#these just keep getting longer

[garmanarnarr]

Rickorty Week Day 6: "Say You'll Marry Me"

college-aged Morty | 2.8k words | Rated M, language, vomit, suicidal ideation, rock bottom Rick Sanchez

@rickortyweek

Morty throws the trunk of his dad’s station wagon shut with a thump. 

“You sure you don’t need to bring my Ninja smoothie blender, Morty?” Dad asks, for a second time, standing on the driveway beside him with his arms crossed over his chest. The August morning is hot and clear. Gene’s sprinklers are going hard on the lawn next door. 

“I think it’ll make you really popular with your roommate. You said they’re from California, right? They must be healthy. There’s a little more space behind the driver’s side–”

“N-nah, I’m good, Dad,” Morty says. He goes around to the passenger door to do a last check of his overflowing laundry hamper and make sure his video game console box made it in. He doesn’t want to forget Bonestorm III. All told, he doesn’t really have that much to bring, though, and the car’s only half full. He wears pretty much the same clothes all the time, and doesn’t have a ton of books or movies or anything. His booby bikini girl poster is rolled up in the footwell of the backseat and one or two of his robot figurines he just couldn’t part with are packed into cardboard boxes. All the advice listacles his parents found online for Summer’s freshmen year of college said that bringing something from home was important, so the idea has been passed down. 

He reaches into his pocket and palms the little evil intent detector that Rick had made for him a few years back. A tiny credit-card sized piece of metal that reads people’s brainwaves and vibrates if they’re planning on hurting him or torturing him or whatever. They’d used it on an adventure, a rare heist –Morty can see Rick’s eye roll– but he hadn’t had the heart to throw it away. He’d gone back and forth for ages on whether or not to even bring it. He still doesn’t have to, he tells himself; he has hundreds of miles of highway driving ahead of him where he can just chuck it out the window and let it get crushed on the side of the road. He tightens his grip. 

His mom comes out of the garage, checking her watch. “We gotta get this show going,” she says. The garage feels weirdly empty until Morty realizes it’s because Rick’s ship isn’t in it. Hasn’t been there for a while. He pulls his hand out of his pocket and starts loading the last few bags. 

“If we don’t leave soon we won’t make it to our motel until, like, eleven, and lord knows what we’re going to find in Fresno after sundown,” Mom says.  

Dad follows Morty as he transfers a final trash bag of gym shorts and shit into the back seat. 

“What– what about my George Foreman Lean Griddle? Or, my Slap Chop? You never know when you’ll need onions in little cubes, those always make me cry….” 

Dad sniffs, then wipes away a tear, even though he’s trying to look like he isn’t. Oh, God. He had volunteered to drive Morty first, of course, before being overruled. 

Morty turns back and gives him a small smile. “I’m really fine, Dad. But thanks.” 

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, just give me a moment, son.” 

Something in Morty’s pocket buzzes. His hand flies to Rick’s detector, for a second, until he realizes it was the other one. He pulls out his phone and opens it to check his messages while Dad tries to get it together. Two are from Summer, who’s been spending her senior year of college in London with the textile arts department of her school doing fashion stuff. 

dont let dad cry all over u little bro 

cuz hes gonna

The newer message is from his girlfriend, Anne.

status report mortimer

Morty finds himself looking for some kind of message from Rick– which is stupid. Rick doesn’t text. 

He texts Anne: 

finally leaving lol 

She responds immediately:

call me when you guys stop for the night? 

Morty’s heart clenches fondly. They’re going to different schools to study different things in different parts of the country— newly separate time zones– and it’s going to be hard, but he likes her a lot. Enough to give it a shot. He winces as he remembers Rick’s deadpan dismissal when Morty had mentioned that he and Anne were going to do long distance over dinner a month or two ago. D–didn’t take you for that much of an idiot, Morty. As soon as she gets there she’s gonna be getting allll sorts of co-ed dicks in her mouth. But I guess you don’t mind sloppy digital seconds?  

Ofc i will, he types. 

Nobody’s heard from Rick in two or three weeks. Morty had kind of expected– well, he didn’t know what he’d expected, but he’d really thought that Rick would do him better than this. All he does is talk about how stupid Morty is all the time; maybe he’s pissed at being sort of wrong. He’d been straight up shocked when Morty got his acceptance letter in the mail, the packet fat in Morty’s hand as he raced down from his room to show everyone. While Summer screamed, and both his parents had cried, Rick had stared at the letter Morty was holding, hard, then sipped his beer, then turned back to the TV. N-nice one, Morty. A real cool sixty grand a year investment, there. 

“Let’s go, Morty,” Mom says, opening the passenger side door. “I need some coffee if we’re gonna do this.” 

Finally, Dad wipes his face. After taking a few deep, calming breaths, he walks over and sweeps Morty up in a hug. 

“I’m proud of you, Morty.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“We didn’t think you’d make it, but you did. Of course you did. And that’s what matters.” 

“Bye, Dad,” Morty said, leaning into the hug. “I–I love you.” 

“I love you, too.”

Morty doesn’t realize how much he misses the sound of a portal opening up until he hears one right behind them. Dad jerks back with a frightened twitch. 

“What the hell–?”

Rick doesn’t so much step out onto the driveway as fall. He looks to be in a really bad way. Maybe as bad as Morty has ever seen him: scraggly and torn up, not even really standing up straight, too drunk for his body to cope with the flat, even keel of the pavement. One arm of his labcoat is missing, ripped off at the shoulder, and Morty’s thankful to see that the arm beneath is intact. Skinny, and maybe there are track lines, there, faint in the bright sunshine, but intact. There’s dried vomit crusted on his sweater. 

“M-Morty, oh, God,” Rick moans. Morty feels a sinister shiver run over his shoulders and up the back of his neck as he watches Rick try to shield his eyes, blinking rapidly into the hot light. “Christ. Fuck.” 

“Dad?” Mom asks, poking her head out of the driver’s window. 

“Rick? Here to say goodbye to Morty?” Jerry asks, cautiously. Morty watches as he scooches himself to stand between his son and Rick, a little bit. A surprisingly brave move. 

“Isn’t that w-what we’re all doing?” Rick asks back, taking a step forwards, then falling to one knee with a lurch as he loses his balance. “Saying fuckin’ goodbye— goAAUUGhodbye to Morty? Because he’s going away f-f-forever and never coming back?”  

Rick’s drunken stare pins Morty to the side of the car, which had been parked outside so long while they packed that the metal is starting to get hot. The words sound like a taunt, but Morty can hear the truth there, a hard kernel in the middle. 

“Hi, Rick,” he says, trying for indifference. In his pocket, he squeezes his hand around the detector. 

Rick narrows his eyes. “R-R-Rick and Morty. One thhhhousand fuckin’ years. What, whatever happened to that shit, huh?”

“Dad–” Mom’s getting back out of the car. 

“So I’m going to school. Big whoop,” Morty says, annoyed. Everything about this is annoying: Rick disappearing whenever he wanted then showing up just in the nick of time fucking shit faced like he’s trying to bail out the Vindicators. “You’ve been gone for, like, three weeks, Rick. And you didn’t feel the need to tell anybody about that. N-not that I would expect anything else at this stage. So, you know, whatever.”

“Three weeks?” Rick’s struggling to stand back up, now. “Three weeks?”

“You’ve never owed anyone anything in your whole goddamn– your whole stupid life, R-Rick. Not my family, not me. Not even Mom.” 

Rick’s expression is foggy and drunk, but underneath, Morty can see he’s hurt.  

“I think you should go, Dad,” Mom says in her stop-doing-this-right-now-or-you’re-fucked voice. “I don’t care if you portal out of here, or crash on the sofa to ride out your hangover, or whatever, but just. Let us leave.” 

Somehow, Rick manages to get one leg in front of the other so he can advance up the driveway towards Morty with halting, wavering steps like a zombie in a horror movie. The detector in Morty’s pocket buzzes. Dad looks back and forth between them, scared. 

“Three weeks, Morty?” he grinds out, again. He’s close enough now for Morty to see how bloodshot his eyes are. “I’ll give– give you three weeks. Y-you know what happens when you go to college Morty? You have four years to get too fuckin’ big for your idiotic little britches.” He grabs one hand around Morty’s bicep, grip crushingly strong. Morty can smell his rancid breath across his face, agitated, huffy. “And then you, you go and think you can do goAUUGHd, good things for the world, or whatever, you get those little aspir– aspirations in your head, Morty, you get these fucking ideas in your head–” 

“It’s already been years, Rick,” Morty says, trying not to turn away. “Doing whatever, well at least, pretty much whatever, I-I guess, you wanted me to do.”

“– and you don’t even know how stupid these i–ideas are, until, boom, you’ve lived your whole sad-ass pathetic-ass life doing jack fucking shit. Goin’ and bein’ a techbro office slave narc or some shit. I just can’t, I just can’t ffffucking– oh fuck—” 

Rick starts to throw up pretty spectacularly all over the ground, and the side of the car, and on Morty’s sneakers. 

“Oh my god, Dad!”

“Oh, Rick that’s just disgusting!!”

Morty just stays quiet until Rick seems finished and he slumps against the car, moaning. He watches as Rick slides down until he’s half knelt, half crouched by the front bumper, the vomit running down the gentle slope of the driveway to touch his shoes and the spread hand on the ground that’s keeping him from falling on his face. He makes a sound when Morty comes closer, a sort of whimper. Morty gets down beside him. Unable to stop himself, he puts a hand on his grandpa’s back and starts rubbing little circles as Rick groans, spitting out a wad of bile. There are a lot of different colors in the vomit, ones Morty can’t recognize even though he’s pretty familiar with Rick’s binge habits by this point. 

“Fuck youUUGh. Fffffuck you, Morty. I– I mean that. So much. '' Rick’s staring at the ground. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his hand. Morty wonders if maybe he’s going to be sick again. 

“Yeah, fuck you, too, man,” Morty says, but there’s no heart in it. He just feels sad. He wishes– he doesn’t know what he wishes. 

“F-forever. Fuck you, forever,” Rick mutters quietly, almost to himself. Little dark spots show up on the driveway beneath his head, and Morty realizes he’s crying. Or maybe it’s post-vomit drool? It’s hard to see his face. 

“M-Morty, Morty listen to me,” Rick says. He sounds defeated, almost confused. As old as he really is. 

“I’m listening, Rick.” 

“I’m gonna do somethin’ stupid. Sooo, so stupid.” Rick’s still staring at the ground. 

Dad’s shadow has crept next to Rick’s foot. “Rick, I really don’t think–” 

“Whatever you’re about to do, think twice before you traumatize my son,” Mom says. Then she pauses and adds: “More.”  

Morty keeps rubbing circles across Rick’s knobby spine. “What, Rick? What– what’re you gonna do?”

“Say you’ll.” Rick chokes a little. 

“Say what?”

“Say you’ll marry me, Morty.” 

Morty blinks. “What?”

“JeEUGHsus Christ, don’t make me say it again.” 

Morty’s body is a live wire. His hand scrunches the back of Rick’s coat tightly. “No. Say it again.” 

Rick stares up at him with watery eyes. 

“Marry me,” he says, quietly. Pathetically. There’s some drool and left-over throwup clinging to his chin. 

There was this one adventure they’d gone on where Morty had mangled his leg so badly that his shin bone had actually broken the surface of his skin. Burst right through below his kneecap, like a jagged, bloody tooth. It was screamingly painful– Rick actually had to knock him out until he was able to fix it with some nanobots. Morty realizes that this is the same as that; that this is some core part of Rick, torn through all the heaped layers of nihilism and drugs and whatever else poisons who his grandpa is. This is the exposed bone. 

When Morty looks up at his parents, he can’t read the expressions on their faces. 

“I– I’m not a good person, Morty,” Rick says, grabbing weakly at Morty’s t-shirt to get his attention again. Like he can’t bear to let Morty look anywhere else. He sounds like he’s really losing it. “I’m a horrible person, Morty. Say– say that you’ll marry me. God, I’ll blow my fuckin’ brains out if you don’t— let’s just g-g-get out of—oh my God—” 

Morty’s pocket vibrates. He doesn’t know if it’s the detector or his phone, and he should care, should be terrified, but he doesn’t. 

He isn't.  

— 

Turns out, Shoney’s is a regional chain.

Morty doesn’t realize this until they reach the last one at the edge of the state, just before they cross the border. ‘Last Shoneys for the next 24,800 miles,’ says the sign at the exit. There’s a graphic of an arrow reaching all the way around the globe, back to the little point on the map they’re driving through. Morty has traveled the multiverse with Rick, to places billions of light years away, so far away time doesn’t mean anything at all, but somehow this is already the longest trip he’s ever taken. Like that one scene in the Lord of the Rings where Sam crosses the corn field. If I take one more step, this’ll be the furthest from home I’ve ever been. That was a really good movie, Morty thinks. 

His mom throws the car into park. She’s had to adjust the driver’s seat to be closer to the steering wheel because her legs are shorter than Dad’s, and change all the mirrors, too. She drives way faster than him, swerving lanes to cut around traffic like a maniac. Maybe that runs on her side of the family. 

“Food?” she asks, simply. Morty nods. He twists to look over his shoulder. 

“Rick?” 

Rick stirs in the back seat, thin eyelids fluttering. They’d made space for him by shoving over a bunch of the boxes to one side and moving some to the trunk. There aren’t really that many, anyways. He’s wearing a clean pair of pants and a t-shirt that belongs to Dad, which helps, but he still has an undernote of puke and sweat. 

He makes a hungover-sounding groan. He still hasn’t opened his eyes.

“You want Shoney’s?” Morty asks. “L-last chance.”

“Shoney’s, you say?” He cracks an eye open, gaze flickering around to look up at the building they’re parked at. “Didn’t know they had them out here. O-on earth, I mean.” 

Mom watches him silently in the rearview mirror. Rick just looks at Morty. 

“Y-you know what, fuck it, sure,” he says finally, popping open the car door and getting out. The sun is even hotter, here, and scorching air blows into the car when he slams it closed. Mom and Morty do the same, one, then the other.  

Together, they go inside to eat lunch. 

[fraudulent-cheese]

Total Drama Fic Rec Week day 3 that i definitely did not nearly forget!

The prompt this time is Alternate Universe - No Total Drama and oh BOY i had material for this. And not just because i've written one, either.

Ok i have four different reqs this time!!! First of all, shouting out one of the more underrated fics Courtney-Deserved-Better wrote, I Rather Like Having Friends. It's a highschool au centered on the dynamic between most of the roti cast and courtney, which features a bunch of rare friendships that i find very neat actually! they bake cookies and play Just Dance and it's sweet :p

Next up, against all odds! It's a Lindsay-Noah friendship fic where the latter tutors the former in maths and they become friends over the course of the fic! It's just really sweet, and actually explores Lindsay's character which i always like. (this is also where i got the "Lindsay has face blindness" Headcanon from, btw)

Now i've already talked about how much i loved the next two; A New Kind of Design is a lesheather college au that mostly focuses on Action dynamics and also Duncan is there and not a terrible presence for once. I like how Heather and Leshawna are written in it. We need more content with dynamics from Action in this fandom man

Terrible taste in nerds and video games is an alenoah fic with hbombs friendship as both a relevant friendship and important characters. Basically, Heather gets Alejandro to play the game Harold's been developping - a parody of Stardew Valley - to get Alejandro to stop moping about his brother bothering him. It works a little too well. I adore how much of a loser Alejandro is in it, and in general i like all the friendships present!

@totaldramaficrecweek

[nostalgicfun]

Feel free to share which is your favorite NOW in the tags, but this particular poll is about which you preferred as a child! ⭐ These are being grouped by a vague theme, so in a few days we'll do another one with more options!

Also, same rule as the last poll: REALLY popular choices (ATLA, SpongeBob, Scooby Doo, Pokemon, etc.) are overwhelmingly popular and have been omitted for the sake of seeing the results for other shows.

Notes: These are shows involving live action characters, no cartoons this time! The timeframe for these polls is generally "I was a kid in the mid-to-late 90s or early 2000s." Mister Roger's Neighborhood and Sesame Street are both multi-generational so they were not included to be fair to the show's with shorter runs 💖

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hey hey hey may 31th anon! How's 2024 going? ☆ヾ(*´▽｀)ﾉ This year I have for you a leaked Sherlock season 5 image. Thinking of you!! And everyone!!

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[tawnysoup]

Transitional phase

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Started a new book series, and has been a journey...an Odyssey, if you will.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny dies every night.

So! Danny's secret Ghost Powers remained a secret for about 6 Hours.

After turning back into a Human, he had immediately gone back to his room and tried to fall asleep, pretending none of it was even real, that it was just a dream. The idea that he had just died was understandably hard to swallow, not to mention the fact he had somehow come back.

All he wanted to do was rest and figure it out later. It was a problem for Future Danny.

Except when he woke up, something was wrong.

He felt Cold, Colder than he had ever been before. It was as if he had a chunk of pure Ice stuck in his Chest, the cold spreading across every part of his body. With a start he realized that his chest wasn't moving at all, either from the beating of his heart or the breaths he was supposed to be taking.

He wasn't breathing. His heart wasn't pumping. The Ice in his chest was the feeling of his heart not pumping, still and unnaturally cold. At that realization, he felt his Heart begin beating again.

He ran downstairs, hoping to get his parents help. He didn't know what was going on exactly, but they must be able to help him right?! They were the leading experts on Undead Biology, they must know how to help him!

When he reached the kitchen, he saw his parents and Jazz huddled together at the table, crying together for some reason.

"Mom! Dad! Jazz! Somethings wrong! I don't know what happened, but last night I-"

He stopped when he saw their faces. Their cheeks were tear-streaked, eyes bloodshot, but the thing he noticed first was the grief and absolutely confusion in their eyes. They were staring at him as if they had seen a Ghost, figuratively of course, and they seemed to he trying to connect the dots in their heads.

"Danny?" Jazz asked in a shaky voice. "Is that you?"

"Jazz?" He asked in return, "What do you mean, of course it's me?"

She looked hopeful for a moment, before his mom stood up.

"No." She said, her voice held a hard edge. "It's not."

Danny almost fell over when she said that. "W-what?" He asked, "What are you talking about Mo-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" She yelled. She gripped the Blaster in her hand tighter, aiming it at him. "I checked everything when we found Danny's body! He had no Pulse, no Brain Activity, and his Ecto Levels were far higher than normal! Danny is Dead! And you killed him!"

"What?!" Danny yelled in shock, "I didn't kill hi-I mean, I didn't kill me-I mean-What are you talking about!?"

This time his dad answered, getting up from the table himself. In his hand was another Blaster. "Danny's Ecto Levels could only have been that high if killed by something with a large amount of Ectoplasm, enough to leave such a mark. The Portal was open for hours last night before we found it and sealed it up, and that's when you got through isn't it!?"

His Dad leveled the Blaster to him.

"No! I'm not a Ghost, it's me! It's Danny!?" He pleaded, "Mom, I always baked you a cake on mother's day! Dad, I helped you clean up the lab the last time you blew it up! It's me!"

"Nice try." His mother said, "Die again, Ecto Scum."

That day, Danny ran away from home.

...

Ever since that day, Danny had been running as far as he could from Amity Park.

After he got out of the house, he tried to find any place he could hide as he figured everything out. His first try was Tucker, but his parents had anticipated that and beat him to the Punch. The same happened when he tried to go to Sam's, he barely escaped that situation alive(?).

At first he tried to stay in Amity, hoping he would eventually find a way to convince his parents of his true identity, so everything could go back to normal.

He abandoned that hope about a week later, when his parents got the local authorities on their side and issued a public service announcement stating he was a Murderer who killed their son, and to contact the Police if anybody saw him. The mindless Ghost they captured and presented on the Local News cemented the publics view on him.

So he ran from Amity.

The first few weeks on the Run were the worst. He wasn't used to surviving on the street, much less evading the Law Enforcement that seemed to keep finding him. He had to constantly stay on the move to keep away from the pursuit of his Parents, the Police, and the weird guys in white suits who had shown up once he passed the State Border.

His new Ghost Powers were the only thing that had let him get away most of those times. He could turn into a Full Ghost whenever he wanted, unlocking all of his powers for the time being, but also seemingly sending up a Beacon to whoever was looking for him. He found it was much easier to use their weakened versions in his Human Form.

As for his Undead-ness, he had mostly figured it out. His body was lying to him. He was Dead, but his Body was just pretending to be alive for his own sake. He didn't need to breath anymore, and his heart didn't need to pump, but they did because he felt that they needed to. He probably didn't even need to eat anymore.

The problem was that it couldn't keep it up when he was asleep. No matter what, every time he fell asleep his Body would die again, and when he woke up he would have to make it Live again.

One of the main reasons he kept getting caught recently was because well-meaning civilians would report to the Police that there was a Dead Teenager under a Bridge, or on a Park Bench, or on one memorable occasion in a Ditch. He would wake up in a Body Bag, escape, and be reported to his Pursuers.

At least his pattern of movement was untraceable so far.

Turns out, the Portal's opening had much more of an effect than his parents had anticipated. The Shockwave in the fabric of Reality when they punched a hole through it (and him), had caused dozens of Natural Portals to form across the Country, opening and closing in random places, soaking the area of Ectoplasm.

As an apparent Ghost, Danny was somehow drawn to these places. Whenever he got to one he felt rejuvenated, as if the stress of the past few days had never happened to him. He could only assume that he was Absorbing the Ectoplasm in the area to feed himself, based on a few of the things he remembered from his parents constant ramblings.

Whenever he would go to one of these places, he would find a bunch of Ghosts. Some were friendly, defying all of his expectations, while others were...less so.

They seemed to resent the fact that he was still half-alive, some simply jabbing insults at him, others straight up attacking him. It seemed that Life was a sore subject among those guys. Or maybe it was him stopping them whenever they attacked humans...that was probably more accurate.

Sometimes the Ghosts he would meet were in the middle of attacking humans to fulfill what they called their "Obsessions". He learned that all Undead, and basically all Immortal Beings, have Obsessions. They are their Sole Purpose in existence, a built in defense mechanism against insanity by giving them something to dedicate Eternity to.

He didn't know if he had an Obsession, but if he did he hoped it was easier to manage than theirs seemed to be. One of them was obsessed with attention, but got it by hypnotizing humans into adoring her. She chilled out after a while. Another loved the thrill of the Hunt, but only wanted rare game. He chased after Danny a lot in pursuit of his "One of a Kind Pelt".

He fought then off and saved people whenever he could, although sometimes it was risky. Many of them were older and more experienced than him, so he was forced to use his Ghost Form against some of them, sacrificing his hiding spot to save the people being terrorized.

He sort of enjoyed it. Whenever he helped people, saved them from danger, he felt better about his situation. As if he was making the best out of the horrible situation his life had turned into by helping as many people as he could. He always felt a bit more motivated to keep going every time he helped anybody.

Maybe that was his Obsession? Helping others? He didn't really think so, he was nowhere near altruistic enough to consider that a possibility. Maybe it was Space? He always felt that same relief when he would camp out away from the Cities. Eh, he'll probably never know.

This cycle of finding a new hiding spot, getting discovered, and running away again continued for a while. Years even.

Danny had Died at 14. He was now 17, and had been homeless for 3 years.

He hoped this next hiding spot would last a bit longer than the previous ones. This one felt different, the Ectoplasm he was wandering towards felt older than the other places he had gone. His previous hiding spots had always been the site of a recent Natural Portal, and the Ectoplasm in the atmosphere would feel Fresh and Wild.

But the Ectoplasm where he was going tasted Older, Stronger, more Set in Stone than the others had. Wherever he wad headed to next, it had been soaking in Ectoplasm for far longer than any other place he had ever been, even in Amity.

He walked up the the Sign at the side of the road, introducing the City to newcomers.

"Welcome to Gotham City" it said.

[imissthestarswhenicry]

ummmm. put that thing away??!

[choccy-milky]

the place me and my roommate were supposed to move into today was so disgusting and uninhabitable we just took our stuff and left and now we're gonna be staying at airbnbs and hotels until further notice/until we can find a new place hopefully quickly...........im in my homeless drifter era y'all!!!😍😍so if im not as active then thats why LMFAO

1 like = 1 prayer

[hinamie]

please any atla gojo lore. anything please im begging on my knees hands pressed together like im praying to god

I really wish I could anon :'> we tried to think of non-spoiler-y lore we could share but turns out every aspect of his character is either a. major spoilers or b. a near-direct echo of canon but make it atla flavoured (ie. his relationships w/ geto/shoko/nanami/haibara; him being The Strongest(tm) in-universe, etc). I guess there's technically the satosugu betrothal but that's already Public Knowledge given that there's art, plus the details are (surprise!) more spoilers

so ...yeah.... unfortunately you'll just have to wait to learn more about him in the fic :"> please accept this compensatory art as apology even though i am Not sorry in fact the pleas of the commonfolk make me cackle

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[fear-no-mort]

favourite thing: his new habit of saying uhuh/mhm and also this

[bramblesnbones]

let them rest!!

[hellafluff]

Garrus' interactions with Shepard post-Thessia are so fucking well written. Everyone else is telling Shepard they're sorry or doing a soft sad voice asking if she's okay but Garrus has this moving little speech about how losing a fight isn't the end of the war and I just. He's so fucking good. He knows what Shepard needs to hear and has the experience to back up the things he says. He's so good to her

[sparring-spirals]

Still emotional about Fy'ra Rai and Opal, actually. Thought dump time bc i. dont have the energy to cut this down effectively.

Because at that point in the episode, Opal is doomed. Not in the fun little "oh things are getting worse ;)" kind of way we'd been experiencing leading up to the fight, or even IN the fight. At that point in the fight, Cyrus is dead. Dorian and Dariax have their minds twisted, bodies clambering away from the fight. Morrighan has felt, firsthand, just how far gone Opal is, holes in her mind, her friend broken. The heartbreaking sentence of. "You can always come back." understands that she is gone already. She's lost already. Opal has forgotten Ted. Opal has forgotten herself.

So at that point in the fight, we know Opal is doomed. Us as the audience, the cast, the characters. Aabria is running through each of the other crownkeepers and it is more of a goodbye than a round of combat. Defying the Spider Queen invites death, with zero hesitation- Cyrus's body as physical evidence of that. The terms were very clearly set: You leave Opal, you let her be lost. Or you die. (Leaving Opal anyway).

and Fy'ra Rai then. Grasps the crown, understands intimately that she can break it off and it will kill Opal. (I will free you, if you want me to. We would lose you but you would not be taken). And asks, what do you want me to do. What do you want.

and Opal says, I want you to leave. (I want you to live.) and Fy'ra Rai functionally says. No. Sorry. That's not one of the options.

If you wanted to go. I will do that (your blood on my hands). If you want me to stay, I will. But I'm not going to leave you.

There was the point where Fy'ra Rai broke into the communication and I felt my insides sink because. Look. Lets be real, Aabria had already demonstrated the stakes here. The gesture would not be rewarded for the gesture alone. The Spider Queen's terms were: You leave Opal. Or you die.

And Fy'ra Rai said: no.

I don't think I'm overstepping to assume that if Fy'ra Rai had failed the intimidation check, she would have died. This entire thing hits me so hard because I think Anjali knew that too. I think Fy'ra Rai knew that too. Yes, Fy'ra Rai convinced a Betrayer God to negotiate. She carved a third option out of a non-negotiable situation. She knew what would happen if she failed and did it anyway, with no fear, no regret, no waver in her resolve. She had lost enough sisters. She wasn't going to lose anymore, no matter the personal cost. That's part of why it succeeded, I'm sure, but.

Just. Fuck me. The amount of resolve. The amount of love. The amount of conviction. "I am. A protector." You know your friend- your sister- is doomed. So no more negotiating away from that. You step to her side and you grasp her hand and say- doom me with her.

And in some, sideways way, this saves you both, at least for a little while.

Because this story is a tragedy. This ending is a sad one. We know this already. But think about- Opal, under Lolth's bidding, alone in the dark. Think about Fy'ra Rai, alive, intimately aware that she had failed to protect yet another sister.

And think about what we got, instead: the two of them, in deep darkness, danger encroaching- holding hands. Someone they love at their side. A champion. And her champion.

This is still a sad story. But it's not the same one. Fy'ra Rai stared down a Betrayer God and made her change her mind. She stared down a Betrayer God, and her love and conviction changed the nature of the story. It shouldn't have been able to. But she did.

Fy'ra Rai chose to doom 2 people instead of one, and the sheer strength of her love and will managed to save them both, at least for a little while. Isn't it funny how that works? Isn't it devastating? Isn't it. fucking incredible?

[usercelestial]

okay but literally what if buck and tommy end up together? like what if we get to see them moving in together or saying i love you for the first time or getting engaged or getting married? what if we get to see buck having a husband? literally what then...