#the current episode is mostly fine so I think I can at least finish up this one

[rawliverandgoronspice]

continuing the outline for thralls, and holy shit does it get intense, emotionally. I don't think I ever got teary-eyed while outlining, but I very much did here (and because of romance??? what is going on???), and... Like, I think that besides two subplots that are still pretty vague in my head right now, it is starting to look very strong, but. I'm still very much on the fence about whether this is a story worth telling, especially now, and especially by me.

don't get me wrong, I think it's a good story. but I'm not sure that's good enough of a reason to bring it to screens.

[hxllo-nana]

So, like I said in my previous Ask, I wanted to talk about some of ur other stuff (non-Dead Ringer) in another Ask/other Asks.  At least for the most part, and that is this Ask.

Copy and pasting from posts on ur hxllo nana YT again:

“Inkubator’s Arc: A villain Ink Sans story featuring lots of other aus (not just sanses), this and Deadringer are the two things im currently putting my time on

“Bonnytale: A flower infested story with a current focus on one original au, this will story will be posted on youtube after Deadringer”

I just wanted to say the “Inkubator’s Arc has been interesting so far (though, I do need to catch up on it some), and I am really happy u are posting it elsewhere (Tumblr), besides TikTok.  Maybe u could even post it on YouTube someday, like u do w/ Dead Ringer, Bonnytale in the future, etc.  But it is fine if u don’t.  Inkubator’s Arc seems to be done in quite the different format than Dead Ringer is and Bonnytale is being done is, which is also interesting.

I like the cast of Inkubator’s Arc so far, or at least, what we know and/or have seen it of so far.

Ok, done with talking about Inkubator’s Arc (for now at least, maybe), gonna talk about Bonnytale some now.

Bonnytale remains an awesome, interesting, and gorgeous AU to me, and I am really excited to see ur own AU’s story and stuff play out.

(This is the one Dead Ringer thing I am going to mention.  And I am mentioning it in connection to Bonnytale.  Or well, it was the one Dead Ringer thing I was going to mention in this Ask, but I had something else(s) after this).  

I remember seeing u decided to wait until u finished the pilot, instead of posting just the intro.  So you could post both the intro and pilot, and that it would maybe be early 2024 then/now?  But I can’t remember, but if u are going to be posting it after Dead Ringer, does that mean after all 7 (I think) episodes are done?  Including the intro and pilot?  If so, that is cool, just wanted to clarify.  And I am excited for then and stuff.

Also, forgot to mention this in my Dead Ringer Ask, and/or it just came to my mind now to say about ur Dead Ringer AU.  I just wanted to say, I really love and find it funny that Dead Ringer, who is the alive one, looks like the dark, kind of tired-looking “demon” child, while Chara (the dead one) looks so much happier and brighter and/or lighter.  Lmao.  Ok, that all of the other (I think) Dead Ringer stuff I wanted to mention in this Ask.  I want to talk about one other AU, but I am going to save that for the last (for now) Ask of mine, because once again, this getting long, and content-wise, I think splitting them like this makes sense.  2/3.

- NEXT ONE LET’S GO

- Inkubator’s arc is more of a comic style and requires less effort than deadringer and bonnytale, not only would this be good for me and my schedule (and sanity), but it allows me to work on bonnytale without burning myself. I would probably animate or give visual editing on a few things(chapter parts)in Inkubator and post it on youtube maybe so let’s see!

- Bonnytale will come after all episodes of Deadringer are done. (or atleast when ep 6 is posted). There is a few things about this au I would like to tweak (in terms of plot and a few design changes) and I need all the time I can get before I release anything in case I want to make some changes. For what time in the year it would come I think it’s best I don’t say anything incase I curse myself…again

- The entire cast of deadringer has been emofied by 1000 and the only fact is…that everyone is completely aware of it lol. Chara mostly but their image is more leaning into, “i’m cute so I won’t get hurt”, but they still have the same headspace as original Chara :b

- hehehehe, i love asks *CRUNCH*

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

You are given free tickets (including plane/train/bus/whatever tickets as needed) to go see one comedian anywhere in the world. It's the only live show you can see for the rest of the year. Who do you go see?

Yesterday I finished listening to the audiobook of The Holy Vible, written by John Robins and Elis James, and the final chapter was Z for Zappa, where John Robins talked for a while about how much he loves Frank Zappa for a while. At the end of the chapter, Elis James jumped in and they had this exchange:

Elis: He was hugely prolific and varied, so I would like to pin John down to the three Zappa albums he would take with him to a desert island. John: Oh, all right, then. Roxy & Elsewhere, Waka/Jawaka, Bongo Fury, Zoot Allures, Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Läther. Elis: That's six. John: It'll be ten if you're not careful.

That made me laugh because it's exactly how I answer questions like that; I'm a big fan of loopholes and copouts (though I usually make at least a cursory effort to find a loophole to justify my copout, which is why John made me laugh by just not bothering with that), and I do not like being pinned down to anything.

Okay, what are the parametres? Do I have to have to see whatever they're touring right now, or can the magic of this hypothetical have them right a new show, or could I pick something from their back catalogue? Would I get to the pick the genre of the hypothetical new show? Do they have to be performing at all this year in real life, or does the magic of the hypothetical situation solve that too?

Obviously the first thought is Kitson, but I have heard his current show before. It's a very good show, and specifically one where I think it's more fun if you're in the room and physically experiencing it, so that would be great. But also, it's a show I've heard before (a bunch of times, if I'm honest), and it seems a shame to use a literally magic opportunity on one I've already heard. Kitson, if in this instance he's got a new show (or is just doing one of his mostly improv WIP nights, and it's one of the ones where he's really on form).

If we can magically have them write a new show, Alice Fraser comes to mind, but she's specifically said she's not doing one this year. I've seen all her previous hours, and as much as I love her stuff, I can't use this opportunity on an hour that's already been filmed, or is likely to be filmed.

Which brings me to Andy Zaltzman, who has self-promotion skills that never cease to amaze me. He's doing at least one WIP this spring that I haven't heard him mention anywhere. On yesterday's Ask Andy episode for Bugle subscribers, he got asked what football players he'd compare himself to, mentioned someone from Salford, and because that had come up, happened to mention in passing that Salford is not on the list of the places he's going on his stand-up tour in November. This tour is not listed on his website or anywhere else that I could find with a Google. A show that I haven't heard before (and is unlikely to get filmed) is going to exist this year anyway, so I wouldn't need the magic hypothetical to create it. That's a strong candidate. Main drawback is most of the material in it would probably appear on The Bugle - I desperately want to see it but could I use magic for something that could be cobbled together from podcast episodes?

And then I also wonder if I can use this to magically make John Oliver do stand-up again. This wouldn't need to push the boundaries of reality all that far, because he did a stand-up tour last year. If I could make him do more performances of that, but this time not with Seth Myers (Seth Myers is probably fine any everything, I'm just not into him), and in Kitson-sized rooms. I'd use it for that in a heartbeat.

Josie Long is starting a new show, so there's another realistic one. The main copout loophole I like to use is just doing a bunch of honourable mentions/I could do this one, so I can get away with actually giving multiple answers.

Could I make Danielle Ward come back even though she's retired from live performances? Bit of a left-field choice, but it would be a solid use of whatever magic is in the hypothetical situation, getting someone whose stuff I loved (on Do the Right Thing, but also the one stand-up hour she filmed was very good) to come out of retirement. Would feel like I really used that magic well, rather than seeing a show I've already seen.

The answer's Nish Kumar, though. I didn't actually need to write the rest of this post, because the answer's Nish Kumar (I liked the idea of ending this post on an uncaveated statement like that, but sorry, I need to add: unless I could get a new show, even just a new unstructured WIP - or a back catalogue show of my choice - out of Kitson - actually the answer might just be Kitson, I mean I've heard Nish's current show too so having heard it before doesn't disqualify people, my answer is Kitson or Kumar, you've pinned me down to two, I'm not going to one, it'll be ten if you're not careful).

[lifeinthestarfield]

Well, today was exciting, to say the least. I'm still on the 49 hour day and starting to crash, but I want to get things down before I forget them.

We went down to the new face, did a little beryllium mining before Lin called Heller and I over to take a look. The equipment cut through to a natural cave chamber and Heller started getting strange gravitational anomalies. Guess who gets to go in first? Yep, the newbie or "dusty" as they call us miners.

At first there wasn't much to see. Some beryllium deposits, no major vein. Heller radioed that the anomalies seemed to be getting stronger, so curious, I pushed on through a tunnel to a dead end chamber.

In the center was a separated column or wall covered with a strange crystalline deposit. When I looked closer I could see something under the semi-transparent crystals!

It was only then that I noticed stuff floating around. Some more crystals mostly, just hanging in the air. Obviously the anomaly. It was weird, but weird doesn't pay credits unless I can get it to someone who will pay. So I fired up my cutter.

The head's up display identified the mineral as caelumite. Never heard of it, but the current market value was enough to raise my eyebrows. I started cutting.

Caelumite is hard, really hard. You have to really concentrate your cutter and amp the power, but I finally broke through. Sure enough, underneath was a strange piece of metal. The metal was worked and carved, I could tell that much before I plucked it out of the wall.

And then...you know the rush you get sometimes from a hit of weed? Or the rush of adrenaline when you're barreling through an asteroid field? This was a combination of both feelings. There were visions of colors similar to those you see during a grav jump, and there was music or sound. I can't really remember.

I was out long enough for Lin and Heller to bring me back up to the surface. Almost 20 minutes Lin said.

I feel fine, I mean I think I'm OK. Heller says my vitals are peachy and I remember who I am. Honestly, I'm still a little off-balance about all of this, because this episode - finding what I now know is called an Artifact - was only a small part of a very, very crazy day.

But I'm beat and going to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be less insane and I can think about what has happened, as well as finish up writing about my day.

Whew. Just read all the above back and it is quite the story, isn't it? And that was just the first few hours of today. Anyway, goodnight. Catch you on the sun side.

[grayblacklight]

Well then. That circus sure was digital. I guess I'll throw my first impressions out there, by going through what I thought about each of the main characters.

Spoilers are under the cut:

So, I'm only slightly familiar with Gooseworx- all I have is their covers of spider dance and the song that might play when you fight sans, but that's enough to not be even remotely surprised to find myself reminded of the annoying dog's games. And I think the strongest comparison I have is between Caine and Deltarune's secret bosses.

I mean, in a series about characters being trapped in a digital world, it's practically inevitable that the concept of 'freedom' would be looming over it, just like Jevil and Spamton are both tied to the concept. But there's a couple of other things too. The way Caine blue screens, lists things, and presents the circus and adventure all feel like things Spamton would say - calling it now, there's going to be an animatic for that at the very least - but it's the comparison with Jevil I find a bit more interesting.

Obviously, they are both entertainers with a lot of power that act very upbeat despite being in some form of prison. But they also both like to play up how much they can do. Much like how Jevil can't literally do anything, Caine seems to be more limited than he lets on. For instance, his 'thousands of all-seeing eyes' apparently don't see the abstracted Kaufmo, Pomni actively searching for him, or Jax somehow getting keys everyone's rooms and pulling pranky, he admits that he can't control human minds, his 'NPCs' seem to act independently from him (and one bubble eats his cake against his wishes, meaning he probably doesn't have complete control over them either), and of course he doesn't seem to have control over the exit door's random appearances. Also, while he does lean on the fourth wall when talking about someone being in the void, I'm not sure it was a fourth wall break- could just be implying that the void is where he keeps projects that aren't finished yet, which would make sense. Regardless, Caine and Jevil use their powers in the same way - to do basically whatever they want.

But the main reason I don't currently suspect him is that the main cast largely seems to trust him, even though they REALLY don't have a reason to. Most of the characters seem to be fine with the adventures, Ragatha tells Pomni to get him for help, and they help him try to keep Pomni away from the fake(?) exit door. So while there's definitely some suspicious stuff going on with this guy, I'm not ready to accuse him of being evil.

As for if he is secretly evil? Well he's probably not human, but some type of AI- although I can't say for sure either way myself - and if so he might be programmed with some malicious objectives or even to be super manipulative, but I personally doubt he's like, the big bad. I mean, it REALLY doesn't seem likely that he's the one who set up the headsets, and although we know so little for certain that nearly any information we've been told in episode one could potentially be a lie (especially since we don't know how reliable of narrators the characters are), at the same time I'm not going to try and pick them apart until I have a reason to think they are lying a and/or some more concrete facts to work off of and compare it against.

Edit one: Caine is apparently confirmed to both be an AI and not evil, so I guess I had a good read on him. He also apparently has some type of brother, which is interesting but for now not very useful info. Basically, he's not malicious, just very very bad with humans.

I don't have nearly as much to say about Pomni, in no small part because she spent so much time freaking out and responding to this situation in such a natural way that I didn't pick up a lot about her actual personality - mostly just the mirror scene and we'll, how she responds to overwhelming anxiety. We basically only have one aspect of her character and it's her reactions to fear and stress. That's not an issue or anything, it's episode one and she's the main character, we'll find out plenty more in later episodes.

The rest I could clump together for now, but I know you wanna hear about Jax first. Yeah, he's the funniest character in the show. He's like a DND character that is min-maxed into speed and charisma so he could be a coward and trickster without having everyone hate him for it. Leans on the fourth wall, causes problems on purpose, and makes a very, very interesting remark.

Getting this out of the way now, I also don't have a lot to say about Zooble, they were out of commission for half the episode. Interesting that they are the one person who explicitly isn't on board with an adventure, could have some other agenda or just be tired, I don't know. I will note that it seems like Caine did intend to for the adventure to be unobtrusive like they asked, as the groinks were largely contained to the tent, they just didn't get a chance to leave first.

Edit two: I missed the part where Zooble is to be referred to with they/them pronouns, I've edited the paragraph as to not misgender them. Seems that they're confirmed to be struggling with their identity and gender, here's hoping they work that out.

But I digress - we still really don't know a lot about Jax. Like, I suspect that the looney tunes chaotic prankster persona is a bit he uses to keep himself sane. If any character is going to get a focus episode (although given the cast and setting this might be the type of show where each episode focuses on a character) it's going to be him. Heck, I could see him acting as the antagonist for an episode, where he decides to turn the trickster persona up to 11.

Describing Kinger and Gangle as the most mentally stable people to deal with the adventure was one of the funniest bits in the episode, but I started to wonder if it's actually true. I mean, we very quickly get to see that Ragatha is very much putting up a front- I wonder Jax and Ragatha are just better at hiding their problems. Jax also admitted that he thought Kinger would be the next to lose it, so perhaps he isn't the best judge of that. It would be interesting if getting so deep into the part was part of how Kinger kept himself together for so long.

Edit three: I should clarify that I don't really think this is the case as of now, just that it's a notable possibility. Also interesting is the confirmed existence of a 'Queen' counterpart to Kinger. There's definitely some separation anxiety there. Also, Gangle is confirmed to like anime and drawing, and owns a body pillow. No character is currently specified to be on it.

[multiplekittens]

Hello. I think occasionally I will do an embarrassingly earnest long post about my reflections on whatever media I'm currently thinking about. I'll tag them with #long poast so you can mute it if you want. I'll also put most of it under a read more.

This one will be tangentially about Bocchi the Rock, but it's mostly a personal essay that uses Bocchi as a jumping off point. I'll be talking about a character who shows up late, and I think you'll be fine if you want to read but don't know shit about the character. If you want to avoid spoilers at all costs, I wouldn't read, but otherwise I think you're probably fine. I'm also gonna talk about homophobia/transphobia in the US (specifically about the "groomer" conservative trend and accompanying legislation), so be aware of that too.

I finished Bocchi the Rock months ago and while in general it was very much a "she's just like me fr" experience (like it is for a lot of people) I literally cannot stop thinking about Bocchi and Kikuri's friendship. I remember watching the second-to-last episode and seeing how Kikuri was supporting and teaching Bocchi and just treating her like a regular person, despite the fact that it was clear Bocchi was working through Issues, and just starting to cry. Even though it was not supposed to be a particularly emotionally resonant scene, it was just such a good example of how important friendships between non-related adults and kids could be, and I couldn't help but think about how that concept is being litigated to hell in the US right now.

I don't think I really need to explain on Tumblr to my 100% American followers what's happening right now, but just in case I'll summarize a bit. The current conservative push to call trans and gay people "groomers" for being around children at all while not lying about their identity is obviously extremely harmful for gay and trans people, but I also think that the accompanying stigmatization and criminalization of any non-related adult having any sort of friendship with a child is also going to be incredibly harmful to children, as well. You can see this with how teachers and librarians (not even gay and trans ones!) are treated -- those are the two positions where it's most socially acceptable for adults to interact with children regularly, and they're being accused of "brainwashing" kids just for providing them with books.

I'm worried about how this is going to affect kids, because I've been on both sides of relationships like that and I've seen how important they are. I used to tutor math in a rural southern town, and when I moved across states to where I live now so that I could finally come out as a nonbinary lesbian, I remember having to break the news to all my students that I wouldn't be teaching them anymore. I remember one fourth-grader I tutored who really only needed someone to tell her she could do math begging me not to move so I could stay and tutor her. I remember her asking for a hug after our last session, and I constantly think about what her parents would have to say about me giving it if I hadn't been closeted. I also wonder what would have happened if I went through this process just a couple years later.

Of course, I've been the child too; I remember seventh grade, when I first moved to an entire new state into a tiny K-12 school where everyone knew each other already. My twin and I started doing plays and made friends with two high school seniors, Mae and Tsuki (not their real names). Despite the fact that we were young, extremely awkward, and anxious, they were always extremely kind to us, letting us sit next to them on busses during Science Olympiad trips, exchanging emails (!), and generally letting us hang out with them even though I'm sure we were annoying, cringy, and just generally seventh graders.

Looking back, I realize they probably didn't have a great time in that school either. They were the only furries in the entire school, and at least one of them came out as bi after school was over. I'm almost certain the average adult would not have approved of our friendship, but out of everyone at that school they were the only people I ever knew who were actively encouraging of our interests; one of them even got me a piece of original film from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, a gift I still treasure and have to this day, over a decade later. (I would go on to be bullied and othered over my love of star trek, sci-fi, and not stereotypically "girly" things for the rest of my time at that school). They made an otherwise very rocky year much more bearable, and helped me to feel that maybe I was someone who people would like to be around when I really needed that. I think there's next to no chance they could read this and I have no way to contact them, but I hope they're doing well now and I wish I could let them know how much their friendship meant to me, even now.

I think that friendship is why the relationship between Kukiri and Bocchi resonated so much with me, and why I'm heartbroken about the US trying to litigate those relationships away. While Kukiri isn't explicitly queer, a) come on of course she is and b) she's definitely not what an adult would call a "good influence." She's constantly drunk around Bocchi, sometimes offers her alcohol, takes Bocchi's money so she can buy more alcohol, and teaches her how to illegally busk. But at the same time, I know firsthand how much a "cool" adult (or nearly-adult, in my case) taking you under their wing can mean, and how much it can help low self-esteem for someone like that to believe in you when you can't even begin to believe in yourself. If US conservatives have their way, then experiences like these will disappear for good. For everyone's sake, I truly hope they don't succeed.

[stormxpadme]

for the wip ask game, i can’t pick. so just tell me something about one of them that you’re really proud of

WIP tag game

I can always rely on some people on my dash to cheer me up <3. All the X-Men stuff I'm currently working on is still in early stages and I tend to be more proud of works in their entirety, so I think I'd like to talk a bit about my She-Ra project, not least because once I'm done with Weathered II, I think I want to go back to that, and some people on my dash (looking at you @kintatsujo :D) have been interested in it occasionally.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with the Netflix Princesses of Power show since I hate it. Not gonna elaborate on that. I've dealt with anti hate for that fact before so anyone reads this and feels like pissing me off in my inbox: You're 4 years too late, move on.

Nah, what I'm doing with “Terra Exit” is basically translate the original She-Ra series into an adult setting and try to finish that series and Adora's story in that old Filmation verse. I'm starting with the events of “The Secret of the Sword” and write myself along the actual series episodes (not writing them but adding missing scenes and quickly brush over/mention what's happening in them), and after the last franchise episode, I move the series on to what the creators could never get around to do. Meaning, writing out the Rebellion's last stand against the Horde. That's a monster project where we're easily talking a million words once more, so depending on how burnt out I am by the point I get there, I'll have to see how to go from there. The vague idea is to get Adora home to Eternia then where she belongs finally, give her a bit of soft time before Horde Prime moves the war there and He-Man and her have to work together to defeat him once and for all. So that would be de definite ending of that huge project. I'll see in 10 years or so if I ever got there, I guess :D.

What motivates me for this is that She-Ra has been my childhood heroine, saving my life in years of bullying in school, that the series was my first anchor when I got on the internet and learned how to handle online life and got my first friends in oversee fandoms, and the wish to translate one of my favorite childhood series into a mature setting. For a child's series, this franchise has some surprisingly, chilling themes like child soldiers, separation, making the hard choice between family and duty, fighting fascism, defecting from the army, brainwashing etc. This whole franchise has great potential to be a gripping, gritty sci fi/fantasy stories for adults when translated into a mature style, so that's what I want to do (In a way, the more recent He-Man comics did this in some alternate universe already when they pulled She-Ra in, with Adora being a still brainwashed killing machine, so I'm not far off the mark or original here). I'm not pulling any punches here; this is going full drama and Explicit rated in terms of violence and a little bit of romance. And honestly, whenever I think about it, I am very excited and have to stifle back all that impatience to remember, one big project at a time. But I definitely never get tired talking about it :D.

That said, here's a little snippet (no rating) from the current series part where I stopped writing before diving back into Tolkien and X-Men. Takes place at the end of the canon episode "Bow's Farewell".

***

"Thank you." It wasn't until she remembered how to breathe again that she realized she'd slumped down on the floor, on her knees, Swift Wind's soft nose reassuringly nudging her back. "I'm okay. I'd better fly to Bright Moon Castle right away."

 "Everything's fine there. Just a few ruined walls, half-collapsed ceilings, and overturned furniture. No one has been seriously hurt. No casualties," Light Hope ridded her off her worst concern. "Stay for a moment. I can sense you're upset."

 She-Ra did, mostly because she remembered Light Hope's request to spend time here as often as possible, even if she didn't need anything. To spend time with him. That way, she didn't have to face the next interrogation right away, either. "I'll be fine. There hasn't been much time to rest recently. And even less to be with the ones I love. No wonder everyone thinks I need therapy when they hardly see me."

 "Don't be angry with your brother and friends for worrying about you, She-Ra." Of course, she didn't need to reveal the details of her anger to Light Hope first. It would have surprised her if he hadn't known exactly what this was about.

 At least that gave her a chance to ask him something she hadn't been able to get out of her mind since that conversation not exactly overheard by accident. "Is Adam right, Light Hope? Do I need to remember?"

 "I can't make that decision for you, She-Ra." Light Hope's form melted back into its usual shape, that massive column, as if he wanted to pull back from her a bit. "Your soul would be shaken to the core, that much is for sure."

 "So you know what happened back then," she found, wearily rubbing over her elbow where a slight twinge had started to throb, something she usually only felt when the weather changed. Something she had always blamed on some old muscle damage until now, from her constant training battles in the Fright Zone. Except that her medical records on Eternia knew better. Everyone seemed to know better than she did, which particularly bad encounter in her youth had left her with multiple broken bones, and apparently something even worse. Only nobody wanted to talk to her about it. And still She-Ra didn't know if that wasn't for the best.

 "I wish I didn't, believe me. But there aren't many secrets you can keep from me," Light Hope explained with a distinctly sad tone. "Very little of this planet's past or present is hidden from me in general. That is my curse, as yours is the brokenness of your heart. The future, however, I can only predict extremely vaguely. All I know is that Hordak wants to hurt Adora very badly, and that you must take care of yourself."

 She-Ra nodded briefly. "To know that, I don't need to remember something that my subconsciousness has obviously decided I'm better off without. I'll wait and see. For now."

 "If you change your mind, I'm here for you." Light Hope said goodbye with the usual respectful flicker in his silhouette before retreating back into his pool.

- Terra Exit: SHOW THE WIND HOW TO FLY (#5)

[dragodina]

You wanted some WIP questions – here we go 😁

5, 8, 10, 28, 43

Oooh yeah, here we go, Happy to answers those 😊

5. How many wips do you have? What fandoms/pairings are they for?

I really honestly can't put a number on it. There is an app called Simplenote I use. No one should actually look into my account. It's a complete mess and full of idea and story notes but working fine for me. There are countless (mostly Tatort) notes on it. And lets not forget the numerous Word files on my laptop that I want to edit to make stories out of it 😄. So even when "Last Chance" will be finished at one point I do have one or another story idea to share and some clear ideas in mind 😊.

Fandoms is mainly Tatort Hamburg with my favourite character Julia Grosz and the perfect pairing Julia Grosz & Tine Geissler. I got a few others as well for CSI, Sofia Curtis & an OC character, that possibly won't get shared since I don't think anyone would be interested.

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

Ein verdeckter Einsatz, der schief geht. Eine entführte Kollegin, die verletzt ist.

Und mitten drin Julia Grosz, Tine Geissler und Thorsten Falke.

Wenn das Leben des Menschen auf dem Spiel steht, den du liebst, wie weit würdest du gehen? /

A undercover operation gone wrong. A kidnapped colleague who is injured.

And right in the middle Julia Grosz, Tine Geissler and Thorsten Falke.

If the life of the person you love is at stake, how far would you go?

10. Do you work on multiple wips or stick to one fic at a time?

Normally I try to stick to one story. BUT that head of mine that always comes up with new ideas makes that really hard. So it can happen that I'm busy with one story, another idea hits, and I have to write down those ideas to get them out of my head that possibly don't fit in with the other story so I decide to create a new one and continue with the original one afterwards.

Already happened with "Happiness", "On My Own" and "Happy Halloween" while writing "Last Chance" 🙈.

28. What area of writing do you want to improve in?

Really tough question. Trying to not re-write stuff I mentioned in earlier chapters/works too much and detailed and getting a better story flow maybe, not become lost in too many details. Of course though I want my stories to at least give the readers a nice experience were they can forget their daily routine or sorrows for a little while and maybe give them a smile. But in the end, I'm not a professional author and it's just a hobby that I don't need to be ultra perfect in 🙈. (Would probably be interesting to get the readers perspectives on that 😊.)

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

I'm not sure if I get the meaning of "trope" correctly but as far as I can think none really.

Ideas I have so much and a lot more running around in my head, but nothing specific. Not like "I want to write (for example) a zombie apocalypse AU, how do I write it??", it's more like "Ideas hit me, do they fit in my current story or could I create a new story out of it??".

I would like to come up with a story for Julia Grosz at some point about her first love and her possible current (hopefully) last love (which in my mind will always be Tine Geissler 😅😊❤️🙈) and call it "Summer Moved On" just because I find it so fitting. And than dive into Julias thoughts about Tine and Ela maybe, like back then and now. Simething in that direction, don't know yet, but didn't really think about it too much yet. In the episode "Schattenleben" and in all interviews its always mentioned Julia had that one summer with Ela, her first love. And I just find that title (a song by A-ha) so fitting. Or someone else comes up with something and I lend the title or a co-writing 😅, would be all fine for me as well 🙂.

There is another idea I got for Tatort Hamburg as well but in which Julia will get an (OC) new partner and I'm not sure if I will ever post them because we just love Falke and their friendship too much. He would still be around as Julias closest friend of course. Would be interesting to know if people would be interested in that. We will see.

And I'm planning on starting like a series of stories that concentrate on the single Tatort Hamburg episodes with Julia Grosz but with a very specific change: What if Tine Geisssler had never left and was still around? 😊

(If someone is interested for a snippet choose question number 7 😉😅🙈 ... )

Once again, that was a lot and lots of fun 🥰 Thank you very much for the questions @except4bunnies 😘 I enjoy our exchange very much 😊.

Sorry for the long replies to some questions ... 🙈

[sshbpodcast]

Getting Shipshape with Starfleet Ship Shapes: Part 4

By Ames

We’re finally at the end of our starship road trip, until the upcoming seasons of all the currently running shows introduce more and more ships to prove me wrong. We’ve enjoyed getting pedantic about Star Trek ship aesthetics with you here on A Star to Steer Her By, so let’s finish off the last leg of this journey with some of the newest designs we’ve seen in the last couple of years, months, even weeks!

Last week, we took a look at all the ships from the Kelvin universe and from Discovery, and the final ships we have to look at come from the rest of the currently running shows, featuring some captains from the past to swoon over! I’ve battled to nab screenshots of some of the latest glimpses of ships, here for you to feast your eyes on below (when you can see them, that is; some screens are way too dark!). Listen to our full coverage of the ships on this week’s podcast episode (banter starts at 50:49) and sail away with us on our journey. Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.

[images © CBS/Paramount, Ex Astris Scientia, Eaglemoss Ltd., Star Trek Shipyards, Star Trek Timelines, probably others]

La Sirena (Kaplan F17 speed freighter)

La Sirena is a whole different shape than normal ships because we’re looking at a freighter instead of a big starship, but she’s the hero ship of the show, so we’re covering her! The red color and white stripes are nice. She looks a little like a cricket, with wings and antennae that swoop back very efficiently. If not for the smaller size, we could see this ship in Star Wars. Mostly, it’s clear by her looks that she’s utilitarian but still has that need for speed.

USS Nightingale (Wallenberg class)

We see some more nice colors, this time in nicely complementary turquoise and orange, in the fleet of Wallenburgs we see evacuating Romulus. Their compact, LEGO-like structure makes them solid little things, which makes sense because they were meant to tug other vessels or cargo containers. We also see two slight variants in the design (one a little bigger than the other), which is always good for variety’s sake.

USS Zheng He (Inquiry class)

We see roughly one million of these things at the end of season one Picard, though purportedly there are like three slight variations in the design. Collect them all! When you think about where the Federation is at (post Borg attacks, post Dominion War), it would make sense to just crank out the same ship on an assembly line. Eagle-eyed fans may see something like these oyster shells with nacelles in the Star Trek Online MMORPG game, though we must admit that those pylons that angle forward like a turkey aren’t the prettiest things.

USS Stargazer (Sagan class)

Somehow we have a new Stargazer just to be confusing. Like the old Stargazer, it’s got the four-nacelle look. It’s like someone made a Constellation class ship but with the Sovereign class aesthetic, so that’s kinda interesting. We suspect it was designed to look like it could be a kitbash, except that it’s all CGI new. I’m left thinking this was all just a nod to the fans, which I could go either way on.

USS Cerritos (California class)

Speaking of ships that are all CGI, let’s look at some more animation! The California class seems unnecessarily huge for its role, at least to me. It’s over 100m longer than a Sovereign class ship, and the biggest hero ship of a show so far, mostly thanks to it’s incredibly long pencap nacelles. Overall, it kinda looks like a cartoon scooter. It’s fine; I’m not gaga over it or anything. But really, what’s the in-universe reason why it’s so big?

USS Titan (Luna class)

Riker gets a leg up every so often in Lower Decks, and we finally get to see the canonical design of the Titan that he’s at the helm of in a bunch of novels. It’s a little like the Voyager and the Reliant had a baby. It’s got that crow’s nest section and underslung nacelles of a Miranda class, while having the sleek, futuristic look of any of the more recent ship designs we’ve seen. We’re digging it.

USS Vancouver (Parliament class)

I may have misspoke on the podcast about which ship on Lower Decks this one was because all the CGI kinda runs together for me. This is the one Tendi and Rutherford are enamored with in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow.” Tendi calls it “the greatest ship I’ve ever seen,” but I’ve seen better (just keep reading this list for one!). We find the Parliament class to mainly be a trimmed-down Nebula class without the table on top. Like California class, it’s also needlessly huge, with the biggest saucer section in Starfleet. For reasons!

USS Archimedes (Obena class)

Sigh. Sonya Gomez’s little ship is literally just an Excelsior class with a little extra stuff it didn’t need. Like we said about the Enterprise-B: you messed up an already perfect ship when you didn’t need to. We’re a bit disappointed in how the Lower Decks designers updated one of our favorite designs, chunking up some of the smooth lines with rough edges. Our beautiful luxury cruise liner now looks more like the rows of balconies on an apartment building, and we’re pretty displeased.

USS Protostar (Protostar type)

Here’s the good news! We’re big fans of Prodigy on this podcast, and also big fans of its beauty queen of a ship, the Protostar. It’s got a really sleek, spade-like shape to it and it just looks so smooth and shiny like someone’s been polishing it incessantly for years. The bussard collectors are just flat disks, which is new. The deflector dish just looks like a strip, like on the Defiant. It’s a smiley, happy little corvette of a ship and we’re into it!

USS Archer

These next ones are the newest ships on the block, so bear with the relatively few screengrabs from Strange New Worlds that are available since there’s no model kit to refer to for these ones. We get mere glimpses of the Archer in episode 1, and we can tell that they went with the one-nacelle style of something like the Kelvin, but it’s unclear just how well-attached that neck is based on the couple of angles we see. It’s like they took the infamous Freedom class and made it a little less utterly ridiculous. A little.

USS Farragut

And lastly, we finally get a look at Jim Kirk’s first ship, the Farragut, and she looks a little like the Kelvinverse’s take on a Miranda class. The nacelle pylons are rounded, like everything in the Kelvin movies is rounded (but we opined on this last week, so let’s move on). Mostly, this ship just looks clunky. It’s a little like someone tried to streamline a Miranda class, with its single hull and underslung nacelles, but managed to lose all its charm while doing so.

—

And those are all the Federation starships we have on the lot until we get a new shipment in! We’re sure to see more in the future, so keep watching this spot. We’ve also got more ships on the way in the coming weeks as we detect some alien ships in the vicinity! And as always, make sure you’re also following along with our watch through Voyager (we’re almost halfway through already!) on SoundCloud or wherever you like listening to podcasts, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and set course for the shipyard! Engage!

[thedoubteriswise]

okay so. I am a smart adult with many important responsibilities. I have good taste and care about things that matter. for this reason, I’ve been trying to identify where in cql canon wangxian manage to fuck.

because they definitely do; I like a good post-canon getting together fic as much as the next guy, but it’s just not realistic.

allow them. it’s already been so long.

(just like this goddamn post turned out to be, let’s do a cut)

right. so initially it looks like you could place this right after the time skip in episode 33, because it shows us that wwx is with lwj in cloud recesses. we know that he spent the night in the jingshi because he wakes up there the next morning before he goes for a nostalgic tour of his old school.

and also visits the cold spring, where lwj is mostly naked. nice.

but wait! wwx is surprised by the scars on his back and chest. that seems like something he would have known about if they’d already been naked together the night before, so I’m going to say they did not fuck immediately upon wwx’s return to cloud recesses. okay, fine, they’re taking things slow, that’s cool.

maybe they could work it into the next night, then. oh wait, lqr is injured and... staying in the jingshi? for reasons?

I don’t know why. he must have his own house in cloud recesses, and it’s probably at least as comfortable as lwj’s, but here he is. he lives to stop his nephew from getting laid, I guess.

the next day they do some Q&A with the kids and determine that they need to head to qinghe to figure out what’s going on with this sword thing. great! we love a romantic road trip, plenty of alone time. but they also have to do their jobs, and then jin ling needs to get rescued from a wall of dirt, and jc is unfortunately there being himself, and then they have to grill nhs about his tomb full of angry sabers, etc. etc.

with all that going on, their next obvious chance is at the inn immediately after interviewing nhs. this evening has already included:

wwx gazing lovingly at lwj from afar

lwj carrying wwx on his back

lwj pawing at wwx’s robes trying to deal with his cursed leg

lwj helping wwx up the stairs, serving him wine, fixing his flute, and generally being at his beck and call

a very sexy and homoerotic duet

and now they’re alone and drooling over each other as usual. this seems like a plausible spot, right?

it does! but no. after they go back to the nie basement o’ swords and hear the backstory on nmj’s death, we see them walking in yueyang and lwj asks wwx how the curse mark on his leg is doing. wwx says it’s almost healed, which may or may not be a lie, but his inner monologue says:

he’s more concerned about the wound on his arm from the sacrificing curse, which lwj doesn’t know about, because wwx won’t tell him and they still haven’t been naked together.

also, this silly teenage shit doesn’t make much sense unless they’re still dancing around each other.

you guys love the sound of opportunities as they go flying past, don’t you?

right after this, lwj gets drunk. I’m aware that Stuff Happens in the novel scene that inspired this bit, and they do incorporate some of that into the show by having lwj commit petty larceny and admit that he “likes rabbits” as part of the softest and most loving conversation in human history oh my god

but lwj goes to sleep right on time, and the next morning, wwx is laughing and reassuring him that nothing happened.

after this, it’s time to go on a fucked up field trip with the kids in yi city, so they don’t really have any time alone for a few episodes until they’ve finished that and everyone is back at yet another inn. I wonder if they learned something about wasted chances and poor communication from this miserable songxiao story?

maybe! look, they’re being cute and domestic. there are currently no material barriers preventing them from having sex, nor will there be any specific evidence later on proving that they didn’t.

but they’re still firmly in mystery-solving mode and the juniors and lxc are floating around. the vibe isn’t quite there. if I were to pick the most solid reason why I think they’re saving room for jesus at this point, it would be the tension that happens when wwx again asks how lwj recognized him. lwj asks why his memory is so bad, and wwx replies that he wishes he had a bad memory. even though they’re comfortable and happy being together, there’s still some fundamental distance remaining. there’s no sense of romantic resolution. that was actually a point against all their previous opportunities as well; they’re all very sweet, but none of these feel like the place in a story where the romantic leads Officially Get Together.

okay, off to koi tower! shit is getting extremely real. everyone’s busy insinuating that they recognize wwx, but no one is saying it explicitly. wwx isn’t supposed to be here. the guy he’s pretending to be also isn’t supposed to be here. he and his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s brother are trying to figure out if his boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend is a murderer. no one is comfortable and the political intrigue leaves no time for fucking in front of anyone’s salad.

I guess there’s plenty of time to make dozens of armed guards and like half the people they know wait while they have a romantic moment, though.

could they be more in love? And that sure feels like a romantic resolution that might be followed by narratively-earned sex.

ah. no, unfortunately wwx gets stabbed again. this certainly sucks, but it does have the helpful consequence of making lwj take him back to cloud recesses, where they are mostly alone and as safe as they can be in the circumstances. now there’s even more tenderness and also some plot-justified touching and skin exposure. plus, lwj just made a very public declaration of love.

too bad wwx has probably been unconscious since he started coughing up blood in the forest near lanling. he’s also still visibly in pain. fresh abdominal wounds tend to kill the mood.

but hey, the injuries on this show are only as serious as they need to be to move the plot forward and facilitate gentle h/c scenes, so by evening he’s looking perfectly healthy and walking around under his own steam like nothing’s wrong. I guess that problem can be ignored moving forward.

lxc then offers the the most devastating highlights of lwj’s backstory, like, all at once. it’s nice that he includes a flute solo to give wwx a second to process this mountain of terrible information. what the fuck.

there he is! the most devoted man in the whole world! turns out they can actually be more in love after all.

and then the following scene... look, I’m lazy and I don’t know how to make gifs, but screenshots cannot properly convey how good it is. you all know. the hesitant way wwx approaches, the slow and gentle piano version of wangxian, the two of them watching the snow together, it’s. ugh.

remember how I was talking about how the last scene with no material barriers was an unlikely candidate because of the lack of romantic resolution?

well, here’s wwx still being cagey at the beginning of this conversation.

and here they are in the middle of this conversation, having some epiphanies about the course of wwx’s life - I love this shot for a lot of reasons, but I extra love it because it shows wwx out in the snow, with lwj as the safety and warmth waiting behind him, god this show goes hard, holy shit

they both recall their vow to live with a clean conscience and internally say some very corny things about each other because they are both So Much, and then,

ah, what the hell. he can say it out loud after all. romantic resolution accomplished.

and then the camera slowly pulls away as wuji plays.

a slow zoom out? swelling music? listen, I am a connoisseur, I know a tasteful fade-to-black indicating a sex scene that won’t happen on camera when I see one. at last, we have a winner!

now you may think this post is finally over, but I actually have one more piece of evidence for you - the next scene shows the two of them the morning after, meditating behind a screen in the hanshi while lxc is waiting for jgy to show up.

before wwx got de-cored, he was a pretty powerful cultivator, right? the chances that he’s just bad at meditating or that he can’t stay focused on this task seem slim to me. so why does he keep falling asleep?

well. he had kind of a late night.

[kinnards]

been here all along [fic]

Or; there are traces of Buck all over the Diaz household. 1.8 k

Read on ao3

The coffee maker beeps in the kitchen, the sound carrying all the way into the bedroom the second after Eddie turns off his alarm. A cool breeze comes in through the window Eddie left open last night by mistake, and in the couple steps it takes to go from the bed to the door, Eddie has picked up at least six different clothing items, not even all his, from the floor and the chair in the corner that soon gets tossed into the laundry basket. He stops briefly by Christopher’s room to make sure his son is awake (he’s not, and a cranky five more minutes is heard from under the covers) before going into the bathroom to start his own morning routine.

The bright, red firetruck print that greets him has never failed to make him smile, not once ever since one particular Thursday, maybe two years ago now, when Christopher and Buck spent a couple of hours in the mall looking for a birthday present for one of Chris’s friends but bought a very much not needed set of shower curtains instead, along with matching firetruck soap dispenser and cup. They even have little firefighters painted in the tiny plastic windows, and Christopher might be almost twelve now, but the day he gets tired of his Buck’s gift is yet to come.

A month into the school year, the Diaz family’s mornings have looked mostly the same every day, and this fine Monday proves not to be the exception, as Eddie finds out a few minutes later. A certain blond man is still asleep on Eddie’s couch, and instead of doing his workout, Christopher is sprawled on top of him, snoring lightly. Buck’s legs are twisted in an awkward angle to fit in the couch and one of his hands brushes the fluffy carpet beneath the sofa (the one he picked in an attempt to convince Eddie that his house needed personality), the other holding onto Chris, whose face is completely smushed against the other’s shoulder. Bright blue crutches that Chris has started to grow out of lay in a disorganized pile next to them.

(If Eddie’s heart beats a little bit faster- if his hands itch to hold them too and join the sleepy pile, well. They don’t need to know.)

“Alright, sleepy heads, school starts in an hour! Get up!”

-

Eddie owns a perfectly functional coffee maker, a classic machine with only one button and no special features, that makes his coffee the same way every day, and has done so for almost five years without signs of obsolescence. He’s a simple man with simple tastes, but Eddie’s perfect, simple coffee maker, is currently collecting dust inside a box in the attic.

A steaming cup of coffee, however, is waiting for him on the counter when he steps into the kitchen, complete with milk foam, a shot of caramel, and two sugars: the product of the stupidly expensive machine Buck and Chris had plotted to get him, with all the smart features and Starbucks level settings that Eddie did not need. Using the machine is extremely complicated, too, so once Eddie found out how to input the settings for his drink of choice, he stopped allowing anyone to mess with it. Eddie drinks the sweet concoction religiously every morning, without a fault.

He sips on his sugar bomb slowly as Buck cooks breakfast, eggs, and sausages with toast, fruit salad, and a cup of warm milk for the only kid in the house. The sound of the sizzling pan and the knife hitting the cutting board fills the room along with the smell of homemade breakfast, something that screams of home and family, uninterrupted until Christopher shows up fresh from the shower and in clean clothes, with his restless morning energy and promptly sets to chatting their ears off. Buck keeps the conversation alive and gets the boy to help with mixing the fruit salad while he recounts the last episode of their favorite cartoon they had seen together the previous night. Buck makes surprised sounds at the right times, throwing a few "No way! Tell me more!" for good measure, even though Eddie’s pretty sure he remembers the episode perfectly as he asks the right questions to launch Christopher off in another direction at least three times.

Eddie finishes his coffee, leaves the cup in the sink, and turns to the cupboard to start setting the table.

Three days before school started, Christopher told Eddie that he’s big enough to use big people knives and after a long phone call with his son’s Occupational Therapist, and another with his own therapist, they had gone to the store to get him a cutlery set that could allow him more independence while still on the safer side, and Buck had found the perfect one: the knife has a blunt tip and slightly serrated edge, and a round plastic handle decorated with tiny green and blue dinosaurs.

“Daddy, don’t forget the dinosaurs, please,” Christopher asks politely, just like every day, because he refuses to eat with any other fork or knife. Luckily the set came with six of each, so everyone can use them during breakfast as Christopher prefers.

“Yeah, and don’t forget the big spoon for the fruit salad,” Buck chips in, pointedly looking at Eddie. Clearly, he still hasn’t let go of the last few times he has forgotten the big spoon for the fruit salad. In less than five minutes, they’re seated around the table eating, Christopher’s feet kicking excitedly against Eddie’s when they congratulate him for the A he got in his latest science assignment.

Both his son and best friend clear their plates first, smiles on their faces accompanied by crinkled eyes as they laugh. Eddie has to scold Chris on talking with his mouth full only once- a new record, and Buck only twice, tapping him on the hand with the spoon, reminding him to lead by example and not be a terrible influence on the kid. Buck mumbles a sheepish sorry every time, ducking his head in embarrassment, and Eddie just rolls his eyes and shoots him a fond look. He watches them, joins the laughter when Buck teases him, or when Christopher tells a story from school, warmth filling him up from the inside out.

Soon enough, the time’s up and Christopher goes to brush his teeth and get ready to leave while Eddie and Buck load the dishwasher and wipe the countertops, barely any words exchanged as they move around the kitchen. Eddie checks the calendar by the fridge, next to Christopher’s old artwork and the polaroids held up by fruit magnets. PT at 11 am, Frank’s at 3 pm, reads in the bold block letters of Buck’s handwriting, under Eddie’s own scribble of C’s swimming lessons at 3.30 pm. Eddie makes a face at the overlapping schedule, chews on the inside of his cheek. He’s too late to ask Carla to take Christopher for him, as he gave her the week off a few days ago so she could go to DC for a certification. The last few therapy sessions had been at noon, but PT was pushed up to eleven and so his entire schedule was unexpectedly messed up, and Eddie will have to run from the clinic to Christopher’s school and then take him to the pool, but he’s not cleared to drive yet so he has to account for cab ride expenses and a whole new timeframe now, too. God, he should have gotten this figured out yesterday.

Back in El Paso, when Eddie had worked three jobs, he had once forgotten to pick Christopher up at school because his shift ran longer than usual, his phone died and the teachers were unable to reach him at the construction site. His parents had been called instead, being the second emergency contacts, and they had stared him down later at night while they told him all the reasons he was a bad dad and Christopher should live with them. Don’t drag him down with you, Eddie.

A hand lands on his healthy shoulder, right next to the base of his neck, and Eddie looks away from the calendar to meet a pair of bright blue eyes next to him. Buck watches him for a second before opening his mouth, careful.

“Hey, Eds, I noticed today looks a bit tight and I was thinking I could ask Bobby to let me out for an hour so I can go pick Chris up and drive him to his lessons, or maybe ask Maddie if I’m on a call,” he says, and the knots in his throat slowly start to dissolve, as he stares up to his friend’s calm face. His shoulders slowly start to relax, the injured one pulses with pain. The warmth of Buck's fingers makes the little hairs on his nape stand up as he swipes his thumb twice over the patch of uncovered skin in a comforting gesture.

“Yeah, thanks, man,” Eddie chokes out.

Buck smiles, and it’s all it takes. The fog lifts.

“Sure, I’ll text you in case I can’t make it so you can let the school know Mads is going to get him,” Buck continues, but he’s not touching Eddie anymore. Eddie takes a small step back, fidgets with the dishrag he still had in his hands as Buck starts to make his way to the living room, picking up his jacket, “you get to pick him up after, and already I left you guys some leftover stew for tonight's dinner in the fridge," Eddie keeps his eyes on Buck while he talks, takes a few steps closer to his friend, but not close enough. "I have a sixteen-hour today, so you tell Christopher goodnight for me, alright?”

“Of course,” his voice is too tight, and it must show because Buck bites his lip and reaches out his hand again, but doesn’t touch. At that moment Christopher burst back into the living room and yells out as if Buck isn’t right there to hear him.

“I’m ready, Buck!”

With a last smile, Buck turns to the door, putting on his shoes quickly and pulling his bag out of the hallway closet. Eddie leans down to place a smooch on his son’s cheek, which makes him laugh, and throw his head back with a loud “Bye, dad!” in his ear.

“Alright buddy, let’s go, let’s go!” Buck exclaims and Christopher bolts out the door, followed by his Buck, and Eddie stays at the threshold until he can’t see the Jeep past the corner of the street.

It’s barely eight o’clock and he still has chores to get done before PT, but Eddie just drops facefirst into the heap of blankets on top of the couch, drowning in the smell of his family and he aches for the picture he saw earlier that morning, sleep falling slowly over him like another blanket. A short nap is calling his name from the dream world, and the last thing he sees before going under is his pillbox for the pain meds next to a bottle of water, a pink post-it note stuck on the tag, big bold letters were carefully written on it. I know you forget but please take these before leaving home! xx. Buck.

Eddie falls.

[dirtyoatmeall]

Together, It’ll be okay (Tsukishima x Reader)

A/N: :0 I know another fic so soon!!! But I’m crying after reader ch 138 of aot sooo I needed the comfort so have OOC soft tsukki because I said so. 

Pairing: Established Tsukishima x gn!reader, Established Yachi x Yamaguchi

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: Mentions of mental health issues (reader is in a depressive episode), post time-skip

__

You and Tsukishima have been dating for a year now, and while the two of you are extremely open with each other, there are still things you try to keep to yourself, mostly for his benefit. This mostly pertains to your moods, when your anxiety gets the best of you, when you’re feeling insecure, or when you feel the creeping grasp of depression starting to take hold. You usually isolate yourself when these happen, canceling dates under the guise of being ‘sick’ and rescheduling when you ‘feel better’. Thankfully it happened sparsely enough that your excuses didn’t seem suspicious, or so you thought.

The two of you did not live together, you were waiting to save a bit more so you could get an apartment closer to your work places. He lived with Yamaguchi, and you lived with Yachi, all of you had gone to high school together, and funnily enough all four of you started dating around the same time. After you and Tsukishima got together, you helped Yachi confess to your freckled friend. Yachi was one of your closest friends, and she knew about your struggles and often helped you get through them. While your medications helped, you still had bad days, and this time, it was more of a bad week.

It was the third day, which in itself isn’t unusual, but by this time you were usually making improvements, but currently you were getting worse, dangerously close to spiraling, and it worried Yachi immensely. She was more often than not able to help you through them, wrapping up easy leftovers for you to eat when you shuffled out of your room at midnight, or helping you with laundry. But she was running out of ideas. It seemed no matter what she did, it either had no effect or made it worse. You almost never came out of your room, you had a bathroom attached, so the only other place in the apartment you went was the kitchen, but she hadn’t seen you in there, and the leftovers were untouched. She had left some crackers by your bedside, hoping you’d at least eat something but it had been days, and she needed backup.

She felt guilty, dialing his number, but she knew he was what you needed, someone more than a friend. She stepped out into the hallway when he answered, not wanting you to hear the conversation. She gave an idea of what was going on, that you were in a bad place right now, and while she could usually help you out of your slumps, she was worried you were only getting worse. He was just getting out of work for the day, and thankfully the museum was nearby your apartment. They decided Yachi would go stay with Yamaguchi, letting you and Tsukishima have the apartment to yourselves.

Tsukishima gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as he thought back on the other times you’ve canceled at the same time Yachi had. He had always assumed it was just sickness spreading from you to your roommate, he never entertained the possibility you were lying. He knew you struggled with your mental health, but as far as he knew, your medications were keeping everything under control. He sighed, and slumped in his seat, knuckles relaxing as he turned into your complex. It’d be fine, you’d be fine.

You weren’t fine. When Tsukishima entered the apartment, Yachi went into specifics. Apparently at the start of this week you had a confrontation at work, and then got a failing grade on an important test in one of your classes, one that you needed to pass to graduate. Those paired with how birth control was affecting your body, everything quickly snowballed. You had barely left your room, you hadn’t at all today, and did once yesterday. You were crying most of the time, silent sobs racking your frame as you clutched a pillow to your chest, the only audible noise being the gasps of breath and the sniffles. You only slept when you were too exhausted from crying to stay awake. Yachi had managed to get you to shower and change at the start of everything, you were still in your pajamas from then, your hair having fallen out of the braids, now pulled back messily. It had seemed like you ran out of tears, you were staring at the wall silently when she last checked on you, shifting further into the bed instead of answering when she had called out your name softly, worry evident in her tone. Tsukishima could tell how bad it must be based on how worried Yachi seemed, rolling his eyes when she reminded him to be gentle. He waved her off, telling her he’d take care of you, and for her to enjoy her time with Yamaguchi. Both of you had the rest of the week off, originally planning on a trip out of town.

He heard the front door close softly as he entered your room. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. You didn’t have any lights on, not even your LED’s or the little night light he had gotten you as a joke that you had used every night. He turned his phone flashlight on dimly to make sure he didn’t trip over anything as he made his way to the other side of the bed. He changed into some of the pajamas he had left before climbing into bed next to you. You startled slightly when you felt the bed shift, you had thought it was Yachi coming to do more laundry. You hesitantly turned to look, inhaling sharply when you saw who it was.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” You whispered, voice hoarse from crying for days straight. You watched with furrowed eyebrows as Tsukishima finished climbing into bed next to you, setting his glasses on the side table before pulling you into his arms. You stuttered, moving to pull away but he tightened his grip, keeping you flush against him, tucking your head under his chin, rubbing soothing circles into your back. He stayed silent, and you felt a new wave of tears form against your eyelids, gripping his shirt as you started to cry.

One hand came to run through your hair soothingly as you continued to sob into his chest, wetting a good chunk of the fabric with your tears. As your cries softened into hiccups and sniffles you clutched the fabric tighter, trying to bring yourself impossibly closer to him. He squeezed your hip, the hand that was in your hair coming to the side of your face, pulling you away enough for him to look at you. His thumb ran across your wobbling lip before wiping at a few stray tears, cupping your cheek to keep your gaze on him.

You stayed silently looking at each other for a moment before he craned his neck down, kissing you softly. It tasted salty from your tears, and Tsukishima tried to pour as much love into the kiss as he could. He pulled away slightly after a moment, close enough that your noses were almost touching, breath intermixing. You broke eye contact, looking off to the side as you mumbled an apology. Tsukishima’s nose scrunched slightly in distaste.

“What’re you apologizing for?” You shrugged lightly as he pulled away fully, hand still cupping your cheek. “I don’ know, canceling our trip? Yachi calling you down here? Being a huge mess?” He rolled his eyes, kissing your forehead lightly before rolling onto his back, situating you to lay your head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart and feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath. His voice rumbled in his chest slightly as he spoke. “Don’t apologize for things you can’t control. Yachi called me because she was worried about you, for good reason too. You can’t always be in control of your emotions, we can always reschedule a trip, it’s not important. What’s important is you and your health. Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on instead of Making up some story about the flu in July?”

You curled in slightly, your voice small as you spoke. “I didn’t want to bother you, you have more important things to do than deal with this, with me. I jus’- I didn’t want you to have to see me like this, I was hoping to have it under control before we got an apartment together, but obviously haven’t gotten that far yet. ‘m sorry I lied to you, I wasn’t – I didn’t mean to-,'' Before you could start crying again, he squeezed your hip and you closed your mouth, eyes burning.

“Don’t get all worked up, I’m not mad.” He sighed, staying silent for a beat before continuing, “ I’m sorry you felt like you would bother me with something like this. I love you (Y/N), all of you, which means I want to be here, I knew what I was getting into when we started dating, while I didn’t know it got this bad, I knew you struggled with it. I’m not expecting you to be okay all the time, it’s just not realistic. This is a part of who you are and I plan on being here for all of it, now and in however many years from now. I need to know how to take care of you, how to help you with this, and I can’t do that when I don’t even know it happens. You’re not alone with this, I’m here for you. I hope you’re listening because I’m not saying this again. You’re the most important thing right now, so don’t feel like you’re bothering me by asking for help, that's what relationships are, leaning on each other for support when we need it.” You nodded, clearing a sob from escaping your throat.

“Didn’ know you were such a softie Kei.” He pinched your rear in retaliation and you giggled before sighing, tangling your legs together and wrapping your arm around his waist. “Thank you, I’ll try to be more open about it. I’ll admit this is the worse it’s been in a long time. I think I just need you here right now. Maybe some ramen later, but you and a nap will work for now.” You shifted up slightly so you could kiss him before turning on your other side. He pulled your back into his chest, tangling your legs together again. His arm snaked around your waist before moving up, to trace your arm until he found you hand, entangling your fingers and kissing the crown of your head, sighing into your hair, “So needy,” he mumbled, though you knew his words held no ill meaning behind them. You smiled softly before being lulled to sleep by the rise and fall of his chest against your back. As long as you had each other, everything should be okay.

[neworleansspecial]

Dysregulation

Summary: Carlos thinks it's time to address some issues.

WC: 1.4k | AO3

Warnings: discussion of mental illness

-

They never talk about what happened at the firehouse after Owen got arrested.

To be fair, there’s a lot more going on, Carlos can admit- their home and the firehouse burned down, Tommy’s husband died, there was a massive dust storm- there hasn’t been a lot of time to talk about anything that wasn’t happening in the immediate moment. That does not mean, however, that Carlos has forgotten.

It’s not the first time he’s had to restrain TK to calm him down. While it’s not a daily occurrence, it’s happened enough that Carlos needs more than one hand to count them off. Part of him wonders if anyone else has even noticed the issue, or if it’s just him trying to hold TK together when he comes dangerously close to flying into pieces. He knows of at least two other occasions TK sought out poor coping mechanisms. There was his fight at the bar where he got arrested, and an altercation with Judd over some stupid call.

Carlos does research about it before he even thinks of talking to TK. He likes to know all the facts of a situation before he gets into it, and he figures that if he can find some answers or coping strategies online, this might go easier than just trying to shoot a shot in the dark about helping his boyfriend. What he finds describes TK’s behavior as emotional dysregulation, and it’s not uncommon in a variety of disorders, at least two of which he knows for a fact TK has been diagnosed with.

He calls Gwyn one morning alone while he’s meal prepping for the week. TK, Owen and Mateo have already gone to start their shared shift, while Carlos’ isn’t until the evening. While he doesn’t know much about Owen- seeing as TK mostly refuses to talk about his father and the two of them are rarely in the room together long- he knows him well enough to recognize a lot of the same neuroses between the two. If that doesn’t help, at least Gwyn has known TK longer than Carlos has.

They spend a few minutes on pleasantries and catching up before Carlos drops the questions on her. “I wanted to talk to you about TK.”

“He’s not hurt again, is he?”

“No, no, nothing like that, he’s fine.” Carlos double checks his mother’s recipe card and pulls out the next vegetable to dice up. “I think he is, anyway. I just wanted your advice on something.”

“Of course.”

Carlos takes a second to gather his thoughts. He doesn’t mean to just dump TK’s business out in the open, but he needs someone to help him figure this out, and he figures someone who raised TK would have some guidance on how to approach this. He wants to help TK in the same way TK helps him when he’s overwhelmed or anxious.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sometimes TK doesn’t exactly… manage his emotions well.”

“Oh, definitely not. He gets it from Owen. Between the two of them, living in that house was just constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“That sounds familiar.” He considers the time they fought after the farmer’s market. TK acted like the world was ending, even going so far as to remove some of things from Carlos’ apartment. It had felt like an insane overreaction, but one that he couldn’t really say anything about when he didn’t know what it felt like to be in TK’s position. “How did you deal with that?”

“I spent a lot of time in therapy figuring that out.” She pauses. “Probably should have been the two of them in therapy, come to think of it. But what my therapist told me was that I have to realize that it’s real for them.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“TK’s blown up at you at least once, I assume?”

“Once or twice.”

She hums. “When he’s that upset, it’s like it’s the only emotion he’s ever had. It’s real to him. The best advice I can give you is to step inside his head with him. The thing people like you and I have to understand is that if we want to be with them, we have to understand that it's a mental illness and we aren’t going to be able to fix them. We can only support them in recovery and try to understand when they’re having an episode.”

“That’s very insightful, Gwyn.”

“I’ve been dealing with Owen Strand for almost thirty years. I picked up a few things.”

He laughs, but only because he feels like he should. They chat for a few more minutes before he hangs up and finishes his meal prep. It makes sense. Carlos isn’t a therapist, and he won’t try to be, but he can be there for TK.

When he and TK both sat down and had the conversation about their health, it had been maybe two weeks into their relationship. It was something they had needed to speak about. Carlos talked to him about being autistic, and TK told him about having ADHD and the series of inconsistent diagnoses he’s been given by the laundry list of doctors he’s been through. The current diagnosis is borderline, he had said, but he’s been diagnosed with everything from bipolar to psychosis since he was first seen by mental health professionals in his teenage years. Every doctor has a different opinion, he had said. Whatever the case, he knows what Gwyn means when she says to keep in mind that it’s not coming from a rational place in TK’s mind.

Now that they’ve moved back in with Owen while they hunt for a new place to live, things have become more tense. TK doesn’t like being here and it shows. He and Owen are constantly on edge with each other, on the cusp of a fight or actively having one that winds up with Owen drinking outside in the backyard- and pressuring Mateo to join him- while TK paces in their room and Carlos tries to convince him not to hit something. It can’t be healthy for any of them to keep living like this.

He waits until they have the place to themselves to talk about it, both for TK’s comfort and in case things blow up, as they sometimes do when TK and Carlos fall out of step with one another. They’ve had their dinner and washed up, and are now tucked under a blanket together on the couch while a documentary plays on the television.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.”

They fall into a short silence after that. TK fidgets in what he undoubtedly thinks is a subtle way, bouncing the leg that’s not pinned beneath Carlos’ weight and tapping his fingers against each other. Carlos feels bad for bringing him anxiety, but they do have to talk about it at some point.

“I love you,” he starts, “I really do love you, TK, and I’m not going anywhere, but I need you to be more aware of yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

This is the difficult part; finding a way to phrase things without making TK feel like he’s being attacked or cornered, something which will only lead to a fight. Carlos recognizes the irony of this tone-policing when he’s trying to talk to TK about the very root issue.

“I feel like you don’t have a good handle on your emotions and it’s upsetting me,” he tries. “It makes me feel like I have to walk on eggshells and like your emotions matter more than mine. I’m sure that’s not your intention, but that’s what I feel like, and I was hoping we could figure out a way to deal with this.”

“Like what?”

Carlos shrugs. “Ultimately it’s up to you, but one thought I had was about therapy. Maybe trying a different approach with your therapist, or even getting a new one. Or, I thought we could try couple’s counseling.”

“Couple’s counseling is for failing relationships.”

It is at that moment that Carlos knows he lost him. Whoever put that in his head- and Carlos’ money is on Owen- has won out over reasoning for right now. They don’t have to do that, of course, and if TK needs time to come around he can have it, but the mere suggestion has effectively shut down the conversation for now.

This is going to be a long road.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[queen-susans-revenge]

Fic Writer Review (thanks to @gondalsqueen for tagging, this is a fun one!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

57

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

176720

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Six, but the vast majority for Star Wars. I wrote one Batman story that was very dashed off, mostly a quick character sketch for a possible AU. One Sherlock Holmes story that still gets some love on AO3. Two Lord of the Rings stories. A couple of reworked fairy tales. And five for Dragon Age.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Well, the top two are my Star Wars Rebels smut epics, Fade to Black (514) and Fade to Black and Back (396), which are literally just about all the sex Kanan and Hera have in the offscreen moments in every episode. I have zero shame about this.

Then there's Talk About It (335), which is another smutty piece based on a bit of party banter in Dragon Age: Origins.

Wedding Dance (312 kudos, and back to Star Wars Rebels) is my most popular non-smutty fic, but Passion, Serenity (263) is big time smut about cartoon characters again. Listen, it's not all I write; it's just what I write best, apparently!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do, although I'm behind in responding, because I get overwhelmed easily. I have all the comment notifications saved in my email though so I can stroke them over lovingly like a dragon admiring her gemstone hoard. Every now and then while I'm being dragonish over my comments I get a burst of virtuosity and think "I'll reply to some of these!" and then I do, so I am slowly working through my backlog, and I can only apologize to those of you who are getting your responses years and years later.

I always meant to answer. I always treasured your comment.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Scenes from Rivendell. By like, a lot. If you've never thought too much about Aragorn's mom Gilraen, please let me invite you to all the feels.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't think I ever have! I should do that, sometime, it sounds fun.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, I had someone chide me for writing smut on a kid's show. But I try to be really careful about tagging so only the people who WANT to see the smut end up finding it.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

The dirty kind ;o

(Though there generally has to be at least one girl involved for me to be interested. I have written some m/m content, but not a whole lot.)

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes and it's the BEST thing!! I absolutely love it when anybody does translations, art, podfics or spin-offs of my stuff. It feels amazing to see my work out there in the world, living and traveling.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

None of my AO3 works are co-written. I had an original story that got picked up for a fiction podcast that was co-authored with a friend. Although the story behind that honestly was that I wrote the thing and insisted he accept the co-author credit because it was based on one of his characters in a roleplaying game.

Something similar will probably happen with a different friend and the space pirate novel that I'm working on now, if it ever gets published.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know! Certainly Kanan and Hera is what I put the vast majority of my fic-writing energy into. But I was a huge X-Files shipper back in the day and Mulder and Scully still hold a special place in my heart.

14. What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I'm super grateful to @gondalsqueen for doing Fade to Red so I can feel like that project actually got finished properly! I think I no longer have any outstanding wips?

15. What are your writing strengths?

Dialog, and sometimes cadence/rhythm, when I hit a good stride.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Self indulgence. In fanfic that's a tendency I don't even try to fight though, because it's what fic is for. In original fic though it's always a struggle to keep it tight and keep it flowing. And not try to show off Everything I Know About Mythology, or How Cool This One Idea I Had Is, or whatever.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Tricky! Relying on Google Translate is probably a bad idea.

I'll give an example from my current project. There's a scene set in a laboratory on Mars where Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong and I wanted automated warnings playing on a loop in various languages for maximum spook factor.

The English is "Warning! Please evacuate the building!" so I ran that through Google Translate for Russian... and then asked a Russian-born friend to verify that it was a good translation. He responded that it was not, because in fact that phrase needs some cultural translation before the literal one will make sense. As he put it: "The Russian would be a lot more direct. And they wouldn't say 'please.'" So instead, he gave me "Vnimaniye! Vyhodi zdaniye!" which is something more like "Attention! Exit building." And I absolutely love that.

So, I think before you can really write dialog well in another language you either need some direct knowledge/understanding, or a native speaker who doesn't mind looking it over for you.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I thiiiiiiink it was X-Files. All those fics were lost in time, like tears in rain (no it's fine they were terrible).

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It's hard to pick, but it might be one of the Sabine stories. Heart's Blood, maybe.

I always stress about tagging people and being annoying or leaving someone out, so please consider yourself tagged if you want to be!

[machinegunbun]

🤘-

What about reader is the manager/assistant and fucks up some bug career opportunity for them?

Mistakes can allways happen but that was something really big

Maybe even gets fired for it?

Fucked It +

TW?: Mostly angst but theres some very slight smut with readers S/O

A/N: Not to age the writing but Im writing this as colson tweets that he’s gonna play at the halftime show in the next few years. S/O= Significant Other. I wanted to keep it kinda gender neutral cause bi people exist i dunno. 

Word count:1.8k A little longer than a blurb, but just as dialogue-y

This year had been stressful, to say the least. There was the release of tickets to my downfall, and along with that the cover scandal, the bloody valentine music video, downfalls high, the snl episode. It was like every second of your day was filled with something, you rarely got the chance to spend time with your S/O.

That’s right, you had an S/O. Being Colson’s manager wasn’t your entire existence, although you’d seemed to have forgotten that recently. Their name is Devin, and they are not very happy with you.

They’d broken down in tears your first full night home, telling you how under appreciated they had felt while you were away. Devin had a life of their own too, though, and considering the pandemic at hand had chosen to go stay with their family to avoid the covid hot spot that was LA. You understood, and as much as you hated to admit it you barely even realized they were gone. You didn’t know what that meant, but you knew whatever it meant wasn’t anything good for your relationship, but, you loved them and you wanted to recreate that spark.

You wanted to put work into them, and you, and most importantly your relationship. You’d gotten through the emotions, but as for the spark there was only so much you could do thousands of miles away. So, you decided to put in the work and devise a plan. Your plan started about an hour and a half ago, beginning with a shower and ending with your favorite lipstick.

You love Devin and you want nothing more than to wrap them up in a soft blanket and kiss them on the forehead and take them on picnics, but you also wanted them to look at you and touch themselves. You could do one of those things in your current situation, and you felt both would help to replenish your spark.

You looked good too, dressed in your lingerie with your hair all done. You felt so unbelievably sexy just looking at yourself in the mirror, you wished they were here to witness it.

You stood in the doorway of your bedroom, your LED lights set to red, your phone set to start recording in 

3…

2…

1…

You tried your best to pose sexily in the small frame, arching your back and playing with your hair, slowly slinking down the wall. You were sure when you sent this Devin would be calling you within seconds. You checked the video, editing it to the length you liked and saving it to your camera roll.

Butterflies began fluttering in your stomach as you looked at your message app. You had seen Devin in so long, what if the spark had really gone? What if they didn’t want you anymore? Or what if they just didn’t want you right now, what if this wasn’t the right thing to do?

You took a deep breath, looking yourself in the mirror and quickly clicking through your messages, sending it before you could think too much and clicking your phone off. You moved from the bathroom, moving to your bed, staring at your phone and waiting patiently for a response.

After thirty minutes you gave up, too nervous to check if they’d seen it. You were cool.

Well, you were cool now that you had cried and and picked yourself apart piece by piece, ending up on the couch in a heap of blankets eating a family bag of your favorite chips to yourself. Family guy played on the TV, the episode only really meant to drain out the noise of your thoughts, and momentarily the bling of your phone. You would’ve missed it entirely if it weren’t for the flickering of your flashlight that you’d enabled to make sure you didn’t.

You rushed from your comfy blanket fort, spilling your chips on the way, your hand wrapping tightly around your phone. You turned it around, seeing that the notification that had popped up was only from Dylan, the guy that got Colson a place at the halftime show. 

Work, great, the thing that started this all. Was this the universe telling you it was over? You read on.

It simply said “Call me.”

Your eyebrow raised, considering waiting until tomorrow. You opened your messages, seeing that you had accidentally sent him the video of you in your lingerie. Fuck, thats why Devin hadn’t responded.

You opened his contact, calling him quickly, each ring feeling like needles being inserted into your brain.

“So I hope you understand why we wouldn’t want to be associated with that unprofessionalism.” He said, you’d zoned out through his lecture

“I understand, I do, but I hope you’d be willing to reconsider as this was a mistake on my part and not Colson’s. And seeing as this isn’t public I hope we can just brush this all under the rug and forget it ever-”

“I hear you, but I don’t think that will be possible. Mistake or not it was unprofessional on so many different levels

“But, sir-” You tried, your fingers thumbing over the buttons of the remote to mute the tv.

“It’s over, I’m afraid.” He responded, a beeping noise signalling the call had ended

Oh, nicer, you thought sarcastically, it wasn’t the universe after all, it was the manager.

Tossing your phone on the couch beside you, you retreated to your blanket fort, unmuting the TV.

Colson and the boys had been looking forward to performing at the halftime show since you’d met them. They’d been so excited when you told them you’d got them a spot. Although it was the last thing you wanted to do right now, you knew you had to break the news to Colson. 

You stared at your phone, willing yourself to reach over and call him, eventually drifting off into an unsatisfying sleep.

“Oh good, you’re here! Okay, so I was thinking for the halftime show-” Colson began, but you cut him off before he could continue

“Oh, yeah, about that.” You say, rubbing your head in hopes it would soothe the dull ache that had begun to rear its ugly head. You opened your eyes in time to watch the excitement drop from Colson’s face.

“I…” You began, not sure how to start “I fucked it.” You began to laugh, taking a moment to acknowledge how ridiculous the situation had really been.

“What do you mean?” He asks, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Devin and I are going through a bit of a rough patch with them being away and all, so I decided to try and,” You made a vague shimmy movement with your shoulders “spark things up a bit. You know the silhouette challenge on tik tok? I did that, but I got nervous when I sent the video and I was on the couch for like hours crying too scared to see if they even looked at it, next thing I know I’m getting texted by Dylan asking me to call him.” You paused, partly for dramatic effect and partly to let yourself laugh. You buried your face in your hands, Colson watching in amusement, eager for the end of your clearly hilarious story.

“I accidentally sent him my nudes. It was so fucking embarassing, oh my god!” You finish, looking up from your hands to realize no one else seemed amused.

“What’s that got to do with the halftime show?” Rook questioned.

“Oh, right.” You’d completely lost track in the midst of your rambling “He said it was completely unprofessional and he wasn’t interested in working with us.”

Colson remained silent for a moment, looking over to the other boys before responding “He isn’t interested in working with you.” Your eyebrows furrowed at this, looking between the boys..

“What’s that mean?” 

“This is the gig of our lifetime. I’ve- We’ve wanted to play the halftime show since… forever. This was our one chance and because of you we got booted out. And you were laughing about it.”

“I’m sorry, it was a genuine accident, I thought you’d find it funny. Some corporate guy saw my tits ‘cause my relationship is failing, if I don’t laugh I cry.”

 “You’re the one who sent him the nudes. This is your fuck up.”

“Yeah, okay. But I work for you, so by association he won’t work with us.”

“Then you aren’t a part of ‘us’ anymore.”

“Colson, seriously? It was a fucking accident. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Watch your tone, I think you’re forgetting you work for me. I’m a nice guy, but this isn’t my shit to deal with.”

“I’m sorry.” You repeated, your voice lowering. It was easy to forget Colson was your boss, he never treated you like an employee. There was more respect between the two of you than any boss/employee relationship you’d ever seen before. You’d never even seen him mad before today. You were genuinely lucky to have had this experience, to think that it was about to come to an end broke your heart.

“Is sorry going to get us this gig back?” The question was rhetorical, but you shook your head “Then I’m sorry, I can’t let this pass me up because of something you did.” Colson says, staring you down. You stood like a statue in your place, unsure whether or not you should leave. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

You took it upon yourself to make the decision to turn and leave, driving to the nearest gas station, where you sat in your car, crying in the parking lot.

Everything was fine and in the matter of a week it had all gone to shit. How did this happen?

You were in a happy relationship, and now they were living with their parents for who knows why and telling you they felt neglected. Your career was going amazing and you’d ruined it completely with one mistext.

You started your car back up, settling on the hope that maybe Colson and Dylan would come to their senses, and come Monday morning you would still have a job.