#one last salty post before I go back to working on things for characters and plots I actually like in this series

[kimbapisnotsushi]

managers? managers. let's go!!

(aka kennedy made an excellent excellent post and i realized I WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM so now we have miyagi manager headcanons bc i don't do nearly enough for them . . . also have a healthy side of runayachi)

runa feels like soft synth pop and slow sweet indie music and makes playlists to show her love, so while yachi definitely does not understand the significance of getting a playlist from her the rest of johzenji does!!

she's in charge of the aux cord when they hit the road for games and the team always has the best time jamming out together even if they have no volume control and annoy every car within a five mile radius

(also if you remember my post where higashi and narita bond over playlists? this is totally where higashi gets it from)

speaking of which i think yachi is pretty oblivious when it comes to someone actively trying to flirt with her, especially if it's not in a way she recognizes from shoujo manga LMAAAO

it's because she always thought she was in the background!!! character b!!!! a tree!!! she doesn't think that stuff would happen to her!!! she reads high school romance manga and recognizes the obvious stuff when it happens (i.e. hinata grabbing her hand and pulling her through the city on a mad dash) but it's a SURPRISE bc why would it happen to HER!!!! she doesn't think anyone would be interested in her enough, and definitely would not flirt in ways she's not familiar with!!!

so basically runa is in for a hell of a time trying to show yachi she likes her without saying it

runa got convinced to sign up as team manager when misaki caught her crouching outside the gym one day bc she was trying to figure out a way to repay jiri and higashi for helping her catch her dog when he'd gotten loose during a walk the other day

otherwise runa would be in the music club with her mad piano/keyboard skills

sometimes misaki wonders if she took something away from runa because runa really is talented and would probably thrive in music club and she always seems so anxious with the team (they can be a bit much, she knows) and she tells runa that it's okay for her to leave not knowing that it would break her entire heart

is runa not wanted??? did she do something wrong??? did they not like her??? but she thought she was getting along so well with them, she really considered them her friends . . .

anyways everyone barely lasts two days before they're clamoring to get runa back and it turns into a whole messy thing where runa keeps avoiding them bc seeing them hang out without her makes her sad so it becomes a game of "who the hell can get runa to stay still and let us talk"

in the end it's jiri (FULL CIRCLE!!!) who manages to get her to listen and there's a lot of tears and snot and hugs from everyone all around

nametsu kicks ass in competitive pokemon battling. i don't even know how it works myself i just know she would

she'd really like to design/code her own game someday and have her own game development studio!!! her notebooks are full of little doodles and sketches of all her ideas

(i am still so salty we never got a timeskip appearance for her)

through the power of 'everyone is following everyone in the high school boys' volleyball circuit' nametsu gets hooked up with kenma and he becomes her number one beta tester and gamer nerd friend

she's a big fan of visual novels and mmorpgs and ropes futakuchi, aone, onagawa, and obara into playing with her

okay yeah kogane and sakunami too

(she tried with the third years, but moniwa is for some reason terrible with technology, kamasaki keeps trying to fight things like 20 levels higher than him and dies without ever improving, and sasaya just likes collecting things to cook with)

also i DO think nametsu actually grows pretty close to runa and yachi and keeps an eye out for them because as much as yachi and runa admired kiyoko and misaki they were third years with their shit (relatively) together as the third years tended to be, whereas nametsu is a hot mess second year figuring things out (which makes her less scary) but still has the experience that lets runa and yachi see her as some sort of authority even if it's just by a year

tl;dr nametsu is more approachable as a second year so she, yachi, and runa actually develop more of a friendship where neither yachi or runa are tripping over their tongues all the time

also!!! childhood best friends with futakuchi!!!!

i like to think that nametsu and futakuchi met aone in middle school and they took him under their wing, which means aone's social buffs were futakuchi being a little bitch and nametsu being a little bitch in a completely opposite way

in nametsu's first year she got insecure bc she didn't know if the team saw her as "aone's and futakuchi's friend" and only talked to her because of that or if they cared about her as a person individually and she was too afraid to ask

but they did!!!!! onagawa always walked partway home with her even after they left futakuchi and aone, obara always wanted her opinion on pc mods and games and whatever, moniwa always asked to go out to coffee shops and hang out . . . and so on and so forth

nametsu didn't really believe it until they all pitched in to throw her a surprise birthday party and the cake was her favorite flavor (chocolate orange) and futakuchi was like "yeah i put onagawa and obara in charge of that and didn't really tell them to do much other than don't fuck it up" which meant. they LISTENED to her and they cared enough to know her favorite flavor and to even decorate it with a stupid coding joke and and and -

she almost burst out into tears right then and there

it was okay, though. they ended up having a lot of fun!

(even if they almost committed arson trying to light up the candles)

#GOD I WANTED TO ADD KAORIE AND YUKIE BUT THIS WAS GETTING SO LONG AD IT IS GETTING SO LATE #so this is like a miyagi managers special i guess?? #and YES i know kiyoko isn't in this i am so sorry #i will fix it in a future part two!!!! #nametsu mai #yachi hitoka #misaki hana #kuribayashi runa #runayachi #featuring: #numajiri rintarou #futakuchi kenji #aone takanobu #onagawa tarou #obara yutaka #koganegawa kanji #sakunami kousuke #moniwa kaname #kamasaki yasushi #sasaya takehito #higashiyama katsumichi #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #haikyuu hcs #sou says stuff

[mimiikah]

Tremble (2/?)

PT. 1

SUMMARY: After a brief seemingly playful scuffle with Neteyam, you find yourself drifting behind Kiri to the Tsahik's marui pod. You're scolded to no surprise and sent to carry out punishment, followed closely by a volunteering Kiri and Spider, in the form of preparing salt crystals.

WORD COUNT: ~3655

PAIRING: PLATONIC! NAVI! reader

THINGS TO NOTE:

Tag list added at the bottom! Some, I were unable to tag (if u were one of those people, I recommend looking at this post to see why I may have not been able to tag u :( )

Just to clarify, when I tag my works with (CHAR X READER) it's indicating what pairing (romantic or not) is featured prominently for that installment (so, the first part had some Neteyam and Ao'nung bits but this part... well, you'll see :D)

As last time, Reader is written to be gender neutral to the best of my ability! I think I do sometimes slip into fem! pronouns, but hopefully I've caught them all.

As per last time, more side notes are at the end (thumbs up emoji)

Art is not mine! It’s from the Art of ATWOW book.

WARNINGS: not overly described, but in the beginning a character does go through a panic attack due to past experiences. Let me know if anything in this piece needs to be pointed for warnings

Thank you to @k----a27s for slight inspo for the direction of this part! I hope it turned out alright!!!

Through heavy gasps and kicking limbs, the two of you had found yourselves in a cycle of dunking each other; with every sharp inhale water pooled by the cup of your tongue before the immediate saltiness of the liquid caused you to reflexively spit the water back out -- and at Neteyam's face. You would say that he did the same, mouth sputtering as his own arms clawed to be closer and further from your struggling frame, but with how the steadily heating water bubbled with every flailing motion you couldn't even tell.

However, just as quickly as the battle had started, it had ended too.

Toned arms caged your surging torso, tilting your body back to prop you against their own. Your chest was heaving, sparks flickering and knocking against your ribs with every gulp of air scraping through your throat.

Before a smug grin could run across your lips you paused, captured by the expression on Neteyam's face: while he was left in the same breathless state as you, you couldn't quite tell the meaning behind that small tinge that coated his eyes. Yellow-tinted glassy eyes peered at the sky, unfocused and almost deathly accepting. His posture was torn between being strung up and limp and you'd go as far as to compare him to looking like a sea creature torn from the sea.

He looked scared.

His brother held him, cradled him, and tapping his cheek with desperation he called out to Neteyam almost rhythmically. It began to feel like time was slowly crawling by, the waves crashing against you to count every second.

Neteyam gasped, hand slapping itself against his chest.

"I'm good. It's good." As much as he was reassuring his worrying brother, he sounded as if he wanted to ease his own worries.

"No, no it's not -- you--" Lo'ak hissed in your direction, ears pinning back in aggression. "Why did you do that to him?"

Defensiveness wrapped your frame, a scoff passing your lips, eyes narrowing. "I was just playing back -- it's no different from you wrestling that peach coloured body over there."

"That body has a name--"

In a display to reassure the party, Neteyam eased Lo'ak's hands off his frame, drifting between us. "I was the one who started playing around; Lo'ak don't blame them."

"But--"

"I just accidentally swallowed some water and the saltiness caused me to panic a bit." As much as his smile was soft, pacifying, the event had surely shaken him. After witnessing the initial panic, you felt hyper-aware of every minute shift in his muscles and seeing the small tremble in his fingertips told you all you needed. He was afraid of drowning; it wasn't in the sense that everyone was innately scared of drowning when swimming, but more in the sense that he had toed that line between safety and danger and had honed out his recollection of the experience to tell the tale.

Silence drafted over all of you, a calm rushing over with every wave lapping at your skin and pulling you to shallower water. When the feeling of sand pushed itself between your toes Ao'nung's arms released you, lingering as you oriented yourself.

"You're hurt." The appearance of Tuk's mutter snapped your attention to your arms -- claw marks glowed on the surface, the skin around every line starting from a gradient of red-tinted purple to the dull blue of your skin. Glancing back at the worried gaze of Tuk, you began shifting your arms behind you.

"It's alright. Just a couple scratches, nothing much." Neteyam made the move to apologise, his forehead creasing as he pushed forward. You stepped aside, dodging Ao'nung frame as he hovered in silence by you, causing Neteyam to pause his approach. "I'll just visit the Tsahik -- Ronal likes me anyways." A laugh stuttered awkwardly past your lips, an unsure smile plastering itself on half of the group.

"I'll come with you." Kiri announced and started walking, leaving you no room to argue.

Accepting this development you moved to follow her, gaze flickering back on the group. Neteyam's siblings, with Tsireya and Ao'nung kind of loitering together muttering to each other, took to checking up on him. No claw marks were marred onto his skin, you could see that with your quick glance he was unharmed. However as you watched Lo'ak's hand press against his chest, your eyes caught a scar centring the expanse of skin-- the scar mimicked the pricked sides of a fallen star, each point connected by a single origin and a lighter, yet duller shade from his skin colour.

You had no time to mull about the scar, approaching the Tsahik's healing marui pod towed behind Kiri.

"First your brother and now you -- I don't recall your parents having any of these reckless traits when we were younger." Ronal made a point to drag you closer to her as you approached, her posture straightening and pushing out her already prominent baby bump as she turned your arms this way and that.

From the corner of your eyes, you could see your brother's slackened form lounging from behind a line of braided twine and beads for privacy; his body trembled every once in a while, air puffing past his lips as he rested a dream-filled sleep.

A pin-like crawling sensation creeped from your stomach, your chest heavy the longer you looked at him. "Just so you know, this isn't from the hunt." The clarification did nothing to stop the light blow to your head. Sinking to your knees next to her as she knelt,  you continued staring at your brother. Watching. Waiting.

At a steady pace Ronal quietly ran a paste-dipped finger across the surface of your skin, scraping it with curved finger tips from a near-empty, fruit leaf lined bowl. From where Kiri stood, occupying herself through mixing more of the paste within a small stoneware bowl to keep it at a more viscous state, her eyes followed the swirling tattoos that climbed the same arm; as a part of the hunting party of your clan, your shoulders and arms were densely packed by winding waves that seemed to part at the border to your torso. You wore significant events on your sleeve, literally, from how past battle scars intermingled in a dance put on hold alongside stories of the ripping waves. Now that Kiri had gotten a good look at your face, your status of second born marred itself proudly at the tattooed pattern cupping your cheeks.

You had your history out for all the world to see, proudly displayed. Kiri felt her chest tingle, brows deepening in thought.

"Well," finishing the final smears onto your skin, Ronal blew lightly at the paste. "Now you will learn well from this experience." In all honesty, you didn't know if she was referring to the light scuffle that laid evident on your skin or the injuries your brother sustained. Perhaps she was referring to both. "As punishment--"

"Punishment?" Perking your head towards her almost incredulously, you momentarily fought a losing battle against her gaze before backing down.

"As punishment, you will go harvest the salt needed to preserve the flesh of your catch."

"But--" propping your hand under her arms, you help her stand. "I'm really bad at that kind of stuff."

Tight-lipped, she hummed nodding. "I know." She pushed you out, your body stiff as it met the warm ocean air. Shortly afterwards, Kiri stood beside you; her tail swept behind her forming almost a question mark with how the tip curved and the two of you silently stood side-by-side.

"Can… I help?" Her question was half murmured, eyes darting anywhere but your eyes and nerves on display as she brushed her fringe back before sweeping them forward to the same position.

"I mean," clearing your throat you usher her behind you. "If you want, I guess."

The clearing to make salt was further into the heart of the island, the walk made easier by a well-made pathway cleared and continuously used throughout the years. Walking at a leisurely stride through the marui pod pathway, you took your time to weave between the racing figures of adults and children alike greeting them quietly with every step. It was almost stifling, the silence between the two of you, there was no familiarity in the atmosphere, nothing blatant to tether your interests together. As far as you knew, you were a hunter through-and-through and she was clearly taken to the central island -- well maybe it wasn't as clear as you were claiming, but her atmosphere practically radiated anything but the hunter aura you and your party members exuded (and her clothing too; no evidence of animal claws or teeth anywhere but copious amounts of flora).

About to make your way through the foliage that bordered the small forest, a voice called out to Kiri causing the two of you to pause.

The soft-fleshed body bounded towards the two of you, skipping through the water like a fly trying to skim the surface. It stopped, peering at you through a quick glance before continuing to talk to Kiri. "Where are you going?"

Glancing at you, Kiri responded, "near the central islands to harvest salt."

It's face creased in a way, wrinkling in an almost contemplating manner from how its brows scrunched to the centre -- in a way, through the artificial blues smeared onto its skin and the transparent covering held over its face, you could see the very, very small similarities to your own kind.

"Can I…" he trailed off, tiny hands clasping by their front.

"The process will take all day." It was neither an okay nor a denial, a neutral ground. "If you choose to come, I will put you to work." Your treatment to them wasn't unfair; work was always split amongst parties and if you just had slackers following you, then why not put them to use to minimise the work load?

Continuing her stare down to your direction, Kiri's tail flicked.

You continued narrowing your eyes at the human, analysing it. "Are you any good at weaving?"

"I'm willing to learn." It's reply came immediately, eager to prove a point.

What felt like hours to them, was only seconds of you contemplating. Nodding, you carried on to break into the foliage. The silence was broken by the whisperings of the two trailing behind you, soft laughter and continuing conversations floating into your bubble.

Various colours bled into green from the corner of your vision, your pace mashing together palettes with your brisk speed. As forest dwellers familiar to using their stamina on land, they kept up with you comfortably, quickly.

The entrance to the clearing was indicated through the piled together tools and baskets resting against a curved tree, a worn down braided twine and frond mixed sieve laying at the top of a closed basket.

Turning to the two, you bend down to pick up the empty paysmung. "Go collect material to mend to sieve, then weave them to it leaving the smallest of gaps. I'll go get some water."

Splitting, the two of them disappeared amongst the large feathering leaves of the surrounding plants without question. With the paysmung hung over your shoulder, you stroll through the leaves to the pathway to the nearby inner island waterfalls.

Your lean over the edge, tongue slipping out to sample the water and recoil as salt slips down your throat -- perfect. You wade into the water, legs cutting through the rushing current and dip the curled paysmung into the river before hauling it back over your shoulder and trekking back to the clearing.

Unthreading the curled end, you patter through the squared land. With every step, the salt field darkens as you douse it with the collected salt water, your tail occasionally kicking up the ground with heavy swipes. The process is repeated until the water pools at certain points, reflecting the cloud tinged sky.

By now your two companions have returned, sat at the edge of the clearing and braiding and weaving newer strands to the sieve.

Dropping the paysmung by the pile of tools, you pick up two of the bunched and tied together brooms made from the midribs of palm leaves. With large steps you stand in front of the two, hand holding out one of the brooms to Kiri.

"You will scratch at the surface with me while they weave."

"I can do it," it calls from its seated position, the height difference between you two large.

"No, the broom is too heavy for you.  Your small hands will be inefficient with the labour." It quietens at that, brows furrowing together once again.

You walk up to the dampened salt field, looking back to ensure Kiri is watching before lightly skimming the surface with the frayed broom -- the action breaks the surface of the sand, tiny clumps loosening with every sweep. Kiri follows your motions from the opposite side of the square, looking from her own moving hands to your own every once in a while.

The silence around you is starting to bug you, crawl at the base of your spine and settle at your shoulders feeling like the weight of several tulkuns balanced onto them.

"This practice," this is the first instance of idle chatter you have decided to initiate with them and they note this through the way they perk up at your wavering voice. "The Metkayina do not practise it for themselves often."

A hum escapes Kiri, "though, they have a section of the island dedicated to it?"

"It is because of my own clan. On top of trade, we ask they preserve space for this practise as our own soil is unsuitable for it. Our soil is too damp at all times." You clear your throat, starting your second round of sweeping. "Do… you know why we practise this?"

The peach coloured body calls from its space, voice clear through its transparent mask. "No, why?"

While it is bad to exercise excess pride, you can't help but warm through explaining your own lifestyle to such different people -- educating them on the way you live.  The heat on your ears travels down your back, tickling your nerves like your parents had done so long ago when you were still a child.

"You notice how we hunt bigger sea creatures, right? We do not hunt often but when we do, we target the larger predators that tilt existing systems in the sea too extremely." The akula your party had just hunted had been one toeing too close to your clans territory for a while now, getting too ballsy with every inch and finally drawing a line with the devouring of an ilu and its baby. "We take a full cycle, seeing and living by the creatures deep under, and at the end of the cycle we decide the best predator to hunt in order to equalise what has been unbalanced--"

"How can you tell when nature is unbalanced?" Kiri's voice picked up in tone, a higher pitch in almost eagerness spilling through. Glancing at her you notice she's stopped sweeping, instead she stands gripping onto the broom's handle enough to make her knuckles pale. "What do you look for when you see nature?"

"We watch their movements, compare each days movement amongst each other. Then, we mimic, we feel." In an example, you prop you broom on the ground before motioning with your body. You picture weaving through the layered rocks and coral -- the blends of colours accented with bioluminescent tips. The peeking of other creatures as you drift amongst them, body sliding with the current never fighting the flight in water. And, as much as you enjoy the crowded sea ground -- life bounded at every surface -- you also imagine the expanse of nothingness; floating through the infinite pool of water, body not sinking nor floating up but just being a part of the cycle of water. "And we live by natures ways and feel for the feeling in our stomachs."

Your heart pounds, the memories fresh from the build-up of your latest hunt. 

Peering over at the two, you notice the glossy sheen over Kiri's eyes -- her body sways, just like waves, and she looks oddly content envisioning the sights you offer. The other looks towards you, it's gaze is hard, contemplative, jealous in a way.

"Of course," you bend to pick at your broom again, continuing the motion of sweeping. "Me describing the view is different from actually seeing it."

"Can you show me, show us, one day?" Kiri's voice comes quietly.

You take no longer than a second to agree, nodding. "Maybe not so soon, but eventually. Of course, if you can keep up that is."

"We will." Kiri's brother calls.

"Then I'll take your word for it."

Following the finishing of the sweeping up of the surface, you and Kiri begin to pile the scraped ground into a larger leaf lined basket, a small hole protruding from the side with a small mesh filter covering it. The little human watches you two before using one of the spare reinforced fruit shells the two of you were already using to help scoop the sand into it.

During the process, clear water has already started to filter out and pool into a wide stone fire pot you had placed by the opening. The basket is filled, topped with heavy stones separated by a large palm leaf. It filters quickly, the two of them in idle chatter flicking between Na'vi and the humans language while you stay silent in observing the water, and as the water starts to reach the lip of the pot you quickly push another smaller pot in its place and haul the water-filled one on top of a structure to hold it over an open flame.

"Start the flame and then we shall start to boil it."

"Boil?"

Humming in confirmation, you start to stir with a carved wooden tool as the two blow at the tiny flame below the pot. The mixture sloshes, quickly reaching a bubbling state, steam wafting from it.

By now the sky has started to darken, a draft picking up and tickling your skin. The sand beneath your toes have now cooled from its once heated state, now feeling damp; every adjustment you make to your stance feels heavy, ankles aching.

When the mixture's bubbles resemble that of the aggressive underwater volcanos, you grab the sieve and gesture for the two to come closer, both sharing a grip on an additional stone bowl between them.

Heat envelops your hand as you use the long handle to scoop to the bottom of the vicious mixture, the liquid nearly tickling at the side of your fist.

A gasp, from either the two of them or both in combination (you're not quite sure with your quiet concentration), reverberates into the atmosphere as you draw the sieve out. Tiny shards of salt crystals sit cradled into your tool, rapidly cooling as you expose it to the salty air; it creates tiny tinkling sounds hitting the stone, some fragile enough to split into miniscule shards. They gaze at the sea salt as if they reflect the stars in them -- as if you have fished and hauled crystals in your calloused hands.

The process repeats, the crystal sheen reflecting at their eyes.

By the time the liquid has been reduced to the point of nothingness, the stone bowl has been half filled with salt.

"We'll grind the salt here and then haul it back to the village so we can begin the drying process while it is still light." Work is divided the tree of you as you all take longer smoothed stones to start to crush the salt crystals, stars turning into dust with every grind. It doesn't take long to reach a consistency that when picked up between pinched fingers, slip through them like sand.

The three of you navigate the forest, the bowl held by you and Kiri (a bit of the small human's strength too) breaking the tree line to scamper where a few of your clan party members are lining a large tightly woven basket with fruit leaves and thin strips of akula.

Idle chatter becomes whispers as they catch a glimpse of the strange body behind you.

"A sky person -- and such a tiny one at that."

"How much weight are they carrying of the bowl? Are they really as weak as rumoured?"

While you were also quiet baffled at seeing such a strange sight upon first viewing Kiri's brother, you were at least quiet about it -- your clan members hold no curiosity back, eyes flickering between their tasks and observing the way the flesh human hung back at their tense gazes.

"Here," you drop to your knees next to the bowl, grabbing a cup-shaped shell and beginning to load the salt onto the patted dry strips. "Pack it tight, then in two days half of us will deliver it back home."

"Will you lead the trip back?"

"Of course -- well, that's if brother is still too weak." Kiri and her brother still loiter behind you, Kiri a looming a little taller as if trying to shelter the other from the still lingering glances of your hunting party. "Kiri," you halt momentarily, tongue slipping as you try and pronounce her brother's name. "Spider," admittingly your accent is a little thick but it gets the name across as they glance up at you, surprise lingering. "Thank you both for your help, I wish you a good evening."

Turning back to the task as hand you listen for their retreating footsteps, their own 'good evening' wishes slipping through you ears. Another pair of footsteps float behind you, a hand dipping into the salt to bring a pinch to their lips.

"Perfect." Ronal nods.

TAG LIST: @eywas-heir @k----a27s @galaxyfruits @thecrazyswamp @spicycloudsalad @neteyamforlife @epicy0n

Extras:

Yall, my workshops keep getting cancelled bc of strikes so like my schedule has been messing me up lol. I normally write in the rest periods between classes or when I'm doing work on my campus library, but like bc I'm not in a studying environment when I don't go in, I'm so distracted...

That being said, REALLY SORRY FOR THE SILENCE ON MY PART ISJFIJDFIFJ idk how to run a blog...

I have other ideas unrelated to Tremble that I want to get out there, and I might work on them before posting the next part but i'll see.

ALSO! In the time I was getting support for the first part (TY BTW!!) I took the liberty to really plan and kinda bullet down the developments I wanted to make obvious of the cast of atow. If u guys r interested to see how I interpret post atwow, neteyam lives au development in the charas, I would be happy to share that in a seperate post (thumbs up x2)

I'm tempted to post this series on AO3 on the fact that... idk Tumblr was never my thing until I got thrown into Avatar ngl.

Okay so some reader notes: hopefully I can expand on their dynamic within their own clan soon, but I do hc them to be pretty nosy -- like i can see them kinda having a habit of collecting info unintentionally but not really doing anything with it. Like they're just a neutral bank of info that collects just for the satisfaction of knowing.

The desc. I write of being underwater stems from my own experience in island hopping in the Philippines and taking swimming and diving lessons for a solid 4+ ish give or take years. If u cant tell, i like swimming.

Now, why is Spider repeatedly referred to as 'it'? I (semi) write in the perspective of what the reader views in the moment, and as someone so far removed from the war between humans and na'vi (the readers clan being so isolated from land for large periods of their life), they don't really know how to view Spider. They've heard tales of the sky people and the invasion, but at the end of the day their systems never really crossed prior to the Sully family touching down at the Metkayina village. So, I guess I write half omnicient, half limited 2nd person view.

In terms of inspiration for the harvesting salt techinques, I specifically looked to this for the actual process, this for further education on another method of how salt is harvested, and this to be more aware of how certain methods affect the lives of people who are working in the field and the precausions for it. All three videos are pretty interesting and (imo) i feel only scratching the surface on what I could learn about this life style...

For learning about the process of salting fish, I looked to this and this

If you guys want to see what I watch to get a general feel and education of the ocean, I mainly use Natural World Facts and EVNautilus on Youtube. I heavily recommend it if you guys are wanting to see more sea life! On a general basis, I also recommend Odd Animal Specimens just bc their videos on preserved animals are genuinely mind capturing.

Bonus shout out to Mr.ACCORDION for their covers helping me power through the struggle of writing... I'm a Lit/Lang student, but at what cost...

#avatar the way of water #avatar #avatar 2 #avatar wow #atwow #neteyam te suli tsyeyk'itan #neteyam sully #ao’nung #aonung #avatar x reader #atwow x reader #tsireya #lo’ak #loak #loak sully #kiri sully #kiri #kiri x reader #tuk #tuk sully #spider socorro #spider x reader #navi reader #na’vi reader #am I… even tagging right #hell I’m trying to hit all the tags 😭 #me when i write a tremble installment #not edited yet

[lansplaining]

Hi, I followed you because you have a lot to say about jin guangyao and I enjoy reading it. When I first watched cql I thought he was an enetertaining and satisfying villain both to watch and also to watch being taken down in the end. Such drama! Much style! Then I read a lot of meta about him and watched the show again and realised how much he was being set up as a villain without there being much truth there. The more I read/thought about this, the more interesting and sympathetic I found him.

I am still reading more and more points which point out ways in which the ending and jin guangyao's portrayal is misleading - like the post today pointing out that nmj didn't know that jgy had a part in his death, for example. nmj apparently just hated jgy by the end of his life and that was why his fierce corpse kept attacking jgy. I am a little skeptical about that last part - it may be true but I can't help but feel that the hatred was pretty equally shared around which makes blaming any one party pretty pointless.

I really enjoy jgy as a character. I also enjoy nmj and jzx (who you were vague blogging about today) and tbh I love pretty much the whole cast minus a few obvious dickbags like jgs. Before I take what these posts have to say at face value, I guess I wanted to know, how much do you dislike nmj and jzx? Neither the nmj post nor your jzx post come across as though they are characters you (or op) like. I personally love them and as much as I want to learn about jgy and see different sides, I don't really want to read a lot of negative content about characters I love - especially if it's not written in a way that is particularly balanced.

I hope this does not come across as impolite or disrespectful. I think I am feeling a bit defensive but I don't want to be rude or for you to feel upset or angry. The obvious thing to do is for me to say I should agree to disagree and just unfollow if it's too much but that always feels so drastic to me - maybe I am misreading/reading in bad faith!

<3 <3 <3

first of all, i definitely think JGY also hates NMJ by the end. absolutely mutual hatred there, stemming from a range of reasons, justified and otherwise.

i definitely reblog some stuff from people who actively dislike NMJ, so I wouldn't blame you at all for unfollowing me if you don't want to see that! i actually really like him-- i watched CQL first and totally bought it when the Wens lied and said he was dead and was really sad! i think his structural role is so interesting, and in many ways the story only works if he is both a guy you don't know much about, but think is pretty cool from what you do know. then you find out things that paint him in a far less flattering light, but there's a kind of tragedy in that.

i actually quite like jin zixuan as well. again, CQL first, i loved his moment with the swords at evil wen summer camp, this unexpected proof of how his pride could be a good thing, and in fact had some courage to go along with it. i was so so shocked and sad when he died!

what makes me occasionally get salty about NMJ and JZX both (and again, that totally happens, and i don't blame you at all for not wanting to see that) is honestly over-exposure to fanon takes on them, which i feel are overly simplistic and smooth over the things that make them interesting in favor of making them just really nice, stand-up guys. for NMJ in particular, i think you'll often see JGY fans going extra hard on all the things that are bad about NMJ because they/we feel like we're always implicitly pushing back against fandom's love of him with reminders that he did bad things, too.

the JZX thing is just a total personal pet peeve honestly-- i think he's fun and interesting because he's probably not the nicest or most generous person, but he is ride or die for this one lady and, by extension, sometimes her family. but if he was out here wanting to become besties with jin guangyao, he had a whole year+ to do that and... did not do that. that's okay!! he's a more interesting character for being an imperfect guy!!

my favorite characters are lan wangji, jin guangyao, and jiang cheng-- i like my little guys to be an absolute mess and a bit mean and to not make good choices. throw in the desire to-- not exactly defend JGY, but to resist the parts of fandom that paint him as a 2D villain, and the accompanying attempts to discuss/remind people of the ways those characters hurt JGY/are maybe not such good people because of how they treated him, things can absolutely take on a tone where it seems like characters like NMJ and JZX are being disparaged. but for me, i like them more for being imperfect.

(i am kinda Actually Mad at huaisang though)

#ask answered

[mneiai]

For the DA prompts, DA:I - anything that deals with the way you can screw up table missions until the elf inquisitor to lose their entire clan. (And a table mission being the ONLY TIME THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED OR MENTIONED IN THE GAME OMFG.) Your choice of characters but even years later I'm salty about BioWare dropping the ball BIG TIME on this and will seek out any and all opportunities to redress this CRIME OF STORYTELLING.

Omg I hate those missions! The fact there's like one right choice each time or else they and/or a bunch of other people die and even if it basically worked the last round it kills them the next time you choose it or vice versa fills me with fury every time! How are those even equivalent to shit like some Trevalyn cousins pretending to be closer to the Inquisitor than they are and everything basically working out regardless of your choice? It's like top 3 worst advisor choice moments.

Request Post Is Here

So, the first time I played an elven Inquisitor they were a female elf romancing Cullen and that's sort of always stuck in my head.

This is set immediately after the results of the last choice.

XxX

News of Clan Lavellan's fate cast a sober air across the Inquisition. Cullen still sent troops on the off chance that some of her clan yet survived, but Ellana had little hope.

She had been cautious, over and over again, choosing more often than not to avoid using their troops in case her clan thought they were under attack or the people decided to retaliate against them once the troops were no longer there, but now she wished she hadn't.

In her dreams, she sends twice the number Cullen would have. And Elven scouts before them so Deshanna was warned. A letter would be sent back, scolding her for being so overprotective, but with undertones of love.

Ellana would never receive another letter from her clan. She'd never hear Deshanna's gentle voice or the laughter of the children or....

Spread around her on the floor of her room was every piece of correspondence, every note and recommendation her Advisors had given about her clan. She could trace the horrible path of destruction and distrust, could see exactly where, suddenly, she'd had too much hope. Too much faith.

She'd been spending too long among the shems, had internalized too much of her position and titles.

"There's no telling if it would have gone differently." Cullen's voice pulled her from the downward spiral of her thoughts and she looked up to see him at the top of her stairs, Cole peeking at her through the railing lower down them.

"They would not have attacked the Inquisition! Some of these cities are Inquisition allies!" she gave the protest that had been swimming in her head for hours, since the news had first reached them.

He walked forward, kneeling on the floor on the other side of the pile before he was too close and looming too tall. Perhaps all of his time praying had made him sensitive to such things and she still had enough reason left within her to appreciate it.

Reaching out, hesitating just long enough that she could have stopped him, he took up one of Leliana's recommendations, smoothing down the wrinkles Ellana had made as she gripped it. "Though a lie might bring you comfort, I cannot offer one. You will never stop second-guessing your choices in this. The pain will become duller, less pronounced. Eventually you might go days, even weeks without thinking of it. And while it does not help now, at least you will have the comfort in knowing you were trying to do what was best, to save as many lives as possible."

"By hesitating, by using shem diplomacy when I should have shown my power," she bit out, her hand back on his final recommendation, the one she hadn't taken.

Cullen shook his head. "When this first started...do you remember, those weeks ago? I recommended sending troops in immediately," he gave a wry, humorless smile, "I fear that is my answer to most anything these days. In retrospect, I know that would have been the wrong choice. If...if it was the right choice this time--and we cannot know that--you were still not wrong to hesitate."

She let herself dwell on those words, remembering the recommendation he spoke of as she had only just reread it. He'd backed down as soon as she pointed out that her clan might react poorly to shem troops marching towards them. And she still knew she'd been right on that account.

"You each offer advice based on your expertise and I don't push you for more. You're no diplomat, but if I'd had you reach out to the other city-states instead of Josie, it might have gone differently." She knew he had close contacts high up in Kirkwall and Starkhaven, ones who might have been willing to leverage their own connections in the rest of the Marches.

"I...don't know." He wanted to say more, she could tell, could imagine him wondering if the people he knew had done less than their best because it was a stranger asking--she had not meant to give him another reason to blame himself, they both had more than enough of that.

When she'd pulled out these notes, she'd seen files upon files of other ones. All of the records of the important missions were kept in the same place, at least the ones that wouldn't give too much away if spies got ahold of them. It had reminded her of other choices she'd made, of other results they'd had.

How many people had she gotten killed over the last year, by doing what felt like the right thing?

Horribly, none of that mattered as much as this time. No one else mattered as much as her family had.

She was expected to save the world, but she couldn't even protect the people who mattered most to her.

"Ellana." Cullen interrupted her thoughts again.

His odd shem eyes were bright with unshed tears--for her grief, for her pain. She crawled across the strewn papers to push into his arms, uncaring if the hesitant thing between them allowed for such closeness. For now she just needed to soak up the warmth in his broad form and pretend like her world wasn't falling apart while she was tasked to keep everyone else's together.

#drverstehen1 #dragon age fic #ask answers

[enbyboiwonder]

any combo of these for the fic writers ask? ❤️👻🏷👓😎💛💌 (also, hope you're doing well!)

I think I’m doing probably so-so (though I was doing better before this disgrace of a website reloaded the tab when I was 95% finished answering this and I had to restart from scratch—I am salty). I dunno how long it’ll last, especially since it’s not simply a periodic downswing, but oh well. I think playing Neverwinter Nights (and fantasizing about if not always writing Hero/Tomi fic) might be helping though, or at any rate, it ain’t hurting.

Send me fanfic author questions!

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

The reason it took me so long to answer this—at least, before this sorry excuse of a website decided to delete everything I’d written because apparently autosaving to drafts is a thing for every type of post except ask responses—was that I had to go back and reread all (well, almost all; some of them I’d rather like to pretend don’t exist and either A. I’m still undecided on whether to orphan or not, or B. I can’t orphan them because they’re part of a series) the fics on my account. Is it weird that my fics don’t really stick in my head that long? Even when I don’t all but block them out. Anyway, it might be…

He feels safe—god, he feels like home.

from Don’t Tell Me Where the Road Ends (MacGyver 2016, macdalton). It’s not anything fancy or eloquent or anything, but idk, I still like it.

Or maybe…

He watches with poorly concealed amusement as Chika seems to work his way through all five stages of grief and back in the span of about two seconds.

from The Shape of Soup (2.43, yunichika)

(Yeah, I had difficulty choosing, so the rest—and the rest of the questions—will be going under the cut for length vvv)

Or even…

Somewhere along the way, his admiration has turned from jealousy to want—from wanting to be him to just wanting him.

the line that birthed not to remain as just a wish (2.43, odaoki)

Or possibly, since I feel like I should have one that is imagery-type/more poetic/(would it be conceited to call it eloquent?)…

His whole body is alight with the fizz of cider close beneath the surface of his skin, overflowed from the cavity of his chest to spill down his limbs and climb up his throat, pooling and sparking in all the places that Mao touched him like senkou hanabi, like miniature fireworks all their own, the brightest of all where Mao's fingers are still tangled with his, and it's wonderful and overwhelming at once.

from candy-apple red (Girls Blue, kisaragi/mao)

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

I don’t think I have any tbh? My headcanons all tend to be more the run-of-the-mill type and/or generally accepted fanon and/or stuff extrapolated from them being clearly ADHD and/or autistic. They’re small things, like Yuni liking spicy foods but being unable to handle sour stuff while Chika loves both, or Nao liking space but not particularly caring for sci-fi, even sci-fi that’s set in space. In fact, both of those I came up with while writing the fics they show up in lmao (Lemon Squash and 流星群, respectively. Though, technically, Chika liking lemons—with the sort-of implication that Yuni doesn’t—showed up in The Shape of Soup, but that was just lemons.)

🏷️ Is there a tag you like to search for when looking for fanfics to read?

I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a content tag outside of when I was trying to see how to do something while attempting to write smut. It’s never really worked out. Even when I think I’ve figured something out, it all flew out of my head as soon as I opened my own fic. At least I prefer writing non-smutty fics, or this would be a much bigger problem than it is lmao

No, usually what I’ll do is just go into a ship (or character) tag and filter out any tag I come across that I don’t want to read.

👓 What helps you focus when you write?

Music, though that’s also just a general thing. Typically I’ll just listen to whatever I’m already listening to (which for the past few years has mostly been the 2.43 OST), but if I’ve got a specific song or set of songs in mind for a fic, I’ll generally listen to that instead. Sometimes when I’m rewriting a canon scene or writing something that includes one, I’ll just leave the show playing in the background once I’m done with it. (That’s actually how one of my 2.43 rewatches happened lmao, though I guess it only half counts.)

Of course, sometimes my brain will focus on that instead…

Yeah, I haven’t figured out how to reliably hack my ADHD. Mostly I just hope I’ll slip into hyperfocus (and then hope I’ll manage to finish it while I am, but that only very, very rarely happens. Normally I’ll come out of my daze to find I’ve added like 1600 words and I’ve got no idea how to write the missing bits).

😎 What fics do you prefer on a scale of canon compliant to wildly original?

It depends on my mood tbh. Also how much I hate canon (though it can make for some delicious angst, depending on why I hate it). But most of my fics end up being canon compliant, or at least not canon uncompliant, so I guess when it comes to writing, it would be that? Though I do also accumulate my fair share of AUs (but then, most of those are Canon AUs of one sort or another…)

💛 What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned about writing?

I’m not so sure I’ve learned anything, and certainly not anything impactful, except that I have zero idea how to describe emotions. That, and it’s obnoxious af when people use epithets for the POV character. I can’t believe I used to do that. It makes me what to crawl into a hole and die in shame. Like, what someone/something is referred to in the narrative is how your POV character thinks of them! Your MC can’t be “the other man”—he’s the man! Everyone else is “the other” in reference to him! (That’s probably also why I’ve gravitated more consistently toward referring to the POV character by their given name, though I’ll still use surnames sometimes—and not just when we never learned their given name.)

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

I tend to prefer writing Pre-Relationship/Feelings Realization/Getting Together/First Kiss stuff over Established Relationship stuff, but I’m not so sure any of those are tropes. Wait, what does count as a trope. Cuz I also love Fluff (particularly the sappy stuff—I’ve had several turn out way sappier than originally intended) and Angst and Hurt/Comfort about equally, but I feel like those are closer to genres than tropes…

Hmm, well, I do love Character x Their Significant Annoyance (A finds B annoying/frustrating/exasperating/baffling/etc. but is still inexplicably fond of them anyway), and I feel like a lot of the fics I’ve written are for pairings with that dynamic, so let’s just go with that, shall we?

I’m also a sucker for tropes in the Fake Dating to Real Dating/Didn’t Realize They Were Dating/Practice Kissing area, though I haven’t finished very many of those, and I also love Crossdressing (particularly sticking unfeminine men in women’s clothing and/or guys just casually wearing women’s clothes), but I haven’t finished any of those, either. Granted, some of those involve smut, which could explain it, but it’s not like all of them do. Half or less.

Plus there’s The Italicized Oh, and I love sticking those sorts of moments into my pre-relationship fics, even if there is no actual italicized “oh.” Just—the yearning. I’m an absolute sucker.

#answered #thx for the ask! #ebw.op

[shivunin]

🙤 Unusual OC Associations 🙧

Tagged by @greypetrel---thanks for the tag! This is so cool :) I also might do this for all of them gradually---I enjoy this unique way of thinking about these characters. I added Arianwen under the break here, and I'll likely make a separate post for my bounty of Lavellans. (Also--I'm just putting this out there--I'm adding a Tarot section for mine because I kept thinking about cards for them as I was writing these, but it wasn't part of the original list c: )

Maria Hawke

Seasoning: Something warm and sharp, like ginger or cinnamon. The kind of thing you can add to a hot drink when it's cold outside.

Weather: Snow that falls in big, puffy flakes that make you feel grateful to be inside and warm. Not a storm, but snow that makes everything feel a bit closer than it was before.

Colour: The crimson of heart's-blood, vivid and unmistakable

Sky: When it's very cold and clear outside and there are ice crystals shining in the air. You can only see them when they catch the light, but they're there nonetheless, like clouds scattered at ground level

Magic power: Fire that soothes and sears: a healing heat that is like knocking back a finger of whiskey in the bitter cold, or a blush on a first date.  The agonizing pain of reaching for a pot too fresh from the fire or overlooking the burning candle you've just tipped over in your negligence. 

House plant: Aloe vera: you can forget about it, it can withstand too much sun or rain for a time, and as long as it’s cared for every so often it’ll keep taking out the sting of your hurts

Weapon: A staff made of dark wood and bronze, polished to a gloss by decades of use and her father’s hands. 

Subject: History—but mostly the salacious or embarrassing bits. Hawke loves a good story, and she definitely tells the bawdy ones when she’s tipsy.

Social media: Despises it. Has a hard time reading tone on the internet. Probably runs a personal blog about her life Kirkwall that she never updates, and rarely responds to comments; she’s too impatient to work to understand a format or website culture. 

Make-up product: An anise oil treatment she rubs into her hair before she sleeps at night to keep it glossy and tangle-free

Candy: Chocolate-covered roasted almonds; a study in contrasts, with the sweet, melt-in-your mouth richness of chocolate and the crunchy, faintly bitter and salty almonds. 

Fear: Failure; that it was actually her fault that Malcolm and Bethany died, and that it will happen again if she isn’t quick/clever/good enough

Ice cube shape: Perfectly square, rattles nicely when you shake it in a glass

Method of long distance travel: Carriage; she can nap, read, and take in the sights exactly as much as she’d like to. 

Art style: Impressionism; trying to capture the fleeting through the suggestion of detail, but ultimately only capturing the impression of what it once was. The finished result is still beautiful, if full of nostalgia. 

Mythological creature: A church grim; guardian of its domain and foreteller of death. 

Piece of stationery: Handmade paper with pieces of dried rose petal or herbs pressed into the paper itself; slightly ragged around the edges but thick and sweet-smelling. 

3 emojis: 👀 💅🏽 😶

Celestial body: The harvest moon on the horizon, golden and full and looking impossibly close despite the distance

Tarot Card: The Hanged Man; Intuition, trials, and self-sacrifice

Tagging: @star--nymph @zenstrike

(and really, anyone who wants to do this--I know these things have the power to make one feel like the kid picked last for dodgeball, but I feel like I'm overstepping if we've never really interacted. Tell me if you want to do these things and I will tag you forever. Really.)

(I put Wen under the break, insert "nobody puts Baby in the corner" joke)

Arianwen Tabris

Seasoning: Oh, salt, hands-down. No elaboration.

Weather: Gathering cumulonimbus on the horizon, with that especially purple-grey tinge to the bottom that tells you it’s going to be a really brutal storm. There are streaks of lightning every now and then, and you can see the streaks where rain has already begun to fall in the distance. (It leaves destruction behind, but come back in a season or a year---the fallen trees grow moss now, and house animals, and the fields have grown back all the greener for the rain)

Colour: Gunmetal grey; dull at first glance but lustrous and brutal nonetheless. 

Sky: Red at first light

Magic power: Reopening hidden hurts and forgotten wounds

House plant: Cactus in a terracotta pot. Sometimes you wonder why you’ve still got it on the shelf there, when all it does is poke you and look menacing. But then you look at it after a multiweek depression fog and it’s still there, unwilted, kicking ass. 

Weapon: a throwing knife, painted matte-black, all but invisible at night until it hits you

Subject: Applied physics; she likes the practical reality of numbers, and the application of an object in motion can really only benefit her. 

Social media: Has a private Youtube account where she saves all her favorite Lockpicking Lawyer videos. If anyone posts a picture or video with her in the background, she hunts them for sport. 

Make-up product: Cover up/foundation; if all your scars and tattoos are covered, it’s more difficult for people to identify you

Candy: Rebanaditas (watermelon chili powder candy) (and hey, this is how I found out that lucas powder contained high levels of lead and that’s why it was discontinued?? If you ate a bunch of it like I used to, just a heads-up.)

Fear: Loving someone as much as her father loved her mother (as much as she loved her mother) and losing them anyway.

Ice cube shape: Circle K ice (the little crunchy ones people like to chew on)

Method of long distance travel: Foot. No chance she’ll have to climb off or down from something and get taken by surprise. 

Art style: Charcoal sketches; they seem straightforward, even simplistic at first glance, but are capable of unexpected depth and dimension

Mythological creature: Cŵn Annwn; a hound of the Wild Hunt in Welsh lore. Their howls were a death portent that grew quieter rather than louder as they approached. Sometimes regarded as guides to the afterlife.

Piece of stationery: Scrap of paper torn off a larger text for convenience

3 emojis: 🔪 🤨 🐺

Celestial body: Mars

Tarot Card: The Tower; a symbol of abrupt and violent change, for better or worse

#Fereldens: all mythological dogs apparently #i only realized after the fact lol #maria hawke #arianwen tabris #oc meme #yo i went to write lucas powder for wen's candy and looked it up to make sure that was its actual name and again: lead content wtf #wen's sky also is a reference to that old adage 'red sky at night sailor's delight; red sky at morning sailor take warning' jsyk #i finished maria's and i couldn't help myself i had to write more #idk if i am allowed to alter these things strictly speaking but eh #folklore and mythology are not the same thing strictly speaking but hear me out #i am the captain here #long post #if i tagged you and you don't want me to also #shoot me a dm or ask and i will not do that in the future #dixeram

[purrincess-chat]

Something that has been on my mind today since reading Rae's post this morning might ruffle a few feathers, but I feel like sharing my perspective. This isn't directed at any one person because I've seen it in numerous places from numerous people over the last several months, and I'm not looking to start any fights, just sharing my experience.

A lot of the outcry I've seen about pre reveal Adrinette "ruining" the love square or not being fair to x side or whatever grievance people have is giving me salty side of the fandom vibes. I say this as someone who was once part of the salt crowd and left for various reasons I've talked about over time. Now, these people making these posts might scoff at that notion because "unlike the salters I actually love the show," but the thing about salters is they once loved the show too.

The thing about fandom is it's a double edged sword. It's fun to make headcanons and write fanfic about our faves in situations. It's fun to speculate about what all of the little pieces and clues and crumbs in canon mean. But when the lines between fanon and canon get blurred, that's when things get tricky. It's fun until it isn't.

As someone who was once part of the salt crowd who had many friends who took pleasure in ripping the show apart, I can tell you that a vast majority of the vitriol came from unmet expectations. We got it in our heads that something would happen or should happen in order for the show to be good, and when those very hyper specific things didn't happen, we got mad. "It's bad writing" we would say. "It's not fair" we would cry. "Canon would be better if it just did what we wanted." From our perspective, we loved the show a lot and wanted to see it done well. We wanted to see a good story told because we loved the characters and the universe. At least, that's how I felt. I wrote numerous salt fics after Chameleon and started arguably one of the worst salt trends to come from that episode with the whole 'Marinette changes schools and gets revenge' trope. But eventually, for me, the constant negativity reached a point that was unhealthy, and I started to recognize the anger and disappointment I felt towards the writers bleeding into my psyche and corrupting me. I no longer enjoyed the show I once loved. My days were full of arguments with strangers over fictional people. I was angry. I would lash out at anyone who disagreed with me. I was miserable. So I pumped the brakes. I took breaks from the fandom to work through my own issues. I asked myself why I was even here at all if I wasn't enjoying it. And ultimately I decided I did still enjoy the show even with all of its flaws, and I accepted that canon was going to do whatever canon was going to do. When I came back to fandom, I found I no longer related to the salt crowd, so I left it behind. I mass unfollowed everyone in the fandom minus a few trusted mutuals and friends. Over the last couple years I've slowly started branching out again, being extremely picky about who I follow this time. So when I say this, it comes from a place of experience because a lot of the posts I've seen floating around from people who admonish the salters and tout themselves as not being like the salters are starting to look familiar. As Dr. Taylor Swift once said, "I think I've seen this film before, and I didn't like the ending." The salters started out the same way, at least the ones I knew. They originally loved canon, then one thing happened that they didn't quite like. Then the next tiny little thing became more noticeable. Then they started noticing a lot of things. Then they started looking for things to notice. And it snowballed from there to what it is now: a group of bitter, disgruntled ex-fans whose expectations were never met.

I'm not saying the people posting about their disapproval of pre reveal Adrinette are all terrible bad people on par with the salters. Nor am I saying they will ever get that bad necessarily. I'm just saying that these posts, to me, resemble the beginning of that road. Certain expectations that weren't met by canon, and anyone who even tries to suggest that those expectations weren't meant to happen are wrong and don't understand the show clearly because if you did, you'd agree with our anger.

Maybe I'm just jaded with fandom. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm a biased Adrinette stan that is happy to see the two kids finally getting together after 4.5 seasons of dancing circles around each other. 🤷‍♀️ But when I came back and changed my tune toward the show I accepted canon for what it is. It's fun. It's cringy. It has good parts and bad parts. It's neither the terrible, awful shitshow the salters make it out to be nor the perfectly innocent devoid of any flaws angel that its highest praisers make it out to be. It is what it is. I told myself a long time ago that I just want to see the love square get together by whatever means necessary. If the writers feel like pre reveal Adrinette is necessary, then that's just what it is. No amount of me bitching about what could've been, would've been, should've been will change that. If I'm really disgruntled, I'll go write a fic about what I wanted to happen instead. That's what fandom is for. That was fanfic's original purpose. It was a writer's ability to say "but what if this happened instead?"

Idk. A lot of the takes I've seen in fandom lately just leave a bad taste in my mouth and remind me of a time in my fandom history that I've worked hard to move on from. This fandom has been dying for years, and I think s5 will be the final nail in the coffin.

#cat salts #ml fandom salt #might delete later idk #just something that has been on my mind lately #the salters and fans have started to look too similar to me at times #and i know they will all deny it and claim to be different but #ive seen both sides 🤷‍♀️ #so i know what to look for #anyway #thats all i will say on the matter #honestly i will be surprised if there is anyone left after this season

[annieoftheshitposts]

GOD right yeah so the scrapped arg. this stuff is OLD, like, from 2018 ok. but even if it never went anywhere i did have a ton of fun coming up with the mechanics and story, and did a decent bit of groundwork for getting it set up, so this is a long post with a lot of images.

for a good long while i was kicking around the idea of a doing “double takeover” thing where, for one reason or another, annie would just be Not Around, and not the one answering questions. just suddenly switch to double shapeshifted as annie and never comment on it until someone tried to point it out. i did a handful of sketches exploring this.

the sword? you mean this sword that ive defintiely always had and didn’t just shapeshift out of my body? yeah it’s a cool sword.

i like to imagine double would just be really fucking salty about any praise annie gets too. and then the inevitable heel turn when someone Did catch on and call her out.

it never really went anywhere because frankly annie’s too powerful for most forces in the sg universe to be able to keep her restrained somewhere against her will; there was a vague idea about her somehow having gotten separated from sagan, which would not only severely nerf her power but also provide prime angst material. ultimately though it was all still just idle musings, until i started thinking about how i was gonna handle annie’s eventually being included in indivisible, and how to do asks with the characters in that game.

so first off, there was gonna be this whole Mechanic™ for how she passed between the two games; nothing super fancy, if anyone remembers star vs. the forces of evil and how the “dimensional scissors” worked there, it’s pretty much the same thing. just a little trinket she can pull out and make portals/holes between game universes.

second, only annie and sagan can use the said portals; any other characters or objects that try to go through, from either side, are met with a sort of ‘compatibility error’; just in that the programming to let them exist isn’t present in the other game, and so they can’t pass through. anything else that does try to go through just kind of gets vaporized. momentarily. it re-materializes a few seconds later, wherever it was last before trying to go through so nbd. yknow the material emancipation grids from portal? it’s like that but it just sort of rewinds stuff a few seconds instead of killing it.

i was going to have beowulf try to follow her into indivis world and then promptly get vaporized to demonstrate this, which would have been really funny. for me. not so much for annie, watching it happen.

dont worry though hes fine. again it’s only momentary, it just caught them off-guard. i could never hurt dear sweet beowulf.

so anyway we go on answering asks normally with annie going back and forth between indivis and sg for awhile; however long it takes to get comfortable with the game-hopping mechanic, and then at one point when we’re Supposed to have her travel back to sg-verse, i just pull out the pink double-annies and say Nothing. this is where the arg begins.

the first leg of this is figuring out what the hell happened to annie. someone would have to call double out for Not Being Annie and start questioning her about what happened, and at some point i’d find a way to slip in that double has been using “console commands” on the blog, which you are to also then do. i did actually make the console command page, though it’s still 100% in messy beta test phase and there’s not really anything there that finalized or presentable or functional. but it exists and you can go look at it if you want, i don’t intend on deleting it. the important thing there is the “camera focus” toggle/links; this would have been the main gimmick of the arg. the camera is, by default, set to “main”, which is this “annieoftheshitposts” blog. annie is the player character here who receives the asks, so there’s not usually any discrepancy. however, now, with her being missing,  when you toggle the camera to view the “player character”, you’re brought to a DIFFERENT blog, where the real annie is, and where you are met with a post of annie now getting the whole “being vaporized when she tries to pass between games” deal.

very rough bc i only drew it for testing/placeholder purposes but you get the idea. so anyways then you’d send annie questions on this Other blog to ask her what’s going on and get her caught up to speed what you know about double being on the main one now, etc. at some point you would be told about an Additional camera control, to let you see/go to a Third blog with venus and aeon to send THEM asks and get further information. [fun fact, if you remember my venus redesign? this is what it was for!] anyway we’d spend a good bit of time here just bouncing back and forth questioning the characters and relaying information between them to piece together what was going on.

and what’s going on is this: you know how in that one ending it’s shown that venus and aeon have a Physical Cartridge of the game skullgirls?  they noticed annie had been slipping in and out of the game/sg universe, and thought “hey, wouldn’t it be neat if we could lock her out permanently so she’s not always fucking up our endeavors?” and then they hacked/modded their game;  specifically to remove/patch annie out so that she gets the same ‘compatibility error’ thing when trying to return home and just becomes Stuck in indivis universe. yknow the whole shtick with vanellope in wreck-it ralph? pretty much that.

so then the second leg of the arg is getting her written/coded back IN to the skullgirls ‘verse. i never really figured out much about this part though. i was doing some stuff on twinery about like, passwords or something; you’d have to go on this whole goose chase to find them and then enter them on there and it’d let you access the actual stuff to do the little ‘coding’ activities or whatever. i dont know it has been like 4 years since i was actively planning all this. but anyway once all that is Done you’d go back to annie to let her know, and then she can go back home to this main blog to beat double’s ass and get things back to normal. the end!

but yeah i killed this blog to go focus on working with my own original stuff, and then indivisible itself also Fucking Died before annie ever got added, so all this is 200% never happening. but now you know.

#skullgirls #annie (skullgirls) #annie of the stars

[razieltwelve]

Hmm...

Over the years the Final Rose versions of characters have massively diverged from their originals (Vanille says hi) to the point that they’re basically different characters.

Although I now write for a living, I’m considering hopping back into long-form (or chapter-based) fiction over on Royal Road by putting together a story that tries to create a proper universe for these characters as original characters. I’m thinking of using Royal Road because this is something I’ll be working on in my spare time with no ‘endgame’ in mind whereas the fiction I write for a living is stuff that has to be finished completely before publication.

What I’ve currently got in mind is a world where magic exists as do a variety of special skills and techniques. Mana and qi are also around and are separate but related things. There are monsters, kingdoms, and all that sort of good fantasy stuff.

In this case, what I’ve got for the first two characters are:

Sel (French for Salt because she makes people salty) who is a kitsune with a fox familiar. She is a mage and an artificer who believes in the beauty of overwhelming firepower delivered by supreme sorcery and supreme science.

Cynthia (name derived from Artemis) is a werewolf woman who uses a spear. However, unlike most other werewolves, she possesses a combination of skills that together allow her to eat people and things to gain some portion of their abilities or powers.

Cynthia and Sel were orphans who ended up becoming sisters when they were kids because Sel was really smart but needed someone with a bit of scrap and muscle to them, which was where Cynthia came in. Since then, they’ve made a living as adventurers, mercenaries, and merchants.

The story would be written a bit tongue-in-cheek. For example, the first chapter I have in mind is basically Cynthia engaging a demon lord in combat and distracting him while Sel sets up a number of artefacts and devices to let her cast a way more powerful spell than she would normally be able to.

Naturally, she’s recording the process for posterity and forcing her fox familiar (a golden fox named Goldie) to hold the recording crystal while she roughly explains what she’s doing while posing and generally being obnoxious.

Cynthia is on the back foot the entire fight but manages to use some skills and some items from Sel to temporarily immobilise him. He mocks her since she can’t actually kill him, which is when the clouds parts, and he realises that Cynthia wasn’t working alone. He tries to yell at her, but she’s already running like hell to get out of the blast radius.

Cue in the magical equivalent of an orbital strike.

Mission accomplished. No problems.

Until they get back to claim their reward from the ruler of the city, a beleaguered former adventurer whose wife really wants him to take time off, who points out that on his recent flight back to the city on his eagle, he noticed a giant crater.

Clearly, Sel points out, the crater was caused by the demon lord exploding after being killed. What else could it have been? Meanwhile, Cynthia is hoping to play around with some of the abilities she gained after eating half of the demon lord soul crystal (the soul crystal survived the blast) since they need to give the other half as proof.

At some point, they’ll run into three sisters, one of whom is a rising star in the kingdom’s military and their answer to the question of ‘How do we kill this thing?’, another of whom is a talented ranger, and the last of whom is a spell-sword who is most famous for conjuring countless different weapons and using them in combat.

By shifting the characters and the setting, I should have a lot more room to explore and try new things, because these characters won’t have to adhere to particular origin stories and the like, nor do I have to worry about making the lore compatible with existing stories.

What do you think?

EDIT: Could also go the spacebattles route for posting. Still thinking about it.

#musings

[dontfreakout]

we know that the cast has known since at least APRIL that she was leaving (based on freema's goodbye gift posted by one of the crew members back then). soooo they should have BEEN had those goodbye posts ready to go, it's giving saltiness on their part idk idk this sucks. hope freema continues to thrive and lands more roles worthy of her talent

I knoooow it's all so weird??? and I feel like they knew before april too bc freema must've gotten the role for the dreamland show in like january so I don't believe she waited until the last minute to tell them she was leaving and they were still friends in late march when ryan and jocko posted these pics with her for her birthday so I'm really confused and fucking heartbroken... not only did we lose the best character on the show and one of the best ships ever created but we also lost the friendships and that makes everything hurt even more...

it's so disrespectful of them all to not say anything and not even like her post??? I at least hope they threw a party after her last day of filming or at least did something nice for her??

god it's making me so sad that she didn't mention the cast and they didn't react to her post wtf happened???? they used to be so close and now they don't acknowledge each other??

seeing their silence I'm really glad she left, I've always only heard wonderful things about her from people who met her/have worked with her so I'm glad she chose to put herself first and leave these ungrateful people

#new amsterdam #sharpwin #yeah ik still using that tag even though it's not about sharpwin

[lovecolibri]

Things that did NOT Spark Joy-4x13

I already know this is gonna be long and incredibly salty so that’s your warning! Not much is going to escape my wrath here so if you just want to continue revealing in all the good, happy, Malex wedding feels, that post is here. Otherwise, click the read more at your own risk because this is messy, and I’m going full salt gremlin! And that’s not even including the stuff I forgot, or had notes about and was just too tired to bother with today. Don’t say you weren’t warned! One final time friends!

Link to previous episode posts: 4x01, 4x02, 4x03, 4x04, 4x05, 4x06, 4x07, 4x08, 4x09, 4x10, 4x11, 4x12

Where to even fucking start? 

A character having flashbacks to the tragic death of another character are all well and good, but we a) have to care about that other character, and b) they have to have been dead for like, at least a little bit. Ending last episode with Tezca dying for some reason, only to immediately start this one with Isobel flashing back to losing someone they just found out wasn’t their mortal enemy was...a bit much and in an episode where so much needed to happen, it felt like a waste of time. We were all there, we know she died. It JUST happened. 

We went 3 seasons without a single mention of The Blue Flame and we for sure could have gone a 4th. Never before seen power from the one alien NOTORIOUS for having zero control? Some fancy thing only Jones had but yet we never saw Jones use or mention? We didn’t need it considering the series STARTED with Max taking out the whole power grid for the town with his lack of control. If they wanted him to give up his powers because he was a danger to Liz, that scene of him losing his temper and impaling her with something would have been enough.

Every. Single. Flashback to Oasis or after the crash has not made sense with any other flashback to the point where I wish they wouldn’t have bothered. Remember when Max was chained up and we wanted to know more? I take it back. Tell me less. Then I wouldn’t have to question how TF an entire planet’s ecosystem runs on crystals that only one evil man with a special gift no one else has ever had, has the power to bring life to.

Clyde is The Worst and I’d rather have had Jones, or had Jones NOT be totally mad-with-power evil and had Jesse/the US Military be the final big bads, or Evil Tezca the shapeshifter, or literally anything else. We didn’t need a Dollar Store Jones knockoff.

ALEX JUST DISAPPEARS BETWEEN ONE SCENE AND THE NEXT WITH NO EXPLANATION. And when we DO get something, of course it’s not about ALEX, or has him asleep in a bed in the background, or includes MICHAEL being allowed to worry about Alex and his healing and refusing to leave Alex’s side. The man was dying of radiation poisoning but sure that’s something that can just entirely happen off screen while Michael gets wrapped up in other things without a single glance back. Thank goodness we didn’t waste time on Alex possibly dying before he and Michael get the chance to get married so they could make room for more m*ria scenes 🙄 

If they knew the star map was broken and they had time, why didn’t they just...take the console away from the portal and hide it somewhere? Borrow a truck from Deep Sky and have someone (m*ria, so they could make sure she was looking “useful” but it would get her out of the fucking way for once) drive it TF out of town as far and as fast as they could? Then use Bonnie’s powers to take away Clyde’s or something instead of just leaving it there and waiting for him to come back. And if their plan didn’t work, oh well! Guess another planet trying to put itself back together for the past 75 years is going to be pulverized for the sake of one dudes ego! But we tried and it’s the thought that counts! 🙄

Maybe instead of sitting around flipping through a magazine, m*ria could be the one helping Liz and researching stuff? Instead of the man who nearly just died and is supposed to be resting? But she wouldn’t get anything out of it so I guess not. 

Love how Kyle has to thank HER for saving Isobel, and not Michael who figured out what they could get from the roots of the burned trees to mimic the fruit fuel, not Max who helped capture Clyde and held off the storm, and then healed the land when they needed something from it, not Dallas who used his gifts to get the fuel back, no mention of Tezca who sacrificed herself to help talk Max through what he needed to do, nope! It’s definitely all down to m*ria learning astral projection in half an hour to get info they could have easily could have had happen a different way. Isobel is our mindscaper, she could have gotten the info to Kyle to solidify their connection and give us some Kybel crumbs, but then what would m*ria have to do? 

And then, turns out, she can’t help find Rosa whose grave she went to every day for a decade but can’t be bothered with now that she’s breathing, because she’s too “drawn” to Dallas to focus on anyone else?! Give me a break 🙄🙄🙄 First of all, finding a childhood friend who is in danger and needs your help should be enough to get you to quit focusing on the new dick you’re trying to hop on, second of all, the show has spent how long forcing all these other characters to praise the ground she walks on as she’s actively being selfish and awful to them, only for her to be unable to help her “best friend” in her time of desperate need because she doesn’t feel “safe” with anyone else but Dallas? Okay. That tracks. Had to invent something for her to do to have another 5 extra scenes this episode instead of giving us a scene of Kyle and Michael talking about how Alex, ya know, the one who was DYING, is doing. Soooo glad we made more time for this instead. 🙄

Clyde and now Shivani are holed up in yet another abandoned church! Who knew Roswell had so many! It feels like just earlier this season they were mentioning the one abandoned church that everyone knew about so that had to be the one they were looking for! 🙄 Season 1 was the multiple bunkers, season 2 was the season of bunkers and barns, 3 was barns and caves, this season was caves and abandoned churches. Everyone and their mother got one! Maybe if they hadn’t spent all that money on having a dozen new caves and bunkers and barns and churches they could have paid for more time using the Crashdown set so every other scene didn’t have to happen in the bar.

Love that the tech guru who is super duper into medical equipment because of trying to save her daughter doesn’t know what the machine Clyde brought was, but somehow magically learned bioengineering because “pod mist”. Also, Clyde....extracted Rosa’s...powers? From her blood? Her frequency powers magically heal alien crystals by...injecting them? With her distilled blood? From some ancient looking earth machine? That was not built to distill alien powers? I can’t.....

 Why did we have to lose Kyle for multiple episodes looking for Allie in Mexico with Eduardo when all it took was a single call from Liz to bring her back? Did...we not think of trying that before? But then the narrative would have had to care about Kyle and use him, maybe for things outside of Liz or Isobel, and we can’t have that.

Liz of course immediately blabs about the existence of aliens to yet another veritable stranger since she hasn’t seen Allie in years, without the approval of anyone who is actually an alien. Remember season 1 when everyone was deathly afraid of anyone finding out their secret? I wish they had kept some of that vibe.

I peripherally feel bad for Shivani, she just wanted to save her daughter, but after eating up so much screentime this season I’m just too tired to really care. We got more effort and screentime put into saving this random girl that they didn’t even end up saving than into finding and saving Alex. What a fucking waste.

 Remember when there was so much speculation fic after season 2 when Alex got with Forrest that season 3 would have Michael getting the chance to go to Oasis and either getting there and the angst of having to watch him leave maybe in the finale, or him having to choose between going, or having to miss the chance to go in order to save Alex? Every single fic, drabble, and speculation was better than anything they tried to do this season about Michael being “torn”. Because at this point it was never a question of if he would leave Alex or not. There were never any stakes, no either/or situation, either Michael chose to go and took Alex with him, or he chose to say with Alex. Or possibly chose to go but not sure if Alex would be able to survive, but it would have been with Alex’s full support and their relationship being fine. They kept trying to have dramatic scenes about Michael feeling guilty about wanting to go but none of them ever landed because there were no stakes! Alex wouldn’t tell him “no” about going, he’d offer to come and if he couldn’t come, he’d wait for Michael and they’d have a mushy scene about it and figure out a way to communicate while Michael was gone. I will never understand the writers insistence on trying to drum up drama out of nothing when they already HAD plenty of drama with Malex that they kept starting and never following through on!

Reiterating how stupid this m*ria/Dallas plot is, crammed into the finale and taking up time when we could have been learning more about Alex’s healing and having Kybel scenes. This won’t be the last time I mention this, but I got to yet another m*ria scene in my episode notes and I honestly can’t believe I made it through watching this whole episode. Dallas left anyway! Why try to build up this relationship now instead of focusing on Kybel who got built up off and on all season only to get totally shafted in the finale?!

Classic villain mistake. Clyde threw Michael and Bonnie, why didn’t he throw Dallas too? Or just snap their necks and move on with his day? It’d be very in character for who they decided Clyde was going to be like, 4 episodes ago. So is he super smart and sooo powerful, or incompetent? As always with these writers, the answer is “it depends on what we need for the scene.”

I cannot express how utterly stupid this thing is with the console needing a sprinkling of fruit juice to work is. We already talked about the giant tree in a shed covered in alien fruit that no one found for 75 years even though everyone supposedly knew about the abandoned church in front of it. But lets talk about why TF we need it anyways when we’ve had 3 seasons about aliens and tech working on electricity and the little electric charges Liz found studying their blood and WHY TF DOESN’T THE CONSOLE NEED AN ALIEN HANDPRINT OR SOMETHING TO RUN?! How much time was wasted this season on this alien fruit that we did not need to spend time on?!

 Why did they show Liz shooting a plunger syringe at Clyde? Him getting stuck with the needle wouldn’t do anything, you have to push the plunger! Unless they were expecting it to break on impact and hope he was dosed enough? Same with the one hidden in her sleeve where should couldn’t have pressed the plunger! 

Why did the whole mark show up on his palm? He had the brand on his shoulder before and it had to be burned into him in that shape! A needle stick “reversing” his mark removal should either have it showing back up in the same place, or not show up in that shape at all because that was the shape of the brand and the thing stopping him was the alien glass in the brand. Then again, at this point, just typing this out, I’ve clearly thought more about this plotline than the writers ever did.

m*ria has barely spoken to Max this entire series but sure, SHE’S the one who should be having this talk with Max. The ONLY reason they had to have her be the one to talk to him, is to have her offer to astral project across multiple galaxies to peek at Oasis because that’s apparently a thing she can do now! Even though a couple hours ago she could even look for her best friend in the same town without having Dallas next to her (also, how did the one Liz couldn’t even tell was alien when she first checked, be more powerful than any of the ACTUAL aliens? Oh right, because the writers had to keep inventing ways to make her useful because she’s utterly superfluous to the narrative), and then they didn’t even show us that scene, only told us about it later! Again, ISOBEL is the one with the mind powers. They couldn’t have opened the portal and had Isobel stand in front of it and put out some feelers or something? Right, because that would once again leave m*ria with nothing at all to do.

 I’ve already talked at length about how utterly disgusting it was to have m*ria not only a part of the wedding, but the only one to have a full conversation with Alex in this episode besides the incredibly short one he had with Michael during the reception, but it cannot be stressed enough what a slap in the face this choice was. Her comments about him being against marriage as a teen are tone deaf considering he COUDLN’T legally get married at that time (who wants to bet he said that one of the times she was trying to make a pact with him that they’d marry each other if they weren’t with someone by like, 30 or something?) She has hurt him so many times and in so many ways while acting like she never did anything wrong and Alex has never been allowed to be upset, or hurt, or even TALK about his feelings about what she did. So having her here in this moment instead of Kyle who we have seen being actively supportive of Alex and Michael for 3 full seasons now, and who we just saw being the ONLY one to encourage Michael in going after Alex and making sure Michael didn’t lose hope as well as (apparently, since we didn’t see or hear about it) saving Alex’s life earlier that same day, is ridiculous! At least if it was Liz who we have been begging to have more scenes with Alex it would be someone who has done about as much to support Alex as m*ria has (nothing) while NOT hurting him nearly as much. Or we could have had Greg (since Alex getting kidnapped for some reason did NOT result in meeting Mindy and Clay Manes or even bringing back either brother we’ve already met) but OH NO, that would be awkward for poor m*ria and we can’t have her feeling uncomfortable at a wedding that has nothing to do with her! 🙄🙄🙄 So the entire conversation is one tone deaf comment, then making everything about her and her love life, with NOTHING about being supportive of him and Michael and the wedding he’s about to have. Par for the fucking course with her. 

It says a lot too of who they wanted to be the center of attention at the wedding given everyone else is in muted colors, Isobel, Liz and Rosa are all in funeral-ish BLACK for some reason, while they put m*ria in the loudest most visible color possible. But this wedding is about Malex. For sure. That’s why instead of watching them dance or hearing their vows, we had to suffer through m*ria trying to get with Dallas. Did she go call Greg on their way to the wedding or is still still putting it off? Probably smart since Dallas is leaving and we all know she’s gotta be with SOMEONE at all times. Maybe Dallas will come back for the Echo wedding and she’ll be able to make that one about her relationship drama too!

Isobel makes the comment that Sanders stuck by Michael through all of his screwups proving the writers STILL do not understand how Michael’s actions were a front to keep people from looking too closely at what he was hiding, a trauma response, and a lot of it to protect Max and especially Isobel. And they don’t understand that Walt LOVES Michael and did what any parent worth their salt would do, and loved Michael as best he could through everything Michael did. 

THEY SKIPPED THE WEDDING. Yeah, we get a bit of it in a montage later but NO VOWS, no hearing the pronouncement of “you may kiss the groom”, no hearing them whisper something sweet to each other when one looks like they might be loosing their composure, NOTHING. Just a montage where we have to watch fucking m*ria walk Alex down the aisle instead of seeing Alex up there with his best man Kyle, the childhood friend he lost and then found again, and MICHAEL who has been looking for a family since the start of the show getting walked down by his siblings and dad. Talk about undercutting your own narrative!

Also, given Alex was just dying and spent weeks on his prosthetic in an alien hellscape, is there a reason they couldn’t be bothered to remember his disability and put him in a wheelchair for the ceremony and let Michael be walked to him? Let Alex be a little self-conscious because this isn’t how he wanted the wedding to go and Michael reminding him that he loves ALL of Alex and his disability IS going to change things about their lives but Michael is ready for all that and he’s getting to marry Alex so who cares about literally anything that happens on the way to that being a legal fact for them! 

The gazebo has been an Echo thing since prom, while Alex randomly brought it up this season. Why not have them get married at the junkyard under that metal trellis we saw during their big "I want to know who you are" moment? Or at Foster Ranch? Or out in the desert where they used to park? Or the drive-in? Or the reservation so his mom and at least one brother could come? Or their own fucking backyard??? Why have it in a place that holds NO significance for them across 4 seasons of the show?

The joke Michael makes about being made into an “honest man” is not only gross in all contexts of it ever being used for any couple across all time, ever, it’s also extra ridiculous here considering Michael has canonically said he’s been dreaming of marrying Alex since he was a teen! This is all he has wanted for over a decade! He then goes on to make a quip about embarrassing Alex over the years, AGAIN proving the writers don’t know anything about these characters because Alex wasn’t ashamed of Michael. Alex was SCARED after his dad committed a hate crime against them and maimed Michael for life (baring alien healing)!! He thought that Michael's acting out and not going to school was HIS FAULT. He was worried when he came back that if Jesse caught a whiff of Michael doing something illegal he would have an excuse to go after Michael and if Alex was associating with him, could have gotten Alex in trouble with the military because of his security clearance. You know, the job that pays for Alex’s medical benefits because he’s disabled? He was terrified as he learned more of what his dad had been doing literally experimenting on aliens, that he could make Michael disappear into his lab and keeping distance kept Michael safe. But the writers would have to care about Alex outside of how his existence affects Michael sooo we get this instead.

 For some reason, while Vlamburn are inventing what love looks like on the dance floor, we’re stuck watching m*ria being forced into the center of everyone’s attention again because this wedding was never going to be about MALEX. Poor Dallas does not deserve any of this. I’m glad he left to Oasis. I’m sure she’ll have a new boyfriend by the time he gets back (or Greg if she hasn’t broken up with him yet), but maybe he’ll find a nice alien who isn’t narcissistic, selfish, and manipulative.

Looks like Bonnie is going to have to learn to deal with rude, grabby handed racists while being paid who knows what under the table since she technically doesn’t exist. I’m sure m*ria is thrilled to save some money on her taxes by not reporting any of that. Bonnie will surely love the kind of clients that frequent The Pony and will in no way be traumatized by them. 🙄

We could have seen a soft morning after for Malex that gets interrupted by Isobel again, but with a far happier conclusion, them loading the car with their packed bags, then going to see Max off before driving out of town at sunrise. Instead, once again, the big Malex moment takes place on a dark, deserted street. Yeah, the truck is decked out with a sign and cans, but there is no one to see them driving off. Them leaving the Crashdown in the morning, driving through a bustling Roswell morning and off into the bright sunrise would have hit better than a deserted street in the middle of the night. It’s literally the same as the s3 finale, with them alone on the street in the dark.

Ending the series with the main couple apart?! Not filming a second ending for if they got canceled where Liz hops into the portal after Max?! Having the last scene being Max again putting what he wants on hold to do what he thinks is expected of him which is NOT growth, and Liz crying and utterly alone at the portal because they didn’t have Malex and Kybel at least standing by to offer their goodbyes and support Liz? WHY?? How is that in any capacity a satisfying ending? The show started by telling us Liz left alone when they had planned to go together and then they spent a decade apart. Why would it not end it with Max being the one to leave, and Liz deciding to go with him to look at alien oceans?!

Max looks exactly like Jones! Did...did anyone plan for the people of Oasis to just...kill him on sight?! He really said, I look exactly like their behated dictator, oh well! and jumped in without a plan. If only Michael had been allowed to jump into a hole without a plan OH WAIT! Because he was doing it to rescue the love of his life, and because it was Michael about Alex it was wrong. But this is Max so of course it’s the right thing to do without giving a second thought or leaving any time to research and plan.

Unanswered Questions! (Just the big ones from this season because if I have to think about the unanswered questions from the show as a whole, I will lose my mind)

What was The Alighting? And how did they figure out a woman who wasn’t even born yet when they went into their pods was the key to bringing it?

What exactly was Ophiuchus? Prophecy? Religion? Hoax made up by Jones? 

What happened to Alex’s necklace? Dallas picked it up, but later m*ria saw it still down there. Why was it there? 

How was Alex part of Jones’s contingency plan?

What happened to Heath?! He said he came to see what was going on with Dallas and yet we never once got to see him interact with Dallas or any other mention that he was updated on what happened to his friend!

#roswell nm #roswell spoilers #things that did not spark joy #4x13 #anti maria deluca #anti maria/dallas #because those are for sure #this will probably be my last set of tagged spoilers posts just a heads up #it's been over a week because i procrastinated on this so i figure that's long enough

[eirian-houpe]

The Monday Menu

As they so often say on TV, “Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.”

Here we are in May already and the last time I did one of these was January. I’m going to try and push back against all the stuff keeping me from what I love... writing, engaging with my mutuals, with readers when they comment or send me DMs or asks or… just plain contact me in any way.  Fandom IS a community after all!

Speaking of communities - there have been some... upsetting observations, and things happening in the last week. I’ve sitting on my feelings on what happened, and what I subsequently discovered for DAYS now, but... I’m still feeling salty, so watch out for an ugly (sorry/not sorry) post later today on that subject.

For those of you that are new to the fandom, or have been hibernating (and who could blame anyone for that given the state of the world) the past couple of years, the Rumbelle Showdown is in full swing. There is still time to read the fics and get your vote in before the deadline (tomorrow at midnight I do believe). There are some awesome fics in this years Showdown, don’t miss out!

Hopefully I will be able to find time to get some writing done this week, and here’s the plan for what this week might look like:

Monday - The Monday Menu - what it says on the box. A plan for the week, also, this week, a Monday Mmmm. There won’t always be one of these, just when something troubling or interesting crosses my path.

Tuesday - TMI Tuesday. - Ask me… go on, anything.  Ask my characters -they’ll answer. Nothing is off limits, but be sure you want the answer before you ask the question.

Wednesday - WIP Wednesday - Current state of my works in progress. So many - and still climbing!

Thursday - Three Things Thursday - any fic of mine is fair game. Doesn’t have to be Rumbelle, I have Rushbelle, a bunch of crossovers, some shows people might no know, some ST: DSC, some SGA and some Tolkien too… ask three things, I dare ya…! Please… This is also the day I’ll do the ‘Behind the Scenes’ post, which might just end up as part of the TTT post.

Friday - Final Line Friday. - Assuming I manage to write anything, I will post a word cloud, and the last line that I have written right before I post this. Also I hope to be able to start a Fic Rec Friday too, which won’t always be Rumbelle, but could be any fandom out there.

Saturday - Saturday Secret - another one of those where you can ask about any fic, and I’ll tell (or show) you a secret. Feel free to follow up with conversation or guesses.  I will tell you if you get something right. Again, no one took me up on the offer… so we might also have to think of another ‘SA’ post.

Sunday - Seven Sentence Sunday. - yeah, I have to write something to be able to post this.

Writing this week - Modern Wonders (At least I’d like to try and get some writing done on this fic.  It has been calling to me after all).  Also perhaps dabbling in some Not Yours to Keep and/or some Laer o Faen, (assuming I get over my tizzy).

As always my inbox is open for thoughts, questions, asks… I don’t restrict people to any particular day of the week, and I - like most fic authors - love to discuss things to do with fics and fandom.

I just want to add a shout out to those readers who have left me comments and kudos these last several days.  It has not gone un-noticed.  love you guys for those votes of confidence..

Talk to me, peeps! My inbox is lonely,

#The monday menu #Modern Wonders #Not Yours To Keep #laer o faen #support for writers #The Rumbelle Showdown

[stillness-in-green]

Why Deku's ultimatum to Overhaul is bad and he should feel bad

This is a bit outside my normal character wheelhouse, but I really need to get a rant about it off my chest, so here goes:

The Deku and Overhaul scene in Chapter 316 is terrible. It is fucking terrible.

I took a whirl around Overhaul's tag up through when the leaks first started dropping, but didn't immediately see anyone talking about why it's so fucking terrible, only concerns about letting Overhaul see Eri (understandable, but baseless, I think), some empathy towards Overhaul's current state (totally warranted!), some snark about Deku being So Done with Overhaul (haha because who cares about Deku's stated goal of trying to understand villains, right?), and, worst of all, some cooing about how Deku was being so compassionate and noble by offering Overhaul that olive branch.

Deku was not being compassionate and noble there. Deku was being arrogant, small-minded, and so shockingly cruel that it leaves me speechless that anyone could think his stunted and hard-hearted "offer" reflects well on him.

Deku's entire motivation in this arc has been wrestling with the realization that he might have been able to avoid some of the desperate battles of his past if he'd understood more about the villains he fought. He thought of three very specific people--Stain, Muscular, and Overhaul--as he reflected, "Maybe it wouldn't have had to go that way if I'd understood them better." He then thought of Gentle Criminal and La Brava, people who he’d come to some understanding of, who he’d been able to soften the conclusion of his battle with by going along with Gentle's fiction downplaying what had happened between them. The whole line of thought was intended to contextualize his newfound desire to save Shigaraki.

It soon became apparent that Stain, Muscular and Overhaul were, in fact, encounters that he would be revisiting, as a chance to see how he'd grown since he faced them, and as a dry-run on reaching out to villains that would give him a chance to practice ways he might reach out to Shigaraki when the time comes.

Well, based on his performance so far, the idea that Deku might be able to reach Shigaraki is laughable.

Firstly, his tentative questions to Muscular were ill-timed, all wrong for the middle of a battle. Muscular laughed him off, and I don’t think there’s any version of that scenario in which he would have done otherwise. Muscular was a huge threat, gleefully violent, disinterested in conversation about his history. Obviously, right in the middle of a fight was no kind of time to try to figure out what made the man tick! But Deku didn’t get the luxury of choosing the circumstances of that encounter, so yes, that battle probably was unavoidable, certainly if Deku wanted to stop him from doing further damage. But the idea that because Deku couldn't reach him right then and there, it's impossible for Deku--or, indeed, for anyone--to reach him at all is fallacious. Not every person has to be able to like or understand every other person. If Deku couldn't reach Muscular, so what? That doesn't mean it's impossible that someone might. And that means an obligation to treat Muscular like a human being, to afford him human rights, to not stop trying to find a way to rehabilitate him, even as you safeguard other people against him.

Deku's battle with Muscular being unavoidable was not some great triumph, for all that the narrative used it as an opportunity to let him show off how far he’d come in mastering One For All. In the way that matters, the way that Deku himself is currently trying to better, he hasn't advanced at all. Imasuji Goto represented his first test in the lead-up to saving Shigaraki, and Deku failed it.

His next trial was Overhaul.* Here, again, was someone who Deku was explicitly trying to understand. So what was the one thing that was most key to understanding Overhaul's current motivation? What was the one thing that Overhaul was ranting about out loud, incessantly? And what did Deku conspicuously fail to ask about? Overhaul's relationship with Pops.

This was so easy. So obvious. And Deku didn’t even try. All he could think about in the moment he was faced with that broken man was the little girl that man hurt--all thoughts of trying to understand where the man himself was coming from went right out the window, flown away in an instant. Instead of asking about why Overhaul feels the way he does, he demanded that Overhaul feel the way Deku wanted. He was essentially holding the only person Overhaul cared about hostage for the remorse he wanted Overhaul to feel.

I'm not going to try to armchair diagnose Overhaul with mental conditions. I don't have the educational background, and I'm positive Horikoshi doesn't. But it seems pretty clear that asking Overhaul to feel guilt about Eri was asking for something that he might not be capable of feeling, at least not without years of therapy that he was plainly not getting in Tartarus. And if Overhaul is not capable of feeling that guilt, then what does denying Overhaul his meeting actually solve? Who does it help? It doesn’t help Eri. Doesn’t help the old man. It certainly doesn’t help Overhaul himself. The only person who gets any satisfaction out of demanding remorse from Overhaul is Deku. And even Deku didn’t look like he found it very satisfying!

Another failure. A meaninglessly cruel, petty failure. A failure that served only to hurt a man who was already a live wire of agony, to sentence an old man to a coma he might never wake from without Overhaul's expertise, and to deprive Eri of the only actual family she had left.

And look, Pops might very well not be the ideal guardian for Eri, and I'm not saying he should get to "keep" her just because of the blood connection, but it's not like he cheerfully handed her over to Overhaul and walked out the door! He turned to Overhaul because he trusted Overhaul, because he wanted someone to help Eri and thought that maybe Overhaul could. And when Overhaul's thoughts about Eri took a very dark turn, Pops first denied his request about using her to further his research and then, when Overhaul kept pushing it, chose Eri over the kid he personally took in from the streets by telling Overhaul that he needed to leave the Shie Hassaikai if he couldn't muster any more respect for human life than that.

But, you know, Eri is so cute with Aizawa and stuff. And Pops was a criminal. Probably. Maybe? I mean, he was yakuza, anyway, so he obviously must have been a criminal even if the police never actually arrested him. Apparently, this means it's okay to just leave him in a coma forever! Even though Overhaul absolutely has enough medical expertise that letting him talk to a neurologist about what he did to Pops might enable them to figure out how to wake Pops up even without Overhaul being able to use his quirk to undo the damage. Hell, Overhaul is also the person alive who has the best handle on how Eri's quirk works. He might even know what her accumulation condition is. Maybe a better thing to ransom his access to Pops with would be Overhaul telling Aizawa everything he knows about Eri's quirk so Aizawa can use the knowledge to help her get a better handle on it.

But no. Obviously undoing some small part of the concrete harm Overhaul did was less important than how Deku felt about that harm.

And there's more! Oh, is there ever. I called Deku arrogant before; let me circle back to that.

Deku said that if Chisaki would feel the way Deku wanted him to feel, then Deku would uphold the promise to let Overhaul see Pops. But where in hell did Deku get off making that claim? Deku is a student. He's not a pro. He has no authority, medical, legal, carceral or otherwise. He has no say in where Overhaul goes or who he's allowed to see.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck? What kind of strings did Deku think he could pull that he could just casually make that claim without so much as going into a huddle with Hawks and Endeavor about it first? How inflated has this kid's sense of importance gotten that he made Overhaul that promise without even stopping to think about whether it was something he was in any position to ensure? It was such a bullshit ultimatum, not only because of how needlessly obstructive it was, but because it was so formless.

"If only you would feel a wish to apologize to Eri…" Okay, so what if Overhaul goes back to prison and, three days later, calls out to say, "Okay, I thought about it and I really feel like I want to apologize, now can I see Pops already?" Who gets to make that judgment call? Deku? Is he going to drop his faux-vigilante act and come visit Overhaul in prison just so he can squint at the man really hard to see if he's lying? Is Deku going to delegate the call to someone else? All Might? Hawks? A prison warden? A psychologist? Who? Who gets to be the one to say, "Okay, I think his remorse is genuine."

Then, once that call has been made, how many people have to arrange for Overhaul to be escorted out of prison and to whatever hospital Pops is in? Will Deku get to oversee that visit? Does he think he can overturn a warden declaring, "The scum doesn't deserve a visit, and the old man probably doesn't either," or a doctor protesting, "I'm not letting that man anywhere near my patient!"

The hell of it is, I think Deku could do all of that. He's got a close personal connection to All Might, who was basically a demi-god to this society for decades; he has the ear of the current top three heroes. Everyone is apparently convinced that the power to save this society rests solely in Deku's hands; I'm sure he could ask for anything he wanted. But the fact that that is the case suggests that this society is not even slightly turning away from its dependence on heroes dictating its morality. A hero having the sole right to dictate, out of hand, based on his personal feelings, the fate of people designated "villains" while the rest of society turns away is exactly what Shigaraki is angry about.

The only thing worse than Deku perpetuating the worst problems of hero society in an arc that's supposed to be about him finding a better way is that he didn’t even stop to think about it. It never even occurred to him that that was what he was doing. He thought that what he was asking of Chisaki was just and fair, and thus, he didn’t need to ask for any second opinions or permissions; he didn’t need to think about what would actually be feasible, about what was best for the people involved. He'd made his judgment call about a villain, and that's all there was to it. The villain could fall in line or--nothing. There isn't actually another choice. Hero's way or nothing

I hate it. I hate it. I don't care about whether Overhaul "deserves" to suffer; heroes making the cold decision that they will make him suffer is antithetical to everything a carceral system intended to rehabilitate prisoners stands for. And yes, Japan does at least claim on paper that the goal of incarceration in state hands is rehabilitation.

Restorative justice is superior to retributive justice. It's better for society and it's better for individuals. It is kinder, it is more compassionate. Retributive justice poisons people. It perpetuates suffering for no reason but moral grandstanding. Individuals are allowed to forgive or not forgive anyone they want, but a society should conduct itself with an eye to the long-term welfare of all of its people. That means that even the worst kinds of criminals still have human rights. It means not inflicting pain that serves no purpose.

I've gotten off-track here. Yes, I think that if Overhaul could feel regret about Eri, that would obviously be a positive development for his character. It'd hurt like hell, but it would be a hurt that indicated he was becoming a better person, a person who wanted to do more good, less ill, with his life and efforts. But you can't mandate that someone become a better person. No ultimatum handed down from on high is going to change Overhaul's heart. Telling someone, "I'll help you, but only if you only feel the way I want you to feel. Otherwise, you can just stay there and suffer," is not reaching out to help people who are suffering in the dark, which is, again, what Deku claimed he wanted to do, what he begged for Nagant's help in doing, the way he insisted to the vestiges that OFA should be used.

Deku writing people off because they don't conform to his expectations, because they can't be "good" the way he wants them to be, nor even "bad" in ways he can understand, is him failing to live up to his own expressed ideals. "I wish you'd feel bad about hurting people," wasn't enough to reach Muscular or Overhaul, and it damn well shouldn't be enough to reach Shigaraki.

Cruelty does not beget kindness. You cannot treat people with only callousness and severity, then condemn them for not taking the opportunity to grow. You have to give them opportunities to better themselves. For Overhaul, giving him an opportunity would be letting him help the man he wronged and then moving forward from there. Telling him to feel regret about Eri or else? That's doing nothing but sweeping his pain back under the rug.

---

*I have more or less exhausted my outrage over Lady Nagant in chats with friends, so I'll spare the rant on how disjointed, contradictory and ludicrous her turn was; the gist is "very, on all counts."

---

P.S. Anyone who says that Overhaul "has nothing left to live for" is being a level of ableist that defies description. Prosthetics exist. Assistive devices exist. Speech-to-text software exists. Overhaul is intelligent, driven and highly educated. Even if he never got prosthetics at all, there would still be things he could contribute to the world if he were motivated to do so. The better thing to do, though, would be to get the man some damn prosthetics, hook him up with the neurologist consulting on Pops' case, and let the two of them get on with the matter of waking up the old man.

P.P.S. Overhaul spent six months in solitary confinement. The United Nations considers solitary confinement exceeding 15 days to be a form of torture. Solitary confinement creates severe mental health issues and exacerbates existing ones. It frequently leads to a deadening of empathy, something Overhaul has in little enough amounts as it is. It is absurd to ask a man who's just come out of these conditions to "feel sorry for what you did to Eri," especially if you're planning to turn around and send him right back to solitary. Tartarus is inhuman, and the only reason more of the escapees aren't total wrecks like Overhaul is because Horikoshi clearly didn't bother to do the reading on the wide array of problems that those characters should be experiencing physically, mentally and socially.

#bnha #bnha critical #deku critical #bnha overhaul #chisaki kai #bnha muscular #my writing? #stillness has salt #bnha spoilers #one last salty post before I go back to working on things for characters and plots I actually like in this series #taking my life into my hands and posting this in the tags #but seriously #please please let Horikoshi realize #that Deku saying he wants to use OFA to save villains and then doing nothing but using OFA to beat them down again #is not Deku WINNING #it is Deku LOSING #saving someone takes more than rescuing them from a bullet that wasn't going to hit them anyway #if you don't have follow-through then you're just condemning people to fall through the cracks

[bas-writes]

Some little birds have told me that @childofblackmaria is in need of softness with some particular One Piece men. I had one of them on mind lately and since I was in need of softness too...Well, this thing happened!

I hope you will like this little thing, Lale :)

Too Early

Character: Smoker Reader: gender neutral Word Count: 585 A/N: loosely inspired by this post

You’ve been expecting another lonely morning, so the presence and warmth by your side at first startles you. The bedroom is still dark, the sun too early and too weak to break through the curtains he likes tightly drawn. Usually he opens them for you, letting the light—and the song of birds, if it’s warm enough to crack the window—wake you up naturally. He leaves to work long before your hour, sometimes together with the dawn: the duty is merciless and bitter, even if you knew what you were signing for when falling for a Navy man. He leaves and doesn’t come back before the sun sets, if not later. You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen him in full daylight… Weeks ago, months? The thought alone leaves a salty taste in your mouth.

Yet, the darkness in your room and the weight you can feel behind your back gives you the tiniest, the faintest hope it might be him, lingering in bed, allowing himself to be lazy, to stay with you at least a little bit longer… You know it’s impossible. A man like Smoker doesn’t abandon his strict discipline just for the sake of some cuddles. He’s a sweet partner, he truly is, whenever the time he has reserved for the two of you comes. But he’s also a Marine officer. And this job requires insane dedication.

With a little sigh, you try to shake intrusive thoughts off and find a better position, in hopes to fall back asleep. You don’t have the right mindset to tackle this morning, not right now.

As soon as you move though something strong and determined wraps around your middle and pulls you closer. A familiar chest meets your back, a familiar smell fills your nostrils, familiar lips dive into the back of your neck and steal soft, ticklish kisses.

“Mmmnn, not yet, Y/N.” Smoker’s voice is raspy and heavy with sleep but oh so needy you almost gasp when it rumbles in your ear. “Don’t go.”

Part of you is so happy you might cry at any moment, part worried beyond imagination. What could possibly happen that he overslept? Did the alarm not start?

“Don’t go.” The tug on your middle is harder after you try to wiggle out of his muscular embrace, to check the clock on the nightstand. “Stay, Y/N.”

He’s like an overgrown child in the way he envelopes you in his arms, pulls you so close you can hear his heartbeat and breath. He spills chaotic kisses all over your neck, jaw, ear, your sides, lips blindly skimming your skin wherever they can reach—and they do it with a ravenous hunger of warmth. As if his own body wasn’t hot already…

How could you force this man to get up?

With a pleased hum you roll in his arms, now facing him. Smoker’s eyes are half-open and following you with lazy attention. The dim light is enough to see the warmth pooling in them as they skim every inch of you presented to him. You’re all messy after the night and still, there’s so much love and adoration in the way his gaze rests on you… You’ve never felt adored more than in those stale seconds balancing on the line between dreams and reality.

Smoker rests forehead against yours, calloused yet oh so tender hand cups your cheek, thumb caresses the corner of your eye, “Just a few minutes longer, okay?”

You wouldn’t mind those minutes turning into eternity.

#op smoker x reader #op smoker x you #op smoker x yn #smoker x reader #smoker x you #smoker x yn #vice admiral smoker x reader #vice admiral smoker x you #vice admiral smoker x yn #one piece x reader #one piece x you #one piece x yn #one piece imagine #one piece reader insert #one piece scenario #bas writes #smoker #gender neutral reader

[avintagekiss24]

—belated; bucky barnes

pairing: mob!bucky barnes x black!reader

word count: 4738

warnings: 18+ ONLY, smut, sex, rough sex, anal sex, biting kink, choking kink, spanking, pain kink, vaginal fingering, mean bucky (my fave), ring kink cuz i love it when boys wear rings

squares filled: @buckybarnesbingo Y3: Birthdays ; @badthingshappenbingo Biting ; @star-spangled-bingo N1: Taking Charge

request: bucky barnes + "pay attention to me or i'll make you" + anal + choking + spanking + biting + pain

author note: it's been foreverrrrr! i'm so sorry! i had to work myself through a little slump! hopefully this makes up for the almost two months we've gone without a fic! this is story #2 for my 5k celebration, all fics will be tagged #5k...holy god. this was formatted in the beta text post editor on desktop, if anything looks weird, that's why :)

gif by @pedropcl ; line divider by @firefly-graphics

James Buchanan Barnes is possessive.

One of those massive hands around the back of your neck as you walk casually through the streets. Fingers wrapped around your wrist, or shoulder, or hip in a tight grip. He pulls you in close— right into his side as shopping bags hang from the tips of his metal fingers.

Bucky Barnes wants every man on the streets of Greece to know that you are his.

Not that you mind; quite the contrary. You just smile and giggle when he throws his heavy arm around your shoulders and hooks the crease of his arm right underneath your chin. Slip your hand into the back pocket of his loose dark jeans (giving that little tush of his a squeeze). Slink your arm around his little waist and breathe in his scent— heavy and woodsy— as the two of you stroll.

After all, he’s just as much yours as you are his.

All of his friends, Sam, Steve, Clint, all see the change in him. The little soft spot for you that blinds him entirely— turns him in a mushy puddle of emotions and puppies and rainbows. Very different from the Bucky they grew up with, but a Bucky that the three of them have come to enjoy. It’s a change of pace from the enforcer they know.

The two of you don’t talk about his work— in fact, it’s the reason why you’re in Greece to begin with. A late birthday present to make up for the fact that his “work” just happened to be the waiter at the restaurant he chose to take you to for your thirty second birthday. Come on babe, he chuckled as you scowled back at him over the rim of your wine glass, watching as he stained his white napkin red with his bloody knuckles, you know what they say, kill two birds with one stone… not funny?

Two weeks, two nonrefundable, open ended tickets, and five grand in bikinis, shorts, and shoes later, you’re getting some much needed Greek sun on your deep brown skin.

He’s even letting you call the shots for a change. Letting you wake him up at the ass crack of dawn to have breakfast— a spread of breads, cheeses and fruits on the balcony of your room as the sun rises. He doesn’t say a word as you drag him through the city, stopping at each little boutique and shoe store. Sits patiently as you try on every dress, every skirt, and every silk top in the entire country it seems.

Bucky even bit his lip as you gazed at engagement rings— hinting that princess cut is your favorite as you held your hand up into the natural sunlight as one adored your finger. Smiling over at him and wiggling your eyebrows all the while as he narrowed his eyes and plastered a fake smile on his face.

Today has been like all the others, a lazy day spent on the beach, a quick nap underneath an umbrella, a concoction of too much sun and too many margaritas going straight to your head. Now, you’re kinda sleepy and kinda drunk, but most importantly hungry— and Mykonos sounds like a great place for dinner. Despite Bucky’s objections (you’re too tired and too drunk to handle a ferry), you’re dressed in a cute little flowery sundress, him in an out-of-character white tank top, open pale blue and green striped button down and khaki chinos— you forbade him from bringing anything black— and you’re flip flops are slapping against the cobblestone street towards the ferry.

“Drop your attitude,” You say, glancing over your shoulder as he pays for your tickets, “You owe me.”

“Yeah, yeah, that excuse is wearing thin, girl.” You stumble a little with the motion of the ferry as you step onto it, having to grab onto the railing to steady yourself before Bucky grabs hold of your wrist, “Water only for the rest of the night.”

His voice is low and borderline threatening as he presses his lips right against your ear, and you know not to press him any further. You like to stick your toes right up against his line and that’s what irritates him most about you (always what he loves most), but you and he both know you’d never dare cross it.

Bucky pulls you behind him, hand around your wrist, that possessive trait rearing its head as male eyes fall on you as the two of you pass by. He finds an empty spot, away from the crowd, and plops down on the bench as you step up on the lower rung of the railing and stare out over the sea.

Within twenty or thirty minutes, the ferry pulls away from the dock and you can’t wipe the smile from your face. The sun sets off in the distance, the bright lights of the city turning into little pinpoints. Small droplets of the cool, salty water splashes up in your face as the wind and the ferry whips it up. You keep glancing down at the phone in your hand as you broadcast your current view to your instagram, laughing softly as hearts and emojis explode on your screen.

You lean forward, tilting your phone and smiling wide, waving into the camera before you shout out how much you love it here. The words are barely out of your mouth before an arm wraps around your middle, a wide, hard chest pressed into your back, “That’s enough,” he reaches with his metal arm, grabbing your phone, ending your live feed, “You’re too drunk to be hanging off the side like that.”

“I am not,” you struggle against him lightly as he sets you on your feet, “What is your problem?”

“I’m annoyed.”

“Well, duh. Why?”

He slips your phone into his pocket and crosses his arms over his chest, sharp blue eyes piercing into yours, “Pay attention to me,” he says low, eyes dropping down your body real slow as he drags his bottom lip between his teeth, “Or I’ll make you.”

So that’s what it’s about. Bucky Barnes feels neglected between all the shopping and beach days and margaritas. Jealousy is cute on him.

The words though, they strike you right to your core— feel them down to your bones. A hard swallow pushes through your throat as your lips part, big brown eyes softening as your breath starts to rush a little harder. You hate to admit— not really— you love this Bucky. This is work Bucky, a man you rarely get to see. Slightly scary, anger brimming just below the surface. Jaw tight, eyes hard, head tilted just a bit. He’s menacing, and it makes your lips twitch into a small smile.

Shrugging defiantly, you cross your arms over your chest, “You didn’t pay much attention to me on my birthday.”

“Not true.”

“Not true?” you nearly shout, eyes going wide, “I ate alone while you beat the hell outta our waiter behind the building! I had to wait two hours for my slice of cake!”

“How is that my fault?”

You scoff, “Oh, I dunno, maybe because our waiter was spitting out his teeth in the alley out back— all thanks to you.”

“I have to work. You know that.”

“Not,” you hiss, “On my fucking birthday.”

He knows he’s wrong for that shit, so he stands there, huffing quick before he cocks his head again and just blinks back at you— unamused. He won’t apologize, it’s just not in his nature, but his usual attempts to make you happy after he’s fucked up aren’t working; so he’s at a loss.

And you’re enjoying that. A little too much if you ask him.

But alas, it’s not fun to fight on vacation, and you have taken far too many liberties when it comes to his tolerance for attitude. It’s been fun— and you’re just drunk enough to push him one last time.

You move slow, walking right up to him, so close that each inhale pushes your tits into his body. The smirk quirked up on your lips grows as you peer up at him, eyes bouncing between his as you place your hands on his forearms still crossed over his chest.

Bucky lifts his eyebrow as you push up on your tiptoes and push your chin forward to bring your lips close to his, “And just how are you gonna make me pay attention to you, James?”

He inhales deep, pushes it out real slow as he tilts his head even further. A smile spreads on his face and you just know that this is the last thing his work sees before he rearranges the bones of their face. This is exactly why his clients pay him as well as they do.

Thick fingers are wrapped around your wrist again, nails digging into your skin as he starts to pull you behind him. He weaves you through bodies, you nearly having to jog to keep up with his strides. Laughter bubbles up in your chest, a little shriek escaping as he pulls you down some stairs to the lower level of the ferry. Once your feet hit the last step, Bucky whips you around his body, sending you spinning and laughing until you bounce into an old, rusty metal barrel.

The smell of salt fills your nose and lungs as you inhale, covering your face with your hands. Your skin is hot, lips slightly numb as you dissolve into laughter again. He’s right, you’re a little too drunk for this.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be down here.” You mumble, brushing your wild hair out of your face.

“I could give a fuck,” he answers, stepping up to you, grabbing your face in his hands, “You’ve been testing me the entire time we’ve been here all over some stupid shit.”

Another giggle pushes through your lips as you bat your eyes, “I wouldn’t dare, Mr. Barnes.”

Bucky sucks his teeth as he drops his metal hand around your throat and squeezes gently, the rings on his fingers cool against your skin, “I was stupid, okay? But don’t put on that little innocent act, girl. You’re trying me, and I’ve had enough.”

A smile cracks onto your face, teeth sinking into your bottom lip. You wrap both hands around his one wrist and slip them up his arm, feeling the soft metal as you continue to goad him, “You got some proof, big man?”

The tip of his black and gold thumb prods at your lip, pushes just inside. You wrap your tongue around it and suck gently, keeping your eyes on his all the while.

Bucky laughs, deep and earnestly, “Proof, she says. She needs proof.” He glances around before he spins you quick, facing you away from him as he lifts your dress to reveal your pink satin thong.

You squeal loud, pushing and slapping at his hand as he grabs a handful of your ass, “Bucky! There’s people!” you laugh, “Oh my god!”

“Keep your voice down,” he warns, wrapping his metal fingers around your throat again, “Understand?”

A jolt of electricity flashes through you as you wiggle in his grasp. He tightens his grip around your neck as you wrap your fingers around the edge of the barrel, swallowing hard.

“That requires an answer, honey.”

The chill in his voice, added with the slow circles and soft tickles of fingertips against the back of your naked thigh sends a pang through your belly, “I understand.”

He chuckles soft and with a quick peck on the cheek whispers, “Good girl.”

Bucky curls his left arm around your chest, hooking your chin in the crease of his arm as he grips your right shoulder. You grab on to it with both hands, out of instinct, eyes wide and skirting around for any signs of other human presence down here. Bucky turns, moving you with him to eye the steps quickly again before that flesh hand sweeps around to the front.

The soft material of your dress falls over his hand as he rubs your stomach— his rings catching and snagging your skin. That hand pushes downward, over your thighs, gripping and kneading the soft flesh before he grabs the hem of your dress and pulls it upward, exposing those expensive panties again.

“Bucky,” you hum, his name trembling on your lips with the vibrations of your excitement, “Baby.”

He rucks your dress right up— right up around your waist and pulls the slack behind you, pressing his body into yours to keep it in place. The dark stubble adorning his cheeks and chin cuts into the side of your face as he nuzzles in, humming to himself soft before he kisses the corner of your mouth.

Those fingertips start to trace the hem of your thong— slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. From hip to hip. Your eyes flutter. Fingers grip the soft black metal of his arm a little harder. Legs go to jelly as another hard swallow passes through your throat.

“Ain’t got all that mouth now, do you?” He whispers, fingers slipping just inside the silk of your panties to tease the delicate skin underneath.

When he slips his hand in— all the way in— cupping hot skin, fingers dancing between folds and teasing a wet slit, an influx of air fills your lungs. A gasp, small and clipped sounds in the back of your throat as his fingers start a rhythm. You melt into him, head resting on his shoulder as your hips push forward to meet greedy fingers.

A naughty finger pushes in quick, and then a second— all the way to the black and silver rings dressed on them. His arm tightens around your neck as he presses his lips right against your ear, “You need to apologize.”

He fucks his fingers into you, withdrawing slow, and then pushing back in— each time the edges of his rings stopping him from going deeper. You can’t help but purr as you continue to grip his arm with both of your hands.

“I don’t think—“

“All I want to hear,” his words clip yours, each one slow and drawn and deep, “Is I’m sorry for testing your patience. I won’t do it again.” He curls his fingers, the pads stroking that sweet little spongey spot, making you clamp your legs closed around his hand, “Let me hear you.”

You can’t. You won’t. Too stubborn and too drunk to give in to him, wanting to win just this once.

If there’s one thing James Buchanan Barnes does not like, it’s hesitation. It’s dangerous, he always says. You think too long, you get hurt. Predators don’t hesitate.

Well, you like being his prey.

Only a few seconds pass before Bucky tuts in your ear, seemingly disappointed in your obstinate behavior, but you both know it’s just the opposite. His cock pressing into your ass tells you so.

The fingers disappear. The arm choking you just right pulls away and your dress falls back around the middle of your thighs. You huff, wiping quick at your forehead and pushing your wild, curly hair out of your face again.

Your hands find your hips in irritation but he slaps them away quick as he sucks his teeth, “You must really want this spanking, girl. Keep it up.”

That you do— keep it up. Huffing again. Crossing your arms over your chest like a petulant child. Brown eyes cut back at him over your shoulder to find sharp blues already on you. A smirk on his face.

Metal fingers curl around the back of your neck, pushing you forward gently until your thighs press against the old metal barrel again.

“Lean forward, kitten.”

Voice as smooth as silk while you do so, gripping the rusted edges for balance. Your dress is yanked up again— rough this time— and twisted around his Vibranium hand. Then there’s warm, the warmth of skin against yours. Gentle brushes of fingers and a palm rubbing slow circles, then pinching and grabbing soft— prepping your skin for what’s to come.

He pauses for just a second, no doubt to scan your surroundings and then pulls his hand away. You lung forward with the slap he levels to your behind within a fraction of a second— the sound sharp and heavy.

There’s another, and then a third in quick succession before he’s massaging your skin again. Real soft and sweet. Tears burn at the back of your eyes at the sting that radiates through, all the way to your bones but the molten heat deep in your belly spreads like a fire. Each breath is hard and shaky, heart thumping against your chest but it’s so good.

Bucky switches to the other cheek, skilled fingers sweeping over your canvas of skin before he cracks you— one, two, three.

You squeal with each one. The thud of those heavy rings around his fingers send a quick, new shockwave every time, building on the one before it. The tips of your fingers go red from holding on to the rusty old barrel as tight as you are, but your brain? She’s fuzzy and warm, and drifting up into the clouds with each swift slap.

Bucky is a methodical man. Three for the right cheek, three for the left, three right in the middle. His hand sneaks around your hip, giving it a squeeze before it comes back around and drops to the inside of your thigh. Grabs the meat of it— digs his fingernails in just to hear you yelp. Cups your cunt in his palm, feeling the heat and the wet— makes him groan all low and dirty.

He bunches your hair in his hand, tugs you up by it. Spins you around to face him before hoisting you up and settling you on top of the barrel.

“You want me to fuck you so bad, don’t you?” He growls, ripping at the button and zipper of his jeans.

You just hum in response, wrapping your legs around his waist and throwing your arms over his shoulders.

Bucky grabs your chin, forcing it up before he squeezes your cheeks, “Huh? Answer me.”

Damp eyelashes flutter as hot air escapes from parted, hot lips. He leans in real close, cock pushing right at your slit and kisses you hard as he slips his arm around your waist. He breaks away quick, sloppy and loud before pecking your lips once, twice, three times again.

“You want me to fuck you, girl?”

The weight of his words are felt right down to your core, a shiver passing between the two of you. You let your heavy head fall back and your eyes close as Bucky nuzzles into the side of your face, his pretty white teeth skipping along your neck, nipping and nibbling.

“I want you to fuck me,” you whisper after mere seconds, finally submitting in this cat and mouse game, “Bucky, please.”

That’s all he needs— all he wants. For you to submit, after letting you have the reins for one day too long. He sinks into you slow, spreading you open with each inch, biting down into the side of your neck as he bottoms out. His teeth dig in a little deeper, a little harder as he starts to move, rocking back and forth almost succinct with the waves of the water.

You’re moving with him too, meeting each of his thrusts with your hips. You keep your legs tight around his waist, feet dangling and bouncing against the back of his thighs. A trail of hot kisses are pressed along your neck and down your shoulder before traipsing back up— teeth grazing along your jaw.

Long fingers skip up your side and between your bouncing tits to only wrap around your neck again. They squeeze, gently, as his pace starts to pick up, hips shoving harder and faster— that old barrel starting to scrape against the wood floor.

The force makes you louder, moaning with abandon as if the two of you are all alone on this little ferry. Bucky makes quick work of you, shoving metal fingers into your mouth— giving you something to suck on to keep you quiet.

“That’s a good girl.” he growls, voice gritty and low.

He’s punishing after that. Each snap of his hips thrusting you backward, the barrel you’re on top of tipping back and then slapping down on the floor. You yelp with each one, your mouth going slack around his digits as your hands fall to the edges of the barrel for some semblance of balance.

It’s obscene, the way you can hear your fuck. The wet of your cunt. The squeak of his cock plunging into tight, slick muscles. The heavy thud of his hips pounding into yours. The slap of your flip flops falling to the wood floor as he’s quite literally fucked them right off of your feet. It’s filthy— crude— and so very Bucky.

You’re back on your feet before you know it— before you realize it. Spun back around, Bucky’s hard chest and stomach pressed into your back. He grabs both of your hands and places them back on the barrel, his metal hand staying on top of yours, fingers gripping fingers.

Eager hips wiggle back into his as you hiss and sink your teeth into your bottom lip, groaning low. Your head drops when you feel his cock push through your ass cheeks— wet cockhead pressing against your hot rim.

He starts to fumble around behind you, each passing second making you more and more impatient. There’s a soft click, and then a light suction sound— something squeezing.

“Bucky,” you hiss, pushing back into him again, “Hur—”

The word breaks off right in the middle as he levels a quick smack against your hip— a warning. Then your ass cheeks are pulled apart, wet, slimy fingers sliding and prodding at your quivering rim. He brushes slow strokes, circling, pressing his fingers gently as he preps your little hole for what’s to come.

“What kind of freak brings lube to dinner?” you smile, gasping as he pinches the inside of your thigh.

You lurch forward when he grabs the back of your neck and yanks you back into him, lips right against your cheek, “The kinda freak that was gonna fuck you in an alley after dinner. Now shut that mouth.”

He’s pressing again, this time harder, his cockhead popping into you with force. You grunt with the initial intrusion, Bucky stopping his assault to allow you time to adjust to him— but that doesn’t last long. Your mouth goes slack again. Eyes slam shut, head falls forward as he slips in, deeper and deeper and deeper until his stomach is flush with your ass.

He wiggles— so you can feel him, feel him tickling the deepest part of you. Slaps at your ass again, quick, fingers glancing off your skin and leaving behind a hell of a sting. Then he’s fucking you again, slower this time, savoring the tight, glove-like hold your body provides.

Metal fingers grab at the hem of your dress again, tugging it up before they push back into your panties, finding a swollen, hot nub. Pinching and rubbing smooth circles against it, flicking and thrashing at the bundle of nerves before he shoves his fingers back into your cunt. They curl, those fingers, and pet your insides with surgical precision— only James Buchanan Barnes knows how to fuck you like this.

The heel of his palm slams against your clit as he fingers you rough and fucks your ass with gusto. Sleazy sounds gurgle up in your throat, the slapping of skin and the waves crashing against the side of the ferry, the rush of the wind filling your ears. Bucky pulls you flush against him and slithers his tongue just beneath your ear before his teeth grab a hold, tugging soft.

Teeth keep nipping— along your jaw, your cheeks, ears, neck. He fucks into you hard as he shoves his flesh hand into the neckline of your dress, gripping your tits. Pinching and kneading hard, thick nipples, mumbling sweet nothings all the while.

Your stomach churns, muscles tensing and flexing as synapses start to fire off in quick succession. Quick goosebumps pop up along your skin as your stomach tightens and you can taste it it’s so close. Bucky knows it, feels it as your walls constrict around his fingers, your asshole tightening around him. Vibranium fingers keep rubbing, keep fucking into your pussy hard, palm slapping against your clit, adding more and more pressure until the coil snaps.

It’s hard, and sudden— your body freezing as your orgasm consumes you. Bucky clamps a wet hand over your mouth as you mewl and bite into his palm, your hips thrusting forward with each wave of your release. He pulls his fingers from you to slap at your jumping clit, pressing the pads into it before he rubs quick little circles and then slaps at it again.

He drops his hand to your chin, yanking it up as you nearly cry, mewling and trembling with your release to kiss you hard and sloppy as you come. He kneads your tits with his mammoth hand as aftershocks flash through you, your used body jerking at random. Within seconds, there's a cloud of warmth in your ass. Rough grunts in your ear, growing louder with each spurt of his cock, your hot muscles milking him.

You let him use you, let him fill you up full of his silk. Grab his hands and lace your fingers with his as he empties long ribbons in you. Pull his arms around your waist and hold them there as he rides it out, his head falling to your shoulder. The two of you stand there, resting against that old barrel, breathing hard, skin sticky and balmy. Salt from the ocean in your nose.

Bucky’s the first to pull away, glancing back at the stairs before he pulls himself gingerly from you, leaving your body empty, a dribble of his come slipping out with him. He catches it with his fingers, drags them up the back of your thigh and between your ass cheeks before he shrugs out of his collared shirt and white tank top.

He cleans you up sweet with the tank top. Keeps his arm around your waist to steady you as he wipes at your thighs and your hot, sticky, puffy cunt, shushing you soft when you jump and whimper at the contact. He flings the messy tank top over the side of the ferry and rubs your hips and stomach real slow, murmuring into your ear all the while.

Diligent fingers then rearrange your thong— and cop a little feel, cupping your sensitive, swollen sex, giving it a little pinch so he can laugh when you shiver and squeak. Bucky pulls your dress, tugging lightly to get it back straight around your waist before smoothing it over your ass and thighs— even pulls at the top, making sure your tits are sitting pretty.

You can’t even open your eyes, overcome by alcohol and sleepiness and a post sex high. He fumbles with your fingers as your head lulls on his shoulder, a soft hum vibrating in your throat in your murky haze. Bucky lifts your arm by the elbow, sliding his hand up your forearm until he’s cupping your hand in his.

“Open your eyes, baby.” You groan in protest, causing a chuckle to rumble through his chest, “Come on.”

So you do. You always do whatever this man wants you to do— and there, right on your finger sits that big princess cut engagement ring you teased him with days before.

“How about we skip dinner and find a church, huh?” he whispers, kissing your cheek soft and sweet.

You glance at him over your shoulder, eyes wet as a smirk tugs at the corners of your mouth, “And if I say no?”

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” He laughs as you adjust in his arms, pushing up on your tiptoes to cup his handsome face and kiss him on those pretty pink lips, “Then I guess I’ll have to fuck some sense into that pretty mouth of yours, won’t I birthday girl?”

#bad things happen bingo #buckybarnesbingo2021 #ssb2021 #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x black!reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes fanfiction #5k...holy god

[bananonbinary]

Time for a Salty Meta Post about Martin!

people who’ve followed this blog for a bit know that spending six hours combing through text for some goddamn sources is my specialty, so i compiled every time jon ever talked about martin’s work in season 1. which for the record, he stopped complaining about all the way back in episode 26, where he was angry that martin of all people got hurt.

things jon gets mad at martin for:

not being able to find records that don’t exist

not being able to find someone based only on a first name

the Dog

not wearing trousers in his off-hours

being the one that got caught up in the jane prentiss thing

mag 004 and mag 012 both have jon taking potshots at martin over research that was proven accurate by outside sources

things jon has never once complained about:

martin not understanding the filing system and just putting stuff away at random

martin being clumsy, constantly ruining things, spilling tea everywhere everyday, etc

martin turning in incompetent, poorly-edited, or badly formatted reports

martin not understanding the terminology used, skills expected, etc., and generally being extremely new to the field

please for the love of god stop making martin the silly bumbling idiot who can’t do anything right just because he doesn’t have a formal education. there’s zero evidence for it in the text, and it’s really weird to act like a 4 year degree would outweigh the *10 years* of job experience he has, not just in academia, but in the institute itself by season one. my boy has worked there longer than ANY of the rest of the main cast. screw you guys.

tl;dr: martin is never once shown to be bad at his job, jon pretty much only ever gets mad at him for the really stupid first impression and also not finding stuff that no one else was able to find either. after martin got hurt, jon talks about his research basically the same way he talks about tim’s or sasha’s work.

fucking proof under the cut:

(i didnt include the s1 finale or martin’s statement bc that’s just...two entire episodes of them talking to each other, but there isn’t really any notable Martin Complaints in either of them imo)

I swear, if he’s brought another dog in here, I’m going to peel him.

[pre-launch trailer]

.

Well, technically three, but I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays.

[...] Alongside this Tim, Sasha and, yes, I suppose, Martin will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have.

[MAG001 Anglerfish]

.

Martin couldn’t find any records of Ex Altiora as a title in existent catalogues of esoteric or similar literature, so I assigned Sasha to double-check. Still nothing.

[MAG004 Pageturner]

.

I had Martin conduct a follow-up interview with Mr. Woodward last week, but it was unenlightening. Apparently there have been no further bags at number 93 and in the intervening years he has largely discounted many of the stranger aspects of his experience. I wasn’t expecting much, as time generally makes people inclined to forget what they would rather not believe, but at least it got Martin out of the Institute for an afternoon, which is always a welcome relief.

[MAG005 Thrown Away]

.

Martin was unable to find the exact date the original house was built but the earliest records he could find list it as being bought by Walter Fielding in 1891.

[...]

We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree.

[MAG008 Burned Out]

.

According to Martin, who was here when they took this statement, it was at this point in writing that Mr. Herbert announced he needed some sleep before continuing. He was shown to the break room where he went to sleep on the couch. He did not awaken; unfortunately succumbing to the lung cancer right there. Martin says the staff had been aware of how serious Mr. Herbert’s condition was, and had advised him to seek medical aid prior to giving his statement, but were told rather bluntly by the old man that he would not wait another second to state his case. I can’t decide whether this lends more or less credibility to his tale.

[MAG010 Vampire Killer]

.

“Veepalach” might also be a mishearing of the Polish word “wypalać”, according to Martin, which means to cauterize or brand. Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out.

[MAG012 First Aid]

.

I sent Martin to look into this ‘Angela’ character - not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently, he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.

[MAG014 Piecemeal]

.

Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s “a bit claustrophobic”

[MAG015 Lost John’s Cave]

.

There simply aren’t enough details given in this statement to actually investigate, short of Martin confirming that Mr. Vittery did indeed live at the addresses he provided.

[MAG016 Arachnophobia]

.

Oh, he’s off sick this week. Stomach problems, I think.

Blessed relief if you ask me.

[...]

I asked Martin to try and hunt down Mr. Adekoya himself for a follow-up, but have been informed that he passed away in 2006. 

[MAG017 The Boneturner’s Tale]

.

MARTIN

Well, I need to tell someone what happened, and you can vouch for the soundness of my mind, can’t you?

ARCHIVIST

…

That is beside the point.

[MAG022 Colony]

.

Martin! Good lord man, if you’re going to be staying in the Archives, at least have the decency to put some trousers on!

[MAG023 Schwartzwald]

.

Martin found one other thing while combing through police reports for the Hither Green area. About a month after this statement was given, on May 15th, 2015, police were called out to once again investigate the chapel.

[MAG025 Growing Dark]

.

I know, but it would have to have been Martin, wouldn’t it? I mean, anything goes wrong around here, it always seems to happen to him. Anyway, we’re getting off topic. Why didn’t you report this?

[MAG026 A Distortion]

.

Martin made contact with the son, Marcus McKenzie, but he declined to talk to us, saying that he’d “already made his statement.”

[MAG027 A Sturdy Lock]

.

Tim and Martin had a bit more luck investigating Tom Haan, though only really enough to confirm that he seems to have completely vanished following his departure from Aver Meats on the 12th of July.

[MAG030 Killing Floor]

.

Martin’s research would seem to indicate the place employed a reasonable number of international staff they preferred to keep off the books

[...]

TIM

Ah well, that’s actually what he was asking, huh! Um, apparently Martin, uh, took delivery of a couple of items last week addressed to you. Did he not mention it?

ARCHIVIST

No, he… Oh, yes, actually. I completely forgot. He said he put it in my desk drawer, hold on.

[MAG036 Taken Ill]

#the magnus archives #LISTEN #i am once again asking people to remember that martin has MORE job experience at the institute than literally any other character #(except elias or i guess maybe rosie) #he's the goddamn veteran not the newbie #fan wank /