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fullmoans · 1 year

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Home is a Fire | TW fix-it | P. 1

They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.

There was fire, so much fire. It was hot and blinding, blurring everything else from his view. Suddenly, out of the dark he saw glowing red eyes. He felt pain. Then everything went dark. Gradually, a faint blue light spread from the waning moon above until he could see his surroundings. He was in the forest and he was alone. He turned around once, twice, looking for the source of the fire but he only found himself standing in the one place he never thought he would again. In front of him was the nemeton.

With a start, Stiles Stilinski jolted awake in his small twin bed, almost falling out of it. He reached for his phone for a few moments until he remembered how he had broken it. While on shift they’d gotten a call about a fire, which turned out to be a small kitchen fire with little harm done, and in the haste to load up the truck he’d left his phone on the ground where he had been sitting – only a few feet in front of one of the truck’s wheels. It wasn’t until they got back that he realized what happened to his phone and he planned to fix it but days just kept passing.

He couldn’t sleep, his mind was racing. He got up and left his bedroom. His small apartment was an open room with a kitchen and a balcony and only two doors for his bedroom and his bathroom. The oven clock read 6:05. He went back into the room to change into a pair of jeans and a ratty, too big T-shirt – probably one of Scott’s he’d been accidentally carrying with him for the past 15 years. Once dressed, he could run down to a corner store just a few miles away, one he knew had a pay phone.

It was still dark when Stiles reached the pay phone and fumbled around his center console for enough quarters to make a call. Sheriff Noah Stilinski picked up on the second ring. “Stiles?”

Stiles paused for a moment. The area code. Of course his dad would know it had to be him.

“What happened in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I had a dream. All I could see were red eyes. I think something happened to Scott and I think it happened there.”

“Oh, Stiles. Scott’s fine. It was Derek. There was a fire.”

Stiles hung up the phone. He couldn’t breathe. He’d seen a fire. He’d seen the eyes of a wolf, of an alpha. Not Scott’s eyes, but Derek’s. Stiles had been running from what happened to him in Beacon Hills, from what happened to him after, from the heartbreak of Lydia leaving him without a word.

He’d tried to find her for weeks. Whenever he wasn’t working or sleeping, he was searching their favorite cafes, diners, shops, even the park they’d gone to when they first moved to Portland. Instead, he found Jackson. At the diner he’d told Lydia that he would spend the rest of his life with her, Jackson was sitting in the front booth looking directly at him. “Stop looking for her, Stiles. She’s not coming back,” Jackson had said. There wasn’t a drop of sympathy in his voice.

“Why?” Stiles had asked. He was too out of it to play the game with Jackson. He didn’t want to trade insults over a cup of burnt coffee. He just wanted to know why she’d left.

“She had a premonition. Being with you wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. She knew for weeks but she knew you wouldn’t accept that. She needs you to let her go.”

And he had. It had been 6 years since Lydia had left. It had been longer since he’d been back to Beacon Hills. 5 years still since he’d even seen Scott. He’d seen his dad a few times, when Noah came to visit him in Portland. His therapist said he had PTSD, though she couldn’t say from what – because Stiles didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her about the friends he had seen die, the people whose deaths he’d been responsible for. He didn’t tell her about what happened in Beacon Hills. Still, he was doing better. He’d learned how to deal with his panic attacks, how to sleep without seeing faces of the people they’d lost, and he’d cut off as much contact with that life as possible after Lydia had left. Occasionally he’d get a text from Malia, an update from his dad on Derek’s son stealing his Jeep again, or a picture of a dog at Scott’s shelter usually accompanied by a message about how Stiles needed a companion and this dog would be the perfect choice.

The sun was finally coming up when Stiles left his apartment again, this time with a duffle bag. He had to stop by the station first, let the chief know he needed a few days off for a family emergency. He said it was his dad, something was wrong with his dad. If his chief didn’t believe him, he didn’t say. He nodded, turned to make it down on the calendar, and gave Stiles 12 days to come back.

The drive ahead of him was going to take hours and his thoughts were still racing. What had happened to Derek? Had Kate come back for him? Had another Argent? Why had his eyes been red? What did the nemeton have to do with any of this?

Outside of Noah Stilinski’s house, there were so many cars. More than he had seen in a long time. The sun was starting to fall from the later afternoon sky. The usually comforting smell of damp woods was missing. A faint smell of smoke remained. He left his duffle bag in the car, a black compact car that got him around well enough, and headed inside.

The house immediately went quiet when Stiles opened the door. He saw his dad talking to a kid – Derek’s son. He saw Scott’s Mom and Allison’s Dad and even Deacon, who he hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Peter was there, in a corner, and Malia glared at him from a few feet away. Liam, Mason, Parrish, and a girl he didn’t know were scattered around the room, too. Lydia and Jackson stood together and Stiles fought the urge to turn and walk straight back to his car. “Stiles?” He turned his attention to Scott. Scott who was standing with someone he didn’t recognize. Did he? She looked so much like someone they’d lost.

“Allison?” He whispered.

“Hey Stiles. It’s me.” Stiles let out a sob. “It’s really me,” she said, taking a step towards him. Scott moved with her and he let out another noise. Suddenly Allison was in his arms. Allison who had been dead. Allison whose death he had been responsible for. Who he had let die.

“How?” He could feel Scott’s arms go around them both. He felt Malia’s next and then Lydia’s hand on his shoulder. This was real. Allison had come back from the dead and in return, they’d lost someone else. It wasn’t fair.

“Derek,” he whispered. He could feel them tense as they let him go, retreating to where they’d been before.

The boy, Eli, he'd remembered his Dad calling him, made eye contact with him then. “My Dad held him back. He saved us. He sent that monster straight to Hell.”

“Parrish sent him to Hell, Derek held him in place,” Malia whispered.

“You were at the nemeton,” Stiles said, trying to put together how his dream had played into this. “No one called. No one came to get me. Derek is gone and I didn’t even know something was happening.”

“I tried to call you but it didn’t go through,” Lydia whispered. Shit, his phone had been broken for 5 days. Had it really all happened so suddenly?

“You couldn’t have been here, kid,” his Dad said, firmly. “That thing, I’m not sure we could’ve stopped it if it had gotten to you this time. He wasn’t playing by the rules anymore. He would never have let you go.”

“Who?” Stiles asked but he did so quietly. In his mind, the nemeton flashed again, this time it was bright – white. There was a chess board on top. “The nogitsune.”

“Yes.” Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was his dad, Scott, or Chris Argent who had responded. Maybe it had been all of them. Maybe none. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get air. He was going to die and it was going to be because of the nogitsune, again. “He’s dead, Stiles. Gone. Burned by a hellhound. He can’t hurt you or any of us again.” That was Scott’s voice, it was definitely Scott’s.

“But he got Derek,” Stiles said, looking at Scott.

“Derek held him in place on the nemeton while Parrish lit him up. Someone had to hold him there. No one could’ve survived that kind of fire. He made a sacrifice to save all of us.” Stiles couldn’t listen to Scott anymore. He still couldn’t breath but he didn’t feel so much like he was dying. Somewhere, deep inside of him, he felt a pull. He needed to follow it. Out the door, into the woods, and he was running.

Stiles ran until his legs wouldn’t cooperate any more. He collapsed in a clearing of trees. When he looked up, he knew what had been pulling him. It was right in front of him. The nemeton. And it was glowing. Silvery blue strands of light flowed out from the center. He blinked. In that second, the light was gone, and he was just a man on his knees in front of a tree stump with the sun setting and the air turning cold.

But he’d seen it – that light. The nemeton wasn’t done with him yet, and maybe, just maybe, that meant it wasn’t done with Derek either.

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barnesbartons · 1 year

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as much as the movie grossed me tf out

i do like the idea of derek holding onto stiles' jeep when he starts the auto shop, fixing it for his friend who he occasionally talks to (remember how he's the first person to bring up stiles in the movie), not quite sure why he's so fixated on keeping the jeep in shape when he knows stiles isn't coming back, that stiles himself abandoned escaped beacon hills & that the jeep was another thing that was left behind.

but stiles is still derek's anchor, and derek will fix the jeep, if only to maintain some connection at first. then he finds out about eli, and his anchor shifts, because another hale child, when he thought his family was all but gone. but there's still a part of him that wants some part of stiles in beacon hills to live on, so he continues fixing the jeep. and derek's annoyed at himself, cause he talks to stiles, he knows there's no chance of stiles returning, but fixing the jeep is another chance to talk to stiles outside of consulting the fbi.

(eli never really learns about stiles, just that there was someone in his dad's life that was always there, but not really. for some reason his father never lets him into his office when he's doing consulting work. it's always "scott and his friend saved me from getting my arm chopped off", "scott's friends helped me save your aunt cora," but eli doesn't know who stiles actually is, doesn't know who the jeep belongs to, not until-)

derek dies. the stupid jeep is in his auto shop yard and sheriff stilinski has the keys after eli's stolen it for the umpteenth time, and he gives the jeep to eli. and tells him about it being stiles' jeep, about how his dad had complicated feelings about the jeep. and then eli realises that all those times that derek was smiling on the phone, was annoyed in the yard fixing the hunk of junk over and over again, might've been for someone something other than just a project he could never get rid of.

stiles doesn't find out derek's dead right away. the sheriff doesn't feel like it's his part to tell his son that his friend died. not until eli shows up at his apartment and stiles just knows that there's no longer going to be any calls from his 'friend from the hometown'. and stiles thinks about the goddamn jeep and how it's no longer going to be taken care of, that the jeep is just going to be abandoned like stiles originally did. but stiles steps outside and sees his jeep behind eli and realises that it's in new hands now.

stiles tells eli stories about derek from a whole new light, keeps the memory of derek alive, with the jeep in the front yard gleaming. they grieve together for the loss of a loved one.

(because all this time stiles was waiting on the other end of the phone, excited to hear about his jeep, the sheriff, eli, about derek. all this time stiles was waiting on "i found another roll of duct tape hidden in your engine, goddamnit stiles", knowing that he couldn't go back to beacon hills, but he could wait for derek to figure it out and come to him)

(derek doesn't, but his jeep does.)

#i'm SO EMOOOOOOOOO #sterek #i had some time to think about it #but i really liked the idea of derek fixing the jeep not understanding why he was so fixated on it #only for that to be like. the reason adult sterek fall in love #like derek builds a life but he still wants to connect with that 'friend' across the country #and them just missing out on it.#i was honestly rooting for stiles to be dead and derek & eli grieving over him #but having stiles & eli grieving over derek gives me more hurt and i like it!#especially considering they're copy-pastes of each other #it just feels me with a feeling!#meej speaks #teen wolf movie spoilers #tw movie spoilers #teen wolf #eli hale #derek hale #something something stiles fixing the jeep was a way of keeping his mums memory alive #something something eli fixing the jeep is his way of keeping dereks memory alive #something something derek knows this love language and that's why he kept the jeep up despite knowing its owner was never coming back

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notstinky · 4 months

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TIMING: Current LOCATION: The Creamatorium PARTIES: Van (@vanoincidence) & Thea (@notstinky) SUMMARY: Van and Thea get ice cream! A man is there :( CONTENT WARNINGS: Unsanitary tw, Harassment, Body horror

Thea smoothed out the wrinkles in her brown skirt, understanding only at the fifth wipe that it was a pleated skirt and that it wasn’t meant to be smoothed. She’d tried to dress up—not that she really understood what dressing up meant, for her, fashion was a second thought—but all she’d managed to do was a skirt and a sweater. It wasn’t exactly seasonal; what kind of maniac wore a knee-length skirt in the cold parts of autumn? It wasn’t exactly cute; her gray knit sweater was fine and all but it bundled at her stomach, making her look like she had a suspicious bulge. She’d tried to accessorize; all she had was a fake-silver necklace with a crescent moon that made her stomach churn at the sight of. And all this for Van. Van, her friend, who she wanted to look nice for. She smoothed the skirt again, made sure her hat covered her bald head, and cursed under her breath.

“Hey!” She waved, more aggressive than she’d meant to, when Van popped up over the horizon. It wasn’t that Van was late, it was that Thea had come so early people asked her if she was okay, standing outside of the shop like that. She probably looked like a criminal, nervously bouncing on her heels. Did criminals wear skirts? Well, she was a killer and she wore a skirt; question answered. “Hey, you’re just in time! I just got here,” she lied, palms already coated in a thin layer of sweat. Suddenly it struck her: what did you say to a friend? How are you? You look good? What flavor are you thinking of? Instead, what came out was: “You look flavor, ho.” Thea winced. She gestured at the seasonal flavor—dairy free pumpkin butter chocolate—which was not a flavor combination she thought worked, but was one she was excited to try. “That, um..” She gulped. “You, um, look…” Forget it. She’d already failed. What was the point?

Van hadn’t really been able to take a lot of things from home before it had gotten all covered in a weird goo, but for some reason, her locker at Sly Slice was stuffed to the brim with a variety of different outfits she didn’t even remember taking from home. It was luck, probably. Probably an action from a few months ago she couldn’t really remember. It didn’t matter, she decided, because at least she had some clothes and didn’t have to wear the same things that Thea had already seen her in. Buying new clothes was certainly on the table, but that was expensive. Maybe borrowing from either Nora or Cass would have worked, too, especially since they’d borrowed enough from her, but it felt wrong– like she was asking too much. Still, as she watched Thea walk up in her pleated skirt and grey sweater, she felt severely underdressed. She wore baggy cargo jeans that had deep pockets, and a baby tee with a pastel frown-y face on it. The hoody she wore had holes in the sleeve, but she figured it’d look like it’d been done on purpose and not because she’d become overly obsessive with picking at the fabric.

She crossed the distance between them, a nervous smile playing at the corners of her lips as she lifted her own hand in greeting. It was lucky that Dr. Kavanagh had given Thea permission to stay over, but both of them still had things like work and other commitments. Mostly, Van was trying to scrounge up spare PC parts throughout town so that she could start rebuilding the one she’d lost. “Rocky was like, really slow with the delivery trucks this morning, so he asked me for help.” She was weak, and it showed– she could barely lift a box as it was, but somehow had managed to help him anyway. “Sorry I’m uh–” She blinked at Thea’s words before a laugh bubbled in her chest, spilling over between where they stood across from one another. “You look flavor, ho, too.” She wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe it was a Canadian thing. She’d need to look it up later, she decided. Her attention was drawn to the sign that Thea motioned towards before she looked out of the corner of her eye to her friend. Her stomach bubbled with anxiety and she tried her best to push it down. She wasn’t sure why it was there– this was just ice cream with a friend, after all. She swallowed thickly and nodded before her gaze wandered over the additional flavors. Van winced slightly at the sight of the Allgood Death Pit flavor. “The pumpkin one, that looks good– you look good, too. I like your sweater.” Van paused before adding, “and your necklace– it’s cute, it looks um, it looks good on you.” She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, so she stuck them into her pockets. “Should we… go inside?”

“No….” Thea groaned, face burning as her cheeks erupted in red blotches. “Don’t tell me I look flavor, ho.” She tried to sink into her sweater, praying that the floor would suddenly get hungry and eat her specifically. She thought about running; if Van had a long, tiring shift, she wouldn’t be able to catch her. Then, she’d leave Wicked’s Rest, change her name (again) and reinvent herself as someone that didn’t mix up her words. She rolled the idea over in her head but no matter how desperate she was to escape, her legs rooted her in place and her stomach fluttered with excitement just as much as it twisted with anxiety. They hadn’t even tried anything yet and she already felt nauseous. “I like—um, your cargo jeans. They look like they can hold a lot of stuff. Like, spoons.” God, spoons? Why did she say that? Run, run, run, run— “T-the necklace?” Thea touched it, digging the flesh of her thumb into the crescent moon tip, as if she didn’t remember putting it on. “It, um, it was the first thing I bought when I came to America, actually.” When she’d woken up across the border, was lucky enough to meet an elderly couple that took care of her and discovered that silver ought to help her “condition”; turned out to be fake silver, of course. That was the kind of luck Thea had.

Thea wanted to say more, her mouth moved around imaginary words, but nothing left. “Yeah,” she squeaked. “Let’s go inside!” She reached for Van’s arm, interlocking them as she had that day with the LEGOs—that day had gone well and she needed all possible good luck right now. It was a spell and it would summon the vibes that followed them that day. At the doctor’s apartment, it wasn’t so terrible—mostly they were working and tired—but outside was a whole new place with whole new problems. “Do you mind sharing? I think it might be best to get a couple of flavors? And then we can rank them!” She smiled and then frowned, brows knitting together. “Or is that stupid? Should we just stick to our own stuff?”

“But you do, you do look flavor ho.” Van was used to being on the other end of teasing, but this felt natural. It felt right. If Thea were actually upset about it though, she’d drop it. She made a mental note to ask her friend what the hell that meant later. She looked down at her pockets and nodded, an appreciative smile pulling at the corners of her lips as Thea commented on her pants. “They can hold spoons, forks, knives– well, not knives. I’m not allowed to have knives.” It was something she still adhered to even though nobody was around anymore to tell her she couldn’t have knives. Maybe it was stupid. Van stuck her hands into her pockets and pulled them to the side to show Thea just how much space was in them. She leaned down slightly (though she didn’t have to go very far) and poked her fingers towards the end of the seam. “See? A lot of space in here, especially for um, spoons and stuff.” Maybe Thea really liked spoons. Her attention shifted back to the way Thea pulled at her necklace, fingers feathering over the dainty chain and emblem. “Really? That’s cool. Welcome to the United States, here’s a moon.” She shrugged, “the moon– she’s gay, right? So I mean, that’s a cool thing to get.” They’d discussed it before, but Van still felt heat rise to the back of her neck at the comment.

She wasn’t really sure what to do with her hands by then, but Thea had made the move first, arm threading through her own. It brought her back to their LEGO adventure, though it had severely lacked any LEGOs at all. Van fell into the familiarity of it, and fell into a natural step beside Thea, too. “We can definitely share. I could probably eat it all myself, but that doesn’t mean I should.” Too much sugar could give her stomach aches, but hopefully if it were dairy-free, they’d be okay. Van looked over at Thea, her own smile still present on her features. The way Thea seemed worried that maybe she wouldn’t like the suggestion made Van wonder if she’d done something to make her friend believe that was the case. “No, we can! I want to, and I want to rank them all.” She looked towards the menu board, then to the middle aged man that was standing behind the counter with a blank expression on his features. He looked bored out of his mind. “Hi– yeah, we’re lactose intolerant. What do you think would be good? For us, since we can’t have, you know, milk.” She bit the inside of her cheek before shooting Thea a glance out of the corner of her eye.

Van must have been humoring her and yet, Thea found her fraught nerves temporarily parted. She smiled softly, chewing on her bottom lip. She imagined an army of forks, spoons and knives sitting in Van’s pockets and giggled. “Yes,” she agreed, “the moon’s gay and the ocean is her lover. I mean, what are tides if not, like, the ocean telling the moon that she loves her?” Thea wasn’t a poetic person; there was something there about devotion, yearning, being vast and crushingly deep and pulled by some bright rock in the sky. When Thea thought of love, she pictured moons and oceans, suns and planets—gravity. Her mind was lost, soothed by the current of Van’s voice—agreeing with her—and she didn’t notice the man. At once, though, she smelt him; sourness plunged into her nostrils and she recoiled.

He opened his mouth, revealing a set of yellowing teeth framed by plaque. His bloodshot eyes didn’t focus on them at first, his gaze shifted between spots on the wall before it settled exactly on the point where Thea and Van’s arms met. And that, more than anything, made him smile wider as the rest of his face remained dead around it. “What can I get you two…” His tongue traced the edge of his dry lips, saliva pooled between the cracks. “...lovely ladies?” He held on to the syllables as if he didn’t want the words to go. His gaze remained low.

Thea stiffened. She pulled forward, setting more distance between Van and the counter as if something--or someone--could leap across and touch her. Her voice rose into a rare, authoritative steadiness. “All of the dairy-free flavors, please. A kid’s scoop of each in cups, please.” With her body clenched into one solid mass, she watched as he ran a hand through his graying, slicked hair before he plunged his arm into the vats of ice cream.

His eyes finally flicked up to their faces and there was something more amusing there than their arms, his dead smile twitched. “Yeah, good choice.” He licked his lips again. “A lot of you people are lactose intolerant.”

“Most people are lactose intolerant, yeah,” Thea said, tearing her eyes away from the ice cream stuck to his arm hairs and pulling Van towards the register. “My treat,” she whispered to her friend, forcing a small smile. The presence of the man was overwhelming to her, and even as her gaze trained somewhere else, he loomed as large, white stain in the corner of her eyes. The air felt tight; unpleasant interactions weren’t uncommon, but they always made her stomach settle into a heavy knot. She was determined not to let it ruin their fun and once they were sitting down, he couldn’t bother them anyway. “I think I’m realizing now that that’s a lot of ice cream.” Dairy-free also included sorbets, which wasn’t technically ice cream, but Thea wasn’t going to argue semantics over dessert.

Thea had given Van a lot to think about. In most fandom spaces, people made personifications of the moon and ocean and how it related back to their favorite form of media, so she knew that Thea was on the right track with that. Silently, she started to build out who she thought was the moon and who was the ocean— then, of course, there was the sun. The sun could’ve been seen as something in opposition to the moon, Van thought. Briefly, Van heard her grandmother’s voice, if you gave as much thought to anything else as you do those video games, I wouldn’t worry so much. Van frowned, but it was only for a brief moment. The man behind the counter who she really hadn’t paid all that much attention to brought her back to the present.

It was an unfortunate setting, she realized. It took everything in her not to recoil as she finally took him in. Van pressed her arm into Thea’s, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. The man In front of her incited the same feeling Debbie had, only in place of a knife and threats was an ice cream scoop and thinly veiled insults. She didn’t like the way that he looked at them, and it was obvious that Thea didn’t either. Van wasn’t much for noticing changes in demeanor, but the way Thea went stiff next to her couldn’t have been a good sign. Thea provided the order they had agreed upon, voice steady and even, unlike it had been outside of the shop. Van wondered what changed. She cast a careful glance to the man behind the counter who, if a gust of wind blew in, looked like he might crumple beneath the weight of it.

Van worked in food service, and she knew it was wrong to touch any part of yourself before distributing the goods, as Rocky put it. Sure, it was his hair, but if she found a single strand in her ice cream, she was going to be pissed. She noticed the lack of gloves, too, which wasn’t the only thing to make her stomach jolt in protest at the thought of eating it. She didn’t want to judge, not based on looks alone, but the next words that came out of his mouth made her bite down on her cheek hard enough to draw blood.

Before she could say anything, Thea was stealing the words right out of her mouth. Van held onto Thea’s arm as if some kind of lifeline, following her to the register. “Are you sure?” Van asked, barely above a whisper. She looked towards the man as he filled another cup. Van hated that this man was serving them, hated that he was making Thea feel uncomfortable, and even though he was making her feel uncomfortable, too, Thea mattered most here. The topic of it being too much ice cream made Van shake her head. “We can make room in the freezer.” She cleared her throat. “And it’s not my fault I’m lactose intolerant, by the way. I was literally born this way.”

The man lifted his gaze to them again and Van felt dumb for talking loud enough for him to hear. Almost immediately, he was turning his attention back to the ice cream, filling the cups they had requested. “We can um, go halfsies?” Van bumped Thea lightly, a forced smile curling at the corners of her lips. She wouldn’t let this nasty guy ruin this for her. She and Thea were supposed to be having fun, not be grossed out by some hairy man behind the counter of somewhere they wanted to order from.

She hadn’t noticed it, but the cups had been slid to the register’s stainless steel countertop and the man cleared his throat. “We don’t do splits here. It’s all or nothing.” The yellow of his teeth was even more apparent up close, especially as he leaned closer to them. She could smell sugar and cigarettes and it made her stomach roll. Van took a small step back, tugging Thea slightly with her. “I’ll pay you back later.” She just wanted out at this point.

Thea felt like she’d been dealing with strange, uncomfortable men all her life. Some of that was just the experience of living, most of it was the experience of living in her feminine body, with her feminine presenting ways. It was her father that taught her the fear at first: never be alone with a man, never speak to one, her father made her stay on the phone with him when she walked home from school. Everyday, as Toronto’s primary news station CP24 whispered in the background of their crumbling home, he’d shake his head at all the crime, pointing it out to her. See, look, see, this is why I worry, this is why it isn’t safe, listen to me--he never said it out loud, but Thea knew by then how to read his frowns. She learned to fear mundane things: smiles, nights, buses, alleys, parties, malls, homes.

But as she grew older, that was just the issue. It was hard to explain why this man bothered her; what had he really done so far other than scoop some ice cream? Wasn’t she being ridiculous? Wasn’t she overly sensitive? And if he did something, if--well, didn’t she get a ‘vibe’ from him? Why didn’t she notice sooner? Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she say something? Thea knew all too well the uphill battle of safety. There was an odd comfort in knowing Van was tense beside her, that she understood and felt the same. She wasn’t being sensitive, sometimes people really were just like this. They’d be okay. They had each other. Thea would make sure they were okay, she’d send him away if she had to; she’d make a scene, she’d kick, she’d scream, she’d throw ice cream back at his unkempt, wrinkly face.

He placed the cups of ice cream on the counter, licking his lips as he tapped the total into his computer. Thea paid before he could ask her about it. She wanted to cut him off, cancel his presence out, crop him out of their day. “Do you need help with--” He started. “No,” Thea answered back quickly, nudging Van to help with the cups. She could practically hear his thoughts, watching his face crinkle from the corner of her gaze: prickly, I was just trying to help, damn okay, bitch. Her insides burned. “How about the booth in the corner?” She forced a smile, scurrying off before she knew it was okay.

She set the cups down in a rush, hands trembling. She wasn’t scared, actually, Thea noticed she felt strangely hungry. Her teeth itched; she felt like biting into a rare steak. She threw herself into the corner, digging into the chocolate fudge--surprisingly creamy for dairy-free.

“So, are you two on a date?” The man appeared at their table, sticking his ice cream fingers into his mouth, saliva dripping from his cracked lips. He grinned like something was funny. This time, his attention was focused on Van.

The transaction was complete and Van nearly let out a sigh of relief. She was used to picking up multiple items– she did it at work all the time. With several of the cups now in her grip, she retreated to the table that Thea had picked out. A part of her wished they could find somewhere else to eat it, but the idea of wandering through the streets with copious amounts of ice cream seemed more of a hazard than anything. Then again, this might turn into a hazard.

Lost in thought, Van set the cups down and looked over her shoulder. She heard the small tap of Thea’s cups hitting the table in unison, and she pulled her attention back to her company. It didn’t seem like Thea was alright. Van’s stomach rolled again, frustration peeling over her. She wished this was different– that there was a girl their age behind the counter. They’d talk about their favorite flavors, maybe talk about the ones they didn’t like, too, and Van and Thea would laugh and they’d tell her that they’d enjoy even the ones they didn’t like, because that’s what you did to be polite, even if Van had a hard time with that. And then they’d leave, but Van would scrounge some change for the tip jar, and they’d talk about how nice that girl was on their way back to Dr. Kavanagh’s. Instead, they were left with this– a man who spoke without being spoken to, venom seeping through each and every word.

Van followed Thea’s movements, taking the seat opposite her, but sitting in the middle, just in case he decided to join them. She slouched slightly, kicking one foot onto the other seat. It barely worked, her legs were too short, but maybe it’d still deter him from wandering over. These were made up situations, she realized, but better to be prepared.

His question wrung out through the silence and Van gripped the mini spoon tightly. She looked from Thea back over to the man who’s smirk made her want to scream. She wasn’t offended by the question– if it had come from anyone else, then maybe it’d even spark excitement. Fear, too, for the sake of being worried of ever being within proximity of someone like that again, but excitement all the same. Instead, it was replaced by a certain kind of anger, the kind you saw in magazines where adults tried to mimic teenage angst. She wasn’t angry at the question, but that it was coming from him.

Her mouth moved quicker than her mind, “yes, we are, and we’re trying to enjoy it.” Maybe a little too forward. The man’s smirk grew and he raised his hands defensively, “I was just asking, you don’t need to be so…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she knew what he wanted to say. Van quickly scooped a bite of the strawberry shortcake into her mouth, focusing on the way it was cold on her tongue. If she could ground herself, then it would be okay. If she could focus on this.

But the man was moving, a mop in one hand, the creaky bucket in the other. He approached them, just a few feet shy of their table. The sound of the mop, wet on the ground, made Van tense. The metal of it scraped against the tile and Van lifted her gaze up to meet Thea’s, silently asking if they should leave. There were other ice cream places, and if they were closed, they could go to the stupid grocery store. Not the one they killed Debbie in, but another one.

She hated him. She hated him. She hated him. Thea chewed at empty air, full of the fantasy of his flesh under her teeth. The cup was crushed in her tight grip, chocolate fudge spilled over her hand. It wasn’t fair, she told herself. All she wanted was a nice day for them, her brain was eager to remind her. Why did he have to be here? Why did he have to be like this? What if he wasn’t? What if he was gone? Thea’s stomach groaned. Her vision, blackened around the sides, focused only on him. She could smell the sourness of his clothes, the staleness of his breath, the oils in his hair, the sweat pooled in his shoes.

“Yes, we are, and…” Van’s voice cut across the room like one crashing wave; Thea perked up. “We are?” She repeated, blinking rapidly at her friend. In an instant, the man was gone from her senses. Hunger dissolved from her body and instead, it twinkled like a star in the sky, fluttering inside of her. “We—I mean…” Was it a date? Or was that the sort of thing said just to get him off their backs? It was casual; maybe it didn’t mean anything. Did she want it to mean anything? Surely not, her ability to not eat people was a work in progress. But her body had a story of its own: at the idea, she smiled shyly, cheeks flushed with nervous glee. “Not that I—I’m not, like, opposed—I just…” Her brain fired off in every conceivable direction; thoughts tripped over themselves, collided like asteroids, burst open like stars. Thea’s body had, in that instant, relaxed.

Then she heard it: the soft exhale of breath, the little laugh meant just for him. He chuckled. He chuckled at them. Thea’s attention snapped to him again, hunger roiling in her stomach once more. She dropped the crushed ice cream cup onto the table, leaning over the edge to look at him. Tiny smirk. Head turned to their table. Useless circles with his mop. He was listening in. They were his entertainment for the working day. It was innocent enough—didn’t she do the same during her shifts?—but Thea found herself incapable of generous readings. It happened to her like it always did, inside her abdomen. It felt like a period cramp gone wrong, a strangely common experience twisted with hunger; pain seared across her body. Thea stumbled to her feet. “Washroom,” she blurted, clutching her stomach; though it wasn’t clutching so much as clawing at. She rushed past the man, knocking over his bucket—“Hey!”—and threw herself into the single person washroom, having just enough sense left to lock to the door behind her.

Her bones snapped and she fell to the tiled floor, drooling through the pain of it. Thea tried to hold herself together; she found that these transformations, the kind that happened outside of full moons, could be stopped. Never mind that she’d never really stopped one before; she only knew that if her thoughts were happy enough, she could feel parts of her body reverting. She held herself around the stomach and forced her thoughts to be of ice cream, Van, opossums, stars, the moon, the ocean at night, Van. But for every thought about her friend, the manna tiny smirk flickered through her head. For every thought about the things she liked, she realized how hungry she was—ravenous. Her skin peeled off her in ribbons, revealing blood soaked white fur. Her jaw vibrated with pain as it grew—broke and rebuilt itself; her new bloody gums itched; her sharp teeth throbbed. Thea stumbled to her feet and ran to the mirror wherein she saw her nose cracked in three places, peeling off her face. Her eyes, bloodshot, changing color, could hardly focus; everything was a blur of white and red.

“Yes, we are…” She clung to the sound of Van’s voice and the fluttering happiness it had given her. Yes, we are, she repeated in her head. Yes, we are. Date. Date. She placed her hands around the sink and it snapped off the wall, smashing against the tile. Yes, we are. Thea and the wolf stumbled around the bathroom, debating the issue amongst themselves. Yes, we are. Date. But wasn’t she afraid? Wasn’t that her friend? What did she have to be happy about? Yes, we are. The joy of being wanted—romantically or not, it didn’t matter to her—crashed against her anger, shame, fear, hunger; two opposing oceans with two violent currents. She reminded herself that somewhere out there, with a lot of ice cream, was her friend, Van. Yes, we are.

In another setting, maybe Van caught Thea’s expression. Maybe she saw the look of joy, and maybe Van could smile too, could fill herself in the brightness of it– could feel it bursting from the seams. Instead, she sat in the cold booth with the man and his gap-toothed grin, yellowing and brittle. She stared at him, challenging the next comment out of his mouth. Anxiety spun like a thread through her, tongue coated in iron. She felt her fingers begin to tremble around the spoon she held, thumb denting the fragile plastic.

The questions that split between them were lost on Van. Her mind couldn’t keep up. Between the anger she felt and the way her stomach was doing somersaults, it was all too much. However, Thea’s sudden movement– a cup dropped, chocolate splattering over the table, made Van realign her gaze. She watched as Thea got out from the booth and she immediately dropped her leg, arching forward as if to follow her. Half of her wanted to catch Thea’s wrist, but she wasn’t sure if it was out of selfish intent or not– don’t leave me here with him. Instead, she watched Thea retreat into the bathroom. She jumped as the door slammed and Van looked back to the table, grabbing a few napkins to begin cleaning up the chocolate-y mess. “Seems your friend really is lactose intolerant.” Van opened her mouth, the snapped it closed again.

The noises from within the bathroom were animalistic in nature, and all Van wanted to do was cover her ears, at least for the sake of giving Thea minimal privacy. But then it dawned on her– the man had intentionally given them ice cream with dairy. It was their fault for not checking, wasn’t it? Van’s fault for not being eagle-eyed, for not watching his every movement. It sounded like something broke inside of the bathroom, and suddenly there was the sound of running water– or rather, spraying. Glass shattered and Van shot up from the booth. The man with the mop stuck his hand out, “she’s going to have to pay for whatever she breaks.” Van turned her attention back toward him, mouth acidic now. She flexed her fingers through the air.

“Why did you do that?” Her voice was small, weak. He laughed, and he pressed a hand to his chest. “I wanted to see.” Wasn’t that practically poisoning? Actually, she wasn’t sure if it was classified as such, but it felt like it should. Van stood frozen across from him. He held onto the mop like a lifeline, and from where she stood she could see the way his nails matched the yellow of his teeth. God, how she wanted to scrape her tongue. At least she’d only had a few bites. Thea, on the other hand…

Without thinking, Van took out her phone and pressed play on the last song she’d been listening to. She turned the volume up in an attempt to drown out the sounds coming from the bathroom. She knew that if the roles were reversed, she’d want Thea to do the same for her. Nine Stories by Hazel English started to blast through the small speakers, and really, it didn’t do much to mitigate the noise coming from the other end of the room.

Van had been so busy with her phone that she hadn’t noticed the man got closer to her, dry and cracked fingers outstretched for her phone. “No loud music allowed. Company policy.” He tried to snatch her phone and she held it away from him, taking a step back. “I can do what I want. She’s–” Wouldn’t it embarrass Thea if Van actually said it? Instead, she cleared her throat. The man shook his head, that same stupid grin he wore earlier peeling over his expression like someone would peel an orange. It made Van’s stomach twist again.

The wolf wasn’t easily calmed; against Thea’s wishes, it demanded release. Her anger, which she carried quietly and politely, would be better given into. Her shame, which was a constant acidic pool she dipped into, needed relief. Wasn’t she hungry for more? The wolf, her wolf, had been a part of her since birth; existing in the things held back, the things taught to be subdued. No matter what she did, the sense of relief the wolf gave her was undeniable. No matter how much she hated the creature, she loved the feeling of release. She didn’t want to eat Van—and the wolf would, it had a bottomless appetite—but could she pretend like she was strong enough to deny it? Her transforming body crashed into walls, scratched the door, clawed out the plumbing—and it felt good. Anxiety rolled into her anger which fueled her destructive shame which fed her insecurity which hugged her jealousy and kissed her fatigue for the human condition. What remained of Thea slowly disappeared into a bubbling darkness; it was so terrible to be human, full of terrible human emotions and thoughts and worries. The wolf could take everything away. Yes, we are. Yes. Yes.

The noises from the washroom turned from animalistic to horror-movie and the man’s smirk grew. His sloppy gaze trailed slowly onto the girl’s phone, which he snatched up in one fluid motion. “Play some real music at least,” he sneered, navigating her menus, through her playlists, through her music history, on her phone. Katy Perry’s Firework punched through the speakers. “Yeah.” He grinned, throwing the phone back more than handing it back. He tilted his head up to the ceiling, greasy hair flopping across his forehead. “Company policy: play good shit or else.” He closed his eyes and tasted his future on his hangover stained tongue; seeing the fireworks his queen Katy Perry sang about. His cryptocurrency and reddit inspired stock investments was gonna pan out this year, he knew. And he’d be gone—far, far away from shitty Wicked’s Rest. He’d get the life he was owed. He spread his arms wide, letting the music wash over him, mouthing the words.

Van felt frozen in place. The noises from inside of the bathroom became more volatile. It sounded less and less like a bad trip to the bathroom and more like something else, but before she could peel away to investigate, the man was taking her phone. “Give that back!” Heat rushed to Van’s cheeks as she awkwardly splayed her fingers through the air, reaching for her phone. From the speakers, Nine Stories was disrupted by Katy Perry. Play good shit or else.

The phone was tossed back to her with the speed in which that was meant for someone who didn’t want you to catch anything, at least somebody as uncoordinated as Van. The phone that Erin had given her bounced from her outstretched hands and onto the floor, directly into the dirty mop water bucket. Firework gargled out its last breath for a few agonizing seconds as Van stared down at the bucket in horror. The man said nothing, but dunked his hand into the bucket, coming away with her now waterlogged device. The screen wasn’t displaying anything, but she could make out a very quiet hum of the line do you ever feel like a plastic bag–

“‘S your fault it fell.” Van watched in silence as the man wiped the device on the even dirtier rag hanging from the mop bucket. She watched as he looked it over– the sound of Thea’s convulsing, or what Van could only assume as such, acting as a horrific backdrop.

Before she could properly react, a portal opened between them, and Van’s hair was in her face, whipping against the flat bridge of her nose. There was no wind within the rest of the store, but whatever the portal led to, that was enough to–

The man screamed and Van watched as he was dragged through, something elongated digging its talons into his leg. She watched in silence, being thrown back into the moments where Diana had slipped and fell into the portal, that much like this one, had sprung open and snapped shut within a moment of recognition. The same happened here, and the only thing left behind was the cellphone that was now broken. Van stood there, stunned by what had just occurred. She could still hear the noise coming from within the bathroom and Van hurriedly ran her hands over herself, checking to make sure that she was okay. She was, but was Thea?

“Thea? Thea!” Van knew that the other girl might be embarrassed by the urgency, but what else was she supposed to do? She had murdered somebody again, and they needed to get out. “Thea? Please– Um, you can–” She looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody else was coming into the shop. The noises continued, like skin splitting and refracting itself around bone. Van didn’t think Thea was okay, nor did she think this was lactose intolerance. “Thea, please–” The thought that whatever had gotten the man across from her had first gotten to Thea made her panic. She slammed her palm on the door, “Thea, please! We have to go!” The water she had heard earlier was beginning to seep from beneath the door, though it was tinted with rouge. This made Van panic more and she continued slamming her hand against the door, matching the frequency of the noise from the other side.

Van’s voice sliced across the din of Thea’s mind. Oh god, she wept, her trashing body snapping and twisting. It happened. That pain in Van’s voice—that urgency—meant she’d done it. She was eating her. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t taste or smell; she felt like she was floating in space, staring down at her wolfish body on Earth—too small to make anything out. Oh god. She crumpled, tumbling to the slashed tiles. Her body cracked into place as she sobbed into her bloody palms. She couldn’t have just one friend, just one good day—it had to be this. Thea looked up, surveying the washroom through misty vision. Nothing was where it ought to be: the toilet was shattered on the opposite wall, water springing up from the pipes like a fountain. The walls bore distinct five-finger slashes in every direction, as if she’d tried to claw out through the wall. The door was carved out on her side, dug through with animal desperation. It thumped.

“Van?” Thea sniffled, stumbling to her aching legs. She fell against the door, letting the harsh knocks bounce through her bones. Through the battered wood, she could hear her: her friend, Van, alive, calling her name. Thea closed her eyes, taking in each breath and gasp and shout before she realized that Van didn’t sound okay. She unlocked the door and swung it open, smiling. “Van! Are you--” And then she grabbed it back, swinging it forcibly back to her body. “I’m naked.” She’d felt the breeze immediately. Her embarrassment served as a temporary pain killer. “I can’t—we should go yeah—it um, the toilet exploded…” She looked around. Where did that guy go? She didn’t have time to wonder. “I’m naked,” she repeated. “I can’t—I can’t walk around like this.” Why did the transformation have to take her clothes? The Hulk got to keep his pants at least—that was tasteful.

Van’s mind raced as she slammed her hand against the door once again. The space behind her was left empty aside from the now broken phone and the mop bucket. Even the mop was gone, swallowed up by whatever had gotten the man. Deep down, she knew she was responsible. She knew that if she didn’t open the door to see Thea in the flesh, that whatever had gotten him had gotten her, too, and it would’ve been all her fault.

There was a break in the convulsing from the other side of the door, and then Thea’s voice, strangely quiet– shaking. Van’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t killed her– Thea was alive, and whatever had happened hadn’t killed her. The fact that there was bloody water at her feet, however, still made Van uneasy. She didn’t relent slamming on the door until it opened. On the other side was Thea, face bruised– nose broken, blood already dried down her face. She was naked, too. Van looked past Thea before the door could be yanked back, noticing the way that the toilet was shattered. What the hell had happened in there? When Thea spoke, Van realigned her gaze and she stuttered out, “it was just dairy.” Okay, maybe not the best thing to say, especially because Van was almost one hundred percent positive that dairy wasn’t the culprit here, but maybe it was better for both their sakes if she did. Whatever happened on this side of the door, it wasn’t reminiscent of anything she’d seen. Van had her run-ins with dairy, she knew the experience, and this seemed far from it.

“You’re naked.” Van forgot, only momentarily, about the way the black hole opened up behind her just moments ago, but only because Thea needed help. “No, that’s– it’s only for French people to do that.” She cleared her throat, clearly stressed by the situation. “It’s–” She looked around, noticing that there was some merch hanging on one side of the wall. There was only a t-shirt, but there had to be something else, right? “Hold on.” With her legs wobbling beneath her, Van made her way to the t-shirt and yanked it down. It looked like it might actually fit her. After some searching, she came up empty on a pair of pants and opted for a trash bag. Before returning to Thea, she shakily punched holes through the bottom of the bag for Thea’s legs. It’d look weird, but she didn’t think Thea would mind as long as she didn’t need to run through town naked. “Um, I found…” She extended an even shakier hand out towards Thea, half-afraid that whatever had happened behind the closed door might get her, too. “I’m sorry they aren’t real pants. There are no real pants here.” Her voice wavered slightly and she could feel the pool of tears beginning to sting the corners of her eyes. Couldn’t she just not cry for one second?! She cleared her throat and took a step back. It’d only be a matter of time before Thea realized that the man was gone, or maybe she already had. What excuse could Van give to her friend? Would she even believe it? What excuse would Thea give to her? Van knew it wasn’t lactose intolerance that did this, it couldn’t be.

“No, it was–it was the toilet.” Thea tried to explain. “I didn’t do that. The toilet…it uh…launched out of the ground like a rocket? And then bounced around the room? And I hadn’t used it yet. It just, um, looked at me and did that. I’m–I’m trying not to take it personally.” She wasn’t sure how believable she sounded, but she hoped her bright smile dispelled any doubts. Surely Van would believe that it was the toilet and not her?

“Do the French walk around naked? Like outside?” Thea frowned. “Like inside stores? They do that?” The French were weird, she guessed. Although, her sad French education didn’t include anything about nudity. It did, however, include a large number of puppets. Her body thrummed with pain and her mind tried to recall all the French puppets she had been subjected to—there was also the matter of the puppet show of Les Trois Petite Cochons that she performed. Voici le loup. When Van arrived again, Thea took the offerings gleefully. “Thanks! I can definitely wear a shirt and a…is this a trash bag...?” The door swung closed as she released it, muffling the rest of her sentence. But before she was cut off from Van completely, she looked up and caught a glimpse of her wet eyes.

Slipping into the shirt was easy, pushing her legs through the holes Van so graciously made in the trash bag was a little harder. In the end, she pulled her legs through and tied the bag around her waist to prevent it from falling. In the shattered mirror, she saw that she looked like a giant baby with a trash bag diaper. Normally, this would make her cry. However, somewhere beyond the half-broken washroom door was her friend, who was actually crying. Thea pushed herself out and debuted her trash baby look, smiling softly. Her arms, despite any better judgment, wrapped around her friend. Her legs crinkled. “It’s okay,” she said, unsure of what she was soothing. Over Van’s head, she saw the upturned bucket and shattered phone. Wasn’t there supposed to be a man there? “Where did the…” She swallowed. “Let’s get out of here, okay? But not too fast, the trash bag isn’t very secure.”

Van didn’t believe Thea, but she wanted to. Wanted to think that maybe Wicked’s Rest had possessed toilets, but there was something else that Thea wasn’t telling her. The busted nose, the way the blood was sticking to her face– the fact that she was naked, it was all too much to ignore in favor of lactose intolerance. A few months ago she might have been able to convince herself that it was in fact lactose intolerance, but now? Now, she knew it was something else. But Thea didn’t want to tell her, and Van wasn’t going to make her. “The toilet is like, really mean for doing that.” She wasn’t sure how that was what she landed on, but she ran with it.

She wasn’t really sure how to answer Thea’s question about the French. Really, she was just referencing the one man who had streaked at the zoo. She thought it was common knowledge now, but apparently it wasn’t. Van sniffled, wiping away some of the stray tears that were beginning to stick to her cheeks. Thea came out from behind the door and Van recoiled at the sound of the swish the garbage bag made. The door closed, and Thea’s arms were around her. Van thought back to the moments where she thought whatever had gotten the nasty man had gotten her and she found herself winding her arms around the taller girl, squeezing her tightly. She hid her face into the dusty-smelling t-shirt and inhaled, proving to herself that Thea was real.

Something cracked open in the silence that warped around them and Van was pulling away, looking behind her to where Thea’s eyes were glued. She swallowed thickly and tried her best to steady herself. It was probably better that they just leave. What if there was footage of them? What would happen then? Van nodded in agreement, peeling herself away from Thea. She felt guilty for giving the other girl a trash bag to wear. Maybe she should have taken off her pants and given Thea them and then wore the trash bag herself. “He…” She flexed her fingers through the air again, as if tracing them through the magic that had swallowed him whole. There was no energy, nothing that made Van think it’d be coming back to take them, too. “We should go.” She reiterated Thea’s earlier statement and stooped down to grab her phone. She shoved it into her pocket and looked towards the already melting ice cream in the corner booth. “Come on.” With a shaky hand, she reached out for Thea. The tears still fell, but she felt a little more confident as she pulled Thea out of the ice cream shop. They could check back later and see if any reports were made. If all else failed, maybe the man was severely hated and it’d work out in their favor that he was gone at all.

Thea stayed close to her friend, walking along the sunlit sidewalk with her crinkly trash bag pants. “This was kind of a bad date–uh–friend date,” she said, staring at the open horizon. “Guess we’ll have to have another.” She shrugged about as well as someone could while holding someone else’s hand. And for a moment, she forgot she looked like a trash baby and that a man was suspiciously missing and that she had committed property damage. Instead, she thought about Van’s voice and her certainty: yes, we are.

#I HAVE TO RUN TO A MOVIE I WILL FIX THE BANNER I SWEAR #NO ONE LOOK #c: van #writing #s1 #unsanitary tw #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #i love ci #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #that's me screaming for ci

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beebfreeb · 2 years

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[Image Description: Digital art of Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena. She is standing with her back to the viewer, twisted to face them. Her hair is long and loose, and she is in her school uniform. She holds an axe over a sprawling red rosebush, both the axe blade and herself covered in blood. Several swords are stabbed into the bush. She is smiling, and says, “Ohtori is closed forever because a rose threw up ^-^” End ID.]

#revolutionary girl utena #rgu #anthy himemiya #ms paint #beebfreeb art tag #blood cw #blood tw #recently watched adolescence and went <:-( thru most of it #(i love to watch movies that hurt me)#btw i think anthy should kill more people itd fix her

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quaggyday · 1 year

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tw: small discussion of no consent very brief, do not try and debate with me please just block me if you don’t agree. Also I’m using their first names if that’s okay

Personally I don’t think I would hate Noaka that much if it weren’t for the fact that the fanbase seems to justify her actions all the goddam time

“She knows she’s awful” Guess what that doesn’t change anything, just because you know your awful doesn’t mean your suddenly changed or a better person. She knows what she’s doing is wrong and she still continues to do it anyway

“Miki is worse” For the love of all that is holy can we stop bringing up Miki when it comes to calling out Noaka’s morally not great decisions. Yes Miki was completely in the wrong for doing nothing about Shouko’s bullying and than blaming Shoya in the present and yes that scene did indeed infuriate me. But honestly I don’t hate her as much because it actually feels like she’s trying while Noaka feels like she’s doing the bare minimum

“She tries to get better” Okay she insults Shouko with sign language, good for her that she tried to learn. She’s still pretty hostile and mean even with doing the basic decency of not attacking Shouko

“We see where she’s coming from” Oh goodie she only bullied Shouko because she was jealous, while yes an interesting motive doesn’t make her any better because she’s still hurting Shouko. Motive and intent don’t matter when it comes to effect and consequence

“She’s better in the manga” I read the manga and saw the basic things left out of the movie and I felt the manga made her worse. After attacking Shouko her response is basically “Shoya is gonna hate me” not “Wtf is wrong with me”. Oh yah and she locked herself with her comatose crush, let none of his friends or family in, and than (tw for no consent) kissed him in his coma and basically said its better he would be dead than alive if she could have him

And to top if all off she gets no consequences. Shoya was ostracized and bullied, and while yes from a place of guilt he tried to become a better person and earned a right to be better. I am not saying Naoka needs to go through what Shoya went through but Noaka isn’t even looked at weirdly for ASSULTING Shouko for no good reason

Basically I honestly genuinely think I would have liked or understood or analyzed her more if she wasn’t constantly let off the hook for her downright heinous actions against the girl who showed no anger towards her. Love this movie, Noaka just enrages me

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pastinawitheggs · 1 year

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lucille 🥺

#lucille sharpe #crimson peak #Guillermo Del Toro #horror #art #horror art #digital painting #mine #myart #kae's art #rebelle 5 pro #painting #artists on tumblr #it's been a hot minute since we posted on here bc our touchscreen driver got fucked up and tech support couldn't fix it lol #we fixed it ourself yesterday though B) it was the wacom HID and not the touchscreen HID apparently and took 2 seconds to fix #blood tw #blood #we need to rewatch crimson peak. movie of all time

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flower-artlm · 6 months

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Day 10 and 11 of Artober!!

Song- Sever the blight by hemlock springs, a sapphic bop <3

Film scene- Ready or Not, horror movie that FUCKS it's so fun and has some good twists >:3

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t-u-i-t-c · 1 year

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"I'm Kamen Rider Ghost..."

#kamen rider ghost #tenkuji takeru #takeru tenkuji #kamen rider #tokuedit #please do not repost #umbrella.edits #umbrella.gifs #umbrella.posts #flashing lights #flashing lights tw #mourning what could have been #i wish so much that this style had been used in the main series but it was only ever really seen here and in a few side things...#(he does fly in the first few eps but then it's basically non-existent after a while...)#anyways i made these and then i had to fix the coloring bc this movie is really green and i'm trying to highlight the suits so i have to #fix the coloring so that the green isn't washing out the suit/scene #still a a little more green than i would like but i think they look okay :)

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thefastestelementalmasteralive · 10 months

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Joking little comic, I drew ig

Earth - 42

An earth that should host a spider... person? Being? Anyways, this earth doesn't.

"My name is Ganke Lee, I live in a world run by criminals... and I'm not talking about the politicians."

"We do have someone capable of going toe to toe with the criminals. Whether you call him a savior, a murderer, a hero, or a vigilante, whatever you want to call him."

"it's funny... I used to know him. just a year ago, we were friends."

"Not anymore.."

"We got into an argument, you know... morality wise,"

"He viewed it as the only way. I tried to suggest other options, but he shot them down with an admittedly solid argument for why he did what he did."

#prowler miles #miles morales 42 #earth 42 miles morales #Ganke lee #Ganke m lee #earth 42 ganke lee #beyond the spiderverse #just a joking little comic I did for the next movie or at least in between movies lol.#I hate coloring #but i colored this time #if i made more of this joke comic it definitely be clawcode #or my personal favorite #pav x gayatri x miles 42 x ganke lee 42 #tw blood #tw blo0d #tw implied death #cw implied death #cw bl00d #tell me if i need to fix or tag anything else

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fullmoans · 1 year

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Home is a Fire | P. 2

“I need you to tell me what happened – exactly what happened,” Stiles said calmly. When he’d made his way back from the forest, there were fewer cars in front of his dad’s house. Inside, only Noah, Chris Argent, Melissa McCall, and Peter Hale remained. His dad told him that Lydia, Jackson, Allison, Mason, Liam, and his girlfriend had gone to Melissa’s house. They were enjoying their time with Allison and telling her about their lives since she had last seen them almost two decades previously. He assumed Malia and Parrish went with them, but he didn’t ask.

Scott had gone into the woods after Stiles and, when he knew he was safe, had left him and gone back with the others as well. Stiles didn’t know how many of them he would see so soon again but they were alive. In theory, he could see all of them again.

“It has been a long few days, son.”

Stiles looked up at his dad. Noah Stilinski looked completely worn out, like he hadn’t slept in days. All of them looked like that really. It reminded Stiles of the time before he’d finally left Beacon Hills – when everyone seemed to be constantly in danger.

“I need to know what happened.” So they told him. Chris began the story, talking about his and Scott’s shared dreams. Noah explained the fires and Melissa told him of seeing Scott show up with an unconscious Allison at the hospital. Peter was quiet. Chris offered an explanation of how they’d apparently brought Allison back but it seemed over-simplified. You couldn’t just put dirt and a weapon on the nemeton and receive a person in return. It seemed the adult he most needed to hear from, the vet, had gone. He asked where and they all agreed he was likely on his way back to L.A. So Stiles would be doing this alone.

After a little while longer, Stiles excused himself. He’d grabbed the duffle bag from his car when he came back from the woods and it now sat beside his feet. He picked it up and rounded the stairs to his old bedroom.

Stiles had a shirt halfway over his head when he heard a knock at his window. He thought about Derek, climbing into his window uninvited when they were younger. When he went to open it, he was not surprised to find a different Hale outside – Peter.

“What is it, Peter?”

“You saw something. I could see it on your face.”

“Something isn’t as it seems. I had dreams before I came here, too. But they weren’t about Allison – they were about Derek. I saw fire. I saw the eyes of an alpha. I saw the nemeton. I felt so much pain. When I left earlier, I went to the nemeton and I felt something. It was quick, like it wasn’t there at all. I have to follow it,” Stiles recounted. He didn’t know why he was telling Peter this. Peter wasn’t an ally. But maybe he was. Had he not seen enough of his family burned alive? Had he not felt the pain of it himself? Maybe Peter was taking this the hardest of them all.

Peter had climbed inside the room while Stiles talked. He was leaning against a wall in Stiles’ room now, looking back out of the window he’d come in through. “I don’t know a lot about the nemeton, Stiles. But I do know a little about coming back from death. If you have the will and the luck, it’s possible. We’ve all seen that now. But the nemeton is a complex spirit. It could be tricking you, leading you on, or telling you a truth in order to distract you. Whatever you’re going to do, I have a feeling it’s going to be very dangerous. You’re going to need them.”

“First I need to be sure.” Stiles opened the top drawer of his bedside table and pulled out an item that he had left there for years. His dad hadn’t gotten rid of it. A shoebox full of colorful yarn.

“You may not have enough time to be sure.” With that last whispered thought, he felt silence settle over the room. Peter was gone.

“Stiles?” Noah asked from the doorway to Stiles’ room. Stiles was laying half on the bed with his lanky legs almost fully hanging over the edge. When he jumped, he came tumbling right off of it and onto the floor. Noah gave him a small smile. “I’m going to work. I love you, son. I don’t say it enough.”

“I love you too, dad.”

He rolled over onto his stomach flattening against the ground as he heard his dad shut the door and go down the stairs. He turned his head to the side and looked at the wall over his bed. In the middle, he’d made a rough drawing of the nemeton on a post-it note with the word ‘Source?’ scribbled on top. Another post-in note had the locations of the fires with ‘Mountain Ash’ which he didn’t think had much to do with it but it might be useful to collect any leftover ash when he needed something to do. The nogitsune had his own post-in note, connected with a blue yarn to the left, below the list of fires. A photo of Allison from an old yearbook, now laying open on the floor with a pair of scissors on top, was connected to both the nemeton and the nogitsune via a thread of red yarn. On the right, a ‘Derek’ post-it was connected to the nemeton in the same red. Photos of his friends and their creepy chemistry teacher had also been taken from that yearbook and connected via blue threads (for the nogitsune), red threads (for the nemeton), yellow (for dreams), and a special purple thread just for Hale’s (which connected to more post-it notes with names than it did yearbook pictures). Stiles stayed up for hours working on putting his thoughts onto his walls but they told him nothing. He needed to know more.

Specifically, he needed to know more about the nemeton. He needed to find Deaton.

Stiles was parked outside of the Sheriff’s office with a half-used notebook from highschool. When he entered, people shouted at him, happy to see him. Parrish sent him a wave. Mason walked up beside him, asking if he’d put out any really wild fires. “I told your dad that we should’ve called you about the arson,” he said, defensively.

Stiles excused himself with a hint of a smile and ducked into Noah’s office. “Dad, could you call Deacon for me? I need to speak with him.” Noah looked up. There was a worried expression on his face but he picked up the phone next to him and dialed from a small address book beside it. He spoke for a few minutes before hanging up.

“Deaton’s still at the McCall’s. He’s leaving tonight but if you leave now, you’ll have plenty of time to speak with him.” Stiles nodded and turned to leave. “Stiles, whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope you find it. We all miss him.” Another nod and he was gone, walking back the same way he came.

Inside the McCall’s house, it was like a highschool reunion. Everyone had indeed gone over there and they hadn’t left yet. There was a veil of sadness hanging over the room but still everyone was telling stories, laughing, and leaning on each other. They were mourning – but Stiles couldn’t. He wasn’t going to give up just yet. If Scott could follow a dream almost two decades later, Stiles could follow one after just a few days.

“Deaton, could I speak with you?” He asked. Only then did everyone seem to notice he had come in. Part of Stiles felt bad for not going to catch up with his friends, but a bigger part of him felt something he hadn’t felt in so long – left out. He looked around the room of his supernaturally strong and powerful friends, and he felt the magnitude of his own humanity. Maybe so many years apart had widened the gap between them larger than he was able to cross.

He heard Scott say his name, ask him to join them, but he only shook his head and looked back at Deaton. “Outside, please?”

Deaton followed him back through the door and they sat on the steps together.

“I know that you’re going through a lot right now, Stiles. I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you.”

“You said once that I had a spark,” Stiles said carefully.

“I said that because you’re human– so completely and entirely human. You can use our magic because of that humanity and the others can’t. When I said that to you, it was to help you understand how important you are to the pack even without the abilities some of the others have. Why are you asking about this?”

“What if it’s more than that? What if there’s something else? The nemeton is calling out to me, Deaton, I know it is. I just don’t know why.”

“It’s a complicated source of magic. The dreams it sends you could mean anything or they could mean nothing. It wasn’t the nemeton that sent Scott and Chris dreams of Allison, it was the nogitsune.”

“What if it wasn’t? The nogitsune never sent us dreams on a broadcast signal before – not all of us at least. Maybe he kept Allison alive, between life and death, through his ancient power, but it was the nemeton who brought her back.”

“What is it that you want to know, Stiles?” Deaton had the fatherly and concerned look he often wore when he consulted with Scott’s pack. They weren’t teenagers anymore but still, the look hadn’t changed.

“What if the nemeton is calling out to me to save Derek?”

“I don’t know if it can. There are stories of ancient nemeton magic – that which goes beyond being a beacon or a subject for rituals. They could store souls, imprison demons, even make their own decisions. The information on them has been lost to time, at least it has in California.”

“Hang on, you said they could store souls? I need to know more, Deaton.” Stiles was desperate. He needed to know more. He needed to know if it was possible.

“There’s a book. Talia had a book. But, Stiles, Derek is the only one who’d know where that book is if it wasn’t lost to the fire.”

“Not the only one,” Stiles said, and stood up. A new plan was forming quickly in his mind. A plan that only went two ways. Either Stiles was about to take a last minute vacation to South America, or Peter was going to have to get a message there. They needed to speak with Cora Hale.

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