#and its the dichotomy of you Will remember me and no one will remember me when they look back like. what the fuck everrrrr pete

[thekidsarentalright]

i’ve got an obsession with legacy

[ahomeboyslife post (august 2010) / centuries / pete journal entry (october 2007) / flu game]

#i think abt this literally all the time it makes me insane how he writes abt legacy #and being remembered. he wants to be remembered so bad dont we all want to be remembered this badly #and its the dichotomy of you Will remember me and no one will remember me when they look back like. what the fuck everrrrr pete #txt #lyrics.txt #pw #p: 100

[raspberryjellybrains]

I've been thinking a lot lately about Delirium and the way she speaks. She talks around a concept, never hitting it head on but glancing off through a series of metaphors and related concepts that explain things far better than wording them straight might. It's very relatable, and I think that's why I like her; that's how I think.

To me, the world isn't composed of precisely defined concepts but a series of interconnected existences which can all, ultimately, be related to each other. I also experience things in the incredibly specific manner Delirium seems to. I have sensitivities largely untethered from aversions, meaning that while I don't often find things deeply unpleasant or intolerable, I still experience them with an unusual specificity which often defies concise explanation. The best way I can convey certain feelings or experiences is through other feelings, experiences, and concepts to weave together a series of approximations that through their similar and dissimilar traits narrow down to what I'm trying to describe. Delirium does this too, and it's treated as a part of her that's no better or worse than any other. There are those that don't understand and those that do, and those that at least try to are awarded for their efforts because finally and most importantly, she genuinely has something to say. Her speech patterns are deceptively rambling because she takes a long time to say what she means to say, while simultaneously saying exactly it.

Delirium is neurodivergent coded in such a cathartic way because of this. I feel her frustration and joy because I know what it's like to be the person trying to explain something that has no words to assign, asking all of the time if there's a word for what she's feeling as a rhetorical and genuine question so that she can explain something without explaining it and call into question why we feel everything must be precisely laid in the place of as few words as possible. She is incredibly intelligent, but loses track of all of what's happening in a far more obvious way than most because there's just so much to keep track of, which is also very relatable as a neurodivergent person. Without putting labels on the experience, she perfectly captures it. I just... I like Delirium quite a lot, and think she'd be very good at post-modern literature.

#i hope to god this comprehensible #im trying so hard to get this shit in a line exactly becaude of why i like her #theres jusy SO MUCH to say its very hard to keep it straight and many more things to focus on beyond it #i love that delirium is treated by the narrative as an intelligent and wise being that just conveys that in an unconventional way #shes like my mirror metaphor. no mirror can light upon the minutae without shattering and no shattered mirror can see the bigger picture. #shes shattered but knows from when she was whole what the full picture looks like but she gets lost in all of the fragments #which gives her an incredibly unique and valuable perspective #at a surface level it seems as if she's an offensive depiction of mental illness but once you go deeper you realize shes not for the very- #reason she at first seemed to be. she embodies what is looked down upon but its told through side comments and events that theres more to- #her than the seeming irrationality. #she picks up and puts things down as she remembers them but that doesnt mean any one thing is any less valuable than any other #the ephemeral quality of her attentions dont diminish their value. #i have a lot of thoughts about her i just. am very fond. #and the way she and dream truly demonstrate the dichotomy of mental illness and neurodivergence makes me froth at the mouth. #he knows what shes saying most of the time and knows where shes at whether he admits it to himself or not because shes just externalizing- #what exists solely internally for him. hes better at masking and that is their difference which makes Such a statement oh my god when you- #think about how each are treated and understood. #it took me like. two weeks to organize these thoughts btw. they float in little brain clouds <3 #i need to watch everything everywhere all at once #anyway #delirium of the endless #the sandman meta #the sandman #raspberry rambles

[gaberoothekangaroo]

oh man. rip. i had Thoughts in the tags. apparently theres a limit to tags. code ate like 2/3 of my thoughts. and i have 0% confidence in fandom participation that id be willing to write those thoughts up and either add them to the post or make my own post. so now i look like a tool with 1/3 of my unfinished thoughts on a small note post. serves me right for being up at 5/6am lmfao i guess

#mega woof. #basically i had a lot of thoughts about the use of eddies hanky. #and more real world implications/wrenches for peeps to consider. #like hawkins cant be small b/c its large enough that it has a mall. #if youve got a mall youve got enough populace to warrant cruising via hanky code. #but then at the end there i brought up the dichotomy of masculine sexy wild and too feminine within the music genre. #and how billy whos more rock than metal is masculine and sexy but perceived as too feminine. #since his dad calls him a 'fag' which does imply his long hair and small clothing choices makes him more of a target due to. #hes just so slightly off societal norms. vs eddie who flamboyantly steps over societal norms. #and that eddie is closer to punk in his outward acceptance of norms. but that his hobbies place him in less masculine spaces. #hes well within reach to be seen as feminine but that its never brought up on screen. #hes a freak and a weirdo and a satanist but 'fag' he is not. #i also remember bringing up how hawkins would have an adult store or section in the video store. #and then i further brought up that gas stations have adults mags. #also also that if there was a big enough trucker presence that adult mag section might have been large enough for more kink. #which then implies eddie was well within reach of hanky code info. and that he was intentionally wearing his black bandana for a reason. #and not just because its black and metal means black clothes. even tho thats valid. #something something crypts and bloods and much easier to find red bandanas at the time over black ones. #another thing about bikers and leather and bars. #@ me if you want me to actually write out my thoughts i guess.

[koimethehorizon]

Adventure Time and Fionna and Cake Theory: The Victimhood of Simon + How the Series Might End

Prerequisite Watching for this Theory:

Adventure Time: Temple of Mars, Betty, Come Along With Me, Broke His Crown, I Remember You, Holly Jolly Secrets Part II

Gonna start this loaded theory with a bit of a hot take. I’ve never liked how Simon and Betty’s stories concluded in Come Along With Me.

For Simon, I’ve always had trouble considering Simon and the Ice King as the same person. Holly Jolly Secrets and I Remember You, the pinnacle of depicting the dichotomy of the two characters is built on us seeing Simon as suffering irreversible memory loss and how his loved ones can grow to accept that. The context is most apt when viewed as a metaphor for dementia, Alzheimer’s, or simply old age.

The scenes in which Ice King reacts so superfluously to characters desperately wishing for his old self to return are striking because of the cruel finality of his condition. Alternatively, the ones in which his loved ones hang around with him despite his condition are sweet in their own right.

One of my favorite Ice King scenes is in Broke His Crown where Marceline invites her girlfriend to meet her surrogate father.

Bubblegum: What's this?

Ice King: It's a present, to bribe you for coming over!

Marceline: You don't have to bribe us silly, we're here because we WANT to hang out with you.

Ice King: No one has ever said that to me before.

*snatches present*

Ice King: You didn't say no takebacks.

There was a real poignancy to depicting an old man with memory-loss slowly having people come to accept him and realize that he’s still a swell guy to hang around. It may be depressing to see this good person who was once so unconditionally caring into a buffoon who could forget your name so easily and turn on you in the flip of a coin.

But even he deserved love from others. And in time, as a result of that love, he did improve.

Which is why, even in Fionna and Cake, I find myself still disturbed seeing Simon in his normal state and Ice King completely erased from Ooo. It kills me that Betty and in extension, the show itself could not accept Ice King as he was and felt that his best course was to undo it all.

All of his experiences for 1000+ years all of a sudden no longer matter, and the acceptance of his peers no longer mattered as well. He's just back to who he used to be in a world where everything he's known is gone.

Happily ever after

Even worse, however, is remembering the wish that allowed Simon to be cured. The person who sacrificed her individuality to get that good person back, because she couldn’t accept reality as it was.

And I’m going to put a second hot take. A spicy one. Simon needs to take the fault in Betty's fate and Fionna and Cake (the show not the characters) seems aware of this.

Throughout Adventure Time, Simon Petrikov was never developed as a character. As far as the audience and the characters within Adventure Time knew, the only traits about Simon that mattered were: that he was intelligent, he was a kind man, and he loved Betty.

This wouldn’t really be a compelling character on its own, but when juxtaposed with the Ice King it’s a tragedy that he lost these traits. The compelling part of Simon was his victimhood to the ice crown and not really him as a person.

It’s why Obsidian’s version of Simon feels somewhat empty, he’s back to his intelligent, kind self but there’s no real hints to how he’s mentally adjusting other than that brief glimpse in Ice King’s robes again.

And he looks really weird in this special too. Color me surprised when Simon Petrikov reads out the problems I've had for years about his ending while also making Simon into his own person. In many ways it just completely redos what we see of him in Obsidian.

He's still a kind man but even he can't handle being so maladjusted to a world so beyond his time. He's still intelligent but his passions aren't reciprocated, and that seems to have always been the case even in the past. Rather than a guy who doesn't take shit from guys like Marceline's ex or a first responder to his daughter's problems, he's a normal guy unable to handle the threats of Ooo's world even after 12 years of living in it. Rather than singing to large communities in bliss, he's a lonely alcoholic who can't even relate to his fellow humans anymore. He loves his adopted daughter but there are even some days he can't muster the courage to be honest with her. And most importantly, he doesn't seem to know how to live beyond his curse or his loneliness.

His mutual obsession with Betty is the only character trait of his that's ever had some distinct flaw and with this new show, the writers must have finally found a way to tackle the subject further. Betty is ultimately a greater victim than Simon. She ends up in a far worse fate than Simon has ever been in. Perhaps more disturbingly, she willingly chose to strip herself of her individuality.

Fionna and Cake brings a contradiction to light about Simon and Betty’s seemingly perfect relationship. Simon and Betty's love is real and they do make each other happy. But there does exist a co-dependency that has worsened throughout the series as a result of their insecurity of letting a bad memory conclude their relationship. Betty's patterns are pretty clear throughout her tenure as Magic Woman but not too much with Simon. Not until now.

In Jerry, Simon stops Betty from pursuing her dreams because he didn’t want her goodbye to be his last memory with her.

In Betty, Simon rewrites history and inadvertently summons her to Ooo because he didn’t want Betty’s look of contempt to be his last memory of her.

And through all of Fionna and Cake, Simon has turned into a suicidal man willing to resummon GOLBetty regardless of the reasons she can’t see him again. All because he didn’t want her sacrifice to be his last memory of her. Despite the fact that Betty’s final wish was to keep Simon safe.

There's also this uneven power dynamic between the two. Simon was far more accomplished as a professor with PhDs even if no one took him seriously. Betty was just a student offering some help, knowing she wouldn't take any credit for helping.

I’ll preface that Betty is a consenting adult in the relationship and made many self-determined rash choices that Simon would never approve of with full context. We’ve enough scenes to show that Simon actively refuses Betty’s help if it means endangering her.

However, Simon’s perception of Betty and his own inadequacy did influence her personality for the worse. Fionna questions Simon on two occasions about how strange it was for “someone she just met to drop everything to go with you”. Even within the flashbacks Betty verbally describes her internal conflict between her individuality vs. her infatuation with Simon and the guy never picks up on it.

Whether he’s aware of it or not, Simon always ends up becoming the center of attention during Betty’s greatest life-changing events because he’s always suffering in some way. And sadly in-character, Betty always prioritizes him first because of how sorry she feels for him.

Simon: Just hold my hand to your face, this will be my… last sensation.

Betty: Don’t be a wimp, Simon!

I don’t want to be too hard on Simon, his suffering is cosmologically depressing. An undeniable tragedy that no one deserves to be alone on. It would be unfair to say he’s being dramatic about something most if not any human would ever go through. He’s not a leech for desiring help, especially from his significant other.

But I do think it’s important to point out that he does have a major flaw in not reflecting on the consequences of Betty’s choices.

Fionna: Damn, that’s romantic. So, you got on the bus with her?

Simon: Yup. Uh what? No. No. Why would I-

This is the reason this post exists. This is the show explicitly telling us that Simon has never really thought about what Betty lost because he thinks his love was greater than the passion Betty once had.

Let's go back to Betty once again for what is honestly the most justifiable takedown you could make of Simon's character prior to the miniseries.

As stated earlier, Simon opens a portal to ask for Betty's forgiveness with a few seconds on the clock. And in that time, he essentially just unloads a giant drama bomb, trauma dump of his suffering leading Betty to ask what she can even do without him. And if the plan went as it was, Simon would've just left her a hundred questions that she'd never have answered for the rest of her life.

Simon: Just know that I love you and I forgive you for leaving me. Author's Note: I dunno, isn't there something a bit off about how he worded this?

Now Simon didn't ask for Betty to jump into the portal, but he certainly was asking for it subconsciously. How else would he have expected a person who loves him dearly to act after this?

Taking any measures necessary and finding a way back together obviously. That's what he's doing too!

And reiterating again, this is the reason why Betty goes on her ego-suicidal quest. This is Simon's greatest mistake, his greatest moral failing as a person and he doesn't seem aware of this.

He’s not wrong that Betty lived happily with him. In spite of losing her dreams, Betty and Simon did love each other unconditionally. But he’s missing the bigger picture about how he could’ve been self-centered in deciding Betty’s fate for himself.

And maybe to stretch somewhat, I think even the quest to become Ice King again is somewhat motivated by his inability to live as anything more than a victim. Some of it is because the citizens of Ooo were being a bit inconsiderate about how much they liked Ice King yes, but Simon should be perfectly aware that Marceline, Betty, and now Fionna would be extremely concerned about him for doing this. Yet, he doesn’t really consider their feelings too much on the matter. He’s too used to the suffering.

Please have one scene with Marceline, I'd be sad if we don't get to see at least one.

This leads me to how I believe Fionna and Cake may rewrite Simon’s ending.

The key is in the episode Temple of Mars.

Upon rewatching the episode, I’m convinced that the Adventure Time cast had a greater plan with the Betty and Simon arc that just never came to be due to production constraints. A lot of Betty’s history and the deconstruction of her relationship with Simon in Jerry are surprisingly details that have already been told.

I thought it was an animation error that Betty’s glasses were different in Jerry but it turns out the continuity director is just that good.

The trip in six months, Simon stopping her, and the realization that Simon superseded her identity. Seeking independence from Simon is the lesson that Normal Man was trying failed to teach her.

Betty: I’ve spent so much time dedicated on Simon that I’m not even sure if there’s any “me” left anymore.

But the most telling detail is how Betty passes Normal Man’s test.

Finn: Even if you are a lost cause, she is not!

Betty: No, Finn’s right. You’ll thank me for this later past Betty.

In an alternate pocket reality, she changes her trip to the day before, preventing Simon from stopping her. And I think Simon will have to change fate once again to do the same.

If Simon comes to realize that he was the one who set Betty to her terrible fate, that all this time his rose-colored lens of their relationship had been detrimental then he could give her identity back. But it can’t be as simple as changing the moment Betty turns into GOLB or Magic Woman or even bringing her through the portal in Betty.

He needs to let Betty go on the bus. Alone.

It’s the only way for Betty to have her life back. If not for his Betty, maybe at least to save one in the multiverse doomed to the same fate.

They both need to cherish their time on the Enchiridion trip back when it wasn’t too late for Betty to go on the trip. Back when they were both equals and not tied to Simon’s needs.

Jerry is absolutely setting up something big with Simon and Betty’s relationship for next week and now that we’re going to the GOLB dimension, we’ll see how he remembers these moments again.

Personally, as someone who has been skeptical about Simon's peace for years, Fionna and Cake's second episode was like a sigh of relief. Simon hasn't found his ending yet, and my hope is that this epilogue will help me see the man happy without having to relive Betty's sacrifice for the rest of his life. Just like the rest of Adventure Time, it'll have to end with him cherishing the time he had with Betty regardless of the inevitability of losing that relationship.

PS. Isn’t quite strange that at one point in time, Simon sought after magic objects that ostracized him from the normal world and now, he lives in a house full of 1980s-1990s objects that ostracized him from the magical world? Maybe he was never really satisfied with where he was in the present.

PSS. I really wanted to write something on Fionna for the Ep 3-6 releases, and I still have the idea, but I couldn’t make it coherent due to how much my brain overthinks everything to the point of cognitive collapse. If there’s enough interest, I’ll go back to write it again.

#fionna and cake #adventure time #simon petrikov #betty grof #fionna and cake spoilers #adventure time spoilers #animation #art #hbo max #fionna campbell #theories #character analysis #discussion #petrigrof #golbetty #simon and betty

[petrapalerno]

Submitting to the Alien Barbarian #7

Alien x fem reader, a dom/sub erotic short.

TW/CW: rough consensual sex, primal play, knotting, breeding, aliens, dominance/submission, blood play, spanking, pregnancy, overstimulation, anal play, gagging and violence.

MASTER POST

PREVIOUS

You and Drohako have gotten into something close to a routine over the past few weeks.

When you wake, he stuffs you full of weird alien food. There must not be a polite way to decline a meal for the Volkroth because anytime you've wrinkled your nose or pushed a bite away, he refuses to accept no for an answer.

He wants you stuffed in more ways than one.

Once you finish eating, Drohako fucks and uses for hours. You can’t even keep track of how many times you’ve had to use your safe word for overstimulation alone.

The big purple alien barbarian, to his credit, listens even though he made a sour face at your refusals.

Then, once you’re spent and slick with seed, he carries you into the healing spring. The planet’s blood, as he calls it, and tends to your wounds.

There’s this dichotomy inside of him. The brute who wants nothing more than to rut you raw, and the mate who needs to make sure you’re alright.

It makes each side of your encounters all that more intense, to know that he’s capable of both.

You chew the rough textured meat, turning your head only catching him staring at you.

“Do I have something on my face?” you joke, wanting to break the tension.

“No,” he mumbles.

There’s a terse few moments where his eyes stay locked on you, something you can’t read behind his eyes.

It’s cut short when Grasyi whines, ready to be let out to hunt.

Despite its terrifying appearance, the big yellow cat has grown on you. You often wake up to him dropping some giant half dead bird at your feet. The act isn’t one you particularly enjoy, but you understand the sentiment.

“Good boy,” you wince as you kick the headless turkey sized thing off your feet.

It sits back on its muscular haunches, and pants. The feline face contorts to something almost like a smile. If a smile could be so...toothy.

“A small one today, eh?” He eyes the carcass that is anything but small to you.

Drohako loves the beast for as much as he complains about it. You witnessed some of his deep and guarded gentleness when you watched him tend to the creature’s injured paw. With careful extraction, he removed the large thorn that caused it to limp, with little reaction.

When the creature nuzzled Drohako’s face, you were in damn near shock to see him smile.

It's not a smirk or a cunning smile, but a smile filled with warmth. A smile of affection.

He walks over to the creature with a sigh and holds the flap to ‘home cave’ open.

With one firm slap of its muscular rump, he sends it off into the brutal red world that is this planet.

You take another bite of the massive bird. Drohako roasted it over a skewer earlier today, yet another of the Grasyi’s fresh kills.

“He cares for you, you know,” he tells me before sitting down next to me.

“I suppose.” I’m preoccupied with chewing through the gristle heavy meat. While I have no complaints about the alien dick here, the food leaves much to be desired.

“Think he’d ever let me ride him?” I ponder, remembering the few times I’ve seen Drohako ride him to fetch water or supplies.

“The bond between a Grasyi and rider is a spirtual one, I don’t think it’s possible,” he frowns at your request.

“Even though I’m your ‘mate’?” You ask, wiggling your fingers in the air as if the word mate is magic.

The corner of his mouth ticks up in amusement.

“That, I’m unsure of. The last volkroth mated pair was long before I was even born,” He says, a bit more wistfully than I expect.

“What happened to them, the mates?”

“The female Volkroth?” He muses. “They died out, we adapted. We’re lucky our young gestate outside a womb, otherwise my species would be doomed.”

“So you’re telling me that every Volkroth female just…died?” I’m so confused about how that would even be possible.

“Yes, fewer and fewer females were born until there were none left. Then the males whose seed refused to take in other species lines died too,” He tells me quietly, trying to look unaffected by information he’s conveying. “The spawning pits were a necessity, to breed females, and to introduce genetic diversity. It’s the only way we could continue the volkroth way of life.”

“And you mated me, some human from a space station that’s a glorified hunk of space junk?”

I’m flabbergasted. What would make me so special?

“You’re the first human I’ve ever seen in the pits,” his voice deepens as he puts his huge square hand on your thigh. The muscles of your body instantly stiffen, the anticipation of what’s coming quickly heating your core to liquid magma.

“I think I knew what you were when I saw you in the dirt, eyes wide and wet,” he whispers, leaning closer to you.

"Knew what?" You ask, almost salivating with anticipation. He has your body trained to crave his touch.

“That you were different, you were a worthy opponent...you were mine,” he growls, clasping the column of your throat.

Your eyes roll back as he squeezes the sides of your neck. He pulls you forward against the fur hides you sit on. His body swivels over your own and suddenly your face down. His thick limbs are caging you in.

There’s a flame lit shadow spreading out on the floor in front of you. Drohako’s a silhouette is one of pure power. It gives the illusion of some ripped shadow demon dancing with the crackling fire.

“Mine to do with as I please, to fill every hole as I wish too,” you hear a squelching noise as he speaks, then something slick and warm being slathered in the cleft of your ass.

“Drohako...” you warn, “I’ve never put something there before, let alone something as big as you,” you’re nervous at the thought of him fucking your ass with his monster cock.

“You have your safe word,” he mutters as he works the tip of his finger past your tight ring.

“Oh okay,” you breathe, adjusting to the new nerve sensations that he’s found.

“I don’t want to put both my cocks inside your tight hole,” he growls, "just one, so I save the other for your sweet cunt." He acts like it’s no big deal. But just one of his cocks is still the most massive thing you’ve ever had inside of you.

“Fuck Drohako,” you press your hips back, and he slides further inside, the muscles of your ass resist as he breeches it deeper.

“I want to stuff you full,” he says, adding a second finger slowly inside your backdoor. His other hand finds your clit, stroking it with long, firm strokes. The pleasure he creates at the apex of your legs has things feeling more relaxed around back. You breathe deep, willing your body to accept the fingers he’s feeding into you.

It feels...better than you thought it would. It’s an entirely unfamiliar sensation than when he fucks your pussy, but not a bad one. The sensations grow more pleasurable with each passing second.

“I’ll stretch this taut bud until it’s good and ready for my cock. It’ll fit,” he says confidently. “You’re made for me, you’re my mate,” He tells you before pumping his hand more roughly. Spreading his fingers wide, stretching you further before a third finger works past your subconscious resistance.

There’s a burn, but you like it.

Drohako raises your ass up and notches his shaft at your pussy’s entrance.

He is not gentle with this familiar hole, and you don’t think you’d want him to be. He slams deep, grunting with the effort it takes to keep his other cock from entering the promised land as well.

You claw at the dirt as the combination of his fingers on you clit, inside your ass, and his thick manhood buried deep in your pussy is fucking decadent.

He throbs inside you and your channel clenches.

“I will not go slowly. I need to fill you completely,” he groans with about as much warning as you’re liable to get from him.

You are unprepared for the feeling of him stuffing your ass. He has you arching your back like a cat at the burning stretch of his cock. A reflexive hiss leaving your  lips.

Drohako, savoring the tightness of you around him, stills his hips as he rakes his hands down the skin of your back.

“Made for me,” he growls as he withdraws both cocks nearly completely before slamming himself home again, all while furiously working your clit.

As he fills you, the air leaves your chest in one big hiss.

“Drohako,” you sob, unable to parse the current of sensation that’s running through you.

Deeply, he dives back in. You can feel the dual friction of both sides of the thin strip of flesh that separates your channels. Having his cock pounding into your ass makes the shaft in your pussy grind against your g-spot. The impact has you curling your toes.

“So tight, so perfect. Choke my cocks,” his voice huffs ruthlessly.

You’re being fucked into a gasping silence as your face is pushed against the ground. Your nerves fire at all once, the intensity of which is almost too much.

You’re clenching your ass tightly as you feel the thrum of approaching oblivion.

The slap of his heavy balls against your cheeks as he picks up his pace.

You feel yourself draw up tightly, and with a final flick of your clit you come apart into a seizing storm of pleasure.

“Fuck!” Drohako growls, releasing your clit only to grab you by the hips. He lifts you off the ground as he bounces you on his cocks, one hand pressing hard on the small of your belly while he uses the other to grab you by the throat.

“Do it,” you choke out, “empty yourself into me,” you’re sobbing, his pounding pushing your orgasm further. The edges of your senses fuzz and blur.

You feel the cock in your ass fire first, pumping thick loads into the uncharted territory. The throbbing shaft in your pussy is quick to follow, and the staggered sensation of both dicks exploding inside you is enough to push you over the edge again.

You shake, as he places you face down on the ground again. His cocks futilely search for each other. They seek to knot like they do in your pussy, but their division just lets them probe deeper. They hit new pleasure centers you’ve never imagined before.

There’s a suction as both of his shafts leave you. Your ass gapes, and both holes drip with hot cum as he does.

“Good girl,” he tells you, stuffing a thick knuckle at the entrance of your pussy.

You’re a mewling, wiggling. Words lost to some snapping pleasure.

“So good for me, so tight and greedy for my cocks,” he coos, laying it on thicker than normal.

He’s softer when he needs to be, you remind yourself. Gentle even, for a barbarian.

You don’t hate it.

He gathers you up, slipping both your bodies into the warm planet’s blood. You’re not even sure you need it, despite the new experience today.

Drohako made sure your ass could take him. He took his time. But as the warm waters wash over, you don’t mind the comfort they provide.

He cradles your body as you let your eyes close, trying to ride the wave of endorphins as long as possible.

BEEP.

You snap your eyes open. The digital noise is distinctly out of place in this primitive setting.

“What was that?” You look up to Drohako’s forlorn face. His hand cups your cheek, a finger straying to trace your ear.

“You’re pregnant, you’ll be retrieved to go to the nesting grounds soon,” his eyes shimmered with some unspoken pain.

You raise your hand up, feeling the metal cuff. It was punched into your cartilage before your arrival. A safety measure, they said.

You forgot about the tracking device.

BEEP.

It sounds again, shrill and sharp. An orange light flashes from it, casting a sickly glow on the purple face above you.

“Do we go now?” you ask him, your expression dazed.

“They will come for you,” he says, his voice cracking.

“I...We knew this time would come,” you say, nervous about the next step in your journey.

“They will not take you from me,” he growls, gripping you even tighter.

“Drohako,” you pry at his hand as his nails bite into your skin, “calm down. I’ll be back,” you tell him, cupping a hand to his cheek.

“You will not, they will ship you to a different spawning pit in the name of genetic diversity,” the barbarian’s breathing is becoming frantic."I will kill anyone who dares to take you from me," He drags us from the pool quickly, grabbing one of the many blades stashed through the cave.

“Come and you shall meet death!” he screams toward the entrance.

NEXT

#monster fucker #monster fuqqer #monster smut #monsterfuqqer #monster romance #monster lover #smut #terato #aliens #i love aliens #alien romance #alien x reader #alien x human #alien #Petra palerno #STTABshort

[physalian]

8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work

Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels, remakes, and remake-quels over the past… 15 years? There’s a few stand-outs for sure. I hear Dune Part 2 stuck the landing. Everyone who likes John Wick also likes those sequels. Spiderverse 2 also stuck the landing.

These are less tips and more fundamental pieces of your story that may or may not factor in because every work is different, and this is coming from an audience’s perspective. Maybe some of these will be the flaws you just couldn’t put your finger on before. And, of course, these are all my opinions, for sequels and later seasons that just didn’t work for me.

1. Your vague lore becomes a gimmick

The Force, this mysterious entity that needs no further explanation… is now quantifiable with midichlorians.

In The 100, the little chip that contains the “reincarnation” of the Commanders is now the central plot to their season 6 “invasion of the bodysnatchers” villains.

In The Vampire Diaries, the existence of the “emotion switch” is explicitly disputed as even existing in the earlier seasons, then becomes a very real and physical plot point one can toggle on and off.

I love hard magic systems. I love soft magic systems, too. These two are not evolutions of each other and doing so will ruin your magic system. People fell in love with the hard magic because they liked the rules, the rules made sense, and everything you wrote fit within those rules. Don’t get wacky and suddenly start inventing new rules that break your old ones.

People fell in love with the soft magic because it needed no rules, the magic made sense without overtaking the story or creating plot holes for why it didn’t just save the day. Don’t give your audience everything they never needed to know and impose limitations that didn’t need to be there.

Solving the mystery will never be as satisfying as whatever the reader came up with in their mind. Satisfaction is the death of desire.

2. The established theme becomes un-established

I talked about this point already in this post about theme so the abridged version here: If your story has major themes you’ve set out to explore, like “the dichotomy of good and evil” and you abandon that theme either for a contradictory one, or no theme at all, your sequel will feel less polished and meaningful than its predecessor, because the new story doesn’t have as much (if anything) to say, while the original did.

Jurassic Park is a fantastic, stellar example. First movie is about the folly of human arrogance and the inherent disaster and hubris in thinking one can control forces of nature for superficial gains. The sequels, and then sequel series, never returns to this theme (and also stops remembering that dinosaurs are animals, not generic movie monsters). JP wasn’t just scary because ahhh big scary reptiles. JP was scary because the story is an easily preventable tragedy, and yes the dinosaurs are eating people, but the people only have other people to blame. Dinosaurs are just hungry, frightened animals.

Or, the most obvious example in Pixar’s history: Cars to Cars 2.

3. You focus on the wrong elements based on ‘fan feedback’

We love fans. Fans make us money. Fans do not know what they want out of a sequel. Fans will never know what they want out of a sequel, nor will studios know how to interpret those wants. Ask Star Wars. Heck, ask the last 8 books out of the Percy Jackson universe.

Going back to Cars 2 (and why I loathe the concept of comedic relief characters, truly), Disney saw dollar signs with how popular Mater was, so, logically, they gave fans more Mater. They gave us more car gimmicks, they expanded the lore that no one asked for. They did try to give us new pretty racing venues and new cool characters. The writers really did try, but some random Suit decided a car spy thriller was better and this is what we got.

The elements your sequel focuses on could be points 1 or 2, based on reception. If your audience universally hates a character for legitimate reasons, maybe listen, but if your audience is at war with itself over superficial BS like whether or not she’s a female character, or POC, ignore them and write the character you set out to write. Maybe their arc wasn’t finished yet, and they had a really cool story that never got told.

This could be side-characters, or a specific location/pocket of worldbuilding that really resonated, a romantic subplot, whatever. Point is, careening off your plan without considering the consequences doesn’t usually end well.

4. You don’t focus on the ‘right’ elements

I don’t think anyone out there will happily sit down and enjoy the entirety of Thor: The Dark World.  The only reasons I would watch that movie now are because a couple of the jokes are funny, and the whole bit in the middle with Thor and Loki. Why wasn’t this the whole movie? No one cares about the lore, but people really loved Loki, especially when there wasn’t much about him in the MCU at the time, and taking a villain fresh off his big hit with the first Avengers and throwing him in a reluctant “enemy of my enemy” plot for this entire movie would have been amazing.

Loki also refuses to stay dead because he’s too popular, thus we get a cyclical and frustrating arc where he only has development when the producers demand so they can make maximum profit off his character, but back then, in phase 2 world, the mystery around Loki was what made him so compelling and the drama around those two on screen was really good! They bounced so well off each other, they both had very different strengths and perspectives, both had real grievances to air, and in that movie, they *both* lost their mother. It’s not even that it’s a bad sequel, it’s just a plain bad movie.

The movie exists to keep establishing the Infinity Stones with the red one and I can’t remember what the red one does at this point, but it could have so easily done both. The powers that be should have known their strongest elements were Thor and Loki and their relationship, and run with it.

This isn’t “give into the demands of fans who want more Loki” it’s being smart enough to look at your own work and suss out what you think the most intriguing elements are and which have the most room and potential to grow (and also test audiences and beta readers to tell you the ugly truth). Sequels should feel more like natural continuations of the original story, not shameless cash grabs.

5. You walk back character development for ~drama~

As in, characters who got together at the end of book 1 suddenly start fighting because the “will they/won’t they” was the juiciest dynamic of their relationship and you don’t know how to write a compelling, happy couple. Or a character who overcame their snobbery, cowardice, grizzled nature, or phobia suddenly has it again because, again, that was the most compelling part of their character and you don’t know who they are without it.

To be honest, yeah, the buildup of a relationship does tend to be more entertaining in media, but that’s also because solid, respectful, healthy relationships in media are a rarity. Season 1 of Outlander remains the best, in part because of the rapid growth of the main love interest’s relationship. Every season after, they’re already married, already together, and occasionally dealing with baby shenanigans, and it’s them against the world and, yeah, I got bored.

There’s just so much you can do with a freshly established relationship: Those two are a *team* now. The drama and intrigue no longer comes from them against each other, it’s them together against a new antagonist and their different approaches to solving a problem. They can and should still have distinct personalities and perspectives on whatever story you throw them into.

6. It’s the same exact story, just Bigger

I have been sitting on a “how to scale power” post for months now because I’m still not sure on reception but here’s a little bit on what I mean.

Original: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy New York

Sequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the planet

Threequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the galaxy

You knew it wasn’t going to happen the first time, you absolutely know it won’t happen on a bigger scale. Usually, when this happens, plot holes abound. You end up deleting or forgetting about characters’ convenient powers and abilities, deleting or forgetting about established relationships and new ground gained with side characters and entities, and deleting or forgetting about stakes, themes, and actually growing your characters like this isn’t the exact same story, just Bigger.

How many Bond movies are there? Thirty-something? I know some are very, very good and some are not at all good. They’re all Bond movies. People keep watching them because they’re formulaic, but there’s also been seven Bond actors and the movies aren’t one long, continuous, self-referential story about this poor, poor man who has the worst luck in the universe. These sequels aren’t “this but bigger” it’s usually “this, but different”, which is almost always better.

“This, but different now” will demand a different skillset from your hero, different rules to play by, different expectations, and different stakes. It does not just demand your hero learn to punch harder.

Example: Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 does have more influence than Tai Lung, yes. He’s got a whole city and his backstory is further-reaching, but he’s objectively worse in close combat—so he doesn’t fistfight Po. He has cannons, very dangerous cannons, cannons designed to be so strong that kung fu doesn’t matter. Thus, he’s not necessarily “bigger” he’s just “different” and his whole story demands new perspective.

The differences between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are numerous, but the latter relies on “but bigger” and the former went in a whole new direction, while still staying faithful to the themes of the original.

7. It undermines the original by awakening a new problem too soon

I’ve already complained about the mere existence of Heroes of Olympus elsewhere because everything Luke fought and died for only bought that world about a month of peace before the gods came and ripped it all away for More Story.

I’ve also complained that the Star Wars Sequels were always going to spit in the face of a character’s six-movie legacy to bring balance to the Force by just going… nah. Ancient prophecy? Only bought us about 30 years of peace.

Whether it’s too soon, or it’s too closely related to the original, your audience is going to feel a little put-off when they realize how inconsequential this sequel makes the original, particularly in TV shows that run too many seasons and can’t keep upping the ante, like Supernatural.

Kung Fu Panda once again because these two movies are amazing. Shen is completely unrelated to Tai Lung. He’s not threatening the Valley of Peace or Shifu or Oogway or anything the heroes fought for in the original. He’s brand new.

My yearning to see these two on screen together to just watch them verbally spat over both being bratty children disappointed by their parents is unquantifiable. This movie is a damn near perfect sequel. Somebody write me fanfic with these two throwing hands over their drastically different perspectives on kung fu.

8. It’s so divorced from the original that it can barely even be called a sequel

Otherwise known as seasons 5 and 6 of Lost. Otherwise known as: This show was on a sci-fi trajectory and something catastrophic happened to cause a dramatic hairpin turn off that path and into pseudo-biblical territory. Why did it all end in a church? I’m not joking, they did actually abandon The Plan while in a mach 1 nosedive.

I also have a post I’ve been sitting on about how to handle faith in fiction, so I’ll say this: The premise of Lost was the trials and escapades of a group of 48 strangers trying to survive and find rescue off a mysterious island with some creepy, sciency shenanigans going on once they discover that the island isn’t actually uninhabited.

Season 6 is about finding “candidates” to replace the island’s Discount Jesus who serves as the ambassador-protector of the island, who is also immortal until he’s not, and the island becomes a kind of purgatory where they all actually did die in the crash and were just waiting to… die again and go to heaven. Spoiler Alert.

This is also otherwise known as: Oh sh*t, Warner Bros wants more Supernatural? But we wrapped it up so nicely with Sam and Adam in the box with Lucifer. I tried to watch one of those YouTube compilations of Cas’ funny moments because I haven’t seen every episode, and the misery on these actors’ faces as the compilation advanced through the seasons, all the joy and wit sucked from their performances, was just tragic.

I get it. Writers can’t control when the Powers That Be demand More Story so they can run their workhorse into the ground until it stops bleeding money, but if you aren’t controlled by said powers, either take it all back to basics, like Cars 3, or just stop.

—

Sometimes taking your established characters and throwing them into a completely unrecognizable story works, but those unrecongizable stories work that much harder to at least keep the characters' development and progression satisfying and familiar. See this post about timeskips that take generational gaps between the original and the sequel, and still deliver on a satisfying continuation.

TLDR: Sequels are hard and it’s never just one detail that makes them difficult to pull off. They will always be compared to their predecessors, always with the expectations to be as good as or surpass the original, when the original had no such competition. There’s also audience expectations for how they think the story, lore, and relationships should progress. Most faults of sequels, in my opinion, lie in straying too far from the fundamentals of the original without understanding why those fundamentals were so important to the original’s success.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools #writing a book #writing #writeblr #sequels #kung fu panda

[glitterslag]

anthroponymy in the bear

Apologies if someone's done this already, but I've been thinking a lot about the names of the characters in The Bear, and how almost nothing in this show is accidental. It's led me to wonder whether the names chosen are also intentional and if they can tell us anything about the characters and their journeys.

Firstly, we have Michael. The name is derived from a Hebrew phrase meaning ‘who is like god’ (often posed as a question). It’s fitting in my opinion. His character certainly is a godlike presence, his influence and love felt but not seen in The Beef. As the eldest sibling, he’s presented as a leader, and Carmy and Richie worship his vision. 

There’s a creation aspect with Mikey. He plays god from beyond the grave, literally breathing life into The Bear through the money he stashed in the tomato cans - we have him to thank for its establishment. 

The tomatoes remind me of the bible story of the feeding of the five thousand. In this miracle, Jesus is able to feed five thousand hungry people from just a few loaves of bread and a few fish. In ep 1.08, a humble tin of tomatoes - just as much a symbol of modesty as a loaf of bread - is opened to reveal a wad of cash. From this money comes The Bear, which hopefully will go on to feed just as many hungry mouths, if not more! 

Interestingly, 'michelin' is a diminutive of 'Michel', an alternate spelling of Michael. I wonder if there's a connection there? Maybe the key to The Bear earning its Michelin star will lie with Michael? A recipe of his, or a piece of advice he gave Carmy? (Sidetracking, but I just think it’s cool!)

Next, we have Carmy, who’s full name is Carmen. I’ve looked at a few sources, and there seem to be a couple of different meanings for his name. The Latin meaning comes from the word for a song or a poem. The Hebrew meaning is garden or vineyard. 

‘Song or poem’ to me reflects Carmy’s creative nature, his love of cooking and drawing. ‘Vineyard’ is interesting, considering that Donna is an alcoholic, and that as far as we know, Carmy is either sober or drinks very little. 

Carmen is also a gender neutral name. For me, one of the significant themes of the show is masculinity, and how different ideas of masculinity are warring with each other. To me, Mikey and to an extent Richie represent one particular masculine ideal, one that’s maybe a bit toxic. Carmy meanwhile is not painted as the stereotypical masculine guy. Richie often insults Carmy’s masculinity, jeering at his culinary training, being homophobic, making fun of his lack of experience with women. 

There’s so much I could say about this dichotomy, even right down to the dishes that are associated with each character. Richie’s idea of The Beef serving ‘food of the working man’. The sandwiches - their red meat fillings. Mikey’s spaghetti, in its simplicity, its earthiness, its history as a staple food of the working class.  To me, it’s a masculine, down to earth dish, very at odds with the fancier, more elegant dishes we come to associate Carmy with. 

Then we have characters such as Luca and Marcus - both of whom are associated with baking. You don’t have to be a genius to know that baking is seen as a feminine art. Luca and Marcus arguably don’t fit the macho man ideal either - both of them being depicted as a lot more gentle, calm, and creative types.

Next - Sydney. It’s an Old English name, and there are a few different interpretations of it that I could find. One is ‘wide meadow’ or ‘wide water meadow’. 

When Syd breezes into The Beef in ep 1, she’s literally a breath of fresh air. She’s a meadow! Her vision for what the restaurant could be, both in terms of the food served and the way the kitchen could be run (i.e. mutual respect, a smooth chain of command, no psycho bosses) is an idealistic vision, a utopia, a garden of Eden type image.

This brings me to the link with Carmy’s name:

Remember how one of the meanings of Carm’s name was garden? In my opinion, this similarity only reinforces the writer's intentions for us to see Syd and Carmy as kindred spirits. Gardens, meadows… both peaceful, calm, beautiful places. To me, it tells us they’re each other’s peace. It also tells us if they learn how to work together, they can create that ideal vision for the restaurant that they both crave.

Another interpretation of Syd’s name is that it means island or island dweller. This brings to mind the phrase ‘no man is an island’, which to me perfectly summarises her character’s central struggle. The phrase means that humans need each other. We need support, and we can’t do things alone. I think Sydney is shown as someone who can be prone to bottling things up, and maybe finds it difficult to ask for help and to be vulnerable. She’s not shown as having many family and friendship connections, and we see a lot of scenes where she’s alone - eating in restaurants, on the train, cooking at home. In that sense, she is a bit of an island, and I hope we see her become able to rely on others a little more in seasons to come (and hopefully Carmy gets his act together enough for her to trust him to be her support!). 

Next up: Jimmy. Short for James, a derivative of the Hebrew Jacob, it means ‘supplanter’. A supplanter means someone who takes the place of something else, like a usurper. Now, in ep 2.06, Jimmy and Donna’s dynamic was a little suspect, and I think a lot of people would agree that we’re supposed to infer something was going on there, with Cicero figuratively and perhaps literally taking the place of Bear senior. My theory is that there was an affair, and that Jimmy is actually Mikey’s father. JAW and Abby Elliott look pretty alike I’d say, while John Bernthal has quite different features. Was this intentional? Who’s to say, but I think there’s definitely a case to be made for there being two different fathers. Equally, Mr Bear could be Mikey’s dad, while Jimmy could be Nat and Carm’s true father - he has their lighter hair and eyes, so who knows!! 

In Genesis, Jacob supplants his twin brother by buying his birthright. In the show, Jimmy attempts to buy the restaurant, which of course once belonged to Carmy’s dad. Although the show doesn’t give us the full story of the pair, we gather that Jimmy and Bear Sr. were old friends who were almost more like brothers, until a feud ruined their relationship. Interesting for sure!

Next is Tina. Short for Christina, which means ‘follower of Christ’. Her last name, Marrero, is interesting. Deriving from Spanish, it means stone-breaker or hammer, reflecting her strength of character. She’s a single mother, an immigrant, and has been working in male-dominated kitchens with all these shitty, angry men for years. As far as we know, she was the only woman at The Beef pre-Syd. She dealt with Mikey and Richie’s shit for years. You’d have to be pretty fucking tough. 

On the other hand, T is so warm and kind underneath it all and seems able to penetrate through the other character’s exteriors relatively easily - Richie, Carmy, Ebra, Syd. They can all be pretty grumpy, but they all have SUCH a soft spot for Tina and only Tina. She’s the stone breaker to their stony surface! 💖🥰💖🥰

Okay those are the main ones I wanted to talk about, but here’s a few more in brief:

Richie: short for Richard, which means strong or brave ruler/leader. In the final episode, we see Richie leading expo and doing a great job. He’s finally living up to his name - literally finding his purpose.

Donna: means lady in Italian. Madonna, or ‘my lady’ is another name for Mary, Jesus’ mother. The ‘mother of victory’ referenced in the prayer that Carm, Nat and Richie say before the soft open is the same Mary. Whilst Donna definitely doesn’t share many characteristics with Mary, I think the comparison is useful in showing the bear kids’ conflicting view of their mother. They of course still love her and crave her love and her blessing for the restaurant in return.

Natalie: means ‘birth of the lord’, literally, ‘Christmas’. There could be a connection here to the Fishes episode, which takes place on Christmas.

Pete: short for Peter, it means rock. When Jesus made the disciple Peter the first Pope, he said, ‘on this rock I build my church’. Pete is Nat’s rock and I think that’s beautiful!!!!!!

Ebra: short for Ebrahim, an alternate spelling of Abraham, which means 'father of many'. He’s a father figure for The Bear!

I know there are a couple I've left out from the main cast, one being Marcus, whose name means 'follower of Mars', the Roman god. I'm still figuring out whether there's a significance there - I'm sure there could be. Maybe I'll do a part two with the rest of the characters!

Anyways I just think it's neat how fitting a lot of the names are... and I really don't think a lot of them were accidental!

Pls feel free to add on and/or correct me if I got anything wrong!

#yeah i'm riddled with catholic guilt for all eternity but at least i can make the bear meta #the bear #the bear meta #sydcarmy #(tagging sydcarmy cause i know the sydcarmy army love the meta) #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #the bear hulu #the bear fx #jeremy allen white

[incorrect-riordanverse]

watched ep 3 & 4 of the pjo show. here are random thoughts:

ep 3

ive said before that ive put off watching the pjo show after episode 2 because the pacing seemed like a rush of getting from story checkpoint to story checkpoint and it never sat in one place long enough to actually grip me. episode 3 started off like that too, before the trio went on the quest. i only started to really like it when they were on the bus together and more of their dynamic was shining. theyre so funny bru.

i like all the acting but leah jeffries and aryan simhadri are CARRYING SO HARD. its like they took annabeth exactly how i imagined her out of my head and plopped her on screen and im so shocked at the accuracy??? her attitude and side eyes and sass is perf. and simhadri’s grover is insane because (dont come for me) i actually like the show version of him better than i did in the book 😭 perhaps reading him was rocky and i interpreted him wrong but seeing him on screen makes me SO attached to him. like in the books he always seemed like a sort of third wheel and annabeth and percy were outshining him so much but he’s actually slaying the show. i love him lots.

i like the dichotomy between percy and annabeth. their dynamic is already so juicy, especially with how they view both their godly and mortal parents. you can see some of their fatal flaws already shining through UGH i love them

i like medusa WAY more in the show. she seems so menacing yet classy and much more multifaceted. my only complaint was that she died way too quickly. there was so much build up in tension only for her to get one-tapped and it was honestly disappointing.

LIN MANUEL MIRANDA SPOTTED 🫵🫵

dialogue was great in this episode, btw.

ep 4

dream sequence went so hard -> “just breathe mummy ☺️ you’ll always be here 😁” *cuts to percy alone on a desolate plane where she is, in fact, not here*

sighhh sometimes i forget these kids are just twelve and theyre literal BABIES and percy just misses his mum 🙁

annabeth exposition time. a comment on all the exposition— there’s always something each episode but i think the show is doing a well enough job of not dumping everything in a way thats spoon-feedy to audience or in a way that makes viewers feel overwhelmed. theyre breaking information up nicely (imo).

echidna is slaying so hard. sorry but the villains are actually eating the whole dish up. mwah no balls.

its giving “im not a monster, im a mother” 🔥

fight scene annoyed me again but at least the mother of all monsters wasn’t ONE TAPPED. but i was annoyed because the monster was not thrashing him around as much as it had the opportunity to and it was giving plot armour im so sorry. might be cause of budget or target audience/rating though idk. the commentary of the show seems more mature however.

anyways yurr those are my observations. i like these last two eps more than the first two so maybe i should let this series cook.

remember to pirate this show if ur gonna watch it!!

#riordanverse #incorrect riordanverse #rick riordan #pjo #percy jackson #annabeth chase #grover underwood #pjo tv show #pjo show #medusa pjo #echidna pjo #rewriting

[everythingcanadian]

Marvey: domestic vinyl disco

If anything threw Harvey off it was what happened when Mike officially moved in.

The small amount of boxes they unpacked didn't worry him, he knew the whole story. The one full box of video games and a console and controllers didn't bother him, he rarely watched tv anymore. The ripped jeans didn't even cause him to blink.

What did throw him was the notebooks. Each with a year and date timeline on them. Mike had smiled as he put them away in a little fabric basket he'd put into the larger shelving unit they bought together. "Memories and idle thoughts." Mike had said.

"You write in diaries?" Harvey had teased. And all he got was a shrug and a cheeky smile. Harvey snorted in acted annoyance, squatting down and kept shelving the books Mike had packed.

A list had fallen out of one of the notebooks and was loose in the basket, so Harvey pulled it out, itching to open the flimsy lined paper and devour what his partner wrote. Instead, he called out, "Mike! Something slipped out of your diaries. I don't know which one."

It's a few moments before Mike comes out of the guest room turned home office. He holds put his hand for the paper and Harvey gives it to him. The dichotomy of their stance mirrored that of last night, except Harvey wasn't on his knees and Mike wasn't against the wall.

Mike's face lit up as he looked at the title of his own note. A small laugh coming out. "Oh- yeah I remember this. The first Christmas we actually were going to spend together and I was trying to think of things to get you." He hands over the page.

Harvey looks up at Mike before looking at the paper and taking it back. He frowns at first but as he reads past the fourth line he smiles in disbelief and then a full sunny grin. "Vinyls." He gives a huff of a laugh.

"Ones you had looked at online or in stores as we passed." Mike says bashfully, a light pink coming to his cheeks. "It's- become a list of records I'd get you randomly."

"Just because?" Harvey's face shifts into that of soft awe, the one he has when he melts inside from anything Mike does.

Mike nods, "just because."

Harvey looks back at the page and his brown eyes soften. "You have a few crossed out."

"Because they're in your shelf already."

"What?" Harvey looks to his home collection of records.

"Here and work." Mike says proudly. "I said I was sneaky."

"No you didn't."

"Oh but I did. Said I'd find ways to surprise you."

"I-. I didn't think you meant things like this?" Harvey looks at the list as he stands, seeing one he knows he didn't have here at home. He walks his shelf and looks at the A's. He grins and laughs when he sees it. Pulling it out the black and gold record sleeve is bold and bare. "Would you care for a dance?"

"To disco?"

"Mmhm, with me?"

Mike pauses and his whole body lights up with glee. "Yeah, yeah put it on. We deserve a bit of a break anyway."

"Yes we do." Harvey is reverent in slipping the black record out, the band's name emblazoned on the center with all the songs. "Do you have a preference for a side?"

"Start from the beginning."

Harvey's smile softens, the meaning of those words pulling his heart strings. "We can do that. We'll just change records when it ends." The little ritual of putting on a record is something almost sacred to Harvey, and Mike watches his delicate movements with his hands. The opening static and then a blast of piano and catchy notes fills the condo with delightful and cheesy music.

"ABBA, not something I'd pick for myself. But it does have its moments." Harvey comes over to Mike and grabs his hips, leading them to a more open space to move. His laugh is full of life as he watches Mike dance a shitty attempt at Travolta. "Oh my god. Come here." Harvey kisses him softly, smiling too much for it to be proper, only to join Mike in being a dork.

#marvey #otp: marvey #suits usa #suits tv #fic #fluff and domestic life is my jam for them. #my fic

[otaku553]

Hello! I saw your recent art of sabo, and in the tags you mentioned the big 3 of Shounen. I know it’s One piece and Naruto, but what’s the third? How come you like the character? Lovely artwork, it’s candy for the soul!! Thank you •u•

Ah thank you!!! The big three of shonen (for I guess the previous generation?) are Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. Naruto and Bleach have already ended but it seems like One Piece is still going quite strong, despite the new generation of shonen anime (including Hero Aca, Demon Slayer, and the third spot is still debated! Probably JJK is my guess though that falls into its own sub genre of shonen dark fantasy I suppose)

Here are my favs! I’ll put the reasons why I like them in the read more because it’s quite long :)

Despite watching Naruto first I could never actually finish it because it was so long so I kind of just osmosed the later parts of shippuden through fanfics and other such media ^^; I think it’s pretty difficult to pick a definitive fav for Naruto because I feel like it tends to fumble a bit of its character writing? I think if I had to pick one maybe young Kakashi but still kind of eh. Maybe I just didn’t watch far enough to get attached

As for Bleach, I picked it up years ago around middle school and then dropped it after the first hundred episodes or so because filler got boring for younger me but then I picked it up again in high school and managed to at least get past aizen! And then I dropped it there because I wasn’t interested in any continuation after what seemed like an already pretty strong ending.

Toshiro is my favorite because he falls into all niches of character tropes that I enjoy including but not limited to: child genius who acts responsible but is still somewhat immature, cold personality along with ice powers but fierce loyalty to close relationships. I especially enjoy child genius characters for the contradictory dichotomy of what is expected of them in terms of maturity and knowledge and the amount of pressure these kinds of characters face and how they handle it! That said, I enjoy him more for the tropes that he falls into and my personal interpretation of him rather than canon writing for him. I think that though canon is an alright base, he doesn’t get much time to shine (character-wise instead of combat-wise).

And Sabo. Oh my goodness I am brainrotting so hard over Sabo right now. The ASL siblings in general have a vice grip on my heart and really are not letting go. There is so much tragedy in the way that they are written, that works because there are three of them. Ace and Luffy spend so much effort trying to save the only brother they have left in the world not realizing that if they go they’ll be the first to go actually because Sabo is still alive, and Sabo could have done so much and changed so much if only he had regained his memories sooner. Why didn’t he remember sooner? I can only assume it’s because he didn’t want to remember, because he grew out his hair to cover a scar he wasn’t proud of, because he was running away from his origins when he lost his memories and maybe that stuck with him. I don’t even remember when Sabo was introduced as a character because I don’t think he was mentioned during Marineford? But he’s such a compelling character because he does so much to save the world and yet is unable to save his own brother! And he’s written to fit with Ace and Luffy incredibly well, being the voice of reason where they can’t be.

#ask #one piece #sabo #toshiro hitsugaya #bleach #sabo’s round bug eyes are so silly to me #I’m not going to ever be able to draw him like that but. it’s really funny to me when people give him the narrow ikemen eyes #he’s such a dork…. a doting older brother……… amnesiac…… what a little meowmeow truly #I think I enjoy Toshiro because gifted kid burnout makes me relate a lot to the pressure and I wish I could handle maturity as well as him #Sabo on the other hand is just. hghgehhfhfh no concrete personal reason he’s just cool #i think anyone who goes into battle wearing a top hat and tailcoat and cravat is awesome #but then he goes and brings out the PIPE and it’s such an endearing little callback to how he grew up among trash heaps and asfnaenfaenf #I didn’t think he was that interesting at first because it felt a bit cliche for him to be a runaway noble #but then they hit him with the amnesia and hit him with the need to help others escape from evils that he can’t even really remember #and then they hit him with fucking……. returning his memories too little too late and his breakdown at being overwhelmed with not only the #memories of his brothers but also the knowledge that one of his brothers has died while he forgot them and was off doing something else and. #ashnasfnaenfeafhhaefh

[silversweetpea]

Stitched Up

Word Count: 4422

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader

Summary: The Devil get cold too sometimes, and it seems a shame to toss out perfectly good fabric...

Warnings: Offscreen violence heavily implied, Reader has a panic attack at one point in the story but Matt talks them through it. 

Author’s Note: Hello, welcome back to Petal being self indulgent with their writing again lmao. I’m a sucker for five and one stories and that’s pretty evident from the structure of this guy (although technically it’d be better called three and one but semantics). I also have no idea how fashion college degrees work so please excuse that I just wanted an excuse to write about giving our guy a gift.

❀✿❀✿ ❀✿❀✿ ❀✿❀✿ ❀✿❀✿ ❀✿❀✿ ❀✿❀✿

“I’m not afraid of you,” Your voice doesn’t shake, which is the part that scares you more than the man in front of you.

“You should be,” The devil of hells kitchen responds.

He’s beaten and bloody and bruised beneath the suit. you can see cuts in the fabric from whatever the beginning of the night held for him. Still, despite his presentation. you know him as much as any other resident does. There's a reason the man who had tried to corner you had dropped his gun and ran when the horned shadow stretched over the alleyway and there's a reason you stayed besides the shock.

Daredevil doesn’t hold back against criminals, but you’re just a civilian on their way home from your friend’s house.

“Thank you," Your hands tremble but you try to convince yourself its from the biting autumn wind. The Devil barely nodded before moving to leave. There’s an interesting dichotomy in your head as the part of you that remembers your test in the morning and stranger danger rules screams at the top of its lungs to hurry home where you can hide under the blankets and call your friends. It had been a while since you caught up with each other’s lives, hadn’t it? Wouldn’t a friendly voice be good to hear right now?

“You can thank me by getting off the street,” it’s a gruff response but not particularly unkind and it only fuels the whispering voice that urges you after him. 

You can’t help but blame that whisper for the fleeting idea that he has a nice voice as well as the way that your feet follow him. Your eyes drifted to the red suit and the nasty gashes in the fabric as he walked along the sidewalk. You wondered for just a second what the pair of you must look like, you laden with bags of fabric and shoes to repair and the devil of hell's kitchen desperately trying to speed walk away from you.

“Do you have someone who can stitch up your suit?” The vigilante didn’t stop  but he did visibly roll his shoulders in frustration at your continued presence. You couldn’t be sure why he didn’t just scale another building like the one that he had dropped down from, but if you were a gambler you would put money on the gashes along his back and arms.

“What?” 

“Your suit. It doesn’t look like it’s made of the best material,” Words spill out like an unmanned faucet left to run, nerves had always made you more chatty. “I mean it looks good on you don’t get me wrong but I was just going to say that I could stitch it up for you, if you wanted.”

Your face feels warm when he finally does stop and the gruffness has more bite this time. 

“Go home.”

Your feet feel rooted to the cement as you watch him go. It only takes a minute or two for him to disppear down an alley way but it feels longer given how much time you spend standing in the dim lighting of the street lamps. 

The shock of the night lingers long enough to make it hard to remember how you got home, and you blame the paranoia you experience the rest of the night on being shaken up as well. You had no reason to believe that there were eyes on your back the whole way home, after all. 

And the next morning, finding yourself on the couch surrounded by sketches of hypothetical potential winter appropriate superhero suits for hypothetical heroes and your favorite show on the telelvision where you had left the reruns the night before, you tried to put it out of your mind. You had known the risks of living alone in Hell’s Kitchen, and it had been just another day hadn’t it?

The whisper doesn’t agree. Your classes push forward but your free time is spent prototyping jackets. Fashion had always meant to be fun, it was your passion and your way of expression, so focusing on practicality was a bit harder than you were expecting. The Devil is still active, you hear the reports in the morning on the news just as loudly as the rumors on the street. Your friends ask if you want to move in with them and you think of a man’s back covered in gashes and rips when you say no.

Early fall grows late by the time you see him next. Leaves that had just barely been dusted with color now dripped with it in piles on the ground beneath the empty trees. One of which was where you had caught sight of him, perched in the bare branches like a strange bird native only to the kitchen. His black suit had been swapped out for a simpler black you recognized from blurry photos online. It’s not as flashing and the material looks worse for the wear but you know its him nonetheless. 

Not only because of the wrappings on his hands or the way he held so eerily still, but because you knew by now that no other hero was brave enough to stick their nose into his territory.

Your backpack feels heavier than it had when you left this morning as you stood there. You had packed it for a reason, just like you had spent all that time on prototypes for a reason, but the thought of handing over your work to someone never became less daunting.

“Go home,” You jump nearly a foot in the air at the words. The night had been so quiet - or at least as quiet as Hells Kitchen ever was - that the sudden noise felt deafening. In between your thundering heartbeat though you can hear that his voice is thick with annoyance, but thicker still with exhaustion. 

“You said that last time too,” Daredevil sighs but doesn’t leave when you take your bag off and begin to root through it. “Why did you switch your suit?”

“Do you expect me to answer that?”

“I was kinda hoping you would, yeah.” The man doesn't respond verbally this time, just drops from the tree with a solid thud and begins walking off. It takes all of two seconds before you’re able to swallow your nerves and chase after but the distance between the two of you feels like it’s been way longer than that. “Wait, wait I’m sorry. I’m not good small talk.”

“If I wanted small talk I’d head to queens.” The lights of the neon signs and smoke make him look like someone out of a comic book. You wonder what you look like to him but you can’t focus too much on that train of thought without loosing your nerve completely. 

“Right, sorry. I just,” There’s bile rising at the back of your throat from the way that he’s looking at you. Or you assumed he was at least, his eyes were still just as covered as they were in his usual suit. “well I have something for you.”

He finally stops and you nearly run into him given that you’re so focused on trying to catch up. The jacket in your hands suddenly feels littered with mistakes and there’s a distinct screaming to try and shove it back in the bag and tell him it was all a lie. Daredevil doesn’t move from his spot but he does turn around and even in the dark and the limitations of his suit you can read his confusion clearly.

“Its getting cold out and I don’t know how thick the fabric of your suit is so I made you a coat. There’s no tracking or anything in it if you’re worried about that, I’m not good enough with tech for that sort of thing.” It had occurred to you as you were working on it that he may have said no to you repairing his suit because he was worried about his secret identity. Your hand shakes thinking that he may not accept this offering due to similar reasons.

“You made me a coat.” The Devil’s voice isn’t as harsh as it has been, almost like you’d surprised him enough to break his version of a customer service voice. It fills you with just enough warmth to take another step forward and force the jacket into his hand before you can back out and run home.

“Yeah. It’s not the most fashionable but it’s pretty streamline because that seemed kind of important to being able to fight and there’s lots of pockets because those seemed handy. I don’t know how well you can see in there but it’s just black with red detailing. I didn’t want to get the wrong shade of red and have it clash too much and-” You hadn’t realized that you were speaking as fast as you were until you had to stop to take a breath. His posture is just as stiff but his hands are gently exploring the feel of the fabric in a way that makes you feel like you did something right. “I’m sorry. You don’t really need to know all that it’s just that, uhm, well I talk when I’m nervous.”

Daredevil doesn’t comment on why you would be nervous and that alone makes you think that he has more mercy than many would consider. The silence lingers for a moment or two longer before he clears his throat and speaks again.

“Thank you.” For the first time he sounds kind, his lips don’t quite reach a smile but there isn’t the harsh set to them that there was at the beginning of your conversation. 

“No problem.” The words sound breathless because they are. Your lungs suddenly can’t quite fill all the way up with the smoke heavy air and when he slowly slips into the jacket they loose all their air completely. “It looks good on you.”

That one gets a smile and it’s brighter than any of the signs around you. 

“It’s late. You should get going.” He’s still smiling, still wearing a jacket with your label on the inside collar, even as he ushers you off into the night again. The weeks of sewing and scrapped patterns and pricked finger tips suddenly doesn’t seem like that bad of a price to pay to burn the image of his mouth into your brain.

“Yeah, Goodnight.”

You leave first this time, giddy in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time. The walk is shorter than it’s ever been and you all but fall into your bed when you reach you apartment. 

When you check twitter the next morning there’s a single, dark photo of him mid jump from someone trying to ask about his ‘new costume’ and you’re quick to save it to your phone. 

It’s still there the next time you see him. It’s later than you’d like but three run ins with the devil of hells kitchen is three more than most people would get. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” His hand is on your arm but you can barely feel it. Everything around you is spinning, your fist clenched tightly around the taser that you had sworn you would never need to use. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

You can hear him, you know you can, but it’s hard to focus on what he’s actually saying. 

“Of course,” the words are as solid as any other you could have said but the grip on your arm tightens just barely. You’re not looking at him though, eyes still locked on the brick wall across the alley from you. You hadn’t picked this alley to hide in while Daredevil took care of the would be assaulters, whatever that had meant when he left you here to catch your breath. If you had, you’re not sure if you would have picked one that had a graffiti work of an angel and a devil looming over you.

“You should sit down, you’re in shock.” There’s a pull, not hard enough that you can’t pull away from it yourself, but enough that you know the Devil is trying to get you to sit. Your eyes still don’t leave the mural on the bricks, you know the ground is wet though with this morning’s rain. 

“I’d rather not. New pants. Dirty alley way.” Was it normal to feel guilty for self preservation? You didn’t know what would have happened had you not lashed out to protect yourself, you could say that with certainty, but the way the man had dropped to the ground-

“I’ll pay the dry cleaning bill, sit down.” When he pulls you this time, you allow yourself to sit. There’s cars in the distance that you can hear honking from and somewhere nearby there’s the sound of music. Daredevil is crouched next to you, arm still in his grasp, when you realize that he’s in the same position of the winged being behind him. His colors are different and the angel doesn’t have horns, but the hold and the concern in the way they both lean towards their companion are identical.

“Did the coat work?” You ask after a minute. Anything to stop the line of thought in your head. 

“Yeah, it’s great. My friends keep asking me where I got it so they can get one.” Your smile feels watery and weak but its there and he must see it through his mask given the way that his hold loosens on your arm before finally dropping. As if he’s no longer afraid that you’re going to drift away without something to ground you.

“I’m really glad. I hadn’t seen photos of you wearing it in a while so I just kinda assumed it wasn’t warm enough.” The mention of photos should make you embarrassed, and surely when you think back on the situation tomorrow you’re sure it will. Right now though you’re just focused on the way that he smiles again, almost laughs, like the thought of you looking for paparazzi photos of him is funny to him. 

“I was in a bit of a rush to get to work one day and grabbed it without thinking. Figured it might raise too many eyebrows if I kept wearing it on patrol after that.” It’s more information than he’d ever given you before and for good reason. Still, having that sliver of information feels like finding your favorite hoodie fresh from the wash. It’s something to clutch to your chest and carry with you. 

“Oh. I’m sorry.” This time he does laugh, a short sound but one that you think would make a wonderful ringtone for your phone. It makes you finally understand why artists sample their loved ones’ voices in songs, you want the whole world to hear Daredevil’s laugh and know that he’s not all that bad. 

“You’re a bit odd,” It’s not wrong exactly but something about the way he says it makes you want to bury your head in your hands and scream out laughing at the same time. You settle for something in between and rest your head on your arms which rest on top of your knees. Face not quite hidden yet but only a moment away from doing so if the need arises. 

“You’re the one in a costume.” Daredevil doesn’t laugh again but his smile is still so bright it makes your eyes water. 

“You’ve got me there.” His voice is quiet, soothing. Your pants are wet from the pavement and you can feel the chill seeping in through the fabric but you can’t quit bare the thought of getting up yet. 

“Thank you for staying.” If you asked to hold his hand would he laugh at you? Would that be crossing a line?

“Yeah, well, I figured if I left you’d make me another coat.” It’s nice to be teased, taser heavy in your pocket but not your hand. It’s nice to have someone talk with you as if you hadn’t just hurt someone else for the first time.

“You’re right and now I’m gong to have to make you two new coats.” It’s nice to tease him back as if he’s just another friend and not a vigilante. It’s nice to pretend that you’re arguing over how many christmas presents to get each other this year.

“How about just a hat, hard to find ones with holes for the horns.” You’re pretty sure he’s trying to make you laugh again but you’re too focused thinking on how silly that must look. 

“Two hats and a scarf?” He could make christmas cards out of the papparazi photos, especially if you went with a green color scheme. 

“One hat and a set of mittens.” The devil holds out his hand and you hum for just a moment, letting it stand before taking his hand in yours again. It’s warm and you try not to think about how well the two of you fit together. 

“Deal.” Even after a gentle shake you don’t let go and your friend, you think at least, pulls you to your feet. 

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

That’s the last time you see him for a while. Your fault, you know, you don’t walk much after dark anymore and Daredevil never seems to be active during the day. Weeks go by and finals begin to loom just as snow begins to fall. The approved hat and mittens and unapproved scarf you decided to make with the leftover fabric sit untouched in tissue paper in your bag.

You think, most days, that perhaps that would be the last of it. That you had had your three times to befriend him or learn more about him and you had blown it with panic attacks and nervous rambling. And then one of your friends asked you to deliver a package for her on a day off. 

The building was small and definitely had seen some better days, but at least it was shelter from the bitterly cold wind. All you wanted was to drop the suit off, call Jasmine to remind her to bring the doughnuts you liked from the campus bakery when she finished classes for the day, and curl up with a silly feel good movie and your phone. 

In fact you’re so busy mentally picking out what pajamas you’re going to change into when you get home that you almost miss it completely when you walk in.

“Hi I’m looking fo-” your voice catches in your throat when you see it. There’s a woman at the desk, probably the one you’ve been sent to find, but there’s also a man standing next to her. 

It’s not his neat shirt and pants that catch your attention or his dark hair and indoor sunglasses. It’s not the white cane he’s leaning on or the familiar tilt of his lips as he talks to the woman next to him. It’s the fact that he’s wearing the jacket you stitched together.

“Hello?” It takes far too long to realize the greeting is directed towards you and when you do you can feel the warmth that gathers in your face as you clear your throat.

“Hi, sorry, uhm, I have a package for Ms. Page? It’s from Jasmine if that helps jog your memory at all.”

“Oh! I wasn’t expecting you until later! Thank you!” Her smile is warm and friendly, and you feel bad that you don’t want to look at it. Not when the man is suddenly standing stock still and the smile has slipped from his lips. 

“It’s no problem, really. She wanted me to let you know that if there’s any issue with the inseam to just give her a call she couldn’t remember whether you two had decided to round up or down on the decimal.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, thank you. I’m Karen,”

“(Y/n),” she blinked and looked at the man behind her briefly before shaking her head with a polite laugh.

“You wouldn’t happen to make jackets would you?”

“I’m back and I bring coffee!”

“I should go, I have a couple other things to drop off before I can head home and that cold is killer.” You don’t linger long enough to even introduce yourself to new man in the doorway or say goodbye to Karen, too afraid of tipping your hand too much. 

You weren’t lying about one thing at least, the cold is killer especially as you sit on a bench half a block away trying to adjust to the potential bombshell you just had dropped in your lap.

“You never sent me your dry cleaning bill.” You know who it is before you turn around. Your heartrate doubles, the organ working overtime at the thought that you had messed up somehow.

He's smiling when you turn around. It's the same one he gave you in the alley and yet it feels brand new. There's snow landing in his hair and spotting his coat, your coat.

“You didn’t need to follow me I’m not going to tell anyone.” It takes longer than you would have liked to answer and for the first time when talking to Daredevil you sound afraid. You are though, not of him, never of him, but of the embaressment of being scared of the dark? Or the potential questioning of how you found him? Hell even the idea of having slipped up and spilled too many clues somehow and Karen had been able to grill him for information afterwards was a nightmare.

The man's brow furrows just a touch, head tilted ever so slightly as the smile slips into something more confused.

“That’s-” He cuts himself off with a small clearing of his throat. Daredevil's posture shifts slightly and you notice the cane in his hands again. It looks startlingly similar to the cane you had seen people with visual imparements use. “Good to know.”

“Really. I couldn’t tell people if I wanted to, I don’t know if you’re Nelson or Murdock or just some random client that walked in looking for counsel.” The smile is gone completely now, even as he nods. Still he raises a hand to gesture to the bench you're on.

“Can I?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!" It's almost a certainty that you sound incompetent as you shuffle sideways on the bench. You almost wished he was in costume again, at least that way while you would be nervous you wouldn't have to know he was cute while you embaressed yourself.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” His voice is soft around the edges, a verbal olive branch woven into a basket in which you can put as much trust as you'd like.

Unfortunately you'd already placed all your trust in the pockets of the jacket he wore, had it sewn into the lining.

“What?” Daredevil sighs, his fingers tapping on the cane in front of him.

“I can tell you're nervous," The man's voice is still carefully slow. Each word sounds purposeful and careful as it leaves his lips.

"Yeah, I'm nervous but not because i think you'll hurt me! I would never think that!" He seems unconvinced, but more so there's a sense of uncertainty. It sounds silly, everyone feared the Devil even other heroes. When you thought of him there should be a shiver down your spine and a quicker beat to your steps. You can't bring yourself to be afraid though, at least not more so than you are of any other hero. In fact if you had to choose between talking with him and talking with any of the other locals you'd choose Daredevil in an instant. None of the others had helped you or your loved ones in the dark corner of the city they pretended didnt exist. None of them had laughed with you or walked you home when you were scared. "Really, I'm just nervous because I didn't want you to think I was stalking you or anything."

It's true enough for some of the tension to leave his posture though and that feels like a victory worth celebrating regardless of the unspoken parts of your confession. The pair of you sit in quiet for a moment and you try not to stare at him too hard.

You're pretty sure you're failing though. It's too hard to look away when his expressions are so emotive. You didn't think that seeing his cheeks or forehead would influence how easy it is to read him but it's like looking at a whole new person.

“It’s Murdock.” There's a pretty good chance you jump when he speaks, especially since the smile comes back to him so fast.

“I'm sorry?"

“You said you didn’t know if I was Nelson or Murdock. I’m Murdock. Most people call me Matt though.” Matt. It fits him nicely. “Nelson was the guy with coffee you brushed past who is, by the way, now convinced you’re an ex I never told him about.”

The nervous laughter comes before you can stop it, but when you bury your face in your hands you can hear him give a small laugh of his own.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” the laughter doesn't stop when you look at him, face burning with heat you're trying desperately to hide despite being equally as desperate to see him and know what he's thinking about the matter.

“Admitting guilt isn’t usually something people do with lawyers.” The tease is enough to force your gaze back into your fingers. It was strange how open he was without the suit, how much kinder he was. "You should probably be heading home.”

“You’re always trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?” it's hard to tease Matt back when you're still flustered yourself but it's worth the effort to see the boyish grin.

“It’s cold out," There's a pause and in it you can hear an almost laugh slip out again. "And now that you know where to find me maybe you’ll come back with my mittens.”

Your heart skips at the proposition.

“Would you be okay with that?” it's hard to talk around the frog in your throat, almost convinced he's just joking still.

“Well, it might be easier to convince Foggy that you’re not my ex if you’re also there.” Matt hasn't turned towards you but you still feel like the center of the world when he tips his head in your direction. “Maybe not though.”

#matt murdock x you #matt murdock x reader #daredevil x you #daredevil x reader #matt murdock x gender neutral reader #daredevil x gender neutral reader #matt murdock imagine #matt murdock headcanon

[bonefall]

do you have a quick link to information about Brokenstar, Runningnose, and Skypelt? I'm curious about the story behind Runny's acorn necklace and I want to read about Brokenstar becoming SkyClan's guardian, and how he was able to follow Firestar/help him restore SkyClan. i've been having a hard time finding it

I need to finish (or at least *reasonably complete*) the SE where Fire and Broken go to resurrect SkyClan. That is called Firestar's Quietus. Brokenstar's origin, which completely replaces Yellowfang's Secret, is called Brokenstar's Cataclysm and that's another one I need to complete.

The exact story has undergone a lot of revision SO I'm gonna take a quick break to try and compile some Best Hits of BB!Runningnose's and BB!Brokenstar's dynamic to get you up to speed, and make a definitive list of what's currently canon to Better Bones

And, because this is DEFINITELY the change that raises the most eyebrows and it's a good opportunity to make an intro,

"Elder Bones, what's all this I hear about your Not-Totally-Evil Brokenstar?"

He's still evil lmao, but he's not BORN evil in BB. NO ONE is.

BB is a story about culture. It's about a lot of things, family, anti-authoritarianism, xenophobia... but at its core, Better Bones is about how people impact culture, and how it acts on people.

Something I realized early in this process is that Canon Brokenstar, who is a born-evil punishment for SkyClan's exile (this is CANON, go re-read Yellowfang's Secret if you don't remember!), only made worse by abuse and enabling, does not effectively tell a story about culture.

Depending on your reading, Canon!Brokenstar is either a cosmic horror story or one about abuse. Could Yellowfang have saved him (and ShadowClan) with love? The book implies no, it was his destiny, just the medcat den was hers.

But looking at Canon!Lizardfang who let him get bullied*, and Canon!Raggedpelt who enabled him every step of the way as Sagewhisker held Yellowfang back, you could also read it as someone who was treated so horribly that he did horrible things to others. That he wanted respect and this is how he got it

So, okay, you could read that it's the fault of this bad woman, bullying, and this overly permissive dad that he became a baby killer. Problem solved?

HOWEVER... the Erins also refuse to actually write about people who unironically love his philosophy, because they don't want Brokenstar to be systemic. Blackfoot, the posterboy for a Broken-supporter, gets to reckon with how sad his childhood was and how he was only ever a mislead kitty who Truly Loved His Clan, as opposed to Brokenstar, who was Born Evil And Did Not Truly Love His Clan.

Blackstar's greatest flaw wasn't xenophobia, or hatred. He wasn't groomed by a society that glorifies violence and pushes a might-makes-right mentality. He just followed The Bad Person. With the death of The Bad People, society is fine :)

This is a recurring dichotomy. Leopardstar was good all along, Tigerstar was bad all along, Needletail was good all along, Darktail was bad all along. The Erins are not telling a story about how Clan Culture produces villains, or how it makes good people do terrible things, they tell stories about treacherous Evil People who always had a seed of badness inside of them.

-Onestar's Confession, Page 704

This is their guiding philosophy, and it's what Better Bones sets out to reject.

So, Brokenstar.

I realized while drawing him this one time that I was making him look too much like Tigerstar. Charismatic and puffed up, ready to twist the code to fit his own ends. Then it hit me-- why am I telling the same story twice?

BB!Tigerstar is the inheritor of Thistle Law, apprentice of Thistleclaw, with a backstory where he was a lonely, abused child and seeks respect to fill that hole. He's getting all sorts of reduxes to explore him, and the way that violent ideologies recruit (and prey on) angry and lonely people. Why should I just... have two Tigerstars, but one of them is explored less?

AND, I would waste the fascinating idea that Brokenstar is a manifested curse. Why remove something so cool, when instead, I could lean into that...? Then I started to realize...

Why didn't they ever connect Brokenstar to the resurrection of SkyClan, if he is this manifested curse?

So, enough preamble. Come below the cut and I'll tell you about the story in Better Bones so far...

BB!Brokenstar is not born evil. He is born angry.

He was ALWAYS going to happen. His birth, his ambition, and his fury were inevitable.

This is a curse that was laid generations ago, at the end of Ripplestar's Rot.

The last-ditch attempt to save SkyClan was literally crushed by StarClan itself, blasting the base of the blighted 5th Tree of Fivetrees and sending it toppling down to smite Ripplestar.

That tree was the symbol of SkyClan and their place in the forest. All the love, comfort, and memories that they had ever put into that oak had a power of their own-- and they took form on that night.

Brokenstar is not the only "entity" of this type. Star Flower, eons ago, was another. BB contains many new types of entities beyond, and even adjacent to StarClan. Gods, curses, guardians, other religions of equal standing...

But he needed to be born to someone. In return for Dawnstar's kindness, taking in Cloudstar's young children (Re: Ripplestar's Rot), ShadowClan would be the eye of the storm.

And it would be a Cleric who bore him, just like Larkstripe, who had been cruelly separated from her only kitten.

Yellowfang, Shroompelt at the time, this was before her Dishonor Title, saw when he was born that he was furious. She'd never seen a newborn look so angry.

In Brokenstar's Cataclysm, she only gets the opening chapter. It's enough to establish how Sagewhisker pressured her into the role, the lengths she went to in order to keep this secret, the reason for his name despite it not matching his tail.

NOTE: Brokentail's name, Kanochswash, means Broken-in-half-tail. He has two breaks in his tail, making three segments. It matches the way the oak was broken, once at the base, again against the rock, but it is actually obvious in Clanmew that his name does not refer to his tail.

Or, it's obvious to Lizardstripe at least... who is VERY different in BB. Old followers will know, she is a very loyal friend of Bluestar herself, and a member of her inter-Clan friendgroup, the Forget-Me-Nots.

She really doesn't want to be in this situation, doesn't LIKE being a mother, and Mudfoot is unhelpful... but she's the most perceptive of the Forget-Me-Nots. She hears that name, sees Shroompelt's distant eyes, and it clicks. She sometimes looks for things to complain about so Shroompelt has an excuse to stay in the den for a while.

But Lizardstripe is not raising Brokenkit. Raggedstar is. Raggedstar is Brokenkit's Mi, and Raggedstar alone. He's pointedly adamant about that, and as soon as Brokenkit doesn't need round-the-clock suckling, he started sleeping in the Leader's Den with dad.

Unfortunately, being the golden child of the leader did not pair nicely with Brokenkit's short fuse.

And he made a little friend.

What first drew Runningkit to Brokenkit was that he was very large. Runningkit LOVED pissing off one of his siblings, and then hiding behind his bestie who was younger than them but already as big as a stump.

When Lizardstripe tried to do anything about this, Raggedstar would get pissed off at her, insisting that his son needed to be with his friends.

Together, the two of them learned they could do whatever they wanted, as long as they stuck together. With Runny's brain and Broken's brawn, they weren't even a year old and already unstoppable.

And their idea of "unstoppable" was... mostly getting seconds when they'd already eaten and pushing against the horrors of bedtime. Sneaking out and collecting acorns. Being allowed to practice with the warriors.

Even better, since being the leader's kitten meant everyone tended to be extra nice to Broken to butter up to Ragged.

If they got what they wanted, they were sweet to adults. But from watching her son, and from being friends with Lizardstripe, Shroompelt knew that they could be vicious when they wanted to be.

And from a young age, Brokenkit knew that he needed to become Brokenstar... and Runningkit promised he'd get him there.

You might be noticing something.

Brokenstar was always loved, very, very much.

Spoiled? Absolutely. A little bully? You bet.

Not yet more than the sort of things angry, spoiled kids get up to.

The point I'm meticulously building here is that BB!Brokenstar WAS LOVED, and he loved in turn.

It won't stop what is about to happen.

Brokenkit was only a few months old when his father became leader, after Cedarstar was killed in the war with WindClan. Heatherstar wanted the Mothermouth Moorland; a floodplain just beyond the Carrionplace, which grows flax and many other medicinal flowers.

It was something the two clans had fought over before, that IS the code's Right of Challenge, but Heatherstar wanted all of it. She'd even killed the practice of tunneling to dedicate all of her forces to take it.

If you are not strong enough to keep something, you do not deserve to have it. This is what the Code says.

And strength is what Brokenkit quickly learned.

Taking extra bowls of food means nothing in the fall when the prey grows fat, but ShadowClan's marsh freezes fast.

You can't whine up a second bowl when not everyone even got a first.

Do you defend your territory? Or focus on survival? When the challenges are frequent, you have to go without eating to defend them.

And yes, you're hungry, but it's for a reason.

Brokenkit wasn't out of kithood when he saw his first death, because people were already dying before he was born.

In skirmishes, in hunting accidents, to infection because they didn't have enough herbs. Starvation in winter.

From a very young age, he was taught this is the way of Clans, and this is because of WindClan.

And his ambition to become deputy only became stronger. Runningpaw hatched a plan to get into the Cleric den, against Shroompelt's will.

Brokenpaw got into fights at Gatherings over ShadowClan's honor, enthusiastically bowled into battle against WindClan raids, became Raggedstar's best little rat hunter.

And he saw clanmates he loved dying.

Over many years, through his warriorhood, into his deputyship.

Cloudpelt, Foxheart, Toadskip, Nutwhisker. Lizardstripe was killed during an event called Heatherstar's Last Stand, her neck snapped by the WindClan warrior Flytail.

Heatherstar died, and her much more reasonable and peaceful deputy, Tallstar... continued to keep the Moorland she won.

ShadowClan went through that last winter, again trying to win their land back, but beaten so hard they couldn't mount a resistance. More cats collapsed in the snow, Mudfoot was one of them.

WindClan won. The land was theirs now. Out of his magnanimity, Tallstar reached out to Raggedstar and made him an unprecedented offer. He would give him a tax of rabbits, for peace. ShadowClan would stop attacking, and formally acknowledge that WindClan was the victor of the war.

A peace deal, a surrender.

Tallstar didn't have to do that. If his Clan won, it was his land in the eyes of StarClan. He had no obligation to reach out in this way, and Raggedstar acknowledged that.

But it made Brokentail SICK.

He couldn't believe that Raggedstar was going to buy this, let WindClan keep THEIR LAND and just send them back some of their own rabbits. What happens next?? What if WindClan decides to come further south, what then? What will Tallstar ask for next? What price will his warriors pay for the blood they spilled?

And this is the moment that Brokentail kills his father. On his last life, frail and weak after an entire life of fighting, he decided that the last kindness he could give him was a quick death, preventing him from taking that deal.

Runningnose sprang into action as soon as he'd been told about it; helping him to cover up the murder.

And together, they turned to TOTAL war.

Once, as an apprentice, Brokenstar recalled the words of a warrior at a Gathering. A parable of thistles-- how they don't care what attacks them. They don't hold back. How they will choke out the whole field who they can thrive.

Is that not the conclusion of Might Makes Right? If you can, you must, before they do it to you.

An apprentice becomes a warrior-- stop that from happening.

Don't let your enemies escape to fight again-- kill them when you have the chance.

Their herb stores are just as limited as yours-- dwindle them with infection and poison.

WindClan Must Pay, every single one of them. All the Clans are tomorrow's rivals, they have to go too.

Everything is for ShadowClan, and he was LOVED for it.

well.... by many.

This is about Brokenstar and Runningnose, but I must mention that there's also a lot of people who oppose him. Who realize this as evil. Nightpelt, Cinderfur, Deerfoot, Dawncloud and Stumptail are some of them.

And, importantly, Shroompelt was one of them. Whenever she learned of some code-breaking thing they'd done, she would make waves about it.

The word of a Cleric has an immense amount of weight, and it prevented Brokenstar from ending this war once and for all.

So Runningnose, as always, constructed a plan. Brokenstar decided it was a sacrifice that must be made.

Marigoldkit and Mintkit (kits of Rowanberry and Clawface) were in the Cleric's den for an infection.

Marigoldkit was a blind girl, and very fussy about taking her medicine.

Shroompelt would serve it to her in a berry capsule, either knout or rasp, a naturally red berry one.

Runningnose simply swapped her medicine with yew, and made sure that Mintkit was able to witness his sister being fed red berries over many days.

When Marigoldkit died, Mintkit was a distraught child who could only communicate that Shroompelt fed her "Red Berries," like the ones he'd been taught to stay away from.

Shroompelt IMMEDIATELY turned on Runningnose, accusing him of killing a blind kitten.

And he turned it on her. She'd fallen right into his trap. "You did this! You've been wanting us to stop fighting WindClan, and now you've stooped so low that you're trying to get rid of StarClan's only other messenger! You've killed your own nespring!"

Many cats of ShadowClan had completely lost patience with her before this, and were now shocked to see that she'd do such a thing. While some suspected the truth, in the end, Brokenstar's word is law.

And his law was that he would show mercy on an ex-Clanmate. But from here on, her name was Yellowfang, so that the world may be forewarned that StarClan rotted her teeth from so many lies as she walked in exile.

Brokenstar's Cataclysm ends on the WindClan Massacre. A bloody event where well over a dozen cats are slaughtered, and Brokenstar resurrects an ancient practice at the bellowing request of his warriors-- Kitten Stealing.

(The only time BB!Brokenstar uses a child soldier is during this battle, apprenticing Badgerpaw early so that he can participate in the all-out assault.)

With WindClan gone, he turned his sight on the other two. The Clans were cursed to die as they lived-- overpowered by a stronger, more bloodthirsty tyrant, violently driven out just as SkyClan had once been.

From there, the rest is very close to canon. Brokenstar is deposed by a coup, one that NEVER would have succeeded if it wasn't for Bluestar and her apprentice, Firepaw. The Curse is thwarted by change. Cats of different Clans working together in the name of righteousness.

Bluestar could have gone, grabbed the kits, and come back, but she knew that WindClan would never be able to return if Brokenstar was still in power.

This time around, ShadowClan's plague was intentional. Runningnose infected Nightstar on purpose.

He wanted to eliminate a weak leader... and a treacherous rogue who had defied his own.

Collateral damage was acceptable, if it eliminated as many of Nightstar's supporters as possible.

And yet, his brother Deerfoot survived. Sentimentality? Just luck? Who knows.

If Runningnose has any regrets for anything he's done, it's only this. That he cleared out ShadowClan for Tigerstar's rule.

He approved of him at first, interpreted signs to benefit him, even killed for this old ally of Brokenstar...

but Tigerstar's goal was to abolish ShadowClan, and make a TigerClan of his own. Brokenstar never wanted this, and neither did Runningnose.

What Runny really wants, more than anything, is what Brokenstar wants. Destroying WindClan is a bonus, eliminating all of their enemies is anger that they were able to obstruct him. Runningnose thinks he loves power, but what he REALLY loves is his ability to get Brokenstar what he wants.

Everything he's ever done has been in pursuit of that goal. He doesn't care that he'll be going to the Dark Forest in the end, that's where Brokenstar is going to be. Hell is wherever he isn't.

In life, neither one of them knew anything about the curse, or destiny. Brokenstar reconnects with memories in his death.

And he started having dreams of SkyClan, which he communicated to Runningnose through channeling.

I'm working on the full outline of Firestar's Quietus right now so I'm going to be a bit more brief;

Runningnose got Firestar involved on this quest because he's a little goody two shoes. Of COURSE he would agree to help... that's who Firestar is.

He brings him to the moonstone, where a scene similar to canon plays out where StarClan tries to encourage him to go back to his Clan and ignore what he now knows.

And, of course, he tells them to shove it.

Firestar's Quietus is a book about righting wrongs. Brokenstar as a curse means that what he needs, in the end, is peace.

The peace he needs is the knowledge that SkyClan will be saved, and that it will survive.

Runningnose is willing to let him go, in order to get what he needs. He passes off an acorn necklace to Firestar, so that he can channel him with ease on his journey

In this gesture, it becomes real that he will go to an afterlife without him. After all he'd ever done and been through.

So, he hesitates before handing it off, but makes Firestar promise to take good care of it.

On this journey, Brokenstar and Firestar do a lot of bickering about how SkyClan should come back. The sort of values they should have, who should lead it...

But in the end, Brokenstar realizes, they will be something new. They'll choose their own path in life, because that's what it means to be alive.

And his final action is to face The Rats, now supernatural creatures of their own, finally dispelling the threat that faced SkyClan.

Having done his job as a Guardian, he can finally rest. His necklace is buried overlooking the Gorge, returning SkyClan's guardian to them.

Eventually he falls during AVoS, in Darktail's attack, killing several of the kin and their rebels and allowing Leafstar and co a chance to escape.

For more on Skypelt, see this little guide I made on the afterlife locations. Hopefully one day I can clean this up into its own entry.

More stuff to check out (that I found while searching for other posts but are cool and I'm re-sharing);

Jaggedtooth isn't a villain anymore

"What's your favorite ShadowClan-adjacent change?"

First post I made on Tigerstar's Paws

Brokenstar's two honor-kits, Littlecloud and Rowanclaw

On curses and anger

"What does Runningnose think of the other TPB Clerics?" Hates em!

A rundown on all ShadowClan leaders post-Ripplestar

Cedarstar sketch

First post on StarClan Technicality Brokenstar lmao

IN-DEPTH QUESTIONS ABOUT SKYPELT

Some specifics on the religion/entity/magic mechanics in BB

#better bones au #Brokenstar's Cataclysm #BB!Brokenstar #BB!Runningnose #Firestar's Quietus

[just-your-average-cryptid]

correct me if I’m wrong but I feel like an aspect of cultural Christianity that doesn’t get discussed a lot is how the mutually exclusive human/animal dichotomy does so much harm to people’s understanding of ecology

because, like. it seems obvious, to me at least, that humans are also animals, part of our ecosystem, necessary to its function. indigenous people in the americas created food forests that supported them and local wildlife with incredible productivity. in its native range, kudzu was controlled and turned into fabric (? might be remembering that wrong.) humans didn’t just pop into existence and start destroying everything, we had our niche(s) and our adaptations just like everything else.

and yet so many people seem to think that humans going extinct immediately is the best outcome for the world, that nature means “unsullied by Dirty Humans,” that we have no place in the ecosystem except protecting it or breaking it. like we are outside observers to a great machine, one that will crumble if we get too close.

and yeah, I know most religions make a distinction between humans and animals for obvious reasons, but Christianity is the one that seems to drive the people saying “let’s kill everything we can’t use bc god said we’re Special and outrank every other living thing”

and that idea, that humans are so different from nature and that if we’re not subjugating or destroying it we must exclude ourselves from it, is worryingly prevalent in a lot of online climate change/conservation spaces. it feels like a reaction to the above sentiment, and it’s less horror-inducing to me but still very bad.

you are also an animal! you are the product of millions of years of evolution, same as the whales and the falcons and the newts!

destruction is not your nature, creation is. art, clothes, food, communities. we build, we learn, we tell stories and leave marks in caves to say we were here

do not be convinced by those in power that their atrocities are your nature and legacy! look around you. we make little wooden houses for birds to nest in. we smile at small children. we cry because an animal is so tiny.

you are a part of the ecosystem. we can create a better world together. it’s kind of what we do.

we create, and we share it with others.

#it speaks #humanity #hopepunk #cultural christianity #like I said I could be wrong on <that bit but this has been bothering me for a while

[songofsoma]

all roads lead to you

After ten unwilling years of being in Zauriel’s gang, Karlach escapes. Seeking a new, normal life, she finds work on a ranch outside the town of Baldur’s Gate. After a decade, she’s finally surrounded by friends and work that does good. Besides, the farmer’s daughter Daefina isn’t so bad to be around either.

Karlach adjusts to her new life of freedom. But will this peace last forever?

pairing: karlach x f!tav words: 2,025 rating: general

read on ao3

chapter one | new beginnings

Karlach breathed in deeply. She wanted to savor the crisp, country air of the north.

It was so different from the heat of the south, which was bitter, dry, and unforgiving. If she hadn’t been made for the heat, her skin would surely have been dry and cracked from days under the unforgiving Avernus sun.

The air of Faerûn was unlike any she had experienced before. Here, it smelt like freedom.

Her horse’s hooves padded quietly as they traversed up the dirt path. If she turned around in her saddle, she might still be able to make out the sign that hung from the arched gate at the edge of the property: Baldur’s Gate Farm.

This farm had been here longer than the town itself. Hells, it’s where the town got its name according to the bar owner who rented her a room. A drow with a seemingly permanent scowl set into the deep grey of her face and hair as white as the snow Karlach had never seen pulled into a loose bun at the back of her head. Minthara, Karlach remembered her because her first thought was that the woman must have needed a stool to stand on to reach across the bar.

“I’m in need of a job,” she said when Minthara plopped down a plate of roasted meat, bread, and a tankard of beer in front of her.

Sanguine eyes regarded her, gaze flitting over her as if sizing her up. “You’ll do me no good here,” the gravel of her voice made it sound like an insult. “The ranch just outside of town could probably use all that muscle.”

Karlach had left first thing that morning, following the directions Minthara had given her out of the bustling town and into the plains where the farm spanned over. As far as the eye could see green pastures dotted by an occasional smear of trees or bisected by a fence as the mountains rolled on farther in the distance. The early morning sun painted everything in a comforting warmth, a dichotomy to the chill of the morning breeze.

It was peaceful here. That, she could already feel in her bones. What an ideal place for a brand new start.

As she rode up to the house, there were more signs of life than the lush scenery. A few horses roamed the nearest pasture, their heads lifting to watch as she passed before going back to grazing.

The path led up to a large house. It was clearly old. its walls made of wood that had been weathered in places, other planks having been replaced judging by the color that had yet to fade from the sun. A porch spanned over the front before wrapping around the side and disappearing from view.

Karlach dismounted and tied her reins to the hitching post near one of the pasture gates. She stood in front of the building, taking off her hat and holding it in both hands as she peered up into the dark windows. There weren’t even candles burning to chase away the dark of dawn.

Was the house still asleep? She had thought work on the ranch started as soon as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Then again, what did she know about farm life? She was a recently “retired” outlaw, a career if one could call it that, that she hadn’t wanted in the first place. It had been only weeks since she escaped Zauriel’s gang by just the skin of her teeth. The best ranch experience she had was stealing horses from some farm owned by a bunch of rich folks or when she slept in a barn whether the farmer knew or not.

But Karlach had her height and muscle on her side and she was damned good at riding a horse. She had wrangled up rival gangs before, how much harder could cattle be?

“Aye, tiefling!” A voice called from her left side.

Karlach, being the only tiefling, not to mention the only other person around, turned in their direction.

A man approached her. The deep purple of his shirt was stained with dirt as if he had already worked a full day. His face was hard to see, most of it hidden in the long shadows cast by the brim of his hat in the dim morning light. He held a lead in his hand, a horse whose brown fur was speckled with white looming behind him.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked, stopping a few paces away from her.

“Who owns the ranch?” Karlach shifted her weight from foot to foot, anxiety suddenly gripping her innards.

“The Greensong family, ma’am.”

“Is that who I need to speak to for a job? I’m looking for work?” She pressed her hat closer to her chest as if it would shield her from a possible rejection.

The worker looked at her bemused. “That would be Mr. Greensong. Let me turn out Moe and I’ll take you to him.”

Karlach nodded, stepping aside as the man led the horse to the gates behind where her own horse was. She watched him unclip the halter, sliding it off the horse's head, and beckoning the horse to “Go and play now,” before he closed the gates behind him.

When he stepped in front of Karlach again, he held his hand out in greeting. “Apologies, Moe gets quite grouchy if I delay her schedule. Gale Dekarios, a pleasure to meet a new face. Don’t get much of that around here, unless you’re in town, then I suppose people come and go from all over.”

He continued on, still shaking Karlach’s hand.

“Karlach,” she said with a grin when he finally took a breath.

“Mr. Greensong is around back in the stables. He’s been fretting over the next cattle drive so I’m sure he’ll be looking for an extra set of hands.” Gale looked her up and down. “Especially with your bulk.”

She decided to take that last remark as a compliment since it was paired with a particularly friendly pat on her shoulder.

He led her around the back of the farmhouse and down a path to a stable that had been hidden from view. Though they were still a ways back, Karlach could hear the sound of voices.

“Astarion and Mr. Greensong have had quite the little tut all morning,” Gale mused, referencing people she didn’t know as if she were in on the joke. “I’m half-surprised Astarion is still able to talk and that Lae’zel hasn’t torn out his tongue.”

Karlach’s brows furrowed. “The ranch hands get away with arguing with the boss?”

He chuckled. “Not without consequence. He’s got Astarion on stable duty until the cattle drive.”

When they got up to the barn, they almost crashed into a man pushing a wheelbarrow. Having stopped abruptly, the wheelbarrow tipped over, its contents spilling all over the ground. It was immediately clear what it was when the smell hit her nose.

“For gods’ sake!” He cried out in a way that made Karlach wonder if he would stamp his foot like a child next. “Do you know how long that took me to fill? And now I have to shovel this literal shit all over again!”

“Consider it a lesser fate than the one I would give you,” a githyanki woman sneered, coming up behind him. “A blade on flesh would be more tolerable than your whining.”

Gale cleared his throat and introduced the two. “Astarion, Lae’zel.” He pointed to the appropriate party as their name was called. “This is Karlach. Found her loitering at the front pastures, asking about a job.”

Astarion had to have been the palest man she had ever seen. Really, he would have given a skeleton a run for their money. Red eyes narrowed as he tried to pass the shovel in her direction. “Great. Your first job can be to clean up the mess you made.”

Lae’zel glared at him and Karlach could sense there was certainly no kindness there. She had never met a githyanki before. She had only seen pictures of their upturned noses and sharp teeth in books when she was a kid.

“That task is assigned to you, Astarion,” an older man who Karlach assumed had to be Mr. Greensong appeared in the open doorway. “It’s not their fault you were in such a rush to get the work done that you weren’t paying attention.”

Lae’zel smirked and Gale struggled to hide his laugh in a cough.

He turned his attention from the disgruntled worker to Karlach, holding out his hand with a smile. “Camus Greensong.”

Karlach shook his hand firmly, noticing the roughness of his palms. These were working hands. This man wasn’t one to shack up in luxury and let the help do all the work. He was an elf, coming just to her chin. His years of working in the sun were evident by the dark tan of his skin, but it wasn’t enough to mask the green undertone that pigmented it. Dark hair had been left to grow long and was braided down his back so it could be out of the way.

“Karlach.”

“Heard your lookin’ for work. I could use a strong set of hands. You have any experience working on a ranch?” He let his hand fall and settle on a hip.

She shook her head. “No, sir. But I can ride well, lift the heavy stuff, and am willing to learn.”

Mr. Greensong was clearly pleased with her attitude. “Perfect. Lae’zel or Gale can show you the bunkhouse where you’ll live. You have a horse?”

She nodded.

“Bring her ‘round and we’ll get an empty stall set up for her with fresh water and feed. Plenty of room for her to graze. After you do that, there’s a few fences that need fixing in preparation for bringing the cattle back off the mountains. Don’t want them escaping after it took five damned days to get them here. I’ll show you where those are.”

What a boring task. Karlach had never been more excited.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Karlach’s body had never ached so good before. It was euphoric.

For the first time in ages, her muscles were exhausted from doing something that helped rather than hurt. She had grown so accustomed to the pain that came from cutting someone down or crouching for hours at an ambush point, but this was different.

Mr. Greensong had taken her along the fences and pointed out the spots where a board had rotted away. She lugged the materials, pried apart the ruined fence, and hammered new wood into place. He had even praised her work ethic.

“Most others would’ve dropped by now,” he mused as she dropped the pile of wooden planks to the ground. “Or at least brought a wagon.”

Karlach didn’t need a wagon. The rotten areas hadn’t been that far.

She laid on her back in the small bed Lae’zel had pointed her to. It was pushed up against the wall right by a window. Karlach could lay her head on the pillow and look out at the night sky full of stars if she tilted her face just right. It didn’t matter that three other people were all sleeping in the same room. This was finally something she could call her own, Lae’zel had made that clear.

“Your bunk is yours,” she stressed. “You find anyone sniffing around, you have the right to do as you see fit.”

Karlach could use context clues to imagine what she meant by that.

It wasn’t like there was much of hers to dig through, however. All she had was a small saddlebag containing a few spare clothes, a significantly light bag of gold, and a pistol. Tucked nicely beneath her bed was her battleaxe. Sure, guns were nice, but nothing could beat the security of steel in her hands.

She pulled the woven blanket further up her body, unable to stop the smile that spread over her lips. This would be her life now.

And what a damned good life it would be.

#all roads lead to you #western au #bg3 ranch au #bg3 cowboy au #my writing #bg3 #karlach #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #cowgirl!karlach #bg3 karlach #astarion #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #lae’zel #bg3 lae'zel #karlach demonsbane

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 2, MAG 2

Second part of the relisten analysis, featuring my beloved Joshua Gillespie <3 Sorry this is a bit later in the day than expected, had it queued but must've saved it wrong.

Spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Joshua Gillespie (my love) from November 22nd, 1998, regarding an empty wooden casket he acquired while living in Amsterdam.

Character Notes: Jon's from Bournemouth confirmed! Again, hindsight is hilarious when Jon says "it's nice to hear my hometown is not entirely devoid of odd occurrences." Like sir you were almost eaten by a book?

Statement Notes: Another instance of drug use. Again, I can't necessarily tell if this is just a device so that Jon can dismiss the statements or if the entities are specifically preying on people in fragile/weak states of mind.

But none of that matters because the incredible Joshua Gillespie was there <3 <3, smartest character in the series on God. Specifically loved the end of the statement when the man who gave him the coffin sees the key in the ice box and seems impressed, because damn I'm impressed to. The statement specifically says he was impressed after Gillespie "Told him where he could stick it." This definitely feeds into the idea that, as much as the fears prey on weak and scared people, they're really attracted to confident and bold people. I think a person's response to a scary scenario has a lot to do with whether they become an avatar or a victim; not necessarily whether they were scared or brave, but whether that fear overtook them or they dove into it. Gillespie really faced his fear of the coffin and just dealt with it in a head on, practical manner.

I don't recall the character who gives Gillespie the coffin coming up again, but of course his name is John. Obviously Breekon and Hope come up, but I don't remember this other guy showing up again, anyone else?

It's super interesting that the coffin didn't get delivered until after Gillespie spent the money, as if it was waiting for some kind of a debt to be established.

Entity Alignment: Little on the nose, but this is the Buried. It pretty weird, that although long term fans know this is Buried aligned "thing," there's really no mention of anyone entering or being buried in the coffin in this episode. But at the end of the statement, Tim discovers that no one was living in the building with Gillespie for many years. That could have to do with the money, whoever gave him the coffin may have set up the apartment sale to manipulate him into spending it, but a part of me really likes the idea that all the other residents wandered into the coffin while they slept, unable to resist the call. There's obviously evidence against that, being that no Tim found no one lived there for the entirety of Gillespie's residence and any other possible residence wouldn't have the coffin key.

People like to bring up the Vast/Buried dichotomy a lot, and I think it's really prevalent in this episode. Gillespie first hears the scratching on the coffin when he places a glass on it, but he doesn't hear the wailing until it starts raining. Thinking about the End episode in Season 5, where Oliver Banks determines things stop being scary if you become too used to them, I think hearing the rain is a tool used by the Buried to keep its victims afraid. It may be easy to succumb to the dirt and the darkness on a regular day, but a day you're reminded that there's a wide open sky you can't and won't ever be able to see? Not gonna happen. Letting the victims hear the rain amps up the fear and torment.

One of the best episodes in the series, let me know what you think!

#magnus archives #the magnus archives relisten #tma relisten #tma #tma podcast #tma spoilers #MAG 2 #Do Not Open #the mag pod #rusty quill #rusty quill network #tim stoker #jonathan sims #jonny sims #joshua gillespie #podcasts #horror podcast #horror #audio drama #the buried #the vast #tma entities #fear entities #analysis #media analysis

[amywritesthings]

SILVER UNDERGROUND / deleted scene 02.

the first face i saw. :: an alternate version, aka the first draft, of that forest moment in chapter nine.

welcome to my segment of deleted scenes, levi's pov, and alternative 'almosts' that didn't quite make the published cut. this scene was the very first thing i wrote for this story! this is the earliest know blurb of SU. originally it was quite abrupt, and i much prefer the buildup that ended up happening in the story. may this be a lesson to writers: write the dang thing, don't agonize about a perfect scene, because when you go back to edit the epiphany of how you really want the scene to go will just come naturally! this is unedited. 1.2K words / explicit language, fighting. :: please remember: this is additional deleted content, not tied to the current canon of the story.

“I’m not going back.”

Levi is expressionless, but there is a hint of anger in his clipped question. “So you’re disobeying direct orders?”

“You didn’t order me, sir,” you reply. “You only suggested I go back. There’s a distinct difference.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

Except the murmur is a thinly-veiled threat and nothing more. Somehow you’re confident enough about it that you take a few steps forward into the wide gap between you.

“You need the numbers,” you urge.

“No, shithead, what I need is for you to leave.”

“Why?”

“Disobeying orders and questioning your superior. Are you trying to rack up all possible offenses in one night?”

“I am trying to understand why you’re so adamant about giving the squad one less body in the lineup when we’ve already lost so many people—”

“Enough.”

“—and back-up would be at least a day away on horseback, which means we’re sitting ducks until we work together to get out of the forest with as many people alive as we—”

“I said enough, cadet,” Levi barks, and something ignites in you.

Something toxic that leads you to take another step forward, teeth bared.

“I’m not a fucking cadet, Levi, so stop pretending I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

The swear is not as surprising as hearing his first name on your tongue. If you didn’t know any better, then you would swear Levi is just as surprised. A tick of his brow is the giveaway: both move from their typical neutral position, and suddenly the air feels thick around you.

“Do you?” he challenges, low and dangerous as he mirrors your step forward. “Because last I checked, you were just some dumbass with a fucked up memory.”

The insult stings its intended target. You wince, but hold your ground.

“I was once on this squad, sir.”

“That doesn’t mean shit in the present.”

“It does to me,” you confess. Your voice raises to shout. “It matters that I fought! It matters that I’m here. I don’t know why you hate me so much—”

“I thought it would be obvious by now,” Levi flatly interrupts.

You trudge closer towards your captain, but he minds the gap for you: one step of his boot and he’s eye-to-eye with you, here, in the middle of this clearing.

The green flecks in the gray of his eyes bring some sickening softness to your belly, quelling a fraction of the fire within. It reminds you of summertime and darkness. A dichotomy of things you once loved — and things that once scared you.

Levi stares head on, seemingly disinterested in your shouting.

Yet when your eyes drop to his arm, you see the most obvious tell of all: his fist is pale, fingers gripped in a white-knuckle ball of restraint.

So you ask the first question that comes to mind:

“Then why do you want me to live so badly?”

By the sound of his breath hitching in his throat, it’s safe to assume your question has caught Humanity’s Strongest off guard. Painfully earnest, the words are woven in a confusion threatening to choke the life out of you. And Levi — Levi is four shades of enraged, glaring straight through you.

“I don’t give a shit if you live,” Levi corrects with a snarl.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Then allow me to stay.”

“No.”

Your chin tilts. “Then why—”

“Why do you want to die so fucking bad?” he snaps, his spit hitting your cheek. “Why bother waking up in that fucking rubble if all you wanted to do was throw away your second chance?”

His anger almost leaves you speechless.

Almost.

Except this feeling, this mindless fight, is the most familiar with the world as you’ve felt since waking up in that hospital. As if you like shouting, ready to throw fists.

As if you enjoy Levi yelling at you.

“Yours was the first face I saw when I woke up, sir,” you bite in response, forcing his jaw to clench. “I didn’t receive the recommendation for reinstatement out of thin fucking air. I went through modified training. I watched you visit the camps between missions. You didn’t have to check up on me, but you did.”

Levi’s mouth twitches.

“For someone who claims they don’t give a shit if I live you sure have a mighty big hand in the pot to ensure my safety, so what the fuck is the real reason behind ordering that I go back to the Walls?”

You manage to relay your monologue of grievances uninterrupted. Something dark brews behind Levi’s stormy eyes, stuck on your wide-eyed gaze.

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” he asks, low and steady, but there’s a glimmer of something else in his voice.

If it was anyone else, then it might have been something close to fondness, but it can’t be.

“Yeah?" you challenge. "Well, trying to keep up with your snarky ass, I couldn’t—”

You're pushed back by the sheer force of his lips.

His...

Your eyes open, then widen, at the sight of Levi Ackerman pressing a kiss to your mouth. Your body responds before you even understand why -- you drag him closer, hands buried in his hair, and respond in kind.

Everything feels too hot and too cold. Everything feels... good. You kiss back with such intensity that you feel his teeth.

Your world goes blank.

.

.

.

.

“What was that all about?” Petra’s voice comes out monotone, awaking you for a moment of dissociation.

Truthfully? You wish you had an answer.

You barely remember Levi telling you to go back to camp to rest.

You can't think of anything else except that:

The tingle of his lips pushed against yours lingers long after he’s departed.

There is a haze in your brain that takes over the fog of your amnesia, settling on a feeling beyond all else: warmth.

Even if you nearly went fist to fist with the Captain — a stupid, costly mistake — everything in your body is warm in the cool midnight air.

Maybe it was a mistake.

No, it was a mistake.

(One that the squad cannot know about, for both of your sakes.)

“We fought,” you provide just as flat.

“I know,” she says. “I heard. You used to do that a lot.”

You turn to study the glow of green on her back from her cloak.

“Argue to the brink of a fight,” she clarifies. “With Levi.”

When you say nothing, she cranes her chin over her shoulder. Although she doesn’t smile, her tone is melodic. Cheery, like there’s something funny between the lines.

“Before, you didn’t mind getting in his face if you two disagreed. I’ve never seen Levi get so angry. It’s a wonder he never punished you.”

So this was a common occurrence.

Did he always end it with a kiss?

Your warmth begins to fade as Petra’s words catch up to you, and you squeeze the fist at your side. “How much did you hear?”

“Don’t worry,” she assures, poking the dying embers with a stick. “I didn’t eavesdrop.”

#fic: silver underground #amys deleted scenes. #aot fanfiction #snk fanfiction