#Love you rancid clown!

[mars-onthe-moon]

Happy Birthday Hisoka!!!

Tarot interpretation:

Hisoka ~ The Magician

The Magician’s job is to intercept The Querent (The Fool, i.e Gon) and introduce them to the 4 suits of tarot. Can be seen as a helpful Archetypal character, or as a trickster, a role that Hisoka actively switches between in the anime.

I have made the 4 suits align with villains of our four main characters…

~ Wands - Wands - Hisoka - Gon

~ Cups - Chalices/Holy Grail - Chrollo - Kurapika

~ Swords - Pins/Needles - Illumi - Killua

~ Pentacles - Coins/Jenny - Leorio (based on his “desire” to become a Hunter, “For the money” ~ Didn’t have enough resources to save his friend)

Even though I have yet to read it, I was heavily inspired by the cover art for the manga Witch Hat Atelier as well as antique Victorian art a lot which I was able to find in The Antiquarian Sticker Book.

#hisoka marrow #hisoka fanart #hisoka hxh #hxh hisoka #hisoka morrow #hisoka #hisoka morow #illumi x hisoka #hisoillu #tarot #the magician #hxh #hxh fanart #hxh art #hxh chrollo #hxh illumi #happy birthday #Happy Birthday Hisoka!!! #Love you rancid clown! #⭐️-_-💧

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Fandom observation nicknames and funny tags: Part One Piece

Okay, one piece fandom it's your turn and I'm going to highlight your creativity. Again this is not meant to shame or call anyone out. I am genuinely impressed with the creativity and you guys made me laugh. So again in my opinion these were too good just to be lost in the tags or in the anonymous messages, several you sent me. So expand post at your own risk. This one is unhinged

* updated as of April 6th with more tags and new characters

I have mentioned this before, but for some reason that is beyond me. One Piece fandom you guys refer to your characters as daddy and mommy (And it's in a kinky way) way more than any fandom. I think I should just start with the list of characters that have been labeled as such before I go into the creative names for individual characters. Because trust me who makes the list and who doesn't is actually funny.

One piece Daddy's: Shanks, Mihawk, Buggy, Sir Crocodile, Benn Beckman, Killer, Sanji, Rayleigh, Roger, Doflamingo, Rosinante/Corazon, Katakuri, Ivankov, Arlong, Yamato, Marco, Izou, Smoker, Garp, Sengoku, Zeff, Kuzan/Aokiji, Kizaru, Fujitora & Akainu

When it comes to the One piece Mommy's: Nico Robin, Boa Hancock, Charlotte Smoothie, Charlotte Galette, Charlotte Amande, Vice admiral doll, Catarina Devon, Ivankov & Crocodile

Now due to popular demand the new category the One Piece Babygirls: Ace, Buggy, Sanji, Luffy, Sabo, Zoro, Ussop, Marco, Crocodile, Doflamingo, Kid, Law, Bepo, Killer, Mihawk, Shanks, Perona, Yamato, Kuzan/Aokiji, Kizaru, Fujitora, Rosinante/Corazon, Katakuri, Smoker, Robin, Nami, Vivi, Jinbe, Hatchan, Roger, Zeff

Now when it comes to individual characters there have been some interesting standouts but I'm just going to do some highlights because you guys have so many characters

Ace: "Depressed sunshine orphan boy with daddy issues", "ace has that grungy line cook riz you know he lays legendary pipe", " he got goofy older brother swag", "Beautiful butch dyke wife", "Ace my greasy fire narcoleptic king", "The narcoleptic babygirl", the greasy crusty desert rat. "He would be worth the burn risk", "my favorite fire donut", "something about greasy alabasta ace hits so different", "with his riz he's probably a walking STD risk but it would be worth it. Just look at him probably also probably got a couple bastard kids running around the grand line"

Arlong: "Y'all are too afraid to recognize the truth too afraid of his drip, his swagger, his saw nose, to admit that he's hot also live action arlong?!?!the only sexy fishmen," "arlong looks like a toxic florida frat bro," "I legitimately think there's something wrong with me sometimes due to how bad I want arlong the rancid personality enhances the appeal,"

Akainu: "The world's next top authoritarian," magma Daddy, "He makes donuts and I still love him"

Buggy: Assigned clown at birth, walking disaster, "my pathetic sniveling wet clown", my Beloved, "he has blue hair and pronouns", Failboy, "the skrunkly clown", "my clown wife", "he has that fail boy cringe", "buggy has the stronger levels of foolishness and fumbling his way to success", "the cringefail clown extraordinaire buggy", "he is silly and pathetic like a bisexual divorced dad",

Bartolomeo: "the man hasn't showered in probably a week he's obsessed with the strawhats he'll pee anywhere and he's an absolute dweeb he's like a stray mutt that followed me home look at his fit it's AWFUL AND FABULOUS he's gross and dumb and if something bad happens to this silly barrier- creating puppy i'll LOSE IT"

Ben Beckman: Dilf, "retirement blorbo", "Benn Beckman is a religious experience", "to me? beckman is the character with the most sex appeal ever. raw sex appeal. I would [redacted] if I met this man. just sayin", "He can ruin my life any day of the week", "Also lest we forget pre TS Beck a++ quality right there I just want someone smart who will also hit a guy with a gun is that so much to ask for", "This p**** wants what she wants and its always going to be Benn “back breaker" Beckman", husband material, "men are like wine in order to get a good vintage you want the one that's aged", he had that sexy blind and reckless loyalty about him", "Beckman is a fine aged vintage of wine as men should be", "DEAR GOD the things I WOULD DO to that man LIKE [redacted] and [redacted] because [redacted] and [redacted]", "idk how to explain it but he's so wife"

Catarina Devon: "my problematic lesbian sugar mommy”

Crocodile: desert daddy, Babygirl, "He's like if tony soprano was trans", crocodaddy, crocomommy, Big titty mob boss, He's 8ft tall and I would let he ruin me,"Mr. Sandman", "the human sandcastle," "literally has sand in his britches", "son of a beach", "World's Most Expensive Sand Sculpture", "he's got 99 problems and his hook is one of them", "casino blorbo", "I would subject myself to sandburn any day for THE SIR FUCKING CROCODILE Anakin Skywalker don't go here because I WOULD love sand if it was like 8 feet tall and had a voice like that absolutely rabid he could stick his sand in so many places and I'd thank him crocodile is one of those guys i wanted to hate so bad and then went actually no i want this guy carnally Crocodile has some weird rizz goin on and i need to climb that sandcastle", "I'm so sorry but I need to eat crocodile's pussy", "With Sir Crocodile you can have Sex on the Beach. Literally. Plus he owns a casino so you could probably sip on the cocktail version too...while getting some cocktail.", "mafia vibes and style", "crocodile's got style. class. you will be wined and dined in the most exquisite way you can imagine", "He's got DADDY vibes", " One handsome mafia boss",

Dragon: "the revolutionary scrungle dragon",

Doflamingo: "Dofy's got some wierd (potentially fun) energy but he would NOT treat you well he'd be awful", "The psychopathic pimp on a shoestring budget. Seriously dude, San Diego Zoo called and they want their flamingos back. That coat is so last season.", "fashion travesty", "Doflamingo dresses like an eye test and will probably steal your credit card by the end of the night not because he needs the money. because he finds it hilarious", "Mingo is just a spoiled frat fuckboy who's too full of himself to be interested in anyone/anything else", "a balding white man", "evil florida man my beloved they dont understand you",

Eustass Kid: Pirate punk, "He's a sopping wet loser", "a man wearing eyeliner and nailpolish is by definition hotter", "my scrungy little fuck", he would also probably give me an STD and it would still be worth it

Franky: " Three words light up nipples"

Fujitora: "fujitora yes plz that like calm collected way he fights makes me KNOW hed take care of his partner real good", "have you seen how he slurps his noodles? I just know he could eat me out in ways I could never imagine"

Jinbe: "I wanna suck on the webbing between his fingers", does anyone else contemplate how soft Jinbe's tits are to lie on or is that just me?

Kaido: "beefcake beast of a man",

Killer: "big tiddy murder boyfriend",

Marco: Bird daddy "Mr. Dr. Emotionally-Stable Scrungles", "surfer hippy electric blue glasses wing flapper", "DR. MMMMM", Fineapple

Luffy: "l am in the minority here I need luffy's gomu gomu no [REDACTED]"

Mihawk: The Vampire Pirate, Goth Dad, the sword father, Pirate Dracula, the big titty goth husband, "I think mihawk would treat you right. i want mihawk to treat me right", "I love his gay wine uncle energy", "I appreciate that he dresses Like That everywhere extra ass bitch", "hot vampire cowboy pirate", Morticia Addams, "Mihawk oozes 'step on me' energy",

Robin: "she has irresistible weird girl rizz", "big tiddy archaeologist gf"

Rosinante: "my insane clumsy tall dilf", "wife material", "he has cringefail dad swag", "rosi is everything to me actually. I would climb that tall clumsy king like a tree", "the klutzy mime", "he has that pathetic depressed clown vibe thats irresistible", "He's the epiome of strong but silent, he's the asshole with a heart of gold, he has everything", rosinante is hot tho and his clumsiness somehow enhances it", "I've said it before and I'll say it again I WOULD climb that clumsy king like a tall tree want to kiss him until his silly jester makeup is all over me too", "I am loyal to the guy who actively sets himself on fire",

Sanji: fail wife, Cooking Daddy, "I NEED sanji to f*** me to tuesday and make me dinner before and breakfast after", "The man will feed you the best meal you've ever had and genuinely compliment something about you", "His fighting style is 'kick the problem until it goes away' and he chugs Love Women Juice", "he can cook and fight and he's damn fine while doing both"

Shanks: Margaritaville Himbo, "Dilflicious", "the deadbeat malewife wifi user", "I am a whole lesbian but if there were a butch girl version of these men I would let shanks ruin my life", "favorite guy in the local frat" He's probably a walking STD risk but he's hot and I'm a slut that has a thing for red heads, "the unwashed bitch", "LOOK AT THAT SCRUFF ON SHANKS the three scars on his face that smile", "my Scrungle drunk bastard", I would volunteer to be his next baby mama you know shanks got a few a dozen red haired children all over the grand line tell me I'm wrong"

Silvers Rayleigh: "Silver Fox Rayleigh", "he's old but he can get it", "Rayleigh has that 'your daughter calls me daddy too' energy", "he's a gilf who married a literal queen", "rayleigh has spent his entire life SERVING CUNT", "Raiyleigh has that gilf energy despite having no kids", I need him in so many different ways I cannot list", "he has my heart around his little finger", "Rayleigh makes me howl like a dog I swear", "I mean come on look at his HAIR his GLASSES that incredible STARE even his wrinkles are hot", "Rayleigh got the 50 year anniversary in the bag idk why you would go for anything else", "helloooo????? Rayleigh is the hottest old guy in one piece please", "I would let rayleigh ruin me and I would thank him", "Rayleigh to me is more like a really smooth mead"

Trafalgar Law: "DR. Slut", "He has them tattoos which makes me go fucking feral", "A stoner greasy boyfailure", "the edgy emo orphan boy with daddy issues", 'My tried stressed bitch"

Yamato: "I need my trans man big naturals...... I know nothing about one piece but yamato lives rent free in my brain and my heart at all times the only anime figure i have is of him and i don't even watch the fucking show", "he's new + he's trans + he's over 8 feet tall + he's a wolf god what more could you want?!", "he is filled to the brim with TRANSMASC SWAG", "it's transmasc dog boy swag for me he's my best boy", "Yamato's boobs call to me I need to motorboat yamato titties. whoa who said that", "yamato could crush me and i would thank him yes indeed", "I just found out Yamato is Literally a whole entire meter taller than me & that's all the convincing I need", "my canon transmasc king", "cant compete with is the fact that on top of beautiful yamato is just. fucking huge like i can not will not get over it every time i remember he's 8'7 in canon I'm like aaaAaaAaAAaAAAAaa kiss me on the mouth big boy", "as an aroace person. if yamato stepped on me id thank him. thank you for your time", "hes literally the whole reason i started watching/reading one piece

Zoro: "The President of the strawhat's local big titty committee", "The king of boobs", "Beautiful butch dyke wife", I would probably get an STD but it would be worth it, "his stupidity and gay attire make him very appealing", canonically the biggest tits in one piece, He got them big naturals, "Big honkabadonkaroo hoinkybadinkirs massive man tiddies Zoro", "Zoro oozes 'I won't let anyone hurt you' energy"

Zeff: "He will wine and dine me before leaving me lovingly bedridden the day after. And he actually takes care of his kid", "Zeff is honorable and can cook and clean and bathes and almost dies for a kid that's not his and then adopts him" He's got line cook energy. If you know you know

I definitely know I'm going to have to add to this since there's so many more characters and you all are definitely going to get more creative after seeing the list.

And a few observations. Why did Sanji make the daddy list and not Zoro? Characters that I thought would be short cliff notes turned into some of the longest sections And characters I thought would have some of the longest sections turned into some of the shortest ones. And I still think this was worse theyn JJK I just forget how unhinged this fandom can be because your unhinged craziness is dispersed amongst so many characters. And I haven't decided which fandom's next.

I now have my answer on why Sanji made the list and not Zoro. Overall the fandom is just thirsty so very thirsty. Hence the many updates to this list

#poll analysis #fandom trends #fandom #fandom culture #not a poll #one piece #nicknames and funny tags

[gaymurdersalad]

Hey Jack! I think Dave is.. looking for you. You should probably check on him-

>Looking for me?

>The bastard practically wanted me dead on Monday when I refused his little kid-killing scheme. Straight up left the restaurant and didn’t show his face again, he was so mad.

>Why in the hell would he suddenly be looking for me?

>Even if he was, I wouldn’t know the first place to fucking—

>Mmmmyyy body lies overrr the ocean, my boooody lies over the seaaaaa—

>I’mmm no gooood at astraaaaal projectionnnn, so brrriiiing back my bodddyyyyy to meeeee!

>Oh, holy fuck, I’vvvve nevvvver felt ssssooooooo… Un-Coporeal. Wuwuuuuugghh, what issss… Within it me is outside o’ me… And whaasss inside of mmmmeeeee is SOOOOOOOO much LSD.

>Hooooow’d I even ennnndup here? What the hell did you get yourself int’, you big clown? I’m not surrrre, I just woke up out hereeee, again… What would Henry think? Who cares! He hates mmmmeeee!! He pushed me aside he did, he did! How’d he do that, then? He says “Get ouuuuutta here, you purple menace you, and leave me the hell alone for as long as your pitiful life stays clinging to this wretched Earth!” Why’d he say such a thing? I duunnoooooo! Was it something you did? You’re always getting yourself into trouble, you. Please leaaaave me alone, leave me to rot here, you… Yew… Schtewpid bastard, you caaaan’t stop bothering me, both you AND him…

>I’ve never done nothing to warrant this! I’m yer friend, Davey! Yer nothin’ but some bassard keepin’ me angry, you rotten fuck you, I wish you’d both fuck off hand ‘n hand and go… Go stuff yourselves in a waterlogged springlock suit, fuck you!

>A VISSSSITOR. Who— Who arrives?!

>… Dave?

>Sportsy! Old Jack! Whateerrr yoooouuu doin’ here?! You smell different. Yer wearin’ that coat!

>… Jesus Christ, dude. I’ve never seen you this bad.

>Aannnnnd I’ve never seen yew so good lookin’, handsome.

>Alright… Let’s… Let’s get you up, it’s freezing out here, man.

>Ohhhh, yer sooooo warm, Sportsy… I juuuusssss wanna crawl inside yer skinnn and wear ya as a jacket… Heh! Jack-et!

>… Thank… You…? I’m going to ignore you for a bit, is that alright dude?

>Yew can do whateeeeeever yew want, cowboy, I juss love ya soooo much…

>We’re gonna go back to my place, okay buddy? Get you under some covers and make sure you don’t accidentally… Hurt yourself. Let you sit the rest of this out someplace comfortable.

>Yer… Yer takin’ care of me, baby?

>Only ‘cause I know you won’t remember it.

>Yer… Yer sucha nice boy, sucha sweet sweet tangerine, you…

>Y’know, I wus… I’ve been… feeling preeeety rancid lately, Sportsy. Henry… Kicked me to the curb again, said I don’t wantcha here, and I wus… wanted… spend time with ya, Sportsy, like old times, I wanted t’… I missed… yew. ‘Nd yer dumb stupid clementine face, that schtewpid beard— If… If Henry don’t want me, then I know… I wus always thinking, I thought— Sportsy’s there! There’ll alllllways be Sportsy! B— Because there ain’t Sportsy, it’s just me, and just me makes me wanna die. I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die when yer holdin’ me.

>I’m… It’s pretty fuckin’ radical… that yew still care. Still the… same rotten orange I knew and loved.

>…

>… I…

>I still care. It’s okay.

>It is?

>It’s okay.

>… Let’s… Get you home. Try and relax, we’re only a block away from my car. You can sleep when we’re on the road.

>Gnnaaaaarly… Road trip with Old Sport!

>Yeah, man, sure. Gnarly.

#murder salad #gaymurdersalad #salad lore

[verycharismaticdragon]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "verycharismaticdragon "?

I'm not the best at remembering things past the hyperfix, so half of this will be SV, but I'll start at prev fandoms for variety.

Artificial Nocturne (Motorcity) - I've read this ages ago but I remember it rearranging my brain chemistry. And making me realize I had a scar kink.

An Abomination, Grand Cleric Elthina's Murderer and the Herald of Andraste walk into a Bar (Dragon Age) - it's probably abandoned but it's so good. Anders and Varric in this are so *incoherent gesturing*

intra-personal negotiation (Venom) - I don't understand why I didn't bookmark a single Venom fic even though I distinctly remember like 5 straight bangers, but thankfully I'm following this author at least ✊

deathbed (Qi Ye) - that time I was whining there were no first life JBY/ZZS fics and then! Anyway it's understandably melancholy it's also very pretty and exactly right as it should be.

the good rain knows when to fall (TYK) - you should be reading Bichen's entire discography fic collection I just remembered this one first. This one is lighthearted old foxes clowning! The author's angst and cannibalism are also top-notch 👌

Ok now to SVSSS.

Joyed to be Forlorn - THE binghe fic for me. inspired me to start digging into Luo Binghe's character in a way that resulted in Transmigrator Time Traveler, hopefully thats recommendation enough

continued - possibly THE best fic in scum villain fandom. the format alone... oh just read it, you'll see what I mean.

A Child Once - again, i could rec Tossawary's entire discography, but this one is my personal favorite. (if your fav character is SQH though, the one you want is pride is not the word I'm looking for. aka THE sqh fic.)

sweet tongues, sharp teeth - unfinished but raw enough to lodge itself in my brain despite that.

Tale Within A Tale - cute as fuck. made me kick my legs and giggle many times. ...and because once I started pulling up SV fics it was difficult to stop...

side effects (rated E) - part 2 in particular didnt have to go so hard for a fic where the premise is 'bingqiu with tentacles'

don't underestimate me (rated E) - "all for the sake of preserving biodiversity!" god shen yuan SO would be in this situation.

The Best Luo Binghe (rated E) - binggeyuan. shen yuan SO would be in this situation, take 2.

put me in, coach (rated M) - bingqiushang. so fucking funny okay i love it so much

from your knees (rated E) - bingjiu. they're so rancid in this one its perfect 🖤

...Damn, this really puts the difference between my non-hyperfix and hyperfix memory into perspective, huh 😅 i actually had to trim the sv list a bit 😅😅😅

Anyway, yeah, my username actually just references an rp session we had with friends quite a few years back. Where at a certain point my character was referenced as "a VERY charismatic dragon" after managing to turn the antagonist by impressing them (thanks to some VERY lucky dice rolls). And I was dissatisfied with my old username at the time, and thought it sounded funny and snappy enough, so - stars aligned and all that. I'm happy with it still! Probably because dragons are always cool ✌️

#svsss #motorcity #dragon age #venom #qi ye #tian ya ke #<- for org purposes on my blog #😘 thanks for the ask!

[zoroclut]

Zoro hygiene headcanons

I think Zoro rightfully gets clowned for for his horrible hygiene practices but it makes perfect sense for him thinking about his background.

Zoro set out to sea at the age of 16 constantly wondering around East Blue. He didn’t have the same access to showers that he had in his home village. He was def stinkier during his time as the demon of the East Blue. Like can imagine how stinky he was during shells town? Poor Nami no wonder she was in a separate ship at the start Luffy and Zoro combined smells must of been rancid.

Also imo I think Zoro is stinkier between Luffy and Zoro. It’s the fact that Zoro is constantly working out and doesn’t shower daily. An average male athlete showers 3 times a day because how stinky they get after a work out. Zoro is disgusting smelling. Like Luffy is nasty bc he sweats but he doesn’t constantly work out like Zoro. It’s so funny how Sanji and Nami always get up in his face how do they not pass out?

Anyways I do got a few head canons about Zoro’s hygiene practices.

He’s a bad influence on Chopper

When Chopper first join Zoro told him he only needs to shower once a week. Chopper the naive and sweet child he is did as what Papa Zoro told him. It wasn’t until Robin joined Chopper was set straight. She started taking baths with him and chopper left the once a week club and showered every 2-3 days which I think is way better than once a week.

Sanji sets him straight

I love Zosan but there is no way in hell Zoro is dating Sanji with his bad hygiene habits. Sanji is a horny freak but he would never date a stinky guy like Zoro. He would have to draw the line. I think if they start dating Zoro would shower daily. Sanji would ease him into it and it would just be a daily thing after a while. I think it would influence Luffy to shower more too lmao.

His teeth is well groomed

I think the only part of his body he keeps well groomed is his teeth. It’s important for his fighting style so he keeps it up the best. That’s why he doesn’t eat sweets and he brushes twice. His breathe doesn’t smell like shit.

You know now that I’m typing this out Zosan is a stinky couple. Zoro got bad BO and Sanji had bad breathe. Match made in heaven 😭

#ronoroa zoro #sanzo #zosan #sanji vinsmoke #one piece

[bebop-station]

Shostakovich and Aziraphale

I was thinking (and talking to @balance-of-probability endlessly) about the choice to have Shostakovich's fifth symphony feature so heavily in S2 ep 1, and how it struck me as a little odd as there are a bunch of composers Aziraphale loves mentioned in the book and Shostakovich isn't amongst them.

Backstory: In 1934, Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk premiered to huge popular acclaim, which was very briskly walked back in 1936 after the Stalinist newspaper Pravda published an article denouncing it.

Actually more than denouncing it, condemning it. It wasn’t credited but was authored by a guy called David Zaslavsky who was almost definitely scribing for Stalin himself. Lady Macbeth was banned in the USSR until 1961.

Anyway by 1936 Shostakovich had written his fourth symphony, which he withdrew from public performance until 1961 because it was more of the same thing that had made the Soviet leadership cancel Lady Macbeth – it was unconventional, anti-patriotic, and indicated that Shostakovich was a “bourgeois formalist”.

So he shelved it and started working on Symphony No. 5 which is, on the surface at least, Soviet as fuck. And that’s what we hear Aziraphale listening to in S2E1.

(Sidebar this story is told in Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time which is either a literary wank soup or a masterpiece depending on how cranky you are when you first read it)

So basically what Dmitri Shostakovich did in those years between the fourth and fifth symphonies was something that might be familiar to S2E6 enjoyers/agonisers: he decided to toe the party line.

Kind of.

Listening to the finale of the fifth symphony (and if you want to listen along it’s the recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, it’ll be called something like Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47; iv. Allegro non troppo) without the context of the rest of the symphony or in fact Shostakovich’s life is like ah yes that’s a bit of a Soviet battle anthem let’s march into Leningrad or whatever.

But it is, as critics have increasingly understood in the years since Shostakovich demurely described it as “a Soviet artist's no-nonsense response to fair criticism”, dripping with irony. This man reviled the Stalinist line on art and life – he takes the Soviet anthem and turns it into a sort of fucked up evil clown march. The whole thing gives me this vibe:

(gif from @goodomensedit)

There’s a lot of stuff about that time in Shostakovich’s life that is extremely hard to verify. There’s a “memoir” which is for sure at least partially fabricated called Testimony in which there’s an alleged quote from our man saying that final movement is a parody, that “it's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing", and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing"."

Whether or not Shostakovich said that (some of his friends who outlived him support that reading, including Rostropovich who conducted a bunch of his work) you can definitely hear it in the piece and you can definitely see how it gives us a clue into the decision Aziraphale makes at the end of the season.

What Shostakovich had to decide back in the 1930s was whether he would a) flee to somewhere like the US, where many other artists targeted by Stalin went; b) stay and become a public nuisance, leading almost definitely to an off-the-books execution; or c) become a party-approved Soviet Artist and hope for change. Even nudge it along in a subtle way. Even get on the inside and work to bring it down. We don’t know how true that was for old mate Dmitri and we don’t yet know exactly what Aziraphale has planned. But yeah:

tl;dr: Shostakovich 🤝 Aziraphale

          Staying inside a rancid and destructive militarised culture in the hope that it can change

#aziraphale #go2 #good omens #good omens spoilers #ineffable husbands #azicrow #source: I am a radio producer who makes classical music documentaries and also a gay nerd

[veliseraptor]

actually though you know what, possibly the thing that drives me most insane about the feelings yakuza lurking about in mdzs fandom, specifically those dedicated to a really, really shallow moral dichotomy, is the way that. okay. how do I say this.

one of the things I found so deeply refreshing about getting into mdzs, and mxtx's other novels, when I did (and also the cnovels I've read in general, tbh), was getting into a text that seemed on first blush tailor-made to work for my general love of morally questionable characters who do bad things who are in awful situations often with no good solutions, and my specific distaste for both (a) morally didactic storytelling and (b) morality-obsessed fandom.

surely, thought I, this fandom, coming from a canon where the protagonist has done absolutely hideous things to people and presumably that's not a deal breaker, can be reasonable about not taking "did this character do bad things: if yes, then bad character must die, if no, then good character perfect angel" as the beginning, middle, and end of the matter. surely! finally, a place where I can lay down my arms and my weary head, cease bearing endless arguments about who's right or who's bad and who you're allowed to like, because, you know, surely it's obvious that's not the point here

and then. and then.

it just feels like, you know, finally feeling like I had a little corner of fandom where I could just roll around in people being terrible and coping badly with their problems and have the conversation not be dominated by circle-jerking about moral correctness, because that's what the text itself seemed to be actively disinterested in doing, and then here come a whole bunch of fucking clowns hellbent on making everything about morality all over again.

and I truly cannot overstate how much I don't care about that as a lens of "analysis" (to give it a generous name), but I also cannot overstate how much it feels like everybody thinks I should care, and how tiring it is to feel like I'm once again just soaking in a downpour of people yelling about how morally upright and correct they are when like. I came here specifically because I, foolishly, thought this wasn't what we were going to be doing.

i'm just extremely fucking tired and it feels like things have been particularly rancid lately. which sure sucks the joy out of doing things like "writing fic" let me tell you

#lise's aggressively bitchy opinions about irrelevant and unimportant matters #important text posts

[shinelikethunder]

You mentioned in one of ur posts abt dunking on agents of shield and im so curious what writing you were talking abt (genuine question i love AOS but i’m bad at recognising bad writing lmao and i’m nosy)

under a readmore because AoS is one of the few bad shows i've ever given enough fucks about to outright fucking loathe

i made it through all of, like, two seasons before i ragequit, so i can't speak to anything it did afterwards, but i am always down to clown on those two seasons for being creepy culty police-state apologia, having one of the most egregious cases i've ever seen of "entire fictional universe contorted into a rube goldberg machine whose sole job is to frantically prop up a shambling putrid mess of protagonist-centric morality," spending its CA:TWS tie-in throwing spite tantrums at the whole movie for having the gall to suggest that Maybe The Real Tyranny Was The Post-9/11 Security State We Built Along The Way, devolving from mediocre but serviceable case-of-the-week in s1 to undifferentiated arc-plot mush in s2...

like i know the fandom likes to wank eternally about Ward, but he was at most a moderately entertaining symptom of a show that never met a jackboot it didn't want to fellate sloppy style, yet lacked the skill to even make a point except by flinging ever-more-ludicrous strawmen at the screen. its tragedy was always that the characters were just likeable enough to make you wanna scoop them up and find them a forever home on a show that was slightly less dogshit.

obviously different people watch shows for different reasons and get completely different things out of them; i assume AoS fans have their own aspects they're invested in, likely involving the characters and having very little to do with the show's politics. i'm not accusing them of anything except, like, dubious collective taste in character-centric flamewars. but i cannot watch it without going into a white-hot rage and wasting more words on it than it deserves, and my mid-2010s back catalog of stupid fucking hills to die on includes "my reasons for finding this show rancid may not be relevant to your viewing priorities, but they are an unassailably fucking valid reading of those first couple of seasons."

#untagged/unrebloggable because i don't foresee my opinions of s1-2 ever changing and have no desire to join AoS fandom's local food fights

[twisted-wonderland-but-gayer]

would love for Yuu to drop an absolurely rancid fact about our world onto the boys and then just gloss right over it bc it's honestly no big deal to them

ex. 1

Yuu: that reminds me of the killer clowns that were everywhere in 2016

twst boy(s): ?!?!?!

Yuu: yeah that was wild...are you gonna eat that?

twst boy(s): you're just gonna move on past that like it's normal????

Yuu: yeah?

twst boy(s): ???

ex. 2

Yuu: yeah mushrooms are cool. there's actually a species of fungi in my world that are eating the radiation and waste in Chernobyl, which is slowly making the area safe again

Jade: what is Chernobyl?

Yuu: oh it's this Russian town that had a massice nuclear meltdown that basically poisoned and irradiated the entire area

Jade: ...nuclear meltdown?

Yuu: yeah nuclear! ya know, like the force behind nukes and such?

Jade: what are nukes??

Yuu: they're these bombs that basically wipe out 20 miles of area and cause even more damage with radiation poisoning. they're very bad

Jade: oh...and you want to returm to this world????

I WAS ACTUALLY THINKING OF THE CHERNOBYL MUSHROOMS AND RADIDURUS CAUSE I HAVE A MAD SCIENTIST OC.

Honestly though imagine telling people completely wild history facts. "Yeah back when my grandpa was a kid they'd have nuke drills in school. Yknow to prepare us for nuclear fallout. Never understood why they stopped doing it, considering the nuke threat is even greater now" and watch them all stare in silence

#not writing #not requests #honeydeer

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Mycelial Remnants

Read on Ao3

Warnings: nightmares, body horror (light), panic attack

Pairings: none

Word Count: 6901

Rose is having strange dreams. Not just strange because, you know, mold and all that, but strange because they don't...feel like hers. The Megamycete remembers far more than any of them realized, and with it come some interesting challenges.

 

Creak. Creak. Creak.

The floorboards warp and shape themselves to her shoes as she creeps through the hallway. The light from outside glows with a sickly radiance, shadows from the bugs flying around giving it an almost static-like flicker. Rose swallows through the thick air and gags on the smell of rotting fish.

The building shudders.

She glances over her shoulder. The shadows keep dancing along the cracking walls, the putrid smell of rancid something emanating from a crevice in the floorboards. She keeps moving, further and further, passing through a moldy door and into a poorly lit dining room.

Four figures sit at the table. One crawls with vermin: centipedes, crawfish, grubs. One sits completely immobile, crystallized and oddly beautiful in its milky-white stillness. One shifts constantly between two forms; first, its torso grows impossibly long, its spine reticulating like some crazy snake with its head waggling from the bed, and then it morphs into a swap creature with a horrifying gas-mask-like protrusion coming from the part where its face should be. And back again. The fourth is by far the most humanoid, but it has a clown face and keeps shedding bits of its fingers, making a horrible wheezing sound that could be laughter.

The plates in front of them are covered in mold.

Mine, the voice in Rose’s gut whispers, mine. My family. They were mine.

Her feet take a step forward without her permission.

Mine, the voice says again, as Rose's hand reaches out for the molded plates, mine, come join my family, my family, mine, mine mine—

Rose blinks and she’s no longer standing. Instead, she’s in an old wheelchair. Tendrils of mold grow around her. Something burns in her veins. She’s crying. Is she crying? Black mold is tearing out of her eyes. She blinks and coughs, trying to clear it, and she looks up and sees—

“Rose!”

Rose shoots up in bed, breathing hard. She scrabbles at her chest, half-expecting to meet the horrible mold but instead she just feels her pajama shirt. She blinks. She wipes at her face. Clear tears shine from her shaking fingers. She falls forward in relief and exhaustion both.

“Shit.”

A tiny sparkle out of the corner of her eye and she gets out to bed to turn on the fairy lights. It takes less than a second for her dad’s words to appear.

rose?

“Nightmare,” she grits out, “sorry.”

The words swirl.

don’t apologize, it’s ok

She just nods, clenching and unclenching her fists in the blankets. The smell is still stinging her nostrils and she scrubs a hand under her nose to get rid of it. She looks down at her hand again.

“Were you—could you see it?” She pulls her knees to her chest. “My nightmare?”

could tell you were upset, couldn’t see

“Oh.”

why?

Rose chews on her lip. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to tell her dad about her nightmare, but it feels…weird, somehow. Like she’s revealing something she shouldn’t. Out of habit more than anything else, she glances up at the camera in the corner of the room.

“I heard you,” she says finally, “I heard you say my name. Then I was able to wake up.”

Her dad’s familiar bittersweet feeling tugs in her gut and she fumbles for a pillow, hugging it to her chest. The scrawl of his words comes a moment later, resting warmly against her stomach. She glances over to the lights and sees his i love you rose gleaming on the wall.

“I love you too.”

do you think you can go back to sleep?

She lies back down, still hugging the pillow to her chest. “Will you stay with me?”

always, sweetie

She does manage to fall back to sleep, but the image of that dining room doesn’t leave her mind.

***

2.

She lurches through a dank, cold hallway, if it can even be called a hallway anymore. Mold has long since claimed the walls and ceiling, the floor scarcely more than wet mud and squishing wood. Above her, she can hear muffled voices: one saying something about dinner, something about the storm, something about Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister. A bug flies in her mouth and dies there.

She has to keep moving. She just has to keep moving.

There’s a door in here. She stumbles through the mouth of the room and to the wooden wall across it—no, no, there was a door here. There was a door here! She pounds against the wood, why won’t they let her out? Why can’t they set her free?

Mommy? Mommy, where are you going? Daddy’s here.

She turns around and through the dark hallway, she sees him. The murkiness in her vision clears and she can see him. He’s here, he’s really here.

He turns towards her, seeing her, and as she lurches toward him, he—

She’s falling through the bottom of the house into deep swamp water. It fills her nose and her ears and she hears someone crying Mommy, Daddy, why do you hate me?

A hand grabs her collar and she turns and sees nothing but golden sparkles.

Her eyes open and she’s staring at the ceiling of her room, breathing heavily again. She gets out of bed and turns on the fairy lights, slumping against the wall just to feel her dad’s words. Her fingers start to glow a pale silvery light as the golden sparkles appear.

another one?

“Yeah,” she mumbles, “I was—it was the same one. Kind of.”

The words swirl for a little longer than normal: he’s thinking.

do you want to talk about it?

Rose opens her mouth, but that same hesitation is back. It’s not the same tug she gets when she’s picking up Dad’s emotions, nor when the mold is trying to get her to sort out what she’s feeling, but it’s…something. Something that’s enough to still her tongue. She reaches under her shirt to pull out the ring, running her fingers over the smooth metal. She touches the engraved words.

The feeling she’d had in the dream, of seeing Dad and needing to move towards him, flickers through her chest.

“Do you think if I asked Chris to let me look at the Baker family files, he’d let me?”

Surprise ripples through their connection before the next words appear.

maybe, depending on why you ask

She fiddles with the ring. Dad’s smart. He can figure out why she’s asking. Sure enough, new words appear a moment later.

be careful, rose

“I know.” No one calls her Eveline to her face anymore, but she’d be an idiot not to notice the looks some of them give her when they think she can’t see. “I’ll be careful. I just…have a feeling.”

if it gets worse, will you tell chris or mom?

At seeing the word ‘Mom,’ the sting in her nostrils returns. She scrubs a hand under her nose. “Yeah, I will.”

thank you

“Mhm.”

wish i could do more

She smiles and holds out her hand, her fingertips glowing. His words glow stronger in return. “You’re doing enough already.”

When she falls back asleep that night, it’s with her dad’s ring clutched in her hand and his words under her head, right along her pillow. But she can still hear faint cries of Mommy and Daddy in her ears, and smell the stench of rotting wood.

She makes a note the next morning to ask Mom about buying a scented candle or something.

***

3.

“Focus, Rose. Try again.”

Rose gives herself a shake and squares up. Across the mat, so does Chris. He lowers his shoulder and invites her to charge. She tries to get low, under his guard, but he kicks her back and nearly sends her off-balance.

“Plant your weight more, make it harder for me to shove you. Again.”

”Easy for you to say when you’re built like a brick shit house.”

He cracks a smile and she swears he lets her ram into him just to prove she can’t knock him over. “Again.”

But no matter what she tries, she just can’t do it. Instead, about two minutes later, she’s on her back with Chris’s arm pinning her down by her shoulders. her breath catches in her throat a little bit and the tug in her gut reappears, but she forces herself to breathe slowly and it gradually goes away.

It’s just sparring. I’m in the compound. I’m with Chris. Chris won’t hurt me.

Chris is frowning at her by the time she gets herself together. He stands up, offering her a hand. She wobbles a bit when she stands up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

He frowns harder when she wobbles again, one hand out to steady her as he does a not-so-subtle wellness check. She bites back a curse. She knows she’s been off all day, it’s a miracle it’s taken him this long to notice.

Normally, he’d tell her to shake it off and go again, or he’d do his manly-I’m-going-to-take-care-of-you-without-acknowledging-any-emotions thing, but lately he’s actually been…a human? Sort of? So he looks at her tell him she’s fine and grabs their water bottles.

The first sip she takes, the metallic taste of water that’s been sitting in a bottle too long almost makes her retch. Suddenly the room feels claustrophobic, the air getting too hot and oppressive, and she swallows the film of something thick and gelatinous forming on her tongue.

“Can we go outside?”

“Sure.”

Chris leads the way out to one of the smaller courtyards in between the compound’s larger buildings. Rose sags onto one of the benches and tips her head back, breathing in the fresh, cool air. Some part of her brain mentions that it’s too dry and cold here for mold to grow like that, and she can drink her water without gagging on it. She can see Chris watching her out of the corner of her eye, but he doesn’t say anything.

With her dad’s warning ringing in her ears, she steels herself.

“Chris?”

“Mm?”

“Will you tell me about the Baker family?”

He lowers his water bottle slowly, turning to look at her. Despite the bundle of nerves in her stomach, she manages to hold his gaze.

“That’s classified information, Rose,” he says lowly, “why do you want to know?”

She looks down at her hands. Her dream from the night before plays out again before her eyes: running over rickety docks to the sound of laughing clowns and snapping gators, of coughing from the acrid smoke of burning buildings and a crashed car, and then hearing her dad’s voice call out for her again before she woke up.

And at the edge of the fire, the four figures from the dining room just standing there, watching.

“Rose?”

Right. “I’ve…been having these dreams. I think they’re about what happened in Louisiana, and I just…I want to know.”

By the way Chris shifts next to her, she can tell his mind is racing with all the possibilities of what that could mean, how much danger she’s in, how much danger they’re in by proxy, and what the hell he’s supposed to tell her. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

”The E-type mutamycete infected a family in rural Louisiana. The contagious spread to the nearby swamp. Many people were killed before we were able to contain it.”

”Who were they?”

“The people who died?”

“The family.”

Chris takes another deep breath. “The father was Jack Baker. Mother was Marguerite. Kids were Lucas and Zoe.”

Jack, Marguerite, Lucas, Zoe. “What happened to them?”

“Rose, I—“

“Please,” she says before she can stop herself, “please, I…I need to know.”

Chris looks at her a little strangely but he nods. “Marguerite was dead by the time we got there. Jack…took a little longer. Lucas escaped into the salt mines near the Baker estate before we managed to track him down. Zoe was the only survivor. Without…”

He sighs, looking off into the distance.

“Without Ethan or Joe, I don’t think she would’ve made it.”

“Joe?”

“Joe Baker. Jack’s brother. He lived near them but not near enough that he got caught up in everything. He’s the one who ended up killing Jack and getting the cure for Zoe.” There’s a pause, then he huffs a laugh. “That man took on a whole swap full of bioweapons with nothing but his fists and a few tree branches.”

“Wait, he didn’t have a gun or anything?”

“He got his hands on a prototype gauntlet near the end of it, but for the most part?” Chris shook his head. “He punched his way through.”

She laughs. “Sounds like you two must’ve gotten along great. Did you tell him about the time you punched a boulder?”

“There wasn’t a lot of time for small talk. And who told you that story?”

“Which time?”

Chris groans, putting his head in his hands. Rose laughs. “They haven’t been telling you any other stories, have they?”

“None that were nearly as interesting.”

“Small victories,” he mutters before looking at her. “Does that answer your questions?”

Rose taps her fingers against her water bottle. She can put the names to the figures now; Jack and his ever-shifting body, Marguerite and the crawling bugs, Lucas and the clown, and Zoe with her still crystalline form. But underneath it all, the mold and the voice crying out for her Mommy and Daddy…

Well, there’s only one option for who that could be.

“What do you think Eveline was doing there?”

Chris leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. For a moment, neither of them says anything. Then he sighs. “They said she just wanted a family.”

“A family?”

“Aside from being an incredibly dangerous bioweapon, she was for all intents and purposes a ten-year old kid. From what the reports said, she was trying to lure people to the estate to be a part of her family. hence why the Bakers referred to her as their kid, and why…”

“Why she took Mom and used her to get Dad to come,” Rose finishes.

“Yeah.” Chris scrubs a hand over his face. “And I shouldn’t be talking about any of this with you.”

“Thank you, Chris. Really.”

He hums, turning to look at her. “You said you’ve been having nightmares?”

“…I mean technically, I said dreams, but…”

“But they’re nightmares.”

She fiddles with the cap of her water bottle. “Yeah.”

“Are…uh…should we be telling Dr. Porter?”

Rose makes a face. “He’d just put me on meds or tell the guards to keep a closer eye on me.”

“He’s supposed to be there to help you, Rose.”

“Yeah, but he’s like the other scientists. He’s not like an actual therapist. He cares more about securing the bioweapon, not actually helping me.”

Chris is quiet for a moment and only then does she realize how acidic her voice got. She winces, getting ready to apologize, only for Chris to say: “Do you want to talk to someone else?”

“Is there someone else?”

“Some of the members of the Hound Wolf Squad talk to a psychiatrist. He would probably see you too.”

“What’s he like?”

“The others say he’s—“

“Wait, you’ve never been?”

“Only once or twice.” Rose narrows her eyes at him and to her surprise, Chris nearly chokes on his sip of water. “Damnit, Rose.”

“What? What did I do?”

“That’s exactly the face Ethan made when I told him the same thing.”

“Well, then you should go to therapy.”

“Let’s see about getting you an appointment before we worry about me, okay?”

They sit there in the quiet for a few more moments.

“In all seriousness,” Chris says lowly, “if you really want to know more about Eveline? Ask Mia. She probably knows the most out of any of us.”

“Okay.”

“And if the nightmares—you know you can call me if you need anything, right?”

Rose takes another drink of water. “Michael helps.”

“That’s good.”

“…and yeah, thanks, Chris.”

He rubs her shoulder. “Tell you what, you take me down today and I’ll take you out for ice cream, how’s that?”

“Can it be burgers instead?”

“Oh, that’s gonna need to be a two out of three.”

“You’re on.”

***

4.

She doesn’t ask Mom about it the next time she meets up to go shopping. Nor the next time. Nor the next time. Every time she thinks about it, every time she almost does, but then she gets a horrible aching feeling in her gut and she changes her mind.

Then she has a dream about a boat, twisting and turning in a violent storm, choked with mold and filled with screams, and she knows she has to at least try.

They get smoothies—Chinatown has the best smoothies, Rose won’t hear any arguments—and go to sit in a nearby park. The weather still isn’t warm enough to go without some sort of jacket, but it’s warm enough when they sit in the sun to have her coat open. Mom’s telling her about some annoying client at work that won’t shut up about due process and they just finished laughing about some stupid paperwork thing.

She takes a deep breath.

”Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I want to ask you about Eveline.”

Mom freezes. Her hands shudder for a second. Then she forces a laugh and shakes her head. “Why would you want to ask me about that?”

“I’ve been having these nightmares and I talked to Chris—he said that if I had questions about Eveline, I should ask you.”

Something flickers across Mom’s face. Then she smiles her big smile again. “They’re just nightmares, Rosie. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

Rose frowns. “I know that, Mom.”

Mom nods and turns away like that’s the end of the conversation. “So, I was saying to Lila—“

“Why did she want a family so bad?”

Mom’s mouth twitches. “Rose, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“But you were with her before the boat crashed. You knew her before she went crazy and infected all those people. If you know something, then—“

“Rose!” The sharpness of Mom’s voice makes her stop. Mom glances around and leans closer, words a hiss. “I left that life a long time ago, before you were even born. I don’t know what Chris told you, but I’m not discussing this with you. End of story.”

”She called you ‘Mommy.’”

Mom’s face goes pale. Her eyes widen. Her knuckles turn white around the smoothie cup. “Who told you that?”

“I—uh—I just—“

Mom’s eyes narrow. Suddenly, she’s not looking at her mom asking about her nightmares. She’s looking at the face of the researcher who worked for a criminal organization developing a bioweapon. Her throat runs dry and she curls up a little.

“How long have you been having these nightmares?”

“…not that long, Mom—“

“Does Chris know about them?” Without waiting for an answer she pulls out her phone and starts typing. “Maybe they can get you in a neural scan while you’re having one, see what—“

Anger flares up. “I don’t need to be experimented on, Mom—“

“If you’re accessing Eveline’s memories, then maybe you should.”

“What happened to them just being nightmares?”

“These aren’t ordinary nightmares.” Mom doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Considering what you are, I’m not—“

“What I am? What I am? I’m not your daughter anymore, I’m just some crazy bioweapon?” Mom still won’t look up. Rose reaches out and grabs her arm “Mom—“

”Don’t touch me!”

The force of Mom’s shout draws the attention of a nearby dog. It barks at the once, curious. Then it turns and runs back to its owner.

Rose feels cold. Pulling her hand back seems more like an afterthought. She curls up on the bench. Her smoothie is burning ice in her hand. Mom is breathing hard next to her. She looks pointedly at the ground and doesn’t move until she hears Mom’s breaths slow.

Neither of them says anything else until Paul comes to bring Rose back to the compound.

Rose doesn’t hug Mom goodbye. She doesn’t even say goodbye. She just gets in the car and doesn’t pay attention to anything Paul says until she’s back in her room and she can curl up into a ball of her bed and try to sort out which feeling of being abandoned is hers and which is Eveline’s.

Some time after the sun goes down, she sees Dad’s golden sparkle out of the corner of her eye coming from the floor on the far side of the bed. She rolls over. It comes from the wall too. She gets out of bed and turns on the lights.

what happened?

“I tried to ask Mom about Eveline.”

The words swirl around and around and around. Almost like Dad can’t work out what it is he wants to say. Eventually it settles.

did she hurt you?

“Who, Mom?” Rose scoffs. “I’m the big bad bioweapon, shouldn’t you be asking if I hurt her?”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she wants to claw them back. But it’s too late and Dad’s already writing again,

so she did hurt you

Rose sticks her nose into her pillow. She’s not going to cry about this. She’s not.

“…she told me not to touch her,” she sniffles.

she didn’t mean it, rosie

“She did. She thinks that I’m—that I’m getting her memories and she’s trying to come back through me.”

memories are hard, that’s not your fault

She sniffles again, wrapping the jacket over her nose. She didn’t ask for the nightmares. She didn’t ask to see the Baker family in their rotting house in the infected swamp. She didn't ask to have Eveline’s emotions running through her veins, even though Eveline herself has been dead since before she was born.

She didn’t mean to make Mom so upset.

Her hand moves to her pocket. She takes out her phone. She opens her texts. She clicks on the one at the top.

She types sorry and hits send.

When she falls asleep that night, she’s in an endless swamp of mold. Cold wind blows mercilessly through every dying tree and the water burns when it laps greedily at her sprawled legs. Dead and rotting molded creatures wail in pain as part of them crystallize and shatter, other parts staying fleshy and sodden as the swamp absorbs them. She’s on her knees. She’s crying.

She just wanted Mom.

***

5.

Chris picks up on the first ring. “Rose?”

She chokes out a sob behind her hand. Shuffling from Chris’s end.

“Are you still in your room?” She can hear him throwing on his coat.

“Y-yeah.”

“I’m on my way. Are you hurt?”

“N-no.” She sniffles. His voice gentles just a little.

“I’m coming, Rose. I’ll be right there,”

Rose just sniffles again, burying her face in the pillow. Dad writes on it again and again, i love you, you’re safe, i'm here, i love you, but it’s not enough. Through the phone, she can hear Chris cursing the elevator for being so slow and the thud of his footsteps as he moves through the compound.

“Chris?” She hiccups a sob. “Chris?”

“I’m almost there, Rose, I swear.”

Sure enough, it’s barely a few minutes later when there's a jingle behind the door and Chris is bursting in, phone still in one hand, coat thrown haphazardly over his fatigues. Rose drops the phone, not bothering to hang up, reaching for him and he hurries over to take her in his arms.

“Hey, hey,” he says lowly, gruff voice no longer distorted by the phone, “hey, Rose, it’s okay. You’re okay, it’s over now. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

She just buries her face in the crook of his neck and sobs. He adjusts his grip to hold both her and the Dad-pillow. Distantly, she registers him asking what happened.

“Nightmare again? How bad?” A pause. “Do you know what it was about?”

Rose squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t want to go back there. She doesn’t want those things in her head anymore.

Chainsaws—knives—fire burning and the smell of charred flesh—bugs and grubs and darkness and filth and pain pain pain—cold steel and screaming mold and trip wires and explosions and laughing laughing laughing clowns and bugs and swamp water like quicksand and gleaming needles and it’s so dark, it’s so dark, it’s so cold, it hurt, it hurt, it hurts it hurts it hurts—

“Rose! Rose!”

Golden sparks and she’s staring up at Chris’s face, gasping for breath with tears on her cheeks. His eyes roam her face and find…something, because then he’s softening and cupping her cheek with his hand and brushing a tear from her jaw.

“Hey,” he says, gentler than she would have thought his capable of, “stay with me, Rose. Can you do that for me? Just stay with me, in this room?”

She nods, still gasping. Chris rubs her back, taking deep slow breaths himself. Her chest just won’t stop aching like it’s going to explode.

“Eyes here. Eyes on me.” She looks. “Good. I’m gonna count for you, okay? I want you to try and follow the counting.”

“O-okay.”

“In for one, two, three, four, good, now out for one, two, three, four, five, six—that’s alright,” he says when she can’t get it, “just try again, ready, in for one, two, three, four…”

It takes her six more tries to get it so she’s no longer about to pass out. Chris won’t hear any of her mumbling and stuttering apologies, ruffling her hair and telling her he’s happy she called him. She’s still sobbing a bit when he asks her if she wants something to drink and when he tries to move away, she won’t let him.

“It’s right over there, Rose, you’ll be able to see me the whole time.” She just clings to him. “Rose…”

Dad’s sparkles almost sound like he’s laughing.

she’s stubborn

“Yeah, wonder where she gets that from,” Chris mutters.

i ever tell you about pink shirt?

“Pink shirt? What pink shirt?”

wore it holding rose, she loved it, slept on floor next to her crib

Chris’s chest rumbles under her ear as he laughs. The words swirl as Dad laughs too before reforming.

you got in bed first

“Yeah, yeah,” Chris grumbles, before arms slide around Rose and lift her up like she doesn’t weigh anything, “my back can’t take sleeping on the floor anymore.”

Rose sniffles, still holding onto his shoulders. “Old man.”

“Shut up or I’ll drop you,” he says, like a liar, as he carefully lays her down in the middle of the bed and lets her pull him to lie down too. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.” Now that the worst of the panic has passed, she feels a bit embarrassed at how she basically fell apart all over him. “Sorry.”

“What? No, Rose—look at me.” She does. “I’m happy you called me. I told you, anything, okay?”

“…thanks, Chris.”

He nods. “What did the doc say?”

“I have trauma, apparently—“ Chris stifles a snort— “which is making the nightmares worse, but as for the rest of it…he’s not sure how much of it’s just me being part of the Megemycete and how much is…”

Chris hums as she trails off. Rose’s gaze drifts toward the wall where the golden sparkles are still drifting around. As she turns fully, they consolidate.

i’m so proud of you, sweetie, i love you

“I love you too—“ but the ache is back. She’s choking on her tears again and Chris is reaching out for her— “c-can you call M—?”

The word ‘mom’ dies in her mouth.

Chris frowns, but he’s already reaching for his phone. Rose shuffles as close to him as she dares, burying her face in his shoulder. She grabs the pillow for support as the phone starts to ring.

“Mia? It’s late, I know. No, no, everything’s fine, it’s just…” He looks down at her. She can’t meet his eyes. “Rose had a nightmare. She wants to talk to you.”

A moment later, the phone is gently pushed into her hand. She’s shaking as she holds it up to her ear.

“M—hi?”

“Hey, honey,” comes the voice and some part of Rose is screaming, “I’m sorry you had a nightmare, are you okay?”

She sniffles. Her tongue hurts. Her stomach is twisted into thick black knots. She hears Dad write something and then Chris’s arm is around her and she’s choking a sob into the phone before she can stop herself.

��Oh, Rosie,” she hears, “I’m so sorry. I’m here now, okay? I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“

“Shh, shh, honey, it’s okay. Let’s not worry about that right now. Can you take some deep breaths for me?”

Her hands are shaking so badly she almost drops the phone. Chris takes it from her and taps a button, setting it between them.

“You’re on speaker now, Mia,” he says, “hey, come on, Rose. Do you need me to count again?”

She shakes her head, grabbing a pillow and burying her face in it. Chris’s arm stays around her and gold glows out of the corner of her eye.

“Rose? Rosie, honey, are you still there?”

“E—uh, Michael says to give her a minute.”

“Is…is he there too?”

“Yeah.”

They’re all here. All three of them. Chris is here, holding her, Dad is here in her arms, and M—

“M—M—Mo—“ The words won’t come out of her mouth. “C-can you talk about your work again?”

There’s a pause, but only a small one.

“Did I tell you that someone wanted to redo all of the paperwork just so it would fit the printer margins automatically?”

Rose sniffles and puts her chin on the pillow. ”They what?”

She listens to the story about incompetent people not knowing how use computers and trying to staple with staplers that weren’t filled with the right staples. Chris huffs in a few places, still rubbing Rose’s back. Slowly, she starts to calm down again, properly this time, just as the story winds down to an incident involving a pitcher of iced tea, a dish towel, and a fight over a dry cleaning bill.

“Why would you wear something that has to be specially cleaned to an office?”

“It’s called a sense of style, Chris.”

“Hey! I’ve got style!” To which both of them make disbelieving noises and even Dad writes a sardonic sure, buddy across the pillow. “You’re all just jealous.”

For the first time all night, Rose manages to laugh. The tension visibly goes out of Chris as he hears it and over the phone, she hears a sigh of relief.

“You feeling better, honey?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She toys with the frayed seam on the blanket. “Can…can I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, honey, I’d like that. As long as Chris says it’s okay.”

“I’ll get O'Shaughnessey to sign off on it. It’ll be fine.”

“Can we get smoothies?”

A laugh. “Sure. It’s a plan.”

“I…I love you.”

“I love you too, honey. You try and get some sleep now, okay?”

“Okay.”

Chris reaches out and hangs up the call, beginning to type a message to the psychiatrist. Rose cuddles the pillow to her chest, feeling the familiar words write themselves across it. The enormity of how exhausted she is suddenly crashed onto her shoulders and keeping her eyes open a second longer feels like trying to lift up a building.

Chris must feel her start to sag because there are hands coaxing her under the blanket, plugging her phone back in to charge. She fumbles blindly for him and he takes her hand, giving it a squeeze.

“I’ll stay until you fall asleep, okay?” She hums. “Get some rest, Rose. We’ll go see Mia tomorrow.”

Luckily, she doesn't have any more dreams that night and Dr. O'Shaughnessey lets her and Chris have the day to go off base. She's not too proud to admit she hides behind Chris a little bit when they first get out of the car, but he none-to-gently pushes her forward.

"Hey, honey," M—she gets asked, "how are you doing?"

"I'm okay."

"Did you manage to get some sleep?" Rose nods. "Good. Well, come on. Smoothies this way."

They get the smoothies. They go sit in the park. M—Chris and her make small talk. Rose doesn't say anything. She nods when they ask her questions and fiddles with the edge of the label until it comes off the cup. She notices the two of them go quiet and looks up to see them both looking at her.

"Rose, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

Chris looks at her and then looks at M—looks at her and she sighs. "Can I drive you back to my house? There's…some things we have to talk about."

Part of her wants to ask if she can ride with Chris, but the gross mess of feelings in her gut doesn't let her do anything other than nod and get in the car. The ride is…difficult, especially because she keeps trying to start a conversation but Rose won't—can't—say anything other than one-word answers. When they finally get to her house, she silently accepts the glass of water and curls as much into the other side of the couch as she can.

Somewhere, she knows she's being ridiculous. She shouldn't be reacting this way—how many teenagers fought with their parents? How many times has she had a fight with her m—

But not every teenager was a mold person. Not every parent used to work for a bioterrorist organization. Not every family was haunted by terrible trauma around the concept of family.

"Rose?"

She blinks. She looks up. M—Mia is staring at her. She shakes her head. "Sorry. Zoned out."

"That's okay. I…I'm sorry." She looks down at her hands wrapped around her own glass. "I shouldn't have shouted at you."

"It's okay."

"No, Rose, it's not. You…" She sighs. "I was expecting you to get curious about Eveline at some point. I just…wasn't expecting it that day."

Rose shuffles. "I'm sorry. I should've been more careful."

"Rose? Can you look at me?" Rose looks up. "What did you want to know about Eveline?"

Rose glances at Chris. Chris nods. She looks back. "Why did she want a family so bad?"

M—Mia sighs. "I think it was a side effect of her being a little girl growing up quarantined in a facility by herself, for the most part. Me and the other person who were overseeing her transport, they had us masquerading as her parents. She was always obsessed with being a real family."

"So…you were just there?" Mia looks confused. "She wanted you to be her m—she wanted to be your daughter, it wasn't—she didn't find you, or something, you were just the person assigned to be her m—her family?"

She gets a silent nod, but now both of them are looking at her strangely. She looks back at her glass of water. It feels…odd to know that Eveline wasn't trying to find Mia on purpose, not outside of the fact that she'd been assigned to be her family. Part of her is angry that it could've been someone else and her family could've been spared this, part of her is relieved that it was mostly chance, that there wasn't something unique about Mia or her dad that made Eveline want to go for them specifically, and part of her…

Part of her knows what it's like to have a mother voluntarily leave.

While she's been pondering, though, she's missed the silent conversation that Mia and Chris are having that ends with a gentle touch on her arm.

"Rosie," Mia says, "Rosie, look at me."

She does. Mia hesitates for a moment, before she reaches out and takes her face. "What?"

"You are my daughter. Not Eveline, not anybody else. You, Rosemary Winters. I'm your mom."

Everything in Rose freezes.

She takes a shaky breath.

She looks at Mia's—at her mom's face.

"M…Mom?"

"Yeah, honey," Mom says, scooting closer on the couch, "I'm here. I'm right here, okay? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

And suddenly she can't stop it. She's rambling about her nightmares, about how scared she is, about Eveline, about being sorry, sorry, so sorry, everything, everything, everything, because her mom is here and that's what moms do, they listen and they help and they love and Rose is so tired, so scared, so lonely and she just wants her mom to know how much she needs her sometimes, is that so wrong?

Mom holds her. Mom just holds her. She cries with the relief of it.

***

+1.

Rose is falling.

Or, well, she’s moving downward through something, passing by flashes of the swamp, the burning house, the moldy ship, built it’s like she’s outside of them somehow now. She falls toward an image of a desecrated trailer and its doors open. She falls through and hits the ground, shivering from the sudden cold.

She looks around. She’s in a vast, barren plain that’s half frozen, half covered in mud and mold. She pulls her jacket closer around her and walks forward. It’s weirdly similar to where she and Dad fought Miranda, only this time there aren’t any of the weird mold trees or…much of anything at all. It’s just…flat.

She becomes startlingly aware that this doesn’t feel like a dream. She knows somehow it must be, there’s no way she would be here otherwise, but she feels like…herself. She’s Rose in this moment, she’s not some weird amalgamation of herself and Eveline, she’s not just passively experiencing the things that the dreams do to her, she’s…she’s here.

And she’s walking.

Just to check that she really can control what’s going on right now, she stops. She turns around. She walks in the other direction for a few seconds. She stops again. She looks down at her hands. She reaches for her powers and her fingertips glow.

Something in the ground glows too. Gold.

“Dad?”

The ground gives way underneath her and she tumbles into darkness.

She lands on her hands and knees in the cold snow. Standing, she brushes it off and looks up to see the house Dad had showed her in the Megamycete in the distance. Snow falls around it. Three figures stand at the base of its steps.

Mom. Dad. Chris.

A crackling sound makes her turn and she sees the Baker house rising up out of the earth, surrounded by still-burning brambles and rotting wood. The four Bakers still stand outside: Jack, Marguerite, Lucas, Zoe.

Silhouetted in the fog, far, far away, she sees the shadow of the massive castle she’d run through in the first stratum.

”No wonder no one loves me.”

Rose whirls around. She definitely heard Eveline’s voice, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She turns again, trying to figure out where that might have come from, only to see her.

Eveline is on the ground in front of her, on her knees, her shoulders shaking.

Rose slowly walks over to her. Eveline doesn’t even notice. She looks around for something to do, some sort of sign for what she’s supposed to do, but there’s nothing. And as she looks, the houses begin to fade. The figures disappear into the smoke. They’re alone on the flat moldy ground.

Eveline is still crying.

Rose’s fingertips glow again and she remembers how her dad had been able to conjure guns, ammo, healing stuff, and white sage while she was in the Megamycete. Closing her eyes, she reaches out and concentrates, willing something to take shape in her hands.

When she opens them again, she’s holding a soft blanket with a brown and white square pattern. Holding it carefully, she approaches Eveline. Eveline doesn’t seem to hear her over the sounds of her own crying, and Rose holds her breath as she crouches next to her.

Slowly, carefully, she drapes the blanket around Eveline.

The sobs slowly taper off. Eveline’s hands move to touch the blanket. She holds it between trembling fingers like it’s the first time she’s ever felt something soft before. Rose’s breath stays lodged in her throat as Eveline slowly looks up.

She looks like every other scared and crying kid.

“It’s okay,” Rose says quietly, “it’s okay. It’s over now.”

Eveline keeps staring at her, the blanket tugged closer around her shoulders. Slowly, the world starts to get brighter and brighter, until it hurts to keep her eyes open. The last thing she registers is a small hand carefully taking hers.

Rose wakes up with tears on her cheeks. She wipes at them, looking at her hand. The tug in her gut is quiet. The weight in her chest no longer crushes her lungs, it’s just pleasantly heavy. She fumbles for the ring around her neck and runs her thumb over the engraving.

She falls back asleep with a smile on her face.

#resident evil #resident evil 7 #resident evil biohazard #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #shadows of rose #rosemary winters #ethan winters #mia winters #chris redfield #eveline #dragonbabbles #fic

[gayshrug]

pit babe ep 4 thoughts

the anxiety. the anxietyyyyyy

there's not much to say but here i am, feeling the urge to spit out my thoughts regardless. in no particular order:

- the contrast between babe/way in the past, looking soft and hopeful, and them in present time HIT. they showed that really well with the color scheme, their clothes and hair, etc. . i consciously tried to stay away from the book spoilers but i DID see the way-mindcontrol-thing and uhhhhhh yeah. pretty sure that's 100% confirmed now.

- all babe really seems to want is to feel loved and prioritised and baby, i could give you that and more. call me..............

- charlie annoyed the shit out of me this episode 😭 now that they've put it into text that he's scheming something with jeff, even though it was already more than clear, the way he spoke about not letting babe ruin his plan....... rancid vibes. HOWEVER... i'm still holding out hope that he's more conflicted about his feelings for babe than he's letting on. and him being upfront about not being able to tell babe why he was being shady with jeff right now did make me feel hopeful about that being in the cards for the future. PLEASE. i can't deal with this anxiety.

- i'm like 99.9% sure that charlie was the one who hired the goons. probably in order to gain back babe's trust. horrible if true. (loving it.)

- jeff is already SO gone for alan...... fuck. next episode and the Accusation is going to hurt.

- i absolutely loved the scene with babe and tony. once more, as always, pavel was acting his ass off. that pent-up pain and rage felt incredibly real. i hope all of tony's adopted kids end up beating him to a pulp together. (he's still so hot though.)

- jeff's powers are SO cool and SO horrible at the same time. it gives context to him wanting to avoid being touched. the possibility of seeing horrible fortunes..... yeah. i hope he doesn't get an awful vision regarding alan in the future.

- can't remember his name for the life of me but bow-and-arrow guy is super hot. ik he's gonna get with way but i wish he could hook up with tony's right-hand-man and persuade him to change sides instead.

- kim continues to be an upstanding guy. love him. love that he cares so much about his principles that he's willing to beat up his own teammate. keep going baby

- i thought i was mentally prepared to see babe lose control of his car (and winner's gleeful face) but no. watching that felt fucking awful. we know babe's gonna be alright but holy fuck that escalated so hard. like......... attempted murder is a possibility??? 😭

- HOW IS THE X-HUNTER TEAM THAT USELESS. letting charlie run to The Scene before any security or first aid staff........ clowns, all of them.

OK I'M DONE. "there's not much to say" and yet..... i can't wait for the next episode. this story could go SO many ways and they seem to be moving along quickly but we've got heaps left to go so. i'm super excited for the twists and turns in the future.

p.s.: babe please call me i would worship you

#this showwwww...... this show. i love it so fucking much #pit babe the series #pit babe #thai bl

[niuniente]

Not anonymous because I got nothing to hide. Hello, user Niu. Hope you're well. This is to the last anon who got rancid assholes in their comment section saying they're a bad writer and all that bullshit (excuse the swears) that made them stop writing, I say: lock your comment section. Lock everything. Force them to show their faces or actually go out of their way to create burners to be pathetic clowns behind keyboards who are very brave while hidden. That happened to me before (getting comments like that from people who didn't like me and wanted me go and just assholes in general) and yes, it does take a toll on your mental health and your confidence (especially if you're like me and lack it) and affects your self-esteem (which is probably already low, like mine) but this is a hobby. We write because we want to write. We're not getting paid for it. It's a hobby. We're doing it for free. If they don't like it, all they have to do is click back, block and move on. Things are tagged. And if you feel the need to throw ad hominem insults at someone and insult their craft (which could be very embryonic and therefore not a Pulitzer worthy piece or a work of visual art that belongs in the damn Louvre), you're a piece of shit and I hope the bad energy and vitriol you spit at people you don't know because you don't like something they did or them spins right back and slaps you in the face full force. And rant aside, to this anon, aside from the locking the comments and the anonymous asks, I say: write. Keep writing. Out of spite. Make them seethe. Make the froth at the mouth that they could discourage you from writing. Grip this love for writing so hard it becomes part of you and not even God or any deities can break you apart from it. Trust me. I've been there. Writing is what I've always had to cope in my life, these people almost took it from me but the hatred I felt for them for trying to take it from me and the love I had for it was stronger. Don't let hate beat love. Ever. And my inbox is open if you need someone to be angry with. And to user Niu, big hug. You're the MVP. Your comic is fire!

Agreed!

#for anon #creativity

[bohemian-nights]

what do you think of laenyra? 🤔 (Whether book or show or both)

I’m not interested in any ship that involves Miss Maegor(except her x the first van to the nuthouse), but if we are talking about the validity of the ship(there is none) then that’s a different story.

Show!Laenyra does not exist. I wished the morons who are trying to make fetch happen would stop using Show!Laena in their fanart because show!Miss Maegor viewed Laena as competition(see Missy Anne glaring at her at her wedding).

It’s disrespectful as hell to put show!Laena with the woman who shamelessly threw herself at her husband at her funeral(karma hit her fast though, see chokegate). This ship is worse than Rancid. At least that’s show canon.

Don’t even get me started on how the dumb fucking Karen’s who love to shit on Nettles for being Black and existing suddenly care about racism when it comes to Laenyra. The fact that these clowns would rather make up racism than admit the truth is hilarious.

Let me break it down for those who pretend to be death dumb and blind, the show is not racist for not entertaining this bullshit ship.

The show is racist for making Laena seem like second place which is coincidentally the same thing that Becky and them are trying to do with Laenyra and Nettles when they say she should be fucking cut from the show because there are too many darkies around.

The show is racist for screwing over Laena. This show is racist for racebending a character and then proceeding to kill her off in the most brutal way possible in order to make a racist white woman’s death(she had it coming for her) look less pathetic while labeling your deplorable decisions as “empowering.”

Laena is treated as a pet or a prop by these deluded stans and not an actual character who deserved respect love and cherishment. Her purpose was not and has never been to bow down and thirst over a fucking lunatic.

Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that isn’t ready to have a conversation about this shows biases and their own.

Moving on! The only basis for book!Laenyra is the word fond(which is used in as a comparison between how Missy Anne viewed Laena vs. her stepmother). That’s not enough proof to show that they were fucking or in a throuple situation with Daemon.

If they had actually been in the former Daemon would’ve gotten Missy Maegors dumbass pregnant and Joffrey would not exist(anyone who doesn’t think so is a dumb fuck who needs to brush up on their reading comprehension).

I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. No one actually cares about this stupid ship. Notice how the only people who ship it are Rhaenyra/Dumbnyra stans.

The only reason why Rhaenyra’s dumbass racist white-supremacy lite stanbase pretends to care about Laenyra is so that they can squeeze Rhaenyra’s ass into Laena and Daemon’s marriage and make it seem like Daemon just can’t live without her.

(Which makes total sense considering he couldn’t live without her so much that he choked her the fuck out in the show after she gave birth to a lizard and abandoned her for Nettles when she went fucking crazy and tried to murder her in her sleep in the books. I guess it’s not true love unless you completely don’t care about your partners emotional and physical well-being☺️).

To wrap this up, I cannot express how much I loathe this nonsensical ship(that’s why I’m censoring any of my cursing). Period point blank show!Laenyra isn’t fucking canon and book!Laenyra has only lint to support it being “canon.”

*I should add that there are people who genuinely support Laenyra and aren’t trying to use the ship to insert Miss Maegor into Laena and Daemons marriage or only view Laena as a prop, but they are few and far between.

#anti Laenyra #it’s crack #the ship is dumb and isn’t canon #that’s the plain and simple truth #bnasks #bnask #laena velaryon #anti rhaenyra targaryen

[kiefbowl]

idk if you still plan on writing it but I would love to hear your essay on the misogyny in HIMYM bc I binge-watched it one summer when I was really depressed (it did not help). I remember it as being somewhere between mediocre-funny and absolutely ghastly.

idk maybe. it is amusing at times, they did interesting things with the sitcom structure (which I wanted to talk about), they don’t really have traditional “jokes” though. It’s like absurd silliness rather than set up>punchline. Unfortunately for everyone, the writers were oblivious to their own misogyny which lead to the most unaware jokes regarding sexual violence you will ever hear. It’s worse than raunchy comedy bc raunchy bro comedies know what they are and actually employ jokes. It’s like the writers didn’t understand how awful their “jokes” are. Completely mask off moment of the philosophy of the average American male. But it’s squished between an impassioned thesis on romance (which is also bad yet interesting but in different ways) and the comedic excellence of 5 very funny actors who are very fun to watch.

It’s currently not in the public’s favor and so has been regulated to “forgotten and irrelevant” but I’m of the opinion it’ll in the future be considered an important cultural artifact for multiple reasons, including what I wrote above. It has on display some truly rancid thinking without self awareness that really demonstrates the time it was made that we rarely have available because most artists, on some level, try to obscure their hostility towards women rather than be absolutely blatant.

I have to take a break from it though. I’ve been slowly watching it and it’s still not enough I have to take a break season 8 is just horrible. it’s like they were trying to kill Jason Segal on purpose. He looks like he wants to die every word he says. Whatever heart sustained this show up to that point is just gone in this season. the emotional core is wiped out PROBABLY because the writers intentionally wrote themselves in a double bind of needing robin/Barney to get married and yet robin/ted being long end game. Why would you do that to yourself. you have to be stupid, the kind of stupid to write “jokes” like “so I completely lied to this 19 year old on purpose, banged her in the bathroom even though she said she wasn’t sure, and now I’ll never call her again. Boobs!!” over a laugh track and dinky piano clown music. kill me.

[n0sewise]

hi! 1 & 12 for choose violence game, if its okay to ask

hi, yes it's totally okay to ask!

1. Oh god, it could be any of them, honestly. I see a lot of UwU Killua, but also there's a ton of really great Killua too. I'm going with Gon since we never get to hear his inner thoughts. There's a tendency in fandom to go really extreme with him either as The Sweetest Most Innocent Boy In The World or Selfish 8ft Monster Who Hurt Killua. I don't see him as either, and even in my own writing I've had people misinterpret him as being dumb for the sake of it, or an alpha bro type when in reality, he's got the mother (father?) of all abandonment issues. This is the kid that went out to see what's so great about smoking bc his dad left to get a pack of cigarettes(someone funnier than me made this comparison and i forget who). Gon is Complex. His morality is a little weird. He loses his arms like it's a hobby. Anyway. Yeah, Gon is my pick for 1.

12. Illumiiiiii. I love Illumi, but this won't be in defense of him (I don't even think he's unpopular). Something about him makes my brain go brrrr. He is The Worst and here is why I love him:

1) a fantastic villain. We don't even know who he is until his big reveal in the exam arc when we find out Why Gittarackur has been in disguise this entire time. He's got those big, empty shark eyes. He's an assassin and yet he walks around in weird, green, puffy sleeved outfits when it would clearly be more practical to dress in literally any other way. He hardly emotes until He Does, at which point he becomes Terrifying to behold.

2) he's the kid that Silva and Kikyo fucked up first. Look, that Speaks To Me as an only child gifted kid burnout. Illumi is their firstborn, but he's not the heir, and he's Very Good at what he does. Was he born with the right temperament, or was it beaten out of him? We don't get that info, but I think it's fucking fascinating, and even more so when you consider that Milluki must have been the overcorrection of whatever was done to Illumi to make him the way he is. Was there any point where they looked at this perfect assassin and were like, "...we might have messed him up a little" ? Was he told to have a hand in Killua's upbringing, or did he take that on by choice? The Implications of his childhood and that of the rest of the Zoldycks are some of the most interesting in the series to me.

3) he's a hypocrite! He's delusional! Mr. Assassins Don't Have Friends went and got engaged to a magician clown? Illumi is so delulu for his entire conversation with Hisoka where he assumes he is the person Killua loves most and it makes me choke on my coffee every single time. He's removed from reality, which is a charming and horrifying trait to have, and it has endless au potential.

So far I've only written him as The Worst Person Killua Knows, but can you imagine au Illumi as the most embarrassing older brother? Illumi showing up while Killua has Gon over after school and thinking he killed it because he just dabbed like the kids do, and Killua is hoping the ground will open up and swallow him bc his big brother Did Not just do that in front of his crush? Illumi bringing his awful, creepy boyfriend to An Important Zoldyck Function and not understanding (or caring) when they manage to clear the room because their combined vibes are just too rancid?

I love Illumi. I don't want to see him succeed. I do not think he has a healthy relationship with any of his siblings. He is Not a good person in the series, and it makes him so fun to watch. Hisoka makes my skin crawl, but I could watch 8 hours of Illumi failing at human interaction.

This came out longer than I intended, whoops. Thanks for the ask!

#nosewise writing tag #asks

[tybaltsjuliet]

1, 3, 19

01. the character everyone gets wrong

sandy from grease and i will die on this hill. “oh, sandy changed herself for a man-” and danny was trying to change himself for a woman, but people only remember sandy doing it because of the leather pants!

what i think people tend to ignore, or miss, is that by the point of the “sandra dee” reprise, sandy is not happy. like, even if you are willing to accept that sandy *was* happy as the good girl, once - and i fully am willing to accept that; i do not think a fondness for cheerleading and pastels speaks to a void in her soul - by that time, she is not! and it is not just because of danny being kind of a dick to her. there’s a *reason* sandy’s change starts with a reprise of rizzo’s song that was mocking her, and it is because pretty much everyone, bar frenchy, is a dick to her. (i feel like this is a little less apparent in the movie, but in the original production, the t-birds are right there cackling along with rizzo during “look at me, i’m sandra dee,” and even patty simcox gets catty about sandy behind her back!)

so, by this point, sandy is alienated, and lonely, and an object of mockery, and she wants things to be *different*. here’s another point that got home better onstage than in the movie, in my opinion - because, originally, the “sandra dee” reprise comes RIGHT ON THE HEELS of “there are worse things i can do” - and rizzo sings that song, not alone after sandy walks off, but directly *to* sandy. just before the song, rizzo snaps at her, “now wait just a minute, miss goody-goody! who do you think you are? handing me all this sympathy trash! since you know all the answers, how come i didn’t see zuko here tonight?” and all this after sandy has done nothing but show riz a little kindness and sympathy over her situation, and try to remind her that she does not have to go through it alone.

being a good girl, a nice girl, has gotten sandy nothing and nowhere, with anyone, for the whole two hours’ traffic of our stage. who can really blame her for wanting to change?

now, obviously, this is all pretty watsonian, and sandy is one of those characters where there’s tons of great discussion to be had about the ways misogyny *does* influence the way her story is presented. but there are a lot of other interesting things to unpack in her, too, and it frustrates me that everyone just stops at the most obvious part.

03. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

gods, just one?! mentally rifling through the disney princess takes alone has already exhausted me. that said, i might have to hand it to one of the particularly devoted ambassadors of this website’s jedi defense squad, who insisted that the jedi were A Beautiful Culture requiring no reform whatsoever, and A Wonderful Found Family to the children they brought up, and Committed No Mistakes.

like, come on, now. even if i leave all my personal religious baggage at the door, there are nine movies and a massive extended universe because THE JEDI FREQUENTLY COMMIT MISTAKES. anakin skywalker was not an inherently rancid nine-year-old; he was a case study among many on why the jedi needed fixing!

19. you’re mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like…

i’m kind of mad that i still like frozen as much as i do. it wounds my pride in otherwise being the haughty and pretentious flavor of disney adult.

i’m not mad that i am properly getting into ASOIAF, because i am loving these books. i *am* mad that the only reason i first put on my clown shoes and walked all the way to westeros in them is because rhys ifans hot. it’s almost as embarrassing as the number of times i’ve watched anonymous.

but the really embarrassing skeleton in my closet is that i have written more pages of HP drawerfic since i started listening to the shrieking shack podcast than i wrote any fic for it at the height of the fandom way back in ye olde FFN/livejournal days. and that’s terrible.

#;answer games.