#Career Junction

[creekfiend]

being completely insane is like. it aint much but its honest work

[secretarysong]

thinking about this right now

[mariocki]

A young Barbara Murray stars as travelling theatrical artiste Pat Dawn, getting mixed up in murder and intrigue in Mystery Junction (1951)

[vorthosjay]

Hi Jay. Not wanting to sound mean, but I really think it must be commented and that there's no softer way of doing that: the company's statement of Thunder Junction being an inhabitated plane prior to MoM is not a honest way of capitalizing on a sellable trope without touching its uncomfortable issues. It's even disrespectful. They have done it in a less flagrant way with Kaladesh and both Ixalan iterations, but now they've gotten too far with Thunder Junction. Colonialism is too big an issue to simply being put under the carpet as it never existed and we could just enjoy the sunny part of the history. I really hope Hasbro as a company acknowledges this and changes its way of dealing with the theme. Thanks for letting me pointing this.

Look, you caught me on a bad day, so I'm going to be as polite as possible but let's start with the foundation that this is not a complaint to direct at me. I have no control over any of this. Mark Rosewater exists and takes feedback on Tumblr.

But, let's talk about it, because I've seen some folks take this to extremes.

First off, I've seen a lot of well meaning folks speaking up on behalf of hypothetical indigenous americans, but I'd love to get takes from folks this actually impacts. I'd love for Wizards to post something about their work with cultural consultants, for sure. But the only actual thing I've seen so far is a great story from Magic's first indigenous american author. And when you're speaking on someone else's behalf, you tend to miss things. Like, Kaladesh is not the great representation of south asian culture that you might think when you jumped to it, and it's okay if you didn't know that, but it sort of proves the point that it's very difficult to actually protest on someone else's behalf. And I just haven't heard from anyone who has also mentioned they speak from authority or are impacted by this. That doesn't mean you're wrong, necessarily.

But here's the thing. Thunder Junction isn't history. It takes cues from the American West, sure, but it's a fake world. And sometimes it's okay for a fake world to ignore the bad things that happens in real life and create something more aspirational. Magic does this all the time. Magic doesn't have homophobia, but that isn't really realistic or representative of the real world, is it?

No one, and I mean literally no one, came to me and said that people of color needed to be ostracized and not allowed to work alongside the white people in the demon mob families of New Capenna. That racism was real, it was systemic, and it was violent. But did it need to be tackled in a fantasy crime drama based on america in the 20s? Should it have been? I don't think anyone would have enjoyed it as much. Sometimes it's just fun to play gangster.

Similarly, the colonization and manifest destiny that was the reality of the American West was tragic, but does that need to be our only depiction of indigenous peoples - being colonized? If they were erased completely from the narrative, that would be awful, but can't they just have fun being cool thunder slingers? The Atiin were developed with a consultant, and if you want answers ask Wizards to talk about it.

There's a reason the Oltec were depicted as being sealed off from the Immortal Sun drama that had happened on the surface. To have an aspirational mesoamerican culture that wasn't affected by the Dusk Legion and Azor and all that.

To put it in another perspective, does every period piece featuring black americans need to feature systemic racism to be respectful? Is Bridgerton disrespectful (I mean probably but not for that reason)?

The reason I've framed a lot of this as questions is because I don't necessarily think I know the right answer, especially not for a fantasy card game. I've worked with tribal governments in my emergency management career and spent a week on the Navajo Nation, and talked a lot about perspective on things, and I would not presume to know what the right answer to all of this is.

Edit: to be clear, Could it have been handled better? Probably. I will never deny that. But also it’s a complicated and fraught topic and I’d love to hear from the people wizards contracted who actually know what they’re talking about.

[shibaraki]

GOD’S LONELIEST CREATION ┊ AIZAWA SHOUTA

synopsis: as head of the mothman study you’ve devoted countless nights to observing your subject from behind the glass. you liked to think those many months spent together contributed to a sense of camaraderie, but time is merely a cradle gently lulling you into false security— and shouta is nothing if not patient.

tags: NSFT, AFAB reader (mention of ovulating), monsters + cryptids au, mothman aizawa, implied monster hunting, captivity, cryptozoologist reader, possessiveness, dubcon to eventual enthusiastic consent, oblivious reader, monsterfucking, mating behaviour, breeding, mentions of size difference (he is 7ft; called ‘little human’ +‘little flame’), vaginal oral sex + tongue fucking (reader receiving), multiple orgasms, non-human genitalia, oviposition (reader receiving; but no belly bulging), unprotected vaginal sex, *slaps roof* you can fit so much plot in this porn!!

wc: 7k+

A/N: now with art of mothzawa!!!! thank you so much, feral!

Tucked away into the seam between Shizuoka and Musutafu is the UA Cryptobiology research centre. In the eyes of the public it was an extension of the nearby UA University and largely harmless. Cryptids kept there are not advertised, atleast, not the living ones.

The building is huge. An architectural giant, and a stain on the natural landscape. You’ve worked there for years yet still find yourself struck by just how foreboding it looks. Head ducked, you slip past the thin crowd protesting by the security gate, staff card hidden in the sleeve of your shirt.

While they are few in number their voices are loud and accusing. You flinch at the vitriol as you try to reach the scanner. There was a small earthquake in a nearby prefecture a few days ago which was the likeliest reason they had gathered here.

On days like this you couldn’t help the thought that no amount of scientific research would wipe away the countrywide consensus on cryptids. Very early on in your career you came to understand why your superiors lied about the live subjects. If these people knew the truth they could probably birth a calamity all of their own.

Unfortunately it is not only the monstrous who are a target. You lock eyes with a guard standing by the gates and slip your keycard into the shallow of your palm. Nodding in acknowledgement, he places the whistle hung around his neck between his lips and the moment you swipe in he blows, hard.

The gate clicks and unlocks with a short beep that is drowned out by the noise. You walk through and quickly push it closed behind you. Thank you, you mouth over to him, scurrying across the lot toward the main doors. He offers a flippant wave in return.

You enter the mouth of the lobby. It is a wide dome shaped room with high ceilings that houses most of the lecture rooms, and acts as a junction to other parts of the facility. Looking up, you can see each floor twisting into a spiral.

Centred is the reception desk; large and circular to make room for five staff members to be seated at any given time. Yamada is there today, dressed with his shirt cuffs pushed to the elbow, waist length hair braided up into a ponytail. He leans dangerously far back in his chair and twiddles a pen between his fingers. Your unease falls away at the familiar sight.

“Yamada,” you intone sternly. A grin pulls at your lips when he startles. The wheels on his office chair squeak as he rights himself. Wide sheepish eyes land on you and narrow in disbelief.

“Don’t do that,” he pouts, dragging himself closer to the desk, casting another nervous glance toward his coworker. “Bully! I could’ve broken my neck”.

“Then you would’ve thanked me for the two months paid sick leave”.

Yamada smirks, peering at you above his yellow tinted lenses “…Touché”.

You rest both arms on the countertop and lean over, holding a hand out to receive the sign in sheet. “You have a good weekend?” you ask, falling back into idle pleasantries while you skim over the names already on the register. Hatsume Mei. Huh, you think. She’s early.

“Kan and Kayama dragged me out drinking,” Yamada admits tiredly, massaging two fingers to his temples and closing his eyes, opening again to glare at your huff of laughter. “Sure love laughing at my misfortune, don’t’cha? I think you’re spending too much time with those ghouls”.

Signing your name in the next blank row, you give a brief glance at the watch on Yamada’s wrist to mark the time. “Comes with the territory,” you murmur, amused by the whine in his voice, setting the pen and register down on his desk with some finality. “Seen Mei today? She signed in already”.

“You bet. That girl is hard to miss,” he slides the sheets toward his front. “Speaking of…” you turn at the amused hum. His pen is pointed left like the needle of a compass leading directly to a familiar figure. Hatsume is clutching her clipboard with a tenuous grip as she scurries through the lobby, pink hair bouncing on her shoulders.

Her gaze finds you and she perks up. You lift a hand to return a wave as she beckons you frantically. It’s not entirely uncharacteristic of her. Hatsume was the rare type— she loved this job. Any small change or news could garner this reaction from her.

The excitable exclamation of your name draws the attention of the people around you, though the intern remains entirely unperturbed, almost tripping over her feet to get to you. “Mei,” you smile, instinctively stepping forward with arms held open in case she stumbles. “What’s all the noise about? Did something happen?”

“Food!” she pants heavily, grasping your forearm for balance. Her eyes are wide and beseeching as if the word alone was enough to explain her enthusiasm. It doesn’t.

Slow, you repeated, “…Food?”

The band keeping her hair tied back loosens while she nods. “It’s the mothman. He’s not eating!”

“He’s not…” you blink. “Oh!” The realisation trickles in, and you find yourself gripping onto Hatsume’s arms with bruising pressure as it washes over you. Your cheeks ache and she mirrors your grin.

Yamada clears his throat, interrupting before you have the chance to speak. “What’s so great about that?” he asks. “Wouldn't that be a sign that he’s sick or something?”

“No,” you breathe. Energy buzzes lightning-quick under your skin. Restless, you begin to shake Hatsume where she stands, and the two of you laugh in astonishment. “It means he’s hoarding!”

“Hoarding?”

“Mothman cryptids will take food back to their nests for their partners but,” the burst of joy dwindles, then. You worry at your bottom lip. “But… previous observations show that this behaviour should come after they’ve met a potential mate”.

“You think we should be worried?”

“I think it’s unusual”.

Hatsume doesn’t wilt. She shrugs your doubts off like water to a duck’s back, bouncing on the balls of her feet and handing over the clipboard. As always, the notes are verbose but organised. Detailed down to the very last time stamp.

There, written in pen, it states that at 11:58 the mothman was seen hovering by the food hatch. It clarified that there were no signs of aggression or posturing. Shouta was simply waiting. Shouta never waits. At 12:00 his usual weekly meal was given and instead of consuming it immediately as he normally would, Shouta gathered the food to his chest and took flight.

You’re rushing off toward the cryptid wing before Hizashi can press any further. Hatsume is at your heel, her quick light-footed steps echoing through the corridors.

The mothman enclosure is immense. Space is required— most cryptids can grow up to seven feet or above, and their wings even taller. Separated from your observation deck by a thick, bulbous glass window, you needed to crane your head just to catch a glimpse of the ceiling, which remained mostly covered by a canopy.

Flora covers the entirety of the forest floor. The foliage is so dense that sometimes seeing further is impossible, which in turn makes your job that much harder; but it’s worth it, for the sake of Shouta’s comfort. Unlike your predecessors, you strongly advocated for him. You viewed him as an individual, another sentient being with autonomy, and thought building a good foundation of trust could only lead to better data overall.

The facility is vastly different to the outside world. Blacked out nest boxes were placed around the area, hidden away for him to choose from however he pleased, as well as broad net columns where he can rest. Your team was instructed to begin adjusting the seasons months ago. Gradually, the temperature was changed to mimic fall. The fauna acclimated, dousing the otherwise dark and dreary forest in a warm colour palette.

Tawny leaves perched loosely on branches like a flock of goldfinches. Camouflaged behind them are two red dots emitting an unblinking glow. It is very unlike him to be this close to the deck so early in the evening. Waiting for more food, maybe. You note that thought down. You see his eyes follow the movement of your pen and smile.

Mothman cryptids are bipedal winged humanoids. They have always been notoriously aloof and difficult to study. Catching them outright was nigh impossible. They’re a highly intelligent species, and very sensitive to their surroundings. Your best bet was to inflict injury first and capture later when an infection set in.

Shouta was different from the start. So unlike his kin that you sometimes wondered if the research collated about him was permissible. He had been wounded badly by nearby collectors and managed to escape, but rather than relocate, he entered the facility of his own volition. You’d heard the stories. An eldritch being prying open the doors, thick steel bending like paper, the employees paralysed with fear, rendered unable to do anything except kneel under the intense pressure of his glare.

They had been so frightened that the shivering malachite bundle in his arms almost went amiss. A Peryton fawn matted with blood. Director Yagi supposedly spit blood of his own when he noticed.

Shouta never left after that.

Everyone figured the rumours were exaggerated. A mothman wouldn’t surrender itself for the sake of another, not even it’s own kind. That is the universal truth— all cryptids are incapable of empathy. Their sole purpose is to serve as the herald of death, and death bringers did not save life. They took it.

While you knew that to be ostensibly untrue it will never matter. Monster hunting was a tradition practiced for millennia. Accepting that they might be capable of emotion would cast doubt upon such practices. More than anything humanity needed justification for their wrong doings; condemning something as monstrous only renders such violence as heroic.

You, however, had a fascination with them since you were a child. Those unanswered questions and curiosities are what led you to cryptozoology, and ultimately, into cryptid behavioural research. Having Shouta’s care handed over to you was a dream come true.

Shouta was averse to people and made that known; keepers could be found petrified by the feeding hatch, trembling in place for hours if they weren’t careful. Which is why your superiors were greatly pleased by his reaction to you.

You couldn’t confidently say he liked you— could a mothman like anyone? But the cryptid was, at the very least, intrigued by his new handler.

Within the first meeting you recorded vocalisations that were previously undiscovered. Soft chittering and clicks, surprisingly pleasing to the ear; it had a hypnotic quality to it that could almost lull you to sleep. The common denominator was you— rather, Shouta only ever made those sounds when you were visibly anxious, and you often toyed with the notion that he was attempting to soothe you.

You tried not to indulge in such hypotheses as not to cloud your judgment. Humans had a bad habit of anthropomorphising the things they cared about. Countless cynics argued that animals do not love, they simply form attachments to those that provide for them. Shouta may only treat you better because you are the first human to show him sincere respect but that didn’t matter.

Whether your place in his life was just that of a nuisance or not, you cared for him and his wellbeing all the same. That’s what made this so invigorating— not only answers to questions that plagued your field for centuries, but the real possibility that your subject might finally have true companionship.

Your mouth twists as your thoughts drift, imagining the smell of decay percolating in one of his nest boxes now that he was hoarding. Shouta could eat anything within reason if he needed to, but his preferred diet was on the bitter side. Rotted fruits and the like which had a more acidic, sour taste to it, though he could be partial to dry pantry food in the hotter months.

Mothman have been known to feast on flesh, too, in desperate times. Though it is rare for them to acquire the taste for human meat; too mild and too rubbery.

If he truly is readying for a mate then he would soon need more food, materials and bedding. The foliage worked as a foundation but you’re aware mothman cryptids liked to weave silk or cashmere into the structure for the young to cling to and eat.

That gives you pause. Your grimace curls into a wide, exuberant grin, that you immediately shield behind the clipboard. We could end up with babies this year, you think. The first to ever be bred in captivity— a near impossible feat.

Shouta’s antennae are fluttering. Their movements fracture the stillness of the canopy and make known his position. You stare long enough for the dark blob amongst the trees to sharpen into a solid silhouette.

A mothman has a wingspan of around thirteen feet. These measurements aren’t entirely accurate, because Shouta refused to allow anyone to touch them, but the sheer size was obvious at a distance even where they remained tucked to his spine, cocooning him in darkness.

They are covered in loose tiny hairs acting as scales for insulation, while creating intricate, iridescent patterns along the inner forewings that can only be seen in moonlight when open— a gift saved in hopes of wooing a mate. Maybe you’d finally get a glimpse this year.

“Hey big guy,” you call out. Your voice jostles his wings and beckons him forward. Shouta balances himself on a thick cedar branch directly across from the observation deck, a rare sight. He is magnificent in the artificial daylight.

Hatsume releases an awed breath behind you. “Gah, he’s always so responsive to you! I’m jealous!”

Shouta barely acknowledges her presence. His attention is steadfast, pinpointed to your every move; unblinking, lest you disappear from vision. “Don’t take it personally. He’s just known me longer, is all,” you demurred, turning to her with a reassuring smile.

But she is seeing beyond you. The hair on the nape of your neck prickles and suddenly a sinistrous shadow stretches across the deck. Mei flinches back reflexively and you daren’t look back. What was ephemeral fear in her features blossoms into wonderment.

Then, a tapping sound that echoes in your chest. It is careful and somehow that makes it all the more daunting. Brushing off the unease, you pivot on your heel, coming face to face with Shouta. Both wings have hunched forward to create a cocoon of darkness, his pale face barely visible.

Another tap, accompanied by a smooth rumble. His large hand is pressed up against the glass. You step closer and his wingspan widens just a fraction. The light reflects in his eyes. He is right in front of you, so contrivedly real-looking that it feels like it must be fake.

Call it curiosity, or stupidity, or an amalgamation of the two. You outstretch your arm. The pane feels cold where your body presumes warmth. You align your palm with his and it swallows yours, fingers splayed open, still unable to reach the width of his hand.

“Hi there…” you exhale, having to crane your head to hold his gaze. Shouta’s jaw shifts as he clicks his teeth and you are reminded just how impressive a mothman cryptid’s hearing is. “You’re acting all out of sorts, huh. Want more food for the nest, right?”

Dark talons leave marks on the thick glass, hairline fractures stemming from point of impact. His gaze darkens. Hatsume gasps when he shakes his head and you can’t blame her. Cryptids rarely communicated directly with handlers.

“No?” you repeat, brows pinched into a frown. Then, to yourself, “Nesting materials, then? Already? But it can’t be, surely”.

The choice is a difficult one. Every potential mate your team introduced Shouta to throughout the years has been adamantly rejected. There was never an effort to impress or prove himself. He either flat out ignored them or attempted to kill them. You want to enable his new behaviours— to encourage it, even — but there was no mate yet.

Pseudocyesis comes to mind. Though this situation is far different, you wondered whether something in Shouta’s environment had triggered these instincts.

The rich baritone in his purr vibrates against your hand. His eyes blink slow and beseeching, full of apparent hunger, emitting that dewy red glow. Distantly, you register the dull scratch of pencil to paper. Rambling whispers fall from Hatsume’s mouth as she writes, documenting everything the way you taught her to.

“I think,” you begin, tongue heavy in your mouth. Your throat feels dry and the implication behind your next words stings. “I think he wants me to go inside his enclosure”.

A sane person would immediately put their foot down and tell you no. Director Yagi himself would try to talk you down. However, Hatsume Mei is a far cry from sane. She barely considers her own safety, let alone yours.

“What for?” she chimes impatiently. “I noticed he has been keeping an eye out for a specific person all morning— it must’ve been you. Do you think he could really be sick like Yamada said? Since he’s humanoid we can test if our medicines work on him!”

“Mei,” you interrupt, your voice cutting through her exuberance. She shrinks somewhat and you feel bad for being so sharp with her. “No, I’m not sure if he’s sick. And no, our medication only works to an extent. The dose needs to be dangerously high and cryptids burn through it faster than it can be replaced”.

Shouta observes the interaction. The tension in his wings looks ready to snap, and the feathery fingers of his antennae have started to shiver. You take in the sight of your overlapped hands once more and step away, clenching it into a fist at your hip.

“Anyone who goes into a cryptid’s den doesn’t come out,” Hatsume comments, tone uncharacteristically somber.

“I trust him,” you reassured, leveling the mothman with a contemplative stare. He ducks into the fluffy plumage around his neck and glares. “Mostly”.

Hatsume snickers. The weight in your chest lifts and you smile at her. She’s still young. Too young to bear any responsibility for what might happen.

“Something is telling me I have to go in there. It’ll keep me up at night if I don’t,” you continue, adding emphasis with a pointed finger. “This was my idea and mine alone. Do not send anyone in after me. Capiche?”

She gives a mock salute, “Yes boss!”

Each wing with a cryptid enclosure has a staircase leading from the observation deck to a feeding room. You descend the stairs, too aware of Shouta’s stare, which followed until you were out of sight.

The room is dull. Devoid of natural light, furnished only by three large chest freezers and a closet full of linens. There is a hatch the size of a shoebox that can be pulled open to safely deposit food through, and adjacent is a vault door reinforced with steel and concrete.

You open the closet and parse through the fabrics. Admittedly a long shot as far as ‘I come in peace’ gestures go, but the only thing you can think might help. Silk slides petal-soft between your fingers and you tuck it under your arm, joined by another cashmere blanket, smooth and noticeably light.

The vault door requires both a code and a staff card. You input the code and swipe your card. The affirmative beep pierces through your equilibrium. Shouta is not harmless. But you are, and you’re hoping he knows that.

A loud click echoes into the feeding room. You grasp the handle and take one last steely inhale before heaving, struggling with the incredible weight. You curse the door as it groans on its hinges, alerting everything nearby of your arrival.

Mothman feast on anything. Vegetation and flesh, fresh or rotted, but legend always spoke of their hunger for misery. They coveted disaster and fed on it, babe to breast, and somehow grew hungrier the more they swallowed.

You step into the enclosure. The door shuts with a loud foreboding slam and locks automatically.

Shouta does harm to those who would harm him. He feasts on fruit. On cereal and rice. You’d watched him suck through ten packets of coffee jelly, but never misery. If anyone were to ask you, you would tell them that Shouta conjured the very opposite of misery.

You remind yourself of that repeatedly until your thoughts coalesce into white noise. The earth is soft beneath your boots. Something darts through the treeline, gone in a blink, and you feel the hair on your arms stand on end.

Easing into the surroundings, you cautiously call out to him, “…Shouta? You here, big guy?”

A low hum resonates throughout the trees. You feel it more than you hear it, almost like a caress. It coaxes a familiar warm feeling into the pit of your stomach, willing all tension from your muscles until the blankets pinned to your side unfold, falling onto the ground.

A coronal mist has set in, orchestrated by a chattering sound you know well. Your clothes cling uncomfortably to your skin. It’s harder to breathe now. Shaking, you try to advance. Your body is quickly paralysed by the innate urge to flee.

Shouta’s presence echoes throughout the brush and sinks it’s claws into you— throbs under your skin in time with your heart. But if you ran, would that make his blood sing? Would he interpret it as a challenge to prove his worth, or a rejection for which to kill you?

The air is temperate. That perfect balance between cool and humid. Lush oranges and yellows branch out into every corner. Light bleeds through the thinning canopy, the ground dappled with sunspots. This isn’t such a terrible place to die.

You don’t hear or see him. Like before, you feel him first. Fear washes over you and steals your breath. Shouta is at your back, shaping himself to your body in a way that boasts how large he is in comparison. You stay stockstill while he touches you, nosing gently at your throat.

Finding your voice, you croak his name. An eldritch purr shudders through him and he grasps at your hips, pulling them back against him. You exhale at the obvious press of his cock to your back. Those soft chitters you had come to love drown out the panic that follows your realisation.

You were the intended mate.

Death stands behind you, arms cinched around your middle, mouthing along the nape of your neck like he loves you. The line between instinct and desire is deceptively thin. You wonder if Shouta knows the difference, or if he equates love with the heat of your blood spilling into his mouth, seams undone by the touch of his lips.

Your legs collapse beneath you, hitting the floor. A grubby applause from the dirt dances around your knees. Shouta accepts your dead weight as though it were nothing, his wings enveloping you both in an abrupt darkness.

Minuscule scales shimmer and reflect the glaring bioluminescence radiating from his eyes. Before you is a sky soaked crimson and blood spattered stars. “Is this…” you start, voice caught in your throat. It should be harrowing. People would call it a depiction of hell. You call it beautiful.

Shouta tucks his nose into your jugular with a warm hum and you feel sharp teeth protruding beneath his lips. Neck ruffle tickles soft against your skin, keeping you tight to his torso, enough that you think he could consume you whole. He’s pleased. You can tell.

Laughter bubbles up in your chest. It’s as if you are a teenager again, sneaking out with someone to see a clear starry night. The moment is incredulously human.

A mothman does not bare his wings to anyone but his mate. Even in flight they are too fast to be seen. You are so enamoured by it that you don’t notice the shift in gravity until the force on your body lightens and your stomach drops.

You squeak. Frantically clinging to his shoulders and turning your face into his neck, Shouta makes a sound suspiciously like laughter. Your body sways in his arms as the too-corporeal trees rise to meet him. What you cannot see you listen out for; leaves rustling, groaning branches, any sign to indicate where you’ve landed.

When his wings retract the shadows do not recede. You’ve been brought to a dark place. A few metres above your head there is a long slit of light bleeding into the lofty space. You’re distinctly reminded of a grave. That thought makes your heart thump hard against your rib cage.

A calm tenor breaks the silence and you refocus on the figure above. Red eyes bleed into the darkness. Long black hair drapes over his shoulders and blends into the light fluffed ruff of his neck, reminiscent of a scarf that extends down his chest and back into his large wings, which he has tucked closely behind him.

Broad feathery antennae flicker on top of his head, so distinctly insect-like, but his body and hands are startlingly human— it would be, if not for the black tipped talons that grew from each finger and toe.

“Are you still frightened?”

You realise you’re being cradled with deliberate care, as if you might shatter. He treats you like this is the first time he has ever met another living thing. There is barely any pressure behind the claws curled at the base of your neck. All you can think is that he’s warm. Soft. Guided by wonder, inhibitions lost in a concussive fog, you reach up to cautiously touch his face.

Shouta had multiple nests. The team before you took over had planted cameras in all of them only for their recordings to be destroyed, pieces left strewn by the food hatch. It agitated him, thus you respected those wishes. But in doing so you also cut off any means of behavioural observation.

This meant you knew of them, but nothing more than that. You had no idea which nests he actually used. You had no idea how he spun them, or what they looked like from the inside.

What you have been lowered into is not a grave, though it is deep and narrow. The bedding yields, padded under your back, emanating the smell of upturned earth and petrichor.

This is his primary nest.

Your tongue feels too thick for your mouth. “You can… you can speak?”

A black tipped finger hooks into the collar of your shirt. You feel it sharp like a knife's edge, and the fabric rips with barely any pressure. Shouta snorts. And then, “Your kind is strange. Presumptuous,” he traces over the swell of your breast. “And soft”.

There’s only intent to satiate his curiosity, but you feel something dangerously warm coil low in your belly. The broad, feathered antennae atop his head curl toward you, almost prehensile in nature, as if they can sense it.

“You can’t,” words fail you as his tongue glides over your pulse. “You’ve never spoken before. You can’t blame me for being surprised”.

“That wouldn’t be logical,” he murmurs. You exhale shakily as his teeth nip gently at your lobe, pressing what could be a kiss to the shell. “It’s not as if your primitive ears would be able to hear me through the glass”.

The baritone of his voice frissons down your spine and you find yourself clenching your thighs. Shouta braces over you until he is all there is— and you are all he sees.

You argue fruitlessly in attempts to maintain self control, “We could’ve talked through the speakers”.

“We could have. But then the other humans would know this part of me,” he replies plainly. “Is that what you want?”

You’re a little embarrassed by the immediate ‘no’ that rolls onto the tip of your tongue. You bite it and let your silence answer for you. A disservice to your team and to your research— you seek truths and yet the truth is you are secretly happy that this is yours and yours alone.

Shouta huffs. He brings your foreheads together and your knees part reflexively to make room for him as he settles between them. The shine in his eyes has dimmed into a simmer. It reminds you of a pyre after the fire has burned; the glowing ash left to cool overnight.

“If I had not played along and acted beastly you wouldn’t have paid attention,” he continues. You tremble as he slots against the cradle of your hips, a suggestive pulse felt between your legs. The size of his body forces your legs wider around his waist. His cock is heavy and the heat emanates through your work pants. He doesn’t move, and he waits.

“You…” you’re breathless when it hits you. “You could’ve left all this time”.

He rises slowly at your words and tilts his head, beckoning you to continue. There is an unwavering composure about him that leaves you uneasy. You got the sense he knew your thoughts before you voiced them.

“You stayed and cooperated with our research. Even though… Some of them treated you like an animal. You could be anywhere but here”.

Shouta gives a disapproving chitter. The sound devolves into a hum. He settles a large hand on the top of your head and leans back into your space, uncomfortably close, as if to impress the answer upon you. “Here is where I am supposed to be”.

He’s not a monster, just something that wants to belong.

Your hand smooths over his cheek to his hair, the other guiding his palm to your chest where your heart sits. He squeezes at your chest, curious. Gentle fingertips brush the antennae rooted in a crown of thick black hair. The sweet resonant purr surges and you watch the touch shudder through his body in awe.

Your blood sings, reacting to his desperate call with a burst of exhilaration. A thought crosses your mind— had it been you he was chasing, or this feeling?

Was this how it felt to be a predator?

“Here. With me…” you rasp, wetting your lips as your eyes fall to his mouth. Shouta smiles and you have to temper the urge to touch his teeth. “I’ve worked here for a long time. Why wait until today?”

“Courting takes time. And though I was sure of you I knew you weren’t ready,” he rasps, rocking up against your sex. A gasp catches in your throat and his antennae flutter in response. “I can smell that you are now”.

“Smell?”

Shouta hums an affirmative. “All creatures have a cycle. Your body changes over the weeks,” the hand over your heart descends to your stomach, resting above your waistband. The repetitive stroke of his thumb is doting, almost. “Soon you will be ovulating”.

You are torn between horror and amazement. The craving to write this down was insatiable. Truthfully it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Shouta could know that— he was finely tuned to his environment. That was the entire purpose of chemoreception.

Regardless, that knowledge instills a sense of vulnerability in you. The scales felt tipped entirely in his favour and there was nothing you could hide from him. It was equally liberating and frightening.

A quiet trill pulls you from your thoughts. He must pick up on your anxiety, because mothman crowds you back against the nest and you sink further with a weak smile, your fingers threading into his fur. Wildflowers and long grass borders your periphery. You hadn’t much chance to appreciate his hard work in the dark.

“Shouta,” you faltered. Perhaps you should be more concerned that giving yourself to him was never a question. “Are you sure it’s me you want? I’m just a human”.

“I see that,” he stated dryly. “But you are my little human. My mate. This is not up for debate”.

Memories surrounding your tentative relationship over the years come to the forefront of your mind. How purposeful and gentle he was, the obvious preference for your company, his willingness to share his secrets and weaknesses just to see you satisfied.

The pregnant pause is mistaken for hesitance. Shouta brings your hand to his throat, inner wrist tickled by the plumage. Soft hair trails up his neck and thins by his jaw. Behind him, his wings unfurl and stretch. Pushing the heel up to his jugular, you feel six deliberate clicks. The rhythm of each is individual, some pitched and others deep, and the silence between is different in length, almost similar to morse code.

“What did you say?”

“Your name,” he rumbles.

There is underlying significance you aren’t privy to, yet you feel it all the same. You meet his gaze. Skin feverish, breathes coming quicker. Your hips twitch helplessly and he bites back a croon.

“Okay. Touch me, ” you slowly coil your arms around his neck and bring him into an embrace. He goes doubtlessly, engaging you with knees settled either side of your hips.

Shouta cuts your clothes off carefully and with ease. The simple hook of a talon and they tore like thin paper. His tongue, long and tube-like at the tip, glides between your breasts, flicking over your nipples and watching with fascination. It’s as though the roles have switched. You are the subject now.

You laugh breathily as he nuzzles into you, palming at your soft stomach. Shouta works his way down your body, giving a curious churring sound as more of your body reveals itself. He tears away your pants, but rather than discard them, he tucks them into the borders of the nest.

The air feels good on your skin, cool where it kisses your arousal. “Hold yourself open for me,” he says. “I want to taste you”.

An overwhelming wave of embarrassment washes over you as he guides your hands to the back of your thighs, ankles hooked over his broad shoulders. Pressure behind his claw-tipped fingers, Shouta gently pries your folds apart to demonstrate his wishes. “Like this”.

You moan, bear down on his tongue at the first lick as it glides over your clit, a shudder rolling through your body at the threat of his teeth. He descends again and again with bottomless yearning, no longer hunger, rather like an elastic compulsion pulled impossibly taut.

A pleased chitter vibrates against you. His wings extend and shudder, looming above like tapestry. “So good,” he breathes in, shameless as he noses along your cunt. “So warm. You smell even better than usual”.

The muscles in your thighs clench as the narrow tip of his tongue teases your entrance. You push down into your heels with a weak cry of complaint and he obliges, gently pushing inside you.

Your breathing falters. “Sh—Shouta,” you croak, reaching down desperately to grasp his plumage the deeper he sinks. It feels never ending, flexing and twisting experimentally as he draws out, still keeping his lips pressed up against you.

Gradually he builds a rhythm. Observing raptly from his place between your legs, his gaze never strays, gleaming when your hips buck into his mouth. It’s his expression that spurs you on— that rapt, intense desire.

Shouta stretches you on his tongue, the obscene slick sound of saliva echoing throughout his nest. The tension low in your belly coils, taut, and you feel it pulse. Your toes curl and you let out a loud, broken moan that sounds like relief.

“Don’t stop. Feels so good,” you keen, balancing right at the crest. Shouta’s pace grows anxious the closer you get, his big hands palming at your thighs, talons pinching skin. He forces them wider as he presses his weight into you with a long groan. “Yeah. That’s it, make me cum. Oh fuck—!”

A moment passes without air, yanked under by the force of it. Your body wrings tight and the tension snaps. Undone, loose at the seams as he takes you through the aftershocks quaking through your body.

You return to yourself, registering the quiet hum reverberating in your skull. Shouta nuzzles your sensitive clit before making his way up your torso. He smells like sex. His ruff, chin and cheeks are wet with arousal. You can taste yourself on his tongue as he licks over the seam of your lips, and shivers when they part to meet him.

The kiss is strange; not quite a kiss, more a press of mouths. You suppose it can’t be helped with teeth like his. His effort is far more endearing than it has any right to be.

Brief fatigue washes over you and settles into a giddy afterglow. The black spots in your vision dissipate. A short, soft chitter comes from his throat. The noise is familiar— they’re exactly like the sounds he would make when you were anxious.

“I’m okay, Shouta. You— You’re a bit too good at that,” you reassured, taking his face into your palms and feeling it in his cheeks when he smiles. The shifting wings behind his head draw your attention as they flutter. He’s near enough for you to reach out and stroke them.

They’re breathtaking. The texture is unlike anything you have ever felt before. You pause at his squirming, “Does it hurt?”

He huffed a laugh. You think that will never get old. “It doesn’t hurt”.

“Feels nice?”

“Too nice,” he says, stroking your hips. Lifting your hips, you grind lightly over his cock. You swallow, noticing how much it had grown, now completely unsheathed. Shouta reflexively chases the feeling, bucking up against your sex. You both hiss at the sensitivity.

Timidly, you ask, “Can I see?”

He nods.

The size is daunting. His cock is curved, long, but more notably it is thick. Fleshy in colour and hot, leaking a clear liquid over your hand. Ribbed around the shaft, the slight bumps slide under your palm as you bring your fist up to the narrowed head. No spikes. Good. If you met God you’d thank him.

It is crowned by sensitive skin, not unlike a human’s, but in gently pulling it back you find it reminds you more of an ovipositor. Shouta’s rumbling deepens, head hung between his shoulders. Drapes of long dark hair fall to curtain his face. His antennae quiver in place, wide red eyes looking back at you.

You feel yourself ache with unfulfilled arousal. Pressing your thighs together does nothing but tease. Shouta watches you guide his cock to the apex of your thighs, his chest heaving as you glide him through your wet folds, drenching yourself in his slick.

The cryptid pushes into you with a gentleness that is almost terrifying in its intensity— so out of place for a supposed harbinger of suffering. “Careful, little human,” he rasps, an ever present humming in his chest.

A pleasant tingling sensation begins to spread throughout your abdomen, relaxing your muscles, like sinking into the soothing heat of a hot bath. You’ve long shut off your avid questions, rendered thoughtless and pliant by the pressure. “Oh,” you exhale, struggling to keep your eyes open. He’s barely halfway in.

Shouta pulls out slowly and rocks back in, repeating the motion as you open up to him. You crane your head, jaw slack as you moan, reaching out to the immense silhouette above you. Everything about him is big. It’s all you can notice. He’s taking handfuls of you, kneading the fat at your thighs, hooking around them and pushing your knees toward your chest.

“Look at you,” his voice is thick and trembling. You whine, watching the way you swallow around him, clit swollen and twitching. “Perfect,” he rasps, the mix of your arousal dampening the fur around his base. He pulls out again, tantalisingly slow, and your legs start to shake.

“Shouta,” you choke, not knowing what it was you were asking for. He gives it to you anyway, rocking forward in one harsh movement, setting a pace that splits you in two. You can almost feel his cock is in your throat; touching parts of you you didn’t know existed; carving out space for himself and making a home of it.

The earlier mindfulness is gone. Shouta sets a divine pace. He shifts on his knees, gripping at your waist with his talons pressing into skin, pulling you down onto his cock. Praises have dwindled into a language you cannot understand, but you recognise those six successive clicks— he’s calling your name, over and over.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Ah. What is—?!”

The hypothesis is reaffirmed by the sensation of him stretching you further, widening inside you, inflating as something pulses through his shaft, abandoning his body and slipping into yours. Your mouth falls open as heat prickles across your skin and what feels like a second orgasm crashes over you. You’re left suspended in a free fall that never seems to end.

It feels too good to panic about. Sperm packets or eggs or both— whatever they are, they’re smooth, cooling where they gather inside of you, and right pushing up against your sweet spot. Tremors wrack through your limbs and Shouta appears no better. His upper lip curls, wings fully presented and twitching.

Weak, you wrap your arms around his head and cradle him to your chest. Your fingers brush over the apex of his wings and with barely any exertion, he slams you back onto his cock, a loud groan drawn from his chest. His pelvis slaps against your clit and in a moment of lucidity, you feel the ground rise to meet you.

Rigidity bleeds from your muscles as you cum again, soon replaced by a wave of exhaustion. You grimace at the uncomfortable bloated feeling in your belly. Shouta is muttering, antennae curled and brushing the swell of your cheeks. You can hear his voice. Muffled, as if you were under water, “You did well, little flame”.

Thinking aloud, you mumble, “What if they don’t take?”

He nudges your chin, gathering you into his arms to cocoon you both, “I’ll make sure they do”.

[beybaldes]

but I ignore things, and I move sideways

summer sleepover masterlist

roy kent x gn!reader

summary : “defending them against everyone, even when they’re not there to witness it” requested by anon

content warning : i make everyone out to be a dick for the sake of the plot

an : i <3 roy kent and I hope he is happy forever !! title comes from ‘growing sideways’ by Noah Kahan I really recommend great song and no skip album!!

“I’m just saying, since his injury, he has become a has been. There is no shame to it, it is just a fact.”

Usually, you’d let Jan Mass’s bluntness slide, given - as each member of the team had explained to you at some point - he wasn’t mean, just Dutch. Usually, his casual cruelness in the name of being honest didn’t concern Roy, however.

“Unfortunately, I have to agree.” Dani added, surprising you and the rest of the room. “If a baby was born today, they wouldn’t know ‘Roy Kent, football legend’ they know ‘Roy Kent, coach for Richmond.”

While Dani’s words greatly discredited and diminished Roy’s career to his post-injury life, his kinder explanation had the rest of the lads humming and nodding in agreement.

“Doesn’t make it any less mean.” You spoke up, everyone attention snapping to you, where you’d been sat in front of Roy’s old locker - you’d become somewhat attached to the seat in all your years with Roy spent in this changing room. “Yeah, sure, Dani’s right. A baby born today would probably hear about Roy Kent the coach before Roy Kent the footballer. But one search of his name would tell you otherwise.”

You couldn’t look at them as you spoke. Despite wanting to stand up for him, knowing you would regardless of who or what they were saying about him, it didn’t make you any less nervous. “He’s not a fucking has been though, is he? Each and every one of you take his criticisms as Gospel, work as hard as possible to meet his expectations and preach the Roy Kent effect like it’s the only thing keeping the team running. Is that a has been? Or is that a great fucking coach who works his ass off to keep you guys together?”

Sam placed a hand against your arm, your eyes snapping up to meet his. “Ignore Jan Mas, he is just-“

“Dutch. I know.” Turning to face the blonde that had started the outrage you were feeling. “But there’s a difference between being honest and blunt about it and just being fucking mean.”

You left the changing room after you’d spoke, fed up with the boys you had come to love like family. Unfortunately for them, you loved Roy more then you loved them.

“They were right.” Isaac growled, arms folded across his chest as he spent a moment staring down each and every person in the changing room. “We know that’s not true about Roy, and non of us stood up for him. We’re fucking cowards.”

The second the doors to the changing room had closed behind you, you bumped right into a firm chest, rough hands grabbing at your arms to keep you up. Upon recognising the heather-charcoal shirt, you melted into the touch, tucking your head into the junction of his neck and shoulder without a word. Before you could vent your frustrations to the coach, he pressed a kiss to your temple, leaving his lips ghosting against your ear and you in his arms.

“Heard you in there, sticking up for me.” Roy scoffed, though not offendedly. You could almost feel his heart beating out of his chest as he held you against him. “Nice of you.”

“Of course I’d stick up for you, Roy.” You pulled your head from the crook of his neck, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and staring up at the dark haired man you loved so much. “I’d stick up for you anytime, anywhere, to anyone.”

Roy had never been good with words; and he knew he’d never be able to truly tell you how much your actions meant to him. He often thought of himself as a has been, someone past their prime who was still hanging around cause he had nothing else going for him - but you clearly didn’t think that, and that was enough for Roy. However, he hoped that as he pulled you in for a delicate kiss, featherlight and gentle in a way you weren’t overly used to with Roy, that you understood.

You did. Completely.

[chouettecrivaine]

Odile's Soliloquy [Honkai: Star Rail]

Fandom: Honkai: Star Rail

Characters: Sparkle

Notes: 1.2k words, reader is referred to as prince but it's symbolic, sparkle has definitely disappeared an undescribed loved one of yours at BEST (and killed at worst)

Sparkle was a woman of many talents. An ardent method actor, she could become anything she wanted to be. Since the beginning, her name deserved to be up in lights, glittering over an entire city and catching the ardor of all. This talent of hers only grew until she could don any mask, becoming more mirage than person. Sparkle could be anything. She could be anybody your heart desired.

…except the one your heart desired.

Sparkle was used to flimsy desire. The things that sparked her attention lost it just as quickly. She wasn't used to being enthralled so thoroughly, much less by something she couldn't attain. Sparkle knew she was a woman of taste, though, and she trusted that her enrapture was well founded.

Unfortunately, such trustworthy taste didn't seem to have blessed you as it had her.

The one who had your heart was, quite frankly, a fool - and not even in the fun way. But the universe was made of contradictory sameness, and like always attracted like. They couldn’t see a trap whilst standing inside one, and Sparkle always knew that they’d need to be dealt with as soon as they started poking their nose in the Fools’ business. 

Though, in the end, their presence wasn’t quite as burdensome as Sparkle once thought. They had something that Sparkle had been vying for - someone who occupied her thoughts far more often than she’d care to admit. And yet, despite the fact that you had decided to cast a blundering fool in such a pivotal role, Sparkle couldn’t force herself to be mad at you. After all, what understudy doesn’t secretly wish for the trap door to open beneath the lead’s feet and render them useless for the performance?

So maybe she pulled the lever, cut the rope on the sandbag, loosened a few screws on the lights. Actress or magician? Only someone as gifted in the arts as Sparkle could pull off both in one act. Hidden up her sleeves were numerous cards and secret tricks, all of which gave her the leg up in the battle for your affections. More than simply act the part, Sparkle could become anyone she wanted to be, so of course she jumped right into the role she had been vying for and placed herself snugly at your side. Your partner’s actions were hardly difficult to replicate, and their words weren’t exactly taxing prose. The only admirable thing about them had been their devotion to you - but even then, their adoration was nothing compared to hers. A candle could never compete with dazzling fireworks, after all.

Sparkle knew long ago that she found her calling as a body double, fancying herself a black swan masquerading the lovely, cursed princess. She could pirouette around your questions with ease and take your hand in hers without suspicion. Sparkle was your trickster, and you, her idiot prince; truly a match made in whatever paradise the Aeons fashioned for the departed.

But then, as usual, she got bored. 

She wasn’t bred of you, but of something she thought would always be her weapon of choice; the monotony of a mask. She felt her face plastered into the same smile every day, a plastic facade she could never force to drop an inch. Sparkle wanted more from you: she wanted to feel the maniacal grin on her face once she revealed her plot; she wanted to feel the smug, victorious smirk on her face as she watched yours crumble; she wanted to grimace and scream as she tore into her own chest, trying to claw at the stabbing pain as you ran away. There was so much potential, and an artist such as herself couldn't be expected to hold back at such a critical junction in her career!

Shows that outran their welcome were rarely remembered fondly. Sparkle had prepared for her grand finale, ready to reveal her identity to you just before the curtain closed. When finally she allowed her mask to clatter to the ground, abandoned, she bent her knees and curtsied. Thank you, thank you, for attending the show! What thrilling twists! Way to end with a bang! Her hair fell over her shoulders and swayed by the sides of her face, hiding the uncertainty that turned her appreciative bow into one that hoped to beget your forgiveness.

She had expected a shriek, perhaps a gasp of utter shock - anything but the bemused laughter and sardonic slow clap that met her ears. Rising slowly, Sparkle matched your easy smirk with one of her own, as if she was in on the joke. 

Is the show really over? That’s what you seemed to ask. Sparkle had spent so much time watching you, both closely and from afar, that she could read the unspoken question in the tilt of your head, the slight shrug of your shoulder. Your gaze burned her like a spotlight shining down as she forgot all of her lines.

Well. If all it took for such an adoring audience was to don the mask once more, who was she to deny you an encore?

Sparkle didn’t need to hide herself in entirety after that. Her plan had been successful, after all. Your foolish oaths of true love had been broken by her facade, just as she wanted. But you didn’t run and try to assemble the pieces of what she forced you to break. Instead, you grabbed her hand and changed the steps, pulling her along the stage while she mimicked you as best she could. Sparkle remembered then why she never coveted the true romantic leads before - for any romance to be interesting, there needed to be a heartbreak in the central act.

No matter how precisely she danced, Sparkle realized that the romantic overture would never play while she was center stage.

Most Fools believed that love meant nothing. Everything meant nothing in the vast gaze of the Elation. She knew you would make a fine Fool when the discovery of her facade meant little to you. For whatever reason, something about this costume of hers brought you joy. Her actions brought you memories of true happiness, and when she donned that ugly simpleton’s mask, you could pretend everything was the same as it had been before. Yet, in the form of her that was as close as she could get to ‘true,’’ you never called her name or looked at her softly. You had seen through her disguise from the beginning. If she didn’t need to hide, then you didn’t need to pretend to care.

But now, her greatest tool had become her greatest weakness. Why should she have to hide her emotions when she wanted to let everything out? You had managed to tear her to shreds, and she was restless with the desire to rip off the costume and hear seams pop, show you her tear-stained cheeks and blood red hands so you could kiss it all away. Sparkle was no longer playing a part; she was feeling, which was the one thing a mask could never do.

Having the tables turned on her had been her greatest dream as a bored Fool. But now, she was something far worse than a Fool; a simple idiot who wasted her time wishing it was her name that spilled from your lips with such sincerity. She wanted it more than anything; the day when you pierced through the final mask, when you saw through the puppet named Sparkle and unlocked who she was in her core.

That would be the day when she could shed her swan feathers and finally be yours.

[cazzyf1]

My favourite/interesting quotes from: Jim Clark Portrait of a Great Driver

"One winter afternoon when I was down there Clark explained that we had to listen for an aircraft around 4.0 p.m. as Colin Chapman, his wife and Jimmy's girl friend Sally Stokes were due to arrive. Chapman had never flown to the farm before and I remember raising an eyebrow when Clark explained how he had told Colin to find the farm. "I told him to fly to Berwick-on- Tweed and then along the line of the River Tweed from the mouth at Berwick. When he saw the first red barns on the north side he was to circle the house until he saw signs of life." At 4.0 p.m. we went outside and scanned the skies but there was no sign of action. At 4.20 p.m. there was the distant sound of an aircraft and we gazed at the slowly darkening skies and finally saw it, a speck in the distance flying in the wrong direction. Immediately Clark scrambled into a Ford Galaxie-Chapman's car, actually and we shot down the narrow farm road, through the esses near the main road junction and turned for Berwick. We had just set off and had reached about 70 m.p.h. when the 'plane suddenly turned and flew towards us. Clark flashed the headlights and Chapman dipped the wings in acknowledgement. A hand brake turn and we were zooming back past the farm and up a side road to the edge of a field filled with sheep. Clark whistled on his dog, jumped the five bar gate and lit out after the sheep with the dog at his heels. Between them they rounded the sheep up and sent them off to the far side of the field whilst Chapman made a couple of passes. On the third he almost touched down then flew off. "He's gone to Winfield", said Clark. So it was back into the Galaxie for another dash across country to the disused airfield, sometime circuit where Clark had run in some sprints in the earliest days of his motor sports career. There we pocked up Chapman and his passengers" - p25-27 Graham Gauld

"In general layout the farm had changed little over the years and it had a family ghost. This was the Grey Lady who Jimmy claimed to have seen when he was very young and taken for his mother. But, on the following morning his mother said she hadn't been near his room. Since then a number of people have been visited by the ghost. Once, when Jimmy and I were preparing some notes for his autobiography, we had a wild session with Jackie Stewart and Paddy Hopkirk. As we talked into the small hours it was decided that Stewart and I would share one room, while Paddy slept in another. Jackie and I thought it was all very funny because we believed that Jimmy had put Paddy into the haunted room but in fact we were told in the morning that we had been sleeping in it..." p27 Graham Gauld

"Clark was the world's worst passenger in any car, in any circumstances with any driver! Indeed, I can only think of one occasion in which I drove him, and then he was kind enough not to comment but just smile wanly every so often" - p46 Graham Gauld

"He once remarked that Indy would be "...fine without the Americans" but in time he made a number of friends over there" - p52 Graham Gauld

"Though to the end he was still a kindly person to those whom he allowed into his confidence, he occasionally displayed a petulance and spite which was generally uncharacteristic. To some people he was cruel, but admist this cruelty one felt that Clark was trying to punish himself for being unable to explain himself. Indeed, if he had an unfulfilled wish, it was to be understood by everyone, but to ask that was to ask for the impossible" - p73 Graham Gauld

"During those times it was a very hard job getting him to believe in himself" - p82 Ian Scott Watson

"The little things you remember are his smile, the way his whole face lit up, and his springy walk and the way he bit his nails. He was an incessant nail biter, which completely baffled me; although he had a slightly nervous disposition this completely dropped when he stepped into a racing car" - p90 Graham Hill

"Whenever I was driving he was either biting his nails or fast asleep. When he was awake there was the occasional sharp intake of breath and the odd remark 'For God's sake, look out'. He was a very nervous passenger. It must have been particularly agonising for him to sit beside me doing 800 miles in thirteen hours or so. When he was driving and made the odd mistake he could never understand why I didn't say anything and he used to say 'For God's sake say something' We were just different that is all" - p91 Graham Hill

"In personal matters, he was not a great one for revealing too much, ans he was a bit clam-like which I think may have been a Scottish trait in him? He was canny, and didn't go around saying too much to people. Very often you found out he had been somewhere or done something, which you would have never known about just talking to him" - p92 Graham Hill

"They were called the Terrible Twins, the Poison Dwarfs and many other ames. But at the height of their friendship they were inseparable" - about Jim and Jackie

"It was also at this time that I started to live in John Whitmore's flat in London with Jimmy. From that day on we called it the Scottish Embassy" - p101 Jackie Stewart

"Though Jim led something of a monastic life, I must say that put there he was a real swinger, living a very busy life" - p101 Jackie Stewart

"In fact we spent so much time with one another that we became known at Batman and Robin - and I kept calling him Robin" - p102 Jackie Stewart

"Jimmy Clark was also very nationalistic, indeed we both had this trait and we were quite sincere about it. It really had to be Scottish. If anything came up wherein he was called English he was at pain to correct it" - p103 Jackie Stewart

"When reflecting on the future that Jimmy had in store I feel that he was not going to go back to full-time farming in Berwickshire. He was living the life of an international figure and no matter what might have happened in later years, I don't think he would have returned to Duns permanently. He had become a very sophisticated person. He played pretty hard and his tastes were very high and these he wasn't going to satisfy in Duns. I am sure he would have kept the house and that from time to time he would have loved to go back up there, but I don't think he would ever have gone back and settled down in the way a lot of people would have liked to imagine that he would. This just wasn't on and this is why, when people told me that Jimmy was thinking of retiring, I know that this was not the case. We talked about this a lot but he really didn't know what he wanted to do in the future. He didn't let anyone know what he was doing." - p105 - Jackie Stewart

"He was much more conscious of his personality than most people realised. It you went into a restaurant with Jimmy he did want to be recognised as Jim Clark. He didn't want it from the point of view of people asking for autographs but, like any human being, he did want the benefit of best table" - p107 Jackie Stewart

"His most difficult task in life, however, was making decisions.It was completely incomprehensible to find that someone who was so accurate and definite in his actions in a racing car was so completely inadequate when a decision had to be made outside a racing car. The number of times we have missed dinner because the restaurants have all been closed because Jimmy hadn't made up his mind which restaurant we should go to are legion, and the same is true of movies. One story is so typical of Jimmy. We were coming back from one of the American races and driving along a road where you cross a railway line with a ten mile straight one side and a ten mile straight on the other side. Jimmy is at the wheel of this Ford Galaxie and he gets to the crossing and stops. He looks one way then the other and there isn't a train in sight ten miles one way and ten miles the other then he turns to me and says 'well... what do you think?" He wouldn't dare make a decision without all sorts of drama. " - p107

"He was very keep to read everything said about him, and to make sure that there were no mistakes (this was a characteristic of Jimmy - he was most insistent that even the smallest of mistakes should not be made). He would spend half the afternoon reading sitting on a chair half in hand out of the little office. Sometimes if there were too many people talking in the office he would even shut himself in it" - p120 Gérard Crombac

"He met most of the French drivers in motorracing and the parties he went to were motor racing parties. He seldom went out on his own" - p122 Gérard Crombac

"He was no gourmet but he was becoming one, and he was very fond of French oysters we usually ended up in a sea food place " - p122 Gérard Crombac

"But although he was very generous, he remained the canny Scot of legend and he was not one to waste any money. I remember that he didn't want a house maid in the flat, so if one turned up in the middle of the morning, one might find James Clark Esq., O.B.E, pushing the vacuum cleaner through our living room" - p125 Gérard Crombac

"I thought his rather strong Scottish accent was fading with the time, until an incident when he was invited to patronise the opening of a French pub, which was to be done in style with the help of a pipe band. When Jimmy turned up and realised these people were fellow Scots he started chatting happily with them and I could hardly understand what he was saying as his accent had come back strongly and so suddenly." - p126 Gérard Crombac

"Jimmy's Scottish upbringing had instilled in him a rather restrained attitude towards girls, and I think he was very very shy with them in the early part of his career. But he was also tremendously attractive to them they would come up to him for autographs, and would leave no doubt as to their true intentions. In part he enjoyed this, but I also think he was put off in a way by this ruthless approach, so that he had absolutely no respect for most of them. So as a result, there were times when he wasn't the perfect gentleman." -p126 Gérard Crombac

"There was also a time he found a packet of cigarettes in a tent, gathered a bunch of boy scouts around him and gave them the cigarettes. He then had a picture taken of all these boy scouts lined up a cricket team smoking cigarettes with Jimmy in the middle holding a half gallon of beer." - p136 Bill Bryce

"I think Jimmy drove like a ballet dancer, he had the lightest feet and hands on earth. He had immensely strong shoulders and arms but this was the only part of him that was strong physically. He was a great dancer in motor cars, gentle with them, kind with them and I feel that the reason he was a great driver was that there was always the feeling of participation with the motor car, so the driving almost became sixth sense with him in many cases." - p145 Walter Hayes

"All this stuff about Jimmy the Shepherd with his little flat cap was nonsense. He wasn't a great Shepherd. He liked to go back to the family every so often to rediscover who he was" - p146 Walter Haynes

"When I first met Jimmy he found it extremely difficult to speak in public and he was exceptionally shy about it" - p148 Walter Haynes

"I remember just before his accident, he was talking about his future and what he was going to do when he stopped racing, and he said he finally made up his mind that he wouldn't in fact go back farming. He still loved it, but I think after the excitement and turmoil of racing, flying and the life he had been leading. I think he wanted to settle down in some branch of the aviation business" - p164 Colin Chapman

[silver-screen-divas]

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

During the 1950s, Gardner established herself as a leading lady and one of the era's top stars with films like Show Boat, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (both 1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956) and On the Beach (1959). She continued her film career for three more decades, appearing in the films 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). And in 1985, she had the major recurring role of Ruth Galveston on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing. She continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in 1990, at the age of 67.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gardner No. 25 on its greatest female screen legends list.

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Get to Know Me Tag :)

I was tagged by @telomeke and @hughungrybear. Thanks for tagging me!

do you make your bed?

It depends... I live in the part of the world where it's usual to have a duvet in a duvet cover and a sheet covering the mattress, and I have a duvet twice the width of my bed so it usually doesn't get rucked up during the night, so when I get up I fold over the top third of the duvet to air out the mattress/sheet. If it's a work day, it will stay like this until I get home, then I will usually pull the duvet back over the bed. If it's a weekend, I might make the bed again midday. I like it when my bed looks made.

what's your favourite number?

I'm not sure why but I like the number 7, and then also the numbers 4 and 3 because they make up 7. I've never really considered numbers beyond single digits to be 'favourites'. But if I did it would be my birthday day. Oh and I don't really use favourite numbers as important passwords or pins or the such...jsyk.

what is your job?

The work I do is quite niche, so I never really want to say too much because I'm pretty discoverable online with a few key words...but then sometimes I really want y'all to know what I do because it's unusual (and, I think, quite cool!)...but without revealing too much I work in the arts sector - specifically dance.

if you could go back to school, would you?

School, as in aged 11-16? Absolutely the hell no. But school as in higher education, degrees, masters, or smaller qualifications for my general interests? Well, I sort of did a few years ago (*she looks at the calendar and realises it's more than 'a few'*). I did a Creative Writing Masters over 2019-2020, which was GREAT to do but sort of killed my spirit and drive to be a writer...but whatever, I can always pick it back up again in the future if it returns. I also went to classes to learn Swedish when I lived in Sweden and I'm going to a different language class now one evening a week. I enjoy studying...but I get too focused on getting good grades.

can you parallel park?

Yes but I only do it when the space is big enough for me to confidently do it (especially with all these sensors beeping nowadays) and usually only on the side of the road opposite to the steering wheel (I can drive on both sides of the road).

a job you had that would surprise people?

I think my whole career is probably surprising to people but in the sense that I think people are mostly confused because they don't really understand what I really do on a day to day basis.

do you think aliens are real?

I think it would be incredible if in this whole universe we are the only planet who has developed 'life'. Aliens don't necessarily have to be intelligent life like us (and that's debatable sometimes!), so yes, I think somewhere in this universe there is another planet which has the conditions for some form of life, whether we could survive there or not.

can you drive a manual car?

Yes, I learnt on one and have managed to adapt to both right-hand and left-hand gear sticks, although I'm still a little 'fumbly' with the right-hand gear stick. I prefer automatics when in a traffic jam but otherwise I'm happy to drive whichever. Sometimes it's good to have something to focus on when driving, so a manual is good. The problem happens if I've used different hire cars in a short period of time (which I need to do sometimes with work) and when I forget I'm in a manual and brake coming up to to a junction and just...stall because I forget to change down gears 😂

what's your guilty pleasure?

If a guilty pleasure is something I'd feel shy or embarrassed admitting or talking to others about...then it would probably be watching ql or reading fanfic 😂 Other than that I'm not sure I have anything...I enjoy what I enjoy and don't feel guilt over it.

tattoos?

No but I've always thought about getting one but I think the thought of the work I'd have to do to find someone I would really trust to permanently mark my skin means I've just never done it. But I would like some kind of minimalist abstract colour art that starts on my shoulder and trails down my arm. Maybe. I've never been able to find exactly what I'm imagining, which is also why I've never pursued it.

favorite color?

I think I'm in my blue stage in my life, looking at the majority of colours surrounding me, but I also like pops of red.

favorite type of music?

The music playlists I listen to most are 1) OSTs and similar style songs from all the qls I've watched over the past 3 years 2) the instrumental background music from all the qls I've watched and 3) Swedish pop (to keep the language fresh in my brain). I do like all kinds of music - just NOT drum and bass - anything can work for me in the right mood.

do you like puzzles?

Yes, although I don't often do them. I enjoy the 'escape room' type Exit games as well as sudoku, and for a few months several years ago I really got into hanjie puzzles.

any phobias?

I'm not sure if this is a phobia or not but I absolutely CANNOT deal with cotton wool. Just thinking about pulling it apart makes me want to crawl out of my skin and lay down in a bath of acid just to get away from it let alone actually TOUCHING it and pulling it apart 🤢🤮 The cotton wool pads are ok because they have smooth sides and I don't...pull 🤮 them 🤮 apart 🤮. Ok, I gotta stop talking about this now, I'm squirming in my seat.

favorite childhood sport?

I did gymnastics as a child, from about aged 8 to 13, but I don't know if that counts as a 'sport', although I did compete. I didn't really enjoy most ball sports as a kid.

do you talk to yourself?

ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME. I talk to myself in my head. I talk to myself out loud. Sometimes, if I'm talking to myself aloud about something important and then do something that means I can't continue (cleaning my teeth, drinking/eating etc) then for some reason I can't continue in my head. I have to wait until I'm finished to then talk out loud again. But I also talk to myself aloud when I'm out 😬 but I do it quietly and without moving my mouth too much so people don't notice. I was in a shop recently and a gentleman was talking to himself out loud (commenting on the offering of tea towels ikea had and wondering whether to buy any) - loud enough that I thought that he was actually talking to someone else but he wasn't - and I felt like I had a glimpse of my future if I wasn't careful 😂

what movies do you adore?

I don't watch a lot of movies nowadays - the last I saw was Barbie. But the one that has stayed with me as a favourite since I first saw it is Some Kind of Wonderful. And I love The Holiday as a Christmas movie (although I haven't watched it for ages). Oh and it's not a movie, so maybe doesn't count, but the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice has my whole heart.

coffee or tea?

I'm definitely a tea drinker (approx 3 cups of black Earl Grey plus one or two herbal teas every day) but sometimes I'll crave a coffee...but then I'll have decaf. I'll crave it because I think the milkiness of it (oat milk though) makes it feel like a comfort drink, and I like a small shot of gingerbread syrup in it too.

first thing you wanted to be growing up?

I remember things like 'lawyer', 'journalist', and 'doctor' were common aspirations when I was a kid which I also contemplated but when I decided I wanted to be a dancer at aged 13 that was it for me. My 'back-up' career plan was some kind of palaeontology or archaeology ("you get an -ology you're a scientist!" 😂) but I never needed to pursue that.

Onward tagging: I'm not sure by now who has done this or not, so I'll tag some people and if you have done it then tag me in your post so I can read it! @grapejuicegay @dimplesandfierceeyes @casualavocados @ranchthoughts @jourquet @lollygirlpops @airenyah @incandescentflower and @linosaur

Like @telomeke, I also get tagged now and then by others in various tag games but then get too busy with work to be able to do them. So if you've tagged me and I've not responded, please know that I really wanted to but I just didn't have the time and then probably forgot.

[mysticstarlightduck]

OC Reddit AITA Tag Game!

Thanks for the tags, @willtheweaver (here), @wyked-ao3 (here) and @the-golden-comet (here)!

So let's go with Deimos Soll from Supernova Initiative!

Deimos Soll

AITA for setting up my siblings and their crew for capture bu our worst enemy in exchange for safety against the warlord hunting me down?

Hi. So, I have been struggling with this for a while, and honestly wasn't sure if I should technically post this but since I've got few people I can vent this to, so I might as well give this a shot.

So, for context, I (26 M), did NOT want to betray my adoptive siblings. It was always us against the world growing up and we have always been all each other has had - well, at least until we had The Big Argument a few years ago and went our separate ways.

It all started to go downhill after that day, now that I'm thinking about it. After I left Jack and Cassie behind to pursue a solo career as a sniper, I ended up joining a Khosmonian war faction - I was very much an idealistic youth who knew little of the world of warfare at the time, but I believed that, by joining the Junction's greatest enemy in the civil war, I would have a chance to fight back against the government that destroyed my life in the past.

I was mistaken. Very much so.

It turns out that, for all the propaganda, the government in the Khosmonian galaxies - and especially the military branch I had joined - was just as corrupt as the Junction. I was quickly disillusioned and planned to desert that cause and go back to my siblings to make amends.

And I didn't even get that chance. I had packed my things and was ready to leave, but the warlord that commanded the faction I had misguidedly tied myself to - a monstrous woman named Eldora Thalax - wasn't about to let me go so easily. Apparently I was her finest sniper, and she didn't want to lose that asset.

Before I knew it, she had her soldiers capture me and bring me to her - she made me a final offer, saying she might forgive my 'treason' if I continued to work for her. I said no, and told her I was going to leave once and for all. She... didn't like that.

Eldora decided that, if I wasn't going to comply willingly, she'd make me do so by force - and so the nightmare began. I was locked in a freezing cell, and every day I was brutally tortured and experimented on - it didn't take long for me to realize what she was doing. Her plan was to break my mind and brainwash me into a living weapon.

I spent 3 years trapped in that living hell, barely holding onto my identity and sanity, until finally - on one extremely lucky day - I managed to escape and steal a spaceship to take me back to my galaxy. But Eldora wasn't going to stop hunting me down: 1. she didn't want to let others think she would simply let a prisoner get away from her, and wanted to make me an example, 2. she still planned to recapture me and brainwash me into her obedient soldier. Even as I went back to the galaxy I hailed from, I spent countless days trying desperately to avoid the assassins and agents she'd sent after me, barely getting a moment to even think.

I was at the end of my rope when I made the decision to seek the Junction's government for help - they'd always been my worst enemies, people I despised more than anything and who had destroyed my life and that of countless others over and over again. But I couldn't take it anymore, living on the run with the ever-looming danger of being caught again. Which I knew would happen sooner or later if I was on my own. I turned myself in and made a deal with one of the most influential Junction politicians, the Director, to get protection against Eldora.

They asked for something in return - and their price was that I helped them set up my siblings and their crew (since Jack, Cassie and the others had been the Junction's Public Enemy Number 1 for years now and Jack was the most wanted intergalactic thief of his generation) for capture. I didn't want to do it, but given that I had no choice, I accepted it.

Soon after, Jack, Cassie, and the crew were captured during one of their heists - something the Junction only managed to do due to the information I gave them.

They tasked the crew to do a dangerous heist on a hostile planetary system, making them work for our worst enemy in order to avoid the firing squad, and the Junction made me join them on the heist as well, probably out of sadism to see me struggle to keep the truth of what I had done hidden. At the time, no one in the crew knew I had been the one to blame for their capture.

The worst part is that, by saving myself from harm, I ended up subjecting my brother to the same - if not worse - struggles I had endured, as the Director made him his favorite test subject, torturing and experimenting on him for fun in the guise of seeking scientific progress.

I hate myself with every fiber of my being for what I did, and I would do anything to go back and change the decision I made in the past. If I had known what the price of my betrayal would be, I would never have done it. I would have preferred to spend the rest of my days working with Eldora than to let my brother go through what the Director did and does to him.

In fact, I never should've left them - abandoned them - in the past, after our argument in the first place.

I have kept my betrayal a secret from them ever since we had to start working together again, and it's eating me up inside. I know that if I tell them the truth, it would be the final crack to Jack's spirit - and Cassie... well Cassie would probably try and kill me for it.

And she'd be right.

Tagging (gently): @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart, @ray-writes-n-shit

@writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid @thecomfywriter

@thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

@differentnighttale, @leahnardo-da-veggie

[koratheweirdo]

a week for a witch 🩷

MONDAY

★associated with: the moon, clairvoyance, femininity, dreaming

★spellwork: healing emotionally, divination, home, travel, fertility

★crystals: moonstone, pearl, selenite

★deities: Selene, Diana, Thoth

★candles: white

★flowers: lotus, lily, jasmine

TUESDAY

★associated with: Mars

★spellwork: protection, banishing, passion, success, self-confidence, matrimony

★crystals: garnet, ruby, bloodstone

★deities: Tyr/Tiwaz, Kali, Aries

★candles: red

★flowers: holly, snapdragon

★actions: be brave, set goals, achieve/aim for victory, work on esteem

WEDNESDAY

★associated with: Mercury, reading/writing/studying, travel, the arts, divination

★spellwork: communication, business, travel, art/creativity, money, luck, wisdom, change

★crystals: lapis lazuli, agate, aventurine, citrine

★deities: Odin, Hermes, Athena

★candles: purple

★plants: fern, lavender, mandrake

THURSDAY

★associated with: Jupiter, storms, water, element, harvesting, leadership, honor

★spellwork: money, career, abundance, luck, healing, contracts/legal work

★crystals: turquoise, aventurine, lapis lazuli

★deities: Thor, Zeus, Juno

★candles: (royal) blue, green

★plants: bay leaf, honeysuckle, cinnamon, oak

FRIDAY

★associated with: Venus

★spellwork: romance, fertility, passion, family, reconciliation, beauty, nature

★crystals: rhodochrosite, garnet, rose quartz

★deities: Freya, Aphrodite, Eros, Lakshmi

★candles: aqua/(light) blue, pink

★flowers: hibiscus, apple blossom, pink rose

★actions: connect with the water element, self care/beauty rituals

SATURDAY

★associated with: Saturn

★spellwork: protection, banishing, cleansing, creativity, manifestation

★crystals: obsidian, hematite, jet, amethyst

★deities: Hecate, Saturn, Hades, Hestia, Bast

★candles: black

★flowers: pansy, thyme, cypress

★actions: drink black tea, cleanse house, personal transformation, self discipline

SUNDAY

★associated with: Sun

★spellwork: success, wealth, abundance, growth, healing/health, creativity

★crystals: carnelian, tigers eye, citrine

★deities: Apollo, Helios, Ra

★candles: yellow

★flowers: orange, sunflower, marigold

★actions: bake with cinnamon, get creative, watch the sunset

[probablyasocialecologist]

While home interiors depicted a blissful atomic future, their occupants lived in an age of revanchist conservatism. American society had become increasingly atomized and patriarchal during this time. Women were important contributors to wartime atomic science: Maria Goeppert-Mayer worked on the Manhattan project, and was awarded a Nobel Prize for her contributions to science by 1963; Leona Woods Marshall Libby worked in Enrico Fermi’s lab at the University of Chicago, where she demonstrated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. When men returned from war, many women were discouraged from continuing their careers as scientists, technologists, and academics. As mainly white working women became wives in picket-fenced suburbia, they turned to the domestic affairs of the home to regain some control. As such, the demand for Atomic Age style was created by these women’s purchasing decisions. Atomic aesthetics in the home eventually served to “feminize” the atom, further domesticating its image.

[...]

Beauty queens and pin-up girls proliferated after World War II. The new vogue for radioactivity reached pageantry, with new beauty contests celebrating all things nuclear. From Miss Atomic Blast to Miss Atomic Bomb, this cheerful embodiment of lethal nukes has been described variously as commercializing, feminizing, and disarming the atom. By 1955, atomic pageantry had diversified to celebrate and normalize uranium mining and nuclear energy, as Colorado and Utah became home to expansive uranium mining programs. In a contest sponsored by the Uranium Ore Producers Association and the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce to celebrate Colorado’s uranium mining boom, the winning Miss Atomic Energy was rewarded with a truckload of uranium ore worth approximately $5000 in today’s money — and a trophy in the shape of Rutherford’s iconic atomic model. The bikini bathing suit debuted in 1946, taking its name from Bikini Atoll, where the U.S. undertook its first nuclear weapon detonations since Hiroshima. Louis Réard’sdesignwas itself derived from a less revealing French design created by Jacques Heim, known as “L’atome.” Both garments played with the semiotics of nuclear warfare. Models were initially scandalized by the bikini’s skimpiness and refused to wear it. By 1951, however, a bikini round had been integrated into the annual Miss World competition, further linking the atom with ideals of feminine beauty. 

[skippygiraffee]

Now I wanna hear more of your thoughts about Raihan and Leon and their insecurities wrt each other, and how they might solve them please.

absolutely, thank you for asking <3!! as per usual with me, I'm unsure how long this will be, so I'll put my thoughts under a read more for the sake of people's dashes/the tag. BUT I do think about these two a lot, especially this side of them, so I have a lot of thoughts floating around in the mind palace that I will try and materialize >:3c

I have a hard time picking a place to start with these two because the aforementioned mind palace is more like brain soup, and I'm trying to pick out the tasty bits from the broth with this one (meaning I think about it a lot, a lot) and it's hard to put pen to paper so to speak. but essentially, I doubt either of them started their careers with high self esteem to start with, and then I have in my own personal headcanon that Rose specifically pitted them against each other for the sake of numbers and marketing. it would be good for his bottom line, and Leon's brand as a champion, if he had a really strong and flashy rival, and Raihan was right there begging for the spotlight for various reasons.

when it comes down to each other specifically, however, here's a breakdown of some of those insecurities:

Leon is infinitely jealous of Raihan's freedom and that he has control over anything in his life

Raihan resents the effortless way in which maintains his popularity

Leon's body issues manifest in being spiteful towards Raihan's assumed ease with posting on social media

Raihan feels like Leon never has time for anything or anyone outside of Rose's elite circle of people

both think the other has social skills that they themselves seem to lack (for Leon it's interpersonal relationships and close friendships and for Raihan it's the way Leon is seemingly comfortable around and with powerful people), and they feel equally small when the other is in those settings

there's a lot of unresolved anger and tension from the years and years of being sold as rivals that has done immense damage to their relationship, and neither thinks they can overcome it

Raihan in convinced that Leon will always be, forever and always, out of reach in every possible way

Leon thinks he'll never be good enough for Raihan unless he remains at the top, the best, the undefeated Champion

to break some of them down a little more, Leon just doesn't have time for anything or anyone that isn't Rose or the League once he's Champion, and of course to anyone he's close with that's going to sting. and I think Raihan has a habit of questioning his place in people's lives, to the point that any shift in energy or attention can feel like the end of the world. so for Leon to just be busy with shit out of his control would definitely fester and build inside him, to the point where I think a lot of that boisterous energy on the field in battle is Raihan trying to let out that building anger towards Leon, when he logically knows it's not Leon's fault. however, logic and emotion don't always meet at the same junction, so Raihan and Leon have definitely had fights that spilled over into their shared friendgroup over how Leon will just ghost everyone for months on end.

I also think both want what the other has, in that childish way that kids always want what their friend is eating, but also in the very adult way of wishing their lives had turned out differently. Leon so desperately wishes that he wasn't caged up in Wyndon, forced to perform, forced to be Rose's left hand (because Oleana is his right, and Leon isn't even good enough to be there). he loves battling, loves his Pokemon, loves everything about what he does except being Champion. so he wants to be Raihan.

and Raihan is sick and tired of always being one step from the top, constantly reminded that he isn't good enough to be Champion. so painfully aware of the sacrifices that come with it, but he'd be fine with it for a taste of the adoration that Leon has. he wants to feel what it's like to wear the crown, be loved and cheered for, rather than hearing someone else's name being yelled from the stands the moment he enters the field anywhere but Hammerlocke. he wants to be Leon so bad it hurts, makes him privately bitter, and publicly aloof to avoid dealing with it.

Raihan has spent so long looking up, and Leon has spent so long feeling trapped I truly think it's a genuine shock to the system when the whole thing just stops. Leon wakes up in the morning Champion, and goes to bed dethroned. and it wasn't even Raihan who took his crown.

dealing with that is a whole other beast, you know? because they defined a good chunk of their relationship on the rivalry dynamic. do they scrap it, do they keep it, what do they do with that? how do they look at and deal with all the emotions being thrown right on the floor after Leon is defeated, because Leon is also dealing with the after effects of the whole Darkest Day event, which is at best just a natural disaster narrowly avoided, and at worst an extreme upheaval in the lives of so many people thanks to Rose being in prison and his company being left without leadership and Leon being left with lifelong ailments thanks to it.

honestly, once Leon is ready for the conversation, I think a lot of anger on both their parts comes out first. tears, yelling, the works. where they just start listing off all the built up anger and resentment from the years. it's not healthy, by any means, but they aren't sure how else to really lay it all out. and once it's out there they have to figure out how to deal with it, like unpacking an old closet and finding long forgetting items, and figuring out whether to toss or keep them. for Leon, he's just sorry, because he wishes he had been better for Raihan, for everyone, and he carries all the guilt in the world for the past decade or so of being Champion. he let everything fall to wayside, and now he has to figure both himself out and how he fits back into people's lives. for Raihan, he has to really really confront where his anger is coming from, and he hates that it's been staring at him in the mirror for a long time, being displaced onto Leon.

the legitimate things wrong with their relationship, like the foundation it was built on and how they talk to each other and treat each other, they work it out by slowly rebuilding everything. not from the ground up, because they can't erase what happened, and don't want to, but their rivalry is different. they battle together, but they'll be damned if the other outdoes them in making curry (Leon can't, but that's because both Hop and Raihan aren't sure what the fuck is up with his tastebuds). a lot of it is just them mellowing out, getting calmer about things, and doing their passions in different ways.

I dunno, I just like thinking of them as middle aged guys who still think their older mons can still duke it out like they're spry, and of course will for them, but Leon and Raihan laughing and having fun. and the local kids are wondering how these two were once these fierce rivals that their parents still talk about, when they're just sitting back and having a relaxed match. where the baggage of the past still comes up every now and then, but they get to sit down, have the time to talk about it, and come back better. I think more than anything they work it out with time and openness, honesty and compassion, more than anything. and it's what they deserve really.

[clatterbane]

I really wasn't kidding about the not-quite-side gig thing, though. That's also sort of tied up in my own ongoing special Disabled Foreign Devil version of a midlife crisis, though.

My life has ended up going off in some strange and highly inconvenient directions, due to the person I am. Things would probably be a lot easier in a number of ways if it had taken the actually easier road at several junctions. But, it is what it is. You deal and try to make the best of it, clichéd as that may be.

But yeah, I am now pushing 50 and sitting somewhere that I still kinda suck at the main language--with no completed degrees, no documentation of what foreign formal education I do have, extremely little adult employment history because I stayed too busy being variously disabled over the years, zero other qualifications, and still pretty limited spoons though I am physically doing much better these days. Oh yeah, and I am indeed visibly disabled now, autistic and noticeably weird as hell on top of it, and now pushing 50. Though I can probably skate farther on "eccentric foreigner" with the neurodivergence (and not being a native speaker) than in the UK, that is only one disadvantage mitigated.

(Also kinda hard to have much in the way of longer term "retirement" prospects when you have fuck all employment history or personal savings, and you relocate somewhere that you have absolutely no previous connection to systems when you're already middle-aged. I never really expected to find myself at this stage in life period, much less with very little in the way of prospects or financial independence. But, that's a bit of a side consideration at this point. I just don't want to end up shoved into the shithole tier of nursing homes one of these days, though. And with one leg and no career, that could conceivably happen anytime. Cyanide time, tbqh.)

Working in my favor, I am in one of the "better" tiers of immigrants, as an Anglophone who is pasty as fuck out of the sun and also married to a native. Only part of which is remotely under my control. And I usually come across as smart enough, however much of that may rely on bluffing. That was more of an asset when I was in my 20s than it even counts as at this stage of life, with no easily recognizable achievements to back it up.

Nobody is going to hire me for much of anything, and I'm truly not sure what formal work I could reasonably handle without running myself completely into the ground.

So yeah, that (easier, expected) route is pretty much out. Can't rely on working for anybody else, better figure out how to DIY some kind of financially gainful endeavor. Kinda just leaves us back at having the brain to rely on. Better figure out some way to monetize some of the skills and knowledge that I do have.

I probably am reasonably sharp in my own way, with too many interests, generally a pretty fast learner, and persistent as hell when things line up right. And I do have decent practical backup these days. Not gonna starve in the meantime, and can reasonably expect some support in whatever the hell I do settle on trying to make a buck at. That's what I can see as some things really working in my favor.

While indeed neurodivergent as fuck, in some ways that have ALWAYS made figuring what I might even be decent at, can maintain focus on, and keep up somewhat sustainably, very difficult. Oh yeah, and this should probably be something that somebody would be willing to pay me for. (Not even kidding, this has been a persistent problem since I was old enough to even start seriously considering the matter of what to do with my life.)

The general executive function bullshit, with getting and keeping shit together on your own, pretty much goes without saying. But, at least by now I am much more aware of what is even going on there, and that workarounds do mostly exist. That is one hell of an improvement for my 20s, to put it mildly. Same goes for a lot of the other brain/nervous system bullshit that's persistently gotten in my way.

I feel like I should try to come out with something more upbeat to say, because I know this whole screed is a fucking downer. But yeah, that's kinda where I've been a lot of the time lately. Hasn't been great for my mental health for a while now, and some of the brain loops have been wild. (I kinda keep coming back to that, but this is still significantly easier than around when I hit 25. Or pretty well all of my 20s. A lot better perspective and coping skills.)

But, I'll get over it and figure something out. I always eventually do.

[mania-sama]

Trick or treat!!! 😁

hello, dear! welcome to my humble abode! dig into this bowl to get some candy… ah! you’ve got a fanfiction line explanation! a rare gem indeed.

this excerpt is from if you need me, dear, i’m the same as i was:

He’s on the court before Sakusa is. He’s across the net before Argentina can celebrate their victory. He’s grabbing Oikawa’s shoulders tightly before anybody else can get to him. Iwaizumi stares into his estranged best friend’s glassy, confused, uncomprehending eyes. He’s shaking Tooru’s shoulders, desperate as he yells: “You are having a heart attack!” And Hajime is fifteen and three-quarters, learning emergency CPR for his new part-time job as a lifeguard. He thinks that it could come in useful. He thinks that saving people isn’t a job he would mind. And Hajime is sixteen, watching Tooru recover from his surgery, and he realizes he will never play professional volleyball. He wants to help people like Tooru forever — people who want to dedicate their whole life to a sport but have a body that strives to prevent their goal every step of the way. He can’t do that as a player on the court. And Hajime is seventeen, trying to convince Tooru to eat a sandwich even though he is adamantly insisting he isn’t hungry. He discovers sports medicine isn’t just about the physical ills and pains. To be a good athletic trainer, he has to see every aspect of a player’s well-being, and that includes their mental health. And Hajime is eighteen, standing alone in the airport and experiencing loss for the first time. In order for Oikawa to grow as an athlete, he has to cut away the weed strangling his roots. Hajime lets him without complaint. This is part of his new career, after all; if he helps athletes succeed, they would all, one day, leave his medical care. And Hajime is twenty-seven, losing his best friend for a second time at the end of the first set of chest compressions. At least three ribs have cracked under his pace and pressure. He pinches Tooru’s nose, pries his jaw open, and breathes air into his lungs twice. His ring and pinky finger automatically find his pulse point. Nothing. Seeing that no medical equipment has arrived, he starts the second set of chest compressions. Oikawa’s bones creak and give way under his desperation. He knows CPR like the back of his hand; if the ribs are breaking, that means it’s working. It doesn’t get rid of the panic and pain at the thought of how much damage he’s doing to Oikawa’s body. The paramedics are a second too late with their LUCAS device at the end of the last compression. He dives down for another round of mouth-to-mouth, recognizing, faintly yet viscerally at the same time, that Oikawa’s soft skin is pale and rapidly cooling. At the junction between his neck and jaw, Iwaizumi searches for a heartbeat. Breathe. Nothing. Breathe. Nothing.

this entire segment, as i intended, is meant to be read completely out of breath, gasping and choking on every single word. it’s meant to feel like the world is rushing and crumbling around you. it’s meant to be read at the speed of lightning, each word cackling and breaking. the periods in the paragraphs are merely suggestions; every paragraph starts with an and because the last sentence, the last paragraph never really ended.

it’s meant to be, in all intents and purposes, to be one continuous run-on sentence. unfortunately, that would be rather bad form for me as a writer. i don’t have the skill to pull it off just yet.

when you get to the “breathe. nothing. breathe. nothing.” it’s not supposed to be a gentle breathe. it’s supposed to be a gasp, panicked and hurting and desperate. it’s a cry, a sob of pain. medically, he’s doing a very measured recovery breath to force oikawa’s lungs into the action of breathing. mentally, it’s everything but measured. the “nothing” is crying. the actual sob with tears. nothing! he is screaming, knowing that his best friend is fucking dead, but he is saying nothing as he dives into another breath.

it should be read, more accurately, as: “gasp. please, please. don’t leave.”

and this all really stems from the line directly before this excerpt:

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi whispers, all of the air leaving his lungs.

everything just rushed out of him. he has nothing left. and then, the buzzer sounds with this:

Sixteen to fourteen. Team Argentina wins Olympic gold.

that’s the last line of clarity before everything shatters. literally, the sound breaks with the buzzer as the entire world falls away and rushes at the same time.

this is probably my favorite part of the entire fic, one of my favorite things that i have ever written to date. i put a lot of care into this. everything i wrote came from the heart, and i hope how i intended it to be read translated well.