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#not really spoilers but kinda? maybe? ill tag it as such just in case

okthatsgreat · 4 months

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Ocs in AHL anon here, I'm now wondering how well your OCs would deal with the Convention from lgowab.

YOURE SO COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok ok ok so. long story short: not fucking well

SPOILER TAG FOR LGOWAB LOL

just to get her out of the way, i honestly think billie would be fine. shes fifteen years old but not a season 53 member so i guess she'd be a spinoff character?? not involved in the main plot, kinda like a warrior of hope maybe. shes unassuming and nobody would be actively targeting her, she would NEVER be chosen as an enforcement team member, so as long as she keeps to herself she'd be fine. honestly it would just come down to luck, worst case scenario she gets gunned down after a failed task (this honestly seems most likely lmfao).

i think season 50 would be eighteen/nineteen at this point (since their season aired mayyyybe threeish years ago), so unfortunately most of the convention considers them to be past the age of "kids". which means theres not gonna be a lot of people watching out for them. Sad! sae is one of the "older" participants at 34 so she'd really be on her own here

from most to least likely to survive/what probably happened to them here we go (THIS IS NOT INCLUDING THE RANDOM FACTOR OF THEM BEING GUNNED DOWN BY THE FAILED TASK!!! ALSO TW FOR SUICIDE):

yoshito is fine i think. he's a protagonist that is liked enough and pretty damn harmless in most peoples eyes, so he'd have some kind of influence and isnt likely to be targeted. he wouldnt be asked into the enforcement team but he'd likely lean more towards the future foundation's side. he'd absolutely be in mental agony over his "i can save everybody" mentality but he'd make it out alive!

mika is smart enough to stick by yoshito and has been with danganronpa enough to learn how to survive it, she's scrappy and headstrong and i reckon she'd be fine. again she would lean more towards the future foundation side of things, would have major feelings of inadequacy and would have multiple breakdowns throughout the entirety of the convention but would probably make it out with a few scratches

sae would be asked onto the enforcement team just because of her physical strength and she would not have a good time about it, might have a target on her back during the latter half of the game but would be fine for most of it. would spiral quite a bit and definitely emerges with like a million mental illnesses resurfacing

rie is smart about appearances and extremely paranoid about her safety after her killing game so she would do quite a lot to survive. not sure if this includes killing anybody but she would deffffinitely change quite a bit. joining the enforcement team will be veryyyy difficult just because she isn't close enough to mondo/sayaka to get in while the team is being formed and she can't sell her smarts like miu did, but i think she'd try? that, or i can see her forming a more lowkey kind of alliance just so she has more people around her to protect her. super paranoid about not dying again, definitely has an ugly breakdown at some point, probably attracts a bit more attention than she would like to

ryobe would struggle BAD. BADLY. he has serious trauma from getting killed by a gun and what is the primary weapon of this convention? GUNS. he would be a completely different person, genuinely so frightened and traumatised, totally unlike his normally goofy and lighthearted self. would get irritated easily and become emotional at the drop of a hat. i have no doubt in my mind he would run around like mad and get himself caught in even further chaos. also he's the antag of his season so he has somewhat of a target already. would definitely need to be wrangled in to survive

erin would be in TROUBLEE since she has already been established as an AHL member. major target, massive presence, would really struggle to keep up her persona and actually could become quite violent if provoked and frightened enough. i think it's unlikely she survives this one to be real with you

straight up i think naomi just takes herself out i dont think there is a universe where she doesnt have a serious psychotic break and kill herself to be real with you. she can not handle another killing game and especiallyyy after her killing game and all of the trauma she is struggling to endure she would absolutely be the person who walks off the roof at the beginning of the story

and andi, of course, is a hologram

THANK YOUUU FOR THIS QUESTION!

#ask lee #lgowab #anonymous #dr: 50th

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leejungchans · 3 years

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— juliet on kingdom (episode 6).

juliet’s masterlist

from may 6’s episode

note: read the tweets from the bottom up 💕 keep in mind that this contains spoilers in case you want to watch the episode first :3 more under the cut bc i also went a tiny bit overboard with this 💀

— juliet’s outfit;

disclaimer: the blurring of faces in my outfit collages is in no way meant as a form of disrespect, the sole purpose is to put the focus on the hairstyle and there is absolutely no ill intent. thank you for understanding!!

when they were deciding on the groups for round 3, juliet was so happy they ended up choosing stray kids and btob

right after announcing that decision she immediately went to felix and gave him a big hug :((

but we came here to talk about the sports day 🤩

let’s make one (1) thing clear: juliet is here to make friends 😇

B U T she is also an ateez member, aka she is very competitive 💀

this is the same person who refused to sleep when playing the mafia game which was partly the reason for why it got banned from their dorms

probably texted felix the night before like “ily bestie but if we ever have to go head-to-head tmr ur going D O W N”

she said 🔥👄🔥

someone collect her please

ngl she was kinda jealous of skz’s pink outfits bc they looked so cute in them :(((

strawberry kids pls 🥺🥺🥺🥺

but her outfit was also adorable like what :((((

THE BUCKET HAT 🥺

this was also the tiniest she’s looked on kingdom since she always wore boots with some form of platforms for the performances :c

ateez and stray kids’ tables were next to each other so she finally had the opportunity to interact more with the others and not just chanlix!! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)

pretty much became besties with jisung, changbin and jeongin after that day and also became friends with peniel 🤩🤩

there were still a lot of lixliet moments!!!! even in the background you could see them just chilling and having fun 🥰🥰

also bonded with changmin (from tbz, not the mc ahshjws😭) over liking horror movies and stuff

“you have a chUCKY DOLL??? CAN I SEE IT????? DO YOU HAVE A PHOTO??????? 🤩”

not them cooing over photos of his chucky doll like it’s a baby/pet photo 💀

ateez and the boyz: 👁👄👁 should we be afraid orrr...?

hongjoong, in the distance: you can admire it but don’t you dare bring one home

okay the vaulting competition ✨

while watching sf9 go she was like “:ccc but i’m already shorter than the first level (1.7m)” 💀

she got really shy when changmin read that she has 10 years of ballet experience uwu

changmin, jokingly: oh~ she’s shorter than the box already

juliet: ☹️☹️🥺🥺

changmin: whdjgjwhd sorry sorry sorry 😭

eunkwang: hey!!!! don’t make the baby sad!!!!!!!

she killed it!! mostly bc of her flexibility as she could lift her legs high enough to not touch the box!!

she made it past 2.2m so that’s pretty cool 🤩

eunkwang: maybe it has to do with being born in australia and being around kangaroos

gave the cameras a 🥰✌️🕺🏻😚 after every successful jump

everyone else being her biggest hypemen 😌 the privilege smh

okay but one time as she was running up to the box her hat flew off and she went “nooooo” in tiny and ran back to get it

literally everyone on set went 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 uwu

even the judge/referee laughed 😭

you know how people are like “hold my xxx”

that was juliet but with her bucket hat 💀💀

for her last attempt at 2.3m she uhhh... kinda body-slammed right into the box and knocked it over so they both fell onto the mat 🤕🤕

cue yunho, wooyoung, chan and minhyuk who immediately rushed up to her to see if she was okay :(

the others were like “is she okay???? :c”

ngl it hurt quite a bit but she was also very giggly bc she didn’t expect herself to make it that far

but after the adrenaline wore off she definitely felt the pain :(

so they had to vote for the visual king right

mnet was like ok juliet u can vote for the visual king but they can’t vote for u bc we don’t wanna start anything so u can be the visual queen and win by default 😄

“should i be insulted that they made me win by default 😅😅😅”

yes juliet actually said that on camera and they left it in 💀💀

she still took the selfie and mnet put hers up on the board with everyone else’s but with a little crown over hers that said ‘visual queen’ 💀💀💀💀💀

she was pretty embarrassed by that ngl but sigh what else can she do 😔

hyunjae, pointing to the tiny crown over juliet’s selfie: ohhhhhh does this mean we can’t vote for juliet?

eric: if we could she’d probably win by a landslide

sir we caught u in 4k 👁👁

when seonghwa said he thought felix was cute and wanted to adopt him as a little brother though 🥺

juliet went (◕‿◕) and immediately dragged him over to felix like “OI MATE HERE’S YOUR NEW FRIEND SEONGHWA”

Little Miss Indecisive makes a reappearance bc whO SHOULD SHE VOTE FOR?????

“can i vote for someone not on the show?”

she didn’t actually say that don’t worry

she ended up voting for minhyuk!!!

mostly bc she genuinely thought he was really cool but also bc they were far apart enough in age that people would be less likely to spread rumours

it do be like that sometimes :/

“minhyuk-sunbaenim was very charismatic in their performance from last round, and he was so cool just now during the vaulting competition so i’m going to vote for him!”

she did write a tiny disclaimer on her paper slip that said “everyone is handsome!! <3” though 🥺

WHEN FELIX PLACED 2ND IN THE VISUAL KING THINGY

biggest hypewoman

“YEAHHH FELIX THAT’S MY CUTE BESTIE RIGHT THERE EVERYONE SHUT UP AND LOOK AT HIM!!! FELIX VISUAL KING!!!!! SO TRUE BESTIE!!!!!!!!!”

hwjdbwjjs before they announced minhyuk as first the mcs asked juliet who she voted for and she was so shy when she said she voted for him 😭😭😭

she didn’t take part in the balloon snake tag game and the relay bc she was pretty exhausted from the vaulting (and also bc the boys told her not to bc they could tell she was still slightly in pain after she slammed into the box 🥺)

so instead she became everyone’s designated cheerleader :3

when wooyoung came first in the relay she was so proud!!!!

right after he crossed the finishing line she ran up to him and tackled him in a big hug :ccc

then she went up to eunkwang and asked if he was okay bc he fell during the relay :((((

in conclusion she had so much fun that day and was happy to make even more frens 🥰

— fan reactions;

a/n: this episode was so fun 😭 pls the vaulting game was so funny to watch ahdjjwjs but they all did so well???? i wouldn’t even make it past the first level so idk how minhyuk and chan both managed to go over 2.3m 😭 tbz were also so good at it though???? pls the way juyeon and changmin made it look so easy 👁👄👁 also eric was out for blood in the balloon snake tag game ahjshwjsb we stan 🤩 let me know what you think!! your support really means a lot to me and is what keeps me motivated so thank you all sm 💕💕

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shook-snatched-and-sad · 4 years

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so i binged a show called ‘the owl house’...

and to say the least, i am OBSESSED!

(this contains spoilers so don’t read if you haven’t finished the show yet!!)

aside from the fact that i’m a big old lesbian simp for Eda the Owl Lady, i really loved her storyline. it reminds me a lot of my day to day life as someone with a chronic illness. I want to focus on episode 4 ,“The Intruder,” where we learn of Eda’s curse and later episodes where it’s a prevalent point.

in the beginning of the episode eda’s exhausted to the point where king and luz end up carrying her to her bed (nest). she was already tired, but tried to show luz more magic bc she wanted luz to be happy and let her sleep. sometimes when you’re tired and want to lay down you still try to make others happy, and that can be too much for your already sick body. i am guilty of this 10 times over!

she has her elixir, which is almost like pain meds for me and others with chronic pain (or other meds for others in the chronic illness gang). her elixir has a tag reading, “an elixir a day keeps the curse at bay.” if she doesn’t take it, she transforms into something she doesn’t like. and i mean,,,, yeah, it REALLY DO BE LIKE THAT. even tho i’m still trying to find the right medicine for me, i feel like total GARBAGE when i forget to take my meds. i get snappy and irritable and anxious and everything hurts beyond comprehension; that’s all part of my “curse.”

she also took a little while to reveal her curse to luz, and king didn’t even know but has lived with her for a while. some people i’ve known most of my life don’t even know that i sometimes need a cane or that i even have a chronic pain disorder! you don’t want that judgement or others feeling like your condition is too much for them to handle (which is shitty, but people do say this); you can see that eda has had this happen to her time and time again and that it really left a mark on how she feels about trusting others.

she also doesn’t remember who cursed her, and this fleshes out in my mind a few different ways:

1. it adds to her trust issues. she doesn’t consciously know who did it, so it could be anyone she interacts with and that’s scary. to her it’s traumatic, and she lives with the aftermath of the event everyday

2. not remembering? mega brain fog! sometimes you just have bad days where your brain is so cloudy that you low key forget someone’s name or a simple word to something (i once forgot the word “tv” and it’s technically not even a word). it’s almost like a tip of the tongue type thing. also, the figure kinda looks like fog

3. sometimes you don’t know what causes your illness. i have fibromyalgia and it’s just one of those complicated medical conditions where there is no determined cause for it. trauma? yeah, maybe. a few people in the fam with rheumatic stuff? could play a part. god spun the wheel and had to add whatever wacky thing it landed on? hell yeah, baby!

later in the season eda needs some more of her elixir (her meds) and the guy at her usual place doesn’t have it in stock for another 2 weeks. she has to go to the boiling isles’s version of the black market to get it. when she gets to the black market guy, the price is outrageous and he just proves that this show is TOO SELF AWARE FOR ITS OWN GOOD. IDK WHO GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO SPIT SUCH FACTS ABOUT CAPITALISM BUT GODDAMMIT SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT!! sometimes you can’t get the name brand version of your meds bc insurance doesn’t cover it (even if that’s usually what you get) and you have to get the generic version but IT’S STILL WILDLY EXPENSIVE. and it’s worse if you don’t have insurance. i know other chronically ill people who just ended up smoking w**d for their symptoms until the insurance company stopped playing games, and honestly that says something about the wack ass healthcare system of america *sips tea* luckily the rude mf that wouldn’t give eda her meds got his stand destroyed and that’s on performing magick without parental supervison

and what i especially like about this show is that they gave this character a curse (illness) and didn’t make it her entire identity for the show. any other time there’s a chronically ill/disabled character, it’s their only personality trait and exhaustively used throughout as a lazy ploy too add diversity. yes, eda has this curse and she lives each day treating it, but she has so much more substance to who she is: she’s a businesswoman, a friend, a mentor, a goofball, a badass, a powerful woman in her craft. eda had said her self at the end of “the intruder,” “no one likes having a curse, but if you take the right steps, it’s manageable.” and that’s exactly what it’s like being a chronically ill person who is able to manage their symptoms with medication and still do certain things that bring them joy. without her elixir eda wouldn’t be able to perform magick and have her business; without my meds and some physical therapy i wouldn’t be able to go to school full time for my photography degree and have a job as a photographer.

could i possibly be projecting this metaphor onto a character that makes my little gay heart go uwu? maybe but that’s none of your business (unless you feel it too. in that case it’s our business <3). but i seriously cannot wait to see what else is in store for our #1 bad girl in the rest of the series!

(my attention deficit ass wrote this while being distracted from one of my final papers thank you for attending my TEDTalk)

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kokorozasumono · 3 years

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For the ask game,,, shin tsukimi orrrr sara chidouin :]

AAA ITS SO HARD TO CHOOSE!!! i love miss sara so so much but i have alot to say abt shin tsukimi (derogatory) so i think ill pick him....

(warning for your turn to die spoilers!! ill tag this post as such but just in case, pls scroll past this if u dont wanna be spoiled)

first impression: SUSPICIOUS. i just knew he was gonna be some kind of a problem. i just didnt know the intensity or level. but i also thought he was cute and i liked his color scheme

impression now: STINKY. ITS SO HARD TO DEAL WITH HIM. 90% of the time im just [extreme violence] with him but man. i cant actually hate him. hes so stupid and interesting..... but im just begging him to shut up for like a SECOND. also i found out i share a birthday with him and that made me like him a lil more so,,,, anyways i like him. i like the stinky man. still want to kick him tho.

favorite moment: definitely the part where u pick the path that kanna dies in...... everything shin did and said was so impactful i think,,,, for that reason im actually glad that i got this path when i played because holy shit!!! (not glad abt the kanna part ofc ;-; )

idea for a story: hmmm i dont know...... maybe fun kanna and shin shenanigans,,,,, other than that theres just small lil thoughts abt a regular life au (as in like without the kidnapping and stuff... idk what to call it)

unpopular opinion: with shin and characters like him i think theres no such thing as an unpopular opinion because its already such a mess,,, im new to yttd so idk but if theres discourse abt him like komaeda (but on a smaller scale) but if so. then yeah.

favorite relationship: i like him and kanna alot, but ive seen alot of content abt him and alice and i think its really neat,,,,, either platonically or romantically its really funky, i love it,,, (i kinda wanna answer this with sara and shin because its so fucking funny)

favorite headcanon: hmmm i think ace shin would be really neat,,,, also a manlet but more than he already is.

#THANS FOR THE ASK HENRY EGBERT THE ONE AND ONLY <333 #i feel obligated to state once again that im in love with miss sara chidouin #<- i just see her name and i feel the need to state that #yttd spoilers #m #asks #henryegbert

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sugarandspice-games · 3 years

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I guess this is becoming a trend... I’m popping in before the actual intro to clarify-- if the text is in italic, it is me (Sugar) talking and regular is Spice. Alright? Cool. And so--

So, one night I’m going through youtube and I come upon this one shitposty video about some random anime that I’ve never even heard of. After doing some research, I discover that it’s actually based on a dating sim that I’ve also never heard of. As a joke I was like “Hey Sugar wanna watch this as a joke, it might be funny” and so we did. And uhm. Well.

Today we’re gonna be reviewing Brothers Conflict, aka Sweet Home Alabama 2: Electric Anime Boogaloo aka the anime that ruined our lives. [Again, disclaimer: neither Sugar nor I condone incest and/or pedophilia, two themes which are uh, very rampant in this anime which is why I cannot recommend it in good faith. It’s not good, don’t get me wrong. I can’t really say that I liked it even if watching it and ragging on it was kind of enjoyable, and I did get attached to some of the characters because that’s the kind of idiot I am. Also, we’re not shirking our duties to write I swear please don’t kill me--] Anyway, an obligatory SPOILER WARNING though this probably isn’t going in the main tag bc I do not want the fans to publicly stone me. Why are we reviewing this? Bc we need to talk about it somewhere. Though I say review lightly bc this... is really more of a critique.

ALSO we only watched the anime, idk if things are different in the game. There is no full english translation for the games and most of the LP channels have been copyright striked, so please don’t come at us for not knowing anything. I also know that otome games and dating sims don’t tend to translate well to anime, and I will be addressing this later.

So, dear god, where do I begin.

Where do we begin indeed? How about the fact that her name is Ema and I had to google to remember the heroine’s name? Also, she is seventeen.

Our plot, or well... what you COULD call a plot, I guess, if you REALLY wanted to give this anime that much credit, focuses on the aforementioned seventeen year old Hinata Ema, who has an absent father who apparently FOUND THE TIME TO FALL IN LOVE AND GET MARRIED BUT NEVER HAS A SECOND TO SPARE FOR HIS ONLY CHILD, RINTARO I SWEAR TO GOD I AM TAKING CUSTODY OF YOUR CHILD. HAND HER OVER-- Anyway. He’s getting married to a woman who has 13 sons (jesus christ ma’am have you ever heard of a condom?) and he decides to move her in with them because... I guess he has less braincells than I have balls, which is to say, zero. Hi, I’m trans.

So, Ema moves in with them... along with her talking grey squirrel, Juli. Juli is... interesting and by interesting, I mean-- ABSOLUTELY PUZZLING. He, apparently, has seen the majority of Ema’s life from babyhood to teenagerhood and can talk but is only understood by Ema (who he calls Chii) and Louis, the eighth son in the Asahina family. It is never explained why, or how Chii came across him or how in an episode, a single episode, he becomes human because why the hell not, I guess??? (Also, he is pretty. YES. I said it. Fight me.) [Quick Spice intervention, this squirrel can talk to people, transform into a human, enter dreams, and live way longer than a squirrel should since the average lifespan of a squirrel is like 6 years in the wild. Juli is apparently a god as none of this is EVER explained.]

And when she meets the Asahina family, it’s pretty much immediately chaos because these heterosexual (I guess? They look like a bunch of twinks to me but there goes anime trying to convince me that straight people are real and not a lie made up by Trump) men have NEVER and I mean NEVER known a woman in their entire lives, since they seem to want to bang their stepsister immediately. And most of them are GROWN ASS ADULTS. Only three of them are actually minors (though Iori is 18 and only one year older so I guess??? It’s okay??? But still weird) and one of them is a 13 year old who looks and acts like he’s 8.

Oh, and did I mention that out of these boys, only the adult triplets and the abusive asshole 16 year old get any kind of characterization AND character development? I mean, Subaru gets an “arc” if you can call it that, but really, they don’t give him much... personality. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout and it’d be the same. I feel bad for him (but not really because dude you are 20 and she is your sister, what the fuck--)

But if there’s anything good about this anime, it is the characters themselves. Several of the boys have redeeming qualities and interesting personalities and quirks, as well as interesting relationships and dynamics with each other. Yes, some of them are lacking in the plotline department while others may have decent plotlines and lack personality, and then some of them are just given absolutely nothing (COUGH Masaomi COUGH Ukyo COUGHCOUGHCOUGH Iori, and by the way, what the fuck is that game plotline bc I read the wiki since I wanted to know more about him. We don’t have time to unpack the mento illness luv. But you’re telling me they had all this meat to work with and they threw it in the trash and gave him nothing? What the hell?) And if anything, I feel as if the characters themselves are crippled by the plotline. If given a different story, perhaps, they may have room to shine, because a lot of them are compelling if not lovable (though some may not be... lovable. COUGHFuuto, at least not for me.) If you want to see our review on the characters, we’ll put out another post.

Iori... Iori has a hell of a plot in the game, according to the Wiki but I can’t blame the writers for not exploring all of it because whoa. It is dark and not in a good way. But back to the subject at hand... I agree with Spice. I do/did like quite a lot of the characters... provided the entire romantic plot is taken away but we will go into more of why the plot is problematic below. All I can really add is: There is a baby in this dumpster and canon has been taken out back to be shot like a lame horse.

This brings me to a point in which I would like to pause the character discussion and bring up a glaring flaw with this anime in general (aside from the... plot. Look, I’m not a huge fan of weird stepsibling stuff but I think that if you want to do something like that, there are ways to do it and ways not to do it. This was the way not to do it, which I’m getting to). The biggest thing that made this anime so uncomfortable was the imbalance of power dynamics. Why is the protagonist 17 when most of the love interests are 18 and older, and I mean much, much older? And she’s not any 17 year old... she’s a lonely, neglected girl who is starved for the love of a family. This makes her easily manipulated by the brothers, who clearly desire her for less than wholesome reasons, and that makes it skeevy. I’m not sure why there’s such a fetishization of nonconsent in media, as if it’s fine for as many men to lust after female protagonists as the writer desires BUT the woman can’t want a single one of them in return. It’s creepy, and quite frankly, I am very much over it. I also get that the age thing is probably a product of the protagonist of a teenager oriented dating sim not translating well to an anime (because really, all otome game MCs are meant to be a neat little pair of shoes for the player to imagine themselves in), but why are we fetishizing a teenager being groomed by adults anyway? Especially adults who have this much power over her to begin with? The power dynamics bring this plot from “Oh, this might be kinda trashy but it could be entertaining” to “This is extremely creepy and rapey and kind of a dumpster fire.”

This is also true. If we were to take age into consideration, Fuuto, Yusuke, and Iori would be the three candidates left for Chii. This is taking out the youngest as well, who is... thirteen, I think? But anyway, (I know I am probably going to get some hate for this but go for it), I am into stories that explore the stepsibling thing and it can make a good narrative-- but before everyone gets uppity: There is a line between FICTION and REALITY and I do not condone real life incest but a story is a story and there are ways to frame it that make it clear that it is not a romantic thing, or acceptable. This anime does not do that in it’s dynamics because some of the brothers do start off in that very firm caregiving, family role and it is a sharp turn into romance that makes you go, “?” or in Fuuto case, a blending that does lean into fetishization.

All in all I think the plot maybe could have been okay? I’m not saying it isn’t problematic, because we all know it is, who are we kidding? But I don’t think it’s wrong per se to explore family dynamics with romance and to understand where the line should be drawn, and maybe exploring the definition of family itself. I have seen fanfictions with similar tropes ask those questions and explore the concept beautifully without romanticizing or fetishizing incest and unhealthy power dynamics. It could have been good, and I get that perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree by expecting mature themes in an anime based on an otome game, but it also could have been a lot less... creepy (I have used that word so much that it looks wrong now) even if it wasn’t the greatest thing ever. But again, what was I expecting? I watched this whole thing as a joke and ended up attached to the characters like a fool... That tends to be a trend here, and this is why we are so salty all the time. So anyway, stay tuned for our review of the characters! We may not cover all of them since some of them don’t really get anything, but we’ll cover what we found interesting.

#spice talks #sugar speaks #anime and game reviews #sweet home alabama: the anime #not putting this in main tag

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panthersprite · 4 years

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I Tell us about them !! I also have mixed feelings about the last chapter

hm ok!!! ill tag this as spoilers in case anyone doesnt want to read past this

these are just my raw feelings so its probably gonna be a little rambly

anyways obvious sally face spoilers ahead

i wanna start off that i love this game. its fun and different and its made by like one guy. chapter five doesnt ruin it for me or anything like that, and i HEAR theres supposedly an epilogue if you hundo the game? but im nowhere near getting that right now so if its true, ill update my feelings after i get it

but ya, this game is super good. its pretty different than a lot of the games out there rn, which i like! the story is really interesting and i think, overall, it played out really well!

however, the lead up to the final chapter? was kinda disappointing, to be honest.

i fell in love w the game cuz it was super interesting and really in depth- i played through the chapters a few times cuz i wanted to discover stuff and look for everything. i drew a hell of a lot of art for it too

i love the dynamic of the characters and how they all fit together, the relationships were really fun to build and it really felt like a lot of time was put into it!

this last chapter tho, just didnt seem like it had the same heart? the same??? depth?? you have this whole grand thing building up and up and it just kinda felt. lack-luster. there wasnt a lot of secrets to find, it was riddled w puzzle after puzzle that werent even really that fun, it was honestly pretty... short.

i have a few theories and stuff in my sally face tag, if you wanna bother looking into it or anything

i think most of the fandom was expecting something pretty big. a reset maybe? sal coming back? some grand finale w ash totally owning everyone? a happily ever after? thats what i would have wanted.

not something like “oh and it was all fine then, everyones back. its cool” but like. something. something with sal and larry and ash, and their friends, all together again

i was hoping for something big. some huge discovery or something. more story? im not really sure.

this final chapter really just left me kinda empty. the game was so good, it had so much going for it, and i think thats one of the problems about this ending

it just didnt FEEL like it was enough, everything that happened and what? you get an hr or so of gameplay, its all puzzles and just a little fighting. theres nothing really new, it just felt the same. there wasnt any like “oh man!” moments like in the other chapters

it just gave me more questions, to be honest

no one really got a resolution (again, if the epilogue is true, ill have to edit this), sals still dead, and his “comeback” was disappointing. larry had a whole adventure we didnt get to see, and then just fucked off into the abyss??? ash really didnt do anything interesting? todds fine now but neil died. maple was killed as well

it just. didnt feel the same as the rest of the game. does it ruin it for me? no, sally face is still really good! i really recommend it if you like horror adventure games! but if youre looking for some grand end to a story, well...

#sally face spoilers #sally face #asks #anons #Anonymous

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isavander · 5 years

Text

We should make this our promised neverland

I'mma tell you something, and I'm probably gonna be drifted away a lot but I think it's still worth reading, so please stay with me and if someone gets the entire idea then it would be great if they reframed it better since this is too long.

Also this is just precaution that we should take, and I was thinking about it because I would hate it if we don't.

Asides from loving TPN and every single character, meaning they are just so well planed and positioned when it comes to screentime which we all can agree it's one of the hardest things to get right, and I surely have so much to say about them (I personally love Zack the most as a secondary character). What I'm going to talk about is gonna be mainly related to the basics.

I wanted to mention the fandom's behaviour that I've been able to see, I recently came here since I wanted to read the whole manga without any spoiler risks after watching the anime, and beforehand I expected non hostile/ friendly attitudes because dude... they are kids. And I know it's kinda stupid to expect the opposite but you really never know; since we've made tumblr the headquarters of fiction, then we eventually meet unpleasant people. So If I was getting into a different kind of fandom then you just know you would see them coming, but with this one I just hoped I wouldn't for many reasons, one of them visibly being it's freshness but it's not really the one I wanted to talk about, either way I wasn't dissapointed with my expectations.

There are people that are not even that deep on the whole shipping thing just yet so the fandom it's really carefree, but for those who can't help but ship or foreshadow or conspire, I'm excited to see for the first time in a while a post without feeling defensive or attacked, and I understand that have to do with yes, it's freshness, it's popularity on the rise, and their children status. Sadly, I haven't been for a while in a fandom that isn't in an ongoing battle so I'm happy I'm here.

You know this people are getting started, so yet we are not really gonna see something too glorified or biased, and we are going to start doing so once the rising popularity stabilizes and its freshness is over but I trust it won't be antagonistic unlike any other promising manga in the future because of their children status and our past and presence in other fandoms; we just know things get dirty and messy, with just explained hatred and resistance but in The Promised Neverland this ain't it man.

So the children status, give me something more right? I really just want you to stay, and also I'm going to relate it all to shipping so keep that in mind.

Even if I think it has to do with them being kids, because we just soften around them, its rather about the circumstances they have had to face as kids. They just want to feel secured and protected, and if you hate on someone who is around that age in other fandoms, as in trying to bring reasons to your opposition on liking them, the development that they are putting us to see it's connected with ambitious and the path they go through to gain personal satisfaction and empowerment. Those who are willing to be against their choices might just find them boring and they will look for something to talk about negatively: they weren't ambitious enough, they weren't useful enough, and their motivation to talk shit, it's of course, the threat they present to their favourite character and the third "party" that blocks their ship.

But that's the thing, you can't really hate on these kids, theres is literally no explanation that works, and if you look for them it has to be ill-enough. In here their roles also come to the equation, and their survival: you are taking from them their humanity when trying to justify the hate we witness in other fandoms because unlike them, you can't just say they are being boring or useless. As kids, they are doing their best, there is no system that can protect them, and most importantly, they didn't choose this path therefore the risks it implies, which means if they fear, if they get it wrong, if they aren't brave enough, it's too imprecise to use that against them, to just say "you should have know better". If they happen to threaten you, it's impossible to use this against them. And on the contrary, if they are too ambitious, too brave, too fearless, if greatness its their goal it has its roots on survival and aid and if they want to be better, is just so they can be able to reach more families that theirs to help.

So that leads me to the shipping stuff, we know how a ship can be worshiped or hated and I was praying for this fandom to not get there immediately and be victim of such behaviour, which I know, it's odd to think it would've happened but you never know.But then again I trust it won't be that way in the future either. I covered why it's hard to gather any information against them once the characters are more developed but I now want to insist on how it's gonna be as hard if they eventually change.

First of, I think it's really low to act a certain way when it comes to shipping them, and no I'm not really talking about their age this time, because when people ship them I believe they are looking at their potential connection once they grow. For instance I will use as an example Rayemma who are my personal favourite. All I can think about when it comes to them and those pairings that oppose them is that i want them to be happy. Even if they are been foreshadowed for a certain future all I want for all of them is to live in peace. More than anything they consider each other friends and family, they interact with each other daily and put their lives on each other shoulders, and they don't prioritize anything else other than each other's safety. This is not about them being in another classroom or other team and having to instead, interact for time to time or in a new arc and then they suddenly get to meet and people start shipping them. It is a little disrespectful to prioritize romance over their friendship because in this case yes, I'm briging the fact that they are children and as I said we are idealizing their potential relationship who started and we were all part of when they were indeed children, friends, and mutual protectors. The emptiness they might want to fill doesn't have to be fill by that type of love just yet, it needs to be fill with other values like respect and partnership and teamwork, it is already being filled, because those values are the ones that they need now to secure everyone's safety and if any of them eventually fall in love it would be substantiated on those traits only than anything else, if they eventually develop a different type of love for someone else, someone that you don't like, or rather force yourself to not like, it's really hard to avoid that everyone, including that "third party" contributed to the person you rooted for to survive, to their well being and put their lives on their shoulders being afraid as hell, so no, they didn't choose to be comrades and take that risk, they weren't put in the same team and were told they had to protect each other and then developed mutual appreciation, they instead learned how to love each other because otherwise survival chances would be reduced and gave value to any other kid that they crossed because they happened to be part of their "team" for just being human, it's hard to avoid that.

And to reduce ourselves to comparing them or these potential relationships with aggresives means, is really something that first thing I felt when going into the tags we collectivelly decided to not do. And we will collectively decide to not do when this gets huge. We ship them because there's so much good potential for otps, even if we are getting started and the fandom will eventually grow I trust that is gonna be hard as fuck to just annul the appreaction we developed for all of them just for the sake of a ship, because that ship itself would disagree and even be against the values they stand, they would basically be out of character (oc).

This reasoning might not be accurate for some though, and maybe they gathered enough experience to decide that once they were part of this fandom and got involved, they just simply wanted to take it easy because this fandom does feel like taking a break. Itself is breathing. For me it's a mixture of both but what I do know is that it's just really hard as shit to justify hating on any of this characters in comparison from those of other fandoms.

And If we get to see them grow and become older enough in which they might expend time mentioning who they like, since by that time we would have already being through this stage then I trust that we wouldn't change the behaviour I'm seeing either. I know that I wanted to write this because I'm a hardcore shipper in any fandom I'm in, but I don't tend to fight for my beliefs because I'm really not up to it like never, I just enjoy reading positive posts and If I don't I just cringe and make fun of them with the elaboration of a meme, I don't even go on separated characters tags just to avoid drama and hate because I can get really angry but I never have intentions to react on my emotions, especially if on those ships I see potential and work and devotion, like, it just emotionally wrecks me, but it happens that, for as much as I feel like this for the ships in tpn, I was afraid I would feel that way too whenever I crossed something I didn't like and it turns out I didn't mind because for the first time I just don't care. All the time I was thinking I want them all to be happy, there's no fucking possible way to find any of these characters potentially annoying or bad intended and if anyone wanted to bring beef I do believe everyone would attacked them, like look, all the posts about the ships have good vibes, and if anything what you see most are memes, this is the true promised neverland.

So the real intention of all this gibberish is to make everyone understand that yes, is not that hard to be the person that have the initiative to make a fandom be a safe place for everyone especially if it's so promising as this one. In any fandom there is that person when it begins but then they are outnumbered and just starts participating in the same defensive behaviour to protect their favourite character and try to explain themselves by saying "I didn't want to start anything but others did", the things is that they all, if they seek carefully can justify their hate for another character, I don't know about other series but at least for me this is the first time I'm involved in one were everyone agrees that in this series everyone is trying their best and being fucking p e r f e c t, we have the potential in here to make this an everlasting meme fandom and hate free, not for certain groups once this become huge but for this whole fandom to share the same value.

There is so much power in that message and we have been given the perfect storyline to do so and make it work, it's a real great opportunity you know, because our motivation to respect them does not solemnly fall on our morals as individuals and the understanding that everyone is different, but rather than the empathy everyone feels for children, especially those who just want their family and friends to be safe, and that composed all the ships you might have, I know we can make it work because the reason why that girl had the initiative to have an entire respectful fandom with no antis is because she wanted that for the series but she happened to be outnumbered so she joined them, in here is not really like that; this is what the characters would want and they would prefered to not have a "someone-meant-to-be" than a friend and an outsider acting like "well guys I'm taking sides" this is just a reminder that if the fandom in tumblr gets as big as I imagine it will to not forget that I expect it to be as it is now. I don't know about you but I really enjoy entering the tags and looking at either memes or an aggressive reminder of how fucking cute Phil is. That's it, that's how aggressive it can gets. Imagine having a fandom like that that never really change in that sense and for time to time you just scroll and see a fanart of your ship or a rant without subtile jealously and toxic protectiveness, I'm not gonna lie I enjoy those too but this is just different man, we are all on the same team, they are trying to survive, it's like even if we don't see them having screentime, we just know they are doing some important shit and if anything you can justify why they are being important or useful by I don't know just sitting on the floor: everyone gets through trauma differently, by all means we are not gonna tear them down.

It doesn't sound impossible once the second season is out and their arcs are more developed for this to not be as carefree, every fandom goes through this. This is just precaution. I think this has the potential enough to be one of the exceptions like one of the few fandoms from huge franchises that just doesn't care about multiple ships or weird shit, a fandom that is realllly chill, and I think we have enough experience in other series to become like this.

Because It does ruin the series until people adapt and get involved in the drama, you don't want for this big family the same and if you truly enjoy drama let's get that done with memes, like have you seen some of them? I know we were already sort of going through that path but this is just a reminder to make it work, to break the wheel, wouldn't it be interesting to see how it goes?

I edited this so it can be shorter so I basically posted the rest individually

#tpn #the promised neverland #emma #rayemma #ray #norman #gilda #anna #noremma #lucas #yuugo #anime #shonen jump

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fordarkisthesuede · 5 years

Text

The Tolls of Justice - Chapter 1

Thank you for all your kind words so far!!! （*’∀’人）♥ I'm slowly reading that nice pile of new TT works you all made! ♥♥♥

(And I’m sorry for the delay,

Important Spoiler Tags: more talk of dead bodies, blood mention, mental illness

{Prologue} {Next Chapter}

Read on AO3 or continue below:

[Chapter 1: A Different Ceiling]

John Doe stared wide-eyed up at the whitewashed ceiling, feeling his breath catch in his chest and release too fast. He could practically hear his heart thudding in his ears like the world’s worst wake-up call.

Where am I? He asked himself.

He turned his head as he tried to breathe slowly. Dull light streamed in through the thin chicken-wire over the window - a standard of mornings in Gotham. There was flat blue paint on the walls, a familiar photograph sitting on a nightstand, a clock (oh, it was 7:20, that was helpful) and a phone there that he wasn’t technically supposed to have.

He snatched the phone off the surface and swiped up, barely paying attention to the illuminated rollercoaster that was his lock-screen. A selfie of himself and Bruce Wayne greeted him, only partially obscured by a couple of icons. He’d taken the picture three days ago, during their last visit; he could see the phone’s little timestamp in the corner, underneath the clock. He took a deep breath and focused on Bruce’s face.

Bruce had worn that really good cologne that day. He could smell it lingering on his own shirt for hours afterward, bringing to mind memories of his short stay at Bruce’s house.

He felt his panic start ebbing away. He wasn’t in Arkham Asylum anymore. He wasn’t in the Old Five Points, either, or the abandoned Funhouse, or Ace Chemicals. He wasn’t dreaming or being delusional or…

John pinched himself and winced slightly at the sharp sting it made in his wrist. Nope, he wasn’t under any kind of drug-based hallucination, either. Just like the day before that, and the week before that, and the fortnight before that.

But his subconscious apparently hadn’t caught up with reality just yet. He kept dreaming of everything else. Everything that could have gone wrong, or everything that did go wrong, but amplified by twenty.

Things should be different now. They were different now. Bruce was fine. John was….well, here.

The halfway house he was in was one of the better ones in the city. It wasn’t the best, of course, considering John’s past...difficulties, but it was better than where he’d ended up last time. There weren’t any bars on his window, his room actually had some color in it that wasn’t just a stain, and the only rat he’d seen so far was outside of the building.

His thumb hovered over the messenger icon on the screen, and he looked at the little digital clock in the corner. Was it too early? Bruce had been on patrol, and he’d already bugged him after one nightmare.

But it was a different one. He’d only dived over the railing towards that bubbling vat of chemical waste before. He’d had that dream before, always feeling like he’d fallen onto his back on the mattress afterward; he was almost used to that one.

This time he’d been covered in blood. He could only see the Funhouse floor, the countless bodies there, forming a grotesque ring around him, staring at him with unblinking dull expressions...

John rubbed his forehead. He really didn’t want to think about it anymore. He wanted a distraction and comfort and Bruce’s soothing voice in his ear.

His phone buzzed in his hand, and the first line from Bruce’s text dropped down from the top of the screen.

John hit it like lightning and let his brain simulate Bruce’s voice.

I’m close by. Can I come see you before work?

Bruce was heaven-sent, surely. A gift from a god of some sort. An absolute treasure John didn’t deserve to even look at.

He hovered over the keyboard. Should he wait a minute? Should he just say yes with all the exclamation points he felt in his heart?

No, no - Bruce might want to see him to get comfort of his own. Which meant he needed to loosen up a little.

Ha ha, I knew you couldn’t resist me ;)

John waited a moment, his brain buzzing that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to joke with a man that might have stayed up all night again… Maybe he should amend it with a ‘j/k’?

What can I say, your raw animal magnetism has a tendency draws in bats.

John laughed to himself.

Ha ha ha! I bet I can amp up the magnetic power to get you here *faster*!

No need. I’ll be there in 5 mins.

…you’re that close already?

How’d you know I’d say yes?

I had a feeling you would.

Plus this is important.

Important. So, a nine-out-of-ten chance it was about Bruce’s stakeout last night. John pushed aside the budding worry that something had gone horribly wrong - Bruce was talking to him. If he wasn’t fine (or at least Bruce’s definition of it, which was ‘alive and secretly hurting somehow’), he wouldn’t be speaking to him.

Unless someone had found out about his secret identity, knocked him out (or worse), stole his phone, discovered where John was staying, and was coming to kill him and taunting him about it by masquerading as Bruce...

...but that was a preeetty low chance.

Ok. Drive carefully, there’s a bunch of lunatics out there.

And I would know! Ha ha ha!!

I’m always careful.

I’ll see you soon.

Ten minutes, five minutes - hell, John could be ready to see Bruce in one minute. He threw on the closest things from the drawer, smoothed his hair back, and paced over the tiles a little, darting his eyes out the window towards the mediocre parking lot. It was funny how different it looked compared to Arkham. He still sometimes felt like he’d wound up in a different wing of it rather than a whole new place...

He blinked, remembering that St. Dymphna New Life Home had a somewhat different set of rules and that he could leave his room. And unlike Arkham, he didn’t have to ask or do someone a favor or play innocent. (Most of the time, anyway…)

He was already out in the hall, feeling like he should rush even though he knew he didn’t have to, passing other rooms, other snoozing patrons, turning a corner, and smacking right into Mickey.

Mickey Williamson had a serious case of ‘resting bitch face’. Well, that coupled with paranoia and aggressive issues.

“You trying to start somethin’, clown?” Mickey grunted, staring down at John.

From anyone else, it would’ve been a threat, but John had helped Batman take down Bane; this guy was a limp noodle in comparison. Still, picking a fight - even a verbal one - wasn’t a good idea. Neither was shrugging it off. “Only part one of my plan to brighten your day,” he joked. “I know you don’t like loud noises. How else am I going to get your attention?”

Mickey gave a short hmph, clearly satisfied. “...what’s the plan?”

He definitely wouldn’t buy that it was a secret. “A joke! Why are lawyers buried ten feet underground?”

Mickey looked up at the ceiling for a brief moment. It was hard to tell if he was rolling his eyes or thinking about it. “Okay, why?”

“Because deep down, they’re not that bad!”

Mickey gave a short, boisterous laugh that was definitely genuine-sounding, despite the smile slipping off his face shortly after. “Okay, that was much better than the one about the rotisserie chicken you told Chuck yesterday.”

“Yeah, I guess when there’s more than one meat that cooks like that it kinda takes away the punch…”

He crossed his arms. “So what’s part two of ‘plan’ of yours?”

“What, and ruin the mild surprise? Mickey, how long have we known each other?”

“Four weeks.”

“Exactly! And have I ever done you wrong in all that time?”

His jaw shifted slightly. “That green sauce you told me to use the other day made everything too spicy.”

“Okay, honest mistake on my part, I didn’t think you’d use that much… But that aside?”

“...no,” he admitted with a slight shrug.

“Mm-hm! So trust me - it’ll put a smile on your face!” John emphasized with a click of his fingers towards his bulky neighbor and a grin of his own as he slunk away. “Probably,” he muttered to himself, completely unsure of what he would do next. Mickey might not have been as scary as Bane, but John was constantly trying to be on his best behavior, so getting on Mickey’s good side - along with everyone else’s - was for the best.

John glanced briefly the camera in the corner of the open stairwell, seeing it still pointed down the hall. He knew from the angle and shape of the lens that the corner of the stairs was a safe place to talk if Bruce didn’t want his lips recorded.

The thought made him giggle a little to himself. It took two flights of stairs to get down to the welcome area, where’d he’d no doubt have to wait as Bruce signed more pointless pieces of paper and -

And there he was. Bruce Wayne, standing there, signing away another visitor’s form and chatting up the easily-charmed nurse for the sake of his public image.

He was radiant, even under the fluorescent lights. A gorgeous demigod - no, a hero, a warrior of the highest class, out to mingle amongst the common criminals without his armor. John felt like the atmosphere had shifted and grown warm, and there was something about the way Bruce’s flirtatious smile wasn’t reaching his eyes that made John’s stomach feel all light.

The real smiles were all his. His, his, his.

He knew he had to wait until Bruce passed through the little security check, but for what felt like for the hundredth time he just wanted to walk over it and ignore everything that stood in the way of them. His fingers itched to touch Bruce, grab his hand, his wrist, anything, and he couldn’t. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels, waiting, waiting, and smiling wider as Bruce caught his eye.

It didn’t matter how small the little smile back on Bruce’s face was, it was genuine. It made John chuckle: that silly girl at the front desk thought she had half a chance with Bruce? Ha!

John barely heard the guard talking about how they should go to the visiting room a-s-a-p. He knew the rules - visits were a maximum of sixty minutes, they had to be conducted in the visiting room unless a doctor signed off otherwise, and if a therapy session, work, or a meeting with the social worker was scheduled John would have to go to that no matter what.

Blah, blah, blah. There was no rule on how long they could take to walk to the visiting room. And John was willing to bend and break rules into tiny pieces for Bruce any day.

“Hey, John.”

“Hey, Bruce,” he echoed back in the same tone, grinning just a little wider. “You’re earlier than I thought you’d be.”

“I drive fast,” Bruce shrugged with a small smirk. They left the guard to pretend he wasn’t listening or watching them leave in his peripheral vision. “You doing okay?”

“Is our new mayor crooked?”

“...possibly?” Bruce answered tentatively.

“Exactly!” John joked.

Bruce wasn’t keeping his eyes focused on the stairs. Cautious concern worked its way onto his face, which John felt simultaneously annoyed and relieved at it. It was amazing having him for support - every doctor he’d ever had stressed how important a good support system was - but sometimes it made John feel like he was being babied. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

“Take it any way you want! Doesn’t change the fact that I always feel better when you’re here.”

Bruce frowned slightly. “Is something wrong?”

John rolled his eyes. Bruce was toeing the line of babying. Why could he not take a good dark joke? “No, Bruce. I’m not being mistreated, I can take care of myself, and I’ve taken my meddies like a good boy.”

Bruce’s frown deepened, and he got that stern look that made John’s brain give a little burst of adrenaline. His more dominant side always made John want to challenge him...and swoon, usually at the same time. Bruce took hold of his arm, his grip firm but not entirely threatening, and pulled him discreetly underneath the camera so they wouldn’t be seen; both stood side-by-side with their backs against the wall, Bruce’s grip on his arm loosening. “You’ve texted me in the middle of the night several times this week. I know you’re not sleeping well.” His too-blue eyes searched him. “I won’t say anything if you’re not okay, John. I just want to know what’s wrong.”

John thought briefly about retorting with ‘you’, but that was so incredibly untrue that John couldn’t even try to lie with that sorry excuse. He couldn’t say he was ‘fine’, either, despite the habitual urge to. He wasn’t, Bruce knew it, and they did make that promise to be honest with each other...

“It’s just...you know, my brain, being...rude to me.” He knew that wasn’t a good enough explanation, but Bruce was giving his ‘I’m taking you seriously’ face. John always liked that expression. He didn’t see it enough on people. “I just keep having, you know,” John fumbled, rubbing the back of his neck to try and dispel some of the awkwardness, “bad dreams. I mean straight-up barbaric ones, Bruce,” he felt his lip curl in a sneer at himself, “My brain compacts all my garbage memories and twists it into something worse.”

Bruce took hold of John’s hand so smoothly it actually took him by surprise. John stared at him, wondering if he’d said something wrong. He should explain, shouldn’t he?

“I think… I’m still adjusting. Like, I know you’re here, and I’m here, but...it’s like my brain secretly doesn’t like the change and is punishing me for it,” John continued, giving a short, nervous giggle, “Which is ridiculous, because this is more than I could’ve hoped for in a lifetime!”

“Have you mentioned this to Dr. Song?”

“Umm…sort of?” John gestured with his free hand. “Sans graphic details, but, uh, yeah.”

“Is it why you’ve been texting me so late? You wake up from them?”

He didn’t quiiite want to put it like that. He didn’t want to keep thinking of those stupid dreams. “That, and I miss you,” John answered with a sly smile. Their fingers were entwined - he stroked the Bruce’s thumb with his own, feeling the old tiny scar there, slightly smoother than the rest of his warm hand.

The reaction was more of what he wanted to see right then - Bruce had that sweet longing look in his eye.

“I’m literally counting down the days, Bruce,” John purred, feeling much more confident as Bruce’s face flushed a delicate shade of pink. “I’d do anything just to kiss you right now.”

“We shouldn’t,” Bruce replied, looking like he was trying to talk himself out of doing just that.

“That’s not what you said last time,” John teased quietly with a grin, turning to lean his shoulder against the wall. The delicious aromas of expensive cologne and hair conditioner clung to Bruce’s collar, bringing to mind the more sordid details of that last visit. “In fact, I remember you pinning me to the wall and kissing me until you couldn’t breathe.” He’d give anything (any mild luxury, a whole week of visits, all the good night’s sleeps he had left) just have a room alone with him for a while. “I’ve had a hard time thinking about anything else since then.”

He could almost see the struggle between reason and desire in Bruce’s mind. He tried to hide his little shudder as John leaned in a little more; oh yes, John had him right where he wanted him. Bruce might as well have licked his lips.

“Or do you want me to do the pinning this time?”

John considered just pulling him forward and kissing him anyway, but that would ruin their little game. He liked seeing how far he could push Bruce. He watched Bruce’s baby-blues flicker slightly between John’s eyes.

The admonishment in his voice was gentle, like the squeeze he gave John's hand. “We really shouldn’t.”

“Alll-riiight,” John said with a playful pout, “If you say so, Bruce.” He pulled away and crossed his arms, wanting something else to do with his freshly-warmed hands. “You got spooked when that door opened last time, huh?”

“It’s more like ‘I don’t want people to think you got out because of my influence’,” he retorted quietly with a slight smile.

“Well, they’re not wrong, Bruce. I wouldn’t be in here without you,” John pointed out with a shrug in the general direction of their surroundings. “But I get it. So, if you’re not here for a good ol’ round of canoodling, it must be work-related, huh?”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “I actually just wanted to see you.”

John felt his heart skip that middle beat. “Oh! I mean, when you said ‘important’, I thought… Oh, geez,” he blustered, tapping his thighs with his fingers, “You sure know how to make a guy feel special.” He brought his hands together, looking up at Bruce with his best puppy-eyed expression. “But you’ll tell me how last night went anyway, right?”

Bruce had that cute little smile perking on the corner of his mouth. “Of course.” The smile slipped away just as soon as it appeared. “Not well. The shipment coming in was sabotaged before it came into port; I found all the crew dead.”

“Uugh,” John grunted, putting his hands in his pockets. “Did you at least get B.M.’s guys?”

“No. Their van combusted not long after I boarded the ship. G.C.P.D. found three dead, the last one’s presumed missing. We think it’s a rival gang - C.S.I. was still examining the wreckage when I left.”

“Sounds like a rough night.”

“It was. I barely got a power nap in before-”

“John?”

He glanced down the stairs, towards the voice - Devi, one of the few women staying there. She’d been there for three months already, coming out of her second stay at the county clinic.

“What’re you doin’? We got work in five minutes.”

“...we do?”

“Yeah, it’s Tuesday, man. You comin’ or what?”

He didn’t want to, but he should. “If I don’t make it down there, hijack the bus to wait for me,” he joked.

Her face lit up. “Hey, an upside: I can finally get one of Peralta’s Boston cremes in you.”

John grinned and gave a dramatic gasp. “Devi, you scoundrel, that’s dirty!”

“You’re the one makin’ it dirty, man!” Devi laughed, “I better see you down here in five, or I’m tellin’ the warden,” she teased as she turned the corner, her ponytail of tiny braids shifting as she walked.

Bruce had that calculating look. “I’m sorry, John, I didn’t know you had work today, either.”

“That’s okay, Bruce, I forgot entirely!”

Bruce looked far away, like he was thinking through something.

“Um, you okay?”

“...she didn’t question us standing here.” Bruce turned his gaze to him again. “Do you think she knows something?”

“Devi? Nahhh, she’s on the level.” Weeell… “Our level, I mean. Even if she ‘knows something’, she’s no rat.” Bruce still looked concerned, the big worry-wart. “Look, it’s fine - I’ll go get on the bus with the other crazies, go sit in a back-room sewing den where no one sees me for half the day, and text you if she tries to blackmail me so your other half can pay her a visit.”

Bruce’s little smile returned, making John want to just reach out and caress him like the treasure he was. “You don’t need an excuse to text me, John. You can do that whenever you want.” The sincerity made John’s stomach twist a little. “Just be careful. And have a good day at work.”

John wondered if everyone else in a relationship felt a little burst of joy at the simple well-wishing phrase. “Right back at ya, Brucie,” he said, nudging Bruce’s shoulder with his fist. He leaned in a little, lowering his voice just so Bruce could hear. “You know what I’ll do if anyone hurts you.”

Just as soon as Bruce got that complex look of desire-in-denial and mild alarm that John had wanted to see, John tossed him a wink and whirled around, leaving him to puzzle it out as he descended the stairs.

He grinned to himself, feeling much more relaxed and in-control than before. “Don’t stay too long, Bruce, or you’ll start thinking you live here!”

*~*~*~*~*

The Eastern harbor was one of the more seedy places in Gotham. Batman often fenced the place as part of his patrol, and John could name every mob that made a hit on the infamous 13th Street.

So naturally, it was one of the few sections of the city that would think of employing former Arkham inmates. It was a twenty-minute bus ride every morning to get to their respective jobs. Most of the residents in St. Dymphna were leased out to the laundromat or the incorrectly-named Lucky Hotel down the street. Occasionally one would go to the weird fish market to work in the back, gutting and descaling whatever was brought in. John was so far the only one to be placed in the Stitched Up Alterations joint next to the laundromat.

The bus was discreet, looking more like a white van with the city logo than a repurposed short school bus. It made John long for the flair of Lil’ Puddin’; it might have just been a stolen car he’d had repainted, but at least you knew who was coming.

He gave a little wave to Devi as he passed her heading towards the laundromat, leisurely making his way to the back alley around the place. He passed the always-smelly dumpster and the brick wall covered with graffiti - grinning slightly at the ‘fuck the agency’ tag someone had made with a decent imitation of his clown-smiley-face - and entered through the back door.

It was a small space, crowded with giant spools of various fabrics in all kinds of colors and patterns. There was a little group of headless dress forms in a few different sizes that he had recently cleaned the dust off of, one of which had what might be a burnt-orange off-shoulder dress pinned to it, likely for prom. Or was it homecoming? John never really knew which was which, but summer was only a couple of weeks away, which meant it was likely for whatever the last dance of the year was, and it was definitely new.

Though the color really wasn’t in season. It put him in mind of the fall, of the range of makeup he’d been eying in his few hours of freedom in Gotham half a year ago... He touched it, feeling the synthetic satin under his fingertips. It hadn’t been there yesterday, but it was real.

He passed the shelf of jars filled with colorful buttons, and the rolls upon rolls of fabric, taking a moment to run his hand over the beautiful purple broadcloth he’d half-hidden in a stack, and checked his lonely workstation. A pile of pieces to work on, all folded and tagged, sat at the table by the sewing machine.

He flicked through the pile. Boring, mildly interesting tack job, ooh nice pattern, boring, and

S.Townsend. Beautiful calligraphy, almost like it was from someone with years of practicing their signature. (John would know – he had roughly eight years of practice and he knew his wasn’t anywhere near that pretty.)

“Why does that name sound familiar…?”

A quick search turned up a few results, but nothing recent stood out… There were too many famous S.’s with Townend, apparently – a musician, some newscaster miles away, a convicted murderer ten years ago, some yacht owner…

“Ah-haaa.” One of Gotham’s one-percenters. Sonja Townsend, the chairwoman of Wayne Enterprises. “Why would a member of Bruce’s round-table go here?”

The ticket was recent, made yesterday at closing and wanted in half an hour. An easy enough job - just adding a ticket pocket to a very new purchase. The tag for the jacket was still attached to the sleeve - on sale for fifty bucks, marked down from two-hundred.

“A big-wig who doesn’t always buy big, huh?”

That was...definitely strange. Suspicious, even, considering Wayne Enterprise executives made so much it was a surprise they didn’t try to declare themselves kings.

He unbuttoned it and checked the lining - there was a ticket pocket already there. It was certainly a man’s jacket, just...very small. And they didn’t want it taken in or shrunk?

Hmm.

He took the seam-ripper and tore through the thin stitches holding the pocket closed, wondering if there was something inside.

Nothing.

“You’re being paranoid, John. Dr. Leland warned you about looking too far into things,” he muttered to himself, “Even if it isreally weird… There could be a decent explanation! But… Ugh, what would Bruce do?” his arms and staring at the annoying tag.

Bruce would question it, look at it from every angle… And research it.

John snapped a photo of the tag where The-Mysterious-Person-S had scribbled their signature and sent it to Bruce.

Hey buddy, does this handwriting look familiar?

I can’t check right now. In a meeting.

Fair enough. Looking at it from other angles it was.

John pat the sleeves, the collar, turned the inner-pocket inside out, thinking about the tiny packets of drugs he’d seen exchange hands at Arkham when he found something in the outside pocket.

An ordinary USA Express. No signature on the back, and the black stripe was very worn, but the card wouldn’t expire until next month; the unlucky name on the front was Michael Hodgson.

Huh. Well…no, it wasn’t finder’s-keepers, and John had already been told off for petty theft during his trial, but…it could be useful. Door locks could be picked with a card. As long as he didn’t buy anything with it, it was fine, right?

Right.

John stuck it in his back pocket.

Just as soon as he did, the door to the front opened, and John sat and moved the shirt like he was doing ordinary work as usual, pulling out the boring fabric that someone wanted to turn into a very boring pillow.

The manager came through, hauling a grocery bag of more fabric.

“Oh, John – can you…take a walk for a bit?” The smaller man asked, his mild Thai accent slightly more prevalent than normal. It only seemed to happen when he was nervous. “I have a special order I need to do back here. It will take up the bench.”

“Uh, sure, if you want. How long will you take?”

“A while. Just make sure you’re back in half an hour; the social worker’s dropping by then,” he said with a wave of his hand, moving in John’s way to force him back up.

Mr. Prinya definitely wasn’t supposed to tell him that. Those were meant to be surprise visits, to see how John was coping. “This isn’t some kind of test, is it?” John asked with a nervous little laugh, “Like you’re seeing if I’ll take the opportunity to skip out and report me?”

“You ask a lot for a man who wants this job.” Mr. Prinya put the bag by the stack of orders. “You leave, be back in thirty, both of us live to work another day.”

Ah. He was moving something. His accent came in a little thicker with the light threat, and his little show of bravado made John think it was probably against his will. Probably. But John knew the score – he had more than his share of experience keeping secrets in Arkham. And time away was beneficial for both of them.

“Hey, no worries,” John answered with his best understanding smile and a raise of his hands, “I get ya. I’ll just leave this one on the outgoing rack, ‘k?” He emphasized, picking up Townsend’s jacket.

Mr. Prinya gave a stiff nod, taking a seat in John’s chair and fiddling with his phone as John put the jacket on the wire hanger and threw it on the ‘outgoing’ rack by the door. He clearly didn’t want John to know what was in the bags. Probably for the best.

John left through the backdoor and stepped back into the alley.

He wasn’t far from the harbor. He could easily go have a look at the crime scene from last night by warehouse twenty-two… It was best not to get too close to it, though, so strolling by the actual docks wasn’t the best choice. He could go the roof of one of the buildings close to it instead. John had managed to get a close-zoom lens for his phone’s camera a little while back; it was a tiny thing attached to the back of his phone’s case, plugged into the audio jack for safe-keeping - all he had to do was clip it in place and he’d be able to have almost-binocular vision.

He took a quick look at the back of the laundromat. There was a camera by the door, but if he went juuust wide enough, he wouldn’t be seen by it’s all-seeing-eye.

The wire fence was a little difficult to climb in his shoes (he missed those ankle boots Bruce had bought him last year, the slight heel dug into crevices nicely) and he was never a fan of the feel of metal digging into his hands, but he managed to climb over the fence with a swing over the top and a hop to the ground without any injury.

John straightened his shirt, feeling a little accomplished, and set off for the sets of buildings closest to the docks, passing by graffiti in the twisting litter-coated alleyway - there was a poor imitation of the bat signal that someone had scribbled over and written ‘fuck batman’ next to, standard gang tags, non-standard gang tags, an anarchy symbol, a giant cartoonish bat chasing people…

Actually, that was one for the album! He had to stop and take a picture; one of the people looked like the Mayor. He didn’t even care it had a few of the tags in it - it was part of the charm, really.

He passed by one of the partially-repainted dumpsters, wrinkling his nose and walking faster when he smelled rotting fish parts, and spotted the ladder for the fire escape next to it dangling down partway into the alley. John was tall enough to tug at the ladder, but it wouldn’t budge.

The windows were mostly blacked out by something or other. If anyone lived there, he doubted they were home. It would be a damn good view, and close enough that the journey back wouldn’t make him late.

“Hm, to use the smelly abyss as leverage, or risk a minor injury?” He muttered aloud.

The dumpster was ancient and rusting. Not worth it.

John bent and jumped up, grabbing hold of the bars on the ladder and swinging his legs out to keep balanced as he climbed the first few bars. He checked the window by the landing and wiped his hands on his pants for good measure. The room there wasn’t as empty as he thought - the window had been darkened by thin film, like the kind they used for quick-fix window tinting, and the inside had some bare battered furniture. He could see a duffel bag half-hidden by a table leg.

Probably another runner. It was no use pondering about what they were running from. In Gotham, there were far too many choices.

The next two windows had curtains (or in one case, sheets that had been clumsily tacked on the panes that let John see someone watching bad on-demand porn) and the last one showed nothing but an empty room with an open doorway. “Man, how hard is it to get a little bit of human interaction around here?” He grumbled to himself. He’d at least like to see someone else properly for more than a minute. Or get an idea of them at least.

He looked out into the street below - three passers-by in matching grey-and-black hoodies, seeming to laugh it up as they passed. A street gang, maybe... They weren’t very observant, if they were; there was a perfectly good motorcycle just sitting at the end of the alleyway there. It couldn’t be too difficult to hot-wire. At least compared to a car.

There was one more ladder going to the rooftop - and upon poking his head over the top, John was unsure on how to feel.

Tiffany Fox stood near the edge of the roof, doing exactly what he was planning on doing - only she had a pair of real binoculars. And that tablet she used for her drones.

She looked different from the last time he saw her, too; she was dressed fairly professionally, making her look a little more mature despite the dark blue streaks littering the thick curls on the one side of her head.

He wished he had her number so he could just text her he was there. Sneaking up probably wasn’t the best thing to do, despite the little urge to spook her; she was being trained by Batman, after all.

Weird situations like this surely called for some playful banter. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” He asked with his best film-noir-detective voice.

It certainly got her attention. She whirled around looking like a frightened cat, reaching for her hip like there was something useful there. A taser, judging by the shape in the pocket. (John always wondered why women’s slacks had those terrible form-fitting pockets.)

The wary look on her face didn’t quite diminish when she noticed it was just him. Despite the better terms they ended on in the ambulance back in October, he didn’t completely blame her for distrusting him - they had matching scars, after all.

“John,” she said simply, “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Ha, now you’re sounding like Bats, at least!” He chuckled, moving towards her to close some of the gap. He knew better than to get too close, though. He’d be the same way, if things were reversed; you never really knew what someone had hidden on them. “I would’ve thought you’d have developed that sixth-sense of his by now, after all you’re training, Tiff’.” (He made sure to keep of the ‘y’ he wanted to add. He remembered she’d said not to call her that; ‘Tiffy’ was reserved for brain-talk only.)

Tiffany’s expression shifted. She wasn’t just wary anymore, she had that little frown on her face that meant he’d crossed some unseen line. It couldn’t have been her name - was her training not going as well as Bruce had said? Or was it just one of those secretly-sensitive subjects?

“So… What’cha doin’?” He asked casually, stopping at the edge several feet away from her to look down into the street. “People watching, or crime scene watching?”

“Crime scene watching. Aren’t you supposed to be in that halfway house?”

He couldn’t decide whether the tone was accusatory or curious. It kinda sounded like both… Well, best to be nice about it. She had Bruce’s number on speed-dial, after all. “I am; I’m technically on a break from the mandated work. What about you, Tiff’?”

She raised a brow, and her tone was instantly recognizable; the same rebellious sort that came when someone nosy asked Harley what she was doing. “What about me?”

John fiddled with his phone, clipping on the magnifier lens to cover the camera. “Are you skipping work entirely, or just going in late?”

“Late. I would never skip.”

Really? Never-ever? He doubted that. “Eight hours a day, five days a week - and that’s not even counting your night gig. Doesn’t it wear on you?”

Tiffany didn’t quite seem focused on that tablet screen. “Sometimes. But last time I took time off, Bruce scolded me.”

“Do you mean he actually got angry, or he was he just like ‘Don’t be irresponsible, Tiffany. Just because my double-life allows me to up and leave work for as long as I can’t walk doesn’t mean you can take a break,’” John said in his best imitation of Bruce’s smoother-but-stern voice.

Tiffany gave a noise that might have been covering a laugh. He could see the smile on the edge of her mouth. “That does kinda sound like him.” She made a swiping gesture on the screen and looked over at him. “But it was more like he’s worried I’ll get too into the night job and go work on stuff without him.”

That wasn’t quite right. Bruce cared about people - more than likely, he just didn’t want Tiffany to get hurt or be in danger when Bruce couldn’t be around. John had caught sight of Batman staying outside of Arkham some nights when Bruce hadn’t stopped by in a couple of days, as if he was just checking up on things.

That was the type of person Bruce was - clearly it extended further where Tiffany was concerned, and she was clearly tired of hitting that ceiling.

“So, like you’re doing now?” John grinned, focusing the camera on his phone to try and zoom in as far as he could on the remains of the van in the distance. They were just high up enough to see most of the scene.

Tiffany was finally smiling. It was small and smug, but it was a definite change from the last time he saw her. It reached her dark eyes, lighting them up like a little candle in the dark. “Yup.”

John squinted at the image of the wreckage on his screen. “Yeesh, that was some firework they planted. Looks like the whole thing went up in smoke.” He zoomed in as much as he could. “Wow, the back doors are either open or gone on that thing.” The strangeness of it seemed to click the second he said it. “Or the explosion came from the inside.”

“That’s what the C.S.I. think, too,” Tiffany answered. “The glass all shattered outward; I think someone planted it there. That, or the dumbasses left the keys in the van.”

John giggled at that. “Mobsters leaving their keys behind? In Gotham? No way.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the more lunkheaded ones was in charge of driving.”

“No, no, you want the people with quick reflexes to drive, not the muscle. It’s why I was the designated chauffeur for the Pact,” he said somewhat proudly, “That, and Harley liked being driven around. Said it made her feel all fancy.” He scowled to himself as he felt his gut twist at the old memory. “Though Dr. Leland thought that was just another example of her using me for her own gain...”

“You don’t still miss her, do you?” Tiffany asked, the accusatory tone lacing in between caution.

John thought. He kind of did. Not the same way he missed Bruce - not by a longshot - or the same way he missed Dr. Leland.

He shot a look at Tiffany. Were they at the point of bringing up ‘personal’ stuff yet? They’d worked together before, and they were on the same team now… He supposed that there wasn’t a better time to find out than now.

“It’s...more like I miss the fact that I could talk to her. Being in her company was easy, you know? That sort of ‘natural connection’ thing. In hindsight, there were some red flags about our whole relationship...but I can’t just pretend everything that happened between us just never happened.” He breathed out through his nostrils, already angry even though there wasn’t even a Harley there for him to be angry at. “Even if she did try to hurt Bruce.”

“And left you behind several times, tried to kill me alongside Bruce, and took advantage of you at every chance,” Tiffany said pointedly, a sardonic sort of smile perking up. “You shouldn’t just value Bruce’s life that much - you’ve got your own, you know.”

John snorted. She sounded a lot like Leland, in her own way; neither of them really quite got his relationship with Bruce. “Not much of one.” Though… “I guess it is getting a little better.”

She had that sort of pitying expression on her face. He wasn’t really a fan of those. Sympathy was fine, empathy was better - but pity? He didn’t need that. He really, really wanted to just change the subject rather than deal with any conversation pertaining to that.

“Speaking of lives, though - any idea what happened with the ship? I can still kinda see it in the harbor.”

“...how did you know about it?”

“How else? Bruce dropped by this morning.” He saw the mild bewilderment there, and decided he might as well drive the point home and make her jealous at the same time. “He always shares his case details with me. Among other things,” he added slyly. “But I had to go to work, so the conversation got cut before I could hear the juicy details. You were on patrol with him, right?”

“I wasn’t there in person,” Tiffany grumbled, going back to tapping her tablet. (What was she doing on it, anyway?) “I was using my drone from the cave, before some trigger-happy asshole took it out.”

John remembered her father had made those; no wonder she was upset. He should offer comfort. Better comfort that the last time they’d spoken about her father. He’d learned what to say since then. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he echoed with all the sincerity he could.

She looked more puzzled at that than anything, but she didn’t look more upset, so that was probably a good sign. “Uh, thanks… Anyway, Bruce saw everything - I only got the data feed from his drones.” She tapped something, and seemed to think. “You sure you wanna see this?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.”

“They’re pretty bad.”

He didn’t care. It wasn’t the blood or wounds that got to his head the last time he’d seen carnage second-hand; it was the ferocity, the terror on the people’s faces, the familiarity of it all that brought back the memory of the manic episode that had spiralled him to his worst point, and it made him feel very...displaced. But it wasn’t video, and John’s curiosity and his drive to help Bruce overrode everything else.

He wanted to squeeze something. He settled for putting his hands in his pockets and feeling the back of his phone case. “I can handle it.”

Tiffany turned the screen towards him. “There were eight victims. Most of them were stabbed.”

There were two men sunken in plastic chairs in the ships kitchenette, each with one of their eyes gouged out.

It was the kind of thing to put a sharp thrill in his gut and made the neurons in his brain fire away; enough to make him smile. No weapons in the wounds, and from such fun angles! “You know, I’ve always wanted to see a knife-thrower in person. I wanna find out how they do that.”

When he looked back up, Tiffany’s nose was wrinkled in the kind of stern disgust that Bruce displayed at the sight of dead bodies - only she lacked the spark of intrigue he always had. (Guess she wasn’t as far along in the training as he thought…) “Knife-throwing, huh…”

“Yeah, with reeeally long blades - I mean, I think some butter knives are big enough to hit the brain, too, but they’re probably harder to aim just right.”

Her frown deepened. “I don’t want to know how you know that…”

“It’s kind of obvious,” he answered anyway, unsure of how else he would know, “I mean, look-” He spread his thumb and forefinger to measure and held it up against his head, “it’s at least three inches to the temporal lobe; butter knives aren’t that long! Unless it’s for the world’s largest stick of butter.”

He was clearly close… Just a scoach more, and she’d surely crack. Her frown turned upside down for a little bit, there. The wall was dropping, further and further - he had to time these things just right…

Tiffany swiped on the screen, her expression souring at the sight of whatever-it-was, and his tiny hope died like a butterfly caught in a snowstorm. That was too serious a look to run with.

So he dared to scoot a little closer and peer over her shoulder, catching sight of the overhead image of the ship’s storeroom.

Four unfortunate men were laying on their backs, positioned so their arms crossed their chests like they were newly-buried pharaohs. Their heads all touched, three nestled snug together at forty-five-degree angles while the last one touched them all in the middle; a three-to-one ratio.

John itched to just grab it out of her hands to have a better look. He clenched his hands once and released halfway, forcing the impulse to pass. He didn’t want to be rude, even if they weren’t on the best of terms; and she was clearly in a rebellious streak, so acting demanding was right out. “Can I see that?” He asked instead, as politely as possible.

“Please?” He continued, seeing the morbidly-curious look in her weirded out face, “Just to check something?”

She was more guarded than ever, looking straight at the tablet in her hands...

At her right hand, just briefly, thinking back to the knife he’d plunged into it that day months and months ago, debating on whether or not she could trust him with even holding one of her tools when he’d trusted her completely back at the skyrail station -

“Alright,” she said finally, holding it out to him and letting him take it without another word of protest. He could see the faded scar on her palm, not quite identical to his. Like fraternal twins. Just how deep does that parallel go, he thought. “What are you checking?”

“The shape,” he answered, pulling open the editing menu.

He started doodling over it, first in pink - red was too close to home, in this case. A large inverted triangle...

No…a trapezoid on top of a pole, perhaps?

He switched to neon yellow. A miniature upside-down triangle, with a point down. That looked better.

He switched to green, tracing a line over each body. A trident, maybe? Maybe.

It was… Something. He’d seen it before. Somewhere, sometime…

“Have you ever seen this before?” He asked, keeping the tablet flat in between them so they could both look.

“I dunno, gang symbols? There’s a lot of weird ones around,” Tiffany said. “I know someone in the Cauldron uses some weird triangle as their tag…” She looked at him, no more wariness or caution or anything negative in her expression. Just simple curiosity. “Does it look familiar?”

A phrase he’d heard a hundred times before. Always a no. Always followed with ‘are you sure’ and more no’s and follow-ups of ‘well what can you remember?’ in that same insulting tone that tried so hard to appear inquisitive...

John drummed his fingers against the tablet, feeling the material of the reinforced case under his short fingernails. He was talking to Tiffany Fox, on top of a roof, both of them taking time out from work to look into a crime scene.

He laughed at the ludicrousness of it - she could push him off the roof or tase him or escape with a grappling hook, and she was just here talking to him, like things were actually changing.

(They were, though. He could smell the smog and the harbor. It was real.)

John let the short laugh die out with a little cough as he saw the look at Tiffany’s face.

“Sorry,” he said, being used to apologizing for causing any level of ‘disturbed concern’, “But, no, it’s, uh, more like a nagging feeling.” She didn’t seem to understand that; her brow was raised, almost skeptical instead of curious, and still unsure of him as a whole. “Déjà vu with no direction.”

Tiffany actually looked like she was thinking about it, pulling apart the words in her head… “That’s...a different way of putting it. So, you might have seen it, but you don’t know where or when?”

He rolled his eyes slightly at her. He wasn’t going to dignify that was a proper response.

“I guess I’ll look into gang symbols,” Tiffany said, carefully taking the tablet back. “I’ll go back a few years, see if someone revived an old gang or something…”

“Or they could’ve just stolen the logo,” John pointed out.

“True.” She stared down at the tablet, concentration furrowing her brow. “You know, you might be right… It is kind of that nagging feeling.”

“Speaking of nagging, you haven’t found out anything new about those Black Mask guys, have you?”

“Only that one is still missing. There weren’t any tire tracks or bullets casings left behind, so whoever killed them made a clean getaway…” She cast a look over at the crime scene in the distance. “At least until I get the footage back from the broken drone. It might have picked up something.”

John hummed. A rival gang on the hunt - they would likely send whatever pieces were left to Black Mask. “Were they found the same way?”

“No. The members we found were all shot.”

Interesting! “Head or torso?”

“Does that really matter?”

“Depends on how sloppy our killer was!”

“...I don’t know how you’re so enthusiastic about this,” Tiffany grumbled, eyeing him scrupulously.

“Oh, come on, Tiff’, crime’s my specialty! We’re investigating a potential gang war, here - if it’s mostly headshots, it’s professional executions, which means a rival mafia sending a message; if it’s torsos it’s more likely to be newbies.” he thought for a moment. “Unless it’s the Corazón troupe, of course. But I’m pretty sure they’re all dead. Or really old.”

It was clear to see she hadn’t thought of that. “I’d say it looked like upper-body shots from the pictures I saw last night. I don’t have those handy, though. I’ll bring it up with Bruce.”

Hm. Hm, hm, hm. The van exploding, the crew ending up dead with only one missing as a hostage or informant - it sounded too much like a professional job. Someone planned it carefully. So why did one group get stabbed, and another shot? And why were the knife marks so precise when the shots were… Well, they could be precise. He’d have to see the pictures. Or at least hear of it.

“Speaking of him, I gotta go. I don’t want to be too late,” Tiffany said, tucking her tablet away.

“Ooh, before you do-” John quickly opened a new contact page and pushed the phone at her - “here, I don’t want to have to surprise you every time I see you.” There was the small chance she’d take it and throw it over the building, or slap it out of his hand, or just give him that weirded-out look she got sometimes or -

Tiffany defied the anxious conspiracies his brain was spinning; she took the phone and dutifully punched the number in, handing it back without any kind of strange look. “I better not find myself added to any weird listings,” she said jokingly, offering a small smile. A peace offering.

“Not even cute cat videos?” He teased, adding the fox and computer emoticons to the end of her name.

“I’ve already got a playlist on UBox for that,” Tiffany shrugged, heading back towards the fire escape. “’Bye, John.”

“’Bye, Tiff’,” he echoed, thinking for a second, “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

She blinked, turning for a moment, her hands already on the ladder railing. “You think you can find something from the inside of the halfway house?”

She was underestimating him. It was an advantage sometimes, but mostly it just annoyed him. He wasn’t anywhere close to Bruce – a man of the world in every sense – but he did have some physical power and brains and could put things together when they interested him enough. “You think that could stop me?” He answered, thinking back to every little secret he ever learned within the padded walls of his former home. “I’ve got my ways, Tiff’ – I have access to stuff you and Bruce could only dream about.”

He saw the wariness return on her face. She was unsure of what he knew and how he knew it, and just what he did to get people to talk, or what he did to take.

But like hell he’d tell her. She wouldn’t get it. Not now, at least. Maybe someday. “Be careful out there,” he added, letting the seriousness sink in before turning back into something more optimistic for both their sakes, “and have a good day at work!”

Tiffany left his view, and John cast one more look out at the crime scene in the distance.

At least he had some new things to think about at all hours of the day. Two groups of filthy criminals pitted against each other over their petty toys, unaware that Batman would be hell-bent on stopping it, using his loyal assistants who were waiting and watching from the shadows for help…

But the questions were what their precious toys were, and when and how Black Mask would get revenge – and figuring all that out would be easy once John could pinpoint who the rival group was.

How fun!

Notes: Yes, Bruce might be the main character, but relationships work both ways - John is his own person regardless of what their relationship is like, so we get to see his life, too! (Yes, that means even if he’s a villain - though he’d probably start at a hideout rather than the halfway house, considering TT wouldn’t be likely to let him have any kind of redemption arc. But we have nothing to hold us back anymore! No bars, no chains, no gods, no masters!!! So villain!John can have a redemption arc too if you want, probably starting back in season 3 and continuing on here, because he’s an ill man who needs a support system and you can make it however you want!! Fight me, TT!!!! Oh wait, you can’t! Ahahahahahahaha!!!!!!)

(You’ll still be missed by us all. Thanks for the fun and new beginnings, TellTale… I hope you know my teasing comes from [mostly] love.)

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to have some new mechanics, so “drawing” and “photography” are now things “the player” can do practically free-style! And of course a big new addition is also “character perspective swap”, to focus on John for some of the time so “the player” can experience different sides of this story. And of course John’s choices affect the story, too! And depending on what you do with him…wait, that’s spoiler territory…I can’t tell you yet... You’ll have to wait along with me. But I pinky-swear it’ll be worth it. (｡•̀ᴗ-)b✧

I try to provide updates on tumblr/my Ao3 profile but nothing is guaranteed, so subscribing/bookmarking would be ideal for you to keep current! I hope to see you April 17 for our next look into this case! (･ω´-ゞ)^☆

#ttoj #season 4 #bttts s4 #batman the telltale series #telltale batjokes #john doe #batjokes #blood tw #corpse tw #mental illness #today was stressful omfg #i feel bad that this is late #at least i managed to perfect it before i left work #reblogs are love #so are likes!!!#💜💜💜#the tolls of justice

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sophygurl · 5 years

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Did my what’s coming up on TV quarterly-ish organizational project and re-did my shows I watch page. Figured it would be a good time to make an update post on my media consumption of late.

I’m still embroiled in the Big Brother season. It’s been a pretty terrible season truth be told, and I’d have noped out except for there being one houseguest left in there that I adore and want to support, and of course the fan community I have (a chat room I’ve been in for a decade now and also a twitter list of fans, update sites, and BB alum I enjoy interacting with). We’ve still got a ways to go, and I am not watching the live feeds much this season, but still watching the shows (mostly to chat with my friends about) and keeping up with the feeds via twitter to see what’s happening and watching the few small clips of that one hg i still enjoy.

It’s an interesting thing when being part of a fandom starts to feel like a chore. Like, yes, you do this for entertainment purposes and could stop at any point when it stops being fun for you - but you do also create a community around you and half the fun is that community interaction and it’s harder to let go of that. Because you can’t generally pack that whole community up and take them to another show or experience with you.

Another fan experience that was a let-down this summer was Veronica Mars. I won’t post any spoilers in case there is anyone out there yet who wants to watch S4 unspoiled and has yet to find out what happened, but suffice to say I am not pleased.

I did enjoy most of the series right up until the ending. I know a lot of people are upset about other things that happened, but I can defend or at least explain most of that based on what the show and the characters have always been. But that ending. Wow. I am still recovering. And not at all interested in a season 5 or really anything else that Rob Thomas might want to work on in the future. He’s really ruined any fan goodwill he had in my eyes.

Other TV shows I’ve been enjoying this summer:

The 100 delivered another fascinating season. I know the show is problematic in a number of ways, but it still has such wonderful characters with incredible arcs of growth and struggle and learning to overcome together. The plots get wilder and wilder, but whatever, I’m along for the ride.

Agents of Shield was ... interesting. I don’t even know what to say about it anymore, tbh.

American Princess on Lifetime was a surprisingly fun new show - a NY socialite runs off on her wedding day and ends up at a Ren Faire, where she meets new friends and decides to stay and create a new life for herself. It’s charming, sweet, romantic, funny, and fun for any found family fans.

BH90210′s pilot episode cracked me tf up. I kind of can’t believe the cast is going along with this satirical version of playing themselves trying to get a reboot of the original show going. It’s soapy and campy and so delightfully weird, while also being nostalgic. Can’t wait to see what they do with it. (Also I miss Luke Perry enormously)

Elementary has one episode left and I will be very sad when the story is complete, but happy for everyone involved for having been part of such a unique spin on Sherlock Holmes in such a successful way.

Euphoria season one was an intense emotional process, watching teens and their families struggle with addiction, violence, abusive relationships, sexual discoveries, gender navigation, mental illness, and so much more. Also just a visually stunning show.

Grand Hotel is a fun soapy new show that I am enjoying very much. Classic soap tropes, a largely Latinx cast, a lesbian main character, and lots of eye candy.

Jane the Virgin put out a wonderful final season and series finale. I laughed. I cried. I was very satisfied.

Killjoys has started up it’s final season. I’m loving it, but I also wanna cling to it and scream “no! don’t go!”

Pandora is a new show on the CW, which is interesting. Futuristic space academy featuring a clone, a mind reader, an augmented human, an alien from a planet we were recently at war with, and Pandora herself who has some kinda mystery surrounding her and the recent death of her parents. Lots of political intrigue and conspiracy, with episodic plots that the young adults uncover together each week, and just about every sci-fi trope you could think of being covered.

Trinkets on Netflix was a cute lil show about teenage girls in a shoplifting support group. It was a really genuine look at the highs and lows of female friendship at that age.

In other TV watching news, I finally got all of the Northern Exposure DVDs and am doing a long-awaited re-watch of my all-time favorite show. I’m on the second season.

In addition to completing that DVD collection, I also completed collecting all of the Realm of the Eldering books (yay birthday money!) and am doing my re-read of those. It’s going to take me a long time, because my re-reading gets done while attempting to fall asleep and also when I wake up trying to get back to sleep, so depending on how the insomnia is going, it could be anywhere from a couple of paragraphs to maybe 50 pages tops per night and RotE is a looooot of books. I’m still on the first novel now.

That also means, I am taking a little break from my otherwise-continual Raven Cycle re-reading lol.

Other stuff I’ve been reading - started the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, finished Tamora Pierce’s Emelan series (although I think she’s writing one more of those yet), and got caught up on Patricia Brigg’s Mercyverse series. Then, since I’m caught up on all the series I’m reading (other than Wayward Children since I just started it), I went and put a crapton of new books on my library hold list - some of which are the first books in series themselves. So here we go!

And of course, I’ve been playing lots of Sims. Love love loving the Island Living expansion pack. The mermaids are so much fun, as is swimming and boating in the ocean, other beach activities, and just living in a more communal setting (people show up to help put out fires, bring food over randomly, fix things that are broken, etc.). I definitely won’t tire of the stuff in this pack before the next new pack comes out, which I imagine will be sometime late this fall or early winter, if they go according to the usual schedule.

Guess that’s all for now. Might do some more specific VMars meta at some point, once I get my thoughts and feelings more collected. IDK. This post is so all over the place I’m not sure if I’m gonna tag it with any specific fandom or media.

#i don't have a tag for this #fandom thoughts #tv fandom #summer media consumption #also like #i'm not super excited about too many new fall shows this season #though i might make a post about the ones i'm planning to watch anyway #we'll see

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ddubitoergocogitoergosum · 3 years

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Nothing good happens after 2 A.M.

People often say that the best things happen after 2 a.m., wrong. Kids, take Virginia Mosby’s advice that when 2 a.m. rolls around, just go home and go to sleep. I was a firm believer in the former, but now I know that she’s right.

I almost died the other day. That’s a phrase I didn’t expect to be writing so soon, or at all even. Everything is still so surreal to me. I don’t even know how I’m gonna write how I feel down. But here goes.

A bunch of friends and I went drinking the other night. After midnight we all got hungry and decided to drive around town to find an open resto. That’s where it all started. The guys started to joke about how a sudden road trip to tags would be a spontaneously fun idea. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t. We all agreed to go, ignorant of the trouble waiting ahead of us.

They say that people have this superstitious ability to sense that they are about to be in danger, and I can vouch for that. The feeling was just off. Sure I was excited because I haven’t done anything spontaneous for a while, but throughout the trip I had this feeling of uneasiness. Maybe it’s because I snuck out to join the trip, or because the last time I went to Tagaytay was with her, and going back to that place just makes me sad now. But deep down, I had this gut feeling that something bad is going to happen, and it did.

After our food hunt gone wrong fiasco in Tagaytay, we decided to head home because non of the restaurants were open. That’s when the accident happened.

Everyone else in the car was asleep except for me, Jonas, and some other guy who’s name I don’t know. It was 3 a.m. I was riding in the back seat, and I can’t help but look at Jonas while driving. I guess you could say I kinda sensed that his driving was way off than usual. I kept talking to him during the trip, and I kept volunteering to drive if he ever felt tired, or sleepy, not to mention drunk. God, as I type this I can’t help but blame myself for our almost untimely demise. I knew that he had his fair share of drinks, and I never really felt comfortable with his driving. Jonas is one of my closest friends, but he’s such a reckless driver. The following events support my case. Like I said earlier we were on our way home. We were going around 70-80 kph on a downhill road. The roads were dark as there was little to none open street lights on the road. And given the time, the windshield was starting to fog up due to the coldness of the climate there. There was this calm before the storm vibe, it was quiet inside the car, too quiet. Moments later, disaster would strike. There was a parked Truck on the right side of the road. They had reflectors and warning signs planted on the road. We were on the right side of the road too. Now, a good driver knows to stay in one lane while driving, and mostly stay away from the right lane as there might be tons of hazards like parked cars and such. I thought Jonas saw the parked truck and the hazard signs, I saw it from a mile away, but somehow he didn’t. He stayed on the right lane, where the truck was parked, with no signs of slowing down. In our panic, the other guy and me started calling out to Jonas to evade the truck. He managed to avoid the parked truck, but he turned the wheel to hard it sent us drifting to the wrong side of the road. With fear of hitting an oncoming vehicle, he quickly made a turn to return us on our side of the road but he lost control. He hit the brakes hard and we found ourselves over the sidewalk and into the dirt.

After that frenzy everyone inside was awake. We had no idea where we were, or what exactly happened, or was happening. All we knew is that we were in an accident. I heard Trixie moaning in pain. Jonas wasn’t reacting or anything at all. I quickly opened our door and stepped outside. There were tons of people rushing to our aid. As I stepped out, I just noticed that we had just missed a concrete pole by a hair. The left side of the car was flattened. Especially the driver side. I rushed to see if Jonas was okay because his side of the door was completely totaled. Thank goodness he was okay.

ill finish this later im too sleepy to blogrn

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ghostsontelevision · 7 years

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ok thoughts on the new bright sessions since i did it for the last one (obviously, spoilers):

briggon KILLED IT this ep, like god, ALL THE PROPS to this dude, caleb’s panic was tangible and awful and real and i hope the whole cast had a chill self-care session after this because this episode was really heavy

frank + caleb is a matchup i never knew i needed, they’ve been avoiding each other for a while cuz superpowers but having frank just talk caleb down and talk to him about violence and guilt was so nice, it was really what caleb needed and was an organic way to get our two empaths in a room to just talk

(also phillip jordan’s voice is super soothing? maybe this is a weird thing to say about a human being who i’ve never met but he’s got a very good talking-down-from-a-panic-attack voice)

btw 90% of my live reaction to this ep was me whispering “oh sweetheart no” literally every time caleb talked about hating himself

AND THEN ADAM

SWEETHEART

honestly when i read the “discussions of self harm” tag on this episode i was really worried about caleb, i actually paused the ep like 9 minutes in to scroll the tag for spoilers just in case something happened

but adam........... like, stopping self harming not because he realized it was a bad way to cope but because his parents found out and started treating him differently is a relatable feeling

also adam shushing caleb and calling him babe was very sweet (as not-sweet as the subject matter was)

also as not-sweet as the subject matter was i did get a chuckle out of “no offense adam but i’m much bigger than you, i know you’re scrappy but--”

i’m relistening to the ep as i type this and i can’t believe that (according to lauren) the “you’re that guy” line is the FIRST TAKE, LAUREN, WHERE DID YOU FIND THESE PEOPLE

(related to lauren talking about things, shoutout to my “mark’s parents reacting badly to him coming out as atypical is a metaphor for bisexuality” theory getting #confirmed)

the entire caleb/adam convo is so good, my grades are up, my crops are flourishing, my mental illness is cured, i hope these boys stay in love forever

i’m kinda surprised that the “people keep assuming mark might have romantic feelings for damien” thread keeps getting brought up considering how its seemed like lauren’s kinda seemed wary of any mark/damien shipping

also i’m kinda glad mark addressed whether sam being upset about potential feelings re: damien was a gender thing or a “damien sucks” thing, just cuz the whole “bisexual people are gonna cheat on you with whatever gender you aren’t” stereotype is real and evil and i can see how perceived biphobia from his allegedly straight girlfriend would be extra stressful in this already stressful situation

sam singing to mark was definitely lauren shippen being self indulgent and honestly i’m here for it, it was v cute and she’s got a super pretty voice

mark + caleb was also a matchup i never knew i needed, they have a really good dynamic

i already mentioned this but mark apologizing to caleb for swearing when caleb swears the most out of anybody in this podcast is extremely good

(i hope people know that when i say matchup i mean this in the most platonic of ways)

chloe confirming that damien hit her with a lamp was nice because before that i thought damien was maybe just Swole As Fuck and we never knew until he knocked chloe the fuck out with a punch

so mark definitely has damien-related ptsd on top of the being experimented on for years-related ptsd huh (this is kind of old news but i feel like it was Extra Confirmed in this ep)

JOAN CRYING DESTROYED ME, EVERY TIME SHE GETS TEARY I GET A LIL EMOTIONAL BUT HER OUTRIGHT SOBBING KILLED ME TO DEATH

(lauren’s gonna make a post that’s like “haha yeah that was julia’s first take” and i’m going to have to spend the rest of my days laying in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if acting is even a real thing)

i’m glad they recorded parts 1 and 2 of the finale in one session if only because it answers my question of “was charlie ian actually brought in just to record a handful of “being knocked the fuck out but trying to wake up” noises”

i’ve been kind of avoiding the main dilemma of the episode, just because i also think it’s very difficult and i don’t have an answer (damien’s shit but i don’t think he deserves to die and i think he deserves eternal torture in Atypical Government-Regulated Hell even less, also there’s no way the AM would be like “hey here’s this guy beat to shit, we’re not gonna ask who did it and there will be no consequences for this thanks bye’ so we gotta consider caleb here too). i don’t think damien’s gonna die just because “17 year old kills a man” seems a little dark even for this podcast, but i wouldn’t be surprised if he lost his ability permanently (or maybe got amnesia or something? idk there’ll deffo be consequences but i don’t think its gonna be murder).

this turned out very long but this episode was very good and the wait for the next season is gonna be awful but worth it

#the bright sessions #tbs spoilers #self harm mention cw #(its nothing worse than what's discussed in the podcast)#kayleigh listens to podcasts

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hz-archive · 7 years

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jaebirdart replied to your post: Just out of curiosity what’s tumblr got against...

Ive seen a lot of people saying it creates a bad image of people with DID and multiple personality disorder. Using mental illness as the main antagonist, the same “ooo he crazyyy” killer thing. Some people think it contributes to societies stigma towards those disorders. I kinda get it I guess but i can’t make an opinion cause I haven’t seen the film. And it’s a fictional movie so…meh lol

@chemychems reblogged:

Well I believe it is the depiction of DID, and in general continuing the trend of treating the mentally ill as dangers to others and psycho killers in general. But in the tags you say apparently is not that bad? Since the conclusions of the movie with being formed before it came out maybe things will change.

I don’t know if I’d recommend going to see it, it wasn’t necessarily bad but it felt really average in terms of quality. I feel like it had a ton of wasted potential though, because like you both said it “creates a bad image of people with DID” and continues “the trend of treating the mentally ill as dangers to others” which it certainly does towards the end of the movie, but it started off really strong. Spoilers ahead in case anyone cares, but the beginning of the movie had the disorder treated very accurately and even made me feel empathy for the character that suffered from the disorder, but out of nowhere the movie goes from mildly fucked up to really fucked up when he turns into a literal monster and kills off the majority of the cast, going so far as to cannibalize two of them. It went from a fairly accurate portrayal to depicting him as, like I said, a literal monster, and the more I think about what I’ve learned in psychology classes and psychopathology classes, the more I feel like the movie could have been a genuinely good fictional movie about a character with DID had they just changed the last third or so of the movie. Either way, I doubt most people are going to read this wall of text and the movie probably isn’t worth such an in-depth discussion so whatever lol I’ll stop here

#split

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