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drawlfoy · 10 months

Text

the benefits of journaling p.1

pairing: diary!tom riddle x ravenclaw!reader

summary: you pick up an unassuming journal in diagon alley during an antiques sale without knowing that it's actually a part of a late dark lord's soul. sort of no voldy AU, set in the golden trio era where voldemort was defeated in the first war and thus harry has parents still.

warnings: she/her pronouns/reader that stays in the girl's dorms, language, eventual discussion of murder and whatnot but not yet!, you being a little femcel-aligned/obsessed, tom being awkward because he's been stuck in a diary without talking to anyone for 50 years, i fumble around trying to explain how to brew potions after taking only one semester of high school biology

please note that this tom riddle is definitely not the same tom riddle that dumbledore describes in canon. i read a few meta posts that rewired my brain and now my tom riddle is ~complicated~ and not just evil and murdery for the plot. so just keep that in mind lol

a/n: whoa is this....something other than draco on this blog? yes. im suffering right now and needed to get this out. hopefully i can get this longfic completed within 2-3 parts! i'm not using my usual taglist because i don't know how many of my draco readers want this

wc: 10k

The day you unknowingly bought a part of the late Lord Voldemort’s soul was like any other. It was overcast, the thick clouds a somber, humid ceiling hanging above you and Lucy as you made your way through the annual antiques sale in a dusty corner of Diagon Alley.

“Y/N,” said your companion for the day—a slight, freckled witch with mushroom brown waves and a perpetual smile etched into her mouth. “Look. This is so you.”

You looked up from the bookshelves of one of the stands. It took you a moment to see what she was holding, but once it came into focus, you rolled your eyes. “Oh, sod off. Not funny.”

Lucy just cackled, tossing the crudely carved wooden snake back onto the pile wearing a wicked grin.

The world is cruel in that you can scream once when you see Draco Malfoy’s pet ball python in third year and no one ever lets you forget it.

You turned away from Lucy, looking back to the old bookshelf that had been moved onto the cobbled street. The rich mahogany wood was close to buckling under the weight of all the tomes stacked haphazardly atop each other—far more than would be advisable.

But it wasn’t just the furniture that caught your eye. No, it was the glimpse of a black spine on the bottom, partially hidden away by an ancient encyclopedia on arithmancy.

You knelt, carefully arranging your robes so that they wouldn’t pick up dust from the street. You narrowly managed to avoid sending all the books on top tumbling into the street by slowly sliding it out from under the stack.

An unimpressively sized black journal laid in your hand, looking entirely unassuming and incredibly boring.

You frowned. A quick flip-through confirmed that it was in fact a journal—and that there was nothing written in it.

Why would someone try to sell an unused journal at an antiques market? You wondered, turning it over in your hand. Though its pages appeared entirely pristine, you could see some wear on the cover. There were no markings detailing when it had been manufactured.

It could very well have been an antique journal, you conceded. But why anyone would want an empty journal made years ago was beyond you.

You went to set the journal back onto the stack, getting so far as to nearly loosen your grip and let it drop from your fingers, when—

You had to buy this journal.

You weren’t sure why, or how. You just knew that this journal was coming home with you today, even if it was the least interesting thing you could’ve come across in your shopping trip.

“What’s that?” asked Lucy, appearing at your side and gently taking the journal from you.

“Just an empty journal, I think,” you answered, staring blankly at it in her hands.

“You know we can just get a normal new one at the bookstore, right?”

“Well, I like this one,” you heard yourself say. “It has…character.”

“Character.” She snorted, holding it up next to her face. “This is the most bland looking thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Consider yourself blind, then. Surely they’ll charge you twice the cost for this since it’s allegedly ‘vintage’.” Lucy made liberal use of air quotes. “You sure you don’t want to stop by the bookstore before we go? It’ll be on our way.”

“No, it’s really fine,” you said, taking it back into your hands, “I really like this one for some reason. I don’t know. There’s just something about it.”

Lucy tilted her head, giving it one last odd look. “Whatever you say. You go check out, then. Mum’s going to expect me back soon and the queue looks a bit long.”

The journal sat in your bag for the remainder of the summer, nearly forgotten as you went about your day. You opened it for the first time to examine it on August 31st, just a day before you were off to begin your 6th year.

There was writing that you hadn’t noticed before—thin, elegant script on the inside of the cover in black lettering. A simple “Property of Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

You stared, letting your finger trace gently across the parchment. There was a slight indentation at the lower swoop of the last letter “L”, like whoever had written it had pressed a little too hard with his quill.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” you whispered, trying the syllables out on your tongue. You’d never heard of any wizard named that before. You wondered how long it had been since those words had been written. You wondered if Tom Marvolo Riddle was still alive, and if he was, why he saw it fit to mark his property and then swiftly lose its custody to an antiques dealer.

Oh well. Sucks to suck, you thought dryly as you took the quill that you’d been using to finish updating your calendar and lifted it over the parchment. Whatever happened to the crusty old dinosaur that hadn’t even been able to make one full entry into his own journal before croaking or whatever was none of your business.

You’d barely started out how you imagined a normal person would begin a diary—a date, August 31st—when it suddenly became clear why this Tom fellow had been unable to leave a lasting mark.

The ink hadn’t even begun to dry before it sank into the pages, disappearing in a blink of an eye.

“What the fuck,” you mumbled, dumbstruck. You dipped your quill in ink once again and drew a series of short slashes across the first page, using more ink than was strictly necessary.

In a moment it was as if they had never been there.

WHAT??? You wrote mindlessly in the freshly blank page as your mind spun. What kind of magic was this? And what was the point?

No wonder you’d been drawn to it. It was probably dripping in all sorts of charms. Maybe the combination had been unintentionally alluring to particular passerbys.

Before you could think any further, the clean page transformed again, but not at your hand.

Hello.

The word assembled letter by letter, as if a ghost was writing it over your shoulder.

It seems you've found my journal.

You stared. A journal that could write back to you. Huh. A smile caught on your lips as you became glad after all that you’d chosen this one over a plain bookstore version.

How old are you? You wrote, resting your chin in your palm as you waited for a response as to whether or not your new acquisition actually belonged at the antiques market.

Sixteen.

You frowned. That was hardly vintage.

This was made sixteen years ago?

The response appeared quickly..

No. I'm sixteen.

Yeah. You were made sixteen years ago.

This time, the journal seemed to hem and haw at the response.

What year is it? Was the final answer that appeared.

What year do you think?

1943.

A little off. you wrote impishly.

Oh really?

Just a smidge.

Define a smidge, please.

What does it matter to you?

This seemed to stump the journal.

May I ask who I have the pleasure of speaking with?

You may not. Then, because you had nothing better to do, you dipped your quill and drew out a Tic-Tac-Toe board, placing an X in the middle.

The board disappeared into the page, and for a moment you wondered if you’d annoyed your magical journal too much. But then it reappeared, this time with an O in the middle.

You huffed. When you took too long to respond, another line appeared below.

I'm Tom. Tom Riddle.

You stared at the letters, the implications sinking in. If the journal had belonged to Tom—who was presumably a real person at some point in his life—then that would mean…which meant…

In seconds you’d slammed the journal shut and had your wand out, poking at the binding and being careful to avoid touching it again with your bare hands. Stupid, stupid you, buying something that had so clearly been engineered to lure you in, just like it probably had done to Tom back in the 40s.

The antique market rarely had issues with unknowingly cursed objects. They were allegedly thoroughly vetted by the stand officials to ensure that something like this didn’t happen. But perhaps this one had fallen through the cracks.

There was nothing you could do for now except to wrap the journal in a blanket and throw it into your suitcase. As a muggleborn, there was going to be no real magic for you until tomorrow on the train.

Better to investigate then, you decided firmly. With access to spellwork, you could at least cast protective wards around yourself and try to detect what exactly was wrong with it the next time you touched it.

Yes, you thought. That cannot possibly go wrong.

“Y/N!”

“Sorry, what was that?” You blearily blinked in the direction of Lucy and Ishan, both sitting there with an expectant look on their faces.

“I was saying that I’m pretty sure that Parkinson and Malfoy are actually together this time,” said Lucy, frowning. “I just came from the loo and his head was in her lap. Revolting, to be entirely honest. I can’t believe I had to see that with my own eyes. But whatever. Are you feeling alright? You keep spacing out.”

“I’m fine.” You pulled the fabric of your robe over your wrist so you could gently scrub at your eyes. “Just—tough night last night. I barely slept.”

“I totally get that,” mused Lucy, nodding as her gaze fixed itself on the window. “I can normally never get to sleep the night before we leave. I just get so excited for the new year.”

You smiled. “Yeah.”

But that hadn’t been your problem. Despite the creepy journal encounter that had left you with your mind spinning, you’d fallen asleep deeply the moment you’d gotten into bed. The issue had been staying asleep after all the dreams you’d had.

You rarely dreamt. When you did and remembered it the next day, it was normally nonsensical and had to do with forgotten final exams or missing a lecture. But last night…last night had been different.

There was a boy. His hair was dark and his face cast mostly in shadow, his voice a tenor that seemed typical to boys in your year. He hadn’t been speaking anything you’d understood, though. The most peculiar, bone-chilling hissing noises came from his mouth as he bowed his head leaned over a vaguely familiar sink.

Even though he wouldn’t acknowledge you, it was as if a channel had been opened between you two, like you could feel his emotions as phantoms within you.

Franticness. Vindictiveness. A thirst for vengeance beyond anything you’d ever felt before.

You sat watching this mysterious dark haired boy from the cobbled floor, feeling the wetness on the stones seep into your robes, climbing up and up until it soaked your skin.

At precisely 4 in the morning, you’d shot awake so distressed that you hadn’t slept a wink after. Needless to say, you were hardly what you’d consider to be well-rested.

The remainder of the train ride and the welcoming feast went on without a hitch. You managed to keep yourself from falling asleep at dinner and even joined in on the cheering for new Ravenclaws. The first years seemed to look younger and younger every year, you noted dully as you cut into the roast on your plate. It was making you feel awfully old.

Sixth year was supposed to be exciting—the year of N.E.W.T.S and figuring out what you’d concentrate in during your final year and getting to go to Hogsmeade without permission. But you hadn’t quite figured out what it was that you wanted to study. Being a muggleborn from a modest upbringing meant that you couldn’t be too frivolous. There was no amateur art or sports or celebrity career in your future. You couldn’t even count on marrying well—or marrying at all, in fact. None of your halfblood or pureblood friends seemed to understand that your family hadn’t already had an engagement arranged for you from the moment you were born. It was hard to look forward to a life that was so cloaked in uncertainty.

That being said, you had more immediate concerns to attend to. Though the journal was tucked safely away in one of your suitcases far away in the Ravenclaw Tower, you couldn’t help but feel its presence. You were itching to get back to your dorm so you could steal away into a corner and begin to inspect it.

Dumbledore finally dismissed the students after a rather uninspiring speech about the importance of dreaming big and staying true to yourself. You all but ran up the stairs, rushing to unpack all of your things.

“Merlin,” noted Padma from her desk. “That excited to move in?”

“I just want to go to bed,” you said, relishing the feeling of casting a spell to quickly stow away your skirts and button ups into your dresser. “Long day.”

“And even longer tomorrow.” Lucy was sitting at her desk, her feet crossed at the ankles. She’d somehow unpacked even quicker than you. “Does everyone have their finalized timetable for the term?”

“I’ve got Potions with Slughorn and Transfiguration with McGonagall on Mondays and Thursdays,” you began, unzipping your last bag and flicking your wand to send your school supplies to your desk. “Divination with Trelawney, Arithmancy with Vector, and Runes with Babbling on Tuesdays and Fridays. And of course the extended lab section on Wednesday for Potions.”

“Which lab section?”

“Morning,” you said. The diary was levitating from your wand now, looking unassuming and very innocent under the golden light of your dorm room. “You?”

“Same,” said Lucy, grinning. “I can’t believe you’re taking N.E.W.T level Divination. Do you hate yourself?”

“It was that or History of Magic.”

She nodded emphatically, turning back to make a marking in her planner.

With the dorm settled into a comfortable silence, you brandished your wand again, peering at the diary in front of you.

There was nothing outwardly sinister about it. When you’d gone over to Ishan’s manor over Easter break last year, he’d shown you some of the (potentially unlawful) darker artifacts that his old pureblood family had in possession. They’d felt dark. This journal didn’t have that syrupy thick feel around it. Its aura felt sparkly, magnetic. Surely it couldn’t have been dark magic. Because all dark magic felt dark, right?

You gulped. You wouldn’t touch it with your bare hands anymore, you reasoned. Just spellwork and using the tip of your wand to maneuver it. Just in case.

Your 5 years of Hogwarts education had left you sorely deficient in useful diagnostic spells, so you dug around in one of your Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks from previous years and found a section on spells to examine magical objects.

Revelo you whispered, feeling the slight jolt of magic as the charm left your wand.

Nothing, It didn’t even glow blue, a sign of magically active objects.

Huh.

You frowned. The slightly more obscure spell you’d heard Snape use once on a student’s suspiciously well-written essay didn’t yield anything either.

“Whatcha doing?’

You nearly screamed, clutching your wand to your chest.

Lucy grinned wickedly as she leaned over your shoulder and reached for your journal. “Ooh, is this that thing you bought at—”

“Don’t touch!” You quickly batted her hand away.

“Sheesh,” said Lucy. “Chill. I wasn’t going to read it or anything. I was just wondering why you were waving your wand at your journal. Secrecy spells?”

“No,” you said. Your heart was racing, “Er—not quite. I actually haven’t written in it, you see,”

“Oh?” Lucy’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Explain the theatrics then?”

A half-baked lie formed at your lips that was about to spill when you stopped yourself. Lucy was your friend. She’d been your best friend since the moment you’d met on the Hogwarts Express during first year. There was no reason to lie.

“It’s so weird!” You motioned towards the diary with your wand. “I buy this, right, because I feel this weird draw to it. And I take it home and try to write in it, and suddenly the book starts writing back.”

“A self-writing journal?”

“Not quite. Maybe. Maybe not, I’m not sure. It’s just—something’s not totally right about it, but I can’t tell if it’s dangerous or not.”

Lucy gave a good natured snort. “A journal? Dangerous? And from old Linda’s stand? Please. I see her going through everything in her inventory. The poor shopboy in charge of vetting items has to answer to her if he slips up. There’s no way anything actually powerful slipped onto the stacks.”

You stuck the tip of your wand under the cover and carefully pried it open, pointing at the lettering on the inside.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle?” She frowned. “Am I supposed to know that name?”

“I don’t know,” you responded at the swooping lettering. “But the journal talked back like it was Tom. Like, it introduced itself as Tom and said that it was 1943. And it acted like an….I don’t know. It was like it was a real person talking to me.”

“Huh.” You could see the gears slowly turning in Lucy’s head,

“Do you know any detection or diagnostic spells?” you asked. “I tried all the ones that we’ve learned so far and it doesn’t even detect magic. But it has to be cursed, right? If the last owner of this diary got sucked into it?”

Lucy was just beginning to open her mouth when ink began to appear.

It is rather rude to be casting all sorts of spells in my direction without warning.

You jumped. “Jesus Christ. Do you see that?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Lucy, but her eyes were crinkled. “Girl. Don’t worry. If it was dangerous, you’d probably know by now. You’ve had it around you for, what, two months? And you’ve already touched it. It doesn’t feel dark. I don’t think there are any slow burning curses that gradually trap you inside an object. If you’re still alright, you’ll probably stay that way. Maybe you should just ask Tom how he got there?”

“If I start disappearing, do try to keep me in this plane.”

“Noted.”

Nervously, you dipped a quill on your desk into an inkwell, waiting for a moment before thinking up how to word your request. In the meantime, a drop of ink fell to the page. It was quickly swallowed up by the parchment.

Sorry you began. Just wanted to make sure you weren't going to trap me in there with you or something

An understandable concern

“Just ask him the bloody question,” said Lucy, hitting your shoulder. “I want to go to bed.”

“Right, right.”

If you'd like me to stop with the spells, maybe you could tell me how you ended up in here in the first place

“Nice,” said Lucy. She was nodding thoughtfully. “Very smooth.”

It took a long time for Tom’s answer to appear despite the fact that your writing had almost instantly disappeared. Finally, black ink began to rise.

It was an accident. Nothing that can be replicated by you, however. There's no need to worry. I fooled around with the wrong book in the school library.

“School library?” Lucy leaned closer so that the locks of her hair dangled over your shoulder. “Ask him if he went to Hogwarts.”

Hogwarts? You wrote quickly.

Yes.

In your sixth year?

Yes.

“Ooh.” Lucy hit your shoulder. “Maybe you can use this to get comfortable talking to boys, Y/N.”

You scoffed, blushing a hot red. “Excuse me! I’ve told you. I’m too busy for that.”

“Uh huh.” She twirled a piece of her hair around her finger. “Well, I think you should just keep it. It’s harmless. Like I said, it’s from one of the tamest parts of Diagon Alley. And you wouldn’t be able to get anything genuinely dark into Hogwarts. The wards would’ve detected it. Have fun with it.”

“Have fun with it?”

Lucy shrugged, bouncing once as she settled down on her bed. “I dunno. Think about it. I think a responding diary could be fun. Let’s say I’m not around to gossip one day. You have another outlet. Or maybe you could use him to help you study or something. Really, the possibilities are endless.”

“True.” You mulled over the thought as you let your wand sit on its stand on your desk. Tentatively you grasped the soft leather of the journal and pulled it nearer to you. Tom was waiting for your response, after all.

Me too you wrote.

And you still won't tell me your name?

“Do you think it’s a bad idea to tell him my name?” you asked Lucy, whipping around.

She set down her book and shook her head. “What’s he gonna do with it? He’s stuck in there.”

Y/N.

A splotch of black appeared on the other end, but it was quickly crossed out.

How did you find me?

Antiques sale in Diagon Alley

I'm an antique?

Given that 1943 was over 50 years ago, yes

Nothing from Tom.

Is that not what you expected? You added.

I'm not sure

Just as you were about to close the journal and head to bed, Tom wrote again.

And how are you liking your time at Hogwarts?

It's nice. Fall term starts tomorrow.

You thought about leaving it there, but for some reason the words began to spill out of you.

It does feel weird being so close to graduating, though. I don’t know quite what it is that I want to do yet.

Oh? But surely you must have some idea.

You pressed the end of your quill to your lips, debating whether or not to share it with this mysterious Tom. In the end, Lucy’s previous comment was what made the scales tip. What did it matter? Tom wasn’t going to tell anyone.

I would really like to go for a cursebreaking mastery abroad, but that hinges on what happens in my N.E.W.Ts this year. I need an O in Potions.

I was taking N.E.W.T Potions at the time that I was trapped, Tom wrote. Perhaps I can be of assistance.

I can’t ask that of you.

Please do. It’s terribly boring being all alone in here.

You swallowed, watching the ink slowly sink back into nothing.

What do you mean? What’s it like being trapped?

It took a while for a response to form.

Quiet. You’re the first visitor I’ve ever had. I’m still in Hogwarts, technically, but there’s no one else here.

I’m sorry you found yourself writing before you could stop yourself. That sounds very lonely.

I don’t mind being lonely. It does get a bit dull, though.

“Luce,” you said, leaning over the back of your desk chair. “He just offered to help me with Potions.”

“See? Useful.”

I've got to go to bed now. First day of classes and whatnot.

Best of luck

Can you sleep where you are?

I don’t need to but I can

The words chilled you somewhat, but you pushed the feeling away.

Well, goodnight you wrote.

Goodnight

How were classes?

The ink appeared the moment you flipped open the journal. It was already two weeks into term, and you’d written to Tom nearly every night. You were curled up in bed, your blankets pulled heavy around your lap and your pajamas clean and smelling of lavender. A mug of tea lay steaming on your bedside table, its tendrils barely visible in the dim golden light of the candle you’d lit.

As expected you wrote, yawning. How was your day?

Oh, you know. Thrilling.

You snorted.

“What are you giggling about?” Lucy’s voice snapped you back into reality. You looked up to see her peeking over the textbook in her lap, a smirk etched deeply into her lips.

“Nothing,” you said quickly, but the way you slammed the journal shut gave it away.

“Talking to your fake boyfriend, huh?” teased Lucy.

“I’m not even going to answer that.” You rolled your eyes. “He’s a fucking journal. It’s not like he’s real.”

“Didn’t he say he was trapped in there?”

You huffed. “I guess. He seems to have accepted his position in life, though. It’s not like he’s begging for help.”

“No,” agreed Lucy. “But just think about it. What if you did manage to get him out? How romantic would that be?”

“Oh my god, shut up!”

Lucy ducked away from the pillow you lobbed in her direction, cackling maniacally all the way.

There you are. I thought I’d bored you.

The words reappeared within seconds of you reopening the journal. You tried to smother the way your lips turned upwards at the sight.

Sorry you wrote back, hoping that Lucy was sufficiently distracted with her textbook and would give you a rest for the night. A friend wanted to talk.

Does this friend know about me?

You held your quill to your lips for a moment before you wrote back.

Yes. She loves to tease over how much time I spend writing to you

I take it she doesn’t understand

Quite the contrary. She’s the one who encouraged me to write to you in the first place, in fact.

How so?

Something about how it would be nice to be able to tell my secrets to someone who could never tell anyone else

Tom’s response took a bit longer to appear this time around.

Oh? Any you’d like to share now?

Your heart skipped a beat as you looked at the drying ink.

You first.

For a minute, you thought that maybe Tom had disappeared. The parchment remained blank and clean. Maybe he’d gotten bored with you and had gone off to…whatever he did in his empty version of Hogwarts.

Then the lettering appeared again.

I used to have a pet snake when I was a child. I was an orphan, you see, and the other children thought that I was too strange to play with. I was terribly lonely. The matron took us to the beach once, and I found this little grass snake in the weeds. I stuck it in my pocket and took it back to the orphanage with me.

You lived in a muggle orphanage?

Yes. Obviously. Once I was amongst magicfolk, people did find me quite charming.

Why’d you pick a snake?

I liked having someone—or something, I suppose—to talk to.

You stared as the ink sunk back into nothing. Talk. Snakes. Talking?

Are you a Parselmouth?

I’ve already given a secret Tom wrote. Your turn.

Will you answer if I give you one?

That’s only fair.

Secrets—you barely had those. You’d grown up sharing nearly everything with Lucy since you’d been paired up in first year Charms class.

Not losing your nerve, are you?

I’m just thinking you quickly wrote back. I don’t have many secrets.

Surely you do.

This isn’t a very exciting secret. Heat rose to your cheeks as your quill scratched against the paper. But I haven’t told anyone this.

Go on.

I can’t tell anyone this because they’ll think I’m annoying. I do really well in classes. But I feel like I’m never going to be smart enough. It seems like nothing that I ever do will be enough to stand out

I understand more than you know

What do you mean?

I was sorted into Slytherin. Coming from such a modest background meant that I had to prove that I was worth the space I was taking up

A swell of…something rose in you as you stared down at the paper. You tried to imagine this mysterious Tom in the familiar green robes that you saw every day in Potions, scrunching his nose up over a book and studying hard. All alone—motivated by the knowledge that no one was rooting for his success—knowing that there was no name he could depend on to cover even one misstep—

You blinked. Whoa. That was some serious projection.

I can’t really tell this to anyone else. All of my friends come from influential pureblood families, so they just don’t get why I don’t get to make mistakes or slip up. They think I’m so uptight

Exactly. They all have safety nets. The grades, the house points, the prefect badges—those are all just surface level. It’s your name that gets you anywhere important

��You’re looking mighty serious over there,” said Lucy from over her textbook. “Trouble in paradise?”

You laughed tightly. “Er, no. Just talking.”

“Uh huh.”

I always feel like it’s evidence that I don’t belong when I don’t immediately understand something in class you add into the journal. To your horror, tears started pricking at your eyes. None of your friends were muggleborns. You’d never been able to voice these things out loud—or on paper, in this case. Writing it all out seemed so sad now. Like today in Runes. It took me longer than usual to understand a translation technique for this ridiculous slate from the Middle Ages. I had to talk myself down from believing that I’m faking it and that everyone else doesn’t even need to try

Is Babbling still there?

Yes. She’s still teaching

She was already too old to be coherent when she was teaching me wrote Tom. Tell me, do you have to rennervate her throughout the lesson to keep her present?

She was old back then???

Ancient.

I can’t believe she’s still alive. You chewed on your lip as you thought. She’s practically a fossil.

Do you think of me like that? Old?

Would it make you feel better if I said I considered you vintage?

I’m wounded

“Fucking get to the library and start researching ways to pull that poor boy out of there,” said Lucy from her bed, “Or stop giggling like that. Merlin. You’re killing me. You’re practically twirling your hair.”

“Shut up!” Slowly, you opened the journal back up after slamming it closed.

Your friend again?

Yes you scribbled back. She’s teasing me again about how I should try to get you out of here. Which I’m assuming is impossible, since I’m doubtful you’re even a real person

I’m very real

Your blood cooled.

Then why haven’t you asked me to get you out?

A pause—just long enough for you to feel suspicious.

I’ve gotten quite used to my little home in here wrote Tom finally. And forgive me if I believe it a bit forward to immediately demand the first person to which I speak to orchestrate my extraction.

Extraction. Interesting word choice, you thought.

How polite. Part of you was beginning to feel the slightest bit uneasy. And what would this so-called extraction entail?

That I haven’t quite figured out yet. The response was instantaneous. Ever since we’ve met I’ve been returning to the library in hopes of finding an answer.

Which book trapped you in here?

Another pause.

I sincerely doubt it’s still in print wrote Tom. It was a very dangerous book with dark, terrible magic. I had no business digging around in it. I paid the price dearly.

He refused to elaborate.

You spent the entire weekend digging through the Restricted Section, paging through every book you could imagine that had anything to do with Tom’s situation.

Nothing. Nada. Zero. You tried every querying spell you could think of. You were desperate enough to recruit Madam Pince by telling her that you were writing a paper for a class and needed to find anything there was on getting yourself trapped in magical objects. What she did dig up was at best irrelevant—tales of ill-executed Animagi rituals that resulted in the wizard getting stuck in their animal form and reports of interactions with cursed objects sending the users into a different dimension, never to be heard from again.

But as you were leaving the library on Sunday night, feeling downtrodden and profoundly disappointed, you saw something that caught your eye: the Alumni section.

It was one of those things that you always passed by without another thought. No classwork required students to reference previous Hogwarts attendees. It existed largely to appease the old families by nodding to their longstanding presence in Hogwarts, and the only friends who you had ever seen in this part of the library were purebloods curious about their ancestry. As a muggleborn, this was predictably unrelatable. There’d been no person of interest waiting for you in the old, dusty books that were shoved neatly into chronological order, no long-lost ancestor or namesake.

Not until now.

The click of your oxfords against the dark hardwood echoed as you came to a stop in front of the stacks. Every yearbook was the color of that school year’s House Cup winner, and the one with 1943-1944 on the thin spine was a rich, loud red. It slid easily from the shelf—which was a relief, because occasionally older books required permission to handle and were thus unremovable—and settled gently in your hands.

For a second you pondered leaving the aisle and finding a table to crack it open and savor the moment, but the thought of having to explain why you were looking at the 1943 class yearbook would be embarrassing. Doubly so if Lucy found you—she’d never let you hear the end of it. So, case closed. You’d open it here.

Oh god. You swallowed and used the cuff of your free sleeve to wipe the bead of sweat that had formed on your forehead. This was a terrible idea—or was it? Maybe he wouldn’t be your type. Yes, maybe he’d look just like someone who annoyed you in class or he’d have poorly kept hair or he’d have a creepy smile. Then you could stop thinking about—that.

And that shouldn’t even matter! You squeezed your eyes shut to dispel the thought. It was all Lucy’s fault for teasing you so much about him being your sort-of-weird-ghost boyfriend—part of you was starting to pretend like that was real. And it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It didn’t matter that no boy before had managed to make you this excited to talk to them. It didn’t matter that he got you like no one else in this castle seemed to. It didn’t, because as of present he was actually a journal and not a corporeal being.

In short, you reminded yourself harshly, you were checking this yearbook to verify that a Tom Marvolo Riddle did in fact exist and attended Hogwarts during the time period he claimed. That was it—nothing more.

Nervously, you let the cover flip open and began to card through the thick pages. Moving pictures of entirely unfamiliar students greeted you, flashing past your eyes. First years, second years, third years, fourth years…

You paused before turning from the fifth year page to the sixth, overwhelmed with the thought that whatever you saw was going to change the way you saw your interactions with the diary. If he wasn’t there, you’d need to re-evaluate how safe this whole diary scenario was. You’d need to go back and reconsider if anything you’d heard from him was ever the actual truth. And if he was…

You swallowed. You couldn’t pretend like you hadn’t been imagining what he’d look like on nights that you struggled to fall asleep. There was never a face you could settle on. Whenever you’d spin up something in your mind’s eye, the features would shift and morph into something entirely different before you could enjoy it.

But it didn’t matter—it couldn’t matter, because it was crazy that you’d even been fantasizing about a potentially make-believe boy who only existed in a worn diary.

You turned the page, and Tom Marvolo Riddle stared right back at you.

Tom looked every bit of what you’d expect a Slytherin prefect to be like. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and intentional, from the tidy robes to the obediently shaped dark waves atop his head that looked tragically soft. The only thing out of place was a single piece of black hair, dangling temptingly in the middle of his forehead.

His lips were drawn into a polite almost smile, his image almost entirely still save for the slight bob of his throat that repeated as the image replayed, over and over again.

Tom was pretty—much prettier than you ever could’ve thought up on your own. He looked unreal, like he’d been sculpted by some higher being’s hand with the express purpose of being devastatingly ethereal.

And he’d been talking to you. Connecting with you. And he was real. The weight of your satchel over your shoulder reminded you that he was right there. All it’d take was a quill and some ink to speak to him again.

The picture had repeated its loop one final time before you closed the book shut and pushed it back onto the shelf, hearing the pounding of your heart the whole way.

When you wrote to him that night, you tried your best to keep yourself imagining how he’d look writing back. Would he smile when he saw that you’d opened the journal? Would he laugh at your (admittedly stupid) jokes?

September turned into October which tilted into November with such speed that you could barely breathe. Time barreled ahead as classes sped up, assignments piled on, and each day became just another challenge to survive.

Tom remained one of the few constants in your life, alongside Lucy and Ishan. It was concerning how much you’d come to confide in him, telling him things that you’d never dare to share with anyone else. You told him about the little accomplishments that you could never bring up to your friends, like Professor Snape insulting everyone’s potion except yours and what McGonagall wrote on your most recent paper, calling it one of the most well-researched essays she’d gotten from a N.E.W.T level student. You even told him how Lucy occasionally got on your nerves and how it made you feel like a bad friend.

He was a good listener and an even better conversationalist. When he wasn’t being your confidant, he was more than happy to indulge any academic topics of interest. You spent hours going back and forth, debating the content of the news headlines that you’d tell him about each day.

With time, the memory of Tom’s face and intimidatingly good looks faded to the back of your mind. You’d barred yourself from going back into the Alumni section in the library lest you felt inspired to crack open his yearbook again and remind yourself just how attractive your imaginary friend had been when he’d been alive. If you did that, then you’d start fantasizing about a future where you invented some sort of way to pull him out, and that was just silly. You had exams, and Tom didn’t seem particularly rushed in leaving his journal—or he’d at least come to accept that he’d never leave.

Despite this new normality you’d built around the strangeness of the journal, some things still felt tense. You’d grown comfortable with Tom—arguably more comfortable with him than nearly anyone else, save for maybe Lucy, since you couldn’t ever imagine opening up the journal and telling him all about the fact that it was your time of the month and detailing exactly how your cramps were making you feel—but there was this underlying sense of anticipation. For what exactly, you weren’t sure. You just knew that things couldn’t be like this forever. Something had to give.

In the end, it was Professor Snape who started it. He’d looked down at your cauldron and said something about how your Draught of Living Death base was the most elementary thing he’d ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon and that you were lucky to even be allowed into the class, and something inside you broke.

You’d tried so hard on that potion. You’d followed the instructions to a T. You’d diced everything evenly and stirred it with the precision of a muggle performing brain surgery. Potions had never been your best subject, and you tried to make up for it by trying harder than everyone else. Normally it worked, but N.E.W.T potions was something else.

Tom was taking longer than usual to respond to this particular soliloquy that night, a few letters surfacing before he scribbled them out.

I know this might seem scary he finally wrote. I’ll understand if this frightens you too much. But I think that I may be able to help.

What do you mean, scary? Are you a mean tutor or something?

I mean that I can show you how to brew that Draught Tom replied.

Show me?

If my research is correct, it’s possible that I can temporarily cross you over into my world.

Your heart thudded, your hands suddenly clammy.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Lucy tossed her book onto her desk and turned to face you. “Oh no. Did something happen? You look awful.”

“Gee. Thanks.” You swallowed. “Er—sort of? I was writing to Tom about how crazy Potions class was today and he told me that he could help me. Like actually tutor me.”

“Is that not a good thing?”

Your mouth was dry. “No. That’s not it. He means like, tutor me tutor me. In person. He says he can cross me over into his world temporarily.”

Lucy froze.

“I have to say no, right?” It was so, so stupid that you were asking that. Of course you had to say no. There was no telling what he could do to you if you said yes. Maybe he was actually a demon that was attempting to possess you. Maybe he was going to eat your soul and use your body as a husk to feed on the other students and—

“I mean, probably not.” She thoughtfully pressed the top of her quill to her mouth. “Think about it. You guys have been in contact for months and nothing supernatural has happened. We already came to the conclusion that the journal isn’t dark magic because the wards would’ve kept it out.”

“But what if I get stuck with him? I haven’t been able to find anything about this type of magic before. I don’t know how it works.”

Lucy hummed. Then realization flickered across her features. “Hang on. I think I have something that might help.”

She dug around in one of her desk drawers until she produced a small spool of half-used thread. It was golden in color but so thin it was nearly iridescent.

“What’s that?” you asked, squinting at it.

“It’s Invisible String,” said Lucy, already rolling it out and pulling it around your wrist. It was pleasantly warm against your skin, like it’d just been sitting out in the sun. As soon as it made contact with your body, it disappeared. “It used to be used for Ministry Employees who used Time Turners. Whoever is on the other end of the thread is able to pull the wearer back to this reality and this timeline. It’s very useful in avoiding nasty time related incidents. My dad took home a bunch of spools when Time Turners were officially outlawed. He taught me how to apparate with them since it can also work over long distances in the same reality—just in case I did something stupid.”

“Wow,” you breathed, staring down at your wrist. There was nothing to stare at, of course. It was already gone. But it was an ingenious little contraption, probably charmed so many times with such obscure and rare spells that it would go for thousands of galleons if you tried to buy it yourself.

The perks of having a rich pureblood best friend, you supposed.

“As long as I’m holding the other end, I’ll be able to bring you back,” explained Lucy, holding the spool up demonstratively. “So, go for it. If that’s your only hold-up, I think you should go meet him. If anything, at least it’ll help your Potions grade.”

You turned your attention back to the journal, worrying your lip for a second before you dipped your quill in the inkwell and wrote out Ok.

“This is so exciting,” said Lucy from over your shoulder. “You have to tell me everything when you get back.”

“If I can come back.”

She dangled the spool in front of you. “I’ll make sure of that. If you’re not back by curfew, I’ll yank you back to this reality by myself.”

“Right.” Anxiety began to build in your middle, bubbling up until you were sure you were trembling.

This might feel a bit uncomfortable was all Tom wrote before you were suddenly falling into a void.

When the inertia faded and light slowly bled back into your vision, you were sprawled on the floor of a Potions classroom that you’d been in when you were a second year. Tom Riddle stood tidily a few feet away from you, wearing the same formal school robes you’d seen on him in the yearbook.

“Hello.” His voice was proper and measured. It fit him perfectly, but the fact that you were finally hearing him speak for the first time made you feel something that was highly inadvisable.

“Hi.”

For a moment, you just stared right back into his eyes as the silence closed in around you and the gravity of your situation sunk in. You’d really done it now, hadn’t you? As if to comfort you, the thread around your wrist warmed against your skin.

“Don’t worry,” said Tom, like he could already tell what you were thinking.“You won’t be trapped. It’s me who’s bound to this world.”

“And how are you so sure of that?”

“This is a prison for my soul,” he said casually. “Not yours. You have nothing keeping you here.”

“Right.” You slowly made your way from the ground to your feet, brushing off your robes and casting a few cleansing charms to dispel the dust clinging to you. At least your magic seemed to work fine here, you noted. It was a small comfort to know that you’d be able to defend yourself if shit went left.

“I didn’t think you’d say yes.” Now that he was speaking more, you couldn’t help but admire the way he sounded—silken and smooth and entirely unbothered, like he did this every day. “I was sure that I’d scared you off.”

“You underestimate how much I want that Potions O,” you offered.

“Never,” he said dryly. “Now that I see that you’re a Ravenclaw, I wouldn’t endeavor to make such ill-informed assumptions.”

You blanched, your head whipping down to take in what you were wearing. You weren’t sure why you were so shocked to see that you were wearing exactly what you’d had on moments ago at your desk—a midnight blue jumper with the Ravenclaw emblem stitched into the left breast, pulled on top of the white button up with the bronze and blue tie tucked underneath. That, and the standard-issue Hogwarts skirt and tights. Hardly dungeon attire—if you didn’t start brewing something soon, you’d be shivering.

It all looked very silly compared to how many layers Tom was wearing. His prefect pin glinted under the dim lighting of the Potions classroom, and you tried your best to keep your heart from swooning.

“Did I not tell you that I was a Ravenclaw?”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “I don’t believe so. I would’ve remembered.”

“Are you surprised?”

He cast his dark eyes up to the ceiling and scrunched his nose in a way that you thought was meant to convey a serious bout of thinking. “Not quite. I was stuck between that and Slytherin.”

“Slytherin?” You couldn’t stop the way you grimaced at this.

“I thought we had enough in common for it to be plausible.”

A thrill shot through you. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“I suppose I can't be too taken aback,” he said mildly, stepping neatly back and conjuring a cauldron to appear on the tabletop to his right. “You are a muggleborn. I don’t know of any who have been sorted into Slytherin.”

This wasn’t news to you, but Tom’s delivery stung more than usual. The implication hung heavy in the air that you were somehow in the inferior house, only placed in Ravenclaw because of your blood. As an afterthought—as a convenient place for you to be put away.

“That’s true,” you said, stepping closer until only the brewing table was in between you two. “But I doubt that I’d have been sorted there, even if I had been born a pureblood. The whole glutton-for-knowledge thing about Ravenclaw has always been me.”

“I disagree.” Tom summoned over a few jars of ingredients with a nonverbal wave of his wand. “If you’d been born with purer blood, you wouldn’t be so desperate to find a way to compensate.”

You flinched. Ouch.

“I’m very aware of why I feel the need to work so hard,” you snipped. “But I really don’t think that has anything to do with my genuine academic curiosity. If I was so single-minded in using knowledge for compensation then perhaps I would have been a Slytherin.”

For a moment, his dark eyes flashed with something that you couldn’t quite catch before his face ironed itself into something impassive once more. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to offend.”

You frowned, watching as he placed familiar ingredients on the table and began lining them up. “It’s fine. Just a bit of a sore spot, that’s all.”

He gave you a look that made you feel like you’d just pointed out the obvious. Which you had, clearly. But it was offensive regardless.

“I’ve assembled all the ingredients for a Draught of Living Death,” he announced, stepping back from the table and waving one pale hand at the spread in front of you. “You said you had trouble with brewing the base. This makes sense, since more complicated potions require more stable bases. I’m not wrong in assuming that you’ve always been adept at following instructions and brewing perfect potions before this year?”

He waited for your nod to continue.

“N.E.W.T Potions is different in that it challenges your intuition. Before this, you’ve been able to coast by relying on the guidance of others. But with potions like the Living Death, you need to be able to think on your feet. Even the slightest variation in your ingredients—the age, the quality, the place of origin—can be what ruins an otherwise perfectly good brew. Every potions recipe you see in school textbooks makes implicit assumptions about the quality and age of your ingredients. If, say, it’s an unusually hot day when a supply shipment arrives and the gillyweed oxidizes, the instructions for a more difficult potion won’t anticipate that you need to temper it with volcanic salt.

“That’s where you come in. When you’re preparing your base, you need to have an intimate understanding of the properties of each ingredient and how they interact with each other. This way, when you notice something isn’t quite average with your supplies—as is common in a school where ingredients are shipped in bulk—you can adjust.”

Tom paused, his eyes meeting yours. You blinked once, then broke the contact to look at the cauldron.

No one had ever explained that to you before. No one had ever taken the time. Snape certainly hadn’t been interested in lecturing about why so many students were incapable of producing viable potions—he was far more content with insulting his pupils for being inadequate.

“I never knew that,” you admitted, finally looking back at him. He hadn’t moved an inch. “That makes so much sense.”

Though your words were far from creative, honesty dripped from your voice.

“Right then,” said Tom, nodding tightly and stepping back to gesture to the ingredients. “Try to prepare the base again. This time pay attention to the state of the ingredients.”

You got the work, thinly dicing the beetroot while you set the moon water to simmer in the cauldron.

“This was bruised,” you noted, motioning to the cubes you’d just cut.

Tom nodded, looking at you rather expectantly.

“...which means that part of it has already oxidized,” you continued cautiously. In truth, you hadn’t spent much time learning about the different chemical properties of the ingredients. That felt too concretely muggle, too blatantly biological. “Which means that the enzymes have, uh, had their bonds ruptured?”

“And…?”

“And that means I need to…” You squinted down at the vegetable, trying to conjure up any knowledge you had about enzymes and potion making. It probably wouldn’t be volcanic salt. Would it? “I don’t think that I can use volcanic salt as a binding agent this time. If my memory serves correctly, moon water becomes unstable in the presence of pure minerals. So that means…acid? Lemon?”

Tom slid a vial over to you, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Mix a little into the beetroot before adding it.”

You uncorked it and let the citrus juice sink into the purple cubes, running slightly down the cutting board and pooling in the wooden crevices.

The rest of your base preparation went just as smoothly, with Tom offering up the odd helpful comment while you nodded and committed it to memory.

You finished with a base that looked nothing like the disaster you’d created just hours ago. You were just barely able to keep yourself from grinning and throwing your arms around Tom’s neck as you both began to clean up and vanish the contents of the cauldron.

“Well done,” said Tom, spelling the cutting board clean. The vibrant pink marks from the beetroot vanished. “Consider me impressed.”

You nearly exploded with giddiness.

“Thank you,” you said very normally. He was standing so close to you now that if you reached out, your fingers would skim his robe-clad arm. But you wouldn’t do that, because that was weird. Because he was living in a journal and he was somehow bound to this strange alternative reality. Because you weren’t even sure if it was possible to touch him. Because even if it was, Tom Riddle did not seem like the type of person who would be partial to physical affection—especially not from someone like you. “Do you—have you found anything out about how you can escape?”

Tom’s fluid motions as he tidied the table only stuttered for a moment. “Some. Nothing concrete, though.”

“If you told me exactly what it was you did to get stuck in here, I’d probably be able to offer a lot more help,” you pointed out in a way that you hoped didn’t sound too cajoling.

He didn’t say anything.

“Come on,” you pressed, putting your hands on your hips. “I’ve aired out all my dirty laundry to you. You can tell me. I don’t think there’s anything you could say that I haven’t already guessed.”

“Really?” drawled Tom, his eyes locking on yours. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” you affirmed.

“So why don’t you tell me what happened?”

You rolled your eyes. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

Men could be so frightfully dull sometimes.

“There’s a book,” said Tom with a deceptive casualness, “That should be in the Restricted section. It’s called ‘Secrets of the Darkest Arts.’ Read that. If you’d still like to know afterwards, I’ll oblige.”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”

The work table was all cleaned up, no trace of your previous potion brewing except for the lingering scent in the air.

“Well,” said Tom. His hands were folded neatly behind his back as he remained a respectable distance away from you. “I suppose I should be sending you back.”

“I suppose,” you echoed. “Will I—do you think I’ll get to see you again?”

You regretted it the moment the words left your mouth. Hopefully the blush on your face could be written off by the excuse that you were just brewing.

This time when he looked at you, it felt like he was re-evaluating something. “Whenever you’d like. I’m not especially occupied.”

Before you could stop yourself, your face was splitting into a bright smile. “Of course. I was definitely asking because of your busy schedule.”

He blinked twice. Then he opened his mouth, closed it, and fidgeted with his tie. It was the most obvious sign of discomfort you’d seen from him the entire evening.

“Right,” he said stiffly. “Ehm—yes. It was pleasant to have you here.”

“Pleasant?” you echoed, your eyebrows raised.

“I mean that I’ve enjoyed the time that we’ve spent in correspondence,” he said, waving a hand like that made what he said any less awkward.

“Tom, I was teasing you,” you said. “I don’t need some sort of confession about how you can actually stand being around me. I can tell.”

“Right,” he said again. “I’ll send you back now.”

Before you could add another remark about how weird he was being, you were catapulted out of the dungeons and back into your desk chair.

“Merlin’s Beard!” gasped Lucy from behind you.

You blinked, letting your eyes adjust to the bright lighting of your dorm.

“You literally came out of nowhere!” said Lucy, coming around to put her hands on your desk and stare at you. “I was getting worried, too. Padma is coming back soon. I thought that I’d have to devise some sort of plan to keep her out of the room so she wouldn’t ask why you materialized out of thin air.”

“Yeah,” you said, your eyes unfocused.

“So what happened?”

“I—” You exhaled. “Lucy, I’m so fucked. He’s actually really cute.”

“I knew it,” said Lucy, shaking your shoulders.

“He helped me brew the base for the Draught of Living Death,” you elaborated. “He’s a really good tutor. He spoke for like 5 minutes about the properties of different ingredients, and I swear I’ve learned more from him than from 6 years of Snape’s lectures.”

“And did you guys talk?”

“A little.” You frowned, thinking back on the interactions you’d had. “He was really odd when I asked him about what I needed to do to get him out. Even weirder when I asked if I was going to see him again. He made some comment about how he wasn’t exactly busy and I said something that implied that I knew that but wanted to know if he liked seeing me, and he was super awkward.”

Lucy cringed. “Well, I mean, if I’d been stuck in a diary for 50 years without talking to someone, I’d probably be a little strange too. Tell me how he is when he talks—or writes, I guess—to you next.”

The next time Tom responded to a diary entry, you had news.

Tom you wrote. Are you there?

Yes.

Can you bring me back to you?

Why? Do you need another Potions lesson?

You rolled your eyes. Not quite.

Well, no. I won’t let you back until you’ve read the book I told you about.

That’s why I’m asking! I’ve tried looking for it everywhere. When none of the querying spells worked, I went through the entire Restricted Section by hand. Nothing! I asked Madam Pince and she told me that that book had been banned since before she’d gotten the position as librarian. I’m probably on some watch list now

That is troubling.

So if you’ll be so kind, please let me back in so I can use your library. Thank you in advance

There was a long pause that you imagined Tom took to sigh and run his fingers through his hair in exasperation. Then:

Very well.

You were falling through space once again.

final a/n: thank you for reading! let me know how you feel about it! this is my first time writing for tom so im kind of nervous or whatever

#tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x you #tom riddle x oc #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle imagine

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phoenixcatch7 · 1 year

Text

The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

#batman #Possessed doll au #bruce wayne #justice league #cryptid batman #Cryptid batfam #Didn't fit in there but I wanted to include that every bat member has a mask that covers their mouth #They've all got nutcracker jaws #I don't know the technical name but you know the ones where only a block moves for the mouth and the cheeks don't?#Super creepy on a life size thing I'd imagine #So if their mouth guard or mask gets ruined guess who's having nightmares that night!#Normally cryptid batfam go to great lengths to Look Inhuman and these guys still do it's just easier to not get joints jammed if you cover #Them up. Doesn't mean they haven't pavloved the whole criminal underground into terror at the sound of wooden clacking #They can turn ALL their joints 360 and it terrifies the average goon when you try to sneak behind a bat and it just swivels around to lock #With you. They grapple by shooting their hands out (so they can't lose their grapples) and it doesn't look nice. Yes they use it to #High five from across rooftops or grab things. Punch people in the face from the rafters. (pie the joker)#Their outfits look painted on (they mostly are). Ears swivel. They each have gliding wings installed in their backs after a scare with ivy #Clark was too polite to ask about the rattling and hissing noises he made until one day he was scouting with xray vision glanced over #And nearly screamed XD #long post #long tags

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milligramspoison · 2 years

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So now the portion of the tour for 2022 is over, l'd like to share my (and fan!) favorite (and iconic) moments from it :)

Sorry in advance for the long ass post :P

Europe:

Live debut of Foundations (Eden night 1)

Disappear for the first time since 2010!

Live debut of Surrender the Night <3 (my first MCR song ever so I FLIPPED when this happened)

Live debut of Boy Division!

Gerard crawling on the floor

Frank moaning in Destroya for the first time in years

FINALLY being able to hear Mikey's line in Vampire $$$

Cemetery Drive for the first time since 2012 (Eden night 2)

Only Hope for Me for the first time since 2012

Tour debut of House of Wolves

Ghost of You for the first time since 2011

Tour debut of S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

Headfirst for Halos for the first time since 2009

Live debut of Mastas

The first two shows having Gerard in normal dad clothes then the third show has the bloody mess we all know as Meta Man (MK night 1)

Deathwish for the first time since 2007

Saying moan instead of actually moaning during Destroya

Bulletproof Heart for the time since 2011 <3 (MK night 2)

Ray and Gerard kissing after Destroya

“How'd you get that off my closet door”

Rat attack documentary played before the show (MK night 3)

Mikey dedicating Helena to Rowan and Kennedy <3

Cancer for the first time since 2012

Rowan dancing on stage before MCR goes on with the crowd cheering for her <3

Piss and vinegar

Tomorrow’s Money live debut (Dublin night 1)

The “fuck the queen” chant

Frank's moans during Destroya

Frank telling a fan to listen to Gerard

Frank picking up a (fake) rat

Piss on stairs (Dublin night 2)

“These are my best friends”

Fuck the queen chant round 2

Ponytail Ray

The birthday balloons for Bandit's 13th birthday (Warrington)

Gerard dedicating Teenagers to Bandit for her 13th birthday

“My little bee keeper”

Gerard cardboard cut out

Save Yourself for the first time since 2011 (Cardiff)

“I'm just giving myself an ass pat, sorry”

Frank attempting to toss a hat onto his head

Oil Gerard (Glasgow)

Na Na Na being dedicated to Grant Morrison

Sleep being dedicated to Kristan Morrison

“It's time to drink my piss”

Grant getting the drum head from the Glasgow show

Frank completely shredding it

Mikey Mouse shirt (Paris)

MERCI POUR LE VENIN

Gerard taking a leap of faith

Joke about drinking Frank’s piss

Video of the band making pancakes (Rotterdam)

Ray playing guitar with his wine glass

Fans recreating this

Mikey wearing a happy birthday Kennedy shirt for Kennedy's 3rd birthday <3 (Bologna)

The crowd singing happy birthday to Kennedy for her 3rd birthday <3

Gerard stating that they hope it won’t be a long time before they come back :)

SHORTS GATE (Munich)

Discussion of Twilight

The Da Vinki twins went to the show in Budapest

Slow clap moment

“How many of you are MCR Veterans..Trademark”

Na Na Na played a second time in Warsaw but faster

Engagement during Teenagers!!

Gerard taking down Stuart

Heaven Help Us played for the first time since 2008 (Prague)

Another mention of wanting to return

Clown Gerard (Berlin)

Story time about playing in Berlin for the first time

Hearing Frank laugh when he’s nowhere near the mic

“THEY ARE GONNA HAVE TO BURY ME IN THIS MOTHERFUCKING FILTHY CLOWN SUIT! I AM NEVER TAKING THIS OFF”

The interesting drum

Poncho Gerard (Stockholm)

“I went a little hard the other night with filth clown”

Pointing a rainbow out to Gerard

Mikey’s crooked heart <3

Pink shirt Gerard (two nights in a row in Bonn)

Admitting to googling their own lyrics (Bonn night 1)

Ray's hair being half up half down

Coughing during Destroya instead of moaning

Gerard talking about Hayley Williams

Frank watching Gerard perform Cancer (Bonn night 2)

Llama on stage (a toy but a real one would’ve been cool too)

Closing off the European portion of the tour with Cancer </3

North America:

Clown Gerard 2.0 (Oklahoma City)

Gerard laughing with sparkling water in their mouth

BURY ME IN BLACK FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003

BEST DAY EVER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2005

Sleep with an alternate outro

The shirt incident

“Lighten the fuck up, buttercup!”

Ray breaking his wine glass against his guitar

HANG ‘EM HIGH FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2011 (San Antonio)

Sleep with an alternate intro and different outro

Second unintentional Frerard moment

Besties moment from Ray and Mikey <3

Iero on the floor

Debut of the Sunshine intro leading into Sorrows

CHEERLEADER GERARD CHEERLEADERGATE (Nashville)

Summertime being dedicated to Kristin, Rowan, and Kennedy <3

Kristin livestreaming the show!!

Everyone (except Gerard) wearing Mikey Fuckin Way shirts!

The World Is Ugly for the first time since 2008; live debut of the studio version

Gerard almost drinking their microphone

Gerard twirling around and Ray cheering <3

Rowan and Kennedy’s drawings make their debut <3

Mikey doing a livestream prior to the show!!

Gerard singing on the floor (Cincinnati)

Frank stealing Mikey’s line in Vampire Money

SHORTS GATE 2.0 (Raleigh)

Gerard's story time about Bandit trying to make advil m&ms

Everybody Hates The Eagles live debut (kinda)

LIVE DEBUT OF BURN BRIGHT

Gerard in a bloody eyepatch

Gerard shushing the crowd (jokingly) so they can take advil

Sleep with an extended outro (Elmont)

Shorts for the second night in a row

Everybody Hates The Eagles for the second night in a row

Weird ass mask debut

Two fans wearing Petekey shirts

And someone else had the Petekey arm notes written on them

Anddddd two other people had matching Frerard shirts

Shorts for the third night in a row (Philadelphia)

Vampires for the first time since 2012!!

Pool Boy at the Vampire Mansion <3

Gerard calling Mikey Lil Mikey

Debut of the mystery shirts

Sunshine intro leading into FLW (Albany)

Shorts for the fourth night in a row

Mikey watching Waterparks perform

Priest/bloody eyes Gerard (Uncasville)

Eagles returns to the setlist

Ray and Mikey brushing their teeth before the show

Sunshine intro but with S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

Skeleton Gerard (Toronto night 1)

CAUSE IM HER KIND OF GIRL AND SHES MY KIND OF BOY

Mikey wearing the happy birthday Goose shirt (Goose is what he calls his mother in law)

CAT GERARD (Toronto night 2)

Frank attempting to kick Mikey (jokingly)

Black Swan Gerard (Boston night 1)

Wholesome picture of Ray and Christa <3

Ray and Gerard colliding then hugging

Best Day Ever being dedicated to Thursday (Boston night 2)

Mikey blowing a kiss to Kristin <3

Frank wearing a headpiece

Ray rocking out with his sons <3

Crowd singing happy birthday to Mikey!! (NYC night 1)

Mikey dedicating Helena to Rowan and Kennedy again <3

Everyone except Gerard wearing Mikey Fuckin Way shirts for Mikey's birthday!

Drum is a Mikey shrine for Mikey's birthday

“How ‘bout you birthday boy?”

Fans wearing party hats for Mikey’s birthday

Gerard wearing the outfit he wore when he witnessed 9/11 (just a special moment honestly; NYC night 2)

DESERT SONG FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2008

Lily pointing Mikey out to Rowan <3

Frank crossing himself during Sorrows

Bathroom photoshoot

Gerard’s story time about running into one of the openers while with Bandit

Frank posting a picture of his ass and getting a ass tattoo (Detroit)

NURSE GERARD

Hey Chris in Detroit

“Lucky for him…I had other plans.”

Crossing out Cancer for Helena (not a favorite or iconic, just offensive lol this is a joke dw)

Hawaiian shirt Way Brothers (St. Paul)

Teenagers being dedicated to Gerard's mailman

Bullet hole makeup

Jackie O Gerard at Riot Fest

Wholesome Jamia moment from the LS Dunes set <3

Wholesome family moment from Frank during Weezer's set <3

Hey Chris at Riot Fest

Frank wearing a bandana around his neck

Frank facetiming his dad just before his set with LS Dunes <3

Mikey watching TBS (Taking Back Sunday) perform

CROP TOP GERARD (Alpharetta)

Teenagers was dedicated to the band's crew

MIKEY WORE EYELINER

First of the hometown shows and Gerard performed with Thursday!! (NJ night 1)

BAT GERARD

I NEVER TOLD YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2008

Best Day Ever with Geoff of Thursday

DEMOLITION LOVERS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2004

Frank Sinatra Gerard (NJ night 2)

PLANETARY GO FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2012

Teenagers was dedicated to Midtown

Cover of Frank Sinatra's My Way

Cherry taking a pic/recording Mikey :)

Miles getting excited when Frank said “trust me” <3

Gerard performing with Thursday

Gabe being one of the reasons why FOB8 is Pete’s villain origin story (iykyk)

BLOUSE GERARD!! (Firefly)

The entire band signs a mannequin leg

“You'll get this at the end of class”

Ghost Gerard!! (Sunrise)

Gerard took the trans flag during WTTBP <3

Frank going out on stage with HGP

Mikey going out on stage with Midtown

Gerard being unable to pronounce Florida

Ended off the east coast portion of the tour with Cancer </3

Dress in Houston!!

“I thought about wearing a dress in Texas before...but that's a story for another time”

Ray posting a peanut with a penis after the show

Mikey going out on stage with Midtown (again)

The return of dad clothes in Dallas

Teenagers was dedicated to the opening acts

“Get fucked at an airport bar”

Mikey wearing a Midtown shirt

Dad clothes again in Denver

Frank interacting with his kiddos <3

Teenagers was dedicated to Sydney

Adam of Taking Back Sunday said opening for MCR was the only way to get Mikey to return his calls

Ray moaning during Planetary Go

“Just sit back, daddy’s gonna take you where you need to go” Adam Lazzara, 2022 (Portland)

Gerard dedicating Teenagers to Taking Back Sunday

Gerard grabbing their phone to look at something

Tomato soup…hm

“Your turn!”

Meta Man cardboard cut out (Tacoma)

Sign for Gerard’s two cats, Mitch and Lotion

Frank going on stage with Kimya

Meredith and Andy went to the show!!!

“Cause if you think Mikey fuckin Way is coming out here to a cold audience, you’re mistaken”

VACUUM GUY AT THE VAMPIRE MANSION

RAY IN A PONYTAIL AGAIN

Teenagers was dedicated to Panda (Kimya’s daughter)

Gerard simping for Robert Pattinson in Batman

Gerard wearing a Twilight shirt

One of Frank’s kiddos giving a fan a paper set list

Smiley face drumhead! (Oakland)

Cum sign

Idk why someone did this but yeah

“Ray and I’s home state. We’ve lived here for...14 years?”

“I see a lot more flesh than usual. It’s fleshy out there”

Mikey and Frank almost bumping into each other before Skylines

Gerard chasing the tech off stage

Singing happy birthday to Worm

Mikey petting Worm’s beard

Gerard in an all black outfit with a rose (Vegas)

Ray rocking out with his sons <3

Ray patting his son’s head <3

Gerard dedicating Teenagers to Bandit again <3

KRISTIN WENT LIVE AGAIN

The drum was for Bandit <3

Engagement during Helena!!

Mikey having a random book signing (Aftershock)

Crowd surfing a…a sex doll during the LS Dunes set

Frank attempting to do a bottle flip at the end of the LS Dunes set

Ray, Jamia, and Frank’s kiddos watching Frank from side stage <3

Gerard’s shirt saying scabs

Gerard gagging on the microphone

The drum saying choke me which goes perfectly with the point above

A deer running around during WTTBP

THEY SOUNDCHECKED DESOLATION ROW (LA night 1)

GERARD WITH A FLAMETHROWER

CHEERLEADER DRESS IS BACK

“This song is about my favorite fucking human” spotlight proceeds to go onto Frank

Gerard got a haircut

THE SHOW WAS FILMED

Teenagers being dedicated to Quentin Tarantino

DESOLATION ROW FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2011

Mikey with his family during I’m Not Okay <3

GERARD COSPLAYING PRINCESS DIANA (LA night 2)

I Never Told You being dedicated to glow in the dark skeleton man

“DO YOU HAVE THE KEYS TO THE LAMBORGHINI BECAUSE IM GONNA DRIVE THAT MOTHERFUCKER INTO A TARGET”

Dedicating Teenagers to a fan

Frank singing Teenagers to Lily <3

Frank hugging one of the twins prior to encore <3

Frank waving to his kids prior to Foundations <3

THEY SOUNDCHECKED ALL THE ANGELS (LA night 3)

THEY SOUNDCHECKED I DON’T LOVE YOU

THE SHOW IS BEING FILMED AGAIN

Foundations being dedicated to Doug </3

I DON’T LOVE YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2019

Teenagers dedicated to a random fan again

KILL ALL YOUR FRIENDS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2008

WTTBP being dedicated to Doug’s wife and kids </3

ALL THE ANGELS LIVE DEBUT

THEY SOUNDCHECKED SING (LA night 4)

GERARD IS DRESSED AS DRACULA

Teenagers being dedicated to Bandit for the third time as well as dedicating it to her friends <3

Bandit attending the show with her friends

RAY SLAPPING GERARD’S ASS AGAIN

Ghost of You in the encore!!

Mikey bringing Rowan on stage for Kids <3

Rowan making heart hands at the crowd <3

THEY SOUNDCHECKED SISTER TO SLEEP TWICE (LA night 5)

VACUUM GUY COSPLAYING GERARD

SISTER TO SLEEP FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003

SING FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2012

Teenagers dedicated to the crew

Dinosaur in the pit

GERARD HAS WRITING ON THEIR ARM

FRANK POSSIBLY WROTE ON GERARD’S ARM

LIVE DEBUT OF FAKE YOUR DEATH

Gabe’s son having to be “evicted” during Midtown’s opening set

Ray rocking out with his son during Kids <3

Gerard throwing fake insects to the fans

The final bow </3

Luigi cosplayer comforting emos at the first day of WWWY (cause it was canceled)

Katy Perry welcoming the orphans/emo kids to her Vegas residency show due to the first day of WWWY being canceled

Katy bringing an emo kid on stage with her and starting a mosh

THEYRE ALL IN THEIR REVENGE OUTFITS (WWWY night 2)

FACIAL PROSTHETICS

Opened with I’m Not Okay!

BAT BUCKLE

MIKEY HAS BLOOD ON HIS FACE

FRANK WENT BALD

CONFETTI WAS LITERAL VAMPIRE MONEY

Secretary of Salmonella

Gerard misaddressing the crowd as Utah

First time Foundations isn’t on the setlist since it was released (not a favorite or iconic, just really strange cause we’re all so used to it every night lol)

Frank walking onto the stage like an actual old man

Gerard flipping the crowd off before the show even started

Hayley (from Paramore) mentioning and thanking MCR <3

Person who did their prosthetics last weekend is back! (WWWY night 3)

Adam from TBS sitting on a whole ass person (ik it’s not MCR but it’s too funny to not include)

Foundations returned to the setlist!

Gerard dressed as an army general

GERARD WORE LIPSTICK

OPERA MUSIC BETWEEN SONGS

Mikey wearing the Kristin Fuckin Way shirt <3

GERARD GOT A MEDAL

GERARD BROKE THE MIC STAND AT THE END

Closing off their final US show with Kids </3

Jamia, Kristin, and Christa taking a photo with each other <3

MCR’s first time in Mexico since 2008!

Another sex doll for some reason

“You look good today baby boy” Anthony to Frank during LS Dunes’ set

GERARD IS JOAN OF ARC

Gerard spelt fuego wrong

GERARD SPOKE SPANISH

“WATCH ALL THE SHIT YOU DO”

Mikey winked and smirked at the camera

Gerard playing a telephone sound

FILMING NOTICE BEFORE MAMA

Gerard shouting out Frank and the rest of Dunes <3

NEW INTRO BEFORE FLW

Gerard got an axolotl plushie <3

Ending the North American tour and the final show of 2022 with Kids </3

If you’ve made it this far, first of all, hi! Secondly, ty for looking through this haha.

I’ll probably do this again when they’re in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan next year, so stay tuned! :)

#i also would’ve included many more links if tumblr didn’t have a limit to it :/#gerard way #frank iero #mikey way #ray toro #my chemical romance #mcr #my chem #mcr reunion #mcr tour

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0utpost-alpha · 5 days

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Personal Thoughts On Red vs Blue: Restoration

Alright so, it’s been a few weeks since Red vs Blue Restoration hit the internet. I’ve had time to sit, think, cry and process RvB and Rooster Teeth as a whole ending. As I stated on a previous post, I got into RVB around 2015? I think Season 13 had ended then. So I haven’t really spent as much time with the Sims Troopers as many others have. But those 9 years were wonderful and I’m grateful for finding such an entertaining show and fandom. Any show that can make me laugh my ass off and also make me full on sob my eyes out is 10/10 in my book.

Anyway, moving on. I said I’d put out my own personal thoughts and feelings for Restoration in the form of a Pro’s and Con’s post; so here it is:

THE PROS

The AI Fragments: I LOVE them going back and focusing on the AI fragments again. I remember hearing that Miles was talking about how he was going to do something similar with them after the Chorus Trilogy but things happened and Jason ended up taking over after Season 14. I personally always adored the idea of the Reds and Blues each getting one of the AI fragments that suited their personal needs and would lead to more character development for them later on down the line.

Tucker and the AI’s: On the subject of AI’s, After Season 13, I remember reading a lot of fan theories and fanfics that often brought up what possible side effects Tucker could go through with Epsilon not only shattering but having all those fragments at once helping him power the Meta suit. And it looks like a lot of them weren’t far off! While we will never know what actually happened once those doors were opened, at some point either immediately or not long afterwards, the AI took control and ran off with poor Tucker.

Caboose’s Voice: While it was a little jarring at the beginning, being so used to Joel’s, Michael Malconian did a phenomenal job as Caboose’s voice. I feel like he got that child-like, not all there, but still ready to help out however he can personality down perfect. NGL, I think I actually prefer this voice to the old one. I’m just sad that we won’t get to hear more of this Caboose.

Speaking of Caboose: I love how they had Caboose have a big brain moment. Instead of bringing back Church, something he wanted more than anything, he knew Tex was their best chance against Meta!Tucker. Also, destroying the Memory Unit. Talk about huge character development for Cabooses character. (It’s also possible that this was what Church asked Caboose to do when he was whispering to him in the ship? I need to go back and rewatch it)

Simmons: I know there was already an image or video around showing Simmons with the robotic arm, but I kind of fell off the RvB bus after Zero came out so I missed a bit of content that was floating around on the internet. So me and @yourscientistfriend were tickled pink when we noticed his arm for the first time. It’s small, but nice to know that RT remembered that specific detail about Simmons.

Sarge’s Sacrifice: alright, this one is probably on a lot of peoples Con’s lists but I personally feel like, if any of them were gonna be killed off Sarge was the best because; he died doing what he loved. Fighting. He protected his boys and went down on his own terms. His farewell to Grif definitely hit the hardest. I think deep down we all knew Sarge cared about Grif, but actually hearing him say it was so satisfying.

Memory is the key: the boys sitting around the campfire reminiscing about everything they had been through together in the last 23 years was such a bitter sweet nostalgia blast. The fact that they also got BNL to do a song over it was kind of a nice surprise too.

THE CONS

A lot of characters didn’t really get a chance to shine. It mainly focused on Simmons, Grif, Tucker and Caboose for a majority of the movie. Donut was only there in a thought bubble for a gag, Carolina didn’t even show up till the very end, and Wash didn’t even get to fight, he honestly didn’t really even serve a purpose except to fall off a fucking cliff to get Carolina’s attention and I feel like that wasn’t even necessary. Hell, I think they even forgot about Lopez after that one scene at the beginning. I honestly feel for the Donut and Doc fans. They seriously got screwed over.

“Come With Me”: So. Grimmons didn’t become canon. I am, severely disappointed as I’m sure a majority of the fandom is. I wasn’t expecting a kiss or a make-out section or anything that extreme. But I feel after all these years of teasing us they could have given us SOMETHING.

Tucker Trauma: As I said in the Pro’s, I loved the set up they did with Tucker and the fragments. However, what I didn’t like was how they didn’t address the trauma Tucker went through with them controlling him. They forced him to kill innocent people, attack his friends and mentally tortured him in order to get him to cooperate or wear him down enough to take control. But after they remove the fragments, he’s just ok now? Back to his regular bow chika bow wow self? Don’t get me wrong, like with many of my other cons I realize that a lot of things had to be scrapped or cut because of time and that because Season 19 had to be turned into a movie instead of a full blown season they couldn’t properly address a lot that they probably wanted to. But I wish we could have at least got something along the lines of Wash taking Tucker back with him to get physically and mentally checked out.

Also, wtf is up with Grif just up and leaving. I know Season 15-17 was retconned (update: they weren’t retconned) but damn man, Grif really doesn’t care about any of them? Even after the whole reminiscing scene? It just feels out of character for him. I feel like after everything was said and done he would have taken those papers and shot them or something. Said something about how someone’s gotta give the new leader of the reds a hard time, said something about not leaving till he figure out why they were there!? Anything than whatever the hell that was.

Thing’s I’m sad will never happen now that Red vs Blue is officially over:

More time with Locus’s character as well as character development and redemption (as well as possibly becoming one of the Reds and Blues)

Grimmons

Simmons’s getting an arc that better fleshes out his character and would give us more background into his history (I mean come on. From the bits and pieces we got over the seasons, it’s very clear Simmons’s had a shitty past. Yes, I’m still mad that his labyrinth was turned into a alien probing joke)

Never seeing an actual conclusion to the fight at the end of Season 13. (I get they wanted to let the fans play around with ideas on what happened but it still bugs me).

Wash and Simmons bonding during a knife training session

Wash and Tucker bonding over AI Trauma

Tucker and Junior bonding

Overall, it was an ending. And probably the most decent one we could have gotten considering everything that was going on. A lot of other shows didn’t even get that. So I honestly can’t complain too much. They also deliberately left the ending pretty open so the fandom could easily write their own ending if they wanted to which is awesome of them.

#this it a little sloppy but fuck it I ain’t getting grade it on it #red vs blue #rvb #red vs blue restoration #rvb restoration #rvb restoration spoilers #restoration spoilers

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godtier · 4 months

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so i wasn't gonna make a separate post about this but @sapphire-weapon had a post (that i reblogged a few days ago) in which someone mentioned that they think it was a missed opportunity in RE6 for jake to not have spoken to wesker. i had a p long conversation with sirea about it and my thoughts about that sentiment, but it was also nearly 3 AM my time when that happened so i dunno if i was even articulating my thoughts properly lmao

and yes... this is technically a meta post and i know i said i was gonna do the mmx meta post first... but this one isn't gonna be nearly as long (i hope) and i gotta get the brainworms out before i die

(quick edit note: i reworded the list item below from saying he was "likely a drug addict" to "likely a recreational drug user" because i feel like that better encompasses what i'm trying to get across

(another edit note: i made another post regarding jake's usage of drugs that stemmed from this post! it's marked as mature bc of drug usage, so it won't show up in tag search. if you're interested in that, look here!)

so the idea that wesker being alive in OG RE6 would have brought an opportunity for jake's character is kinda, imo, antithetical to the purpose of jake's character in the first place.

when we meet jake, we know a few things about him, right off the bat:

he's a mercenary

he's likely a recreational drug user or at least heavy/risk-taking user

he doesn't give a fuck about anything but making money

his whole character journey is going from this selfish, money-focused dickhead to someone who actually cares about doing something good, just because it's the right thing to do. at the start, jake refuses to simply give his blood away when sherry mentions needing it for a vaccine. no, he wants a cash payout. 50 million dollery-doos for a pint of his blood. by the end, he lowers the price to a mere 50 dollars. one could argue that was symbolic and he actually didn't care if he was paid or not, but that's neither here nor there.

but why was he like this? because his childhood was shite; his mother was sickly, he had no father figure, and by 15-ish, jake had to learn how to hustle to keep food on the table. and by "hustle" i mean "do a bunch of mercenary work and killing people." and when shit went south with his little group of mercenaries (their entire group was sold out by a heel-turner), jake basically went "fuck alla y'all" and lost all sense of conviction or morals.

during the game, he expresses his bitterness for his father, wesker, pretty clearly. even though his mother still loved wesker, tried to raise jake to respect him despite never knowing him, it didn't matter to jake. he hated that guy. well, really, who doesn't?

we're not gonna talk about excella rn ok

jake's entire character arc is built up around this hatred as well as a subconscious fear of becoming his father. the fear part doesn't show up until later in the story, after he and sherry were captured by the Big Bad's organization. they were both experimented on for several months, during which jake overheard the researchers talking about his father, wesker. this gives jake a sort of "explanation" as to why he is the way he is; he takes the "nature" side of the nature vs nurture argument.

ofc sherry scolds his ass and basically tells him "grow up and take responsibility for your actions."

and here's the thing... this fear, narratively, works just fine without wesker being there.

(since this got obscenely long, pls continue below for the actual explanation lmao)

jake eventually comes to the conclusion that yeah no it's definitely up to him to not become wesker, not his genetics. he does this without wesker being there. that's the entire point of his character journey. in order for an interaction with wesker to even matter or have any sort of impact on jake's character arc, his character arc as a whole would need to change.

see, imo, wesker being there diminishes a lot of the power of that journey. in the game, he isn't there for jake to scream at, to question. all those thoughts in his head that might be circulating around, like why he left his mother, why he did what he did, etc, cannot be answered. this is not a bad thing in a character arc as this is shit that happens to people all the time. people don't always get the answers they may want from family members because those family members are dead. they have to learn to move on without those answers or they have to rely on people who knew that person to fill in the blanks. this is what jake already does in game. he has to rely on sherry, and by a smaller extent, chris, to fill in those blanks for him.

but we as players, observers of the narrative, already know the answers to some of those questions. why wesker did what he did, primarily. anything else is only pertinent to jake and him knowing those answers doesn't change anything for his character arc as it is.

if wesker was there in the game, what would that even add to jake's narrative? a scene where jake yells at his dad? asks him "why did you leave?" when wesker wasn't even aware that he had a kid in the first place? remember: wesker had no fucking idea that he had a child. there would be no reason for wesker to even believe jake in the first place. sure, there could be a scene where he goes "well i'll be damned, ig he really is my misfired chromosome," but... then what? what does that add?

you could argue that wesker could use jake, maybe try to manipulate him into doing shit for his plans, but... that wouldn't work with the way jake's characterization is mapped out. his entire characterization would have to change for this to work in a satisfying way.

jake already hates wesker without ever meeting him. he would not willingly participate in anything wesker offered to him. he already knows that wesker nearly destroyed the world multiple times and had a hand in destroying an entire city. even if jake has no moral compass at the start of the game, by the time he learns about what wesker really did, who he really was, he's already showing that he does have one, it was just dormant up until that point. he's clearly disgusted by what wesker did. what foothold would wesker have that wouldn't immediately result in it just falling flat?

given how wesker is, i could see him perhaps belittling jake, maybe saying "wow you suck for being my spawn," or something during a fight with the intent to rile him up. would that work? no, not narratively nor not in the way jake is characterized. again, jake doesn't want to be like wesker. why would insulting him and saying he's not "as good" as wesker expected him to be motivate jake or even anger him? it shouldn't, because jake doesn't want to be anything like wesker. if anything, it may annoy him, but that's kind of a lame reaction, right?

if anything, the most i could see culminating out of this would be jake standing over wesker after he's defeated again (because it's resident evil and obviously wesker can't win) and having a "wow idk what i was worried about" moment. that's it.

but he doesn't need that. having a scene like that cheapens the weight of him figuring that out himself, without wesker there as "proof."

because the point of his story, of his character arc, is that he figures that out on his own (and with the help of sherry and the events he witnesses) because he has to. he doesn't need wesker there to spoon-feed that to him. he figures that out by working with sherry, by seeing the effects of the C-Virus on everything that it infects. wesker being an abstract entity in his life is enough, because the frustration of not seeing him, not being able to put a bullet in his skull himself, fuels the rest of his journey.

this is where i think that people who make these observations or criticisms (primarily those who think that jake's character would have been improved if wesker was there) need to understand the difference between what's good for a character as a person and what's good for their arc.

interacting with wesker would be good for jake as a person, in that he would no longer need to wonder about it. the answers would be spelled out for him, and he wouldn't have to do any wondering about the what-if. he wouldn't have any doubts left that he'd need to untangle.

but in doing that, it cheapens his arc; it would do more of a disservice to it, imo, than anything else. it would make his journey more formulaic and boring.

it would also clutter up the already cluttered narrative of that game. you have him not only struggling with his heritage, struggling with the fear of becoming his father, struggling with needing to be the "savior" by giving his blood, struggling with his moral compass, but now also struggling with seeing his father for the first time in person?

it makes his arc top-heavy. in that scenario, you could easily replace him with another, completely new character who has zero ties to wesker and the story wouldn't change in any meaningful way. the reason why it works the way to does now is because wesker is already dead. it creates that internal conflict, that internal frustration, that jake has to learn how to deal with since he cannot take that frustration out on his father in-person. he has to make peace with that struggle in other ways.

now, that's not to say there aren't ways that adding wesker into the story of RE6 that don't disrupt that balance. primarily, when it comes to a potential RE6 remake, the writing team can (and hopefully will) rework aspects of the entire game to make the plot more streamlined. this could include adding wesker in and redoing jake's characterization and character arc entirely.

this would be the only way i could see it working out. if jake's entire motivation was changed, his entire backstory was tweaked, then wesker being around could probably work! an interaction between them could be made to make sense and not bog down the rest of the plot as a result.

sirea also mentioned to me in our conversation that adding wesker in to RE6 remake could actually help streamline the plot and i do agree with that. she mentioned that all of the main characters have a tie to wesker in some way, which is absolutely true. having him there would neatly tie their campaigns together in the plotline and make the game as a whole feel less disjointed and messy.

this is especially true when we consider there are 4 fuckin campaigns that all run alongside one another and intersect at random points. it gets so fucking difficult to page through and figure out when certain things happen in the plot. you'll see them happen in order in chris's campaign, for example, then you go start leon's campaign and have to start over again and try to remember what happened at the same time during chris's campaign and so on.

now imagine that not with just two campaigns but four. it gets gross quick. sure, there are parts where the characters run into each other and that helps ground a general timeline in your head, but as far as time elapsed... it's so fuckin hard u guise

there's a reason why it's so hard to summarize the plot of RE6. it's because there is just so much going on in that fucking game.

anyway, that's my rant/sort of meta analysis about why i think wesker didn't need to be in OG RE6 and probably would have made jake's entire arc stupider than it already was

#resident evil #resident evil 6 #jake muller #albert wesker #meta analysis #pls don't look at me i only write posts about characters no one cares about #stay tuned for my meta analysis on HUNK next #(may or may not be serious about that)#(also this post is the epitome of tl;dr)#(u been warned)#text post

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16woodsequ · 11 months

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So I read an entire book on the history of bananas so I could understand what Steve would think of them

And now you get to hear me ramble about bananas for a little bit.

A lot of people are aware that the type of banana that Steve would have grown up with is not the same as the one we eat today. Steve ate the Gros Michel banana, which was nearly wiped out by a fungus called Panama disease. The banana western countries eat now is the Cavendish variety.

Every since I learned that factoid I've been curious what Steve's relationship with bananas would have been.

The Cavendish was adopted in the late 50s because it fit the very specific niche producers needed for a commercial banana. It tastes similar to the Gros Michel, looks similar, can withstand transport, withstand hurricanes, and is immune to Panama disease. (This is no longer true, Cavendish bananas began to succumb to Panama disease when plantations were started in Asia. As of now, developing a genetically modified banana is the best solution for a new banana. But if you want to know more about that I suggest you read Dan Koeppel's book.)

The Cavendish is similar enough to the Gros Michel that producers and consummers were able to make the shift, but there are some interesting differences.

Taste: The author tasted many different bananas around the world and concluded that the Cavendish was "the blandest of all the bananas."

As for the Gros Michel it "was larger, with a thicker skin, a creamier texture, and a more intense, fruity taste.” (p. xiv). Although according to this blog, eating an under-ripe Gros Michel tastes exactly like a Cavendish.

So the first time Steve has a Cavendish Steve might think he's simply eating a banana that isn't ripe.

But he'd probably notice something was up before he even took a bite because of another important difference.

Skin: The Gros Michel was a lot sturdier. The skins were thicker and could withstand shipping a lot better. Apparently the Gros Michel was so robust that the fruit wasn't even boxed. "Gros Michel bunches could be thrown in cargo holds and shipped on rough seas without bruising or breaking as long as they were kept cool" (149).

I was shocked to read that before the switch bananas were not boxed. That innovation came with the Cavendish. The introduction of the box meant that bunches had to broken up into the standard '5 to a hand' that we have now.

So when Steve went to the store, grocers "sold Gros Michel by hanging entire bunches of the fruit, straight from distributors, in their stores" (150). This means that Steve would be unused to seeing little bunches of bananas in the store.

Also, the smaller bunches allowed for advertising on each individual banana, which wasn't the case before. So stickers on bananas would also be new.

Would Steve have eaten bananas?

Yes. Bananas were immensely popular. They were cheap, tasted good, and were easy to pack or carry. Babies could eat them, old people could eat them, everyone ate them.

The first drop in banana consumption happened during WW2, because bananas couldn't be grown locally and there were no vessels to bring the fruit to America.

Bonus: A viral song about Bananas from 1923

youtube

I found two versions, the Eddie Cantor one is most famous.

youtube

(Other Steve meta/headcanon posts)

#steve rogers #bananas #banana #food history #historically accurate #historically accurate Steve Rogers #history #cavendish #gros michel #early 20th century #Youtube

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oasisofgalaxies · 7 months

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who Is Rhodes

tell me all of the things

HEHEHE OK

This is Rhodes, aka Riley Caboose, aka Spartan P-011, aka Agent Rhodes Island! Shes a mix between a Halo oc and a Red vs Blue oc!! She’s my beloved baby girl and the only thing stronger than herself is the guilt on her shoulders !!!!!

She was abducted inducted into the Spartan 2.5 program (look the mortality rate between II and III dropped from 56% to ~0% that technological leap had to come from somewhere) at age six along with her brother, Caboose, age five. She grew up in the program and they both graduated. In their third mission as full Spartans they were cryo’d for a trip and that’s when Everything Went Wrong !!

This part I’m still ironing out but the essential idea is that the ship they were cryo’d in was attacked or tampered with causing the onboard systems to “defrost” Rhodes as she was the mission’s leader. She was doing a check when whatever was fucking things up made itself VERY known. Through a series of terrible events she ended up being the only one surviving that mission. I have a very strong mental image of her floating outside the ship in her suit watching it slowly explode. And just watching in horror because her men are on that ship. Her brother is on that ship.

Anyways I have no idea how Caboode survived that and I’ll figure it out eventually but Rhodes thinks he’s dead and it’s all her fault! Yay! Anyways years pass and weee Project Freelancer hurrayyyy! There she meets Agent Arizona, Ari for short, and they immediately become friends! Just kidding Rhodes is a brick wall friendship wise because she’s terrified of vulnerability and becoming attached to people. Ari does not care and takes this as a personal challenge. Eventually Rhodes sorta warms up to her but it takes. Fucking forever.

Anyways during PFL she meets Lambda, the AI assigned to her! Lambda is the Patience fragment! They’re the grey figure floating on her shoulder in the first picture! (By the way, Ari gets Xi, who’s Curiosity!) They get along fine, but they become friends after PFL once Rhodes opens up more. Shes. Very cagey still. Poor thing.

Anyways PFL goes to shit and Ari loses an arm in the crash. Rhodes carries her for forever, fighting off the Meta while they’re going, until they reach some kind of outpost and are able to get Ari medical attention. Everything sucks and they travel for a while, not knowing what to do with themselves. At some point in this part which isn’t really fleshed out too much, they discover that they’re actually sisters!

So when Rhodes was little, she was the ringleader of her trio of siblings among the many she had. Rhodes was the oldest, Caboose was the middlest, and Ari was the youngest. Ari was a pretty sickly kid so Rhodes and Caboose took care of her. When Rhodes and Caboose were taken, she didn’t believe the flash clones that replaced her siblings were, well, her siblings. So she’s been searching for them ever since and one of them was right under her nose this entire time!

Anyways Ari wants to look for Caboose but Rhodes has to break it to her that he’s dead. Again this part isn’t very fleshed out but either way they somehow end up on Chorus because the tractor beam of fate decreed it. They end up there and realize, oh fuck, this planet is in the middle of a civil war. Rhodes is immediately hellbent on helping these people because this is the thing she was literally made to. So they become. Actually now that I think about it, opposites of Felix and Locus. They split up, Ari going to Armonia and Rhodes to Mirage. They keep in touch and discuss ways to help reunite the two warring factions. Here they meet the Red and Blues, they find Caboose, SO many tears are shed, and yeah!

That’s. A super brief summary of her backstory and I still left out so much even tho it’s so fucking long I am so sorry

TL;DR Rhodes/Riley is a person who was abducted into the Spartan program along with her brother, eventually became a freelancer after the believed death of her brother, and finds her siblings and also her sense of humanity along the way!!

A huge part of her story is remembering how to be a person after the program. She has the “I’m just a weapon and a tool” mentality to struggle with and OH BOY DOES SHE STRUGGLE. But with help from Ari and Caboose and the friends she makes along the way she learns how to be a person again :) and how to be happy!!!!!!

Oh also she is a car guy. She loves working on cars and vehicles in general it’s her specialty !!

I love her so much she is everything to me !! Also fun fact I associate her with lions a lot

^ Rhodes fr

#anyways she’s my darling my weird little guy my poor traumatized girl who can flip a tank like a matchbox car #nebula rambles #Rhodes tag

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buffster · 2 days

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Real Me (BTVS 5.02)

This is part of my ongoing Buffyverse Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the shows. You can find the BTVS list here and the ATS list here. Gifs are not mine.

In hindsight, it's funny how they attempted to make Dawn seem mysterious and malevolent only to later reveal she's just a dramatic teenager.

This episode is largely about introducing Dawn as a character and her place in Buffy's life. Real Me is interesting from a meta perspective, because we're watching everyone acclimate to Dawn in real time even though they believe they've known her for years.

In typical little sister fashion, Dawn remains totally unimpressed by Buffy's slaying. If no one else is going to take Buffy down a notch, Dawn will have to. Her relationship with her sister is the most strained.

The addition of Dawn is also revealing of Joyce, who moves from having an understandably complicated relationship with her complicated daughter to just seeming like a negligent parent. She pawns Dawn off on Buffy a lot and doesn't seem much more involved with her normal daughter than her slaying one. Dawn also isn't getting the pseudo-father figure thing from Giles, who is characteristically only concerned with his slayer.

Dawn does enjoy Willow and Tara, who seem to adore her and treat her like a beloved little sister (and less like an annoying one). It doesn't seem like she knows they're a couple yet. Tara especially is very protective of her and worries about how much of an outsider Dawn feels like. Some of this is projection, but it's also true. Dawn is expected to hang on the sidelines and not be a bother, so she gains attention by being a nuisance. I think Buffy's friends also find Dawn easy to sympathize with, because she's the non-special weirdo rather than the popular chosen one. They get that.

When Buffy is forced to drag Dawn along to The Magic Shop, it's little surprise she finds trouble. What does Joyce expect at this point, exactly? The owner of the shop is dead. Harmony is now running a Sunnydale gang. Outside, Dawn has her first encounter with someone mentally ill that can sense something off about her.

Joyce still isn't ready to take Dawn that evening (she's working) so Buffy calls in Xander to babysit so she can patrol. Dawn has a crush on Xander. Her perception of events is child-like, likely reflecting how much they shelter her (she thinks he went "undercover" to stop Dracula). I love seeing Xander interact with people. He just has a friendly nature, so he's able to easily listen to Dawn's rant about Buffy and be supportive just as he listens to Buffy rant about Dawn.

It's fun watching Riley's confusion over Buffy's struggle to deal with her sister. Yes, Dawn is clueless about slaying. Yes, Dawn gets coddled. Yes, Dawn often gets more attention. What's new? Well, all of it. Buffy is struggling to adjust.

Buffy: I guess. It's just - I know it's always been this way… She's the baby. But, for some reason, it's really been getting to me lately. She's always around.

Tensions come to a head when Dawn accidentally invites Harmony inside. Buffy is furious. I'm assuming Dawn was slipped into everyone's memories as seamlessly as possible, meaning she had little involvement/impact on previous events. You get the sense this season that Dawn being in danger/involved in supernatural events is new and not something they remember.

Buffy: No, Dawn has to be coddled and protected from the big bad world. Well, you know what? We're turning Dawn into a little idiot whose going to get us all killed!

I enjoyed watching Buffy's frustration over everyone's easy forgiveness of Dawn. It's true that "put your big girl panties on" was pretty much the message a young Buffy got at every turn. She wasn't given a pass for being youthful and naive, and it makes her angry that Dawn gets one. Especially since there are rarely dire consequences for her mistakes. Buffy was punished pretty badly every time she messed up. Seeing Dawn living the life she should have had and be ungrateful must be hard. Likewise, being the kid sister to the Chosen One must be hard.

Buffy: Harmony, when you tried being head cheerleader, you were bad. When you tried to chair the Homecoming committee, you were really bad. But when you try to be bad… You suck.

Unsurprisingly, Harmony isn't difficult to defeat. Buffy beats up on Spike to get the info for her hide out. He seems to be growing resentful.

Buffy: Well, apart from the fact that magic shop owners in Sunnydale have the life expectancy of a Spinal-Tap drummer, have you ever run a store before?

Giles: I was a librarian for years. This is exactly the same, except that people pay for the things they never return. This will give me focus, help me increase my resources - and keep you lot from tramping about my flat at all hours. There may even be space for you to train in the back.

Buffy: Boy, you've really thought this through. How bored were you last year?

Giles: I watched 'Passions' with Spike. Let us never speak of it.

New location: Magic Shop.

Character Notes:

Buffy Summers: Buffy does not understand Dawn's reference to Hogwarts.

Dawn Summers: She has a Third Eye Blind Poster.

Harmony Kendall: She was stood up by minion Brad Bellamy (who she turned) in the tenth grade. She likes unicorns.

Riley Finn: Riley gets boyfriend points here. He sincerely doesn't mind her canceling plans (and totally forgetting him) here and is just sweetly supportive.

Rupert Giles: He bought a sports car as a sort of post-slayer crisis. It's not working out too well.

#david fury #realme #dawn summers #buffy summers #riley finn #willow rosenberg #tara maclay #spike #xander harris #buffy/riley #willow/tara #anya jenkins #xander/anya #harmony kendall #btvs 4.02 #rupert giles

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mymarifae · 7 months

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hi i went through a lot of ur pjsk meta n read "and what's a little kiss between bros?" and enjoyed it a lot! ur shinonome siblings content makes me so happy UGH 🙏 n ee ways all this 2 say i enjoyed it a lot and hope u have a good day :3

THANK YOU!!!!!!! the shinonome siblings mean the world to me it's the way things are difficult and strained between them for a multitude of reasons but rather than drifting apart and becoming completely estranged they both INSIST on maintaining their relationship. ena doesn't have to ask akito to go to cafes and the mall with her, and he doesn't have to agree to go. she chooses to drag him around and he chooses to let her because staying present in each other's lives is so so so so important to both of them. it's the way akito leaves bags of snacks outside ena's door; it's the way ena can take one look at akito and immediately know he's been crying. it's the way they both love fiercely but they weren't exactly taught how to express that love - nor how to receive love. so they come off as harsh and sometimes standoffish. their love burns and bites, but it's still love. through and through.

it's everything to me. people who say either of them are bad siblings or that ena is abusive because she used to lash out and scratch akito will face my wrath. tell me you don't know what it's like to have siblings while growing up in an abusive nightmare house without telling me you don't know what it's like. they're both doing the best they can for each other, and they've both long since grown out of their Lashing Out phases. they do love each other. so much.

#mailbox #I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY AS WELL!!!!!

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terrainofheartfelt · 8 months

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went to the Camille Claudel exhibit and it fucked me UP I cannot stop thinking about the following:

she learned how to make portraits by practicing making her siblings' portraits. the first and last pieces in the exhibit were portraits of her little brother. said little brother is the one who had her committed, and never visited her. the FIRST and LAST the bookends of her artistic life! were acts of love for her brother! who abandoned her when she had need of him!

displayed side by side: a bust of Rodin by her, and a sculpture of her by Rodin. the work she did is so tenderr and intimate and up close and personal, and his was so impersonal. colder. less real and more idealized. in the bronze cast, I could clearly see her signature on the back of the bust. something about seeing her signature nearly made me cry

and like, her signature became one of my favorite things to find on her work in the exhibit. it's like she knew. she knew and decided that no one would take this work away from her.

the progression from Sakuntala to Vertumnus and Pomona to L'Abandon FUCKED me tf up. V&P was so tender and gentle, like a sigh of relief, and L'abandon is fuckin despondent. resigned. and how INTERESTING that the myth of origin was about reuniting and forgiveness and reconciliation, and that was in the first work, but the last wrok of these subject she titled "Abandonment" like some things can't be forgiven

how to do something different from rodin she turned to subjects of the everyday, of the beauty in the mundane. and she was brilliant at it.

a gorgeous later casting of the woman figure from l'abandon on display that said it was found in the eighties trashed and in a pond.

Her sculpture of Perseus holding the head of Medusa and she used HER OWN LIKENESS to model Medusa's head. the -- the meta -- the --- medusa, who was viewed and slain as a monster when the worst thing she ever did was love the wrong man........

Musee Camille Claudel's grand opening was JUST in 2017. 2017!!!!!

anyway thank the gods it's here through the winter. I'll be back. more than once

#i really just -#god what an afternoon #i'm emotional #art!

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serendertothesquad · 8 months

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I'm in an OSMU mood so here's a few questions

Favorite/least favorite member of the mobile unit? Osmeralda counts too

Should they have removed Millie from season 3.5? Followup question: should Orpita have gotten promoted?

Thoughts on The Shadow/Olizabeth?

Last one: Should Brutus have gotten a better arc (there IS a correct answer here)

That's all! Hope you have a good day

Favorite member of the Mobile Unit: I have a soft spot for Orla just because she's an original character with original traits. Her story arc aside because her story arc was trash on top of trash.

Least favorite: Weeeeeell if Osmerelda counts, then her. She's an audience surrogate for the sake of having an audience surrogate because kids can't have 100+ episodes stuffed in their tiny growing brains. She's bearable, though. I've seen worse characters.

On removing Millie Davis from the second half: I feel like Millie had enough firepower in her to keep going for the rest of the season if it got pumped out that fast. She didn't have to be in every episode, but at least a few more would have sufficed (up to and including the three-part finale).

On Orpita being promoted: Abso-fuckin'-LUTELY not, thank you. When I read the casting call for the Little O as a character I thought they would cast someone totally new for the role, but instead they brought back Shazdeh Kapadia as Orpita because...well, the way I see it, they had very little money. Her character development was just a tad too sudden, it's never even explained how she got to be an assistant of the Big O or why (I don't care if she got a spotlight episode, for however meta the show is that is NOT an excuse TYVM) and since she never finished the assignment she had in "It's Not Easy Being Chill" THEN WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF THE EPISODE. HOW DO YOU FUCK UP AN ASSIGNMENT THAT SIMPLE. IF SHE FUCKS UP SIMPLE ASSIGNMENTS HOW'D SHE EVEN GRADUATE.

Thoughts on The Shadow/Olizabeth: As a character, she's okay. I kinda dig her being Opal's younger sister because it's a pretty unique twist on the kid villains of the before times. Her villain alias is very cleverly named and I applaud the writers for taking that double meaning and RUNNING with it. And of course, you can't get any more sadistic for your first stint as an Odd Squad villain than attempted vehicular murder on four minors (and I don't care HOW hard the writers try to cover it up for S&P by claiming she only wants to hurt the van, I spit THE TRUTH). But the resolution to her arc was very weak and I'm not really a fan with it. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and I can't relate to the strife, I dunno.

Should Brutus have gotten a better arc?: Tenfold. 100%. All the yes. Never have I seen a piece of kids media take the henchman concept of villainy and fuck it up so badly. When S3.5 news broke I was willing to bet on Osias Reid coming back and reprising his role as Brutus, but as the months went on, I realized that wasn't going to happen. They went, gave us something, and then proceeded to give us nothing. Brutus should 100% have gotten better -- if not a few appearances in the second half of Season 3, then a proper resolution to his arc in the mid-season finale.

#thank you for the anon ask!#anon ask #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad

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casismybestfriend · 1 year

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i’m kind of mad at myself for letting myself get mad about the finale :p

despite what i’ve posted pre-finale, i went into it with little to no expectations, because i know that finales have the ability to hurt me, and i’ve been burned before (we all know from which show)

but as the ep went on and on it was just wonderful! so many funny moments, many great callbacks and parallels! and i guess that’s what made me let down my guard too soon and believe the finale would complete everyone’s arcs with due justice

and i also hate how i guess my default coping mechanism is to deny and to try to cling and grasp at any sort of possibility that this was a joke, or there’s more to come, or there was executive meddling, etc etc etc

i also know that a flaw of mine is i’m very easily swayed, even gullible, so my view of an episode can be easily influenced by the blogs i follow and posts i find, so i’ll do my best to find chill blogs in between those who express with much better words than i have on how we feel rn

i’m still in that phase after three years post spn, and i’m still waiting for an explanation, but likely won’t ever get one because maybe finales can just be bad every once in a while

there was a lot that i loved in the episode last night! but my brain now is looking back and trying to rationalize everything, like “oh here was a red flag you missed!!”

this is still one of my absolute favorite shows and luckily this didn’t kill that for me, and i’ll still reblog and seek out any and all gifsets, fic, fanart, etc because i just love it too much, plus our artwork helps us get through things like this and make our own even better versions :)

so i think i’ll do just that^ but the way i cope is also finding all the little analyses and metas about how this could’ve been fixed. many of these posts will be largely speculation, and i may be clinging to them too much, but i think that’s what i need right now lol

i will try my best to tag these posts as “tl finale” and “speculation” when needed, in addition to my “ted lasso tv” and “ted lasso spoilers” tags for anyone who wants to avoid these posts 👍

#ted lasso tv #ted lasso spoilers #tl finale #my posts

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scruffyplayssonic · 4 months

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Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 64-65: TwoMulti-part finale (part 2: Endgame parts 3 and 4)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

…One year in and I’ve finally realised that re-stating the episode title when I’ve already used it in the blog post title really isn’t necessary. Well done, Matthew. 😛

If you haven’t checked out part 1 yet you may want to do so, as I talked about the first two chapters of Endgame there. All caught up? Cool, let’s move on to chapter 3 of Endgame in Sonic #49 then.

The issue opens right where #48 left off, with Sonic doing a Peter Pan right here off of this dam waterfall right here.

Rather than just going into the water like Dr. Richard Kimble did though, Sonic came up with a very… unique solution to his problem.

…okay. Sure. I guess that works? So Sonic ran to safety across a landing strip of... shoe grime... and safely faceplanted in the grass.

While that was going on, Robotnik was in full gloat mode with the Freedom Fighters as a captive audience. What evil deeds did he have planned? Well, he was sticking hard to the classic villain schtick of not killing all of them right now because he wanted them all to die when his ultimate weapon was ready. Oh, and the King was a fake.

Surprise! So where was the real king? Well, Snively had him. Why? What was he going to do with him? I ‘unno, Kenny P never bothered to tell us. But we did find out why Dr. Quack had been acting strangely - Snively had taken his family hostage and threatened to kill them if Quack didn’t cooperate.

He’s okay, the Combot was using his non-lethal bullets. 😛

Meanwhile Sonic had been making his way back to Knothole, but realised that even if he did get there in his exhausted state that he would likely just get arrested again. So he called a friend for help.

Well this is new. Dragons can sense the truth now? Okay, sure. Well that should have solved the problem, right? Dulcy could have just told Geoffrey what she knew, and Sonic would have been in the clear. Hook Sonic up to a dragon polygraph test if necessary.

Geoffrey: Did you hold a grudge against Princess Sally Acorn?

Sonic: No!

Dulcy: Bzzzzz!

Sonic: Alright, maybe I did. But I didn’t kill her!

Dulcy: Ding!

Fleming: Story checks out. Okay sir, you are free to go.

Sonic: Good, because I’ve got a hot date tonight.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: A date.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Dinner with friend.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Dinner alone.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Watching TV alone.

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: Alright! I’m going to stay at home and ogle the ladies in the Rouge’s Secret catalogue!

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

Sonic: … (sigh) Foofi’s catalogue.

Dulcy: Ding!

Sonic: Now would you unhook this thing already?! I don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment!

Dulcy: Bzzzz!

If anyone outside of Aleah Baker and Puppy the N’Oni remember what a Foofi’s is, I will be very surprised. xD

But no, Sonic and Dulcy didn’t do that for some reason. Instead Sonic asked Dulcy to take him to the Floating Island. Even if Sonic didn't want to deal with Geoffrey, then why go there? Why not stick with his original plan to go back to Knothole? From a meta-angle I guess this made sense as Knothole was currently occupied by Robotnik’s forces, and hey, any excuse for Kenny P to bring Knuckles into the story, right? But Sonic didn’t know that Robotnik had taken over Knothole. Did Dulcy know? Possibly. It had happened at the same time as Sonic jumping off the waterfall, so would Dulcy have had time to find out about it before Sonic whistled her up? Actually now that I think about it, why hadn’t Dulcy been captured with the other Freedom Fighters?

…well instead of answering any of that, the story went back to Knothole. Here we finally found out Princess Sally’s real murderer was none other than Hershey, the nothingberg character who had been introduced as little more than a cameo in the same issue as Sally’s fatal fall. And if you don’t think that’s weird enough already, wait until you get a load of the explanation.

…wut.

Are you kidding me?!

Okay, I feel like I have to channel my inner CinemaSins here and go through everything wrong with this.

Oh come on, it was too good for me to NOT use.

First of all, Hershey is approximately the same height as Drago, who is a good head taller than Sonic. How was she supposed to convincingly fool anyone into believing she was Sonic? If you want to justify that by saying Antoine was the only one who properly saw her, and that was only through binoculars, then you still have to justify why Hershey was in Robotropolis that night anyway. Why was she there? Is she a commando? A spy? Does she have any kind of combat training? I’ll answer that for you now - no, she does not. While later issues would see Geoffrey recruit her to undergo training for his new secret service team, it was clear in that arc that she was a civilian who didn’t really seem to have any prior experience with that kind of thing. So how did Drago convince her that of all people, she had to be on top of that fortress in Robotropolis, wear a Sonic the Hedgehog costume, and send Snively to his death? On top of that, could he have talked her into murdering someone, even a high-ranking officer of the enemy army? None of the Freedom Fighters would have cut that rope, so what indication do we have that Hershey would have that kind of killer instinct?

…okay, fair point. That’s getting ahead of ourselves though. And okay fine, the lenses in the Sonic mask made her see everyone as Snively, sure. But then logically, if she’d been spying on Sonic and Sally, she should have seen two Snivelys grapple up to the top of Robotnik’s fortress, after which one Snively went into an air vent and the other Snively started climbing down the wall. Even if she hadn’t seen any of that, then shouldn’t Hershey have logically wondered what possible reason Snively would have to be climbing down the outer wall of his own master’s fortress? Did Drago tell Hershey that Snively was doing maintenance on the wall or something? They have robots for that! Even if Snively had been forced to go out there himself for some reason, he’d have never relied on something as flimsy and low-tech as a simple rope. He’d have a jetpack or a hover platform or something like that.

Even if you can find a bunch of excuses to justify why any of this made sense, the fact still remains that the writers introduced two brand new characters for this arc - Hershey and Drago - and didn’t really take the time to tell us anything about them, just to facilitate a plot twist where it looked like Sonic murdered Sally. You know who could have filled that role instead? Evil Sonic.

He’d impersonated Sonic and framed him for crimes before, so there’s no reason why Evil Sonic couldn’t have done it again. Instead of this elaborate thing with Drago and Hershey, Robotnik could have gone to Anti-Mobius and recruited Evil Sonic to cut Sally’s rope. Maybe even have him infiltrate Knothole when the real Sonic was out, to spy on the other Freedom Fighters and learn their plans. It would have been a lot easier and made a hell of a lot more sense than this nonsense. I mean really, what do we know about these two characters? We know Drago is a member of the Wolf Pack and that Lupe was suspicious of him because he had a habit of disappearing without checking in. But that’s about it - we don’t know jack about what drove him to work for Robotnik or anything like that. And we know even less about Hershey - just that she’s some person who lives in Knothole and is Drago’s girlfriend somehow, despite the fact that the Wolfpack doesn’t seem to have had much contact with the residents of Knothole prior to issue #46. This is a prime example of Ken Penders introducing completely unnecessary characters when there were others already established that would have worked just as well.

Anyway, let’s get back to the story otherwise I’ll be ranting about this all bloody night. Across the planet, Bunnie and Antoine had arrived at a prison camp in the Downunda crater and were locked up with two of the local freedom fighters introduced in Tails’ mini series, Walt Wallabee and Barby Koala. They clearly weren’t doing very well, as they had been roughed up quite a bit and reacted with complete terror when their jailer, Crocbot showed up to introduce himself to Bunnie and Antoine. Crocbot, you may remember, had been defeated in the Tails mini-series when he had been knocked into the crater in his nuclear tank, which had then exploded. But it turned out that Crocbot hadn’t been entirely destroyed by this and had eventually managed to build himself a new body. He’d also managed to salvage enough materials and robot soldiers from the destroyed supply blimp Robotnik had sent him to be able to amass a force large enough to ambush and capture the Downunda Freedom Fighters.

Wow. An exposition dump is one thing, but if it’s taking up entire panels then you’ve got a problem there.

Except for when it’s done for comedic purposes, of course.

This issue ended with Sonic and Dulcy arriving on the Floating Island and, as usual, being attacked by Knuckles without any warning. Never mind that the last time the Freedom Fighters were here they parted on good terms with him - if you come to his island unannounced, Knuckles is going to deck you no matter who you are.

Dulcy was knocked out and Sonic and Knuckles went at it, but were interrupted by an explosive arrow fired by Geoffrey St. John, parachuting in from above and demanding Knuckles let him take down Sonic himself.

I don’t really have a lot of nice things to say about this issue. I’m not a fan of Sam Maxwell’s art in ArchieSonic, and there’s a lot of holes in the plot. Let’s just move on to the final act, Sonic #50.

That is a really cool cover, I’ll give them that. And another cool thing about this issue is that it is a major collaborative effort between the entire ArchieSonic team - I think pretty much everyone who had written or done art for the series up to this point got to contribute to this issue.

The story opened with Robotnik exploring the depths of his memories while asleep. Many years ago, Julian Kintobor committed an (at the time) undefined crime against his people, and was hunted down by them. He managed to escape and was found by two young hedgehogs - Sonic’s dad and Uncle Chuck.

They took him to King Max, who named him warlord and asked him to lead their army into battle against the Overlanders in the Great War.

So this is interesting enough, but it kind of comes out of nowhere. What did Robotnik do to become wanted by his own people? And why was Mobotropolis at war with the Overlanders anyway? Why are Bean, Bark and Astal there? Why does Robotnik sleep in that weird stasis tube? Some of these things would be answered in later issues, but for now the story went back to Geoffrey once again trying to capture Sonic.

When Geoffrey told Knuckles that Sonic was wanted for Sally’s murder, Knuckles was absolutely enraged by this and tried to kill Sonic extra hard. Sonic was able to fight Geoffrey and Knuckles off for a little while but quickly got nabbed by an invisible Espio. Fortunately at that point Dulcy regained consciousness and was able to convince everyone that Sonic had been framed.

So now not only can dragons sense the truth, but they are also physically incapable of lying? And this is well known enough that even Knuckles, who lives alone on a giant rock in the sky, knows about this? Once again I have to ask - why didn't Sonic and Dulcy just confront Geoffrey with this in the previous issue and save everyone some time and drama? There was no need to go and involve the world's angriest introvert in any of this!

Dragons cannot tell lies and can sense the truth. Geeze. I kinda feel like the writers were pulling this stuff out of their butts at this point. It’d be like suddenly saying that echidnas are so big-brained that nature has to slap them in the face and put the whammy on them the instant they meet a compatible partner, otherwise they’d spend their entire lives science-ing rather than making babies. Good thing that never happened, right?

>.>

<.<

Anyway! Back in Knothole, Tails and Rotor managed to slip away unnoticed and tried to escape in their water vehicles, only to find that Drago was already waiting for them.

Well shoot, so much for that. But why were the citizens of Knothole being rounded up for roboticisation? In the previous issue Robotnik specifically said that he wanted to wait and wipe them all out with his secret weapon. Speaking of, back in Robotropolis, Robotnik was calling the prison camp in Downunda to get an update on the ore he needed for his Ultimate Annihilator. Crocobot was dealing with an uprising at the time but assured Robotnik that his ore was on its way. An uprising, you say? Sounds like the Downunda Freedom Fighters had been able to escape, but what about Antoine and Bunnie? We’ll get back to that.

Tails and Rotor were facing imminent roboticisation until Sonic, Geoffrey and Knuckles came soaring in from above to save the day. Working together they destroyed the Swatbots and freed the prisoners, and then Sonic announced his desire to take down Drago, who made a break for it.

…how did Sonic know that Drago was a traitor? Geoffrey couldn’t have told him, he didn’t know either. Did Sonic spot Drago working with the Swatbots from above as they were parachuting down? Did Tails or Rotor tell him off page while they were freeing prisoners? Buggered if I know. I guess it doesn’t matter that much though. Drago didn’t make it very far (further than you’d expect with Sonic the Hedgehog chasing him though) before he got beaned in the head by a rock thrown by Hershey and knocked unconscious.

…yeah, that fake Sonic plan is still ridiculous. But it was nice to see Drago get his comeuppance, and Hershey get to redeem herself and have the satisfaction of bashing his brains in.

Sonic decided he was going to storm Robotropolis alone, but Robotnik was unconcerned, confident that he was ready for him.

Heh okay, that was a pretty good line. xD

So it turned out that Sonic wasn’t the only Freedom Fighter in Robotropolis after all - Bunnie and Antoine had also arrived, hiding in the rafters and planning to sabotage Robotnik's plan. It seems weird to me that they were able to get back so quickly from the other side of the world - seriously, have you ever flown from Australia to North America? I have. A lot. It takes FOREVER. And then you have to allow for layovers and going through Customs and all that stuff and it’s really all such a hassle…

…where was I?

Oh right, the comic. In fairness, Robotnik was waiting for the ore to be delivered to him from Downunda before he could make his next move, so I guess you could justify this by saying the plot was waiting for Antoine and Bunnie to arrive. 😛

Sonic mostly made it past the outer defences but got… tangled in robot parts? I guess? I never really understood what happened there, and the director's cut doesn’t really make it much clearer either (but more on that later). Snively showed up in a jetpack (See? I told you he’d have a jetpack rather than climb down the side of the building with a rope!) to confront Sonic but was dispatched easily, after which Sonic literally ran into Bunnie and Antoine.

They explained their plan to sabotage the Ultimate Annihilator with a bomb they’d conveniently found, but Sonic still wanted to kick Robotnik's generously proportioned butt himself. Unfortunately Sonic wasn’t fast enough to stop Robotnik activating the Ultimate Annihilator, wiping Knothole off the face of the earth. Planet. Mobius. Whatever.

This was followed by several pages of absolutely amazing art of Sonic and Robotnik in their final duel by the legendary Patrick Spaziante.

But how was Robotnik fast enough to punch Sonic in the face, you ask? Well his explanation was that, “This relatively confined space prevents you from making optimum use of your speed.” A bit of an asspull if you ask me, but I’ll allow it because Spaziante’s art is just that good.

Sonic and Robotnik were so busy fighting that they barely even noticed the Ultimate Annihilator being destroyed, taking them with it. But Sonic got better. This is another thing that never really got explained, but chances are it was due to the protective aura he got after grabbing his billionth power ring in issue #35. It was a plot point that had come up several times, so perhaps the writers didn’t feel it needed to be explained again.

Sonic eventually woke up back in Knothole, stunned to find out that instead of being vaporised, the village had been warped into a pocket dimension that existed three hours in the future. …why three hours in the future? Isn’t “pocket dimension” enough by itself? How does that even work? So let’s say it’s 4 pm in Knothole, but as soon as you leave Knothole’s boundaries it’s suddenly 1 pm? Does the sun just shwoop back across the sky three hours when you leave Knothole? Is there any point to this at all? God, it’s almost as confusing as Australia’s policies on Daylight Savings time.

Dr. Quack then filled Sonic in on everything that had happened. One issue I talked about a long time ago was Sonic #43, where Sonic had gone inside King Acorn’s mind and visited his memories in an effort to try and wake him from his coma and stop the crystallisation process. Well it turned out that when that happened, Robotnik had noticed the signal from Dr. Quack’s dream watcher thingy and been able to trace it to finally find Knothole. Dr Quack’s family had been kidnapped and he’d been forced to do Robotnik’s bidding, which included working on his Ultimate Annihilator.

I have a few things to say about this wacky doomsday weapon, but I’ll save them for my next post. I agree with Sonic - what about Sally? Well it turned out that she actually survived her fall and Dr. Quack was able to fake her death. He’d placed her in a stasis tube that was disguised to look like a memorial, where she had been in a coma ever since.

Sonic revived her with true love’s kiss, and there was a fancy full page epilogue.

#50 was a big event issue, but despite featuring so many contributing artists and writers, victory for the Freedom Fighters, and the death of Dr. Robotnik, I don’t think it’s the strongest issue of the Endgame arc. I personally think that award goes to the first chapter, issue #46, but that’s just me. Don't get me wrong, seeing Sonic be vindicated and the big fight with Robotnik was cool and all, but Snively’s sabotage of the Ultimate Annihilator made Sonic’s role in this story largely redundant. Think about it - aside from liberating Knothole and waking up Sally, did Sonic actually accomplish anything in this issue? He didn’t save Knothole from being wiped out via space laser or actually defeat Robotnik himself - those were both done by Snively.

The end of issue #50 did introduce us to an interesting question though - what does a world without Robotnik look like for Sonic the Hedgehog? Over the next two years, Snively, Mammoth Mogul and the newly introduced Ixis Naugus (repurposed from SatAM) all attempted to fill in the role of primary villain. There was also a mysterious figure in the shadows who was slowly building up his resources and causing distractions until he was ready to make his move (spoiler alert - it was another Robotnik). Knuckles also got off the ground with his own ongoing monthly comic around this time, and that resulted in the introduction of his own rogues’ gallery. It was an interesting time despite there not being any Robotnik around, even having occasional crossover events that allowed more interactions between Sonic and Knuckles’ casts.

Normally I would end my review here, but the Endgame story doesn’t end with just issue #50. The following year after issue #50’s publication, a “director’s cut” edition of Sonic #50 was released in Sonic Super Special #6. I’ll be covering that one in my next post, so stay tuned!

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