#And if you do the combination one tag which ones

[cinnamorollcrybaby]

Shameless

Tags: dad!Toji x fem!reader, modern!au, nsfw, mdni, breeding kink, he calls himself daddy

Synopsis: You’re Toji’s live-in nanny. He wants to breed you, and he successfully does so.

An: This is my story on ao3!! You can read it here. If you’re feeling extra nice, a kudos would be cool too.

Being a single dad was hard. Toji learned quickly after his wife's death that he in fact couldn't do this alone. The way little Megumi's big eyes looked up to him for direction... him of all people. He was not cut out for this. Megumi's mom was a wonderful mother: sweet, nurturing, and patient. Toji really didn't know if he was any of those things.

Luckily, her life insurance provided Toji with a relatively comfortable life combined with his job in construction of course. Construction might be his vice. He got away from home for 12 hours a day, and he worked so hard that his brain was mush by the time he was home. Not that he didn't love his son, he did, but every time he looked at Megumi he saw his sweet late wife. He also saw his short comings as a father.

Babysitters quit on him regularly. It was always the same excuse. "Megumi's an angel, but I can't be here 7 days a week. I have a life too." It was incredibly annoying. They'd stay for Megumi but left due to another one of his shortcomings.

Another one quit. That would be the third one this month. "Listen Mr. Fushiguro, I know a friend. She does this sort of thing on a different level. Have you ever considered having a live-in nanny?"

That stupid girl's question enlightened Toji. He had completely forgotten that live-in nannies still existed. After getting her friend's number and paying her what he owed her for her time, Toji relaxed on the couch with little Megumi tucked into his side. The three-year-old was happily babbling next to him, enamored by Toji's phone that was in his hand.

Toji looked at the number dialed into his phone, and he sighed. He was tired of making cold calls to potential babysitters like he was some desperate whore, but maybe, maybe this would be different. He wouldn't mind having a live-in nanny. His house wouldn't mind it either. Toji would be able to finally breathe. No more coming home from 12 hour shifts to pop something to eat in the microwave and wash the dishes. He wouldn't even have to see this so-called nanny often. He could pick up more hours at work with all of his new freedom of not having to worry about pissing off the babysitter.

*** *** ***

Either way, that's how you ended up in Toji's house. For the past three months you had taken care of Megumi, cleaned and deep cleaned his entire house, cooked him plenty of dinners from scratch, and even did his laundry the exact way he preferred. His house has never looked better, and Megumi had never looked so happy.

Despite being here for three months, you barely saw Toji. He seemed to avoid you like the plague and only answer with one-worded answers, which was fine. This was your job, not your actual family. There was no need for extensive communications. Though, you had gushed to your friend plenty over text about how hot "Mr. Fushiguro" was. He was conventionally attractive, yes. But you also always had a thing for the brooding types, and dammit, Toji was brooding. There was also something to be said about how he came home in the evenings. A black wifebeater clinging to his skin from a long day of working out in the sun. His jeans would be dirty from the work he was doing. His skin glistening from a thin sheen of sweat. His hair was always a mess. Goddammit. It was enough to make you feel fertile.

It was early in the morning, Toji was getting ready to go to work. Megumi had woken up, crying for his papa not to leave him. He's going through an extra clingy phase. He's usually okay once Toji's gone.

"Papa!" Megumi cried as Toji entered the living room. You had Megumi in your lap, rocking him with a sleepy look on your face. His tears were wetting your shirt, but you didn't seem to mind.

"He'll be back tonight, Gumi." You shooshed him and continued to try to rock him and pat his back.

Toji's face was unreadable. He was never one to get all upset over Megumi's crying, but hearing his son cry out for him tugged on his heartstrings extra this morning. Then, there was you. You were a godsend to Toji's life. Getting a live-in nanny was one of the best decisions he had ever made. Above that, you were excellent with Megumi. You were sweet... nurturing... patient. He hated how seeing you with his son made him feel. It almost felt like maybe 2 kids wouldn't be that big of a deal. Maybe 3. One on each of your legs and another one swelling in your belly. God. He was disgusted in himself for thinking like that.

"I love you, kiddo." Toji said quickly as he leaned down, giving Megumi's forehead a quick peck. The toddler made grabby hands for him. It was almost enough to make him stay home. Almost. Toji's eyes met yours as he was still leaned over. His face was close to yours. The tension between them were palpable. The moment felt like eternity between them.

Then, a black credit card was in view. "I need new work gloves. Get the extra thick rubber ones, will ya? Also, get whatever you and the kid want. I'll be back late tonight." He handed you the card and sauntered out of the house despite Megumi's pleas for him to stay. You looked at the Amex black card and blinked a couple of times. Only the top earners in the world had cards like this. Toji was just an average blue collar dad... It made you wonder how he got a card like this.

You still spent that shit though.

*** *** ***

Toji looked at his phone on the jobsite. No one dared to tell him to put it away. Toji was the best most competent worker out on the field. He could work circles around supervisors and project managers alike, and he was damn smart. He didn't need a pencil and paper or a calculator to make quick conversions in his head. So, most people stayed out of his way.

He smirked and chuckled at the notifications rolling in from his bank. 78.97 at Target. 21.25 at McDonald's. 43.52 at Barnes and Noble. 9.24 at Starbucks. He was happy you and Megumi were getting to have a little shopping spree.

You were also great at keeping him updated. You sent him lots of pictures and videos of Megumi. He cherished each one of them, immediately getting some of them printed and hung up in his house. There was even a picture of you and Megumi proudly displayed in the living room. In his mind, you were an integral part of the family. The "family" simply would not function if it weren't for you.

A fond smile spread across his face as he opened his messages. A picture of Megumi's little hands trying to fit into his new gloves that she had bought him. Great. She got the right ones. "I think he wants to be just like daddy :)", the message read.

Oh.

Oh.

The twitch that just occurred in his pants should be punishable in a court of law. In no way should he have gotten turned on by that. You were just being nice. It was a normal thing for people to refer to him as "daddy" in that context. It never affected him in the way it was right now.

So anyways, that's how he ended up in the port-a-potty busting a load all over a picture of you that he had on his phone. After the shock of his orgasm that came quicker than ever, he looked down, disappointed in himself. He wasn't some horny teenage boy anymore. This was just downright deplorable. Begrudgingly, he wiped his phone clean from his sins. Post-nut clarity swirled his brain. He couldn't believe he just did that.

He called your number. He had to make things right.

"Hello? Is everything okay?" You immediately asked. After living with Toji for some time now, you learned that he doesn't just call people. He will absolutely decline a call to just text and ask what's up.

"Everything is fine." He replied, trying to hide his amusement. It was cute that you seemed so worried for him. "Are you still in town?"

"Yeah, Megumi and I are about to leave Starbucks and head home. Why? What's up?" You responded back to him. He could hear Megumi happily singing a song in the background.

"You know you spent 152 dollars today?" Toji asked as he popped his back up against the port-a-potty door. He had a lazy smirk on his face.

"Oh- crap. I'm sorry. You can take whatever you see fit out of my pay-" He interrupted your nonsense quickly.

"Do you think I'm poor?" His voice was amused, not angry like you expected it to be.

"What-? No.. no, sir. I was just-"

"I told you to get whatever you and the kid want. Don't come back home until your certain that you can't carry the amount of stuff you bought in one trip." He said quickly. His stomach was already coiling from how you called him sir. He grimaced as he felt another twitch. I just took care of you dammit.

"Oh... oh, okay? Are you su-" Click. He hung up on you. One too many dumb questions. You looked at Megumi as he strapped into the backseat of your car. He looked intrigued by the conversation even though you knew he realistically had no idea what was just said. "Daddy said we have to go to the toy store." You grinned at him. He was smiling and clapping over the word "toy".

234.22 at Toys-R-Us. 122.56 at Lego. 208.38 at Aerie. 88.21 at Ulta Beauty. Another 94.48 at Barnes and Noble.

The way Toji grinned each time he felt that familiar vibration of his phone go off, meaning another notification from his bank was off-putting. Workers on the jobsite never seen him so happy. It was his penance for being such a horny freaky fuck.

*** *** ***

It was later that same evening. Megumi was in the living room surrounded by toys and crafting materials. He was currently drawing all sorts of "shadow animals" as he called them. You would of course look and nod your head, congratulating him on each terribly drawn animal. You acted like that was the best damn wolf-bear-owl hybrid you ever saw.

You were in the kitchen cooking chicken and dumplings. The clock on the stove read seven p.m. You didn't expect to see Toji at all this evening. He said he was working late this morning. Usually, that meant he was dragging his feet in through the door until well past ten p.m.

Still, you made him a serving of chicken and dumpling soup. You always did. Even when he worked late, you would put him a helping of dinner in the microwave to keep warm. You never knew, but he was always delighted by that. He ate the dinners each time.

A key jingling in the door handle caught your attention while you were getting Megumi settled at the dining room table. Three-year-olds were so hard to manage: too small to eat by themselves but too big to be locked in a high chair.

Toji stepped into the living room with a small grunt. He smirked as he looked around at his destroyed living room. Toys, crayons, and pieces of "artwork" were strewn all about the place. He glanced up towards you and Megumi in the kitchen. He took note of how your face was flushed and surprised.

"Papa!" Megumi happily shouted before the little bastard ran from your grasp to go hug on Toji's legs. His dad smiled as he looked down at Megumi, and he used his hand to mess up Megumi's hair affectionately.

"Go eat your food, kiddo." Toji said warmly to his son. Megumi happily obliged and ran right back to his seat right next to you, and you fed him a spoonful of the soup.

"You're home early." You stated the obvious.

Toji would never tell you, but he left early because he missed you two.

"Don't sound too happy to see me." He remarked in a sarcastic tone.

"What-? No, I just.. would've cleaned up more had I known you would be home so soon..." You responded. Megumi was sitting beside you whining for another bite of food. You snapped out of your surprise, and you fed him another bite of chicken and dumplings.

"Why? I don't give a damn what this place looks like." Toji said with a small nonchalant shrug. He walked through the living room, carefully stepping over the toys. Before you had become his nanny, this was how his house normally looked: messy, lived in. "I've got a bowl of dinner in the microwave. My kid's happy and fed. I couldn't care less what that living room looks like."

Your heart fluttered at the sentiment. Toji was easy to please. He really just wanted what was best for his kid, and that was you. "I like making sure you have nothing to worry about." You replied. He looked at you with an unreadable expression. It looked like he might've wanted to say something, but he had backed out last minute. He hummed and walked towards his bedroom to shower the dirt, sweat, and grime from the day.

While Toji showered, you had finished feeding Megumi and yourself. You allowed Megumi to have about an hour of TV time before bed. He really enjoyed old X-Men cartoons. You turned them on for him and parked him on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket.

You hummed softly as you worked in the kitchen. You packed meal prep containers of soup for Toji to take for lunch for the next couple of days. Then, you were washing dishes in front of the sink.

*** *** ***

"I like making sure you have nothing to worry about." Your words repeated in Toji's head over and over like a mantra. He hadn't felt so... cared for in a long, long time. It made his heart feel full, which was an unfamiliar feeling for him. A less unfamiliar feeling was his dick standing fully erect and at attention. He groaned quietly as he leaned his head back in the shower.

Something had to be in the air recently. He was a grown man with desires, sure. But this was a new record for him. Ever since you started being a live-in nanny for him, the boners were a daily thing. Hell, twice or three times a day sometimes. He's tried everything... Well, okay, maybe not everything, but he's tried cold showers and staying away from you. Neither of those things work to soothe him.

His hand was gliding up and down his length for the second time today. He was facing the shower wall with his arm propped up on it, supporting his head. Damn you for making him feel like a slave to his desires. You wanted to make sure he had nothing to worry about? Then, you should be the one in here fixing this damn mess, not him. He pitifully rutted into his hand, imaging he's plunging deep into you. Imagining the multiple ways he'd fuck the hell out of you is the only thing that soothes the ache, but this time he didn't see an end in sight.

He gritted his teeth together, and he balled up his fist, rearing back before stopping himself. He's not a teenager anymore. He can't punch walls. He took a deep breath and turned the shower off. No, this won't do. He needs to fix this at the source.

After quickly drying off and getting dressed, he walked back into the kitchen. His eyes scanned over the house. Megumi was enthralled by the TV, and you were washing dishes. Perfect.

He slowly approached you from behind. He could tell you didn't hear him as you were still softly humming. Usually, you would stop humming if he entered the kitchen. He never understood why. The sounds of your melancholic hums were beautiful and soothing to him.

He was directly behind you, and his hands gently cupped your hips. You immediately flinched and made a soft scream that was quickly silenced by one of his hands. "Shh, we don't want to disturb the little brat, do we?" Toji said into your ear. His warm breath ghosted over the shell of your ear, making you shiver.

Toji's eyes flicked over towards the living room. Megumi hadn't moved an inch. Perfect.

Toji slowly released your mouth. To his delight, you didn't make a sound. He could hear how your breath was slightly labored from him scaring you. A small chuckle rose from his throat. His hands went back to your hips, and he pressed himself against your voluptuous ass. A hum of approval escaped him. He could see your hands gripping the countertops.

"Nod your head. You like this? Want me to keep pressing myself against you?" Toji whispered into your ear. You took your bottom lip between your teeth, and you nodded your head eagerly, giving him consent.

"Dirty fucking girl." His voice was like a growl in your ear as he started to move his hips, dragging his length up and down along you. You could feel each inch of his length beckoning for you. "I knew you'd take whatever I gave you, but this? Letting me grind against you like a pathetic teenager while my son is in the living room? You're such a fucking slut." His hands were digging into your hips as he continued his controlled motions.

"Mnn.. fuck.." You softly whimpered out. Thank god the X-Men were currently in a loud fight scene.

You slightly frowned as you suddenly didn't feel Toji behind you anymore. You were about to turn around and ask what he was doing, but his fingers curling into the waistband of your leggings told you everything you needed to know. "Toji-" You managed to whisper out. No way could you two do this while Megumi was in the next room over.

"Shut up." Toji interrupted you. He had taken his throbbing length out of his sleeping pants, and he had a look of concentration on his face as he angled himself right at your entrance. "You have no fucking idea how long I've needed this. So just be a good girl, shut up, and take what I give you."

Direct orders from your boss. Who were you to deny the man who just spoiled you all day today?

It was a tight fit. Toji wasn't a gentleman. He didn't prep you with his fingers or mouth. This wasn't love making. It was hardly fucking. This was fulfilling a need.

"God... fuck. I didn't expect you to be that tight." He growled into your neck as he held your hips still against him. It felt like he was splitting you apart. You couldn't even respond to him.

He noticed how tightly you were gripping the counter and how you weren't responding to him. Your knuckles were turning white. He almost felt guilty. His hand came around the front of you, and he gently rubbed the swollen bundle of nerves. "Shhh... You can take it. I know you can." He whispered into your ear as it was taking every last shred of self-restraint not to fuck you into oblivion right on this counter. He slowly pulled back until just his tip was inside, and he pushed all the way back in. "That's it. There's my good girl." He praised in your ear. It was not lost on him that he felt you get wetter with each praise.

He hesitated, but he said it anyway, "You wanna be a good girl for daddy, don't you?" He whispered into your ear. That phrase made you tremble in his arms and nod your head. He slowly pulled back out and pushed right back in, taking you slowly. "That's right... hngh, fuck." He moaned into your ear. "You want to be fucked by daddy. You want to take his cock like a good girl. Take it." His hips started to move with more conviction.

You were already so out of it. This was like a dirty fantasy come true. You couldn't help but check the TV a few times to make sure X-Men was still playing. You were still worried that Megumi might run in here for whatever reason and see you bent over in front of his dad. You knew it was unlikely. Megumi could watch that TV like a zombie all day if you let him. Besides, you would be able to hear the small pitter-patter of his footsteps.

"Stop looking at the fucking TV. Trust me." Toji growled into your ear as he forced your hips down onto him roughly. A noiseless gasp escaped you. He wasn't small, and he knew that. He was using it to his advantage.

"Fuck." He groaned quietly as he rubbed you with a bit more fervor. You could already feel that familiar warm feeling coiling in your stomach. "I'm going to fuck a baby into you. You were fucking made for this. Made for raising my kids and taking my fucking load." He was spewing nonsense into your ear, but in the moment, you couldn't help but nod and moan. "You were made for me." He proclaimed as his hips continued harshly snapping into your backside. Somehow the sounds were masked.

"You want that, don't you?" He asked as he bit down on your neck then lapped at the bite mark with his tongue.

"Yes, daddy!" You quietly exclaimed. His thrusts only increased in power. Your eyes started to cross, getting lost in pleasure.

"Fuck. You're gonna look so perfect pregnant with my baby. I won't let you have a break. As soon as one comes out; I'm puttin' another one in you." He continued on yapping about how many kids he was going to pump into you. "I'll breed you again and again." His thrusts were heavy and brutal. You couldn't take it anymore.

He moaned as he felt you clenching around him, finishing all over his cock. It was enough to drive him overboard. He pumped you full of cum until you were sure some of it was seeping out.

There was a peaceful moment of dizzy highness for you two. Toji panted against your back. For the first time in while, he's felt satisfied. A soft amused laugh escaped him as he heard the iconic X-Men episode coming to an end. He swiftly pulled out of you, and he tried to ignore that little whimper of protest you let out. He tucked himself back into his pants, and he pulled your leggings and panties back up for you since you were still a trembling mess over the counter.

"Alright Kiddo, c'mon. Time for bed." Toji said as he sauntered off into the living room as if he didn't just rearrange your guts. He put Megumi to bed that night, and he cleaned up the living room for you, allowing for you to recover in his bed for round two. He was much more of a gentleman for round two.

*** *** ***

"Hey... I know I ain't been to see you in a while. I'm sorry." Toji said as he sat down on the grassy ground. "I was letting life pass me by for too damn long." He said as he took a wet washcloth and began to wash up his late wife's gravestone. "I'm doing better now, so don't worry about me."

"Megumi's growing like a weed. I'm sorry I didn't bring him to see you... I just don't know how to explain it to him." Toji's voice was full of guilt as he dragged the wet washcloth against the stone. "He's a good kid though. He looks just like you, damn bastard." He softly laughed, knowing his wife would've struck him over the side of the head for calling Megumi a damn bastard.

"Listen... I met a girl." He leaned his head over the gravestone. It had been close to three months since you and Toji started sleeping together. There wasn't a formal label to your relationship, but it didn't feel necessary. You two both knew you were sleeping exclusively with each other. "I think you'd like her, or maybe you wouldn't since she's fucking your husband. But either way... I-" He choked up a bit as he held onto the cold stone. "I feel so fucking guilty... I know you're not coming home anytime soon, but I just... I need your blessing. If you can somehow hear me, please... I never asked you for anything until I asked you to marry me. Now, I'm asking... please somehow show me you approve of this."

"She's good for me... She takes good care of Megumi. He's so damn attached to her somedays." Toji softly laughed as he remembered how a few nights ago Megumi crawled into bed with you and him because he had a nightmare. Instead of taking to Toji like he normally does, he crawled into your arms. Toji had never felt so damn proud and slighted at the same time.

"I should get going. Give me a sign though.. Something that tells me you approve." He finished his visit with his wife, and he went home.

*** *** ***

That night at dinner, Megumi sped into the kitchen with an action figure in his hand. He was pretending to be Batman. "Gumi, I've told you three times. Stop running." You said as you gave the small child a look. Toji smirked as he knew that look good and well. It was the look a mom gave as a warning. Megumi was on his last warning.

"I'm sorry, mama." Megumi apologized, causing for both you and Toji to freeze right in your tracks. Megumi had never called you mama before. He always said your name.

Your heart swelled in your chest. It was a feeling of affection and guilt. "Oh no... baby.." You said softly as you took his hand. You lead him into the living room, and you crouched down, showing him a picture of his mom to him. "That's mama." You gently corrected him.

Toji watched the scene like a hawk from the dinner table. His heart was pounding in his chest. He had never been shy about telling Megumi who his mom was, but he hadn't exactly been forthcoming about how his mom passed away when he was a small baby.

Megumi pointed at the picture. "Mama." He said quietly. You nodded and patted his head.

"That's right." You praised affectionately. He then turned his attention to you. and he poked your chest with his tiny finger.

"Mama." He said, pointing at you.

"No-"

"It's alright." Toji spoke up from his seat at the dinner table.

"I don't want him to be confused..." You replied as you slowly stood back up, looking at Toji.

"He doesn't sound confused to me." He retorted with a small grin. You turned your attention back to Megumi, and Toji looked up towards the ceiling. "Thank you." He muttered so quietly before kissing the necklace that hung around his neck. He had his wife's blessing. This proved it.

After finishing his dinner, Toji joined you two in the living room. You and Megumi were curled up on each side of his while watching that old X-Men cartoon. Suddenly, Megumi rose from the couch. You and Toji watched him with a hint of confusion.

"What is he doing?" You softly asked Toji as Megumi bent over, and he looked between his legs at both you and Toji.

"I have no fucking id-" He was about to respond, but then, it hit him. "Get up." He said as he stood up from the couch. He quickly grabbed his phone, keys, and wallet like a madman.

"What? What? Is something wrong?" You asked as you had never seen Toji move this fast. You quickly got up too.

"Nothing's wrong. Come on. We're going to the store." He grunted as he swooped Megumi into his arms.

You were confused and in denial when Toji bought a pregnancy test and made you take it. Now, both of you were waiting outside of the bathroom for the five minutes to be over. "This is crazy, Toji. I'm not pregnant."

"It's an old wives' tale. When babies do that, it's supposed to mean their looking for their sibling." Toji said with a nonchalant shrug as if what he said was matter-of-fact. "My mother told me that's how she knew she was pregnant with me."

The timer went off on his phone, and both of you fought to get into the bathroom first. He eventually overpowered you and snatched the pregnancy test off the counter quickly. "Oh." He said quietly. The room went still.

Suddenly, your heart was racing. "What is it? Is it negative?" You asked a hint of disappointment hit you. You didn't know why, but a small part of you hoped for it to be positive.

"Oh, you're fucking getting it tonight." Toji smirked as he turned the pregnancy test over. Two pink lines were clear as day on the test. You're pregnant.

Tags: @lemonlimecrystal-blog @theuniversesnepobaby

[steddiemas]

The results are in, and I'm happy to announce that this year's Steddiemas Fanworks Holiday Challenge will feature a set of weekly prompts for you all to choose from. Like last year, there will be themes but instead of 31 days of unique prompts, you'll get 4 a week to mix and match as you see fit.

Those themes will be:

Winter Wonderland - December 1st - 7th Deck The Halls - December 8th - 14th Cozy Days - December 15th - 21st Holiday Extravaganza - December 22nd - 28th Endings & Beginnings - December 29th - January 1st

The prompts will be released in weekly batches starting in November so you can start working on your creations early. Posting will begin on December 1st and end on January 1st. But don't worry, late work will be accepted!

In addition to the weekly prompts, every weekend will include a separate challenge. A sentence starter/piece of dialogue along with a word count will be posted every Friday at 9pm PT, and you'll have until that Sunday at 11:59pm PT to get it posted. These prompts will not be posted in advance which is what makes them a challenge!

Like last year, this is an 18+ Steddie-centric event, but that relationship can take any form, and I am open to working with other pairings/ships as long as Steddie is involved somehow. Just make sure to tag accordingly!

As always any and all times of fanworks are allowed and you can combine prompts with other events taking place if you want! For the weekly prompts, you can do them all, combine them, or just pick the one that speaks to you! There is absolutely no pressure!

If you have any questions, you can send them here or over on @steddieasitgoes

Until then, see you in November when prompts get released!

And yes, I'm aware we're still in September but the stores are already putting out holiday stuff so I figured I could get a head start here too.

[lovesse]

Which ONE Of Them Do You Like The Most ?

♡ ɜ * ₊ ･ LAMBCUTE : a gender connected to lambs && being cute && any combination of the two | recoined / reclaimed from @/engagekiss or @/maidish

tag list : @laughdiamond @lunentity @timmy-bee @nexolord @doll-mine @fwus @haunted-thing @themothnotthemap @jiiamp @jigumis @discrophy @bjdboyy @smilepilled @squidfreak @radiomogai

[featguler]

wound up with a purpose ────── you are comparing hand sizes.

♡ ────── pairing : vinícius júnior x reader ♡ ────── tags : reader's gender, ethnicity, nationality, and appearance is not specified, but they are described to be smaller than vini. reader is friends w/ aurel. ♡ ────── wordcount : 723 ♡ ────── notes : this is so short but it's so cute and i love him and i cannot stop thinking about vinicius jose paixao de oliveira junior. title is from beabadoobee's ever seen!!! it's such a cute song awoooorghhh,, ♡ masterlist.

“I’ll get Eduardo here,” your idle threat draws a laugh out of Vinícius’ mouth as he insists on hooking his pinky finger into your ring finger, “He’ll have you kicked out of this party.”

“Yeah?” Vinícius entertains the thought and shrugs, his lips tugging into a short smirk. “I don’t know, you seem like you’re enjoying my company more than anything else.”

The gathering Eduardo is exclusive—”exclusive” here being used very generously, as it is bigger than any garden party you have ever been to, and filled with people with bigger names than your family combined.

Sitting on some stools against some bushes, you drown the sound of conversations and water fountains out.

You are a friend of a friend of Eduardo’s—Aurélien’s to be exact. He brought you as his plus one with the exact intention of playing cupid and setting you up with one of his teammates. Eduardo had met you a few times before, so he was like, sure, and you spent the entire afternoon fretting over which shoes to pair with which jacket.

And, dear lord and Aurélien’s compulsive knacks of unwarranted party invitations, you don’t know who this teammate he was boasting on and on about.

But right now, you are hoping that it is Vinícius.

Rising star of Real Madrid, they would say. You just never expected that he would be this romantic.

“Come on,” he tries again, chuckling and spreading his palm close to your fist. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little comparison, hm?”

On the first meeting no less.

“Please,” you roll your eyes, giving in slightly when he uses his thumb to rub against the base of your palm instead, “Did I tell you I used to play basketball in school?”

He is wearing a nice, soft pink shirt against a pair of brown pants, some rings on his fingers and one on each of his earlobes.

“Yeah?” He grins. “You must have long fingers, then. And bigger palms.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me,” you purse your lips to hide a smile, finally opening your palm to see his eyebrows raise in delight, wasting no time in pressing his hand over yours.

And, sure, yeah: it makes sense that Vinícius Jr’s hand is larger than yours. It makes sense that your fingers are shorter than his, that your heartbeats increase the moment you touch, and that he closes his fingers on the space inbetween yours, engulfing your hand in his fist.

“Mon deu,” you giggle at the accent in his French, trying to catch your missing breath. He swings your hand, as though he is testing a new glove. “You’re tiny aren’t you?”

“Tiny?” You repeat with fake offence, the feeling of novel heat rising in your chest as you cross your legs. You close your fist over his. “I am the perfect size. Not my fault you have gigantic hands.”

“Oh, please. Enough with the compliments.”

“That was a compliment?”

“That wasn’t?”

You two burst into another fit of laughter, his fingers digging into the back of your hand as you use the other to cover your mouth.

Vinícius inches towards you like you don’t notice, and you peek at the expression on his face.

“Oh, this is nice,” he says, slowly this time, and swings your hands again. “I take it back—you’re right. You’re the perfect size.”

You blow a scoff, trying to hide the baffled on your face. You open your fingers and he is compelled to do the same—now your palms are back facing each other again.

“Is that so?” You stare into his eyes before looking away.

Vinícius raises a curious eyebrow.

“Look,” he gently closes his palm. “My fingers fit so nicely between yours.”

“Oh,” you pull away, shyly pushing his hand away. “Stop it.”

He laughs. “Can’t deny it though, can you?”

“Oh, come on.” You whine, pressing your hand against your eyebrows, trying to blow the steam away from your cheeks. You have to remind yourself, for a moment, that he’s probably done this to countless other people before.

“I’m kidding,” he chuckles, shaking his head, using his foot to faintly nudge your shoes.

You glance his way, pursing your lips again, hiding a smile again.

“Right,” you bite your lips, clearing your throat, and Vinícius shoots you a charming smile. “Right.”

[megamindsecretlair]

WIP Tuesday

Buckle up babes, it's going to be a long post!

I come before you humble, hat in hand. I know I been wilding ya'll. I know there's a lot of fics I need to update and get back to. I haven't forgotten! And since there are...so many new people thanks to my Terry fics, what a great time to call myself out chuz ya'll too nice to do so! I saw @nerdieforpedro do this a few weeks ago? Forgive me for not tagging the person you got it from, but I am tiredt, chilleee.

Current focus: Terry got my whole heart, ya'll. Every fic I read of him, I just want to go hop in the booth myself and get to writing. Ya'll inspire me every damn day, it's magical. There is a filthy, disgusting, mean, despicable fic I wanna write with him. But alas, he is not the only one I write for.

Girl, there's how many series????? Listen, the muse wants what it wants. 11 series in total. Chillee, why I do dissssss. Some are closer to finishing than others. So let's count them out (click the links to learn more):

Be My Little Darling - Loki series | It Started With a Whisper - Sam Wilson series | Midnight Sin - Vampire Tyrone series | Blackbird - Mob Boss Fontaine | Camp Wanderlust - Franklin Saint series | What You Deserve - Homewrecker Stunna | Runaway Lover - Professor Stunna | If I Took You Home - Kevin Atwater | Kill Her Softly - Zyair Malloy | A Taste of the Divine - Yakuza Sukuna | We Are the Night - Qimir

Frenn, that's a lot, do you sleep? Are you okay? Blink twice if you need help. I'm promise I'm good ya'll, I just love writing and I love interacting with ya'll. You have NO idea how much each and every single one of ya'll mean to me. I love the support, I love the comments, I love the reblogs. I'm trying not to disappoint folks, I was on a schedule and well, life happened. I can course correct, I promise. Just gon' take me a little minute. Let me close the smaller series first!

Okay, surely that's it right, frenn? Ahh no, because there's also the asks that have been piling up. Per my pinned post, you know that I have a scatterbrain. Some asks I deleted because they're too similar to what I've done before. Some I'm still trying to picture before I start writing. But the ones I've kept? At last tally it is...33. Some are similar and I'm going to combine them, but yeahhhhh. This isn't a callout post, keep sending those requests in! Just know it's gonna take me a smoooooooth minute. Also, welcome new people, welcome! But not everything needs a part two, I promise. If I write "The End" at the bottom, that truly means the end. No part 2 planned, ain't trynna write a part two. I want to move on sometimes. I love you, but I'll be writing until I'm gray if everything got a part 2. And I wanna get paid for my writing. Which brings me tooo...

Umm, umm, what's this I hear about a book??? Yes! I am actually writing a book based on an ask I received. It was a sweet ask about what kind of story would go with "Handwritten Letter". I said it gave friends to lovers, she fell first, he fell harder type of vibes. It has morphed into dark academia about a shy girl just trying to come into her own. It's a combo of and a love letter about girls like me, girls like you, each and every person who identifies as a Soft Black Girl. And I already have *so* many ideas about other books I want to do. There will be one based on the Mr. Black series I wrote. There will also be a vampire one! I just can't decide yet which will be the second book I put out. I'm leaning towards vampire because Terry is HEAVY on the brain ya'll. And he'd make a sexy vamp. But anywhooo...

I say all this to say that I'm not a machine. I'm not that quick despite appearances. I may not seem like I have any chill, but I've been fantasizing and turning over these fics in my head for days or weeks before I sit down to write. And I'm not saying to stop. Your support is exactly why I feel good enough about my writing to sit and write an entire book! I want to be a full time author. I want to share my ideas with the world. I'm just slow lmfaoooooo.

In the mean time, I hope you're hitting up all these amazing writers on here. I hope you're commenting and reblogging and showing love on here. I will keep saying it. This site will DIE and these BLACK writers will LEAVE if people keep stealing, not commenting, not reblogging, asking for part 2s and never showing love. Fandom is a community, not a pillar. No one know it's you behind that avatar, go crazy! Go nuts. Show nuts. whatever.

Love, love, love you all. If you read this far, drop something funny in the comments. Or go unhinged in my asks about Terry. Don't get me started about that man, but go awff about him because that's my baby favaaa.

no pressure tags: @chaos-4baby @j0kers-light @umber-cinders @harmshake @planetblaque @babybratzmaraj @soft-persephone

[thestaplerqueen]

I know a lot of people who say “yeah I don’t have tiktok either…. I just go on Instagram reels 😅” like ok bestie you’re still plugged into the infinite scroll attention currency trap and staying up to date with the songs and trends. I want to see where the tumblr userbase stands. I am aware of the biases. Reblog.

[lunarharp]

shirahama-sensei reminded me she has a thing for the teacher from pokemon s/v so i randomly went off on an au where qifrey is the professor. etc

[ottosbigtop]

Suffering my curse (Thinking about thing i like too hard to sleep)

[moe-broey]

Omg old ass Arven artdump........ from the beginning of this specific sketchbook (only did the bare minimum to clean it up LMFAOO -- also just imagine a giant ass Pokemon looming menacingly behind them topmost drawibg I couldn't be assed 😅🧍)

[no1ryomafan]

I do not bother to check if Getter and Big O ever interacted in SRW because I’m so use to the other mechas I like being in the same game as getter but being so different that they never have any story reasons to have interactions since Getter is only ever allowed to interact with mazinger, OG gundam and any other combiners + it’s all in untranslated hell so I won’t even know wtf was said if there WERE interactions but god damn it I keep rotating a scenario where Roger negotiates to get Ryoma out of jail even though I know for a fact that DIDNT happen despite how many times they used arma and how Z2 actually adapted it fucking correctly for once but it’s just so funny to imagine.

[teja-has-puppet-autism]

y'know sometimes I go to make a post on this here webbed site, and I almost always end up deletin it cause I measure it through the "how widely applicable is this" + "how horribly can people twist this" metrics and it just stops my little fingies from typin

(this turned into me typing an essay in the tags cause I very much did need to process some shit lmao)

[whatudottu]

I have a question what were Annie's og parents like(i mean she was willing to run away with five aliens to be her fathers instead so I don't think they might have been the best😬) or maybe they're dead and were good people idk

A lot of the lore is actually written by @sweetpeaches666, who may be tagged under sugarbutterfly432, thanks to Annie technically being a 3 way OC lmao. There has been nothing solidly concrete about Annie's OG parents beyond the fact that she doesn't know her ancestry and she's had many foster homes AND orphanages to live in (plus it'd also be easier legal wise for the Andromeda 5 to adopt her if she isn't officially someone else's kid at the time)

It's actually why she does ballet, one of her foster mothers wanted to recreate her failed dream, turns out it breeds resentment and a lot of running away :P

What can be said is that Annie's been many different homes and in a constant state of transitioning between them, a prime example of being a refunded kid and all that, something something No Roots by Alice Merton yada yada 'oh no that's relatable'. Her birth parents one way or another have never been in her life, though regardless of what actually happened Annie will always believe that they left her behind like like everyone else did :P

[lovesse]

Which ONE Of Them Do You Like The Most ?

♡ ɜ * ₊ ･ ANGELDEER : a gender connected to deers && angels && any combination of the two | if this has been coined before take this as an alt flag !

tag list : @laughdiamond @lunentity @timmy-bee @nexolord @doll-mine @fwus @haunted-thing @themothnotthemap @jiiamp @jigumis @discrophy @bjdboyy @smilepilled @squidfreak @radiomogai

[songofwizardry]

think it shouldn’t have been legal that my first day of teaching of the year coincided with grey and rain and storms. however! have some very lovely new students, some very enthusiastic returning ones, there’s new cookies in the cafe, and I get to play with pendulums tomorrow, so there are some (many!) positives

[batsplat]

ok but what could be the motogp/casey stoner magical girl anime’s equivalent of rgu’s black rose arc……🤔

*cracks knuckles* okay admittedly I read this ask, had it jangle around in my brain for half a day and then read it back and realised I'd zeroed in on the 'casey stoner' side of the line and completely ignored the more general motogp prompt. since then I have had. some more thoughts. but they do come back to casey

so let's set out in proper scientific fashion and figure out what doing a black rose arc even MEANS. briefly summarising the arc, on the most literal level possible... it's the middle arc of the show, wherein characters proximal to the primary duellists get indoctrinated in a sham therapy session into fighting utena, a process symbolised by pinning black roses to their chests. she wins against all of them fairly comfortably in direct combat, managing to destroy the black rose and in doing so free the duellists. at the end of the arc, utena learns that the whole thing was orchestrated by mikage, a scholar frozen in time after burning down a lecture hall and killing the hundred boys within. he seeks to kill anthy, the rose bride, so that he can save his beloved mamiya by making him into the rose bride and achieving eternity. except his memories had been manipulated all along by the puppet masters of the whole show, anthy and akio, so that his memories of mamiya had been bastardised into what seems to be a version of anthy. mikage had been trapped in the school by false memories, has perhaps been dead all along, and had been used as a tool to bring utena closer to being able to achieve revolution. in the end, he too is discarded

which... okay, yeah, it's very hard to describe the show on a literal level, and I think in some ways the black rose arc is the one that's the most open to interpretation? icl it took me about three watches to really wrap my head around what on earth mikage's deal was supposed to be. which means you can also take the motogp crossover approach in several different ways... because of my own academic background, watching it the first time I kinda zeroed in on how the process by which the characters become black rose duellists is one of radicalisation/indoctrination into a cult. the process by which they are prepared to commit violence is built on humiliation, an experience where they want something and feel shame (or are made to feel shame) for wanting it. kanae is subjected to anthy's silently judgemental looks, keiko is made into a fool and an outcast by nanami, wakaba suffers a brutal rejection, and so on... it's not just that they have an enemy, somebody who treats them poorly - it's that a vulnerability is exposed that fundamentally threatens their self-esteem. it leaves them destabilised, unsure of themselves, with a fragile sense of self. when the characters go to seek guidance, they are quite literally being provided with a new sense of 'direction'. they are being guided towards finding purpose

the descending lift is a key part of the process, by forcing the characters to focus in on their negative emotions and let them consume them. the humiliation is strengthened, made more brutal - the voice instructs them to "go deeper" and bare more of their soul. they are expressing their vulnerability in front of a mirror that reflects their most twisted, painful desires back at them. subjected to the reflection of the negative emotions at the self... they are forced to make themselves weak in front of the voice, essentially debase themselves, and in doing so they strip away their own walls and barriers and mechanisms of self-defence. as the lift descends, so do they regress

the most obvious expression of this is the butterfly that becomes a cocoon (and then a leaf). utena is all about the process of becoming an adult, of achieving revolution as a metaphor for growing up, breaking the egg. but here, as an extension of anthy and akio's schemes, instead the characters are forced backwards in time. part of it is again this process of... well, ritually breaking down the characters, chipping away at their sense of self so that it can be reconstituted in a way that is useful to the order of the black rose. part of this is more generally about the show's themes of maturity and adulthood - the characters are being reduced, now governed only by their very worst impulses

it is at this lowest moment that mikage steps in to offer the characters their only solution. the only answer they have to somehow bring meaning back to their lives. all they have left to reclaim some kind of sense of self is to embrace mikage's vision of revolution. so you have a personal experience of humiliation, you have the character being guided towards a figure of authority who is supposedly able to help those in that kind of situation, you have a 'gradual' process stemming from externalised pressure to make the character focus only on their negative emotions, and eventually you have said figure of authority providing the character with the 'only' way out of the emotional turmoil and insecurity they are feeling. this route eventually leads to complete suppression of the self in the name of the cause and also... well, acts of violence. staircase model, my old friend! or if the staircase were a descending lift, I suppose

you may be wondering how I can possibly make this relevant to motogp and, well, *cracks knuckles again for good measure* let's see how this goes. I'm not going to make some big spiel about how becoming a rider (yes, even a vr46 one) is a comparable process of indoctrination or any of that. (there's some very broad comparisons, like how riders cannot choose to be assimilated into this strange and dangerous system but are instead sucked into it as children, following dreams that have been handed down to them by others... but I'm mostly gonna stay clear of that stuff.) what I'm more interested in is... hm, the emotional management aspect of sports, how delicate it is in what it requires of athletes. the eternal question of motivation, how you can bring yourself to put yourself out there and compete again and again - despite the eternal possibility of failure and, yes, humiliation. from here

'the challenge of managing vulnerability' is the key bit. on a very, very basic level, the process of growing up is about managing vulnerability, being able to manage your own emotions... there's a similarity between ohtori academy and the paddock in that they are both sheltered, closed off environments that send its young through unnatural, almost twisted approximations of growing up. their emotions are evoked by artificial scenarios, by competitions that aren't 'real' in the sense they aren't provoked by any naturally existing scarcity - but are instead elaborately designed shows designed to test its participants and, yes, reveal something of them. sports as a pure measure of human achievement is fundamentally hollow; it is only provided meaning by the ridiculously heightened emotions that are evoked by it. the characters transition into their new roles of duellists in a moment of vulnerability and it is only in this raw, unguarded state that they are able to fight

there's also another bit from a post I ended up not publishing in an exciting moment of self-awareness where I went, 'you know what, nobody cares about this', but it still exists in unedited form in my google doc. here (the post was about mozart + salieri, hence the references to music):

the idea here is basically that it's actually incredibly tricky to manage the exact right amount of self-awareness you should have as an athlete - and the emotions that come with it. you need to reveal yourself, to make yourself vulnerable, to be able to compete to your fullest extent. you need to debase yourself in front of a crowd, to accept the possibility of not just defeat but of humiliation, of the embarrassment of losing and how degrading that experience is. now, to stop yourself from actually going insane, everyone will need some kind of explanatory framework in their own head to process defeat. some of these narratives will by necessity rely on our good old friend delusion. young athletes cycle through victory upon victory and defeat upon defeat, often in ways seemingly inexplicable to themselves, which means their self confidence is fluctuating like a yo-yo on acid from generational levels of cockiness to the darkest self-loathing imaginable. some level of baseline self-belief, of thinking you will 'make it' despite all the odds being extremely not in your favour, is really kind of key to the process

the problem, of course, is that... so narrow is the emotional window that provides the ideal performance potential that it makes managing this window both crucial and horrifically difficult. maybe you can perform better when you're angry - or maybe you'll crash. or maybe you'll make a fatal error of judgement. you need hubris, but not too much. calm without passivity or complacency. joy might be the enemy of concentration. shame can motivate or it can make you retreat. your rival can spur you to action or paralyse you in your own inadequacy. and at the core, again and again, lies the concept of vulnerability. the moment you step into the arena, it is with the knowledge that it is possible for you to lose. competition is a moment of exposure, of revelation, of truth. this day may end in the gravel trap. you may humiliate yourself. you do it anyway - and to do so you need purpose, and to make sense of the defeats you need more purpose

plugging the autobiography passage again:

such a good passage, isn't it? to bring it back to the black rose arc... 'analogy' in the loosest of senses - you have moments of 'truth' in different forms. you have the truth found at the bottom of the lift, where the characters reveal their most painful insecurities - but it's fundamentally not a very balanced truth, is it, focused on the purely negative and self-loathing. they don't go out to duel in the name of passion, they are not duellists in the same way juri with her love for fencing is - which you can see from how they need to essentially steal the style of 'their' duellist to fight utena. there's no positive affect there. it's a power gained through vulnerability, yes, but one that is fundamentally self-destructive and exists in an ultimately fragile state of crisis. utena can free the duellists from their roles simply by cutting the rose; the student council members don't stop being duellists just because their roses are cut because this is something they care about for themselves. you can't be completely reliant on others to provide you with purpose in sports - some of it is going to have to come from some internal urge to compete, to win. no parental determination, desire, at times abuse can create an athlete out of nothing if their child is fundamentally unwilling (as ever, agassi's autobiography is very interesting about this). so while end of the world, in all the malevolence and abuse, may proffer a path towards meaning, towards revolution, to the student council members - it would be entirely useless if they did not still have 'hope in their hearts'. desire. the will to win. utena is able to defeat the black rose duellists with relative ease... she might not have entirely selfless motives, but her desire to protect anthy still stands up as being far more robust than a mere desire to lash out in response to humiliation. she wants to be anthy's prince, she wants to live up to this role - and in the end it means she will always be able to dig deeper than the black rose duellists

there's a few other ways we can torture this metaphor, while we're at it. "deeper, go deeper" is a phrase that to me is... very sports-coded, I talked about it in the mind games post I linked - going to the 'dark places' within yourself to win. to find release through the suffering, some form of revelation, reaching some kind of imaginary 'zone', to be able to perform at the highest level. only then can you achieve revolution... eternity, if you will. it's the performances where athletes dig the deepest that immortalise them, after all. but then, for all this talk of balance and some need for positive affect, of course there is a lot of negativity that feeds into the motivational process. the motogp twitter account posted a video today a few days ago by the time I actually post this... of our dear two time defending champion talking about how he primarily uses criticism to motivate himself

there's something ever so slightly comical about pecco talking about how, sure, he'd like to live by his 'go free' phrase and the associated ethos of just enjoying himself out there... but actually, he doesn't motivate himself through all that fun stuff at all. instead, he makes use of *checks notes*

reading something bad about himself

being told something bad about himself

making mistakes

when someone attempts to hit him in the mental side

well, that's nice! welcome back, casey stoner

am I saying pecco is going down the black rose arc lift to motivate himself? well, maybe I am. who's to say. a little bit!

you're getting yourself into the ideal performance window by basically... deliberately exposing yourself to criticisms, to degradation of the self, to the suffering of embarrassment and humiliation, dwelling on your mistakes, on those who do not believe you are adequate (or 'special', as in the black rose arc)... and, well, obviously I'm not saying the lift descent is a particularly healthy process... I'm admittedly a bit wary of the welfare implications of the sports equivalent. I actually had a long conversation last week before last about what essentially amounts to forms of digital self harm, this phenomenon of stars seeking out their 'haters', both within sports and other public fields... and, idk. there's 'being motivated by your rival being a dick about you' normal levels of spite and 'constantly subjecting yourself to what your cruellest detractors think of you' levels that seem distinctly unhealthy to me. without more context, you'd kinda hope pecco's sticking closer to the former type than the latter. casey also was a very spite-motivated athlete, perhaps somewhat in contrary to his assertion that he never got obsessed with rivals and didn't care who he beat. you see it with his whole 'ooh beating a spaniard at their home circuit' schtick, you see it with his 'yamaha rejected me so I'll show them' thing, quite frankly even his 'ah well mind games actually backfire because they motivate the other party more!!' line. he was constantly trying to prove a point to someone.... but was also extremely prone to self-criticism, to putting himself down, to being so perfectionist that it tipped over to being terrified of failing and crucifying himself for any mistakes. some of these things will have contributed to making him as good as he was - the same traits that tortured him also were what drove him to seeking perfection. sometimes, these roles of 'duellist' and 'athlete' may demand a fundamentally unhealthy emotional balance to excel at them

there's also something in how.... hm, mikage wanting to kill the rose bride so he can control eternity. the concept of 'eternity' is also big in sports, both in wanting to secure a legacy and wishing to preserve an un-preservable youth. inevitably, you will be replaced, they will move on from you, you cannot compete forever... mikage is frozen in time - and more than that, time is distorted in the ohtori academy. only a few like mikki even appear to notice it, constantly measuring it with his stopwatch as it continues to fluctuate around him. the uncertain nature of time is impossible to separate from how insular the academy is, from how it is cut off from the outside world, from how all point of reference is lost. sports does a similar thing in many ways, with the insularity heightening the stakes of this conflict, the occupants of that space living to different rhythms than the rest of the world.... the cycles of life and death, how rushed everything is, a youth that has to be captured and bottled before it slips out of your grasp, the calendar of races, of a travelling circus that touches the places it visits without belonging to it... valentino stretched out his career, even beyond a time when he was no longer competitive, due to his love for racing, his passion for it - a state of arrested youth, how he's been given the moniker of peter pan to go along with his own little band of lost boys. right at the opposite end lies casey, who achieved the truest 'revolution' early by leaving the cycle entirely, choosing to forsake this world that had constituted all that was of meaning to him - rebuking those who said he was wasting years of his prime, of the precious youth he still had one hand on, by stepping away. even though casey too had been striving for something unachievable.... the key thing about the 'revolution' is that it is something false, a mirage like the castle hanging over the arena, an ideal to be fought for without ever being attained. for casey, it was a quest for perfection that tormented him - so impossible is it for athletes to accept their own fallibility, their flaws. it can never be reached, because it is not an end point in and of itself. there is no definitive revolution that can be arrived at, no place of satisfaction, no easy way in which the power to revolutionise the world is granted to the duellists. all that remains is the process of working towards that revolution - that, in the end, is the only thing truly eternal

so, what does that process look like? you prepare yourself for the duel, you motivate yourself - either through positive or negative affect. athletes all lust after victory or fear defeat or both. utena ascends the staircase while the black rose duellists descend with the lift. for her, this also functions as a process of preparation, a repetitive yet effective way of bringing herself into the right mindset for the battle ahead and definitely not a way of saving animation costs

to me, it's key that those are stairs, and that there's a silly number of them. the black rose duellists are prepared swiftly, easily, with little effort from their part beyond the own horror of their emotions. they are not trained duellists and merely temporarily assume the mantle. utena has to work to even get to the arena - she has to put in an unreasonable amount of work, if anything. the demands to even be allowed to fight, to compete, are beyond what could be expected of anyone - and yet she willingly puts herself through it, because she wishes to fulfil an ideal she has been taught. the great athlete, the legend, the prince... it might work, she obviously does become an excellent duellist, for at least some of the time, she does manage to protect anthy.... but it's still one of the absurdities the academy is imposing on her, breaking her down as she no longer questions the surrealism of he world around her. she climbs the stairs because that is her role - and she readies herself for the battle she has been assigned

eventually, utena is allowed to both ascend and descend using a lift. now, listen, if you really want to get left field with this, you COULD say that her being allowed to ascend the lift rather than climb the stairs is... her no longer needing quite such an intricate method to emotionally prepare herself for the duel. she's integrated into the system now! she's an experienced duellist! she can get herself hyped for battle in a lift! but it's also a privilege she is being granted by the powers that be within the academy, which reserve the right to bestow meaning onto her, to single-handedly decide how worthy she is. and then, in the penultimate episode, the lift returns as akio attempts to break down utena. now utena is the subject, the patient, the one to be indoctrinated. she is invited to see herself as the princess akio wants her to be. she ends up re-embracing the ideal of prince (temporarily until anthy stabs her)... because that's what her power comes from. she'd never be able to find strength in the process of extreme self-degradation and exposing of one's own insecurities embodied by the descending lift. she needs to fight for positive reasons! some people are just like that, apparently

anyway, my pitch for how you'd black rose arc a specific period of casey's career... I reckon it's 2006, his rookie season in motogp at lcr honda. a seat that he'd had to scramble for, rejected by yamaha and not exactly high on options. he'd just finished second in 250cc to dani (if on inferior machinery) and was like.... well, he was definitely highly rated in the paddock, but perhaps didn't have the reputation of being particularly easy to work with. it's this version of casey:

as ever, casey was fast pretty much from the get-go. he had a very strong debut in jerez, exploiting a gap at the first corner after toni elias barrelled into valentino and finishing sixth. at the second race, after having been severely ill the week before, he rocked up like fifteen minutes before practise due to flight delays and ended up popping his bike on pole. that's also the race in which he had his very first battle with valentino, who came up to him to do the grabby hands thing on the cooldown lap. at the third race, casey came painfully close to winning - but scored his first podium of his premier class career

(side note, there is something amusing to how casey was yapping about valentino's disgusting yellow tainting the ducati when he's draping that australian flag of his absolutely everywhere he can, even in his rookie season. has someone maybe spent a little long away from home and feels the need to strengthen his own sense of self by plastering that thing on every available surface?)

anyhow - after that third race, casey's season went downhill. he crashed frequently enough to bag him the nickname of 'rolling stoner'

Like I had done my whole life I kept pushing and, of course, I kept crashing and I got slammed for it in the paddock and in the press, earning myself the nickname 'Rolling Stoner', which really bugged me. The pressure began to build as people questioned my talent and Ramon started to suggest that I was crashing because I wasn't physically fit enough. I knew this couldn't be the only solution, but l couldn't work out why I kept crashing. As a rookie I wasn't to know any better but people around me with experience should have helped me to understand the tyre issue. I would come in after a race saying, 'I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't make a mistake. I would know if I had.' But they would say, 'Well, you must have done because you crashed.' All the blame went to me and with everybody telling me it was my fault, I started to believe it. Ramon is a very good crew chief, extremely skilled at setting up a motorcycle, but I wish he'd listened to me a little more.

humiliation!! embarrassment!! others seeding uncertainty in him... being at the mercy of figures of authority who are giving him false guidance, but who he has to blindly follow. feeling unheard, beginning to believe what everyone says about him

he also had just a little bit of a temper back then, perhaps not completely familiar with the working process of top teams. but the crashes were not entirely his fault - they were (according to him) down to michelin seeing his potential but also exploiting his lack of status in the sport to essentially use him as a guinea pig for their new tyres. back then, this was how tyre suppliers handled things, and the whole thing was laughably uneven and unfair. whereas some riders like valentino were so successful and so influential they could generally lay claim to the best tyres (apparently with the exception of the actual title decider), others were at the mercy of the whims of michelin

Michelin had started to realise that I could do the lap times, especially on used rubber, so they started using me as a guinea pig. They would put me on a certain set of tyres for free practice and I would be happy as anything, right on the pace. Then on race day they'd say, 'You can't use that tyre.' They'd insist on us using a different tyre and then we'd find out on the grid that Dani or Nicky or somebody else was on the tyre I was planning to race on. Contractually we were obliged to use whatever tyre they decided on. [...] I kept pushing because I trusted them but there was some massive crashes which I thought were caused by the tyre combinations I was given at the last minute. [...] I started feeling like a crash test dummy and as the season progressed the situation got worse, to the point where I'd get angry and go off. I got a reputation as a spoilt brat. I am not making excuses but I was frustrated. Dad would come over to Europe to try to settle things down but the fact was I felt the tyres were causing me to crash. My confidence also took a hit and it took me back to the doubts I had in my first season of Grand Prix in 2002. I started to question myself a lot. Was it me or the bike? After a while I couldn't be sure. It was my debut season in MotoGP and I really didn't know what I was capable of. I'd proved I was competitive but the race results weren't showing what I could do. It started to mess with my head and unfortunately it seemed that my crew chief Ramon Forcada didn't have a lot of faith in what I was capable of either.

not only was this harmful for casey's reputation - it was also terrible for his confidence. as the autobiography passages describe, he wasn't getting good guidance about how to make the tyres work for him and inevitably the frequent missteps worked to erode his self-belief. after all, how could he know whether it was his fault or the fault of the bike? he told the team and the press these weren't his mistakes, but he wasn't believed... the paddock rejecting that he was to be taken seriously, enforcing a regression from the new 'adulthood' he had been granted by way of entering the premier class, but was illusory... which is where we get to the black rose element. it's repeated instances of humiliation - because there is something inherently humiliating to crashing. getting a nickname that makes it the thing people most closely associate with him. sinking into his own negative emotions, lashing out in anger at his own team, feeling the sting of embarrassment as well as frustration and self-doubt... and then, towards the end of the season, once again yamaha first seems to offer him a deal before changing its mind. another pattern he can't seem to break. casey has had plenty of self-belief in the past, not just dreaming of a title but believing he was capable of it - to the extent that he attempted to get to the premier class as quickly as possible, because he believed those were the titles that really counted. that's what he's here for... but what if it was all delusion all along, finally meeting reality?

which, yeah - it's those elements that make it very black rose-y to me. it's almost like... a touch of infantilisation, of refusing to take him at his word... he trusts these more experienced adults - in the same autobiography section, he talks about learning not to trust people just because they had a lot of experience. constantly choosing or being forced to listen to these guys who aren't giving him good advice, who don't have his best interests at heart, who don't have faith in him... and it chips away at him, it makes him angry and frustrated and will inevitably have contributed to some of the turmoil of his rookie season. he's being returned to the 2002 version of himself, a newbie in grand prix racing who didn't know what he was doing - and he doesn't know if he has a future in the sport. he wants to believe in himself, but maybe he can't. and it's just... creating this foundation of negative emotion that he would continue to use for the rest of his career to draw motivation from. the insults, the criticisms, the doubters, the haters... yamaha once again closing their doors before opening it a year later to some other young rider whose name escapes me. humiliation turned into a source of motivation. and once the process is complete, he emerges as the primary challenger of the champion (yes, yes, not literally, but vibes-wise obviously still THE big name at the time) in the following season

in the end, ducati gave him the call - he wasn't the first option, but he'd do. utena functions partly as a deconstruction of the type of story in which the ordinary wakaba would be the protagonist (ordinary girl romance protagonist surrounded by larger than life characters)... and the wakaba-centric episodes have akio posit that there are fundamentally 'special' people in the world and all those who can only hope to be special for brief, rare moments. in the meta-narrative of a show like utena, of course that is true, where some people have added significance by dint of being main characters in a story. in sports, too, there may be an unfortunate truth to it - an inevitability to the hand each athlete has been dealt. even if casey was publicly flayed and humiliated and figuratively descended the lift, like utena he was fundamentally still one of those 'special' people, whose natural talent meant none of his confidence was unearned. at ducati, he swiftly showed how he had been judged far too soon by the paddock. unlike the black rose duellists, he successfully challenges the champion. unlike the black rose duellists, he could never have been swiftly stripped of his status as duellist - even if there might be the occasional princess who attempts to trip him up and torment him. still, the bedrock of his determination in 2007, the steel that led him to a title, was ultimately established the year before. he was going to prove yamaha wrong for hanging him out to dry; he was going to prove the paddock wrong for ever doubting him. yes, the passion for winning is undeniable - but so is the spite. in seeking to achieve perfection, he found his motivation for the fight in his own way. and eventually, he would be granted the power to humiliate others... before eventually breaking free of this small world entirely

[helladventurers]

(long negative rant, be aware)

I think i'm starting to pinpoint one of the biggest reasons I can't really connect with the plot of botw and totk anymore 😫 and it's because I'm really tired of the "peaceful world whose entire source of conflict can all be pinned into a single, cartooningly evil individual/organization" trope

I'm rewatching some fire emblem playthroughs, another series who relies on that plot narrative too much, and it's exhausting to me 🫠 I thought that totk was a step down from botw plot wise, but it's really Nintendo's incapability and refusal to evolve and to make stories more complex than bog standard "evil always falls and light destroys darkness" kinda stories