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#steph talks arcane
stealthily · 2 years
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actual unedited dialogue from the council scene (not clickbait) x
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piived · 4 months
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DPxDC WIP — Conceal, Don’t Feel
(official continuation of this prompt post)
Pairings: Jason/Danny, Tim/Bernard, Dick/Wally
Idea: Frozen/Rise of the Guardians AU
Okay the brain worms won out so official new WIP here we go!
Jason is Elsa, Danny is Jack Frost
Basic premise is that Jason was abandoned as a young child and the Spirits gifted him with powers to help him stay alive after they witnessed him helping a young reindeer (no he does not adopt it lmao) and he’s eventually taken in by Bruce Wayne, King of Arendelle Gotham
His powers are a shock to Bruce, but they seem harmless enough and he mostly uses them to make little trinkets or mini snow storms/flurries when his emotions are high
He gains more control as he gets older and Dick and Tim are always asking him to make more action figures and slides and whatnot and he’s more than happy to comply, enjoying making his brothers happy
Until one night (ages are roughly: Dick 12, Jason 7, Tim 5) there’s an accident with Timmy jumping too fast on the pillars Jason was creating for him and he falls and Jason reaches out with too much power that hits his brother square in the chest
Dick runs to get Bruce as Jason cradles Tim who’s passed out and cold as ice and Jason is so, so scared
Bruce takes them all to John Constantine who is a hermit in the woods with lots of magical and arcane knowlege
He is able to heal Tim but he makes it very clear that Jason could have killed him and that if he continued to use his powers without tight control he could kill someone else
They’re all shaken enough to take this as meaning that Jason should just… never use his powers. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them show
So life goes on and Jason locks himself away in his room most of the time (Bruce does not shut down the castle though — they just keep Jason’s powers a secret like usual). Tim doesn’t remember the accident or the fact that Jason has powers so he’s confused and hurt and Dick is worried about Jason but follows Bruce and his lead and doesn’t talk about it and tells Tim that Jason is just sick and needs his space
Their family grows as Bruce takes in Damian (Talia died when he was about 2, Bruce didn’t even know about him until the kid showed up at the Palace doors with a letter explaining the situation), and adopts Cass and Duke.
Babs is the daughter of the Captain of the Guard and Dick’s best friend so is basically part of the family and Steph (a street rat, daughter of a criminal) got attached to Tim and basically lives in the palace (but is NOT Bruce’s daughter, she reminds them all constantly). Other batfam members come in and out as they please lol
Bruce is presumed dead when Jason is 16 and Dick takes the throne at 21. Things are a bit tense but Dick has a solid support system and things go relatively smoothly, but Jason is having a harder time controlling his powers and emotions
Cut to his 18th birthday when he’s to get Crowned as Prince (I know this may be incorrect but I also Do Not care how monarchies work <3 — Maybe it could be Dick’s official Coronation or smth to make it easier, idc)
He really fucking doesn’t want to, but he also wants to act normal and make Dick proud so he suffers through it
Needless to say it goes terribly and ends with him basically turning the ballroom into ice and setting an eternal winter on all of Gotham as he flees to the mountains
Tim (who kind of set Jason off) tells Dick he’s going to track him down. (After a quick run-down explanation from Dick who is Stressed and Tim is so pissed that he didn’t remember the accident and that Jason felt the need to isolate himself — and that Bruce let him and convinced Dick it was for the best)
Dick goes with him and leaves the Kingdom in the capable hands of his Advisor (Babs) and Consort (Wally) and Alfred
They left very fast and aren’t the Most prepared and it’s a bit of a shitshow trek (cue Tim falling into a river trying to mimic Dick’s stupid gymnast moves and Dick getting a tree full of snow dumped on him for laughing) but they eventually make to to a little trading post (‘Look, Tim, they have a sauna!’) and are immediately recognized as Royalty and are getting products shoved at them left and right
Enter Bernard, local ice harvester, who is covered in snow and already annoyed at the Royal Roadshow when he needs to buy some real supplies
Tim and he immediately start bickering and when Dick overhears that Bernard knows the mountain he asks him to be their guide, much to both Tim and Bernard’s immediate refusals. But Dick offers a lot of money and Bernard caves
Meanwhile Jason has found himself collapsing in the snow and finally lets himself have the emotional release that he’s been holding in and his magic goes nuts creating things and he finds himself in a giant ice fortress, which, rad
What’s not rad is the freaky guy who shows up inside said fortress and starts poking around at both the ice and at Jason
It’s Danny, AKA Phantom Frost from the Legends
Now, Danny has been around for a century or two as a Winter Spirit and then became a Guardian when he kicked Pariah Dark’s ass back to the Eternal Darkness a couple hundred years ago. (Pariah Dark = Pitch Black/the Boogeyman)
He doesn’t remember his mortal life and no one is sure if he actually ever had a life Before or if he’s a manifestation of Magic herself. That rumor mixed with his defeat of Pariah leaves him revered among the Spirits and Guardians alike and he doesn’t love it because they often come to him with problems as if he can fix them (he does, every time)
He’s known as Phantom Frost but his closer friends call him Danny - the name he came into this world instinctively knowing as himself even when everything else was missing. (Maybe his squad can be Spirits/Guardians too? hmmm.)
Things have been quiet for a couple of decades and then one day his instinctual alarm bells start going off telling him that something is wrong and Unbalanced with Winter so he goes to investigate
He finds out that an Eternal Winter has been set on the Kingdom of Gotham and discovers a truly spectacular fortress built from ice in the mountains north of the kingdom
He goes inside and meets Jason who has clearly been Gifted by Magic herself and is so Unbalanced within his own soul that it makes Danny shiver
He knows he needs to help the guy and ends up showing off some of his own powers and gaining a bit of trust from Jason who ends up telling him the rundown of what led up to this and Danny is Pissed (and confused on how he had never known about Jason throughout the years) and vows to help him learn how to properly control his powers without trying to shut them off and harm his soul
After a bit of training and huge improvements with Jason’s abilities, Dick and Tim (and Bernard) come to find him and when Jason figures out he set off an Eternal Winter (Danny did Not inform him of that fact) he kind of spirals and ends up lashing out at Tim for the second time in his life and Danny has to calm him down so they can Fix the situation
Dick is (rightfully) freaking the fuck out and doesn’t trust Danny all the way so Danny agrees to go with them to visit their local Hermit/Arcane Expert to get a second opinion and who, from what Danny heard from Jason, deserves an ass kicking anyway (it’s John Constantine and he’d been the person Bruce took Tim to when the first accident happened and who had basically convinced them all to fear Jason’s powers and led to him trying to pretend they didn’t exist)
John Constantine is So Tired
Meeting Phantom Frost is overwhelming enough, but having to yet again deal with a Wayne level Situation… he feels like maybe he should move
But he helps, calling on Magic and finding the situation much more dire than any of them thought
He tells them the solution and they all pretty much laugh in his face (all except Phantom, who knows Magic better than John could ever even hope to and who wouldn’t dare laugh or scoff at Her power)
Only an act of True Love can thaw the ice that has set in Tim’s heart
aaaaand… to be continued ;)
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m-owo-n · 1 year
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I posted 4,501 times in 2022
That's 1,213 more posts than 2021!
39 posts created (1%)
4,462 posts reblogged (99%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@the-fandom-connection
@sabertoothwalrus
@still-not-a-cat
@yahargulian
@a-blue-clue
I tagged 2,521 of my posts in 2022
Only 44% of my posts had no tags
#stranger things - 759 posts
#batman - 207 posts
#our flag means death - 149 posts
#arcane - 112 posts
#tiger and bunny - 103 posts
#moon knight - 92 posts
#do revenge - 57 posts
#midnight mass - 54 posts
#tlovm - 48 posts
#a court of fey and flowers - 46 posts
Longest Tag: 139 characters
#he looks at her shocked & delighted and she rolls her eye & is like ‘looks like its safe to eat your royal stalker’ but shes hiding a smile
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
What other characters fit this shape
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See the full post
75 notes - Posted July 14, 2022
#4
So I’m just now getting into Critical Role with the release of Calamity and very overwhelmed as to where to start (do I need to watch the hundreds of hours of content from start to finish?? If someone can suggest how to go about that, that would be great) but I decided to watch the Legend of Vox Machina.
Now I’ve been in the circles of people who love this for a while so I’ve seen content for TLOVM and I remember when it came out
So tell me why I only saw people THIRSTING. GOING CRAZY OVER PERCY-which yeah fair- BUT I SAW NOT A PEEP ABOUT VAX????
98 notes - Posted June 26, 2022
#3
“I think,” Eddie declares, bursting into the room making his way to where Steve is laying on his bed. He’s relaxed against some pillows and has a magazine in his hands.
“Oh no” Steve blandly, flipping a page. Eddie flops on top of him, making the other yelp. Shuffling until he was comfortable, Steve holds the magazine up out of the way. He settles when he’s laying on Steve’s chest, chin perched on folded arms to look up at him.
“Rude” he huffs. “I think, that baby Byers has a crush on Gareth.”
That makes his boyfriend actually put down the magazine. “Your drummer?” He hums an affirmative. “He’s too old for Will!”
Protective Mama bear mode activated. Eddie laughs to himself. “Not to worry dear, Gareth has no interest. But it’s good news!”
“Will liking older men is not good news”
“He’s not that much older. And you say that like he hasn’t crushed on you” the magazine makes a return, rolled up to slap the top of Eddie’s head. “Ow.”
“Explain to me how this is a good thing.”
“It means he’s at least a little over Wheeler! He’s expanding his pallet. It’s a cause for celebration.”
“How did you even figure this out?”
“It was subtle,” he grins impishly “at first. A few glances during Hellfire Meetings, nothing to write home about. But the kiddos came to the garage to see us practice today.”
Steve sighs despairingly “And he was enchanted by the drummer”
A delighted laugh at his word choice springs from Eddies mouth. “Exactly that.”
“We should talk to him”
“We can. But don’t you want to see the baby gay in action before we do? It’d be so cute when it’s not so painful like how it was with mike”
“The sooner the better”
“Fiiiine”
365 notes - Posted September 4, 2022
#2
Jonathan: so you’re dating Eddie now?
Steve: yeah, and you worked things out with Nancy?
Jonathan: yeah man.
Steve: that’s great! Uh… what’s with the sweater guy?
Jonathan: Argyle? He’s sticking around
Steve: is it like how Robin is my platonic soulmate but she will sleep in the same bed as me and Eddie sometimes?
Jonathan: dude! Argyle calls it platonic life partners! And we do that too actually
Steve:
Jonathan:
Both, high-fiving: nice!
667 notes - Posted October 25, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Jason: Hey Timbers, heard you have a boyfriend now
Tim: oh my god why
Jason: which has me thinking, I can’t call you Timbers anymore unless you’re side by side with him, that’s like your celebrity relationship name now!
Tim: …
Steph, who reads fanfiction regularly: Ooooh like a ship!
Jason, who has written Jane Austen fanfics on AO3 on the down low: a ship?
Steph: don’t play dumb with me, Mr. “BingleysBussyBoy”
2,731 notes - Posted May 17, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
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Dude I am so glad I found this. Every YJ arch has just bummed me out more and more in regards to Wally. How legit is the Spisak thing talking about his alleged episodes and “trust the writers”? Just flipping through his Twitter all I see is multiple pics of some character I assume he’s voicing, but I didn’t go back months. I ask this because I’m at wits end. DC has made a career out of screwing WW and his fans. If this is legit it give me some semblance of hope. Thanks
Yeah his Twitter is mostly Silco and Arcane stuff (he reactivated his Twitter around when Arcane came out). His Instagram has more of his YJ stuff (his spitfire love notes, pics of Wally, ect) but even then stuff like this:
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(Jason liking and rebloging a post about Wally's return to his story)
Isn't permanent. He posts a lot of stuff in his stories and they get deleted after an 'x' amount of time so if I hadn't screenshot this it would've been lost.
There's still a lot of YJ stuff on Instagram, don't get me wrong, but the most damning stuff he's said about Young Justice: Phantoms was in his Spitfire Valentine's day signing (part one should be on Instagram and also streamly) BUT both him and Steph deleted the second half of that stream, the part where he said 'trust your writers' and other things I won't mention. I don't like to bring this up because they deleted it and due to that I can't easily prove that they said those things. Unfortunately I was not recording it. (Side note, if someone has a recording of the full Valentine's day signing, pls dm me)
However, Jason being in Young Justice: Phantoms is not a secret. He's spoken about it in multiple interviews. He's posted about those interviews on his Instagram and the recordings for those streams are still available (you just need to go to the interviewer's platform to watch)
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kawaiitoga · 3 years
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𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕤
i mostly write headcanons and scenarios, but i would like to start writing smau so i will try to write some of those too!
when making a request, please try to be specific and say what you would like the request to be about, other than just a “mikasa ackerman x reader” since there are many different ideas for that, and i would need to know specifically what you would like <3
if you have any triggering or angst that you would like to request, please make sure that it has a warning on it or if it doesn’t, i can include one myself! and depending on how sad the angst or how triggering it may be, i may not write it
i will also not write anything manga-related since i don’t read the manga, so no manga spoilers please!!
things i will not write: mentions of death (near death is okay but not too much of it), cheating, blood, yandere tropes, incest, waste
shows i write for: attack on titan, my hero academia, naruto, kakegurui, danganronpa (all of them), demon slayer, jujutsu kaisen, fire force, fairy tail, assassination classroom, haikyuu, tokyo revengers, horimiya, komi can’t communicate, arcane, black clover, life is strange: true colours (send me steph gingrich requests im begging), marvel (specifically any of the girls-), edens zero, dr stone, takt op destiny, mystic messenger, bungo stray dogs
characters i will not write for
attack on titan: gabi braun, falco grice, zofia, udo (they may be included as side characters in other characters x reader, but because they are children and underage, i will not write character x reader for them), kenny ackerman, hannes, zeke jaeger, grisha jaeger, anyone old (except for levi), eren jaeger (i just don’t have much ideas for him, im sorry)
my hero academia: any of the u.a. high staff (this does not include the teachers), any of the teachers (except for midnight, ms.joke and aizawa), yuga aoyoma, tenya iida, minoru mineta (may be used as a side character), endeavour (may be used when todoroki shouto x reader is done)
naruto: the only person i can think of is orochimaru and any of the old people
kakegurui: any of the guys
danganronpa: junko ennoshima (just not in a relationship sense), monokuma (may be used as a background character) and im sorry but k1-b0 (i can’t write him in a relationship sense)
demon slayer: nezuko (in a relationship sense)
jujutsu kaisen: mahito (in a relationship sense) and any of the curses (except for sukuna, i might)
fire force:
fairy tail: any of the exceeds in a relationship sense, wendy (in a relationship sense) or anyone else who’s a child or who’s too old
assassination classroom: basically anyone who barely talks or is a background character (since i won’t have much information on them, koro sensei (in a relationship sense)
haikyuu: any background characters from any teams, atsumu miya and osamu miya (i just don’t like them that much im sorry)
tokyo revengers: probably just anyone that is a background character and has only spoken once-
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frangipanidownunder · 5 years
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Returning the Past: Part 5
Mulder and Scully are honeymooning in Far North Queensland. Much to Scully’s chagrin, Mulder has delved headlong into a mysterious case of strange lights, Tasmanian tiger sightings and abductions. It’s not long, before they run into trouble…
Read part 1, part 2 part 3 and part 4.
The facility ‘Eddie Romero House’ was ensconced behind a security fence. She frowned at the recurrence of the name. Years of being an investigator made it impossible to think of coincidences and serendipitous happenstance. Years of being an investigator on The X-Files showed her that even the smallest of coincidences was likely to be anything bug.
Sunlight filtered through menacing clouds and pinged off the metal pickets. Mulder buzzed the intercom and itched at the skin on his arms. A security guard walked from the main building to stand outside the gate.
              “We’re looking to talk to somebody in charge,” Mulder said.
              “Do you have an appointment?”
              “It’s urgent we speak to somebody. It could be a matter of life and death.”
              Scully looked at the ground, impacted red dirt crumbling at her footfalls. Mulder’s flair for the dramatic, coupled with this dogged insistence often got them entry into secure facilities but the guard didn’t seem impressed. They had no badges to flash, they had American accents, they had no jurisdiction.
              “Professor Callow is in meetings. He won’t be available until tomorrow.”
              “Callow?” Scully said, looking at Mulder. He did the customary slow blink that told her he was on the same page as her. “We’re friends of his daughter’s. Please tell him it’s urgent that he speak with us.”
              The guard lifted the radio to his mouth and static crackled. She rubbed the back of her neck and Mulder paced. A pair of green and red parrots screeched past. A vehicle reversed from a steel shed to the left of the main facility, stirring up a plume of dust.
              “He says he’ll see you. Follow me.”
 Professor Callow was seated behind a wooden desk bearing all the hallmarks of an office that hadn’t seen a change in twenty years. A Rolodex next to a rotary dial phone, a blotter pad, a stationery holder filled with Biros, pencils, a plastic ruler, Tippex. There was a framed photo of two men, one a younger Callow, rifle propped against his shoulder, standing over the corpse of a large animal that Scully couldn’t make out. She peered at its familiarity, then recalled the crumpled version of the photo on Steph Callow’s living room floor. There were glass cabinets along each wall, containing skeletal remains and stuffed animals with blank eyes and dull fur. Faded posters on the wall depicted a variety of Australian marsupials, and directly behind the Professor’s chair was a map of Queensland.
              “You know my daughter somehow?” he said, his accent clear-cut English.
              “She took us on a walk through the Daintree.” Scully looked at a poster of endangered and extinct animals. Toolache wallaby – bearing similar markings to the kangaroos they’d seen that first morning, broad faced bandicoot, lesser bilby. She checked out the small signs propped up against the stuffed creatures, Eastern hare wallaby, brush-tailed bettong.
              “She was a promising zoologist, she had a knack for research. Stephanie studied hard. It’s a shame.”
There was something tight about the older man, Scully thought. Something closed off. She’d seen the same thing when Mulder was returned. An outward show of vagueness that really just covered up an inability to articulate the heart of the issue. He was scared.
“What’s a shame?” Mulder asked, picking up a jar from a shelf. He held the jar out as he continued to challenge the professor, rattling the brown seed pod inside it so that it drummed with each word he spoke. “That Steph became a tour guide and not a Professor, like you?”
“No, no. It’s…her mother…the family. It was difficult. For all of us, but for Stephanie, a teenager at the time, it was. Well, she struggled.” Callow took the jar from him and set it back on the desk. His hands trembled.
“Your wife, Steph’s mother, what happened to her?” Scully watched the way he sucked in a deep, long breath, chest puffing out. The seed inside the jar, labelled Idiospermum australiense was pale yellow on the outside and a ridged red inside, reminded her of a golden apricot and she kept her eyes on it while Callow sunk back into his chair.
“She disappeared. Just vanished.”  Callow’s voice was shallow, like he’d told the story so many times it was just a rote response.
She looked back at Mulder, pressing her teeth into her lower lip. She wondered if they would ever relate any of their own history like that, without the passion, without the fire needed to continually reach for justice.
“Miriam went out to buy milk and never came back. We…just carried on. You do, don’t you? But Stephanie was never the same. Went to university in Tasmania, as far away from here as she could get. She worked hard but the spark, the passion for it had gone. After she graduated she went on a gap year to South America and when she came back she couldn’t settle. She told me once that being a tour guide was a way of always looking for her mother. As though she might just find her out there in the bush somewhere all these years later,” he smiled sadly. “She likes being outdoors. Just like her mother.”
“Have you heard from her recently, Stephanie?” Scully stepped towards him. “She’s missing, Professor Callow.”
Callow shook his head, an absent expression clouding his eyes. “I’m afraid that Stephanie has often gone ‘walkabout’ as they say in these parts.”
“We were with her when a group of men dragged her into a four-wheel-drive and we haven’t seen her since. The police don’t seem interested. Her house…there was a disturbance there.”
The old man pushed himself up from his desk, knuckles turning white. “She kept some strange company too. Abductees, she called them. She was adamant she’d been abducted too. Told me fantastic tales of being on board UFOs and lights in the forest. Crazy stuff. Nobody believes that kind of thing, do they?” Callow looked at Mulder and Scully lowered her gaze, breathing through the awkward silence.
“What did you make of her company? TasTiger Tours,” Mulder said, not rising to the bait.
“Taking tourists to see thylacines in the Daintree? When she told me what she was doing I told her that people would either see her as a lunatic or a scam artist. But it seems I was wrong. There are plenty of fools…” He stopped and Mulder offered him a accepting grin. “Sorry. You are entitled to spend your dollars any way you see fit, but Tasmanian tigers have been extinct for decades and most certainly did not inhabit tropical rainforest.”
“And yet both Dr Scully and I have seen thylacines in recent days. One was inside your daughter’s home.”
Professor Callow blanched and held on to the edge of the desk. “In Stephanie’s house? That’s impossible.”
“It wasn’t so long ago that this facility was being funded to research thylacine DNA with a view to potentially reviving the species. It’s not much of a stretch to consider that the animals might have escaped and thrived in the wild.”
Callow sighed and shook his head. “You sound like Stephanie. She had a penchant for the arcane. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d faked her own abduction by this group of men, simply to get my attention. I’ve suggested she see someone, you know, a psychiatrist to help her with her troubles, but she wouldn’t be told. She seems to be a lost cause.”
Mulder continued to talk, despite the old man walking past him to the door. “There are precedents where animals have created their own enclaves in non-native regions. The fabled big cat stories around the world can be explained in this way.”
Callow opened the office door. “What you say is true, Mr Mulder. And I may agree, except for the fact that my project never created a single live specimen. The trials all failed.”
Mulder swigged from the water bottle as she drove. The light outside was weak and grey. “What do you think, Scully. Is he involved?”
              “He was frightened, Mulder.  I saw a man cowed not just by the weight of his wife and daughter being missing, but by fear.”
              “He certainly knows more than he was letting on, Scully.”
              She watched him lean his head against the window. “You need to rest, Mulder. You still look like you’re running a fever.”
              “I’m fine. I just need to clear my head to think. Callow’s experiments didn’t yield a live thylacine, according to him. Yet we know they exist. What would be the purpose of recreating extinct animal lines, Scully? Where does that fit in with the abductions, the lights? And why would the police dismiss the case? Even if Steph was well known in these parts as someone with a psychiatric history, why deny she even existed?”
              “I’ve been thinking about that too, Mulder. And did you notice the name of the guard at the front gate?”
              He turned to her, cheeks flaming. “No, what was it?”
              “Galea. Same as the police officer.”
 They drove to the police station. The car park was deserted. Grey clouds pushed low over their heads and Scully scratched at the back of her neck. Mulder was slow to get out of the car. A sheen of sweat sparkled across his brow. She walked up the steps and rapped at the door. No answer.
              “Do you get a weird feeling, Mulder?”
              He didn’t answer but mopped at his forehead with the back of his hand. His chest rose and fell laboriously. She twisted the handle and pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. “If this is a joke, I don’t like the Australian sense of humour. Mulder,” she said, stepping back down to where he was leaning against the car door. “Get back in the car, out of the heat. Drink the water. I’m going around the back.”
              She knew he was sick when he complied without complaint. There were garden beds either side of the building, leaf litter piled high. Tall palms swayed on the increasing breeze and a pair of bird of paradise plants pecked at the empty air with their resplendent bronze beaks. The windows of the house were covered in cobwebs and the side door was locked. How had they not noticed the state of the place when they spoke with Officer Galea? Who were the other people in the building? Were there other people? She peered through the dirty glass of the back door but saw nothing but the marks of a building that hadn’t been inhabited for a while.
A car engine caught her attention and she hurried back round. A small blue SUV swung into the gravelled space next to their hire car and a middle-aged couple got out.
“If you’re looking for the police station, you need to head back that way, to Port Douglas. This one hasn’t been used for a few years now.”
“We were looking for Officer Galea,” Scully said, keeping an eye on Mulder, who was leaning his face against the window.
The woman shrugged. “The last copper here was Sergeant Blythman and she left to have a baby. That baby’s at primary school now. We just tidy up the yard. Len, give me that fertiliser. Those plants need a good feed.”
Scully opened the driver’s side door, but turned back to the couple. “Have you ever seen strange lights in this area? Blue lights?”
“You’re Americans.” Len joined his wife.
“We’re here on our honeymoon,” Scully said, as much to remind herself as to inform the couple. “We came here to report a crime here just the other day. Now it’s empty.”
The couple continued to remove gardening equipment from the back of the car.
“Who is Eddie Romero?” Scully asked. “It’s the name of a local research facility. It’s the name of one of the forest tracks. Our accommodation is Romero Sands.”
“He’s no-one special,” the woman said. “Enjoy your honeymoon. Go swimming. Do some bushwalking, but don’t stray off the tourist tracks. Have a nice time. Go home to your families.”
“Do you know Steph Callow?”
The woman exchanged looks with her husband. “Who are you?”
Mulder got out of the car, his body sagging. “What’s going on in this town? What are you afraid of?”
“We’re not scared,” the woman said, straightening up. “We’re just invisible. Nobody listens to us. They just want people to come here, spend their money. The tourist dollars rule. It’s like that film with the sharks, isn’t it, Len? You know the one, where the mayor of the island won’t shut the beaches down for the long weekend.”
“Jaws,” Scully said, looking over at Mulder. “Have people been hurt here? Killed?”
The woman looked at Len. “They’ve disappeared. But the government people say that they just lost their way, the forest is dangerous if you’re not careful.” She walked up to Scully and took her hand. “You two look like lovely young people. You don’t need anything like that happening to you. It’s the worst thing. People go missing and you never know what’s happened. You live every day like they might just come home and fling their coat across the hall and sit on their favourite chair and ask for a cup of tea, you know? It’s cruel, is what it is. Hope and dreams. It’s just cruel.” She rolled her lips together and took a long, slow breath. “You take care now. Come on, Len. It’s going to rain soon. Let’s spread this stuff and get home.”
 Mulder groaned in his sleep, deep guttural sounds that held fear. She often wondered how he processed all that happened to him. Besides the abject terror of the abduction, he had faced the death penalty. They had spent months on the run, looking over their shoulders, living out of cheap motels and even cheaper cars. He held it in, he held it together, mostly. She knew he thought he had to be strong for her, as she did for him. They both drove for days wearing their stoicism like armour. Back then, she knew the day would come where one of them would crack. She lay odds that it would be her first. That she would flip tables and throw away the hair dye and the Walmart underwear. That she would call her mother and write her brother. That she would tell Mulder she didn’t really love him and that she was leaving. That she would lie to save him. To save them both.
But in a long-forgotten town, in a long forgotten state, she returned with two bags of groceries and found him balled up in the corner of the darkened room, furniture broken around him, sobbing. The bags dropped to the floor and split open spilling the tins and packets in front of her. She let him cry against her chest until his tears soaked her vest. He didn’t talk, didn’t need to. She was grateful for that desolate place, grateful for the onerous skies and the stares of the townsfolk, grateful for the one store and flickering neon motel sign, grateful for the gritty coffee and the faulty ice machine. It drew out his sorrow and suffering and pushed hers down. She would never leave him. She would never lie to him.
 Now, she dabbed his brow with a cool washcloth, then pressed it around the back of her neck, easing the itch there. Wherever Steph Callow had gone, the dark forces in the forest were responsible. But with Mulder tossing fitfully by her side, there was no way they could go forward with any kind of investigation. She’d have to find a doctor’s surgery in the morning. He needed treatment.
“The light was so bright, Scully. It was so bright it felt like my eyes had been sliced open and silver was poured inside.” He pushed himself up and bunched the sheet across his lap. His voice was groggy, his skin tacky to touch. She gave him water. “I dreamt that Steph Callow was there with me, on that ship, Scully. She was trapped too, helpless and that bright light burned her and she burst into flames.”
While Scully made tea, he played with the remote, and a news anchor read out details of a mysterious death locally.
A member of the public called in the discovery of the body. At this stage, the police have not issued any details of the circumstances or the victim but there is a presence at Eddie Romero House.
“It’s Professor Callow,” Mulder said, calling her back to the bedroom. “He’s been killed.”
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flauntpage · 5 years
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Klay Thompson Will Break Your Brain
I want to, very briefly, talk about a guy you know. You went to high school with this fella, and you didn’t really see anything particularly amazing about him. He was a nice dude—polite, no weird rumors about him floating around—participated, like, a moderate amount in class, would occasionally toss a few brewdogs back at pool parties. He played a sport, not terribly well, he played guitar or something, more as a lark than anything, maybe he wrote for the student newspaper. I don’t know. The specifics of how this dude manifested to you probably depends on what part of the country you grew up in. This is all to say: he’s a dude, an alright guy, but he was not in, any way, extraordinary.
But then after you go to different colleges, this guy just blows up. He’s a big man on campus, everyone loves him, there’s dozens of pictures of him holding beer bongs for future professional athletes, he’s succeeding beyond your wildest dreams, studying some insanely hard stuff you could never do, arcane pre-law shit or org-chem or some such thing. You don’t see or talk to this guy anymore but, since you are friends on Facebook, you see his life explode in ways you had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA he had in him, and you are, frankly, flabbergasted.
While you are chilling with your ten friends, fucking around doing whatever, Mr. Chill Bro has BLOWN THE HELL UP, And it doesn’t end there! Before he leaves for grad school, he takes a gap year, and it blows your fucking mind, the beauty of the places he is going, the calm resonance he has with his partner, the even profounder heights he is plainly gearing up to scale. Then, he gets into grad school, crushes it there, gets an amazing job, makes fuck tons of money, and just lives an excellent life, all while you watch from the middle distance of a computer screen. You’re not mad or anything—just amazed, that the seed of this guy’s spirit, once so understated, has taken root and created a powerful, intimidating plant.
Last night, Klay Thompson—who kind of seemed like an unremarkable 3/D prospect when he entered the league—had his sun kissed-selfie-from-a-floating-bungalow-in-Thailand moment. In 27 minutes against the Chicago Bulls, Klay scored 52 points on the strength of 14 three pointers, becoming the NBA’s all-time leader for three pointers made in a game. It breaks my brain, honestly, that a thoroughly chill dude, the Anti-MJ, who has made his bones by intensely refining his skills to the point of indispensability and accepting and excelling at whatever role he has been given, is the owner of an NBA Record for ANYTHING. It’s sort of like when Scott Skiles set the one game assists record, except that Skiles, like, absolutely doesn’t deserve that record at all, while Klay almost certainly does.
Don’t mistake me, the environment in which this happened—in both the micro-and-macro senses—contributed to this happening. This NBA seasons has been FUCKING BONKERS from a pace-of-play and freedom-of-movement perspective. The tactical winds of the league blowing the good ship NBA entirely into RocketsDubsBall, to the point where almost every team in the league is putting it up with the same lusty intensity that made the Warriors seem alien-like when they started crushing the league under the boot night after night. This speedy environment was MADE for setting records, so much so that Klay’s record will probably be broken some time later this year, assuming the pace and the volume of threes being taken keeps up like this.
And the Bulls, oh my God, the Bulls. What a complete embarrassment on defense, almost certainly the worst team in the league on that end, managing to give up a whopping 92 points in the first half. Zach LaVine, who is playing the role of their best player, even if there’s just absolutely no way he really is, had the Klay card for most of the night. Zach was all too willing to ineffectually get caught on screens set by pretty much anyone, be they the Dubs bruising role-players or, uh, Steph Curry, a small point guard whose guts are made of styrofoam. On one of the three pointers, LaVine pushed into Curry’s screen so slowly that it looked like a pound cake getting mushed into the side of a sleeping dog. Klay’s last three was contested by a guy who was at least three feet behind him. It’s some of the most embarrassing shit you can imagine.
The NBA’s new freedom of movement rules—which protect off ball cutters and movers and shooters from the slams and jams of wannabe Rick Mahorns—were basically cooked in a lab to benefit Klay. But none of this detracts from his accomplishment. Klay wasn’t built for the NBA of Michael Jordan or Dwyane Wade or Tim Duncan. Like our friend, succeeding beyond the wildest predictions of the universe while we watch on Facebook, Klay was set down in soil that was perfectly suited to make him bloom into something beautiful and unstoppable. Hours of tedious work manufacturing a perfect wing jump shot and a commitment to the arcane arts of defense and moving off-ball would have made him a completely different dude in a context where everyone was expected to make their own offense, some shit that was happening as late as 2010. But here, in Oakland, playing with power forwards playing center who operate like point guards and a team whose entire ethos is grown from moving off ball, Klay is an honest to god Hall of Farmer. It’s been the damndest thing.
Klay Thompson Will Break Your Brain published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/
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stealthily · 2 years
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shitposting is my hiatus coping mechanism
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stealthily · 2 years
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yes yes i know the general stakes of the world are too heavy for it to be a reality but I simply think Vi and Jayce should have a very antagonistic relationship, but in like, a fun-bickering sort of way. where they’re just sort of reluctantly forced to care about each other. their entire energy boils down to “if it were up to me i’d leave your sorry ass behind, but then Caitlyn would be mad at me, so-” and it could just be either of them saying it at any given time
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stealthily · 2 years
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Vi wants to tell her, tell Caitlyn how her touch is the only thing that doesn’t make Vi’s heart drop or skin prickle. Please, she wants to beg, wants every inch of her mapped by Caitlyn’s gentle yet steady hands, until there is no longer a part of her that has last tasted the bludgeon of a guard, or the metallic grip of Sevika, or alleyway lurkers with their crawling, wandering fingers that she feels nothing when she breaks.
She wants to tell Caitlyn her touch is the only thing that she trusts, these days. Not the city or her sister or herself. But Caitlyn’s touch? It’s never hurt, and it’s one of few precious things Vi has yet to ruin. She grapples to find the right words to express it all— how she could listen to Caitlyn’s voice for the rest of her days, that she wants to spend the sort of life she’d never thought possible with Caitlyn by her side. Vi wants to tell her that her devotion is so strong, so all-encompassing, that it almost hurts, her heart stuffed so full of affection that she half expects it to split at the seams. But instead what comes out is “I love you.”
Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou, the words filling her chest and bursting forth, so full with the feeling it nearly chokes her to hold it all in— and once she says it, she can hardly stop. A reflex almost entirely out of her control, she tells her every damn day. “Come on, Cupcake, you know I love you.” and “Cait, I love you, but please go to fucking sleep.” and “I love you too much to let Wonderboy bore you to death all day.” and “I’ll be safe, okay? I promise. I love you.”
She says it a thousand times, a thousand ways, with a thousand different inflections. She says it through fondness and frustration and uncertainty and devotion, she says it loudly through the halls of the Kiramman home, laughter trailing behind her, she says it softly beneath the safety of their sheets, burying herself further against mattress and flesh that are both unfathomably soft.
“I love you,” Vi repeats the three words like a prayer, leaving far too many more unspoken in their wake. And yet, when blue eyes and a tooth gap flash brilliantly in her direction— she’s fairly certain that Caitlyn hears her, all the same.
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stealthily · 2 years
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Caitlyn’s sad-eyed tight smile in the progress day ep when her coworkers make fun of her is so fucking,,, sad??? there is not a single person in her life who takes her seriously or respects her enough to listen to her. and honestly, before meeting Vi, she just reads as one of the loneliest characters in the whole show?? at least at some point in their life, we’ve seen almost every character with a friend their age. but not Caitlyn. and it isn’t a tough act, she isn’t trying to isolate herself. she has so much passion, and she does reach out, she tries, she tries, and she’s still so lonely.
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stealthily · 2 years
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controversial opinion: i love to consume fics/art/etc. that have Caitlyn running after and stopping Vi in the rain, i think they’re wonderful scenarios to explore and I owe those creators My Life.
however,,,, i think in terms of trust, it was so important to let Vi walk away. yes, Vi was being rash and dumb and letting her fear and frustration dictate her future, but Caitlyn allowed her to leave, even though it hurt her to do so. she didn’t guilt or grab Vi and make her feel like she couldn’t get out of it. Caitlyn gave Vi the freedom to make her own choice, something she hasn’t been able to do for a long time. and for the entirety of their partnership, Vi is going to remember that.
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stealthily · 2 years
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@ whoever was in charge of designing Vi’s nose/side profile: i hope both sides of your pillow stay cool for eternity. bless u.
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stealthily · 2 years
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having a lot of feelings about that color script frame
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stealthily · 2 years
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do you think that Vi doesn’t really know when her birthday is. her parents probably celebrated her and her sister’s birthdays at one point, but they were so young, vi never really remembered the date because they dont exactly keep to a strict calendar in zaun and she never had to, because her parents always knew. then, her childhood is ripped open at the seams and suddenly birthdays are no longer a priority. vander would always give them extra gifts and sweets around the anniversary of the bridge siege, at least in part to give them something to look forward to during an otherwise difficult week. but vi doesn’t know when she was born. sometime in winter, she thinks. her mother used to say that’s why she was strong, that she had to be to survive, born with a fire in her heart to ward off the cold. she counted the winters in stillwater, when the floors would get so frigid her skin would go numb, her fingertips turning powder blue, a chill in her heart, a chatter in her teeth.
vi doesn’t know her birthday, and she wishes caitlyn didn’t look so damn sad when she tells her.
“it’s not a big deal, cupcake. it’s just a day.”
“a day meant to celebrate you.”
“yeah, i’ll pass.”
winter rolls around, and on a rare morning when neither of them have to wake before the dawn, caitlyn brings her an ornately wrapped box and a cupcake donning a candle, and it doesn’t take vi long to get what she’s playing at. gray eyes fix blue with a hard stare, but soften just as fast. she’s prepared no big celebrations, no uncomfortable pleasantries to subject her to. instead, it’s caitlyn’s breath a steady warmth against her temple and her laughter a steady warmth against vi’s heart, and vi thinks that maybe— actual birthday or not— there is something here worth celebrating.
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stealthily · 2 years
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Caitlyn straightening out her vest after she shoots at Sevika had always read as just a show of pride/collecting herself but CONSIDERING the last scene we’d seen her in before that involved her hitting it off with a woman in a brothel, her choosing to fix her clothes in an otherwise high-stakes moment implies something happened in said brothel to make them disheveled in the first place. In this essay I will—
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