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itoldsunset · 3 years

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rewatching ipytm episode 2: thoughts

apologies in advance for this very messy, very long bullet scene-by-scene commentary!

summary: this was a very hard episode to watch and rewatch. the frustration with teh is real, the hurt for oh-aew is real. but the fear of change and abandonment, and the fear of admitting your own insecurities, is SO coming of age and i love that we get to see teh grappling with what happens when the idealistic vision you had for your life slowly starts to crumble.

also, this episode (and possibly the entirety of part 2) was 100% the writers' and p'meen's love letter to comm arts students/graduates, and even though i am a total outsider to that world, it really touched my heart to see the diversity of experiences and struggles reflected here.

i love that we see how much closer teh has become with jai and khim!! this doesn't translate in the subs, but i thought it was interesting how teh used respectful pronouns with them when he was a first-year and now for the most part uses rude (familiar) pronouns with them as a second-year, even though they're still technically his seniors. i think it goes to show how close they've become since he first joined the drama club.

goy was so fucking CUTE in that scene when she said "oh, lots of boys are peeking at me, i'm shy" i think i'm in love 😭 also the cinematography of that scene!!

this episode does such a great job at making you feel uncomfortable along with the characters. i hated how uncomfortable teh was at the birthday party, and i could feel how out of place he felt there.

when mangpong talks about how easy it is for celebrities to make money and teh is clearly offended by that and speaks up against it (which results in yet another awkward uncomfortable moment), i feel like he's speaking up on behalf of khim who we later realize is basically his idol and the person he identifies the most with. i feel like p'meen and the writing team are really trying to represent the lives of people who go into communication arts, especially those who go in with an interest in performing arts. and for me that scene with mangpong communicates two things: 1) the defensiveness that comes with having your chosen career path misunderstood or reduced into something that's easy money, and 2) how close-knit and protective the drama club is of each other, because teh speaking up in defense of actors to me feels like he's defending this identity they all share as people who are struggling to make it in the industry.

oh-aew is SO sweet. getting a tattoo that resembles your partner's name gives me so much anxiety, but i guess he's 19 and has always been sure of his feelings so it does make sense for him. at first glance teh's reaction really just makes it sound like he's against tattoos, drinking, all that, like he's super old-fashioned, but it's not REALLY about the tattoo and we learn that later when they have their big fight and he blows up with all the nitpicky little things he's noticed about all the ways oh-aew has changed. i thought it was so cute how au basically showed off his tattoo to open the conversation for oh-aew to show teh his tattoo though. we love a supportive friend group!!!

"this tattoo is pretty. thank you." this is teh being as genuine as he can, as someone who is seriously not in touch with his own feelings and can't understand why he's so upset at oh-aew getting a tattoo. because again it's not the tattoo itself that's the problem, but what it represents for teh, which is oh-aew's world slowly expanding to include people and things that are foreign to teh, and he worries that one day that world won't have a place for him anymore.

drunk oh-aew speaking mandarin, and teh taking care of him!!! the only fluff we got all episode and i will cherish it forever and ever, like the aquarium scene from episode one. the fact that teh brought over the stuffed animal, kissed oh-aew on the forehead, and then decided to sleep over on the floor next to him? making him kimchi jjigae? so soft!! our boy has got a lot of issues to work through but he loves oh-aew for sure.

the scene where oh-aew is receiving feedback on his performance from his professor is so... oof. the fact that his classmate got positive feedback for portraying a gay man in a way that isn't stereotypical (read: masculine? i wonder?) and the fact that oh-aew was critiqued for unsuccessfully portraying the tone and mannerisms of a man who doesn't understand gay people? it's a bit subtler than what we hear from the casting director but i swear it's the same shit. and it really doesn't surprise me at all to see oh-aew not believe in himself and his ability to perform because of it.

teh saying "both of us" and being so excited about their casting opportunity!! 😭 and also, khim being such a sweetheart and helping them get this opportunity in the first place!

the contrast with how happy oh-aew looked when the advertising professor told him he had the right answer, compared to how torn down he looked after being critiqued and told he got a C by his acting professor (in front of the whole class!!). which tbh for me is subtle commentary on how much influence professors have on students' self-confidence and whether they believe in their own ability to succeed in their field.

the commentary on sexism and homophobia in the thai entertainment industry!! khim being told she looked too old, not smart enough, not believable, honestly all coded ways of saying she didn't fit in with the beauty standard they were going for. and while khim is saying this we see oh-aew is already getting nervous, because he's already had his confidence shaken by his experiences in class. and then when we get to the scene where the casting director says he's too girly and asks him to act more manly, we see oh-aew's mood shift completely, and honestly it hurts to watch. pp did such an amazing job here because i felt it, like the way oh-aew's eyes change, and then he swallows right after, and how unsettled he sounds trying to deliver the line again after hearing that critique.

oh-aew listening to khim tell teh about how hard it's been for her to break into the industry is so impactful, because you can already tell what he's thinking. is this really worth it? do i want this enough to endure people telling me over and over again i'm not masculine enough for them? is that going to be me in the future, being rejected from hundreds of castings and still not making it?

when teh hugs khim and says "we will get through this together," it's so clear that he identifies with her struggle. teh is someone who has worked his ass off to get to where he is (remember his fight with his mom where she said he lost sleep and was getting sick from all the studying he did?), and he sees himself in khim and her passion and ambition. meanwhile, we see oh-aew really doubting whether this is the right path for him.

i love how teh immediately asked if oh-aew was okay after oh-aew told him about what the casting director said, and how teh reassured him that he liked oh-aew the way he is. it's like, he so clearly cares for oh-aew and loves him so much and sometimes knows how to show it well, and then other times just fucks it up. it's so real??

oh-aew deciding to change majors three months into it is a very oh-aew thing to do, and what i mean by that is, this is a character who is super in touch with himself and his feelings and trusts in himself to make the right decisions. he's not afraid to change his mind (remember when he was testing out his feelings for bas and teh and then turned down bas once he knew?), he's bold and goes for what he wants. and i envy that about his character so much. but it makes me sad to know that the thing that was making him nervous during this scene was the fact that he was worried about how teh would react. like he went through all that questioning and critique himself, to finally discover his answer, only to now have to worry about whether his partner will accept him.

teh, on the other hand, has had his whole life planned out since forever. he feels the need to know and control everything. he has so much fear and insecurity. and he is stubborn and doesn't believe in giving up, which he believes is what oh-aew is doing. and on top of that, he sees this as another way in which he is losing oh-aew. one more thing oh-aew has in common with his friend group that doesn't include him. one more way that he's becoming a smaller part of oh-aew's world. oh-aew looked so small in the bathtub scene and i just wanted to hold him 😔

the 8 month time skip is a little jarring because of all the things we don't get to see, but i guess it makes sense if teh has been bottling up his insecurities about their relationship that it would all blow up in everyone's face in the way that it did at the dinner scene.

it was interesting to me how teh hesitated when oh-aew texted that he would join them for dinner, like teh didn't want oh-aew to come along with his drama club. and then once oh-aew arrives at the restaurant, we see that teh isn't totally happy either. it's like as much as teh feels like an outsider in oh-aew's world, he seems to also see oh-aew as an outsider in his own world too. and when top says he wanted to get into comm arts at anantasart but he didn't get in, we see teh's expression and it's like, a reminder that he gave up that spot for oh-aew, that teh didn't pass the admissions exam either, and that oh-aew who did pass has now "given up" on it (in teh's eyes) to pursue another major. it's like teh also feels betrayed on behalf of all the performing arts kids who are struggling to make their passion into a career.

i feel like i sort of get why teh said all that shit about oh-aew at the dinner table now. i'm not excusing it at all, that was super shitty of him. but i wonder if it's like, this is a thing they deal with in the performing arts, people giving up because it's so hard to make it in the industry. and you watch your friends leave one by one, and it keeps causing more and more doubt in yourself about whether you can make it. and now that teh sees oh-aew as someone who's given up, he doesn't want that energy at the dinner table with his drama friends, like he wants to protect them from that and keep up with this "we can get through this together" mentality that he keeps saying. so it's easier for him to try to dismiss it as oh-aew's personality flaw, rather than a legitimate change in career path, because he's worried about how it might affect his own friends in the drama club. and we see how protective teh is of khim, when he says "what the fuck did you just say?" like he really shares an identity with his drama club and it's clear he thinks oh-aew doesn't understand it or belong there.

needless to say, i was extremely stressed that entire dinner scene which i think means the writers, p'meen, and the actors did an excellent job.

their fight scene was really amazingly done and i am just stunned by teh's response when oh-aew asks him "what if this is who i really am, would you not like me anymore?" and teh thinks about it for a bit, and says "maybe." that's him being genuine, he's not trying to hurt oh-aew in saying that, and we can see him internally asking himself that question. but he doesn't know the answer, because he can't even be honest with himself about why he's upset at oh-aew. so he says the first thing he thinks which is an honest "maybe," and then he immediately regrets his words, and at some point he's going to have to learn that he can't just say the first thing that comes to mind, when other people's feelings are at stake. also, the fucking piano that plays? the violin? goddamn.

khim's character is really here to teach teh, and all of us, some life lessons. she is so real. her struggles are so real. life is fucking hard, and it's not fair, and no matter how hard you work or try you can't have it all. "the conditions for our lives are not the same" holy shit yes. she wants to take care of her family and her dog, she can't just think of herself. i feel like teh, who comes from a relatively modest background but has always had hoon as a father figure to support his mom, probably doesn't feel that same burden.

teh being frustrated and going to the bridge was beautiful. the crying hug scene at the dorm was so beautiful.

i love that in the end, teh finally owns up to his own insecurities and apologizes and admits he was wrong. of course, this was after oh-aew reached out to him first. i think it's totally realistic that we see his growth happening kind of slowly, but before the series ends he's going to need to be the first one to reach out, because oh-aew can't hold all of that on his own.

the last score when they hug under the moonlight, i love it!!

#ipytm #i promised you the moon #ipytm spoilers #textpost #i hope someone sees this lmao i know it's 3am dfslkjghfgjlk

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alixennial · 3 years

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Can you post your favourite Antares moments? As someone who clearly loves him, I would love that.

I'm not sure I can fit all my fav moments into 1 post (or even remember them all!) 😆 But here goes....

(Vaguely in the order things happen in his route)

1. The first time we see Antares in his black/gold uniform with visor. He looks so handsome - MC doesn’t recognise him to begin with, and it was a shock for the reader too because I don’t think we’d seen this sprite in his appearances in Orion’s route(?)

2. His face reveal at the end of S1 - the first time we see his face sans visor or helmet (I was talking to someone about this very recently). Earlier in S1 we get the CG of him from the other side of his aquarium without his visor, but I’m pretty sure we don’t actually see his sprite until the kiss in E12. I may have thrown my phone.

I should probably put a Read More on this 😅...

3. All the teasing throughout S2. The UST between Antares & MC, and him taking every opportunity to fluster MC, especially in the heart scenes: “I’ll be the one to decide when your clothes come off next” etc...

4. THIS CG:

..And if they decide to go back to using his S2 face in future CGs, I’ll not be at all mad about it ;)

5. MC becoming part of the crew and using the first opportunity in her Empire uniform to do an impression of Antares. Especially as he tries (and fails) not to react.

6. THIS PREVIEW:

The excitement of the potential of this storyline (which ended up not quite delivering in the way I was hoping - but still, up until this point I was having a lot of fun).

(Slight skip forward)

7. Their wedding!...

...and the fact that it didn’t go perfectly to plan, giving them an opportunity to go into combat in their wedding gear 😘👌

8. Every sex scene (including the free ones) from S6 onwards. Do not head into any of Antares last 3 seasons without a boatload of hearts to spend. It’s just occurred to me that we had 6 seasons worth of Scenes compared to the 6 episodes worth we get with newer routes. Shame.

9. Everything about S7 when Antares is really pushed to his limits along with some very dark scenes. Death & difficult decisions. Lots of commentary on what serving the Greater Good actually means. "The eyes of those five people as I choose to save the ten, for no other reason than arithmetic."

10. “Quiet, my wife is speaking.”

(I felt sure I could do this in just 10 points... eh, onwards..)

11. THIS WHOLE SCENE at the end of S7:

...In which Antares & MC sacrifice their lives (or are 100% prepared to) to save the galaxy from The Evil™

12. OK the sex scenes are worth spending hearts on but this is one of my favourite heart scenes - is this S8? I think so?:

...in which MC learns the way of the beam saber.

13. Everything about the last 3 episodes of S8 - some of the most epic scenes in any VN I’ve read. The discovery of who the Emperor is / isn’t.

"The Emperor is everywhere and nowhere. Everything and nothing. He is the past, present, and future of his throne. He is the light of life and the dark between stars. And he stands before you now."

14. Antares inviting Orion to see him and asking something of the Promise Crew - I wish there’d been more interactions between those two throughout his route.

Oh mighty imperial one.

If you made it through this you must really love Antares too. Thanks anon for the opportunity to ramble some more about Him. I feel like I missed a lot from this list though!

#antares fairchild #starship promise #lovestruck #lovestruck voltage #answered #thanks for the ask 💖

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wingsofthewibbets · 3 years

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Hello I Made A Playlist

It is specifically for the vibes of the Calamity Trio! Also, I feel like contributing to fandom, so I tried to explain why I felt each song gave off the ~Vibe~. Apologies for the length of this monstrosity. It’s on Youtube and Spotify, but there is a song on Youtube I used that was unavailable on Spotify. It’s in no particular order, although maybe I’ll organize it one day.

~‘California Friends’ (The Regrettes)- Generally the fun upbeat vibe of the song, but also these specific lyrics make me think of Anne’s :

I think I love you but then I think

No way!

I gotta go but I wanna stay

Just stay!

I guess I’ll save it for another day, well okay?

As well as:

I get mixed up in my head, you do too

But I don’t forget a thing you’ve said

Well that’s true

I think the lyrics definitely give me more Anne/Marcy vibes, but the music itself makes me think of Sasha getting them into trouble. There’s some big garage band energy here, and it just makes me think of them running around and causing chaos. (also the ‘i gotta go but i wanna stay/just stay’ definitely reminds me of the end of the aquarium episode)

~’The Archer’ (Taylor Swift)- Oh man this song where do I even start?? There is so much?? (I know I’ve already talked about this one, but Imma do it again) I was listening to this song one day and the lyrics hit me so hard as reminding me of all the girls, specifically:

For Anne:

Combat, I’m ready for combat

I say I don’t want that, but what if I do?

‘Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory, but this seriously makes me think of her relationship with Sasha -or the shambles of it anyway oof- and the speeches line just makes me there’s so much that she doesn’t tell her friends about what’s running through her head.

Anne’s an emotional person to be sure, but she’s also a very impulsive one, which means a lot of times, what people get from her is the unedited, unreflected version of her thoughts, which don’t make them any less true, but that also means that she’s probably a little more reticent with the deeper ideals that don’t get unearthed through dramatic moments. She just does things a lot of the time, and when she gets stuck on something, it is kinda obvious from the outside, but she also gets uncomfortable with trying to talk about it, because there is no clear solution she can enact in the moment to resolve it.

For Sasha:

Screaming who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

I see right through me, I see through me

As well as the repetition of ‘they see right through me/can you see right through me’, these lines give me huge Sasha vibes, specifically. I think of them kind of especially applicable to the Reunion episode, but also just how there were a couple scenes where she seemed to be regretting hiding from her friends the toad rebellion that was going to take place in Newtopia, and that conversation Anne and Sasha have in The Third Temple. I don’t think she ever considered regretting the rebellion at all, but I do think she worried over what it might do to her friendships.

The end of Reunion was heartbreaking, for both Anne and Sasha, because if the Plantars had been able to pull both girls up, I think there would have been more opportunity for Sasha and Anne to have a better reconciliation. (i think this about this a lot ngl) And, also because she was willing to die for Anne??? I don’t think that gets discussed enough. That episode has big ‘who could ever leave me’ at the beginning, and then at the end ‘who could stay’ vibes.

For Marcy:

And all of my heroes die alone (OOF)

As well as

All the king’s horses, all the king’s men

Couldn’t put me together again

‘Cause all of my enemies started out friends

Ahahaha this is the ANGST. So. I mean, obviously the king’s horses part makes me think of the ending of True Colors, and I don’t think that Marcy considers Sasha and Anne to be her enemies by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think that Andrias is above manipulating her to think that they think of her that way. (Also the line ‘cause all of my enemies started out friends’ line is very applicable to Anne and Sasha as well, it just happened to be part of the lines that made me think of Marcy) Plus sticking around the king and whatever the heck he has in store for her will definitely not put her back together sooo-

The ‘help me hold onto you’ and the ‘I’ve been the archer/I’ve been the prey’ just apply to all of them (for the former, think Sasha and Anne in Reunion, the way Marcy tried to mediate in The Dinner, and just True Colors in general; for the latter, it makes me think of the sword-fights between Anne and Sasha, as well as how Marcy once believed that Andrias actually cared about her). The ‘Dark side, I search for your dark side/But what if I’m alright, right, right, right here’ make me think of how Anne is going to be reevaluating her friendships with both Sasha and Marcy, as well as how all of them seemed to grow into the Amphibia communities that they landed in and what they are going to struggle with leaving behind.

I had this song on loop for way too long trying to word my feelings out about it.

~’Soldier, Poet, King’ (Oh Hellos)- This song is just so absolutely perfect for the three girls. I’d like to take the time to state that I think Sasha fits soldier, Marcy poet, and Anne king, but what are y’all’s thoughts?

There will come a soldier/Who carries a mighty sword

He will tear your city down

Big Sasha vibes, fits with what’s she done so far in the show, as well as how she’s being set up for the third season to be a hero (whose intentions somewhat align with the consequences of her actions).

There will come a poet/Whose weapon is his word

He will slay you with his tongue

Marcy spends a lot of time journaling, and she even takes the time to learn a dead language! She seems rather skilled with more traditional weaponry, but her biggest boon is her intelligence and her quick-thinking. I also think that if she does end up getting possessed by the Night, its words being spoken by Marcy’s voice is absolutely going to SLAUGHTER Anne and Sasha.

There will come a ruler/Whose brow is laid in thorn

Smeared with oil like David’s boy

Apart from the fact that Anne literally has plants growing from her head in the S2 finale, she is also a charismatic leader who has made connections all over Amphibia. She genuinely cares about the people around her, and takes the time to get to know them and spend time with them. Also, a lot of times, she is underestimated and seen as the David to her opponent’s Goliath- whether that be physically or in skillset.

~’Someone To You’ (The Banners)- No specific lyrics here, but the general vibe of the song. There is a sort of desperation that seems to permeate it, as though if the narrator isn’t someone to the person they are singing to, they will be nobody at all, and I think that is very much how all of the girls view their friendship, at least at first.

Marcy gets the music box thing going because she doesn’t want to be alone; Sasha is desperate to have Anne, and she wants so much for both Anne and Marcy to look up to her as someone who is strong and present. I think for Anne, we kinda see this song in the speech she gives to Sprig in Best Fronds when she’s trying to get him to break the rules with her, but also in how she is open to reconciling with Sasha in The Dinner and giving her a second chance. Mainly, though, what I associate with Anne for this song are the scenes where she reunites with Marcy and Sasha for the first time. The spinning hug she gives Sasha, and how tightly she hugs Marcy with tears in her eyes- she really does love and care about these girls.

They all cling to this friendship so much, in different ways, both healthy and unhealthy, and I think this song really captures that.

~’Lost Girls’ (Lindsey Stirling)- This song is mostly instrumental, so again, no specific lyrics here, but there is a very deep, melancholic feel to this song. It gets kinda fast-paced at some points, and reminds me of the ending of True Colors, with Anne and Sasha and Marcy separated. There is so much space- literal and internal- between all of them now, and I think this song does a really great job of getting Those Feels across. They aren’t just lost to each other, they are also struggling with battles inside of themselves.

But the lyrics that are in this song, (lol I just said I wouldn’t mention them whoops) ‘Lost girls find a way’, are sung, the music played after them that plays remind me that, like Matt Braly said, sometimes things have to be broken to be fixed again. They can find a way. It’s not a happy song to be sure, but there’s a quiet strength and determination in it.

~’Long Live’ (Taylor Swift)- I could cite specific lyrics here, but this song has just always given me epilogue-end-of-the-battle scenes, where we get to see everyone exhausted, but happy and most importantly together. This song is what I’m hoping the future gets to be for Marcy, Anne, and Sasha; happy about their present together, being able to heal despite the past, and accepting that even if they aren’t together forever in the future, that doesn’t mean they weren’t important to one another.

~’Torches’ (Oh Hellos)- ‘Torches’, on the complete opposite hand to ‘Long Live’, kind of represents where the girls are right now with one another.

Despite keeping that old wheel turning, despite laying that next spoke down (yes these are direct lyric references), they are also continuing to make mistakes with one another.

I got a venom like a snake running out of my mouth

(Running out of my mouth, running out of my mouth)

It’s got you burning at the stake

Innocent or not, you’re not a bet I care to take

And, yet, somehow, they keep being led back to one another. They are more alike than they think, and even if they get back to Earth, they will still be bound by the mutual experiences they had on Amphibia, that no one else is likely to ever understand. The ways they misunderstand one another and don’t communicate cleave them apart, but also together, in a way.

And Father Ignorance will make brothers of us all

(Brothers of us all, brothers of us all)

As he sets our torch aflame

Chasing down the flimsy specters that we pro-create

As well as

Mother Fortuna, O, she makes sisters of us all

(Sisters of us all, sisters of us all)

When the faces in her wake

Look more like our own than the effigies that we immolate

~’Castle On The Hill’ (Ed Sheeran)- Purely just the vibes. Nothing super deep, just makes me think of how Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are going to look back on their friendships and their time together.

~’Trouble’ (Valerie Broussard)- Though I will forever associate this song with Six of Crows thanks to a fabulous animatic, I will say that it also makes me think of the darker tone that Season 3 might take on, and how each girl is poised to take on a different problem. I see it as a very Sasha song (especially ‘I’m your Number Two man in a fight/We are revolutionaries tonight’), but all three of them tend to lead a trail of chaos in their wake. (Also the vibes here are impeccable)

~’Time Alive’ (K.C Katalbas)- (not on Spotify, definitely recommend checking it out) This song just has that perfectly nostalgic, yet aspirational feel to it. It is hopeful, yet it it has its own sort of weight. It pairs nicely with ‘Long Live’ and ‘Castle On The Hill’, in a way, I think. It makes me think of what the future could be for the girls, once again, and how even if something is bittersweet, you are still allowed to be hopeful. Mostly, it makes me think of each girl reflecting about one another, and the time they spent together.

And this is your life, every plan has a right to fall

And this is your heart, through the dark it’s the loudest call

And this is breathing

And seeing her go

~’Try’ (The Lightning Thief)- True Color battle against Andrias vibes! And Season 3 vibes! A lot of these lyrics are kind of specific to Annabeth, Percy, and Grover’s characters, but I also think the general feel of this song is very applicable to Anne, Sasha, and Marcy. Particularly, I am reminded of how Sasha and Anne will be feeling about Marcy.

I may fail you

I may fail you, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try

And

I’m not leaving your side til we find what matters

I’m not leaving your side til we’re back home

I’m not leaving your side til you’re remembered

No matter how far we have to go

As well as probably the guilt that Marcy was feeling during True Colors:

Two thousand four hundred forty eight reasons I have to come along

Wash my hands of past mistakes

As well as

The weight of the world’s on my shoulders

Like Atlas, it’s crushing me down

We’re not brave, we’re not strong, we’re not soldiers

And how could I forget?

L.A doesn’t seem so far away…

~’Drive It Like You Stole It’ (Sing Street)- Again, like ‘Trouble’, but a little softer. If ‘Trouble’ has Sasha vibes, this one makes me think of Anne, but it also has a similar line to ‘Time Alive’- this is your life. For the most part of Amphibia, I think the girls focussed a lot on fitting in and adapting to their surroundings, but I think Season 3 is really going to see them owning who they are and taking it upon themselves to enact change.

It also just makes me think of them messing around and being kids, trying to figure out who they are. It’s like, if they ever make it back to Earth in one piece and stay friends, but still manage to get into shenanigans.

~’What’s Up Danger’ (Blackway, Black Caviar)- local newt king gets mauled by three newly empowered thirteen-year olds

~’How Far We’ve Come’ (Matchbox Twenty)- This one is a classic. No playlist of mine is worth its salt if it doesn’t have this song here. It has the ~vibes~ of pre-last battle energy, and also I can definitely see Sasha and the Sharps playing it at some point.

Alternately, this also makes me think of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy finally going home together or reuniting properly after the end of True Colors. Lots of angst either way.

~’We Are Young’ (fun.)- What I picture with this: Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are not entirely reconciled with one another yet, but it’s the night before the last battle or somethin’, and they still care about one another a lot. This has that energy. They’re just kids, but they’ll be damned if they don’t go out without a fight, and without standing by one another’s sides.

(and marcy found someone(s) to carry her home nanananananana)

Slightly more uplifting(?) than ‘How Far We’ve Come’, but similar energy, I think.

~’Pump It’ (Black Eyed Peas)- three local teenagers get pumped to cause problems on purpose; montage time. I have no justification for this song, only that it has the vibes of Sasha and Anne’s relentless energy and the confidence of Marcy swinging down on a rope she doesn’t know will actually hold her weight.

~’Disaster Hearts’ (I Fight Dragons)- I feel like this song is the definition of Matt’s tweet about how some things have to be broken to be fixed. It has vibes of the aftermath of a battle, and opening the door to reconciliation and forgiveness. Amphibia has tied these girls together, for better or worse, and I think there is room for them to become better friends and mend their relationships.

Disaster has a way of remaking our hearts

Long after all the thunder and scars

Days pass and bit by bit we begin to restart

Our disaster hearts

~’Thus Always To Tyrants’ (Oh Hellos)- It makes me think of where Anne and Sasha are left at the end of Reunion, but also in how Anne wants to find Marcy now that she know she’s definitely out there. The sound of the song gives me huge Marcy vibes, with how it does seem to be almost cheerful? The very last line makes me think a lot about Sasha (‘Learn to love without consuming’), but I think a lot of the song is applicable to all the girls in different situations.

#amphibia #amphibia spoilers #wow this was really long #amphibia playlist #yes i listen to a lot of taylor swift and oh hellos how did you know #i had the archer on loop for so long while writing that part #what songs do you guys associate with the trio?#one day i will actually put them in a sort of order #i can't believe this is how i spend my time now lol #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #my brain is only funky frog music now

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setsuntamew · 3 years

Text

So, Persona 5 Royal, huh?

Full disclosure: I had gotten about halfway through November on Wednesday and finished it out Saturday night, which took uhhh about 65-70 hours? Some of that was sitting there waiting for the PS4 controller to recharge or listening to music in the Thieves Den while eating, but I still feel like I need to own up to how extremely bad I am at making good decisions with my life XD

MOVING ON, THOUGH, HOLY SHIT. P5 was a very good game, but Royal’s additions & changes made it incredible. I like the ending way more; I think it’s more emotionally fulfilling and meaningful, especially with everyone’s more defined future plans. Definitely felt like everyone had more growth in the end!! Which is something I’d always thought P5 was lacking.

Snip snip for spoilers and the fact that this post ended up being too damn long, oops! the last third is basically Akechi feels and analyzing his ending, so......yeah XD

Part of why I plowed through SO much of Royal in so little time is....Akechi XD Like okay, this is my stupid fandom blog, I can be excited about him all I want!!! I got to Sae’s Palace and just....I couldn’t put it down. @dragonofeternal and I ordered an embarrassing amount of takeout instead of cooking because we just had to see how everything with Maruki and the third semester was gonna go down. I’d already been dying along the way because Akechi’s confidant dates are so good, I just. Fuck!!!

Also, look, for the entirity of Shido’s boss fight and the depths of Mementos/Yaldabaoth/etc, we’d look at each other every few minutes and just be like AKECHI SHOULD BE HERE WITH US, HE DESERVES TO GET HIS VENGEANCE ON HIS SHITTY DAD AND FORCED DESTINY!!!!!

December 24th had to be the longest god damn day in Akira’s life because like. Final exam grades are posted in the morning! He goes to school and then dives into hell, crawls his way back out, briefly dies by fading from human cognition, fights an actual fucking god, and then....ends up dissociating in Shibuya until Sae shows up and is like “oh hey thanks for everything you did, please sign up for being arrested now.” And while he’s still reeling from that, Akechi walks up to take his place, like some kind of bullshit knight in shining armor schtick, and leaves no room for conversation.

AND THEN WE HAVE TO GO ON A DATE

I romanced Hifumi this time around, because I wanted Akria to bang a girl who is just so incredibly out of his league, but....it’s not necessarily that I forgot I was dating someone, more that it had been *so many hours of plot* that I was emotionally exhausted. Like, Hifumi texted me and I was just like. Right. RIGHT. It’s still Christmas Eve, somehow. I was at *school* this morning. The whole world merged with Mementos briefly in the middle of this, Akechi is somehow alive, and I guess I’m going on a date now????

I do appreciate how many “god I’m just dissociating my way through this” conversation options there were for the date, tbh. I feel bad though, I really like Hifumi, but I feel like Akira is not giving a date his full emotional attention at that specific time. It feels a bit like emotional whiplash, more so than I remember it being in P5? Maybe it’s because I played it 4 years ago and there wasn’t the added emotional weight of Akechi’s reappearance, but it was just like....a lot, in Royal.

AND THEN THE NEW YEAR HAPPENED. I’d been spoiled on large parts of the third semester, mostly because Royal’s been out for a year already and I’m too curious for my own good. I’d also somehow lied to myself, saying I didn’t have time to play another Persona game right now, and yet here I am, 171 hours of game play within exactly a month, kicking myself for not knowing how deep in Persona hell I would get XD

Which is to say, as soon as the new year started, it felt I was drowning in anxiety. I knew something was wrong, I knew they were in a false reality, but knowing that sure as fuck didn’t make it easier to go through. If anything, it was somehow worse, knowing that it was all gonna come crumbling down, but I didn’t yet know the exact details, only the broad strokes of it. Just. Every time someone talked about something that was wrong, my heart would clench.

God, I’m so fucking tired, I pulled an all-nighter on Friday so I could get through Royal before having to work on Sunday, and I am feeling it right now. Life tips: don’t do what I do XD

Every moment with Akechi felt like borrowed time, at least for me, because I knew what was coming. I spent so much time in Mementos with him; I ended up putting just him and Akira in my party and plowing through everything, including trouncing the Reaper over and over just for the hell of it. I got his ultimate weapons, I spent so many nights in the jazz club with him that he ran out of dialogue options, and I still took him back for more. I accidentally failed to EVER trigger Sumire’s Showtime because every fight was just Akira and Akechi against the world, because fuck it, I’m playing this for fun!! If I want to play with them in stupid costumes and no one else in the party, I’m gonna. Royal did such an incredible job giving Akechi more depth and development: it was all I could hope for, and it made it that much fucking worse to know what was in store for him.

Somehow, I thought it would be harder for me to make the decision to refuse Maruki’s deal, since fuck, fuck what I wouldn’t give for Akechi to be alive???? But I barely hesitated, only really stopping because I had to emotionally brace myself for it, because a reality where he can’t carve out his own fate would be a disrespect to everything their relationship is built on.

I have a whole shit ton of feelings about post-beating Maruki but they’re basically all Akechi related meta so somehow they ended up at the end of this post, I’m sorry XD

I understand that they had to keep the going to jail bit because 1) Akechi didn’t turn himself in, Akira did and 2) it leads to the final events of the game, but let me just say....the emotional roller coaster of fighting Maruki, almost failing multiple times, waking up in jail, the Phantom Thieves & friends getting Akira out of jail, celebrating that, and then getting thrown into Valentines Day was a LOT for my heart to take. Once again, didn’t forget I had a girlfriend, just got too invested in the plot to really be thinking about her. It’s less than two weeks after the fight with Maruki and somehow, everything is supposed to be okay????

The scene with everyone talking about their future plans is such good character growth, though. Everyone feels like they’ve truly grown and are making decisions that, even though they might be painful or hard at times, are ultimately very important to them. It’s a really good contrast to the “almost everyone goes to Shujin and they all stay in Tokyo forever without doing anything for themselves” Maruki’s perfect reality bad end.

Standing in the Underground Mall on White Day, being told I had to get flowers but finally being able to have control of Akira again was....so bittersweet. The fact that the location of the date is the aquarium is a low fucking blow, and I almost threw the controller across the room I was so upset. Like. THE AQUARIUM IS UNLOCKED BECAUSE AKECHI HAS TICKETS HOW FUCKING DARE SOJIRO SUGGEST IT LIKE MY HEART ISN’T STILL ACHING????? God, speaking of that: The fucking god damn Featherman video game tore my heart out because I ended up playing it WHILE WORKING ON SHIDO’S PALACE and I cried a ton about Gray Pigeon because of course they had to dig the emotional knife in even deeper!! Just fuck me up, it’s fine, I’m just dying!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ended up scrolling through his texts to find the group chats that still had Akechi in them, and fuck, it was a LOT. Like. Maybe it’s because I’m too invested in the two of them, but it was probably the worst emotional whiplash of the whole game. Like, how am I supposed to go play happy with anyone while staring at texts from a reality built of lies? It wasn’t real but the proof lives on in his phone and his heart, and I’m still fucked up over it.

HOWEVER. FUCKING. I SPENT LIKE HALF AN HOUR BEING EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED ABOUT ALL THIS AND THEN DISCOVERED THE BASTARD STILL HAD ALL HIS EQUIPMENT, INCLUDING THE ULTIMATE MALE ARMOR!!! He returned his shit after Sae’s Palace even though he thought Akira was dead, but this time it didn’t get fucking returned to my inventory, so he must have fucking run off with all his shit!!!!!!! Why the hell did none of it get returned if he was never alive in the true reality? Like I know it'll be returned for a new game+ but I like to nitpick game mechanics for story reasons, because one of the things I love most about video games is the experience of them as another layer to the story. The texts from the third semester shouldn’t exist anymore, since they never really existed, but there they are. Akechi insisted that he has a gap in his memory after Shido’s Palace up until seeing Akira on Christmas Eve, but who can say that wasn’t related to Maruki tampering with reality or some other Persona-related reason?

I mean. I got the full and complete True Ending; I saw him in the train station. If that’s not Akechi, then who the fuck is it? Atlus made sure to put the work in to make him a part of not just the main story but also, especially, the third semester, and for what....to have his final time on screen be as the butt of the joke, squished underneath everyone in the Mona-copter? As much as it hurts, his end in Shido’s Palace matters; it fits his character and he gets to go out fighting- carving his own path, really. In Royal, barring the tiny glimpse of someone who’s probably him in the train station, the last we see of him is when he watches Joker let go of the rope to finish off Maruki. I know we got the heart to heart where Akira agrees to reject Maruki’s deal and Akechi insists that he’d rather be dead than live in a false reality, but.....no one even says goodbye to him. It’s tragic, it’s painfully lonely, but it doesn’t feel right for such a major character.

Also, as undignified as it is, for the first time ever, Akechi looks like he actually belongs in the Phantom Thieves in that final moment. He’s never been the butt of their jokes before; they always kept him at arms’ reach and he took himself too seriously to be included, but for that brief moment, it really felt like he was part of their group. He stopped lying about himself for their last month together, and so even if they don’t all like him, they can make that decision based on the truth, instead of layers of lies. His death is all the more tragic for this; a life cut short just when he’s finally finding a place he belongs. But his death was already painful; why make it so, so much worse?

Final thing: I’m gonna be spending a ton of time in the Thieves Den trying to find Akechi’s opinions on everything, but also....hey. HEY. What do those six stars that Jose (probably?) painted on the wall mean? Is it just a reference to Persona 6???? LIKE????? I HAVE QUESTIONS. SO, SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!

Anyway, I’ve gotta go cry into my Starbucks and desperately try to focus on actually doing my job at work, but I loved Royal deeply and cannot wait to drown in it ;w;

#persona 5 royal #p5r #persona 5 royal spoilers #goro akechi #akeshu #I have just so many Akechi feels I'm sorry #long post #persona 5 royal meta

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guenooy · 3 years

Text

Haiba Lev as your bf

° 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡

our lovely tall russian tree aka. yaku’s personal punching bag

Lev would be the crackhead bf like you would never be seen frowning

let's start with the confession this boy would be so obvious like he wouldn't even try to hide it

Lev would always tell you that he likes you, but you laugh it off every time he mentions it because he looked like a dork who just told a joke

At the lantern festival, he told you with a serious face that he likes you a lot and asked you out

so dating him would be the most fun in your whole life, he would be sending you funny pictures of him and his teammates

and you would make them as stickers to annoy them and him

he would always compare his height with you, which you just laugh at it meanwhile Yaku would beat up this giant russian tree

Alisa would totally like you, she would take you on shopping trips or you both do girls days on the weekends ( no boys allowed, sorry Lev)

your dates would be arcades, amusement parks, restaurants, shopping trips with a lot of funny pictures, aquariums, full of fun stuff

he loves giving you piggyback rides, he just loves it when he can carry you

he's very spontaneous with his dates so don't think he would ask you weeks or days before it because he would stand in front of your house and say let's go on a date

since you met his sister it wouldn't be such a surprise that you met his parents on your first day of dating

his parents love you and his mother is already planning your wedding and your kids

His gifts are mostly flowers or a scrapbook with your memories and plushies

he loves taking dorky photos with funny hats or sunglasses

his cuddles/hugs would be the best like he calls them boyfriend duty, switch type, he loves being the big spoon but also likes to be the little spoon

whenever you need hugs or cuddles you just text "boyfriend duty" and in no time he's there

you visiting his volleyball practice makes him so energetic like he just wants to impress you with his skills but makes a fool out of himself and you find it adorable

his games are not completely different from his practice, he tries his best on the games, he loves your cheek kisses before and after game

he would be a confused little bean when your sad and say it's nothing but after a while, he knows how you act or feel he just needs time he isn't as observant as Daichi

your first kiss would be on the same lantern festival where he confessed but 1 year later

like I said he's very spontaneous so thinking about his future is not his thing he would still consider asking you about your future when you like thinking about it

PDA, this bean loves it but wouldn't do stuff that makes you uncomfortable real men can't relate

hugs, small kisses, hand-holding is a must and of course, piggyback rides

when he sees that you're uncomfortable with someone's presence or when someone is touching you inappropriate he would softly drag you away from them

since he's still too confused to beat the perv up and doesn't want to make a scene

he loves to tease you a lot especially for your height, he would compare you to him and makes comments

when he sees another small person "omg y/n she's way smaller than you" " baby, she is a toddler..."

he calls you baby, shorty, babe, or kitty

° 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 𐐪𐑂 ♡ 𐐪𐑂 ₒ 𐐪𐑂 ♡

more things will be added in the future

#haikyuu lev #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haiba lev #haikyuu nekoma #lev x reader #haikyuu headcanons #hq fluff #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios

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suca-loca · 3 years

Text

it’s been a long year since we last spoke (how’s your halo?)

Read on Ao3

Words: 11.5k

Tags: Hurt No comfort, Angst, No Happy Ending, No beta we die like Wilbur

Warnings: Body horror, Blood, Death, Suicidal Implications/Thoughts, Mentions Of Torture, Beating/Fighting

Author's Note: I tentatively present you all this fic as my ticket to board the Dream SMP Fandom. I took some creative liberties with this, such as hints of Niki and Wilbur being childhood friends, as well as Niki living near Techno's cabin, and making Niki respawning to restock her hunger bar during her spiraling/villain arc one of her canon deaths. Also, despite Niki wearing a new skin she has stated that her character still wears Wilbur's coat. Just adding that in here so people don't comment that I got her outfit wrong during a certain scene. And finally, even though I feel this is obvious, this is about the characters and not the streamers themselves. With that out of the way, enjoy the fic!

Summary:

"Time down here is like stars, Niki. We're dead, dead for thousands of years, but to them," he points up, "we still shine. It'll take light years for them to realize they are staring at just a memory."

She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted where she stands. "Wilbur," she weeps. "How long have you been down here?"

He laughs.

(There was a time it made Niki's heart stop. It still does, but for different reasons now)

"Eleven years."

Niki covers her mouth to stifle a broken cry.

or; Niki tries, unwillingly may she add, the whole being dead thing. Oh, and Wilbur is there to "help"

The worst part about it is that Niki's whole life doesn't flash before her eyes. It doesn't happen in slow motion and neither is there some comforting, bright light for her to walk towards. It's simply this: one second she's at Church Prime and the next she's falling into pitch blackness.

Then again, she should have known better than to expect any of that dumb cliche stuff 'cause it's not like she died or anything. Not really. Her communicator may say she did, but she knows the truth. She was teleported.

So why does this feel like dying?

foolish girl breaking at the seams from using the same stitching of a burning flag to put yourself back together again. you think the afterlife cares how you arrive? the entry fee is the same for all

She comes in screaming and doesn't stop even when that's all she is anymore. Her body is unrecognizable to her, turned inside out, muscles stretching and bending and snapping in an attempt to mimic the shape she once was.

(She wishes her muscles luck in regressing back into a memory because oh primes, oh dear primes did she try, try again to be the girl wore a white and blue uniform with pride, but that girl only exists now in dreams and sometimes nightmares)

But they can't, for her organs and bones and flesh do not know what it means to not be confined (but they should know, they really should, because she still finds it hard to breath in small spaces ever since Schlatt caged her between iron bars and dirt and Sapnap left her in a hole in the ground over a fish) and so they shake. Convulsing and spasming until she is just sound, just an echo of shrieks that are happening in the past or the present or the future depending on how fast it travels down this tight, narrowed cave she lands in.

Wait, lands in?

She finds herself laying flat on the ground. She blinks. Then does it again for good measure to make sure she's not imaging having eyelids.

She touches her face. Feels the crook of her nose, the curve of her chin, and her soft round ears.

It's all skin. No muscle, no tissue, just her.

Still her.

(For now)

Her body is back. Not whole though - never whole - for she will always be a walking empty space within a solid object, but for now, her body is right. Her body is here. She closes her eyes in relief.

Someone is staring down at her when she opens them again.

"Hello Niki," Wilbur says. "It's been a while."

(It's Doomsday. His name shows up on your communicator and so you become a lit match. The fire eats you away just like the bark of a tree, like the walls of a bakery, two things you once loved most, and you're watching them both burn with his coat over your shoulders, which doesn't help you ignore who you must look like, who you're acting like, whose footsteps you're following in; and doesn't it hurt to know that what's before you isn't just a friend but a reflection?)

She's already scrambling back before she's even fully sat up.

She doesn't get very far, not with the way her wrists twist and bend before finally buckling under the pressure, and she can't find the strength to stand up and run. So all that's left to do is hyperventilate at the way his eyes land on her face, roaming, analyzing, absorbing, trying to read her like a book, unaware she's ripped out the pages long ago. At the way his shadow covers her and maybe once it felt like a blanket, but that time has passed, now all it is is heavy, suffocating, pinning her down. At the way he wears his Pogtopia outfit, pressed and cleaned when the last she saw of it it was covered in ash and black feathers and red, so much red.

But it never comes. In fact, her lungs don't move at all. Almost as if she doesn't need to breathe. As if she hasn't been breathing since she's been down here.

Is that why it was so easy to keep screaming?

"You're not here," she whispers. "Not really."

Wilbur tilts his head to the left.

(Does it in a way a predator would while observing its prey from afar, waiting for the right moment to strike)

"Oh? Where am I then, Niki?"

"My head," Niki responds, practically blurting it out. "Yeah - yeah, that's right. This is just my head playing tricks on me again. A horrible horrible trick, but that's all it is. I - I know it."

Wilbur hums. He sits down as if this will take a while. As if she won't blink and he'll be gone. "Well, that's a damn shame. I was hoping it'd be a beach. Mexican Dream has been talking a lot about La Jolla lately. Sounds like a nice place."

He smiles, suddenly.

(No, not smiles, more like baring his teeth. His very normal teeth that give off the impression that they should be very sharp and very large and very deep in her throat right now)

"Let's hope I don't blow it up."

(Niki is shouting for Wilbur over the chaos when her communicator pings in her pocket. It gets hard to breathe as she reads what it says, and it isn't because every inhale of smoke and pulverized concrete from the tumbling buildings poison her lungs. There's a ringing in her ears, and it isn't because of the TNT that just detonated in front of her. She feels broken, and it isn't because the force of the explosion knocks her back and she skitters across the field, hitting rocks and choking on dirt until she stops on her stomach, limbs bent at weird angles. Her communicator lands right beside her, the screen shattered and static flashing, but she can still catch glimpses of what is on the screen, as clear as day, like a taunt: WilburSoot was slain by Ph1lza)

Niki scrambles to her feet, presses herself as much as she can against the walls, and maybe, just maybe, she'll glitch and go through it and suffocate in a block.

She immediately throws herself away from it when she realizes what she just thought.

Wilbur stands with her. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he says. "I thought it would lighten up the mood. So, how are you?"

"How am I?" Niki echoes. "I'm imagining my dead best friend even though I thought I was getting better and I could have sworn I was, I was I swear I was, and this place, this place, I don't know where this is but it, it just feels - I don't even know why - so familiar and so - "

She pauses.

She looks around.

She was so busy panicking from Wilbur's presence that she never took in her surroundings. She stares at the smooth stone walls, the occasional hanging vines, the little aquarium in the corner right next to the entrance, and, finally, the stand. The stand with two signs on the front that read -

No. It can't be. It just can't.

She won't believe it until she's seen the whole thing.

She walks further in, each step hesitant.

And she notices the way everything around her seems so devoid of life. Almost colorless. Close to numb. She thinks it's her body shutting down, the stress finally getting to her, but no. This is worse. Something's going on. She doesn't know what it is exactly, but she knows it isn't her that's wrong here.

(This time)

Wilbur follows closely behind and, as if to prove her point, his footsteps sound muffled, distant, apart from him, like in the way you hear something underwater.

Maybe she is underwater because everything is getting blurry and her face feels wet.

(Or maybe the better comparison is like hearing something behind glass. She's been tapping against the window of a caravan for months as men in suits discuss a country she bled for just as much as them, if not more, without her. The tapping turns to banging, but it is not the glass that shatters. Not the glass that breaks)

She stills as she catches sight of the small wheat farm in the back room, dried and frail and unkempt.

(Like a flower shop)

It really is her bakery.

"No," she mumbles. Then, more stern, as if it'll blow this place away, as Wilbur should have done the first time. "No no no no this can't… this can't be true. I, I shouldn't be here I - it doesn't make any sense, how how how - "

She whirls on Wilbur, the tears coming in waves now. "What are you doing to me?"

(It's his fault she's back here. It has to be, he's the reason you wanted to burn the memories why this is all gone why this should be gone why isn't this gone gone gone gone)

foolish girl who has become like the nation she despises, you are a crater, there is a hole inside of you where a soul once was and it was caused by your own hands because the only destruction you're good at is your own. you couldn't even kill a child with a nuke, so what makes you think you can end a small room on the side of some hill?

"What do you see?" Wilbur says, and the voice in her head disappears. She can't remember what it said. She shakes her head as if the words will fall out her ears.

Suddenly she can't remember why she's shaking her head.

Her next words come out frail.

"My… my bakery. But how? This shouldn't be possible I, I destroyed it - I - "

"Limbo is different for everybody," Wilbur interjects. "For me, it's a train station."

"Limbo? What are you talking about? What is going on? I was nowhere near L'manburg I was - " Niki's mind blanks.

(Smooth quartz all around her and she feels safe there, that she remembers because there is no killing here, the one place bloodshed does not haunt her, and then crushing disappointment that turns into actual crushing as her body gets shredded, mangled, undone like a ribbon except it does not look pretty)

Wilbur gives her a slicing smile. It cuts her down. "This is the afterlife, Niki."

She blinks. She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted to the spot. "What?"

"The afterlife," he continues, eyes sparkling. "Hell. The void. Eternal darkness. Whatever you wanna call it. I call it home."

"Home?" She repeats, shakily.

foolish girl with no place, no one to call home because she's an expert at finding comfort in things that don't stay, of course he sees this place as home. Although if he really wanted to surround himself in emptiness so bad then he just needed to wait a few months for you to become just that

"I'm not dead," she mutters. She attempts to laugh, because if she laughs then this will sound like a joke. Wilbur would joke about such a thing. After all, he poked fun at exploding L'manburg just a while ago. So of course this is a joke. It has to be. It is, and she will not allow her breakdown to be the punchline.

At Wilbur's unflinching smile she says it again, with more conviction. "I'm not!"

"How else do you think you're talking to me? How your bakery is still in one piece? Sorry to be your grim reaper Niki, but you're dead. And now you're here, in the afterlife, with me!" He leans in close, close enough that she should feel his breath on her.

There is nothing. He is nothing.

(And maybe, so is she)

"Isn't that great? We're together again! You and me, just like the old days. And look," His eyes glance at what she wears. It's the coat. Specifically, Wilbur's coat, wrapped around her shoulders.

"We're even matching," he coos.

She thinks she might scream.

She throws herself away from him, almost throws the coat too, but into the furnace next to her.

('I gotta burn the memories I need to destroy it I need to destroy it I need to destroy it,' she once screamed to no one but herself. History repeats itself)

How she ever found comfort in this ratty, old coat she'll never know. And she'll never care to find out. Not when Wilbur is acting like this, like before, like a loose city wire, all dangerous and unpredictable, each word an electric spark, and Niki is trying not to get stung. She remembers how that story ended.

But her's will not end. Not yet.

"I can't be dead," she argues. "I don't remember that I would remember something like that so I - I can't be dead, and I have two lives left so, no, no I can't be I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive and I'm in bed I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive and you're not real, just a nightmare. I'm alive I'm alive I'm - "

"It's really me, Niki," Wilbur says, and the fire from the furnace roars in response as if his words fan the flames. It's the first time something in this wicked place has felt alive. "In the flesh. Or, rather, a close imitation of it. I think my corpse must have liquified by now, swelling up for months before bursting open, leaving nothing but a skeleton behind. What about you? What did you leave for them to find?"

She covers her ears. "Stop! Stop it stop it stop it!"

"Remember it. Remember your last moments."

"Wilbur, please - "

"Feel your wrist," he says. No, orders. And she does. Because she, at her core, is still his soldier.

(She says that she is loyal to him and he responds by saying he wants her to be loyal to L'manburg. She remembers being confused, for she saw them both as the same. Wilbur is L'manburg and L'manburg is Wilbur, one cannot coexist without the other. A few months later, amongst the wreckage of her nation and a father's anguished screams, she'll realize too little too late how true her statement holds)

She doesn't find her heartbeat.

For a second she thinks she made a mistake. That she has her fingers in the wrong place, but no. A soldier knows where to look for life so that they may snuff it out. She can't be making a mistake.

Still, she presses her fingers down, harder this time, nails first, that blood draws, and sobs as she's still met with nothing.

She has no heartbeat.

She is dead.

She chokes. She clutches her chest, not because it hurts to know what she lacks in her chest, but because she remembers. Remembers it so intently, remembers it happening in the snap of a finger, literally, from a smiling God (and maybe it is quite a fitting end, for she goes out the same way she lived, giving second chances to men who don't deserve it) and how the world tilted as the ground slipped away.

But what's worse is the realization that comes after.

"I didn't leave anyone anything to find," she says.

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"I didn't leave anyone anything to find because I didn't die," she says again, but weaker. More horrified. "I was teleported. I was on the holy lands when - "

"Teleported?' Wilbur interrupts. His features, just a second ago, eccentric and mad, turn curious. "Wait wait wait, hold on a second, are you telling me you were sent to Hell, Hell, on the fucking Holy Lands? "

Niki weakly nods.

It goes silent.

Suddenly, a snort. A snort that does not sound like it once did, back before the war for independence, before the election, before banishment, before it all, when all there was was a caravan and the worst of their worries was getting Sapnap a vegan hotdog. It's meaner, more shrill, and laced with a madness that seems to roll off his tongue so easily nowadays.

If she weren't watching how hard Wilbur's shoulders shake she'd have never guessed such a sound would come from him.

But there's something else about this snort that chills her to the core. Although she never could have imagined it coming from Wilbur doesn't mean she hasn't heard this kind of laugh before.

It's almost breathless, almost like something left on a stove, steaming, almost like the sound of -

(Dream and Wilbur worked together, both wanted L'manburg gone, both almost killed a kid, both cut off attachments, both lost trust in others, all things Niki has done too, and if Niki is like Wilbur and Wilbur is like Dream then that means - )

(No. Please, no)

"That is -," Wilbur wheezes, wiping away a tear. "That is horribly ironic."

"DreamXD!" She shouts, head tilted up. "Take me back! Take me back right now!"

Wilbur shakes his head. "Oh, no need to try that. I've been there. The whole shouting for help thing? Yeah, will do you no good. No one can hear you down here."

"DreamXD! I'm here!"

"Scream all you want, prime knows you don't need to breathe down here so nothing's stopping you from doing it for forever, but when your screams are all you hear for eternity… well, it'll drive any person mad."

"DreamXD," she shrieks. And her lungs don't shake, don't even give a small quiver, she knows it. Nothing in her does, for the gears don't need to be turning to keep this machine of a body that's been on autopilot since an explosion knocked her off her feet alive anymore. "Please!"

"You stop talking after a few years of just endless screaming for your voice becomes a reminder of your entrapment. But then the silence itself, after a few years, is unbearable. Yet you don't dare speak or make any noise, so it's just madness of a new kind."

She pushes her way past him and makes her way to the exit of her bakery. "I - I liked the magic trick, DreamXD! I really did! You - you can teleport me back now!"

"Too scared to make a noise, but too scared to keep quiet. So you stand still. Your body deteriorates, muscles numb from lack of use, and all you do is use your nails to scratch marks onto the walls to mark how many years have passed since… since absolutely nothing."

She stills. She slowly turns around.

(L'manburg is surrounded by a wall. A wall so mighty and tall she never thought she'd see the day it'd be torn down, much less by its own inhabitants. But this wall right here, the one between her and this old friend, this is a wall that will never meet the same end as its predecessor)

"Wilbur," she whispers. "What do you mean by years?"

Silence.

Wilbur has a far-away look in his eye.

(That look was born in a dirt hole on the side of a small hill and Niki doesn't learn that lesson for she builds her bakery in a similar place. Two places, so small, so cramped, started with hope, have become their worst downfalls, their unfinished symphonies. She parallels him in all the wrong ways)

She tries to take a step back, but she's rooted where she stands. "Wilbur," she weeps. "How long have you been down here?"

He laughs.

(There was a time it made Niki's heart stop. It still does, but for different reasons now)

"Eleven years."

Niki covers her mouth to stifle a broken cry. She was paralyzed before but now, with fear pumping through her veins, she runs. Fear is a more dependent motivator than strength or bravery could ever be, for fear, unlike any other heroic emotion, can't be beaten out of you. Can't be threatened out of you by a friend on your birthday as you try to stop him from pressing a button. Fear only grows, like a weed, you can try to get rid of it all you want, but it multiplies the more you struggle.

She finally gets to the exit, nearly throwing herself at it, only to find a stone wall staring back at her. It's been cemented shut.

She's trapped.

(She is in a cage, a zoo animal for Manburg citizens to point and laugh at. It is cramped, it is humiliating, and it is her home, her everything in wake of becoming nothing to people she once considered friends, Schlatt tells her. Until Quackity frees her. But there is no one to free her now. Except herself)

She pulls up her sleeves and begins mining with her bare hands.

She's been torn apart before, but at least it was quick. This, the way her flesh slowly peels off at each scratch is its own kind of torture. Not because it's painful, but the torture in knowing what you're willing to do to yourself just to see the sky again.

She keeps going.

(She does not throw up at the sight of chunks of flesh dangling where nail once was because she is a soldier and she has seen worse. Seen a child trapped in a box screaming for help and she's unfortunate enough to have a seat in the splash zone. Helped patch up Ponk's wound where his arm should be, afraid she might lose him to blood loss because whoever chopped his arm off didn't cut across the joint to avoid the bone and therefore had to hack again and again and again to get through the bone. Sewed Fundy's head back together from when Schlatt beat him over the scalp with a beer bottle before dying in the caravan; it took a couple of hours to finish because his fur made it hard to spot the bits of glass sticking out his skin. This is not the first or last time she will wash blood off her clothes, she just has to hope it will continue to be someone else's and not her own)

Wilbur comes up beside her. He doesn't even try to stop her, much less flinch at all the red on the wall. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Tommy did."

She snaps her head to him, her clawing ceasing. "Tommy was here?"

He nods. "Arrived a few years ago. I have to admit, when a space opened up here I thought it would be him again, not you. Not that I'm complaining. Don't get me wrong he's a good kid but, well, you know how Tommy gets."

(Everyone you've ever hated, everyone you've ever sworn to end; Schlatt, Tommy, and although you do not hate Wilbur or Jack you're relationship with them is complicated because they remind you of when you spiraled, you lot are all connected now, bound together from sharing the similar experience of death. She can never separate herself from them. Will be rever grouped in with the people she can't stand most)

"How long was Tommy here for?" She asks softly.

Wilbur clicks his tongue. "Two months I think."

She closes her eyes.

(She wanted to look deep into the crater Tubbo's nuke made and confuse Tommy's charcoal, burnt body for obsidian. She wanted to catch Tommy's choked last breaths in a bottle and get drunk on it every night. She wanted to leave spruce wood on his grave as a sort of flag marking her latest conquest. She wanted to stop thinking that if Wilbur was wrong for believing in Tommy then that means he might have been wrong for believing in her)

She doesn't want Tommy dead anymore and although they're still not friends even she wouldn't wish this on him.

"Two months," she says, and it sinks in.

Is that how long she'll have to wait until someone comes looking for her?

That is if someone even cares to look.

(Puffy doesn't respond to any of her messages after their first date. She turns Jack away when he tries to pull her back into the obsession of caving Tommy's head in. Everyone grieving L'manburg remembers her setting L'mantree aflame. Anyone in the Eggpire is too far gone to even care about themselves. She doesn't have a Tubbo. Isn't anyone's disk. She's just Niki, forgotten, ignored Niki, the first ghost of the server before Ghostbur. Why spare a glance at someone transparent? Someone, not all there?)

No one will come for her.

Wilbur cracks his fingers, and Niki winces, for her bones are still on flesh display and slowly repairing. "Well, now that we've played twenty questions let's move on to a new game. You up for some solitaire?"

She rises to her feet and numbly nods. She might as well have something to do to, to try and prevent the inevitable insanity with a card game.

Might as well accept her fate.

Wilbur reaches into his pocket and pulls out the cards. He sits down on the ground. "Sorry," he says. "I'd offer we play on a table but there are no tables in a train station and I doubt your bakery has one either." He hands her half of the deck. "Help me set it up."

But Niki doesn't take them, for she's focused on the word table because -

(There's a table, a weird table, made up of this block she's never seen before. It's sponge-like, with a hole on top decorated by a blueish-green frame, and she's about to ask where they found it when Phil suddenly apologizes for exploding her bakery. At her shocked expression, he explains he'd like to air out all possible tensions before starting their first-ever official Syndicate meeting so that no past grievances keep them from working as an effective team. Techno merely snorts, saying it's not their fault her bakery was on government land, and Phil responds by shooting him a glare fit for his title as Angel of Death. She'd have laughed, she'd have cried because such a look was once how Phil got Wil to eat his vegetables if it weren't for the fact she tells them they have nothing to apologize for. Tells them she left the oven on the day before the attack and by next sunrise, it was already burnt to the ground. Ranboo doesn't blink once from where he sits across from her as she talks. She sees in his eyes that day, how her laughs and her wails blend in with the chaos around her, as if it belongs there, as if she is one with it. And maybe she is, for the fire that consumes her bakery grows and grows and grows but Niki just gets smaller and smaller and smaller as if she has to sacrifice bits of herself to keep the fire going. Perhaps she is, for every monster requires an offering, and her bakery is that. A representative of the old her burning alive to make room for the new, merciless, unhinged her. Good. She looks down at the flint and steel in her hand and in the reflection of the metal she sees a boy with mismatched eyes standing behind her, staring. And then he takes out his book and writes. It feels like Ranboo has placed a noose around her neck. The memory fades and she holds her breath. She waits for him to say something, to call out her lie. This time, Ranboo undoes the knot. He looks away)

Because she needs to tell Ranboo she appreciated his silence that day. Needs to joke about how all this snow reminds her of an ice cream shop and watch Ranboo nervously laugh as she lightheartedly punches him on the shoulder.

Because she needs to know how that story Phil was telling her about his adventures with Techno on another server, something about an Antarctic Empire, ends. Needs to feed the crows with him to make sure he doesn't stare at their wings for too long.

Because she needs to braid Techno's hair one last time while they talk about how pink is clearly the superior hair color. Needs to thank Techno for giving her these becauses, for they wouldn't exist in the first place had he not offered her a place in the Syndicate.

Ironically enough, she always knew she'd die before she could give back all that she owed them. But only because what she owed them was too long a list, too difficult to be expressed in any way that captured what they deserved.

(Somewhere, in a snow biome, there is a family. They're different from each other, too different at times, and yet Ranboo and Techno could wear each other crowns, each fitting perfectly on their heads and no one would know of the switch, except for Phil of course. Right now they're probably looking at their comms around the dinner table, confused by the last message. 'Nihachu fell from a high place.' They aren't worried. Not yet. But in a couple of days, months for her, they'll start to pace. Phil will stand at the edge of the roof, ready to step off, only to remember he doesn't have wings, can't look for her high up in the sky like he used to when she was a kid. Ranboo will force himself through experiments, lose sleep, break himself in, trying to learn how to teleport so as to cover ground faster in the search, to do more than just let his powers go to waste when they could be what brings her home. Techno will grab her rainbow sweater and put it to Steve's snout, but the trail will go cold every time until eventually all of Niki's clothes don't smell like her anymore. They'll do this every day. Nothing will change but their hope, dwindling away each day. So will they just stare at that last message, her unintentional goodbye, looking for some sort of explanation? For some secret message? Some coordinates until they go mad? They won't think she's dead until they've found a body. Won't stop looking, won't leave a corner of the server untouched. Won't stop till they have something to bury)

She can't do that to them.

She slaps the cards out of Wilbur's hands.

"No," she growls, trying to sound tough and less like a kid throwing a tantrum. Perhaps slapping the cards away was not the best start. "I am not going to waste my time playing Solitaire when I could be spending it finding a way back home. And I will if it's the last thing I do."

Wilbur frowns. Niki has the inkling suspicion it has more to do with the cards being all scattered about than from her declaration. "There is no 'last thing I do anymore.' You dying was the last thing you'll ever do. All you have now is this. This is your forever. Our forever."

She turns away from him, just for a second. Away from the sight of his furrowed brows and the crinkles in the space between them where her index finger would go to poke as she teased him. Away from the scrunch of his nose she would joke made him and Techno finally look like twins. Because despite everything, despite all the months that have settled into their bones since the last they saw each other and the wars they've fought on land and in their minds, it's still Wilbur's face. But only in the physical sense. After that, he stops being her Wilbur.

This would be so much easier if his face had physically morphed into a stranger, to prove to her how much he's changed, what he's become over the months, is not all in her head.

Somehow, she finds a way to start.

"You know, not too long ago I'd have stayed with you here. I wouldn't have even put up a fight. I'd have just laid down, closed my eyes, and let the vines on these walls grow over my body until I was just moss. I was… I was so tired, Wilbur. A part of me always will be. I understood. I finally got why you acted the way you did. There was a time I was on half a heart and instead of eating I would - "

Her body begins to shake so hard she almost expects to look down and she cracks in the ground from an incoming earthquake. The only cracks see she's are her own.

She can't say it. Not like that. Not yet.

" - I would respawn to restock the hunger bar," Niki chokes out instead.

(She respawns with dried blood on the back of her head and bones still rattling from the fall. Along her jutting spine, in an almost perfectly straight line that could be confused for an unkempt path lost to weeds and drought, are bruises. She doesn't feel them. All she feels is the urge to do it again)

She blinks and her hand is in her hair, looking for the bump. She pulls her hand away as if it's a hot furnace. "But I can't stay. Things have changed. I've changed. This is not the first time something dark has tried to consume me, but I can't let it win this time. I can't let this place turn me numb and unhinged, or worse, content. Not when I have people to go home to. Not when - "

She looks down at her hand, the one that traced her scalp, and sees it has clenched into a fist.

(At the count of three, Niki throws rock. She groans as she notices all the other hands make paper. Ranboo and Techno exhale as if the losing sentence wasn't shoveling the front lawn, but death. Or worse, going shopping with Phil for a refrigerator to put in the Syndicate meeting room. Ranboo lost that one. Niki points at Techno's hooves and says it's cheating since they can't ever tell which shape he chooses. She demands a rematch with the same tone one uses to declare war. A few minutes later, they're shouting, going over the rules of rock, paper, scissors, and they only stop when Phil comes home and pulls out the dad voice. They begrudgingly agree to do a rematch another time, once they've cooled down. That was yesterday)

She holds her fist close to her heart. The hand was never her rock, it was always three men in a snowy cabin, handing her a mug of hot cocoa. "Not when I have a lawn to shovel."

Silence.

Then, Wilbur sighs. "You know," he says. He places his arms behind him and leans back to get a better look at her. Somehow, even on the ground, he looks to hold all the power. "Years ago your determination would have been a sight for sore eyes, but here's a reality check. I've been here for almost a dozen years. Eleven years of letting the passing train rip right through me in the hopes it would send me to another layer of hell or maybe propel, heck, even drag my body to the next station. But every time I'd wake up back in the train station as if nothing had happened. Like my body breaking under the wheels was nothing."

He is an avalanche, growing and picking up speed with each word, and Niki realizes, too little too late, she's about to be buried alive. She tries to step back, but Wilbur is up quick and approaching. "There is no escape. The limbo is our stage and we have our lines, our cues, but we do not have a curtain call. We just keep going and going, an endless loop. You can't not play your part. It won't let you."

"I have to at least try," she says.

"Why? What's the point? They'll never know you tried."

Her fear turns to disgust. "Is that why you think I'll try? For the sole reason that one day they'll know what I've done for them? That's far from the truth."

(People built statues of Tommy, for all he's done, for all the influence he had on this server. Niki knows they will not give her the same treatment. But that's fine, more than fine. All she needs is a grave in the snow, beside a little cabin)

She didn't want to look at Wilbur's face before, but now, glaring at him straight on, all she sees staring back is Phil.

The day they found out Wilbur didn't inherit Phil's immortality was the day Phil looked like he should, centuries-old instead of thirty-three, the age when angels stop physically aging. Niki will never forget how deep the lines on Phil's face ran. They might as well have been cracks. And maybe it was, for Phil was breaking as he held his dying son - not dying now, but for an immortal, every second a mortal breathes is just inevitable death - in his arms.

But what still haunts Niki the most after all these years are his eyes. They carried the weight of the world in them. She could feel it, even now, pressing down on her shoulders. All the wars, the fall of cities, the birth of them, children with big smiles and even bigger graves.

Niki was not a soldier yet. She was just a nine-year-old girl who wanted to sleep over at her best friend's house.

She threw up in their sink and they mistook it as her reaction to the news. She didn't correct them.

The only reason she slept easy that night was from the knowledge she would never see those eyes on Wilbur's face. And yet, lo and behold, here it is, like a punch to the gut.

Except now, Niki has had time to numb herself to it. It's hard to get surprised by such a dead look when it's on the face of your roommate.

(Phil's screech - no, not a screech, a caw, high pitched and grief-stricken - is like an alarm clock. Except, instead of Niki waking up to the rising sun outside her window, it's to moonlight and blinking stars. This is the fifth time this month she's met Ranboo and Techno outside Phil's cabin, armed to the teeth, ready for war. The door creaks open, loudly, but they don't wince, for they know it won't wake him. Nothing really does when he's in this state, except for one thing. Techno holds him down and it's weird, will always be weird, to see Techno use such force, such retaliation, on Phil of all people, and then Phil nearly throws Techno through the wall with just a brush of his fingers, and she remembers it's necessary. This isn't Phil they're dealing with, it's the Angel of Death. It takes a while until Techno can get all of the Angel's limbs down, but even then they know it won't last long, and that's when Niki throws a slowness potion on him. Ranboo, meanwhile, turns around all the photos of Wilbur in the room, a safe distance away. They told him it's best he handles that since he's built like a stick, putting him anywhere near a powerful avian would be an accident waiting to happen. It definitely has nothing to do with them freezing up whenever they see Wilbur's smiling face, all happy, and so very alive. Phil's movements turn sluggish as the potion kicks in and Niki holds his face, murmurs soft words, and Techno gives his own weird, but comforting, comments. Something about how Phil can't afford to lose sleeping beauty to these night terrors, what with his old age. Niki snorts. Phil's eyes open immediately. Phil sucks in a sharp breath, like he's forgotten how to breathe, his fist clenching and unclenching. The eyes are back. Based on Techno's face Niki knows then she's not the only person that has seen them. They look at each other, nod, and hold him as he cries. They don't need to ask. There's only one person that could cause such a look. They force Ranboo, who is awkwardly standing to the side, to join. Eventually, they break apart, and Techno coughs. He says he hates them for making this all emotional and bans such an awkward event from ever happening again. And yet, when Phil keeps waking up with eyes too dark around the corners, Techno is there. And so is she and Ranboo)

She will not be the reason Phil's eyes age another year.

"It's about Phil, Techno, and Ranboo deserving someone who will never stop trying to find their way back to them," she says, with conviction. "I'm sorry you're too twisted to see not all actions stem from reward or acknowledgment."

She expects a laugh, a glimpse at his forked tongue spewing words so sweet she could use them as sugar in her desserts, only to take a bite and realize it was salt all along. But what she gets is silence. The type of silence before a storm.

"Phil?" Wilbur whispers.

Niki closes her eyes.

She should have never said their names.

She also should have never opened her eyes again, because Wilbur is looking more like Phil each second. Not because of the eyes. No, worse. Because she sees a boy, a boy with his arms spread open wide and flapping about in an attempt at mimicking his father's wings, and they're both running around in circles in the backyard as he tells her how she'll never have to walk anywhere ever again. He'll carry her when she's tired, when she's not tired, whenever she wants wherever she wants. They stop running around in circles flapping their arms when too much time has passed and his wings still haven't grown in, but the acceptance that it never would did.

She blinks and the memory is gone. Slipping through her fingers like sand.

"How is he?" Wilbur says. His voice wavers a bit. He hides it quickly with a cough, but Niki catches it. Niki thought she always would.

(But then a button was pressed and she realized just how untrue that was)

Niki hesitates. She thinks about the night terrors again. She almost mentions them but falters as she remembers Ranboo telling her how it was Phil who gave him a place to stay after L'manburg was blown up for the last time. How as Technoblade hibernates there's a blanket over his shoulders that wasn't there before and a stick missing from the fireplace. How he always places Niki's plate of breakfast down before the others, as if he knows of her first canon death.

He is a kind man, but that is not why he does these things.

"He misses being a father," she settles on.

Wilbur's shoulders slump. Somewhere, in a different life, Niki's hand is there, squeezing comfortingly. "Is he… is he mad at me?"

"No." She answers quickly. "He's just tired, Wilbur. We all are."

Wilbur laughs. It sounds defeated. Mournful. "Understatement of the fucking year."

He slumps against the wall and Niki is sure it's the only thing keeping Wilbur on his feet. His head hits the smooth stone when he suddenly throws his head back and laughs. Niki doesn't know if she winces from the loud crack the impact makes or from the shrill, unhinged laugh.

"I told him to kill me," Wilbur chuckles. His eyes are blinking rapidly. "I told him to fucking kill me."

(The diamond sword has collected dust. Sometimes, everyone jokes, Phil looks like he has to. Playful teasing about how he's a walking antique that should be displayed in a museum. Phil always laughs them off. But it's moments when he stands too still, alone in his thoughts for too long, that Niki wants to put him behind glass with signs that say 'do not touch,' because all it takes is one gust of wind for an artifact to shatter. But that is no way to live and Phil is not so easily breakable. Worn down a bit, rusted from the loss throughout the eons, yes - who hasn't on this forsaken server? - but not breakable)

Niki thinks she might throw up. "I know."

Wilbur looks at her. His eyes are red, but there are no tears. "You said you understood me. You get why I had to ask him to do it."

"Wilbur - "

" - And so you also understand why you have to stay here."

"What?"

"We've changed Niki," Wilbur starts. "For the worse. Don't you feel it? How that server has destroyed every cell in our body? A slow painful death eating us from the inside out until we've just withered away into someone new, someone unrecognizable?"

(Niki feels she's in a never-ending house of mirrors. Constantly encircled by reflections that are her and not her staring back, each representing different points in her life. Some are unrecognizable, stretched, or squished beyond identification, like a fuzzy memory of a girl carrying a backpack, skipping down a path she was told by a best friend would lead to a nation with yellow and black walls. Some are too terrifying, demonizing her features, giving her slits for eyes and claws for nails holding flint and steel over TNT. All of them she wants to smash)

Wilbur either ignores the horrified expression on her face or doesn't see it. "We killed our old selves as a sacrifice, an offering, to the monster we saw lurking in the edges of our mind. And once you let the monster in there's no going back. All we know from then on is to destroy, to rip apart all we once held dear with no remorse until there's just ash and dust. We thrive, no, revel in it."

(Nemesis, she names herself. Goddess of divine retribution and revenge. Maybe that's who Niki sacrifices herself to. Why she felt such an attachment to the name. A remorseless Goddess said to have led Narcissus to a pool, knowing full well he'd be too captivated to leave his reflection for food or warmth. He died there. It's no coincidence a few weeks before she lived the story herself, leading Tommy to his death in the form of a hot blast of air at the speed of light and seeing it as justice)

"I'm not having this conversation with you," she says, voice shaking. She whirls around, nearly tripping over her feet, fully willing to ignore him as she looks for an exit.

But his next words make her go still.

"Phil didn't know what I'd become. That's why he had to be the one to do it."

She winces. "Don't."

"He didn't even pull out the sword, his arms were too busy holding me, holding me, as if the shape of me still fit against his chest even though I felt so hollow, so much thinner - "

"Wilbur - "

" - he stroked my hair too. Even though it was dirty and unkempt and a mess like everything else about me and I'm pretty sure his fingers got stuck a few times he just wouldn't stop untangling each knot with such care and precision that I remembered my last thought being - "

"Wilbur - "

" - could he have brushed away all the knots and twists in my soul like this? Cleaned me up on the inside like he's doing on the outside? I thought I went crying, Niki. Maybe I did. I'll never know because all I felt was his tears ricocheting on my face - "

"Stop - "

" - he tries to wipe them off. He's cursing at himself, apologizing profusely through hiccuping sobs and, and I don't understand why he's so sorry when it feels like, like when he'd lick his fingers and scrub the grimes of our faces after we played outside too long. Do you remember that Niki - "

"I don't wanna - "

" - because I do. We'd screech so loud, saying it was disgusting and unsanitary as we slapped his hand away and ran, but he'd always catch us a second later because of his wings. I don't wanna run away this time. I'm relishing it, craving every stroke because I'm starting to go cold - "

"Please - "

" - and I wish you weren't teleported here. I wish you had died instead - "

"Wil - "

" - so you would know, so we could relate to what it feels like for the limbo to claim you. To mark you. It's like, it's like being mutilated over and over again. A mallet to your bones, a hole in your brain, everything from your skin to your tendons unraveling before you - "

"Wil listen - "

" - spilling out and about like confetti, and you, you are confetti! You're shredded pieces, everywhere and nowhere all at once, and just as the mangling begins it stops, replaced by the limbo trying to put you, no, force you back together again. It's the same sensation, but in reverse, almost a loop, a tunnel with no light at the end, and all you can do is scream - "

"WILBUR SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME!"

Something shatters

Wilbur falls silent.

Niki looks down. There is a puddle, slowly growing at her feet. She looks to her left. Her hand has punched through the aquarium. Blood trickles down her hand, some get over the glass. She doesn't pull her hand away.

"You never listen," she mumbles, but it seems so loud to her ears. "No one does. No one wants to. I talk and I talk and I talk and yet no response. Not even from the wind. I am a voice box stuck on rewind, repeating myself as life moves on without me."

Niki can hear her voice ring down the bakery, bouncing around with nowhere to settle. Until it does, in Niki's chest, rattling, crackling like a fuse has been lit, and perhaps it has, for her anger feels sizzling. "You used to always say how words were powerful. How they could stop wars, how they could build nations." She lets out a laugh. It burns her throat. "But what would I know?! You and everyone else never gave me a chance to use my voice! Always talking over me whatever chance you could. Even before Pogtopia you walked all over me! Even when I was screaming at top of my lungs you'd - "

She gasps. The glass presses deeper into her skin as her hand trembles. She does not feel it. "Oh primes, oh primes Wil, didn't you hear my screams? I came here screaming, Wil. I, I do know what it feels like for the void to take you. I still feel it, even now, why, why do I still feel it - "

Wilbur staggers to his feet, so quick he promptly falls. He catches himself halfway on Niki's wrist.

His hand scratches on the glass. He doesn't even flinch. Their blood mixes.

(They are one)

He doesn't even grip too tight, and yet it hurts. Stings. "You do understand," he grins. Wide, too wide for his face, that she almost expects his nose and eyes to sink into his skin to make more room. "You do, you do oh thank primes. I'm not alone in this. I've been alone for so long but now, now you're here and you understand! Oh, Niki, I'm so happy you're here."

"You're… happy, I'm here?" She mutters. "You're happy I'm dead?"

He nods frantically. "It's more than that Niki," he says. "DreamXD, whoever that man is, he's my hero for sending you here."

(Parallels between Wilbur and Dream and her and now Wilbur and Dream and DreamXD no no no she can't be them she can't she can't she won't she won't - )

"You don't mean it," she cries. "You don't mean that Wil. Say you don't mean it."

The grin, somehow, becomes wider. She realizes then his eyes don't have to disappear. They're already gone. Replaced by a black hole, too dark in the corners and its gravitational pull making it hard to look away even though she knows staring at it too long will get her sucked into an endless void.

He leans in close like he's sharing a secret. "I only wish he had sent you here sooner."

(Wilbur's life, Niki is realizing, is like a house of mirrors too. Except Wilbur has smashed every mirror. No, actually, not true. Niki sees, if she squints, that Wilbur has abandoned the sledgehammer and is observing a still intact mirror. He didn't keep the mirror depicting a little boy sitting on the steps of a home, their home, trying to play a song and failing because the guitar is too big for his body, but he refuses to buy a smaller one because "this is my Dad's guitar Niki! So, therefore, it's by default the best guitar in the world". Or the one of a father panting heavily on a couch, cursing his human legs while Niki is doubled over laughing because there is a baby fox is running on all fours around the house at 45 miles per hour who doesn't want to be put to bed. Nor the one of a leader, handing out purpose and meaning in the form of a blue and white uniform with a soft smile. No, it's the one of a man who's just pressed a button. Who long before L'manburg's destruction, always felt like he was breathing in smoke, but now kept warm by the ash and dust of his nation flying up to the red sky, it feels - for the first time in a long time - easier to breathe. Niki can't believe he didn't destroy it. He's… preserving it. Why is he preserving this version of himself of all things?)

foolish girl with dreams for a better nation, better server, better future, too much better somethings, you've ruined reality for no one but yourself. think for once about what is and not what was or could have been. he is different. changed for the worse. he's preserving it because he doesn't care about you. can't you see how happy he is over your death? how there's light in his eyes for the first time over yours being snuffed out? how he shows no sympathy in your entrapment here, forever away from Techno, Phil, and Ranboo because it benefits him. so give in and fight fight fight fight

She sees red.

Her fist collides with Wilbur's nose.

She doesn't even wait to hear the crack before she's already reeling back her arm for the next hit.

This time she aims for the jaw. She feels something split. It could be Wilbur's lip or bone. Maybe her mind. She doesn't know and she doesn't care.

What she does know is how familiar this is, having something break under her knuckles. It's easy, familiar even, throwing punch after punch, like some sort of autopilot response. Perhaps it is, for every punch is instinctive, out of body almost. No longer is there a before in the blows, only an after.

Except, that's not true. Not entirely. Because Niki is realizing why there is no before. Because before each blow there is always a struggle from your opponent. Flailing limbs trying to make contact with something, choked wheezes, an attempt to curl into a ball, and, sometimes, begging.

Wilbur does none of that. He's silent the whole time.

It's almost like he takes it willingly.

clever girl with hands too bruised, too scarred, too violent to ever be held so gently. a finger trained to pull the trigger is not meant to bear a promise ring. who's fault do you think that is? you've held back for so long, don't stop now. so give in and get revenge revenge revenge revenge

A swing at his eye. A swift kick to the ribs. A fistful of his hair so tight she could yank his scalp off if she twisted her wrist just so.

It's all a flurry of movements really, too fast for even her own eyes to catch. Half of the time she's lost on where the hits land, totally dependent on wherever the blood leaks the most and the bruises that weren't there a second ago to tell her. Eventually, the damage starts to blur, too much of his face has swelled up to spot any new marks and too many limbs bend at weird angles to differentiate what is and isn't broken, so she stops trying to guess.

Which is why she doesn't know which strike finally gets Wilbur to fall, all she knows is that he does. He doesn't even sway. One second he's on his feet and the next he's on his back.

It's kinda pathetic really, that this was her general.

For a second he's still, too still, and then he spits out a tooth. He licks his gums with a grimace, looking for the gap before finally speaking.

"I see Technoblade's been training you. Do you feel better now?"

clever girl who's seen her fair share of men with livewire tongues, spitting rogue sparks at your skin in the form of harsh words to quiet you down. do not be silenced once more. you let him speak before and it cost you a nation. this time silence him, and I will secure you a limbo without him. so give in and maim maim maim maim

She screams. She thinks she does. It's hard to tell over the deep reverberated banging of Wilbur's head against the stone floor.

The first slam simply causes blood to trickle down his forehead.

The second one caves in the front of his scalp.

The third one he's unrecognizable.

The fourth one there's nothing left to bash.

She keeps going anyway.

"Shut up," she pants between each crack and occasional splat. "Shut up shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP."

Wilbur tries to say something. All that comes out is a gurgle, wet and sharp and loud. So very loud. And it keeps going, stringing along and along and along longer than the large chunks of skin and brain on the pavement. It shouldn't be possible, his mouth, along with everything else, is practically gone. Nothing but a small pit inside a bigger pit.

Yet it continues, getting increasingly louder in pitch.

And then she gets it.

He's scared.

clever girl of never-ending war zones, jumping from one horror to the next. this is the last one. and I know that's been said before but you can trust me. just end it and you can finally rest. wouldn't that be nice? so give in and kill kill kill kill kill

She smiles. It hurts her face.

She picks his head up from the ground one last time. She's humming, like a lullaby. Maybe it is. She's putting the baby to sleep. She knows he can't die again, but wherever he goes after this, if the limbo keeps its promise, it can't be pretty.

"I said," she laughs. "Shut up."

She brings his head down.

She blinks.

Her empty hand meets black stone slabs.

"Niki?"

She looks up and immediately regrets it. Everything is too bright, scorching, a burning gaze on every inch of her skin, but what really hurts are her eyes. She thinks they're sizzling, like actually sizzling, because her sclera feels as if it's bubbling and her iris is definitely melting into her brain and there are so many spots dancing behind her eyelids.

And then the voice, soft and familiar, speak's again.

"Do you have your stuff?"

It takes a while, and a lot of blinking, but her eyes eventually readjust.

She gasps.

The first thing she processes isn't that George and DreamXD stand just a few feet away or that it was George speaking. No, it was how absurdly colorful, everything was.

Here there was life. Life. It was like she poked her head through a kaleidoscope, what with how the specks of a rainbow illuminated itself in the clear blue water of the fountain and the sight of shimmering white quartz glistening under the sunbeams that poured through the purple-tinted windows. No longer was everything dulled around the corners and drained at the center like anything in her dreadful, cramped space of a bakery she shared with -

Oh primes.

Her bakery.

This isn't her bakery. This is Church Prime.

"She's back," DreamXD exclaims. He turns to George, bouncing on his heels excitedly as if expecting some sort of reward, but George pays him no mind/ He's too busy looking at Niki, or, more so, through her.

"What happened?" He asks.

She opens her mouth, then slams it shut.

She's alive. Dear primes, she's alive and she's back and she should be happy, cheering, jumping up and down to feel the livelihood ache in her bones but…

She looks back down at the floor. The floor should be covered in blood. Wilbur's blood, and his bits of flesh and tissue and muscle and -

Oh primes. What has she done?

Or better yet, what didn't she do?

"George," she whimpers. "I don't know what's going on. I, I don't know what's going on here."

She hopes it was her imagination. It had to have been. Otherwise, she hosted Wilbur's head up by the splits of his hair, pushed down as hard as she could and -

She wouldn't. She couldn't, not anymore at least. She left that side of herself in a gate full of slaughtered chickens as Jack demanded they try and kill Tommy again. That side of her is as dead as those chickens.

Right?

She prays so, for this is a church after all, and that means prayers have to be answered here. They have to come true. They have to.

There's a smile in DreamXD's voice when he speaks again as if he knows how much this torments her. "I sent her to hell and then I brought her back."

No.

She sobs. She looks down at her hands. Their bear and yet they feel so heavy. As if the ghost of Wilbur's blood and gore is still there, a new thick-coated layer of skin.

She tortured him. Broke him brick by brick again and again and again even as he tried to beg. Her best friend, her general, her family, begging at her feet, and she kept going, would have kept going too, with an ear-splitting grin, like it was some sort of game.

And it had felt so good to finally get a checkmate.

Wilbur is not a demon. He's just seen too much in too little time. Too much pressure on too little shoulders. Too tired to be all there. It's not an excuse for all the pain he's caused, far from it, but it shows his actions didn't come from a place of malice, but rather a cry for help. Niki knows this, she gets it, and she'll say it time and time again. But all she could think about at that moment, before the final strike, was how happy Wilbur was about her death. He deserved a piece of her mind, but not like that. Never like that.

What is wrong with her?

No, no it wasn't her. It was that place, that voice. It was a parasite, burrowing deep within her brain and planting itself in the center, telling her what to do and what to say. Telling her to slaughter left and right. It was so loud, rattling around in her head and echoing like war drums. She couldn't just ignore it, it was too much. So, no, she is free of guilt, free of responsibility, hands all clean.

But she knows that at the end of the day the host still needs to be somewhat conscious for the parasite to thrive.

Oh primes. Is this what Techno deals with every day?

Then, she jumps to her feet.

Techno, Phil, and Ranboo.

It's coming back now, that memory of fury in her eyes, that fire in her voice as she told Wil she had people to go back to. How she was willing to claw her fingers down to bone to make an exit. But that voice, that stupid stupid voice, it told her she could rest, could get revenge, and against her better judgment she listened. It caught her at a moment of weakness, Wilbur's words of memory lane, of Phil, of everything that came before and after his death, she was at a low point. And like a moth to a flame, she was there one moment and gone the next. Back to the old her.

She thought she had left that version of herself behind when she joined the Syndicate. She was so sure she was getting better with Techno, Phil, and Ranboo around.

But all it took was one voice to ruin all her progress.

Her chest constricts and her head feels heavy.

She needs to find them. She needs to tell them what she saw. She needs to tell Phil. She needs… she needs…

She just needs them.

"What did you see?" George says, snapping her out of her thoughts.

This time, her mouth has no problem moving. "George," she starts, voice trembling. "I have seen things. I... I... I have seen things. I don't know what's going on here but I don't know if I should - "

Niki gulps. It's getting so hard to breathe. She should feel thankful that she can breathe in the first place, but every inhale stings as her lungs try to remember to do a motion so foreign to her.

How long has she been down there?

She doesn't want to know.

She just wants to go home.

She walks away, backward, from the two, eyes fixated tightly on them and barely blinking. She remembers the last time she let her guard down around DreamXD. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry George. Good luck with him but I - "

She doesn't finish, because she's already out the door. She wants to run, but she's so sure her lungs would explode at the first push forward of her heel. So she walks.

And walks.

The world walks with her, with each rotation. As if they’re friends taking a stroll. As if it hadn’t cracked open and swallowed her whole, chewed up everything good in her and spat her out when she turned bitter. Returned her back to a world that didn’t change one bit while she was gone, despite her herself changing so much.

It’s like what happened to her didn’t happen at all.

And then she realizes a horrible thing.

Everyone on this server is going to see today as a normal day.

Is it bad that a part of Niki wishes something like the Green Festival could happen right now, so that they could all feel the monstrosity of today?

She stands still. Stationary, like this Earth wants her to be. She thinks she could do it, stay like this forever. She feels numb enough.

Somewhere above, a crow caws.

She burst into tears.

#dream smp #fanfic #fic #niki nihachu #wilbur soot #technoblade #philza #ranboo #the syndicate #the syndicate are found family because I said so #dsmp #niki #niki fic #niki nihachu fanfic #niki fanfic #dream smp fanfiction #dream smp fanfic #dsmp fanfic

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thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years

Text

Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish [TST 1/2]

The chapter title comes from the wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series – drop this meta and read them immediately.

No, no he [Moriarty] would never be that disappointing. He’s planned something, something long-term. Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge – no, better than that. Posthumous game.

This is what Sherlock says about Moriarty in the very first scene of TST, and on rewatch the application to Mofftiss is startling. Trust the writers – a short-term disappointment for a long-term excitement, if you will. The reference to the rooftop is a way of pointing out just how far back this has been planned – in other words, the seeming randomness of the series is not in fact random. But let’s see how that plays out in TST.

This episode opens, as so many have pointed out, with doctored footage, as though deliberately showing us how stories can be rewritten. However, we only get glimpses of the footage at the start of the episode – the extensive old footage is not security camera footage, but recap footage from s3, and specifically the end of HLV. The idea that there is something classified, hidden, that we don’t have the full story, is meant to be associated with the actual show Sherlock, not just the camera footage – it would have been very easy to give us most of the same footage in security camera style, but they deliberately reused shots from the show to make us doubt their own authenticity. So far, so good.

The first thing that I (and most of my friends) noticed about this scene, however, is that it’s not good. The writing is questionable, to say the least. The serious resolution to the problem of Magnussen’s murder is interrupted by Sherlock tweeting, brotherly bickering, hyperactive and possibly high Sherlock being played for comedy (complete with mock opera). And then, perhaps the worst lines of the show so far:

SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. Do you know why?

SMALLWOOD: Why?

SHERLOCK: Because I love it.

Like a lot of this show, think about those lines for more than a nanosecond and they really don’t make sense. You’ve got to think about them for a lot longer before they start to again. This, I think, is where BBC Sherlock’s self-parody really starts. TAB focuses on parodying, critiquing and rewriting historical adaptations, but it’s easy to see the merging of all of the undeniably Sherlock elements into one parodically awful scene. The quick quips that are supposed to be clever and that are so common in Moffat’s dialogue are seen in that moment of dialogue – but the quip isn’t clever anymore, it’s empty. The same catchphrase of ‘the game is on’ comes back, and the quintessential use of technology is referenced in Sherlock’s Twitter account, where again his #OhWhatABeautifulMorning is unfathomably glib. Our Sherlock is also better known than previous adaptations for his drug abuse, and this also gets referenced, but here it gets played for comedy, which is incongruous with the rest of the show – in fact, THoB, HLV and TAB all take it pretty seriously, so to see it played off as a joke is tonally questionable. In other words, here we have Sherlock caricatured as a programme, in one scene – and it’s horrible.

(We should also notice that the use of Twitter is important – it underlies a lot of the glib comedy in this episode, with Sherlock later Tweeting #221BringIt (which is so unbelievably queer?). In Sherlock, Moffat use Twitter rather than Tumblr to comment on fan reaction to Sherlock, probably because their older audience will have no idea what Tumblr is, but also because Twitter is much more mainstream in its appreciation. Twitter takes centre stage in TEH, with #SherlockLives and the scene with the support group. The joke there is about the sheer level of how-did-he-do-it mania that gripped the public – so when we see Twitter again, we should be thinking about an extratextual as well as a textual response to Sherlock, and how Sherlock’s behaviour on Twitter in this episode might caricature the way that he is seen from the outside.)

I don’t truly buy that (in this scene, at least) Mofftiss are critiquing their own show in a straightforward sense, because they have dealt with technology better than this (words on screen, technology as useful within mysteries), drugs better than this (John’s, Mycroft’s and Molly’s reactions to Sherlock’s behaviour as well as Sherlock’s own difficulties) and clever quips far better (pick any episode). But in deconstructing this show to its instantly recognisable elements, and making them worse to hyperbolise the point, that scene strips the show of its heart. Interestingly, it’s also stripped of John, who will be the metaphorical heart of Sherlock through the EMP, but is also the part of the show that is missing when it is caricatured as the Benedict-Cumberbatch-being-clever show. This is also a critique of most people’s perception of Sherlock Holmes as a character through history in the sense of the reductive cleverness – Mofftiss are showing us that this is completely empty.

What does this mean for Sherlock himself, bearing in mind that this is taking place in his Mind Palace? The answer is pretty grim – remember that Sherlock is metatextually grappling with his own identity at this point; he needs to discover the man he is, rather than is portrayed as, in order to get out of this alive. In a psychological sense, then, the opening of TST sees Sherlock deconstruct himself as seen from the outside, and as his psyche has traditionally perceived himself, and realise that that version of himself is hollow. This scene, then, is a rejection of the Sherlock of the public eye, as well as Sherlock’s own eyes.

There is a non-explanation for how the Secret Service doctored the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen, the response simply being that they have the tech. If the answer is going to be that vague, there is little reason to bring up the question – except to raise it in the viewers’ minds. Making the audience question their belief in the s4 universe is something that happens very frequently, and this is the start of it. A later chapter goes into the parallels that Sherlock and Doctor Who have, but there’s an important bit from Last Christmas (DW Christmas Special 2014) that is relevant here – the main characters, all dreaming, whenever they are asked any questions that can’t be explained in the dream universe, simply reply ‘it’s a long story’. This is a ‘long story’ moment – where no explanation is given, so questions about reality are raised and unanswered.

Another similar moment comes when Sherlock says he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next – how? And, more to the point, it becomes hugely obvious that he doesn’t. Yet, for the first time in history, he feels happy to sit back and wait on Moriarty, because he knows that what will come will come. This insistence that the future will take its course as it needs to might draw our minds ahead to the frankly ridiculous reliance on predictions that we see in TLD – however, it should also draw our minds across to Doctor Who, and to Amy’s Choice, a series five episode I’m going to delve deeper into later, but where because it’s a dream, the Doctor is able to predict every word the monsters say.

Notice that ‘glad to be alive’ is followed by Vivian saying her name – we’ll come back to this later.

Cue opening credits!

Before going anywhere else with TST, required reading is this meta by LSiT (X). I can’t make these points better than she has, nor can I take credit for them. I’m particularly invested in her description of the aquarium and the Samarra story, as well as the client cases that appear and aren’t updated on John’s blog. Our reading will diverge later on – I think this series is a lot more metaphorical than it is hypothesis-testing, although the latter is a notable feature of ACD canon (see the original THotB) that definitely does happen here as well. I’m going to leave the Samarra story, the aquarium and the cases for LSiT to explain, however, and move on.

When we move into 221B, the fuckiness is instantly apparent from the mirror. You can go here (X) to navigate the whole inside of 221B, and I suggest you do; it’s a fantastic resource. The mirror showing the green wall is simply wrong – the angle that this is shot from suggests that we should see the black and white wallpaper, complete with skull etc. Instead, we see the green wall – and the door. We can tell this is wrong because in the ‘wrong thumb’ case about thirty seconds later, the right wallpaper is reflected in the mirror. Another note of fuckiness that we should spot is that Sherlock seems to be taking his cases from letters, in the mail he has knifed into the mantelpiece – this show has been really keen on emphasising that he uses email for the last three series, so the implication that people are sending him letters is even odder than it would be in a modern show anyway.

(Everybody in the world has commented on the ‘it’s never twins’ line – but to reiterate its importance. Firstly, it’s almost identical to the line in TAB, just with ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’. TAB repeats lots of things though, because it’s a dream – well yes, but dreams can’t tell the future. So material from TAB being recycled doesn’t point to TAB being a dream, it points to TST being a continuation of the dream in TAB. The fact that they saw fit to reiterate this line in a series about secret siblings also puts paid to the theory that s4 was plotted in a rush and not in line with previous series – there is a theme here, and they’re pushing it.)

And so we move to Sherlock relentlessly texting through the birth, through the christening – horrible, ooc behaviour for him if we think back to how emotional he was at the wedding. Importantly, this behaviour is all tied up with his obsessive Tweeting, which in turn links in to how the outside world (i.e. us) perceive Sherlock – is this the Sherlock that people want to see on screen? Doesn’t he feel wrong? Sure, there’s an element of self-critique in there from Mofftiss, but the incorporation of the phone obsession leaves the blame squarely with the audience. In case we couldn’t already feel that Sherlock’s character is way off, we have his Siri loudly say that she can’t understand him.

We remember from TAB that Sherlock sees himself as cleverer through John’s eyes, and the reasonably sympathetic portrayal we get in TAB we can probably put down to this attempt at understanding himself from the outside. The water in TST is showing us that we’re going in, and the sad thing is that this is almost definitely how Sherlock has come to perceive himself, but just like Siri he doesn’t truly recognise it. It’s also worth noting here the emphasis placed on God in godfather and later the deliberate mentions of Christianity at the Christening – there is also a tuning out of a culture he can’t really align himself with here, which is more important when we think about the fact that this character has been around since the 19th century.

Water tells us we’re sinking deep into Sherlock’s mind, as discussed in a previous chapter. Water imagery is going to be hugely prevalent in TST, but I want to talk quickly about the subtle hints at water even when we’re not in a giant fuck-off aquarium. Take a look at the rattle scene (which always sparks joy). When we get a side angle that shows both Sherlock and Rosie, there’s a black chest of some description behind Rosie – the top is glowing slightly blue, for reasons I can’t fathom. Then we’re going to cut to a shot of Rosie – despite seeing only a second before that there is nothing on her head, there is a glow of blue on it that looks almost like a skullcap. Cut back to Sherlock getting a rattle in the face, and the mirror is glowing the same blue colour behind him. This is all fucky, and it’s a fuckiness which is aesthetically tied to the waters of Sherlock’s mind perfectly. It suggests that Rosie isn’t real, but more important is the mirror. Earlier on I pointed out how the mirror was showing the wrong reflection; here, the mirror is glowing blue, linking it thematically to Sherlock’s subconsciousness. Visually, we’re being hinted at the process of self-reflection that’s going on in Sherlock’s brain – and the opening of TST is showing him getting it terribly wrong. Note that when the mirror jolted right earlier, Sherlock was proclaiming that it had been the wrong thumb – god knows what thumbs have to do with this, but there’s a question of shifting perception on his person, like he’s trying to locate himself.

The glowing blue light sticks around, and seems particularly associated with Rosie, like she’s the focus of much of Sherlock’s thought at the moment. LSiT’s meta linked above has already picked up on the many dangers in Rosie’s cradle decoration, from the Moriarty linked images to the killer whale mobile. Due purely to a lucky pause, I caught the killer whale’s eyes glowing blue, just like the blue from the rattle scene. He’s thinking about her in terms of the key villains of the show as well as the villains in his mind.

I’m not going to comment on the bus scene because I have a chapter dedicated to Eurus moments before TFP – jumping straight ahead.

We then find our first Thatcher case – others have been pretty quick to point out the significance of the blue power ranger in gay tv history (X), and infer that Charlie is queer coded – much like David Yost, who played the blue power ranger, he is not able to come out without being treated badly. This is undoubtedly important, as is the fact that this is the second time in 12 minutes of this show that they’ve shown us how easily film footage can be faked, and someone can be lied to – you don’t need to have Mycroft Holmes levels of clearance, just a Zoom background. This is important too. But the other thing I want to focus on is that he says he’s in Tibet.

Sherlock comes pretty high on my list of top TV shows, but currently Twin Peaks holds the top spot – it’s an unashamedly cryptic show all about solving mysteries through dreams, so no wonder I like it. It’s made by David Lynch, and in the TAB chapter I talk about how TAB takes a lot of structural inspiration from his most famous film, Mulholland Drive, which has similar themes. I don’t think this is anything particularly interesting beyond an attempt to reference the defining work in the field of it-was-all-a-dream film and tv – David Lynch and Mofftiss and Victor Fleming are the only people I can think of who can actually make that plot look good. But this Tibet moment, particularly as we’re going to be hit by another reference to Tibet later, underlining its importance, I think is a reference to this scene (X) where the protagonist, Cooper, outlines a dream in which the Dalai Lama spoke to him and gave him the power to use magic to solve mysteries. Fans of Twin Peaks will know that the magic doesn’t last long – it’s pretty much an introductory way in, and most of the rest of his important deductions will all be made in dreams. This is one of the most famous scenes in the whole programme, because it introduced the world to the weirdness of what had been set up as a straightforward cop show, and despite Cooper rarely (possibly never?) mentioning Tibet again, it’s still highly quoted and recognisable. As a watershed moment in bringing dream worlds into normal detective dramas (something highly frowned upon according to any theory of storytelling!) this is a gamechanging moment, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Sherlock’s several references to Tibet as a link back to this moment.

We then cut back to Sherlock thinking whilst Lestrade tells him more about the case – what is bizarre here, is that John and Lestrade are clearly visible through what can only be described as a rearview mirror attached to the side of Sherlock’s head. If anyone can tell me what that is, I would love to know. I’m going to assume it’s a fucky mirror, because it’s in keeping with the other fucky mirrors so far. The visibility of John and Lestrade in the mirror is even more odd because it doesn’t match the colour palette of 221B at all. Sherlock is lit largely in warm, brown colours, as is Charlie’s father in the previous scene we’re transitioning from – Lestrade and John are lit in dark blue, to the point where they’re barely visible. This looks like a rearview mirror, but not like the one on the power ranger car – it’s a much older car, out of a different time, like so much in this dream world. The only colour palette they seem to match is the one from the s4 promotion photos – you know, when Baker Street is completely underwater.

Drowning in the Mind Palace. Here we are, back where we started. Sherlock might be thinking about the case of Charlie, but he’s actually reflecting on that world we saw in the promo photos, where he’s struggling to stay alive in his brain. Notice that this isn’t just a split shot, it’s specifically a mirror, so we’re meant to focus on this episode as an act of reflection. There are great parallels between Sherlock and the Charlie case which you can find here (X) – essentially, Charlie and Carl Powers from TGG are mirrors for one another both in their names and in the manner they die (a fit in a tight place, basically). Carl Powers is already a mirror for Sherlock – obsessively targeted by Jim for being the best at what he does. Charlie mirrors Sherlock through their shared trip to Tibet (dreamscape alert) and, we think, through the metatextual link of the blue power ranger. In case you hadn’t spotted it, Powers links back to that too – probably coincidence, but a nice one nevertheless. Carl Powers’s death is by drowning, which we shouldn’t ignore in an episode as loaded with ideas about drowning in the mind palace. The fact that the mirror reflects drowning Baker Street aesthetics should make us think that Charlie is asking us to reflect on Carl Powers’s death, but also on Sherlock’s own – already fatally injured (by a fit or by Mary), he is going to die smothered, unable to cry for help (in a swimming pool/carseat costume (?!)/mind palace). The idea that none of these people could cry for help is particularly poignant because so much of series 4 is about Sherlock being unable to voice his own identity, and as we’ll see once he’s able to do that, that may give him the impetus to escape his death. Think of ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’ back in HLV.

Now. Why is Sherlock so keen for Lestrade to take the credit? It’s another reason to bring up the fact that John’s blog is constantly updating – it’s dropped in a lot in this series as opposed to others – and to make us think about why nothing is happening in real life. But, given that this episode is about Sherlock trying to find who he is, is it a rejection of the persona that goes along with being Sherlock Holmes? Possibly, but he’s going to have to go to a lot more effort than that. John’s blog is the real problem here, making not just Sherlock but Lestrade out to be like they’re not. John’s blog is a stand in for the original stories, which were supposed to be written by John Watson, but TAB has already (drawing on TPLoSH) laid the groundwork for the idea that John’s blog/those stories really do not tell the whole story. So this is coming back with a vengeance here, even though for the first time Sherlock is properly moving against the persona in there, not just bitching about John’s writing style, which is a theme more common to Sherlock Holmes across the ages. John then says that it’s obvious, and when pressed just laughs and says that it’s normally what Sherlock says at this point – so again, when Sherlock stops filling the intense caricature of arrogance and bravado, John the storyteller steps in to put him back in line, even though that means pulling him back to being a much more unpleasant character.

A note here: most of the time in EMP theory, I think John represents Sherlock’s heart, and I try to refer to John as heart!John as much as possible when that’s the case. There are a few cases which are different, but most notable are when the blog comes up – then John becomes John the blogger, and our symbolism shifts over to the repressive features of the original stories and how that’s playing out in the modern world. Although a pain to analyse sometimes, I find it incredibly neat that the two of them are bound up in John as source of both love and pain, which fits our story beautifully.

John as blogger continues in the baby joke that he and Lestrade have going down the stairs – they continue with their caricature of Sherlock, but he doesn’t recognise himself in it. Or rather, there’s a moment when he seems to, but he can’t quite grasp onto it. This is typical of the way he recognises himself in the programme. It’s also worth noting that the image of John as a father is particularly tied into ACD, as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so tying together blogger and father in this scene cements our theme.

Going into the Welsborough house, we get a slip of the tongue from Sherlock which is fantastic. He tells them that he is really sorry about their daughter, which at an earlier point in the show might just be a classic Sherlock slip-up. But mixing up genders is actually something which happens quite a lot in this show, and it’s something drawn attention to as significant in TAB.

Sherlock asks John “How did he survive?” of Emelia Ricoletti, when of course he’s thinking about Moriarty, and John corrects him quickly, much like here. A coincidental callback? Maybe not. What’s the first mistake that Sherlock ever makes? Thinking that Harry Watson is a man. What’s the big trick they pull at the end of S4? Sherlock has a secret sister – and Eurus points out that her gender is the surprise at the end of TLD. Eurus is also an opposite-sex mirror for John and for Sherlock at various points and this allows Sherlock to approach their relations from a heterosexual standpoint and thus interrogate them – more on that later. So gender-swapping is a theme that runs through the show a lot. But the similarity to TAB in particular is important here, because in TAB that was our first obvious declaration that this wasn’t just a mirror to be analysed by the tumblr crowd, this was a mirror on the superficial level that had to be broken through. This callback to TAB is a callback to the mirrored dreamscape. Don’t believe me? Look at what happens next. The second Sherlock sees Thatcher the whole room not only goes underwater, but actually starts to shake – another throwback to recognising that Emelia was Moriarty, when the whole room shakes and the elephant in the room smashes. So, again, we’re being told that this isn’t about this case – it’s about something else, and that something is the elephant in the room. Just like the shaking smashes the elephant in the room, the shaking is what tells us about the smashed bust of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, whose laws on “promoting homosexuality” were infamous. Smashing the elephant in the room and Thatcher simultaneously between 2015, the 1980s and 1895 is hitting the history of British homophobia for the last hundred years summed up as quickly as possible, and tearing it down through Sherlock’s self-exploration. This is a good fucking show.

You’ll also notice that Sherlock is alone in the room, just for a second, when he has his Thatcher revelation – everybody else vanishes. Again, we’re seeing that the rest of the case is an illusion, providing just enough storytime to keep the audience believing in the dream, and possibly Sherlock too.

[There’s a fantastic framing of Sherlock here between two portraits, a man and a woman, seemingly ancestral – I would love to know more about these, because if I know Arwel they’re significant, and the way they hang over Sherlock is really metaphorically suggestive. If anyone has any info on that, it looks like a really good avenue to explore.]

Blue. Blue is the colour of Sherlock’s mind palace, but this scene ties it firmly to the Conservative party. The dark blue of Sherlock’s scarf nearly matches Welsborough’s jumper, which is in fact a better match for the mind palace aesthetic generally. Thatcher unsurprisingly wears blue as well. If blue is the water that Sherlock is drowning in, how interesting that it’s being tied to the most homophobic prime minister of the last 50 years. There was absolutely no need to make this guy a cabinet minister, dress him in blue, even make Thatcher replace Napoleon – I would actually argue that Churchill is a figure who matches Napoleon’s distance and stature much better for our time. Thatcher is an odd choice, and therefore significant. To tie this to the mind palace further, we then get a shot of Sherlock reflected in the picture of Thatcher as he analyses it – a reflection of him reflecting. In case we forgot what this was actually about.

Sherlock not knowing who Thatcher is – perfectly feasible and actually quite important, although something that I’m not going to resolve until my meta on TFP, because that’s where it comes together for me. But Sherlock playing for time with his further jokes about being oblivious (‘female?’) – that, again, is Sherlock actively playing a caricature of himself. He’s not doing it for fun – he’s doing it to cover up his concern about the smashed elephant in the room Thatcher bust.

The weird thing about the reveal of how Charlie died is that we see what should have happened, if everything had gone right, before we see how he died. I can’t recall this happening in another episode of Sherlock, although I could be wrong. It’s marked by the really noticeable scene transition of crackling television static, as though the signal is cutting out. This is possibly a bit of a reach, but there’s one obvious place where we’ve seen a lot of static before.

Moriarty coming back isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen in the books. We’re telling the wrong story here. (Bear in mind, from previous chapters, that Jim represents Sherlock’s fear that John’s life is in danger.) Just like Jim returning isn’t the right story, but it’s the one that happened, Charlie’s story isn’t the right story but it’s the one that happened – and indeed, Sherlock needing to save John from a dangerous marriage + suicide is not what is supposed to happen – John and Mary are supposed to be married for good (until she dies) in canon. A whole load of false endings – new stories superseding old ones. Mofftiss has an idea that there’s a new story that’s going to be told, and our strongest canon divergence is the end of s3, when we get into the EMP – and from thereon in to TAB it’s off the deep end, and the same is seen here. That TV static is talking about a new medium for a new age and their refusal to deal with established canon norms. Just in case we didn’t remember, outside in the porch we even get a visual reminder of the TV static with a second’s flashback to ‘Miss Me?’ Bad news is, that means Sherlock Holmes rejecting the norms he’s been given (feasibly represented by the hyperbolic nuclear family here) and instead… dying in his mind palace. Less fun. Carl Powers died too. Sherlock still hasn’t got there quite yet – let’s hope he doesn’t.

The next scene is, I think, very important. We come across Mycroft in a dark room with a tiny bit of light – this is really odd, as the obvious place to put Mycroft would be the Diogenes Club. Yet, although clearly more modern, this reminds me most of all of the room we meet Mycroft in in TAB.

The colour palette is the same as the top photo, and the similar chunks of light falling through suggest that we’re in the same place. I’ve brought in a photo from the aeroplane in TAB to show how the light is designed to mirror that of the Diogenes Club in TAB as well – there is a unity in all these Mycroft’s that we shouldn’t miss. Here I can’t imagine I’m the first one to notice that the light in Mycroft’s office is designed to look like a chessboard, which was an important motif in the promotional pictures for s4. Chess is associated with Sherlock’s brain through Mycroft, most notably in THE where it is contrasted with Operation which represents their emotional (in)capacities. So here we are – Mycroft is the brain, if we didn’t already know, and Sherlock has gone to speak to his brain alone much like he did in TAB. Mycroft has already been associated with the queen a lot; they meet in Buckingham Palace in ASiB, where there is a jibe about Mycroft being the queen of England – we can see here in Sherlock’s head that the brain’s power is vastly reduced by comparing these two episodes. The first time we see Mycroft in connection to the Queen we go to the most famous building in the UK. The second time, Sherlock says he’s going to the Mall, which is the street that Buckingham Palace is on, so we are led to expect a reprisal – and instead come here. There is still a picture of the queen on the wall, but apart from that we are in the darkest room of the show so far, whose grating makes it look under siege. Mycroft’s power in Sherlock’s head is vastly reduced, and indeed the brain’s influence (represented by the queen) over Sherlock’s character is waning as Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his emotional identity.

[Crack/tenuous theory: when Sherlock asks John if he is the king of England in s3, in the drunk knee grope scene, this shows that his brain’s control over his emotions have slipped; references to the queen in relation to Mycroft before have shown that Sherlock does know about the royal family, so this has to metaphorically refer to his own psyche and letting go of his brain’s anti-emotion side. Like I say, crack. But I believe it.]

Again, if we weren’t sure about Mycroft representing the brain without the heart, his rejection of the baby photos is sending out a clear message of juxtaposition with John, who represents the heart. We also shouldn’t fail to notice the water coming over Sherlock’s face again as he struggles to recognise what is important about this. This comes as he is trying to recognise what is important about the Thatchers case. I’m going to try to lay it out as best I can here.

We’ve been through what Thatcher represents to queer people of Sherlock’s age, so there’s already a strong metaphor for homophobia being smashed there. However, let’s look at the AGRA memory stick being uncovered. We know (X) that Sherlock deduced his feelings for John as he was marrying Mary, and so having the smashing of the Thatcher bust at the AGRA memory stick reveal is pretty devastating metaphorically. Why does Sherlock constantly think Moriarty is involved? Well, HLV tells us that the Jim in Sherlock’s mind is his darkest fear – and he’s originally tied up in Sherlock’s mind when he’s first shot, but he pretty quickly gets loose. That darkest fear is exactly what Jim says in that episode: ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’. The reason we bring Jim in to represent this is part of deconstructing the myth of Sherlock Holmes. The whole concept of an arch enemy is made fun of in the show, and rightly so; Moriarty himself tells the Sir Boastalot story which lines Sherlock up with that ridiculous heroic tradition that he’s set himself into, which isn’t what Sherlock Holmes is really about at all. Holmes has never really been particularly invested in individual criminals (although there are exceptions – Irene Adler, for example) – the time he gets most het up is The Three Garridebs, as we all know, when he thinks Watson is dying. It’s his greatest fear, and it’s also what Jim threatens, so Jim has become a proxy for that – and to understand that Sherlock Holmes is not the great Sherlock Holmes of the last hundred years, we have to get under and beyond Jim. Hence what we’re about to see. It’s not Jim, it’s Mary – and this is in very real terms, because Mary’s assassination attempt on Sherlock has left John in danger – but Sherlock won’t put the pieces together until the end of this episode, as we will see.

We should also pause over Mycroft asking Sherlock whether he’s having a premonition – Mycroft is laughing at the concept of Sherlock being able to envisage the future here, which we should remember when it comes to the frankly ludicrous plot of the next episode. Much like the much commented upon “it’s not like it is in the movies” which is there to undermine TST, this line is here to undermine TLD and point out the fact that it can’t possibly be real.

Sherlock describes predestination as like a spider’s web and like mathematics – both of these are to do with Moriarty. In the original stories, Moriarty is a mathematician, and one of the most famous lines from both the stories and the show describes Moriarty as a spider. This predestined future is one that Sherlock doesn’t like – Mycroft points out that predestination ends in death, which is what Sherlock is trying to avoid in this episode, and although Moriarty is never mentioned explicitly, his inflection here suggests that Sherlock is thinking about John subconsciously, without even understanding it. The Samarra discussion brings us back to the question of Sherlock’s death, and links it in with the deep waters of the mind he’s currently drowning in – the pirate imagery becomes really important here, because a pirate is someone who stays alive on the high seas and fights against them. The merchant of Samarra becoming a pirate is not merely a joke about a little boy, it’s a point about fighting for survival – and how will Sherlock later fight for survival? We’ll see him battle Eurus (his trauma, more on that later) head on, literally describing himself as a pirate. Fantastic stuff.

The scene transition where all of the glass breaks and then we cut to a background of what looks like blue water is a motif that runs through this entire episode – we’re smashing down walls in Sherlock’s mind, most particularly the Thatcher wall of 1980s homophobia, and indeed the first picture we see is that of the smashed bust.

Moving on – before we go back to Baker Street, there’s a shot of the outside – that features a mirror, reflecting back on 221B in a distorted, twisted way. Another mirror that is wrong – we’re reflecting in an alternate reality. These images keep popping up. It’s echoed in Sherlock’s deduction a few seconds later – by the side of his chair is what looks like either a car mirror or a magnifying glass, possibly the one from the Charlie scene, distorting his arm. It’s placed to look like a magnifying glass, whether it is or not, which ties in with the classic image of Holmes – but that image is distorted, remember.

Others have pointed out that when Sherlock falsely deduces that the client’s wife is a spy working for Moriarty, he should really be talking to John – and, in fact, this is another proof that this isn’t really, because otherwise this is pretty touchy stuff to be making light of in front of John. Instead, let’s remember this is Sherlock’s Mind Palace – John isn’t John here. What Sherlock does a lot in s4 – and nowhere more than the finale of TST – is displace a lot of his real world problems onto other people because he cannot handle the emotional impact of them, and that’s what he’s doing here. He’s trying to come to terms with the danger that Mary poses, but he can’t do it with John – hence why this scene has a John substitute, because that’s what the client is.

Note that the red balloon is over the Union Jack cushion, reminding us that this scene is about John in danger (see this post X). However, what’s important here is that Sherlock has got it wrong. He’s currently trying to work out why what has just happened with Mary poses so much danger, and he’s imagining Mary as the worst threat he possibly could – in a word, this Mary is a supervillain. But Mary is not a supervillain; he’s got this all wrong, and even as he says it, it’s completely ridiculous. This is not the danger Mary poses – and so out the door the client goes, and we’re back to square one, trying to work out exactly why John is in so much danger.

I’m not going to pause over the next moment of importance for too long because many have covered it – let’s just notice that Sherlock’s face is overlaid with a smashed Thatcher bust, and remind ourselves that these are the walls of homophobia in Sherlock’s brain. Also note that this matches the half-face overlay of the water in the previous scene, linking the two (although the scene with Ajay later will cement that anyway).

Next up: Craig and his dog. Nothing can be said about dogs that hasn’t be said in these wonderful metas by @sagestreet (X). Nevertheless, let’s note that this dog is coloured the same as Redbeard, and Mary (a Sherlock mirror in this episode, and in this scene – their clothing matches, and their joining of skillsets to exclude John is the link that has always united them as mirrors) compares John to the dog. We know from the metas linked above that dogs are linked to queerness in the show, but let’s remember that John here is not John – John represents Sherlock’s own heart. It’s going to take longer than this for Sherlock to acknowledge John’s queerness. I don’t think Toby the dog is that important – instead, this is foreshadowing for the more significant dog to come in TFP. The dog also allows for another bit of self-parody in the show – the close-up on the dog running through chemical symbols and the map link directly back to the chase scene in ASiP, but this time everything is different. We have no clue really what Toby is chasing or what the crime that has been committed is – they’re not even running, they’re walking! All we have are cool, if ridiculous, graphics – and, brought down to style without substance, it’s nothing but comic parody. This is important because the opening of TST is so parodic – we’re back to questioning whether the things that people associate with Sherlock and think they like about Sherlock are the right things. The fact that Toby reaches a dead end here is important – he’s a weird loose end to have hanging through the episode. When things in Sherlock normally tie together so nicely, this is a section which has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot other than to look a bit silly. But fundamentally, we’re talking about the superfluity of style and image here; we’ve been talking about it for a long time in relation to previous adaptations, but TST brings it in in relation to Sherlock itself.

Skipping past more bust breakages, the next scene is John and Mary in bed together – and the first thing we see is them, once again, in a mirror. There’s nothing wrong with this mirror (as far as I can tell) – everything seems to be in order! But it doesn’t break the theme of mirrors misreflecting, because this is the scene that introduces unreliable narration on a big level – this is the scene which deliberately excludes John’s texts to E. John and Eurus are gone into in another chapter so we’ll move on again.

Craig’s quote about people being weird for missing the olden days is, of course, crucial to this reading of Sherlock. It’s pretty on the nose for a show whose protagonist is idealised in the Victorian age – and sums up Mofftiss’s feelings towards the Vincent Starrett 221B poem that I elaborated on in the TAB chapter of this meta: essentially, that it always being 1895 is a very bad thing! Craig’s mockery of this nostalgia puts it into more comprehensible modern terms for us, but it also links Thatcher and 1895 again as pasts to be broken with. It’s also important that Craig says that Thatcher is like Napoleon now – although the titles of most episodes are taken from ACD stories, it’s rare that an explicit reference is made to the link between the titles (nobody mentions scarlet vs. pink in ASiP, for example). This is the first time that I can find that Sherlock shows self-awareness from within the narrative that there are extranarrative stories being played out. I’ve said before that I don’t think Thatcher and Napoleon are a good comparison; whether it is or not, Craig’s reference is actively pulling a metatextual part of Sherlock’s history into his story and forcing him to reckon with it. This is important, because he develops expectations of how this story is going to play out (black pearl of the Borgias) which are wrong – because they’re based on what he has learned to expect of himself as fictional character. We could only have such a reference within the Mind Palace.

For the sake of splitting this meta up to make it readable, I’m going to call time on this half of TST, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow at Jack Sandiford’s house. (Also I don’t know how much text tumblr allows and this is a long document.) Until then!

#emp #tst #tjlc #meta #bbc sherlock #my meta #mine #thewatsonbeekeepers #chapter six: so long and thanks for all the fish #tjlc is real #emp theory #the six thatchers #johnlock

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ichika27 · 3 years

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Mairimashita! Iruma-kun s2 ep20

Another light-hearted episode! We’re not yet in the next big arc, I guess.

Ameri’s dad came over to personally tell Iruma that the reporters have gotten restraining orders and can’t bother him for an interview about what happened at the park anymore. Iruma is relived to hear this as it meant he could go home now.

He asked about Ameri but her dad angrily replies that Ameri is busy studying.

lol She’s studying alright - studying on how to create the perfect date for her and Iruma!

This girl is using manga as reference material. Haha well, her powers involve imagination and will power after all.

Ameri was too nervous to actually ask out Iruma (even though Iruma had told her that they could go somewhere with just the two of them before). Iruma made the first move and messaged her about their day out himself.

She happily tells him of where they’d meet (but kept the location of the place they’re going to a secret) and also reminded him that this time, it’s just supposed to be the two of them (so no friends tagging along).

Ameri's dad was passing by and catches her picking out clothes she’d be wearing on her date. He immediately realized what it's about. Dad instincts right there! He’s totally not ready for his little girl to grow up.

The day of the trip is here! This is where they’d be spending their time: an aquarium + pool combo.

Ameri basically planned a pool episode with just the two of them. Also, Ameri, that line is supposed to be for Iruma! You got in there first.

Iruma is happy seeing her current appearance by the way hehe. He's a teenager after all, it can't be helped (he's not the only one who thought so cause other visitors were certainly mesmerized by her beauty).

Oh no! How could this go to lewd territory so quickly! lol jk. Her plan involves this as a first step (after the surprise date setting) and her main goal is to get bridal carried... and maybe even get a kiss if she’s lucky. She's having trouble easily getting a hold of Iruma's hand though because if you haven't noticed yet, they have this big height difference and his hand isn't easy to reach. With that, she hasn't given up but says she'll try harder.

She’s just too tall and he’s too short lol.

This is also part of her plan cause in the manga, the couple did this with the guy holding on to the girl while they go on the waterslide. Actually, since she's the one pursuing and she's the taller one, she had been taking the guys role in her plans. Their supposed moment in the slide doesn't last long though since the ride was too fast and so it was over quickly.

They got their hearts racing but because it was some kind of thrill ride.

Next is playing in the water. She was nervous about this but Iruma initiated by splashing her with water. It was supposed to be fun but she's too strong and ended up splashing a little too much water on Iruma.

I mean, I knew it was gonna happen but I didn’t expect how powerful the attack would be. That was a tsunami she hit Iruma with and not a splash of water.

Beach volleyball time! *Fly High by Burnout Syndromes plays in the background*

Ameri tries holding her strength back this time around but she's just too powerful. Fortunately (or not), this doesn't affect Iruma and he decides that he'd play seriously. It ended up not being for purely for fun anymore haha. On the other hand, I’m glad to see Iruma being competitive and not panicking anymore about demon-related stuff.

The next part is eating a parfait like a couple!

The food in this world is weird though. I kinda saw this coming after seeing all of the food in the show so far but really... what the heck is that? It’s still alive lol.

The parfait attacked them and ended up feeding Iruma itself... which is weird. This was the last of her plans and now she's kinda unhappy none of them went as well as she hoped.

Souvenir shopping next!

Iruma picks out stuff to get for his friends and family back home. Above is a picture of Ameri feeling jealous when Iruma was picking something out for Clara. Don’t worry Ameri, you’re way ahead of Clara in the race.

Aww Iruma was worried that Ameri is working too hard in the Student Council and today he wanted to help her relax and have fun for once. He noticed that Ameri doesn't seem to be having a lot of fun though.

Iruma makes Ameri realize that the time they had was fun but Ameri isn't satisfied. She had fun but it's not enough. After all, she has bigger goals!

She has one more thing up her sleeve - watching a divination show. The creature (that looks like some kind of water dragon thing) has the ability to find a good couple with great affinity. She’s hoping that she and Iruma would be picked as a good couple cause that’s romantic, right?

Of course, this is a comedy shounen anime. You shouldn’t expect things to go so well.

Mako-chan is hungry and immediately grabs onto Iruma. She's hungry from her diet and quickly found the only member of the audience she can eat - the human. Iruma realized that the perfume he uses to hide his human scent might have been washed off by the water and so Mako-chan was able to single him out (surprisingly, other demons hadn’t).

Ameri saves Iruma from being eaten by delivering a powerful kick on poor Mako-chan. And with that, she got to be part of a bridal carry... just in reverse like everything else lol.

The staff apologized to Iruma and Ameri and gave them year round passes as compensation.

Aww... Mako-chan is sorry about what she did, too and Iruma tells them it's okay and that he's not mad. Ameri is sad though and Iruma also noticed she's injured.

He asked if she could walk and she answers "If I say I can't... will you carry me?" Oooh! Ameri is really going for it! She tried taking her words back but Iruma tells her that it’s okay, he’ll carry her.

And after that he used his powers to adjust her weight and then he actually did it! While carrying her, Iruma tells Ameri that he had a lot of fun the entire day. Honestly, I thought Iruma was gonna change his own looks to be like, big and hunky to carry her but he just changed her weight. Surprising but not bad.

Despite all the setbacks, this turned out to be a successful date after all!

Okay... so I guess this means Ameri really is the endgame? She’s the one Iruma will end up with some day? Because this entire season had been hinting at it. There were scenes and episodes dedicated to the romance blossoming between them (at least, mostly on Ameri’s side). And now there’s a date episode. Unless the author gives focus and development around Iruma the other characters who like him, then this is gonna be the only ship that would make sense. This is the one with on-going development that story-wise, it should get a pay-off or it’d feel like everything set up was a waste.

Honestly, I’m not a Iruma/Ameri shipper. I did mention before that I ship Iruma with either Azz or Clara so shipping moments between Iruma and Ameri doesn’t really do much for me. I do think it’s cute and this show gets wholesome when it has to be that it’s impossible to hate even parts of the story I’m not really into. I did enjoy this episode a lot cause it was cute and I am happy Ameri’s hard work paid off.

I guess I’m just disappointed? I mean in a way, why bother giving Iruma alternative love interests (a harem, actually since there’s more than one girl and so it’s not just a love triangle) if they’re all gonna be shot down this quickly.

On the other hand, I feel kinda bad for Ameri’s dad cause he can’t stop this development lol. His little girl is growing up! He should at least be happy that she fell in love with probably the nicest guy in the demon world (and he’s also the future demon king hehe). I was actually expecting him to follow them in their date or something but I guess he does respect his daughter’s privacy which is nice. Would’ve been funny to see his reaction though.

Next episode is about Grandpa Sullivan! Hmm... another relaxing episode again, I’m guessing?

Thanks for reading! I’m excited for the next episode.

#Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma-kun #sana_post

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finished-ink · 4 years

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The Last of Us Part II RANT

I’m normally a “moblie user only” person myself, but Part II took the fattest, nastiest shit on me I’ve ever had the displeasure and feeling through game, that I had to hop on my computer and type this. But before I get in to all the bad, let me start off with the little good in the game.

PROS: The Sound Design, the Animation and Graphics, and the Voice Work

Sound Design: The songs and music in this game were extremely well done. It had me moved to tears to sitting on the edge of my seat anxious about what was going to happen next.

Animation and Graphics: The animation truly seemed like a TON of time, energy, and love went into designing the characters and their surroundings.The graphics were just as awesome and truly made you feel immersed in the world of tlou.

Voice Work: Great work done my all voice actors involved. They, along with the graphics, made the characters really come to life.

OK, now done with the good, time for the fucking bullshit. I am mostly going to focus an the story and the characters. Because holy fuck, I know GOT season 8 was like a milestone in bad storytelling, but the goal wasn’t to do worse than that shitty ass season.

The Shitty Story: I think the first thing that set this story up to be the fuck up that it is, was this lesson of “Violence isn’t the answer”. I think if the lesson was, “Your actions and choices have consequences” would have been a better theme to go along with this story. So, lets begin with Joel’s death.

I was honestly not surprised at all when I got to Abby at the beginning and someone was there to kill Joel. To think he would be able to evade the effects of what he did to the Fireflies would have been a bit ridiculous. I was even semi-fine with the torture of Joel, because I could see how that decision would force the player to really want to get back at Abby. Was it needed? Absolutely not because just killing Joel would of accomplished this. But if the torture of Joel was something Naught Dog really wanted to include then OK fine. We then come to the next extremely shitty part in the story, killing members of WLF and the game making the player feel guilty for it.

Now I know this is kinda a game play issue, but the issue being solved with a simple change in the game play would effect the story. And that is allowing the players to choose what the fuck they want to do. Do you want to just going in and slaughter everybody while their friends scream about their friends dying. That’s completely your choice. Do you want to quietly and tactically knock them out and leave them to live? Let that also be a choice. The could of even done it to where the more people you kill the more ammo and weapons you could collect, but it’ll be harder to travel because WLF will be sending out more brutes and harder enemies in an attempt to stop you. On the flip side, the more people you knock out, the less ammo and weapons you have, but the less WLFs there are to try and hunt you down because you’re not a bigger threat than the Scars. Then they could use dialogue said by the npcs to give the player an idea of how much of a threat they are to WLF. In a game where its trying to teach this lesson of “Violence isn’t the answer”, it sure forces you to resort to violence at every opportunity. You can even keep the intended message because in the game, violence isn’t always truly the answer. Bouncing off of this is my next change to the story, having the players make the choice about whether or not they want to kill Nora, Mel, and Owen.

Let’s get one thing straight, Ellie beating the shit out of Nora was not needed. An alternative to getting the info about where Abby was staying at could of been done through a series of little puzzle quests to give Ellie clues on where Abby was. This would be longer, but would not of had the same effect on Ellie’s mental state as beating the fuck out of Nora did. However, they could of kept the original scene as it played out. You get the info fast and you don’t lose out on anything major. Maybe some ammo and some pills but not enough to where it feels like you’ve lost out. But the choice now falls on the players to decide what they should do. The same applies with Mel and Owen. When you arrive at the aquarium, the player can decide to shot Owen to get Mel to talk, kill Mel to get Owen to talk, or grab Mel to threaten Owen to talk. The two kill options would be semi-bad because what played out originally with Abby would happen. But if the player decided to threaten Mel, Owen would talk, Ellie would release Mel but still holding them at gun point, and leave. However this would happen after another choice I think should of been implemented in the game. The choice to travel with Jesse to go and find Tommy.

When this happened even I wanted Ellie to just go with Jesse. It seemed like a great point to give the players a chance to decide what they wanted Ellie to do. Here’s how I would of wanted it to go: The player can either make Ellie continue to the aquarium, and the story would follow along as normal, or the player makes Ellie go with Jesse to find Tommy and leave. They leave and find Tommy after his encounter with Abby. You could even make another choice here where Tommy wants to try and go back to hunt down Abby, or go back to Dina with Jesse after he argues that they need to leave. If you go back with Jesse, Tommy follows with you, upset she gets to live, but moves on. From this they return to the theater, grab Dina and travel back to Jackson. This can then branch off to the future we see with Ellie and Dina, but there’s a scene where they travel to Jackson with J.J to see Jesse and his family. While there, Tommy approaches Ellie and says that he found Abby, and the player can decide what to do here as well. Go after Abby or stay. If the player goes after Abby, Ellie does find her and kills her, but it leaves Ellie feeling a bit conflicted because she doesn’t feel the fulfillment she thought she would feel. Cut to her traveling back to Jackson, visiting Joel’s grave and cue heart wrenching scene of her playing the guitar at his grave.

Now circling back, if the player decided to travel with Tommy to hunt Abby down in Seattle, Jesse reluctantly agrees, but tells them if they don’t find her by tomorrow afternoon, they all leave. This would then lead to the player finding Abby and Lev (because in my head Lev does run off but the boat he takes in the aquarium isn’t there and heard talk about the other boats the WLF’s use and takes off there, but Abby catches him in time to stop him from traveling to the island. This would happen after her encounter with Tommy) and Abby would tell Lev to run back to the aquarium with Yara. So its Ellie, Jesse, and Tommy holding Abby at gun point. Knowing a 3v1 isn’t winnable, she lays down her weapons and thus, another decision is allowed for the player. Kill Abby or let her live. Killing Abby has an effect on Ellie’s mental state and that can effect the game at the end. Not too bad that it ruins the ending, but bad enough that maybe there’s a cut scene of her having nightmares about killing her. If the player decides to not kill her, Ellie lets her go, she runs off, Tommy and her argue and Jesse tells them to drop it and get back to the theater. They do and cue to the ending I talked about earlier with everyone going back to Jackson. Now this leads me to my leads final story issue I would change about the game, Abby’s portion would be significantly cut down.

While the player would still play as Abby, the only flash back that would be included is the one about her and her father. Narratively, I don’t hate it. It allows for the player to understand why Abby wanted to kill Joel and drive home the new theme of “Your choices and actions have consequences”. However playing as Abby for, what, 12 hours of the game wasn’t needed. If the excuse was to pad for time, everything I said above would not have only extended the time, but would of allowed for players to want to replay the game. The player would still play as Abby with Lev and Yara so it can set up the players for how all the characters got to where they are by the time the player is given the choice to Kill or Let Abby Go. I’m on the fence about if the player would still be Abby and the theater scene would play as normal if you kill Mel or Owen. Kinda up in the air but what can you do. Anyways, while this would humanize the character to extent, it wouldn’t try to wash down her deeds like Naught Dogs tried to do. In my creation of this story, what happened in Santa Barbara would not take place at all.

All in all, there was some much they could of done with this story that could of made it worth playing. I have no more words for this grotesque torture p*rn game Neil and Naught Dogs decided to create. I wish I could fucking wipe my brain and get back to two days I wasted on this game. Fuck them and I hope Naughty Dogs fucking falls apart. I will finish my little essay with asking y’all to please not harass or go after the voice actors and the people who tried to make this game. Go after Neil , because ultimately this falls on him.

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meitanteisachi · 4 years

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My Kacchako reading list

My personal shortlist of the most unforgettable Kacchako fics I’ve read and currently reading, as well as planning to read! These are just those I can name at the top of my head so I probably might have missed some and will add later on once I remember. Most are rated M/E (because I am a sucker for Kacchako smut bahaAHHAA)

HAVE READ / ONESHOT / COMPLETE

A Little Bit Closer by mignonettes (a Ground Zero...dildo?!) A Softer World Prompt 46 by i-masshiro (kchk as exes. They never really got over each other) A Sweet Surprise by ohmytheon (Ochako bakes Bakugou a birthday cake) Again by corinnemaree (After Bakugo gives Ocha her first kiss, she just cant get enough) All Work and No Play by mignonettes (one of the hottest kchk smuts imo) Angel and Demon by EmeraldWaves (Ochako is a tease) Apricity by i-masshiro (Christmas kchk; honesty hour for our babies, very cute) As If to Say by calamansifresh (can’t get enough of a straightforward Bakugo. fluff!) As We Minimize the Space by calamansifresh (Ochako’s obsession: touching Bakugo. hot smut) Quiet by IchigoKacchan (twitter thread turned Ao3, HOT) Bakudonis by Ichigo_Kacchan (1-A drooling over shirtless Bakugo) Benign Masochism by windigop (Stripper Bkg. That’s it. I’m sold) Best Birthday Ever by crystymre (A twitter thread full of fluff and everything nice uwu) Biting the Bullet by MockingbirdSoul (one of the BEST kchk sexual tension fics EVAR) Conflict Resolution by Colorslander (Bakugo is bad at feelings, yes) Delivery Incoming by mignonettes (drunk Bakugo loves his girlfriend so much. VERY CUTE) Drinks series by BlueTee (ahh!! drunk kchk!! isso!! cute!!! AHH) Fight Night by ohmytheon (Ochako: *breaks Bakugo’s nose* Bakugo: im so turned on rn) First Date Etiquette by Methoxyethane (smut and humor are /chefs kiss/) Fleeting Emotions by EmeraldWaves (series of oneshots! includes tdmm and kmjr! fave is #4) Fragile by Virtually Forgotten (another series of oneshots! fluff/angst/smut i’m in love) Fuck or Die: Bakugo birthday edition by Italian_Lily (lust quirk and coming 7 times omg) Fuck or Die by mignonettes (twitter thread; ochako hit by a quirk that makes ya horny) Gentle Hands by corinnemaree (it takes a while for Bakugo to process that Ocha kissed him) Girl of His Dreams by NamiSwaannn (Bakugo has very /vivid/ dreams abt Ochako) good together by tusslee (kchk sext this is so hot asjdkhaf) Hero Analysis and Application by SakuraDrops93 (slow-burn kchk wholesome content, except for chapter 28, ish) Hot Lavender Latte by calamansifresh (coffee shop AU! cute and wholesome and fluffy) How’s The Weather by crystymre (how the ending is written is the BEST) I Don’t Care by SakuraDrops93 (MY. MOST. FAVORITE. NON-SMUT kchk oneshot) I Don’t Compete by crystymre (kchk pro-hero AU. hot and sweet and cute) If Heartbreak by i-masshiro (if you don’t want to have your heart broken, DONT READ THIS. </3) Irresistible by ElanaDrex (lust quirk again, but dayum this hot) Kill, Fuck, Marry by stillfly94 (twitter thread; we love an angry dork Bakugo) Late Night Sweets by jarynw02 (so cute omg! Bakugo soft only for Chako) Misfit Love by Ichigo_Kacchan (Bakugo bought a new desk and Ochako didnt like it. yet) Morning Dew by calamansifresh (we need kchk morning sex in our lives) No One Else by thesweetestnerd (again, Ochako being a hot tease) Not Afraid by omytheon (Spin the bottle. Bakugo to kiss Ochako, then it gets complicated) once bitten by wonduhhwoman/still.fly (vampire ochako oneshot. help, this is too hot.) one juicy peach by still.fly (the first kcck i’ve read. it’s hot and beautiful ;_; sweet bakugo) Partition by Ichigo_Kacchan (based on Beyonce’s Partition, Kacchako multitasks in limo) [Prompt]Sweet Surprise Vday KCCK by italian_lily (Bakugo helps Ochako make cake) Protect and Kill by ohmytheon (AU, Ocha is FBI agent and Baku is assassin) quality time by still.fly (kcck as roommates. fluff!) Quarantine Thread by Megadoodle (soooo cute!!!) Quiet Time by ohmytheon (Deku overhears kcck on the top bunk doing...things) say it and i’m yours by yaomomochi (aquarium date!!!) Sparks by ohmytheon (secret relationship + blind date) Stress Relief by Italian_lily (exactly how I would picture a kchk sparring smut scene tbh) Suds ‘n’ Sweat by mignonettes (kcck in laundry and ya know what happens) Summer Hoodies by mythica magic (Ochako in Bakugo’s sweater hrrrmm) Take a Break by ohmytheon (pro-hero Kchk doing it in the workplace to relieve stress) The Dark Web by ohmytheon (another hot kchk sexual tension comin’ right up!!!) The feeling that isn’t entirely unpleasant by mysterious intentions (fluffy HS kchk!) The Final Countdown by ohmytheon (New Year’s countdown, first kiss, pure kchk fluff <3) The Five Times It’s Fake and the One Time It Isn’t by mignonettes (fake dating AU!) thought that i was dreaming by lianhuawu (kchk post AFO-fight. sweet huhu) Un Pour Tous by mignonettes (coffee shop AU, fluff!) VIP Pass by HikoCassidy (oooh a drummer Bakugo) warm light on a winter’s day by wonduhhwoman (soulmates kchk, stuck in cabin for winter) Worthy by Tharros (drunk Ochako again + sweet “friend” Bakugo) Yes or No is Not a Trick Question by silv3rbloodalch3mist (ANOTHER. FAVORITE. Honest Bakugo is hot) Yours, If You Wanted by calamansifresh (bakugo and his hidden crush mehehe)

CURRENTLY READING / ONGOING

Aquating Training Session by BeMore (happens before camping arc; w/ tdmm!) Boyfriend-Girlfriend Things by silv3rbloodalch3mist (ahh another one from a fave author!) Little Do You Know by fullondisclosure (soulmates with a twist!) Make it wit chu by Ichigo_Kacchan (a One night stand/FwB Kacchako) Mr. Brightside by SakuraDrops93 (MY. MOST. FAVORITE! RECENTLY UPDATED AHH) Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by Ms_Chunks (very long but very good asdhajf kchk quirk dynamic) floaty ‘splodey fic series by ishkabibble_bafflegab (every fic in this series is /hearteyes/) Hot Cocoa & Chill by FrenchK (uwu i’m soft) Seeing Double by knifekirby (Fantasy AU! I’m in love with this!) The Reaper by thevoidyouknow (kchk roommates, virgin ocha and horny bakugo) (Touch Me) Kill Each Other Slowly by corinnemaree (vampire!bkg) there is something wrong with uravity by onlyfm (again with the horny quirk. yes) We Can Never Be Friends by crystymre (reading this on twitter it’s so fun and hot omg) why don’t you say so by frazzledazzle (all dialogue; all interesting drabbles! love this!) You Lost by NanaHachikoSan (this is just hot dirty hahaha)

TO READ

A Different Perspective by house_of_pixels actuality by still.fly Among a Crowd of Faces by miraimisu Bakugou Katsuki is Going to Become A Friendly Guy Even if it Kills Him by pisces-royalty Blanket Pals by miraimisu Clocks and Blades by Pomoon Closer by Ichigo_Kacchan downplay it by seconddaysea Fall by crystymre Finding Our Normal by theGingerTrekie Floating Embers by megwritesfanfiction Grounded by ElenaDrex He Who Always Left First by miraimisu Hot-headed by MoofyKitten In Hindsight by infantblue It’s Just Training by LaMuerta It’s Our Secret, Angel Face by thesweetestnerd Kacchako Week 2019 entries by BlueTee Lie for Me by lovecassia Limerence by KarmaHope Make Me Forget by Chio Saki Midnight Terrain by stillfly94 No One Knows by Ichigo_Kacchan Noblesse Oblige by EmeraldWaves & Superevey On the Rainbow Road by ohmytheon One Day at a Time by jarynw02 Out of the Town by jarynw02 Popcorn for Breakfast by Ichigo_Kacchan [Prompt]Glimpse into the Future by italian_lily Something New by megwritesfanfiction The Boys Start the War and the Girls Get Even by crystymre The Heist by katschako The Need Inside You by ohmytheon the shape of your words by nascence The Wonderful World of Jealousy by ohmytheon These Stones We Skip by miraimisu With the Touch of My Staff by miraimisu

If you can recommend me some (I’m pretty sure there are a lot of beautiful Kacchako fics out there I might’ve missed bc srsly this fandom has SO MANY talented writers), feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll be more than happy to add them here

#bnha #kacchako #fanfic #shortlist #fanfic masterlist

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sweetsoundsofignorance · 4 years

Note

For the fanfiction ask game: F, J (fic of your choice), S

F. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

From chapter seven of loose lips sink ships:

Bret checks his watch again, obsessively accurate. He has ten minutes before the tardy bell and he lends that information to the kid before repeating his question. “It seemed like you enjoyed it.”

Forsythe smiles at the trophy case. “That’s because I did.”

“It’s a much more intimate setting.” Bret fiddles with the leather of his wristwatch.

“There’s that,” Forsythe agrees. “But you’re all really engaged, too. It’s not something I’m used to.”

Bret is tempted to remind him that he barely spoke a word during seminar today, but he nods instead. “Feel like a fish out of water?”

The kid laughs short, leans against the trophy case with his body canted towards Bret. “More like an aquarium fish that just fell back into the ocean. It’s overwhelming in a good way.”

“Outgrowing your own bowl back home?” Bret wonders, idly twisting the knob on his watch.

“Something like that.”

“Well, here, you won’t ever feel like you’re out of place,” Bret assures him. “At least intellectually. If you feel challenged, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

It sounds like a promise, and perhaps it is. He watches that information melt through the boy’s mind like a hardened salve softening on warm skin. Forsythe seems delighted by the prospect. His cheeks are pinker than they were when he first arrived at the salon, something livelier in his mien after his discussion with Chipping over the subjective allegories in Moby Dick. It is the first time Bret wishes he could bottle a look.

This is the first one-on-one between Bret and Jughead for loose lips sink ships. It doesn’t happen until the seventh chapter, lol. They interact before that, just not alone together. It’s right after Jughead sits in on the salon for Moby Dick and highlights the contrast between his public school English class and the salon. Here, Bret and Jughead haven’t become too antagonistic of one another yet, and to be honest, I have written their relationship much differently from canon. They still fight and argue a lot, but there is also a certain amount of mutual, begrudging respect between the two, eventually becoming good friends who argue all the time, occasionally to the point of violence. I felt the inklings of that future development were highlighted well in this first exchange. It’s also where Bret first keys into something specific in Jughead, especially regarding Jug’s passion for writing, building up some envy but also intrigue. Bret is hella obsessive in this story, towards both Jughead and Betty, and this is like the first lick of that effed-up lollipop.

J. Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].

I realize this now even after asking it earlier. This one is difficult because it pretty much gives away the ending of any of my Riverdale WIPs and leaving readers hanging until the end is half the fun of writing for me. Some might say mean. I say leave some mystery in your life. I will say I was going to write the devil’s daughter as Betty and Jughead fleeing Riverdale Bonnie and Clyde style, but I ended up shifting that over to as we go up, we go down.

S. Any fandom tropes you cannot resist?

I am not a big trope person. Mostly because I didn’t learn what a trope was until recently (I mean, I knew; I just didn’t know there was a name for it) or that defining fics by tropes was a standard convention. If I look at my history, it is probably monster fucker, reading and writing. I know, crude, but it is true. Though it would take too long to unpack why, I really enjoy writing the darker sides of people.

#thank you for asking!#ask games

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gfriend-daily · 4 years

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[LINEBLOG] About GFRIEND’s Korean Comeback🦋✨

We asked about the Korean comeback🦋✨ Hi BUDDY！

Thanks for always supporting GFRIEND‼️🌈 Now, have Japanese BUDDY already listened to GFRIEND's latest Korean comeback songs「Crossroads」and「Labyrinth」❓🦋✨

So for today's LINE blog, we prepared a ton of questions for GFRIEND regarding their Korean comeback songs‼️🎶✨

For BUDDY who haven't watched the MV, as well as those who have watched it many times, I'm sure you'll want to watch it again after reading this blog…✨

Clear your ears…focus your eyes…feel GFRIEND with your heart……💖🦋🌈📚✨

https://youtu.be/kx5TWKPE5sU

【 Regarding「Crossroads」】

🍀Please tell us your impression of「Crossroads」as well as any points you want BUDDY to take note of！🍀

SOWON：This song has a lot of story built into it so please focus on the lyrics when you listen！

YERIN：During performances there's a part in the choreography where we show off the crossroads part. Don't miss it.

EUNHA：It's a song where you can really empathize with the feelings of a confused girl. Please pay attention to the delicate voices of the members！

YUJU：For my initial impression, the song caught me right from the start. They let us listen to it in the meeting room at first and my first thought was that I wanna do this song right away！Both the lyrics and the choreography are very impactful in my opinion.

SINB：From the very first time I listened to Crossroads I felt that it was the kind of song that makes you want to listen to it over and over again. As for what to pay attention to, I want you guys to focus on Yuju's final part！

UMJI：The more you listen to the song the more you appreciate its charm, I feel. The final guitar solo really gets me as well.

🍀「Crossroads」MV was shot like a drama, was there any interesting episodes during filming, please let us know！

SOWON：When we were filming for the fireworks it was really cold that day so our managers prepared heaters for us. But one of the heaters actually managed to burn Yuju's pants！It was so shocking that there wasn't anything to do but laugh.

YERIN：During the scene when I submerged myself underwater, I had these green hair extensions on, so when I went underwater the dye sort of turned the clear water in the tub green as well. We had to really rush filming that part before it turned even greener.

EUNHA：There's a part where they film me at various points in the timeline where the room is destroyed around me, and I had to keep my eyes wide open and stand there without moving while this was going on. But with all the stuff breaking and falling behind me, I couldn't help but blink at some point and I felt really bad for the staff because we had to redo itㅠ🥺

YUJU：During the aquarium filming, there was this one fish that kept staying in that one specific spot without moving away. I thought it was really cute so I took a photo of it.

SINB：During the first filming session for the music video, I had to film my solo angle shot on top of a roof. It rained all night until morning that day, so it was freezing and the wind was so strong that it kept blowing my hair into my face so it couldn't be seen. I tried my best to not express how cold it was, and thankfully on the final cut it worked out pretty well.

UMJI：During the campfire scene with the members, I was worried about the cold at first but the campfire was so nice and warm that we were able to finish filming that scene without feeling like we were freezing.

https://youtu.be/GehwcGWC-H8

🍀It's been 5 years since your debut, please tell us which moment it was that felt like a major crossroads decision for your life！

SOWON：Before I joined this company, that time I spent worrying about what to do with my life was my crossroads moment I think. I was in an acting focused agency and they tried casting me about 3 or 4 times. I did consider working towards an acting career but even after the agency called me into a meeting to decide my future, I was unable to fully let go of my dream to become a singer.

YERIN：When I had to decide on my high school path, I was torn between going to a performing arts focused school or just going to a regular high school, but I figured that if I didn't at least try it out I'd regret it, so I went for the performing arts school. Thankfully I was accepted to the school of my choice as well.

EUNHA：Probably during my high school days. I had a choice between staying a student and figuring out what else I wanted to do with my life after that, or enter this agency and prepare for debut. But now I feel like I really chose well back then!

YUJU：It was right before I joined this agency I think. There was a point where I wanted to give up on being an idol and branch into songwriting instead, but then I heard about the auditions for this agency and I really spent a long time thinking about which path to take before making my decision.

SINB：Umm… Actually isn't life itself a kind of crossroads? Whether it's when you're deciding on what to eat, whether or not to eat it, isn't that a kind of crossroads moment all the time？（lol）

UMJI：When I had to decide whether or not to enter this agency as a trainee！

【 Regarding「Labyrinth」】

https://youtu.be/lSK9kQObdLc

🍀For Labyrinth's dance you had a bunch of backup dancers participating as well, please tell us how that felt！

SOWON：When we first heard the song I felt like it wasn't our usual style at all. But it was the kind of tune I like personally so I was interested already, and when the choreography for it came out I felt like it made the song even more perfect.

YERIN：It wasn't a song about your personal ego and it was interesting trying to process the many conflicting feelings within the song. Having this many dancers on stage with us made it very crowded but I feel like it brought out the GFRIEND charm even more during the performance.

EUNHA：It was a song with a lot of backup dancers, so you really have to watch the performance instead of just listening to the song on its own！ This might actually be the most powerful GFRIEND performance among our songs k feel. I really love it🥰

YUJU：When I first saw the choreography video, I had a moment of 「Wow, how am I going to dance to that？」because it left such a strong impression. But with every practice, the more I studied the choreography, the more interesting it got. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the dancers who filled the stage with us as well.

SINB：When I was listening to the song, I really hoped that the choreography would look cool as well, and it turned out to be something amazing and quite unlike the usual GFRIEND style. You'll definitely fall in love with the song even more after watching the performance.

UMJI：This performance is where you see GFRIEND at their most powerful I think. The expressions of the members were even cooler than I imagined on stage, and I think we did really well expressing the essence of the song. It's really a song that allows you to discover a different side of GFRIEND.

https://youtu.be/Cluo9eJZi5I

(The questions below are in relation to the MV and other contents！)

［🍀🦊To Sowon］ ① At the beginning part of Crossroads, the part where Sowon had her eyes closed really made her look like a goddess！When you saw this part of the choreo, did you think「This could be a new charm point！」？

⇒Nope！Actually because I'm so tall, I kinda felt bad because I was totally kind of covering SinB who was behind me. I spent a lot of time worrying about the pose. Since I had my eyes closed I had to wonder if I lowered myself enough？But I'm glad it all worked out in the end.

② In the MV, the car scene sparked a lot of comments that you looked like a movie star. How do you personally feel about this, were you satisfied by your acting and the atmosphere of the scene？

⇒ For my character, the stylists went with a darker style to express the atmosphere and it was really refreshing for me, I really liked it！ During the filming, the car wasn't all that big but we still had to fit the camera in there somehow, and I wasn't sure if the camera would be able to film me at my best angle, but I'm glad that in the final cut I turned out looking great.

［🍀🐥To Yerin］ ① You had to go underwater for the MV in one scene, are you good at submerging yourself like that？ ⇒I learned how to swim from a young age, so going underwater wasn't hard at all, but the problem here was that I had to submerge myself while lying down in the tub, so lots of water kept entering my nose and it was kinda hard.

② The green hair extensions really left an impression, and you also wore a beret as well. But there were also performances where you didn't wear a beret, which did you prefer, with or without it？ ⇒If I really had to choose I honestly prefer the performances where I had the beret on. I'm really happy I got to show different sides of myself though！

［🍀🐰To Eunha］ ① We were all surprised by your change in hair colour. How did you feel when you heard that you had to dye your hair pink this time？

⇒ Dyeing your hair is troublesome…that was my first thought！But I really like this colour and now I kinda don't want to change it to other colours now😭

② Among the fans there are comments that your hair colour and styling in this MV makes you look even more like the protagonist of a manga or anime, do you feel that way too？And if you were really a manga protagonist what genre would you be？

⇒ Personally I feel like I'd be the protagonist of a magical girl story. To defeat evil as a pink haired heroine..😎

［🍀🐶 To Yuju］ ① You had to run around a lot in the video, please tell us how you felt then！

⇒ Not all of it was actually included in the final cut of the music video but I totally ran way more than was shown. The director kept telling me to run faster so I really ran with all my heart！

② Also, the parts in the choreography where you cover your face with your hand, as well as the part where your hands were trembling, everyone realized it really added to the emotions of the song and the fans all went crazy for it！Is there anything else we should pay attention to in the dance as well？

⇒ Actually I didn't even realize it myself at first. It was only when I was checking the replay in the monitor that I realized my hands were shaking then. I was really focused on the lyrics in my part so it just came out naturally like that. I was really surprised that the fans were able to catch such a tiny detail as well！I'll definitely continue focusing hard on the lyrics in the future for all other performances as well！

［🍀🐱 To SinB］ ① There was a parrot in the MV with you guys. As a dog owner, do you like birds too？ ⇒ I'm not actually good with birds. Bugs, reptiles, birds, I'm kinda scared of them so I can't really deal with them…

② There's a lot of difficult dance moves this time round！Which one was the most difficult according to main dancer SinB？ ⇒ To be honest Crossroads was probably the most difficult choreography to express correctly so far in my life. It'd be way too easy to mess up on the choreo if I wasn't careful enough, so I really worried about how best to dance to it.

［🍀🐹 To Umji］ ① In the MV you and Yuju were on bad terms. You guys are normally really good friends, was it hard to act out this part？ ⇒ Thankfully the music was always playing in the background so I just had to focus on「the conflict」. But the moment the director yelled Cut! both of us would just end up bursting out laughing.

② Everyone was talking about how Umji's outfits for Crossroads really made you look like a princess！Which one was your favourite though？

⇒ I really liked the dress I wore for the jacket shooting, and I really like wearing a jacket over a shirt like that！！I also thought the white blouse with navy stripe outfit was really good！！

https://youtu.be/wvcJKFGv5kc

All you BUDDY who loves GFRIEND！How did you like this？Thanks for reading today's LINE blog！✨ https://youtu.be/gqxd7J0xHno

The limitations imposed by the current virus outbreak is hard on all of us, but both the GFRIEND members and staff all hope that BUDDY will be safe and happy in your everyday lives.

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Translation: GFRIENDaily - Estrea

Source: https://lineblog.me/gfriend_japan/

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