❛ i won’t let anyone hurt you. ❜ — steve

The chill of an early spring breeze swept through the neat and tidy street of Cannyun Lane, tossing the dead leaves of winter through the air like puppets without strings. Soon enough, they would crumble away and turn into dust, making way for a new life, then the new death that followed it come autumn. Eddie didn't use to notice the changing of seasons much back in Hawkins, despite living on a wood's edge. It never occurred to him that life and death sat upon his doorstep daily. He always trudged through the mulch, leaves, weeds, and grass, going about his teenage business without a care in the world. It was nice not to care, to be ignorant of what adults might notice during their daily toils. But once adulthood cruelly thrust itself inside of him, his eyes were finally drawn to the things around him, and it zapped his youthful energy away, forcing him to face the mortality of human life. What a fucking drag.

Attending Janie Deacon's tenth birthday party was not his idea of a good Saturday afternoon, especially with the cold weather. He made the foolish mistake of wearing nothing over his red plaid shirt, and the wind rattled at its thin material unforgivingly, taking the long curls of dark hair with it. Fortunately, his husband, Steve, held him close, and he always ran hot year round. While the brutal twists and turns of life seldom made sense to Eddie, Steve was the one thing that did. The arm that sat snugly around his waist anchored him for what was to come once they stepped over the threshold of a bright red door nearing them in the distance. It calmed his anxiety, settled his nerves that at least he wouldn't be alone in enduring their suburban neighbours alone, many of which weren't fond of Eddie, simply because he wasn't like them. Steve fit in easier with them, masked himself like a goddamn champion. Eddie, on the other hand, didn't know how to pretend to be normal. He'd never done that a day in his life.

"Just remember that we could be at home right now, drinking beer and eating lasagne," he whispered as they made their way up the garden path lined with white picket fences and some pink flora that Eddie didn't know the name of. There wasn't a need for him to whisper, or there wouldn't be if they were anywhere else. But the entire street appeared to have ears somehow because everyone knew each other's business, which was bizarre. Eddie once joked that all the houses had secret tunnels under them, so people could go from house to house, getting gossip and doing god knows what else. It didn't seem completely preposterous the more he thought about the idea. Stranger things had happened in the world. If he avoided the basement more often than not due to his wild imagination, then so be it. Steve pecked him on the cheek, whispering back that they'd be fine and to just stick together. Eddie decided to take his word for it.

The pristine red door with its polished golden knocker looked like a red flag to Eddie and sounded like a red alert alarm in his head from the second Steve knocked. Sarah Deacon appeared only moments later, looking every part of the Stepford Wife from head to toe. She seemed momentarily surprised to see Eddie on her doorstep; of course, she'd only been expecting Steve, which meant everyone else was too. And his suspicions were swiftly confirmed once they were trapped inside with all the other suburbanites of Cannyun Lane, asking about his health with those feigned sad faces, like he was terminally ill or that they genuinely cared if he was or wasn't. Eddie didn't need them to speak truths to know how many didn't like him at all. But he played nice, only offering a sarcastic comment once or twice, maybe three times.

It was noisy inside the Deacon's show home, full of spoilt kids screaming, then crying, screaming again over nothing, all to the atrocious sound of Taylor Swift offending his eardrums with her abysmal, manufactured sounding lyrics that were meant to make people think there was something extraordinary about America. Hawkin's might have been a dump hole, but at least he and Steve had good times there. Those parties were amazing. The two of them drank themselves stupid, got high and danced for hours until Steve had to bend him over the bathroom sink, bareback, hard and fast. Then, rinse and repeat until the sun came up. How the fuck did they end up here? He needn't have bothered asking himself why. The memories of the night that changed everything never left him, and he didn't regret it.

After a few hours, Eddie slipped away from Steve's side while his husband listened to old Mr Humberland's war stories for the millionth time. If he stayed, well, he could feel the meltdown slowly creeping up on him, and he didn't want to subject Steve to more embarrassment or those pitiful looks. Twilight had blanketed the back garden with night not far behind it when Eddie stepped outside for a cigarette. The cold was sharper than earlier that afternoon, and he almost regretted leaving the suffocating warmth. But outside, he found a moment to breathe, relax, and maybe regain enough composure to go back inside at some point and endure Mr Humberland. Unfortunately, that bothersome spring wind had other ideas for him.

After the third cigarette, night had almost replaced twilight, and Eddie considered finding Steve again, who would be warm, and give him the warmth he desperately needed. Yet, from the corner of his eye, he spotted something at the end of the Deacon's garden in the evergreen bushes that made him freeze on the spot. The wind tore past Eddie, thrashing the greenery about until it formed a face. It didn't make sense that he could see a face in a bush, and surely no one else would see it if he raised the alarm. He'd just be the weirdo, eccentric writer from 1478 that always says odd things, nothing new. The face leered at him, menacing and knowledgeable, forcing the past upon him to remind him of the things he'd done and the ignorance he once held dear. Death was always at his doorstep, as nature demanded, but Eddie let it through the door. He trembled from head to toe, he couldn't breathe, yet his heart hammered away faster than ever. The cigarette between his fingers burned down to the rim and burned his skin; he didn't notice for being too transfixed on the point of his terror.

Suddenly, a set of large hands on his shoulders and a pair of worried gentle eyes obscured the mocking face from his vision. The cigarette dropped, he could breathe again. It was Steve. Immediately, Eddie crumbled against his husband like a winter leaf. The familiar sensation of being wrapped up in Steve's denim jacket blanketed him in scented comfort, and the demons in his head were gone just like that, at least for now. I won't let anyone hurt you, Steve mumbled into his hair, holding him tight as if he knew exactly what had happened. He'd said the same thing that night when everything changed; Eddie knew he meant it as much then as he did now, and god, if it didn't feel his heart with a macabre sort of joy.

Pulling back slightly, their eyes met through the windy night. A small tug of Eddie's lips formed a smile. "I won't let anyone hurt you too."

@harringtontm & @musecraft

Swing your razor wide, Sweeney.

[image ID in alt]

Really sorry guys but I’m all out of forehead kisses today😔

All I’ve got instead is mentally cradling your face and resting our foreheads together and reminding you that you are good, that you deserve love and kindness, that you’re welcome here, that i care about you and i hope you’re doing okay

Yeah sorry idk if that makes up for it….sorry for the inconvenience….

Hello ms bubble wizard mage maam', I was just wondering what are your thoughts on magolor regarding how he's apparently **highly aware** of all characters to ever exist in the kirbyverse

Also its become a trend where god is replaced with NOVA in the expressions... Do they know?

Ello ello!

I like Magolor a lot, but he is omniscient? That's news to me. Is there a source for that? :O Unless you're talking about that Magoverse trend I saw floating around a while back- I didn't see much but what I did encounter reminded me of all the different Sans Undertale AUs out there. Hehehe Magolor is quite versatile! What fun.

And I know people use Nova as an expletive when writing Kirby characters! It's cool!

I use profanity in real life but I personally try to not associate Kirby characters with it in the works I make. I want to diversify the vernacular of the citizens of Popstar so I made a small list of expletives I thought of, lol. They should have a variety of things to yell out when they stub their feet or an apple falls on their head! So I get randomly inspired out in the world and I make sure to write them down!

I remember seeing someone have the characters use expletives based on food, like for example, "For the love of shortcake!" or things like that. That idea's fun!! (If you are the person who had this headcanon and are reading this please tell me so I can credit you for it!)

Does anyone else have expletives/exclamations they write for Kirby characters? Please share them if you do heehee. It makes the world building feel more fleshed out and creative >:3

good omens s2 really went ‘oh right fuck we cast david tennant in this didn’t we? let’s let the poor man talk about space’

"If I die, we both die, Sasuke."

Definitely lots of layers going on to which I interpret as:

Naruto knows he doesn't want to exist in a world without Sasuke. His resolve is clear: he'd bear the burden of Sasuke's hatred and die together with him. He doesn't want to die like a loser but he doesn't want to die as the hero that killed his friend to protect the village, either. This is a blatant rejection of what Hashirama did when he fought against Madara. Naruto chooses Sasuke above all else. If Sasuke dies (literally) and Naruto lives, he would spend the rest of his days devoid of his driving force, even the prospect of becoming hokage doesn't fill the empty space which was originally meant for Sasuke--the one who reached out first and saved him from his own darkness. His bond with Sasuke became exponentially bigger than his worldly dreams.

Sasuke, on the other hand, would fall deeper into darkness. Dealing with loss, heartbreak, grief, misery. As much as he takes action on severing his bond with Naruto, when confronted with the idea, he couldn't handle it to the point that he doesn't want to record the memory of Naruto dying with his Sharingan. He knows how far he'd fall and he could never recover from it--he'd end up powerful enough to conquer all but like how Naruto finds irrelevance in a world without him, he'd spend the rest of his days with a resounding emptiness filled with hollow excuses until it runs out and he'd go mad. Perhaps destroy the world because his one and only died in his hands long ago and nothing else matters, be reckless and die in the process.

And both of them are aware of all of this because they were able to see each other's hearts. They would not function without the other. They're connected by wretched fate but their bond goes beyond the organized shinobi system that enabled their burdens and justified their twisted circumstances. At the end of the day, that bond led them to understand one another and they hope it would influence the same system that failed them in ways more than one.

so much potential for worldbuilding shenanigans with iterator cities though. the person that is also a place that was full of people and life and culture however weird and semi-artificial - maybe sterile and bland by intent of construction but inevitably influenced by the actual people who lived there

people living in blocks and tall skyscrapers staring out the windows and decorating their balconies. built up haphazard streets of early iterator cities where nobody was really meant to be living there at first; oddball planning choices because such-and-such a council had a decade-long fight with another over the placement of a specific type of building zone because of proximity to some piece of equipment or another, or because some rich influential type wanted to keep their nice view out the windows--

the design of the iterator puppet used like a local mascot - the colors used on the livery of official city business. marketable plushies because of course there were; cute little symbols and drawings to represent the cities themselves - in advertisements; in political cartoons; in official signs and on stamps--

the structure of luna and metropolis like the difference between a half-finished attic and a penthouse, overstuffed historical districts and dying over-capacity public utilities; half-empty miles of late-era bloc housing and shiny new construction projects. mass transit, metro maps and train stations and traffic predictions; streets of temples and meeting-houses; run-down malls and bustling shopping squares; shitty apartments a view of nothing but more buildings until the edge looks out into the sky.

i don't even know. but people lived there, enough to need to build a city like a city, and that had to have meant something.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not that familiar with VtM 20th anniversary edition mechanics or the lore so like take some of this with a grain of salt (or several).

TDLR: Nara exploits Neil and his abilities by taking away his ability to consent by getting him high during their time in Baghdad. 

There is the obvious moral quandary of “one guy getting high is worth saving the world,” which may be true. That is not what I am here to discuss. I am much more interested in looking at Neil and Nara’s dynamic during this time and what it says about them. 

It is obvious that Neil cares for Nara; he loves her. It’s stated that he would trust her with his life, and he calls her beloved nearly every chance he gets. I do think Nara does care for Neil in some ways; I just don’t think her feelings outweigh his usefulness to her. She has many reasons to keep Neil close to her, and her care for him is just one. 

Time is running out for Nara and the Assamites; the Herald is rising, and she knows this. She also knows Neil is capable of having visions. These two facts culminate in her using Neil to get what she wants regardless of his own thoughts or feelings. In addition, I would argue that Nara is familiar with Neil on kalif, that she would know how it affects and impairs him given their relationship and proximity to one another, particularly earlier in Neil’s life. I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe she would know any potential dependencies or addictions Neil would have to the substance. 

I posit that kalif does not affect all Kindred the same, and that it has different potencies (smoking vs. ingesting kalif tainted blood) based on how Jubair and Neil both react to smoking in Neil’s solo episode. However, I do recognize that Neil has been on a steady diet of kalif (and who knows what else) for a few weeks at the time of his meeting with Jubair, and it is safe to assume he is not sober when he accepts the joint from Nara as he mentions having trouble focusing earlier in the episode.

Over the course of their conversation, we see Jubair take “a heavy hit” (PoN 1.5-Neil Foster 11:39) off of Neil’s joint, but he does not seem to have any immediate effects. He remains cognizant and able to carry on the conversation with Neil, and he is quick to respond to the attack. Whereas Neil is unable to follow the conversation and repeatedly looks to Nara for guidance since he is unable to make his own determination despite only having accepted the joint moments before Jubair is introduced. 

I also posit that kalif has addictive qualities about it. Whether this is true or not, I honestly don’t know, but there is evidence in PoN indicative that it may be addictive. When Nara offers Neil the joint, the comment is made, “If she gives it to me, I take it. It’s hard to say no” (PoN 1.5-Neil Foster 8:10). Later on, in episode 25, the coterie is hit with a kalif bomb, and Neil is described as an addict (PoN s2ep25 16:15). Though, this could have been a way to explain Neil’s mechanical failure. 

(As a note, I haven’t been able to find much online about kalif and whether or not it is addictive. The source I have read, provided by @peppedstep, compared it to weed and described it as a strong hallucinogen that is used for ritualistic magical purposes (Rites of Blood, pg,72).) 

Whether or not kalif is addictive, Nara knowingly and willingly gave Neil a substance that impairs his cognitive function and lowers his defenses to serve her own ends, and did so to “a dangerous degree” (17:40). I would also argue she would be familiar with the impact kalif and the visions may have on his mental health (panic attacks, dissociation, anxiety, etc.), and she chooses to proceed with offering the drug to him anyway without heed for his wellbeing. In this situation, Neil is incapable of giving informed consent (regarding the conversation, regarding the additional kalif, regarding his next attempt at a vision on her behalf) because he is already dangerously high or because he is addicted, or, realistically, both.  

Nara also preys on Neil’s people-pleasing tendencies and self-esteem issue, intentional or not, by commenting that his visions (and therefore, him) have not been as helpful or useful as she hoped spurring him to try for another vision and ingest more kalif. However, she is supposed to know Neil well, and that would include his inclination to people-please. He loves her deeply and wants to help her; he would not tell her no in this situation, and I believe she knows this.

I talked at length here about how I view Neil’s memory loss, which I won’t rehash, but it is worth noting much of his time with Nara during this stretch is quite hazy or he flat out doesn’t remember. The only other person who can vouch for most of this time is Nara, and she has more than enough reason to deceive, omit, or keep the truth from Neil. He has no way to tell if Nara is further exploiting or manipulating him beyond using him for his visions. If she is willing to take his ability to consent away in one circumstance, I would argue there is not much keeping her from taking it away in any other. It’s clear she does not take his needs or wellbeing into consideration with her choices.

This episode is the only interaction we see between Nara and Neil, excluding Neil’s visions. If these interactions are indicative of the baseline of their relationship, how much does she really care about Neil if she is willing to sacrifice his mental health, overall wellbeing, and ability to consent if she benefits from taking those things away? Is this same dynamic present in their intimacy? If Neil is constantly relying on her judgment because he is high and/or unable to remember, when does he have the opportunity to make his own decisions about what happens to him? What will happen when enabling his addiction is no longer beneficial for her? 

In conclusion, I think Nara is using Neil for his abilities and is exploiting him by taking away his ability to consent to what is done to him. Given this is the only canon interaction we have between the two, I wonder about the dynamic in their relationship as a whole and if it is a healthy one for Neil. It also makes me wonder in what other ways she has exploited Neil since she seems to have little regard for his needs or wellbeing.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Ive never been a big fan of "Rex hates fox for killing fives" narratives because i feel like they'd require Rex to have believed fives was right to some degree, and they'd require Rex knowing fives was deliberately not in his right mind and so technically unfit to be dealt with like someone who was. But the point is that Rex ultimately didn't believe Fives, or at least he wasn't willing/able to fully investigate it at the time when he should have. Either way, that gap in knowledge is key to characterizing that entire scene, and Rex holding that deep resentment for Fox, almost to the point of arguing "why did you kill him?" I think misunderstands Rex as a character.

Like fives had just trapped two commanding officers and then reached for his blaster when explicitly told not to. Rex would definitely feel pain at the situation, but I don't know how much he would hold it against fox specifically. Fox doesn't know fives like Rex does. Rex and Anakin may have still felt relatively safe despite being ray shielded, but Fox walked in and saw what I just described.

Also/although I do think it's important to note that this isn't the first time Fives was faced with execution. The first time it happened, Rex stood by and almost let it go through -- it was Fives himself who had to put it to a stop, and then Rex moved.

-. last ooc post for today, i'm reading something new too (because i think i'm funny) and ifyky but 'Age of the C*ck'

not each of my lestappen week fics just being longer then the previous one

okay so obviously the whole point of ESTD is that ice is unhappy because he cannot accept that he loves maverick because he must serve his country and at the end he realizes how stupid that is when maverick dies!! but…do you think that your ice and maverick could have ever been happy had maverick forced ice to talk about it earlier on? do you see any potential for them to live their lives not publicly but also not as a complete secret? a world where slider would have known ice was happy and seen what caused that (his love for maverick)?

maverick, venice Italy, 2002: um i 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 love you actually

ice: 😳🤯😗 ok! I love you too let’s make this work!

…

ice, 2002: ok i think we should follow caroles orders and pull Bradley’s papers from the academy and also i am leaving you to get my second star because my career still comes first sry

maverick: i know we literally just codified our relationship but uh you suck i am breaking up with you forever fuck you

(relationship ends .)

peak event btw LOL

You ever write some shit where you're like 'oh yeah I'm totally just describing what this guy is doing in his free time nothing else im just setting the scene it's unnecessarily detailed for no particular reason' and then realize you are in fact just info dumping about some shit you are interested in actually

no i'm going to continue to talk about she-ra merch actually. specifically, i want to talk about the different versions/releases of Adora in the fashion dolls (one in particular but we'll get to that). As far as I can tell they released this line in 2019, botched it, and left the pieces to the scalpers and collectors. I wasn't around for that so feel free to add context in the replies if you know it.

It kind of makes sense since she's the main character but half the line is Adora. The initial line up was Adora (in her red jacket), Glimmer, Bow, Catra, and a separate doll for She-ra, with everyone in their season 1 outfits (obvs). She-ra had a different sculpt than Adora and was taller than the others. That's 2 Adoras out of 5 dolls so far.

They also released the "Battle of Bright Moon" set which featured She-ra in her battle armor along with Swift Wind. I'm really not sure whether to include him in the final doll count, but since his quality was shit and I don't usually count "pets," I'm going to say we're at 3 Adoras out of 6 dolls. (we will be circling back around to this set it's the whole reason we're here)

The last set is the SDCC exclusive She-ra vs Shadow Weaver set. This has (as far as I can tell) the "same" She-ra as the original release but with a bigger cape and better skirt, along with a Shadow Weaver doll.

That's 4 Adoras out of 8 dolls, but what I want to talk about is the Battle of Bright Moon set, because it is SHIT. I'm gonna be using seller photos here because the official pics won't show you lmao. We'll start with what I think is an official photo for the SDCC set so you can see the usual She-ra to compare.

As you can see, she's a skin-color articulated doll with a fabric unitard, skirt, and cape (again, the regular She-ra had a less luxurious cape and skirt, but was otherwise the same to this). Everything gold is plastic, so she has plastic boots, gauntlets, chest emblem, shoulder paldrons, and tiara. Also a sword. Everything I just listed could be removed and put back on. This is what they did for all of the dolls, She-ra or otherwise, in the line, but Battle of Bright Moon took... a different approach. Let's start with in-box seller photos because you can already see problems there.

I wish I knew more context for this and maybe somebody can add it but from the best I can tell this was manufactured (maybe not priced, but manufactured) as a budget set. Swift Wind is a terrible plastic lump, but we have nothing to compare him to. Adora, though, has taken a big hit. The tiara, head, and probably the sculpt are the same but that's it. She doesn't have gauntlets at all, they just casted her forearms in gold since it was a separate piece anyway with the articulation. The skirt in the original she-ra outfit wasn't great, but this one is hot garbage, especially in open-box listings where it has often fallen apart. speaking of, lets go there to reveal the sin.

Yeah. She doesn't have clothes. They just casted her body and legs out of white and slapped a terrible skirt over it. At least they gave her actual boots instead of casting them like her "gauntlets." but the armor. It doesn't even cover her back!! It just snaps onto the front and makes it more obvious she's naked! They made this doll right twice why did they downgrade so bad for this set. The first time I saw a naked she-ra doll with a white body for sale I was so baffled because I hadn't paid too much attention to this one and didn't realize they'd done it completely differently (wrong. They did it wrong). I'm convinced they don't put a photo of her in this armor on the box so you don't realize how poorly done it is

I dont think I ever mentioned it on here but I read Percy Jackson for the first time in early 2020 (or 2019? Maybe??) and I knew so little about it that when I was reading it I was like ‘well obviously Percy is going to be the son of Zeus 🙄’ and when Poseidon claimed him I was actually shook