#well it’s frozen 3 manifest post

[aminetko]

Don't you think Honeymaren’s favorite color is blue? Like blue sky, blue ocean...those eyes…?

[the-ace-with-spades]

So as a Polish person, I both love and hate Polish! Ice as a headcanon, but my grandma is half-Italian and somehow this manifested into Italian! Mav so here we go (spoiler: there's a lot of food involved):

Mav's mom was first generation Italian born in NYC, lived in Staten Island until she married Mav's dad - her family was from Bologna

Mav, despite the hero worship he had for his dad, was mamma's boy

she could speak Italian well and did so around the house but never taught Mav, and what little Italian he could speak, he forgot once she died and he wasn't around the language

she, however, left him their family cookbook, entirely written in Italian, and so recipes are the only text he can understand without googling a lot

after he retires, he wants to take some Italian lessons with Ice

as mentioned in one of my post's tags, the few words he remembers and are still natural to him are pet names; he calls Ice caro (dear??) like his mom called his dad, mio angelo, tesoro (sweetheart/honey??) and when Bradley was small and he was tired, he'd call him bambino

He also uses sei un raggio di sole (you are a ray of sunshine) sarcastically when Ice is grumpy -- it's a phrase his mom used when he was grumpy as a kid

he couldn't say 'I love you' to Ice for some time so instead, he'd say ti voglio tanto bene and then eventually moved to ti amo and then to English

he actually really likes to cook, he just needs to cook for someone - he was taught that cooking is a sign of love so he likes to cook for their family, but not just for himself

Bradley couldn't eat nutella for years b/c Mav's homemade nocciolata was so much better. Ice could literally kill for his nocciolata-filled bomboloni and ricotta and strawberry jam crostata

Slider often 'visits' them to get their leftovers and had once asked Mav to make him aubergine parmigiana and shrimp risotto as a birthday present

Mav makes Ice tiramisu as a pick-me-up when he needs to leave for long

Mav loves wine but it must be complimentary with the meal

he makes his own pasta and if you're in the kitchen while he's making it, he's going to use you to roll or knead the dough for him

when Carole was getting sick but still staying at home, he'd make batches of ravioli, tortellini, tortelloni, mezzelune, cappelletti -- any stuffed pasta that could be frozen and then quickly boiled -- so Bradley would have dinner when Carole was having a bad day

he refuses to ever make fettuccine alfredo as a rule b/c it's boring and its american, and will never make meatballs to serve with spaghetti, but Ice broke him and he now finally can do the americanized marinara sauce

their house has plenty of jars -- homemade pesto (3-4 different kinds), a mayo-sized jar of oregano, thyme, rosemary, a jar with grana padano in the fridge and a whole shelf filled only with different kinds of oil, cooking wine and vinegar, and a little garden with fresh basil and, once they moved to San Diego, tomatoes. Ice has to remember to water it when Mav is away in the summer

he does the stereotypical arm waving and shoulder shrugging while talking but only when he is either worked up or tired

they also have that one special kind of plates, white with blue and yellow decor and sunflowers on the main dish plate

As a bonus, Polish Ice headcanons:

Ice's mom emigrated during WWII but his dad was second gen born in the US -- she was from Gdansk

he can cook pretty well, especially polish recipes, since he often helped her cook at home

he, however, hates cooking. But he will absolutely stress-make pierogi if he can, usually a huge batch of like 50 or something

he did hand over the polish recipes to Mav - the only thing is, Mav refuses to make bigos for him (b/c he'd need to make his own sauerkraut and it stinks)

he drinks his vodka neat, in a glass, not as shots, adds coke if he's going for a 'light-drinking night'

he occasionally goes to mass at a Polish church - he, usually, doesn't understand most of what's being said but his mom used to take him to one each Sunday and it's now a form of comfort

His favorite childhood meals were placki ziemniaczane (potato pancakes) with mushroom sauce and pyzy (type of dumplings) with plums, which Mav can now make in his sleep

he's never attempting to learn Polish

but he wants to visit Gdansk and the Polish seaside once every few years

[reikunrei]

okayyyy so i made a post abt this last night that was just a short ramble trying to piece my thoughts together but basically... i’m just really curious how will’s (possible) powers might manifest and what they might be, and i’m trying to like. reason out how i feel about them and what i personally think would be cool or fitting...

lots of people have talked about this before (like user pinkeoni has made some really good posts abt it, and i think heroesbyler has had good discussions abt it too) and what his powers might be, and a lot of them revolve around creation or light, both of which i’m very fond of

this isn't so much a theory or prediction as it is a "these are things i noticed and i think this would work well with the themes of the show" type of spiel. it ended up way longer than i wanted it to and goes off on multiple tangents because i can't stop myself, so i'm putting it under the cut lol

it's more just for me to try and articulate what i'm feeling about it, but if anyone actually reads this mess, you're more than welcome to share your thoughts :3

with the creation stuff, it automatically makes me think of the UD taking the shape of hawkins... because we know that henward grew to hate that town so why would vecna shape the UD to look like the place he hated? i suppose it could be bc he wanted to take revenge on the town, so why not daydream about it and destroy your scale model of it to get some catharsis, right? but... then it's frozen on the night will went missing? it’s possible that the UD could have simply taken the shape of hawkins when the s1 gate was opened and made the two worlds touch, thus making the UD a true "mirror" dimension of hawkins. but i also really like the idea of will getting sucked into the UD, panicking, wishing he had his hiding places to go to to escape from this monster chasing him, and poof! now he's in hawkins and all of his hiding places are there (he's good at hiding!) but it's still the "wrong" hawkins

but anyway, i want to move on to the "light" angle because there's so many things that i love about the possibility of will's powers taking the form of some kind of light to counteract the darkness created by vecna and the UD ("hide in the light" thank u max)

i especially think it would be cool for it to take the shape of some kind of fire or flame, even if the powers themselves don't behave like fire, like it's just a stylization choice to give some sort of visual that the characters and audience can see

i don't recall if there's any specific moment where any version of henward/vecna/001 or other characters talk about burning or fire as a form of destruction in a metaphorical/symbolic sense, but we see it enough of it literally throughout the show. fire is a means of causing pain, of killing, of destroying

season 1, nancy and jonathan think to burn the demogorgon to a crisp because, hey, that'd be a pretty effective way to kill something, right? so they carry that theory over into all the other seasons

season 2, we see hopper using his lighter to maneuver through the tunnels below hawkins, and the vines flinch away from the flame. we see owens and the lab using fire to cull the "weeds" still growing out of the gate. we see will react physically to the burning, feeling the pain through the link with the hivemind, and requiring it to be cold in order to not be in physical agony

season 3, uuuh i can't remember any direct usage of fire against the fleshflayer other than the fireworks, but that's more about the explosions than the flames imo lol. but we do get the sauna test (best s3 episode hands down mwah love it) and the aversion to heat that we see in billy and also in heather, though less prominently

season 4, we get murray's killer flamethrower scene and hopper using the flaming spear to keep the demogorgon at bay. our hawkins crew relies heavily on use of fire (flambé) in order to take out vecna's physical body

so there's just a lot of fire and fire as a means of destruction. but i can't help also thinking about how fire isn't purely a means of harm. fire keeps us warm, it brings us light in the darkness, it cooks our food and brings us health. the sun, a giant ball of fire, is essential for life to exist on earth. i especially keep thinking about how wildfires are a necessity to the planet, and in places like healthy grassland ecosystems, fires are crucial to burn out old growth to make way for new, fresh green, which the animals there then rely on. letting old growth continue to sit and dry out and die isn't good. it has to be removed completely so that new grass shoots can take over

(not to mention that allowing for controlled burns and letting wildfires run their course in a regular system ultimately allows for fewer, less destructive wildfires to happen. if there's no old, dry growth to burn, then there's less stuff to catch on fire)

how does this tie into the show, though?

to me, it makes me think of the concept of simply living with your trauma, not talking about it, and pretending everything is fine, when all that's doing is creating more kindling for a bigger, more destructive fire. it makes me think of season 2 and the conversation will has with jonathan about how everyone keeps treating him like he's gonna break, and the instructions joyce and hopper got from owens to just "treat him how you normally would." you can ignore trauma all you want and pretend everything is fine, but it's going to be more destructive in the long run. instead, letting him talk about it, listening, letting him burn things down a little bit, will be healthier because it'll clear out that old, dry grass clogging everything up and leave a clean patch of earth for him to build back up with new, healthier growth. you can take a weed wacker to it all you want, but those old roots are still there

not to mention the way they get rid of the mind flayer is to "burn it out of him." they literally let the "fire" run rampant, cranking up the heat to make his body inhabitable to the mind flayer, clearing out those nasty "weeds" so will can grow on his own (more or less) unimpeded

and then there's the s1 flashback scene between will and joyce where he's drawing will the wise shooting green fireballs. joyce asks, "why does he need fireballs if he's so wise? can't he just outsmart the bad guys?" but will explains that sometimes the bad guys are smart too, so he needs the fireballs

only here, they're green because he doesn't have a red crayon. this specific tidbit makes me think of how will's powers are currently repressed in some way. at that time, it was possibly because his powers "hadn't come in" yet, if we want to follow the idea that powers are a symbol for puberty or coming of age

he hasn't "found his flame" yet, so to speak (which is what got me thinking about all of this at all last night bc of the song 'find your flame' from the sonic frontiers ost the absolute slapper that it is) and at this point it's obvious that any awakening of his powers will happen in s5 when he's no longer being suppressed, much like how he currently has to suppress his true feelings, or how he's been unable to move on from what happened to him in s1 and 2

he has to use "fireballs" because sometimes the bad guy is smart. sometimes the bad guy has a trick up his sleeve (like *checks notes* literally not being able to die) and your original plan won't work. you can stock up on weapons, you can create as many sneaky ambushes as you want, you can solve all of the bad guy's riddles, but sometimes you need the fireballs

and, once again, we come back to how i feel like will's powers won't be literal fireballs, or something he physically wields. when it comes to el, henward, and kali, as well as the other powers that we see from other subjects, it's all something that they do. and here's where i start to struggle with how i want to articulate what i think about will's powers...

to me, will's possible powers aren't a weapon in the way that we've seen other powers used, or at least framed as, a weapon

like... i guess i do think that it's something that he can "do," but it's less "i'm going to move this thing with my mind" "i'm going to go into your head and walk through your memories" "i'm going to make you see something that isn't really there." like, he himself, his person, his mind, his essence, his intent, is the power. will byers is the light. why else constantly bask him in rays of sunshine, hm?? lol

again, i want to touch on the possibility of the UD hawkins manifesting simply because he wanted it to. he didn't think about it, he didn't deliberately go like "okay and now this house is here and this place is there" it simply... was. it just happened without much of his input other than a vague wish and panic

if we want to make it into something more deliberate, it makes me think of lio fotia in promare. the movie is basically about this group of people who suddenly developed "burnish" abilities, where they contain fire and have some sort of fire powers. they're persecuted by the rest of the planet, and are treated as terrorists and locked away in prisons and experimented upon. the fire, or "promare," inside of them is a double-edged sword, where they supposedly rejuvenate their bodies, but if they don't let it burn, it instead kills them and they turn to ash. spoilers i guess (you should definitely go watch this movie i highly recommend it), but near the end of the movie, lio is taken captive by the antagonist, kray foresight, and our other main chara galo thymos tries to save lio. kray lashes out using his burnish powers and tries to burn galo, but lio launches his own flames toward galo to protect him. when galo's firefighting team finds him, he's on fire, but he doesn't notice because the fire doesn't hurt him. it's a special kind of flame that doesn't burn! in the end, in order to save the world, they have to let it fully burn one last time, and galo and lio work together to wrap the entire earth in a massive wave of fire, and it's fire that takes the form of water. it engulfs everyone, but everyone realizes that it doesn't actually burn

i'm getting off topic but !! now we start getting less into "will has fire powers" and more "his powers are light and warmth" instead. like lio and galo's combined powers and intent (that's the other thing, that final big burn is different than the rest because of the intent behind it), it's not actually about the fire, it's about its purpose

he needs the fireballs to fight the bad guys, but in the case of our "bad guy," literal fireballs don't work. henward's past is a complicated one, and a lot of where he's been led was caused by his lack of a proper support system. he was villainized for being different. even when he was found by someone who "cared" for him, it was for that man's own personal gain, not because he actually cared about henward

henward was only ever burned and then left in the cold. nobody gave him a second chance like el, nobody listened to him like will. he was forced to fend for himself on his own in the darkness. he came to rely on the darkness. vecna literally focuses on the darkest thoughts of his victims in order to gain enough power to open gates. and sure, focusing on negative emotions gives all of our characters with powers some burst of strength

but then we're shown that love is what makes them even stronger. focusing on happy memories, memories of friends and loved ones, memories of the love itself, is what allows el to overpower 001 in the lab and to close the gate in s2 and to break billy out of his tether to the fleshflayer. and even in that final showdown in s3, she's not using her powers. she's burned out. in that moment, it's not the powers themselves that save them, it's the message behind it

will's whole character is about love and understanding. he puts himself last consistently, he puts the needs of others above himself, and he does not know how to be a little bit selfish when it comes to his feelings. he's sensitive, he's kind, he's artistic, he cries easy, he relies on his friends and family to feel safe and loved, and without them, he feels lost and hurt and alone. and there might be ups and downs, but he gets that love and support from them. they always have his back. he knows what it's like to feel pain and to suffer, but to have people who will stay by your side unconditionally through it all

and that's something he can offer to vecna and his alternate versions. he can offer that love, and that warmth, and that light in the darkness. and once again, i think it would be neat if it was less of a literal flame or source of light, and that it was will who is the source of light. like, he is the example for henward/vecna to see. he's the proof that despite all the bad shit there is in the world, there are people who will still love you anyway. there's people who will listen to you and care for you even if everyone else shuts you out

and even if it does take the form of something literal, of an actual flame or glowing ball of light or more of those glowy particles, it's not a weapon like the other powers we've seen

it's also about just shining a light on all the good stuff that's mixed in with the bad stuff. again, there is no black and white (thanks brenner, you fuck). henward was miserable in his life, he hated it and was frustrated that he felt trapped in a cage, and he only saw all the bad in the world. he couldn't see any of the good mixed in (ie. the possibility that he was friends with scott clarke as a kid, or even the fact that victor was really so caring and loved his son so much) because he just assumed it was all bad and he'd have to start from scratch to get any of the good he wanted

even focusing on the negative thoughts and feelings of his victims, vecna was able to be evaded by thinking of happy memories that took place at the same time as the bad ones. "hide in the light." again and again, we see max use memories, both past and present, to free herself from his clutches. good memories that still exist alongside the bad ones. and if vecna acknowledges that there's still good mixed in among the bad, his whole source of power, the foundation for his plan, completely crumbles

if will's power has to do with light, then he'll be the one to shine the light on all of the good memories that henward had mixed in among the bad. and this isn't to victim blame this 12 year old boy who was miserable and didn't know what else to do, but it's instead about his lack of support system, and how it's understandable to have grown so jaded, but that doesn't mean everything is bad, and there's still a chance for him to come back from it and change his way of thinking

henward was a wildfire waiting to happen, and rather than having someone to let him burn a little, to let out his anger and listen, he was trimmed back and suppressed. he had his old growth left there to dry out, which only added more kindling. he was never given the room to bring in new growth

and then to really tie in the use of fire to match the theme of "no black and white," i think about avatar the last airbender, and specifically the sun warrior temple that aang and zuko visit in the final book. in book 1 of atla, aang tries to learn firebending and jumps in too quickly, ends up burning katara's hands, and swears off ever learning firebending because he doesn't want to hurt anyone with it. in book 3, zuko offers to teach him, but aang is still very timid about it because of that incident in book 1. zuko also finds his firebending ability diminishing, and they surmise that it's because he no longer has this drive to find and capture the avatar. that was his source of power, his purpose, and now that it's no longer his purpose, he has to find the true way to master firebending. so, the two boys travel to the sun warrior temple to try to find answers. there, both zuko and aang admit that they really only see fire as something destructive, but the sun warriors remind them that fire is warmth and light and life. fire can be destructive, but it is not only destructive. it's something beautiful and necessary, you just have to respect it

feels pretty fitting for stranger things, yeah?

so, to wrap this all up before i go fucking crazy:

i personally think that will's powers will predominantly take the form of fire or light

i do also still adhere to some of the creation power theories, but it also wouldn't be crazy for him to have more than one power, right? after all, el can use telekinesis, track someone's physical location, and go into their minds. that's 3 pretty different things that she can do!

will is directly tied to the behavior of the lights in s1 and called back to in s4. throughout the show, and especially in s4, will is basked in sunshine on multiple occasions. sure, those instances are mostly about his bond to mike, and how mike sees him in this halo of light all the time...

but that still ties into the theme of love. those rays of light are about mike's love for will, and vice versa. but that kind of unconditional love and acceptance is something that will have to be extended to henward and vecna. therefore: light is the key

and again, it just feels very fitting to have the key be something like fire. something that's so often villainized and only seen as bad and destructive, when it truly is something that's misunderstood. unchecked, it can run rampant and cause pain and grief, but when respected, it can bring life and healing, for lack of a better word

so far, we've only seen fire used as a means of harm. it does keep our characters safe (ie. hopper's flaming spear, the flame thrower, the moltovs, etc.) but it is wielded as a weapon first, when it doesn't have to be

fire can cause pain, yes, but fire is also passion and love. light is something to be extended, to help people find their way out of the darkness, and i just think it would be really cool to see vecna, who's always shrouded in darkness, or henward who hid away in the dark attic surrounded by candles, to have a ray of warm sunshine like will byers hold out a hand to him and try to help

[frozensamantha]

Hi Helsa Shipmates! just checking in to let you know I’m still here! It’s been a busy year so far but I’m still shipping Helsa (obviously!! 10th year anniversary of shipping Helsa as well as the actual frozen movie!!), and of course I’ll be posting some more Helsa content as soon as I can! *is also  manifesting Hans’ redemption for frozen 3*  ^_^ Keep shipping!!!  (pic is my WIP custom set. Hans’ outfit is complete -designed and made by my dear friend queenelsawestergaard, you’ve sen it before, Elsa’s dress is something I’m experimenting with using the Hasbro style series dress as a base for Elsa but my camera flash is hiding/washing out gems and details on both of their outfits *facepalm* better pics eventually when I finish Elsa’s dress )

[furyohin4urr20]

Please tell us the name of the randy fanfiction you wrote 🙏

anon i am so sorry to have left you in here for so fucking long i really am 😭😭😭

i never posted the fic anywhere bc i never finished it so methinks i'll post it here

Randy Jade x OC Fanfiction (Title TBD)

By Fu Ryohin

Chapter One

Chapter Synopsis: This basically plays out like the subway mugging scene in-game, with some changes to fit in with my own mental illness 🫶

It's a chilly evening on the subway, as Penny stands by the doors, nail-polished fingers holding onto the safety pole as she looks at her watch. Her coat pockets jingle with change and crumpled bills from her shift at Bunny's Burgers, all courtesy of her satisfied customers, as she sways backward from the train's speed taking her to her cozy apartment uptown.

'Today was rough', she stares pensively at her boots, sighing as she contemplates her work day with fellow coworker, Mile.

'We were understaffed, a large party came in and occupied 3 booths and a table, and left a mess I cleaned up myself, and Mile was getting yelled at for dropping the cash box while managing the cash register.' Her screen goes dark as she lay deep in her thoughts until she saw out of the corner of her sensor someone moving into a double seat across from her and her pole.

It was a tall, knife-headed man, unfamiliar to her, with a malevolent glint on his blade. Well, she perceived it to be so, considering light can't be malevolent, but does it really matter? He sat next to a man in a denim jacket, covered in what appeared to be mud stains and water, with a foul odor following him, much to Denim Man's slight panic. Penny slowly moved slightly closer and began to eavesdrop ever so cautiously.

"Look, I'll say it again only once", the suspect man sneered, as he pulled what looked like a gun out of his coat pocket. "Hand over the wallet, bozo, and I'll let you off the hook scot-free. If not, your dumb, phone face GETS IT. Deal?"

Shakily, without lifting his head, Denim Man whimpered quietly, “P-please, sir, I don’t have any money, just, just some loose change...” Denim Man was shaking with fear holding an expression of what seemed to be pure dread.

“Well, better than nothing, I guess”, the mugger replied. “Hand it over before I stab you, so help me Phone-God!”

Penny started to feel sick to her stomach, a lump welling in her throat. Surely she couldn’t leave the poor man to get mugged of all he had? She started weighing her options quickly.

The train started to slow, lunging everyone slightly forward, and suddenly, an idea manifested itself. This is her stop. Penny stepped forward slowly, making pace closer to the mugger.

“Leave him alone!”

She heard herself gasping, and immediately covering her mouth in alarm. Why did she say that?! She felt the color drain from her face as the mugger stood up and faced her, towering over her.

“Hey, Sweetcheeks, stay out of this if you don’t wanna see this cuck blown away, y’hear me?”

She stood there, frozen, trembling, forcing herself to respond to the criminal’s threat. “I-if you leave him alone, I’ll, I’ll give you my tip money for the night”, she managed to squeak out, “But leave him alone, o-okay? Surely it’s more than what you’d get out of him.”

The air was still for a brief second, but to everyone involved, it felt like an eternity. The Denim Man looked up at her, in grateful shock, before gesturing for her not to intervene with his bandage-wrapped hands. “Finally, at least I'm getting something out of this,” The Mugger grumbled. Penny rummaged through her bag for a few moments, silently refraining from making eye contact with the bladed robber.

In a split second, she grabbed her pepper spray, undid the cap while still in her bag, and let it rip on the mugger’s face, in a fiery cloud. The mugger immediately folded over in pain, dropping his gun, which revealed an empty cartridge.

“MY EYES! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, I DON’T EVEN HAVE ANY?!” The Mugger screamed in agony. “YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS, YOU FREAK! I HAVE MOB CONNECTIONS! I’LL FIND YOU AND BANDAGES OVER THERE AND MAKE YOU PAY FOR FORCING ME TO THINK ABOUT THE BIOLOGICAL MYSTERIES OF MY EXISTENCE!"

Penny grabbed Denim Man’s hand and quickly pulled him to the now open-subway doors, and bolted out into the station and onto the streets of Uptown DIaltown. She had never felt so scared before, but at the same time, she was euphoric on the adrenaline rush. She had stopped a man from getting mugged on the subway, almost single-handedly! It may be a good idea to check on him, he seemed very shaken up.

“Oh, my Phone-God, are you okay, dear?!” She worriedly asked, still huffing and heaving from the run. He was sobbing quite loudly, and in quite a messy way, too. Let’s not get into the details of how a phone can cry.

“W-why, why did you do that?!” He finally managed to sputter, in between sobs and heaving, hitching breaths. “You don’t even, even KNOW me! Why would you risk yourself, f-for a schmuck, a bum like ME?!”

She looked at the messy, blubbering wreck in front of her and heaved a heavy sigh. “I... I don't know. I don’t know what came over me. I just, started moving without thinking,” She replied, much to her own surprise. “I think it was instinct. But, anyway, what’s your name?”

“I-it’s Randy, Miss... uh...” He wavered.

“Oh, um, it’s Penny! Penelope Sciarte. Just stick with Penny, okay?” She chuckled awkwardly. “Anyway, what led to you, um, getting on the subway? From the sound of it, you didn’t even have enough to get on in the first place.”

“O-oh, right... I, um, this is going to sound pathetic, I’m sure, but uh...” He muttered while looking down at his bandaged hands. “I got chased down here by swans. I managed to get in through the doors before they closed.”

Penny stopped in concern and slight awe. “A swan would go out of its way to chase you down from the park to the subway?" She added in astonishment. "I knew they were rude but not outright cruel.”

“Well, you really see to the worst side of them when you spend your days trying to wrangle them every day for a pittance.” He sighed and briefly exchanged his final pleasantries with Penny before starting to walk in the opposite direction.

“Wait! Are you sure you’re okay to walk by yourself? Where are you headed, dear?” Penny inquired, attempting to ensure Randy didn’t run into any more trouble.

He hesitated. “Look, thank you for your help back there, but I don’t want to cause you any more trouble. I’m going to my dumpster, it’s really all I have left at this point.” He looked up at her, her screen flickering pensively.

“D-did you say, dumpster?” Her face lit up. “No wonder you looked familiar! You’re the guy who’s been squatting in Bunny’s dumpster for the past few years!”

Randy’s expression became wearier as she mentioned this. “Yeah, that’s me, but you could probably tell simply by the SMELL that follows me everywhere. there’s no point in complaining. If there is a God, he certainly isn’t a merciful one. After all, he created those portents of pure maliciousness that we call SWANS.”

“Well, are you sure you don’t need a place to stay for the night?” She asked, and realized just how much of an idiot she sounded like for inviting a stranger into her house.

“W-well, I know it sounds kind of, um, sudden and odd, but I assure you, it’s much better than staying in a filthy dumpster after such a rough day.” She felt the air coming out of her vents heating up at the thought of a stranger in her home.

“I couldn’t possibly intrude, and you’ve done enough for one night,” He quickly responded as he tried his best to avoid eye contact with her. He sighed and shook his head. "I know how busy things are at Bunny's, the last thing you need is another lousy burden on your shoulders."

She looked him in the eyes.

"Oh, nonsense!" She insisted. "I won't be able to sleep tonight worrying that you're sleeping in that greasy dumpster and I have a very busy shift tomorrow! You'd be doing me a favor by staying in my home, even if it's just for tonight."

She didn't seem to notice while speaking she had cupped his bandaged hands in hers, much to her own surprise. She pulled back nervously.

"Oh, er, sorry." He stood there silently, impressed and slightly intimidated by her.

She took notice of this, and countered, "You don't have to say anything, just nod your head yes or no, dear." He started to tear up again and started shaking his head up and down in agreement.

She took his hand and directed him to follow her down the row of buildings in Uptown Dialtown, as the night brought down a cool chill and lit the light posts. Somehow, somehow, despite this, both felt a warmth inside them, faintly glowing with each step.

This doc was last edited on 2/15/2023 ☠️☠️☠️

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, I came across this page and I very much enjoy it and love it here.          

I will keep it short. I just want to share this little problem of mine. First of all, I am a 19 old INFJ (not very sure about it but its for another post). I am an overthinker, who worries about the smallest things. ‘What will this person think if I do this’ ‘what will this person feel if I said that’, so I am very cautious and careful about my actions and think a lot before doing anything. I have just come to realize that I feel guilty even about the smallest things, even for things that happened a long time ago, I just remember them and I feel a tinge of sadness thinking about them. I will share some of them here.

I remember somewhere in primary school between grade 1 to 3, I had an assignment to make skeletons from paper and pins. My mother did the assignment for me, and I think that she took time and effort to make it. Once I presented it and was done, I had this urge to destroy it and I acted on my impulse. Immediately after I felt really bad. I knew that it was going to be thrown nevertheless, but being destroyed like that  I felt I was undermining my mother’s effort and it was not the best feelings, I know it is a bit dramatic but I was little at that time.

Another incident, a long time ago too, my sister drew a girl and then out of fun I drew ribs on the girl, like she was skeleton then I felt bad and said why did I do that. Although my sister didn’t mind it much.  

Again, when I was around 9, my sister and I wanted to watch Frozen (separately), and we searched the net to find a website to watch, she searched in her iPad and I gave mine to our father to search for me. After a long time, my father came to me excited that he found and downloaded the movie for me but not in English in our mother language and I complained that I wanted it in English, then my sister said that she found a website in English, and I decided to watch with her. I felt really bad because my father wanted to find me something, but I didn’t take what he gave me. This incident really makes me feel bad till now when I think about it haha.     

This is trivial and doesn’t involve me, but I felt a little bad. We bought a PlayStation and me and my sister made two accounts for ourselves and had password on them. One time we saw that the gear was misplaced and the PlayStation open, but no one played it. We realized that my brother came when we weren’t around and wanted to play, but he didn’t know the password and wasn’t able to play and went. I felt a little bad for him and thought if we didn’t put password on the accounts.                                                                     

I don't know if this is normal or if I am an overthinker. Maybe this is the reason why I am careful before doing something now. If this is a problem what are some tips to self-improve in this situation.

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

Feelings and emotions are necessary for learning and growth. The key is to extract the right lessons from them and then you can lay them to rest in a healthy way (i.e. establish resolution or closure). If a situation continues to plague you, it means you haven't learned the right lesson from it or haven't learned it well enough yet. Guilt is meant to teach you important lessons about how to make better moral decisions. The situations you described all had problematic moral elements to them. Have you learned the right moral lessons from your past?

That being said, there is another important point to address. One of the major development pitfalls for INFJs is excessive or irrational guilt. Usually, it is due to wildly unrealistic thinking (unhealthy Ni) and/or taking on far more moral responsibility than is reasonable for one person to shoulder (unhealthy Fe). When INFJs aren't able to make sense of their guilt, it is easy for them to fall into Ti loop, which might manifest as rumination or "overthinking". These errors in cognition can be addressed through function development, see past INFJ posts.

[nowmemoriees]

Will Byers has powers THEORY

This is such a complex theory so I’ll probably be updating it in parts.

I'm gonna make a huge compilation from different theories on social media. I took this information from twitter, tiktok and tumblr posts, adding a lot of my own ideas too.

So before starting, I'll give some credits here. (anyway I'll be giving more credits as the post keeps advancing)

twitter users posts I included: @/iamnathansamuel @/s5willel @/wherexbyers @/crayolascribblz

tumblr users: @0aurelion-sol0 @beaulesbian @aurorabyler @notnahberrie

https://at.tumblr.com/0aurelion-sol0/689424781841448960/oo54zsqcip9o

https://at.tumblr.com/beaulesbian/689110068659191808/g285it0izdzr

Now, let's start

Skipping all of the information we already know, (The Upside Down has always existed, every person with super powers has a connection with the UD, 011 sent 001 to the UD in 1979)...

....We’re going directly to the main topic of this theory: Will Byers has powers. Why?

First, we come back to the day it all started.

November 6, 1983. Will was leaving the Wheeler’s house after losing the DnD campaign. Will told Mike the demogorgon got him. Here is where we see the lights twinkle for the first time. That means that there was already something or someone hearing Mike and Will from the Upside Down.

Then, Will and Dustin go in separate ways and Will bikes home alone. Here is where he saw this strange being in the middle of the streets, he got scared and fell off his bike.

A clock sound can be heard. The damn clock.

The strange figure is not a demogorgon. It’s not an UD animal either. It 's Vecna/001 himself. We know this because of its body shape and his disproportioned hands.

Was it Vecna who heard Will and followed him from Mike’s house?

Probably. It’s been confirmed that there’s a specific reason why Vecna was looking for Will in the first place.

Will wasn't even bleeding. And blood was what attracted the UD creatures.

Will ran away and arrived home, but Vecna kept following him. That’s where we find our second clue. The house’s door is opened with telekinesis.

Will runs to the tools room, and that’s where he gets caught by Vecna, who suddenly took him from there, but we never got to see how. We just saw the lights getting shinier and shinier until Will disappeared.

After Will goes missing, the party finds El in the woods and she shows Mike that she could recognize Will in a picture.

She knew he was in the Upside Down. She can even reach Will and listen to him using a Walkie Talkie.

Will now is in another dimension. It is just like hawkins, but it's dark and cold.

How is it possible that it's the exact copy of Hawkins?

Well, many people say that Will may have created an exact copy of Hawkins when he arrived at the UD because he was in a high stress situation and his powers showed up for the first time. (This part of the theory suggests that Will may have the power to create/shape/manifest things)

Will reshaped hawkins theory by @notnahberrie

This would be the reason why Vecna/001 targeted Will?

This could be the reason why the Upside Down is frozen in time on the day Will went missing.

Remember that, in season 4, when the older teens were trapped in the UD, Nancy wanted to find some weapons from her room expecting those would be there, but they weren’t because they didn’t even exist yet. The UD was frozen in the past.

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

FULL THEORY ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/V0FVvEmankE

[paperanddice]

Boreas is a powerful elemental spirit of wind and ice who dwells in the northernmost reaches of the world. With no physical body of his own, he manifests an avatar to rule his land and spread his edicts. Wild and gaunt, his hair and beard long and crusted in ice, with eyes so blue they seem to glow, he is temperamental and destructive without restraint.

Also known by his subjects as the Devourer, he is served by frost giants, elemental spirits, and fey beings of the cold. He consorts with the lords of the giants to plot the downfall of smaller mortals, and courts powerful beings of cold and ice to be his wife, including the queen of the frost giants and the faerie queen of witches. His plans and courtships are often interrupted by intense bouts of fury however, as his own daughter seeks to sabotage his goals by encouraging mortal heroes to provoke his rage by stealing treasure or rustle his winter wolves. This rage often leads to the deaths of the provokers, but to his daughter's eyes that is better than the much wider scale destruction that would occur if her father wasn't distracted.

Pathfinder

Boreas rules over a portion of the Crown of the World, his followers occasionally descending to the south to harass the lands to the south of him. Northern Avistan and Tian Xia have dealt with the Devourer's rages before, though rarely does descend too deeply before the comparatively warm weather saps his anger and he returns to his frozen home to brood off the rest of his fury.

13th Age

While Boreas' realm sits well beyond the boundaries of the Dragon Empire, this distant being is an Icon of far off lands, and his influence may occasionally extend into the empire during his rages. Heroes seeking to travel far to the north may find an entire new collection of Icons to contend with, their connections to the icons of the empire having less sway and influence.

Inspired by the Tome of Beasts 1. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as access to my premade adventures and other material I’m working on, consider backing me there!

Pathfinder 2e

Avatar of Boreas Creature 17 Unique Medium Elemental Air Cold Perception +27; darkvision Languages Auren, Halit, Jotun Skills Athletics +34, Deception +28, Intimidation +31, Nature +33, Occultism +31, Stealth +31 Str +7, Dex +6, Con +6, Int +4, Wis +4, Cha +5 Items +2 greater striking longspear, +2 striking composite longbow (20 arrows) AC 39; Fort +29, Ref +29, Will +27 HP 315 (regeneration 20 (deactivated by fire)); Immunities cold, electricity, poison, sonic; Resistances acid 15; Weaknesses fire 15 Chilling Presence (aura, cold, magical, primal) 150 feet. Nonmagical fires are extinguished after spending 5 rounds within this aura, and water freezes within 1 minute. When a creature enters the aura while affected by any magic that protects against the cold, or attempts to cast a spell that protects against the cold, the avatar automatically attempts to counteract it (counteract rank 9, counteract modifier +30). Speed 45 feet, fly 100 feet Melee longspear +32 (cold, magical, reach 10 feet), Damage 3d8+17 piercing plus 1d6 cold Melee fist +30 (agile, cold, magical), Damage 3d4+13 bludgeoning plus 1d6 cold Ranged composite longbow +31 (deadly d10, magical, propulsive, range increment 100 feet, reload 0, volly 30 feet), Damage 2d8+13 piercing plus 1d6 cold Ranged whirlwind blast +32 (magical, range 120 feet), Damage 3d12+16 slashing Primal Innate Spells DC 38, attack +30 ; 9th storm of vengeance; 8th chain lightning, polar ray, wall of ice, whirlwind; 7th dispel magic (×3); 6th baleful polymorph, heal (×3), restoration (×3); 4th invisibility (×2); 3rd wall of wind (×2); 2nd speak with animals (at will); 1st create water (at will); cantrips (9th) detect magic Constant true seeing Primal Rituals DC 38; 9th control weather, word of recall Change Shape [one action] (concentrate, primal, polymorph, transmutation) The avatar of Boreas can shift between a humanoid body and a body made of wind and mist; it can never be forced to shift forms. In wind form, it can make whirlwind blast Strikes, but cannot make weapon Strikes, and in humanoid form it can make weapon Strikes but can't make whirlwind blast Strikes. It can cast spells in either form. Freezing Armament (primal) Any weapon gains the effect of a greater frost property rune while the avatar of Boreas wields it (cold damage dealt by these attacks ignores resistances, and on a critical hit the target is also slowed 1 until the end of the avatar's next turn unless it succeeds on a DC 34 Fortitude save). North Wind's Glare [one action] (incapacitation, primal, visual); Frequency 1/turn; Effect The avatar of Boreas makes and Intimidation check to Demoralize one creature it can see. On a success, the target is slowed 1 in addition to the normal effect. On a critical success, the target is petrified until the start of the avatar's next turn. The avatar can use this effect even against a creature temporarily immune to being Demoralized by the avatar, though the target cannot be frightened by that use of Demoralize. Whirlwind Movement [two actions] (cold, magical, polymorph primal, transmutation) The avatar erupts into an icy whirlwind. It Flies without triggering reactions. Each creature within 20 feet of the avatar at any point during its movement takes 14d6 cold damage (basic Fortitude DC 35). Any nonmagical fire within 20 feet of the avatar at any point during its movement is extinguished, and it attempts to counteract any magical fire within that area (counteract rank 9, counteract modifier +30). The avatar can't use Whirlwind Movement again for 1d4 rounds.

13th Age

Avatar of Boreas  Double-strength 12th level troop [elemental]  Initiative: +19 Vulnerability: Fire Icy Tipped Spear +17 vs. AC (2 attacks) - 60 damage plus 30 cold damage. Natural 16+: The target is also hampered or stuck (avatar’s choice, save ends). R: North Wind Longbow +17 vs. AC (2 attacks, targeting nearby or far away enemies) - 45 damage plus 30 cold damage. Natural 16+: 1d4 enemies nearby the target take 20 cold damage. C: Lightning Storm +17 vs. PD (1d6 nearby or far away enemies) - 60 lightning damage. Natural 18+: The target is also stunned until the end of its next turn. Limited Use: 1d4 times during the battle. C: North Wind’s Glare +17 vs. MD (one nearby enemy) - The target is hampered until the start of the avatar’s next turn. Natural 14+: The target is hampered and weakened instead. Natural 18+: The target is stunned instead. Quick Use: 1/turn, as a quick action. Whirlwind Flight: Whenever the avatar flies, each enemy it’s engaged with before or after the flight takes 10 cold damage, and any nonmagical fires nearby at any point during its flight are extinguished. Resist Cold, Lightning, and Thunder 18+. AC 28 PD 24 MD 23 HP 788

[futurebird]

Writing is hard. I've tried it before and I'm trying it again now. I really want to stick to it and complete this story. I'm trying to write a story tailored to sooth those of us troubled by the horrible political climate in the USA right now. I will post more as I write it. If you choose to read, thank you, seriously.

In Between - Chapter 1

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Can one woman fix the political disaster this country is careening towards? Obviously, no— but you have to take into consideration that this particular “one woman” is imbued with the power of, well, a kind of magic I suppose. Not unlimited magic, not movie magic— more like a very limited superpower.

Basically? I can freeze time. It used to happen accidentally, if I was frightened, or if I started to have a panic attack— the lights all around me would grow brighter, blue-white, and blinding for just an instant, and then everyone around me would be frozen like statues!

I remember my parents, mid-argument. Dad’s mouth open, his beard motionless, Mom with dishwater clinging to her arms, a transparent glass sculpture laced with frozen bubbles.

I remember my heart racing before a dance recital as I waited in the wings. Then the lights grew bright and my good friend Case was frozen mid-twirl. Her hair suspended impossibly in space, a swirl of dark curls framing her face, so peaceful, so beautiful, lost in concentration.

For the longest time, I thought this was some kind of panic response, a retreat into my imagination. My desire for a moment to just stop and think, manifesting as a kind of wish-fulfillment hallucination. I thought I was going a little crazy. For the longest time, my only goal when a freeze occurred was to get everyone and everything moving again.

To do this I had to relax. I had to breathe.

And then my ears would pop as the pressure changed; the lights would dim ever so briefly. Time (and sound, which somehow always managed to surprise me, as I never noticed its absence when in between) everything, noise, motion, and life-- would resume.

It was at the dance recital that I first tried moving around the frozen world. That’s how I was able to see Case’s face; she had her back to me when the freeze occurred. I had the most horrible crush on her. Without really thinking about it, I moved for the first time into the still soundless air.

My feet, in their soft dance shoes, made no noise on the stage as I walked around her, careful not to touch the swirl of her hair suspended in space. I looked at her, in that candid moment— and started to feel a bit guilty. She was on stage. This wasn’t a private moment, but that didn’t make it feel any less like an invasion.

I looked out at the audience; my eyes adjusting to see beyond the stage lights. Case and I were both in our ballet costumes, but only I was animate. The audience of loving supportive parents in their tweed jackets and sensible shoes were totally motionless. At first, this seemed unremarkable, that’s how they were in life as well— but, this stillness was too deep. It was eerie.

What would they think, I thought, with sudden panic, if time started back-- right now—!

I didn’t have the best control of my ability at that age. So, of course, this is exactly what happened.

The audience gasped at my sudden appearance in the middle of the stage. Case, now reanimated, completed her twirl running into me with considerable force. We both fell, grabbing at each other for balance. Even though the world didn’t freeze again I can still see Case’s shocked, confused, and slightly angry eyes glaring at me.

The audience was so polite. Which somehow made it worse. They didn’t laugh. (Although I could hear a murmur of hurried adult voices.) Quickly, I stood and ran off stage. I ran out of the back entrance of the auditorium not caring that they might all hear the door. I ran into the mostly empty teacher’s parking lot. There was no way I could perform. There was no way I could face any of what had just happened.

To my surprise, there were no news stories about a “teleporting girl” — everyone simply convinced themselves that they didn’t see what they had obviously seen. I didn’t “appear” on the stage. I rushed out. I was a silly nervous girl who’d thought I’d missed my cue. Everyone assumed they blinked and missed something.

Everyone but Case. “I still don’t know how you did that.” She would say for years to come. I insisted her obsessive dieting was catching up with her brain. (I hated how she thought she needed to diet.) At the same time, I felt guilty for trying to gaslight her.

I resolved to be more careful when exploring the frozen world in the future. I didn’t want the questions that would come with attention. I didn’t want questions I couldn’t even answer myself.

I had not yet realized just how powerful this ability could be, or the feeling of responsibility that would come with that power.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[aminetko]

The QUEEN and her husband🥺😫

[destinysbounty]

okay so that post about a human!Zane au where he has his death scar from s3 is so cool but it also sparked an idea where like. ok so you know that common idea where Zane can't control his ice as well as before after s11? what if after s12 where hes retraumatized by the Mechanic using him as a battery (a la the golden power exploding him in s3) his ice starts to form 'scars' over his body in reminders of his past trauma? frost and icicles forming along the half of his face that fell off. waking up half frozen to his pillow. his jaw locking up w ice... hes gotta deal w his trauma to get it under control

Oh god yeah this made me realize the Manifestation Gate happened like. Presumably within months/weeks of his return from the Never Realm. His power core is already messed up!! And now he has to channel the force of hundreds of souls too!! He already got overloaded with unfathomable power, and now you wanna do that to him again?????

If i had a nickel for everytime Zane got overwhelmed with unfathomable power, I'd have three nickels (Golden Armor, Forbidden Scroll, Manifestation Gate). Which isnt a lot, but its weird that it happened three times, right?

Anyway your idea is perfect bestie, Zane's ice forming scar-like structures around his body and they wont go away until he confronts and overcomes the trauma associated with each ice scar. Love this idea 10/10

Also, this ask has afflicted me with an idea for another Zane-turns-human AU. I think im at...5 now? Wow, i need more hobbies. Anyway the basic gist of this au is, when Aspheera blasts Zane, some weird magic shenanigans happen so instead of getting banished, it somehow turns him human and everyone is just....really confused by that outcome. Aspheera included. So now Zane has to go through Wildbrain trying to figure out how to be human, and maybe figuring out how Aspheera accidentally made him human becomes instrumental to getting Nya back in Crystalized (as opposed to taking her powers away, only for them to come back a few episodes later. As much as i enjoyed Crystalized i really hated that plotline). Thats all i have for now since i came up with it literally 10 minutes ago but uhh yeah thanks for the inspiration bestie

Thanks for the ask! <3

[teabreaking]

I posted 4,220 times in 2022

That's 4,068 more posts than 2021!

1,091 posts created (26%)

3,129 posts reblogged (74%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@kaletalecowboy

@transxiao

@fishareglorious

@dandelion-wings

@fitzkn

I tagged 1,992 of my posts in 2022

#genshin impact - 65 posts

#genshin impact spoilers - 52 posts

#long post - 12 posts

#genshin spoilers - 12 posts

#sumeru spoilers - 11 posts

#this - 8 posts

#prev - 6 posts

#ty for the ask &lt;3 - 6 posts

#genshin 3.1 spoilers - 5 posts

#this is so good - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#in a way i think it’s kind of nice how there are different ‘levels’ of understanding characters based on how you consume the game’s content

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

the sad thing about the weinlesefest event is that it proves that the citizens of mondstadt are perfectly capable of working together to complete tasks successfully… they just choose to regularly dump all their chores on jean.

163 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

#4

you know, the term “comfort character” doesn’t really work for me… like no, this character doesn’t bring me comfort, they have me in a chokehold. they crawled into my head one day and refuse to come out. they constantly plague my mind. they spin around and around and around in my head until my brain goes static and i can’t think about anything anymore.

175 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

#3

*yae trying to convince ei to finally leave the plane of euthymia after the vision hunt decree is abolished*

yae: alright ei, it’s been hundreds of years. you can come out now.

ei: i’m a lesbian.

yae: …that’s not what i meant.

195 notes - Posted January 31, 2022

#2

beidou: see you in hell.

ningguang: are you asking me out on a date?

ningguang: because if so, i accept.

237 notes - Posted January 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i think it’s interesting how there are a lot of similarities between the playable cryo characters: they all tend to have contradicting personality traits, they deal with isolation/loneliness, and due to these factors they are emotionally repressed. i think cryo vision theories differ so much from each other because they have so much in common, and this makes it difficult to pinpoint how exactly these characters get their visions.

but personally, i believe that cryo visions have less to do with any of these things, and more to do with the concept of preservation.

(more details below)

think about it: there is already evidence of cryo having a rather…unnatural property of being able to preserve living beings. in xiangling’s story quest, we learn that a man from springvale was frozen for around three hundred years by a cryo regisvine (and managed to survive after all those years). similarly, in dragonspine (a region with an abundance of cryo energy) there are blocks of ice which are able to preserve elemental beings and living creatures without killing them…

now here is where we delve into the characters (well, at least all of them except aloy, who doesn’t have a vision story for some reason)…

i’ve come to the conclusion that a common theme of cryo visions is the desire to preserve something.

in shenhe’s case, this meant preservation of oneself (or survival). her story is simple: by gaining a vision during her struggle with a monstrous god, she was able to tip the scales in her favor and well, win and survive.

rosaria’s situation is quite similar. after she was captured by bandits, her life was a constant battle against hunger and cold. her cryo vision is what ultimately allowed her to gain the respect of the bandits, which was essential for her survival as she had already been driven by hunger and worn down from hard labor…

eula’s survival mechanism is definitely more of a mental struggle rather than a life-or-death situation, but in her vision story it is quite literally referred to as “her means of self-preservation” so… i think this one fits perfectly

qiqi’s vision manifested right before she was about to die, and in that moment she wanted to stop the flow of time. she didn’t want to die, she wanted to preserve her life and the memories of a happy past with her family…

now kaeya’s is one that confuses me a lot, because i can’t decide if his vision can be traced back to a survival instinct he felt during his fight with diluc, or if it’s something more complex involving his ties to khaenri’ah

the other one that i’m very unsure about is chongyun, mainly because he had three major ambitions when he received his vision: “become the greatest exorcist in liyue, control his abundance of yang energy, and rid the world of evil spirits.” personally i think controlling his yang energy would involve him preserving some kind of “emotional homeostasis” so that kind of works… i guess…

but it’s also important to note that preservation can extend to other things as well…

take diona, who desperately “wishes for her father to always be the man that she admires.”in other words, she wanted to preserve that positive perception of him

then there’s ayaka, who felt obligated to preserve the prosperity of the kamisato clan alongside her brother (who had just become the new clan head) as her mother lay sick and dying…

and as a pacifist who cares deeply for all living things, preserving the peace in liyue after the archon war was of prime importance to ganyu, and it seemed to be on her mind as she became secretary in the government and got a vision

i feel like there are many holes in this theory but there were also so many things that lined up, so i just wanted to make a post about it. i’m curious to know what everyone thinks, so please tell me 👀 (if anyone actually ends up reading a post this long and disorganized smehdmjdjd)

398 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cordeliaflyte]

First of all, I don’t understand the big hate towards Jackie. Sucking at a survival scenario isn’t exactly the worst thing ever. So what if she’s insecure or a bit of an asshole? Who isn’t?

Anyway, there’s indeed a big possibility for them to eat Jackie. The opportunity literally presented itself because she’s frozen. Let’s see if Jackie ends up being cooked. That’s going to be a double whammy for Shauna considering she’s the butcher. Indirectly causing the death of her bff and then eating her? No wonder Shauna is so fucked. Well, considering everyone who survived resorted to hunting their own friends and eat them, eating an already dead Jackie will be considered the least problematic thing they did.

I think the creators of this show is purposely giving a slow burn on cannibalism though. But considering Jackie and Laura Lee are dead, the descent to savagery would be very much soon. Both of them were necessary to be killed off because both of them represent something that hinders them on the darker path. Jackie represents the society where they came from. Laura Lee represents goodness and light. Without them, it’s an easier path for savagery. Laura Lee, especially, kept Lottie in check and sane for the most part. Without her, Lottie lost her light per se so it was easier to embrace the darkness which she did.

I’m also curious who pit girl will turn out to be. Always thought it’s Lottie because of the built and hair but since she’s alive, it’s either her but she survived and they barbecued someone else or it’s completely someone else. Dunno. I considered the possibility that Lottie is already dead and the cult was revived by an avid follower of hers like Van but then I saw a post somewhere that the showrunners are casting an adult Lottie. If that’s true, it rules out the dead Lottie theory.

The supernatural aspect of the show is ambiguous so if Laura Lee shows up again, it can be considered that she’s not an actual ghost but more of being Lottie’s personal ghost/hallucination. The same way Jackie is to Shauna. After all, each of them have their own mental health issues. All of them have trauma. And even before the crash, Lottie was schizophrenic, Misty was sociopathic, Van had a drunk mother and Natalie had an abusive father who accidentally killed himself in front of her.

However, the supernatural will always be a possibility considering the hunter and Laura Lee showed up to Jackie when she died. Maybe their souls were trapped in the wilderness because of whatever strong negative entity lives there?

What’s fascinating about this show is that, the characters obviously have their own mental health issues so the supernatural could just be a manifestation of that. Or maybe it’s both?

As for Shauna’s baby, I don’t really think they ate that baby. As creepy and morbid as it sounds, there’s not much meat on a baby. Maybe it’s a stillborn? Or maybe the baby was used for some kind of ritual where they killed it? Or maybe that baby survived and Lottie raised it in her own culty ways? It would be fun if that baby grew up and then tries to assassinate Shauna.

I do think team Lottie was left behind though and the 4 survivors we see in the show just assumed they died in the wilderness. I also think there’s a division of clans in the wilderness. Perhaps Natalie along with Travis didn’t even partake on the cannibalism and she just converted the 3 women to switch sides. Misty for sure was team cannibal initially. I think Shauna and Taissa was also in team cannibal.

Literally same I would literally be Jackie. Like she doesn't actively do anything bad evil ever. She's just a bit useless and annoying but aren't we all. Shauna HAS to eat Jackie the inherent romanticism of cannibalism etc. And I hope we get to it soon I love cannibalism.

And what if Lottie IS pit girl but IS also alive because she's a teenage female Jesus who rose from the grave. I'm sticking to Laura Lee being in evangelical heaven because I love her I feel like the fact she went out on her own terms amounts to that? Like even if the evil forest ghost didn't set fire to the helicopter there would still be a very high chance of her dying and that was a risk she was aware of and was willing to accept.

I don't think a clear line between the supernatural and mental illness will ever be drawn that's just the spice of the show you know.

A stillbirth would be very boring so anticlimactic. Ritualistic murder is cool but leaving it behind because they can't bring themselves to kill it (even though it's much more cruel to do so) is even crueller. I think forest baby will kill Jeff because Shauna said if Jeff got her pregnant she'd raise the baby to kill him.

I think Taïssa would be against Lottie's team personally. Like if she joins I think it will be for Van's sake.

[babylyctor]

can John actually control time or am i making things up? trying to reach a conclusion via tumblr posting

so as a theory this is 75% vibes. however there’s some things in the books that give me pause, and i wanted to put together all those bits and see if there’s something there. i’m not totally on board with this idea because it seems too complex to leave entirely to the last book, and i don’t know how it could fit with the rest of the narrative (or do i?) but in any case i keep thinking about it so here’s this way too long post. spoliers for everything

first, this fucking suspicious sentence that’s one of the first things John tells Harrow (Chapter 2, HtN)

"I would let you come back, bit by bit, until you felt entirely ready to wake up. I can’t. I mastered Death, Harrowhark; I wish I’d done the smarter thing and mastered Time. I have to ask you to get ready soon, and so I am going to show you something I hope might … trigger your readiness.”

so this sounds like a really dull complaint on this immortal god’s part but also i don’t trust a single thing out of this man’s mouth, and this would be the exact kind of private joke he would make if he had actually mastered Time (capitalized) too. Also the context in which it’s said, talking about Harrow coming back from her coma, regaigning consciousness, awakening... you get it, oddly relevant theme wise.

then there’s the whole Soup Moment (Chapter 25, HtN), in which John seems to actually stop time maybe? i have doubts about this so lets see what our narrator tells us;

And God said, “Stop.”

The world slowed down. Augustine and Mercymorn stopped, arrested in the act of half-rising from their seats. Ianthe stopped, left arm paused, outflung, to shield her face. You stopped, sitting upright in your chair: your bones somehow rigid and still, and your flesh chilly and rigid around those bones. The shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty did not stop, [...] But what remained of him stopped too, half man, half rupture—his prurient details hot and white, naked insides clothed with the sinus-drying burst of the power of God.

so here John freezes all the lyctors in place, they’re still conscious, or at least Harrow is, but they have their range of movement almost totally restricted. this is not like Mercy pinching Harrow’s dorsal nerve to paralyze her, this is a completely different feeling, maybe John’s thalergetic powers? it would make sense, all the lyctors are living bodies, they have thalergy and Johs is able to manipulate that, presumably. the bits of Gideon OG cascading down the table don’t stop but that might be John selectively using his powers, or it might be that that’s no longer living flesh.

so we’re saying this could just be John’s super special thalergy magic and nothing else. the first problem though is that technically he shouldn’t be able to use it against his lyctors without touching them, thanks to lyctoral invisibility. in fact when he explodes Mercy’s chest (rip in peace queen) he expressely reaches out and touches her to do so, because presumably he needs to make contact with a body in order to use magic against it, same as Mercy. so that’s a caveat, then there are these descriptions from the same Soup Moment;

You stared down the table at him: at the blank, remote faces of your two nominal teachers—at the frozen ivory stillness of Ianthe, her hair now whitish pink—at space outside the window, where the asteroids themselves seemed to hang in tranquilized arrest.

The Emperor of the Nine Houses stood. The spell, whatever it had been, dropped like a white sun setting.

These seem to imply certain ambiguity. John’s God and all that but i don’t think thalergetic magic should be able to affect asteroids, lifeless space rocks. of course it says they “seem” to hang in tranquilized arrest, not that they are really unmoving, but i think it’s a suggestive sentence all the same, and i’m suspicious of every word Muir writes. The second quote, specifically the highlighted part, is also a bit frustrating. It seems to imply that John isn’t exactly doing magic as we know it, but something else. If it was Harrow narrating we could go further with it, but since it’s Gideon we could simply attribute it to her lack of knowledge and familiarity with magic. However, two sentences after that we don’t have that problem;

The construct gamely clamberign our of the Saint of Duty dwindled to a powder of pink dust. The shard you had been driving up the cervical vertebrae to the base of the spine [...] simply disappeared: destroyed or removed, you could not tell.

This is still Gideon narrating but in this case she’s specifically telling us that Harrow doesn’t understand what John just did, it’s not magic Harrow is familiar with. There’s also the contrast between what we know is a normal process of destroying a construct - reducing it to dust -  vs this mysterious disappearance, that doesn’t really fit into what we know so far about the way thanergy/thalergy work.

so far, nothing conclusive, we know John is really powerful, but we don’t know exactly how, where his power comes from or what it can do. Then there’s the moment he unexplodes himself (Chapter 52, HtN);

White light.

It bleached the insides of your nose and the back of your throat. It hurt coming out your ears. It bled out your eyeballs. It wasn’t a flash of light, more … a suddenness; when it was gone—as though it hadn’t even existed, but had been a luminous hallucination—time stopped.

That light took colour from the room—everyone was a slow-motion cavalcade of greys, of eyes caught widening, of mouths parting in stone-shaded articulations of shock.

It happened in an instant. It happened over a myriad. A wet red construct knitted itself back together, [...]

again that white light that has been associated with thalergy magic and again all these references to time slowing down, stopping or just behaving in strange ways in general. again lots of ambiguity, this could be a thalergy based power - the ability to hold living bodies in stasis, and therefore make everyone feel like time has slowed down - or it could be that John is actually affecting time, maybe even reversing it (?) since he literally un-exploded himself, after Mercy put all her millenia of expertise into atomizing him and reducing him to almost nothing.

is that even explicable with regular thanergy/thalergy based magic? i’m not sure, a regular necro could never do that, a lyctor couldn’t do that. So if John isn’t just an overpowered lyctor what’s the difference exactly? i mean, how do his powers manifest differently from those of every other necromancer we know?

the other person we’ve seen using powerful thalergy magic is Silas. Whenever he siphoned, Gideon describes a similar vacuum sensation to the one that John’s magic also provokes, as well as white light;

As he faded, the pale Silas incandesced. He glowed with an irradiated shimmer, iridescent white, and the air began to taste of thunder. (Chapter 17, GtN)

Gideon felt an internal tug, like a blanket being pulled off in the cold. (Chapter 17, GtN)

Silas clambered to his knees, clasped his fingers together, and the feeling of suction popped the pressure in both of Gideon’s ears. (Chapter 34, GtN)

Silas is nowhere near as powerful as John but siphoning - thalergy based magic, condemned by God - still causes that suction effect and is marked by white light and lightning, just like John’s magic. However, there’s no mention of a time altering effect, no slowing down, no freezing in place, and seeing how both kinds of magic are similarly coded otherwise i find this difference suspicious.

To end this somewhere, two quotes, first, this thing Harrow tells Ortus when they both discuss what it must be like to be a lyctor (Chapter 5, HtN);

“Nigenad, what would be the tragedy in living for a myriad? Ten thousand years to learn everything there is to know [...] What is the tragedy of time?”

honestly to me that sounds like Muir making Harrow say things she will regret later. of course it could be about any of the numerous tragedies in Harrow life but still, gave me pause, specially because it kinda echoes John’s earlier sentiment, wishing he had mastered Time.

finally, a quote that might be totally meaningless and completely off base in this theory or it could round it up perfectly, i haven’t decided yet;

[...] ; yet you prayed all the while knowing Ianthe’s facility for tergiversation would have given the whole universe pause. (Chapter 36, HtN)

we know Ianthe is a girlboss and gaslighting is her thing. However, isn’t this sentence a bit too dramatic to describe Ianthe? doesn’t it sound kinda ominous to you? it definitely does to me, and although it might totally be my Ianthe bias wanting her to play an important part, who is Ianthe hanging out with lately? exactly John God “Jod” the Emperor.

in conclusion, i haven’t reached any conclusion. but i still think there’s something off with John’s powers beyond what we’ve been told, which isn’t much really, and i think there’s something going on with Time within the narrative (that’s another whole post though), and i think these two things are most probably related. but i can’t say i’m 100% sure of any of it. this was fun though. if you made it here thank you so much you’re the best <3

[kookings]

red hot ice [preview]

“I thought your powers were cryokinesis and not charm.”

PAIRING -> cryokinesis!jungkook x fem!reader/pyrokinesis!reader

GENRE(S) -> magic au, rivals au, fluff, action, fantasy, suggestive, angst, crack

SUMMARY -> There’s a very good chance you may not graduate; one, because your Elementals essay due first period is currently frozen solid, and two, because you’re ass at Elementals — a fact that Jungkook only discovers when you storm into his room and reign hellfire upon him for freezing your entire dormitory.

However, using this knowledge to his advantage, he strikes you a deal: beat him in a sparring match and he’ll help you pass Elementals.

Lose, and you’ve just bought yourself a one way ticket to the Formal. With Jungkook as your date.

WARNINGS -> profanity, semi-suggestive content, sword fighting, magic fighting (?), graphic depictions of blood and injuries, minor enemies-to-lovers, jungkook is a hot mf even though his powers are ice manipulation, oc is also hot but like literally, because of her fire manipulation oc blushes a lot, oc’s nickname is Firestorm because i cannot for the life of me write y/n, lots of banter, lots of repressed feelings, lots of stupidity, and most importantly, lots of fluff!! more to be added!

WORD COUNT -> TBD but like 15-20k??

TAG LIST -> @soobmint (bcs you said you wanted to see what i had written so far so i guess i l*ve you), @hyuckworld (pls still spank me), @chanluster (Whore), @junepops, @aliceu, @yanithem, @cupidtaes, @kookaine, @oerangdoongi, @ggukkieland, @shatzkrinslinzki @geniejunn @maplecornia @travelleratheart101 <3 (let me know if you’d like to be tagged as well!!)

AUTHOR’S NOTE -> hello!! thank you for checking out my first major tumblr fic (: this is going to be one of many summer writing projects, so manifesting that i don’t lose motivation to write this monster </33 (second teaser can be found here!!)

You are going to kill Jeon Jungkook.

Your crimson cloak billows behind you like waves of blood as you sweep through the halls of the sleeping fortress. Early morning sunlight spills through the cathedral windows, thawing your skin and flaring the simmering rage in your gut. You've always loved the sun; loved how it fuelled your fire, filling you with such boundless warmth and power that you feel as if you're truly at one with your gifts. And now, at the ass crack of dawn, still sporting your tattered pyjamas and thoroughly fed up with Jungkook's antics, the sun acts as kindling, twisting your anger into a weapon you can't wait to use to rock his shit.

You'll kill him, you think, fully aware that your eyebrows are now on fire. You'll kill him and bring him back to life and kill him again.

You know every inch of the ancient school like the scars on your hands, effortlessly mapping the quickest way to Jungkook's dorms and setting off on a blazing warpath. The guards stationed at their posts don't even blink as you pass. Realization hits that they no doubt saw the ravenette make the very same trek to your room hours before, knowing the nature of his visit and yet doing nothing to stop him. It's probably why they don't ream your ass for being out of bed so early. They pity you — if the sheepish glances at the snowflakes spiraling up your arms are any indication — and you hate it.

A vicious heat shoots through your veins, washing outwards and scalding the last lingering traces of ice to steam.

Now, if only it were that easy to rid parchment of his ice. Or the entirety of your dormitory, for that matter.

Your hair is sparking and coiling like snakes of fire by the time you reach his room. Placing your hand on the doorknob, you watch as the metal glows and sags beneath your touch, the inner workings of the lock melting to hell. With a pleased hum, you haul your shoulder into the door and barge into the space.

A freezing gust of air smacks you in the face, causing you to recoil slightly, your flames flickering. It takes a moment for your eyes to readjust to the darkness. Jungkook's room is painstakingly familiar, it being the gathering space for your group of friends. Soon enough, you can trace the outline of the squashy couch, the unused fireplace, the cluttered desk and the four poster bed that stirs with the presence of the boy you seek.

You watch, unimpressed, as the lump of blankets shifts, stringing together a barely coherent stream of curses. When you refuse to shut the door and provide him with relief, a muscled arm slips out from the covers, grabs a pillow and chucks it aimlessly in your general vicinity with a grunt of, "piss off, Yoongi."

You blink, and the pillow erupts in flames before it can make it's mark.

"Guess again, motherfucker," You snarl.

And then the room roars to life.

The curtains are blasted back with a hiss!, sunlight cutting through the frosted panes of glass and bathing the space in gold and honey. The fireplace burgeons in a fit of orange, red and blue, flames licking hungrily at the cobwebbed logs and ebbing away at the frigid air. With a lazy flick of your finger you light the torches and candles too, purely because Jungkook's building groans are like music to your ears and you'll do anything to keep up his mantra.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," You sing-song, a humourless smirk curving on your lips. "It's ass-kicking o'clock."

A strangled grunt. Curses. Silence.

And then the covers are flung back and the boy grudgingly sits up; his hair a mess, his lips parted and his eyes cold as if he wishes to freeze you solid with his glare. You, however, are much more concerned by the fact that said boy is shirtless. The smooth planes of his chest and the dips of his abdomen inflate with a barely restrained sigh. You glance away, hating the way your cheeks burn.

"You've always had a flare for the dramatics, Firestorm," he mumbles through a yawn, "but even this is extreme."

You bristle at the nickname, the very one he'd dubbed you all those years ago when you'd lost control and set fire to the Great Forest, all because he'd insinuated that he was more powerful than you. The icing on top of the cake was that he was the one to put your fire out, earning him praise and admiration from your fellow peers and teachers alike. You, on the other hand, were sentenced to a month's detention on bathroom duty. The bleach still burns your nose to this day.

You fix him with a scowl. "Says the boy who froze my entire room last night. Including me. I thought we were over our childish prank war."

He simply smirks, giving you a lazy once over. "Nice pjs, by the way. Hot date?"

Something inside you snaps, and you pitch the frozen block of ice you'd been carrying in his direction. Rather than hitting him in the face, as you'd intended, it merely bounces across his mattress and lands an arm’s reach away from him.

"A gift?" He cocks his head, dark fringe kissing his brow. "You shouldn't have."

"And I didn't. Wouldn't want your ego to inflate to the size of your head now would we?"

Ignoring your jab, he squints down at the block of ice, even going so far as to slant it in the sunlight for a better look. Eventually he comes to the same conclusion you had when you'd found it on your frozen desk, albeit his reaction is more humoured than angered.

"We have an essay in Elementals due?"

"You think this is funny?" You hiss, eyebrows sparking. Panic crawls up your throat. "Jungkook, that draft is due first period today and I need to finish it, like, yesterday. Do you know what caused the Elemental War? Do you? Because I do, and Professor Bang would too if he could read my essay through a brick of ice!"

You take a steading breath, spooling in your magic that threatens to thrash outwards and burn everything in its path. You despise the way your emotions tend to govern your fire whenever you're with Jungkook, and it takes more willpower than you'd like to admit to keep your powers under wraps. Not only for your sake, but for his too.

Losing control was never an option when you were around him.

And you’d both learned this the hard way.

[goldafterglow]

dissolve me (repost)

(deleted this post on accident, reblog of original here)

Summary: We find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Except the Tootsie Pop is Horacio Carrillo.

Pairing: Horacio Carrillo x Reader

Word Count: 5k+ (look away)

Warnings: angst, fluff, gory metaphors (I use figurative language to mask the scent of flaming trash)

A/N: This is literally the first thing I’ve written in like 3 years so you have to be nice to me. Please give me feedback!! But it has to be exclusively positive or I will spontaneously combust!!!

Horacio is cold.

It’s a little past midnight and the Sun has been asleep for hours by now, but not Bogota. Instead, the city moves in slow motion, the weight of slumber heavy on its creatures as the few visible stars shush the agitated crickets. Somehow, even despite the Sun’s absence, it’s influence still blankets the trees. It accumulates, even. The hot radiation permeates the lungs of taxis and buildings, but the cool darkness brings life into the air as water begins to materialize on the sides of newspaper stands and underneath Horacio’s shirt. His clothes stick to him so tight (more than usual) that he thinks he may be drowning under the moon. He can taste the ocean on his tongue and the sensation is only relieved as he steps off the pavement and onto the tile of the rundown convenience store. The building, heavily air conditioned, makes each drop of sweat feel like icicles pricking into his fried red skin, but his body still burns from the residual heat.

Somehow, Horacio still maintains that icey core in his chest. So even as he makes a beeline for the refrigerated-goods, yes. Horacio is cold.

He exists as a green-sheet ghost walking through the aisles of the grocery store, barely conscious at 2 am as he searches for some goddamn milk. He knows he works too hard, knows his life is concrete and bricks screeching against his steel heart. Every morning he walks on glass to enter his office, and every morning he forces his feet to bleed. What else is there for him? His body has been adorned with splinters and cuts for so long now, so what’s a few more? Each night, he drags his body flat across the floor, just trying to make it out the door. Trying to escape an office that chews him up and spits him out, saliva covered and filthy.

But fuck if he just wants some milk.

So he makes this small trip before he heads home. Once he finds the dairy, his heavy eyes hoist themselves upwards, to the second-to-topmost shelf in the refrigerator. The last carton of fat free milk -  dairy-flavored water - that he’ll chug the next morning. But just as his hardened fingertips reach for it, they meet something else; a third wheel to this toxic milk-Horacio romance that is ruining his plans for what might as well be the best morning he’s had in the past three milk-free days. His mind, once fuzzy from the sleepy grey clouds filling his lenses like cataracts, now feels a sharp jolt of electricity soar through it as his machine body is activated and his surroundings suddenly become clearer, laser vision kicking in. His senses are now sharper and his guard is completely up. His nerves begin racing as the data from his hands shoots straight to his brain to get integrated and that thing he’s feeling is...warm? Shit, no it’s hot. It fucking burns his skin and immediately he pulls back because his motherboard is screaming at him that he’s in danger.

His head shoots up and his eyes dart to the side as he turns to look, expecting a raging bonfire or boiling cast iron, but instead he sees a human. A sweet, candy person that looks almost surprised as he does, but with softer features and kinder eyes. He smells the caramel seeping out of your pores and it stings his olfactory nerves but perhaps he wants to smell it again so it can fill his lungs and then let it harden inside of his cold body. So that it can stay within him forever.

“Disculpame,” you say, remorse dripping out of your golden mouth and if his ears were in control, he’d beg you to say it again. Say anything. He recognizes your accent. Not a Columbian, but a gringo. His brain reminds his heart that hey, we don’t like selfish, egotistical gringos. His heart doesn’t listen.

“Go ahead,” he says, and shit he sounds horrible. He sounds fucked up, and it’s probably because he is fucked up. He talks like toothpicks and needles, but it’s okay because he got to speak to you and he’s never spoken to an angel before.

He notices how you relax a little at the sound of his English, and he feels that heat spread at the beautiful notion that he did that all by himself.

“No really, I don’t need it,” you insist, a small smile gracing your lips. “You’re very sweet for offering, though.” Huh?

Horacio Carrillo is not sweet. He doesn’t taste like sugar or chocolate or berries. Horacio is bitter gourd, burnt toast and that shitty part at the end of the banana that no one wants. Copper and hot tar oozing down taste buds and burning the frail pink dots along the way. Straight black coffee that’s tear-inducingly retched. Pepto Bismol and whatever the fuck is inside of those plastic pill capsules. Raw beef festering with E. coli and flies, a rotting corpse under a wake of vultures, the creepy old man that sits next to you on the train, mace burning your shivering eyes while you collapse to your shredded knees onto a floor of thumbtacks.

Horacio Carrillo is not sweet. But you said he was, and you are oh so persuasive. That’s when he felt the first one. Crack.

His mind goes into overdrive as panic sets in - what was that sound? What just broke? What crevice of his mind just ripped a little and how can he staple it back shut? He feels the slimey pus of his emotions begin to seep out of the opening a little, and he doesn’t like it. Not one bit. He wants to put his guard back up and regain control of this situation the way he’s been trained to do by offering you the carton and then leaving; defying your orders and following his own.

But who is he to refuse you?

“Thank you,” he says, and he’s just noticed that your hand is back at your side and your eyes shine a little brighter as your smile widens at his defeat. That was me, too. But then you’re turning around and leaving, messy bun flopping up and down as you walk towards the cash register and his heart is furious. It’s pounding in his ribcage like a ravenous shark caged in glass, telling him to not let you get away because it wants to burn in your soft flames and turn to ash in your fingers, but he stays planted. Watches you walk away and take that gentle radiating heat with you, leaving him just as hard and frozen as he was before he’d ever let you poke around into his soul. Suddenly he understands why you’d burned him so bad; doesn’t even the lightest match make that violent sizzling sound when it touches ice? But he can’t deny that you had melted him, just a little bit, and he can’t deny that he likes being a little watery.

He sees you again just a few days later. It’s a Sunday morning and Bogota is now wide awake. Pastel streaks fly down the streets as manifestations of yellow taxis, dusty red cars, and pale blue cyclers bring the canvas of the city to life. Horacio decides to be adventurous, introduce true exploration and child-like color into his monochrome world, and walk to the cafe near his street. A truly exhilarating touch, if he did say so himself.

Except he hadn’t prepared himself for the anarchy that would occur within him when he saw you again. The girl that was awake at 2 am and offered him white calcium water in a carton and called him sweet. You’re wearing one of those pink dresses that you just know is sleeveless, but a light denim jacket guards your shoulders and he can’t help but wonder what would happen if he just tugged on your collar a little bit, exposed some of your delicate skin and traced his fingers over it. Just closed his eyes and leaned down to brush his lips over - shit, fuck. What is he thinking? His eyes don’t know where to look, his heart doesn’t know how to beat, his lungs don’t know how to take in air. What do you do when you see a pretty thing in a pretty sundress? Certainly not function. Horacio wasn’t doing that at all. So he did the next best thing: sit at a table and watch you. That’s the next best thing, right?

He watches as you smile at the young man taking your order, talking to him like you know him, care about him. All you were doing was listing the ingredients you wanted in your drink, but your bright eyes twinkle with a sort of endearment that he isn’t used to. Like you were happy.

He is in awe of you. Horacio has worked so hard to stay numb, to feel nothing but that rusty scrape of motivation that made him do his job. But you made it look so easy to gush, to overflow and spill your delight with life onto everyone around you until that tired, overworked teenager behind the register was smiling too as he said “next!”

You turn your head to find a table once you pick up your order and panic settles into Horacio’s bones again as he reflexively turns his head away from you, but your keen eyes spot him. Oh, how you must pity him. The poor, miserable apparition from the grocery store. He feels that radiating heat begin to grow as you approach him at his table, so he pretends to not notice you. Pretends he’s numb as you thaw him into a dripping mess of thin ice and water.

“Is this seat taken?” you ask him, nodding to the other chair in front of him with a cup of coffee in your supple hands. Horacio’s tactful eyes scan the cafe once more; there’s other seats in the building, other men and women for you to pity. He’s been chosen. And he just can’t resist you, is too weak to deny himself that addicting sugary sweetness that you’re coated in because he’s not sure he’ll ever feel so soft again and he wants to savor it.

Horacio looks up at you, clearing his throat as he takes the kind of breath that you can feel as the air fills his lungs. He’s priming his voice to talk to you because this time, he wants to make it count.

“No,” he says. Fuck. In that moment, he couldn't remember having talked before. Has he ever spoken? Certainly not, or he’d know how to do it. But you don’t seem to mind his cold tone as you take the seat in front of you, and those damned eyes of yours are blinding to look at but god, who needs pupils anyway?

He can tell you’re curious about him. You want to pick him apart scab by scab and take him apart into individual fibers until you get to that soft mushy center that is Horacio Carrillo. You want to see him naked and open, but that’s not something Horacio can give you. How could he? He’s taken that weak, inferior soul within him and crushed it under concrete and plaster of paris, secured it with walls and steel and barbed wire until the protective layers become so extensive that even if someone could get through them all, why the fuck would they want to? It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

“You know, I’ve never been here before,” you say, taking a sip of your drink, and he hums, knowing that’s how people interact but not quite knowing what is going on with him. You’re just saying things, just want him to talk back. You’re trying to have a real conversation with him, and he doesn’t understand why, but maybe for just once in his life he doesn’t need to fucking understand everything.

“Then what brings you here?” he asks, and slowly he begins to regain a little feeling inside him. Not enough that it unleashes his pain, but enough that he can feel that ice water slosh around inside him easily. A gentle flow of slush that mixes with your amber and makes him feel like a person.

“A student of mine recommended it to me,” you explain, and he’s starting to put together a little picture of who you are in his mind. 

“You teach?” he asks, probing you for your life. He wants to study your mind, hear the music that leaves your mouth when you speak. You nod thoughtfully, and he can tell he’s mentioned something you enjoy. He learns that you teach at a local university and hears about just how passionate you are about what you teach. His dark eyes begin to fill with that precious light you possess as you tell him about your students and how though you’re new to Bogotá, you already love it. But that doesn’t surprise him so much; somehow he just knows that you’ve got plenty of love to go around.

“Well now you know what business I have in a grocery store at 2 am,” you conclude after you tell him about your late nights grading subpar papers, curiosity twinkling in your eyes like fairy lights in the dark. “What about you?” It isn’t until the focus is back on himself that he notes the smile that graces his features. A real smile. He smiles not out of diplomacy but because right now, he’s happy. He’s high on you and serotonin and he’d let you ruin him if you wanted to. But your question troubles him. He can’t really tell you why; he can’t bear to take his ugly, black, acrylic life and stain your lavender and daffodil backdrop. So he tells you the bare minimum: that he’s a colonel and leads a special ops unit called the Search Bloc. He leaves out the blood that paints his eyes everyday, forgets to mention the agony he’s felt and inflicted on others.

“Your drink isn’t ready yet?” you question, like a sudden realization has just hit you. Your kind features are furrowed into slight confusion, and Horacio wants to let a black sky swallow him into his own misery because he forgot to order something.

“I didn’t get anything,” he admits, face starting to glow light pink as his foolishness begins to manifest on his hardened features. You don’t look confused anymore; you’re curious again. Forever wondering about the enigma in front of you, except he’s no mystery; he’s a labyrinth. Full of questions and doubt without one single answer, and once you enter you can’t ever escape.

“Then what does a colonel do at a humble cafe?” you ask. And all of the sudden, for a man that makes a living out of repeatedly evading death, he wants to evaporate into the beige, worn tile beneath the teal cushion of his seat because the answer to that question will surely ruin the delicate, blushed bubble around the two of you. But you’ve incapacitated him with your stupid fucking pretty eyes so much so that you must be the enemy in this story. He can escape gunpoint, rouse himself from a concussion, but he hasn’t got a single clue how to regain his quick wit and pistol mind in the face of something much more sinister: a pretty girl.

“I-” he starts, but all of the sudden his throat won’t cooperate because his mind is helpless to lie to you but his body is resisting. His body rejects that frozen, dreadful state of nothing that it’s normally kept in. You’ve spread the warmth of fuzzy blankets and blissful vertigo throughout his stomach and his body wants to stay warm. “I was just…” he coughs, hard, willing his esophagus to heed his commands, “...I was watching you.” Horacio is flustered now, completely out of his element as he feels his blood seep to the topmost layers of his skin, exposing his embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he adds almost immediately, his eyes wide as he tries to avert his flushed features from your careful gaze. “I know that’s weird. I didn’t mean to-”

“Horacio,” you interrupt. Say it again. Say my name again. “It’s okay. Actually, it’s kinda cute.” Crack. That steel fortress that he thought was so impenetrable was beginning to soften into something moldable, pliable only to your hands so you could transform him from a wall to a rose.

Horacio lets out a soft chuckle, biting his lip so hard he almost can’t feel his teeth digging into his own chapped flesh. His pink cheeks are full and for the first time in so long his eyes glimmer with life and adoration.

“I don’t want to be too forward and scare you away,” he says, a little nervous but so much more giddy, “but could I see you again?” You giggle, a beautiful melody that floods his ears and softens his brow.

“Yes, Horacio, I’d really like that,” you agree, and he can’t help but feel like he’s not in a cafe but somewhere in the cosmos as a compliant planet orbiting a bright, burning star. Somewhere far more heavenly and celestial than this godforsaken planet. He watches you glance up at the grandfather clock situated against the wall behind him and then back at him. “I need to get going, but take this.” You pull a pen out of your small bag and scribble a string of digits onto your coffee cup, holding the marked cardboard out to him. He’s slow to take it from your hands; he doesn’t want to keep you here, but at the same time he very much does. He allows himself to brush his fingers against yours again, like they had the night before, so that your potent you-flavored syrup can inject into his bloodstream and fill his capillaries. 

As you stand to leave, he can tell you have one last lingering thought itching at your brow. “For the record, you couldn’t scare me away,” you assure with a smile that borders on teasing. “You’re just not scary.” And he watches you walk away, leaving him completely and utterly dumbfounded as to who you had just spoken to because it certainly wasn’t Horacio Carrillo, world class murderer and notoriously inhuman interrogator. Crack.

That next Friday, Horacio sees you again. He shakes as he knocks on your door, roses trembling in his fingers as you swing the door open. He knows the bouquet resting under his chin is pathetic, an overused display of affection, but it makes you gush as you take them from hands and bring them to your own wondrous features and let that stupid cheesy token fill your lungs with its scent. 

He takes you to a restaurant like a proper gentleman, not that he gave a single shit where he was as long as it was with you. You put him far too out of his element for him to get creative with his date idea, so instead he pulls every last cliche out of the book and piles it on you. He holds the door open for you and pulls your chair out and orders wine for you because he doesn’t have a clue how to tell you that you turn him into sugar bubbles floating on warm cocoa but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try to show you.

So evening after evening he finds himself leaving work just a little earlier each day. He spends less time in poorly lit grocery stores and more time loitering at the open farmer’s market under the real sun, perusing lazily amongst the various produce and trinkets because why not? He starts wearing pink and stripes and maybe a polka-dot shirt because he starts to realize that the world has so much beauty in it and all things beautiful remind him of you. He waits a little longer to shave his face so he can hear that ethereal symphony of giggles play from your throat when he uses his scruff to scratch against your soft shoulder. You start showing up in his life in places that you don’t even exist and filling his odd corners with a pretty white glow.

He lets little things bring him joy; your tongue wetting your lips when you’re deciding where to eat for the night, your neck craning to look up at him from the couch when he walks through your door, the way the stacks of student papers that rest on your kitchen island are always different sizes.  Your tongue tapping his skin when you lay a lingering kiss to his face. Your lipgloss sticking to his tricep when you don’t feel like getting up to kiss his lips, leaving a shimmer on his skin that he never wipes away. Your feather fingers sweeping his torso and turning his skin to cotton candy. The fumes of pencil lead and your perfume choking his lungs when he buries his face into your neck and breathes you in. And every fucking time you call him cute, adorable, pretty, beautiful, baby. All of those forbidden words that you dare to use in vain, courageously sacrilegious considering how he worships you, create more little cracks inside of him.

Horacio may not know how to communicate, but he knows you. He knows which compliments make you turn the reddest. He gets you your favorite artists’ CDs imported from America. He shows up at your door with your favorite pastry from your new favorite cafe. He hugs you from behind and peppers kisses down the column of your throat because it makes you giggle. He flutters his fingers where you’re ticklish until you’re so overstimulated that tears form. He cooks meals for you, insisting that all you can do to help is sit on the counter and look pretty for him. He kisses you deeply, so hard and intimate that the two of you are breathing the same air and taste the same. He does everything he can to make you smile for him because in return he gets called a “beautiful boy” and “my sweet soldier” and an “angel,” all words that send him beyond the stars and spin his head like a top until all he can think to do is giggle.

Passed weeks turn into a month, a month becomes two, and before he knows it he’s twice the man he used to be with you filling in half of him. Horacio is still, however, a man adorned with flaws. And with each moment that you occupy, he starts to really collect cracks. The powerful resolve that keeps him from ever admitting that he’s absolutely gone for you becomes compromised because you are powerful. Without even trying, your soft voice is like a wrecking ball to his defenses, breaking him down as you probe into what you call the “pretty parts” of him that he hides. But you don’t have the first clue what he’s hiding.

Horacio is not a man without emotions. He gets angry and frustrated, but those kinds of emotions sit at his surface, above his armed fortress. He can let them all out in his work through stony grimaces and raised voices and guns and fists. But he also feels sorrow, regret, shame. So much shame. These emotions are unsightly black and blue dents in the soft, fragile mush that sits at the very core of him. Under his walls are wounds still wide open and full of splinters, gushing blood and pus, septic and untreated. And they fucking hurt. So he gathers them all together along with his love, his adoration and sweetness, and ices them over, freezes them away and covers them in layer after layer of concrete until he can barely even remember that they’re there.

But he’s starting to feel again.

His fondness for you is explosive and wild, greedy for your affection. But he’s afraid. He knows you adore him, because you are brave. You can speak your feelings into existence and not feel like something inside you has fractured. But Horacio is a coward. He can’t say he loves you, he can’t love you. He knows that if he did, his filthy rotting core would be unleashed and he’d feel an agony worse than anything he’s ever subjected anyone to. But you’re leaving him full of cracks, making him weak and vulnerable in the security of your arms, and he doesn’t think you could hold all of him together if he was truly unleashed. He thinks you might realize how much of a lost cause he is and leave him on the side of the road to bleed out.

The last crack you leave in him is so small, you don’t even notice.

He sits next to you on your couch, your head tucked into his neck as a shitty telenovela radiates through the thick glass of your TV set. Neither of you say anything because you don’t need to be talking to feel comfortable with each other, so you don’t notice how he hasn’t glanced at the TV in 15 minutes. He can’t take his eyes off of you, hermosa, the puny glow of Rodrigo telling Lucia that “it’s not what it looks like” barely doing your face justice. He notices each pore on your face, the curve of your jaw and the bridge of your nose forming sweeping lines that sculpt your face, and he knows he is so utterly fucked. He knows he’s so dangerously in love with you.

He only blinks when you yawn softly, those lines contorting as you scrunch your face. He relaxes a little as you move to sit up, leaning forward to grab the remote from the coffee table and blindly turning the TV off as the preview for the next episode plays. He fills to the brim with amazement as you stretch your back, letting out a gentle squeal. Now it’s just that antique lamp on the edge of your couch illuminating the room, and it’s still not enough light. Nothing is ever bright enough when you’re there to rival it.

“It’s late, baby,” you whisper, a sleepy rasp scraping your voice a little as you look up at him with a rosy smile. You reach up to run a hand through his dark hair, taking care to let your fingers caress his scalp. “You can stay if you want,” you offer, as he’s stayed the night before. “I sleep better with you anyway.” Crack.

“Cariño,” he breathes, his features turning pained as his lip begins to quiver like never before. “Cariño I love you.”

Horacio crumbles in your hands.

Like a mound of brown sugar after it’s poured, the dome losing its form as it slowly collapses, grains dragging over each other as they sink to the bottom of the bowl and the dome is destroyed. No longer held together by tight, sticky molasses and instead a helpless, feeble puddle too broken down to be considered a shape anymore. Just a pathetic sea of lost particles, helpless in putting itself back together. He falls apart right in front of you.

He feels tears that are years old begin to flow down his cheeks, falling off his chin and onto the baby blue cloth of his too-tight shirt. He is completely unprotected, every last defense around that shapeless, dark flesh inside him falling to dust as you hold it in your kind hands. Your arms are quick to wrap around his head, bringing his face to your chest where he is safe. He’s never been more raw and vulnerable in his life, and yet he’s never felt more secure.

He bares his soul to you. He chokes on his words as he gushes his dried, brown blood onto your cotton skin and you soak up every ounce of him. He tells you he is ashamed, that he is remorseful, that he is afraid. And you listen, skin absorbing him in until you’ve got him enveloped in your big, beautiful heart. And whereas every touch used to break him down, your fingertips are now healing him, building him back up and reshaping him into something better than what he was. He can feel his scars begin to heal and the pain begin to dull as an intense awe for you overcomes him.

He knows you can’t just fix him with your fairy dust overnight. He knows he will need time to restore himself from beast to man. But fuck if he doesn’t want to do it with you, can’t do it without you.

You’ve led him towards your bed, undressing him slowly because you know that he just needs to breathe and feel the air cool his irritated skin. Once you’re both down to your underclothes, you’re careful in letting him onto the mattress. You sit down first, leaning back against the pillow, and then you sweetly tug on his arm to join you. He dives into your body head first, face nosing into your neck as his big arms wrap around your midsection. You reach for your softest blanket, enveloping the two of you in the added warm as his breaths begin to even out against your chest. He feels you wrap your arms around his head again, for the second time reminding him that he is safe.

He can feel his emotions getting the best of himself again as you whisper sweet nothings into his hair, telling him how strong and brave he is, how beautiful his soul is now that he’s really showing it to you. His muscles melt into you as you take those fragments of him and begin to piece them back together, filling the cracks you’d made with your marshmallow fluff and liquid gold.

He feels warm again as you call him your “baby,” and this time he doesn’t try to run away from it. He embraces it, leans into it. He was being protected by bones and bricks, but now it’s by honeycomb and delicate flesh. Horacio finally starts to feel like he’s beautiful because you’re letting him borrow yours. And as long as you’ll have him, he’s willing to share.