#i'll do it singlehandedly if i must!!

[sesamestreep]

Jyn/Cassian, 14

14. All my days, I’ll know your face. (from this prompt list) cross-posted to ao3 here, with content warnings and tags galore, since this one gets a little heavy... It's a Cloak & Dagger AU, it's for Zainab's birthday, it's almost a year since she sent me this prompt, just go with it! If you want to know what you're getting into beforehand, read it on AO3, please! Much love and happy belated birth to you, @firstelevens, you are theeeee best!

xvii. the moon

Jyn wakes up from the dream again. The one where she’s drowning. She’s ten years old, still wearing her clothes from ballet class, sitting in the back of her father’s car, which hass just gone off the side of the bridge into the water and it’s starting to sink. Her father is already dead in the driver’s seat and she’s never been able to tell if that’s a mercy or not, that the dream doesn’t even allow her the fictional opportunity to save him. It always starts with them already in the water. And then it ends with the same fade to darkness as a hand reaches out and pulls her to safety.

It’s a dream, of course, but it’s also a memory. One largely influenced by her childhood imagination and fears and flights of fancy and therefore pretty untrustworthy, as far as she’s concerned, but a memory nonetheless. She and her father did get in a car accident, one where he died and she survived. The rest probably doesn’t matter much, she tells herself as the gurgling waters of her dream melt into the sounds of her alarm and she finally, fully wakes.

She nearly smacks her phone off the crate she’s using as a makeshift nightstand in her hurry to get rid of the noise. She would never have set the damn thing to “relaxing” babbling brook sounds knowingly. She’s not fond of water and doesn’t find its noises soothing, for obvious reasons. She’d rather wake up to the most obnoxious beeping known to man than this shit. No wonder she’s having nightmares.

She grumbles as she rolls herself over in the sleeping bag she’s using in lieu of an actual bed while she stays here. According to the signage posted out front, this building is technically condemned, but it suits her purposes just fine. She is always welcome at her mother’s house, or so her mother says, but being welcome somewhere isn’t the same as being at home, she’s realized. Staying with her mother means supporting her mother’s bullshit, and dealing with her disappointment, and putting up with her questions. It’s better for everyone if Jyn lives on her own, even if it’s in a condemned shithole like this place. What little of its original architecture that remains suggests it used to be a church, which is pretty bleak, but the price (free of charge) is right, so she pretends not to care.

She might start giving up these afternoon naps, if she’s just going to have bad dreams all the time. They’re supposed to help her so she can stay up late and work and make more money—maybe even enough to afford a real apartment with an actual shower—but lately they’ve been leaving her more drained than if she hadn’t even slept. She’s got to get ready now—the idiot rich kids going out on the town tonight aren’t going to rob themselves, after all—but she can’t bring herself to move. It’s only when she realizes that going back to sleep might put her back in that sinking car that she manages to convince herself to get up.

vii. the chariot

Cassian stares at the ceiling of his childhood (and current) bedroom and thinks, not for the first time, of how they missed a few glow-in-the-dark stars when he decided such things were for babies and told Maarva they could take them down. She’d hidden her expression of disappointment under something more bright-eyed and understanding quickly but not fast enough that a twelve year old Cassian hadn’t seen it. Before he could take it back, she was already moving briskly to get the step ladder. That’s how Maarva handled everything after his father’s death: briskly and head on. Even when she hated what she was doing. Every challenge in life was like getting a shot at the doctor’s office: just a quick pinch and then it’s over.

It’s that kind of attitude, he knows, that’s made her so successful and transformed her into a sort of pillar of the community. She started as a member of a variety of citizen’s action groups and a leader for the local chapter of NOW and then moved her way up up to a seat on the city council. Cassian admires her for that, the way she’s turned grief into purpose, but he’s always felt less adept at it than she is. Sometimes he’s consumed with guilt that his grief has mostly just stayed as grief. He knows he could be doing more, and he knows she wishes he was too. It’s a lot to bear. It’s a lot of emotion for a couple of glow-in-the-dark stars.

He decides to get out of bed and do something with his day rather than sit here and contemplate any of this further. Downstairs in the kitchen, he 's alone just long enough to pour himself a glass of orange juice before Maarva appears with her phone pressed to her ear. She kisses him on the cheek as she goes by and Cassian hears hold music on the other end of her call, which means he's in for it.

"Did you sleep well?" she asks pleasantly as she moves to pour herself some coffee.

"Well enough," he replies, because anything else will be met with a deluge of concern that he doesn't want right now. He leaves out the part where he dreamed about the night Clem died—the one where Cassian himself almost drowned—again. He'd gone years without having that dream, to the point that he'd thought himself past it, only to have them come back with a vengeance when he moved home again after graduation. The superstitious part of him wants to blame New Orleans, with all of its supposed mystical powers, but rationally he knows it's just being back at home with reminders of his father everywhere. He didn't have this problem at school in New York, but he'd made the choice to come back and this is the cost of that decision.

Maarva nods approvingly and takes a sip of her coffee. "I assume that means you'll be working on internship applications today."

Cassian sighs. He has only been done with his summer internship at the state house in Baton Rouge for a few weeks and his mother has been on his case about what's next since the moment he got home from his last day. "I'm trying, Ma, honestly, but nagging isn't going to make an opportunity instantly materialize. You know that."

"Neither will loafing around the house," she counters. "When you decided to take a year off between college and law school, you promised it wasn't an excuse to sit around and do nothing. I just want to be sure you're keeping up your end of the bargain."

Cassian knows a lot of parents who would have been thrilled to have their kids choose to come home right after college, but ever since he was young, the plan for him was that he'd get into a good college—Ivy League, preferably, which he'd managed—and then he'd go straight to law school and follow in his mother's footsteps to a career in politics. She'd always instilled in him that it was his responsibility to help make the world a better place. And after everything that had happened with Clem, it was the only path that made any sense. But his senior year at Columbia, after spending months studying for the LSAT, he'd found himself unable to go through with the exam. The idea of law school started to fill him with dread and he'd begun to miss deadlines. Eventually, he'd been forced to tell Maarva the truth—or, at least, part of it. He said that he wanted to take a gap year to volunteer and do internships to gain practical experience and figure out what kind of law he was most interested in. She'd taken the news better than he expected, but still with the vague attitude that he was only delaying the inevitable, which, in Maarva's world, always meant agreeing with her. She still fully anticipated he'd come to his senses and follow her into politics at the end of all this. And maybe he would, but he'd like to decide something—anything—for himself, for once. He told himself over and over that this was the point of the gap year, but in his heart, he wasn't truly convinced and clearly neither was Maarva.

"Yes, I promise," Cassian says, wearily. "I'll get some applications submitted before I go out tonight."

"What's tonight?"

He hesitates before answering but he doesn't love lying to his mother, so he prepares himself for an argument. "Bix invited me to a party that some friend of hers is throwing and I promised I'd go."

Maarva looks displeased, as expected. "Is that really the best use of your time?"

"If I get my work done today then, yes," he replies. "It's a Friday night. No one's going to be reading my applications after business hours anyway."

"You're not taking up with that crowd again, are you?"

"If by 'that crowd', you mean my friends from high school, then yes," Cassian says. "They've been giving me grief for being home all summer and working only an hour away and still never seeing them. They're going to be insulted if I don't go."

"That girl's a bad influence," Maarva says, shaking her head.

"And yet she's the only person you trust when your car starts making that weird noise," Cassian points out, rolling his eyes.

"She's a wonderful mechanic, I will give her that. But I never liked you dating her."

"We've been broken up for four years now! You don't have to worry about that anymore."

His mother raises an eyebrow at him. "You're sure about that?"

He groans in frustration. "Yes, I'm sure. Bix and I are just friends these days. And if I want to keep her—as a friend—I can't keep bailing on plans with her. Besides, didn't you raise me to be a man who honors his promises?"

Maarva smiles, reluctantly. "That is an ambitious argument for going to drink cheap beer in someone's basement ."

"You're the one who wants me to become a lawyer," he says. "Arguing is a pretty important part of the job, as I understand it. Besides, I think the party is in someone's backyard, not their basement."

"Good to see that Pre-Law program wasn't for nothing, " Maarva remarks, amused.

"You could also try to remember that I'm a responsible adult and you trust me," Cassian says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"That is true," she says, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "But it is my job to worry about you, as your mother."

"I understand that, but we've talked about reining in your expectations for me a little."

Maarva looks like she wants to argue with that, but a soft, tinny voice comes through the speaker of her phone, demanding her attention once more. "Yes, I'm still here," she says, to the person on the other end of the call. "Actually, give me one moment," she adds, putting her hand over the speaker. "Whatever you end up doing, don't drive home if you drink."

Cassian suppresses another eye roll. "Obviously not. Give me some credit, please!"

"Fine, then. Oh, and be sure to reply to your mother's email sometime today. She sent us that nice picture of Kerri at the state championships, remember?"

"I replied last night," he replies, exasperated. "Go back to your call."

Maarva nods, then, and gives him another kiss on the head before wandering off. Before she's even out of the room, she is already deep in some important conversation with the person on the other end of the phone, like nothing had interrupted her in the first place, and Cassian is left to finish his orange juice in relative peace.

i. the magician

The crowd at the club tonight is decidedly lackluster in Jyn's professional opinion. There's not enough trust fund kids partying alone for her usual grift and for whatever reason, any viable targets are looking right past her. She might as well be invisible. If she wasn't already planning on returning this dress (the tags are still on and tucked away so no one will notice them), she'd definitely be considering it now. It's clearly not doing her any favors.

Maybe she's just not in the right mood for this tonight. Her mark from last night had been a piece of work and said several vile things to her before the sedative she'd slipped into his drink took effect. Then again, she had turned around and robbed him of most of his valuables after that, so maybe they were even. If she didn’t need the money, she’d already be on her way home, but most of the things she fenced from last night didn’t net her much profit, so she’s got to find a way to turn this around.

At the exact moment she’s beginning to despair of her prospects, her phone lights up with a text from Bodhi. 

wyd?

Bodhi works security at one of her usual nightclubs and she’d much rather be there tonight, except it’s his night off so there’s no one to get her on the list without paying the cover charge. This place is her second choice—one of the bouncers accepts the adderall that she liberates from her marks as payment—so she’s happy to hear from Bodhi instead.

at the second best club in NOLA rn, hbu?

Bodhi responds with a pinned location. It’s in the middle of the woods on the other side of town. Friend of a friend of a friend is throwing a party out here. Take a night off playing Artful Dodger and come hang...

can’t take a night off, but I’ll come steal where you are, if it’s all the same

just don’t get caught, okay? I can’t keep hooking you up if people catch on

be there soon

Jyn’s phone dings with a thumbs up from Bodhi as she finishes her drink and heads for the exit. At the coat check, she makes a fuss that her number wasn’t put on the correct hanger and leaves with a more expensive jacket than she came in wearing.

x. the wheel of fortune

Cassian takes a sip of his beer and surveys the scene in front of him. The party turned out to be less of a backyard affair than a middle of the woods rager, which is a piece of information he's absolutely not going to volunteer to Maarva later. There's a large bonfire in the middle of the area the hosts (whom he still hasn't met) cleared for the party and then a spot not far off where someone's pickup truck is parked with a keg in the bed. Cassian is probably done after this drink because four years of college parties didn't cure him of his anxiety about getting caught drinking by his mother, even if it is entirely legal for him to do now, but most of the people here do not have his qualms. The guy manning the keg is keeping very busy and, since they're charging for drinks, he's also flush with cash.

On the other side of the bonfire, he can see Bix animatedly telling a story to their friend Xan and a guy from the body shop Cassian's never been formally introduced to. He's glad he came out tonight, even if all it accomplishes is getting his friends off his case. Still, he can't help feeling like he shouldn't be here. Maarva is right that he needs to stay focused on his future. Meanwhile, his friends that stayed in New Orleans together while he was away at school have bonded and put down roots in a way that makes him feel like an intruder.

It's while he's having these morose thoughts that a drunk girl collides with him and drenches him in beer, which is probably what he deserves for being so somber at a fucking party.

"Woah, sorry," she says, stumbling to a stop. "Shit, I really soaked your jacket, didn't I?"

"It's fine," Cassian says, wiping at his jacket with his hands rather ineffectually.

"No, that was super uncool," she replies and even standing completely still, she looks unsteady on her feet. She reaches out to swat at the stained fabric with her hand uselessly before she seems to catch on that it won't accomplish anything and pulls off her knit beanie instead. "This...isn't actually helping, is it?"

He laughs, unexpectedly. "Not really, no. But it's fine."

"I'm so sorry," she says, miserably, as she continues to try to soak up the beer with her hat. "I'm really not this much of a klutz normally."

"Not your first stop of the night, I'm guessing?"

She groans. "I don't look that wasted, do I?"

Cassian tips his head to the side, trying to equivocate, but it's a hard thing to walk back now. "Well, it's partially that and also you're a little overdressed for this party."

The girl looks down at herself like she forgot what she was wearing: a simple but tight black dress and heels that would do better on a dance floor than in the woods and a trendy, expensive looking jacket. He realizes, a little belatedly, that she's pretty, which is something he's going to have to ignore considering how over-served she is. Still, even in the half light of the bonfire, her eyes capture his attention.

"You got me there," she says, rolling her beautiful eyes like they're in on the same joke. “I had to put in appearance at my stupid cousin's twenty-first, which she just had to have at some bougie club with loud, shitty music and expensive drinks. But this was where I really wanted to be all along."

That last part was said flirtatiously enough that Cassian's entire train of thought slams to a halt. The effort of getting through college in one piece and with a GPA that could get him into a good law school had clearly done a number on his social skills, because high school Cassian would have been able to knock a serve that easy back over the net with little trouble and now he was just staring blankly at this beautiful woman. He tells himself that it's her state of inebriation that gives him pause and not an utter lack of game on his part.

"Uh…I'm not one of the hosts," he says, weakly, "so, you don't need to flatter me.”

"I guess not," she says, with a smirk that tells him his deflection was obvious but that she also didn't take it too personally. She holds up the beanie with grim amusement. "And this is clearly not doing anything. I'm going to see if I can find…napkins? Paper towels? Something useful for absorption at least?"

Cassian snorts. "Don't hold your breath," he says, trying and failing to imagine the hosts of this kegger having something practical like that on hand.

"Yeah, well," she says, with a rueful shrug, "a girl can dream, right?"

''I suppose so."

She nods and starts to wander away. "I'll be back. Don't move," she says and then offers him an ironic little salute.

Cassian laughs to himself as she goes and then pivots his attention to survey the damage to his jacket. The thing is made of wool, which means it's absorbing the beer quite admirably, against his wishes. He probably should have told her not to bother with the napkin hunt since he'll most likely have to get it dry cleaned anyway just to get the beer smell out, but she'd seemed determined to help somehow.

A few minutes after his mysterious friend departs, Bix materializes at his elbow. "Man," she says, stepping back immediately to cover her nose, "You smell like a bar floor. I thought you promised Maarva you'd go easy tonight!"

"I did," Cassian says, scowling at her. “This is someone else's beer, unfortunately."

"Tough break," Bix replies, casting a sympathetic eye over him.

"Probably a sign to call it a night, though."

"Boo," she yells, not entirely sober herself. "You can’t go now! You said you'd buy me a drink!"

"I can do that before I leave," he says. "I just don't want to pay for a cab home and I will definitely need to if I have another drink."

"You used to be fun, Cass," she says, morosely, and he ignores how much it hurts to have his fears about himself voiced by another person.

"Do you want your beer or not?" he grumbles instead, because he knows it's not something she would have said sober and that's enough to soothe him for now.

"Of course," she says, rolling her eyes, and loops their arms together.

Before they can get very far, Cassian pats his jacket pocket to find his wallet and comes up empty. He stops himself and Bix in their tracks and searches the pockets of his jeans too, finding his car keys and his phone but nothing else. He turns around to see if his wallet is on the ground somewhere, like maybe he dropped it, and pats his jacket one more time for good measure. His hand comes away wet and he remembers, suddenly, that someone else recently did the same thing. His head whips around as he searches for her in the crowd.

"Cassian," Bix says, plainly worried. "What is it?"

"My wallet. Beer girl...she must have taken it..."

"Wait, what? Who the fuck would do that?"

"A thief," Cassian says, as he spots her on the other side of the clearing. "Hey, thief!" he calls.

Her head lifts at the raised voice, and she looks around, bewildered, before her eyes—the ones he'd been admiring not that long ago—land on him and go wide with surprise. Before he can formulate something clever to say, her face clears of its confused expression and turns ice cold before she takes off at a run.

"Son of a—!" he mutters and follows. He doesn't even think twice about it, like he probably should. For whatever reason, this stranger stealing from him tonight feels like a very personal betrayal and chasing her down doesn't register as the ludicrous idea it obviously is. He vaguely recognizes Bix calling after him in alarm but he ignores it. The world narrows to just him and his pickpocket.

xvi. the tower

Jyn has got to be more discerning about only stealing from people who can't keep up with her on foot. If nothing else, she should have given this guy a kick in the shin when she had the chance because he is fast. She's not doing her best work in these heels either, but she hadn't planned to run through mud and wet leaves when she got dressed this evening. She was supposed to be at a nightclub. Bodhi is in for it when she gets a hold of him. She hadn't even seen him at this party he invited her to before this dude caught her lifting wallets. What sort of Sherlock Holmes wannabe was she even dealing with here, anyway?

A lucky break presents itself in the form of an entrance to an old graveyard at the edge of the woods. There will be more places to hide there, she reasons, and most people are irrationally superstitious about graveyards, especially after dark. She's willing to bet Wallet Guy is no exception. She ducks through the barely open gate and sprints down a row of tall headstones, feeling the gazes of granite angels on her the whole way.

She eventually hides herself in the shadow of an ostentatiously large gravestone (or maybe it's a very tiny mausoleum) and holds her breath when she hears footsteps approach. Sherlock Jr. clearly isn't afraid of graveyards like she’d hoped. With her luck, he'll probably camp out here all night, waiting for her, completely unbothered.

"Listen," his voice rings out, echoing in the stone aisles, "Beer girl, I'm not going to call the cops or anything. That's the last thing I want, okay? Just give me the wallet back now and we're even. I'll forget your face. You have my word."

Jyn is almost tempted to snort at that but her muscles are tensed up so thoroughly, she couldn't do anything involuntarily at the moment. Still, the audacity that she should trust this guy to be cool, to bet her actual life on it; he must be joking. This is the moment she decides she's going to have to sacrifice the heels in order to get out of there, which she does not want to do because it means spending money she doesn't have to replace them. She can't think of a better plan right now, though, and she's absolutely willing to ditch them if it means giving this guy the slip. Jyn slowly and quietly toes them off so she's ready to run, while he is distracted trying to reason with her.

"I'm serious," Wallet Guy announces, like that wasn't obvious from literally everything about him. It's part of why she'd zeroed in on him in the first place. He seemed so serious that she was sure a little mishap and some light flirting would completely throw him off and make her grab for his wallet virtually undetectable. She'd only been a little wrong, to be fair. "I don't want trouble any more than you do!"

But that had always been Jyn's problem: she's never minded trouble. She can get herself out of it just as easily as she can get herself into it. Some rich kid from the right side of the tracks is no match for her in the trouble department, she thinks, and so she ducks out from behind the headstone and tries to make her escape. In doing so, however, she accientally kicks some gravel loose as she takes off running, which gives away her location. It also turns out Wallet Guy was much closer than she'd originally thought and his reflexes are better than anticipated too, because it only takes a quick heel turn and a few strides before he's caught up with her and reaching for her wrist.

"Please," he says, before there's a bright flash and a lurch like a train picking up speed too quickly and then she's being wrenched away from him with enough force that it launches her across the graveyard.

iv. the emperor

When Cassian was eight, he'd watched his father die. He'd watched him get shot by a police officer, while his hands were up in surrender, because the officer had been startled by an explosion nearby. Cassian always forgets this part—the Imperial Gulf oil rig explosion happening the same night as his father's murder—but one of those things actually materially changed his life and the other was just a thing from the news grownups were worried about. If he hadn't been right there when it happened, he might have forgotten about it entirely, for all people in New Orleans still talk about it all the time. People don't forget here, he's found. The city has a good, long memory.

There is a chance that if not for the explosion, his father might not have been shot, but even as a kid, Cassian knew the odds were bad. Clem was a Black man caught holding a stolen sound system, the one Cassian had stolen on a dare from some older boys at school that he was desperate to impress. He was ten years old and the only thing that ever seemed to matter to him in those days was seeming grown up. Clem had come looking for him when he was late getting home from school and found the stolen stereo in his hands. He'd insisted they bring it back and try to make things right with the owner.

It didn't matter to the police that Clem hadn't stolen it, that he was just trying to teach his son a lesson. Cassian's adoption had only been finalized the year before and he was still acting out sometimes, pushing the limits of his parents' patience in what a counselor would later explain to him were attempts to see what it would take to be sent away again. There was no easy way to explain to a little kid that his birth parents hadn't "sent him away" for being bad, but because they couldn't keep him, or that his adoptive parents wouldn’t do the same thing someday for some minor infraction. He just didn’t understand that back then. Still, Clem was trying to teach him right and wrong without triggering his fears. It was even starting to work. If only he'd never stolen that car stereo, everything would have been different.

But he did. And the police found him and his father trying to return it. And while Clem tried to surrender, the explosion had happened and one of the officers panicked and fired his gun. They'd been down by the docks when the police found them and, when Clem was shot, he'd fallen into the water. Without hesitation, without any thought at all, Cassian had jumped in after him. Maybe it was from a misguided place of hope, believing that something could still be done to save his father. Maybe it was out of fear, knowing that he wasn't safe with those cops after what he'd seen. Or maybe it was a death wish. Maybe in that moment, losing the man who'd been so kind to him even when he hardly deserved it, he just didn't see any reason to try to survive so he followed his father into the water because he wanted to follow him into death.

Under the water, though, he'd seen that there was no helping his father and the oil rig's collapse was only getting worse. He tried to make his way to the surface but it was impossible to see anything more than a few feet away. Everything was dark. He'd been so consumed with fear when he dove into the water that he had no clue by then how far he'd swam from the docks. He was never going to find his way back now. Just when he was truly starting to despair, there had been a sound from the direction of the rig and a pulse went through the water that hit him like a slap across the back of his head. When he opened his eyes again, there was something glowing in the water ahead of him, a pure white light he reached for instinctively. He'd felt sure in that moment, despite everything, that the light would save him somehow. He'd never felt faith or hope that certainly in his life before, and he sure as hell hasn't felt it that way since. Then again, he hadn't seen that bright light again since that night either. Until he reaches for the girl in the graveyard, that is.

xi. justice

Jyn's shoulder throbs in pain. It's the part of her that had made contact with the headstone that broke her fall, so it makes sense that it hurts, but it's going to be a problem if this guy decides to fight her. Then again, judging by the look of him right now, he's not in any condition to fight either. Whatever force just threw her back did the same thing to him. He's still conscious, though, which is only good because she doesn't feel like dealing with a dead body right now. There's something wrong with him, though. He's looking down at his body in alarm—inspecting himself for injuries, she suspects—but he freezes in horror when he sees his hands. It takes Jyn a moment to realize why but when she does, her heart nearly stops.

There's smoke coming off his hands in tendrils, but nothing's on fire as far as she can tell. It's like the smoke that comes off of dry ice except it's pitch black. From any further away, Jyn's not sure she could convince herself it wasn't the shadows moving of their accord. Based on the expression on the guy's face, he's never seen this before, but she has. On the night of the car accident, after her father died, she'd seen it.

She'd been trying desperately to get out of the sinking car, but the water was coming in too fast and the windows were all sealed shut. Then there had been an explosion underneath the water and a ripple went across the bay, knocking her backwards into the seat. When she opened her eyes, there was black smoke pouring through the windshield. It looked like someone had dumped ink into the water, the way it moved and spread its way into the car. She'd reached for it, more afraid of staying still there than whatever the black smoke could do to her. She had expected her palm to find the window when she did, but there was no glass there anymore. The smoke had dissolved it or replaced it somehow and Jyn didn't stop to rationalize how or why that happened. She swam towards the shadows and felt a hand clasp around her own and pull her to safety. And now that same smoke was pouring from the hands of the boy who'd chased her down in the graveyard.

"What the hell was that?" she calls out, shaking (she tells herself) with anger and not with fear. "What did you just do to me?"

"Me?" he fires back. "I didn't do anything! That—that wasn't you?"

"No! I couldn't—how could I do that?"

"Your hands," he says, voice shaking. "They're glowing."

Jyn looks down, then, to find he's telling the truth. Her palms are glowing with a bright white light. This is...definitely a sign of concussion. There's no way any of this is really happening.

Before she can get too far with that denial, the guy is gingerly standing up and brushing off his clothes with shadowy hands. “I've seen it before," he says, carefully. "Once."

Jyn shakes her head, still hoping to write all of this off as a side effect of a head injury. "You've…what?"

"I've seen something glow like that before," he repeats, patiently. "It was you, wasn't it? You're the girl from the beach, the night of the oil rig collapse. You saved me."

Jyn swallows hard, so that she doesn't say the first thing that comes to mind, which is that he's got it all backwards. As she remembers it, he was the one who saved her that night. She knows it's been twelve years but she can't believe she didn't recognize him immediately. His face has been haunting her dreams her entire life. She should have known him.

"That was you?" she asks, uselessly. Who else could it be? Who else would even know about that?

He holds up his hands tentatively but they're answer enough. That night was the one and only time she'd ever seen smoke like that.

"We must have—something happened to us," he starts to say, far too reasonable and certain for her taste. "Back then, or ...just now, I don't know."

Panic rises in Jyn's throat, threatening to choke her. She starts shaking her head before the actual thought has even articulated itself in her mind and she picks herself up off the ground feeling like her body is made of lead.

"I can't do this," she says, still looking at her glowing hands and beginning to back away.

"Please," he says, starting to come closer, "don't leave. I just want some answers."

The light grows brighter as her panic sharpens. "I don't have any," she shouts, over the roaring in her ears, “I’m sorry.” And then she runs.

The boy from the beach calls after her but she doesn't stop running until the light coming from her hands fades completely and she has to pick her way through the woods by the light of the moon. She puts a healthy distance between herself and him, between herself and the party and anyone who could recognize her, and gets back to a main road somehow. She decides to literally go for broke and hails a cab. Once she's given the driver a respectable residential address near enough to where she's illegally squatting, she settles back in the seat and tries to close her eyes. Something pokes at her side from her jacket pocket, though, and she remembers that she still has the wallet.

Tentatively, like she's handling something unstable and potentially explosive, she pulls the wallet out and opens it. She finds a handful of small bills, a debit card as well as a credit card, a library card and a membership card to a local grocery chain. Boring stuff, mostly, but there's also a student ID and a driver's license, which tell her what she really wants to know: Cassian Andor. She'd always been curious about the name of the boy who saved her life all those years ago and now she has it. Her hands shake with the possibility that this knowledge offers. She even has his address, if his license is up to date. She could find him again, if she really wanted to. The problem is that she has no idea what she actually wants.

xvii. the star

Cassian doesn't bother going back to the party. He skirts around the clearing and finds where he parked his car without saying goodbye to anyone. He's not even sure what he would offer as an explanation for his disappearing act if people asked. Instead, he avoids everyone and their potential questions and just goes home. It’s late enough when he gets there that his mother is already asleep, which is just as well, because he doesn’t want to deal with her questions either.

There’s so many things he doesn’t understand right now and so many questions he wants answered and the only person who could even begin to help him ran as fast as she could in the other direction. He didn’t even get her name, which is somehow the most disappointing part of all. He’s spent more than half of his life dreaming of that night and remembering her; it’s only right that he should have a name to go with that memory. Cassian sighs and wills himself to forget about it, even though he knows that’s a lost cause. He takes off his stained jacket and his muddy shoes and heads upstairs, where he doesn’t bother undressing any further before slumping down onto his bed. He tells himself he’ll actually get ready for bed in a minute, but he knows this is also a lie. After a few aborted attempts to get back up, he commits to sleeping in his clothes and pulls a blanket over his head to block out any remaining light. It feels like only a few moments later that the sound of birds chirping and singing wakes him. He wouldn’t normally notice such a thing, but these birds are loud. They must be right outside of his window, he thinks, as he throws the sheet back to welcome in the morning sunlight. He gets the surprise of his life when, above him, all he sees is the faded pink skies of dawn. He lurches up to a sitting position and looks around and finds himself on a rooftop downtown.

It must be a dream. He’s still asleep and that’s the only explanation there is. He hadn’t dreamed of Clem or the oil rig explosion or the girl from the graveyard and he’d thought it was a mercy, but this is…weirder. And it feels real. He can feel his heart beating wildly in his chest and the humid, dewy air of early morning on his face. If it’s a dream, it’s a completely new kind for him. He’s even wearing the same clothes he went to sleep in, and he can feel the bruise on his shoulder from when he fell in the graveyard. And his hands, where they’re still clutching the blanket, have the black mist curling around them again.

He might not be dreaming after all, he realizes, watching the shadowy tendrils twist delicately around his wrist and into the open air. Maybe this is his reality now. Maybe he can—what? Teleport? Travel places in his dreams? What exactly did he do to get here of all places? Where is here, anyway?

A glance over his shoulder reveals the answer to many of those questions. Behind him on the roof, he recognizes a downtown landmark: the old Imperial Gulf Oil sign. The building below had housed the first offices for the later-rebranded Imperial Energy back in the day. Years ago, they’d built a huge, expensive facility across the water where their employee offices were now located and sold this building to a developer, who wasted no time turning it into expensive condos no one here could afford. They’d kept the enormous neon sign on the roof as a nod to the neighborhood’s history and probably because it’s exactly the sort of aesthetic nonsense their ideal buyers would shell out extra for. If there was any chance Cassian still believed his appearance here was pure coincidence, it was gone now. He had said he wanted answers and the universe sent him a literal neon sign. Imperial Gulf is where all of this started and it’s where he’ll get his answers.

He just has to find her first—the girl from the beach, the girl from the graveyard, the girl from his dreams.

#rebelcaptain #jyn erso #cassian andor #jyn x cassian #rogue one #star wars #cloak and dagger #superheroes au #firstelevens #mutuals admiration society #ask #writing prompts #taylor swift song prompts #all part of my evil plan to get marvel to bring back C&D #i'll do it singlehandedly if i must!! #also i have had an unbelievably sucktastic week and if anyone is even slightly mean to me i will cry about it #and i cannot even begin to tell if this is good or if it hangs together at all #but it's for zainab so I don't rly care if anyone else likes it just don't tell me if it's bad ok? #can't wait to launch this fic into space and never think of it again BYE #homelywenchsociety #that's my writing tag! don't worry about it!

[steveharrington]

major hornets nest moment here but i must speak my truth. its so fascinating to me how will byers was clearly written with the driving motivation and intention of making him a beloved fan favorite character and instead he falls so flat that, if you asked the average casual viewer of the show who doesn't engage in the fandom like, say, your coworker, the odds of him even being in their top five of favorite characters is pretty low.

will's disappearance kicks off the plot, singlehandedly. the first episode is literally called the vanishing of will byers. his name is shouted so much in the first season that most people would recognize the reference if you used the right cadence and desperation that winona ryder does. after not being featured much in season one, you'd think season two would've just like launched will/noah schnapp into stardom with how much more screentime he's given and how dramatic his plot is that season. but instead the fan favorites of season 2 were by and large el, hopper, dustin, steve, max, even bob who's barely there. that's not to say that there AREN'T will fans out there (and online i understand there are like entire armies dedicated to him/byler, but i'm talking about the average opinion of viewers as a whole, not just in fandom spaces) but think about all the stranger things merch you see in stores, the halloween costumes, the characters that appear in promotional materials when the show has partnerships with brands....will is so rarely featured. idk if any of yall ever got the chance to visit the stranger things pop up shop in any of its various locations, but there was such little mention of will in the stores theming or merchandise that it was almost funny. actually it WAS funny, to me, someone who does not care for him

i think the flop can be attributed to many things. one, noah schnapp is just not a very good actor and he doesn't have the same appeal in his performances that millie, sadie, caleb, gaten, priah, or finn do (although finn i've noticed is also kinda falling out of favor from majority audiences). one could argue that noah schnapp intentionally isn't given much to do, which is true and i'll circle back to that, but the decline in his acting between seasons 2 and 3 is truly a sight to behold. when he's not like tied up and screaming, he reallllllly struggles on the smaller scale performances compared to the other cast members his age. he doesn't really have the charm that gaten does or the humor that priah does or the depth that caleb does. (i don’t feel bad about saying this, btw, given noah schnapp’s behavior)

back to the vanishing of will byer's screen time. my beloved prettymuchit's eric striffler commented on how diminished will and mike's roles in the story have become in s4. "noah schnapp is below the grips on the call sheet" is my fav line, but he also makes an observation on finn's role that i think is soooo accurate. when mike and will are kneeling down next to the pizza dough freezer and watching el just kinda twitch while she fights vecna in her mind, eric and his co-host miles say "this is so embarrassing! finn's like, 'oh so gaten's fighting the monster? and i'm kneeling next to a tub at a pizza place? i used to be this show" and i think the same exact sentiment can be superimposed onto will

but i think this happened naturally, as the nature of the show is to shift its focus from character to character. not to mention the duffer brothers' obsession with tweaking their story to give audiences what they want. i've always held the belief that there isn't one main character of stranger things, rather a rotating circle of characters depending on the season you're watching. season one is mike, season two is hopper, season three is el, season four is max imo. again that's a little subjective and arguments could be made to swap those a little, but overall i think those characters stories and point of views take center stage during each of their respective seasons. by season 3, the duffers wanted to kick things up to a larger scale. the UD is no longer targeting just will, it's targeting the entire town. this works because a THIRD season in a row where this one kid specifically gets possessed would just be bonkers, so they kinda had to let him take a backseat. i'm not sure why they didn't let will be more involved in the mystery-solving portion of season 3....to this day that decision baffles me, but what's done is done and the will that everyone watched in season 3 literally just kinda follows everyone around and gets a small little slice of a plotline about wanting things to go back to normal, but alas

it like totally worked, though. though there are MANY complaints commonly made about season 3, i've never heard anyone offline complain that there wasn't enough will byers. i think the group in s3 that had the most success like, commercially, would be scoops troop and then a bit farther back i think most audiences enjoyed hopper/joyce/murray's dynamic. i think if there had been a huge outcry in the minimizing of will's role, the duffers would've backpedaled immediately. they aim to please. they can't even commit to killing of a main character out of fear that audiences will lose interest if we permanently lose hopper or max, so they just do some creative writing that allows them to milk the emotional consequence of those characters deaths without actually writing them off. if audiences on a large scale demanded that will be center stage, he would be. but they dont!

final point: i think will gets fucked over by the duffers obsession with romance. in season one, two of will's strongest dynamics are with his mom and brother. which like, yeah. theyre his immediately family and he is 12. but in seasons 2 and 3, jonathan spent all his screen time with nancy and from 2-4, joyce has spent all her screen time either with hopper or in the pursuit of finding hopper. these characters are written together as a package deal, typically. it was refreshing and unexpected to see jonathan get a whole season with a friend of his very own and his siblings, but they barely took advantage of that. jonathan and will get ummmm one (1) scene to talk about their emotions in a fucking 20 hour season. it's hard for will to be a main character when he rarely gets to interact with the people that make up the other half of his main dynamics.

as for byler, im of the belief that it will not be endgame because i just don't think they're going to break up mike and el at this point. i could be completely wrong and stand corrected, but im like 90% sure lol. i do think that will's s4 storyline resonated with a lot of people. even eric striffler! i think the issue is that the vastttt majority of people who watch this show above the age of like 15 do not feel invested about the romantic relationships between any of the kids. because why would they!!! theyre literally in middle school for 3/4 of the show. you would be hard pressed to find a vocal will stan online who doesn't also dedicate 90% of their engagement with the show to byler. which makes sense, because most if not all of will's scenes revolve around mike to some degree. but according to neilsen, the majority of stranger things audience is consistently in the 18-49 age range season by season. its more likely for adult audiences to identify with adults (or characters who are narratively treated like adults, like steve and nancy) than with any of the kids. esp when the kid in question, despite being written as the focal point of the show, has less relevant plotlines, less interaction with other characters, and an actor who just doesn't deliver on charm the way his fellow younger costars do

#two ppl asked for it in the inbox so voila

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Low-effort headcanon that no one asked for.

But laughter is the best medicine and I need lots of laughter right now.

So here's the boys as comedic tropes.

Stand-Up Swashbucklers

OPLA! Sanji, Zoro, Shanks, Mihawk, Buggy

SFW

Stupid af, sorry in advance

Sanji

Corny Pick-Up Lines

"Just blinded by your beauty."

"Love, I hope you have a license for those eyes, because I've never encountered a deadlier weapon."

"I've been dabbling in interior design lately, and I think you'd make a fine addition to my bedroom."

"I haven't been a pirate for long, but I'm certain you have to be the greatest treasure in all the seas."

"Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by a few more times?"

Zoro

Dry One-Liners

"Don't like what you see, look away."

"Did you take lessons on being an asshole or is it a natural talent?"

"If I promise I'll miss you, will you leave me alone?"

"You should write a book. How To Be A Miserable Failure: For Dummies."

"Your ass must be jealous of how much shit comes out of your mouth."

Shanks

Bad Puns and Dad-Jokes

"I could take you...with one arm tied behind my back."

"What's wrong with me? Well, you could say I'm not all there."

*pointing at a keg of ale* "I'd tap that."

"I used to shave every day, but this beard, well, it sort of...grew on me."

"I'd offer you a hand, but I really haven't got one to spare."

Mihawk

The Lord of the Roasts

"Oh, come now Vice Admiral, I don't take orders—even from the likes of you."

"There truly isn't a single thought behind those eyes, is there?"

"Have you ever wondered how different your life would be, had you been born with even one single ounce of common sense?"

"I'd tell you to reconsider that statement, but that would require you to actually think, and I'm not sure you possess such a talent."

"Were idiocy contagious, you could singlehandedly bring about a global pandemic."

Buggy

Chop-Chop Slapstick

"Surprise, shithead!"

"That deserves a round of applause—" *drops both hands into a beer stein, actively clapping*

"Yeah, I'll lend you an ear, just give it back when you're done."

"I'm a little, shall we say, detached from reality."

"I'd give an arm and a leg to see that. In fact, here, take them."

#opla #one piece #mihawk #dracule mihawk #mihawk opla #mihawk one piece #shanks #red haired shanks #buggy #opla buggy #one piece buggy #one piece shanks #zoro opla #zoro one piece #zoro #sanji #opla sanji #one piece sanji #headcanons #opla headcanons #one piece headcanons

[doyou000me]

Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better:

Tagged by @lurkingshan - thank you for the tag!

3 Ships You Like:

Luca and Vincenzo. They're my rare pair hell ship and I'll keep it afloat singlehandedly if I have to. Luckily I don't, because there's two of us holding up the fort on Ao3, and @ristique-xy and I are basically feeding each other at this point.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Vincenzo is a Korean drama from 2021. Vincenzo is the main character and Luca has like 5-10 minutes of screen time in the entire series. Nothing can convince me that they're not murderous lovers for life.

Yoh and Mizuki from My Personal Weatherman. I watched it, moved on, and then was reminded of it after a certain picture and discussion with @candidamay, which made me go back and rewatched MPW and now I'm trying to write a fic for them. It is resisting me but I shall employ stubbornness and persevere.

Kinnporsche. Again, I watched the show when it came out and moved on. Now incredible fanfics (go read Bad Bet by @luckydragon10 and The Power In The Taking by @iffervescent. Both are excellent and very NSFW - proceed with caution and heed the tags) and tumblr in general are slowly making me slide down the slippery slope into the fandom. Can't say I'm putting up any resistance. The Kinnporsche plotbunnies are breeding in my already overpopulated head.

Honorable mentions: PayuRain and PrapaiSky. Need I say more?

First Ship Ever:

My first ship must be something like 15+ years ago, so I really don't remember. Also, I don't think I've ever been big on exclusively shipping one pair of characters, so OTPs aren't really my thing. I tend to pick one favourite character and then ship them with pretty much any other character depending on what dynamic I want in the moment. I still do, but now I've started entertaining the idea of just throwing them all together in one big poly relationship.

Last Song You Heard:

Wonder by The Rose has been playing on and off in my head the last few days

Favorite Childhood Book:

The Redwall books by Brian Jacques.

Currently Reading:

Nothing. I tend to read in short, intense bursts (like a book/long fanfic in 1-2 days), and then I read nothing for a while.

Currently watching:

Love is Better The Second Time Around

Deep Night The Series

Bingeing:

Bloodhounds (rewatch with a friend)

Sandman (watching with a friend)

Currently consuming:

Yoghurt and musli with banana. It's breakfast.

Currently craving:

Juice.

Tagging @ristique-xy @functionalasfuck, @cryingatships, @candidamay, @7nessasaryevils because I'm curious about what's going on in your heads! Do it if you feel like it, ignore it if you don't :)

#tag game #kinnporsche #my personal weatherman #vincenzo #fanfics #Youtube

[kimbapisnotsushi]

miscellaneous haikyuu hcs that are scattered to the four winds bc i need to de-stress and i haven't done them in a while

tendou uses hair gel but tells goshiki that every morning he sticks a fork in an electrical outlet and that's how he gets his hair to stand up

goshiki, bless his soul, believes him

tsukishima freaks the fuck out when he learns that tenma asked out akiteru not because he's an overprotective brother or has misplaced resentment for the former little giant but because he's the biggest fucking fanboy of tenma's works

"what do you MEAN udai tenma asked you out what do you MEAN you've never read any of his works have you been living under a ROCK - "

this goes on for a whole hour and akiteru basically gets a free lecture of how amazing his little bro thinks his boyfriend is

when kageyama is really missing his grandfather he goes to the park where they used to play volleyball together and that's where he asks kunimi and kindaichi to meet him so they can finally have the proper conversation they needed in middle school

(i think about this hypothetical scene SO MUCH)

shibayama's parents own a cafe/bakery and the team converges there sometimes to hang out and will occasionally lend a hand

they help decorate it for the holidays!!

atsumu: "hey kita-san, i'm really sorry but i think i've caught updog" kita: "are you okay? do you need soup? tea? medicine? you should go home and take a break, i'll have gin send the notes to you, i'll let coach know - " atsumu, crying to the other second years later: "i can't fuckibg do this to him i feel like a momster"

kita DOES know the joke btw akagi did it to him back when they first met

inarizaki vbc is at war with inarizaki student council btw. inarizaki student council has been trying to steal kita for AGES ever since kita saved their asses in his first year from looking like total fools

kawanishi doesn't look like it but he is absolutely willing to fight for shirabu's right to be a snarky piece of shit

semi, exhausted, after stopping the third person that day from curbstomping shirabu: "kawanishi, why" kawanishi: "i like him like that"

sakunami is the most well-adjusted out of all the first years

at least every single one of them has broken some minor trespassing or breaking and entering law to play pokemon go

terushima is the type to try and show off in front of his crush and whenever this happens every single member of johzenji is determined to make him look like as much of a fool as possible

one day he's talking to komaki yuzuru and humble bragging about how oh so brave he was for his piercings and didn't even feel any pain or whatever and all his friends are walking by like

"hey yuuji thanks for singlehandedly lifting my parents' car out of that ditch they crashed into!!" "hey yuuji i heard you rescued twelve orphans from a burning house the other day!!" "wow yuuji i can't believe you steered an airplane after the pilot lost control and saved thousands of people!!" "hey yuuji remember that time you took on a whole gang of robbers and knocked out all of them??"

they are so fucking stupid i love them so much

reon is one of those early risers and tendou WILL throw a pillow at him if he doesn't shut off his alarm within five seconds of it going off

if it's winter and tendou has kicked all his blankets off then reon will carefully tuck him back in before leaving the room, flareon plushy included

reon has the BEST sweatshirt collection btw. they're comfy and have neat designs and everyone ends up wearing one at some point or another.

i love reon guys he deserves so much more love

kogane is a hopeless romantic and has a list titled "dream date spots" in his phone's notes app. there is an addendum at the end of the list in parantheses that says "must actually ask out sakunami first in order to go to dream date spots". kogane hopes to erase that addendum soon.

#god i feel SO much better #okay!! time to work on my jp classical lit final!! #i spent an hour doing this instead LMAO #tendou satori #goshiki tsutomu #tsukishima kei #tsukishima akiteru #udai tenma #kageyama tobio #kunimi akira #kindaichi yuutarou #shibayama yuuki #miya atsumu #kita shinsuke #akagi michinari #kawanishi taichi #shirabu kenjirou #kawashira #semi eita #sakunami kousuke #koganegawa kanji #kogasaku #terushima yuuji #komaki yuzuru #komateru #oohira reon #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #haikyuu hcs #sou says stuff

[aaronieros]

fuck it. short tumblr fic because there's no way i finish this during The Laddening. this is the madatobi tsukuyomi idea i have been ruminating on. warning for implied/referenced past necrophilia and questionable consent due to genjustu hatesex but this is just a conceptual preamble and not actual smut anyway. cannot stress enough that they do not fuck in this it's just that they're about to

It's a mistake, looking up at Madara from the ground. Reanimated, his body is immortal, and the different pattern of Madara's eye doesn't set off Tobirama's instinct to avoid the Sharingan. That may be why he lets his guard down, why he looks up from where he's pinned to lock eyes with Madara one last time.

That, or it's an old habit resurfacing. As soon as his eyes graze across Madara's, there's a sudden freedom to his body, and the noise of the ongoing war has been quieted. Madara hasn't bothered to change the scenery otherwise, but Tobirama knows where he is.

He stands, waits for Madara to state his purpose, because he surely can't have brought Tobirama here for the same reason he always used to? Not now, not while the whole fucking world is ending at his hands?

"I know what you did to my body," Madara casually tells him as he approaches.

Tobirama has to admit he never thought he'd be confronted for that, particularly by Madara himself. How, exactly, does he even know?

"You just couldn't resist letting your hands wander, linger, once you could finally touch me for real. I was only a little put off when I found out. There was something triumphant in the implicit confession that you would have instigated after all, if not for your pride."

"If not for who you are," Tobirama corrects. "Dead, you were quite agreeable. No mood swings, no Sharingan. No danger."

"Please. As if the Sharingan didn't singlehandedly allow our secret little trysts. As if the danger didn't turn you on."

There's little point in lying to Madara within his Tsukuyomi. For all that he's done, he has managed to keep his initial word that whatever occurs in this world remains confined to it, never to be mentioned in the real world.

"If it didn't, I would have killed you for trying, that first time," Tobirama tells him.

"As if it's a given that you would be able to. As if the only thing keeping me alive was your mercy."

It was the opposite, he knows. From the first time Madara caught him in Tsukuyomi, claiming he only wanted to have a private discussion-- one that spiraled and spiraled and spiraled until Madara was touching him and Tobirama couldn't think anymore-- his life should have been forfeit.

A snap of Madara's fingers sees Tobirama's armor removed, but he likes slipping his hands under Tobirama's clothes too much to bare him completely. Tobirama never understood it. He never understood why Madara even started this, nor why he kept coming back for more. The simple triumph of leaving Tobirama a sweaty mess, impossibly hard and unsatisfied within those few mere seconds that pass in the real world?

He has no decency, this man. Madara once blinked Tobirama into Tsukuyomi out in public, choosing to represent the real world, bystanders and all, within the dream world. He had them all witness, had them all react, as he fucked Tobirama in front of the whole village, and all Tobirama could do was try in vain to hide how much he enjoyed that extra effect, lest he encourage Madara to try something so obscene for real next time.

But why even do this? He knows Madara holds no fondness for him, knows he alone bears the majority of Madara's hatred. It could be a release of frustration, but it isn't even real. It's essentially just a shared fantasy, one Tobirama feels all too intimately.

"We have eight hours in this world," Madara pivots, ready to begin. "I'll be using all of them to the fullest."

It's definitely some form of psychological torture. It's about humiliation, domination. It's the fact that he got Tobirama to agree to this so many damn times. Madara must take so much pleasure in watching Tobirama submit to the power of his eyes.

"I think I'll make you come a hundred times," Madara muses with a brush of his hand down Tobirama's abdomen, but the claim gives Tobirama pause even as he instinctually shivers.

"In eight hours?" he questions, gears turning in the wrong direction entirely for this predicament.

"Don't criticize my math at a time like this," Madara scolds him.

"Not only would that be terribly unpleasant, but you won't manage it."

Madara's eyes narrow, taking Tobirama's logic as a challenge.

"Have you forgotten that I make the rules in this world?" he asks, and then his hand slides up Tobirama's shirt, splaying on his abs. His skin is oversensitized, Madara's touch hot and electric. If it managed to feel like this the whole time...

Well, it's the last time they'll ever do this. Tobirama could indulge, since he's already here.

(He's thought the same thing a dozen times in the past.)

#madatobi #it's a little spicy. just a little #i would rate it M not E #ficlet tag

[desceros]

do you have any plans on writing anymore bay verse donnie x reader pics? your characterisation of him singlehandedly put on me the bay verse movies! I would have never considered watching the movies otherwise

i know it isn't immediately obvious judging by the contents of my ao3.... sweats.... but bay donnie really is my favorite bay turtle!! and i'm forever miffed that i've only written one proper fic for him like!!! that's my Boy!!!!!! what are we Doing here??????

that said, over on my wip page here i have three ideas that are solid enough to make the list. so for sure, i've got things in the queue already for him!! and my brain is always churning out new ideas that set me on fire, so it's very possible that something will pop into my head that i simply Must write for him right now immediately or i'll DIE.

so, long story short, yes, i very much will be writing for him again. i couldn't look myself in the mirror if i didn't, hahahhaah

#especially now that 'the donnie bruise fic' isn't exclusive to bayverse thanks to day job au....... gah #clenches fist. purple man will have his revenge #ask tag

[pencil-peach]

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 12

And so, we have reached part 13 in my attempt to transcribe and discuss the text that appears on monitors and screens in G Witch (and talk about stuff I think is cool)

This is the Episode 12, the season 1 finale: "Keep Marching on Instead of Running Off."

<< Click Here to go back to Episode 11

Oh, but you'll have to change before you can join me under the cut.

You have to wear a normal spacesuit while reading this post...

Like episode 11, this episode is actually very light on text, (for obvious reasons..) so I'll also spend some more time discussing little things in the episode I think are interesting.

The text on the panel for the EV (Elevator) reads C BLOCK No. C - 6 The EV is arriving shortly.

It also has 3 symbols on the bottom, with one crossed out. It's hard to know what they mean, but my best guess is: - Communication (Which is currently unusable due to the attack) - Multi-Directional (As in, isn't a one way elevator, can go back and forth) - Capacity (In this case, multiple people can use it at once.)

Also, in this scene, Miorine talks about "opening the bulkhead from the control center." What she means is she wants to find the control center so she can open the giant wall that separated her and Suletta. The first thing that both girls thought of doing when they were separated was rescuing the other.

Also, also, the fact that C Block still has some semblance of power despite having been fully disconnected from the rest of the plant must mean that every individual block must have some sort of reserve power system in case something like this happens. I wonder how expensive this place was to build....

I really like the scene where we see Sophie activate Permet Score 4, because I think they put so much focus on it in order to put a lot of things we've seen earlier into perspective.

Up until now, we've only seen 3 characters (other than Eri but she doesn't count) activate Permet Score 4: Nadim in the prologue, El4n in episode 6, and now Sophie.

I think the first thing we can see when we compare these instances is how, broadly, Gundam Pilots have generally been made to become more resilient to Permet in the 21 years since Vanadis.

As far as we can tell, Nadim was probably one of the most skilled Gundam Pilots at Vanadis. (Other than Eri but she's like. cheating.)

Even acknowledging that he hadn't piloted a Gundam in some time (He says as much when he first activates Permet 3), he's still incredibly adept at controlling GUND Bits and nearly singlehandedly holds off the attack by Cathedra. (Thought Wendy's efforts must also definitely be acknowledged.)

When Wendy starts suffering from Permet exposure, Nadim tells her that she can't raise her score any higher

We never see or hear exactly which score she's at, but her Gundam is deactivated by the Antidote, which only works up to Score 3. So she's either at 2 - 3, and she's clearly suffering its effects harder than Nadim, who's also at 3 at this point.

But despite Nadim's clear adeptness at Piloting the Lfrith and his much stronger resilience to Permet, when he activates Score 4, he dies nigh instantly. He doesn't survive longer than a minute.

When Gundams had first been developed, Score 3 was considered the absolute limit, both in terms of what a human could bear and what Gundam tech could handle.

We can see this reflected on the Lfrith itself. When first launched, and up to Score 3, Lfrith's body appears completely normal.

But when he activates Score 4, its entire body glows bright red as opposed to just its GUND components. A sign that its bearing a load it can't handle.

And when Nadim finally dies, we can see its body is also horribly scarred with Permet Burns.

Sophie's Permet 4 scene is a showcase of how Gundam Tech has evolved in the 21 years since Vanadis.

When Sophie activates Permet 4, she's pushing up against the human limit. Her heart is pounding so fast and so hard we can hear it over the music. She says she can't breathe and might even throw up, and unlike El4n, she's not an Enhanced Person. She's entirely unaugmented, but unlike Nadim, she lives.

Gundam Pilots have become more resilient since Vanadis, but also of note is that they've also gotten younger. We don't know the ages of Nadim, Wendy, and Elnora, but they're all clearly adults. In fact, we only ever see Adults piloting Gundams in the prologue. When Prospera realizes Eri reached Layer 33, she's horrified, and I wouldn't be surprised in part because a child piloting a Gundam is just something that had never been done before.

But now, Gundams are piloted almost EXCLUSIVELY by young people. Younger people are raised and trained and experimented on at earlier and earlier ages because it seems that, for some reason, they are just better at being able to handle them.

The tech has also improved much since then. Whenever Lfrith Ur reaches score 4, that device on its shoulder unfurls and activates, and retracts when it goes back under. the Ur and Thorn were built off of the pre-production Lfrith models, and in order to get around its Score limitations, they just added an extra Permet Processing unit to its back to bear the extra load.

El4n is a special case, and his reaction to Score 4 in comparison to Nadim and Sophie stands as a testament to the effectiveness of Bel's Artificial Nervous System. At Score 4, El4n acts more like he's under the symptoms an unenhanced person would experience at Score 3.

All that suffering just to reduce the permet load by 1. How sad.

Anyway, the EMERGENCY EXIT Suletta uses is labaled as an EVACUATION PASSAGE.

It also has the same 3 symbols as on the elevator. If we try and apply the same labeling method as I used on the elevator, then.. -Communication (Offline) -Direction - One Way -Capacity - 1 person. The direction and Capacity make sense, but the communication is a little dubious? Maybe that symbol designates if it leads to an exit or something....

Normally, when Miorine refers to her dad, she calls him "Kusoyaji," which is a portmanteau of "Kuso" (a general swear word usually meaning 'damn' or 'shit'), and "oyaji" (which is a word for father) Calling him a terrible dad, but in this scene after he protects her and she sees that he's critically wounded, she shouts "Otou-san!" instead, which is a more common/respectful word to use for your father. This is localized into English as having Miorine usually call him a "Lousy Father," or something similar, but in this scene she just calls him "Dad"

We also learn a little more about Notrette in this scene, as when Delling tells Miorine to choose the best option of survival and leave him, he says it's what Notrette would do, and that they'd both decided at some point that if anything happened, one of them had to survive in order to raise her.

It's not much, but it seems that Notrette was a very logically minded person, who always looked toward the future in her decisions. I wouldn't doubt that Delling tried to save her, but left without her at her own insistence.

Sometimes I feel as though this scene is paralleling that incident in a way we can't know, and Miorine managing to save Delling here implies that if Delling had tried and not ran away, he could have saved Notrette. But that's just speculation on my part.

There's no real way to prove this, (other than the fact that their voices sound similar) but I've always believed that the closeup of this DOF member we see when they enter the plant is the same DOF member that Suletta kills at the end of the episode.

When Vim launches in the Dilanza Sol, he comments that he worked his way up the corporate ladder by "personally claiming his rivals' heads." It's most assuredly a figure of speech, but um, well.

Like father like son.

When Guel launches in the Desultor, he tries to communicate to the Dilanza Sol, but remember, the comms are jammed, so it returns an error.

After the deed has been done, the network begins reactivating, and we see NETWORK ONLINE appear on Guel's monitor.

This is our first sign that the DOF are starting to run out of time.

I think a lot about this scene. Maybe not in the way you're supposed to think about it though. I just can't shake this idea that Prospera intentionally waited for one of the soldiers to be right in front of Suletta before killing them. She and Godoy had been standing there the whole time, on both sides of the hall. Surely there were better times to have attacked them than when they were right in front of Suletta.

Maybe I'm not giving her enough credit but wouldn't it make sense? She needs Suletta to be okay with the idea of killing someone. Wouldn't seeing her mother do it in order to save her life be perfect for that? Prospera barely comforts her afterward either. She immediately explains to her that if she hadn't done it, Suletta might have been killed, and that fighting can save everyone.

And of course, it's obvious, but I just love the symbolism in this shot. It's so good. Suletta stepping out of the darkness and crossing the line, led by her mother's blinding light, onto the bloody path. It's so good. Such a good fucking scene. Grrggrhgrh

The music that plays during this fight between Suletta and Sophie is titled AERIAL REBUILD

If you haven't already, you should give it a listen. It's genuinely one of my favorite tracks in the entire OST, top 3 at least, and we don't hear much of it in this scene.

During their duel, Sophie calls Aerial REBUILD's face "scary" and says she "liked her better before."

Aerial is no longer pretending to be a machine made for silly school duels, that line has been crossed, and its true purpose is beginning to be revealed.

The truly terrifying thing about REBUILD's GUND Bit Cannon is that we never see it at full capacity. In fact, this one time we see it, it's at its WEAKEST strength. All mobile suits used in Asticassia have a regulation program installed that limits the energy output of their beam weapons. (With this restriction, all energy weapons only produce green colored beams.) Despite being off Asticassia for months now, Aerial NEVER had that program uninstalled, so its Beam Weapons are still at their lowest output. And, Despite That, the beam produced by this cannon is...

This Powerful. It's so powerful, that when Aerial uses it, you can see it have to activate its back thrusters to counteract the recoil.

It's SO powerful, that it completely melts the legs of a Desultor who just happened to GRAZE it ever so slightly.

Not to talk about future episodes here, but I actually cannot stress that it is genuinely a miracle that Miorine forcefully shut Aerial down in this moment in episode 17.

Because, and I mean this with zero exaggeration, Suletta would have ERASED GUEL and SPLIT THE SCHOOL IN HALF if she released the charge on this god damn canon.

Lord In Heaven, Prospera.

TEXT: SUBJECT: Business Correspondence FROM: Peil Technologies To: ELAN CERES HIGHEST PRIORITY

An attack has been made on Plant Quetta by the terrorist orginization 'Dawn of Fold' 2 unidentified MS using GUND FORMAT were confirmed. We will contact you later with further instructions.

This is the email 5lan receives from Peil after the DOF leave. They got that information quick, huh? I wonder how... We also see that he only ever receives Business Correspondence emails from Peil and Course Schedule updates from Asticassia in his inbox. He doesn't have any friends.

And with that, we have completed Ep 12, the entirety of Season 1! Wow...what a ride it has been thus far...

Thank you for coming on this journey with me...!

Whatever happens next, we'll face it together, won't we?

Episode 13. >>

Masterpost.

#g witch #gundam the witch from mercury #Youtube

[scarletttries]

Author's Update and Recs

Usually I try and post a couple of things over the weekend, but I can't this weekend because it's my Hen/Bachelorette Party! 🥳🥰 Since I haven't had time to write anything, I thought instead I'd share a bunch of the fics I've been reading over and over lately :) Thank you to all these author's for fuelling my reading!

Eddie Munson:

Begin Again (x) by @pullhisteeth-archive (The gold standard for Taylor Swift inspired Eddie Munson content)

The Little Things series (x) by @loveronlineee (bonus shout out to Metalhead and the Material girl for also being lovely)

Succession:

Kissing Roman Roy would include... by @bowieandqueen11 (the latest in an incredible series of Succession posts, there's also a similar list for Kendall!)

The Blood Pours/ Roman Roy Imagine by @bowieandqueen11 (frankly Cee can do no wrong with the Roys, and this is no exception)

Other:

Greg Sanders Masterlist by @micheleamidalajedi (Caelie wrote me the cutest Greg Sanders fic while I was ill last week and you should definitely check it out 🥰)

Steven Grant (Moon Knight) with a plus size reader would include... by @bowieandqueen11 (This is my favourite of a lot of exceptional Steven Grant content on their Masterlist)

Jamie Tartt/Ted Lasso Masterlist by @theowritesstuff (Theo's back must ache from carrying the Jamie Tartt fandom singlehandedly, and everything they write for him is so adorable)

Enjoy all these amazing authors and I'll be back next week with some new content for you 🥰

#scarlett replies #fic recs #writing #succession imagine #moon knight imagines #csi imagines #stranger things headcanons

[peachymilkandcream]

Can you do a oneshot with Mafia Levi and civilian Evelyn who is in debt with him :)

Payment|Levi and Evelyn AU

(A/N: I'm honestly surprised we haven't done a mafia au yet but I'm glad this request came in. I love the idea of another power imbalance. To the other request in my inbox, you've been moved to my drafts don't worry and I'll try and get the oneshot out later tonight. (I must really like you guys to be working on my day off XD, just kidding, I love all your requests.) If someone requests a part two I probably will do it this was a lot of fun! Hope you enjoy!)

WARNINGS: implied noncon/dubcon, yandere themes/behaviours, misogyny, domestic violence, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, etc.

===============================================

What kind of a stupid fool makes a deal with a mafia boss? She could have just let her business fall flat on its face and she wouldn't be in this situation.

The deal had been that Levi Ackerman, the one man who singlehandedly ran the city from the shadows, would give her a sizable loan to save her business and keep her afloat. It was such a stupid deal to make, but Evelyn was desperate to find a way not to crawl back to her parents as a failure.

In her defense, she didn't know he was a mafia boss, just a generous investor who took pity on her and chose to help her out. So once she had made the deal only then did he reveal his true self and she realized how deep in shit she really was.

Evelyn shook her head to clear her thoughts, no need to get upset, payday was coming and her business did end up making enough to pay him back. Within the week she'd be done with him.

The thought helped her swallow the ramen noodles she'd had to eat for the last week to avoid unnecessary expenses.

================================================

Payday arrived, and with it came the man who haunted her dreams at night for what he'd do to her if she couldn't pay it back. Images of being killed and then dissected to sell her organs constantly filled her mind and made her work harder.

But that was all over today. Today she'd be free of him and hopefully never see his face again. And besides, while scary looking, he wasn't a bad guy to her at least. Even though that meant she still couldn't show fear to him.

"Mr. Ackerman, you look well." She ventures with a friendly smile.

"Levi." He spits out, seeming bored as he looks around. "So I see you made use of my money."

"Yes sir I have," Pride shone through her voice now. "I've worked and saved and scraped together all that I owe you." She slides an envelope towards him.

Without much more than a sideways glance at her Levi takes the envelope and silently counts before looking at her with annoyance.

"This isn't the full amount."

"What do you mean?" Panic rises in her. "I counted it this morning-"

"This covers the loan for the business but not your other expenses."

Evelyn's stomach dropped, looking into the faces of his smug bodyguards, clearly this wasn't the first time they witnessed their boss crushing the hope out of a person. "What expenses-?"

Levi snaps his fingers and is given what seems to be a receipt. "Business loan, paid. Interest, paid. Disposal of persons count one, unpaid. Disposal of persons count two, unpaid."

She shakes her head in disbelief. "Wait, disposal of persons?"

"You know, like a hit?"

Her mouth hangs open. "You killed someone? I didn't ask you to kill anyone."

"Of course you did, I have clear record of one of my guys overhearing you reference to two customers that you hoped they fell in a ditch and died."

Evelyn can hardly believe her ears, the two in question was an old highschool bully named Petra who used to torment her, and the other was one of her lackeys who did as she said. The event was the two had come in to harass her and her business since apparently some people don't grow up after graduating.

"It was just a figure of speech- I didn't want them dead-"

"Then you should have clarified, it's not my fault you're unable to explain yourself."

While the idea of Petra being dead didn't exactly upset Evelyn, the idea of causing it was a little unsettling. "Okay fine, how much do I owe you then."

Levi says nothing but writes out a for her to sign, the amount making her eyes widen.

"I could never pay this back-"

"Then it seems we have a problem don't we."

"Look if you just gave me more time-"

"I've given you plenty of time." He nods and before she can react a cloth is placed over her nose and mouth.

Panic sets in and she can't stop her sharp breaths, each one making black edges come into her vision as Levi's leering face fills her unconscious.

================================================

Evelyn awakes handcuffed to a bed pole in a room more luxurious than anything she's ever seen. It was clean and neat and expensive, everything there probably cost more than all her organs combined.

She tugged on the cuffs, but as expected it was useless. She was alone in that room overlooking the city from the huge window. HOw she had gotten there no one knew, and when she'd be set free was just as certain.

The door opens and in walks the man of the hour, shred of his thick wool coat from before and just in a vest and suit. In his hand was a whiskey tumblr and a cigarette laced through his fingers.

"Good morning, although it is more like good evening."

"Look, Levi, please, I'll do whatever you want to pay it off, but please just don't hurt me- I'll work until I'm a hundred years old-"

"The amount of pain you receive is entirely up to you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well." He sets down the glass and puts out the cigarette before facing her. "If you're good, and do as I say and don't act like a bitch then I guarantee you'll have a great and long life. The best money can buy." As he stalked towards her his hand reached up to loosen his tie.

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't-" He climbs on the bed over her, a sadistic and twisted look in his eye.

"I'll make you wish you were never born."

#break me slowly #levi x oc #attack on titan #levi ackerman #levi aot #levi x reader #shingeki no kyojin #yandere levi #yandere levi ackerman #yandere levi x reader

[ozblok]

My 5 Favorite Bayverse Transformer Designs

5. Dark of the Moon - Shockwave

I'm not usually a fan of Transformers without an earth mode but this was just so badass. They not only made him a scientist but also a bounty hunter that hunts down his targets. His arm cannon is just perfect to me, he can change ammunition types with a pull of a lever from large blasts to smaller yet multiple missiles. His face is menacing with a insect like maw snaring out orders. He's even accompanied by a massive monster he created known as the Driller Bot forged from his fallen enemies and now a rampaging beast. I especially love the ribcage design in his chest, really gives him an alien appearance.

4. Dark of the Moon - Que (Wheeljack)

Personally an underrated character in the movies, yes I understand the problem with him being Wheeljack. Mainly the fact he looks nothing or sounds nothing like how he does in the original source material, but I don't care. I absolutely love the Albert Einstein look they ave him, I'll admit I don't see him as Wheeljack but more of a separate character "Que". He actually invented things to assist the autobots like battle modes for their vehicles, armor, weapons and tools for battle. They even gave him a lab coat look on his waist with some car interior and how he's just wearing tools on him just in case. Shame they killed him off would've loved to see more from him, rest in peace Que.

3. Revenge of the Fallen - Mixmaster

A good reason why I love the Bayverse designs is the USE of kibble from Alt modes to robot modes and Mixmaster is a great example of creative kibble use. Basically making the entire back of the truck become his arms which are equipped with massive shields for defense against enemy attacks and projectiles. To balance out this wall they have his a massive artillery cannon on his back which he needs to do a handstand to actually use it and it must pack a serious punch. His vehicle mode also comes with a decepticon insignia on the mixer and a custom hood ornament which was unnecessary but happy they gave him it. Plus he gets an upgrade from G1 cause instead of being the foot/leg of Devastator he gets to be the frickin head, my favorite constructicon.

2. Transformers 2007 - Brawl

I see Brawl as the weapon specialist of the decepticons, an equal to ironhide given to how many weapons they manage to fit on both his robot and tank mode. The tank treads and mine sweepers on his torso is yet another great example is creative kibble management, even storing tank barrels on his and rocket pods on his shoulders. His squishes head design looks grumpy and old, giving off a vibe like he takes his job seriously, managing to take on a group of soldiers and autobots but his death in the first movie. If Barricade got a redesign I'm the Last Knight based off a cop,I wonder if Brawl survived maybe he would've been based off a sergeant or a general.

Transformers 2007 - Blackout

This right here is my favorite decepticon NO my favorite transformers to ever exist. The very first transformer to be seen in live action and he singlehandedly annihilated an entire military base. His kibble of the helicopter appearing as a bulking vest decorated for battle, even using the helicopter blades as a kind of cape with the motor above his head. He even is given a minicon Scorpinoks who can be launched and stored from his back, it can be used for scouting or filtration in enemy lines for a sneak attack. Blackout is a soldier who tends to get his orders done, his isn't a fool like his massive younger brother Grindor who tumbles Everytime he lands almost falling over. Blackout is equipped with weapons such as the rear propeller as a spinning saw, miniguns, chest turret and powerful waves/pulses of energy. Ever sense I was a child Blackout has been my favorite for years even with his limited screentime, I praise the bay films for hooking me into the transformers franchise and giving me something to enjoy.

#transformers #transformers bayverse #list #random #I understand the flaws of the bayverse but I just can't hate them #No I don't hate G1 just because I like bayverse

[ploffskinpluffskin]

i have about 30 minutes or so before i'll head to bed but i wanted to share some snippets, as per usual. i've been writing more on the natori/muta fic since it's been on my mind more lately. in particular, i added more to this conversation between haru and baron. i'm realizing i do really enjoy writing for baron tbh

Haru breaks their eye contact for him, there, feeling suddenly rather bare in a way she doesn’t truly recall Baron ever managing before. He’s quite intuitive, she thinks, when he wants to be. When she peeks back up at him, she finds that he has given into temptation, eyes downcast and lightly lidded as he takes a small drink. Her own gaze drifts back to the tea cup he had provided her with; she wonders if maybe it’s the same set he had offered when they first met.

“I’ll be fine, Baron,” she says with a shrug and a brief cant of her head so that she looks rather winsome.  (She thinks perhaps she might have learned it from him.)

“Then I have said my piece,” Baron responds, nodding once in brief approval. “In truth, I have the intuition that everything will ultimately be quite well.”

Here the unnamed discomfort that had been lingering between them dissipates; Haru smiles again.

“It’s hard for me to imagine you’d ever feel differently.”

Baron returns her smile. “To live without hope is to cease to live.”

“And who said that?”

“I did, just now,” Baron replies readily, and with such matter-of-fact ease she almost can’t tell if he’s being stoically facetious or not. He’s raised his teacup to his lips. “But we all have Dostoevsky to thank for writing it.”

The rest of their visit passes in relative peaceable familiarity.

and then there is haru and natori interacting, bc Of Course

“He singlehandedly plunged our kingdom into chaos and destitution the likes of which we’ve yet to experience since. I do apologize for being short with you, Miss Haru, but I will not apologize for continuing to hold him accountable for his actions,” Natori explains primly without wasting a breath. “I do believe he has made his bed, and now he must lie in it. I feel that quite strongly.”

Here Haru pauses, trying to decide how best to crack this particular nut. There is something about all this hullabaloo which has become quite obvious to her, but it must be brought to light with care. Natori and Muta have some curious similarities— one of those is the tendency to become stubbornly uncommunicative upon being made vulnerable. But where Muta simply stops talking and starts glaring, Natori covers up his intransigence with circular language and polite topic changes.

Most likely it gets him quite far in his line of work, avoiding those tough conversations, and anyone less (stubborn) might indeed let it happen without realizing what was transpiring. But Haru just might have the both of them beat in this matter. She had sped out in front of an approaching truck to save a small life and do what was right to her; what obstacle was a pair of brick walls in comparison?

“I understand,” she starts thoughtfully, averting her eyes for just a moment so that she might appear less shrewd than she’s feeling right now. “It’s just… I’m only curious, after all, given His Majesty the king didn’t seem to have any recollection of the event at all.”

Haru spares a glance at Natori here, trying to gauge his reaction, trying to evaluate if he’s gathered already where she is going with this line of thought. He’s gazing upon her with the slightest squint to his eyes, tired lines etched beneath them she’d never noticed before, and with a telling brittleness to the thin, straight line he’s pursed his mouth in. 

Absolutely, he knows where she is leading, and she wonders if he will let her finish.

“Of course, maybe by virtue of being the king he didn’t suffer nearly to the same degree as the everyday citizen did,” Haru continues brazenly, but in a soft and nonchalant enough voice that she hopes he doesn’t catch on. “But even from just the short time I got to know him he’s seemed like the type to have a low threshold for hardship. It wouldn’t take much, would it..?”

Natori holds her gaze with a quite level one of his own for a good many moments more than she would have expected, but he does eventually look away. Still, his no doubt long-practiced professionalism remains, and there’s hardly a hint left of his initial anxiety over meeting with her when he finally does mechanically respond. “Please do forgive me— I do not see the value in continuing this particular line of questioning. I politely request that the matter is dropped. However, I shall be happy to indulge whatever other curiosities you may possess, provided they do not eclipse my responsibilities to the kingdom.”

Haru assumes that to mention his retirement shall not get her anywhere.

#32 underneath #coughs #the cat returns #baron the reckless kind and dramatic optimist just gets to me

[thesimwiththedragontattoo]

Welcome to Simton Asylum, home to my first run-through of The Asylum Challenge! You can read the full rules at the link, but the gist of the challenge is that one player-controlled sim is trapped in a house with 7 other sims who are completely autonomous. The player-controlled sim must survive the house fires, aspiration failures, and general chaos caused by their roommates' whims. The only way she can leave is by achieving her lifetime want.

Now, let's meet the sim trying to escape the chaos:

Meet Luna! A neat and friendly knowledge Sim who's just trying to learn it all—literally, her lifetime goal is to master every skill!

I'm in the middle of playing this challenge (I only got brave enough to make a Simblr recently, so I have to play a little catch-up here) and was getting bored of just grinding skills all day, as nothing especially chaotic was happening with Luna sitting around reading 24/7. Online, other players were seeing more drama with their sim going to work most days, so I decided to give Luna a second way out: Reach the top of the Science career! Here's where she currently stands on both goals:

As you can see, she's making decent leeway on the skills, but still has a long way to go with some. (The poor, shy girl has absolutely no rizz) While she only just started her Science career, her impressive skillset has gotten her promoted already, and while I was doing this photoshoot of all the characters I actually rolled another positive chance card for her! No promotion, but a sizable chunk of change for her to spend when she can finally leave this place.

Now, it's time to meet the sims she's cohabitating with! Despite everyone hogging the bathroom, playing the bass at odd hours, and constantly getting the flu, Luna has actually managed to make some meaningful relationships!

Posie, an outgoing grump with dreams of a happy family, hit it off with Luna easily as they share the same serious disposition and love of reading. While I don't control Posie, she's made friends at community lots while I play other challenges—including befriending the leader of my cult challenge. I've decided that if Posie ends up accepting the invite into the cult, she's allowed to leave the asylum, (although will she really be free?) but if she's still there when Luna reaches her goals, I'll be making Posie my next player-controlled character in the asylum.

Poor (both physically and emotionally) Van is a fortune-seeker struggling to survive the asylum. Luna mostly finds him outside, coping with aspiration failure by begging for money from passerby. His life isn't all cardboard signs and visits from the therapist—Luna's taken a romantic interest in him and they try to steal away to flirt with what little privacy they can scrape together.

Normally when I do challenges with large groups of sims like this, I create the sims based on specific aesthetics/subcultures. I've completely blanked if I did this with my asylum group, or if I just went a little wacky in create-a-sim. That being said, I do remember giving Van a vampire-esque style on purpose. If he makes it out of here, he's destined to have a run-in with certain creatures of the night Downtown.

Of course, there's supposed to be 8 sims trapped in here, so let's meet the rest:

Layla, Stoker, and Lala. Yes, I know Layla and Lala are really similar names. No, I don't remember my reasoning for doing this. You can check out their aspirations and personalities above. I'll share more about them as I blog through the rest of the challenge, but the most notable thing about them now is that Stoker will literally not stop playing the bass day and night. The reason Luna is so low on creativity is almost singlehandedly because this dude is addicted to jamming.

"Aren't there supposed to be 8 sims in this challenge?" you might ask. "We've only met six!"

Yeah, so, about that... It turns out the tip to create more chaos by having your playable sim go to work is very true. As soon as Luna started heading off to the lab, some of the more... distractable sims started consistently setting the kitchen on fire.

Meet Cyndee and Trish. Er—what remains of them. While Luna's made it home from work in time to call the fire department for more kitchen fires, sweet Cyndee got a little too close to the flames and passed on to the other side. She's actually the only fatality so far from the now-almost-daily kitchen fires!

What about Trish? Oh, uh. Well, this is embarrassing for her, but she had a run-in with Cyndee's ghost that proved fatal. It actually happened very unexpectedly—I was watching Luna watch the stars when she suddenly cancelled her action to run downstairs and sob. She didn't even have time to plead with the Reaper!

Currently, all living residents have rolled a want to bring Trish back from death (sorry, Cyndee) so I may have to cheat the cow plant into the game (no one's in the right career track to unlock it otherwise) to see what happens if the asylum has to deal with an autonomous zombie on top of everything else!

I have a decent selection of pictures already from the start of this challenge, which I hope to share on here soon, alongside live updates. Will Luna get out of this place? Can Posie escape via weird lesbian cult? How can anyone else build creativity skill with freakin' Stoker jamming day and night?

#sims 2 challenge #sims 2 #sims 2 gameplay #sims 2 asylum challenge #challenge: asylum #luna #posie #van #simblr

[ashermiss]

I dreamed about Israel all last night. I dreamed that I was there, that I was (somehow) in charge of trying to singlehandedly present the argument for a ceasefire and for a free Palestine. It was ultimately a dream about impotence - I couldn't get my words straight, I knew that I wasn't making sense, I just kept trying and failing to change anyone's mind while feeling this endless despair.

Idk. Obviously that dream is nowhere close to actual reality. But it still feels real on some emotional level - that we are all trying so desperately to present an argument that will finally get those in power to listen, but the atrocity continues regardless.

I've been feeling despair over this in waves - for a few weeks I'll be able to compartmentalize, and feel mostly fine. I'll feel able to continue living happily enough while also trying to help in whatever ways I can. Then some dam will break and I'll just feel utter despair. And the despair feels more honest.

I'm not trying to argue for impotence here. Even if the despair feels more real, I do think we must continue to have hope, to try to do things to help. I'm just. Really really fucking sad today.

#palestine #free palestine

[spikeisawesome456]

I'll have you know that you are singlehandedly making me ship Bowser and Luigi by reblogging all the cute fanarts of them. I don't even play Mario games. What have u done to me. /Lh

My friend, now you know how I feel. I've always been a casual fan of Mario, mostly since my brother was a HUGE fan when we were kids and he still is (and, fun fact, one of his Jewish names is actually Smario. Had nothing to do with Mario, but I still find it funny. His birthday is also Mar. 10, which is Mario day) and I was exposed to it a lot when I was younger. I was never super into the games, though. It was just something that was present in my life, but that I wasn't super obsessed with.

However, someone on my feed started reblogging Bowuigi stuff a few months ago and now I unironically ship it. And I'm more invested in Mario content because of it, so I'm genuinely looking forward to the Mario movie, even if I am still miffed by the Crisp Rat voicing Mario. -.- But I'm glad to hear that I'm infecting others! The Bowuigi dynasty must grow. Mwahaha!

#Bowuigi #The fandom must grow

[trblsvt]

okay this is just like a little list of concepts or scenarios to possibly inspire you im just dumping so dONT WORRY you can oBVIOUSLY pick and choose or not pick or choose whatever you want this is your blog LMAO anyways !! i love seventeen so here you go

kissing jun on the nose so he grabs your face and kisses it all over

bakery!au where wonwoo is actually somehow sick and tired of the baked goods from bakery he works at but your frequent appearance during his shifts makes working there worth it (plus he has to admit that your favorite raspberry macarons still taste really delicious)

since you like jeonghan or wHATEVER 🙄 model!jeonghan where you work on the set of one of his shoots and he turns out to be a weirdo goofball and he makes the whole staff laugh bUT OH?? who’s laugh was that, it’s so cute?? he thinks and dUNDUNDUN it was you and he thinks you’re adorable and teases you during a break but also brings you a cold bottle of water bc it’s hot and he noticed you finished your water a bit ago and obviously he’s actually just such a flirt

imagine playfully biting seungcheol’s bicep and he just throws you across a football field like not you too (this is a joke kinda)

oh no i thought of something and i’ll cry about it. IM SORRY I DECIDED IM GONNA GATEKEEP THAT IDEA AND MAYBE WRITE IT MYSELF OH NO SORRY LOL

THATS ALL ILY <33

WHY ARE YOU SO BIG BRAINED (but i was literally thinking about seokmin being your local baker earlier ASJDLK we are truly the same person) BUT WTF DO YOU MEAN BY "SINCE YOU LIKE JEONGHAN OR WHATEVER" anyway... i must write bakery!au with wonwoo so..... (i will write model jeonghan some other time because now you've planted that idea in my mind) EDIT: so i wrote this response when you first sent it in LOL and now here we are we have a jeonghan and wonwoo fic... ANYWAY... i'm keeping the cheol scenario to myself tho ALSDKJLAJSD and i'll probably incorporate your jun idea in another requested thing.... ASLDJALSJD thank u for singlehandedly sending me into my delulu era :) [IM KIDDING, IM AT FAULT FOR THAT]

#asks #maria <3 #my friends <3 #i-luvsang