff rumbles and tilts. It’s just another bump, she assures herself, but something raps against the ceiling. The heartrenders tense up, and the squallers shift their positions.

Oh, no.

She checks on Mal just to be sure, but he’s clutching his gun tight, his head tilted up. It’s the same stance he took when he found that rabbit in a barren forest or when he was about to catch her during hide and seek. He’s sighted something, only this time, that something is stronger than them.

The squaller at the helm brings the skiff to a stop and signals for the shooters and heartrenders to take position. All the non-combat staff – cartographers included – must gather at the center. Alina takes out her knife and her tented mirror, praying she won’t have to use them.

“Protect yourselves if you must,” the squaller whispers, “but don’t get in anyone’s way.”

Alina’s never felt more useless in her life.

The skiff continues to shake, harder this time. Something whines above them. Something answers it’s call from somewhere in front of them. Another whine sounds from behind the skiff. From all sides. How many of them are out there? At least a dozen given the sheer number of cries. No one dares make a sound. The sveta are fierce, but they’re just as blind as a human in the Forge. Maybe if they don’t hear anything, they’ll get bored and hunt elsewhere.

The ceiling dents in with a clank, knocking the skiff to the right. One of the soldiers jumps at the sound, aiming where it came from. The squaller at the helm blows him away, but not in time. The shot blows a hole in the ceiling, letting the light in. The beam hits a tidemaker’s shoulders, carving a smoking black line through her kefta. She screams, tearing off the cloth to expose a blistering gash. A healer pulls her to the side as one her friends tries to stifle her screams with a damp cloth, but it’s too late. The sveta cries draw closer.

Something claws a large hole through the ceiling, the soldiers scrambling to avoid the new beams. Some squallers attempt to blow up a tarp to cover the open areas, but it stops in thin air. No. Not thin air. The tarp drapes over something Alina can’t see with her naked eye. Under the plastic, she can make out its large, pointed wings and snout.

“Blast it,” the squaller at the helm shouts, and the soldiers open fire on the creature. It whines, batting away the tarp, and then it’s gone.

For a moment, no one makes a move. The cabin is utterly silent. Then something flashes across Alina’s mirror, and the next thing she knows, the soldier beside her explodes in a splash of red. On the other side of the skiff, a healer’s hand disappears. He draws back, clutching his now bloody stump as one of the creatures screeches in triumph.

Alina backs up, though there’s nowhere left to go. Oh, saints. She should have never come here. She begs every saint she can think of to forgive whatever sin brought her to this horrible moment. Shooting her fellow man in combat. Wishing harm to the girls Mal so much as looked at. Disregarding Ana Kuya’s rules at every turn. Whatever it was, she repented. Just please don’t let her die at some monster’s hand.

The durasts burst dust in the air. It makes their own people cough, but it helps make the sveta more visible.

BAM!

Another chunk of ceiling caves in, forcing the crew to huddle along the perimeter to escape the light. Not all of them were quick enough. Several soldiers blister and peel, crying as the sveta tear off chunks of flesh from their bodies.

Alina can only stare. It’s too late for prayers. Too late to run. She should have talked Mal into fleeing while she had the chance, and now ... Alina holds out her mirror, a new hope setting in. They might not make it out, but she can at least die by Mal’s side. He has to know how she feels.

Alina slowly shifts through the chaos, dodging shots and beams of light. She finds him by the helm, taking deep breaths as he aims and shoots. Something heavy hits the floor, gurgling. Of course. Leave it to Mal to find the creatures without a mirror.

She shines her mirror in the direction the creature fell, hoping to avoid tripping its body, but to her surprise, she can just make out the sheen of its skin. The colors change as she tilts the mirror, first blue, then pink and maybe green. All the colors of the rainbow. It reminds her of looking through a prism. Not invisible then. The sveta are just reflective.

Alina giggles. Ana Kuya would be so proud of her, committing to her education even as she’s about to die. She keeps giggling over and over, knowing that if she stops, she’ll have to cry. There are just so many bodies around her. They used to be people, and now they’re meat.

Someone grabs her wrist, and a shot of energy courses through her, quieting the hysteria. Mal drags her beside him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, but he’s busy readying his next shot. “I lo – ” She doesn’t get any further. Another soldier’s bullet ricochets off the wall and hits Mal in the shoulder. He doubles over, his gun clattering to the floor.

Alina drops her mirror, pressing a palm against the wound. The blood seeps from between her fingers no matter how hard she tries to stop the flow.

Mal slides to the floor, Alina crouching beside him. The light streams against them, burning her chest and his back. The pain means nothing compared to the loss.

“No. Not like this,” she says, covering Mal’s body with her own.

The pain in her back only lasts a second. It occurs to her that this is not a good thing. It means her nerves have been eaten away, but she’s glad to do it if it means Mal can live.

Something rumbles in the pit of her stomach. She feels like she’s going to burst, and she doesn’t have the strength to fight it.

All around her, the creatures cry and flap their wings erratically. She doesn’t have time think about it as the world goes dark, sinking her into a deep oblivion.

 *****************************

 Alina wakes, draped over someone’s shoulder, face buried in the red cloth of his kefta. She only lifts her head for one moment, but the light’s unbearable.

The light?

“Mal,” Alina shouts. She wiggles to free herself from the Grisha’s grip. The sveta will come back at any moment. She has to find Mal. Protect him. Where is he?

But they’re not on the skiff anymore. They’re back at the dock, the skiff a shredded husk. People rush every which way, some tending to the wounded and some salvaging the cargo from the hold. Mal could be anywhere among them. Then Alina catches sight of the ground. Oh, saints! So many people lay unmoving on the dock, and Grisha and First Army soldiers keep dragging out more. All these people she trained with. Ate with. Sung bawdy songs with when they’d all had too much kvas. Dead. They can’t all be gone. Right? Right?

Alina kicks at the Grisha. She needs to see for herself who made it out. Mal better be among them. Of course, he would be. He was the best tracker Ravka’s ever seen. He’d always find his way back home. Home to her.

The Grisha swears at her, trying to stop her feet with one arm. “Be still.” She recognizes him. The heartrender that had sneered at Alexei’s comment earlier. Alina drives a fist in the heartrender’s back. If Grisha like him had done more they wouldn’t be in the situation. He did it on purpose, didn’t he? He let their soldiers die because someone spoke against his leader. His pride meant more than the supplies they’d get from West Ravka. More than human life.

“Fine.” With a huff, the Grisha drops her flat on her butt, sand puffing in her face. She’s coughing too much to fight him off when the heartrender takes her by her bicep and drags her towards the camp. Another heartrender takes her other arm, his grip gentler than his coworker’s.

“Was that necessary, Ivan?” The second heartrender asked.

Ivan only grunts “Fedyor” as a warning in response. Fedyor shakes his head with what Alina would call fondness if she thought anyone could be fond of something as sour as Ivan.

“Where’s Mal?” Alina asks Fedyor, but he only lifts a brow. Of course, he wouldn’t recognize the name of a common solider. There were so many of them, and Grisha only concerned themselves with their own. “The boy I was with on the skiff.”

“Ah. Him,” Fedyor says. “The First Army tends to their own wounded. He’s in their care.”

Alina knows what that means. He’s laying outside the infirmary tent, waiting for his turn to have an undertrained medic pour alcohol in his wounds then pack them with mustard plaster. If he’s lucky, they’ll still have enough bandages for him to get his own. Having to use the scraps from old uniforms inevitably led to infection, and without supplies from the west, the camp outpost could not provide the steady diet of alcohol needed to survive that misery. Mal is popular, though. She’s sure someone will be willing to sacrifice their stash for his comfort.

Then it occurs to her that she’s not doing the same thing. She’d been horribly burned by the light, and yet her back doesn’t ache. Someone must have removed her jacket while Alina was unconscious, but her undershirt is scorched where the light hit it. Her chest is unusually red, but it’s not blistering or charred. The worst she can say is that she feels like she’s been awake for days.

“Why would someone heal me?” She’s heard it a thousand times before. Healers were too rare to waste on common soldiers. They were for Grisha and those wealthy enough to be a priority. She is neither, and yet when she looks up at Fedyor, he’s gazing down at her with some feeling she dares not define. It was the same look the Grisha gave the golden carriage when it barreled into the encampment. The same look the peasants near Keramzin gave the bones of Saint Felix on his day of worship. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it reverence.

They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity when he finally says, “We survived.” Alina doesn’t know what she has to do with that. It was luck. Pure and simple. But then Fedyor closes his eyes and whispers, “Thank you.”

A chill runs through Alina despite the heat. She looks at the tents, the people running around them, anywhere and everywhere but at Fedyor and that look, full of expectations she can never fill. They’ve long since passed the First Army section, but they’re now leaving the main Grisha area, heading up the northmost path. There’s nothing there except for the single yellow tent towering over the rest of the encampment.

Alina pulls back, but it does nothing to stop the heartrenders. “What does the General want with me?”

“Just answer his questions, so we call all get on with our day,” Ivan says.

“I don’t know anything! Let go of me!” She turns to look back at the First Army camp, too far away for anyone to see her let alone help. Not that they could do anything if they wanted to. No one says no to the General.

Fedyor grips the back of her neck, and her whole body turns to puddy. The heartrenders lean into her, holding her upright because her knees can no longer bear her weight. She’s too relaxed to move at all.

Ivan sniffs. “You weren’t supposed to do that for anyone but me.”

Fedyor grins. “Sorry, luv. Desperate times and all that.”

They march her straight into the lion’s den.

She doesn’t know what she expected to see. A jeweled throne and a menagerie of exotic animals like the ones she’d seen in the illustrated book of fairy tales back at the orphanage? Enemy soldiers kept in cages and chained otkazat’sya serving the Grisha like the Fjerdan pamphlet a traveler tried to give them before Ana Kuya kicked them off the duke’s property? But this place resembled the main tent for the First Army. Soldiers clustered together around a round table. A large map hung from a board, thread and pegs marking paths, places and interesting parties. And yet the General’s tent was larger than theirs, made of bulletproof core cloth while they had to make do with spun cotten. They must not need to ration oil either given the number of lamps lit, and the gathered Grisha shone like banners in their blue, red and purple keftas. No olive drab for them.

Most of the room turned to face them when the heartrenders dragged Alina in. Some now look at her with open curiosity and others with incredulous expressions. Soft mummers pass through the crowd until someone raises their hand, and the whole lot fall silent. Saints, Alina never heard a tent so quiet before. Even during lights out, at least one person snored.

Without needing to be told, the Grisha step back, parting down the center to make a path. A lone man strides forward, his telltale yellow kefta billowing around him. Notes of silver, white and gold weave through it, enough thread to stitch three tents of this size together, but he’s not wearing the jewelry she’d expect from his high rank, and his clothes are core cloth like any other Grisha. She’s never seen a high officer without any silk on, no matter how impractical it might be. After all, most never saw battle. Not like this one had.

The Golden General is younger than she’d expected given what others said about him. She’d seen a shriveled man with boney hands covered in warts in her mind’s eye, but this man barely had a decade on her, and his warm blonde hair and fair, flawless complexion were pleasing on the eyes. Too pleasing. Even the most beautiful boy back home had some freckle or ruddiness to his skin, but the General’s looks almost painted on. It’s eerie, and yet she can’t look away. He’s like the very embodiment of the light, except there’s a coldness in his gaze and calm comportment.

He may be light, but he’s not warmth.

That right, she tells herself. Ana Kuya warned her about such things before. One of the orphans she’d grown up with saw a gold coin glittering in some bushes under a hill. He’d climbed down for it, only to be rolled by some travelers. They took the buttons from his coat and the boots from his feet. He came home with nothing but his pants and a gash on his forehead. Ana Kuya warned them all then: not all that’s gold glitters. Sometimes, it burns instead. Gold tempts the desperate, but Alina is not blind. The General only looked like a man. He can boil someone’s insides. Make their flesh rot from their bone as if they were already dead.  Burn them with a glance. And here he is, looking straight at her.

The General stops a few feet away and clasps his hands behind his back. He looks her over, and she doesn’t know whether to be scared or grateful that she can’t read what conclusions he’s drawn. He nods at the heartrenders, and Fedyor rubs the back of Alina’s neck. Her limbs come back to life, panic rising from her core. She wants to run, but there’s no point.

The General stares at her, impassive, and then finally: “Is it true?”

For a moment, Alina believes the absurd. He’s read her thoughts and knows what she said about him being a monster. Then it occurs to her that he’s talking about the skiff. She closes her eyes. What does he want her to say? She was unconscious for most of what went down, and she can barely remember what she was present for. Flashes of her coworker’s blood and blistering arms intrude behind her closed lids, forcing them open again. Maybe it’s best she can’t remember.

She must have taken too long to answer because the General speaks again. “Is it true that you can banish the light?”

All Alina can do is blink. This has to be a joke, but the General’s expression is serious, and everyone around them is leaning in with anticipation. She knows better than to laugh in their faces and question their intelligence, so she makes do by stuttering, “No one can do that.” It takes a moment, but she remembers to add a quick “sir.” She’s not used to being around anyone important.

She braces herself for him to yell at her the way the generals in their army do, but he merely nods. “Then what did happen?”

Alina struggles for an answer. She tries to tell him that she doesn’t know how the sveta got in, or how their ship made it, but no matter what she says, she keeps returning to those burning soldiers. The General frowns, and she knows she needs to come up with something – anything – to appease him.

The General raises a hand to silence her, and when he speaks, his tone is smooth and calm. “It must have been scary out there. It’s one thing to read about the attacks, but it’s another to live it.”

Alina hadn’t expecting any sympathy, so she just nods.

“You must be exhausted.” When Alina nods again, the General continues. “It’s hard to make sense of anything when you hurt so much. I could help with that if you’ll let me.” He gestures beside him, inviting her closer.

He may have asked for permission, but Alina isn’t sure she really has a choice. Still, he’s been nothing but polite so far. She has nothing to lose by playing along.

Alina slowly closes the gap between them, and the closer she gets, the closer she wants to get. It’s like he’s a magnet, and she’s loose filigree coming together for the first time. She feels the warmth now, not in his continence, but all around him. It doesn’t burn. It doesn’t tingle. It numbs the heaviness of her limbs and banishes the panic that’s haunted her since the skiff penetrated the Forge. Before she knows it, Alina’s pressed up against the General. She’s vaguely aware that it’s not appropriate to stand so close to a superior, and it’s definitely not safe to be within biting distance of a monster, but it feels right. She doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

The General doesn’t seem to mind either, staring deep into her eyes like he’s trapped, too. Her reflection stares back at her in his eyes. They’re just so bright and shiny. She has a hard time placing the color. It reminds her of one of the duke’s vases. The blown glass was iridescent and shimmered with every color around it. She and Mal had argued for years over what color it really was. He said purple. She said green. They finally settled things with a good arm wrestle. Green won, of course. Alina decides that the General’s eyes are green, too.

“May I?” He asks, and though she can’t see where he’s pointing, she answers his unspoken request, sliding her hand in his. His palms are rough from life on the road, but they’re warm, and his grip os gentler than Fedyor’s had been. She could hold his hand and stare into his eyes forever.

“What happened?” The General asks in a voice softer than silks.

The words spill out of Alina on their own. She tells him about forging her name on the staff list. The attack. Shielding Mal. The sveta descending on them, and then – “All I could look at was him, but I could feel the light getting sucked away. Everything went black, and then I woke up on the docks.”

The General says nothing, but his eyes briefly narrow. It’s not a threat as far as Alina can tell. Whatever she said seemed to confirm something for him. The General pushes up her sleeve with his free hand, never breaking her gaze. She doesn’t fight it. She’s curious, too. Something happened back on that skiff. It’s there lurking there in the back of her brain, begging to be revealed. She knows once it’s free, it can never be caged again. The thought simultaneously thrills her and makes her shiver.

The General trails one finger up her arm. Something inside her responds to act, rejoices in it. His finger stops and curls around her forearm. She notes that the nail on his thumb is longer than the others. Sharp. He drives that nail into her flesh, and it’s like a thousand arms stream out of her at once.

Darkness surrounds them, putting out the lights. No, the lamps are still on. She can feel their flames licking at the shadows just as easily as she can feel the General’s grip on her arm. All around them, the Grisha shout. She can’t see them so much as she feels where they are in the dark. It the strangest sensation, and yet it feels like home. Everything is darkness.

Everything but him.

The General glows, smiling down at her. A true lamp would illuminate the world around them, but there he stands, the sole bright spot in the blackness. Standing together, it feels like they’re the only two people in the world. Then the General lets go of her arm and the darkness withers, fading into the ground or retreating under Alina’s skin to fight another day.

Alina clutches her chest, suddenly empty inside. Her head swivels every which way, desperate to find that surety again, but it’s gone. The aches have returned, magnified tenfold. She can barely keep herself upright, and soon, she’s on her knees, her head swimming.

“A shadow summoner,” some squaller says, and it’s as if a dam broke in Alina’s mind. She stares at her rough, ruddy hands. They’re not the hands of a hero, and yet it’s true. It’s all true. She can banish the light. She saved the skiff from the Forge.

She’s … Grisha.

Alina frowns, remembering what Mal said when that Grisha girl made eyes at him from the General’s carriage. He doesn’t tumble witches. Alina was glad to hear it then. It meant less competition for her, and she and Mal had exchanged plenty of digs at the Grisha over the years. Surely, he wouldn’t think she’s like the rest of them just because she has powers. She didn’t grow up coddled and self-important like the rest of them. That had to count for something. He knew her. The real her. He wouldn’t be scared of her because of her shadows.

No matter how hard Alina tries, she can’t bring herself to believe it.

The General holds out his hand. Alina stares up at him, sure she should bat it away. She’s not one of his Grisha. She’s a mapmaker and an orphan and Mal’s best friend. But that may not be true anymore, and she’d be a fool to burn any bridges.

She takes his hand, letting the General lift her to her feet. He pulls her close again, so close she can feel his breath against her face. She should let go, but she clings to his hand like it’s the last safe ledge in a rockslide. He gives her a knowing smirk, and she wants to wipe it off his stupid face. She’s had a rough day. She would have clung to literally anybody, but then the General leans in, and she feels that warmth again. His lips brush her ear as he whispers, “You and I are going to change the world.”

Notes:

Whoo! This is my first Grishaverse fanfic. It may be a little late, but it’s here. One shot for now, but I might be interested in continuing this in the future. Hope you enjoyed!

[out-of-this-dimension]

Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others.  We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox.  Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better.  Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all.  Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually.  However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular.  Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive.  I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64.  I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return.  I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies. 

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story.  I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky.  Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it.  An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.  

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault.  Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure.  Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault.  This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids.  We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma.  We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma.  That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him.  While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels.  If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels.  Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are.  But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.  

- Revise the scene with Tricky.  I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done.  And why is he suddenly king now?  Did his parents die?  He seems not affected by this at all?  Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it.  Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big.  As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out.  Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously.  And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved.  I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again.  I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive.  This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids.  I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that.  Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask?  I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”.  Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest?  I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off?  They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back.  Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing.  Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning?  Or maybe back in Katina?  And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force.  It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival.  Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen?  I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission.  I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.  

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals.  Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies.  While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well.  While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray.  Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”.  As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion.  Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there).  But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this.  He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids.  Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo?  Are they safe somewhere else?  Where do they go?  How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs.  A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me.  While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out.  I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be.  “But why, Amalia?  Why are you disappointed by that?”  1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes.  2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy.  And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures.  Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later?  Where were the Krazoa in all of this?  Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers?  It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much.  Which I mean, sure.  Family, kiddo game.  I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant.  As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins.  Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations.  Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast.  Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened).  I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it.  I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria.  Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault.  Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible.  It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it.  Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion.  Why?  Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level.  Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team.  Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria.  The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short.  It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware.  I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place?  I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic?  Also where is my revised Adventures music?  Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t? 

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign.  I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints.  I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign.  Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels.  Self-explanatory.  Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.  

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points.  I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers.  It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good.  Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly.  I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it.  And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault.  But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot.  For variety’s sake.  

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind.  So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future.  I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading!  Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s?  Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!