#He's just here now; part of the eternal psyche

[antoncrane]

Man, Rick Sanchez C-137 has really become A Core Blorbo™ HUH.

[artdcnaldson]

Tie Break || Art Donaldson x Reader ; Patrick Zweig x Reader

this can be read as a sequel to changeover or as a standalone :) enjoy <3

Rating: E (18+)

Word Count: 7.7k

Warnings: SMUT (p in v smut x2, f!recieving oral, handjob, creampie, cum eating), angst with a happy ending, infidelity, toxic relationships, everyone in this is kind of a horrible person, language obviously

Summary: It’s summer in Atlanta, 2011. For the second time in your life, you’re the clear second choice. When the opportunity arises, you find a temporary distraction in Art Donaldson.

A/N: FINALLY here it is! The 2011 Atlanta fic. They’re back, they’re older, they’re even more toxic. Let me know if you’re interested in a part 3!

It was hot, even though the sun had long since dipped beneath the horizon. It was a cloying, oppressive heat that made the stupid, business-casual top you wore stick to your skin. 

The article you were working on was halfway written, something you could knock out in the next hour if you really tried. Your drink was watered down from the heat, weak when it hit your tongue. A frown turned your lips, but you really shouldn’t have been drinking anyway.

"Working late?”

The voice was so familiar that you could’ve recognized it anywhere, any time. Art Donaldson was one of the most recognizable men in the country, but to you, he seemed so different. The boyishness was still there, but it lay beneath a new level of confidence.

You took a sip of your drink, trying to appear nonchalant, like it hadn’t been four years since you last spoke. “I’m on deadline. I’m writing a feature on Anna Mueller heading into the US Open next month.”

Without asking, he sat down across from you at the small bistro table. He was so close you could smell the minty gum he had been chewing. It nearly made you smile. Old habits die hard.

“So you write about tennis?” He asked, meeting your gaze. 

“I write about athletes,” you corrected. “I was going to be here anyway, and since Anna is heading for a Grand Slam, I thought it would be easy enough. Grab a couple of interviews, watch a few matches.”

He nodded, leaning back in the chair, trying his best to be causal in a situation that definitely wasn’t. You sipped again at your drink, peering at him over the edge of the glass. 

“You have a match tomorrow,” you said, as though he needed reminding. “Shouldn’t you be listening to shitty pop punk to get yourself psyched right now?”

A smile spread across his lips, and he looked so much like the guy you knew from college that it made your chest tug uncomfortably. Same hair, the same smile, the same crinkle at the edges of his eyes when he was amused by something. You couldn’t help but smile along with him, like the past four years were nothing. “I don’t do that anymore,” he said with a laugh. “Do you want another drink?”

You looked down at your glass, mostly water and thin ice cubes. “Rum and coke?” You asked, giving him a tiny smile. He nodded and disappeared towards the bar.

It felt strange, sitting there in the quiet, your article the furthest thing from your mind. Four years. It felt like yesterday and an eternity ago that you’d last spoken with him. He was a familiar stranger, nearly unknowable. 

Your cursor blinked a few more times before you shut your laptop and slid it back inside your beat-up work bag. 

“Running off?” He asked, catching you in the act of packing your things. You shook your head and accepted the fresh drink with a smile. “You said you were going to be in Atlanta anyway,” he said as he sat, spreading out, making himself comfortable in the shitty bar seating. “When you were talking about writing about Anna.”

You nodded. “Mhmm, I did,” you replied, chewing the inside of your lip nervously. His gaze was intense, falling just on the other side of casual. You felt tiny under that gaze, like you were guilty of a crime you didn’t know you’d committed. 

“And you’re here for Patrick?” The words were nonchalant, but you could hear the accusation beneath them, the history of the two of them just in one sentence. It turned something in your stomach, the possessiveness in his voice. You could hear it, even four years out.

The new drink was strong, but it was the perfect way to hide the distaste in your expression. The burn of liquor into your chest grounded you back in reality instead of the easy allure of nostalgia. “Yeah,” you said after a beat. “I try my best to go to all of his matches.”

Art narrowed his eyes, just slightly. There was still an element of exaggerated friendliness, the casual smile on his lips, the open body language. All of it masking the lingering resentment and hurt that was buried beneath mountains of nostalgia. Deep enough that neither of you had realized it was still there until you found yourselves face to face. There was an unspoken question, one that he didn’t want to ask, one that you didn’t want to answer. 

How long?

You took another drink. 

“Where is Patrick?” He asked, glancing around like he might materialize out of thin air.

“He went out for a smoke, or to walk around and clear his head, or something,” you said with a shrug. “I’m not his keeper. Where’s Tashi?”

His jaw clenched and he looked away— a sore spot. A scab you wanted to pick at until it bled, dig your nails in. Maybe that was your eighteen-year-old self talking. 

“You never used to let her get too far away from you,” you noted, mirth dripping from each syllable. “Bet you came down here looking for her. Your leash must’ve been just a little too loose this time and she slipped it.”

You took a long drink, nails tapping against the glass as you considered your words. Tashi wasn’t the type of woman who let a man hold her back. If you were trying to be more accurate, rather than just piss him off, you might’ve fixed the analogy. Art was the sad little puppy following her around. She tied his leash to a lamp post for a fucking break.

“Do you remember the day Tashi got injured?” He asked, changing the subject suddenly. 

You blinked slowly, appraising him. But his expression gave nothing away. “I do.”

A wry smile spread across his lips, and he met your gaze with a coldness that you didn’t recognize. Mean in the way injured animals like to snap at the nearest hand. “It was Patrick in your room that night, wasn’t it?”

Your brows furrowed, face falling at his words. “What?”

He made a face, something akin to skepticism, but crueler. It made your stomach turn. 

“You were fucking someone in your room,” he said plainly. “And I’ve always had a suspicion that it was Patrick. Was it?”

That didn’t do much to clear up your confusion. “You were there?”

He laughed, mirthless, and nodded. “I was, uh, sitting by the door like an asshole. I came to apologize, to beg for you back, but instead, I spent the night listening to my girlfriend getting fucked on the other side of the door.”

Annoyance flickered in your gaze. He knew of a wound of your own, and he relished in picking at it the way you’d relished in digging your fingers into his. “I wasn’t your girlfriend, Art.”

“Right, you weren’t. But you’re Patrick’s girlfriend now, is that it?”

Heat burned in your cheeks. Your relationship with Patrick was… tempestuous to say the least. Most of the time he was your boyfriend, but others he was just a friend that you could count on for a good fuck, sometimes not even a friend. At the moment, he was the former, but that could always change.

It wasn’t easy, being with someone whose emotions ran on an equally short fuse. You’d sound too much like his parents, or he’d devalue your work, or Patrick would forget to take out the trash in your apartment and you’d snap, or you’d mispronounce a word one too many times and it would drive him crazy. Insignificant things could feel big with him, because of him. For better or worse. 

“At the moment, yes.”

“At the moment.” He echoed, laughing like he was in on some joke you were painfully unaware of.

”That’s amusing to you?” You asked, raising a brow. 

He shrugged, picking at his jeans. “Your choice of words is interesting.” He lets that hang in the air before he meets your gaze again. “Do you think Patrick would’ve even noticed you if it hadn’t been for me?”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “Does it matter?” You asked. “You realize that we’ve been together going on four years now, right? Broken up, dating, fucking, whatever. You realize that there may be more important things in our life than you?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. I think you know that whatever you have, it’s built on the fact that you were a warm body when he needed it. Just like you were for me.”

That arrogant expression, like he actually fucking knew anything about you anymore was the last straw. You stood suddenly, grabbing your bag. You weren’t Art Donaldson’s little lapdog anymore— you didn’t have to sit there and take all the shit he doled out. 

“Goodnight, Art. Thanks for the drink.”

It was funny, how your weaknesses were still so exposed. Art’s was Tashi, and it probably always would be. His desire to be seen, to impress, painted upon every lovely feature. And yours, raw and bleeding and obvious— the unbearable, visceral need to be wanted.

You made it to the elevator before you felt his presence behind you. Wordless, but so close it was suffocating. You jabbed the up button over and over in frustration, knowing it wouldn’t speed anything up. 

Art stepped into the elevator with you, so close you could feel the body heat radiating off of him. He always burned hot, like a human furnace. 

It was silent as the lift lurched upwards. You pressed against the back corner, watching the number of the floor increase one by one. 

“Patrick is with Tashi,” Art said without looking at you, just as the elevator opened on the floor of your room. You froze, swallowing hard. “I saw them in the hotel bar, then they left together. What do you think they’re doing right now?”

You shook your head dumbly, pulse thrumming in your throat. “Go fuck yourself, Art,” you said weakly, because what else was there to say? You stepped into the hallway— lit with dim yellow light so you couldn’t see where the wallpaper peeled and the carpet was stained.

“If you need somewhere to wait them out, and you will, I’m in room 13 on the seventh floor.” The elevator doors closed, and you were alone. 

The hallway was winding, and you felt a bad sort of anticipation of what you might find, like a sick feeling in your gut. You stood in front of the room, 306, and froze.

The door to your room was closed, no light shone from beneath the door, but you could hear them. Muffled, but clear enough. A pretty voice and breathy moans. Patrick’s laugh, the thud of something falling off the dresser.

Your room key was in your purse— you could’ve gotten it out and stopped it, but what good would that have done? You’d still spend the night humiliated, facing opposite walls as Patrick, lying in the same sheets he’d just fucked her in. 

You dropped the bag by the door and took a slow, shaky breath to calm yourself down. 

Tashi Duncan. She had lingered on the edges of your relationship with Patrick too. She was Patrick’s first choice, just as she’d been Art’s. You’d never blamed them for that, you knew where you stood, and you chose them anyway. 

It was easy to choose them when you thought that the threat was nonexistent— when distance made you feel safe. You could hear her and him, but it felt like mere static in your brain.

You knew how Art felt, back at Stanford. Sulking outside the door, unable and unwilling to stop what was happening on the other side. 

You were in the elevator before you realized you’d walked away. Shitty soft rock played over the speakers, and a poster on the wall advertised a continental breakfast. Your stomach turned uncomfortably. 

You knocked on the door— room thirteen, an unlucky number. Maybe it didn’t bode well. As you waited for the door to open, your nails tapped a staccato rhythm against your thigh.

Art opened the door like he’d been expecting someone else. Maybe he had half-expected you to interrupt and send Tashi back upstairs, but no. He got you standing at his door with fiery eyes and an expectant expression. 

Second choice, second choice, second choice.

Art kissed you for the first time in four years, and you let him. Not because you wanted to hurt Patrick or Tashi, but because you knew it would hurt you. His tongue pressed between the seam of your lips like he belonged there, licking into your mouth like he wanted to reclaim every part of you that Patrick had touched. You pushed him with a firm hand on his chest and he stumbled backward into the room. Despite everything, he smiled. 

His hotel room was nearly identical to yours and Patrick’s. But you didn’t have time to really take in the details when he had his tongue in your mouth, kissing you hungrily.

That afternoon, you kissed Patrick after he lost his match. You wondered if Art could still taste him on your tongue then, if he wanted to drown out the taste of him. 

It was different than you were used to. Four years with Patrick meant that you’d grown accustomed to certain ways that he did things— the intensity behind each kiss, each touch. His emotions— good, bad, in between— were never masked, never repressed. 

When Patrick kissed you, when he touched you, when he fucked you— both of you were laid completely bare. 

Art was different. When he kissed you it was through a certain level of performance, like he’d learned how from a searing romance film. In college, you’d believed that he kissed you like that because deep down, he did love you. Even at that moment, years out from your relationship with him, it muddled your brain.

Your sensible work heels had long since been kicked off by the door. Art’s fingers undid the button and zip of your jeans deftly, with a confidence that had only doubled since Freshman year. They wound up in a heap against the hotel dresser. 

In his haste to remove your (also sensible, and very business casual) button-down, he popped about half of the buttons off completely. 

“Sorry,” he said. The grin on his lips made you wonder if sorry was really how he felt. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Stop talking.” You pulled off your bra and lost it somewhere across the room in your haste. Art was pulling off his clothes— his hoodie and the shirt beneath. His jeans and shoes toed off and left to be dealt with later. 

He kissed you again, guiding you exactly where he needed. Your knees hit the back of the mattress and he eased you down without moving his lips from yours. When your head hit the sheets, you smelled perfume so sweet that it was nearly intoxicating. You turned your head, breathing deeply. Tashi. In this same bed, in this same spot. It made something stir inside you— right in your chest. A hint of wrongness, a hint of hurt. 

Art pulled back, moving his lips along your jaw, down to the junction of your throat. 

“Stop thinking,” he murmured against your skin, kissing down to your tits. “I don’t want you thinking about Patrick. Not when you’re with me.”

The words were mumbled against soft, supple skin. His eyes were intent as they looked up at you, the demand of momentary fidelity in his eyes. You wanted to slap that expression off of his face, or run your thumb along his cheek and hold his face in your hands. 

How was it fair that he asked you that when he’d lingered like a ghost on the edges of whatever it was that you and Patrick had? How was it fair for him to look at you like that?

He took a nipple into his mouth and you gasped as his teeth grazed against the sensitive skin. Soft kisses before he suckled softly. “Okay,” you gasped, lying through your teeth. “I’m only thinking of you.”

His hair was still long, kept the same way he wore it in school. Your fingers tangled in his hair like muscle memory, scratching against his scalp as he kissed along your skin with wet lips, treating your other breast with the same, hungry attention.

“Still so fucking hot,” he mumbled against your skin. “Should’ve— fuck— should’ve kept you. What do you want, huh? Tell me.”

Your mind swam with possibilities, but you didn’t even know where to begin. Your mind was stuck on his previous words. Should’ve kept you. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?  “I don’t know,” you replied, completely honest. “Whatever you want.”

He accepted that easily— it was so similar to how you’d been for him in college. You gasped as he kissed down your sternum, then your stomach. His lips found the waistband of your panties and he grinned, tugging at the lace with his teeth, letting it snap back against your hip. 

He peeled your panties down slowly, letting his hands trail down the expanse of your legs. The possessiveness of the touch sent a thrill up your spine. His lips grazed along your skin, from your ankle, up your calf, then your knee. Your legs spread instinctively, welcoming him right back where he knew he belonged. His pretty lips trailed wet kisses up your thighs, stopping just where you wanted him. 

You expected him to rush. He’d seen Patrick and Tashi leave, which meant they’d finish before you two, more likely than not. There was every reason in the world to make things quick— to fuck you and make you leave. 

Instead, he took his time with you. Soft, teasing kisses peppered on the supple skin of your thighs before he nuzzled into your cunt. The first delve of his tongue was slow and exploratory, tasting the arousal that had pooled at your core. 

”God, you still taste so fucking sweet.”

Another thing you’d nearly forgotten about Art— in all things, he was methodical.

He started with kitten licks at your clit— light brushes with his tongue that made you whimper needily for more. His tongue circled you there, and he relished in the way your fingers tugged on his hair at the sensation. 

Then he wrapped his lips around the sensitive bud, sucking with more pressure until a strangled moan squeezed past your lips. Your thighs tensed on either side of his head, holding him there as he alternated between slow, soothing licks and firm suction.

It was frustrating, how wet you were. Art had brought out the worst in you, turned you into something that left you feeling genuinely embarrassed. And still, you were slick, dripping down to the sheets. A mess of arousal and Art’s spit. 

When he eased a finger into your cunt, it slid in like your body was made to fit whatever he could give you. At that point, you very well could have been. What were you, if not an object orbiting in the atmosphere of his life?

He looked up at you, seeming so fucking intent on making it feel good for you as he crooked his finger. It rubbed against the soft, spongy spot within you and you cried out, eyes rolling back. 

“That’s it, huh?” He cooed as he pressed a second finger inside of you. Your arm was slung over your face. You couldn’t let yourself keep looking at him when he was looking at you the same way he had in college. The same fucking expression that got your head all mixed up in the first place. 

He pressed a soft kiss to your clit and you whimpered. “I know it feels good, baby, just relax.”

His fingers thrust within you with a slow, deep pressure as he continued to make out with your clit. It was always so good with him— you’d nearly forgotten how easy it was for him to bring you to the edge. 

When you came, it wasn’t like what you had grown used to with Patrick— sudden and overwhelming, like it had been ripped from some secret place within you. It was intense, but slow to build, seeming to last forever as Art’s fingers and tongue worked you through it. Your breath was shaky as he pulled back, pretty mouth wet with your arousal.

“Do you want to stop?” He asked, looking up at you expectantly. 

You should’ve stopped— rationally, you knew that it was best to turn back and quit before you fucked up the situation beyond repair. 

But it was Art. He could’ve had anyone else, but he wanted you. Maybe not forever, or even longer than that night. But for then. 

You shook your head softly. “No. Do you think we should stop?”

His fingers moved between your thighs, circling your clit. “We definitely should. You’re with Patrick.”

You sighed, eyes fluttering as he caressed you with featherlight touches. “Don’t fucking talk about him,” you said, but your words came out with no bite. How could they, when he was playing with your body like a favorite toy?

“No?” He asked. He was wearing a smug sort of expression. “You don’t want me to talk about your boyfriend, huh? Too personal?”

You moaned as he applied more pressure at the apex of your thighs, making your cunt clench and ache to be filled. 

“Does Patrick know how much you’ve missed me?” He asked. Your breath caught in your throat, and he just smiled. “I bet he does. I think he knows that if he just drops my name in a conversation, your pussy gets wet.”

You moaned softly at his words, chest heaving with soft pants. You weren’t even sure if it was true, but it felt like it could’ve been then. He leaned down, his words spoken close to your ear.

“I can go slow. Make it last for you.” His lips brushed the shell of your ear, making you shiver. 

You nodded eagerly, turning your head to capture his lips with yours. The kiss was slow, like you had all the time in the world. His tongue against yours, the weight of his body on top of you, the feel of him hard, pressing against your thigh. 

He sat back to strip off his boxers, and you relished in the sight of him laid bare before you. You’d nearly forgotten how pretty he was— big and flushed nearly red with need. It made your heart hammer with nerves; your excitement and shame and need rolled into one messy, electrifying tangle. 

His hair flopped into his eyes as he held himself over you, just like you remembered. You reached up, brushing it out of his eyes with a tender hand. His lips brushed against the inside of your wrist, right where your pulse thrummed in your veins. 

“Tell me you’ve missed me.”

Heat flooded your entire body, as you repeated the words. “I missed you, Art.” You reached between your bodies, wrapping your hand around his cock, and guiding it towards your entrance. He moaned and bucked instinctively into your hand.

”Tell me you want me to fuck you, no one else.” You could hear the implications in his words. Tell me you want me, not Patrick. 

“I want you to fuck me.”

Art pressed himself inside of you, sinking into the welcoming warmth of your cunt. You wrapped your legs around his waist, squeezing him closer, deeper, until his balls pressed firm against you and there was nothing else to give.

He thrust shallowly, rocking against a spot deep within you, one that made your eyes flutter with each brush against it.

“You’re so tight still,” he moaned, lips moving against your throat. “Pussy’s made just for me.”

He touched you like he hadn’t forgotten how you felt or what you needed. Spoke to you like you were one of his possessions.

You lost yourself in it— the sweet, filthy words spoken against your skin, and the rhythm of his body moving against yours. His lips captured yours with a hungry insistence, like he could convey four years' worth of unspoken words with a few brushes of his tongue against yours. 

When he pulled back, lips spit slick and looking so pretty, you thought maybe there was a sort of understanding between the two of you.

His head fell back as he sped up his thrusts, chasing his release. There wasn’t time to stretch it out, to spend as much time as you could with each other’s bodies. 

“Need you to cum,” he said, sliding a hand between your thighs to rub your still-sensitive clit. Your cunt was squeezing him tight, body aching for it, for him, brought to the edge simply because he’d asked for it. “C’mon— you get so tight when you cum, need to feel it again.”

It was like your body was hardwired to give him exactly what he wanted. You came with broken moans of his name and legs squeezing him closer, deeper. Your chest heaved with shaking breaths and punched out whimpers as he kept fucking into you.

He was practically crushing you with his weight, pinning you down, groaning into the junction of your shoulder. 

“Gonna make me cum, baby,” his words vibrated against skin tacky with a thin sheen of sweat.

”Want you to.” Your arms slung around his back, holding him close to you. “I’ve got an IUD, so you can— you can cum.”

His lips met yours as he came, with a pretty moan into your open mouth and slow, messy kisses that made you want to just melt into him and stay that way forever. 

Spent, he rolled over and turned on a lamp at the bedside. The alarm clock announced the time in a dim red glow— five past one.

You lay there, damp between your thighs from the mixture of your releases, unsure of what to do. It was cold beneath the hotel AC. He was peering over at you, wearing an expression you were scared to dissect.

When his hand touched your arm, you nearly flinched. Your breath caught in your throat as he ran his thumb along your skin, so sweetly that you felt that same discomfort tug at your chest. 

“C’mere,” he said, an offer. His arm was splayed over the pillows, giving you the perfect spot to lie down and press yourself against his side. To pretend like you belonged there.

But you didn’t belong there. You belonged four floors down with Patrick. That’s where you had belonged for four years. The reality of what you’d done had set in quickly, and you knew you needed to get out of Art’s room. 

”Art,” you said softly, shaking your head. “I have to go.”

He nodded and sat up against the headboard. You watched him grab his boxers and pull them back on, a strange smile on his face. He must’ve sensed your confusion, even without you saying. 

“It’s funny how things change,” he said. “Here I am, asking you to stay for once.”

You didn’t say anything as you picked up your clothes from around the room, redressing as you recovered each piece from its hiding spot around the room. Your shirt was unsalvageable, so you grabbed Art’s. He had plenty of brand sponsors that would jump to replace it, and Patrick wouldn’t recognize it.

“I loved you, I think,” he said suddenly. “Back in college.”

You froze, arms crossed over your chest as you looked at him. “Art—“

“No, I did. I loved you, I just did it all wrong.”

“Art, just stop,” you said firmly. Embarrassment hit you all at once— the guilt of what you’d done, and the shame over who you’d done it with. Your eyes stung as you looked at him. “Why the fuck would you say that?”

His lips twitched, dipping into a frown, then back into as close to a neutral expression as he could manage. “I just thought you should know. It’s only fair.”

You laughed mirthlessly. “Fair? Jesus Christ, you really haven’t changed, Art.” 

His expression fell completely. It looked like it had back in the hotel bar— icy. “I haven’t changed? What’s that supposed to mean?”

You sighed as you looked at him. “It means that if this were Stanford, that would’ve made me crawl right back into bed, lay by your side, and daydream about what it could mean for us. If one day I might be Mrs. Art Donaldson. It means that you say these sweet things to me every time you can feel me slipping away, but they mean absolutely nothing. We’re not nineteen anymore, Art. I’m not leaving Patrick to be your plaything again.”

His jaw tensed, and he looked down at the bed briefly while he picked at loose threads on the sheets. “You think that’s what I want?”

You frowned. “I think you want what Patrick has.”

He scoffed. “Patrick doesn’t even want what he has,” he said, relishing in the wounded look on your face. “If he did, he wouldn’t be fucking my fiancée right now.”

Fiancée. You felt stupid for not knowing it, but you swallowed down your hurt and met his gaze. “I guess we’re both going to have to be content with being the second choice.” You slipped on your shoes and went for the door. “Good luck with your match tomorrow, Art. I sincerely hope that I never have to see you again.”

The hallway felt colder when you stepped outside of the room and shut the door firmly behind you. A very big part of you wanted to go back, to knock and apologize and grovel like you might have when you were a freshman.

Maybe you hadn’t grown up that much after all. 

The elevator was playing Billy Joel. You leaned against the side of the elevator, relishing in the cold against your sticky skin. When the doors opened on your floor and you stepped out, you blinked in surprise. 

Tashi stood in front of you for the first time since college, looking just as stunning as you remembered, probably more so. Her hair was pulled up, slightly damp at the ends. Her eyes flicked down to your shirt, Art’s shirt, you swallowed as an understanding passed between the two of you— wordless, because what was there to say at that point?

”You left your laptop in the hallway,” she said, skipping formalities. “I took it inside so it wouldn’t get stolen.”

“Okay,” you said, chewing on your lip. She stood there like she expected something more. You felt her surveying you, and froze as she reached forward and rubbed at your bottom lip.

“He could’ve at least cleaned you up a bit,” she said. Her fingers delicately fixed your hair, tucking it back into place. She wiped a smudge of lipstick from the side of your mouth. Once there was nothing left to fix, she looked at you one last time and nodded. “You should be fine now.”

Before you could process that, she stepped into the elevator, and you were left alone in the hallway. When you made it to the room, the door was cracked open, so you let yourself in.

Patrick was on the balcony smoking a cigarette, a towel slung low around his waist. The bed was a fucking wreck, not that he seemed to mind. 

When the door clicked shut, he stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking and joined you back in the room. 

“Are we going to talk about it?” He asked. His jaw tensed as he looked at you, like he was ready if you were going to start a fight.

“I just want to go to bed, Patrick,” you said, annoyed by how wobbly and pathetic you sounded. 

He stepped forward and kissed your forehead. “Okay. We’ll go to bed.”

You kicked off your clothes, but left on Art’s hoodie. Patrick didn’t ask where it came from, or what happened to what you were wearing earlier. You knew he already knew, that he could tell the moment you walked in. He dropped the towel onto a heap on the floor, climbed into the bed, and held out his arms for you.

A stronger person would’ve told him to fuck off, but you weren’t a stronger person. You nestled into his side and felt the hot sting of tears in your eyes. 

He rubbed your back soothingly and kissed your forehead. The sheets smelled like Tashi, he smelled like hotel soap, and you smelled like Art’s cologne. 

“Do you want room service in the morning?” He asked softly.

“Patrick—“

“I’m serious. We can have breakfast in bed, do some tourist-y shit, maybe we’ll go watch a couple of matches, then come back and—“

“Are we supposed to just forget what happened?” You interrupted.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.” He kissed your forehead, tender, sweet. “I’ll tell you everything if that’s what you want.”

You met his gaze. “Do you… do you want to know? About Art?”

He went quiet as he played with the ends of your hair. “Did it make you feel any better?” He finally asked. 

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Then it didn’t.”

He kissed the crown of your head. “No?”

You shook your head, sighing softly as his kisses trailed down, over your nose, to the sides of your mouth. “No. It was a mistake.”

”Tell me about it,” he said, murmuring against your jaw. “Tell me how he touched you.”

You shivered, tilting your head to give him more access. Your nails scratched softly against his scalp as he sucked bruises onto your throat. 

“He was desperate,” you said, heart hammering as you began recounting it to Patrick— your boyfriend. There was no world in which he should’ve wanted to hear about it… and yet. He moaned against your throat, encouraging you, wanting to know more. “Kissed me like he wanted to taste you in my mouth, like he wanted to overpower you.”

Patrick moved his lips to yours, kissing you with a sloppy brush of his tongue against yours. “Like that?”

You shook your head and leaned in, deepening the kiss with slow laps of your tongue into his mouth. He moaned softly, matching your pace in a way that was rare, but made butterflies dance around in your stomach. He pulled you on top of him— hands roaming from the backs of your thighs to squeeze your ass as he deepened the kiss. It was just as slow and sweet as before, but you could sense the need and hunger behind it.

You pulled back, just enough to remove your lips from his. Both of your breaths came in needy pants. You weren’t sure why you were enjoying this, but you were, so you kept going. “He took off my clothes, and laid me down on the bed.”

Patrick moaned, chasing your lips. You sat back and just looked at him— lying there with still-damp curls, his pupils blown with lust. His cock was hard, resting against his stomach, precum beading at the tip.

You pulled off Art’s hoodie and tossed it across the room, relishing in the way Patrick’s eyes raked over every bit of exposed skin like it was the first time he’d seen it. “He ate me out, made me cum on his fingers first, then again while he was inside of me,” Patrick’s breath caught, just for a moment. Desire, or jealousy, or both flickered across his gaze. “He fucked me like he wanted me to fall in love with him again.”

Patrick’s chest was heaving as you moved a hand between your bodies, grasping his cock in your hand, stroking slowly. “Is that how you fucked Tashi? Like you wanted her to pick you instead of her fiancé?” He moaned as your thumb ran over his slit, smearing the precum that had begun to dribble out. 

“No,” He groaned. You nodded encouragingly, squeezing him tighter in your fist. “Fuck. I fucked her like I wanted her to know she made a mistake. Made her cum until she tapped out”

You ran a thumb over his bottom lip, tugging slightly. “With this pretty mouth, huh?” He nodded, wordlessly. “And with this?” You gave a slow stroke of his dick, making him buck up into your fist. Another nod. 

“Show me.”

Patrick’s brows furrowed in disbelief. “Show you?”

You nodded and continued stroking him. “I told you about Art, so I want you to show me how you fucked Tashi.”

You recognized the fucking insanity of what you were asking, but you didn’t care. It was a strange form of closure— closing the circle, or whatever. 

“Fuck, okay. Lay back,” he said, patting your thigh. You slid off his lap and settled atop the sheets, watching him expectantly. 

His fingers hooked in the waistband of your panties, and he slid them down slowly. “Fuck.” Your cheeks flooded with heat as he held the sodden fabric up, wet and sticky with Art’s cum. He groaned and hooked your thighs over his shoulders. “That’s… god, that’s really fucking hot, baby.”

Oh. The mix of embarrassment and desire was something new— burning hot in the pit of your stomach as Patrick licked at your pussy, tasting the evidence of your arousal mingling with Art’s release. He moaned against you, holding you so tightly that his fingers dimpled your thighs. 

His tongue lapped at your entrance, pushing into your cunt as deep as he could manage, then back to licking at your clit. It was messy— a combination of spit and cum and your juices.

“Fuck!” You cried out, tugging his hair as he sealed his lips around your clit. He moaned loudly against you, encouraging you to do it again, the fucking masochist. 

He redoubled his efforts, pulling you closer, moaning against your cunt. It was like he wanted to devour you, to lick up every bit of Art that was left inside of you. You wanted him to try— you wanted him to replace every part of Art that was left in your body and soul.

“Patrick,” you gasped. He murmured an mhmm against your pussy. Eyes closed, right at home between your thighs, lost in the taste of you. “Need you inside.”

He planted one, two sloppy kisses to your clit before he pulled back, his lips shiny with your arousal. He wiped the mess away with the back of his hand, smirking down at you. “You need me, huh?”

You nodded, chest heaving with each panting breath. Patrick sat down at the headboard and patted his thigh. “Prove it.”

You sat up, crawling up the bed until you were straddling his lap. “You made her do all the work?” 

He laughed, running his hands up your thighs to squeeze your ass, tug you closer. “I didn’t make her do anything.” Patrick had a hand wrapped around his cock, and you moaned softly as he guided it between your thighs to notch at your entrance. 

You sank down slowly, forehead pressed against his as you took inch after inch. “Fuck,” you breathed. You leaned forward, brushing your lips against his as you gave a slow roll of your hips. “Fuck. You’re so deep, Pat. Feels so good.”

His head fell back against the headboard as you began to ride him in earnest. “Fuck, just like that,” he groaned, still wearing that fucking smirk, even balls deep inside of you. “That’s it, baby, take what you need.”

And you did. The way he was looking at him was proof enough, he was eating up every fucking second of you fucking yourself on him, using him like a toy. 

Your noises were near-pornographic— Right there, fuck, you’re so big baby, so fucking deep.

The poor soul next door slammed on the wall, begging for you to just shut the fuck up. Patrick silenced you with a hungry kiss— a mess of tongues and spit. His fingers moved on your clit, pulling you towards the edge with desperate need. 

“Close,” you gasped. 

He nodded, moving his fingers faster. “I know you are. I’ve got you.” 

You collapsed on top of him as you came— hips canting weakly as he worked you through it. He thrust up into your tight walls, groaning at the feeling of your cunt spasming around his cock. 

“Fuck, you feel so perfect,” he groaned, burying his face into the junction of your throat. “Gonna cum— fuck—“

You moaned softly at the feeling of him spilling inside of you— the soft pulse of him, the warmth of his cum flooding your cunt. You stayed on his lap, kissing his freckled nose, his eyelids, his mouth. 

When you finally moved off of him, you whimpered at that loss of fullness, and of the slick mess seeping out between your thighs. If you were smart, you would’ve gone and cleaned up, but there was nothing more you wanted than to lay there in Patrick’s arms and fall asleep. 

Whatever. You’d leave housekeeping a very generous tip. He sighed contentedly as you lay there— like you were made to fit against him perfectly.  A warm hand rubbed comforting circles on your back, and you felt so at home, even in an Atlanta hotel. 

“I love you, you know that?” He asked.

You looked up and nodded. “I know. I love you too.”

You found yourself staring up over at Patrick with a stupid, persistent smile on your face. He turned to watch you watching him, wearing a matching grin on his face. It was hard to tell who started laughing first— you or Patrick. At the absurdity of it all, at yourselves. 

“God, we’re so messed up,” you said, with another laugh.

He nodded. “Really messed up, but whatever. Apparently your brain isn’t even fully developed until you’re 25.”

“Great, so we have one more year until we’re normal, rational adults.” He laughed, holding you against his chest. 

He reached over and kissed your forehead. You were so sticky and gross that you really needed a shower, but, again— it was a tomorrow problem.

It fell quiet, and you could feel yourself slipping into comfortable drowsiness when Patrick finally spoke up. “Are we going to be okay?”

You blinked slowly. With your hand resting on his chest, you could feel his heart thudding just beneath your palm.

When you were twenty, you met Patrick’s parents. Crowded into his childhood bed with your head resting against his chest, his heart pounded as he apologized for the intense grilling you’d received that night at dinner. It was the first time you ever felt like his bravado had been shaken, like you were seeing through to the core of him. 

You always knew you would be the one to say you loved him first— it was just the way things went. “I don’t care if they like me,” you had assured him. “I love you.” His heart beat harder, faster. He didn’t say it back until two days later, when he was fucking you in that very same bed— forehead to yours, skin sticky with sweat. “I love you,” breathed into your mouth like air. 

When you were twenty-two, you moved into an apartment in Manhattan and Patrick followed like a housecat— no rent, no job, just company and a mouth to feed. The tour wasn’t going well, and you were working for a shitty, clickbait news site that hardly covered the cost of your place. 

Things were good, mostly. Comfortable, domestic. Patrick tried to be a good boyfriend, you tried to be a good girlfriend. Both of you were trying to figure out what that meant for the other as best as you could. Patrick would bring you flowers from the corner store and take you out for drinks and dancing on weekends. You’d drive out on holidays to visit his family and wind up leaving early to go back to the comforts and peace of your apartment. 

When you could, you’d follow him out to tournaments. If he won, he’d take you out with the prize money. If he lost, you’d take him back to the hotel to cheer him up.

On rough days, one of you would come home to the apartment and pick a fight over laundry, or a dish left in the sink, or even what he’d left on TV, and the other would give it back tenfold. Your neighbors would beat on their walls in annoyance as you yelled at each other, until one of you slammed a door and sulked in another room for a few hours, or you had make-up sex that gave the neighbors another reason to bang on their walls. 

The breakups were infrequent but severe. You’d kick Patrick out, he’d live out of his car, or in a motel, or fuck off to some tennis tournament that you’d previously promised to go to. One of you always broke first, returning to the other with promises of love, and to do better.

You did love each other, really. And things usually got better. It was just easy to live with your feelings dialed up to a ten where Patrick was involved: bigger good moments, worse bad ones. 

Your career had vastly improved. Patrick had moved up in the rankings, only slightly, but it was something. You could afford a bigger apartment in a nicer area, maybe get a dog. And you didn’t just want those things alone, you wanted them with him. 

You pressed a kiss to the center of his chest and nodded. “We’ll be fine,” you assured. It felt like the truth.

He nodded, looking down at you. His freckles were so much more pronounced after tournament after tournament in the blazing sun. “Yeah, probably.”

The next morning, you both got the continental breakfast you’d seen in the elevator while housekeeping dealt with the aftermath of the previous night. You did tourist-y shit— went to a museum, found a nice spot for lunch.

At the end of the day, you sat in the oppressive Atlanta heat with Patrick and watched Art Donaldson win his tennis match. You and Patrick left early, fucked in the backseat of his car, and decided to head home early. 

As you started the drive back, you held his hand over the center console and listened to a shitty mix CD with songs he’d ripped off of LimeWire. You gave him shit when Kelly Clarkson followed Lil Wayne, but you both sang along to every fucking word. 

You were right. You and Patrick would probably be fine.

[lightseoul]

a/n. pleasantly surprised at how quickly i wrote this bit, it practically wrote itself. glad the first part was interesting for a lot of you—i love writing about psych/therapy stuff (despite my complex relationship with 'em), and ofc bkg <3 i honestly don't know where i'm going with this, but it's been fun so far. (0.8k)

navigation. part 1, (you are here), part 3

thankfully—and to the relief of whatever dignity he had left—that interaction was short-lived.

well, it’s mostly because after you blinked at him for what felt like a torturous eternity and said a shaky hello back, he gave you a curt nod as if he wasn’t the one who just initiated the exchange and bolted it out of there without a single glance back.

that bit haunted him for the next few days, reappearing in his consciousness whenever the topic of therapy or anything remotely close to it was broached. he even snapped at kirishima when the redhead asked how his latest session went during one of their evening patrols together. it was a kneejerk reaction, an entirely out-of-proportion, aggressive response that shocked even him, which says a lot.

he should go ahead and text the guy an apology.

eventually, though, that unfortunate powwow slowly faded into the background of his exceptionally busy mind as the days went on. things got so hectic in the agency that he had to postpone his appointment for the week, which���quite frankly—is an upside to this chaos, because he sure wasn’t pumped about discussing his love life, or the lack thereof, with the jarringly knowing middle-aged lady. being able to definitively avoid you and buy you more time to forget about his stupid social blunder is merely the cherry on top.

okay, maybe the incident didn’t actually slip his mind after all.

“…bakugou-san? are you still with me?”

dazed, bakugou squeezes his eyes shut before fluttering them open, and what greets him is the very same lady against the backdrop of her increasingly familiar office, only this time she’s looking more concerned than perceptive.

right. he’s supposed to be in the middle of a session right now.

“yeah, sorry,” he mumbles, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of irrelevant thoughts and focus on the matters at hand. therapy is expensive, after all. “i’m here.”

that doesn’t seem to placate the woman who instead prods, much to his chagrin. “you seem out of it today. is there something in your mind that you want us to talk about?”

for a second, he debates caving and just telling her the dumb shit that happened two weeks ago, but then backtracks when it dawns on him how ridiculous everything is. what is he, a prepubescent boy? he died and survived a major war, for fuck’s sake. why is he so hung up on seeming awkward for once in his life?

even hearing it in his head is embarrassing enough.

that settles it, then. his lips are and will remain sealed.

but then his gaze refocuses on his therapist, and the sheer ‘unconditional positive regard’ or whatever the crap is called that she’s radiating becomes so palpable that it just spills out of him.

“i fucked up.”

that makes the lady frown—which, if he thinks about it, is understandable, because he rarely opens up about his failures, let alone this blatantly—although she manages to quickly school her expression into a more neutral one. “can i ask you to expound on it?”

at that, bakugou sighs, because it’s either he just tells the laughable truth or actually cite one of his actual mistakes—which he’s not feeling right now, by the way. or he can expertly maneuver the conversation to another topic, but something tells him there’s no getting out of the current subject. maybe today, there is, but it’ll surely loom over their next sessions indefinitely until either of them revisits it.

he should know. it’s happened to him too many times, he’s lost count.

with this realization, he can only sigh again.

“it’s stupid,” he preempts.

“i’d like to hear it regardless,” comes her classic, supportive response.

and so he does it. talk, that is. it starts off a bit rough—he didn’t know how to even begin without flushing like an idiot, but he managed to get the brief anecdote going. he still ended up blushing anyway—the warmth in his cheeks was undeniable—and if she noticed, she gratefully didn’t point it out. by the time he’s finished with the trivial tale, he’s mildly out of breath, having said everything in one continuous burst.

“i told you,” he spits when she doesn’t say anything for a beat. “it’s stupid.”

“i’d normally ask you to reconsider the adjectives you use for yourself and your experiences, but i think you’ve heard enough of that.”

he snorts. damn straight.

the woman then shoots him a smile, and he has to tamp down the reflex to bristle at an impending attempt to placate him. fortunately, it doesn’t come.

what does, instead, is a question.

one that catches him completely off guard.

“did you find her attractive?”

the fuck, is his first, immediate thought.

but then his normally trusty and acute brain seemingly comes to life and promptly supplies a second one that leaves him frozen and utterly dumbfounded.

yes.

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 feel free to drop an ask, too—i'd love to chat with you. have a nice day!

tagging. @bunnysaursushii @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lotuslovers @elarakive @sugurusmoon @napbatata @k0z3me @h0ngh0ngh0ng @honeyoru @yoongiwithglasses @hellokitty-doll @lilsebnem @tetsuukuroo @crangrapel0ver @syrhra | @kalulakunundrum @cheezemanz @gold24fish @lunaryasha

[duskier]

Invisible man but it's toxic Ghoap x reader ...

cw: this is literally just ghoap mentally torturing reader and there are mentions of them intending to kill the reader 🫶

Them having access to fictional sounding levels of military technology and getting two suits of their own that allow them to go completely invisible- suits designed to even erase their shadows via a complex system of reflections and lights.

Of course, you're the first thing to come to mind when they put them on. You were their favorite barista at a café close to base. You probably didn't remember them out of your sea of regulars, but they never stopped thinking about you, a mutual fixation on you blooming between them. They start out small, breaking and entering in the middle of the night. Unplugging your phone from the charger so you wake up without an alarm, the battery long dead. Turning off power to your fridge and leaving the doors open, the food spoiled by the time you wake up.

The best part of the suits is they get to stick around and watch your devastation. Scrambling out of bed with a panicked, half asleep noise, putting on the first set of work clothes you can find. Soap leaning against your fridge so he can get a full look at your face as it crumples at the sight, your vegetables wilted and your meat already smelling.

Ghost takes it a step further after nights of keeping you awake with strange knocks around the house or precious items crashing to the floor. Soap has to bite his lip to keep from giggling as they take turns whispering your name in the night. They wait a few minutes between while they watch you peer into the dark, breath shaking in your chest in fear. You look so adorable with your eyes wide and darting about, like a pretty little thing of prey in your thin tank top and comfy panties. Like you're just waiting to be eaten.

Ghost brushes by Soap, hands reaching out purposefully to give his hand a squeeze. A silent command to stay. Soap is left waiting with you, continuing to admire how vulnerable you look. All it does is leave his cock swelling in the pants, fantasizing about ways he could get you to make that pretty frightened face for him more directly. Soap couldn't wait to get his hands on you, make you feel real weakness under his grip. They weren't going to fuck with you forever, this was just them playing with their food. A sort of foreplay. He wonders if you'd cry, if you'd beg for your life. Or would you try and play along, in hopes they'd spare you? Would you try to fight back, could you maybe land a blow on him? Soap palms himself quietly, careful to not let your now focused hearing catch him in the act. He really hopes you can split his lip or something, leave a scar to remember you by.

The both of you startle as suddenly you hear Ghost bellowing your name from somewhere on the first floor. His voice is so loud, so angry, it barely sounds human and is left ringing in your ears for a full minute after. You're paralyzed with fear, hyperventilating now. Before you could snap out of it and reach for your phone, you screamed at the feeling of a hand gripping your ankle and yanking you to the foot of the bed.

There was nothing and no one there. Even in the limited light you could tell that you were alone. This must have been a break in your psyche, you reassured yourself, just because you haven't been sleeping well and things have been going wrong in the house. No matter how you reassure yourself, you still creep down the stairs to look around for any signs of intrusion.

Every step, you pause and listen around for something, anything. Maybe a bear broke into your house for food or a thief was rooting through your office for your safe box. Maybe it was something as small and harmless as mice knocking over furniture. Every second feels like an eternity, your heart racing in your throat.

"Hello? I know there's someone here. Just leave, and I won't call the cops."

Ghost sneers at you behind the suit. What a stupid thing for you to do and say. He considers jumping the gun, ruining the mystery by revealing himself and teaching you a lesson. Soap inadvertently stops him, setting off your security alarm.

The high pitched alarm rang out, making you wince and cover your ears. Your house phone starts ringing, you scramble to pick it up. Backing yourself up against your living room wall to stare wide eyed into the darkness.

"Knight Security. Please provide your security code." The voice on the line said. The man sounded calm, kind, certain. It somehow helped to make you focus, take a deep breath. Probably why the guy worked there.

"CL-NG-8675."

"Alright, got you. The alarms were tripped at your property. Everything alright?"

Was everything alright? Now talking to another living being, you weren't so sure. You tried to put everything you were experiencing into words but found you sounded incredibly silly... or one foot into a mental break.

"...Yeah, I'm alright."

"That's good. I'll get those sirens turned off for you and call off emergency services. Now, procedure does require me to have you walk through all possible entrances and exits in the home just to verify security. Would you mind checking the front door, love?"

Blissfully, the alarm turned off. The ear piercing sound finally gone, you let out a sigh of relief. The handsome voice on the phone asked you to check the front door, so you did. Confirmed it was locked and secure, just as you left it before bed.

He had you do the same with your garage door, the side door to the yard, and the back door.

"Perfect. You did a great job. Best customer of the night, if I may say," You could hear the smile in his voice.

"Why, thank you. You may," You quipped back, smiling to yourself in the darkness of the living room.

The man on the phone sounded like he was going to say goodbye, but he paused and made a small sound. "Oh! Before I let you go, I have one more question I have to add to the report."

"Of course, anything," You say, eager to please now that your heart had stopped racing.

"Are you alone in the home?"

Your response was immediate. "Yes."

The line went silent for a few beats. "...Are you sure?"

You could still hear the smile in his voice, but these words were spoken softly, dangerously.

"...What?"

"Turn around."

[anantaru]

୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅♡ sfw kaveh boyfriend headcanons

he‘s just amazing, point blank ૮꒰ྀི ⸝⸝ɞ̴̶̷ ·̫ ‹⸝⸝ ꒱ྀིა ‧₊˚

꒰ genre ꒱ — fluff, sharing kisses, a little angsty, gn! reader

+ ˚ spontaneous dates on a budget

to be frank, your lovely boyfriend kaveh never considered being short of mora to hold any sort of significant problem above his head nor did he ever regard it as something to completely wreck a well-thought out day with his beloved.

sincerely, you knew the blonde oh too well— particularly his charming tendencies to plan out your sweet dates.

as it happens, kaveh would always kindly decline your own offer to help out with any kind of planning because little do you realize was he quite fond of surprising you with his creative ideas, leaving not one stone unturned to make it into a spectacle in broad daylight, on a budget of course.

as an alternative of taking you out for a grand and pricy dinner on a warm evening in sumeru city, the architect will instead search for a nice and cozy place outside of it.

when it comes to the topic of food, he will mostly raid the freshly bought refreshments his roommate had purchased the other day when it was his turn to buy and fill up on required necessities.

now, hold on— zooming to a significant question that might float above your head right now; will kaveh tell alhaitham that he's taking some of the foods he shopped for himself? well, probably after he had already finished them with you, heh.

+ ˚ his fears

when deep rooted lovers such as kaveh and yourself strive to keep emotional and supporting tendencies for a lifetime, your bond was destined to be set in stone, to be eternal and flourishing— giving off light which was parallel to flames that breathe all the more deeply for being closer together.

in you, his loving significant other, he saw a comfortable life inherited infinitely and kaveh was quite eager to keep a balance in your relationship.

because you had been aware of his fears— the actuality was dreadful, of you leaving him behind one day.

the clear thought of such grueling despair alone was formed heavily in his blood vessel, a strong phenomena that cannot be measured throughout his own psyche.

in times like this, it's reassurance he needs, of course, you wouldn't ever leave him and he knows, yet the fear was always there— the frightening perception spreading inwardly, secretly hiding in the fathomless profundity of his heart.

+ ˚ huge cuddle (+kissies) sessions for hours

but now, to the fun part— in spite of the fact that kaveh was a passionate and emotional lover, he too had an abundantly huge love to give to you physically. quite frankly, he couldn't possibly keep his hands to himself and just had to have them encircled around your body at all times.

ever so often you catch kaveh being needier than usual but you really do not mind, you say it's cute if anything, when his cheeks surge with a heated bubbling as he walks towards you with his infamous puppy eyes, awaiting a well deserved hug.

kaveh once told you that being touch starved was one of the things he would suffer from on a daily, even though you have seen each other all the time. was he perhaps dramatic? yes, doesn't need a genius to figure that out, but that was one of the reasons you fell in love with him in the first place.

most of the times you will spend enough closeness together, hugging in your home, not his, but your home. yours was better and not plagued by the evil scribe bothering you, as kaveh had stated himself.

yet my love, do not concern yourself with outside noises, he whispers;

between an occurring storm outside the impounds of your warm home, supplemental to the wind that howls loudly through fallen leaves, in the opinion of your boyfriend, you were the gentle centre that occupied his life, and so here he was safe with you just as you were safe with him, coming to rest at his side with his scarlet eyes gleaming splendidly through the shadowed room.

aside from the cute fact of this matter, it was ridiculously amusing to you that kaveh didn't realize that he was an exceptional kisser, always giving his one hundred and ten percent. foremost, he will take things slow, leaning into your parted lips before claiming you wholly, not adding too much but the right amount was greeting you abundantly well.

you can see himself become excited the moment his movements get more uneven and unpredictable, when he feels like he needs to taste you further in order to feel somehow satiated.

above all, you see yourself becoming whole again as you slant into him, vulnerable and caring, you find yourself addicted to him, as much as he did too— but for every reason that is pure and right, none other dared to share this sweet perception of delight.

you were his safety and love, an anchor he held onto, that he tethers himself to because he so wanted to drag this moment on as long as physically possible.

+ ˚ conclusion and how he sees your relationship

finally yet most importantly, kaveh shares his views with you, he is incredibly transparent and never keeps a secret locked away from his significant other— he found it to be unnecessary to hide any topics that might concern you as well.

essentially in his own terms of phraseology;

“something such as transparency in a relationship was the gold key to my heart.”

archons, he's so damn in love with you it almost pains him to admit it all over again. to describe this fondness was impossible; wether its irreverent topics you'd ramble about together, funny, real as a crystal fly hiding in the rain and walking perfectly with your own dreams and fantasies.

you were bound and free with him, floating and established, laughing and sober— most of the times because if truth be told, kaveh was a terrible lightweight and couldn't hold in his liquor, ever.

but perhaps, now that he has the time to indulge in the kindness of your relationship, it is you that performs the miracles in his life.

©2023 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[seat-safety-switch]

Not sure if you've been watching these streamers. There's all these shows where people just live, normally, except there's a camera pointed at them. Real authenticity. If you're tired of the fakeness of reality TV, the perfect antidote is someone dressed up in a motion-capture suit pretending to be a 53-foot-tall anime girl trying to learn how to drive a forklift.

Last week, though, I got watching this very interesting stream. Turns out it was about this dude who was all about living off the land. He'd gotten a property somewhere out in Washington State, like the real deep parts that nobody wants to visit and only dead people have ever seen. He was going to set up an entire household from scratch, refuse the comforts of modern life, and then take a bunch of donations from his wife's eternally-connected, satellite-linked 3D handheld camera array.

Thing was, he wasn't recording 24/7. And a keen viewer spotted him at a nearby coffee shop in someone else's stream. Remember what I said up above about authenticity? The viewership revolted. They'd been tricked, they'd been betrayed, by someone that some defective part of the human psyche had convinced them was virtually socially equivalent to their best childhood friend. It was time for revenge.

When I watched it, there were a bunch of other streamers there, all around him, in a kind of judgment circle. Every so often, one of them would look around in a sort of panic. It didn't take long for me to realize that all of them had been condemned by the internet community for their own crimes, and forced to come here under threat of non-payment. Their entire economic way of life was dependent on listening to this stream of moneyed whackos observing them from afar, and now those whackos were taking control of things.

For hours, I worked on my shit-box Plymouth and would occasionally glance up at the screen. Outdoorsy Mike, sweat pouring down his face, worked to dig his own grave using a shovel he had made himself on the previous week's stream. Everyone around him watched, stoically, through their own head-mounted GoPros, occasionally reciting the name of someone who had donated $20 to the stream in frightened monotone.

You can't get that on NBC.

[linkspooky]

I am know this is an insanity broad question but do you have any specific thoughts on Revolutionary Girl Utena? or anything that you think hasn’t been said or just caught your attention? Your one of my favorite meta writers and I’ve been reading your blog since you were doing semi-regular AOT meta, so I guess I should have figured you had seen the series—RGU is a show so dense symbolism, metaphor, ect.—there was just so much to pick apart. Anyway, I would love to hear anything you had to say abt the series!

Sure, I've always wanted to do a meta on the Black Rose arc which is a totally underrated arc. I feel part of the reason it's not as discussed as other arcs is from a lack of understanding of it's role in the story.

The Black Rose arc is a moon arc.

You've heard of the hero's journey, now it's time to learn about the fool's journey. In Tarot, The Fool's Journey is a journey to self fulfillment where each of the 22 major arcana represent a stage on that journey - an experience that a person must incorporate to become whole.

The fool begins their journey at (0), fresh as a newborn, naive and unaware to the world. The fool is strangely empty, as is zero. Who better to serve as our analogue for the fool then the main character Utena Tenjou, characterized by 1) her naivete and 2) her emptiness.

Several years after losing her parents she lost the will to keep on living. Desperately in search for a reason to live a prince appeared before her and gave her one, showing her something eternal, and leaving with her a ring to lead her to him one day. That was all very well and good, but so impressed was she by the prince, that the princess made up her mind to become a prince herself!

Or so the story goes.

Utena is blindly striding forward (and right off a cliff) like the fool card, and also like the fool she's on a journey to fill her emptiness and become whole. At the start of the story she's not a complete person. She's 14 to begin with, but also look at how she reacts when Anthy is stripped away from her at the end of the first arc and the "purpose" given to her is gone. She becomes depressed and barely responsive, and only stands up again to get that purpose back but she's still clinging onto someone else for purpose. Utena is like the fool, on a journey to become a complete person by gaining knowledge of the world.

That is what I would say separates the Hero's Journey from the Fool's Journey, the Fool's Journey is a Jungian narrative in nature. It's not about battling obstacles like in the Hero's Journey, but about the process of individuation. Individuation is the process by which an immature and fragmented psyche, and the experiences of a person's life, become integrated into a well-functioning whole. You can integrate your past memories, your shadow in a jungian sense, your subconscious, into a well-functioning whole.

Utena is not whole however by the time the Black Rose arc comes around, and her lack of awareness of this fact and of her own shadow is exactly what allows it to overtake her.

So we're following Jung here. Jung, Jung, Jung.

Jung and Tarot go hand in hand because Jung believed in archetypes, sets of symbols that were universal across all cultures, that appeared in both dreams and mythologies and were deeply meaningful to us on a subconscious level. The idea of prince and princesses in Utena are a Jungian Archetype. The Moon card Tarot also has major associations with Jung's idea of the subconscious.

PIctured is the full moon int he ngiht sky, positioned between two large towers. The moon is the symbol of dreams and the unconscious,it's light is dim comapred to the sun and only slightly illuminates the path to higher consciousness leading between the two towers.

In the foreground is a small pool, representing the watery, subconscious mind. A small crayfish crawls out of the pool, symbolizing the early stages of unconsciousness unfolding. A dog and wolf stand in a grassy field both howling at the moon, representing both the tamed and wild aspects of our mind.

The moon is a card heavily tied to Jung's idea of the subconscious, or the shadow. If the persona is our outer face to the world, what “what oneself as well as others thinks one is” [CW9 para 221], the “shadow is that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality whose ultimate ramifications reach back into the realm of our animal ancestors…If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is his shadow does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses etc “ [CW9 paras 422 & 423].

Jung believed in a separated consciousness, the conscious mind is the persona the light we can see and the shadow is the subconscious mind which consists of all that we are unaware of and/or is hiding in the dark, quite literally the shadow of our conscious minds.

In Fool's Journey the Moon Card is the stage at which the light is so dim that our shadows become the longest. When I say a Moon Arc in any kind of story, I mean a story arc where characters are essentially caught in the Moon Phase of the fool's journey, which is a special time of confusion and illusion.

Essentially, the Star which is the card preceeding it is the card of temporary inspiration. The star's light is what makes the fool vulnerable to the moon's illusions.

The light that illuminates this for him is The Star (17) which provides hope and a sense of renewal; this is the light at the end of the tunnel. The Fool feels inspired to start shining as his true self. However, its opposite – The Moon (18) – represents any fears and subconscious programming that may prevent him from enjoying this new state of bliss. Light casts a shadow and the shadow, in this case, is the old anxiety and fears which may rise to the surface when attempting to shine brightly as The Star.

The light of the star makes the fool vulnerable to the illusions of the moon. His positive emotions aren't subject to mental clarity. In his dreamy condition, the Fool is susceptible to fantasy, distortion and a false picture of truth.

So that is the moon arc in a nut-shell, an arc where a character gets too close to the light only to be trapped in shadows. How else can you describe the confusing Black Rose Arc but the characters themselves being trapped within a mage of illusions? Much like a dream the characters are trapped in, there's no sense of direction, time flows strangely, and the events of the entire arc are forgotten by the time the characters wake up.

I'm not making up this Tarot symbolism either, in the first episode of the Black Rose Arc we are introduced to Akio, Anthy's older brother who likes to gaze up at stars in an indoor planetarium. A figure who gives advice to Utena all throughout the arc, but who is also clearly hiding another agenda and misleading her on purpose. The light of the stars leads to the illusions of the moon. He even discusses the moon with Utena in Episode 15.

Utena:  Akio-san, you really think about your sister a lot, don't you? Akio:  Do I? Utena:  I probably wouldn't understand since I don't have any siblings myself, Utena:  ...but what does it mean for a girl to have an older brother? Utena:  What's this? Utena:  The moon? Akio:  Normally, it's something useless and of little concern. Akio:  But, every now and then, you look up at it and feel a certain degree of comfort

In this context he uses the moon as a metaphor for a sibling, someone who's always there but you don't usually notice them, but those words could describe the subconscious mind as well. Also, one final instance of star / moon symbolism within this arc the stars made by Akio's projector are fakes. The stars themselves are illusions.

The Back Rose Arc follows a formula to a T. Every episode a duelist comes to the Mikage Seminar for help (which is specifically a therapy seminar more Jung symbolism right there), they begin talking about their problems as an elevator descends down an elevator shaft and the voice listening urges them to go deeper.

Utena later rides an elevator up to the dueling arena too, because the elevators are symbols for traveling to different areas of consciousness. The three levels, the dueling arena at the highest, the academy on the ground floor and the bottom of the elevator shaft era a metaphor for Freud's iceberg theory of consciusness which similarly divides the human mind into three levels.

Not only are the characters physically descending down an elevator shaft, they are also plumbing the depths of their own unconscious minds and revealing to themselves what they have intenionally kept hidden and repressed by trying to bury it that deep.

On the wall there's a specimen of a butterfly that slowly reverses its metamorphosis, from a butterfly, to chrysallis, to caterpillar, and then to a leaf with eggs on it. This too is a symbol of the unconscious, but this time of Jung, because Jung believed the unconscious mind was made up of our most primal instincts. The butterfly regresses to its infantile state while the characters in the elevator regress with it.

These characters become shadow possessed. In the story quite literally possessed as Mikage uses a black rose to turn them into duelist. However, Jung theorized that traits in our lives we repress or refuse to acknowledge are still there, they just come out in other ways.

“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.” (Carl Jung)

In the Curios Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the good doctor Jekyll is a philantrophist who has lived a good life, but makes a potion to bring out his worst traits and transform himself into a hideous monster, so he can commit barbarous acts and get away with it. He just needs to drink the potion again and return to being Jekyll and all of his cruel acts will be blamed on Mr. Hyde. Over the course of the story the potion stops working and Jekyll can no longer drink a poition to neatly divide between his philanthropic good side, and his ugly bad side which robs and murders. He becomes Mr. Hyde all the time, his shadow gains dominance over him making him shadow possessed.

"With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

Not only are the Black Rose Duelists possessed by their own shadows, the repressed qualities that are brought out in the Mikage Seminar's evil therapy session but they themselves also serve as shadows figuratively in story to the duelists they steal the sword from.

Kozue is the fixation of her brother the chaste and knightly Miki's madonna-whore complex, while Miki appears to be the most harmless of the boys he has an obsession with purity especially in his childhood days that he projects onto his sister and also any woman resembling his sister like Kozue.

Juri is the calm, cool, and collected female of the student council. Immediately seems like the most decent student council member. Just as looked up to by all the female students as Utena is. Until you find out she's a lovesick puppy reduced to a total emotional wreck over her unrequited love, unable to do little more than pine over her in secret. Then you meet the person she's in love with and her fixation on her friend Shiori just makes her look even more desperate.

Nanami is desperately attempting to stand in for her brother as the student council president, yet another one of the many ways she tries to earn his affection as his little sister. Nanami's desperately trying to recreate the closeness her and Toga had as children, but Toga's already left her behind for the world of adults, so now she's stuck trying to prove she can join him there when she's not even close as an incredibly high strung and spazzy thirteen year old who's more naive then even the younger student council members. She also has a kid tagalong who is three years younger than her, the same age gap between Nanami and her brother, who's also desperate to enter the same age group as her and be her equal but for the most part just gets treated like a pet or toy.

Kozue takes the sword from Miki, because Miki's issues revolve around his relationship with his sister which is a constant problem that plagues him in his life but something he chooses to ignore rather than address and fix.

Shiori takes the sword from Juri because she too is a shadow archetype, the object of Juri's affection but someone she doesn't talk to, or attempt to mend their relationship, and she especially doesn't seem to understand the real Shiori to the point where you wonder why Juri is so hung up on this person in particular. Is she even hung up on the real Shiori or is it just a fantasy because the real one falls far short of the romantic ideal that has Juri wandering the gardens at night and composing poetry like she's Lord Byron.

Mitsuru takes the sword from Nanami, because Nanami can't see the fact that the way she's treated by her brother, is ultiamtely the way she treats Mitsuru. No matter what Nanami does or how hard she tries to earn it, nothings going to close the gap between her and her brother and she can't force it the same way Mitsuru can't magically become thirteen.

Toga's is the hardest to fit into this category because he's not really around this arc and Keiko isn't much of a character, but it's interesting nonetheless one of Toga's many groupies is convinced of this cinderella like fantasy that Toga's evil sister is getting in the way of her true love with Toga and only if Nanami were out of the way Toga would be hers and hers alone. Just completely unaware of the way Toga treats women and just who Toga is in general. .

It could be a shadow archetype in two senses, one just the bright image of the prince has caused everyone even Toga himself to not notice who Toga really is as a person. They're too caught up in the romantic fantasy of Toga. Or maybe since Keiko taking the sword from Toga practically looks like she's assaulting him in a hospital bed, it could be showing the darker side of the way Toga views sexuality, that it's not necessary something he even likes or wants and has harmful connotations with him. Two it could just be another shadow archetpye for Nanami, there's really no becoming Toga's special girl. Toga's not really going to treat you any differently from everyone else, because he is for reasons completely emotionally unavailable.

Oh, while editing this post I realized I skipped Wakaba and Saionji. Very quickly Wakaba's relationship with Utena mirrors Saionji's with Toga, and Saionji similiarly wants to be someone important / a main character / special like Toga is because he believes it's the only way they can be equals. Wakaba's inferiority complex similiarly drives a wedge in the friendship between her and Utena. Wakaba also kind of uses Saionji as a rose bride of source to validate her feelings and make her feel special when he's relying on her for a place to sleep, whereas Saionji really only seems to want possession of Anthy and the Rose Bride to get one over on Toga so he won't have it.

Not only are the black rose duelists shadow possessed people, but the student council duelists have their swords stolen (symbols of agnecy, power, etc) by their shadow archetypes within the story. Other characters in the story who embody their repressed issues.

They confront their Mr. Hydes and then lose to them. They are temporarily made aware of the moons in their lives, which as Akio describes is someone normally useless of little concern but is always there nonetheless. He was using that to describe himself and Anthy, and by association Miki and Kozue but it applies to almost every duelist / black rose duelist pair, someone who is usually there but they take for granted, or ignore, or in Juri's case just don't want to confront. The Black Rose Arc forces a confrontation for each character with both their shadow, and their shadow archetype.

I could go list the similarities and differences with each set of character but I don't want to go on forever, so maybe in a post for another time. Instead I'm going to focus on the main one at the end of the arc and precisely why this arc is so important Nemuro Mikage, the shadow archetype to Utena.

In all mythologies there appears a trickster, a character which challenges the current ruling authority.

From mythology it is the character of the Trickster “…a collective shadow figure, a summation of all the inferior traits of character in individuals” [CW9 para 484], whom Jung thought could save us from ‘hubris’ and free the conscious mind from its fascination with evil. The trickster is usually thought of as atrocious, unconscious and unrelated, but someone who can nonetheless transform the meaningless into the meaningful. Often encountered at cross-roads, s/he is always moving, duplicitous, sexually rampant and a joker. The trickster is best portrayed, perhaps, by the figure of Hermes, who gave Pandora (‘the all-gifted one’) audacity and cunning.

From the shadows, and quite literally from nowhere appears Nemuro Mikage, a character who believes he can take the power of miracles for himself and also replace the Rose Bride by killing the original and making his partner Mamiya into the new Rose Bride. Can he even do that? How does that work? Who knows, this is Utena we don't explain anything.

The important part is Mikage is the manipulator who challenges the rules at Ohtori, and the established order attempting to subvert things. That's what Utena hates him the most for, being a person who willingly manipulated people who came to him with their issues, twisting them into thorny black roses to lash out at Anthy, and therefore Utena as well. Not only is Mikage made up of inferior character traits he's also an evil therapist who makes you act out on your worst impulses by bringing your worst insecurities to light.

Mikage's not just serving as the temporary trickster archetype however, he's also a shadow archetype of Utena made up of all of her inferior character traits. His name literally means "One's true nature"

根/Ne: lit. 3. “root (of all evil, etc), source, origin, cause, basis” or lit. 4. “one’s true nature” 室/Muro: lit. 1. “greenhouse, icehouse, cellar”.

Nemuro, like Utena is a duelist attempting to seize the rose bride and the power of miracles / eternity / the shining thing for the sake of someone else rather than themselves. They do so because saving Anthy / saving Mamiya gives them purpose.

Nemuro, like Utena is someone who doesn't have friends or family or any connection to the world but suddenly becomes involved in another family consisting of a brother and a sister. He becomes obsessed with the idea of them as a family of three because it fixes the lack of love or connection to other people that is missing in their lives.

Utena becomes obsessed with the idea of playing house with Anthy and Akio, to the point where she completely ignores the true nature of Akio and Anthy's relationship and misses very obvious warning signs. She sees them as a trio especially after moving in with them the next arc. Utena even urges Akio to get in the picture he's taking to commemorate her and Anthy's friendship.

Nemuro also believes he is in love with the older sister, an adult (Nemuro is a child, a child genius but a child nonetheless) but also experiences queer subtext with the younger brother. Nemuro fawns over Tokiko like she is some lost love and makes her the central figure of her motivations, but it's Mamiya he hallucinates actively as being his companion and flirts with when it's Anthy pretending to be him.

Utena is obsessed with a prince from her past driving her actions who is actually Akio, but who she's memorialized in her mind the same way that Nemuro memorialized Tokiko. She also believes there's a relationship between her and the older brother Akio, but that relationship isn't real because she is a child and Akio is an adult. Meanwhile she also experiences the same queer relationship between herself and Anthy who like Mamiya and Nemuro are actuall the same age.

Utena and Anthy's relationship also mirrors Mamiya and Nemuro in that Nemuro's main motivation is to give Mamiya eternity to cure his sickness, something Mamiya has said he doesn't want.

Nothing in this world is eternal, although a heart that longs for eternity could be considered beautiful.

Utena is also attempting to use the duels to protect Anthy, something Anthy never asked for her to do, and something that is actually just Utena selfishly using Anthy to give her some sense of purpose in life.

Nemuro and Utena both imagine themselves as main characters in a narrative, fighting for the sake of their loved ones, and at the end of their hero's journey they will be rewarded with everything they've fought so hard to earn. They're creating stories of their lives and making a narrative to give themselves a reason to keep going after death. For Utena it's a symbolic death, the feeling she should have died alongside her parents. For Nemuro it's his likely literal death, as apparently the Nemuro Memorial Hall and everyone inside died fifty years ago and Mikage has been stagnating for fifty years as a ghost in Ohtori unable to remember the fact that the Mikage hall burning is the long past and he hasn't changed in all this time. They are figuratively and literally dead, and in need of a reason to keep living create a story where they are the main characters.

They also imagine themselves as noble, selfless heroes sacrificing for the sake of their loved ones. Yes, even Mikage when he's playing the villain role of evil therapist and messing with people's minds he's still talking about it as some great heroic sacrifice on his part. It's a bit extreme yes but it's to point out how ridiculous Utena's own hero complex about her duels over Anthy is, especially in Anthy's mind. Nemuro burns down a hall and declares himself a hero for doing so. Utena gets in swordfights behind the school gym class and declares herself a hero. Neither Mamiya nor Anthy ever asked for them to do this, in fact when Anthy starts to genuinely like Utena she asks for the opposite for Utena to run and save herself it's just they decide to do these things on their own while imaining it as some great sacrifice on their parts.

Even your brother's crime! Souji... Come and see now? Back then, in that place who was there. Who wasn't there? Who was it that really set that fire?

Mikage makes it like he's a hero who took the heat for Mamiya's crime of burning down the hall when really he's the one who burned down the hall, and he simply blamed Mamiya for it in his memories.

Everything Mikage is fighting for is based upon unreliable memories, lies, and illusions because you know moon arc.

Anthy openly mocks him for his misguided notion and his hero complex that he's doing this to save someone, by unraveling the memories he thought was guiding him right in front of his eyes, sabotaging him in his fight against Utena.

Souji, you're going to lose. Mamiya! She will scatter the rose you wear. What? Where are you? Mamiya! Mamiya! What the? Who's? You can't beat her. You will never beat my sister who dwells in your memories.

We see this exact same thing happening when it's time for Utena to fight Akio, just when she's about to win Anthy sabotages the fight, mocks her for playing hero and says it's impossible for her to have ever won against her older brother Akio. The way Nemuro cries out Mamiya's name in pain and confusion before realizing Mamiya has been dead for years and the person he's been talking to all this time wasn't the real one, even mirrors Utena calling out Anthy's name in desperation as she realizes she never once understood the true Anthy.

Akio calls Nemuro to tell him shortly afterwards that he was using his unreliable memory of the past in order to further his agenda at this school.

Akio:  I exploited the illusion you cherished in your memory so much that you even halted your own time. Akio:  The period where you hid the possibility in your heart, not growing up, was useful.

Akio similiarly takes advantage of Utena's vague memory of the prince within her heart, in order to manipulate her into the dueling games even perfectly playing her prince later on to both lead her on by the nose and try to poison her relationship with Anthy.

Which is the greatest connecting thread between Utena and Nemuro. They both are creating fiction in their heads by imagining themselves as heroes in a storybook, and they have both built their entire motivations out of unreliable memories. The foundation they are standing on is a misremembered past. A past they've made into beautiful stories in their own minds.

Mikage:  You sound like you're yelling out, "Don't touch my precious memory!" Utena:  What did you say?! Utena:  Don't even talk like you understand me! Utena:  My memory is... Mikage:  I see. It's that memory that's been supporting you up until now. Mikage:  No need to be ashamed. Mikage:  Because the memory you possess is a worthy one. Mikage:  Only those with beautiful memories are allowed to wish, Mikage:  "If only those days could last forever, if only I could still be what I was back then." Mikage:  I know that you're the same as myself. Mikage:  Your eyes are like those people who can't help wanting to make memories last forever.

What is a story but a lie? A fiction? The lies they are told by tohers and the lies they tell themselves are what manipulate them into going forward, straight off of that cliff. After all is there any character with less agency over themselves than the main character of a story? A character in a story doesn't have any free will after all they just go where the author tells them to go, and do what the author writes for them. However, to Mikage and Utena that doesn't even seem to matter because they're both so desperate they need something, even something they subsconciously know is a lie or doubt themselves to keep moving forward. If they don't even have that, then they're dead.

Mikage:  I knew since the first time I saw you. Mikage:  You met the person important to you long ago, right? Mikage:  And so, that person changed your life forever, right? Mikage:  You're standing here on the strength of that illusion. Mikage:  That's why you were able to enter the Duel Arena. Mikage:  Am I wrong? Mikage:  After all, you're just like me.

The fools who are the heroes of their own stories, and characters in Akio's stageplay just keep moving forward until they walk off that cliff. They try to be storybook heroes from beginning to end, unable to see the problem in that until it's too late. Mikage represents Utena's own journey through the labyrinth of illusions that is the moon and what's waiting for her at the end.

The Black Rose arc foreshadows exactly what happens to Utena at the end of the story. Nemuro graduates from the academy, disappears, and all trace of him is gone and people quickly forget about him.

Akio:  However, that's all over. Akio:  From now on, the path before you is not prepared. Akio:  You, graduate now. Utena:  Oh, darn it. Utena:  What a weird place we ended up in while searching for Himemiya. Miki:  There was a really big fire here a long time ago. Utena:  Really? So there really was that kind of trouble. Miki:  It seems there weren't any casualties, but since it was before the time of the Student Council, no records remain. Miki:  Let's see... What was the building called? Kushiro Memorial Hall... Miki:  Sounds wrong. Noboribetsu Memorial Hall? Argh! I hate it when I can't remember!

Utena similiarly leaves the academy and Akio comments that just like Nemuro she'll fade quikcly from people's minds.

Akio:  It hasn't been that long since then, but everybody's forgotten about her completely. Akio:  She didn't cause a Revolution after all. Akio:  Now that she's gone, she was just a dropout to this world.

They also reach their tragic end for similiar reasons, they couldn't stop playing the role of the hero until the very end.

It's pretty much spelling out to us how the series is going to end in the second arc. Utena / Nemuro are brought into the dueling games on a false memory that's manipulated by Akio to give them a reason to participate. In their final duel, they're betrayed by Anthy and sabotaged in the middle of their fight causing them to lose. Afterwards they struggle against the truth. The result of them learning the truth is them being exiled from Ohtori Academy forever, and they are unable to save the person they want to save by playing prince, Mamiya was never alive, and Utena never got to know the true Anthy. All because they decided to play storybook prince in the first place rather than look at the reality.

Utena's however, ends on a much more hopeful note. As she's at least escaped the fiction of Ohtori Academy and Anthy insists that she is still there somewhere out in the real world. Just like the world in Tarot is the last card of the Fool's Journey, where as a whole person the Fool is now ready to join the rest of the world.

However, the Black Rose arc doesn't just foreshadow the ending of the story perfectly with Mikage's ending, it also is just the nature of the moon tarot card itself. People call it fillerly because there doesn't seem to be any real substantive change to the story, but illusions are illusions they're not supposed to be substantive. The characters don't change after the confrontation with their shadow selves.

You think so? Huh but she's. She hasn't changed. Not a bit.

Number one there's no real end in the conflict between the shadow and the conscious mind and number two that's what happens with dreams they fade in the daytime and are forgotten when you wake up.

That's the moon in general too. Always there for you. You don't usually think about it and it doesn't serve any real purpose, but from time to time you look up at it... and it makes you feel better.

[melliae]

Assorted Pharos/Ryoji Thoughts

So, huh, don’t expect something too meaningful or conclusive for this. It’s quite literally just me rambling about the possible connections and influences Pharos and Ryoji have as they come. Quite messy, and it may not make much sense…

Phallus and Birds

As I said in my post about Nyx, Pharos’ japanese name (“ファルロス”) isn’t a word that exists. It’s a combination of “ファルス” (“Phallus”) and “ファロス” (“Pharos”, as in the lighthouse of Alexandria). The two of them mark him as the masculine aspect of the Star Eater (i.e., its psyche), while its body remains as the feminine or maternal one.

“In this sense, the concept of matter is also only one archetypal representation among many others; indeed the concept of matter derives from the archetype of the Great Mother. [...] The archetype of the Father, that is, of the mind, is the polar opposite.” - Psyche and Matter, by Marie-Louise von Franz.

This divide is important to make clear, since it harks back to one of the fundamental inspirations mentioned by the FES Fan Book: Jung’s childhood dream about “Father Phallos”. I’m not going to explain it since it’s somewhat long, but the gist is that it acted as one of the foundations of Jung’s work, as seen with Seven Sermons to the Dead:

“Spirituality conceiveth and embraceth. It is womanlike and therefore we call it mater coelestis, the celestial mother. Sexuality engendereth and createth. It is manlike, and therefore we call it phallos, the earthly father.” - Sermo V.

I'll not go into detail about what Jung exactly meant by “womanlike” or “manlike” beyond pointing out it is more akin to the Yin and Yang division, but through western or hermetic lens.

While the parts of sexuality and creativity are better represented by Ryoji for obvious reasons, the identification between Pharos and Father Phallos is still important because it points to the former’s future as the “son” or avatar of “Dea Luna Satanas”.

I'm putting Systema Munditotius here again because it’s a graphical summary of the cosmology and psychological principles presented in Seven Sermons, showing how the human mind is a whole that encompasses all dualities. But instead of focusing on the vertical axis this time, I will explain the horizontal one, where we can see:

The Emptiness (the black circle named “Inane”) at the leftmost extreme, whose dissolving and destructive capacities are manifested in the figure of “the Devil”, represented by the waxing moon—the so-called “Dea Luna Satanas” or “Goddess Moon Satan”.

The Fullness (the white circle named “Plenum”) at the rightmost extreme, with its creative capacities manifesting in the golden circle called “Deus Sol”, the Godly Sun.

Now, despite the presence of another Devil-like figure in the series (Nyarlathotep, with the japanese version of Eternal Punishment directly calling him “the archetype that destroys humans' egos”), it’s undeniable the connection between Nyx as the moon and, well, the lunar Satan described in the Sermo IV:

“The dark gods form the earth-world. They are simple and infinitely diminishing and declining. The devil is the earth-world’s lowest lord, the moon-spirit, satellite of the earth, smaller, colder, and more dead than the earth.” 

And that’s where the other half of the left side enters: the Devil-Moon is the root of everything that’s “physical”, the “visible” and “sensual” spirits of earth (the green circle named “Mater Natura”) that manifest through the sexuality of the Phallos, who lies in the “depths of the earth” according to Jung’s dream—in the unconscious, with the Dark Hour being a symbol of it. That’s to say, Father Phallos and thus Pharos are the result of the countless souls that are attached to earth, of people dead in spirit and alive in bodies—of the Lost, and those who transmogrify each night, and those who have lost all hope.

However, unlike Pharos, the Avatar doesn’t show many “sensual” details, despite the entire Fool’s Journey it/he recited being a perfect metaphor of the earthly/gross side of life (i.e., you are born, you grow, you die); on the contrary, it presents a couple of celestial characteristics. The meaning of these properties lie on the other half of the right hemisphere, in the heavenly sphere that the wise kin of the Sun inhabits, communicating with the receptive nature of the human soul (or Celestial Mother) in the form of a white bird—the Holy Spirit.

“The white bird is a half-celestial soul of man. He bideth with the Mother, from time to time descending. The bird hath a nature like unto man, and is effective thought. He is chaste and solitary, a messenger of the Mother. He flieth high above earth. He commandeth singleness. He bringeth knowledge from the distant ones who went before and are perfected. He beareth our word above to the Mother.” - Sermo VI.

Yet, due to Nyx’s body being a shadowy reflection of the Heavenly Mother, it’s to be expected the Bird too becomes twisted, from a pure white dove into a pitch-black crow. There’s no need to go over all the references to black birds during the game, from Tartarus to Nyx Avatar—the messenger or angel of Nyx.

So, on one side we have Death as a Shadow, primitive and all-consuming, and on the other we have Ryoji, a conscious being filled to the brim with love and energy. Pharos is, then, the in-between, the liminal state between consciousness and unconsciousness, a baby that’s trying to break free from the grip of the unconscious’ womb, yet joins the divine with the mortal.

“The "child" is born out of the womb of the unconscious, begotten out of the depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself. It is a personification of vital forces quite outside the limited range of our conscious mind; of ways and possibilities of which our one-sided conscious mind knows nothing; a wholeness which embraces the very depths of Nature.” - Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

Be it from Nyx or the protagonist/Makoto himself, Death/Pharos/Ryoji, from the moment his being was fragmented, sought separation and division, to know where his essence began and ended. He was trying to create himself. That’s the most beneficial manifestation of the Phallos: the birth of a “sun” or (primitive) consciousness through the active energy of the unconscious.

“The psychic life-force, the libido, symbolizes itself in the sun or personifies itself in figures of heroes with solar attributes. At the same time it expresses itself through phallic symbols.” - Symbols of Transformation.

An event comparable to the separation of the waters through the spirit (or dove) of God himself, or to the eating of the fruit of knowledge upon the serpent’s goading. That’s to say, a manifestation of the beginning of individuation, the development of the—his—Self out of the unconscious’ waters.

Introversion and Extraversion

Makoto is introverted and Ryoji extraverted.

…

Okay. That isn’t something new, like, at all. But it’s a good start, since I’m not referring to the popular conception that we have of introversion and extraversion, but to the jungian one, explained in Psychological Types:

“The introvert’s attitude is an abstracting one; at bottom, he is always intent on withdrawing libido from the object, as though he had to prevent the object from gaining power over him. The extravert, on the contrary, has a positive relation to the object. He affirms its importance to such an extent that his subjective attitude is constantly related to and oriented by the object.”

I went into a deeper explanation in my post about Philemon’s and Nyarlathotep’s Types, but the above is the main idea: the introverted individual focuses inwards, in the inner realm of the universal “subjective factor” or unconscious, and the extraverted individual focuses their energy into the external world and its objects, relating to the present. As a compensatory method, the differentiated attitude of consciousness will be opposed by the acquisition of the contrary attitude within the unconscious, giving rise to psychic wholeness and certain peculiarities that, for the moment, aren’t important.

Now, with that out of the way, I want to focus on a particular scene described by the book, about an interpretation of Spitteler’s “Prometheus and Epimetheus”, with Jung concluding that the brothers are representations of introversion and extraversion respectively:

“For just as Prometheus makes all his passion, his whole libido flow inwards to the soul, to his innermost depths, dedicating himself entirely to his soul’s service, so God pursues his course round and round the pivot of the world and exhausts himself exactly like Prometheus, who is near to self-extinction. All his libido has gone into the unconscious, where an equivalent must be prepared; for libido is energy, and energy cannot disappear without a trace, but must always produce an equivalent. This equivalent is Pandora and the gift she brings to her father: a precious jewel which she wants to give to mankind to ease their sufferings.”

Prometheus parted ways with the outer world to focus completely on his soul, the realm of the unconscious and his Anima. Understanding that libido can be symbolized by fire, light and heat, then Prometheus’ actions can be interpreted as he trying to “incubate” the treasure that lies deep within, which is compared in other parts of the book with the dharmic tapas or meditation, and the birth of the Buddha, one of the “three jewels”… The underlying meaning of the scene should be obvious at this point.

“The moon with her antithetical nature is, in a sense, a prototype of individuation, a prefiguration of the self: she is the “mother and spouse of the sun, who carries in the wind and the air the spagyric embryo conceived by the sun in her womb and belly.” This image corresponds to the psychologem of the pregnant anima, whose child is the self, or is marked by the attributes of the hero.” - Mysterium Coniunctionis.

A renewal of the Sun, who is no other than Pharos/Ryoji himself. Or do you think the sobriquet of Saturn, the Persona unlocked through his Linked Episodes, is for nothing?

Just like the maternal Nyx holds the golden, cosmic egg inside its body, Makoto incubates within him the seed of a new life, enveloping it/him just like the ocean does with all sorts of primitive life forms. This is not surprising considering that introversion is the “feminine” (or “ying”) attitude, and that Makoto was, in fact, described as the mother of Pharos in the Club Book (Thanks to elle-p for pointing it out!).

But I think there’s something much more interesting in how Makoto “incubated” Ryoji, because just like the moon, as a symbol of the Anima, carries “the child of the sun”, Prometheus makes his libido flow towards his soul… or Anima. That’s to say, both Makoto and Ryoji, at some level, represent each other’s Anima, the sexual counterimage to consciousness that mediates the collective unconscious.

(While technically a non-canon portrayal of things, I still think it fits here :) After all, we know butterflies represent the souls of individuals in the series)

It’s not a perfect correlation naturally; the soul-image is that of the opposite gender of consciousness, to balance the psyche. But the mirror idea is the basis of their relationship, with Ryoji and the protagonist playing each other’s attitudes. The movies are more explicit with this, and there’s a particular quote I really hold close to my heart:

“綾時は理の対極にいるようなキャラクターです。物静かな理と社交的な綾時は"静と動"の関係であり，彼らの対比第3章の物語に欠かせない視点をもたらしています” - Keitaro Motonaga, Persona 3: Falling Down Pamphlet.

“Ryoji is a character that feels like the opposite of Makoto. The quiet Makoto and the sociable Ryoji have a relationship of ‘stillness and motion’, and their contrast brings about an indispensable perspective in the third chapter of this story.”

The connections are clear: Makoto is an introverted sensor (ISxx), and Ryoji is an extroverted intuitive (ENxx). And if we really break down their character, Makoto is an ISFJ (overall ISFx, with the J/P depending on the particular media) and Ryoji an ENFP, which is pretty damn close to a mirror match! You can compare them with Elizabeth, who is likely an ENTP.

Anyway, what’s more interesting in Ryoji’s Type is how it’s described on Psychological Types, under the “Extraverted Intuitive” section:

Going from object to object and situation to situation, never satisfied with the current circumstances staying the same.

That applies to people too, how they can go from adventure to adventure in search of romance.

Thanks to the enthusiasm they hold for what is next, they are able to inspire others as well.

Their unconsciousness is mainly governed by an archaic Sensation directed towards introversion, which means their blind spot corresponds to the endosomatic part of the senses, manifesting as strange and absurd sensations (which yes, it can include perceiving the world as dream-like).

And since Ryoji is a feeler as well, all those characteristics acquire a romantic tinge, seeing things by what they emotionally mean instead of what they (sensually) are. Does it sound familiar? Metaphors about flowing water maybe? You can quite literally do one of those school homeworks of joining columns with those points and Ryoji’s characterization.

Another interesting thing to consider is the contrastive relation between Ryoji’s and Makoto’s Types, which returns to my previous point of Ryoji being incubated through Makoto’s introversion, because he’s the personification of Makoto’s unconscious functions. The only exception is Ryoji being an extraverted feeler (ExFx) instead of an extraverted thinker (like with Elizabeth again, or Metis), but I still think it fits with Edogawa’s explanations in P4G:

“However, it's not impossible that you might have picked it. The other path was certainly a logical choice. Your Shadow is the path that you didn't take. In other words...It is another you. The Shadow is the ‘you that wasn't picked.’”

Through his fear and trauma, Makoto withheld all the “heat” he could have vested life with inside his soul, warming and breathing life into the seed that was sealed within him. But whereas the Shadow merely personifies that repressed libido and possibilities, Ryoji became human only through living them—he didn’t only embody Makoto’s repressed yearnings and sufferings, but made them his own. This returns once more to the jewel of Pandora that doesn’t solely belong to Prometheus (i.e., Makoto), but to the whole world.

“hell: a name for the *prima materia, the *black colour which appears during the *putrefaction of the matter of the Stone at the *nigredo, the torture through which the ‘body’ of the Stone passes while being dissolved by the secret fire. [...] The nigredo stage is also known as ‘Tartarus’. During the process of the nigredo the colour of the putrefaction is said to be as black as pitch, and the shades of hell appear. A profound blackness reigns both over the matter in the alembic and over the alchemist who may experience the torments of hell while witnessing the shadow or underworld of the psyche.” - A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, by Lyndy Abraham.

There’s no need to explain why Tartarus and the Dark Hour are the unconscious, but I’ve to in regards to how they represent Makoto’s “stagnant hell” and their relationship with alchemy.

Fire and Motion

According to the same book I quoted before, “A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery”, towers in general can be interpreted to be symbols of the alchemical alembic, the main instrument through which the alchemists try to create the philosophers’ stone. However, alchemy is both an outer and inner discipline, so the tower isn’t merely a symbol for the external instrument, but also for the inner one: the human soul, which is put through hellish heat to purify it. Thus, towers, hell, and the individual become synonyms for the same alchemical instrument of transformation, fueled by the “secret” or “inner fire” that, in this case, corresponds to Makoto’s libido.

If we follow the normal alchemical process, then Death/Ryoji should be equal to the prima materia or the first matter used to create the Stone. But since the Stone is a symbol of the Self, the presence of Ryoji is iffy unless we, instead of thinking of him as the actual goal of alchemy, interpret him as the “secondary” goal, as gold itself, the mineralized/gross essence of the sun.

“But when the alchemists speak of gold they mean more than material gold. In the microcosmic-macrocosmic law of correspondences, gold is the metallic equivalent of the sun, the image of the sun buried in the earth. The sun in turn is the physical equivalent of the eternal spirit which lodges in the heart (the ‘sun’ of the human microcosm).” - A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery.

This is a topic I already explained previously, since “sun = life = libido = phallus”, corresponding to the masculine/yang/extraverted side of things. As I previously noted on Nyx's post, one can see all of these connections through Ryoji’s infamous yellow scarf that represents the golden color—Nyx's core—of the final battle according to the Design Works (again, thanks to elle-p for pointing out that indecipherable text!), decidedly marking him as a product of Makoto’s inner work—as his “mineralized” life-energy.

But to describe Ryoji as purely gold would be incorrect; he’s far from being a pure manifestation of the incorruptible essence of the sun. His true nature is pointed by, again, the final Persona of his Linked Episodes, Saturn, the black sun.

“This power is called ‘sulphur.’ It is a hot, daemonic principle of life, having the closest affinities with the sun in the earth, the “central fire” or ‘ignis gehennalis’ (fire of hell). Hence there is also a Sol niger, a black sun, which coincides with the nigredo and putrefactio, the state of death.” - Mysterium Coniunctionis.

It’s darkness itself, the stagnation of life and its energy that leads to the state we see in the Dark Hour: putrid and rotten to the core, stagnated and filled to the brim with the dead and lost in life. It’s the collective “dark night of the soul”, the nigredo stage of alchemy of all humanity that can only be overcome by setting the world in fire, the element of motion and change that makes the clock advance with each full moon and each cleared floor in Tartarus, for better or worse. The transformation of Death into Ryoji is just the repetition of such a process at the individual level.

And if all of that sounds familiar, it should be! That’s the fundamental meaning of both the Fortune and Death arcanas, representing the nature of life as endlessly changing to represent its wholeness. Thus, life stagnating and “becoming a void” is a paradox that must be solved by reigniting its motion/change, lest it collapses into itself.

“This card is attributed to the letter Nun, which means a fish; the symbol of life beneath the waters; life travelling through the waters. [...] In alchemy, this card explains the idea of putrefaction, the technical name given by its adepts to the series of chemical changes which develops the final form of life from the original latent seed in the Orphic egg.” - Book of Thoth, by Aleister Crowley.

The Death arcana is that hellish fire that puts people under the most unbearable pain to put things in the correct path once more. Due to that, it has three “manifestations”: the scorpion that kills itself when finding itself surrounded by fire; the serpent that renews itself through its shedding, crawling and thus still attached to earth; and the eagle, the spirit of life that soars the sky, unbounded by and embracing change at the same time. Yet, Death as a Shadow represents the contrary, the stagnated core of the Dark Hour that leads all to its destruction and that must be burned—killed and resurrected

Alchemy is necessarily a violent process, because it requires the constant death and union of the elements so they can be perfected. In Death’s case, its alchemical work began from the moment it was separated/“killed” and sealed in Makoto, who is a stand-in for the maternal womb, the alchemical vessel, and the mercurial waters that dissolve the murdered element. Yet, as the alchemist himself, Makoto also pours his own life and heat into the dissolved Shadow to unify and resurrect it in a new, purer shape: Pharos, the creativity of a nascent sun, the seed of a new life.

(By that matter, Nyx crashing against earth follows a similar pattern: the original being is mutilated and “dissolved” through the alambic—the primordial hadean earth. The broken egg or core is an image that has the same meaning as the separation of Death; both fall under the dismemberment motif of alchemy)

But then, how does all of this relate with Saturn? Well, it’s because Saturn has a really long history in hermeticism, alchemy, and astrology: “he” represents the outermost and heaviest planet of all, embodying the limitations and structure of the universe such as time and death, devouring nature to rebirth it once again. Furthermore, the planet is associated with none other than lead, the heaviest metal that’s commonly used as a metaphor for the first matter, the moribund nature that… well, it should be obvious what one must do.

And funnily enough, just as fire is the element of transformation and renewal, Intuition in general corresponds to the function that oversees the dynamic elements of reality. It perceives the relations and motion between external/internal objects. So in more than one sense, Ryoji is the inner fire/spirit of Makoto. However, since alchemy deals with opposites and due to his nature as the black sun/saturn, there must be a limiting element in nature to restrain his ever-expanding/intuitive nature…

The Bonds of Death

Why a scarf? Why not another piece of cloth or even jewelry? Well, the image above answers why: a scarf is no different from a noose, one of the most common elements of death deities and grim reaper figures around the world, for what’s death but a hunter of humans? Thus, Ryoji’s scarf is a symbol of how even himself is bound to death, to his underlying nature.

“The difference seems to be due to the repression of real sensations. These make themselves felt when, for instance, the intuitive suddenly finds himself entangled with a highly unsuitable woman—or, in the case of a woman, with an unsuitable man—because these persons have stirred up the archaic sensations.” - Psychological Types.

I can hardly argue in favor of the “unsuitable” part, but there’s no need to really explain the other one, right? Déjà vu and all. That’s the “magical” part of Introverted Sensation, which transforms the sensed objects into symbols of the collective psyche through impressing it onto them. And in case of inferior Sensation, as presented above, those filtered sensations become “effective entities” on their own right since the archetypal forces of the unconscious control them, possessing them even. This strengthens the idea of Ryoji’s attraction being rooted not only in the forgotten or unconscious memories of when he was Pharos, existing in a liminal state between consciousness and unconsciousness, but also points to how those memories are themselves mixed with archaic, mythological imagery, and that only has one source.

The protagonist is Ryoji’s alchemist and thus an equal to his mother, a reflection of Nyx as Death’s mother, the black ocean from which the transmuted golden egg (or seed) was extracted. This relationship is also pointed out by the fortune teller in club Escapade during January, explaining how “nothingness is the other face of the infinite world/universe”, ultimately hinting at the same thing I explained through the inferior Sensation: the oneness between the figure of Nyx and Makoto (understanding him as a symbol for all humanity).

In particular, I think the image above is perfect for this, since not only Nyx’s core and Makoto are (close to be) superimposed with each other, but also due to the black spiral in the background. The spiral also appears on the Great Seal’s surface, and within this context I have to quote Jung once more:

“We can hardly escape the feeling that the unconscious process moves spiral-wise round a centre, gradually getting closer, while the characteristics of the centre grow more and more distinct. Or perhaps we could put it the other way round and say that the centre—itself virtually unknowable—acts like a magnet on the disparate materials and processes of the unconscious and gradually captures them as in a crystal lattice. For this reason the centre is (in other cases) often pictured as a spider in its web (fig. 108), especially when the conscious attitude is still dominated by fear of unconscious processes.” - Psychology and Alchemy.

The book and even the own paragraph goes on to say that the “centre” is the Self (along with a noteworthy mention of the orphic egg again). But more importantly is the mention of the web here, representing consciousness’ fear of joining into the endless spiral that moves around without end, and its connection to the first kanji of Ryoji’s name: “綾”, which means “twill weave” or a “pattern of diagonal stripes”, a textile element that shouldn’t be so different from a web. Needless to say, all of that is connected to the figure of the alchemist/crafter and that of a mother.

The scarf in the first image, due to the fetal position of Ryoji, can be read as an umbilical (normally red) cord connecting him to Makoto/the mother, while the second is a little more explicit with the association to the red thread of fate—and what other fate there’s but death? Ryoji’s inherent connection to Death and Nyx is expressed through the “golden cord” that his scarf is, which can also be read as a noose, and as a manifestation of the inferior Sensation, the static element that eternally joins him to his source.

(Scan uploaded by Vesk)

Even the final resolution of Ryoji and Makoto, the white stone and pure dove incarnated, can’t abandon the chain that binds them to death and its hellish fire. However, this time is a willing acceptance of its existence, holding it with one’s hand instead of letting it strangle the individual unconsciously. Even the hands at the waist are holding each other gently, representing the final union of the “lovers” at the top of the alembic—at the top of Tartarus—in the form of a winged spirit.

“The united bodies of sulphur and argent vive, usually symbolized by a pair of lovers, are killed, dissolved and laid in a grave to putrefy during the stage known as the *nigredo. Their souls fly to the top of the alembic while the blackened *hermaphroditic body is sublimed, distilled and purified. When the body is cleansed to perfect whiteness it is then reunited with the soul (or united soul and spirit).” - A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery.

Death is fate indeed, and in that fire, change and life. It’s the ultimate fetter that no one can go against, let alone the immortals that do not fear it.

[the-heart-of-a-monster]

PUTTING THE NEW PAGE INTO THIS ASK AS WELL FOR GHE FIRST TIME BECAUSE THERE IS A LOT TO TALK ABOUT WITH THIS PAGE SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME HERE

Ima start with the first panel because there’s already so much in that one single panel and it is gonna drive me nuts!

So first up, we have “Secret” Chaotix meeting room. Yes, this place is apparently being kept a secret from the public eye. This could be due to the Chaotix having to handle a bunch of super deep and disturbing cases that, if allowed to spill out into the public, would be catastrophic! Not in the sense that it would destroy the world or anything like that, but it’d certainly ruin their reputation as detectives! Don’t detectives irl have these kinds of cases too…? Or maybe I’m thinking too hard on this and it’s just the place they meet with their friends whenever Eggman does something stupid? Who knows.

I do know though that it looks beautiful and it looks like they’re actually in a room which, as an amateur artist myself, can only dream of achieving!! It looks so cool! I just… I adore your backgrounds and I can tell you put a lot of love and effort into making them, so please give yourself a pat on the back!

And maybe I’m reading too much into a single panel.

But that’s not all that we get to see!!! (No I’m not talking about the Chaotix even though I REALLY wanna talk about the Chaotix cuz they deserve more love and I’m so glad they’re here THANK YOUUUUUUUU) YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, SONIC IS FULLY CONVERTED TO DARK GAIA SONIC LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Well not fully converted, but we can clearly see that it’s taking a huge toll on his body! Not only are the markings now visible on him during the day, but it also seems to be siphoning his energy…? Kind of…? I mean, Sonic has been out cold since “Killing” Omega, and usually he wouldn’t be so out of it otherwise. And I can see a little tiny X over his Gaia eye, so… I’m not too sure, but what I am sure of is that this is BAD for Sonic. The poor guy is gonna have to deal with not only being corrupted during the day, but also at night, and that cannot be good for his psyche. It was bad enough when he had to be in a completely new body for just the nighttime, but now it’s for both day and night in its own way, and… Gosh, this is gonna be torture for Sonic once he wakes up.

Okay now onto the actually lore panels because there is so much to uncover but BEFORE WE GET INTO THE LORE PARTS OF ALL THAT LEMME JUST POINT OUT HOW PISSED SHADOW LOOKS IN THE SECOND PANEL BRO LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS TO PUNT CHIP INTO THE SUN FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER AND HE IS JUST SO OVERPROTECTIVE OF SONIC IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY I LOVE THIS ANGSTY EDGY BOY SO MUCH BUT I WANNA KNOW WHAT IS GOING THROUGH HIS HEAD RIGHT NOW WHY IS HE GLARING DAGGERS AT CHIP WHAT DID THIS LITTLE CREECHUR EVEN DO TO YOU SHADZ

Okay back to the lore-

So, im still gonna call Light Gaia as Chip because I still see a cute adorable fluffy fairy in those big brown eyes and I think he deserves a real name. Anyhow, Chip now is aware of him being a literal god. He says he regulates the day and Dark Gaia regulates the night. This kind of makes sense. Chip handles the sun and DG handles the moon. Think Luna and Celestia from MLP. And similar to those two as well, Dark Gaia got out of control like Luna did and created an eternal night. But this doesn’t really explain the planet splitting into a million giant pieces. (Not literally a million) Nor does it explain Chip losing his memory. Chip claims that whenever one of them falls out of line, the other will be there to pull them back together. Does this mean Chip or Dark Gaia have lost their memory before? Have the events of Unleashed happened before? How do they reign the other in?

These questions are probably gonna get answered in the next page lmao what am I doing-

Everything else is kinda sorta spelled out to us which I think is a good thing, since Chip is, in the story, explaining all of this to a group of people who had no idea about any of this for their entire lives. The poor Chaotix just got roped into this, they just want their pay. So with that in mind I don’t know what else to really cover…? Maybe I’ll notice something later on and just start spamming you with questions, who knows. For now I’m SUPER DUPER EXCITED FOR THE NEXT PAGE LET’S GO THIS IS GONNA BE SO FUN CANNOT WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK

hell yeah do look out for the new page on monday :3 i love ur little big analysis its always the highlight of my week to see one

btw this goes out to evecryone but the whole scene has a lot of moments for everyone else than sonic and shadow so we are winning

[pinazee]

Black and Tan: A Crime of Fashion

The MELANIE LYNSKY episode! (Or at least thats what i call it. upon seeing her on screen for 0.2 seconds i knew she was going to get pretty big. She’s such a phenomenal actress.) I honestly lowkey shipped her with shawn. She was so sweet and i feel like it brought out some of the sweet in shawn too. Shes also a character i wish would come back one day, like they do a murder mystery movie and they’re on her yacht or something idk shes really good friends with them all still, they could make it happen :)

Lassie has given up. He has resigned himself to his fate that Shawn will always be up in his shit for the rest of eternity.

LOOK HOW MUCH FUN DULÉ IS HAVING HERE! OHMYGOD HE FUCKING KILLED ME IN THIS EP!

why am i surprised he knows the name of the model in downtown Santa Barbara and is a huge fan? Im starting to see why Gus is single. He gets way too obsessed, but also, Shawn wasn’t kidding when he told that one chick he was willing to change everything about himself. This also adds a nice layer to Gus’s character because we see part of him wants that exclusivity and prestige. He wants to feel like someone others admire, which is brilliantly contrasted with Shawns more down to earth not really caring what others think vibes.

And speaking of contrasts, i love this bit; not only because its funny, but because it feels like a great metaphor for how shawn and gus approach life. Gus is trying so hard to win and Shawn doesn’t care and the outcome is the same.

And i think its so funny whenever Gus gets so obsessed with whatever world their exploring hes pretty much useless and Shawn has to be the rational one.

Every once in a while psych will do this POV shot in shawns perspective thats not being used to point out a clue and i think its really cool. I wish they would have done some more like it because its such a great way to show how shawns constantly aware of his surroundings even when he’s not on a case.

And this was brilliant! It has to be one of the best psych-outs in all of of Psych! Fucking legendary!

And this was brilliant too!

I felt so bad for shawn, playing middle man between henry and karen (which is the most unprofessional thing shes done haha), but it gave henry and shawn one of their best scenes at the end when henry is practically begging shawn to understand, like you can almost sense that he wants to confess right there that it was maddie who abandoned the family not him (or maybe im seeing that because i know its the truth. 🤷‍♀️) and shawn just doesn’t want to deal with it. Its interesting that henry was dragging shawn into it though, like he was using it as a way to see if shawn was okay with it now, cause otherwise he could have asked his friends right? It didn’t have to be shawn.

Honestly it shouldn’t have been. He knew it made him uncomfortable and he kept telling him to stop asking, but like always henry pushed it.

(Oh and also this kind of adds to the mystery of how well karen and henry know each other because she seems keenly invested in it, plus, when her friend told her he left a message she said that sounded like henry. So she must know him well enough that she can say this casually. Sidenote: that moment karen opens the door and Shawn looks horrified was priceless!)

Lastly, its interesting that shawn is proud to have never been in therapy when his mom is a psychologist. I feel like she would have instilled in him a better understanding of what therapy does and that its not something to be ashamed of. Likely the writers just hadn’t figured out maddies profession yet, but still.

P.S Everyone look at his jaw!

[xf-cases-solved]

S2E5: Duane Barry

Case: Our episode finds us in Virginia. I know this because it is the literal first thing written down in my notes. I'm learning. (No I'm not.)

Anyway. This episode, which takes place in Virginia, is part one of a three part (+ one weird fever dream episode) plot arc that will be extremely relevant to the rest of the overall plot of the X-Files from here on out. Everybody thank Gillian Anderson's daughter Piper for existing, and also Gillian Anderson for putting up with extremely questionable treatment from the show runners while she was pregnant, instead of just rage quitting like I probably would have. (She went back to work 10 days after having a C-section and they LET her, that's fucking INSANE and makes me so mad on her behalf lol.) 

But I digress.

Duane Barry! He might not have had to go film a TV show ten days after major surgery and like, giving life to a human being, but he sure is going through it, huh? Poor dude can't stop getting abducted by aliens. Probably. That, or he is suffering from a violent and unpredictable psychosis. It's one or the other for sure. And that wouldn't really be anybody's problem, except Duane has decided that he's done with the tests and teeth drilling, tyvm, and would like someone else to have a turn, so he captures his psychiatrist and busts out of the mental institution, intending to offer the psych up as tribute to the aliens. Unfortunately for Duane, however, he doesn't actually remember where the aliens said they'd pick him up at, so he hits up a travel agency, which ultimately devolves into him holding three workers plus the psychiatrist hostage.

Enter Mulder and our favorite punkass bitch sidekick, Alex Krycek! 😃 

Mulder, being the alien abductee whisperer that he is, gains Duane's trust, and we are kept on our toes as the episode does a pretty solid job at drawing out the suspense as we (along with Mulder) are ping-ponged back and forth about whether or not Duane is who and what he says he is. By the end of the episode there is still a lingering doubt, BUT, a very unsettling voicemail on Mulder's answering machine tells us we're gonna have bigger things to worry about now.

An agent, who I just now realized I recognize because she played a doctor on ER, asks Mulder to help with a hostage negotiation because he knows things about alien abductions, and then is surprised and irate when he makes the conversation about alien abductions; that same agent makes Krycek get her a grande 2% cappuccino with vanilla, which earns her my eternal love; Scully buys an entire bag of groceries for $11.14, and also breaks the barcode scanner with an unidentified metal implant and then just sort of shrugs at the store clerk and leaves; and a "Mulder, it's me" phone call ends with the sound of screams for help and broken glass, whuh-oh!

Oh, and this is the episode with the red speedo.

Welcome, friends, to the Abduction Arc!

Does someone die in the cold open: No, but things aren't really going great either. Not that they ever tend to be going great in X-Files' cold opens.

Does Mulder present a slideshow: No. No Mulder+Krycek slideshows 😡

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Ok, so the "case" this time was technically "do the hostage negotiation and get the hostages out alive," so evidence wasn't needed. Ig.

Whodunit: Duane Barry, our favorite kidnapper and alien abductee [citation needed]!

Convictions: Lol, I literally just blew out a sigh and said "ummm" out loud to myself alone in my office, that's embarrassing, but also... we'll come back to this question next episode. 

Did they solve it: Because Mulder did get the hostages out of the building safely, and because I know it's gonna be a minute before he or Scully have any real wins in their lives, I will give them this. 

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Bulgaria's maternity leave laws. 58 weeks at 90% pay the entire time. In the United States you are lucky if you get six weeks, and even luckier if it's paid. And sometimes your boss makes you film a TV show ten days after giving birth through a giant gaping wound in your abdomen. (I know they were technically filming in Canada at the time, but it's an American TV show, so I'm counting it as United States bullshit.) Anyway, we treat pregnant people terribly! But let's just. Not think about that. Abduction arc time!!

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 15 (not even gonna bother restarting the streak tho. y'all just hang in there for a bit, i'm sure things will start looking up soon. ish. probably)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me": 9 (three in total, and the last one ends poorly)

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 6

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 9 ½ (could have easily been shot at any time) 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 9 (went back and forth on this, bc i know how this whole arc ends, but i think that if we look at this episode alone, and don't skip ahead, being kidnapped by a mentally unstable person who is known to be violent definitely counts as being in mortal danger)

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 14 (no, but dw, this stat is gonna get some mileage here soon)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 5 (gdi. i had a funny one liner, but i know for a fact there is at least one person reading these in real time with their first watch-through, so i am trying very hard not to make jokes that are spoilery 🤐)

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 18 (no X 😔)

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Times Someone Correctly Guesses a Password: 3 

Total Number of (Plot Relevant) Nosebleeds: 5

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 3 (no, but he did repeatedly break hostage negotiation protocol, which is similar in spirit if not practice)

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 3 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 4

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 2 

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 9

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 2

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 2!!!!!! (get that coffee, you loser)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 11½ (i wrote that shit down like a person without an attention deficit disorder, hell yeah 😎)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 5

[dayntee]

[Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire] For the Best

Oh hey, I did a writing. It's over on AO3 if you prefer, or below under the break.

If you're into Pillars of Eternity, Aloth Corfiser/F!Watcher angst (or just disaster wizards in general, I hear they're all the rage), or somehow followed my PoE 1 & 2 streams from over FIVE years ago, this is for you!

(But honestly it's mostly for me. And to have something I felt confident writing while I wrap up my Veilguard run.)

This has spoilers for pretty much ALL THE THINGS (companion quests, final game events, Aloth's romance conclusion, etc), but seeing as how Deadfire is several years old, I don't think anyone looking for this type of fiction will care. Still, you've been warned!

PG-13ish for mild sexual references.

In any event... thanks for reading and joining me at the end of this particular journey. Other works in Idralia's journey can be found here:

Part 1 - What Might Have Been | AO3 Link

Part 2 - Frigid Nightmares | AO3 Link

Part 3 - Worst Kept Secrets | AO3 Link

Part 4 - Consequences | AO3 Link

I've seen the distance in your eyes over these past few days. I know someday soon, you'll find this note on your journeys, long after you've departed, and understand why I never asked you to stay. Truth be told, I knew it was futile. You'll say goodbye in your own way. Consider this mine.

I'll never truly know the reason why you left, of course. I've pondered the possibilities. You were always about the now, and that was fine. At least for a time, you were mine, and that's all I could have asked.

Were I a narcissistic individual, I would guess it is because you wish no harm would ever come of me, and your journey ahead will undoubtedly be perilous. The more pragmatic part of me says it's because it's something you simply have a need to do on your own. Regardless, know you'll have my heart on all your travels. You'll always be in my thoughts.

I write these words for me more than you. I know you'll never give me the closure I wished for, so… this is what I'll get. I just want to be clear about what my intentions would have been.

By your side, I'd have traveled to the ends of Eora. By your side, you would have had my bow, my companionship, and my love. By your side, I'd have slain gods, no matter the frauds they may have been. I'd have hunted every last member  of the Leaden Key at your request.

I never needed a cottage to settle in. I'd have never needed a marriage, or children to follow. All I'd have ever needed was you. Your worried brow, your sardonic commentary, and the rare, soft affection you only ever showed me behind closed doors. All of that was enough.

That is what I find most tragic, Aloth. I don't believe you find yourself to be enough. You feel you still have things to prove. Just… know you never needed to prove them to me. You were always more than whatever "enough" means. And should you ever wish to be found, leave me a sign. I'll be off on my own adventures through Eora - I'm not built to stay put, and I've had quite enough of the Deadfire than I ever cared for. You're the smartest I've ever known. You'll figure out what to leave for me, wherever you are.

All my love,

Idralia

----

He hadn't realized the tears were falling until they hit the page. It was the right decision, he had told himself. Leaving her behind was the only option.

'But ye dinnae even ask!' he heard Iselmyr's voice chiding him, fully furious with his dropped guard in this emotional state. 'Ye did what ye though' was best for ye, nae fer ye both.'

'I don't need your critique-' he started to mentally respond, but she didn't let him continue.

'Well, ye're ginna git it! The lass 'as been pinin' fer ya since afore Caed Nua was ere on the horizon, or were ye so dafty ye ne're knew?' If the disassociated voice of his past psyche could huff and glare him down, then it was certainly doing it now.

And Iselmyr was right. He never gave Idralia a chance to tell him what she wanted. He'd made his boundaries, and she assumed there was no further discussion to be had. She respected his wishes, and she let things just be. Aloth hadn't even considered what lay for her after the encounter with Eothas.

'Ye though she wonnit survive,' Iselmyr practically screeched, and he felt a breath shudder in his chest, his hand coming up to his mouth to choke back the unexpected sob.

That sat with him for moments too long. There had never been a time he'd doubted the capabilities of the Watcher, his Watcher, and he had now done so subconsciously. He'd been selfish. It was easier to leave because he'd always assumed that after everything… she just wouldn't be there anymore.

And now, it was likely too late. It was months later—he'd left the ship as soon as it had docked after their final encounter, slipping out in the early morn when he knew she would be sleeping the deepest. And certainly ('OBVIOUSLY' Iselmyr sneered again) she had known he would leave, given that this note had fluttered out from between a few pages of one of his grimoires.

In fact, he was certain she had outplayed him, for it had been tucked a few dozen pages in front of where he had dog-eared his progress that night, resulting in having missed its presence for weeks. Not until it had tumbled to the floor as he packed up from his latest multi-day operation had he noticed it. He wasn't sure whether she meant it as a cruel jest or a legitimate punishment.

'Ye'd be in fer so much more if I-'

"ENOUGH," he shouted, before stifling himself immediately. He was in the small inn room he'd procured, and the walls were thin. While his work here was done, he didn't need to draw the additional attention.

"Enough…" he muttered, eyes skimming over the contents of the letter once more. Quietly, for perhaps the first time in their long entanglement together, Iselmyr was gentle with him. 'She said yer enough. Tha should be enough.' After that thought trickled through, she fell silent, clearly intending to leave him to stew in his mistakes, quite unhelpfully.

----

Several weeks earlier…

When Idralia awoke in her cabin, she wasn't surprised that her bed was notably colder than anticipated. She wasn't surprised to find a lack of weight against her side, or the absence of parchment and leather that made up the scent she recognized as her wizard. A slow, sad smile came to her lips, and she felt the tears gathering already.

No amount of anticipation of his departure was ever going to prepare her for it.

They had done this song and dance years before at Caed Nua, though this round was always going to be far more bittersweet. Despite the fact they'd never been more than just friends at the time, he had to have known back then how much she yearned for him. She was, after all, absolute garbage when it came to verbal subtlety.

She sat up in bed, her sheets twisting around her undressed form, a cold breeze trickling in from an open port where Cantelope was enjoying the fresh air. She laughed mirthlessly, the tears gently rolling down her cheeks, and her antelope companion turned to her with a head tilt. As he trotted over, she welcomed his gentle bunts, petting his head and side in return. She leaned down to press her forehead into his muzzle.

"He thought it a kindness," she whispered to him, and Cantelope bleated quietly in return. She closed her eyes, thinking back over the previous night—their final night, she now realized—and how present, passionate, and yet careful he had been in their lovemaking. Their patterns had always been varied; there were days where she had pulled him urgently from his studies with need, taking command as the captain she was. And yet, there were others where he had interrupted her training or a debrief with a longing and purposeful touch or glance, only to display the same power and control he might show on the battlefield once they were behind closed doors.

Last night, though, had been different. She had expected a normal night's rest, where upon they'd wake in the morning in each other's arms before exploring the port and perhaps a little shopping. Instead, he had entered her cabin with no words and a sweet kiss, escorted her slowly to her bunk, and lavished affection in his every touch, stroke, and embrace. He had taken his time, and she had relished the welcome surprise without realizing what he'd been doing.

"That was his goodbye," she choked out with a sob, and her companion cuddled in closer. Her morning routine was replaced with tears she knew had to come and, in a way, were an all too welcome catharsis to the hollowness in her heart.

It was at least an hour later than she normally would present on deck as captain when she finally emerged from her cabin. Eder was waiting for her, the look on his face rapidly twisting from a goofy grin to a knitted brow of worry in the span of seconds it took him to register the sorrow in her eyes. She'd eschewed her eyepatch, for one, which usually meant she had something important to say and wanted to make eye contact. The more worrisome detail was the angry, red puff around her eyes and the two fingers pressed against her temple, suppressing a headache.

Eder wanted to ask but didn't know where to start, so he simply strode forward and put a hand on her shoulder. Despite the efforts she made attempting to steel herself, this broke her once more. Tears welled up and Idralia threw her arms around her dearest friend, knowing that he, too, would soon leave.

He caught her awkwardly, but settled into giving her a big, stabilizing hug. He knew the only thing that could break the Watcher's heart this thoroughly. If he was being honest, the truth of it simply pissed him off. But being angry was not going to comfort his friend, so he instead held her for as long as she needed, letting her tears and snot and spit soak into his jerkin. It certainly wasn't the grossest thing he'd ever had to clear out of his clothes, and it wasn't half as distressing as the pain he heard in her voice as she sobbed.

A curious crewmate or two passed by the scene, and he would shake his head the moment he saw concern raise. Now was not a good time. The captain just needed a good cry. Or two. Maybe three.

And most certainly, after this, despite the fact it was barely past the eighth bell of the day, they were likely to head straight to the closest tavern once she was ready.

-----

The events that followed were a whirlwind, made more rapid by the disorienting heaviness of her broken heart. Everyone that remained began to take their leave, given that their mission was complete.

Tekehu, Maia, and Pallegina hadn't remained after the turbulent last-minute decisions Idralia had made, all having taken their leave shortly after the disaster in Neketaka. The Captain's staunch determination in avoiding compromise of her beliefs conflicted against her frustrations with the political bickering of the Deadfire's factions had ultimately resulted in chaos. Neketaka was steeped in civil war due to her actions, and Idralia's reluctant agreement to allow the Vailian Trading Company to exert their power came too late to salvage her friendship with Pallegina. The Principi had long since been left in ill terms. Despite having never spoken a lie, it was impressive to have broken so much trust with so few words.

It… was supposed to be for the best.

Of the onboard companions, Xoti was the first to leave, though no one had initially realized it. Given the haunted looks and grim smiles she cast in the flickering light of the ship's hull, the realization had dawned on most once they felt her dark presence absent. She disappeared in the night, and while Idralia couldn't say she was indifferent, she knew that the burdens Xoti carried were ones she was never going to be able to help reconcile.

Vatnir, quite suspiciously, disappeared shortly afterward. Whether drawn by the aura of death that now hung around Xoti or his own spiritual calling, Idralia wasn't sure—nor was she inclined to find out.

That is… probably for the best.

Konstanten and Fassina were the next to depart, eager to return to Neketaka and recoup losses within their connections there… or at the very least, take advantage of the upheaval for their own benefit. Still, they left hand-in-hand, and despite herself, Idralia genuinely wished them well on their journey together, sending them off with a hefty sum of gold as deserved dues for their lives ahead.

That is definitely for the best.

Rekke and Ydwin departed sometime after that, a few weeks of listless sailing to their benefit. Ydwin eventually took her quiet leave, intent on continuing her animancy research. With the Wheel broken, she claimed there was much new territory to explore, and she'd quite run the well dry in what she could learn aboard The Defiant. The gift she left behind, though - a perfectly tailored Aedyrn coat, cut and trimmed to match Aloth's usual robes - was bittersweet.

'Apologies, Captain. But it seemed a shame to not leave you with this despite…' the cypher let the thought trail in Idralia's mind, and the Watcher responded with a sad smile.

"It's beautiful. Reminders of fond times are a wonderful gift, even when they're painful. Thank you,"

She swore she saw the ghost of a smile on Ydwin's face as she disembarked the ship.

As for Rekke, he stayed on as long as he could, attempting to hone his Aedyran more thoroughly before preparing to explore the rest of Eora. There was, after all, much for a distant Storm folk to explore in a world that was largely unaware of his peoples' existence.

"The kindness you have given unto me will never be forgotten. This will be known," he assured, setting a strong hand on the Captain's shoulder with a broad smile, mimicking an affection Eder often used with her.

"Neither will the stories and friendship you've given me," she returned the gesture, and they nodded to one another in a final goodbye.

I wish the best for them both.

As the crew dwindled down, only Serafen and Eder remained among her closest companions. Serafin was perfectly happy to be aboard a ship he knew and under a captain he trusted, and Eder…

"When are you getting off my ship?" she asked partially in jest of him one night, leaning over the same railing where he rested, pipe lit and in hand.

He shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't wanna go until you didn't need me no more," he muttered, and Idralia smiled sadly at him, brow knit somewhere between appreciation and a little bit of annoyance.

"I'll always need my dearest friends, Eder. But that doesn't mean you have to be stuck here with me. You've got family," she thought about how he'd leapt into action upon discovering Bearn's existence, and how hard he'd fought to ensure his safety. "He's still waiting for you in Hasongo, right? And I'm sure you two could do a lot of good. Together,"

Eder sighed, and knitted his brows together with his own sad smile.

"It kills me to leave ya without him here," he admitted, and she reached out to put a hand reassuringly on his arm.

"It… was his choice. And I have to press on," she shrugged. "And hey, it's not like it's the first time, right?"

He shook his head at her poor attempt at a joke and took a few puffs of his whiteleaf. "He's an ass who don't know what he lost," he murmured bitterly, the pipe rocking back and forth between his lips. He exhaled deeply, blowing a ring or two in the crisp night air.

"Live well, ya hear? Live well to spite 'im," he turned a serious face to her and she smiled helplessly at him again.

"You know me, friend. I'll try, and probably piss off two or three nations while I do it,"

At that, he finally let loose a hearty guffaw and clapped her on the back.

"Ye've always been a good one, Watcher,"

She smiled and sat quietly with him for a while longer, enjoying the night. They'd set course for Hasongo in the morning.

It is, truly, for the best—for him.

----

After the course of several weeks and a fond, boisterous farewell to her favorite Dyrwoodan bumpkin, she boarded The Defiant for what she quietly knew would be her final journey aboard.

"Where to, Cap'n?" Serafen asked as her foot step aboard, and she closed her one visible eye to take a deep breath.

"Set sale for Aedyr, Serafen," the orlan sputtered in surprise at the command, the journey being almost impossibly long from their current location.

"Are… are you sure, Cap'n? That's… quite a ways from the Archipelago. We're gonna need to refresh crew and rations a few times-"

"I know you can handle it," she smiled down at him gently before, without a further word, removed her hat and placed it upon his head. "Captain,"

He pushed the slightly-too-big tricorn up to look at her from under it. "What are you on about?"

She strode over to the stairs leading up to the stern and sat on them, resting an all-too-heavy head in her hands, elbows propped against her knees.

"I've spent a good bit of my life before all my adventures in the Deadfire, and I'll be honest if I'm not sick of it now," she laughed mirthlessly. "I've done enough damage to last a lifetime. Technically every lifetime. I need to go home."

Serafen waved a hand at a crewmate to get them casting off before he walked over to sit next to her. As the rest of the crew got to work departing, he scrunched his eyebrows together as he tried to recall his Captain's history. It wasn't his strongest suit.

"I thought you were from the Deadfire," he settled, mostly certain.

"You're right. I am," she reached up and pulled the eyepatch off, blinking several times while her vision equalized. "But… my home's not a place," she shrugged helplessly and a warm, understanding smile passed over her friend's face.

"You think he went back to Aedyr?" she shrugged at the question. She had no idea, really—at the end of the day, if Aloth didn't want to be found…

"It's as good a place as any to start looking,"

"Then I'll get you to Aedyr,"

The Defiant is in the best hands it can be.

----

A couple more weeks passed on the trip from the Archipelago to Aedyr. She'd given Serafen the biggest hug, lifting him off his feet and causing his cheeks to flush in front of the crew.

"I'm not sorry," she whispered to him before planting a warm kiss on his cheek and setting him back on deck.

"Great, they're not gonna let that one go for weeks,"

"A good thing you'll have weeks to let them get it out of their systems," she winked, hoisting her modest bag over her shoulder. She took little with her beyond her gear, leaving behind the majority of their treasure to the crew, ample funds to Serafen for the journey back to the Deadfire and more, and anything that would ultimately just weigh her down. She'd kept enough to keep her traveling for some time, knowing she'd have to work, track, hunt, or do an odd job or two eventually.

Nothing I'm not used to.

"You… take care of yourself, Ca-" he caught himself. "Take care, Idralia,"

"Don't sink my ship, Serafen," he shook his head and rolled his eyes as she turned her back, walking down the gangplank and into the small town dock she'd requested they moor. She didn't want to start in a big city—she knew there was little point in doing so. Cantelope, her steadfast antelope companion, leaned in and nuzzled Serafen before giving him a lick on his other cheek and cantering after his master.

"Ugh, ya damn beast…" he wiped the saliva from his fur before the stink sank in. "Give him a kick in the pants for me when you find him!" he shouted after, and she raised a hand in acknowledgement before disappearing into the crowd.

"And good luck," he murmured, trying not to get choked up about all his Captain had given him.

----

Several more weeks passed as she tried to grow accustomed to Aedyr. It was a nation with which she was unfamiliar, despite her wood elf lineage. She wasn't even terribly good at blending in visually, as she walked, talked, and presented like the pirate she once was.

She was used to ruffling feathers.

She had traveled through much of the countryside, trying to listen in on her own leads on the Leaden Key, knowing that where she found them… she would eventually find him. Eventually, that brought her to a moderately-sized city, filled with judgmental eyes she ignored and hushed whispers about a Deadfire stranger brazenly walking the streets.

Thankfully, her tales of being the Herald of Berath hadn't seemed to reach these shores, though the news of the tumultuous turn of events in Deadfire politics, the increased presence of the Vailian Empire brought through its grasp for power, and the rapid expansion of breakthroughs in animancy, engineering, and all forms of wizardly research were hot topics. It was just as well to her—she hadn't liked being the fabled Watcher, and had liked even less being seen as a messenger of the gods.

As it grew late, she found the first inn she could that offered stabling for Cantelope, ensuring her companion would be well-treated and spoiled for the evening. A bit of gold to grease the stablehand's palm and a reassurance that treating her friend unkindly would not end well was often more than enough to secure such accommodations.

A room and a meal were next on her list, and a weathered elf woman looked up to address her over the bar. "Greetings, ma'am," she gave a nod, "Have you got a room for one available?"

The woman looked at her curiously, as if studying her features for a moment, before pulling a sheet of paper out of her pocket and squinting at it. "Dear, did you check in an antelope to our stable?" she asked, and Idralia cocked an eyebrow at the question. That was only moments ago, how did-

"Aye, just a few moments prior. Is… that an issue here?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

"No! No, not at all. I was just instructed to give you this when you checked in. And the room's paid for," the woman leaned down under the counter and pulled up a single bottle of Aedyrn mead, along with a wax sealed envelope. She laid a key atop the missive, indicating she was in the room labeled… A.

Her heart leapt to her throat. That cheeky- "O-oh. Thanks much," she managed out, taking the items, bowing her head, and quickly making her way through to her accommodations.

She fumbled with the items, particularly the key, as she approached the properly labeled compartment door, her hands shaking and heart racing. Finally, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steadying herself to properly fit key to keyhole, and did not exhale until after she swung the door open.

The room was unoccupied, but not empty. A pack here, a stack of parchment there, and a pile of excess grimoires towered on a side table. He wasn't here in this moment, but the signs of his presence… Even without him here, she could feel it.

She dropped her pack inside the door, closing it quietly behind her. After the soft click, she closed her eyes again and simply inhaled. The smell of parchment and leather was unmistakable. It was simply his.

She set the bottle of mead down next to the stack of grimoires, smirking sideways at it, and opened the sealed letter.

I am an idiot. The least I owe you is a drink. The most I owe you is everything else. Be back soon.

It wasn't signed, but it didn't need to be. The hurt and pain and hollowness in her heart slowly began to fill. Of course, a part of her was still angry with him for leaving the way he did, but it paled in comparison to the yearning for his voice, his touch, his kiss-

She sat on the bed, his note held to her heart, and as patiently as ever—she waited.

----

He returned far later than he had planned, realizing he'd been caught up in his research at the library for more than several hours. The advances in animancy had caught his attention as much as they had any other scholars, and he sighed in spite of himself. His eyes were tired, and he only realized how hungry he was now that he wasn't deeply engrossed in texts.

However tired he may have been, the warm smile of the tavern keeper behind the counter and knowing look she gave him snapped him awake as readily as a splash of cold water. He gave a quick nod to the proprietor before quickly making his way to his room, waving his hand to unlock the door via the arcane as he'd left the sole key behind. As he registered the click, he took a steadying breath—in all truthfulness, he didn't know whether she'd want to kiss him or kill him, and she was quite in her right to do either.

He nudged the door open slowly, the hour late, and breathed out quietly in a form of relief as he realized she had dozed off on the bed in the time he'd been gone.

She was nearly as he remembered, except her hair had begun to grow out again. Perhaps not being on the seas anymore had encouraged her to let her locks run rampant. Her once shortly cropped hair was growing haphazardly, and it was clear she hadn't had a trim in some time as it was wildly uneven. He smiled as he moved into the room, reaching out to brush a few stray strands from her sleeping face, but pausing mid motion as he noticed a note lying beside her. It was the one he had left for her, but with an addendum.

You _are_ an idiot, and I am tired. I'll yell at you tomorrow.

He smiled, probably more than one should knowing he was bound to get an earful. He settled in for the evening, darkening the room and moving quietly and deliberately as to not disturb her sleep. He tried to close his eyes, but he couldn't help himself. Rolling to one side, he pulled her close. She slept as deeply as she ever did when they were safely aboard The Defiant together, and though she did not wake in that moment, he felt her settle in against his chest.

He breathed her in—sweat and sun and something green he could never quite put his finger on. She was here. She was real. She was more than enough. She was… home. And whatever he was for her, he silently vowed he'd continue to be, for as long as she'd have him.

As he drifted to sleep himself, he looked forward to the fury she owed him.

[veveisveryuncool]

so, i was wondering about that mirror AU. first off i wanna say, i really like the designs. but i did have a few questions.

So first off, for Magolor, you say he's basically blind but it looks like he has an eye in his mouth like the original soul version. Is that not an eye or am I just going crazy?

Secondly, You mentioned how Adeline is the most normal of them. So are all the characters basically insane and if so, how would you say they rank on the sanity scale?

And finally, and I just have to ask this being a fan of both these characters, but you mentioned that Magolor has someone to help guide him, being blind. Is there by any chance that this seeing-eye jester you mentioned happens to be Marx?

ohhh hi!! tysm for asking about this! i'm really glad people took an interest in those mirror world counterparts, it means a lot :]]

ok, to start, i'm gonna talk about adeleine and sanity :D (since the two magolor questions tie in with each other and bc i like talking about her)

here is the "sanity" scale! i put this in quotes because they are all a little bit insane in their own ways <3

adeleine is the "most normal" here, not because she is mentally sane, but because she basically lives the same life she had pre-DL3 (living alone in cloudy parks, surrounded by her living discarded WIPs, having various temper tantrums). obviously, she still plays a role in the mirror-world version of 64:CS, but she let the whole "shiver star oh my god. earth is dead. humans are gone and i'm the only one left" thing completely take over her psyche. she stays up in the clouds, desperately trying to remember life on earth, and maybe– just maybe, convince herself that she's not alone.

magolor is doing surprisingly okay here?? like, sure he barely managed to scrape his way out of purgatory, and now has the remains of his wrongdoings etched into his body, but he's taking it like a champ 👍👍 he denies what happened to him was his fault (even when it totally was), and because of it, his AD experience was ramped up to 11. he feels no remorse for his betrayal, and instead no longer fights kirby simply because he gave up trying. he's also got the whole..eye and crown thing going on. so.

elfilin is next, with him basically being confined to the Pickle Jar. he's trapped in his own mind (forever wandering the isolated isles) and just kinda floats there, waiting for something to save him from an eternity of chaos. i put him above adeleine because of the situation that leads him there in the first place. since the initial splitting of elfilis/elfilin was a lot more messy, it means that they're stuck in a yin-yang scenario. instead of completely good, elfilin is mostly good, and that sliver of darkness increased his susceptibility to fecto forgo, drawing him to lab discovera. the beast pack captures him and tries to fuse him with forgo, but because of the discordance, it's taking a lot longer. the "good" part of elfilin hangs on, trapped in his dreams and slowly losing his grip, which is represented by his constant crying of the blood cell-like orbs from chaos elfilis' fight.

ribbon is. not doing so hot here. not only is she on the verge of breaking (mentally and physically), she has essentially isolated herself to complete an impossible mission. since the crystal was smashed into thousands upon thousands of pieces, she'll likely spend the rest of her life searching for each shard. she wallows in guilt and self-depreciation (even though it's not her fault!!), and is also fighting off dark matter possession at any given point. her will is strong, but how long can she last?

okay!! magolor time!!

magolor's seeing-eye jester is indeed marx! (though he will kill you if you call him that) while mirror-marx is even less of a good choice to befriend than normal marx, their friendship still upholds :]

while yeah, magolor does have a huge-ass eye in his mouth, it's not him that's doing the seeing. the visual information goes straight to the master crown, if this makes sense.

the master crown's power has dulled, now forming a symbiotic relationship with him. magolor provides the crown with a body to host, and the crown's magic allows him survive AD, basic perception (he's not gonna run into a tree anytime soon, but can't read or see faces), and a huge ego boost.

[joyfullyacat]

Unordinarily Foolish

haha, don't hurt me, not beta'd it's another hurt no comfort - but this time no one dies! woo!! inspired by @gniteruirui 's animatic here (except then it spiraled way from that and im a little sorry-)

CW: so much self loathing, general heartbreak, pining when your heart wars with your brain, no happy ending word count: 2.7k

-

You’ve hit rock bottom it felt like.

What respect did you have for yourself any more?

There’s been a pain, irate and grating on the nerves right in your sternum lately but it was better than feeling numb.

At least, you think it is.

You go years single without affection, you had your time to date and you took time away from the pool, you got your licks from it, you thought you learned all the lessons. 

Now look at you.

Unsteadily, your hands follow the curves and grooves of the toys you clean with wipes. Under here, around there, get into that crevice. Your thoughts travel and your eyes wander to the subject of those thoughts.

Sun is cackling with giggly kids hanging off every limb, clutching about his legs and wrapped about his arms. He’s carefree and radiant, in his element, there seems not to be a care in the world with him… And maybe that was what had you ensnared. You stare at the panel in the back of his neck that his jointed neck comes out of. A distinctly inhuman appearance to his otherwise human personality.

Just maybe, this is what kept you away. You were an ordinary fool with a silly heart but your brain was logical… Cruel but logical.

You were an ordinary fool with not so ordinary lessons to learn. Like how bad of an idea it is to be in love with something - someone incapable of feeling as you do with temperamental chemicals and functionalities that dictate every part of you from head to toe. Who won’t share the experiences of life with you like an ordinary couple.

What you had was not an ordinary love.

This was no ordinary circumstance.

When did you take his exuberant nature for something more than what it was? When did his crushing hugs of friendly greeting become something that stole your breath away - more than just physically. The nicknames too, the sunshines, dewdrops, and daydreams, every single one of them stuck into you and hid between your ribs, becoming new butterflies that’d flutter in your stomach haplessly against your will.

You have enough respect for him to not dump this onto him or his lunar counterpart, Moon. 

Oh yes, a counterpart. A double decker to your psyche, really.

To be in love with not one but two distinct personalities and individuals that weren’t even human. Who likely could not grasp the concept of love, it wasn’t something to be easily defined like happiness or sadness, it was muddled by every emotion and bolstered by them similarly.

This wasn’t including the fact that you were fleeting in their very, potentially eternal, lives.

This also wasn’t including the fact that at any moment, they could be torn in twain and scrapped against your wants to make new animatronics, better ones, new personalities. They wouldn’t remember you - even if they kept the same face.

It already happened once, after Sun and Moon were split into their own bodies.

Most of their memories outside of the employee data bank were lost. You were pretty much another face in the crowd to them.

You were happy to befriend them again - at the time that’s what they were. Friends.

Because denial is not just a river in Egypt and you were hopelessly flowing down it back then, oh it’s just a crush. Merely infatuation! They were new, exciting, interesting and human enough, but you know now.

No, you were utterly endeared and helpless to how your heart speeds up around them.

Well over a year later.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Moon approaching, slinking in the designated shadowy corners you created with well placed large plushies and decorative hangings.

The animatronic lifts a finger, pointing to what you’re doing unknowingly. “I think that toy is clean enough…” He speaks in his typical low grumble, a permanent growl to his voice that rattles in his chest. Something that comforted you in your lowest moments when he’d hug you on days of stress.

His words bring you back to the moment, looking from him then over to the poor anthropomorphic turtle figurine with colored bandana in your hand.

You had stripped some of the color from it. Faded smears of green staining the little white rag.

“Ah, yeah. It is…” You cough, setting the toy in with the others and picking up a sort of tubby looking unicorn toy with cheap white hair and a set of sparkles on its hind quarter.

“You’ve been spacy lately.”

Ah, he was always the more confrontational of the two. A trait you admired and feared. You thought you were confrontational once upon a time, then you met him. Then you learned how ham-fisted your emotions could be to you. Making you clam up entirely.

Both were observant, eventually a comment would be made on your actions lately, your behaviors. Whatever vitals they’ve been able to read from you.

Sun was far more subtle, much more rounded. Acting sort of as a bumper to your feelings with careful gestures and honeyed words that served to entrap you further, much to his unknowing warmth. Leaving you little sticky notes of well wishes that you’d save and so on.

You felt… Dirty, really. Dirty about it all. Guilty may be more apt. Taking their gifts of friendliness for your own selfish needs. To fuel fantasies of your own design.

A low timbre breaks you from your thoughts, “Starbright?”

Right. He’s still there.

Moon brought himself closer, even in that moment of thought. Just an arm’s length away, well for him anyway. You’d have to lean forward.

“Things have been… Going on is all, Moon. Sorry about that, I’ll pay for a replacement toy.” The funny turtle guys are usually stocked in toy aisles, it’d be easy to pick one up the next time you’re going out for the easiest and cheapest premade meals because you haven’t been able to bring yourself to cook properly otherwise lately.

He doesn’t look convinced, looking past you to something just over your head, probably over to Sun if you had any guess. The two had a way of communicating without necessarily having to be in speaking range of one another.

Likely some technological link.

You watch as he nods once... Twice... Three times before suddenly decisions are made.

“...Come on, you’re taking your break early.” Is all he says before you’re swept up with an arm around your shoulders, promptly escorted to a doorway tucked behind one of the play structures with quite the tall baby gate that keeps wandering tikes from going into it.

Also known as the way to their personal room that wasn’t through that funny hook system that made them “float” to the balcony.

You squirm and writhe against his hold, trying to dig your heels into the carpeted area with all your might but he practically picks you up in your struggles. “Ho-Hold on now, I didn’t agree to this-!”

“Don’t care…” He draws out in a mocking sing-song. “Attendant’s orders, we care for children, this includes adults who act like children.”

Was this how you lost what shred of dignity you had left? Cornered to fess up by your coworker and crush? Could you dumb it down, play it off as if it were nothing? Make up a story about something in your personal life going on?

…Better question, did you want to?

You wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this, even if you wanted to do it with both of them present at the same time. No having to repeat yourself and becoming mortified twice over if there is only one band-aid to rip off, after all.

Though that question was answered for you with the reveal of Sun awaiting you up the stairs, hands on his hips and leaning forward, primed up and ready to chastise you for your mistreatment of yourself.

Quickly, you try to find a way out of this impromptu grilling on your being, “I know you did not leave the kids unsupervised.” You point out stiffly, gesturing to the balcony that the solar-themed animatronic likely scaled.

“You are correct, I set up their nap hour! We are both capable of it… Remember I was doing it alone for a time!” He’s chirpy in his jest but distinctly, you feel that smile he can’t necessarily help is more sarcastic in this moment.

“So that leaves you alone with us - ideally uninterrupted with plenty of time to figure out what is wrong with you.” Moon elaborates simply, resting his arms over your head and leaning his weight into you comfortably.

A common way he liked to make fun of his height over you. 

“Mhm! So tell us, sweet sunshine, what’s been eating at you?” Sun holds his hands out to you in invitation, flexing his fingers once.

You don’t hesitate to take his hands into your own two, staring right into his daylight-bright eyes that’d somehow shine more when he was excited you noticed. You hoped they’d stay like that. You don’t ever want to see that light dimmed.

With a deep breath, you decide to take the leap.

“...What would your guy’s responses be if I said I liked you?”

The way Moon goes tense, able to tell even with the rigid, barely padded metal resting against you, has you worried.

Sun twitches in your hold, almost as if wanting to pull away, “Well… It depends in what way you mean by that!”

The animatronic above you doesn’t reply.

Well, here goes nothing for you. Maybe you can ask to be transferred to a different area. Does Bonnie Bowl need any sort of supervision? Children are in every corner of this place, surely someone good with kids would be good in just about any place…

How hard do you play this up… Pouring your heart out would dramatically be for the best you figure.

A little tap to your temple makes you jolt and you can only wish to be able to look up and glare at the attendant who radiates smugness over your head.

“I want to experience life with you in the long run. I want to feel your hands in my hair and I want to be able to care for you similarly, maybe I’d pick up sewing or something to make sure your things fit, I don’t know. I wish to teach you what lies beyond these walls I want you - both… You and…” You point to Moon above you. “I don’t think I could ever choose and risk separation or division. I know there are differences and I'm sorry to dump this all out, it's unwanted and complicating and-” At some point, you start to cry, your frantic blinking had only kept the tears at bay for so long and you couldn’t bow your head to hide the waterworks.

So you stared at Sun who looked to you with, you think, eyes that weren’t remotely as bright as they once were. You caused that.

The seeming pity you felt from them, the awkward, stoney silence.

Your love for them was theirs to keep, your heart would never be your own you think, not for some time. They could do as they wished with it, it was the only blessing you could give them. For them to know they were loved in that way, even if for them, it does nothing.

“...I’m sorry.” You apologize once more after a few moments of the deafening quiet that you couldn’t bear any longer. “I didn’t want to say anything, I was trying to keep it under wraps hoping it’d go away but it didn’t even when I took that - stupid long break using up all my vacation and sick days in one go-”

“Wait, that was why you left for a month?” Moon speaks up, interrupting you swiftly and flicking your temple soon after. “You’re unbelievable. See Sun, this is what I mean. They’re a big child.” 

He’s so huffy about it you can see the silent tapping of his slippered foot against the ground… Actually no, you hear it now. The little bell jingles and his pants sound with the movement.

“Mmm, yes. Yes they are.” Sun confirms with a nod.

You huff out something that you think was supposed to be laughter, “You two are not making me feel any better about this.”

“Because you’ve chewed yourself out thoroughly I think! We had to get you smiling somehow.” Sun releases one of your hands to poke at your nose. “I say we did good.”

Your now free hand automatically went to rubbing at your eyes to forcefully clear the remaining wetness away, using your knuckles and making your vision scramble momentarily. 

“This… Doesn’t give me your answer though.” “Because I’m afraid we don’t have one, Starlet. You’ve dreams and ambitions - but we don’t share them… Especially when it sounds like this like is more of a love, isn’t it?”

Moon has you pinned and you can only let your shoulders lower slowly, forcing down that sticky feeling in your throat, the ball that wants to come out in a sob. 

They didn’t need to be so gentle about it. You wanted them to… Mock you. Do something that’d make you view them at least - something less than pleasant?

Something less than the sweet as peach nature of Sun and the toying black cat nature that Moon possessed, endearing even if sometimes you wanted to take him by the waist and shake him from side to side.

“...I’m sorry.” Is all you say, again.

You’re not sure what this means for you and your friendship with them. Do they view you as silly? Hopeless? A daydreamer with too lofty ideas? Potentially, too idealistic? Romanticizing what wasn’t there? 

“There is no need for an apology, really…” Sun soothes, hushing you when you went to apologize a third time with a press of his finger to your upper lip. “I think you knew our answer to begin with, somewhere in you, didn’t you?”

You did. The one your brain would tell you whenever your thoughts went down the rabbit hole of what-ifs and possibilities. 

After all, they were made with a purpose in mind. Artificial in design, they had their directive, and you were not part of it. They were in love with their duty, their charges, adoring the children they take care of and see grow with each visit. They were caretakers first and individuals second.

You want to find an end to this conversation, a solid conclusion, something of change, meaningful and positive and before you can broach the topic of how this should go on, the sound of a child crying echoes through the dying conversation, silencing it fully.

A part of you laughs deep down at the comical way the two attendants shoot-up like dogs catching the movement of a squirrel. Another part of you cries and laments at their presence leaving yours, the bubble thoroughly popped as arms drop from your head.

Not a moment of goodbye, not a note of continuing this later. They go over to the balcony.

“Oh ho ho! It seems we are up and shining already! Rise and shine from the clouds, who’s ready for snacks?! I say we have little apple bunnies!” Sun cries out with all his joyousness coming out in full force as he launches himself over the railing with a dive.

Moon only spares you a glance, giving you a simple two-finger salute with minimal words before his departure. “Go home.”

The moment he’s over that rail is the moment you feel the urge to keel over and curl up. You feel you screwed that over spectacularly.

This was never so painful, this was never such an agony. Never did feeling love make you feel like such a wretch of an individual. Like an utter bother.

But you go home as instructed. A quick text sent to your coworkers and a brief, phony explanation to the security guard stationed at the front how you sicked up in the bathrooms and wasn’t sure if it was contagious, and you’re out of there.

The rest of the day that’d serve as your shift, you spend staring blankly into nothingness while going about chores you neglected previously due to your shifts and emotional turmoil that left you unwilling to move once you got home.

Anything for normalcy.

Anything to not feel useless. 

Even got to cleaning your bedroom, sorting your messes and putting things where they belonged - briefly you feel accomplished.

You go into your prettily made bed at an hour that’d surely give you a sneer and a direct order to nap by Moon. The sun is kissing the horizon and the inky blackness of the sky, making way for heartwarming pinks that bleed to oranges and purples.

All you feel is cold however.

A meager handful of hours later and you wake up just a bit before your alarm is supposed to go off, to your phone chiming with a text.

…A text.

From your manager.

No email, nothing professional, no official slip of paper.

Hey, sorry to hear you aren’t feeling well, I hope it was just something bad you ate and not an actual issue since you don’t have sick days but, hey, you’ve been moved stations. Effective immediately and all that.

The arcade with DJ Music Man is pretty cool, you’ll do just fine there, you may have to learn some basic engineering and wire tampering though.

Your throat hurts from the wail that falls from you. Miserable and broken.

Desperately, your brain tugs at you. It tugs at your heart. That these tears aren’t needed, you’ve cried, this was for the best. You could heal from this, it wasn’t a break up. You still have your job, there are brightsides to this, that change was good.

All your heart could pound about was that you weren’t wanted anymore.

Unloveable. 

Foolish.

[princesscolumbia]

Peanut Butter...Chocolate...Lyctoral Consumption...Murder?

So I just got done reading an interesting examination of a moment in Nona the Ninth where Alecto emerges from the depths of Nona's consciousness and chastises Pyrra "I'm not the Lyctor, I'm the (he) Or (she) who Lyct Up" Dve. It was good, it was solid, and it was done with the understanding that OP didn't know for sure as they're not Tasmuir.

So you can imagine what a baseball bat to the head it was to see a Psych AU post where Shawn is dead and haunting Gus.

So guess what fell out of the piñata that is my imagination:

Shawn and Gus were born on the Sixth. They weren't supposed to be doing anything with the lyctoral process, but you know how Shawn is...and Gus is always a step behind. You know how they're "Ride or Die"? Well, Shawn is just smart enough ("...a brilliant mind with no impulse control." -Palamedes, who upon meeting Gideon is eternally but silently grateful that she and Shawn never met) piece together how to become a lyctor just from the available material and a few clever questions to the currently living lyctors without ever stepping foot in Canaan House. Because Shawn's knowledge and understanding of the process is SUPER limited, even more so than Ianthe's when she ate Naberius, they're unaware that one of them's gonna die as part of the process, and it's not going to be the necromancer...which is Gus.

Gus goes along with it because he knows Shawn is going to loop in some other more gullible adept and doesn't want anyone to be dealing with Shawn on one of his hyperfixations that isn't used to dealing with him.

Things are going well...until they aren't, and Shawn realizes he's gonna die, but he figures out how to modify the process while they're in the middle of a failed ascension and they become a lyctor...sorta.

Shawn winds up 'haunting' a now ungodly powerful and immortal Gus. Shawn's spirit is inhabiting Gus' body at the same time as Gus' spirit is "consuming" Shawn's, but since Shawn isn't a braindead result of a transference that's intended to be strictly one way, Shawn is 'eating' Gus' spirit at the same time, creating a cycle where both are feeding each other in perfect lyctoral harmony. They don't twig the Resurrection Beasts because "sin" =/= "dumbass fuckup" and Shawn isn't, strictly speaking, dead. It's a symbiosis rather than a parasitic relationship.

So here these two dumbasses are, neo-lyctors, standing over Shawn's dead body. They figure out that they're going to be so screwed if they're caught and someone figures out what they did, so they destroy the body and bug out as fast as possible...

...landing in the midst of BoE on one of the non-Empire human-occupied systems. They're doing their best to lay low and not twig anyone to the fact that they're from the Empire (Gus, thanks to the neo-lyctorhood, looks like a fine, fit, and dare we say sexy man, so nobody pegs him for a necromancer) and Shawn figures out how to do a fancy kinda-sorta projection where he can actually interact with the physical world while still bonded to Gus.

One day there's a murder nearby and Shawn sees all the clues to figure out who-dun-it, and Gus is all, "Naw, man, they're gonna pick us out as Imperial the second those cops see us!"

Shawn, of course, does everything possible to draw attention to the clues, which catches the attention of (you guessed it) Lassie and his partner. Lasiter is suspicious but can't prove anything because the usual 'tells' for a necromancer or lyctor aren't turning anything up. Shawn feeds Gus some line about some grandparent from a few generations back being an expat from the Empire and so Gus is "able to receive messages from the spirit realm" (just Shawn, obvi) and because they can't prove there's a more direct connection to the Empire than that, the police are forced to let Gus go.

Things play out fairly similar to the pilot of Psych from that point forward, but with Gus having to be the point-man for the whole thing while Shawn is getting better and better at manipulating the world around him, including being able to visually manifest by the time Juliet arrives on-planet. She's one of the refugees of a planet destroyed by a lyctor and is absolutely the best officer ever when it comes to hunting down necros...but since none of her tools or experience include anything like what Shawn and Gus have become, she doesn't figure it out for several years, by which point she's fallen in love with Shawn.

Until we get AtN, I have no idea how this would shake out, but my ideal scenario is somehow Paul and Kirona wind up on this BoE planet that Shawn and Gus are on.

[lovestuckyhatemarvel]

Apologies, but I’m about to over analyze a very old meme in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep. And I’m about to talk about the lord of the rings movies more than the books because even though I’ve read the books, I’ve watched the movies more. Also, the meme is about the movies, so leave my tired ass alone.

So I kind of hate the fellowship at 100% vs 99% strength meme because I’ve seen people talk about it seriously and I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the characters function in the story. Like I’m sorry but if you think any single character in the fellowship is more important than the others instead of just a personal favorite, you’re just textually wrong. And this is about to get long so brace yourself. But also if you hate long things, why the fuck are you here?

Aragorn and Sam are spectacular characters that are necessary to the success of the mission but not disproportionately to the whole. Because the whole is the point. The fellowship is the point. Even Boromir, whose direct actions are arguably the least due to dying early, has long reaching effects even after his death. If Boromir was never there, things don’t go the same and may not even go as well long term. Does Aragorn even accept his role as much or as quickly if he doesn’t have Boromir’s dying breath calling him his king? I’d argue no. However I will admit that this character is the one I have the least arguments for other than ‘trust me, bro’ and ‘that’s my baby, and I’m really proud’ while exhausted.

I feel silly even pointing out what Gandalf’s impact is since he’s the reason the journey can even start to begin with. Without him, Frodo gets a weird ring from Bilbo and then dies before he’s 50 because he treats it like a random trinket and is the easiest target the Nazgûl have ever tracked. Gandalf also saves the entire fellowship from the Balrog and is the reason King Théoden becomes available as an ally instead of being God’s crustiest hindrance. In general, the intricate removal of Saruman’s direct impact requires a wizard. Also, if he’s not there, who gets that world’s greatest grandpapa mug I made?

Legolas and Gimli are married so I’m talking about them together. Beyond the fact Gimli almost becomes Galadriel’s favorite side ho, the two don’t have a ton of solo story beats in the movies. However, what they lack in specific moments they make up for by being absolute monsters on the battlefield. Aragorn can’t do most of the shit he does without my gay uncles backing him up. There are literal battles that would have failed and in a war where they’re already outnumbered and outmatched, you actually can’t afford more loss.

Merry and Pippin are eternal besties so they’re also getting talked about together. Initially they’re treated as comic relief and at times even a hindrance in the movies, but they do step up. The Ents go to war because of Merry and Pippin. And the Ents are necessary for dealing with Isengard. Take them out and the war still has an orc factory that can just overwhelm the war with numbers alone. They also have direct impacts on Gondor and Rohan in ways I’m too tired to get into. Also, Pippin sings like an angel even when a gross old man is eating in grossest way possible. Talent. He has the range.

And now we’re down to the main crux of serious arguments I’ve seen. Sam and Frodo. Both of them ring bearers. Is Sam way more important than Frodo? Absolute not.

So Sam is arguably an amazing character, but don’t get it confused. Sam would have never volunteered to take the ring to Mordor, didn’t actually handle the ring’s direct influence well, and also would have gotten rid of Gollum.

Because psych!!! This next part is actually about how Gollum, Frodo, and Sam are three sides to a triangle you can’t remove any part of lest it falls apart completely! Take that, M Night Shyamalan, there’s a new mediocre and fully telegraphed twist in town!!!

Frodo has the initial willingness to take the ring to be destroyed and endures the ring better than literally anyone else. Basically everyone else either gives unhinged talks about what they’d do with the power before they ever touch it or they touch it for 10 seconds and go full Rick Astley. Frodo carries it for days and even wears it a few times before he sees Galadriel and is still capable of trying to give it away. That in itself is extraordinary and cannot be understated. Like that’s the willpower of a god. Put some respect on that.

Frodo, because of his connection to the ring and awareness of its impact, desperately wants to believe Gollum can be saved. After all, that means that he can be saved, and so he does everything in his power to keep Gollum around and get him better. This means they have a guide and when it comes down to it, the reason the ring is destroyed at all. Because Gollum is the one to ultimately, if by accident, destroy the ring. You need Frodo to carry the ring and get Gollum there, you need Sam to get Frodo there, and you need Gollum to destroy it.

And another plot twist that’s not a twist at all at all, but while there’s no part of the fellowship that you can remove and still win, the fellowship itself cannot succeed without 1246885356 other moving parts. Elrond, Arwen, Galadriel, Théoden, Éomer, Éowyn, Faramir, Treebeard, Grima fucking Wormtongue, and dozens of others, some who don’t even get directly named in the trilogy, are all important. They’re all necessary. And there are even more moving parts in the books. Pour one out for my very good friend, Forest God Tom Bombadil. He’s not dead, I just think him and his trees would like a drink.

The point of the whole goddamn thing is that no one can do this mission alone. None of them. Yeah, not even Sam or Aragorn. It’s a fellowship and it’s about that connection and that community. There are themes.