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mondayrobot · 3 years

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120-Day Fanfiction List (G)

A collection of my recommended Eren/Mikasa fanfictions for the first one-hundred and twenty days of the year.

Rating: General Audiences

a gilded world by infinitesimalll

The world was cruel. It was cold. Nearly everyday those words flowed through her mind, often accompanied by traumatic experiences.

All The Things Between You and Me by iRememberTheDark @irememberthedark

In most situations, Mikasa takes what she can get, especially where Eren, her...her...whatever he was to her, was concerned, and she was more than willing to let that pattern continue. Too bad life was so adept at kicking her out of her comfort zone.

"What am I to you?"

Mikasa asks a simple question and the world tilts.

Bad Idea by fevversinherhair

Like all bad ideas that passed between them, pretending to be dating at his brother's wedding was 100% Eren's.

Call out my name by Gcf_khaleesi

Ever since he brought her back into paths he knew that this would be the last time, he knew that he wasn't getting out of this what he was doing out there alive and she knew it as well.

canvas by orphan_account

there’s a familiarity in that question, the same one that comes along with the unspeakable way she smiles.

Cruel Decisions by solsun

The public now knows the truth of the outside world and who they are. The impending threat. No matter what, they must survive. Eren struggles with the colossal responsibility he believes he bears, the weight of an entire nation in his hands. He searches for a way to ground himself while keeping his principles intact.

demands by infinitesimalll

In all honesty, Eren hadn't expected Mikasa to take his offer after they had faced the titan who killed his mother and Hannes. It was something he said in the heat of the moment, when he was determined to survive.

for you, 2000 years later by aenar_thedragonlady

life seemed normal, as it always was but she wasn't aware of something, or rather, someone, who's been waiting for 2000 years.

fuel to my fire by aenar_thedragonlady

Being the princess of a powerful kingdom and with a legendary bloodline, Mikasa came to terms with how she was born and raised a conqueror in her father, family and kingdom's name. But when her conquest led her to Eren, a solitary king hidden in his domain far north in the mountains, she knew things could never go back to how they were.

Will she extinguish all the fires she never knew she had?

Or will she add more fuel to the flames?

ghost out of his grave by simplyhumann

At first glance, one might even think this is his glimpse of heaven. To come home to her in death, like how he always wanted to when he was alive.

It was anything but that. This was his punishment, Eren knew. To have a front row seat to the way he ruined the woman he once loved— no— still loves— and all the consequences that came after it.

hallucinating by enchantingoats

Mikasa knew it was undoubtedly her drug-addled subconscious longing for a second reunion with better odds.

Still, she wanted to touch him.

home by infinitesimalll

"in this world, i've got a place to go home to."

I’ll Take Care of You by Queenzie

When Mikasa falls sick, Eren decides that for once he needs to look after her.

Long Dream by wallmaria

“What am I to you?” Eren had suddenly said. Mikasa was again taken aback by his question. She looked at Eren’s face, there were no hints of shame when he said it, when he’s practically asking her to bare herself before him… She felt her heart pound loudly in her chest… She felt embarrassed to say the truth, but Eren also seemed to look distraught and expectant as Mikasa stammered.

not so strong after all by infinitesimalll

After a patrol in the freezing cold rain, humanity's second strongest has come down with the common cold.

Now and Forever by connectedfeelings @connectedfeelings

Waking up from a strange dream, Mikasa experiences odd visions throughout the day, all of a man and of a red scarf. Everyone leaves her with a strong sense of melancholy. Who is he? And why has he been in her mind all day? Perhaps she could ask him. Because his scarf just landed on her face, and she can't help but feel like the universe is telling her something.

New Year by Ilucida

The New Year celebration in Hizuru style was different.

remember a day we dreamt by Violea

Let's live the rest of our lives peacefully. Just the two of us.

return to me, the you of 2000 years ago by rilakkuma5 @uhhstar

Eternal return is a concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.

Simpler Times by wamomo

Three moments in which Eren doesn't regret leaving and one in which he does.

some place to be at peace by bacondestiny

He remembers the feeling of his head exploding off his body and the earth quaking before him under the weight of millions of titans on the march, remembers the awful ruin and the craters and the puddles and the charred remains as he crawled after them on hundreds of ribs--but all of that is so far away. It’s so far away that he’ll never see it again. All he can see is Mikasa, smiling up at him.

It doesn’t matter what’s flowing through his veins or lurking in his bones or rattling around in his head. What matters is what he has in his arms.

sparkling green by maketea @rosekasa

mikasa wakes up to find eren has done all the work for her.

The hellfire called love by septembersnotes

I hold us together, our lives, our pitiful youth, our days under the sun- shard by shard.

The Red String of Fate by hunnyB

Alone and defeated, Eren sighs and sinks back on the bench, eyes flickering up on Mikasa's seemingly frail frame as she sleeps soundlessly beneath the white bedsheets. He stares at the peacefulness transpiring through her face, glossed lips parted gently, raven hair splayed across the pillow, and thin long eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks, giving off an extremely pleasant sight to lie eyes upon.

A sight that Eren has always had nearby but never sought, never once stopped to admire.

they are the prey by bacondestiny @inbothourhandsgloria

Eren does not want to be here.

It is sunny and warm and the birds are singing, today is the kind of day that should be spent running through the streets and splashing in the creek. He could be helping Mama with errands or Daddy with mixing medicines or Zeke with the goats. But no. Now he has to stand in this stupid line with Zeke so he can go to school. It’s terrible.

Through the Night by Diphy_D

It’s through the night when Eren’s mind doesn’t stop thinking while his hands don’t stop tracing the profile of the sleeping woman who rests at his side. The boy loses his faith and sinks alone.

And it’s through the night too when Mikasa's sweet touch calms his demons.

“We'll be free. The two of us, just wait”.

To You, 2000 Years From Now. by fetching

“You were dreaming again. What was it about?” He asks, smiling at her.

It takes a great effort not to cry.

This is it. This is home.

“Home,” She breathes. “I was dreaming about coming home.”

to you, at world’s end, a promise by AdelineVW7

She has never been one to sleep deeply, so Eren moves with deliberate gentleness. With only the tips of his fingers he caresses the dark hair splayed upon the pillow, all the while watching the rhythm of her breathing, the flitting movement of a dream beneath her eyelids.

viva la vida by zeninclan

"Mikasa, what am I to you?"

She looked down at him as the crowd watched them, standing face to face.

A soft blush spread across her skin as she stared back at him for a moment, wind pushing through their hair as they stood in silence. They had been friends since childhood. He knew everything about her, and she did the same for him.

"Family," was the answer she landed on. She cursed herself that night for not answering him honestly.

Since then, something had changed in Eren.

Warmth by ApplePapelProductions

His body, against yours. So close, so safe, the bite of the cold, the closeness of death, did not matter. Even in this fleeting moment, only to last a second, it meant more than the entire world. More than the remainders of humanity. More than the world beyond the walls. More than you could have ever imagined, no matter how many times you prayed for it to happen.

It would end soon. Maybe one day, he could tell you that he loved you, too. But until then, this was enough.

when you move I move with you by SapphireOcean

An unrequited crush comes back into Eren's life in an unusual way.

would have married you by enchantingoats

But truly it was beyond that. She was precious to him above all else, and though it was hard to put his finger on the feeling, this attachment, it had to be what they called love.

You can also check out: 2020 Eremika Fanfiction Masterlist

#eremika #writing #fanfiction

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cauldronofmorning · 3 years

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Okay so.... I've encountered your tags about "the talking scene between trapper and hawk in dr pierce and dr hyde the stuttering the grabbing the not blinking how another of hawk's coping methods has bitten the dust#trapper being soft parental but annoyed and how he needs to check out while hawkeye needs to save the entire world"... if you have time, Go off! I would love that 2000 word essay and your opinions.

It’s a bit of a mess and would probably get a C- if I handed it in, but! Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde and how it shows the difference between Hawkeye’s and Trapper’s coping methods.

Context! Alan Alda wrote the episode, mental health is important to him (not to psychoanalyze an actor, but he had depression before the show and his mom was schizophrenic) and there’s a quote on how Hawkeye didn’t actually change much in the eleven years, just had his coping methods beaten down.

So throughout season one, Hawkeye and Trapper have mostly been ignoring the trauma of a war. Hawkeye naturally ended a movie with a speech about propaganda (Yankee Doodle Doctor) and Tommy tells them (Sometimes You Hear The Bullet) about a kid who should have been the blonde hero in a war movie actually dying and not hearing a bullet, forcing them to actually quietly think about it. But for the most part, they can distract themselves with booze, pranks and women, and Hawkeye can still draw a straight line between his tenuous sanity pre-war and the place he’s in.

There’s also two important episodes in season two before Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, that make the war more personal for both of them. The first is Radar’s Report, where a scared prisoner contaminates Trapper’s patient by knocking the blood over. Trapper’s sulkier throughout the episode, obsessed with how it could have been okay if it weren’t for that incident, and less indulging of Hawkeye’s girl of the week problem. His patient doesn’t make it, and he makes a beeline to the POW’s tent, maybe would have killed him if Hawkeye hadn’t bought him back to reality. “That’s not what we’re about.”

The second is For The Good Of The Outfit. This one has a village bombed by American military and Hawkeye/Trapper run afoul of previously decent sounding generals trying to shut them up from talking about it, including passive aggressive threats to send them to the front, and specifically to Hawkeye, intercepting letters to his dad. It’s okay by the end of the episode, but he’s still livid when he finds this out.

In comes Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde. The episode starts with Hawkeye already slightly dissociated from a long shift, thinking it hasn’t ended, and Trapper having to gently take him by the arm and guiding him out of the OR, telling him he was taking the chest cases “like he was their only hope”. Hawkeye wanting to save everyone keeps popping up throughout the episode; here, when he’s stumbling into Henry and his ego filtered through deprivation making him think he’s the only one who can do chest cases, the scene I’m getting to, and the end where Trapper and Henry sum him up.

As much as Trapper is “let’s get drunk to deal, okay?” kind of comfort in comparison to BJ who can actually talk about emotions, if not necessarily knowing the best way to deal with them (Hawkeye has a type and it’s repressed blondes), he’s soft with Hawkeye – gentle touches, firmly telling him to go to sleep, indulging that chopper noise is just thunder – until he figures the best way to get his friend to rest is to sedate him behind his back.

The thing with Trapper is that while he might be a bad husband, cheating on his wife with no shame (but he keeps bringing up that Hawkeye is more perverted so that might make it easier for him to deal with, see the couple of times he glares at Hawk for flirting with Henry/a male patient, Divided We Stand, The Trial Of Henry Blake, Check Up, Life With Father, Adam’s Ribs), he’s a good father who ran into a minefield for Kim and tried to go AWOL for Cathy and Becky. That’s not to say he always treats Hawkeye like a child, that would be weird considering how much flirting they do, but when the other man is manic or badly affected, Trapper’s first instinct is to be parental.

After Hawkeye in his doubletalky way admits to Radar he’s compulsive and psychotic (sidenote: his symptoms of strong emotions, not being able to think clearly and too many spirals to name actually bear that diagnosis out, instead of just using the word when one thinks another is behaving badly), he wanders around the camp like a ghost, making notes about corpsmen with guns and nurses checking patients in post-op.

As Hawkeye often does, whenever he finds something out, or thinks he has in this instance, he has to tell his live-in boyfriend of the season immediately, and if he can’t sleep then neither can anyone else. He sits on Trapper’s bed, extremely close and not blinking, and jostles him awake. Already Trapper’s slightly panicky, as no matter what he says about being the mellow one, any time there’s shouting or loud noise in the swamp, he always wakes up with a start. Even when he sees it’s Hawkeye it takes him a few seconds to process and get back into his role.

Hawkeye’s very sad and very quiet. For the past seven minutes, even though he’s dissociated, exhausted and not doing well, he’s still trying to do his normal thing of turning his anger sideways and being snarky or being a clown bottom for the gaggle of nurses. Going back to one of Trapper’s good qualities is that he’s a decent parent, Hawkeye can regress emotionally into being like a ten year old (incidentally, the age when he had the most trauma pre-Korea, with Billy, his mom dying, guilt over not wanting dad to remarry and at some point losing his virginity), both for funny like in Picture This and for sadness.

So he’s finally noticed that he’s in a war zone and he’s too tired to make jokes about it or distract himself from it. Trapper already sounds frustrated but still listens, telling him to go bed before he drives himself crazy. There’s been a few takes that Trapper would get sick of later Hawkeye, and given how much they really can’t talk to each other that often, even just a mention of Hawkeye’s will when he has to go to the front makes Trapper shut down and Hawkeye cover with a joke, that’s probably true. They’re both messes, but for now Trapper can give Hawkeye someone to lean on.

“If I thought I could stop it just by going to sleep, don’t you think I would try?” Hawkeye does a twitch of the head, still unblinking, and that’s just really asking Trapper to understand and take him seriously. Also the wording, he’s not saying he can stop thinking about it just by going to sleep, or stop feeling anything just by closing his eyes, although both of those are implied. He makes it very clear later on (Letters, Preventive Medicine, Blood Brothers) that he feels like he’s as bad as the war – god and martyr complex combined – and if he can’t fight against/blame everything on that then it’s time for some self loathing.

Trapper does actually pay attention and gives him some advice. Definitely not great advice, but advice nonetheless, to close his eyes when things get unbearable, and to keep checking out when it keeps happening. This can’t work for Hawkeye, who’s had a guilt complex ever since he was a child, but it’s how Trapper copes. The next episode when Kim’s mother turns up for the boy, after a time of being actually open, he goes right to dismissive snark. Plus in season three’s Mad Dogs and Servicemen, another one on how differently Trapper and Hawkeye deal with things, he shrugs that he pretends he’s not there all day along.

Hawkeye’s stuttering a bit at this point. Words are important to him, it’s why you should probably leave him a note even if you’re a man who 1) wants to forget about Korea as soon as he arrives in Boston but won’t 2) wants desperately to believe he’s straight but isn’t 3) cares through physical touch and can’t think of what to say for seventy two hours. Wordplay is important to him too, and he admits to Sidney in the finale that his brain thinks too fast. Obviously exhaustion is going to put his brain and mouth out of sync, and considering how he sounds like he’s going to cry in the mess tent when he can’t even get words out to Frank Burns, it makes him all that more helpless.

“Somebody, and it wasn’t you or me, started this war.” It’s the “whoever the them, we were always us” of it all. It’ll be more important in the third season, and what happens in Welcome To Korea, but Hawkeye has taken it for granted that he and Trapper will stay co-dependent no matter what happens or who they come up against or how their time is running out. Much how he probably didn’t tell Trapper about the abandonment trauma he’s suffered before, Trapper always reassures him to come back soon, or no charge for leaning on him, or it isn’t a Christmas goodbye, and doesn’t want to share real feelings.

Beyond that scene, with Hawkeye dragging himself off to be a hero, assume that everyone who tries to take care of him really just wants to sleep with him, and cry while singing, Trapper tries to sedate him while he’s not looking. He’s tried being parental, he’s tried the repression advice, it’s time to be passive aggressive for Hawkeye’s own good. Or what he thinks is Hawkeye’s own good. It’s not especially great on Trapper’s part, but a similar thing happens reversed in Mail Call, where a drunk Trapper tries to go AWOL and as soon as he’s distracted laughing at Frank, Hawkeye locks his bag away so Trapper won’t be tempted again. Both of them are repressed messes who can’t really talk to each other.

When that sedation attempt ends up in Frank falling over, Trapper goes to Henry to be the worried macho boyfriend. Like with the only comedic dancing allowed and not the time in Officers Only when a genuine offer gets turned down, being protective over Hawkeye where he can hear can only happen when it’s for fun/likely no real danger.

At the end, Trapper and Henry sit by Hawkeye’s bed when he’s finally asleep and talk about him. Kindly, but they know he’s unstable with a hero complex. Like Mulcahy said in season eleven, the camp has a lot of experience with not dealing with reality, and even Trapper says in Iron Guts Kelly that one man’s reality is another man’s fantasy. Nobody has the capability to talk about this yet, and Sidney and Hawkeye only really become friends in O.R. Hawkeye will wake up and he and Trapper will pretend this never happened.

When Adam’s Ribs comes around, and Hawkeye has a manic episode over needing to eat something that isn’t liver or fish, Trapper and Henry are again the ones looking after him, comparing him to their kids and Trapper in the background both snarking over Hawkeye’s slippage in sanity and looking out for him. It’s not as quite high stakes as Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, but they’re still worried about him.

To end this out, Trapper and Hawkeye and mental health is a fun thing to look at. Neither of them are particularly emotionally intelligent yet, Hawkeye just kind of a self absorbed mess and Trapper finding it easier to be a reassuring rock and keep his own struggling to himself, and they keep things from each other while also taking past each other, but they comfort each other with jokes and distractions that only they can understand. The repressed clowns are trying, even if it does all end with a borrowed kiss and only just barely missing each other.

#hawkeye pierce #trapper john mcintyre #mental health tw #dr pierce and dr hyde #mash #piercintyre #gene-ious

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amphii-writes · 3 years

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Random Haikyuu Head Canons I Have

these are all taken from my discord server cause i remember to write them there, if you want to request fanfics, my requests are W I D E open! there is also nO order! these are just all the headcanons i could find tbh

warnings: mentions of blood, and just overall wild times, swearing

Asahi loves knitting sweaters because his shoulders are broad and he also loves seeing the reactions from his teammates when they get a sweater from him! He says he buys them but he doesn’t

Aone likes knitting socks because he has big feet and he loves fluffy knee high socks but his team will never know

Asahi and Aone regularly hang out and knit together! (after asahi wasnt scared of him anyways)

Nishinoya gives you shiny rocks he finds because “your eyes shine like them!”

Yamaguchi likes to have your head rest on his chest while cuddling!

Aone likes to bake

Aone dressed like a polar bear because koganegawa told him to- halloween was amazing

daICHI HAS A KISS THE COOK APRON

Daichi secretly can make some kick ass steak and is amazing at grilling sorry

Okay but real talk, Kenma and Yaku swear like sailors and it scares everyone because they always whisper the most foul, insulting things under their breath. Hearing it is like seeing a cryptid

Speaking of cryptids, Fukunaga and Shibayama are THE most true crime, mythology, and mystery obsessed fanatics on the team and often fanboy about it together

Fukunaga’s obsession with moth man has gotten to an unhealthy stage

Kenma absolutely had a vampire phase and has read twilight. Only Kuroo knows and has sworn to secrecy via blood pact

Kuroo’s a musical nerd. Knows all of the lyrics to Hamilton, BMC, DEH, Heathers, Rent, Beetlejuice, Etc. Kenma considered dropping him because of it

Iwaizumi tells the worst dad jokes and Kyotani, wanting to beat him, started doing it too and it drives everyone insane

Yahaba and Matsukawa get along surprisingly well. Both are true crime freaks and bond over their forensic files obsessions

Matsukawa didn’t really like his thick eyebrows so he got one of his female friends to pluck it for him, but almost cried and gave up after the first hair. Oikawa called him a pussy for the next year

Hanamaki jokingly flirts with everyone on the team so most of them just got used to it, but it still confuses Kindaichi to the point of mental breakdown

Makki called Kyotani ‘puppy’ as a joke once and now mad dog is truly terrified of him

Kyotani’s dog absolutely ADORES Oikawa and it’s the funniest shit to the rest of the team

Mattsun and Makki play DnD and once convinced Yahaba and Kyotani to join. Kyotani kept rolling to fight everyone and Yahaba was a bard that kept rolling to seduce everyone. They kept yelling across the board so they had to kick them out

Outside of his school uniform, Goshiki specifically wears only plaid

Tendou makes little chocolates for the whole team every once in a while so they don’t think he’s scary

Semi and Shirabu once had a fistfight in an abandoned McDonald’s parking lot while Tendou filmed and Goshiki cheered them on

Everybody makes fun of Shirabu’s haircut but nobody dares to say it to his face. its gotten to the point where they say he got it done by a blind old lady

There’s a running joke about Shirabu also getting his haircut from prison but Goshiki is starting to suspect that it may not be a joke

Yamagata and Tendou are good friends with the mutual goal of collecting as much blackmail on their team as possible

Tendou loves animals generally considered to be ‘ugly’ like rats, crows, reptiles, etc.

80% of Goshiki’s playlist is shit overplayed on the radio. Him, Shirabu, Tendou, Kawanishi and Ushijima have a permanent ban from the aux cord

Nobody watches YouTube with Ushijima because he never skips the damn ads (other than tendou)

Suna once said y’all’dn’t’ve unironically and made a first year cry

Akagi once said UwU unironically and had an identity crisis.

Osamu has one of those rainbow gaming keyboards and is constantly on a discord call. Atsumu always yells weird shit in the background to embarrass him and once pretended to be him

During Seijoh group chat arguments. Hanamaki and Mattsukawa like to drop facebook minion memes in just to piss everyone off even more

mattsun and maki both have separate photo albums in their phones labelled ‘minion memes to piss everyone off’

Hinata carries a pocket knife and no one has no fucking idea why

mattsun and maki both have matching rat fursuits that look like they actually where in a sewer- they chased oikawa around

For all his talk of plant analogies and metaphors, Ushijima cant grow shit

Goshiki’s Bangs are the way they are because his favorite character was Rock Lee from Naruto

Oikawa has watched Ouran High School Host Club front to back so many times and he can quote all of Tamaki’s lines by heart -He keeps bothering Iwaizumi to “be his Haruhi, since you’re shorter than me”

Koganegawa has definitely gone as an Angry Bird for Halloween

Fukunaga has those reflective cat eyes, and he has terrified Yamamoto on several occasion

Hanamaki and Matsukawa have a teddy bear that they pretend is their child and they share custody

Suga always sprays whipped cream straight into his mouth whenever he sees a can

Nishinoya definitely bit people as a kid

Nishinoya would be the guy to wear shorts all year round and even if it's snowing, he'll insist he's not cold

Tendou is still stuck in his emo phase and would fangirl over Creepypasta with me and I appreciate that (me too buddy, me fuckin too)

Kyoutani LOOKS like he’d listen to viking death metal, but in reality he listens to Mother Mother and knows all the words to Ghosting

Sugawara would definitely encourage me to dumb shit and not stop me, and you’re all dumb for thinking he wouldn’t

KENMA IS NOT ‘uwu owo’ SHY, HE IS ‘your fucking gross’ SHY SO LITERALLY STFU

Bokuto listens to Nicki Manaj. And knows all the words. To every. Single. Song.

Ushijima for some reason knows an odd amount of 90′s-2000′s R&B and he will hum along to the songs if they come on the radio (he also loves Dolly Parton) ((he says he relates to her music))

Bokuto once ate instant ramen for an entire month

TERUSHIMA DID TRY TO FUCK A PLANT WHILE SHITFACED AND GOD I STAND BY WHAT I SAID

atsumu let’s you put makeup on him and pretends to eat the brushes (do yk what im talking about- like n o m)

tendou ran for school president as a joke but actually won

i 100% believe that all of karasuno’s third years apologize when they bump into inanimate objects, but when suga is really tired or stressed out, he’ll yell at them instead.

Tanaka, Nishinoya, and Taketora have a group chat called "Bros who want sum hoes" and they send each other hypebeast memes and shit

Sugawara knows how to do a bunch of flexible shit because he sometimes goes to yoga with daichi and asahi's moms, its fucking hilarious

tanaka and noya both breakdance- they work as a team and sometimes go to tokyo for underground competitions- saeko drives them

Daichi knows a little ballet- nobody other than Kiyoko knows because they saw each other at the ballet class and had to work together- dont tell tanaka and noya that he lifted her though

Osamu once put glitter on Atsumu's pillow- he still finds hot pink glitter on shit

kita knits and crochets with his grandma

Kita's grandma knows everyone's names because kita talks shit bout them, her favorite is Aran

Kuroo has burnt his eyebrows off doing an experiment. His goggles didn't cover all his brows,,, so he just showed up to practice like that. No eyebrows and a chemical burn

kenma has played all kinds of games, but he was dared to play corpse party by kuroo. He wasn't scared because of the gore, he was thinking about the trauma the characters went through. Punched kuroo the next day because that game was fucked up

Lev isn't a strong swimmer, so he often grabs people by the head to keep himself up. happened with kenma and lev couldn't walk due to the force of kenmas suprised water kicks

akaashi has those fancy pens that you have to dip in ink and they're so nice

Bokuto has and will eat pencil erasers again

Daichi once almost lost his shit at his team but instead he lost his shit at the door that decided to stub his toe on the way out of the gym. not the best thing to be found yelling to.

Yamaguchi for sure has been dragged to one of terushimas parties because he didnt wanna say no. oh and terushima has like frat boy level parties too. Yams has for sure had some wild nights and doubts anyone other than Tsukishima and the party-goers will ever know

Akaashi can actually flirt very well! He reads romance novels sometimes and has analyzed any and every book in his possession! so he's actually quite charming

Daihsou unironically posted on twitter after mika broke up with him "I still see her shadows in my room"

Mattsun and Maki run a fake oikawa account; its been going ever since twitter even started getting popular and they even started sending messages in spanish. The posts would range from "I love all my fans!" to flirting with them :) Oikawa is pissed cause the account got verified before he did and most of his fans also follow the fake oikawa. Tooru has no idea who runs it JUST IMAGINE OIKAWA JUST LIKE RANTING TO THE SEIJOH 3RD YEAR ALUMNI AND JUST "no Iwa-chan, you dont understand! they run a fake account and pretend to be me!" while makki and mattsun laugh their asses off

Oh, kenma for sure has pretended to be a girl on discord and has gotten someone to buy him stuff. after they do he says in his normal voice "fucking simp" and then hangs up and blocks the other persons discord

Yamamoto, despite his rough appearance, loves kids and has and will be a human jungle gym

suna in middle school had a game with his friends about who could make kids cry the fastest

The twins switched places back in middle school and nobody could tell because of how great they are at acting like eachother

Daichi once arrested coach ukai for public intoxication after a game :|

Daichi has arrested many people from his old volleyball team but the most memorable case was when he arrested tanaka and noya for reckless driving. poor idiots got so scared when they saw their old captains face in their mirror and started to pray

tanaka, while trying to intimidate someone, once said "You dont gotta tell me twice, i may be straight but these hands are bisexual" and he often cringes at night thinking about it

Kageyama, as a comeback to Tsukishima, said "one thing about us royalty is that we love to feast" and he also fuckin hates what he said

the third years made a cult for Kiyoko. they chant every wednesday "i'll do anything for kiyoko, she makes me go loco"

oikawas fangirls are known to be fucking rabid

yAMAMOTO AND KENMA AFTER THEIR FIGHT WERE FORCED BY KUROO TO MAKE IT UP: so they dyed their hair together

Makki and mattsun sang two trucks in front of the entire team. everyone was so confused. Makki: "twO TRUCKS HAVIN SEX!!" Mattsun: "oH yEs!"THEY'D SWITCH OFF AND HAVE LIKE CHOREOGRAPHY TOO LIKE THEY'D DO A TANGO WHILE THE SONG IS LIKE "two beer trucks, making love"

tendou once called Oikawa "mr. no-nationals" and got kicked in the shins before iwaizumi could save him

Tsukishima had a my little pony phase

you work with matsukawa at a morgue and he makes dead people jokes while you fix some dead guys face with wax and makeup he'd be like "so didnt he like,,, stick his head out of the sunroof of a moving fuckin car??" he'd be singing dumb ways to die the entire day

i feel like Kuroo has one crazy accident a year. like it might not be deadly but its fucking crazy like for example: Kuroo for sure has ridden in a shopping cart at past midnight with kenma (who pushed him down a hill) causing Kuroo to get scratched up hella well. he lied and said he spent the night with a girl and kenma fucking hated himself cause he would be the girl if that was true

Mattsun has flirted with the 4th years moms before (AS A JOKE), and because of this: he is known as “fuckin milf hunter” sometimes by the team

Warning, this next headcanon is talking about cannabis, weed, mary jane, the zoink root. so if your uncomfortable, please dont read below :)

dude i wanna get high as SHIT with Asahi

i think Asahi would be one of those mfkers who takes one hit and is gone

ASAHI ACCIDENTALLY GOING TO PRACTICE ZOINKED

IMAGINE HIM SEEING TSUKISHIMA AND JUST "he looks so judgemental,,, im scared"

OR LIKE A MAD DAICHI AND JUST "i'm gonna,,, im gonna go jump out the window now"

Noya and Tanaka would know tho, i feel like they'd have a 6th sense when it comes to weed. they probably get some from Saeko cause she'd rather they do it in the house. they'd smell asahi like fucking dogs and just so,,, big guy had fun without us huh?

DAICHI WOULD KNOW ABOUT ASAHI BEING ZOINKED, SMASH HIS FACE INTO THE WALL, TURN AROUND WITH A RED MARK ON HIS FOREHEAD AND WITH A BEAMING SMILE AND FEUX ENTHUSIASM SAY: "YOSH, LETS WARM UP!"

#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu!!#haikyuu crack #haikyuu boys #haikyuu x reader #haikyū!!#haikyu x reader

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oraclemilf · 4 years

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ok but i'm loving your takes on the female characters - like it's very disconcerting to watch this show with a lot of girls and then have almost none of them be actual friends, and when they interact they're either fighting or it's about a boy. a lot of them r reduced to stereotypes too like with sam and her "i'm not like other girls" spiel and paulina's... entire thing lol. i'd say at least valerie is well rounded but she never rly interacts with the other girls positively :/

“and like it's an older show where those kinds of messages were everywhere in kids media especially but it still sucks lol at least we can take what we like from fanon and totally change it into our own because butch really did them dirty” 2/2

Yeah exactly. Not to be feminist on main but holy fuck do the girls in DP have issues. Like I get the whole argument that “it's an early 2000s show what can you do” and “all of the characters were shittily written” but the reason most of the female characters are bad in DP is specifically because they were written through a misogynistic lens. Like the show presents itself as having strong female characters but really all they do to break the gender binary is being able to fight. (I will give them points for letting the girls get kicked and punched the same as the men but that is the ONLY praise they are getting out of me.)

To expand on the “takes” in my previous ask:

-Dora, Ember, Desiree, Kitty, and Spectra all had boy/appearance-based backstories. Like seriously, the only female ghost I can think of whose backstory wasn’t entirely based on a man was Pandora and she appears in literally one episode for literally half the episode. (Also if you look at the myth of Pandora it's literally about a woman created by the gods to be the downfall of man so she doesn’t get any feminism points either.) Like listen. I’m not arguing that all the female ghosts should be totally retconned so they never interact with men at all. In fact, I think Kitty,though she has a heteronormative ultimate power, Dora, and Desiree’s backstories work really well for their characters. But Ember and Spectra? Why should Ember die because “she was so sad she was stood up she slept through a house fire” wtf?That literally doesn’t really work with her musician motif at all? How would that even work? Bitch did you have no alarms? Nobody was screaming or anything? Like its so astronomically stupid. @grimgrinningghoul has some cool ideas for alternate Spectra motivations in this post so I really won’t get into that here but women being only motivated by their appearance is such a stale take.

-Maddie legit says "behind every genius woman is a genius man" This is self explanatory really. Like come on girl seriously. But yeah, to elaborate on Maddie they could have had a great strong mother figure. I mean she was a scientist and a black belt for crying out loud! Then they kind of back track because you can’t make women too self-sufficient and have her practice traditional housewife roles, always take a back seat to Jack (even though she’s usually in the right) and have her put up with Vlad’s creepy advances far too much. Not ALL of these things are bad mind you and I probably wouldn’t mind her character too much besides for this one line but looking at it from a broader perspective it doesn’t really come together to make the best picture you know? Also, her sister Alicia - who was probably the most gender-non-conforming character in the show, is treated like she’s a joke or trashy by the narrative. (Don’t even get me started on the constant body-shaming either)

Paulina, Sam, Valerie, Jazz and Dani’s arcs all center around another male character (Danny) Ok this one is a tad more controversial because like yes, I understand Danny is the main character. It makes sense that most character growth is facilitated through him. Hell, even really progressive shows like Steven Universe filter character growth through the main male character. However, there are a couple key distinctions I’d like to point out. For example, Steven Universe has a Third-person limited omniscient POV. meaning all actions in SU are filtered directly through Steven’s perspective. This isn’t the case Danny Phantom, which has a Third-person objective POV, meaning that the story can follow many characters separate from each other, not just Danny. Also the female characters in Steven Universe are already 3 dimensional fully established characters without Steven and it’s even touched on in universe that the characters learn and grow without Steven’s help. This isn’t the case in DP. Paulina's main narrative shift is from being crazy about boys in general to being a devoted fan of Phantom. Sam’s whole arc is about getting together with Danny. Jazz’s arc is about learning how to best support Danny in ghost hunting. Val and Dani were probably two of the better female characters - despite still having Danny-centric arcs. Unfortunately, not only were their plans for character development cut short but any girl-power lines they may have had (something about there being no weak girls idk I’m too lazy to find it) feels fake and pander-y because of all the previous bad examples.

TL;DR I know it's easy to be like “who cares we don’t even respect canon anyway” but I think when source material perpetrates bad messages it’s important to view the content you are working with through a critical lens so you don’t maintain harmful ideas within your own work.

((sorry I hijacked your ask to get on a soap box but I had THOUGHTS about this topic))

#Danny Phantom #egg rants #oh tea #crit

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erenspaths · 4 years

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This chapter was pretty cool but not enough eren centric per me...

But again, Isayama being a genius, offered us some new perspectives and theories that could almost proved, I’m gonna explain my point here..

After a talk with my co-writer, and friend, Yama @shingeki-no-eren, we conclude that something weird appears now to be concrete: Eren is somehow pretty dead. At least, only his will survived thanks to the paths and the fact he is the attack titan that I remind you, is the only titan that can’t be controlled, manipulated by others: the attack titan has its own will, its own goal to archive.

So yeah, his transformation in founding titan in Shiganshina needed his physical body to be but it seems that since his transformation, Eren looks asleep, almost like dead. His eyes are closed, his posture seems to be that of an unconscious person, his head and arms held together by wires? seemed to support the theory in which Eren’s mind and body are manipulated by someone else or entity.

Honestly I don’t know. I’m torn between several theories that all make sense to me.

First of all, one theory that I surely excluded is that Ymir Fritz manipulating Eren because after reading the manga as a whole again, Eren by freeing Ymir and when he asked for her powers to carry out his project, reiterates that he doesn’t need her to help him to bear his burden, he doesn’t her to follow him because she’s finally free, to wander in the paths without giving any account to the holders of the titans’ powers. He also stated that she could follow him if only it was her own will.

So Ymir’s apparitions in the paths next to Eren or during chap 131, is her own will. Eren is free to act whatever he wants to act, actually.

But then again, Eren is clearly tied by some kind of wires.. maybe they are only there to support the monstrous weight that Eren’s arms and head must weigh in suspension... 🤷🏼‍♀️ nevertheless, his current posture is still reminiscent of that of an articulated puppet. I just can’t help myself to think that Yams made that in purpose to be ambiguous.

So Eren may could be manipulated by the attack titan.. I saw that theory many times, and honestly I really thought about it, and pieces by pieces it makes sense and in way it makes no sense... are you still with the thread of my mind? 🥴

Let me explain.. as I said previously, the attack titan is the only titan to have its own will, its not controlled by any other external wills, but according to Eren and his determination to kill all of his enemies, the fact that he is the attack titan shifter only increases his personal will. I don’t think that this titan can manipulate Eren as an independent entity, it would mean that this particular titan is able to think and act independently of its shifter, but that doesn’t make any sense at all. Rather, the attack titan should be seen as a turbo engine and Eren’s will is its fuel. Yet Eren can still act and work without the AT while the AT cannot act and work without being possessed by a shifter.

Beside that, we know that Eren can have access to future moments and this thanks to the power of the AT. It’s precisely this titan that allows him to see the future, yet we never have access to Eren’s predictions though, only memories or flashbacks that can be triggered at any moments when the situation is suitable and necessary elements gathered. For example, before the raid on Liberio, his will is strengthened when he remembers his mother Carla being eaten by his father’s first wife Dina transformed into a primal titan.

Because let me remember you that before that raid, Eren seemed to have lost some of his will to destroy his enemies after spending some time in Marley and after sharing an evening with his comrades, drinking and eating with some muslim people. He is a little in doubt... “should I act as I planned?” - “Humanity doesn’t seem so rotten, it’s like inside the wall after all, there are some good people and some bad ones.”

Then the next day, he vanished. Spending months pretending to be an eldian soldier in the Marleyan army, trying to refocus his main goal by infitraiting the enemy camp, in order to get as much infos as possible.. then meeting on his way back to Liberio, the little Falco Grice, a kind of sunshine boy, who helped him without asking questions.. again, Falco made Eren questioning himself but then again, Falco wasn’t enough this time to change Eren’s mind.

He made his plan become real during his raid on Liberio and took back the warharmer titan and finally came back to paradis with Mikasa and the others.

But finally what made Eren increasing his will during his talk with Reiner? It’s Willy Tybur’s discourse that made him gone fury. He got it. Whatever he can do, even if he forgives to those who hurted him, even if he tries to change his mind, the others won’t do the same. The other part of the humanity hates Paradis, hates Eldian people, hates Eren. They should die.

There are three solution offered to Eren at this point:

1. He follows Zeke’s plan, and helps Zeke to euthanize Paradis’ inhabitants, and forces Historia having a bunch of brats during her 13 years of existence because she would finally be the FT shifter so her children could become the new shifters of the 9 titans and the story continues...

Well...Zeke’s plan could work if you accept to commit a genocide on your own people. But who knows if someone from outside the walls won’t be committing the same thing Grisha Jaeger did to steal the FT from Frieda Reiss? All you need is one silly eldian and subject of Ymir, who survived Zeke’s plan of euthanasia and some old serum or some spinal fluid and here we go..

2. He follows his own will to destroy his opressors/enemies in order to take back his freedom for him and his people, but he needs to commit a global genocide for that. But they would be finally free.

3. He does nothing and let the rest of humanity oppressing them and bring back the FT and the AT to the royal bloodline family, so Zeke or Historia.

He picked up option 2, because his will is strong. He is so determinated and that’s what chap 133 showed us.

“No matter whatever you want to say, you can’t change my mind, I won’t stop the rumbling, I can’t gamble Paradis’ future”.

“If you really want to stop me, you’re free to do, come and fight me but don’t fail and kill me, otherwise you will lose.”

Eren is offering a chance to his old comrades to fight him, he is not begging them to kill him, he is offering them a chance to change things and reach their own purpose: save humanity. But he warned them that if they don’t want to change their mind, he is not going to change his.. they will finally be forced to fight, unfortunately.

To come back to my theories, Eren is dead only his will remains.

It could be a possibility if you take Eren in the paths moments. He is always in his child form, when his determination to obtain his freedom started. At the age, his obsession for freedom started but especially when he got his titan powers from Grisha, more specially when he became the FT shifter even if the FT powers weren’t released yet for Eren. As Ymir who is also always portrayed as a child when we all know she died as a young grown woman, at the end of her adolescence, again she seems to look the same little girl when she obtained the titans powers.

To my part, Eren and Ymir look like ghosts, a kind of illusions, or a sort of holograms. They look weird and totally dismissed of a real physical body as a real person.

But finally, is that possible? Are we sure that into the bones of Eren’s FT titan form there is Eren’s physical body? If Eren’s really dead already, is he going to reborn into another person, form or is he going to remplace Ymir in the paths?

Eren remains to be the only solution of all this story. He is the key. He is the solution.

All he has to do, is taking back the 9 titans powers and trying to summon the demon of the earth to bring back the powers that were given to Ymir, 2000 years ago, then vanishing... is that possible you think?

Feel free to interact, I would love to read your theory or your opinion about that fucked post. ☺️

#sorry my typos I will fix it later #eren protection squad #eren jaeger #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #eren snk #rin is talking #eren #aot #eren yeager #snk theories #ending theories #eren theories #chap 133 #snk 133 #snk spoilers

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talesmaniac89 · 4 years

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Well, Hello There Stranger - Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader (established relationship)

Summary: Sam informs you that Dean’s suffering from temporary memory loss and has forgotten you. Yet, when you meet your boyfriend, it isn’t the cold eyes of a stranger that meets yours.

Triggers: Fear, Worry, Temporary Memory Loss (Next part is fluffy, I swear!)

Y/N = Your name | Y/E/C = Your eye colour

Read Part 2 Here

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“(Y/N), before you go in there… There’s something you should know,” Sam was standing at the door when you nearly threw yourself out of the car as soon as you’d parked the beat-up old truck next to Dean’s Impala. Your phone with the many missed calls from Sam as you’d chosen to focus on the road lying forgotten in the car, telling the same story the younger Winchester was clearly going to force you to stop to listen to.

The big guy had to physically reach out to stop you from trying to rush past him and into the room. Your earlier conversation with the younger Winchester still ringing in your ears and making you deaf to his words.

“I know you’re a few hours away, but you need to come back to the motel (Y/N). Dean got hit, and… Shit... Just come,”

Dean was in there, and something was wrong. Hell… You might not have been given enough information to know what was wrong, but that was all you needed. Your Dean, the man you loved more than life itself, was in trouble. There was no way you weren’t going to be by his side.

“(Y/N)! Listen to me!” Sam stood in your way once more, stubbornly separating you from your boyfriend with just his body and the flimsy motel room door. It hurt you, physically and mentally, to hold your body still and stop from rushing past him to be with Dean. But, as you squared your jaw and set your pained, angry eyes in the youngest Winchester, your anger quickly faltered a little at the worry that has stained his hazel eyes. Quickly replaced with the whispers of soon to be heartbreak.

Oh God… No.

A thousand different scenarios were playing out behind the door and in your mind. Each was as true as the next until you could see what was hiding behind the thin motel room door with your own eyes. Like some twisted and cruel form of Schrodinger's Cat, with your heart playing the part of the feline. Unwilling to let you know whether your heart was broken or whole until you opened the door and confirmed yourself.

“Dean’s alright… Or, well, he will be,” Sam hurried to add the words as an arm reached out to steady you. Clearly seeing the pain darken your (Y/E/C) eyes as your heart acted the part of Schrodinger's plaything; not whole nor shattered, just somewhere in the painfully grey middle.

“Then just let me see him Sammy! I need to see him,”

You could hear the barely controlled hysteria through the shake of your own voice as you looked up at the hunter who was forcefully holding you in place. Unwilling to let you run to your boyfriend’s side. Though your whole body, every fucking gasp of air, was crying out to him. Aching to be near him.

Yet, even with the promise of Dean’s life being safe, Sam didn’t release the hold on your shoulders. Nor did any of the worry in his eyes subside. Dean was alright, or would be, yet something was still wrong. And if Sam wasn’t worried about his brother’s life… That could only mean that worry was focused elsewhere.

“What’s wrong with him?” You added, much more quietly, as you realised the truth hiding behind the hesitant worry in Sam’s eyes. He wasn’t worried for Dean’s safety; he was worried about how you would react to whatever was on the other side of the door.

“Hear me out… Please, don’t think it’s as bad as it sounds…” Sam’s words were still hesitant. His hands finally dropping from your shoulders, now that he knew you weren’t going to run in guns blazing to save your boyfriend from whatever threat, real or imagined, that was out to hurt him.

“Spit it out Winchester,” You flinched at the harsh steely cut in your tone as soon as it left you. But you couldn’t control it, not until you could see that Dean was in fact alive and well with your own eyes.

“The curse… It rebounded when we were trying to get it under lock and key,” The younger hunter’s voice barely rose above a whisper as he relayed the news to you. The knot in your stomach growing into a tangled mess that resembled the collection of protective charms on your side of the bed you shared with Dean.

“Dean was hit…”

“What does that mean Sam?” Your words came out shaky and breathless as you tried to remember the finer details of the curse. The small, unassuming book that hid the curse had just one word printed on its cover in pretty cursive letters.

Memories.

That was exactly it. The damned curse stole people’s memories. In the back of your mind, empty eyes and vacant souls stared back at you from the many lives the curse had already stolen. Painting a warped image of the man on the other side of the door. Forest green eyes empty, like a long-forgotten field left to wither. Unable to even remember his own name.

“It’s… Not as bad as it sounds. The curse didn’t manage to fully work, it’s just some backlash. Cas says it should correct itself within the next 24 to 48 hours. At first it was correcting itself faster, but it’s slowed down and...” Sam said, speaking over the broken sob that threatened to explode into the empty motel parking lot.

“He just… (Y/N), Dean can’t remember anything from the last four years,”

The worry in Sam’s eyes suddenly made sense. Four years ago, Dean Winchester didn’t have the faintest clue who you were. You’d met him on a hunt, two years and five months ago, the two of you were soon coming up on your two-year anniversary. Two years of blissful happiness by the side of your soldier. So, that meant, the man hiding behind that door, your Dean Winchester, didn’t have the faintest clue who you were. Of what the two of you shared.

You’d been discarded by his mind. The picture-perfect memories you shared were nothing more than a crumpled and faded polaroid to the hunter, with your smiling face scratched out and forcefully removed from the equation.

He wouldn’t remember the quiet nights spent wrapped in each other's arms soothing away the pain of another lost friend or ghosted kisses over still forming bruises. All the empty promises of an apple pie life after you finally managed to get rid of all the evil bastards. He’d have forgotten all your inside jokes, all your little shared quirks, the comforting morning routine you’d easily slipped into as you woke up by his side every day. All of it, every little memory that was more precious to you than life itself, was lost to him.

Dean couldn’t remember you. He couldn’t remember ever meeting you, or… Loving you.

“Oh…” Was all you managed to push out, suddenly unsure if you wanted to enter the small motel room. If what would meet you were the eyes of a stranger.

A man who’d look at you like you were just another piece of a puzzle he couldn’t make fit. Another case. Would you be able to deal with watching his green eyes, that usually burned like a forest fire, look at you with the blank disinterest of glancing over a stranger he’d pass by on the road?

“But! It’s only for a day or two. Castiel is sure his memories will return, and soon. Hell, he’s already showing signs of getting better. Before you came… It was 14 years,” Sam’s eyes were pained as memories of earlier hours, while he waited for you to join them, sprung unwanted up in his warm eyes. So much had happened in those fourteen years. And with Dean’s memories gone, it’d been up to Sammy to be the strong one. To weather every question.

“Things were returning faster, but still… The memories started slowing down at around the six-year mark and now…”

“I’m sorry Sam,” You whispered, unable to think up any words of comfort that wouldn’t just add to the man you considered a brother’s hurt.

“Don’t be… It’s, hell, this is going to sound kinda mean, but… It’s kind of funny,” Sam gave a choked laugh. A small sad smile replacing earlier worry, though you could still see some pain in his eyes.

“Funny?” For a second you worried the curse backfiring had led to some unwanted side effects as you gave Sam an incredulous look.

“I mean, yeah, at first it sucked. Not knowing if he’d get better. But now… He’s not really digging into the future or asking loads of serious questions. He’s just making outdated early 2000s jokes and asking if the Office is still on or if Led Zeppelin has made a comeback,” Sam said, a tired whispered laugh betraying the mixed emotions behind the words.

“So… Dean knows that he… He knows?” You stopped yourself from vocalising the amnesia. Unable to deal with how just the thought of his forgotten love for you sent sharp shots of pain through your very core.

“Yeah, we told him. I couldn’t just let him be. I mean, he didn’t know who Cas was at first, but I needed to make him understand that he was a friend, and that he’d lost his memories,” Sam said with a shrug. “I just… I didn’t want you to go in there not knowing. He will remember you (Y/N), it’ll just take a little while longer,”

“Thanks Sammy, I’ll be fine… Just knowing he’s healthy and that he’ll be right as rain soon is already enough,” You sighed, steeling your heart for what waited in the motel room at the same time as your body visibly calmed down. The tension that had rested there since you jumped in your car and broke every speed limit to make it to Dean’s side finally gone.

Sure, it would probably still hurt a bit to see no recognition in Dean’s eyes. Or feel the warmth of his love seeping through you, like you always did when his eyes met yours. But it was only temporary. You were a big girl, and you’d get through this bump in the road as well. No use crying or screaming, it was only a few hours, it wouldn’t hurt… Not too bad at least.

Who were you kidding?

It would hurt like hell. But it would hurt a lot more not to be by his side. Not when he needed you there. Even if he didn’t know it right now. Even if it wasn’t temporary, you still would’ve stayed. You’d help him make new memories. After all, the best part about your memories was making them with him.

“If you’re sure…” You shook away Sam’s hesitant question with a small shaky smile. Choosing to reach for the door instead of letting him talk you out of it. No, you weren’t sure. Shit, you were basically never sure about anything. As a hunter, over two thirds of your life was uncertainty. But you wouldn’t let that stop you.

Not when the person on the other side of the door was your Dean Winchester.

Taking a careful breath to swallow the sob that threatened to act as a knock and signal your arrival you let the cold motel doorknob ground you. Mentally preparing yourself to meet his blank eyes head on and wait…

Wait for your Dean to come back home. To come back to you.

Next Part

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Dean Winchester Tags: @ria132love

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casebasket · 4 years

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The Mystrade Treatise

I am long, long out of the Sherlock fandom, but I still have a soft spot for mystrade after ~ 7 odd years (the only thing I really cared about in the show), so when a friend asked about mystrade I hit them with a spontaneous 2000 word block of text. I thought I’d share it as an homage to the still quietly existing community of mystrade shippers out there. Basically, in this essay I will argue for my interpretation of how the BBC TV show Sherlock (2012) establishes an implied relationship between Mycroft, (The Government) and Lestrade (The Force) in the subtext. This analysis will be broken down to two parts: 1) show chronology / their history and 2) their compatibility, which can be further split into 2a) personalities and 2b) external circumstances.

(The beginning is the only formal(ish) part of - I’m calling it a treatise -, the rest of the piece is written in “I typed it all in messenger app” style. This all came out off the top of my head, so if you think I’m missing something I’m open to the callout)

TL;DR: I’m still mystrade trash and I’m pulling the receipts on mystrade canon

1) Their history - it's clear they know each other and are in communication with each other since the very beginning - and very likely even before - the events of the show. Just a show tidbit, the ending of the pilot episode has Lestrade watch John and Sherlock walk away happily staring into each other's eyes and tell Donovan about their potential as partners, whereas the actual first episode replaces him with Mycroft talking to his assistant Anthea, which shows their character parallels. In one aspect, their role as "aggravated older guardian" is a shared one and one that - rationally, but in fanon - allows them to commiserate with other another. Also, Mycroft kidnaps John in his very first day of him meeting Sherlock, so reasonable to conclude he did the same to Lestrade, so they've clearly met. And, I believe it's canon that Lestrade helped Sherlock with his drug problem, so he's clearly run into Mycroft, whether it's because his brother's OD'd or found with possession or whatever whatever. The possibilities are endless.

We have hints of them knowing each other throughout the show - in season 2 episode 2 the Hound of Baskerville (I am surprised and appalled I know this off by heart instead of more important things), the duo meets Lestrade in a tavern where he's clearly back from holiday and when Sherlock eggs him by basically calling him Mycroft's lackey, he, aggrieved, says "I don't just do what your brother tells me", which is a line I still unfortunately remember over 5 years later, and that is the first precedent set in canon that they clearly communicate. We can interpret this line, given the circumstances, that Mycroft asked him to cut his vacation short to go check up on his brother, and Lestrade, being whipped, was like fine.

This is mere speculation, but in that mini episode, Many Happy Returns, Lestrade is listening to Anderson go on about his conspiracy theories on how Sherlock is still alive, and at the end of it he passes a newspaper article about Sherlock, and he smiles at it like he KNOWS he's still alive somewhere even though he just walked out calling Anderson on his bullshit and dismissing his theories, and I like to interpret that as Mycroft told him Sherlock's still alive. Plus, when Sherlock greets him after his two year absence, the way Lestrade reacts is less “am I seeing a ghost because you’re supposed to be dead” and more “you’re finally back I already know you were alive because my boyfriend Mycroft told me”.

The first time we see them in frame together (in the mystrade community this is famously known as the 29 frames moment because they only showed up for - 29 frames, like 2 seconds) was in season 3 episode 3, where Sherlock goes missing and everyone looks for him in the hidey holes they know of. Lestrade is seen in Mycroft's office while Mycroft tells him about potential hiding spots. Honestly he did look hella dismissive and rude but you know what? Everyone was stressed. But this shows not only is Lestrade trusted in his secret government offices - and likely this was the secret one because it looked like a cellar - but he trusts Lestrade implicitly. When Sherlock is about to leave on a plane, Lestrade's in a pub watching the TV screen when Moriarty's face is all over it and the very next scene we see Mycroft on the phone with someone getting the news that this was happening. Coincidence? I think NOT - Lestrade called up Mycroft and told him, CANON.

And then there's the Christmas special or whatever it was, about the abominable bride, and yes, this one is set in Sherlock's drug fevered mind, but that only means that, in Sherlock's mind, he sees the two of them as a set (Sherlock ships it confirmed lol). During the whole episode when we see the canon versions of Mycroft and Lestrade they are together as a unit. When John leaves him, Sherlock's mind goes to the most reliable thing in his life to help him, which is his brother (and his brother's boyfriend) and his friend Lestrade to help him, together. Sherlock asks the two of them to help him dig up a body and they share a Look, which is clearly Mycroft's way of asking Lestrade to do the dirty work of actually digging and Lestrade resignedly concedes because there is no other way to analyse the Look, and in the next scene we see Sherlock and Lestrade digging in a grave while Mycroft holds up a lantern because Mycroft doesn't like legwork and Lestrade, clearly his boyfriend in Sherlock's mind, understands this and is willing to accommodate.

And then we have the whole of S4, or as I like to call it, Johnlock hell but mystrade victories!, because in s4e1 when Mary is shot in the aquarium, the first person they look at is each other, indicating they take some level of comfort or seek it out from one another in a room full of other people, also the two of them arrived together so they clearly coordinated, also when the gun was lifted Mycroft looks shocked and steps back a bit while Lestrade moves forward in a “ready to step in” protective gesture, and this all happened in the same frame, and there are gifsets of this happening, and everyone was quietly screaming (Johnlockers in pain, mystrade shippers in "look at them sharing a frame together look at these scraps we're getting"). In the second ep we don't see them together but we do see Mycroft getting hit on by Lady Smallwood and he looks hella uncomfortable about it, while Lestrade is talking with another detective and Sherlock shoots him down telling him she's not the one (because clearly we all know who is the one and Sherlock knows it's his brother).

Oh yeah also jumping back to S3, Mycroft is saying no one can match him and he sees everyone as goldfish but Sherlock is like oh really and was lowkey concerned about him and that's how the mystrade fandom got this whole goldfish thing and it's adorable (special shout out to duchessclovery ‘s masterful fanvid romcom series A Fish Called Greg), and in the wedding ep Sherlock calls Mycroft to attend the wedding but he refuses, and Sherlock says "specter in the feast" to entice him and I like to interpret that as him lowkey jabbing him with a *in*spector in the feast because Lestrade was there looking tired and lonely throughout the whole ep lmaaaaaaaaaaaaao.

Anyway back to S4E2, Mycroft is getting hit on, Lestrade is the most tired we've ever seen him, Sherlock is trying to waive off Lestrade's suitors to save him for his brother. Why is Lestrade so tired? Yes, he's questioning a suspect or something, but also! maybe it's related to his love interest getting hit on, who knows???? And lastly, the last ep of S4, the golden era of mystrade, at the very end of the episode after we've seen Mycroft at his most vulnerable, Sherlock asks Lestrade to "take care of him (Mycroft). he's not as strong as he seems". This was an explicit request by Sherlock, addressing Lestrade correctly for the first time, to take care of his brother, and Lestrade says yes. Of course I will. S4 ended with the promise of the him taking care of Mycroft and honestly I don't care about the entire episode except that part

2) A: their personalities: so, Mycroft, as his colleagues know him, is ~ the ice man ~. He's hard to know, even harder and more stubborn and isolated than his brother, and on top of that he's like, contractually obligated under his top secret government job to not be known. That makes him, and this is canon as Sherlock discussed his loneliness with him in S3, even more lonely than his brother, and probably, as much as he likes to think himself more accommodating than his brother and he can definitely pretend for the sake of appearances, more difficult to deal with than Sherlock if he really sets his mind to it. But he's not a complete block of ice - after all, ice can melt - and he has soft spots for his family, esp. his unruly little brother, and by extension (maybe more necessity than real care, but still) the people his brother affiliates with. Because Sherlock is so tricky to deal with, I believe he has a soft spot for people who share that softness for his spiky sibling, and no one cares for Sherlock as he does except for Mrs Hudson, John, and Lestrade. Lestrade's done it for even longer than John, and in the show plays a somewhat paternal figure to Sherlock despite him causing him even more stress sometimes than solving cases for him would relieve. Lestrade is shown to drop everything to help Sherlock when he needs it, and is considered one of his best friends when Moriarty put a sniper on each of Sherlock's closest acquaintances (Lestrade was a target). Lestrade always saw the good in Sherlock despite everything, and believed he could be great. Very few sees the same potential, or shows that level of kindness for - lets be honest here - someone we would want to kick in real life. Lestrade's kindness and patience, enough to deal with Sherlock, surely can be extended to involve Mycroft, as Mycroft's protectiveness extends somewhat to Sherlock's friends.

And this is not a one way street of just Lestrade being kind and accepting. The people Sherlock surrounds himself with appear dull, and have "normal" lives, but secretly either have a florid past (Mrs Hudson) (and her present with the race car and her quick thinking when the flat gets ransacked) and/or crave adventure and danger and intrigue (John) (Molly). Lestrade is the probably the same. He seems aggravated by Sherlock but still like him a whole lot and truly care for him, and you don't go into policing if not for some kind of excitement. He has a failed marriage with his wife who boringly cheated on him with a PE teacher, like how predictable and cliche, and they broke up. Lestrade is loyal, and he wants to fix things, but in the end it doesn't work out. The show doesn't really tell us why, but given what we know of his work and his habits, he probably spends way too much time on the job and in part, neglected his home life. That isn't to say the cheating his wife did can be condoned, nor was it justified, but it does tell us that Lestrade is a workaholic who craves excitement and adventure which explains his attachment to Sherlock. Who else can match that with him in a relationship? Another workaholic who surrounds himself in government intrigue and MI6 bullshit cloak and daggers who also share a soft spot for the most annoying detective consultant, of course!!! For all we know from the show, Mycroft is Lestrade's one constant relationship outside of work. Their common interest is keeping their shared loved ones safe. Beyond that, even though Mycroft feels bored by everyone because "no one is as smart as i, hohoho", Sherlock used to be the same but he found John. We see Lestrade able to hold his own against Sherlock sometimes too, and he is a detective inspector, so as much as Sherlock likes to call him dumb we know that Lestrade's actually pretty smart. If he can hold up his own against Sherlock, he can hold up his own against Mycroft. Mycroft needs someone with the patience to go through all his bullshit, and Lestrade needs someone smart and interesting and protective, because as a protector himself sometimes you forget you need someone to protect you in turn. And that is basically their whole thing - two fierce guardians, trying to protect the world, finding they also need protection, and finding it in each other (end of season 4). Also there's this scene where Lestrade is sitting by his desk with his feet propped up while he eats a donut and says "not my division" which looks exactly like this scene where Mycroft is sitting by his desk with his feet propped up looking smug, or as the mystrade shippers like to call it, "boyfriends picking up each other's behaviours". Essentially, the johnlock relationship sort of parallels the mystrade relationship in that we have a smartass, spiky, secretly vulnerable one paired with a badass, patient, relatively more sunny one. But more mature. And also preferable. The two of them share some kind of relationship that has reached the point of nonverbal understanding, as we can see in their quiet glances towards each other during the few times we see them on screen together, that requires a level of trust and time.

2) B: compatibility in external circumstances - this is a short one, it's mostly that they're both workaholics who needs someone to understand their unpredictable work schedules, and also how minimal their social life can get being a) married to work and b) work can be classified and you can't tell anyone about your case files / government coverups. No one could understand the need for secrecy and getting up in the middle of the night for a case/subterfuge than Mycroft and Lestrade, as their career roles work in tangent with each other. And they share (1) chaotic child between the two of them, so they just. get it when one receives a call telling them to fish this loud annoying bitey man child out of the Thames. Their jobs get in the way of establishing close relationships, so who better to relate to than another who live the same kind of life and can understand?

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writerforfun · 3 years

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Underwing Challenge Day 6 + Day 7

6. What does your portfolio look like? Talk about as many other WIPs as you’d like here.

I have to be honest here, I never understood portfolio. I mean u understand what it is and its purpose but I never understood how to make it for myself.

But either way I guess I do have certain things I worked on.

Starting of with Collection.

1. Collection: Story 1: Mirror Defect: (DONE) (Sorry no cover)

Not all is as it seems.

Not all can be explained and even when the truth is out not everything will make sense.

"I just lost my brother, I can't lose her."

What can you do when you lose trust in those around you? When grief holds you too close?

When lies are hidden all around you?

When nothing is real?

Can you trust your own eyes? When all goes wrong who can you trust?

"Experitment 1034, you are next"

Is anything real? Are you real?

**Warning: character death, graphic description of the deceased character.**

I SUCK AT SUMMARIES.

The story was originally done to scare my uncle. I was going to send him this other story, which R.L. Stine wibe to it but sadly I lost it.

So here we are. Now this story features Mark, who despite all that has occurred, is trying to fix his broken family, even if it means destrying himself but is this family real?

You can check it out here

2. So, A Deal?: (DONE)

Met with death she has no choice but to let death consume her.

"No, I can't leave like this! Not like this."

There is no other way, or is there? But is she ready?

"What do you want? Does your soul not fill with rage, anger and despair? Pushing you to the core of vengeance? Don't you feel like a ghost? Dreading you will disappear? You know you are nothing but a ghost, and eventually, you will have to fade."

"I have seen the face of affliction brought by my reality, I'm tortured by the future of things that cannot be, haunted by visions of yesterday."

Her sin is great, but her desire greater. Will she survive the burn?

This was something I did for my school wrok once. Although it is quite different than the original work. I'm quite happy with the last chapter. I honestly just posted it out as a test to see if others would like it.

It took quite an effort and I enjoyed doing the last bit of it. I really want to make a sequal to it, get it going, but not really sure if this is going to go well.

You can check it out here.

3. Solar Elements: (DONE)

Avatar: The last Airbender inspired.

A lot can happen during a lifetime, faultless rotating to flaws, heroes into villains, a lifetime of destruction smiling in your wakes.

A lot can be lost in a lifetime.

"Wolf is going overboard,"

"We do not have time to wait."

"Surrender now and we shall show you all mercy."

"No, we will never yield to you"

"Then so be it."

"You are not prohibited to address better yet conduct such disgrace." "We are still alive!"

"Love you, Son"

A lot can happen during a lifetime, faultless rotating to flaws, heroes into villains, a lifetime of destruction smiling in your wakes.

"And so she has finally awoken."

I had done this for a story contest once, sadly I was unable to win. But I have to behonest, if I had I would have been so annoyed, it was awful, so awful. I won't talk much on it, as I still don't like this too much.

This feature elemtnal magic and time twist you can say, where a character, reborn must choose to either repeat history or change it completely.

4. Pirates tale: (WIPs)

Had this in for a while, been working on it but didn't have a plot till now.

The ship has no name, no crew, nothing. But if you see it, it's already too late.

Legend says they're ghost, some say they are cursed, others....... others don't live to tell the tale.

It was inspired by a prompt I saw once. Hoping to make these pirates cured to be vampires, hidden from all and only visible at night. They are insearch of their first crew captain, the one who must break the cures. Problem is, Captian dies 30 years ago.

Guess, his hidden daughter must be placed instead.

This is dumb, so dumb, but hey, I'll work on it.

5. The Basement: (WIPs)

Another school work.

This one feartures students sneaking into their school's basement. Each with their own story on why the basement is forbbiden.

If only they had listened and not followed through, then maybe they would not have encountered, the hidden dark past of the school.

This has a gay couple, lol I actaully send it to my teacher but I don't think she noticed :(. It needs alot of work though, so this may take a while.

6. To find the Truth: (WIPs)

This one seems to be liked a lot by you guys. Many seem intrigued.

In the dystopian future, when the world government collapsed, when humans fell and the virus took hold, out rose a series of mutants. Their genes mutated by the virus released when a power plant went nuclear.

These mutants, blessed with powers beyond their control, have taken leadership. Smart, strong, powerful and undefeatable. They hold power over the weak like you and me. But I won't let them stop me. I won't let them come in the way.

They are sloppy, weak and useless. The world is filled with criminals, danger and people in need. This world needs justice, it needs help and they won't help, so I will.

"They'll take you away. They take people like them away"

"I won't let them"

I worked up a lot on this in the past few day and have actually most of the plot down. Well the main chracter's backstory at least, even how the virus started and why these mutants have taken over.

I just need to start it out and get it going. I have done that and I was thinking of adding bits and pieces on how the world is after every sub-story, like telling the tale as the story progress.

Was also hoping to give this story, a big reveal as to who these mutants are and how they came to be, why they take other's like them and how they find other's like them.

7. To Sacrifice or To Live? (WIPs)

Still working up on the name here, but the story goes like this.

Two wedding decades a part, each holding nothing but tale forgotten.

An evil entity hanting them both. A power over both familes, readdy to demolish them whole this time.

Will the scarifice work?

Ok, before you turn away, here me out here.

Two weddings, one in the 1900s and the other in 2000s. Both familes trapped in a curse long active, each must work to find a way to break the curse. One failed, made it worse, will the new bride make it? Or will she suffer worse?

8. Collection: Haunting Memories (WIPs)

Jenny doesn't know how she did it but she did. She didn't mean to. She really didn't. But Nina is dead now and it's her fault. She did it.

It's her fault.

Then why do they blame Jake? Jake is sweet, kind and caring. Sure he was the one with the blade, covered in blood and coming to kill Jenny next but it wasn't Jake. Because she saw.

Saw him kill her. Push the blade through Nina, watching as the girl fell. Her blood turning the ground crimson. She saw as the life left Nina's eyes. As the killer slumped to the ground, the control over him wearing off.

Jenny knows because she killed Nina. Then why does no one believe her? And why do her memories differ from Jake's?

“I am telling you what happened.”

“All you are doing is wasting our time.”

“Then be patient, this is all I have. Please just hear me out.”

“We are busy people here. We don’t have time for stupid tales, girl”

“This is not a stupid tale. If you could just listen.”

“We are listening. Listening to you for the past 10 minutes, all you have done so far is tell us useless things. We have things to do.”

“Everything I mention is important. One thing missed and you won’t understand. Please. I need your help.”

“You have 10-”

“15”

“Fine 15 minutes.”

This I hope to work and get done by at least in the next month. It need a lot of work and must be quite slow yet fast paced. I need to make the plot a bit more than just what I have written.

8. Trick? No, I'll take the Treat (WIPs)

Halloween themed. Done quite long ago.

What will you do when your Halloween turns into a nightmare?

I have nothing much on it at the moment, but will update this soon.

7. What kind of partnership are you looking for in this event? Friendship? Somebody to bounce ideas off of? Something else? What sorts of people are you hoping to meet and adopt?

Honeslty, I did a lot of research in the past few days and boy do I ned a lot of work done.

For starters, I need someone who can actually tell me how my work is going, just how kuch of an effort I have out in and how it seems to others.

I need harsh, quite harsh feed back so I know what I am doing wrong, what I should improve with and what interests the reader about the book.

I also say wish to meet and know other writers here. Would love to meet them and get to know them.

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girlofmanyfandoms · 4 years

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The Angel and The Siren

A/n: Based off of anon prompt that I’ll post separately so y’all can see that! Ily anon, that prompt was just *chef’s kiss*. Also I got a lotta stuff to do, so idk if this is good or not (it’s not)-

Word count: 2000

Warnings: idk mate, executive dysfunction kicked in and this happened

Writing taglist: @everyonehasthoughts @imaramennoodle @bookwyrminspiration @holesinmyfalseconfidence @percabetn @an-absolute-travesty @linhamon-roll @holesinmyfalseconfidence @linhamon2 @a-lonely-tatertot @loverofallthingssmart @vibing-in-the-void @clearlykeefitz

Linh dozed off to the side before jolting back to life. Marella shot her a concerned look, but she waved it off to the side. She had to fight through this. Sophie’s lips were moving, but all she heard was the distant calls of the wind mixing with the cries of dawn. Off in the distance, she saw a flareodon glide from the forest to the ocean, it’s beak gracing the water just enough to cause a beautiful rippling effect. Yet still, the colors blended and blended together, the world nothing but a watercolor painting fading away.

“Linh!”

“I’m alive,” she blurted out.

“Yeah, I almost couldn’t tell,” Tam muttered, grunting as he helped her up from her near-fall. “You nearly passed out.”

“I’m fine,” Linh reassured him, putting a great deal of her weight on her brother’s shoulder. “I just... need a breath of fresh air.”

“You should probably head home,” Tam suggested, though it was obvious he was restraining himself. “I’ll update you when I get there.”

Linh had an amused look playing on her face. “Tam, I’ll be alright, I’m just tired. I’ll take a walk and see how I feel, okay?”

“But-”

“I’ll go with her,” Marella offered eagerly. She flushed, and began to correct herself. “Just to make sure she’s safe.”

Linh’s face lit up and she grabbed her hand, grinning from ear to ear. Her guardian angel had arrived. “We’ll be safe!” Marella called before dragging Linh out of the house and down the porch of the vacation home.

They drew closer together, Linh examining Marella’s features in full. Oh, she was an angel alright. Her eyes held a sort of fiery determination that dared anyone to approach her, yet showed the upmost sympathy for those who struggled like her. For those who were weak and beaten down before they were strong and built up. Sunlight cascaded onto her, making her blonde locks swirl through the air like flames from a newly made campfire, warming everyone around her. Like a halo.

Marella blushed and glanced to the side. “Is there something on my face?” Linh shook her head and leaned on her a bit, pulling her into a side hug as they approached the shoreline of the tropical island hideout. “You just have a pretty one.”

Marella scoffed. “You’re talking?”

“Yeah, I am.” Linh waded into the water, letting the tides bring her underwater, just to the point where her face was above water level, hair floating around her like thin sheets of sea foam. She sat up slowly, and started swimming farther from shore, stopping to beckon Marella. Follow me, the gesture called. The beautiful siren waited patiently, a strand of hair in her face with her head at a slight tilt making her look both shy and innocent, and sly but deadly. The angel was entranced, so she kicked off her boots and followed without hesitation.

When Marella got close enough, Linh held her by the waist, ordering the water to surround them like walls. She pulled Marella close and guided her in a sort of slow dance, letting the tides carry them. Linh’s movement were fluid, and Marella followed her lead, trying to focus on mimicking her movements rather than her heart threatening to explode in her chest.

Deep breaths, she thought to herself. She’s just doing this to keep Tam and the others off her back. Linh hummed, resting her forehead on Marella’s shoulder. “I wish there was something we could do about this.”

Marella panicked. She couldn’t have meant what she thought, or rather hoped, she meant. “This meaning...”

She broke their link, bobbing up and down with the waves, gesturing around her in a vague, fragmented manner. “All of this. The Neverseen, the Treaty with the other Intelligent Species, my parents, the matchmaking system. Everything. I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to live my life, just like everyone else. But now the adults are cowards and force a group of teenagers, two of which were banished from their society for years, to save the world. I just-” She paused, her voice cracking as she looked towards the sky to blink back tears. “I just want to be a kid. Is that too much to ask?”

Even Linh, with her sweet and innocent front, was breaking. She was crushed, and broken, and in pain, and it tore Marella’s heart into pieces. “I’m so sorry. I-if you don’t mind me asking, what was that like? Like, what happened before you got banished?”

“I was a kid,” Linh smiles sadly in reminiscence. “An unhappy one, but a kid nevertheless. But when I got to Exillium... I became a monster.”

“You’re no monster.” Marella frowned. “And didn’t the group say that they feared ‘The Shade’ because he was protecting ‘The Hydrokinetic’?”

She chuckled in response. “That’s what they wanted you to think. The others were scared of Tam, definitely, but not before they were scared of me, and not for the same reason.”

Marella raised her eyebrows, daring to swim a little closer and lean on her a bit. “Care to elaborate?”

“I guess it would help to let something out.” Linh bit her lip in thought. “And... if there’s anyone I would want to tell first, it’d be you.”

She breathed for a moment, her action syncing with the swells of the ocean. “I got banished a week after the floods. We were going to Councillor Terik to see if there was any potential that would ‘save us from our fate.’ Terik said that he wanted us to meet with Quinlin and Livvy first, to view our records and check if we had any medical issues. We also had to go shopping for clothes, makeup, accessories, anything to make the two of us look different, like we were born separately. But since we both manifested relatively young, and we hadn’t gotten into Foxfire yet, we couldn’t control ourselves.”

“And that’s when the flood happened?”

“No,” she laughed. “If it were that simple, we wouldn’t have been banished. No, what happened was a combination of neglect, stress, panic, and misfortune.”

“So...”

“So something wasn’t supposed to be there, and we freaked out, and our powers crashed together and ripped the barrier open even further than it was getting.”

“It was already breaking?” Marella asked.

“It was old,” Linh shrugged, though from the way she was examining her damp clothes for lint, it was clear that the siren had told a white lie. She crossed her arms and looked down, presumably in guilt and shame, though most likely to fight off the wisps of pain and trauma that clung to her with a vengeance, like a ghost of who she once was.

The angel was conflicted, but decided to take up her own strategy. She extended her hand. “Let’s get farther away from here. See what the jungle has to offer.”

Linh hesitantly accepted it, the walls descending slowly, soon at peace with the rest of their surroundings. A pulsing of emotions ran through her, a symphony from a past life. It confused her, but despite the vapor clouding her mind, she was able to make one clear thought.

Her hands fit perfectly in mine. Linh shook her head vigorously to clear it of those irrational ideas. She’d learned the hard way what getting close to someone cost. “What are you thinking then?”

“You said you’re stressed, right? Like you can’t be free?”

She nodded, eyes narrowing.

“Let me show you what freedom looks like.” Marella let Linh guide the two of them to shore, releasing all of the water trapped in their clothes and hair back into the environment. Doing an awkward hop to get her boots back on, she raced into the jungle, using her momentum to launch herself onto the nearest tree, managing to get her arms around the lowest branch. She swung her body up and let one arm hold her, using her other hand to aid her in letting out an ear-piercing summoning whistle.

In a moment, the flareodon that had been circling the island landed on Marella’s arm like a hawk. Marella waved Linh over as it preened. “See? He’s free to go wherever he likes and do whatever he likes when he wants to do it; he’s got no calls of the sea binding him to a workbench and no looming duties of the hearth to dedicate his life to. And what does that make him?”

“A freelancer.”

“Free, Linh. That’s the key word. He’s free. And you will be too. You just have to have faith.”

“I wish I had that.” She sunk down against the tree opposite to hers, fiddling with a ridiculously large leaf that had fallen from a nearby plant. “And maybe there is some for you. But I’m a twin, and a previously banished one at that, and my life will be dictated by some stupid matchmaker trying to match me up with a stupid ‘powerful’ man that I’ll never love!”

The flareodon was startled by the quick escalation of her volume and took off. Marella, however, drew closer. “Is there a reason you know that you’ll never love that man?”

Quit the wishful thinking Marella! But still, her heart held hope.

“It’s based purely off of genetics,” she whispered, her voice betraying her.

“Linh, come on, I know it’s something deeper,” Marella insisted, bringing the girl to her feet. She diverted her eyes, refusing to even look up. “Answer me, please.”

“You know, you’ve got a lot of fire in your soul, Mare,” Linh murmured. “It’s admirable. But I think back and I analyze and there’s not a single thing like that about me. All I do is pretend to be an innocent little girl just to drag people down with me. There’s nothing admirable about that.”

“Hey, no one talks about my Linh like that, got it?”

My Linh? their minds screamed in unison. On one end, Marella’s cringe scorched at the edges of her mind. On the other, Linh was drowning in the overwhelming feeling she never dared to feel. Hope. Yet again, in the distance, she heard the wind throwing itself upon the raging waves. Though they weren’t raging anymore. They were systematically crashing together, a docile beat not so foreign to her combining with the whistling of the tree leaves to form the melody she longed to sing all along. Home. This is it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-”

Linh tossed her leaf to the side, standing up with newfound confidence. “You didn’t. You don’t have to apologize for anything. In fact, I should thank you.”

Marella laughed nervously. “There’s nothing to thank me for.” She looked around for a change of topic. “It’s getting late, you should head home. Tam said he’d check up on you, he’ll get worried if you’re not there.”

“Tam worries no matter what.” Linh shook it off. “And besides, I don’t want to go home alone. I like... being around you.”

“I like being around you too,” Marella flushed. She glanced to the side and picked up a fallen hibiscus that was still intact, quickly braiding it into Linh’s hair. “There. Now you can have a piece of me wherever you go.”

Linh smiled sweetly, pulling Marella’s collar towards her and pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “I think I’d rather have all of you,” she breathed softly, before stepping back and holding her crystal up to the Sun.

“Thanks, babe!” she called, a smirk proving her pride as she stepped into the light.

Marella touched her cheek, in shock from the confession, as goosebumps travelled up her arms. Her other hand frantically searched her pockets for her leaping crystal. Biting her lip, she glanced to the side, having to squint as the sun began its journey to the other side of the world. Surely the crew wouldn’t mind if she slipped away too. Besides, there was something more important. The siren called.

#*bouncing up and down* didja like it?#probably not #but i can dream ☺️#Cade’s writing #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #marella redek #linh song #tam song #marellinh #linh x marella #linhella

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lustresky · 4 years

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all i ask [peter parker x f!reader]

summary: You question your true feelings for Peter after missing out on five years of your life.

wc: 2400ish.

themes: angst(ish), fluff, happy endings, best friends to lovers trope, mention of dermatillomania, existential questionings...

a/n: this is the first x reader that i have ever written, so sorry in advance if it’s awkward:’’’) english also isn’t my first language, so please do hit me up if i make any mistakes/some things sound wrong! still, i hope that some of you out there will still like this lil thing. i just want to keep peter in my pocket gawd what a bby:’’’’’’’( p.s. title is a song by adele! just had to name this that cuz it unexpectedly came into my playlist while i was writing this and the song just fit so well that it shocked me haha

requests are open! & pls don’t forget to like and reblog, thank you! c:

THIS TAKES PLACE AFTER ENDGAME, RIGHT BEFORE FFH. IT EXCLUDES THE LOVE STORY BETWEEN LIZ & PETER IN HOMECOMING.

available on ao3.

The rom-com flickered on the screen in front of your and Peter’s eyes, the only light illuminating the small living room.

Your legs were sprawled on top of Peter’s own, your arms becoming a bit numb from the fact that you haven’t moved them from their cramp inducing position for the past fifteen minutes. It wasn’t your fault— the small sofa could only leave you and Peter enough space to lounge about.

He had invited you over for some much needed “hang out” time. Considering the fact that both of you had missed out on five years of your life, you had suggested you both catch up on all of the movies the two of you had missed; but one thing led to another and now you were both watching late 90’s and early 2000’s films.

You were surprised, and maybe even mildly offended, when Peter had said that he had never watched Mean Girls nor Clueless. The boy who spew out pop comic references every other second had never watched the classics for every teenage girl? The blasphemy!

You fiddled with the fluffy throw covering your legs and partially, Peter’s. Your attention wasn’t really on the movie anymore, you’d seen it multiple times. Could probably recite it by heart, you thought, if you concentrated hard enough.

Speaking of concentration, your eyes inadvertently found their spot upon Peter’s face. It was quite funny, and maybe even adorable if you wanted to go that way, how concentrated the geeky boy was over such a cliché film. You had never once thought, with all of the years that you had known him, that he would listen and take Cher Horowitz’s words to heart.

Peter didn’t notice your gaze, and so you took that as an unspoken permission to roam your eyes over his features: the small lines already appearing beside his eyes, a tell-tale sign of how much he smiled— or at least, tried to, these days. There were those chiseled cheeks and the sharp jawline that he somehow managed to maintain despite eating delivery food every other day. (You can’t blame May, she tries her best, really; but sometimes Thai or Chinese is just way more palatable.) His nose, a bit crooked, from an ”accident.“ (You still don’t really know the exact details about that one, and frankly, you think it would hurt just hearing about it.) Soft curls of his brown hair fell over his forehead, messy and barely brushed.

Truly, you could probably spend a whole hour just staring at him. It’s weird, you know, who the hell stares at their own best friend for long periods of time? Well, MJ probably does, but then again she draws people most of the time so that’s socially allowed... and well— she’s MJ. She just… does that. You suppose.

Maybe she does have a point, you mused. People-watching seemed fun, seeing the way that people processed information was interesting, but you couldn’t really imagine doing that to anyone— anyone else but Peter, at least.

You loved Peter. It wasn’t even a question. Truly, you did— he was family. However, after the Snap, you started to question how you truly felt about him.

Did you ‘love’ him? You had asked yourself that question multiple times already. Then again, he was cute, goal-oriented, stubborn, loyal, smart, geeky, strong... (not just physically, between his difficult childhood and what you both had just gone through, you think that he may just be the strongest person that you know, mentally.) He knew how to make you laugh, how to make you feel safe… God, he was your exact type.

However, you had always put your feelings aside ever since you came back from the dead. What if it was just your mind craving for affection, afraid that you would never be able to experience the love that you had always wanted? Were you just terrified of the thought of not living your life to the fullest, that you started to ’love’ the first person to have ever given you warmth, just because the choice to do so was taken away from you?

Did you actually love him in that way? Would you still have loved him in that way, even if that purple fucking raisin didn’t come out of the fucking sky and take you both away from reality without even asking? Were you just blindsided? Were you wearing rose-coloured glasses?

What type of love for him did you feel, exactly?

It didn’t really help that Peter was way more clingy and touchy now. Sure, you were best friends even before then, but you never really touched each other so often before. His actions only further spiraled your pondering.

His hands seemed to linger more on your shoulders, nowadays. Now, he would, absentmindedly, lay his hands on your thighs while you were talking. Now, his hugs were tighter, warmer, and always included both of his arms— unlike those casual, one armed hugs that you would give each other while saying goodbye after school, right before you both ceased existing.

While talking, his eyes seemed to stare straight into yours, which always made you falter with your words before you shook his gaze off. Once, you saw him fixating his eyes on your lips while you vented to him about a mathematical formula that gave you a hard time.

He never really did that before— whenever you didn’t understand something, he would always just give you a small grin before shaking his head and finding a way to better explain the topic to you. At first, you thought that maybe he just had a lot on his mind, that he was just staring into space…

Or maybe, just maybe, he loved you. In that way.

Though, now that you thought more about it, maybe he just craved affection like you did. He went through a lot. His life was never devoid of danger, and it wasn’t questionable to want comfort after all of the things that he had gone through. Did he truly feel that way about you, or did he only see you as a comfort tool? You wouldn’t be angry if he did, out of all the people that you knew that deserved more reassurance and love, he was definitely on top of the list.

You didn’t mind. You understood.

Was he in the same boat as you?

You startled yourself away from your thoughts when Peter suddenly retracted his body further back into the couch, as if he wanted to bury himself in it. His brows were furrowed, nose scrunched, lips curled up in disgust; though to your relief his eyes were still glued to the screen and he hadn’t just seen you checking him out. You chuckled at the unexpected reaction, “What’s gotten you so worked up?”

Peter shook his head from side to side, as if that would help him from his current situation. “I get that they aren’t really related, but it’s just— weird.” He replied.

Intrigued, you shifted your eyes over to the screen, and was welcomed by Cher and Josh kissing. You laughed at Peter’s disgust.

“How is it weird? They’ve had— like, very evident tension for half of the movie, Pete.” You replied, eyes watching the way Josh held Cher’s face in his hands. As much as you would never admit it, your stomach fluttered at the scene. “Don’t tell me you didn’t expect it to happen.”

Peter groaned. “It’s not that I didn’t expect it to happen, it’s just— Josh is what, almost twenty or something? And Cher is our age!” He rattled off. “I’m having flashbacks to when I learned that Luke and Leia were actually related.”

You shook your head and let out a snort. Typical Peter, always finding a way to reference Star Wars.

“It’s just a lil’ kiss scene Pete, don’t get so worked up about it.” You chuckled. You let out a dreamy sigh, your lip unknowingly curling into a small smile. Truth be told, you've always wanted something so passionate yet so soft like that to happen to you.

You couldn’t help but let the next words tumble out of your mouth. “Isn’t it romantic though? The fact that the person that Cher has been searching and looking for so hard was actually just right there.”

“Always there…” Your voice slowly found itself becoming quieter, until it was only a ghost of a whisper. “Right by your side.”

You felt your cheeks grow hot. What the fuck was all that sudden sentimental bullshit, Y/N? You thought to yourself.

You hoped that Peter just didn’t pick up on what you had just said. The movie was loud enough to cover it, right?

With a reassuring breath, mostly to yourself, you turned your gaze back to Peter’s face.

Only to find him staring back at you.

Fuck, what were you thinking? With his enhanced senses, of course he would’ve heard what you had said.

Your breath got caught in your throat as your brain almost short circuited from the unexpected eye contact. His stare was unrelenting; from the dim light of the television, you can see his dilated irises, swimming with what you can only assume was longing… and hope.

The air suddenly seemed thick with tension. What kind it was? You weren’t really sure, but the movie and its noises were now just background noise and lighting. From the corner of your eyes, you see Peter’s Adam apple bob up and down as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Y/N…” He started, slowly, seemingly unsure of how to word his sentence. You mustered up a small bit of courage and sent him a small smile, patiently waiting for his brain to catch up with his mouth. It was one of his quirks that you adored so much, how much he struggled with the right words to say, because he knew the gravity of them; even if he did end up just spewing them out in the end.

“I— I don’t really know how to say this exactly, but,” Peter chewed on his bottom lip. “God I just— I just need to man up and say it because it’s been on my mind ever since I came back and I don’t think I can put it off any longer because I’m scared that you’ll disappear again and that I’ll never have the chance to say the truth and I—“ He stopped in his tracks, seemingly running out of words to say. His head dropped to look at his lap, as he started fidgeting with his hands and picking at his cuticles. A nervous tick that you recognized.

You straightened up from your lounging position, and slowly reached out your arms to lay your own hands on top of his, effectively gaining his attention and stopping his quite destructive habit. Bit by bit, he faced you once more; albeit now his eyes seemed to be more glassy.

“Y/N,” He took a shaky breath. “You— you mean so much to me.“ His eyes stared straight through you, and by now you felt your eyes start getting teary too.

“When it was happening I— all I could think about was how I felt about you. I— I felt so fucking selfish. I didn’t even think about Aunt May— or Ned, or MJ. All I thought about was how much I regretted not telling you how I actually felt about you sooner— that I’ll never be able to tell you how much I actually fucking loved you—“

Instinctively, you cut him off with your index placed on his lips. Now it was your turn to let out a shaky breath as your hand descended and found itself laying once more on Peter’s own.

Peter loved you. Even before the snap. Even before you disappeared.

The sight of Peter in front of you: vulnerable, hair ruffled, cheeks and nose and the tips of his ears red, his eyes watering as he poured his heart out to you was the moment that answered all of your doubts from before.

That was when you realized that you loved him, too. Truly. Without a doubt.

You loved him before everything went to hell, you still love him now, and fuck, you would still love him even if you hadn’t died. You weren’t wearing rose-coloured glasses, hell, far from it. You were seeing everything clearly. You were seeing everything just the way that they are.

You opened your lips, and a strangled but genuine giggle came out. “Pete, I love you too. I’ve loved you since— fuck, I can’t even remember when I actually started fucking loving you. You’ve been such a constant in my life that I questioned myself whether I truly loved you romantically, because I’m also a fucking idiot that thought that the type of love that I had for you was only platonic. Turns out they’re both one and the same.” You were laughing now, with a few hiccups here and there from the hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

“And shut up— you aren’t selfish,” With a new wave of courage, you lifted up one of your hands again and cradled his face. He leaned into it, impulsively, sniffling. “You’re one of the most selfless people that I know, hell, you put yourself in danger for people that you don’t even fucking know. I… I honestly think you could use more selfishness sometimes.” You laughed, softly, trying to regain a bit more composure with the tidal wave of emotions washing through you.

Peter, thankfully, found your quip funny. He snorted, shaking his head, as he lifted the sleeve of his Midtown Tech hoodie up to wipe at his tears. He wiped yours too, and you thanked him with a genuine smile.

All hearts now bared, you both just stared at each other, not really knowing what else to say nor do. From what you could tell, the movie was over now, the ending scene just slowly rolling in as it always does.

You opened your mouth, about to break the silence, when Peter beat you to it.

“Can I kiss you?”

A chuckle escaped your mouth before you could reply properly, and a huge grin overtook your face as your cheeks heated up once more. You squeezed his hands, and nodded.

Peter leaned in, and you had never felt more at peace.

#lily’s lil’ stories #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #fanfic #ff #x reader #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #spiderman #spiderman x reader #one shot #angst #best friends to lovers #fluff #subtle (not really) movie references #existential musings #pete n reader's been thru a lot ok:(

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skylightdragon · 4 years

Text

Stargirl Theory (Season Finale Spoilers!)

So after that last scene, I was really shocked. Sylvester has always been killed prior to Courtney’s story and we’ve never really seen him revived (except that one seen in JSA when Star Spangled Kid was momentarily time displaced). It got me wondering and I have two theories:

1. The Seven Soldiers operated in the 1940s, which has been hinted at already and would explain why Pat was so shaken up when heard that Dr. Ito was in Blue Valley. Some villain, most likely Dr. Ito, did something that scattered the Seven Soldiers through time. Much like the comics, then the JSA pulled the Soldiers from wherever they landed and brought them to the 2000s where Sylvester joined the JSA and made a new life for himself. In the comics, Sylvester ended up in the caveman times, I believe. Maybe in this version, he ended up in the future (i.e. 2020). If that’s the case, then the Sylvester that showed up at the end of this episode is pre-JSA Sylvester (and therefore, pre-death of the JSA).

If this all ends up having some truth to it, then I think that Sylvester’s time with Pat and Courtney will be limited, with a countdown that would probably end at the season finale in which the JSA come and take him to the 2000s, offering a bittersweet moment in which Pat has to let Sylvester go on a path that ultimately leads to his death (but also leads Pat towards his new family and Courtney being Stargirl).

Also, this could explain that line about the new cosmic staff wielder being ‘full of grace and heroism’ (and just the way that the trailers were set up to cut the scene with images of Courtney). Perhaps Sylvester got to witness Courtney as Stargirl and he gives his nod of approval for the choice.

2. Or they could pull a David Knight --Starman of 1951 situation courtesy of James Dale Robinson. When David was killed, Dr. Fate took him out of that moment, freezing time, and transported David back to 1951 to give him a chance to be Starman which was something that David had always wanted and barely got to do before he met his demise in the role. David in 1951 didn’t know that he had just been killed but he thrived in the role and was content. However, there was a time limit and he knew that after a certain number of months, he would have to return to the present so that his father could resume the role. But when he returned to the future, he would return to the moment that he was dying. Basically, it gave him a second chance at being Starman.

So what if this is Sylvester’s second chance at ending things better with Pat. Their relationship doesn’t seem as strong and healthy has Pat made it out to be in the brief moments that we have seen. This could be a David and Jack Knight situation in which even though they were brothers, their relationship was rocky until after David died and Jack had a second chance with him through his adventures as Starman and talking to ghost David.

Maybe Sylvester was taken from that moment in which he died (or was dying), by Dr. Fate who wanted to give him one more memory/ adventure (we never did see Dr. Fate in that initial battle). Dr. Fate sent him to 2020 which brings us to where he is looking for Pat. it could have also been a gift for Pat because Kent Nelson/ Dr Fate could have seen the tension between the pair and he wanted to give them another chance at being brothers and best friends again.

.....

I don’t know what they’ll do but I’m really excited. Seeing Sylvester alive is the last thing that I expected, to be honest.

#Sylvester Pemberton #starman #stargirl #dcustargirl #courtney whitmore #justice society of america #pat dugan #stripe #stargirl spoilers #just some rambling

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wthelvetica21 · 4 years

Text

🔗💀Linked Souls

in the Digital Cabaret’s lobby

All four of the Mystery Skulls investigators found themselves in a calmly lit room with skull decor. It was quaint to say the least. There were also musical instruments like guitars and old fashion keyboards on the walls as well like it was a recording studio. All of them were laying on the same large circular sofa with two tables.

Lewis: What… The hell… just happened…? Guys?

Vivi: Just a few more minutes okay Lew. I swear… mar

Vivi rolled back sleeping with her plush turtle that she kept in her backpack before they headed out.

Arthur: (yawn) Can you keep it down… Whoa OH HOLY SHIT! Where are we guys? This can’t get any weirder man.

Mystery: *soft barking* (I must keep a low profile for now. I have a feeling that we’re not… in our world anymore. I sense four none hostile souls and least one that’s harbors some justifiable apprehension towards us.)

Lewis is the only one who could hear Mystery via supernatural telepathy.

Lewis: Huh? I hear voices from outside…

Lewis along with Mystery and Arthur put their heads on the double doors to listen in.

Teenage Male Voice: I don’t know if this is a good Idea Doc. They seem sketchy as hell if you ask me. Especially the ghost rider reject in particular.

Calm Female Voice: I’m sure hun, my tombsona can since people’s intentions right away. They seem to be looking for someone or something whom was involved with the murder of the young man in the suit who has become a ghost. It’s all I could glean however. But the dog though.. is odd… He’s not a threat to us but that might not be his true form.

Suave German Voice: He could be a lycan… What? It’s possible since that ghost is particularly one that still has his body.

Mystery: *tilts his head* (A lycan? As in a werewolf? He also knows that Lewis is a special case as well.)

Softer Male Voice: …

Strangely Familiar Voice: What’s that Armstrong? You think that we should meet them one by one? Maybe 2 by 2 would work better. I would rather meet them later… I’m still having a hard time processing this whole situation. I just woke up after all.

Lewis: Wait?… Is that the? (Is that the guy singing in that weird dream from earlier? Could it be that comatose guy who was begging for help? It’s modulated a bit but it’s that voice I heard. I just know it.)

Mystery: whimper (Lewis? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. You know that voice?)

Lewis: Uhh… I could’ve sworn I heard his voice before. (he said softly)

Calm Female Voice: Don’t worry cher. We’ll go first. Come on Rust since you’ve been itching to meet them.

All three backed up from the door so they wouldn’t get hit.

Teenage Male Voice: WHAT!? Why the hell me? Why not Tesla, Armstrong, or even your… Hey don’t give me that look. Dammit okay fine… let’s meet them already. (mumbles in Spanish)

Lewis: Tch… (Yeah you’re already gonna be a pain in the ass from the get go. Must be a high schooler or somethin’.)

Strangely Familiar Voice: Wait! I changed my mind. I’m very curious about these people from another universe.

The double doors open and two individuals come out. One was a woman who had discolored blue skin with glowing neon blue paint. And she had flowing hair that acted like willow wisps. She also had the attire of a stage magician with some witch doctor elements. The most noteworthy thing about her was the navy blue mask with glowing cyan eyes and outlines that took up most of the top portion of her face. She could even be mistaken for a ghost like Lewis.

Vivi: OMG, she’s… so… cool! Oh man I wish I had that classy outfit she’s wearing. I could match with Lewis for once.

Mystery: *tilting his head groaning* (She’s certainly someone Vivi and Lewis could get along with very well. Maybe she patched us up from that elevator.)

Doc: My name is Doc or you could call me Ms. Doc for convenience. I’m the drummer for The Living Tombstone. Next to me is zero_one. He’s our keyboardist and composer. He also does the vocals as well.

The other individual was a tall svelte man who was shorter than Lewis but slightly taller than Arthur. He looked like he was wearing a skin tight jump suit with yellow circuit lines with an orange fade to them. In the center of his torso is a rectangle that looks like a microchip with a heart beat indicator. He also was wearing a helmet that had a plume of golden orange hair made out of plasma and a pair of headphones. But what really caught Lewis’s attention was the LED skull with a bolt shaped crack on the right. He recognizes him as that guy from that dream he while he was passed out on that mining elevator. Almost immediately both of them blurted out…

Lewis & zero_one in unison : Do I know you from somewhere? But how?

Lewis : Hold up… Um Hey… (Aw man this shit just got weird already.)

zero_one : Uh… Hi there… (Oh… awkward.)

Arthur: Welp… This just got awkward and weird fast. What is going on here man? You recognize the dude with the mohawk?

Lewis : It’s a…

Rust: Oh that does it… I’m going in. What flying fu…. oh… This is already got a weird vibe. Who the hell are you people anyway? AND You… yes you the ghost rider reject how do you recognize our front man hah?

Lewis : growls (Great another asshole with a green motif. But he’s some kind of punk who’s just got outta high school).

sigh (trying to contain his anger) I’m not sure, I just seen someone like him that’s all…

Stoping the young man in biker attire with the green skull mask from lunging at Lewis was a slightly older gentleman who’s color scheme was similar to Lewis’s. He had the attire of a mad scientist with a winter hat.

Tesla: Can you not be hasty Rust for just a moment. They are not a threat to us remember. Herr Geist (german : Mr. Ghost) I still have so many questions. How did you find the elevator to this universe?

Lewis : Umm… (Who the hell is this guy? He looks like he just stepped out of an anime or a game or something.)

Long story short but it may sound batshit crazy ; we were chasin’ a dismembered gang green arm with a single black eye. Did ya’ll see him.

Rust: uhh… what? What kinda story is that? You must be tripping on something really strong to come up with that.

Behind the slightly befuddled young man in the green was a larger skull faced man with a burnt space suit who’s glowing red. He looks like he’s trying to calm things down before a fight breaks out between Lewis and Rust.

Armstrong : … signing (I believe we all need to calm down first before we get our stories out there. I’m Armstrong gentlemen, lady, and… dog. You hail from another universe?)

Lewis : Huh… good point sir. (Why do I know what he’s saying even though I don’t know sign language. This shit really couldn’t get any weirder.)

Lewis then gives a paraphrased version of what Armstrong was saying to rest of the Mystery Skulls gang. Doc explained that Armstrong has tinnitus but can still play the guitar very well despite that. His tomesona can also give some form of synesthesia to compensate for his hearing loss.

Rust: (shakes his head in disbelief) Fine whatever. Names Rust, don’t ya’ll forget it. I do the vocals and rap.

Tesla: Guten Tag, my name is Tesla Herr Geist, Chicken with Mechanical Arm, Mysterious Dog, and Liebshen.

Lewis : *groan of frustration* (Oh that’s effing lovely. He better be usin’ that word as a term of endearment and not trying to flirt with her. But at least he isn’t an annoying little punk like the green one.)

Vivi: Oh how rude of us not to introduce ourselves. We are the Mystery Skulls ; we’re paranormal investigators. I’m Vivi Yukino, I’m the researcher of the group. But my day job is at a used comic book shop called TomeTomb. Oh I also know how to play electric guitar.

Tesla: Oh is that right Liebshen? Very nice indeed.

Armstrong : … (puts both of his thumbs up for approval and nodding)

Doc: Huh, TomeTomb(soft chuckle) what an interesting name. And you are young man?

Arthur: I’m Arthur Kingsmen, I’m just the mechanic of the group and I’m not as interested with this paranormal crap as much as Lewis and Vivi. And I work with my uncle Lance at his auto repair shop called Kingsmen repair. Also I play keyboard and actually own three keytars as well (he said proudly). Ha they almost costed me an arm… and a… (nervous chuckle). Yeah, the arm is a different story though. (he said sheepishly scratching his head.)

Rust: Well it must have… literately. Holy shit man, three of them? Talk about overkill.

Lewis could see zero_one light up like a kid in a candy store as soon as Arthur mentioned his keytars. He could feel this feeling radiating in the core of his locket ; its joy. He then sees zero_one approach Arthur like someone who was reunited with a long lost sibling.

zero_one : Three keytars? (in rapid secession) What brand are they? How did you get them? What year were they made? Do you have any pictures of them?

Arthur: (he had a smile that the rest of the Mystery Skulls gang haven’t seen in months) Really? I have a 1980s Casio, a late 90s Korg, and an early 2000s Yamaha. I had some connections back then and I usually find them used online even though they were still…kinda expensive. And yeah I have pictures of them on my phone, you can come and look if you want.

The Orange-Yellow color coded duo sat next to each other like they just got a new hand held game and rambled on and on about mods and midi plug ins for keytars for a good 20 minutes. Lewis wished that he didn’t go into that cave in the first place. The relationship between Arthur and zero_one was not just like two long lost brothers but it was like his friendship with Arthur before this whole third wheel and ghost thing ever came about. Lewis felt a small pang of guilt before getting interrupted with a question.

Lewis : sigh… (At least Arthur is feelin’ better already after all the shit I put him through. Maybe comin’ here isn’t going to be that bad after all. Just Maybe…)

Rust: Who’s the dog though? Gotta say though he kinda looks badass with the red and black.

Mystery: *shrugs in embarrassment* (Yabai. (Japanese: Oh Crap.) Maybe I shouldn’t show my true form now, maybe wait til they are ready or Vivi or Lewis mention it.)

Vivi: Oh his name is Mystery. He’s our mascot, sorta. I know he isn’t a ghost like my boyfriend over here.

Tesla: Boyfriend ha… Oh well, but you could do so much better then…

Doc: Tesla stop. Lewis is Vivi’s beau, just leave it be. There are other women you know…

Tesla: Uhh. Gut, I’m a man of honor.

Lewis : (Oh sure you are hat guy.)

Okay then, I’m Lewis Pepper and I’m more the guy who handles the heavy equipment in our paranormal investigations. My day job is waiter and chef at my adopted family’s restaurant “Pepper Paradiso”. I also play violin and I am a train vocalist.

Rust: Oh… really? Come on zero_one, me and you, let’s nock this amateur down a peg or two.

zero_one : You’re kind of putting me on the spot here Rust. Lewis did say he was trained, maybe you should’ve not called him that.

Lewis : (narrows his eyes) (Oh, I’ll knock this Rust punk down a peg or two.)

Oh really Rust. Alright I’m game but just you and me. Mono a mono. Let the best vocalist wi…. huh?

Then a feeling comes over both Lewis and zero_one that made both of them and harmonize a beautiful arpeggio that brings all the room in awe. Rust was drowned out by both of them because he was just as shocked as everyone else in the lobby.

Doc: Oh honey, both of ya’ll voices are like two angels. And you thought he was an amateur Rust?

Rust: Well, damn I’ll admit it, you and zero_one won on this one. For now.

Armstrong : … signing

zero_one : interpreting for Armstrong : Well since the introductions are out of the way, I believe you said something about a dismembered arm earlier. Is that the reason why you stumbled into our universe?

Lewis : Well yeah, it said it lead us into a trap or some shit like that. It was also working with someone or something else that wanted to do all of us in.

* Loud Alarm *

A I Voice: Warning security breach detected. / Subject identified as a green dismembered arm that has already made entry into timeline v. / prerecorded transmission from the multi-universal edge by Helvetica.

Helvetica: Something has just breached the reality layline. Sending distress signal to prime universe about Null’s escape. Butterfly effect radiating towards other divergent TLT timelines. Three inter-universal ones from the prime timeline. At least three no… it’s five from the universe MSA (Mystery Skulls universe). I’m making my way to timeline v as soon as possible. End of Transmission.

Lewis : Welp… I can see things have gone to shit already. At least we know where it is now. Might as well go looking for it but we’re do we even freakin’ start huh?

Tesla: I’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you. My prime self told me about this Null character but… what is it doing at this time period I wonder? Poor fraulein Helvetica sounds like she can’t handle this on her own. She might be proto_type’s student but even a student needs some extra help. We should worry about the four ones from our universe first before the one’s from our visitor’s universe.

zero_one : Wait? There are people from Lewis’s universe that crossed over to this universe too? What’s going on here?

Tesla: It’s most likely a butterfly effect like the distress called mentioned. Oh I believe we already have a lead or two, that’s gut. Really gut.

A I Voice: First sightings found downtown at High May’s Junior, Le Macabre Dance club, and Toriyama’s School for the Arts.

They decide to split up into teams to not only look for the possessed arm but for at least three people from the prime timeline in TLT’s universe.

Mystery, Tesla, and Vivi are going to that Toriyama Art school in Japan since Vivi is fluent in Japanese. Lewis is thankful that Mystery is with her if Tesla tries anything.

Arthur, Rust, and Doc decide head to that Le Macabre Dance club which is in Puerto Rico. Rust apparently knows his way around there.

While Armstrong, Lewis and zero_one head towards a popular hot spot on San Francisco’s Yvette district; more specifically a hole in the wall bar known as High May’s Jr. Lewis decides to go there alone since he can change his form at will unlike Armstrong or zero_one but has agreed to meet up with them later once they found whom ever they are looking for. Armstrong thinks he’s way too conspicuous to be seen in public and decides to rendezvous with this Helvetica woman who made that distress call earlier along with zero_one.

End of Transmission

Lewis : Well. I still have my ID and all. But I don’t think it’ll matter all that much. I swear this whole thing with timelines , butterfly effect and shit makes me feel like I’m in a very anime video game. Was something like Blaze blue or whatever? Or someone’s fanfic… Umm… Nah, that’s fu_king bonkers.

#mystery skulls animated #the living tombstone #au crossover #fanfic #linkedsoulsau

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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And I’m back from my midseason finale, continuing my journey to decipher how and why a show about two sexy brothers who hunt ghosts aired on television for over a decade. It’s Supernatural!

Back in 2009, when I rushed head long from “Salvation”/”Devil’s Trap straight into “In My Time of Dying” (Kripke, you’re being a real bitch with these titles), I was not the TV connoisseur who writes tumblr posts about ancient shows that you read before you. The cliffhanger at the end of “Devil’s Trap” is good enough that it didn’t matter that I’d just crossed the threshold from the first season into the second season. What mattered was that Dean was dying in the back seat and holy shiz, they crushed the Impala?? So I popped out one DVD disc and happily plugged in the next without stopping to think what a new season might mean.

Of course, I knew second seasons were precious. You watch Firefly ONCE and you know the fear of a Show Cancelled Too Soon. Supernatural, apparently, was on the edge of cancellation after season 1, but it’s renewal coincided with the birth of the brand new CW, a network built from the ashes of The WB and UPN respectively, that was in need of nightly programming to fill up the air. So Supernatural was saved (aha) from the Cancellation Bear and remained in it’s (primo) Thursday night time slot, 9pm warning label in-tact.

What do we say to the Cancellation Bear? Not Today!

That’s not to diminish the importance of it’s renewal for season 2! Depending on what network or cable channel (or year), only something like 20 - 30% of freshman shows get renewed for a season 2. To be fair, if every show that aired in the fall got renewed in the spring, there’d be no time slots left for new freshman shows the following fall, so something’s gotta give. SPN getting a season 2, even if the odds were a little more in their favor than they might want you to think, is still pretty miraculous, especially for 2006. Remember, this is pre-streaming services acquiring original content. In 2006, Netflix was a rental service that focused on mailing you DVDs. Via the U.S. Postal Service. And they wouldn’t officially start acquiring distribution licenses for broadcast shows (let alone their own content) until 2007 - two years after SPN started airing. In the early 2000′s, there were fewer opportunities for television shows to make it in front of an audience because there were fewer options for watching television. I’ll say it a hundred times - Supernatural is a DINOSAUR.

So what do you do when you’re gripped tight and raised from cancellation after your first season? Well if your Supernatural, you start off with one helluva bang.

Maybe more of a wallop.

As should be obvious by now, I watch a lot of supernatural and Supernatural-Adjacent television. I love a Season One, but very often those shows start to go downhill in Season 2. Why? For the simple fact that your characters are too good now. They’re too powerful. They’ll never be as vulnerable as they were in season 1, and if there’s no vulnerability, there’s less concern about their survivability. I’m not as invested in these characters because I’m not worried about them anymore. There’s not tension of will they/won’t they - you know they will, in the end, overcome. Of course, the solution to this conundrum is to level your villains up alongside your heroes. The trouble with that strategy is you end up with ludicrously, laughably super strong villains that lose their grounding in reality. This is a problem I foresee for SPN post season 5, but I haven’t gotten there yet, so I’ll leave that alone for right now.

So for me, what Supernatural does at the start of season 2 is genius. Think about the end of season 1 - our boys lose. They straight up failed. They had one goal - kill the demon that killed their women mom/wife and girlfriend - and they did not even remotely do that. They’re beaten, they’re bloody and now, just when we think they can’t lose any more, they lose some more.

I’m gonna be real honest here, this was a real turn on for me Sammy.

First it’s Baby. For two boys who hop from cheap motel to cheap motel, I think it’s safe to say that the Impala is basically their home. They lose the fight and then they lose their home. That’s rough.

Also, Bobby, I love you, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S SCRAP?!?!

Next, they almost lose Dean. Dean is the only thing that’s keeping this family together and he is donezo. He’s so gone, a Reaper is concocting an elaborate hallucination to get him to come to terms with his imminent demise. Which honestly, is a very nice thing for this Reaper to do, but also bb, don’t you do it!

You gotta hand it to this Reaper, she really knew allll the right buttons to push.

Next, we lose the Colt. They have one (1) weapon to use against the Yellow-Eyed-Demon and John gives it away. Is he also finally acknowledging that his children require his love and care? Yes. Is this the shittiest decision he’s ever made, even if it is to save the life of his firstborn? ALSO YES.

Pretty damn stupid, JOHN.

And finally, in the last 5 minutes of the episode, we lose John Winchester himself. And this bitch ain’t coming back. He’s gone. He’s gone for good. Sam and Dean spent months searching for their father, building up this legend of a man, and we as an audience spent months right along with them, only to watch him die in the first episode of season 2! Sam and Dean don’t start out season 2 back at square one, they’re back at square -10. Sure they know who the bad guy is now, but they don’t know how to find him, don’t know how to kill him, and the only person who did know can’t help them anymore! And to top it all off, they don’t even have a ride back from the hospital!

JK, we all know Bobby came and picked them up and took him back to his place, he’s the Real Hero of this show.

Also, I’m getting ahead of myself here but I’m on a roll - John’s last words to Dean are basically a threat that oh yeah, you have one more thing that this war on hell will steal from you. If you can’t save your brother, you’ll have to kill him. Sure John. Sure. Dean’s definitely gonna do that, John, you bitch.

And they don’t just write this loss off. Over the next three episodes we see how deep this failure goes. Sure, our guys are still out there, doing their thing, killing evil sonsabitches, but damn they are torn up and they are not handling it well.

Listen, I don’t know what your viewing experience is like, but the recaps on my dvd play this scene every episode for the next, like, five episodes.

“Everybody Loves a Clown” is a very clear attempt to get back to normal. So clear that they even say it in the episode somewhere, but they have a lot of climbing to do before they get anywhere near normal. They’re driving around in a minivan, they’re taking cases from strangers, they’re living as carnies - their whole world is upside down.

We get another low blow in “Bloodlust.” Dean learns that a) no one can replace his father and b) that Monster doesn’t necessarily mean Evil. So at the end of the episode, when he asks Sam, “What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing,” you feel it like a gut punch. Dean doesn’t even get to keep his own faith that he’s doing the right thing anymore.

Hey buddy. While you’re down on the ground, we thought we’d kick ya a little bit, OK?

And then we round that out with “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things,” a nice zombie episode that is definitely not about the zombies. Sam and Dean are still grieving the death of their father in a very real way and I actually think Sam’s idea to visit their mom’s grave is really nice. He obviously took several psych courses and is handling grief in a much healthier, mature way than Dean. That being said, when he starts to go all Psych Major on Dean, even I want to slap him in the face. And then that whole attitude really bites him in the ass when Dean finally does open up and he realizes he’s not qualified to therapize this shit.

Oh no, it OK, don’t be cry!

See, we as the audience know that John Winchester traded his own soul to save Dean’s life, but Dean was in a coma with a Reaper, so there’s no way to know what Dean knows. But that bitch is astute and he figures it out. The Colt gone, their dad gone, and that horrible wrong sensation when he woke up in the hospital all point to the fact that John’s final gift to his son was the crushing weight of guilt. Dean knows that John should be here with Sam, would be here with Sam, if it wasn’t for Dean. And since a demon was involved, Dean probably suspects where John is right now. And that is something that he is just gonna have to carry for the rest of forever. I mean, I love Dean and I’m glad he’s still here, but that’s a real dick move John.

John Winchester. Ruining Lives from Before and Beyond the Grave.

Notice the change in this season - with the exception of the Yellow Eyed Demon, these first few episodes are not about the monster. These are Feelings Episodes, ooey gooey Feelings Episodes, that just use the monster-of-the-week to get characters to deal with their inner traumas. This is SPN saying they’re not gonna stay on the surface of this show, they’re gonna dig deep and focus on Character Substance over the Horror FX Style. And in season 2, that still feels fun! As an audience member plowing through these episodes, I was thrilled that this was the direction the show was taking. I was also thrilled that all these episode end with Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance, just some A+ cinematography there gentlemen, great job.

In order, Ep 201, 202, 203, 204. I was not kidding.

I’m also noticing, having written all this down, that these are some very Dean-centric episodes. Like, it’s very heavy on the Dean. Which I’m not mad about, but I just think it’s real funny considering that Sam was definitely our lead protagonist/entry point into season 1.

Now though? This is honestly my biggest fear as I continue my quest to make it through the entire series. I know how it ends. I have a tumblr account and sometimes I like spoilers to prep me for what’s coming, so I know how this all shakes out. And I think the reason that I sort of gave up on the series was because at some point, these Feelings episodes get too heavy. If all your characters are always bogged down by grief and guilt and loss, at some point that’s not enjoyable to watch anymore. You’ve gotta give them a win at some point. A real win that doesn’t come with caveats like Dean sold his soul to the devil, or, Sam’s locked in a cage with the devil, or really anything involving the devil at all.

So while I’m enjoying season 2 still, I am worried that my enjoyment level is gonna sink as the series goes on. But that’s still a ways down the road, so in the meantime, have more of Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance.

#Supernatural Season 2 #Supernatural Rewatch #SPN #sam and dean #Sam Winchester #but mostly #dean winchester #In My Time of Dying #Everybody Loves a Clown #Bloodlust #Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things #Seriously Kripke #What the hell are these titles?#Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance appreciation post #To be fair #they knew what I wanted #television #CW

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cjostrander · 5 years

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My Chemical Romance: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Good morning everyone! Today i was feeling motivated to scratch off one of my crucial anniversary albums for the year. This album turns 15 years old and is one that would be a shame if i let slip through the year. It is arguably the band’s most iconic release though it would be a hard debate between this and The Black parade in terms of overall popularity. I feel that the latter will be picked out by future generations but this one will be the one for their original fanbase. Let’s get started because i’m really going to enjoy this one today!!

Helena (Single): We begin with the first of the band’s many staples on this album. The music video for all of the singles are amazing and definitely worth viewing if interested. Gerard begins with a soothing vocal harmony that creates a fitting sense of mourning before the guitars and drums arrive to infuse a moving rock edge. Gerard’s vocal presence infuses a very firm level of emotion that delivers a very powerful chorus; which will be very hard not to sing along to during a live performance. The lyrics are easy to follow along to and provide heavy substance into the track. I believe the track deals with his grandmother’s passing but i’m not exactly certain. Either way; the instrumentals do a solid job of standing out on their own and delivering a high dose of punk rock energy for a first time listener to fall in love with. It is direct and straightforward and perhaps a direct benefactor of middle school nostalgia on my behalf; but it begins the album rather solidly and sets the listener up for a very engaging listening experience. 10/10

Give ‘Em Hell, Kid: This next track begins with a groovy bass line and joins with the guitars to shift the album into a more aggressive jam direction; thus fitting of the song title. Gerard delivers a very energetic performance that would be amazing to see being done live. He is a bit muffled at times but it creates an authentic sense of chaos that translates nicely what their live energy would be like. Naturally the lyrics will not have much coherency as a result but the chorus will clean things up enough to help balance out this short two minute jammer with ease. 9/10

To the End: Gerard begins over some sinister guitar riffs to create a dark demeanor that still retains a building energy. The instrumentals build up firmly into another very lively jam track that benefits from emotionally raw backing vocals. Gerard as a result achieves a layered vocal presence that helps to keep their signature chaotic foundation intact. The lyrics are decent to follow along to but the overall atmosphere and emotion is what makes this track really stick out. The jam solo segment towards the latter half is a nice stand out moment that will showcase the band’s technicality quite nicely. 9/10

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison: Keys begin this piece with a nicely classical vibe before the instrumentals arrive to further infuse it with a very groovably rhythm. Gerard warms the track up nicely and once the guitars go into full motion he pours more of his emotionally crazed vocals into the chorus. It helps the band to really achieve a proper jam foundation that other band’s would find hard to replicate on an album without feeling rehearsed. It definitely is a bit more raw than the previous tracks but the jam solos will help this one to stick out nicely during a first time listen. 8.5/10

I’m Not Okay (I Promise) (Single): This next band highlight begins with an emotional guitar opening and is supported by energetic drum beats. Gerard enters with an emotionally high powered vocal demeanor that delivers his lyrics with a very honest sense of emotional despair. These lyrics are some of the strong on the album to follow along and keep things simple but highly substance filled. This will make them the primary focal point of the single but the solos will stick out very nicely to give you a dose of blissful melody. They build up a nice emotional breakdown segment that really brings home a state of mind from that narrator that rings true even today with the mentality of somebody in school. 10/10

The Ghost of You (Single): This track begins with a somber guitar/ key opening that Gerard uses to deliver a more serious sense of turmoil to the listener. The chorus is direct and very powerful in tone and emotion. The lyrics fit very well with the music video and i highly recommend checking out during your first listen; because they really represented this single perfectly with it. Instrumentally it will be straightforward but it’s simplicity enables for Gerard to really pour his heart into his delivery; which is really where this band shines when you deconstruct everything. I’m not knocking the instrumentals of course but without that emotional connection; they wouldn’t have the same impact by a longshot. 10/10

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You: This track picks up from the last song and leads into a nice organ opening before the instrumentals construct a rather soothing opening. It is blissful and danceable while Gerard warms the track into a nice rocker. The chorus is direct but works with the instrumentals to create a nicely balance energy that will keep the listener from getting overwhelmed or bored. It keeps the album flow consistent as result without the risk of getting stale and would be another decent addition during a live performance. 8.5/10

Thank You for the Venom (Single): This final single begins with an energetic guitar opening and develops a nice foundation that would be very nice to dance along to during a live performance. Gerard thrives on the energy of the instrumentals to deliver a firm rock n roll presence that would be amazing to see live. The chorus is perfect with firm instrumental support and demanding emotional control from Gerard as well. This will be a highlight for the jam tracks in the album and lyrically is very engaging to follow along to during a first time listen. The little solo segment towards the end builds up some nicely melodic tension before shifting full speed into a nice finish before Gerard takes the reins again to nail this song down perfectly. I really miss this Band! 10/10

Hang ‘Em High: This track begins with a fitting western tinge before shifting into a chaotic drum bash. Gerard takes over and delivers an equally choatic vocal performance that will rile up a live audience with ease. The lyrics are very easy to follow along to and will have very little difficulty in giving the listener ample elements to focus on throughout it. The chorus is a bit more muffled but creates a layered vocal presence as a result that further showcases their live elements. 9.5/10

It’s Not a Fashion Statement; It’s a Deathwish: Guitars begin this song with a climatic level of tension that Gerard naturally jumps into with ease. The instrumentals create a very energetic jam approach that falls in line with the rest of the album without being a detriment as a result. Gerard continues to thrive in this atmosphere and uses a dire level of angst to really impress the lyrics onto the listener. These lyrics are very strong and focus driven; which creates a finale setting which would of been a perfect choice for a closing track if needed; but i firmly pick this as a track to listen to if for some god forsaken reason you decide to only browse listen. Trust me; this album is too good for that; so treat yourself right and blast the whole album during your first listen. 10/10

Cemetery Drive: Drums begin with a nice marching vibe and guitars create a soothing atmosphere that enables Gerard to deliver some very blissful harmonies. His lyrics are pretty fitting with the nature of the track and help to create an atmosphere very representative of someone transitioning from a tortured life into eternal rest. This helps to set up the album for its finale track and wind things down a bit without taking away any sense of emotional strength or purpose. 9/10

I Never Told You What i Do for a Living: This finale track begins with another healthy heaping of chaotic instrumentals and angsty punk vocals from Gerard. He uses the tempo of the instrumentals to really lose himself in his performance. The lyrics are easy to follow along to and space things out enough to keep subtle moments of melody to seep through the guitar strings. It will help to keep things feeling fresh and climatic for this closer. They have a build up segment that leads into a decent breakdown segment that showcases their angsty side at full force. 8.5/10

Overall album rating: 9.3/10

Well it easily took the spot as my highest rated MCR album and for good reason. It is a nostalgic album that culturally stood out as significantly in the mid 2000′s as Green Day’s American Idiot did. I highly suggest checking this album and band out if you haven’t already because they are a band that ended arguably at the top of their game. Their more experimental Super hero themed Danger Days albums was probably their weakest release but was still an interesting one in the end. At some point i’ll have that one on here for you; but i’m really hoping Gerard Way comes out with another solo album soon because it’s been too long for him to not use his amazing vocals.

*Reviewer’s Pick*

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thecorteztwins · 4 years

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Okay, but here’s another unappreciated thing about Madelyne Pryor, so unappreciated that I’ve never even seen any fellow Maddy fan talk about it--- Her walking out on Sebastian Shaw, despite him treating her well, because he was going to do things that were potentially going to hurt other people. So, after Maddy got resurrected in the 90s by Nate, she was in this very liminal space between hero and villain, often oscillating back and forth between them. She was also amnesiac for awhile too, and it was during this vulnerable state that Selene, the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, recruited her as her new Black Rook, and Trevor Fitzroy as her new White Rook. She brought them to the Hellfire Club and it’s pretty plain that she intended to use them against Shaw, but Madelyne and Shaw hit it off immediately. And here’s the crazy thing--Sebastian instantly recognized her as NOT Jean. And Shaw has a little past with Jean (or the Phoenix Force masquerading as her, more precisely) to say the least, given the DARK PHOENIX SAGA. But he looks right at Maddy and calls her an “unknown being”. And when Tessa/Sage telepathically relays to him who she is---since according to her, every telepath felt the Gobyln Queen’s passing---Sebastian makes reference to Inferno, something MADDY did. Under demonic influence, yes, when not herself, yes, but still something that was her accomplishment. He never ever refers to Jean at all in relation to her, at ANY point. Now, how the FUCK Sebastian knew it wasn’t Jean he was looking at, that’s never explained, but looking at Maddy as a wholly separate entity does make sense for Sebastian’s strong individualist philosophies. Most people don’t know Sebastian Shaw well besides “evil rich guy” (or, more recently, Emma’s evil ex) but he does indeed have a very individualist outlook. He says things like “the common herd means nothing, the individual is all”, he never identifies as a mutant unless it’s convenient for him (ex: Krakoa) and in fact will turn on other mutants and participate in their oppression if it profits him (building Sentinels) and was ready to die rather than have Sinister take over his body (”I’m an egoist. I’d rather die as myself than live as someone else.”) So it does make sense that he of all people would actually see Maddy as her own being, regardless of her origins, and thus only pay attention to her accomplishments (especially since he’s a guy who is all about power) and not who she looks like. Now, Maddy is still amnesiac at this point, but I think the fact he did recognize her as her own being probably charmed her subconsciously, and I think she also probably was subconsciously NOT kind to the idea of being manipulated once again like Selene was trying to do with her, because she starts liking Sebastian a lot more than Selene. But after Tessa probes her mind, it brings back her memories, so she zooms back to Nate. She finds him with Jean, and learns that he only brought her back to life because his mind was subconsciously seeking Jean, and grabbed poor Maddy’s ghost from the astral plane instead. Upon learning this, NATE TRIES TO KILL HER. Maddy, understandably, books it back to the Hellfire Club. She then comes into Shaw’s room, wakes him up, strips, and tells him no talking til morning. Maddy initiates their relationship entirely, and it’s a pattern that persists throughout it---from what we see, Sebastian pretty much does what she wants. He puts her up in a nice place in Hong Kong where she’ll be safe from the anti-mutant shit currently going down, he throws a party at her request that’s just about announcing they’re an official couple (holy shit, ROMANTIC COMMITMENT from SEBASTIAN SHAW?!), and, bizarrely, he never tries to use or manipulate her or even asks at all her with her help in any scheme, despite her great power. Now, Sebastian Shaw is a bona fide bastard, like he has no redeeming factors and I say that as a big fan of his (it’s one of the reasons I like him, I love total trash). But he actually was good to Maddy. He wasn’t yet the “abusive boyfriend” type bastard at this point in canon; his background with Emma was not added til the 2010s, and this was the 90s, so while he was established as an abusive father to Shinobi, there actually wasn’t any evidence to suggest he’d be an abusive partner, as those are two different dynamics, and he was shown to be deeply in love with his fiancee Lourdes before her death (though he was quoted as not being in love with Maddy) So his being a good boyfriend to Maddy despite being an awful person in general actually tracks fairly well for his characterization at this point in canon. But still, I am sure that if Maddy had stayed with him, he would have used her in some way, or done something awful, he’s just...he’s Sebastian Shaw. But for the time she was with him, he never did anything bad at all, certainly not to her. And whether Maddy loved him or not (which I don’t think she did, I think he was just all she had to turn to at the time) he was the first, and thus far, still the ONLY man that she was with that WASN’T of the Summers bloodline, and thus he’s the only man who was truly her own CHOICE to be with, rather than influenced by Sinister’s programming like with Scott, Alex, and Nate. So, what happened? Madelyne found out that Sebastian was waking up the Harbinger, a servant of Apocalypse, as part of yet another scheme of power and wealth for himself (YOU’RE A MULTIBILLIONAIRE ALREADY, SHAW, STOP) And while this wouldn’t affect her at all, nor likely anyone she knew or cared about, it was likely to result in the deaths of many other people. And she said fuck that, and she abandoned Shaw, and she reconnected with Cable, her son, with whom there was more than a little bad blood, in order to urge him to stop this thing. So, let’s break this down. Madelyne has been rejected by everyone else for what she ISN’T, but now she has a man who sees her for what she is, and he wants to be with her. And not, apparently, for her power, nor for who she looks like (Shaw NEVER had any interest in Jean besides for the Phoenix) but for HER. He’s not in love with her, but he does seem to have affection for her (ex: putting a blanket over her shoulders on the yacht in case she’s cold in her little black costume) which is more than he gives anyone else, and what’s more, she OWNS his dick and he gives her anything she wants. She could easily live the rest of her life in comfort and safety, and never deal with the X-Men or her past again, and be comfortable with the fact that for once SHE had complete agency in choosing the person she was with. But it’s over the moment he’s going to hurt people. It doesn’t matter if they’re far away, if it’s simply a by-product rather than something he’s doing directly, it doesn’t matter that they’re nameless faces she’ll never know, it doesn’t matter if she never has to see it or deal with it, MADDY WON’T STAND FOR IT. Madelyne Pryor, the REAL Madelyne Pryor, cares for people, and not just the people in her life, not just the people she’s CLOSE to, no, Madelyne Pryor cares for the WORLD, she understands EVERY life has value, not just the ones she knows and likes. This is the REAL Maddy, this is the Maddy I remember who sacrificed her LIFE alongside the X-Men to stop The Adversary even though she hadn’t found her son yet, because she knew that the countless lives of others was worth even more than that. And damn well she knows it’s worth more than her getting some good dick and nice things, and more even being seen as herself (which is all she’s ever really wanted) And I just...*clenches fist* I love it so much. I love HER so much. It actually makes me LIKE the Shaw/Maddy ship not just because I am glad she got a good thing for awhile, but also because it DIDN’T last, because she made this CHOICE to leave when she had everything, not for herself but for other people, and showed that she is still a HERO and I LOVE HER... ...and then ofc the 2000s since have shit all over that with bringing her back as a dominatrix crazy ex but I’M NOT EVER FORGETTING IT!!

#madelyne pryor #sebastian shaw #goblyn queen #goblin queen #xmen #out of cortez #maddie feels

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