#that the kid is broken and doesn't feel any human emotions

[straydog733]

Have you ever wanted to see Jenny from Call the Midwife and Jamie from Ted Lasso openly hate and berate their autistic son? Then boy, is The Devil's Hour the show for you!

(It plays lip-service to the kid not being autistic, and they're clearly setting up some paranormal nonsense, but he is SO autistically-coded that it honestly feels offensive.)

[sidsinning]

To expand on Lucifer's neglect more

Yes he loves Charlie dearly, yes he showers her with his love and affection and semi-approval ("it's uh...got a lot of character!") when he sees her after all these years for the first time, yes he is desperately trying to switch back her reliance on Alastor to reliance on him- all these feelings are real and strong when she's right in front of him

-but when she isn't he is back in his own little world and rubber ducks. When he doesn't see Charlie in person she becomes white noise to him besides fleeting moments of courage and pining he gets to try and connect with her again. These are the moments where he regains a bit of clarity on just how fucked his family situation is.

He knows he has to maintain his connection with her somehow while also battling his own depression and urge to isolate and block off the rest of the world. They're in limbo of whether or not their relationship will finally be unrepairable, also expressed in how him and Lilith are not fully divorced, but still separated, with him still clearly loving her bc he still wears his wedding ring.

I love him, I think his love for Charlie is stronger than anything in his life, and I know he'd do anything he could for her (besides the one thing she asked which is very unluckily directly connected to his trauma)

But it's true that he doesn't listen to her, doesn't keep up with how her life is going, and has remained estranged from her as a child through her adult life for years for whatever reason (smtg implied through this flashback we don't understand yet, and/or his mental health issues)

For Charlie at this point, she's not a kid anymore, so just getting a call from him once in awhile is not enough if he still isn't addressing any of the issues that have built up between them, which has made her susceptible to being tricked by Alastor's empty words of praise and bonding

During Hell's Greatest Dad he isn't trying to address anything she's told him to, just trying to fix the surface level physical issues with the hotel to satisfy her- she looks uncomfortable the whole time he's trying to give her a sales pitch while smiling at everything Alastor says bc he is getting to her emotional needs, bc the bastard sees right through the father-daughter pair's issues

"I have angel powers! I can give you mountains of expensive things!"

"I'm always here for you! I'm so proud of you and all you've accomplished! We've grown so close bc I've always been by your side (unlike a certain someone 😇🐍🍎)"

He's excited when she asks him to come over, and we're excited for him to finally see his daughter he seems to love so much who doesn't talk to him, but from their conversation it is very much shown that Charlie is the one who has been more desperate to remain connected to him. She always updates him on her life when she can and asks him if he's paying attention to her- which he doesn't. Leading to her disappointment and/or annoyance with only jobs for her or random calls where he talks about smtg irrelevant.

I am a Lucifer stan through and through, but it is undeniable that he has not been a good dad despite being a good person. Now he's stepping up and reconnecting to Charlie again as she's fully accepting of him which is sweet.

It's also nice to see that helping Charlie and reconnecting with her is what brings him true happiness in life- bc of his anxiety and trauma he avoids the thing he knows deep down is the underlying cause of his unhappiness- his distant family and confronting their fractured relationship

So now that he's addressed a major part of the root of his depression, he stopped isolating himself, is being active, and given himself smtg productive to do, so his anxiety is down :)

Helping Charlie addressed how broken hearted he was over his family splitting, and restored the faith in humanity and good he lost after he was banished from Heaven and failed to redeem sinners when he tried

Shshsjdjdkfk I just love the characterization we get in just 2 23 minute episodes, even though the pacing is undeniably insanely fast and I would have preferred more time to marinate in it- but what can you do about capitalism vs. artistic freedom

[layyeschips]

Patron Ghost King AU #2

A sort of continuation to this

"hey bats, I think your kid's broken" "hn" "what's green flavour?" "what's a poptart?" "dude you don't know what a poptart is?!?!?"

Tim couldn't be bothered to figure what came from who, not when he's just trying to block out the unnecessarily bright lights of the watchtower. So he did the thing that any other self respecting tired student™️ would do, which is tossing the spare oreo he had in his suit pocket onto the hastily drawn summoning circle that one John Constantine brought with him on a piece of paper.

Now the last thing the League was expecting to happen was the lights dimming and green smoke coming from the printer paper that John took from who knows where.

---------------------------

Danny doesn't usually do this much paperwork in one sitting but someone just left a full mug of coffee on his shrine in hopes of being able to finish their assignment on time so he might as well finish the small pile he has on his desk. Ever since he accidentally gained a following he could taste the offerings and even feel the strong emotions from each one of them. It's not a really a big deal, pushing waves of calm/relax/focus doesn't take much energy and the offerings are nice too. So when he felt the pull of a summoning followed by drowsiness, exhaustion and the familiar taste of a stale oreo, who was he to reject the call of one of his favourite humans?

First of all, kind of rude to be summoning your patron by using such a small summoning circle but he'll cut the poor student some slack. Secondly, bright lights were definitely no good for this sleep deprived human, he'd probably be more comfortable if Danny turns it down a bit. The room full of heroes and magic users were unexpected but, hoLY- IS HE IN SPACE????? Did he say one of his favourites? He meant his number 1 favourite.

Sorry this was a bit short but feel free to write down/comment your own additions to this au. I also don't mind if anyone wants to write their own fic based on this but do tag me if you do!

Also sorry if I missed some tags, I tried. I won't be doing a tag list in the future because I don't want there to be people who are left out

[tag list] @gin2212 @jaggedheart11 @amercurio @raven-6-10 @onlyhereforthechaos @booklover9114 @fisticuffsatapplebees @overtherose @impulsiveasshole @shorterthanadverage @mimilikey @mnemovoid @chip-thief @mouzerequis @thegatorsgoose @spectralstardustandphantomnights @malice-of-the-sunrise @temporalhunter @nappinginhell @idkmrpianoman @vythika96 @seraphinedemort @meira-3919 @avelnfear @akikkobara @addie-lover-of-stories @ghostface3100 @yurineko135 @sjrose1216 @proper-idiocy @screamingtofillthevoid @sailor-goddess @the-legal-shipper @alcorbearson @dannyphantomphan @lady-time-lord- @starlightcat04 @liedboutmurder @jerithe @dixiwoods @gamma-radio @mirellacoco @blankliferain @violetfox2 @nexux-point

[koimethehorizon]

Amazing Digital Circus Theory: Gangle is an NPC

Sooo, I wasn’t expecting to talk about this show. I was perfectly content to just enjoy Digital Circus as is.

It’s a show that invites theories as to what exactly’s going on with the setting and characters, but I didn’t have much room to think too hard about it. Who’s Abel? Is Pomni really a human? Why is this VR game emulating an N64 game at the start? I like the show plenty, but it just wasn’t as interesting to go hard on any of those questions at the time.

But with this recent episode… a single, perhaps throwaway line got the brain nagging. And it’s kind of a bizarre one to waste hours analyzing.

Okay, so yeah, it’s a joke on submissive and breedable. (Don’t give them ideas) But try taking it at face value.

What does he mean by this? Sure, Jax is an asshole, and being a bullied kid is Gangle’s whole archetype… but what if it means a little more than that?

Gangle’s trapped for all eternity this asshole and she’s just letting him boss her around. Zooble can choose not to participate, so no one has to. Why does Gangle listen to Jax at all?

Let's entertain a thought: Is Gangle an NPC?

With Episode 2 bringing so much attention to the autonomy of NPCs, it seemed natural to start pointing fingers at characters being this or that. But this isn't just a random crackshot, I feel that there is a story to tell here.

Look back at Pomni’s “orientation” with the other humans. Ragatha, Zooble, and Jax ease her by saying that they’ve been trapped in this world for years and then bring attention to Kinger being the oldest.

But Gangle… she’s isolated from the peanut gallery, busy moping about the broken comedy mask instead.

Every character has been given some hints as to how they’ve been coping with the situation. Jax no longer empathizes with anything, Ragatha once had trouble adjusting but now tries to stay happy, Zooble picks and chooses her involvement, Kinger is the eldest and just exists for the hell of it, and Pomni is new to everything.

With Gangle, it’s a blank. No opinion, no hints of her human side, how long she’s been here, no thoughts on the games, nothing. She’s just Jax’s punching bag.

Even Kinger gets a potshot on Gangle in a rock-paper-scissors game…. and he likely forgot that she doesn’t have hands!

And that brings me to another detail. Doesn't Gangle look different from the others?

Unlike everyone else, Gangle's just a mask and a ribbon. No hands or legs, or just any limbs in general. She stands out as looking a bit simpler than the others.

Gangle's most interesting design trait is that she's based on comedy and tragedy masks. The ones used old Greek theater to dictate the emotions of their characters.

The first episode seems to imply that with a broken comedy mask, Gangle literally can’t stay happy. Hence why we see her sad most of the time. That's a strange limitation if Gangle's human mind is supposed to be completely intact, especially with how expressive the other characters can be.

It's not delved into too much but does Gangle actually rely on these masks to "feel" emotions?

The obvious hole is that Caine would’ve just killed her a while ago if she was an NPC, but he's not exactly omniscient.

He even admits that he has to kill them off because it’s possible for him to lose track.

Now normally I could just stop here, but I’m all about the grand statements. You know, the retroactive readings of an episode once you get a theory going. Why does Gangle being an NPC matter at all? How does Ep 2 change?

While deep diving, I realized that the thematic core of Episode 2 is Pomni and Jax’s approaches to surviving the Digital Circus.

In Pomni’s A plot, we see her connecting with Gummigoo, the NPC that Caine pitted their group against. After discovering him lamenting his new reality, she finds a strange comfort in being existentially lost together. Because in the end the NPCs and the humans are just as displaced and frightened in this meaningless world.

In Jax’s B plot, he forces Gangle to follow some insane orders. Sabotage the game to let the big chocolate turd monster destroy the Candy Kingdom. To Jax, he is the main character. Helping or displeasing this giant population of fake people doesn’t have any consequence for him, so why humor anyone but yourself?

A bit of a stretch, but what if Jax already knows Gangle is an NPC and is keeping it quiet as long as Gangle follows orders, hence the “submissive” comment? He’d be a way more unpleasant character with this reading, but it doesn’t seem off the cards with how he treats everyone anyway.

This dichotomy already plays out well within the episode, but when reframing it as Pomni and Gummigoo vs Jax and Gangle, the parallel is a lot more interesting.

Make an NPC an equal, they die. But keep an NPC under wraps as long as they continue to obey you… they live.

The episode ends with a grim conundrum that NPCs can’t be together with the humans, not because of their differences but because they're just... not allowed to be. But what if one already in the group, proving that they’re just as capable as the humans to play the games and grieve loved ones together?

PS. Despite knowing everyone else's name, I actually forgot Gangle's until I started finding evidence for this intrusive thought. Sorry Gangle.

PSS. I couldn't fit this anywhere, but Gangle's door frame doesn't work as evidence against the NPC theory, because even the mannequins have their own rooms in that hallway.

[twyisontheline]

What if Alastor did try to fall in love with Vox

Thought to share an old radiostatic fluffyangsty headcanon... features internal-angst-about-his-aromanticism!Alastor

CW internalised arophobia

Alastor has never felt romantic attraction or feelings towards someone, in life or death. Now, with how strong amatonormativity is, he did try. He knew (thought) he was supposed to. It never worked. He reached the conclusion that he is fucked up. When he starts killing people, it almost makes sense - he's a psychopath, a monster, it must be related to not being able to love how other people do, how he should. How his mom would want him to love. He feels shame and guilt, even if he tries to push it all back down and tell himself that others are weak because of their feelings and it is something he would never want.

And it is something he doesn't want. But society tells him it makes one's life complete and makes you happy and fulfilled and he wonders. Is he broken in a way that prevents him from experiencing something so important and special?

Then he dies, and overall, life gets kinda easier. In the whole depravity and fucked-upness of Hell, there isn't an ideal happiness to wonder about. There isn't a society wanting you to marry and have kids and be normal and quaint. He can embrace being 'fucked up'.

Then he meets Vox. And slowly, the TV Demon finds a place in his heart. It's not unusual - Alastor does feel affection and platonic love, he knows he is able to feel that. And it has never been an issue that he doesn't feel romantic love, since none of his friends has ever wanted that kind of relationship with him.

Until it becomes an issue. When he realizes that Vox has feelings for him. Feelings that are romantic. That kind of love that he, Alastor, is not able to feel. And this opens the wound again. His fucked-upness could very well make him lose Vox. He doesn't want to lose their friendship - Vox gets him and spending time with him is pleasurable in an unique and special way, and he is not risking it. (He has found something special, regardless of it not being what society says it should.)

So he thinks: "I can make myself love him." He forced himself to be many things in his life and death, he won't let a weakness, a fault, a lack-of-ability, be an obstacle. He is not the weak powerless boy he once was in life. He is the Radio Demon. He takes what he wants. If learning to feel romantic love is what he needs to do to obtain what he wants, he'll do it.

So he tries, and lies to himself a bunch of times in the process, but eventually, he realizes that he is failing. And he sees it as that: a failure. So the mix of shame and guilt is back, like an emotional flashback from his human days that mixes with the shame of not being able to do something. Of being powerless in front of his own faults.

Fluff ensuring after all the angst could be that he finally confesses all this to Vox in a mental breakdown scenario - cause we know Alastor loves to freak out dramatically when he feels powerless - and Vox is like: "Man, calm down, it's not that big of a deal. I am not exactly thrilled at the idea you don't reciprocate my feelings but the idea you have to fake stuff with me and you tried so hard to be something you are not is even more upsetting. ...Plus kinda flattering, honestly, but let's not digress. What i am saying is, you don't have to do it. I am not going to end our friendship over it." And actually, realising that Alastor did all that just not to lose him, it’s more than flattering – it is proof of how deeply Alastor cares for him and loves him, even if his love is platonic. Vox doesn't need more.

And also, while Alastor has no idea that being aromantic is something that exists as a queer identity, Vox, unlike Alastor who doesn't pay attention to most of Sinners cause he lists them as not-entertaining-enough and avoids any place that has a even remotely sexual-relatedness, actually goes out and talks to people and did talk to people while figuring out he was queer. So we can insert here a speech by Vox about sexual/romantic orientation not being an illness etc etc with a bit of backstory about Vox being queer in the fifties and then dealing with his internalised homophobia after his death.

[dehydration-stati0n]

Kid, Killer, and Law Friendship HCs

Rules Word Count: 1.0k Spoilers: Wano

Kid

Kid is hard to get close to, but once it happens, you've got a friend for life

If he catches anyone messing with you in any way, he'll beat the absolute shit out of them

He's ridiculously protective in that way, especially after what happened with Killer in Wano, he's gonna make sure none of his other friends experience pain or humiliation without him intervening

Despite what his reputation suggests, he's fairly decent at comforting people in his own special way.

He'll hand you a bottle of bourbon and the weapon of your choice, and the two of you will go blow off some steam in the area nearest to you.

If you ever asked him to build you something, he'd reluctantly go and do it. Even if he muttered a few curses under his breath as he did it, he'd secretly be really happy you asked him. He takes great pride in what he does.

If you're friends with him, it'd almost be expected of you to be a part of his little crime sprees. Killer is a good accomplice on his own, but imagine having two accomplices. The three of you would be unstoppable.

He'd almost be magnetized to you, following you around wherever you go. He really likes being around people he trusts, and you happen to be one of them. Even if neither of you say anything.

He might yell at you sometimes, but he doesn't mean it in a mean way. It's kinda like his love language. He gets loud to show he cares about you. It's another one of the weird quirks he shares with people he likes.

Arm wrestles anyone??

I could see them being one of his favorite past times.

Kid is really open-minded. You could bring up almost anything and he wouldn't judge you for liking or hating whatever that thing might be.

He wouldn't mind helping you put on makeup, he actually really likes doing it for his pals.

If you manage to get him to open up to you about his emotions and how he feels, just know you're at the very peak of affinity with the redhead.

Just you, him, and Killer, dressing horrendously and causing problems.

Killer

If you're friends with Kid, you're friends with Killer. You either get both of them or none of them.

He's so thankful you're here, he desperately needs someone to help out with watching Kid

Do you like cooking? He likes cooking. Maybe you could do it with him? There are a lot of people to feed and he'd really appreciate the help.

His way of comforting people is WAYY different from Kids. Some might even say more humane.

He's more of a hugger in these situations. Not much of a talker but he can comfort you physically.

He and Kid are horrible to have as enemies, but if you somehow manage to become friends with them, they'll be the most loyal friends you've ever met. Whatever you need, Killer is there to help you out.

You two are the therapy friends for the crew.

He's really good at calming people down, so if you're ever mad, stressed, or upset in any way, it's probably best to go to him instead of Kid.

He's really knowledgeable about random things within the One Piece world and will be very internally excited if you ever wanted to sit and hear him ramble.

He likes to check in on you and the other members of the crew as often as he can. You've all been through a lot together and he likes to make sure you're all good.

He has a great memory and hardly ever forgets important dates. So if no one else shows up for your birthday or whatever niche date you might find important, just know Killer would be there.

He really likes doing things for others. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if you woke up one day to breakfast already made, or errands you were meaning to do already done.

Killer has such a great adoration for graffiti art and likes to go out with you to spray abandoned houses or broken walls with paint. He likes the artistic expression that graffiti holds.

Law

He's really big on quality time so he'll frequently invite you to sit with him in his office or out on the dock depending on if you're underwater or not.

He wouldn't mind it if you rambled on about something, in fact, he'd almost encourage you to do so.

He'd constantly ask for your feedback on a lot of his plans or thoughts he has.

The absolute dryest sense of humor. All. The. Time.

He'll try to solve just about all of your problems. Your noticing you have slow reflexes? Try this. Coffee's giving you headaches? Let him try making a pot. Something about your eye is bugging you? Let him take a look.

I hope you like cheap doctor visits, cause this guy will gladly treat you for free.

Sure, he's normally a private guy, but he'd be so honest with you. If you ask, he'll tell you. You're probably the only person who's seen him smile, or laugh for that matter.

He'd let you draw on his arm with a pen while he worked.

He's pretty strange himself, so if you had any out-of-the-ordinary hobbies, he wouldn't be the one to judge.

He wouldn't ever admit it in front of the Strawhats, but he really does like to explore, especially if it's just the two of you.

There's just something about wandering a new area with someone he finds endearing that's just so pleasant to him.

He loves to have mini-debates with you. Something about his thoughts being questioned makes him fall into a welcomed rabbit hole of new ideas and stronger plans.

Your lawyer in times of trouble.

Most nights it'll be you, Law, and the rest of the crew, sitting around below deck and playing whatever board games y'all got on you at the moment. Chess, Monopoly, Uno. Sometimes you guys'll even do puzzles.

[mysteroads]

After re-reading chpt 426, I had... emotions. 🥺 So, even though I posted the full fic here earlier, I thought everyone else might like to see Dabi finding peace at last. Like all the other League in this series, this excerpt is when Shig comes to pick up his party member. As a bonus, it can be read in a way that complies with the current canon circumstances. (As a double bonus, there's a cute moment with Shoto💕.) Without further ado: Dabi rejoins the League:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Dabi,” his name brought his wandering focus back to Shigaraki, “We already know you’re an asshole. You don’t have to try and talk me out of bringing you back.” He leaned closer and met Dabi’s eyes, bloody red to clouded crystal. “I see you, Dabi. We see you, Dabi. We’ve always seen you. We want you anyway. Magne, Jin, Toga, Spinner, Kurogiri… they’re all waiting for you.”

Those words hit him like a punch to the gut, wringing out a soft sound of pure longing that he didn’t know he was capable of making. 

Arms— hot and cold, slim and thick, both of them ghostly— wrapped around him. He suspected them of trying to comfort him, but he didn’t need comfort. Shigaraki wanted him. The League wanted him. They didn’t care that he wasn’t perfect, that he had been born to be a failure, that he was a broken, twisted caricature of a human being. Knowing he was wanted despite all that… it healed a wound in his soul that had been bleeding as long as he could remember, and suddenly it didn’t matter that Endeavor was still alive.

The League wanted him. They were waiting for him.

And he was tired. 

So very, very tired.

Even so, he mustered up the strength for one last bit of snark. “So… you… expect me to… just, what? … Waltz into Hell… with you?”

Shigaraki raised his eyebrows. “You could stay, if you'd rather.” His eyes flicked to the blurry people around Dabi, lingering on the ones who seemed to be embracing him. “Your family would prefer that, I think. They seem really upset. It’s your choice, though. It’s always been your choice, Dabi. We'll still be waiting if you want to stay for a little while longer.”

Dabi considered for less than a second. “Let’s go, Duster.” He’d been toying with that nickname for months, now seemed like the perfect time to use it. Judging by the pleased light in Tomura’s eyes, he was right.

Grinning, Tomura held out his hand.

Dabi felt something shift inside him, the pain and numbness retreating, replaced by a kind of pleasant, tingling feeling. But when he tried to reach out for Tomura’s hand, he could barely raise his arm an inch. He tried again, and still couldn’t. Sudden frustration and anguish made his already dry eyes sting.

“I can’t reach you! Tomura! Fuck!” Why couldn’t he do this? Just this one, last, final thing?! Why was it so hard to reach the things he wanted the most? “I… I c-can’t…”

Then his arm was being lifted, supported gently by someone else. 

Surprised, he looked in the direction of the red and white blur that held his damaged arm so tenderly. The blur wavered and came into sudden, sharp focus. It was Shoto. Shoto, his youngest brother, his father’s perfect masterpiece, the kid he barely knew but had tried his best to kill… and Shoto was crying. Crying so hard he had snot coming out his nose and his pretty porcelain skin was all blotchy. The sight made Dabi chuckle, even as it reminded him of Toga’s sad eyes. 

“Hey, little hero, don’t cry,” he said, and found that speaking didn’t hurt. He sounded like his old self too, the words clear and firm. Still raspy, but that was just the way he talked. “`S like I told Himiko. It doesn't matter whether we laugh or cry, the sun’ll still rise tomorrow... so you should choose to smile, baby brother.” Shoto’s lips wobbled as he tried to obey. Dabi smiled back and thought it probably looked like a nightmare, but for once, he felt genuinely happy and didn’t hold himself back. “That’s better.” 

Dabi was distracted from any reply his brother might’ve made as a cool, dry hand wrapped around his, and pulled him to his feet.

~*~*~*~

please reblog if you enjoyed! thank you for reading!

[heliads]

Hello, glad I can submit this request then, I barely find any Luke Castellan fics he needs more love 😭

Anyways, I just wanted to request something small like headcannons on what it would be like at the aftermath of the Battle of Manhattan if Luke didn't die, what would he be like and how the reader would help him overcome his trauma or problems ? Just pure fluff is what I'm trying to say ;_;

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense... Please let me know if you don't understand me XD

But thank you so much if you write this <3

i see that you have asked for headcanons but i am so delighted by this request that you get a full fic instead (ily)

masterlist

Luke Castellan is not sure what to do with the fact that he did not die. It would have made for a better ending, he thinks. It was the logical conclusion. He tried to make a better world, and when that failed, he could have been terminated along with that last dream. It is what most people would have decided was best.

Yet Luke opens his eyes– his eyes, not someone else’s, not that awful feeling of having his body belong to some being that was not even human, let alone not him– and he is alive. Luke is not sure yet whether this is good or bad. He’s not sure that anything in this world could remotely fit into those categories anymore.

He stares up at a blank ceiling above, which confuses him. Last time he checked, Luke was dying on the ruined floor of the gods’ throne room. There had still been a roof over his head, but Luke swore that he could see a sky of the deepest blue. Luke had felt himself fall into that wondrous lapis void, and then he had felt nothing at all.

That was supposed to be dying. It was more peaceful than most people would say he deserved, given all the hell Luke wreaked on the world by allying with Kronos. Luke’s supposed ending had certainly not been pretty:  a dagger in his hand, stabbed into the one place the immortal waters of the River Styx hadn’t protected him. Achilles’ curse had lifted, and Luke was free of the Titan that had been consuming his body whole.

Yet Luke is staring up at a room that is neither burned nor broken. At first, he wonders if this is what death is like, but he’s heard enough stories of the Underworld to know that it would never be this simplistic. No, this isn’t Death; Luke sits up slowly and manages to fight nausea long enough to realize that he’s back in Camp Half-Blood. Back home, his mind tells him, and Luke has to remind himself that’s not true anymore. He has no home. He has no people, he left them all a very long time ago.

A voice to his side makes Luke whip around.

“I’d sit down if I were you.”

Luke trains his eyes until they slowly, begrudgingly focus on an orange-shirted figure seated next to him. At last, he realizes he recognizes the guy. Will Solace, one of Apollo’s kids. He must have been in charge of bringing Luke back from the dead. 

Luke is baffled by the fact that Will is perched here and not Michael Yew, current head of the Apollo cabin, until it occurs to him that Michael is likely dead. That explains the hollows under Will’s eyes, at least, and the undercurrent of hate that Will only barely keeps at bay. Such strong emotions for a boy who’s usually so cheerful. Luke supposes he only has himself to blame for that.

Will may despise Luke all he wishes, but he’s still a doctor at heart. The blond gestures for Luke to lean back down. “If you rip out your stitches and make my work worthless, I’ll kill you myself.” Will says.

Luke arches a brow. “How do I know you won’t do that anyway?”

“I’m still debating,” Will replies pleasantly.

Someone laughs next to him. “Try to stay civil, Solace. Our time for killing is over.”

A camper takes a seat on Luke’s other side. After a few moments of recollection, his addled head realizes that he knows them. That’s Y/N L/N, they’ve been in the Hermes cabin for the longest time, not one of Luke’s half siblings on the godly side but yet another demigod gone unclaimed for years. They used to complain about that to him. He doubts they would repeat the same sentiments now.

Will groans. “Let me at least try to be intimidating, L/N. I only get to do it so often.”

Y/N cracks a grin, then turns to Luke. “I imagine you must have a lot of questions.”

Luke narrows his eyes at them. “Why aren’t I dead?”

Y/N does a superb job of ignoring Will’s clear sentiment that he’d like an answer to that as well, keeping their gaze firmly trained on Luke. “You tried to stop Kronos in the end. Chiron decided that, seeing as you did all that in an effort to protect unclaimed kids and demigods who were ignored by their godly parents, you deserved a second chance.”

“Does anyone other than Chiron actually believe that?” Luke asks pointedly.

Y/N shrugs. “Depends on what you do when you get out of here.”

Will jumps up. “That’s my cue to check on the rest of my suffering patients. You know, the ones that didn’t try to betray us.”

Y/N watches him go. “Ignore him. He’s–”

Luke cuts her off. “Mad that I tried to kill everyone here? I can’t blame him.”

“So you regret what you did?” Y/N questions slowly.

“I don’t regret trying to do something,” Luke says, “only that the gods weren’t as hurt as the demigods. I didn’t want to hurt us, just them. Olympus could use a good scare.”

Thunder rumbles overhead, loud and overbearing. Luke imagines it’s a warning to him:  he’s treading on thin ice by staying alive, he’d better not press his luck by insulting the gods anymore.

Y/N sighs, evidently thinking the same thing. “You wouldn’t be the only one to want the world to change.”

Luke glances over at them. Obviously, he hasn’t seen Y/N since he switched sides, but he had forgotten that they used to be friends. Good friends, too. It’s nice to have at least that back to normal.

“You haven’t been claimed in the last while, have you?” He asks, changing the subject away from more dangerous waters.

Y/N smiles. “Actually, I have. Percy made the gods swear to start claiming more of their kids. I found out about my parentage a few days ago.”

Luke nods solemnly, but doesn’t ask for further details. He made a point of prioritizing the demigod over their godly parent when he was recruiting for Kronos during the war, and he supposes that habit has stuck. It makes him wonder how many more traits of the enemy he won’t ever be able to shake.

“So when do I get out of here?”

Y/N folds their arms across their chest. “Depends on what you mean by getting out of here. You’ll get a clean bill of health within the next day or two, most likely. You won’t be leaving the camp for months, though, if ever.”

The implications of that don’t have to be spoken aloud. Luke messed up, obviously, and so he’ll be on house arrest until the end of time. If he can prove that he’s worth the effort of saving, maybe they’ll let him live his life, but until then he’ll be monitored around the clock.

It’s more than he expected, at any rate. Part of Luke thought that he’d be handed over to some sort of trial once he healed up, made to face his crimes and be overly punished accordingly. That way, the gods could point to him in the decades and centuries to come as proof of why half-bloods should never reach for more than they deserve.

But no, he’ll be living. That’s certainly something. Luke leans back slowly against his cot and ponders this. “Do I get a personal guard or something?”

Y/N lifts a shoulder. “Kind of. You get me. I’m supposed to follow you around and make sure you don’t try to escape.”

Luke snorts. “How’d you get stuck with that job?”

“I asked for it,” Y/N says coolly.

Luke is taken aback. “Why’d you do that?” He can’t imagine anyone in this camp actively trying to bond with him, let alone someone he knew as well as Y/N. Wouldn’t they hate him for betraying them?

They might be just as surprised about it as he is. “I’m not entirely sure. Guess I thought I was the only one who wouldn’t actively try to kill you in your sleep.”

They’re brutal about it, but it’s kind of nice. Honesty is the only sort of medicine that Luke feels like he can stomach right now. Mollycoddling and sugarcoating just serve to waste time.

He half expects Y/N to back out of it, but no, when Luke is declared medically sound and all but forced out of the hospital wing by swordpoint, they’re waiting for him by the door. Luke staggers out into the bright sunlight and looks around like he’s in a dream. The camp has changed since he last saw it. Cabins have sprung up like wildflowers and more are being constructed by the moment.

Y/N notices him staring and gestures towards the new buildings. “See, that’s your doing, even if no one wants to admit it. A ton of new kids have been claimed. Hermes cabin has never been so empty.”

Bitterness surges through Luke’s throat before he can stop it. “I thought that was Percy’s idea.”

Y/N shakes their head. “Percy only got the idea from you. You can make yourself a villain if you want, but you weren’t entirely heartless. You got my godly parent to claim me, and that’s worth a lot.”

Luke smiles to himself as they go. Y/N leads him to the door of their cabin. It’s still cavernously empty compared to the close quarters Luke remembers in Hermes, and he only notices one bunk with belongings on it.

“You’re the only one here?” He asks.

Y/N nods. “So far, at least. I’ve got you now, though. Just as a warning, I will be claiming cabin counselor privileges and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Luke grins before he realizes it. The expression makes his scar ache, but he finds he doesn’t mind it quite so much as before. “I won’t fight you on that.”

He pulls himself onto the top bunk of one of the many empty rows and surveys his new domain. “Do you think it was worth it? Figuring out who your godly parent was just for them to leave you like this?”

After all, what a life. An empty cabin already collecting dust. It’s cold in here without bodies inside to warm it up. The walls are barren of personal touches. Y/N knows their heritage, yes, and is able to move out of a cabin that was never theirs, but this doesn’t seem like much of a blessing.

Y/N lingers by the foot of Luke’s bunk, and he gestures for them to climb up and join him. They do so in a heartbeat, and then they’re sitting opposite each other, gazes locked and breathing steady.

“It can be lonely,” they admit, “but it’s not so bad. You have hope that it won’t always be this way. Maybe someone will come. Maybe someone already has.”

Luke swallows harshly. “I missed you.”

He blurts it out, hardly aware of what he’s saying. He missed a hell of a lot. Y/N. Laughing at midnight, their whispered words covered up by the sounds of dozens of campers sleeping shoulder to shoulder. Training during the day, the clash of celestial bronze. Orange shirts burning like beacons against their backs. Being able to wear his beaded necklace without feeling like a traitor, even if that’s what he is and always will be.

Y/N leans forward. “I missed you too. I kept hearing about you, which is more than you got of me, but it didn’t feel right. I don’t know where the boy I knew is, if he even exists anymore, but I’d like to try and find him again.”

“I’d like to find him again too,” Luke whispers.

It is the dream of a broken boy bleeding out in the palace of the gods. At this moment, Luke isn’t entirely sure that he didn’t die there in the Olympian throne room. If someone told him that this is what dying is like, conjuring up a vision of what he wishes he could have most of all, Luke would have believed them.

In the end, Luke has no idea if this is real or not. All he can do is keep going, keep waking up each morning to see if he is still in the hazy aftermath of a second chance or finally locked down below in the Underworld. Luke always wanted to try for the Isles of the Blest anyway. Maybe this is just his second life, his second attempt at getting there.

He reaches out on impulse and takes Y/N’s hand. He can feel the blood pumping through their veins, the same certainty as being able to press his fingers against a locked door and know exactly how to break in. This is Luke’s next great trick, but he thinks he’d like to do it right.

“Alright, then,” Luke says at last, “Let’s try again.”

pjo taglist: @w1shes43

[veespee]

Vinnie Everyman headcanons. NEEEOWWW. I'm joking take your time I love you sisouchhh

ILY TOO and i actually already have written some Vinnie headcanons, but they're pretty old and i honestly didn't get his character that much, so I'll add some more!

old headcanons:

Vinnie Everyman headcanons

-Very good liar. Like, he could just make up the most believable lies in a second, which is pretty impressive. I think that's why he was able to fool literally everyone watching the videos into believing he's an unknowing victim.

-Literally can't form a thought without HABIT. Like he needs HABIT's input on everything. I'm pretty sure i said this on my old post, but i think he believes HABIT is so much stronger and intelligent, so he follows him around for input and information. Again, with his obsession with finding out 'the truth' and 'the clues', he will basically take whatever he can get.

-Doesn't like showing emotion or talking about his emotions. He's very much a person who just ignores his trauma, bottles it up, then explodes.

-This goes for all the characters tbh but i think they all have some sort of connection to their past iterations. Like flashbacks or deja vu. They don't remember, but they also just feel something in their gut. For example in Vinnie's case, i think he would feel a connection to/a craving for certain drugs, due to his Princeton Iteration being an addict. Or sometimes Vinnie would split, since his Princeton version has BPD. (not confirmed, but hinted) They all keep little characteristics, like fragments of broken glass, every time they're reborn.

smaller and weirder headcanons cause i ran out of ideas:

-Since he was a kid he named his pets weirdly human names. (ex. Jeremy, Robert, Susan etc.) Idk why he just seems very uncreative to me.

-Will eat anything and is only picky about a few things. Like give this man food and he'll be happy as long as it's edible and doesn't have pickles or something.

-Headlocks + play fights to show affection. He usually just doesn't know or want to show affection anyways, so he uses a more 'manly' and 'rough' way.

[idontknowmyownmind]

Modern AU OG!AlCale; slight RokCale

Cale is someone who is unable to love and feels empathy. Emotions are something hard to grasp for him.

Cale always curious about human emotions.

Alberu is a black sheep in his family. His mother died when he was 5. No one in his family care about him because he is an illegitimate child.

Alberu always long for attention, love, and recognition from someone.

The first time they met was when Cale was 5 and Alberu was 7. Their parents are bussiness partner.

Since then, they have been together as playmate. Cale is blunt, especially when he was kid. He told Alberu that he is fake and he want to know why.

Alberu thought that he was being mocked but when he lool at Cale, he could seen genuine curiosity.

Cale is a sharp and smart kid. It's not long for him to realized that he is not, by any means, a normal person.

At the age of 10, he proposed to Alberu a deal. The content is, he will provide Alberu with 'love' and attention, he will give him recognition and 'care' for him. In return, he will help Cale satisfied his curiosity on human emotions and become his 'experiment' partner.

At first, Alberu just indulge him on this but as time goes by, he kinda became dependant on Cale because if he doesn't know any better, he will believe that Cale is genuine and sincere.

As they grow older, they still keep their 'agreement'. Cale might 'experienced' on many people but Alberu will always be his last stop. And Alberu become obsessive and possessive over Cale. They know each other deepest secret and only when it's the two of them they can be themselves.

They are each other first in everything

How Roksoo fit?

Well, no one know about their 'relationship'. Everyone know that they know each other since kid because of their parents, but they think that their relationship is not genuine and more professional. No one know about the intimacy of their relationship.

The 'heroes', the Soos, and Alberu are a group of friends. They are young and stupid, so CJS proposed a bet to Roksoo. He has to date Cale for three months.

Cale is known as a blunt and rude person (rude in a way of he talk without filter, not in a way of picking a fight with anyone). And he is known to have a long list of dates that not last more than a week, the longest is probably only two week top.

Alberu doesn say anything, he's actually encourage it. Cale told him that he is bored because no one is fun to 'play' with, so why not he send him a new 'playmate'?

He told Cale about the bet to pique his interest because it will be his 'first' time to be a betting subject. True to his expectation, Cale is interest and willing himself to stay for three months.

On the way to two months, Cale is bored but he endure it so Alberu will win his bet. And Roksoo started to developed feeling in a month they are 'together'.

After three months, Roksoo need to come clean to Cale about the bet. He feels guilty but he also planned to confes for real this time.

But before he got the chance, after he told Cale about the bet, nonchalantly Cale said that he know about the bet all this time. He told Roksoo that he stay because he thought it would be fun. Cale even told Roksoo that he actually started to get bored in their two months together.

He said all that with straight face and even voice. Cale even has the gall to look confuse when Roksoo looks upset (because he think that shouldn't it be him who feels upset? Hm..)

After that, Roksoo leave with a broken heart.

At the night, he told Alberu everything during the three months and what happened after and Alberu need to explain to him why it happen. During three months, they were not met or call each other.

Alberu feels bad for Roksoo because he know that Roksoo has a strong yet also fragile heart. But he also feels glad that Cale is not actually develop feeling to Roksoo. Watching them together is such a torture for him because with Cale, he never know what he actually feeling.

He know Cale's condition, but he also afraid that someday he will feels genuine love for someone and that someone is not him. He is afraid that Cale will leave.

Sometimes he forgot how good of an actor Cale is. It's a good thing he got bored of Roksoo.

Seeing Alberu seems to be upset, he 'comfort' him and shower him with a lot of 'loves'.

[amour393]

ok. dragons rising part 2 thoughts

these will be in no particular order but I'll try to stay somewhat organized XD

spoilers ahead!

(this ah. got long)

Characters

Lloyd: As sad as I get when I think about Lloyd growing up, I love what they're doing with him. Seeing the parallels between him and Wu is so poetic and I LOVE the dynamic with Lloyd and Arin. Lloyd is kind and strong and wise and he has been treated so well in dragons rising

Arin: Speaking of, Arin is absolutely amazing. He is precious and adorable and I love him. Sweet polite boy I love you so much you have never done anything wrong ever and I love you

Sora: Sora is fine, I like her but I'm not like obsessed with her character like I am with Arin. I love Sora but I'm never super jazzed about her. Her arc in part 2 was alright but I wish it had more buildup. I think with a few more moments here and there of her trying to use her powers without Riyu would have made the payoff much better. And I know they were trying to go for a "resistance never quits" moment with her speech at the end but. Idk it just didn't hit the same

Zane: Zane I love you. I feel you I also am BROKEN over Pixal being gone. Literally everything about Zane in part 2 was perfect. I love him so much and he loves pixal so much it makes me unwell. Also. Zane Day is now an international holiday

Nya: I love Nya's dynamic with Sora and how she gets to be like. The first positive female influence in Sora's life. Especially because Nya didn't have that as a kid or uh ever so I love that. HOWEVER!!! Oh my goodness gracious give Nya feelings. She has emotions. She has trauma. What are we doing guys. I'll go episode by episode later but I am incredibly salty at how Nya was treated in episode 14. and also. OH MY WORD. WHAT ABOUT JAY. You have said his name TWICE and Cole looked more distraught than you!!! You care about this boy more than almost anyone else in the world!!!!!!!! Why aren't you acting like it???????????? I see you with a lightning dragon but that's like the most we get.

Kai: oh Kai I absolutely love how they are treating you and i also hate it. It's like with Jay gone they were like haha let's make Kai stupid so he'll be the new comic relief! However I love teacher Kai. He is my favorite, the growth, the development, the parallels! Yes! Kai is an accomplished ninja!! He's been a ninja for over 10 years at this point!! He has learned so much and grown so so much since then and I love him so much.

Wyldfyre: I'm about to make a lot of people really mad but I absolutely despise Wyldfyre. I love the concept of Kai having a kid to train (and all of them each having a next-gen kid to train) but Wyldfyre was not the right fit and I just disliked her more every time she was on screen, which was really upsetting because every time it switched back to her and Kai I was already annoyed and I don't want to be upset when Kai's onscreen but she is just so intolerable it made it hard to enjoy Kai, which is so so sad because I absolutely love Kai! Wyldfyre is selfish, arrogant, irritatingly reckless, petty, and INCREDIBLY rude and disrespectful to Kai. I don't care if she was raised in the wilderness. Kai spent all of part 2 trying to help her be better and the most of a character arc we got from her was her. Not acting like a jerk. Which we should not have to be proud of!! Not being a jerk is expected!! That's not a character arc that's just being a decent human being!! I think Wyldfyre's character could have worked in theory if she had literally any likable characteristics but she just doesn't. I don't think I have ever disliked a ninjago character this much which is such a bummer. It fills me with rage every time they compare her to Kai. Sure, in the early seasons Kai was kind of reckless and a bit self-absorbed. But not nearly to this extent, and Kai was still likable. The things about Wyldfyre they try to play off as humor aren't funny, they're just annoying or gross. I'm not opposed to the concept of Kai adopting a feral child, but if the feral child is like this then I don't want it. Replacing Wyldfyre with Skylor or a new character that is actually likable would have made Dragons Rising SO much better.

Cole: on a MUCH more positive note, I literally don't think they could have done Cole any more perfect. I am SO GLAD HE'S BACK I MISSED HIM SO MUCH. Cole being thrown into the Land of Lost Things is absolutely heartbreaking and says so much about his character. Cole, who had an entire character arc over fear of being forgotten ending up in the Land of Lost Things? I AM BROKEN. Dad Cole is back and better than ever. He found a bunch of children and immediately adopted them? Perfection. Could not be better. He actively chooses to remain in the Land of Lost Things to protect them?????? Amazing so in character it hurts and I love him so much. A lot of this season made me remember how much I love Cole. I spent this entire season freaking out over Jay that I forget how much I love Cole and this season did not fail to remind me. His first line being "NO ONE TOUCHES THESE CHILDREN!!!!!" is amazing and perfect and so in character. I cannot applaud what they did with Cole enough. Well done. I am very curious to see where Wu is leading him, can't wait to see him in season 2. I will die mad he didn't get to see Zane or Kai or Lloyd but ITS FINE IM FINE

Geo: I would throw him in with the other characters but oh my gosh. Geo's existence is absolutely perfect. The symbolism?? The metaphors?? Absolutely perfect. Him being a hybrid of two peoples who have a reputation for hating each other being the Master of Fusion, of bringing two things that don't belong together? I am destroyed. It occurs to me that when they first met Geo was probably like "yeah, I'm half geckle half munce and I was exiled from my people since they hate each other and they will never reconcile their differences" and Cole was like "Well that sucks but I have some good news for you" but then Geo couldn't even leave to try to find Shintaro. I am depressed. I love love love Geo based on his symbolism alone, not to mention the fact that his powers are genuinely super cool.

Other Characters: when i tell you I lost my BLOODY MIND when gulch showed up it is a vast understatement. I freaked out I screamed it was amazing. It was so fun seeing Gulch again. This is the dragons rising I love, new characters doing important things and running into old characters we know and love. Frohicky is fun I love him. Lobbo has never done anything wrong and I'm so proud of him for winning the Zane lookalike contest. Slay king. Jordana is uh there I guess, she's boring so far. I will give thoughts on Arrokore when I talk about episode 14

Villains: Beatrix is incredibly boring and I am SO glad she's not gonna be the actual villain. Lord Ras is much more interesting and compelling (is Chima the Wyldness????? Because he is definitely from Chima and the writers are COWARDS for saying anything different). This is the first time we've had a Ninjago plot genuinely stretch across more than one season and I am sooooo relieved that Beatrix isn't actually the big bad. I'm really excited to meet Ras' master. I'm not going to lie I literally forgot about Rapton and had to come back and talk about him. I cannot emphasize how neutral I am about him. He is a Guy and that is the extent of my feelings. Same with LaRow I keep forgetting about her

Speaking of villains! That brings us to the Administration. I absolutely love it. The concept of the Administration is so interesting and I cannot WAIT to learn more about them and see more of them. There's something so interesting and also poetic about an organization of micromanagers being part of the same realm as the Realm of Madness that just. hnng. The Administration is totally sick and i can't wait to see more of them. Which leads us to...

Jay: Hm. Ah. Where do I begin. When I tell you I screamed, I lost my freaking mind it is not an understatement. I think I've watched those same 20 seconds like 30 times at least and I need those five lines tattooed on my brain. I have so many emotions. It breaks my heart. I'm elated. This is everything I've wanted. I'm so mad that's all there was. It makes perfect sense. Why would they do this. There's something that destroys me so much about Jay- sweet, kind, fun, creative, quirky, genuine Jay- in an organization of micromanagers. He is passive-aggressive and sassy and degrading and mean and I LOVE HIM. It is so inherently not who Jay is (except for being sassy I'm so glad he's a little brat) and I think that's great. It makes me SO excited to see what they do with him in season 2. If they don't do him justice I will RIOT. This has the potential to be one of my favorite plot points in all of ninjago history if they do it right, but if they do it wrong I will be broken. He looks so good in this animation, I absolutely LOVE IT. He is beautiful and sassy and it BREAKS ME that they don't know he's there. They were so close and they missed him. No one knows Jay is there. I am destroyed. He's a manager!! He's working his way up in the world!! I am so proud of him. He would buy himself a worlds best boss mug. Everyone loves him and they hate him. I might make a whole other post just on how I need that reunion to go but. I miss him so much. So much. I don't know how long I can wait without them knowing he's there. Go find your brother. You know where everyone else is now GO FIND YOUR BROTHER!!!!

Episodes

11. Temple of the Dragon Cores - Solid episode? It makes me curious about the lore. Surely either the Wyldness or the Garden are Chima there's no way Chima is separate. There are literally snail people and giant trees. If that's not Chima core idk what is. Rapton is there I guess. The guardian thing was cool. Lloyd dropping random earth-shattering facts is such a Wu thing to do I am LIVING for it.

12. Gangs of the Sea - When I say I spent this whole episode wishing for Bentho I'm not joking. I freaking miss him why didn't they mention him it would have been so easy!! Arin you are so cute and I love you.

13. Wyldly Inappropriate - This episode filled me with so much rage solely because of Wyldfyre. I'm sorry Wyldfyre truthers I am happy for you but oh my word it's just painful. She is so arrogant and just straight up unkind I hate her so much. This episode would have been so much better with Skylor instead. Or literally anyone but Wyldfyre.

14. The Last Djinn - Ok as a skybound truther I have So Many Emotions about this episode. How did Nya know this was a place of the djinn and she was just? Fine? Ok. Arrokore is fine as a character but i absolutely hate what it did to the Djinn. Having a character who has lost their whole society is fascinating! I would have preferred if they made him more of a Ronin-type recluse, where he's extremely paranoid and distrusting instead of just straight-up depressed. All of the experience we have with Djinn is that they are extremely powerful and evil and crazy and dangerous. Switching from Nadakhan to Arrokore was such a hard shift that as a fan it was so hard to be able to enjoy Arrokore as a character. That's not the main thing I'm upset about, overall he's likable and he's fine, I just think he could have been a lot cooler. My main issue with this episode is Nya. Is she just perfectly fine? GIVE HER EMOTIONS OH MY GOSH. SHE HAS TRAUMA YOU COWARDS SHOW IT!!!!!! Literally one of THE most traumatizing times in her life was directly tied to a Djinn and she runs into one and she's just. Fine? There was pretty much NOTHING that alluded to Nya having any sort of history with the Djinn except maybe a little bit of salt when she's talking about their showmanship. A Djinn kidnapped and tortured the love of her life. A Djinn almost destroyed her entire home. A Djinn captured her and caused her own possession. A Djinn killed her (more or less). You want to look me in the eyes and tell me she's going to run into a Djinn and just be perfectly fine? Absolutely not. They could have done this SO much better. Show the trauma. Show the distrust. Show me Nya jumping in front of Sora, show me the fear running through her. Give me Sora asking how Nya knows so much about the Djinn and Nya just can't bring herself to answer. Or she does! And we get a moment of "the only other person who remembers is Jay, and he..." [ACTUALLY SAD MOMENT THAT GENUINELY SHOWS THAT NYA HAS EMOTIONS AND ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HER LITERAL FIANCÉ WHO SHE LITERALLY GAVE UP HER LIFE FOR] and maybe Sora comforts her! A "we'll find him, Nya" moment. Just a moment. Nya left and Jay fell apart and I hate how Nya is shown to be perfectly fine when Jay has been gone for years. We could have had a little arc of Nya overcoming trauma and distrust and learning that not all Djinn are the same! Okay, fine, we didn't get that. But how dare they let Nya start wishing. Wishes got her killed. Wishes caused the most traumatic weeks of her life. Wishes almost killed the love of her life. You want to tell me that she's just totally fine firing off a few wishes? SHE DIED. GIRLY DIED AND SHE'S JUST MAKING WISHES LIKE IT'S NOTHING? We could have had a moment of Arrokore saying they have to wish for it and Nya being like "NO Sora you can't trust him, they're all the same" and then Arrokore proves himself! Even so, Nya should not have let Sora make a wish without protesting, and she CERTAINLY would not have made one herself. As a skybound stan this episode made me so sad. It was genuinely a good episode but I am so so broken up over what could and should have been. Zane did put a picture of Pixal on a broom though so this episode gets points for that

15. They Call It Doom - YOU'RE TELLING ME THE ADMINISTRATION JUST CASUALLY ALSO SHOOTS BLUE LIGHTNING. FINE OKAY THAT'S GREAT. I already shared my Nya and Arrokore and whatnot thoughts but still. I'm still salty. Anyway this episode's ending was glorious. Teacher Kai you will always be famous I'm so sorry this is the trainee you got stuck with. NO ONE TOUCHES THESE CHILDREN lives in my head rent free and his powerup is so so cool. Baby Serpentine. yes.

16. Land of Lost Things - so you're telling me that Cole has adopted stray children who have run away from home because they felt unwanted and unloved. no I'm totally fine I'm SO normal about cole and his character and the respect he got and the sacrifice of him staying there to protect these kids. I am so broken but its fine I'm fine everything is fine

17. The Administration - See aforementioned thoughts on Jay. The Administration is so cool I love them and I am stoked to see more of them. It's giving men in black tbh. They are so cool. When they follow the directions and find Zane and they're like oh hi Zane! we didn't even know you were here! A) peak comedy and B) when he said "who did you think was going to be here?" THAT WAS DIRECTLY TO US THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT JAY AND IM SO MAD AT THEM FOR IT NOT ACTUALLY THOUGH. Also I don't remember which episode Zane Day and Gulch was in but every moment of that was both perfection and also the peak of comedy. The music when Jay walks on screen destroyed me it was so so good. He is a tired office worker the headcanons were RIGHT. Cannot get over that. I love the look of the Administration, the style, it all looks so good. The concept of a whole organization with an entire division assigned to realm reassignment is fascinating. I want to see Kai's teaching in this episode is great and the parallels between him and Wu were amazing. At the end of the day Jay was here and that gave me enough serotonin to last me a good long while.

18. Absolute Power - I'm not gonna lie this was hard to enjoy because I just wanted to see more of Jay but it was a solid episode. I wanna know what Beatrix' sister's elemental power was. Ras is very cool I am so glad he's going to have a bigger role. Nya and Cole's relationship in this episode is everything to me. They are So Siblings and also Best Friends I love them so so much.

19. We Are All Dragons - good for the Imperium kids starting the revolution, but Rapton being the traitor made no sense. It's like they tried to pull a Kallus in Rebels but there was not nearly enough buildup for this to make sense. I really couldn't care less about Rapton so I'm not mad about this it just didn't make that much thematic sense lolll. I did really like Sora's moment with her parents and rejecting them in favor of the found family, but her speech didn't make sense. It would have hit so much more if she actually explained what ~being a dragon~ means but she really just went WE ARE ALL DRAGONS!! and everyone went YEAH!!!!!!!!!! like girlie uh what does that mean. I liked the parallels but Lloyd's moment was better.

20. The Power Within - I still don't understand why Beatrix wanted to uh. destroy the universe but pop off. I'm not gonna lie I literally cheered when Wyldfyre got sucked into a mergequake. Kai's reaction was in theory great but i am still salty it was over Wyldfyre, this child has been absolutely horrible to you Kai what are you doing. I don't understand how everyone is perfectly fine when everyone comes back from the merge quakes when Beatrix literally went through one of them. I loved Sora's showdown with her parents and I can't wait to see what's up with Ras. I will DIE MAD THERE'S NO MURAL ON THE WALL but WHATEVER.

Returning Characters

I want Pixal back so bad. I'm very optimistic she'll be here in season 2 and I cannot wait for her to be back. I'm hoping that she'll come save Zane from, idk, sensing his signal or something.

SKYLOR. OH MY GOODNESS BRING BACK SKYLOR. I need her back so bad it's unreal

I want Vania back. I want fugidove back. WHERE IS GARMADON. WHERE IS HE. WE HAVENT EVEN MENTIONED HIM WHERE IS HE.

I miss Ed and Edna and Lou and Cyrus Borg and Scott and the elemental masters (WHERES KARLOFF I MISS HIM SO MUCH) and BENTHO and yeah. i miss them

SO, I have a lot of thoughts as you can see and this probably isn't all of them. I want all of everyone's thoughts please send me asks send me messages I just want to scream

AND BRING BACK JAY

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

OC Deep Dive Tag

I was tagged by @the-inkwell-variable <3 And those questions sound like questions that would be fun to answer for Caldyn.

I'll leave it an open tag, because it's quite long.

What uncommon/common fear do they have?

It's probably not very uncommon, but he's terribly afraid of fire.

Do they have any pet peeves?

People not putting stuff back from where they took it. Everything has its place, and if it's not there, he'll never find it again.

What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom?

Well, first of all, it's a cave, not a room. Inside is. A bed. Rest depends on whether the lesbians got their hands on his interior decorations already.

What do they notice first in a person?

Very often their voice. Which doesn't do him much good with humans, because he can't interpret their tone. With his kind, it would be what they put in the telepathic meaning behind their words.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

I'd say 9. Poor guy went through it, and he'll ignore anything as long as he can until his body says "nope."

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?

Depends on the kind of pressure. When panicking, his first instinct is to flee, but when someone else is in danger, he will fight. If both come together, he can also freeze.

Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?

All kalani are one big family, coming from the same tree.

What animal represents them best?

... a stick insect. Possibly a walking leaf. Just kidding. I always say he has capybara energy.

What is a smell that they dislike?

Lilac! For no particular reason whatsoever! :)

Have they broken any bones?

What goes for bones in his kind, yes. Too many of them. I sometimes wonder if it's quicker to list which ones weren't broken.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

What the fuck is that thing???

Are they a night owl or a morning bird?

Neither. His sleep schedule is pretty fucked, and he often stays up for more than 24 hours, but he likes day and night equally.

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love?

Much to Lily's dismay, he doesn't like honey much. He does love the flavor of grilled meat, much to his dismay, because he's not going near any fire.

Do they have any hobbies?

Little crafts like weaving baskets or carving stuff. Talking to trees and flowers. Hopping into another plane of existence.

Boom, surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises?

What, where did he go?

Do they like to wear jewelry?

No.

Do they have neat or messy handwriting?

His handwriting was already shit before he went blind, and he never writes anymore.

What are the two emotions they feel the most?

I'd say calm and curiosity. On a regular day - and despite all the shit I put him through, there are many regular days - he can sit silently for hours on end and just take in all the different sounds and smells and energies.

Do they have a favorite fabric?

He does not like fabric very much, but as long as it's not on his body, he enjoys fabric with a texture, or items made out of different fabrics with different textures.

What kind of accent do they have?

Well, he sounds rather wooden when he speaks.

[good-to-drive]

thoughts on the Harrison-Boyd-Clapton live triangle???

Oh god I have SO many thoughts lol. I was actually just talking to my best friend about this, but to put it simply I see the whole situation as an example of two people who truly love each other not belonging together because the particular ways in which they're broken go together too well.

But, to put it less simply:

I tend to think about it from Pattie's perspective, and I've always thought of her as having pretty severe eldest daughter syndrome, i.e. she was taught to value her worth by what she could provide to others. Her parents weren't super involved and she took on a lot more responsibility than most kids her age, especially when it came to her younger siblings. This quote in particular stood out to me when I was obsessing over Pattie a few months ago:

(Not sure where that's originally from btw, I've had the screenshot forever but based on formatting I think it might be brainy quote).

It's often a red flag when people say they felt older than their years, and doubly so when they were in some way parentified. We often reenact the role we played in our childhood family system in our adult relationships, and in Pattie I think this lead her to be extremely giving and self sacrificing. To the point where I'm not sure she was even aware that she HAD emotional needs, much less knew how to assert them.

To that end, although I obviously like George quite a bit, there's no denying that -- especially as a young man -- he was an incredibly needy person. (I actually think all the beatles were sort of black holes of emotional need tbh, at least in their youth. Partly because of childhood trauma but also because they were living a life that's larger and more extreme than any human being was meant to live.)

Pattie's tendency to sacrifice excessively dovetailed perfectly with George's tendency to need excessively, and as a result he totally eclipsed her entire self, until she felt utterly lost. That's neither of their fault, btw. Neither of them was emotionally mature or self aware enough to realize what was happening.

(Not to mention George was cheating like a dog and Pattie was taking it on the chin even though she knew deep down she deserved better. But former parentified children often put up with a lot of shit as adults because they believe it's their responsibility to do so.)

Then Eric comes along and literally tells her it's her fault he's addicted to heroin and if she doesn't leave George he'll die and it'll be all her fault. Aside from the fact that this is literally emotional abuse, it's also an even darker and more powerful black hole of neediness than George. And as someone whose sense of self has been eclipsed and who only knows she matters when she's of service to others, it was basically impossible not to fall into that black hole.

For his part, I think Eric was far more concerned with taking something from George than being with Pattie. I don't know enough about him to know why he'd feel the need to do that and I also really dislike him so I doubt I'll ever find out. Pattie said he got bored of her pretty much as soon as he "had" her, and tbh that doesn't surprise me.

It was honestly such a tragic thing for Pattie to be driven/dragged away from George -- personally I believe they always loved each other (she referred to him as her soulmate in her autobiography, and George made sure she knew as long as he was alive she'd have a financial parachute) -- but I also genuinely think they had to lose each other in order to find themselves.

Pattie couldn't stay in a relationship where she was fulfilling the same self sacrificing role she played as a child, and although it was a long and painful road she seems to have really found herself and found peace. She's never explicitly said this, but often people without a strong sense of self need to be on their own in order to learn how to value themselves, and she did spend a long time unmarried after Eric.

And, although George was gutted by the breakup, he was no more capable of expressing love in a healthy way than Pattie was. If they had stayed together I doubt he'd have grown into the wise and self possessed person that he ultimately became, because he simply wouldn't have had to. (Plus he never would have found Liv and I love her just as much as I love Pattie.)

In the end their relationship is fascinating and tragic to me because the things that drew them to one another so deeply were also what ultimately doomed them, and yet in the shadow of that loss they became the people they were meant to be and found their happy endings.

Thanks for the ask, and sorry for the novel 😁

[squishosaur]

TWST X FNAF AU PLOT DUMP BEFORE I FORGET ALL MY IDEAS OKAY:

tw for canon typical fnaf stuff ✌️😐

mrs. rosehearts & dr. shroud (idia's mother) are a scientist working on regenrative medicine and a robotics engineer respectively. they meet at a conference for women in STEM and bond over their shared interest in furthering the medicinal field via robotics. they become partners in developing fully mobile, free-roaming animatronics that are able to detect human emotions and help people who are suffering (and whose parts should be able to replace any part of an actual human body).

to test these robots, they decide they should be able to work with kids (as they both have young children anyways, so they do have test subjects). they open a pizzeria where they can work on their project and see how they interact with humans.

at the same time, their kids, idia, ortho, and riddle, all catch glimpses of their work. idia and ortho fall in love with the robots as their mother explains her dream of helping people with them. in riddle's case, he sees the skeleton-esque exposed wires and horrific eyes that always seem to watch him from his mother's desk with no explanation to what they're for. he's afraid of them.

riddle learns to live in unquestioning fear. he obeys his mother and studies what she tells him to... completely neglecting and avoiding things she says he'd never understand. contrasting to this, idia grows to be an ambitious inventor in his own right, impressing his family and peers alike with his coding and inventing skills. ortho often asks him to build toys for him; idia obliges.

things are going relatively well for a while when tragedy strikes the pizzeria. one day, in an attempt to help him get over his fear of the robots, riddle's friend, che'nya, goes over to an animatronic that was in sleep mode and sticks his head in its mouth to prove it was safe. unfortunately, the sudden movement caused the animatronic to "wake" and accidentally kill him. (riddle goes on to describe this scene as being similar to the cheshire cat's head disappearing amd reappearing without its body in his journal).

after the incident, riddle holes himself up in his room and refuses to go to school, feeling guilty for what happened. mrs. rosehearts refuses to believe that her perfect son "doesn't function properly" AND that her life's work has to be put on hold due to a fault in the programming. she blames her partner and, in a fury, she drives to the (now closed down) pizzeria in an attempt to meet with her to give her a piece of her mind. blinded by rage, she speeds down the road and doesn't notice a child, trey, crossing the street. she hits him and, in a frenzy, takes and stuffs his body into an animatronic.

she realizes that the animatronic trey is inside moves on its own and decides that there IS a way to continue her research. via medical malpractice, she reaps the souls of 4 other kids and gets them to haunt other animatronics, effectively preserving their souls despite their bodies dying. (somewhere around here, riddle's parents split up because of how absorbed his mother gets into her work.)

mrs. rosehearts may have gotten her experiments back, but her son is still irreparably broken and she wants revenge on the shroud family, who she blames for the entire incident. she meets with them at their house under the guise of wanting to voice her concerns with the malfunctioning animatronics and how to fix them/the future of their company. while she's there, she meets idia and asks him about his inventions. he shows her his robots and how he coded them. while he is distracted, she edits the code and gets the robots to attack ortho and make it look like a malfunction. ortho is gravely injured and dies at the hospital (the one she works at. nothing suspicious there. dw about it 😐😐)

idia shuts himself away the same way riddle has. he makes prototypes in order to try and rebuild ortho. mrs. rosehearts anonymously reaches out and manipulates him into working for her to build robots in exchange for a way to "fix ortho." at the same time, she monitors riddle through his stuffed animals and keeps him inside with fearmongering.

with idia's help, she reestablishes the pizzeria and collects remnant in her lab. she hires a nightguard, ruggie, who notices something weird about the animatronics. he dips after a week, citing "you're doing some danny phantom shit to me" as the reason.

riddle moves out after turning 18. also transitions at some point because transfem riddle is real always. she finds ruggie as someone asking for a roommate online and they seem to click well enough. riddle asks ruggie about jobs and he offhandedly mentions that being a nightguard was the worst possible option. riddle is curious and ruggie explains the robots seemingly being programmed to kill. hearing this, riddle begins to think that che'nya's death wasn't an accident and she is determined to get a job to investigate. ruggie begs her not to, but ends up getting roped in too.

under the alias rosaria hart, riddle gets a job as a nightguard with ruggie. they explore the premises every night, but as they get closer to understanding the mystery, the building gets more dangerous and they see a new animatronic roaming around, unfazed by their deterrents, that wants them dead. at the same time, the puppet (ortho) mistakes riddle for her mother and keeps trying to kill her too. they manage to unmask the murderous animatronic as mrs. rosehearts herself and get her to confess to the murders of the children, which causes the animatronics to close in on her before the springlocks in her suit fail and she (nearly) dies. riddle and ruggie escape, but not before the animatronics try to rip ruggie's face off.

riddle then goes back to her childhood home to clear out her things and finds her mother's research open, talking about remnant and how she was harvesting it. shocked by this, riddle goes to her mother's lab to destroy it and set the souls free.

when she gets there, she begins hearing che'nya. his voice guides her safely through the rooms of the other animatronics until she gets to the scooping room. suddenly, his demeanor changes and he tells her that her mother is still alive and it isn't over yet.

riddle then gets scooped and stumbles back to ruggie and explains what happened. they decide together that they need to find a way to end it all. they go back to all of the previous locations and burn them down, saving the one where mrs. rosehearts is springlocked for last.

hearing that all of his inventions were being destroyed, idia rushes to the final location to salvage what he can. here, he finds mrs. rosehearts and she offers him a hard drive on which she has uploaded her digital consciousness so that she can get him to continue her research, promising that it will give him the final piece of information left save ortho. as he reaches out towards her, riddle bursts in through the doors and tells them that this has to stop. she explains to idia how it works and that he's been manipulated into helping kill children with his inventions. she also convinces him that the real ortho's soul deserved to finally be put to rest, not jammed into a robotic body. idia agrees and, together, they set the old building ablaze, ending the franchise forever, but not before the puppet tells idia goodbye.

afterwards, idia creates the first fully conscious, learning artificial assistant (who he does build in ortho's image), riddle and ruggie recieve actual medical care, the old buildings are torn down, and riddle's childhood home goes up for sale and is bought by an enthusiastic young realtor and entrepreneur, azul, who is all too intrigued by the research he finds when clearing it out...

[illarian-rambling]

Thanks for the tag @mysticstarlightduck!

OC Deep Dive Tag

Rules: Answer these questions for your oc!

I'm in kind of an Izjik mood :3

What uncommon/common fear do they have?

Izjik is afraid of drowning. This might seem strange for a catfish selkie, but myths of halawemavar suddenly losing their ability to transform and drowning as they try to return home are relatively common ghost stories where she grew up. It terrified her as a kid, and even as an adult, the idea of drowning makes her shudder.

Do they have any pet peeves?

People who act uppity about academic stuff. This might also seem strange, as she lives in a house with girl genius and the world's angriest music prodigy, but Twenari and Sepo never talk down to her. It's when people act like they're better than her for having an education that she gets frustrated.

What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom?

Handmade fishing lures, some super crusty work boots, and hidden food. Izjik always keeps some hidden food around.

What do they notice first in a person?

How dangerous they are. Izjik has been on the run for years now, so it's habit to clock any hidden weapons or suspiciously scarred knuckles.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

10/10, this woman is a berserker. She's got that old farmhand, walk into the doctor holding your severed arm pain tolerance. This does not apply to minor colds and allergies, in which case she's a 1/10.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?

Definitely fight. Izjik is a twitchy person and has had to fight tooth and nail to survive many times. She's very jumpy with her knife. However, she's just as likely to turn tail if she knows she can't win.

Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?

Halawemavar family culture is pretty different from human family culture. Izjik wasn't raised by her parents - she was raised by her whole enclave. All the children of her generation were raised like siblings, and all the adults were their parents. So I'll say big family.

What animal represents them best?

Visually, either a catfish or a snapping turtle. Personality wise, I'd say a sheepdog.

What is a smell that they dislike?

Patchouli. She doesn't like any strong smells, to be fair. Halawemavar have very sensitive senses of smell. But she associates patcholi with incense shops, which she hates.

Have they broken any bones?

Yup. She broke her skull as a kid when she tried to knock down a tree by headbutting it. She later broke her wrist in a fight while fighting in the Trench, and has cracked her ribs countless times.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

"Gods beyond, what a scruffy looking redneck. She was tiny but broad as a brick, with muscles like a sack full of stones. Her hair was silver, though she couldn't have been over thirty, and her face was scarred and sun-freckled. Her teeth were fucking scary. I'll bet she could've bit through barbed wire."

Are they a night owl or a morning bird?

Morning bird. Izjik loves to wake with the sunrise.

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love?

A flavor she loves is fish. Izjik’s favorite food is raw fish. A flavor she hates is bread. She hates bread because pretty much her entire diet is raw fish.

Do they have any hobbies?

Izjik likes to fight, fuck, party, and play. She lives life to its fullest. More specific hobbies include fishing, home maintenance, and camping.

Boom, surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises?

She'd immediately jump to grab her weapon, only to relax once she realizes it's just her friends. After that, she'd be so excited to party.

Do they like to wear jewelry?

Nothing more than a bracelet woven from straw.

Do they have neat or messy handwriting?

She's ✨️illiterate✨️

What are the two emotions they feel the most?

Excitement and righteous fury.

Do they have a favorite fabric?

Probably cotton. She ain't fancy.

What kind of accent do they have?

Realistically, a halawemavar accent is something between Xhosa and Polish. In my head, she has a New Zealander accent.

I'll tag @kaylinalexanderbooks @rivenantiqnerd @i-eat-worlds and anyone else who wants in :)

Blanks under the cut

What uncommon/common fear do they have? Do they have any pet peeves? What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom? What do they notice first in a person? On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?What animal represents them best? What is a smell that they dislike? Have they broken any bones? How would a stranger likely describe them? Are they a night owl or a morning bird? What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love? Do they have any hobbies? Boom, surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises? Do they like to wear jewelry?Do they have neat or messy handwriting? What are the two emotions they feel the most? Do they have a favorite fabric?What kind of accent do they have?

[findafight]

Oh oh oh!!! Thinking about the supernatural AU and how Vamp Eddie feeds of of emotions ………… Thinking about Steve and his love of the kids and their found family and how Eddie interacts with this emotion when he’s around Steve - and how Eddie reacts when he realizes the overwhelming amount of love directed at himself!!

Eddie had never been good at distinguishing an individual's emotions from a group's. Sure, sometimes it would stick out, someone having a particularly good or bad day in the cafeteria or somesuch, but he wouldn't be able to say who was feeling that way. It was easier when he was close to them, if he really consentrated he could probably pick out Jeff and Gareth, but that's from prolonged proximity and getting used to their baseline moods. Maybe he was just getting better at it as he got older, more used to the complexities of emotion than he had when he was a kid.

When Dustin came along, and with him Mike and Lucas, he could sense their bubbling apprehension and excitement, the twinges of sickly guilt when they mentioned their friend Will. His new little sheepies (an ironic name for three teen werewolves he loved to whip out just for the giggles it elicited from them) felt so much so often he barely had to find parties to mooch off of while dealing. He hadn't been so full since spending a day at starcourt before it burned to the ground.

But feeling them during lunchtime and Hellfire meetings is nothing compared to when he gets told by Dustin to meet at Steve Harrington's house for "an emergency Party Meeting" right near the end of winter break.

There's a few more kids than Eddie's sheep, Nancy Wheeler and Lucas' little sister, and of course, the host of the day with his soulmate (a fact that consistently boggles Eddie's mind) Robin Buckley.

When Steve explains his parents having sat him down and given him his birthright, an ancient tome filled with the details of how to spot, catch, and kill any number of magic or non human folk, Eddie expects anger. Expects betrayal and hurt and fear to fill up his senses like smoke in his lungs.

What hits him first is a wave of dread, yes, but it's broken by Buckley reaching towards Harrington saying "shit. Are you alright?" And clinging to him.

Eddie isn't prepared for the rough wave of relief that fills the room as he watches the rest of the group gather round and hug the daylights out of a man who just admitted he was a hereditary Hunter. He realizes, after a moment, that the relief is coming from Harrington. That it's so tightly mixed with slippery worry and a sticky protectiveness it can only mean that Harrington brought them here thinking there was a chance they would shun him.

And if that doesn't make Eddie squirm in shame, just a little.

He lets the others plan, watching Harrington, just in case. The rest of this group may trust him, but Eddie didn't before this revelation and he sure as shit doesn't now. As they leave, he threatens him and Steve fucking thanks him for it, the absolute psycho (who thanks some random guy, let alone a goddamn vampire, for saying they'll kill you. Who asks them to make sure his parents are dead too, that no one ever knows what happened?)

So there's an...agreement between them. When they see the other they nod, but they never really chat.

Until March. Until spring break when Eddie realizes he's not the only kind of monster in Hawkins and the others, including Steve goddamn human Harrington, look at him with pity. It twists, sourly, in the air. The regret of the upsidedown bullshit not being over and someone else getting dragged in.

But they win, somehow. Beaten and bruised and scarred, with Eddie needing to drink actual human blood for the first time since he was a child, but they do win.

After that Eddie is absorbed into their Pack fully, a neat little addition next to Buckley and Harrington. They form a little trio inside the Pack, being the only non-wolf members, surrounded by pups who nip at their heels and beg for rides or ear scritches. Sometimes Robin will join them in their begging, claiming Steve is the only one who knows how to pat her belly and push her nose in just the right way, to which Steve will smile indulgently and let her shift and wiggle her body onto his lap, flopping on her back and barking.

Eddie eats the light and easy affection up, basks in they way it seems to surround any group of the party as easily as anything. There are different shades inside it, of course. The fizzy-pop between Max and Lucas, the crackling warmth that builds slowly into a bonfire when they let themselves play off each other of Steve and Robin's bond (that Eddie gets now, understands how they could be tied together through magic more ancient than can be deciphered. Thinks they'd be the same without it.) The babbling brook of Dustin's love flowing through all of them.

All identifiable because he knows these people, has fought and nearly died for them, lived for them. They feed him so well and willingly, delighted in the way they do it effortlessly with their love.

So Eddie notices a shift, sometime after everyone is healed up. A twinge of something different, a rippling emotion, smooth, easy, delicate, and expanding. He isn't quite sure who it comes from.

But he knows who he wants it to be from.

He keeps track of the ripples. The soft waves of emotion that lap at his senses. It's always around Steve. Steve, when he looks at Eddie or when Eddie is talking and making wide, sweeping motions or any number of times Eddie is around Steve. And he doesn't want to think too hard about it, get his hopes too high, project something he wants but isn't there. But. But. Eddie has gotten better at knowing what individuals, especially individuals in his pack, are feeling.

Weeks, months, and the ripples don't stop. The softness in Steve's eyes never faulters and his tiny grins never cease.

Eddie figures Steve would have said something by now. Nothing. Eddie can't take it.

"Why haven't you said anything?"

Steve blinks at him, head tilted.

"About...?"

Eddie waves his hand between them "about. About us. About how you feel."

Steve shrugs. Looks down. "You know."

It is not a question. Steve is well versed in how vampires in general and Eddie in particular feed. Steve knows Eddie knows how he feels. It is a fact.

"Yes, I do."

Steve scratches the back of his neck. "I guess I figured I'd let you say something if you wanted to. Figured after a while, when you didn't, that you just...didn't want to risk the Pack's dynamic. Trying to let me down easy, I guess."

Well. That's absurd. Why would Eddie want to let Steve down easy? Why would that-and there's a spike of something, something sad and uncomfortable, from Steve.

"We still don't have to talk about it. I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. I--I realize I don't know what that one feels like. Sorry." Steve says, looking somewhere to Eddie's left.

"Wait. Steve. I don't want to ignore it."

Steve waves him off "seriously, if it's easier for you, we can do that" there's something ugly, cold and slimy, making its way between them. Eddie is too caught in his own confusion and worry to name it. "I'm. I am sorry, though. I don't think I'll be able to stop. Not now that I've started."

And. And Eddie should have known this about Steve. Does know this. Once he starts loving someone, Eddie doesn't think he's ever stopped. Changes it, maybe, but not stopped. Steve loves Nancy, who broke his heart, he loves Dustin and Robin and Lucas and Max, loves all the Party in their own ways, loves Jonathan and Argyle and Joyce and Hopper. He loves his goddamn parents who never give him the time of day. Eddie thinks he even still loves Tommy and Carol, just a bit.

So Eddie should have known Steve wasn't going to stop loving him once he started. Shouldn't have been a coward by avoiding talking about it, testing it to see if it'd last, about what Steve knew he knew. He should have said this weeks ago, brought up the smooth waves of affection Steve directed his way sooner, because Eddie might know, but Steve certainly doesn't.

Steve doesn't know Eddie meets his ripples halfway, everytime. Doesn't know that Eddie's own rumbling love fills him up and scares him. Scares him because how does someone who feeds from emotions and energy and can know how someone is feeling express their own? How does he put into words what he feels for Steve, when it feels so large it might make him burst?

But. But the cold slime is growing, wriggling, and Eddie realizes Steve's jaw is clenched, his fingers tangling in the hem of his shirt.

Steve stands. "I'll. I'll go. Just." He breathes slowly through his nose, the slime has spikes now. "Give me some. Space, maybe? Some time? I'm sorry. I'll try to get over y-it."

And Eddie realizes Steve still doesnt know. He snags his wrist. Turning him back to face him.

"Steve." He does not know how to continue. Has never had to put words to feelings. Steve watches him, eyes wet and wide. "I don't want space."

Steve's nose scrunches. "Please, Eddie."

Eddie tightens his grip. "Steve. I love you too."

His eyes dart around Eddie's face, scanning, searching.

"I'm not so good at words, Steve. Not about my feelings. Much easier when other vamps can just tell how you are." He slips his fingers down, weaves them between Steve's. "I'd like to work on that. For you."

Steve is looking at their hands, squeezes gently and releases. He nods. "Okay."

"Okay?"

Steve smiles. Slow and beautiful, the sun creeping out from behind clouds. The ripples are back, smooth and glassy. "Yeah. I'll listen to how you feel. And you'll tell me. Because I love you."

It sounds almost sweeter than the ripples feel. Eddie squeezes his hand, smiling back.