#thinking about exploring them again...

[xxplastic-cubexx]

personal happiness or what the fuck ever

bonus:

[independent-fics]

Countdown to LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION Season 3 ↳ Alec Hardison Appreciation -> A Favorite Quote

S01EP01 The Too Many Rembrandts Job

Bonus Moment:

[t-5secondsart]

after playing COH, i'm a bit sad to see how underrepresented it is in links meet aus (and just in general.) luckily, i am an artist, so i thought i'd try designing what COH link would look like if he was redesigned by various artists!

(aus/artists these are based on, from left to right: @linkeduniverse, @author-main, @sable-skies, @cokoakeostuff, @the-phantom-peach, @linked-maze, @minas-linkverse, and @clowns0up-felix)

[bbuzz28]

Memories

Old man Fiddlestan, my beloved-and what's this? It could be semi-canon compliant :O ?!?! Woof- this is one of the saddest things I have ever written. I know some of you gremlins (affectionate) love that sort of thing, but I don't. I like really really don't. This is my comfort ship, so I don't even know where this came from other than trying to figure out how they *could* work in canon. Truthfully though, I prefer my Fiddlestan heavy on the comfort when it comes to the "hurt/comfort" genre. This is my only “angsty” (i.e. no immediate happy ending) Notes-app fics, so don't get used to this level of sad from me lol.

“Stan?” an oddly familiar voice called. Mr. Mystery, Stan Pines, glanced up from the flyers he was organizing and found that Old Man McGucket stood in the doorway of his front door. The last tour of the day had just left, it was dinnertime, and he was exhausted. Stan rolled his eyes as he unfurled his tie, wishing Soos was still there to escort the crazy old man off his property. No matter what he did, the old hillbilly always managed to find his way back to the Shack. “Sweet Moses McSuckit, what are you doing in here? Shoo, scat, or whateva will get rid of ya.” Hearing no movement, he looked at the man again and found he was standing erect. His blue eyes were the clearest he had seen them in no less than a decade.

          Wait, what did he call- oh. Oh no.

“Stan…ley? Did I…did I do somethin’ wrong?” the other man asked, his hands twisted in knots in front of him. Memories flashed through Stan’s mind; Ford falling through the portal, Fiddleford finding him passed out in the lab, working together to bring Ford home again…being together. Being happy. They had been happy, if just for a little while, hadn’t they?

Then there was the cult, and his discovery of the damn memory gun that had finally ruined everything they ever built. He took a hesitant step forward, a thousand thoughts roaring in his mind at once. “Fidds? Wha-what do you remember?” A bandaged hand snaked up and rubbed over the faded scar on the side of his head “I…don’t rightly know. Did we…I think we had a fight? I just woke up in the…in the dump. N’ I don’t have any shoes. Do ya know why my arm is in a cast?” Fiddleford looked so lost.

Stan knew in his heart that all of this was fleeting- “clarity” would hit Fiddleford every few years after he had finally wiped his mind of himself. Almost like his brain was trying to jumpstart itself back together. The first time they thought it was a miracle but…it didn’t last. It just started a trend that would follow them both for the next almost thirty years. Fiddleford would seemingly “wake up” and be lucid for a few weeks in the beginning, then eventually only a matter of days. It had been so long since the last time that Stan would wager, they only had maybe a few hours together if he was lucky.

The last time Fiddleford was himself…they had fought. Stanley thought he had figured the only way Fiddleford could stay; he needed to remember. Remember everything he had ever forgotten. At the time, Fiddleford had been unwilling to try. He didn’t think he could handle it; he knew he had forgotten what he had for a reason.

Stanley had gotten as close to begging as he ever had in his life since surviving Tijuanna, and when it had no effect…Stanley had told Fiddleford to leave and never come back. He had left that night, and by the next day he had faded away again. After a while, Stan thought his last words had been the final nail in the coffin that was Fiddleford’s mind. He carried that weight along with every other mistake he had ever made. But here he was. Fiddleford. His Fiddleford.

He took a deep breath before he opened his arms up. “Hey, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter. I’m right here.” Fiddleford rushed through the doorway, melting into Stanley’s open arms. “I went away again, didn’t I?” Stan could feel Fiddleford’s tears soaking into his chest, his own whispering at the edges of his eyes. Yes, and you will leave again. You will leave me and I will be alone all over again, you fucking asshole. “Hey cowboy, didn’t I just say not t’ worry about any a’ that? You’re here now, n' that’s what matters. You’re…you’re home.” A haggard laugh vibrated through the smaller man’s chest into Stanley’s own. “I know I keep tellin’ ya, tellin’ me not t’ worry is like” “…tellin’ a fish t’ stop swimmin’; I know Fidds, I know.” Fuck was really the only conscious thought that went through his head as he held his one-time lover. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, again.

Fiddleford looked up, eyes wide and searching Stan’s face. “How long do ya think we have?” Stan shook his head, unwilling to lie even if it eventually wouldn’t matter because he wouldn’t remember. You’ve always been the only person I couldn’t lie to. “I dunno, it’s been…a while. Probably not very long.” Fiddleford closed his eyes before he said “I need ya t’ know somethin’, Stanley.” Stan started to shake his head. “Fidds, you don’t have t-” The look on the other man’s face shut Stan right up-he had always had that ability. Stan wished he didn’t miss it as much as he did. “I need ya to know that even when I’m not here…I miss you. The part of me that’s somewhere in here-” A weathered hand tapped the side of his head to emphasize his point “ misses you. I’m just so sorry, Stanley. Sorry that I’m a coward. I’m sorry that I’m not strong enough to be here all the time…but I’ll never stop tryin’. I’ll always try n’ come home to ya.”

Stan thought of the thousands of times he had chased Old Man McGucket, the neat little character that Stan had to compartmentalize his Fiddleford into when he wasn’t himself, out of the Shack. How many times he had found him curled up like a cat on the back porch. How every time they “met”, McGucket would say how nice Stan was or how good he felt to be around him “for some reason.” How many odds and ends McGucket would gift Stan from the dump for exhibits at the Mystery Shack with a large smile and nothing substantial behind his eyes.

It would be so much easier if he would stop trying to come back. Maybe the hole in Stan’s heart the size of the sweet, certifiably insane man would scab over. How many times had Stanley mourned him? How many times was he willing to hurt himself? They were now nearing their sixties, how long was he really willing to do this song and dance?

What’s one more time? he softly thought, his hand coming up to tenderly cup the grizzled face of Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. Mad scientist, friend, and unfortunately for them both…the love of his life.

“I miss you too, Fidds.”

[lightningbig]

sorry twilight princess will always be eating holes in my brain. constantly and forever. I cannot ever be normal about it.

it's such a haunted game. you are a dead thing going through a dead world. you are something in between. you can go back but it will never be the same. you will never be the same. you are walking, constantly, through ghosts of what came before. you are exploring places long forgotten. you are the only one on this path because there is no one else that can walk it. you were just a farm boy. you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. right place at the wrong time? wrong place at the right time? you were just supposed to deliver a sword.

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Rage Form

[lavampira]

ffxiv sapphic sunday • new beginnings

[raiiny-bay]

some WIPs from the 80s AU i never finished

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[all-inmoderation]

not enough ppl know about this fic

take me to the answers (i'm the one who's listening) by annnubis

if your favorite character in JJK is either Yuuji or Geto, you have got to read this fic. This story understands those two characters like no other.

It's a canon-divergence, time-travel fix-it AU, in which Yuji, post-shibuya, is thrown back to gojo and geto's schooldays (post hidden inventory arc).

the prose in this fic is so polished and the characters are all given a level of maturity that i found so refreshinggggg. all the other characters are also just as fleshed out, from satoru, shoko, to even Yaga. Yuji's reactions pertaining to Gojo are especially touching. And the way he sees Geto is so characteristically kind.

some excerpts from the fic to entice you guys to read it:

They surround the crater and naturally Satoru gets closer to it than any of them, though he's right behind him. Suguru knows Satoru noticed it, too—something terribly human-shaped, with a soft filthy face and hunched shoulders and scuffed red sneakers.

The first thing Sukuna ever gave me, he thinks in the direction of his teacher sealed terrifyingly away in the dark, was all this blood on his hands.

Sensei or not. It's Satoru Gojo. It seems every version of him contains the fundamentals that set Yuuji just a little bit at ease.

Toji Fushiguro is dead. Suguru lies awake in his bed, reminding himself of this supposedly comforting fact that instead leaves him feeling hollow and restless, laying flat underneath a thin bed sheet staring up at his ceiling fan.

Sorcerers die all the time.

He is not one of the strongest. Not anymore.

Sukuna Ryomen’s vessel is compelling. The unscarred parts of his face look soft as down, but the scars put a warm feeling in Suguru's stomach.

Also, one of my favorite aspects of the fic is how it describes Yuuji's scent/energy. I know the accepted fanon is that Yuuji smells like peaches, but I've always found the idea of that scent to be a bit too sugarysweet and childish(?) to fit Yuuji.

But this:  Rosewater steam, faint and warm and welcoming, and pooling blood and something herbaceous.

now this is what I'm fucking talking abouttttt. That's how you fucking describe a scent, man! The idea of Yuuji's aura being ~rosewater steam~ is just so much more alluring and tantalizing than peaches, imo. ahhhhhh I'm in loveeee.

[askgardenerwoods]

hi Emma! Who do you consider your friends do you have a crush on anybody?

" For crushes... "

[starry-bi-sky]

realizing i have. a lot of untapped trauma potential for clone^2 danny because i just Fully Processed Four Months Late the fact that his parents were capturing and torturing ghosts in the basement before he became Phantom. and the fact that he was on house rest for 2 weeks. during that time period. and he wasn't really leaving the house. he could hear their screaming through the floorboards

*points at clone danny* i can give you suuuuuuch a bad time babe ahaha. i've got two untouched years before you meet damian what fucks you up before then

[morganbritton132]

I think one of the most interesting ways to write Steve’s parents (or his mom, at least) is as a deeply flawed person with good intentions.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a fic where they’re just bad people. Sometimes that’s all you need for a good story and this is not a criticism of anybody’s interpretation.

My personal preference in writing his parents is as people who are trying to be good parents.

Like, im currently messing around with this AU concept where Steve has a really complicated family dynamic. In it, he has bad parents. His mother made a choice to follow her husband because she thinks it’s the only way to preserve her marriage and thus preserve a good life for her son. It’s not malicious neglect but it is neglect. She’s trying to do the right thing but she’s making the wrong decisions. In the end, she’s still hurting her child.

A couple years ago I wrote this fic about Steve spiraling into a severe depression and his parents are trying to help him. They just don’t listen. They don’t understand what he’s dealing with and they make the wrong choices when trying to help him. Everybody that tries to help him makes the wrong choices, but with the best of intentions. Steve says repeatedly throughout the fic that it’s not his parents fault they don’t know how to be parents.

It’s really fun to write and it’s really cathartic if your relationship with your parents isn’t easy.

[puhpandas]

tbh I think a good way to view tales from the pizzaplex is that it's in addition to and not instead of

[chimerafeathers]

actually i still have thoughts building on my interpretation of the timeline question from this timeline post

two main things. first, what Isabeau says about his Change

it's a metaphorical death, of course. Isabeau is still alive and did not literally, physically kill himself in order to Change. but even so, the person he "would" have been without that Change is "dead." he's still him, he's always been him, the kid he was is still in there but he's still Isabeau. there is only one timeline.

but, second, it's like. sometimes you remember a turning point in your life—an opportunity you took or didn't take. a coincidence that led to you meeting your best friend, or a choice that led to some of the darkest moments of your life, or a circumstance that you could have never controlled at all that, nevertheless, you can see how it shaped you as you are now, for better or for worse.

and maybe sometimes you are overwhelmed with something about how your life as it is now. and you find yourself mourning, deeply and sincerely, something that never existed. the death of that possibility, that "timeline" where you made a different choice, were born into a different family, had met a different person, had met the same person but at a different time.

would you be happier? would you still be "you"? would it be better if you weren't? would you be better?

there's no way to know. you are you, and have always been you. there is only one timeline.

...but for Loop...they make a choice, and their continuity is cut. they become the circumstances that change how the story plays out. they get to watch, from the outside, the "what if" scenario that would have led them to the happiness they sought.

it doesn't matter if the party or the world "literally" died and were rewritten in the wake of their wish. they are mourning something that never existed—a world where they are the one who is embraced and accepted without hesitation by a party who knows them. the party that could have given them that is dead, the version of themself that could have had that is dead, they are removed from the happy "what-if" even as it plays out before them. the grief and guilt are real even if the deaths are metaphorical.

there is only one timeline, but they can never again be THE Siffrin who loves their party instead of A Siffrin who changed beyond recognition. their choice destroyed something they can never get back. a party who loved them, and not their replacement. they're dead, they're gone, they're replaced with people who only know to turn that love towards someone else who wears their face.

but of course, of course the opportunity for reconnection still exists. no matter what details change, no matter if the party from the Prologue and the party from ISAT are the same exact people or some rewritten version of them, the fundamental cores of them prevail. and they are predisposed towards loving each other. their happiness is still within reach—it will just look different than they had thought.

[gods-perfect-idiots]

❤️💛