#I guess you could say I’m starting to see why people say Twitter is evil

[ropes3amthoughts]

Twitter Day 1: Wow, there’s so much gorgeous Kabru art here! This is awesome! I love Twitter!

Twitter Day 19: *gritting my teeth while I type* Hi, OP! I think calling Kabru a fascist who’s literally Hitler isn’t a very reasonable take. Just out of curiosity, when’s the last time you watched and/or read Dungeon Meshi and/or looked up the definition of fascist and/or looked up what Hitler did? I think maybe you should go look at those again. Thanks!

[rayinberkeley]

You think I’M the monster?

So, hi everybody. Um, yeah..... I guess you all saw the massive explosion that I got stuck in, that leaves you thinking I'm a giant monster, wishing cancer on a poor, innocent lady who was swarmed by hate from a mob of evil people you think I'm a part of.

Alright, well... no. I’m not. And no, I don’t just go around wishing people die of cancer. You'll probably ignore this and go, "tl;dr lol" at me, but I'm gonna show you some shit anyway. Because there really is a lot more to this than you think. And I don’t mean about what really started that drama. In fact I still don’t even know what caused it. But you need to know, this is the entire exchange, and the reason why I was angry enough to say so.

And yes, you can be driven to that level of anger, and yes, by a poor lady you think did nothing wrong (but totally did).

First, because I just want to get this out of the way, here's a little about your girl Gamma. Some interesting pertinent tidbits in here... because since then, I've seen ALL this said about your girl:

Do I know anything about these incidents? No. I don't know her at all. So if you wanna defend the poor little thing against these accusations, take it up with the people who said it, not with me.

My entire point here is to show you want happened with ME. What drove me to saying what I said, and why I'm not sorry.

I was told it's always wrong to say what I said. Like nobody else has ever been driven to saying something ragey. And that there’s no justification just because I was "having a bad day." Actually my day was just fine. I'd just seen Book of Mormon on stage, enjoying my coffee and a football game, and while upset that five gay men were murdered in a nightclub the day before, I was doing just fine.

Again, I don't know her and didn't follow her. I only know for some reason Twitter saw fit to put her tweet, the one that started it all, on my feed, just like they do a billion rightwing motherfuckers I don't care about. You've seen me scream at Twitter about that multiple times.

And here it is. And this should be enough, because apparently many of you need to be informed of this fact: it is offensive as fuck.

This screenshot was taken as it appeared on my feed. A million of you told me, "Well he started it!" and that it isn't what I think it is. As you can see, whatever she was Quote Tweeting is not visible to me. If I want to look at WHY she said it, I'd have to tap on the quote-tweet and scroll up to what led to it, but I can't do that if I’m "unable to see this tweet because..."

What I see is a woman yelling at a gay man about not doing something for the wrongly imprisoned Japanese. I didn’t even know what Greg she was talking to. Just that she’s got a gay kid, and she’s not homophobic at all and fights for the gays, but...... on the day after five of us are murdered, she wants to know what this one gay person named Greg did for Japanese internment.

What. The. FUCK?

What I don't understand is, how do you even justify this? You all had a chance to tell me why it's justified and you instead chose to yell at me. I could get no answer from any of you other than rage and stupidity, and I damn sure didn’t get anything from her.

Are you not aware why it's offensive? 

Would you listen to me if I told you? 

Because I'm going to tell you.

Tit for tat, she says. On the day after five murders of gay men, somehow gays were supposed to, "tit for tat" do something about..... what? Something from a century ago? So random. So off the wall out there, and I'm hardly the only one to think so. Lots of people expressed how bizarre this was:

This has the smatterings of the incident recently with Sarah Silverman. You may remember, as it JUST HAPPENED RECENTLY (unlike Japanese Internment from FDR) that Silverman accused people of not saying anything about Kanye's antisemetic remarks, and she was demanding we do so. You all swarmed her, as did I, that she must not have been following good folks if she hadn't seen the outrage Ye received. Not just then but for quite some time now.

But for devil's advocacy, for no reason other than to demonstrate a point, let’s just say: what if nobody WAS saying anything about his antisemetic remarks? She'd have been right to say so. She's not, cuz we did, before you have a kneejerk reaction to that. My point isn't that. My point is that at least she’d have a point if she were right.

What Gimble (or whatever her name is) said... was worse. Way worse than Silverman’s statement. No, not just because Japanese Internment wasn't nearly so recent. But because there's no way for her to be right even if no gays did anything about Japanese internment.

Why didn't we gay men just put on our thparkly little thuperhero tights and rethcue those poor Japanese a century ago? I want you to think about that for a second. Why didn’t we?

(And one of you decided to come at me and go, "Um excuse me, it wasn't a century ago. It happen in the 1940's which is less than I DON'T GIVE A FUCK, CHAD.)

But no, just why?

Well it might be because WE WERE IN FUCKING HIDING!!!!!!!!!! This little point didn't occur to a single one of you as to why what she said was INCREDIBLY FUCKING OFFENSIVE? Not a single one of you?

Gays were in terror, hiding in speakeasies, drinking watered down cocktails that the mafia sold us because those were the only places we could feel slightly safe. How do you all not know this? Our hangouts would be raided by police with batons, who'd then shove us into the back of police trucks, all while reporters would shove cameras in our faces to catch the fags. We had to try to hide our faces with handcuffed hands, because if our face was recognized our entire life was ruined. Because the people of America were shown such wonderful things about us, that we were praying on little boys, much like we're being attacked and labeled as "groomers" every single fucking day now. We are under attack RIGHT NOW, not just by murders like at Q or at Pulse, but by nonstop rightwing radio and media, and with legislation and groomer propaganda. Right now. Not (slightly less than) a century ago. Oh, even the raiding of gay bars wasn't just a thing of last century. Ask the Atlanta Eagle. Oh you can't. It was shut down.

You wouldn't hear George Takei blame gays for not rescuing him from that camp. Maybe you should have a talk with him about it.

Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is wrong with all of you that you didn't see how offensive that was? 

Oh, but you ALL screamed at me, that’s not what she MEANT!  And "She's not homophobic, how dare you say that!" except I didn't. I don't reach for low-hanging fruit like that, and I don't need yet another motherfucker telling me she didn't mean that, because there it is, her saying exactly that, and her demanding some fucked up "tit for tat" from a gay man.

Yes, she did, motherfucker, it's right the fuck there and stop saying it isn't.

But you think she’s being “attacked” and “for no reason”? I don’t even know why I’m cropping the person’s name out who said this, because he damn sure didn’t give ME any courtesy:

You all instead kept yelling at me that I can't be offended by that. Every one of you would have said, at least at one point in your life, that you don't get to tell someone what can and cannot offend them, and yet you DON'T afford that to me. You do realize that, don't you?

No. Apparently I've no right to tell her that horrible thing I did, no excuse, no reason could possibly justify it. I’m not trying to justify it. I’m explaining why I said it. Because you all think I just right out told her to die of cancer ‘for not reason.” You DO know I didn't just say that, right? 

No, in fact my reaction was simply this:

It could've ended there. She could’ve recognized that I was offended, if she’d had any sense that what she said might’ve been even remotely wrong, or at the very least come across wrong to others. If she’d been thinking about anybody else’s sensitivities. (I remind you in the tweets above she had no sensitivity to the man with PTSD wanting a trigger warning). 

But instead of that, she had to go and do this:

I don’t get why I’m not allowed to see my own tweet, but it’s my tweet she’s quoting there. As she makes a joke out of this whole thing.

And that's where things really began. You see, you should all know how Twitter works. You can reply easily enough. She could apologize. She could explain she didn't mean what she said that way. Or..... you can quote tweet someone so as to say, "Hey everybody, look what this person said to me!" because you wanna fish for attention. 

And that, I hope you realize, is exactly what she did. As you can see, she quote-tweets my comment, which was supposed to be, "Take your tit and go" except my phone keyboard decided to "autocorrect" it to tits by adding an s. Having already outraged me, instead she's all, Hey everyone, look what he said to me, How do I take them off? LOL... like this is a fucking joke to her.

Alright, well..... if she wants to talk about removable body parts..... I just suggested she do whatever she did to detach her brain before she said that offensive as fuck thing she did. And.....

Hey everybody, look what he said! Those are words! LOL... laughy emoji!

Does it look like she’s someone who cares a damn about other people? It sure as fuck doesn’t to me. I’m obviously gay, it’s obviously the day after the murders, and she’s obviously making all the fun about how outraged I am at her comment.

And I’m outraged at her “for no reason at all.”

This is the second time she pokes the bear that she’s already just offended. And now, I'm fucking livid. So, “Becky with the fucked hair” (and no, I’ve no fucking idea why her hair looks so fucked, and I don’t CARE!)

One more poke, and this one with an added attempt at acting like, “I’m on base!” cuz of some victimhood thing she pulls out of her ass. Now, she's already hidden behind her gay kid which is despicable enough. 

I have a gay kid so I can't possibly be homophobic, BUT...

You all know what it's like when someone says, "I'm not racist, but..." and this was no different. And apparently she said this about Japanese internment because she claims some Japanese heritage, so she's using that as well. Now she's using chemo, like I’m supposed to fucking know that about her.

And I've had my last ounce of chill at this point. Cuz she’d do anything to protect gays, except you know, not joke about them after murders. NOW I drop my rage bomb. I don't JUST say horrible things to poor, poor women. I have to be driven very, VERY far before I'd lose my shit like that, and she took me all the way there:

And I blocked her. 

Okay, NOW I'm having a bad day. 

So no, I didn’t just tell her I hope she dies of cancer because I’m a big careless misogynist meanie and a monster. I was pushed there. And I am not some fucking child that needs your reprimand about what you don’t say to people. Especially people too stupid to see why I was offended. 

Don’t fucking insult my intelligence.

By this point, I wouldn't give a shit if she tried to tell me she has a week to live. I'd have probably said Then speed it the fuck along, because as far as I'm concerned, this person, I don't even know, is yet another Twitter troll who'll throw up anything to excuse their shitty behavior. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You've seen them. First name bunchanumbers, jumps in, says something that pisses you off, and no matter what you come back with, they throw up something they make up, entirely out of their ass, to insist you “assumed” something about them, and finish off with an obligatory “lol” instead of punctuation. They always try to disarm you with random and irrelevant shit, and you know anybody can say anything on Twitter. And it’s already real clear to me, she’s not taking anything seriously.

So I don't even fucking CARE. And I shouldn't have to. Because this was some serious bullshit. And if you can't see that, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Did I overreact? Well you would probably think so because this woman, who kept quote-tweeting me for your attention, had just been given the MOTHERLODE of sympathy-getters to get all she wanted from fools like you, who wouldn’t even give it a second thought to condemn me. Why? Cuz I lost my fucking shit, and I couldn’t even think straight. The crime is not that I said it, but that she got me there. 

But you don’t care, cuz she shows you, you saw red, and she gets exactly what she wants. Ta dah! This is how Karens work.

If I have one more finger-wagging, pearl clutching, self-righteous person come at me with, "Now Ray, you don't wish someone dead of cancer!" like I don’t fucking know you don’t, I was gonna fucking lose my goddamned shit worse. I particularly like "Do better!" Better? Okay fine, she can die of cancer AND the clap. How's that for better?

As you can see, I’m not sorry. I didn’t ask for this shit.

All the excuses ya’ll made for her! I got to see them and they were so insane. Oh but that's not what she meant, you said, and But HE started it (whoever HE is), and my favorite: But the poor thing was just being swarmed! 

Oh please. Hello, welcome to fucking Twitter. You have all participated in swarming people who say offensive shit, yet you’re clutching your pearls cuz I wasn't nice to her for saying whatever the fuck that was? Nothing justifies what she said. And it doesn't even have to be JUST that she said it on the day after five gay murders, but also that she not once, not twice, but three times tried to use me for her entertainment. She was using me for cruel fucking jollies. Do you not see that?

And don’t act like saying that is new just because lady tears activated your heart strings. Do you have any idea how many of these Bernie-or-Bust little brats have told me they hope I keep smoking my cigars and die of cancer? Did any of you defend me? No, and I didn’t need you to.

Did any of you have anything at all to say about the esteemed “Mr. Weeks”?Maybe you don’t know, because I didn’t cry and beg for your attention. But he blocked me and told me to STFU because he's offended by the word "cisgendered," and when asking what it even meant, I simply told him the Latin meaning, and why it's really no different than "HETEROsexual." Well to let you know, he and several of his followers insisted (and these are not my words)  that their Black ass don't need no more words stamped on them, sending actual trans people on here to feel absolutely abused. I was there for them, but I don’t remember a single one of you. 

We LGBTQ truly cannot trust any of you.

Ya'll saw what you wanted to see, and just snapped right into your little narratives about men being monsters to women, and tossing me right on that pile without hesitation. And I might expect that from people who know nothing about me. But those of you who coddled her, ignored her offensive as fuck thing, and fell for the Karen tears, I have to say, I honestly thought you knew better.

Oh yeah, and I saw a certain lesbian activist's little diatribe about "toxic white gays" and their misogyny, and how they use the term "Karen" wrong as though they don't know what it means. I mean you had to fall right into your little script of your hate for the gay boys, didn't you?

Gurl please. See if I don't know what a Karen is. 

A Karen is a woman who throws herSELF onto the hood of your car and then screams at people, "He's trying to run me over!" to get sympathy and bring unjust harm onto the accused. A Karen pokes a bear and then tries to get you to hate the bear because she got her ass bit.

I've even said, a time or two, that while the blood of Jesus is supposed to wash away your sins, the tears of a Karen washes away your humanity in the eyes of the fools who fall for her shit.

Goombah, or whatever her name is, cried her little Karen tears and showed you all what I said, supposedly for no reason at all, and not a one of you saw any humanity in me whatsoever. No reason to hear a word I said. No reason to consider my case when I provided receipts. No reason to wonder why I might have said it. Just run to comfort the poor little thing that the big meanie attacked for no reason at all. How could she possibwy be wrong in any way at all? Why, she was just being all innocent and defenseless and minding her own widdle business, and along came one of those tOxIc wHiTe gAyS, right? Who needs to know any more? I don't have feelings. I am not allowed to be offended. I'm nobody. Toss my ass in the garbage and go help the crying little thing. Guilty because well I just am and that’s all there is to it.

Hopefully you understand, that's how she treated gay men the day after the murders, and the rest of you gave us, in this supposedly evil mean monster swarm you all told me about, exactly zero consideration. Exactly zero agency. Exactly zero humanity. Zero benefit of doubt. Zero reason to care at all that she just said, and yes she fucking did, that gays should "tit for tat" have done something about Japanese internment in the 1940s as though that’s perfectly okay to say.

Every. Single. One of you.

I honestly cannot believe how, in a split second, in a beat of a heart, you ALL fell for this shit, and my entire standing goes up in flames. That’s fucked up.

Gays are always used by straight women who want safety, and then when they’re done we are disrespected, and so damned disposable that even those of you who should know better toss us aside the second we're not useful. Oh hello, it was just a week ago or so that a story came out of a bachelorette party in a gay bar got out of control and some woman bit the fuck out of one of the gay male patrons. I said something about when Jack on Will & Grace said, "Grace honey, I'm not like the other men in your life. I... WILL slap you." Because in that moment I totally would if you fucking bit me.

And oooooh some of you did not like that. And I don't give a fuck. I have a right to defend myself, against any Karen. We have to learn to be. The abuse from straight girls is unfathomable. Some of you might not know this, but in fact gay men are being shamed into giving up our spaces constantly to women because if we don't we're oh so misogynist and mean, even to the point where women are supposed to be allowed (I'm not making this up) to compete in MISTER Leather events, but there is no tit for tat there for MISS. Leather events. You didn't know that, did you? We have a lady Mister San Francisco Leather recently and men were made into monsters if they were against it, because how dare they be!?

Me? I get that gender isn't binary, and I stayed all the way out of that quagmire, because I've already been made aware I am not allowed to have a thought on that. But I do feel for how ripped-to-fucking-shreds some of my friends have been over that. Because like gender, it's complicated.

I don't honestly know how much more I am expected to take before I'm allowed to be mildly annoyed, let alone excused for snapping. Five more of us murdered? Called faggot a two hundred more times? A few more million tweets insinuating we're all groomers? Before I'm allowed to have even the slightest ounce of humanity, that you don't all toss me the second some Karen tears fly, as though all I do is just abuse women all the time, so that the Man-hating Lesbo Lady can have another lengthy lecture to nodding bobblehead people about what monsters we are.

That's what I've just gone through. Thanks to Gumby or whatever she's called, and every... single... one of you. In an instant I still can't believe happened. From a woman who apparently has beaten up on PTSD people before. Remember, I have been quite open about my own crippling PTSD. My own difficult journey not just as a gay man, but as a disabled one, that has me constantly tied up in knots. So that all these little shits on Twitter who call me boomer and wish me dead from cigar smoke think they're "punching up." Like fuck they are. My PTSD is flaring up real bad right now. Defending myself is NOT easy, because every single time I did as a kid, I was abused harder, AND condemned by nearly everyone around me for fighting with women. Because I was male, and my abusers were female--my mother and sister. Never mind I was a little disabled boy and they were older, evil and used that relentlessly against me.

There is nothing more horrific than knowing you can be abused and beaten and have absolutely no right to defend yourself or run. It's why as a child, who shouldn't even know WHAT a complete nervous breakdown IS, I'd had multiple instances of them before I'd even reached the age of ten. I'd feared for my life many times even from a death threat from my own mother. You want to know why I can identify with the terror Black folks must feel with dealing with police abuse? Why the videos are traumatizing to me in a way I couldn't even put into words? That's why.

But no, I'm an unfeeling monster who just abuses women, huh?

What all just happened, condemnation from all of you because of Karen tears, because I dared defend myself, is resulting in a category 5 PTSD maelstrom right now, but you think I don’t feel. All because of your innocent little Googlymoogly, or whatever her name is, wanted some sympathy attention, and every single one of you gave it to her. And every one of you coming at me to tell me, "Now Ray, it was wrong of you!" have no idea.

When I get to the point I’m saying DON'T COME AT ME I don’t say it because I'm a mean person, but because I don't WANT to be mean, and I’m on the edge, and it feels like more internal torture than I can take. I’m not prone to being mean. In those instances I’m actually prone to curling up and crying. The fact I lashed out in defense isn’t because I’m some toxic white male, but that I finally learned I do deserve to defend myself. It was not easy for me to get to that state of self-pride. You did not know that. Now you do.

All I know now is that I can never again trust any of you. I know where I really stand with you. And I guess all this time I've been there beside you fighting the Bernie-bitches and the RoseMAGA motherfuckers means absolutely nothing. I never demanded your attention or "a cookie." I just enjoyed making you laugh and supporting you against those little demons, because for a brief moment I didn't feel alone. I never asked for anything from you. Just being seen as a person meant everything after how I'd been treated by the Right for so long, and then by the Left because I didn’t hate Hillary like they wanted. I’d fled the east coast to get away from my family’s abuse, from Obama haters who threatened me because I had the audacity to say he wasn’t a Muslim who’d behead women he didn’t like (seriously, deep south Georgia in 2008 was scary), only to get to the west coast and see representative get shot (Tucson, 2011), to see my Pride parade sabotaged by extreme Leftists in San Francisco each year, to see Russia turn my side of the political aisle into crazed haters.....

After all that, I thought I'd found safety with you on here, and clearly I was mistaken. I didn't even expect you to defend me. I just didn't need your finger in my face and your insult to my intelligence. I just needed the allowance to have the agency to decide what should offend me.

But you didn't even give me that. 

Far as I'm concerned, you can all die of fucking cancer with a side of butt herpes and some scabies on the side. You know, because all I am to you now is someone who said that one thing that one time to that one person “for no reason,” and I’m nothing more.

Thanks a fucking lot, folks. 

Really thought ya'll were smarter than that.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: Post-canon, Nie Huaisang drops the 'Headshaker' facade and his disciples stop pretending they think he's incompetent, and a bunch of Sect Leaders who are used to being able to step all over Qinghe Nie are suddenly faced with a cunning, brilliant leader who Takes Absolutely No Shit.

Associates - Part 1 - ao3

Untamed verse

“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang said, so shocked that he didn’t even raise his fan in front of his face. “You want me to what now?”

“Help,” Lan Wangji said. He was seated across from Nie Huaisang, as stiff-backed and formal as if they were having a discussion conference banquet rather than a meal in Nie Huaisang’s private quarters in the Unclean Realm.

“Yes, I gathered as much,” Nie Huaisang said. “Two questions: Help with what? And – why me?”

Lan Wangji’s brow wrinkled minutely, which for the Lan sect suggested a state of extreme stress. “Brother has entered seclusion.”

“I know that,” Nie Huaisang said, firmly ignoring the niggling feeling of guilt. If Lan Xichen hadn’t wanted to be completely wrecked as collateral damage in Nie Huaisang’s revenge plan, he shouldn’t have tried to take Jin Guangyao’s side even after he knew what he’d done.

His da-ge deserved better than that. Especially from Lan Xichen.

“I have been appointed Chief Cultivator,” Lan Wangji said.

“I know that, too,” Nie Huaisang said. “I sent you a present in congratulations, didn’t I?”

Lan Wangji gave him a dead-eyed look, which meant he’d received it.

“I thought you and Wei Wuxian would enjoy it,” Nie Huaisang protested, hiding his twitching lips behind his fan. His favorite, as always – he might switch them out on a regular basis, but he always came back to this one, the one his brother had given him long, long ago. It served as a reminder that he should trust no one, which was a concept his stupid heart had a tendency to otherwise forget. “I understand that appropriate preparation is a very important part of the proceedings –”

The dead-eyed looked turned into a glare, and Nie Huaisang coughed into his hand and stopped talking about the jade phallus and jar of lubricant that he’d sent to the Cloud Recesses in a discreet package under the guise of a congratulations gift.

He really hoped he was lucky enough that Lan Wangji had opened it in front of other people, but sadly he suspected the other man knew him too well to do that.

“Speaking of which, have you married him yet?” he asked, ignoring his hurt at not having been informed. He hadn’t expected an invitation to the happy event itself, of course; Wei Wuxian had made very clear what he’d thought about what Nie Huaisang had done – don’t associate with evil. There was a reason that Nie Huaisang had carefully returned to referring to Wei Wuxian by name, rather than casually. But not even to receive a letter informing him of it having happened…?

“I have not,” Lan Wangji said. When Nie Huaisang goggled at him, disbelieving, he shifted minutely in his seat and said, “He wanted to travel. I – could not.”

“Well, of course you couldn’t,” Nie Huaisang said blankly. “You’re the Lan sect heir. If your brother goes into seclusion, then responsibility for managing your sect falls to you – and of course you were just named Chief Cultivator – wait, are you doing both jobs by yourself?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

Nie Huaisang had a momentary feeling of sincere pity, and then the true horror sunk in.

“And you’re asking me to help you?!” he yowled. “Hanguang-jun! You can’t be serious! Don’t you know what everyone says about me? Me, the hapless ‘I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know’, the one they all call the Headshaker?”

“I know what they call you,” Lan Wangji said, stoic as ever. “I also know what they said about Wei Ying, and about Lianfeng-zun. There is not much gain in listening to what people say.”

“I don’t think those are comparable situations,” Nie Huaisang complained, but even he had to admit it was a bit of a weak response.

“No?” Lan Wangji said. “Then you are not the man who drove Lianfeng-zun into a corner with no route of escape?”

Well, when he put it that way.

“That doesn’t mean I know anything about running a sect,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “Sure, I’ve managed, but I had –” Er-ge and san-ge do it. “- help.”

“They each had their own sects to run,” Lan Wangji pointed out in return. “You must have done much of it yourself.”

“But –”

“Nie Huaisang,” Lan Wangji said, and Nie Huaisang blinked. Lan Wangji hadn’t called him as informally as that in years, and certainly never since he became Sect Leader. “Please. As a favor to me.”

Nie Huaisang pursed his lips and looked down at his plate, reaching out and playing with his teacup.

It was a low blow, that.

Pity for Lan Wangji that low blows didn’t work on him anymore.

“We used to be friends, once,” Nie Huaisang said, not looking up. “A long time ago – do you remember? I was seven, you were eight, it was right after my father died. I slept in your room.”

He’d had screaming nightmares back then, and they were worse when he was alone. It hadn’t been just about his father, either, but his brother, the memory of fear in his eyes and bruises on his face, the desperate way he’d pleaded for Nie Huaisang to agree to go to Gusu just for a little while, the persistent worry about what was happening back home once he’d agreed, the haunting thoughts of losing him in the same way he’d lost his father…

Lan Wangji hadn’t been much of a talker back then, either, but he’d crawled into the cot they’d set up for Nie Huaisang in his room and had held his hand, right up until he’d passed out like clockwork at nine. His steady breathing had reminded Nie Huaisang of his brother, calming his nerves, and eventually he’d started confiding in him. Telling him all his fears – the secrets he’d guessed about the Nie family cultivation he only half-understood – the qi deviations –

“I remember,” Lan Wangji said.

“Later, when I came back to the Cloud Recesses to learn for the first time, I was so excited to see you again, and so disappointed to find out you were preparing to go into seclusion. When I snuck over to see you, you chased me away – and when you came out, you only spoke to me long enough to scold me about how I wasn’t obeying the rules properly. I thought you were embarrassed to be seen with me.”

Lan Wangji said nothing. He probably had been. With the benefit of hindsight and age, Nie Huaisang could even understand: adolescence was such a prickly age, and little things seemed so important.

“I was angry at you back then,” Nie Huaisang said. “Very angry – but all I did was start treating you coldly, calling you Lan-er-gongzi instead of Lan Zhan, waiting for you to remember that you liked me. And then the next year we had all those adventures together, you and me and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, and of course we were close again during the war. You remember, I’m sure, how we used to stay together every time you came back to the Cloud Recesses or visited the Unclean Realm, how I couldn’t do anything for the war but worry, couldn’t do anything but keep you company, but you said it helped to lift your spirits before you headed out again. I even sent you letters after what happened with Wei-xiong– with Wei Wuxian. The siege of the Burial Mounds. I knew how close you were, and I wanted to comfort you if I could...but you never responded to any of them.”

He shook his head and rolled the teacup from one hand to another.

“And then you didn’t show up when my brother died. In seclusion again! For years and years! The honorable Hanguang-jun, always thinking about his cultivation; what a good seed you are, a pride and joy to your sect. Just like everyone always said.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Lan Wangji said. His voice was very quiet, a little hoarse. “I was not well.”

Nie Huaisang shrugged. “No one ever explained, either then or thereafter. And no one else ever guessed ‘busy mourning the death of the love of your life’ was the reason, either, so I don’t know why you would expect me to.”

“You never spoke to me again,” Lan Wangji said, his jaw and throat working. He’d tried, a few times, but Nie Huaisang had looked through him as if he wasn’t there, twittering like a foolish little bird with only the most formal of addresses on his lips. “Only in passing, when you came to visit my brother.”

“As I’m sure you’ve realized by now, I’m very good at holding a grudge,” Nie Huaisang said, and put his teacup down. He knew perfectly well that he was being unfair, that he was being cruel and selfish and completely disregarding the many ways he had undoubtedly been unfair to Lan Wangji in turn through lack of consideration or otherwise. But he was cruel and selfish, his mission this past decade and more evidence enough of that, and that old pain of abandonment had lingered far past the point of reason. Still lingered, if he was being honest. “I’m sorry that you’re struggling, and for my part in it, but you’re going to have to do better than please.”

Lan Wangji was quiet, bowing his head. After a time, he said, “I was in recovery during that period. I did not learn about what had happened to your brother until – until much later. It was kept from me so as not to disturb me as I was healing...I can show you the remaining marks, if you wish.”

“That’d be something,” Nie Huaisang said, because he was a petty person like that. Because that had hurt back then, thinking that Lan Wangji was ignoring him even at that most desperate moment, hurt more than anything.

Well. Not more than anything.

Not more than losing his brother. Than finding out the truth about Jin Guangyao.

Than realizing he was the only one who could right this wrong, and that he would have to do it alone.

“If things had been different,” Lan Wangji said, and he did not lift his head. “If things had gone – otherwise. Would you have trusted me?”

Now it was Nie Huaisang’s turn to bow his head. If he had had Lan Wangji, had trusted Lan Wangji…yes, things might have gone very differently.

For Lan Xichen, at least.

“Perhaps,” he said, unwilling to commit himself but knowing that his mere lack of response said everything. “But enough about the past. Far more importantly - what about the future?”

Lan Wangji blinked at him.

Nie Huaisang sighed. “You’re right. I did learn to run a sect, at least somewhat. I may not be very good at it, but I know all the things a sect leader ought to know – all the secrets, all the gossip, how to commit to nothing while making people think you’ve agreed, who should sit next to who and who shouldn’t, what’s a trap and what isn’t, all the things you’ve never needed to care about it. Your brother made sure I knew it all, and told me many stories about things he was doing to run your sect to use as examples. As you suspected, I can probably help you, even if only in figuring out how to appropriately delegate the work.”

“But?”

“I may not be a very good custodian of it, but my sect is the only thing I have left,” Nie Huaisang said. “And you may have once been my friend, Lan Zhan, but now you’re the Chief Cultivator. Do not associate with evil. Am I to expect a freeze in trade relations? A subtle ostracization of my disciples? Will I be invited to the discussion conferences, or will people turn their faces away from me?” He shrugged. “You don’t get to play hot and cold with me anymore. You want my help, you stand by my side. No more judgment.”

Lan Wangji was frowning. “As Chief Cultivator, I must be impartial.”

“Just like the last three were? Wen Ruohan, Jin Guangshan, Jin Guangyao…oh yes, impartiality is truly intrinsic to the position, with such grand examples in your predecessors,” Nie Huaisang said archly, and this time he did open his fan. Trust no one. “I’m not asking for favoritism. Equality with all the others, and your support if someone tries to criticize me or remove me, especially for anything to do with Jin Guangyao; that’ll be enough. Well?”

Lan Wangji considered it for a long time.

It wasn’t anything personal – Lan Wangji was a contemplative sort of person – so Nie Huaisang didn’t take offense, just waited, occasionally moving to eat a little of the food.

“Very well,” Lan Wangji finally said. “I agree.”  

Nie Huaisang was ready with his next question, and also a bite of some grilled vegetables, which he swallowed down before speaking. “And if Wei Wuxian doesn’t?”

Lan Wangji’s hands tightened around his knees. “I have said I will defend you. I have not named exceptions.”

“Just checking,” Nie Huaisang said, then smiled and put some of the vegetables into Lan Wangji’s bowl. “Eat up, Lan Zhan! We’re going to have our work cut out for us.”

Lan Wangji nodded. He seemed resigned.

“If you want, I’ll even deal with Jiang Cheng for you,” Nie Huaisang said. “But it’ll cost you.”

Lan Wangji tilted his head to the side, as if it could hide how much his eyes had brightened in anticipation of that particular burden being taken off his back.

“Remember when we were kids and I asked you to do my copying for me?”

A slow blink. “You want me to do paperwork?”

“I want you to do so much paperwork,” Nie Huaisang said emphatically. He even waved his hands around in emphasis, he meant it so strongly. “I’ll tell you what needs to be done and who needs to do it, I’ll show you how to keep the smaller sects in line and how to manage conferences, but if I never see another memorial in my life it will be too soon..!”

“I think,” Lan Wangji said dryly, “that we will be able to devise an equitable division of labor.”

“Old friend!” Nie Huaisang trilled happily, holding out his arms.

“Do not hug me.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, don’t be like that –”

“Do not hug me.”

“Don’t be so cold! How are we going to get Wei Wuxian back by your side if we don’t put some effort into making him jealous?”

“…explain.”

“Well, the way I see it –”

[the-0th3r-side]

Ok, so I'm going to refute all the points a JC stan made on twitter about Wei Wuxian being a villain and a morally gray character, which I couldn't answer directly because they closed the account. ( This is a very long rant drived by my feminine urge to hate everyone who talks bad about WWX )

Starting with how the fact that Wei Wuxian was labeled as evil is related to classism. First of all, WWX was the son of a servant, who despite being considered a 'brother' for the Jiangs, no one ever recognized him like it and he also didn't hold a very solid position at Lotos Pier, although he was the head disciple. Wei Wuxian was the most powerful person in post-war era, and those above in the social hierarchy hated it, they couldn't handle the fact that a servant's son was the most powerful cultivator ( EX: Jin Zixun complaining that wwx  took 30% of the prey but nmj doing the same thing, and i see no one saying anything about this). As WWX already practiced demonic cultivation, which was something unorthodox, he became an easy target, mainly because they knew he couldn't fight back bc if he attacked someone with resentful energy even as self-defense, they would bust him, that is, he was already in a very vulnerable position with his sect and his cultivation, and people took advantage of it. Elitism was one of the driving forces of the narrative, even because no one would believe the word of a servant's son above that of a sect leader, so they didn't even make the effort to investigate his claims that the Jins were becoming like the Wens, and also because the "righteous" cultivators didn’t give a fuck about innocent people dying, as long as it didn’t affect them. When Wei Wuxian lost the only defense he had, which was his position in the Jiang sect, it was just a matter of time before someone attacked him, bc he had no protection, he had no power in his name, if someone killed him, they would not suffer any consequences, it didn't matter if he had done something wrong or not. (Ex: Xue Yang massacred an entire clan but received no punishment because he was being protected by the Jins, a large sect that held a lot of political power)

Wei Wuxian was a good person just bc he was, he couldn't see injustice and keep silent. They said that WWX was a murderer. He killed people in the war just like everyone else, guess why? It was a war. As for the battle in nightless city it was not even him that start it. Let's give some context, Jin Zixun ambushed WWX with over 300 soldiers to kill him, while WWX only had WN to defend himself. Jin Zixuan, seeing the situation as it was, tells WWX to put down chenquing, his only form of defense at the moment, that if lowered he would be killed for sure. Then Jin Zixuan starts fighting with him and then lauches at him, WWX loses control and JZX dies. WN and WQ sacrifice themselves to keep him and the Wens alive, but JGS still breaks his promise and keeps wanting to kill the wens remnants, WWX demands that he keep his word but he is attacked, having done nothing to provoke it, bc they didn't care if he was really a danger, they just wanted to kill him. Jiang Yanli arrives and asks him to stop, which he does, only to be attacked again, so JY saves him by taking the blow. And then, after being attacked so many times without provocation, he still chooses to destroy the tiger's seal, because he recognizes that it was a mistake and could not fall in wrong hands, so he dies to destroy it.

They said he was a torturer, and in that they were kind of correct, that even WWX recognizes that he was wrong and redeems himself for it by saving the Wens remnats. But first, let's give another context. Chinese culture give much importance to family ties, and it's actually an honor for you to avenge your family. WWX had just lost his entire sect, his home, the people who were his family, his adoptive brother had lost his Golden core and his parents and on top of that, he had also lost his Golden core and thrown into hell to die. The desire for revenge and the need to protect his family were one of the only things that anchored WWX in the Burial Mounds. So, he comes back cultivating resentful energy, tortures the people who massacred his family, goes to war with them and is very cruel, mostly wanting to blow away all the hatred he had for the Wens. But after the war he realizes that not all Wens were bad, that not all were fighting bc they wanted to, so he saves as many people as he can, to pay his debt to WN and WQ, to redeem himself for what he did in the war, and bc he could not stand back while seeing innocent people being killed for no reason.

About him being a canibal as they said, the story only implies this line of thought, but does not specify it. However, despite being only a headcanon, I also think that he had to resort to that at some point, even by the way he tortures WC, but I don't have a solid opinion on it. Like, it's absolutely terrifying yes, but as he says, "when people are hungry enough, they can eat anything", survival will always be our top priority, even if we have to do atrocities to go forward (which, actually speaking, it was the only way for him to get out of there, he was the only one actually alive, the souls of those bodies were already corrupted and dishonored, I'm a very practical person, so for me, if you haven't committed any crime deliberately, whatever you do to survive is ok, it reminds me a lot of a Spanish movie I watched that deals with this subject in a very crude but accurate and good way, it's called “O Poço” by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia ). But it's like I said, this was not cleared by Mxtx, so there could be a possibility that he was not referring to this specifically.

About demonic cultivation being disrespectful and breaking the reincarnation cycle. WWX is one of the characters that we see being the most respectful to the dead, he used bodies already corrupted by resentful energy, that is, which were already going to be eradicated, with no chance of resuscitating. When he is not using the bodies of the wens to torture their enemies, a fact that he recognizes was wrong. In fact, if what he was doing was really breaking the reincarnation cycle i think people would have reacted to it much more violently than they do, they would thrown it at his face at any opportunity, and more, the “ righteous “ cultivators are the ones who dumped bodies of eldery, weak and woman in a blood pool without a proper burial and with no chance of reicarnation.

They said that Wei Wuxian was a resentful ghost possessing a person's body, even if he had no choice in the matter. ???? make this make sense, i didn't even know people really thought like that. So, he was resurrected, MXY offered his body forcefully (even though he wasn't in a right state of mind ) what could Wei Wuxian do? The ritual was already complete, if he didn't complete MXY revenge against the Mo (which, even when he was at risk of never incarnating again, he still hesitated to do, and in the end he didn't) he would die to never reincarnate again. The only course of action he could take was to live the second chance he had been given.

Anyway, I wanted to conclude by saying that Mdzs is a book about consequences, when WWX 'chooses' (in fact, this is something I wanted to talk about, WWX almost never has the privilege of making choices, or he gave his GC to JC or JC would’ve died, or he learned DC or he would’ve died, or he saved the wens or he let 50 civilians die, or he saved  Mianmian or she died, along with LWJ and JZX, and probably everyone else in that cave...) to continue using DC and saving the wens, it leads to JY's death, while when  WQ decides to help WWX and do the GC transplant, it condemns her own family, bc WWX becomes a driving force for the efforts of war, turning the fight in his favor, basically winning the war. So, no decision he makes is bad, just the consequences of those decisions, which for the most part, are caused by outside forces that he has no control over. Conclusion, WWX is a very good person for his own good (in addition to knowing how to recognize his mistakes and redeem himself for them) that's why he is the protagonist.

(sorry for any grammatical errors english is not my native language)

[raindownforme]

Crush

Charlie Slimecicle x Reader [she/her used]

It had been hours since y/n had started her stream. At the beginning of it she’d been working on the origins SMP and grinding at gathering supplies and resources while everyone else was off doing other things. A few times someone had popped onto the VC she sat in, Niki had talked while eating dinner and Ranboo had came to recount his day, but otherwise she had remained alone in the beginning.

But it had been several hours since then. Now it was 3 going on 4 in the morning. She sat curled up on her gaming chair, her eyelids just barely staying open. She was exhausted, but she was determined to stay awake until someone else started streaming. To pass the time, y/n had been interacting with chat and reading aloud donations.

“Hello?” A voice came through her headphones and she jumped, nearly falling out of her seat. “y/n?”

“Oh! Philza!” He chuckled a bit. Her voice sounded light and she began to yawn halfway through her sentence. “How nice to see you. What are you doing up?”

“Well it’s roughly noon for me and I was about to start streaming.”

“Ah. Of course.” She began to tap at some buttons, readying to move around her audience.

“Have you been awake for long?”

“Yeah. But I had a few people visit me.” As the notification of Phil going live dropped, she sent everyone over with a wave. “Niki and Ran came by.”

“Aw you sound disappointed.”

“Well I wanted somebody to come by but I guess he was too busy.”

Philza laughed again. “Yeah? And who’s somebody?”

In her stupor she giggled and winked towards a camera that wasn’t on anymore. “I can’t tell you who I have a crush on.”

The man froze, watching his chat go by a mile a minute. They kept throwing names around, even if they didn’t make sense, and he knew this wouldn’t end up any where good if it progressed. “Is it alright if we talk about this later? Why don’t you get some sleep.”

She yawned and stretched. She slowly went to get out of her chair. “Alright dad. Goodnight. I love you.”

“Love you too.” The discord call made the familiar noise of someone disconnecting and y/n turned off her display. She went and slunk into her bed, nesting underneath the covers, and quickly drifted to sleep.

———

y/n woke up a few hours later. As she sat up the first thing she did was reach for her phone to see a missed call from Ranboo. She went to call back and he picked up almost immediately.

“You are so dumb.”

She groaned and wiped at the sleep in her eyes. “Can I be awake for five minutes first.”

“No actually. You’re trending on Twitter.”

She squinted, trying to recall anything. “Did I do something bad? Was it last night or....?”

“It wasn’t like. Bad. But it was last night. You told Phil on live that you have a crush on someone.”

She paused, feeling her face grow warm with embarrassment. “Did I say who it was?”

“No you didn’t.” She sighed and felt herself relax a bit. “But they’re trying to figure it out. You didn’t make it very hard.”

“Well I didn’t say a name.”

“Yeah so you let them pick from the six men your age who have been on this server. Like I said you’re dumb.”

She sat up and got out of her bed, letting Ranboo sit next to her on speaker. She went to her desk and booted up her computer. She pulled up twitch on one monitor and Twitter on another. Loading up the streaming site, she sorted through all of us Phil’s new clips to look for last night. She found it quickly and began playing it.

“Have you been awake long?”

“Yeah. But I had a few people come visit me.... Niki and Ran came by.”

“Aw you sound disappointed.”

“Well I wanted somebody to come by but I guess he was too busy.”

Philza’s laugh echoed through her monitor’s speakers. “Yeah? And who’s that somebody?”

“I can’t tell you who I have a crush on.”

The clip ended with Philza glancing wide eyed between the camera and his computer monitors. y/n sighed and looked over at her other monitor. Her twitch name was trending. She clicked on the tag and scrolled through countless tweets of clips of her and other boys from the Origins SMP. There were ones of her and Jack, her and Charlie, her and Wilbur, her and Sneeg, and even her and Tommy or Tubbo. She took the time to respond to ones of her and the younger boys, emphasizing that if anyone was going to speculate anything it wasn’t going to be with her and children.

“Ran, what do I do?”

“Ignore it? It’s not like you have an actual crush on any one right?”

She paused, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Ran..”

“Oh! Oh my god!” He started laughing and y/n could hear him fall from his chair onto the floor. He kept laughing as he got up. “Oh please tell me who it is-“

“No! I’m an adult! I don’t have crushes on boys.”

“Oh that is fake!” He kept laughing and y/n rested her head in her hands. “You know you might as well tell me who it is.”

“Yeah fucking right.”

“I’ll black mail you.”

“No you won’t!”

“I’ll show Tubbo your number and he’ll leak it.”

“To who.”

“The discord.”

y/n rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah. When are you getting on.”

“An hour-ish.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Alright byeeeeeee.”

Ranboo ended the call and y/n sighed. If she told Ranboo who she liked, he’d eventually tell Tubbo, who’d eventually tell Tommy, until he told someone and so on so forth. They were teenage boys. It wasn’t a very lucrative group. And Tommy seemed to record with Charlie almost every week. It seemed impossible to get by without disrupting something.

y/n went on to busy herself around her home for the next hour or so, doing some cleaning and other chores that had to be done. When she finished, she made her way to her pc to begin recording. She wasn’t planning on a live stream today, but a recording session would still do her channel good.

As she sat to boot up Mojang, she pulled up discord on her second monitor. She saw the kids already in a call; Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo.

“Hey boys.” She slipped on her headphones as she entered the call, but they were all yelling.

“DON’T YELL AT ME.”

“I’L YELL AT WHOEVER I WANT WHEN I KNOW I’M RIGHT.”

“ARE YOU TOMMY? ARE YOU RIGHT?”

“Hi y/n.” Both boys stopped yelling as Tubbo pointed out that she had arrived. “Ranboo’s live by the way.”

“Thanks Tubbo. Are you guys on origins?”

“Yep!”

“Great, I’ll be on in a sec.” As she opened the world, she spawned somewhere she didn’t remember. It was dark around her, like she was swallowed by obsidian. “Uhhh, boys? I might be stuck.”

“I told you! I told you I was right! Chat tell Ranboo he’s an idiot!” Tommy started yelling again as Ranboo tried to tell him to shut up.

“That doesn’t explain why I’m surrounded by obsidian. I don’t have a pick!”

“Well, y/n,” she looked over to her discord call to see all the boys had their cameras on now. They all sat with their hands crossed while wearing sunglasses. Ranboo had his full mask on. Meaning he probably had camera on for his stream. Tubbo cleared his throat as he kept talking. “We have some questions for you.”

“If I answer can I get out of here?”

“If you answer honestly.” Ranboo leaned forwards a bit. “You told Philza Minecraft you had a crush on someone, correct?”

“Yeah. Sure. Might I add you’re all immature?”

“Is this crush, a man? Hmm?” Tommy tipped his sunglasses downwards slightly.

“Yes. How many more questions?”

“You’re not done. Is it someone on this server?”

“Does that matter Tubbo?”

“YES.” All the boys shouted in unison.

“Jeez fine. He has played on multiple servers, this could be one of them.”

Tommy slammed his fist on his desk. “HONESTY.”

“YES. HE IS.”

Ranboo gave a fake evil chuckle. “So it’s someone we know. A man we know. A gamer we know. One of us.”

“Yeah yeah.” y/n quickly pulled up twitch on her third monitor, making sure that he wasn’t watching Ranboo’s stream.

“Now y/n. I’m muted on my stream right now. Is it Wilbur?”

“Uhh…” He was there. He was watching the stream. Whatever she answered, he’d know.

“Wilbur! It’s Wilbur!” The boys started cheering as she realized that she didn’t quite answer. But as long as Charlie didn’t know the truth.

“Yeah. Can I come out now?” She watched charlie’s name disappear from the chat. In her game, Ranboo’s character came over to set her free from the obsidian.

“Thank you for your honesty.”

“Yeah no worries. I’ll see you later boys.” She logged out of the server and scooted away from the monitors. She knew she made a bigger problem for herself.

She walked over to her bedside table, taking her phone off the charge, and went to face time Wilbur. He picked up quickly, holding the phone extremely close to his face.

“y/n!”

“Are you streaming?”

“No not at the moment.”

“Great because I fucked something up.”

“Oooooh tell me.” Wilbur propped up his phone in front of him and took a drink of something in a mug.

“So the children- did you see the clip from Phil’s stream?”

“Absolutely. Continue.”

“They went and cornered me into telling who my crush is. And they said you and I was distracted so they assumed you-“

“Is it me?”

“No fuck off. But now everyone thinks it’s you and even worse, the actual person was watching! He thinks I have a crush on you and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

Wilbur nodded. “Well who is?”

y/n pursed her lips, thinking for a moment before admitting the truth out loud for the first time. “Charlie.”

Wilbur froze, then scrambled to pick up his phone. “I have to go.”

“WILBUR NO.”

The line went dead from Wilbur’s end and y/n groaned, chucking her phone against her pillows. She rubbed at her eyes with her palms, deciding she might as well continue recording.

y/n logged back onto the Origins server, keeping herself out of the active discord calls. She could see that the three boys were still in a call, and Wilbur was talking with Philza. She rolled her shoulders back, getting into the mindset to record.

“Hey everybody!” y/n went on start the recording, talking mostly to herself about finishing construction on her house. It was quite a tall house, built of mostly stone and cobble, but she was still proud of it. The bottom two floors were reserved for storage and mining, and there was one room of entirely water for Niki. The top floor was a large spread patio frames in by dark oak fencing with a glass roof surrounded by dark oak half slabs. Her being a skeleton in the game, having a vantage point helped her snipe enemy mobs. It was also conviennent for attacking creepers to get music discs. She had quite the collection growing already.

“Okay so if I-“ y/n paused, looking over at her other monitor. In the main chat of the Origins SMP server, Wilbur had a sent a singular message.

WilburSoot: dress formally for an event in 2 hours time hosted at the Pubé

y/n took a breath, a bit nervous of what that meant, but still responded to let him know she would be there. In the meantime, she continued on her video, taking the 2 hour period to build herself a lovely garden area and an additional storage area deep underground.

“Thank you everyone! I hope to see you all soon.” She ended the recording and took a breath. There were 15 minutes until Wilbur’s event, and she supposed she had to dress nicer than her pajamas.

A moment later, she returned to her computer wearing her favorite sweater and a comfortable pair of pants. Looking over at discord, she could see most of the Origins SMP members in a discord call together, excluding only Schlatt, Technoblade, and SMajor. She took a breath, thinking for a moment, then clicked into the call.

“Hello?”

“y/n!!!” Jack’s voice screamed through her headphones.

“Sorry he’s a bit loud.”

“OI. AM NOT.”

“Come down mate.” Philza cleared his throat. “y/n. Lovely to have you.”

“Thanks Phil.”

“Before we start, no one’s live at all.”

She paused cueing up the game, her mouse hovering over the server. “Before we start what?”

No one answered. Quietly, she entered the server and made her way to the Pubé.

“Welcome to event of the century.” Ranboo’s character jumped up and down. Every one stood in the Pubé facing her.

“Alright. And what kind of event is this?”

“A ball! With food and drink provided by Philza and music provided by Tommy.” Wilbur’s character ran over to the jukebox in the corner to show her.

“That’s lovely, Will. Was I supposed to be more dressed up?”

“I think you’re perfect as is.” Charlie’s character jumped up and down. She paused, trying to swallow the giddy feeling rising in her chest.

“Let’s begin! Tommy, the music?” Wilbur turned the the teen as he placed the music discs. y/n watched everyone pair off, leaving her and Wilbur alone. Wilbur walked over to her, hitting her playfully.

“Hey Wilbur.” y/n looked over as the two went into a separate call.

“y/n!!! How are you doing? Enjoying the party?”

“Well I haven’t been here very long.” She held her hands closed over her lap. “Wilbur, I feel like there’s something going on here.”

“It’ll be fine. Trust me?”

She sighed, a smile playing at her lips. “Fine.”

“Good.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Maybe dance around a bit. I’m going to talk with Phil.”

They both left the chat, Wilbur entering a call of just him and Philza and y/n entering the main room. The music was still playing. Everyone seemed to have split off into groups, leaving her alone. She sat by herself, watching everyone mingle about. It was only her in the main call, leaving everyone else in groups, but it was nice. She turned her head to watch her second monitor, seeing Charlie move out of the call with Wilbur and Philza to the main room with herself.

“H-Hey there.” She watched Charlie’s small character bounce over to her. “How’s it hangin?”

“Oh. Uhm. Good I guess. It’s nice to see you back on the server.”

“Yeah I guess I haven’t played in a while. I mean I haven’t streamed that much either but I’ve been recording.”

“That’s nice!”

“Yeah. I mean I’ve been able to watch other streams though.”

y/n thought back Ranboo’s stream earlier in the day, knowing full well Charlie had been watching that one. “Right.”

“We don’t have to talk about it. I mean I know how you feel.”

“Oh. Oh no please tell me Wilbur didn’t say anything.” y/n rubbed at her forehead with the heel of her palms. Convincing the internet she was in love with Wilbur Soot had been a problem in its own, but Wilbur telling Charlie she had a crush on him? “Look Charlie I’m sorry I didn’t want him to tell you it’s just- god you’re so nice and funny and really cute and it’s a stupid crush I never wanted to ruin our friendship. I’m so sorry Charlie.”

The other end of the call was quiet for a moment, but then she head Charlie almost laugh. “You have a crush on me?”

The realization washed over like a tsunami. He’d been talking about the stream, Wilbur hadn’t said anything. “God no wait Charlie-“

“On me? You have a crush on me?”

“Okay now you’re just rubbing it in. I take it back.”

“You can’t take that back!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

y/n paused, a smile creeping on her face. “Are you telling me that you have a crush on me over a Minecraft server?”

“You said it first!”

She glanced over at the camera on her computer for a moment. “We could have avoided this the whole time?”

“I- yeah we could’ve.”

y/n giggled, resting her face in her hands. “Is this our first date then?

“No!” She could hear Charlie suck in a breath. “I mean, let me take you somewhere better. Just give me a few days?”

“Days? That’s speedy isn’t it?”

“Okay Maybe weeks. But I’ll take you somewhere. Anywhere. Trust me.”

“Of course.”

She could hear Charlie laugh on the other end of the call. “Until then, how much time do we have to make up for?”

She smiled, settling herself into her chair. “Charlie, more than you could ever think.”

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

semicolon, m | myg

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: He knew you. You knew him. Or rather, you both had an idea of the other, only to find that perhaps you connected on a much more carnal, animalistic level. It only took a hotel bar, New Year’s Eve, and the words, “Nice tattoo.”

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; alludes to attempted suicide; intense smut (fem reader, BDSM themes, semi-public exposure, restraints, nipple play, tit slapping, m-receiving oral, pussy spanking, doggy); non-idol!AU; rich heir, dom!Yoongi x tattooed, sub!reader; shifts back and forth between Yoongi’s POV and your POV

–

He was sure it was you.

You had tattoos now. A geometric lotus in your right inner forearm and a filled-in circle with a four-sided starburst around it on your inner left forearm. He observed you turning your head and there was a semicolon tattoo under your left ear. You moved your hair to cover it and nursed your rum and coke, alone. The tight black dress you were wearing was sinful at best. Closer to positively illegal with the way it clung to your breasts and squeezed them together. No one was approaching your table in this hotel bar. It was impossible to approach you when you looked that good.

You tapped at your phone, frowning.

He picked up his glass of whiskey and glided to you.  

“Nice tattoo.”

You froze. Your eyes followed his finger, to your left forearm.

“It’s the symbol of the Sith Order,” you replied coolly.

“Star Wars?”

You lifted your head, raising an eyebrow. Beautiful makeup. Smokey eyes, red lips, your beauty marks visible. You hadn’t hidden them with foundation. He appreciated that.

“Yes.”

He set his glass on your table and slid into a chair. “Aren’t the Sith evil?”

You didn’t respond to that. Merely smiled at him, eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Do I know you?” you asked, tapping your nails on your glass. Matte black. Interesting.

To be honest, he wasn’t sure. You had attended to the same university. He could guess why you had the semicolon tattoo, because he had been in the hallway, witnessing the event when the ambulance took you to the hospital. He had been sleeping with a girl on your dorm floor.

Admittedly, not one of his proudest moments.

He cocked his chin to your right forearm. “And the lotus tattoo?”

You shrugged. “Just a recommendation from my tattoo artist.”

He took a slow, even sip of his whiskey. “Any more?”

You rested your chin on your fingers, placing your elbow on the table.

“You’d have to take me home to find out.”

Somehow, he did not think you were referring to your under-ear tattoo. He raised an eyebrow. “A woman like you, unclaimed? I can’t imagine why.”

You chuckled, lowering your hand to sip your rum and coke. “Perhaps it’s just personal preference.” You frowned, wincing, as if you remembered something unpleasant. “And perhaps it’s society who doesn’t like women who have their tattoos exposed.”

He thought about his fair skin. The many times he had thought about getting inked, but chickening out because he couldn’t think of committing to one specific image or words for that long. Perhaps he was fickle in that sense.

“Min Yoongi.”

He didn’t extend his hand, just stated his name. You paused, holding your glass over your cleavage, blocking it from his view. A moment of silence, a beat passing between your eyes. And then you gave him your name. Yes, it was you. The name had seen in the school newspaper the next day. The name that left the school, disappearing after the incident. He often wondered if you were okay. You seemed okay, looking at him with discerning eyes.

“You are the son of the owner of this hotel.”

Yoongi paused. He placed his glass on the table.

“Something like that.”

You raised a brow and placed your drink on your table. Expression pensive for a moment before you spoke again, tone light and playful.

“Well, perhaps you’ll be interested to know I just had a very unsatisfying one-night stand on the fifteenth floor, so I’ve come to drink the memory away.”

His lips curled into an entertained smile. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

You sighed and licked your teeth sharply. “On New Year’s Eve, too, no less.” You tapped your cheek with your index finger. “I suppose that means this year is off to a bad start.”

He looked at his Rolex watch. And then at you and your cleavage, breasts violently pushed together by your tight black dress. His eyes flickered back to yours. You were watching him carefully, aware of his traveling gaze. He smirked.

“There’s still time to remedy that.”

-

There was something about those eyes that haunted you.

You weren’t sure why, because you were quite sure you had never meant this man before. But maybe in a haze, in a dream? You tilted your head. Black hair, half-pushed back to reveal his forehead, dark eyes, pale skin. The kind of handsome that reminded you of midnights and moonlight, with a raspy voice to match. Expensive black suit with ironed lapels, black silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, patterned with the logo of a high-end fashion designer. Crisp white dress shirt, with a platinum tie clip on his slim black tie. 

Well-dressed. Sophisticated. Dangerous.

You did not know Min Yoongi, but it felt like you knew him.

The entire time he was talking, you were watching his movements. For some reason, the heir to this hotel chain was speaking to you. You weren’t that special. That’s how you wanted it. The more anonymous you were, the less people questioned your actions. There’s no way Min Yoongi would know you. And why wasn’t he in the hotel club instead of this quieter, more low-profile hotel bar? Most people wanted to party on New Year’s Eve. The hotel was hosting a huge one at the moment.

You?

You just wanted a good fuck, honestly.

So when he offered, it surprised you. A lot of people would tell you that it was dangerous to have sex with a stranger. A rich man, no less.

But you were also the one with the Sith Order symbol tattooed to your arm.

Your lips curved to match his smirk.

“You got a room?”

He licked his lips.

“They’re all my rooms.”

-

It started the instant the two of you stepped into the elevator. Your long black fur coat was around your arms, shoulders exposed. No purse, because you had sewed pockets into the coat for your belongings. Less to lose this way. Yoongi had taken you to the back of the hotel, through dark hallways and shadows.

“Service elevator. Less people.”

You cocked your head as he pressed the up button, speaking again.

“Less paparazzi.”

You shrugged. “Someone has probably already caught you and posted it on Twitter.”

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. You stepped inside and he shoved you into the wall, pressing his expensive suit into your body as the doors slid closed. Eyes on yours, hot breath in your face.

“No cameras,” he growled softly.

The numbers were climbing up, up. 

Your tongue slid out as you tilted your head. You pressed it against his lower lip. His eyes were so dark they looked black in this lighting. So close to him that you were breathing in his exhale mixed with his pine-scented cologne.

“What are you waiting for?” you whispered. “Give me a taste of your power.”

Should you have provoked Min Yoongi? Maybe not, because his kiss sucked your breath away, his large hands coming up and holding you in place as he teased your lips, nipping at the thin skin, making you gasp into his mouth. He had you pressed into the metal wall of the elevator, one of his legs slipping between yours, thigh pressed into the hem of your short dress. Lips to lips, working you, teasing you with his tongue, not giving it to you.

He backed up a little, breathing down on you and your panting mouth.

“You bought this dress for someone else to take off, hm?” he purred, lips dark pink from kissing you.

“I brought it for the sole purpose of being taken off.” Your chest was heaving, ribcage constricted by the boning of your dress. “It’s not attached to a particular person.”

His hands slid down your head, trailing on your bare shoulders. Sliding into the fur, staring at your face the entire time. Drumming against the slinky fabric of your tight dress as if you were the grand piano and he was the pianist.

“It could be.”

Yoongi tilted his head, lips brushing against yours.

“It could be for me.”

One by one, his fingertips hooked under the hem of your dress, nails pressed against your bare thighs. His hands were cold, sending tingling shivers all over your nerves. Eyes half-lidded, smokey orbs locked with yours. Your lips curved into a succubus’s smile.

“It’s yours now.”

He chuckled, yanking the hem up and over your ass. Chilled air rushed to your naked thighs, your black lace, French-cut panties out in the open. He looked down at your quivering legs and then his eyes immediately fixated onto it. Another tattoo. You watched as Yoongi took it in, able to see it because the boldly printed script was on the space were your right leg and crotch connected, that dip of flesh right above your pussy. His eyes flickered back to you.

He raised his eyebrows.

“’Good luck’, huh?”

You grinned.

“Good luck.”

The elevator dinged.

A housekeeping worker with their cart craned above the supplies to look at you two and then immediately looked away, closing their eyes. Unmoving like a statue. Didn’t try to roll the cart into the elevator, didn’t say anything. They knew exactly who Yoongi was and it seemed like they knew exactly why you were there.

“Come.”

He didn’t take your hand. He simply removed his heat from you and glided through the doors like an elegant ghost. You followed, heels clicking on the floor before touching the carpet. Like your dress, your slim heels were the slightest bit uncomfortable. It kept you at attention and highly aware of your surroundings, even though you had a few drinks.

Your eyes traveled over the lavish wallpaper, the plush red carpet. Over-the-top intricate and extravagant that bordered on gaudy. This was the top floor. The penthouse. You didn’t have to go far. The entire wing was the room.

You wondered why he took you here just for a simple fuck.

Yoongi unlocked the door.

-

“There’s only one stipulation.”

“Tell me.”

You held up the condoms from your pocket.

Yoongi smiled.

-

He was going to tie you up.

You watched as he pressed a button and the metal bar descended from the ceiling, complete with leather straps. You raised your eyebrows. Yoongi watched your expression carefully. The bedroom was dark, only lit by moody red LED lights from behind the bed and low sconces. The color reflected off his pale skin, casting half of his face in shadow.

The button had been behind a locked panel. He was probably the sole owner of that key.

“You are welcome to leave at any time.”

He said the words without emotion. You removed your fur coat, placing it on the oversized black velvet armchair. Everything in the room was in various shades of black and navy, in plush fabrics or luxurious leather.

“You spend a lot on your hobbies,” you commented.

Yoongi smirked.

“Sex is a performance.”

Your eyes connected. He removed his blazer. Like all of his movements, it was a swift and practiced manner, with two fingers hooked around the collar as he walked towards you. He tossed it on top of your coat. Now Yoongi was right next to you, your black dress still bunched around your waist. He did not have a particularly oppressive presence, but it was more like the company of the ocean. Expansive with unreachable depth, strikingly beautiful, and would have absolutely no qualms in drowning you.

Yoongi made sure your eyes were on him.

His long fingers deftly removed his cufflinks, sliding them into his pants pocket before slowly rolling up his sleeves. He was wearing multiple silver bracelets on each wrist, no rings. He folded the crisp white fabric up to his elbows, revealing his lean forearms. He had nice hands. Pampered ones.

“Scared?” he asked casually.

You reached up to the hook-and-eyes at the front of your dress. His eyes followed your movement. One. Two. Your words complimenting the removal of each one. Your breasts slowly relaxed from their prison, held in place by your free hand holding the top of your dress so you could travel downwards.

“Fear is natural,” you whispered quietly. “It is merely a tool in the realm of the strong.”

Yoongi’s lips curved into a slow smile. “Do you intend to speak like that the entire time?”

You chuckled as the last one was undone. “No. I’m only informing you I’m a bit of a masochist.”

And then you released your hand holding up the dress, causing it to unfurl and slide down, stopping at your hips and flaring out like a flower.

-

Yoongi wondered if you did this all the time.

He wondered if this was a product of your life experiences or your instinctual nature. He watched as you slid the dress down your thighs, letting it fall to the floor. You stepped out of it, only in your heels and panties. His teeth sunk into his lower lip.

Yoongi had taken a lot of people to this room. All strangers. Never one he knew from the past, no matter how insignificant. That made you the exception, even if you didn’t remember. His memory was still so vivid to this day.

He let his eyes roam over your body. As he predicted, you had great tits. The dress accentuated them after all. There was another tattoo. Script on the left side of your ribcage. You noticed him looking and turned slightly so he could read it. He had to think. It was in English, like your crotch tattoo, although that one was easier to translate.

“’The world is quiet here’?” he echoed.

the world was written so it was only visible from the front, is visible from the side, and quiet here visible from the back. Printed a typewriter’s font, no punctuation, the placement deliberate and thought-out.

You smiled. “Book quote.”

Yoongi liked it when you smiled. He reminded him of his own, a little hesitant but self-aware of your own quiet confidence. He lifted his hand and placed it behind your head, guiding you to him.

“You are very interesting,” he murmured into your mouth before he kissed you again. Tasting like rum and coke mixed with oceanic blackberry. He had smelled that scent before, although not on skin. He recalled the counter of cologne, the glass bottles with the unisex design. High-end.

On your skin, it smelled like sex itself.

He slid his tongue in between your soft lips, running it over your teeth. Drinking in your gasps, taking it all. He liked it when you breathed into his mouth too. You let it out like smoke, drifting into him. Your hands came up to hold onto his upper arms, steadying yourself. He liked the feeling of your hands as well, the way each finger curled around to grip him tightly. His thrust his tongue in and out, slowly, each moan chaining to the last. His hands in your hair, tangling it up, making a mess.

Yoongi opened his eyes just a crack. They landed on the tattoo in your left forearm, the filled-in circle with the four-sided starburst.

What had made you get a symbol like that tattooed to you?

He pulled you along, still kissing you, towards the metal bar. Turned you around, kissing down your jaw to the back of your neck. His hands slid down your hair, tracing your spine. Fuck. Such a beautiful back, with a lovely curve, so perfect to bend over. He dug his nails into it and you whined under him.

Yoongi didn’t bother asking you if you wanted it. You had a mouth; you could use it.

And you were grinding your ass into his crotch so, clearly, he didn’t have to ask.

He folded your arms behind you, forearm above forearm, tying you to the metal bar with the leather straps. One on each of your wrists, one tucked in the inside your elbows, binding them to each other and then all to the metal. He did not want to cover your tattoos but he had to. The position had you bent over, ass sticking out, tits hanging down, back slightly arched.

“Do I need to secure your waist or can you hold it?”

You turned your head back and raised an eyebrow. The curve of your profile, so perfect against the red light.

“What you need to do is fuck me already.”

He grinned.

-

Yoongi pulled up a chair and sat down right in the front of you.

You gave him a slightly annoyed expression. He smirked at you, placing his fingers on your chin, lifting it slightly.

“I thought you wanted a satisfying fuck?” he drawled.

“And yet nothing is happening.”

“Foreplay is just as important as pounding your pussy.”

You suddenly felt his other hand ghost under your nipple, palm barely grazing it. You tried to drop your body into it but were stopped by your restraints. Yoongi cocked an eyebrow amusedly. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“What are you waiting for?”

His thumb slid up your chin. He pressed it into your lips, forcing it open, rubbing your tongue with the pad of his finger. You made a disgruntled noise, saliva collecting where he touched you. You tried to close your lips but he held your jaw down, grip strong and immovable. Spit was trickling down your chin, covering his fingers and dripping onto the floor.

“Waiting for you to give in to me,” Yoongi murmured huskily.

Your heartrate accelerated disconcertingly in your chest. His dark eyes on yours, consuming you, keeping you in this slightly uncomfortable position. And you wanted it. You could feel it, the heat inside you, stroked from embers to full-blown fire, because somehow Min Yoongi could see right through you and knew you wanted what he was composing.

This midnight was his.

He seemed to know that you came to this conclusion. Maybe your pupils were dilated. Maybe it was your shallowed breathing. Maybe it was your trembling body, shaking at his touch. He removed his wet finger and slid it down your collarbones, smearing your own spit on you, before cupping your breast, squeezing it. You sucked in a breath, moaning his name softly as his other hand matched the first, kneading your breasts, rubbing your nipples with his palms.

“Y-Yoongi…”

You gasped as you felt his wrists slide up and the chains of his bracelets scrape your sensitive nipples, blooming pinpricks of pain over your chest. His palms came back, soothing you, his dark eyes intensely focused on your face, not looking away. His fingers pressed into your skin and he closed them in on your nipples, pinching them hard enough so that you could feel it, but not so hard that it was unbearable. He held you there like that. Seconds ticked past. Long, grueling seconds that felt like hours.

Yoongi was very calm about it as you slowly unraveled in his hands.

You body began to move involuntarily, raising your chest so his fingers pulled on your nipples a little. He still did not move his hands. You couldn’t go far with the metal bar digging into your back. He watched you try different things to get more stimulation, fingers motionless. If you moved too much, you were afraid he was going to let go and not give you more. You craved more. Needed it.

“Yoongi, please… Harder…”

His dark eyes were hypnotizing you.

The position of his fingers changed. He clamped your nipples between the joints of his index and middle fingers. You yelped, back banging against the metal. He pressed his thumbs against the hardened nubs, rubbing them harshly. Expression unchanging, forever on you.

“I thought you wanted it harder.”

His voice was deep, calm, with a hint of raspy delight. The sensation was a stark contrast to what he was doing before, shooting sparks of pleasure through your body. You shuddered, bucking into it, knees collapsing a bit as he stimulated your nipples.

“Hold.”

A single command and your knees locked to obey, entire body shaking. Yoongi pulled your nipples towards him, pushing your breasts together as he did so. Your back had to curve abruptly against the cold metal bar at his action. He lowered his head, trailing kisses along your collarbone. You whined, his touch hard and lips soft, eyelids fluttering as your nipples slipped out from his fingers. His large hands quickly twisted to cup your tits, keeping them up and pushed together as he kissed down the curve, nipping sharply at your skin. Leaving small red marks all over, sucking at some points to bruise you.

He didn’t need to speak. His lips told you everything, travelling all over your breasts hungrily, your swollen and abused nipples waiting, patterning your skin before his tongue snaked out.

“F-fuck, Yoongi…”

The pink tip pressed against the inflamed nub, pushing it around delicately. Strands of black hair framed his sculpted brows and those dark eyes were on you again. He closed his lips around it. Your eyelids slid closed, feeling the softness of his mouth and his tongue swiping all over, swift circles.

Then he sucked, hard.

Your eyes flew open, jutting your chest into his face. Yoongi chuckled in his throat and continued to suck, pulsating around your nipple, scraping his teeth against it. One of his hands came up and matched the rhythm of his mouth, tweaking and assaulting your other nipple forcefully. Your core throbbed with need, soaking your panties so much that they stuck to your folds. The scent of your arousal was getting stronger and stronger, a heavy sweetness.

He released your nipples abruptly and you gasped, feeling him lick a fat stripe possessively over your tits. Saliva dripping down, coating them all over. He removed his hand. You panted, trying to catch your breath.

“What’s my name?” he whispered quietly.

You lifted your trembling head, hair covering half your face. Your knees felt like jelly.

“Y-Yoongi.”

He slapped your tits.

You yelped, his open palm creating hot friction on your abused nipples. It wasn’t a hard hit, but an expansive one that covered a lot of surface area. It was obvious he knew what he was doing. Pain trickled throughout your body, pussy throbbing with need.

“Again.”

“Yoongi.”

He slapped you again, from the other side. You shuddered, sucking in your stomach at the sudden pain that seemed to swallow you up, but somehow it didn’t really hurt, instantly morphing into tinges of arousal. It was probably the way he was looking at you. His appearance was bored, but his eyes were trained onto your body, ink-black pupils shimmering with power in his dark brown irises.  

“Again.”

Your eyes dropped down. He spread his legs. It was like he knew what you wanted. His erection strained against his tailored black slacks. It was impossible to hide with how closely fitted they were to his body. Your eyes went back up to his face. His expression was still unbothered.

“Yoongi,” you breathed, the clearest you’ve sounded yet.

Smack! You whined at the force, back against the cold metal. Smack! A half-moan, a half-sob as you felt his bracelets scrape against your skin. Smack! Your breasts banged together, softness against stinging softness, and it just felt so good as the pain crawled through your nervous system, devastating you. Your head was arched back, staring at the ceiling, mouth open and panting.

Yoongi reached up and pushed your head back down. He used his other hand to trace your lips, smeared with lipstick and saliva.

“I’m going to fuck this hole now.”

There was a short silence. He was waiting for you to say no.

You didn’t say anything.

Yoongi stood up and unbuttoned his pants right in front of your face. Your eyes followed his fingers as he unzipped them. The flaps opened and his cock fought against the smooth fabric of his boxer briefs, swelling as it was released from the confines of his pants. He pressed it into your nose and you inhaled his scent, oppressive and erotic, making you moan hotly against it.

You wanted it in you so bad that your juices were leaking down your thighs.

You felt his palm caress your head, smoothing your hair. He rocked his hips into your face, humping your open mouth. You pressed your tongue against his clothed cock, whimpering at how close it was and yet so far. His words drifted down to you in a low growl, teasing and domineering.

“Good luck.”

He removed his hardness from your face. Your eyes flickered up to him, a smirk on your lips. Yoongi matched your devious expression, pushing down his underwear. His cock sprung up into your vision, overtaking it. Oh, fuck. The head already dark red, leaking pre-cum. Veins standing out along the length, waiting to be stroked by your tongue. It was the hottest image you had ever seen, Yoongi’s smug face above you, his stiff cock so close to your lips that you could feel the heat. And fuck, he smelled so good, as if his pine cologne, his skin, and his arousal made an unholy pheromone combination that made you open your mouth, exhaling hotly over the glistening head.

Yoongi shoved it into your lips with one swift stroke.

You reeled, expanding your throat as he buried himself into it, sucking in a tight breath. It was a skillful, deliberate movement, one that didn’t jar your gag reflex immediately. You had plenty of practice from former encounters to not gag at first instinct, but Yoongi also seemed practiced, as if he had shoved his dick down many throats before.

His large hand fitted around the back of your head. Not moving.

His taste overwhelmed your mouth. Your tongue slid around expertly, running down the length, moaning around him. His eyes were closed but you could see his pink lips curve upward. You closed your own eyes, squeezing him in your throat as your tongue rubbed along the veins, pressing him into the roof of your mouth.

“You do not disappoint,” Yoongi sighed in satisfaction.

He pulled out a little and your tongue instantly went to the head, licking slow circles all over, teasing the opening with your tongue, spreading it out before sliding under to stimulate the thin skin between the head and length. Yoongi moaned above you, your name finally falling from his lips. You did not realize it would have such an effect on you until he said it. It made your thighs clench and pussy throb, agonizingly forced to wait until he was done with your mouth.

He began to thrust into your face, slow but forceful, tipping your head back a little so the head stroked against the roof of your mouth before hitting the back of your throat. You took it, helpless, bent over, knees aching as he fucked your mouth, almost lazily. His hand had a firm grip on your head, pushing himself in over and over.

“Keep it tight for me,” he murmured. “You’re doing so good.”

You closed your lips around him, meeting the base of his cock, your cries muffled and vibrating along his hard length, adding stimulation. You looked up, seeing his tensed jaw, pleasure painting his features, eyes closed. Yoongi wasn’t trying to get off fast; he was trying to build it to a crescendo, and your mouth was his tool to do it. In, out, in, out, each time a little rougher, a little more force. Rubbing your throat raw, jaw aching, but you were so focused on the soft pants coming from his lips that you didn’t notice.

“Your mouth is so perfect,” Yoongi gritted out, rocking his hips a little faster. “So soft and tight.”

His eyes opened halfway and he noticed you staring at him as he fucked your mouth. He inhaled sharply at the sight.

“So fucking sexy,” he mumbled. “You want to swallow me?”

You hummed needily in response, gazing imploringly at him. He smirked.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

He rolled his hips, faster, harder. You noticed the muscles in his neck tense, his hand gripping you tighter as he chased his release, fingers digging into your scalp, his cock trembling in your wetness as you sucked your cheeks in. Yoongi clenched his jaw, eyes closing again. His hips smacked into your face repeatedly, your name a low hiss as he thrust particularly roughly into your throat, the head being choked by your wet vise.

“Fuck...”

Sudden, jerking strings of cum shot down your throat, painting it white, pumping straight into your mouth. You swallowed hard, barely able to take a breath before his cock violently shuddered, filling you up with more of his salty, thick taste. He held your head as you gulped around him, groaning as he felt your throat close in on the sensitive head continually.

“That’s it…”

His fingers curled into your hair, lifting it away from your neck and collecting it behind you so he could look down at you drinking his orgasm.

“What a pretty picture and all for me.”

-

His eyes honed in on the semicolon tattoo under your left ear.

It flexed and moved as you swallowed, flickering in and out of vision as the small dangling black gems on your ear hid it. His eyes slid back to your fucked-out face, struggling for breath but being denied by his hold on you.

You might have a personal preference when it came to being single, but Yoongi was a rapacious man, and he wanted to own your mouth. He doubted he could buy it with money, but perhaps he could make you addicted to him. He pulled out of your lips and you whined deliciously.

Inwardly, he grinned like a devil.

Yoongi leaned down and lifted your head, kissing your swollen lips. You kissed him back, starved and hungry for his softness, his gentle touches that were matched by his roughness. Did you always look this good? He wanted you beside him so he could study you, so he could push you to your knees whenever he wanted, so you could resist him and so he could teach you a lesson.

But you deserved the fuck you had asked for. He could smell how turned on you were and he had promised after all. His tongue slid into your mouth and he tasted himself, a familiar taste that somehow tasted better when it was mixed with your saliva.

Yoongi did not think he was going to invite any more strangers into this room after this.

He broke the kiss. Your eyes on him, burning him to the core. He removed his shoes and socks, standing up. Stepped out of his pants, still wearing his shirt and tie. He kept them on as a sign of his power over you. You looked so perfectly submissive, just like this. He had to move out of your line of vision.

There was no way you knew what he was thinking, but he still didn’t trust himself. He did not want to get carried away. He had a job to do.

And that was to fuck you.

He moved around to your quivering legs, seeing your soaked panties. Not commenting, but his cock twitched seeing it, knowing it was him that made you this way. His fingers closed in on the top of them, yanking up. You jerked you head back, moaning hotly at the action. The black lace dug into your skin, seeping into your slick folds. He kept his voice measured despite his desperate need to shove himself into you right now.

“Count to four.”

He dug your panties into you as he spoke and made you whine as he pulled from side to side. The delicate fabric was ripping a little.

“One.”

He spanked your pussy with his large palm. The sound was loud and wet, traveling throughout the entire wing, along with your scream of pleasure. Yoongi was getting hard already listening to you. Even in the low light, he could tell your pussy lips were becoming puffy, reddening. His hand was smeared with your juices and he resisted the urge to lick it.

“Keep going,” he nudged gently.

He heard you panting. “Two.”

Smack! The sound, the sound, it turned him on so much as the lustful moan was torn out of you, your raw throat turning it almost feral. He twisted your panties in your slit, watching the fabric tear slowly against your inflamed skin, drinking in your squeals and whines as he tortured you.

“T-three.”

Slap! His fingers were coated in slickness, watching the wetness splatter between your legs as he hit you. Your ass was backing up into your panties, trying to get more, stopped by the metal bar. If you wanted him to stop, you wouldn’t have uttered the final number, gasping it out hurriedly.

“Four.”

Smack! Yoongi slapped the hardest yet and your knees buckled, almost sobbing. He shoved your kneecaps with his, locking them back in place. Your legs were shuddering hard, barely holding up, but your mouth was telling him a different story, choked gasps of pleasure.

“Fuck, Yoongi, yes…”

He pulled your panties down. They were practically ruined by his grip. That was too bad; they were quite beautiful. He intended on buying you new ones. Perhaps he could come with you to select them.

He paused for a moment to grab a condom, holding it in his hand before returning to you.

“Yoongi, p-please fuck me…”

You craned your head to look at him, the perfect profile. He raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck me with your pretty cock, p-please…”

He stared down at your gorgeous back, the peeks of your tattoos in his restraints, your ass stuck up in the air, pussy lips swollen and leaking from his spanking. He couldn’t see it right now, but he knew the ‘GOOD LUCK’ tattoo was there, right next to your pussy. Yoongi wondered who the artist was.

Perhaps they had been lucky like him.

He felt a surge of annoyance.

Yoongi stepped up to your ass, lifting his cock and pressing the length against your wetness. You started, almost moving away.

“It’s not in you.” He kept his voice even. “You will know if it was in you.”

He exhaled quietly as he rubbed his length and his balls against your wet slit, keeping the head away from you. You were warm, soft, and so, so slick. He was semi-hard, but he could feel himself getting harder as he pressed your ass around his cock, fucking the crevice between your cheeks. He knew it would be better inside you, but for some reason he needed to punish you a little. Needed to let you know that he was irate that there were others before him, that somehow fate cheated him by not having your paths cross sooner.

There was nothing you could do about that, but Yoongi didn’t care.

You were moaning under him, hips pushing back to meet his thrusts, your pussy smacking his balls, coating them with your lubrication. He closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy it. Fuck, you had a nice ass, malleable and lush in his hands. He wanted to own this ass too. You mouth, your tits, your ass.

He knew he would want your pussy too once he was in it.

“Yoongi, please…”

He pressed his fingers into your skin, sliding them inward. Held his cock carefully so it wouldn’t leak on you as he retreated.

“Ah, you’re right,” he purred. “You’ve earned it.”

He opened the condom, sliding it on. His cock jerked in his hands, already desperate for what was to come. He was the kind of man who lived under so much discipline that he knew nothing else. Although life could not be controlled, he could control himself and his emotions.

Yoongi pressed the head against your entrance. Sucked in a breath.

Sank in slowly.

Oh.

God.

Yoongi was not religious, but he swore he saw glimpses of heaven the second his cock was fully enveloped by your pussy. It was tight, it was soft, and each ridge clenched around him, roughly stimulating the head after he had mildly edged himself with your ass moments earlier. You pulsed around him, constricting him inside you as the base of his crotch touched your abused pussy lips.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

He needed to own this pussy.

Yoongi pulled back and shoved himself back in, gasping at the tightness. It was not because you weren’t turned on. It was because you were clenching around him, pressing your walls inward to choke his cock and, if possible, his cock became harder knowing this, harder as he heard you cry out in satisfaction.

“Yes, Yoongi, yes…”

He began to fuck you, rolling his hips into yours, trying to keep it slow and steady to drive you crazy, but to be honest, he was done for, because Yoongi had never experienced such power, never had a body fuck him back with such force, never heard such delicious, desperate mewls of need as he thrusted into you, slamming your hips together with loud squelches. It was probably a lot, his cock hitting you deep and your pussy already sensitive from his spanking, and yet you told him to hold you tighter, fuck you harder.

“Use me, Yoongi,” you gasped. “You feel so good, fuck, Yoongi, your cock is so fucking good…”

How did you know all the words that made him weak? How did you know exactly how to sound to make him want you more? And you took it all despite your shivering legs, despite your tits violently bouncing with every thrust, despite him pressing down on your lower back to hit you deeper. He watched you throw your head back, a long sinful wail slipping from your lips, hair flaring out like fire and you came all over his cock, pussy spasming and clenching around him.

Yoongi’s eyes widened, hips ramming into you. The head smacked against your tightest spot and he saw stars, the pleasure hitting its peak and plummeting into him, taking his breath away. He shot aggressively into the condom, pumped out by your pussy clamping down around his length, sucking it all out. His eyes rolled back into his head with how good it felt. This had never happened to him before. The moans of his name rang in his ears, encompassing him as his cock twitched inside you, the perfect combination of sound and sensation.

If Yoongi ever heard your voice again, it would be synesthetic experience for him, because he would remember this sound and this feeling for the rest of his life.

Outside, the clock stuck midnight, and fireworks overtook the sky in thundering booms.

-

“Was that a satisfying fuck?”

“Very.”

Yoongi reached over and tucked a spare strand of hair behind your left ear. You sat in his lap, in the armchair with the windows wide open, revealing a perfect view of all the fireworks overtaking the moonlight. It was a bit wasteful for your taste. Not that good for the environment. Yoongi informed you that he would look into more sustainable alternatives.

He pressed his lips into your neck.

“The next time you want to stay at one of my hotels, I will make myself available.”

You chuckled. “Can you afford a pause in your schedule?”

You could feel him sucking a red mark into your skin.

“What else can I do when a member of the Sith Order visits?”

You laughed and he smirked against your newly-made hickey.

-

same au as exclamation mark !

punctuation au dom!myg and jjk | period . | comma , | question mark ? | apostrophe ‘

--

masterpost

[beelspillowpet]

A Lesson in Love - A “Character Analysis” on Asmodeus

I had to come for the tracks, wigs, and weaves of bitches when Pomade dropped because I saw people talking shit about my boy. This was a milestone “project” or “reward” I guess?

I hit 400 followers today while I was out running errands!!! Thank you guys SO SO MUCH for the love and support! I can’t WAIT to produce more content for everyone!!!

Below the cut there WILL BE talk of season 3, as well as some talk of chapter 16. There’s a healthy amount of theorizing on his personality as well, I hope you don’t mind! This came out more like a plea to get people to change their minds about how Asmo really is, rather than a comprehensive essay of sorts. So here we go!

There’s something we apparently still need to talk about in this fanbase. The unrealistic idea of Asmodeus being a sex freak, and an unreliable person in general despite there being little proof of it. We need to set a few things straight about Asmo moving forward.

December 25th rolled around and Asmo’s audio drama and song were released. I take it everyone enjoyed both parts, as well as I did. My timeline both on twitter and tumblr were filled with Asmodeus content, as well as the other brothers and such. But I mostly got Asmo content. However, in peeks and cracks, if I looked hard enough, I still saw people who absolutely loathed Asmo or who were indifferent to him. Keep in mind; I think it’s okay. You don’t have to like everyone.

I’ve only joined the fanbase in September, but even I could tell some of these takes were old fashioned. I downloaded the game on October 17th, a very important anniversary for me, while I 

was still in bed in the morning. I blazed through the entire story of season 1 and now I am stuck in season 2, specifically in Chapter 24. I obviously don’t have every card of Asmodeus with his Devilgrams, but I have been analyzing his character over the past few days for this.

So needless to say, I have a considerable amount of information on him, as well as personal thoughts that may help some learn to love him. Or at the very least, from spreading a negative idea of him around as if it were true. Enough that should help clear his name, so to speak.

Let’s look at his title; Avatar of Lust. Now naturally the thoughts that come to your head are sex and other sexual bits. So I can understand how some people would come to the conclusion that he’s just a sex freak. But if you look under the surface of his title, like I’m sure you’ve had to for your own personal favorites (*cough* Lucifer, Belphie, and Satan ESPECIALLY) you would discover that Asmodeus is more than just about sex. In fact, sex takes up very little of his pass time, if you were to believe it!

In recent chapters, as I’ve been told, Asmodeus doesn’t really get around much anyways:

Granted, this was said while in Celestia, but I imagine not much has changed for him since his fall, as well as his brothers.

Not really comfortable being with just anyone, huh…? Sounds like someone who doesn’t have sex so warily often as you’d think!

Being lustful can come in many shapes and forms. It can be merely in appearance, which Asmo is not afraid of doing. He’s very comfortable about skinship and it’s very apparent in how he dresses and acts that he wants you to adore his body. To worship it! Maybe not sexually, but aesthetically! Being lustful can mean just thinking about sex or sexual scenarios often, which if you take a peek at Asmo’s chat’s either with you or his brothers, is very apparent too.

Personally, I believe that people would assume he is not good in a relationship because he would have a “cheating problem”. I don’t think Asmo is a monster, just like I don’t think any of the brothers are monsters. They may be demons (technically fallen angels) now but they used to be angels too. Their falling out with their Father doesn’t mean they’ve completely abandoned morality, it was a rebellion for Lilith’s right to live. Not for them to sin as they pleased. For all we know they might have been fine in Heaven otherwise! (with the exception of Lucifer.)

A monster knows right from wrong and chooses evil anyways. An ignorant person doesn’t know right from wrong. Asmodeus is not a monster, nor is he ignorant.

When Asmo genuinely loves you, I think he would take steps to calm down that side of him, if it were to exist. Lust is fairly limited, but it is a part of love to some extent. LOVE is vastly different. Love has many languages, and they aren’t all spoken either. For me, personally, I found that Lucifer’s love language can be either very direct, or roundabout so as to not let it go to your head, for an example. Asmo is just far more direct about his care for you.

I feel as though Asmo gets a lot of crap constantly for his presumed nature and because we don’t get to see much else of him at first, especially in season 1, his impression on us sort of stays. With most of the fanbase either somewhat new to the game or somewhere lost in the sea of the difficulty curve that is season 2, we can only assume based on what we’ve seen, and what others have headcanoned about him.

Let’s break and talk about Satan for a moment; this is going somewhere.

I’m led to believe that Satan can control his sin fairly well. He’s easy to get irritated, sure, but he isn’t as much of a walking ball of rage as I suspected. I would argue that, aside from Leviathan, Satan can handle his sin the best out of the brothers. But again, we’re forgetting about Asmo. The Avatar of “Lust”. Like I’ve shown before, he doesn’t really sleep around a lot, according to anon.

At worst, Asmo being flirty is through text and he’s not actively trying to sleep with you. It can be interpreted that way, but for me personally, it comes down to having a friend that is very up close and in your personal space.

(I myself am one of these types of people. Having ADHD, my social cues are always sort of off, and I’ve struggled with coping with it for years. With my best friend, we have seen each other naked countless times and have slept in the same bed as well. We were never romantic with each other. We were just very comfortable being close and personal with each other.)

I’d like to point out also that Asmo isn’t even there for most of season 1 too. Which can give you the idea that maybe he just was out sleeping around a lot, but to me he probably just went out partying a lot. You don’t get known that fast for sleeping around. Maybe in 5,000 years, sure, but I’d imagine being a party boy, as his Devilgram “Guided by Desire” suggests.

So the idea that Asmo isn’t in the house a lot because he’s out having sex all the time isn’t true is it? He’s probably just out partying, which can LEAD to sex with someone sure, but again, Asmo doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, now does he?

I feel like of all the boys, Asmo is the one who radiates with everyone else the most. Most people will never realize how surreal it is that Asmo is faking it until he makes it. He doesn’t always think he’s beautiful, or that he’s worth all the love he’s striving and straining to get. Something that is extremely relatable for a lot of people with self-worth issues. Asmo is just like that, but instead being sarcastic and self-deprecating, he simply works to make himself look as beautiful as possible, so that in his eyes, his beauty matches the affection he gets.

Which is why, when he falls in love with you, it’s strange. You are constantly telling him he’s nice and pretty, but you aren’t lusting after him. You’re just being nice. It may just be me, but when people are overly nice just for the sake of being nice, I’m very attracted to that. That is Asmo, to some extent. The fact that he reflects the insecurities and habits of others so clearly may make others uncomfortable, but that brutal honesty veiled behind insecurity is what a lot of people with self-image issues deal with.

Now for me to share my favorite personal idea for Asmo that completely changed how I saw him in season 1 onwards; Asmodeus is an empath. Now let me explain:

First, what is an Empath?

The term empath comes from empathy, which is the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others outside of your own perspective. Seems simple, right? Everyone can do this to some extent. However, what makes you an empath is the fact that empaths genuinely feel the same pain as you do. So much so your experience becomes a very personal part of their own. They are capable of being able to feel other people’s emotions without them speaking, or even showing signs of it through their body language.

This would explain, for me personally, why there’s so little of him in season 1. The intensity of what goes on in the house, his sensitive soft-spoken mannerisms, the only time he truly gets mad is when he’s childishly arguing with Mammon? Asmo is afraid of true conflict, he’s afraid of violence and negative emotions. Let’s face it; everyone is indifferent or hates you at the start of the game.

While this changes fairly quickly, all the intense feelings come to a head in chapter 16. All those negative emotions swirling around, of course Asmo isn’t going to want to be in the house when it’s that intense. The attic didn’t just disappear completely, too. Belphie was still in the attic hating humans. That negative emotion could be affecting Asmo and he didn’t know why, so he could have been out of the house more.

Where Asmo can feel the emotions of others, it may mostly be the negative ones because they fill him with anxiety and panic if it persists. Which can be helpful in making him so urgent to want to make others smile and feel better, right?

Imagine being intimate with Asmodeus, and suddenly you aren’t in the mood for it anymore but don’t want to make things awkward. He could pick up on it in an instant and wouldn’t get mad because he understands how you feel completely.

Now to close this out about something that genuinely hurts me; Asmodeus is a narcissist.

I mean, the wiki says that he is, but personally? No, no he isn’t. Since when is loving yourself a bad thing? Sure he may go a bit far sometimes, but people with self-image issues need to go a little harder than the rest to make sure they're getting the love they need.

(Talking about myself AGAIN, but I do this a lot. At random, I will look up in my own mirror in front of my desk that I sit in front of all day and tell myself I am a cute bitch. I am VERY VERY cute and anyone would be lucky to have someone as drop dead gorgeous as myself. I say that a few times a day. In reality, I am very insecure about my looks. I do believe I’m cute, but sometimes it’s hard to say it. Which is why I force myself. Why wouldn’t Asmo do the same?)

Talking yourself up to be as beautiful as a sex god is no easy task, but Asmo isn’t the Avatar of “Lust” for no reason. When an insecure girl talks up her beauty, it’s her being strong and independent. When Asmo does it, its narcissism… it doesn’t really seem fair, now does it? Maybe he’s just an insecure person who needs to tell himself ALL THE TIME that he’s beautiful. That if he stares at his reflection long enough, he may see it too.

(Also, Simeon literally calls him out on being insecure. Insecure people tend to try and overcompensate where they feel they’re lacking.)

”Asmodeus is hinted to be insecure and seeking for love and attention. When Simeon was asked about what he thought of Asmodeus, he says that Asmodeus is still trying to fulfill the role of the angel he used to be; an angel that was adored and loved by many. Asmodeus laughs at Simeon's remark and brushes it off by saying that he is only jealous.” - A section from said Asmodeus Wiki.

People can choose to love or hate Asmo, obviously. Making things up about his character without having anything but speculation and having that dictate how he acts is plain silly. This entire “essay” if you can call it that, comes from the heart. I love Asmo as a character, and in the beginning he did make me uncomfortable, I didn’t like him that much. But I learned to look past that and figure out why he acts the way he does. Something didn’t sit right with me about him for a while, and it was that air of insecurity that I didn’t see at first.

All I can really ask for, is giving Asmo another chance as a character. He’s not as wild and wacky as Mammon, or as cool and sexy as Lucifer, or as edgy and precious as Belphie, but he matters in this story too. He fell from grace with his brothers for Lilith. Give him another chance, and let him show you that he is the Avatar of Love.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (February 21/2021) - Tommy’s Visit, Guard Training Day

It’s the day for Tommy’s final prison visit, one last visit to see Dream and gain closure. Things don’t go exactly to plan, though, and the situation takes a turn for the worse...

Jack Manifold and Quackity discuss business plans, Eret returns to start collecting taxes, and Sam decides it’s about time to get some helping hands, getting Bad and Antfrost on the job.

A summary of the week’s total events can be found at the end of the post.

---

VOD LINKS:

Foolish

HBomb94

Tommy

Tommy (Again)

Jack Manifold

Eret

Awesamdude

Foolish (Again)

Ranboo

---

- Foolish works on building HBomb a giant mansion in the savannah village.

- HBomb and Niki build a Bellsprout Pokemon head attached to Ponk’s tree in Lemon City.

-

--- Tommy’s Prison Visit ---

-

- Tommy comes online to visit Dream one last time in prison, for closure. Even though Dream is locked up and out of sight, he still feels miserable, a little bit empty.

“I think it’s because I haven’t shut the book. He’s still in my life, y’know?”

- He heads over to the prison. He is greeted by photos of BBH and Rat. The pictures George put on the entrance are still there.

- Tommy comes through to the lobby and greets Sam. Sam asks the questions.

“When was the last time you visited the prison?” 

“A bit ago...like a while back. A month. A month ago.”

“Where is your place of residence currently located?”

“My home over there, down yonder. The hotel. The Big Innit Hotel, Sam.”

“Do you believe that the prisoner is deserving of being locked up?”

“Yes, yeah, I absolutely do. I think he’s a wrongen. I don’t think he deserves death, though. I should make that very clear. I don’t think he deserves death.”

“What are your prior relations with the prisoner?” 

“I think he’s a bastard, he’s ugly, and um...I’d say...We manipulated one another. He...he manipulated me, kind of a bit of the villain, kind of an evil guy, kind of the ‘Dr. Octopus’ of the Dream SMP universe.”

- Tommy puts his items in the locker and they go through.

- Tommy comments on how every traumatic place he’s been in has been made of blackstone.

- Tommy doesn’t need to see Dream, “Unless one of my close friends dies...”

- They make it to the lava wall. The lava descends, and Tommy enters the cell.

- They greet each other. Dream’s lost his clock since the last time Tommy visited, and Tommy cracks a joke.

Dream: “That’s the Tommy I know...”

Dream throws Tommy some potatoes to regen health.

- Dream says he’s happy that Tommy came to visit. It’s been a while. Tommy tells him that it’s his last time visiting. Dream asks why, and insists that he’ll get out eventually.

- Tommy asks about the crying obsidian. Dream explains that it’s a security measure, and he likes to watch it drip.

- Tommy says it’s his last visit again, and the conversation grows more tense as they argue about exile, and Tommy says that he can’t even go into plains biomes now without trembling.

- Tommy then asks about the books he asked Dream to write, to which Dream replies that he burned them.

- Tommy opens the chest and sees the thank you letters. Tommy asks if Dream knows anything about the Egg. Dream doesn’t know much about it.

- The subject of it being Tommy’s final visit comes up again, and Tommy tells Dream that he doesn’t want him in his life anymore, that he ruined L’manburg and almost killed Tubbo.

Dream: “I did bad things, but...everybody thinks they’re right from their perspective.”

Tommy: “That’s not true. That’s not true!”

Dream: “I think I’m right. I did bad things but I did them for good reasons, but I’ve learned, I’ve...I did bad things and I’ve learned that I shouldn’t have done them.”

Tommy: “What good reasons? No, please, enlighten us.”

Dream: “I just wanted a...I just wanted to bring the server together, have it be...a happy family, y’know?”

Tommy: “Bring the server t-- you f-- Dream, you blew up L’manburg, Dream. You tried killing me! You tried killing everyone! You tried hurting people’s loved ones, man, it’s like what the fuck! You’re delusional, man, and I’m fucking sick of it. And I...but I don’t need to go through any of this stress anymore, alright? Because this is me doing this to me now, not you. You’re fine now, you’re locked up now, you’re a bitch. I’m the one that’s giving me the stress here now...but I’m better than that! I’m better than you, alright? So I’m done here.”

“You ruined my past, Dream, but you will NOT ruin my future.”

- Dream continues to insist that he’s changing. All of a sudden, Tommy hears TNT explosions.

Dream: “Sounds like a security issue.”

- Sam disappears. Tommy calls to be let out.

Tommy: “Dream, it hasn’t been an honor knowing you, but it will be an honor forgetting you.”

- The explosions continue.

- Dream says he wrote the 7-days waiver and thinks this might be a security issue, but he doesn’t know what’s going on.

- Dream and Tommy continue to argue.

Tommy: “I KNOW YOU. You haven’t changed! You’re the fuckin’ monster of this server, alright!? Not the Egg, not anything like this, YOU ARE!”

- Tommy only has one life left, so if he dies in here, then he dies for good. 

(Dying by the lava wall to get out would be a canon death)

- Tommy panics and starts burning Dream’s books in the lava. And the item frame. Dream takes the rest of the books into his inventory.

- Dream hands him a book and says he could write a story.

- Dream continually insists that he’s changed, and that he didn’t have anything to do with the TNT.

Tommy: “You’ve not changed, you’re the same old...you’re evil. You’re just evil.”

- Sam messages saying the prison is on lockdown, and to hang tight.

- Dream hands Tommy more potatoes, but he doesn’t have many left. They’ll have to wait for the automated refill.

- Tommy asks how long it’ll be. Dream guesses up to a week, like the waiver says.

“Oh no...”

Tommy ends his stream there.

---

- Jack logs on to check on the hotel and is confused by where Tommy is. He checks Twitter and finds out that Tommy has been locked in prison. He asks Sam to confirm. Sam tells him that there’s been a security issue and no one is to approach the prison.

- At first, Jack is outraged that his plans have been foiled again. But then he realizes that, with Tommy in prison, he’s now gained ownership of the hotel! He rebrands it to the Big Jack Manifold Hotel.

- Jack goes to rebrand and Sam Nook greets him at the hotel. Sam argues with Jack, not wanting Jack to take ownership.

- Jack speaks with Quackity, telling him that Tommy’s in jail. Quackity talks about how there’s soon to be an established currency: the diamond. Jack agrees to pay two diamonds for leather.

- Eret comes over to the hotel and Quackity and Jack speak with them. They tell Eret about Tommy being in jail. Eret calls it a “hostile takeover of Tommy’s hotel,” but Jack tries to convince him that it was bad for branding for Tommy’s name to be on the hotel.

- Quackity tells Eret that he’s setting up a big gathering for the opening of his business soon.

- Jack and Eret argue about hotel pricing.

- Quackity tells Jack to not be intimidated by competition, and also describes a plan to create a network of easily-accessible roads. He doesn’t like the wooden path, and says that Jack’s hotel would be a good destination for business. 

- Quackity questions what Jack will do when Tommy gets out of prison. Jack insists it will be fine.

- Jack works on rebranding.

- He then speaks with Badboyhalo. Bad finds out about Tommy being in jail and is surprised. Jack theorizes that maybe he tried to break Dream out.

- Bad discusses having a room in the hotel. Jack asks for payment.

- Eret comes up with a plan to tax the shit out of everyone.

- Sam starts stream at the prison. He doesn’t know what the explosions were.

- He calls for Bad and Ant, as he’s going to make them guards. They’re part of the Badlands and he trusts them.

- The two arrive. Sam fills them in: Tommy came to visit Dream, as he had already 2 or 3 times, and there was TNT going off near the prison. He needs to figure out what’s happening, but he can’t leave the prison and he can’t be in every place at once, which is where the guards come in.

- He opens Locker 2 since Locker 1 still has Tommy’s stuff in it. Sam then starts filling them in on what each lever does.

- Sam walks them through navigating the prison and then shows them the guard-specific areas like the locker room and stasis chamber.

- Sam then shows them the spawn traps. Ant and Bad set their spawns. Each guard gets three full sets of Netherite, three chances to stop whatever security issue may arise.

- At the end of the next tunnel is something top secret that can’t be showed on-stream. 

- He also shows the chest with the waivers, including Ranboo’s in Enderman.

- Sam declares Ant and Bad officially guards. They are happy to finally be employed. Sam says he’s not paying them anything except the satisfaction of knowing they’ll be helping to keep Dream in there.

- Sam, Bad and Ant find Eret’s tax request.

- Ranboo works on building a farm, starting his farmer arc.

- There’s a secret message spelled out in his inventory that reads: “HE IS IN CON(T)ROL.”

Upcoming Events:

- Quackity’s business reveal

- Whatever is going to happen in the prison now...

END OF WEEK RECAP:

2/15 - Ranboo finds his wall signs changed

2/16 - Tommy’s hotel opening, Karl and Sapnap name Kinoko Kingdom

2/17 - Foolish, Ponk and HBomb’s lore, Bad confronts Puffy about the propaganda

2/18 - Bad and Antfrost confront Puffy about the propaganda

2/19 - George vandalizes the prison, Captain Puffy’s Prank Wars

2/20 - Nothing much happens.

2/21 - Tommy gets trapped in prison, Jack and Quackity speak, Eret returns

[asset35-maya]

CALYPSO 🐚 ☕️

Part 1 & Part 2

Part 3/3:

Nines froze as the human’s body melded to his. Gavin kept his eyes shut and his lips moving. Then what he’d been bracing for finally came.

Pain.

Sweet glorious pain, blossoming everywhere Nines gripped his body. Gavin was sure that his lips would bruise under the pressure of the reciprocal kiss… that his rib cage would shatter if Nines held him any tighter… that his lungs would burst if they didn’t fill with air soon…

A wolf-whistle broke through the stunned silence in the yard.

Gavin pulled back, light-headed from the rush of oxygen and drain of adrenaline. He didn’t fall though. Didn’t even move an inch. Strong arms and a heated gaze kept him pinned.

//

\\

“Of all the things in the world… why coffee?”

“I could ask you the same.”

Gavin tucked his head into the crook of Nines’ neck, cuddling closer.

“Hmm… I think weird working hours made me actually need the caffeine… but the bean snobbery just came with the rest of my superiority complexes.”

Nines laughed. It was more of an exhale than an actual laugh, but Gavin was thankful for it nonetheless.

“And you?”

Nines kissed his forehead, prolonging his answer as much as he could before finally relenting with a sigh.

“The reason you’re asking… is because running a café is just about the last thing you’d expect an android like me to be doing. And… that’s your answer. That’s exactly why I wanted it.”

“To subvert expectations…?”

“To not be the terrible thing I was meant to be.”

Gavin’s breath hitched at the depth of emotion in Nines’ voice. He didn’t dare look up to meet his eye and settled for pressing his lips to the razor-sharp jawline.

“I dunno what kinda code runs through you, but believe me when I say you don’t have it in you to be… terrible.”

Nines scoffed at that.

“How can you say that after all the shit you’ve seen me do.”

“I can say that after all the shit I’ve seen others do. Fifteen years on the job, remember? I can vouch that righteous anger is one of the least terrible things out there.”

When Nines didn’t respond, Gavin decided to move the ship out of uncharted waters. He propped himself up on an elbow and ran a hand down the android’s smooth chest.

“In fact, I think it’s downright sexy.”

That did the trick. Nines pressed Gavin into the mattress with a low growl and rolled over him, clamping his mouth over his throat. Their hips aligned and the conversation ended.

//

\\

“Ralph tried hard but the machine is not working. Ralph is stuck.”

“Move. Let me see.”

Gavin took the filter holder and disconnected it from the espresso machine with a firm tug. He leapt away in shock as water came rushing out. That was absolutely not supposed to happen.

“Er… I’ll get a mechanic friend to take a look later. Why don’t you go check on inventory?”

Ralph shuffled away with a thoroughly sceptical look in his eye. Gavin sighed openly once the android was out of earshot.

The café was in shambles.

The vandals may have gotten as good as they gave… but they’d left their mark. Even with insurance, there was no way such a new establishment could financially recover from a setback like that.

Nines said nothing but seethed with his usual brand of silent, impotent rage.

Unable to bear the slammed car doors and dismissive grunts any longer, Gavin had taken a solo day off to come down to the Calypso and see what could be done.

Not much, without a boatload of money, it seemed.

He sat down with a sigh and Ralph brought over a cup of coffee. Black. A pour-over. He set a bowl of runny eggs and a small basket of bread down on the table too.

Gavin looked up in surprise. Ralph shrugged.

“Nines is telling Ralph that you left without breakfast. Ralph’s equipment is all broken so Ralph just made something simple.”

Touched beyond words, Gavin motioned for Ralph to sit down with him instead of scurrying off into the shadows as per his usual habit.

He took a sip of the hand-poured drip coffee and broke a piece of the bread, dragging it through the eggs, European style. It was utterly homely and reminded of him of some bygone era that he’d needlessly bypassed. He looked up and met Ralph’s mildly unsettling stare.

“So… why the name Calypso? There’s nothing beach-themed or Caribbean about the place.”

“Nines chose it. After the Greek goddess.”

“Huh. And she was the goddess of coffee? Did they even have coffee back in those Hercules Orgy Olympics days?”

“She is a sea nymph. She detained the mythic hero Odysseus on her island for seven years.”

Gavin’s brows furrowed as he swallowed a mouthful of fresh bread.

“Did you bake this?”

“Yes. Ralph is baking daily. Ralph does it first thing in the morning at five. It is very calming to knead the dough and hear the birdsong.”

“It’s phcking delicious. Leavened perfectly. Now back to the name. This goddess nymph creature. She doesn’t sound very nice. She trapped this hero dude, right? Reminds me of my ex. Why name this pretty café after her?”

“Ralph can only imagine that Nines’ fascination with Calypso is the ambiguity of her nature. She can seduce and manipulate, but she can also heal. She is neither good nor evil.”

Gavin drained his coffee and sank back in his chair contemplatively.

“What do you think she is, Ralph?”

Ralph’s LED flickered and his eyes dipped to the table. He knew what Gavin was asking.

“Calypso is immortal. Calypso cannot help but fall in love with every sailor who lands on her shores. Calypso dreams of an eternal husband but lets Odysseus go when it’s clear he wishes to return to his wife. Well, maybe only when the Gods commands her to… but she releases him without harm!”

Gavin waited. Ralph’s head snapped up and he spoke in a short burst.

“Calypso is mythical. It does not matter what she is. Nines is real. Nines is good. Very good. Honest and honourable! Ralph will do anything for Nines!”

Gavin leaned back in his chair with the satisfied smile of an experienced police negotiator who’d gotten exactly where he wanted to.

//

\\

“What the hell is this? Where did you get so much money from?”

Nines’ amber LED cycled furiously as he took in the sight of the restored café. Ralph was humming to himself as he proudly polished the knobs of their repaired espresso machine.

Gavin led Nines by the hand to look at the repainted walls… the new furniture… the new crockery replacing what had been smashed…

“How…?”

“Oh I just embodied my inner Gen Z and tapped into the power of social justice.”

Nines looked thoroughly nonplussed.

“Crowdfunding, baby. I set up a link and Ralph told everyone on Twitter what happened to him and the café. Well, showed them, more like.”

Nines looked up at the ceiling and his LED slowly returned to a calm blue as he understood… but when he looked back down, his expression wasn’t any less troubled.

“Okay I just saw it. Edited footage from his optical units and a tearful testimonial. Ethically questionable, but clever.”

“Super effective. We overshot our target by a couple hundred bucks.”

“Hmm. People are kind.”

“Yes. They’ve actually done more for you. Look. Connor gave me this earlier today.”

Gavin reached into his jacket and produced an envelope. Nines�� eyes widened as he spotted the official seals of the Mayor’s office, the Manfred Estate and New Jericho.

“Someone started a petition… to let you back behind the helm of the Calypso. It really took off. I don’t know how you didn’t hear-”

“I muted any mentions of myself and the other RKs from showing up in my newsfeed.”

“Then this makes for a good surprise.”

Gavin gently pushed the envelope into the android’s hands and watched him open it with a precise fingernail flicked under the wax. He scanned the contents of the letter in a split second and let it fall through his fingers.

Without warning, he scooped Gavin up and set him down on a polished table for a deep kiss of even deeper gratitude. Ralph turned his back on them with a bashful giggle.

//

\\

“Baby.”

Nines didn’t respond.

“Hey baby?”

“Hmm...”

There was an intensity to the grumble that had Gavin second-guessing whether to persist. Being Nines’ lover didn’t exempt him from the consequences of asking stupid questions.

“Your thoughts are fucking loud. Just say whatever you want to.”

“Oh. Um… I was actually wondering… I mean, you don’t have to tell me… but like why… um…”

“Why haven’t I turned my badge in yet?”

“Yeah…”

Nines turned on his side and brushed the back of his hand over Gavin’s cheek. The intimate gesture sent a thrill through the human despite how much more intimate they’d just been in the recent past.

“Because I haven’t decided what to do next.”

Gavin’s brows knitted together.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you going to take back your business?”

Nines’ wan smile told him all he needed to know.

“Why?”

“It’s doing really well in Ralph’s hands. He’s capable. He’s creative. And I don’t think it’s fair for me to go back and get in his way all of a sudden.”

“He needs you.”

“He absolutely doesn’t. It’s his café. You helped him get back on his feet and he’s going to be fiiiiine without me.”

“Is it because you don’t wanna be her anymore?”

Nines scrunched his nose up in confusion.

“Who?”

“Calypso. The siren who trapped the Oddball.”

That earned Gavin a heartfelt laugh.

“Odysseus, Gavin.”

“Yeah. You were like Calypso and now you’re letting go of the coffeeshop because you figured it wasn’t meant to be!”

Nines frowned and pretended to check the human for a temperature. Gavin swatted his hands away with mock petulance.

“Fine, I’m probably way off the mark. You tell me what the deal is then!”

Arms snaked around his waist and pulled him flush against the android’s defined chest. Lips brushed the shell of his ear and when Nines spoke next, it was in the huskiest of undertones.

“I’m Odysseus. Not Calypso.”

The realisation was painfully obvious in hindsight.

“I’m the one who’s stuck on an endless journey home. I’ve faced a hundred artificial trials and tribulations. I’ve been a puppet at the hands of false gods. I answer existential questions to prove my self-worth every single day.”

Nines paused to gauge Gavin’s reaction. When he received none, he pressed a brief kiss to the human’s bare shoulder before continuing.

“It’s been a long journey. But not a pointless one. Every metaphorical island I’ve visited has granted me something. From literally running into Ralph in an old building… to defending our turf from other stray androids… getting ourselves off the street… setting up a café from scratch… being arrested on opening day… ending up on the police force with you…”

Gavin recognised that as his cue to squirm around in Nines’ arms and peck him on the lips.

“So who’s Cyclops?”

“What?”

“The story’s starting to come back to me now. Your boy Oddy fought a one-eyed monster on one of the islands he went to. Who’s the Cyclops in your story?”

Nines huffed another breathy laugh.

“Markus, probably. Connor is definitely Helios.”

“Who’s your wife?”

“Definitely not you.”

Gavin elbowed him in the ribs. An action that had more repercussions on him than Nines.

“So which island are you off to next?”

“I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter. I might already be home.”

[prionguy-old]

hello enderwalk arg people

so i saw a cool thread from @/ranbeans on twitter and it inspired me. so naturally i spent five hours straight analyzing ranboo’s lore playlist

basically i think it’s a timeline of c!ranboo’s life, and it fits kind of eerily

everything’s below the cut (and it’s a lot) :]

prologue from starkid 

 - more clock references. it’s literally just an instrumental of a clock ticking

 - instantly you think of the ender text in that pic he tweeted. like that, this could relate to dream’s clock, or foolish’s clock (reading 10:33 always iirc) 

 - note that butler in tales from the smp: masquerade kept staring at a clock

 - it could also mean a theme of running out of time, or fighting with time

 - in the thread i linked, the person also points out that there are 23 clock ticks in prologue, and angel number 23 means that you are meant to be a servant

 - this would be his beginning

introduction to the snow by miracle musical

 - the first of many songs from the hawaii: part ii album on this playlist

 - i’ve seen that album described as an arg and i find it funny if ranboo just went no. my arg now 

 - introduction to the snow only has one verse, and the rest is instrumental

 - the whole hawaii album has themes of loneliness and death, especially loneliness for this song

 - it talks about feeling isolated, which gives hints about his childhood maybe?

 - the “you’ll live forever tonight” lyric also gives off a hopeful vibe, like that of a child

dream sweet in sea major by miracle musical

 - starts with a changed reprise of introduction to the snow

 - "Rather than trying to “live forever”, it seems that the time has come for something else" from the analysis of the first part in genius

 - odd because this song is meant as a finale to the album, but it's towards the beginning of the playlist (could mean that there was almost an ending of sorts early on for c!ranboo, like a near death experience?)

turn the lights off by tally hall

 - okay this one confused me when i was first going through, but when the timeline started coming together it made more sense

 - about adolescence, and being uncomfortable with growing up, so it fits with the timeline playlist theory 

 - also about phobias and stuff like that in a way?? hm

the mind electric by miracle musical

 - the song starts out in reverse, then plays the stuff from the beginning normally

 - feels like a rls honestly i wish he could use this song

 - it's about someone put in an infirmary and condemned to electroshock therapy because they're insane. fun

 - this is where the timeline started to come together in a way. as soon as i saw the mood get darker i remembered ranboo’s line from the festival i think? “don’t let it happen again” or something like that

 - because of this, if the timeline theory is true, at some point before he joined the dream smp he did something which caused him to be condemned

 - also this

 - the mind electric isn’t the only song where the narrator glorifies themself in a way, we’ll get into this later

 - also the rejecting fanatical views,, i am thinking about that theory that endermen are servants to the ender dragon. if c!ranboo rejected that, the consequences could have been awful

live and let die by paul mccartney

 - if i wasn’t sold on the timeline theory before, i am now. after the mind electric, the mood changes drastically in terms of ideology and theme

 - this specifically made me say “holy shit” because like. that verse means that when you’re young, you’re open minded and say “live and let live” which resembles the optimistic but lonely attitude of the beginning of the playlist

 - but then when the world fucks you over, you begin to say “live and let die.”

 - “live and let die” i take to mean as him no longer caring about the people around him. how before, he wanted to help others, but then the mind electric happened, and he just. stopped caring

 - fun right!! /s

ruler of everything by tally hall

 - there are so many clock and time references in this. we get it

 - "mechanical hands" when it says “mechanical hands are the ruler of everything” refer to hands on a clock, saying how time rules over everything

 - the narrator is talking back and forth with time itself in this, which is interesting because i believe he joins the dream smp in the next song

 - the narrator appears very insecure and looking for a quick way to appeal to everyone (like how c!ranboo at the beginning was trying to be everyone's friend)

 - this is the second song with the narrator glorifying themself out of insecurity. what are you trying to tell us about your character buddy

 - also we can’t ignore this shit

 -  i don’t need to explain why this scared me right. right

merry go round of life from howl’s moving castle

 - this is a change huh

 - god i haven’t seen this movie in years, but i saw looking it up that it plays at the beginning introducing the main character, sophie

 - this is before everything changed for her

 - maybe this is when he joins dream smp? and ruler of everything is him talking to dream prior?

 - or maybe im reaching who the fuck knows

 - but him joining dream smp to this song would make sense. it feels like a clean slate and starting over, which would match with how he doesn’t. y’know. remember things

 - which begs the question: if ranboo forgot everything from before this song in the timeline, and after that i’m assuming his memory issues started,, what happened to cause this?

 - i’d say the mind electric could have caused this, but it was awhile back in the playlist. so whoever he’s talking to in ruler of everything, which could very well be dream, i believe messed with his memory somehow.

killer queen by queen

 - c!ranboo girlboss arc canon??

 - i got lost here ngl. it has a very specific vibe that doesn’t match well with what i know of c!ranboo im sorry

 - but two songs later, i get a hint kind of which makes me believe this could be him burning george’s house with tommy

 - also this song is a banger and i’m pretty sure he put it on there to scare the crown arg people because of the “baroness” line /j

mr. bad guy by freddie mercury

 - literally just more funky villain vibes. i love this

 - no more angst only girlboss

 - since cc!ranboo has said he doesn't want to do a villain arc, i take this to maybe be how he sees himself?? credit to the crown arg discord for that idea they’re smart and cool

 - if that is true, i’d say this would be another song for the “glorifying oneself out of insecurity” list because the narrator is like. seeing himself as cool and The Bad Guy, even if he might not be

 - possibly the butcher army if the next song is what i think it is

ain’t no rest for the wicked by cage the elephant

 - i have been informed someone saw ranboo listening to and grabbing songs for this off of a playlist called "my villain arc" king i hate you /lh

 - in seriousness: the song is about how the world forces people into wicked roles for money. i am getting live and let die vibes, like how both blame the world for making them not care/do bad things

 - c!ranboo take responsibility for your actions challenge /j

 - this definitely reminds me of how when he gave techno his armor, he blamed it on peer pressure. if this aligns with that event, the last two would be burning george’s house and butcher army i think

i can’t decide by the scissor sisters

 - this is probably about enderwalk

 - i really hope it's about enderwalk

 - did mr ranboo commit murder?? manslaughter?? sir

 - i really feel like this is enderwalk or ive forgotten something

stardust crusaders from jjba 

 - thank god for jjba fans, i know nothing about this

 - apparently this is the main theme for jotaro, who's power i think?? is like moving faster than time

 - and his main villain thing is dio, who's power is stopping the flow of time

 - and we're back with the fuckin time references

 - this is pure speculation at this point, but maybe it’s like. him fighting against time in a way, which would draw back to ruler of everything

a mask of my own face by lemon demon

 - the song is about not wanting to take responsibility for their actions again

 - c!ranboo i am begging

 -  specifically this lyric

 - also this lyric draws back to the bidding, in which the singer wanted to be enough for someone and showed almost narcissism as a sort of "mask"

 - also just. mask can be correlated with dream or the masquerade, where the butler stared at the clocks

stranded lullaby by miracle musical

 - been awhile since we had a hawaii album song huh

 - and,, a memory reference.

 - that lyric is talking about forgetting things

 - the rest of the song is,, im not saying time traveler ranboo but time traveler ranboo (look at this post about that theory by my friend pspspspsp)

 - he's talking to a "you" this whole time, and i have no idea who it is lmao

 - there are mentions of dreams and stuff throughout, so i almost want to associate it with the prison visit, but then i think the next song is after the festival so i guess not?

 - might also be him losing the memory book

hidden in the sand by tally hall

 - this is, lyrics wise, a song about a man whose girlfriend left him for someone else and he's upset

 - but if you look at the music video, it shows a cruise ship, on which people are friendly with each other at first, but when it starts to sink, they turn on each other trying to escape

 - i am feeling a connection to c!ranboo's views on "choose people not sides" somehow

 - i feel like he's called people selfish in lore, but my friends and i are all ranboo kinnies so we cant fuckin remember. if he has, then yeaH this definitely correlates

now i’m here by queen

 - there's a very optimistic and nostalgic tone to this

 - this one’s barely annotated on genius so i don’t have a lot for it, but i feel like it's after the dream voice disappeared or something? timeline's gettin a little funky

 - it could also be right before the festival, as he used optimism as a shield there

& by tally hall

 - this. yeah. & deals with opposites, especially good and evil. the singer talks about how everyone sees the world from their own perspective and doesn't look from another

 - and that definitely ties back to how ranboo wanted l’manburg people, like tubbo, to see from techno’s perspective

 - i feel like this is right after the festival. it resembles a lot of ranboo's speech from then, where he basically told everyone “sides dumb. just vibe”

 - and then the outro changes tone, almost like a warning?? which. yeah. a warning to choose people not sides before doomsday, or else they won’t be able to stop l’manburg from being blown up

i’m gonna win by rob cantor

 - this song is about someone fighting their inner demons

 - sounds familiar!! looks directly at dream voice

 - specifically, the singer is optimistic about winning their fight with the inner demons

 - it seems kind of chilling to me though, but it's also late at night when i’m doing these notes so it may just be me

 - if the timeline theory is true, this is where c!ranboo is mentally atm, which tracks honestly

=), an unplayable track

 - ranboo why do you hate us

tl;dr: ranboo’s songs that he would use for lore playlist might very well be a timeline of c!ranboo’s life, from even before dream smp and that’d be super cool

if you read all the way through this just know i would die for you

anyways feel free to drop your interpretations of the songs in the notes :0

[mybg3notebook]

Lore: Details about the “Orb”

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Let's start with the context, because everything related to Gale is packed heavily with Forgotten Realms lore, and since the game is not fully released, whatever extra information that the game could provide to help us understand this is not there yet. Also, it's always important to keep in mind this post about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation" to be sure we are talking in the same terms. 

The lore

I'm going to enumerate some objects or elements related to Forgotten Realms lore that I personally see worth checking out in addition to other “orbs” that I've seen the fandom put attention on. All this information can be expanded using the references and sometimes wiki, even though I personally distrust forgotten realm wiki, unless I can check that info from the original sources.

Shadow Weave

The Shadow Weave is the space between the strands of the Weave. If the Weave is a spider's web, the gaps in between are the Shadow Weave. Shadow Weave reaches everywhere the Weave does, and more. It is not subject to Mystra’s laws or state of well being. If Mystra were to die and the Weave collapses, the Shadow Weave would persist. [Magic of Faerûn 3e. Personal Comment: Yes. It explicitly says in the book that it’s independent of Mystra’s well being. Clearly this has been modified in 4e since the Shadow Weave needs the structure of the Weave to be somehow stable. It collapsed when the Weave did so, so we can see this begins a series of inconsistencies]

Shadow Weave is a dark and distorted copy of the Weave created by Shar, more suited for spells that drag life or confuse the mind (necromancy, control, illusion schools), and gives more difficulty to cast spells that manipulate energy or matter (evocation or transmutation schools). It can't sustain spells that produce light. Both Weave and Shadow Weave are means to use Raw Magic (see at the end of the post). The more familiar a mortal becomes with the secrets of the Shadow Weave, the more detached they become from the Weave. Shadow Weave is NOT a part of Mystra, so Mystra can't block people from accessing magic via Shadow Weave. 

It’s a common mistake to make the analogy that the Shadow Weave is to Shar the same way the Weave is to Mystra. No. Shadow Weave is NOT Shar, while the Weave is Mystra. Shar never developed that level of commitment, making herself one with the Shadow Weave. This is one of the reasons why she could not sustain the Weave during the Spellplague when she tried to corrupt it completely into Shadow Weave. 

All this information belongs to Magic of Faerûn 3e and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3e and novels of 4e. There is nothing about Shadow Weave in 5e. If it weren't for Ed Greenwood's twitter, we should have guessed it disappeared from the lore. So far we know it's slowly recovering in the same way the Weave is. And the Shadow Weave doesn't feed on Weave. For some mysterious reason, fandom started to think so due to BG3.

Death moon orb

This artefact belongs to the 3rd edition, created by a Netheril wizard. From him, it passed to the hands of Szass Tam, who saw it destroyed when the Spellplague corrupted the magic in it. I won't give more details about this object because it looks so unrelated to what Gale has in his chest. Not only is its shape inconsistent with what we see in-game, its powers and properties are unrelated to what is explained in EA. The object is cursed, compelling its owner to cause greater acts of evil; it has a size that changes and looks like a violet-black sphere. In my opinion, the only detail in common with Gale's “orb” is the name "orb". Which is a fallacy, since Gale says explicitly that he uses the word "orb" for the lack of a better one, because clearly what Gale has in his chest is not an orb, but a mass of Black Weave. 

Netherese orbs

These objects are found in Neverwinter MMO in the quest Whisper in Darkness:

The Netherese are foul plague upon this world, corrupting everything they touch. They have cursed the Gray Wolf Tribe, turning them into bloodthirsty monsters. We must find what the Netherese intend to do with their werewolf slaves. The Shadovar Emissaries use the Netherese Orbs powered by Soul Shards to communicate orders from the Prince of Shadow.

This is all the information we have of this object. That's all. It comes from a Neverwinter MMO game which belongs to 4th edition. Once more, the concept that Gale's “orb” is not an orb but a black mass of untamed magic makes me believe that these objects don't apply either. The nature of their magic is compatible though: Netherese orbs are made from shadow magic by Shadovar, descendant of Netheril stuck in the Plane of Shadow (called Shadowfell later on, read more in the post of "The Netherese in 1492DR"). This plane is the source of Shadow Magic, they don't use Raw Magic. Ethel explicitly said in BG3 that Shadow Magic is Netherese Magic, so maybe we can consider this object filled with Netherese magic? In any case, these Netherese orbs are used for communication... which has nothing to do with Gale's “orb”'s properties. There is also no reference of consuming Weave to remain stable.

Devastation orb

The mention of a "devastation orb" happens only in Yartar in Princes of the Apocalypse (related to the god Tharizdun, the mad god): 

In page 5 we have some context: Four elemental cults grow in power in the Sumber Hills, claiming abandoned keeps that connect to an underground fortress once part of an ancient dwarven kingdom. The leaders use elemental magic to create devastation orbs capable of ravaging the countryside. They’ve been testing these magic weapons, bolstering the cults’ ranks, and infiltrating various communities, all directed by visions the prophets receive from the Elder Elemental Eye (Tharizdun). These orbs are plainly described as: essentially bombs of elemental energy to unleash natural disasters.

In page 222 we have a more detailed explanation of what these elements are: 

Devastation Orb: (Wondrous item, very rare) A devastation orb is an elemental bomb that can be created at the site of an elemental node by performing a ritual with an elemental weapon. The type of orb created depends on the node used. For example, an air node creates a devastation orb of air. A devastation orb measures 12 inches in diameter, weighs 10 pounds, and has a solid outer shell. The orb detonates 1d100 hours after its creation, releasing the elemental energy it contains. The orb gives no outward sign of how much time remains before it will detonate. Regardless of the type of orb, its effect is contained within a sphere with a 1 mile radius. The orb is the sphere’s point of origin. The orb is destroyed after one use.

Again, I don't see a real connection with Gale's “orb”. These devastation orbs are not netherese-based, they have elemental energy, and despite the explosion, they don't have any mechanics that resemble the consumption of Weave to remain stable. However, I do find a link between these devastation orbs, their process of construction, and the book that Gale found out. The remotest concept I can scratch here is that, whoever crafted the book with that piece of blackest Weave, could have used the knowledge of the construction of these devastation orbs. Instead of filling them with elemental magic, they filled it with a blackest weave of netherese magic. A procedure that could have been applied to the netherese tadpoles as well.

That's all the information I could gather that remotely is called “orb” or has some vague chance to be that blackest weave.

The Game BG3

In the game, all the info that Gale provides in EA about the “orb” is given before his revelation. The what it is, the how it works and the how it feels. In the revelation scene we only learn the details that are personal and intimate for Gale: the why he ended up with the orb, and potential solutions he can guess so far. To show proofs:

During the meeting:

Tav [Wisdom/tadpole] Try peering into his mind. If he won't open up, you'll sneak in.  [Success] Narrator: For a split second you see a swirl of untamed magic – then his defences drop like a portcullis. 

During the Protocol:

Tav: I simply want to know what it is you're keeping from me Gale: I'm dangerous. Not because I want to be, but because of... an error I made in the past.  [before Gale speaks of his loss] It makes me dangerous – even in death. [after Gale speaks of his loss/tadpole intrusion] I told you how I sought to win the favour of Mystra. I did this by trying to control a form of magic only one wizard ever could. I failed to control it. Instead it infested me. It makes me dangerous... even in death. […] Tav: The darkness inside you, what is it? Gale: It's magic from another time and another place. It is something that is beyond me, yet inside me. That makes me dangerous... even in death. 

During the stew scene or the ask for artefacts in neutral or lower approval

Tav: [Wisdom/tadpole] you sense secrecy and danger. Use your tadpole to probe Gale's thoughts. [Success] Narrator: you become one with Gale's mind and you can feel something sinister oppressing you. It's... inside of you, a mighty darkness radiating from your chest. You could try to push further, but your hold over Gale feels brittle. It won't be easy delving deeper without him noticing. Delve deeper: [Success] Narrator: “ you see through gale's eye, staring down the corridor of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. It's teeth, it's claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through you and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever-hungry.

Gale: The only way to “appease” said condition is for me to take powerful magical artefact and absorb the Weave inside. [...]Tav: What happens if you don't consume any artefact? Gale: Catastrophe. [...] Think of it as... tribute. The kind a king might pay to a more powerful neighbour to avoid invasion. As long as I pay there will be peace. But should I ever stop, along comes a war. I can assure the battlefield would extend well beyond the borders of my body alone. [...] I will consume the magic inside. What was a powerful artefact will be rendered no more than a trinket. But it will save my life- even if only temporarily.

Tav: That condition of yours is a very expensive one. Gale: I obtained it in Waterdeep. Nothing there comes cheap.

Artefacts scenes:

Gale: I can feel the storm abating. [...] I will feel it stir again – like a distant thunder sending tremors through the soul. I will need to consume another artefact before the lightning strikes. There's no choice but to find more. [...] It's good to perceive this constant fear repressed into a quiet scare. Let's hope it will last a good long while.

During Revelation scene:

Gale: The gist of it is that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so that he could become a god himself. He almost managed but not quite, and his entire empire – Netheril – came crashing down around him as he turned to stone. The magic unleashed that day was phenomenal, rolling like the prime chaos that outdates creation. A fragment of it was caught and sealed away in a book. No ordinary book, mind you; a tome of gateways that contained within it a bubble of Astral Plane. It was a fragment of primal Weave locked out of time – locked away from Mystra herself. ‘What if’, the silly wizard thought. ‘What if after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the Goddess?”

Narrator: You feel the tadpole quiver as you realise Gale is letting you in. Into the dark. You see through Gale’s eyes, staring down the corridors of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. It’s teeth, it’s claws, it’s unstoppable as it digs through you and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever hungry… [...] This Netherese taint.. this orb, for lack of a better word, is balled up inside my chest. And it needs to be fed. As long as it absorbs Weave it remains stable – to an extent. The moment it becomes unstable, however.. [...] It will erupt. I don’t know the exact magnitude of the eruption, but given my studies of Netherese magic, I’d say even a fragment as small as the one I carry…. It’d level a city the size of Waterdeep

Tav : I should godsdamned kill you GALE: Perhaps that is what I deserve, but you deserve no such thing. To kill me is to unleash the orb. 

So far, if we don't use the tadpole, we learn from Gale that he is unwillingly dangerous, there is an ancient magic stuck in his chest—acquired in Waterdeep—that he never could control and it inspires a dreadful state of mind (constant fear). It requires Weave to stay stable, and if it is not fed, a catastrophe will happen that will extend past his body. 

With the Tadpole we learn, in addition, part of the details we can learn during the revelation scene: it's a swirl of untamed/chaotic magic which is an ever-hungry "blackest weave". 

During the Revelation Scene all the information acquired by the tadpole intrusion is given, in addition to describing this mass of magic as an "orb" despite its inaccuracy. We also learn that killing Gale will only unleash the orb instead of putting an end to the problem. 

Gale said everything that is important related to the orb before the party scene, excluding only the personal information since he is a private person. This was exactly the boundary he set when he promised during the stew scene that he was going to explain the what, not the why. With the use of the tadpole we only learn details, simple extra descriptions; all information that Gale will willingly share during the revelation scene anyway.

We can learn a bit more of the “orb”'s function if we explore the goblin party. There, Gale explains part of the mechanism of the “orb” in a "poetic" way, that may or may not be taken exactly as such:

Gale: Two shadows are darkening my soul.The shadow within and the shadow without: you. You led me down this path. [...] I don't know myself anymore. All this... It's not who I am. Around you, I'm not who I want to be. I should leave. 

Tav: [Insight] Stay. We make each other stronger. We make each other survive. /OR/ [Deception] You don't stand a chance alone. You're free to go. I dare you. 

[Success][DC15] Gale: [...]. Few things are more powerful than the will to live. But carnage such as this.... the shadow within is spreading like poison, corrupting kindness and compassion. [...]. Tonight I need to wash my hands of blood and my mind of shattering memories. 

This shows that when playing an Evil Tav who sides with the Goblins, we have an extra description for this “orb”. Again, I ponder every bit of information with its context: Gale is a poet, and he tends to speak with metaphors specially when it comes to emotional painful states of mind or when it comes to the “orb” (which puts him in a very emotional state that even the tadpole doesn't), so these lines can perfectly be understood as a poetic way to describe his deep regret for participating in massacring the Tieflings. However, there is this detail that I can't overlook: the shadow within, understood as the blackest Weave, is spreading across his body, corrupting his good essence. As we saw in the post of "Extensive list of Gale's approvals", compassion and kindness are key elements in Gale's personality. This scene shows a potential that is not explored in EA: the “orb” seems to set a path in which it will corrupt Gale. 

Now this could be considered as a potential beginning of a shift of alignment, but it goes against what Sven said several times in interviews and presentations: he stated that they were not considering to change alignments in the companions (if you can imagine all the extra branches that it opens up, it makes sense not to allow it given the already colossal proportions of the game), so it's hard to suspect how Gale would evolve from here, or if this situation will give him reasons to attempt to kill this Evil Tav eventually (which is my personal guess). Sven suggested many times that companions could potentially kill Tav or other companions during their sleep. We saw this happening in EA with Astarion. Using datamining content, we saw the same with Lae'Zel and Shadowheart. I don't see why not to give in-character reasons to make this mechanism work with Gale as well.

As an extra (datamining) detail, we have Ethel's vicious mockery line emphasising the concept of "the shadow within":

Ethel: I can smell what's under those bandages wizard, you're all rot and ruin.

Putting aside the unnerving detail that Gale's concept art has bandages on one of his hands while the game is oblivious to this, the idea of Gale's “orb” as a source of rot and ruin, in combination with that necrotic aura when he dies, gives us a sure idea that there is a “disease” spreading in Gale's body as a consequence of this blackest weave stuck in his chest.

All the in-game information was presented, so now let's drag conclusions: Comparing all the information extracted from the scenes, we can now consider how much potential has the lore object named before:

Shadow Weave: Could Gale's “orb” be a fragment of Shadow Weave?

Strengths of the argument: Gale's “orb” is described as "blackest weave". It could barely be a hint, even though the Shadow weave has no canon colour nor physical description in the corebooks. So this is a very weak strength.

Weaknesses of the argument: Shadow Weave doesn't feed on Weave (this is a fallacy so far I've checked. It would make no sense to feed on the same object that it needs to exist.) Shadow Weave doesn't explode nor is chaotic. 

Death moon orb:

Strengths: It's called an "orb". And it was made by a netherese arcanist, so it must contain “netherese magic”.

Weaknesses: This object was destroyed during the Spellplague. It's a physical orb which changes size, but it's not an "amorphous mass" of magic. It doesn't consume Weave.

Netherese Orb:

Strengths: It's called an "orb". It's made of shadow magic (which is not netherse magic in corebooks but in game Ethel used both denominations as synonymous). We know Shadovar are masters of Shadow Magic. Read more in the post "The Netherese in 1492DR".

Weaknesses: This object doesn't appear in the corebooks. It's used for communication. It doesn't seem to have any explosive properties nor consumes Weave.

Devastation orb:

Strengths: It's called an "orb". They explode with the intensity to destroy a city. 

Weaknesses: It's made of elemental magic (not netherese magic). It's a solid object, a bomb (not an amorphous mass). It doesn't consume weave.

Personal speculation

I don't think any of these canon objects are or inspired Gale's “orb”. If we take the descriptions in-game as they are, and considering the importance that Karsus and his folly have been given in the whole game (to the point that Larian added ingame books explaining part of it) I support two hypothesis that, by now, they must be obvious for lorists since I want to work with what the game (and datamining) gives me: 

1- The concept that this is a piece of corrupted Weave that Karsus' Avatar allowed to have access to when he disrupted the Weave. Gale calls it “primal weave” as well, which is a concept that doesn't exist so far in the corebooks, and one could relate, very barely, with raw magic. Maybe.

2- Heavy magic (key concept during 2e)

To understand this we need MORE lore (I know, this has no end; this is why I think a lot of misunderstandings with Gale’s character come from the big holes of lore that EA leaves, which is obvious, it's EA) So, allow me to clear out the concepts: 

Karsus' Avatar is the name of the spell that caused Karsus' folly and made him a god for just an ephemeral moment. The notes regarding the spell’s essence were nowhere to be found. It’s believed that Mystra, the reincarnated form of Mystryl, snatched the spell information from the ruins of Karsus’s enclave and sent it “on an eternal journey to the ends of the universe” (who knows what this means). Besides, as if this were not enough precaution, Mystra changed the rules of magic on the material plane making it impossible to cast spells over 10th level. Karsus' Avatar was a 12th level spell.

Raw Magic is “the stuff of creation, the mute and mindless will of existence, permeating every bit of matter and present in every manifestation of energy throughout the multiverse. Mortals can't directly shape this raw magic. Instead, they make use of a fabric of magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic. The spellcasters of the Forgotten Realms call it the Weave and recognize its essence as the goddess Mystra.” [Player's Handbook 5e]

The creation of the Weave allowed all mortals to have access to magic through study. The Weave works like a barrier and an interpreter to use the real source of magic: Raw Magic. For more information on this, check the wiki (otherwise each of these posts will be mini books of lore). Few mortals can tap magic from the raw magic. Spells like silver fire are part of the raw magic. Some wild mages can tap into it as well, but at the cost of making their spells very random. Only Weave-disruptive events can allow an uncontrolled influx of raw magic into the world (which can be considered what happened during Karsus' folly)

Mythalars are immense artefacts that work like intermediates of the Raw Magic. They don't use the Weave, they have direct access to Raw Magic and were used to power up magical artefacts around them (thanks to these objects the Netheril cities floated in the air). Touching a mythalar causes instant death since Raw magic is harmful for most mortals.

So the first hypothesis (corrupted Weave) means that when Karsus cast this spell and became the Weave itself for a brief moment, he may have access to Raw magic directly. His spell Karsus' avatar started using common Weave, but in the second he connected deeply with the Weave and with Mystryl's powers, he had access to Raw magic as a god. His spell may have changed the source of its power from the Weave to Raw Magic, adding the latter's randomness and chaos to the spell itself and therefore, corrupting the Weave. The transition, so violent like the whole event, may have corrupted part of the Weave that was being used while casting the spell. According to Gale's description, the “orb” stuck in his chest is a piece of Weave with the active effect of Karsus' Avatar (the spell), but the Narrator gives us the extra information that it's corrupted. Apparently Gale never realised this object was corrupted, or may have known it and he tried to cleanse it so he could return it to Mystra. Either way, the source of the corruption may have been the sudden transition to Raw Magic during the casting. My main problem with this hypothesis is how a spell can be stuck in a piece of Weave, since Gale's “orb” maintains Karsus's avatar's effect. 

On one hand, Karsus' Avatar main effect is “to absorb god-like powers”. In that moment of history, this spell was aimed at Mystryl, and therefore to the Weave. The disruption of the event “stuck” the effect of “absorbing weave” in a piece of Weave, while the chaotic nature of this “orb” could be attributed to the direct presence of Raw Magic, also stuck in it. Now, another weakness of this hypothesis is that nothing of this causes a "corruption disease" as Gale implies it (we only know that the failure of the spell turned Karsus into stone). So we don't have a good argument for this effect beyond the one “I believe that since the moment was disruptive, it must have corrupted something, and that corruption is quite unhealthy in a mortal body”. Which it's not of my liking, but this is what we get up to this point in EA.

The second hypothesis I talked about is another lore concept intimately related to Karsus in 2e: Heavy Magic (which I personally prefer over the first hypothesis). 

Heavy magic is physical, tangible magic, usually presented as a viscous mass of chaotic nature. It can crawl, entering into cracks of a wall or a body, for example. Karsus created a distilled version of this magic called super heavy magic, and experimented with people. The subject eating a bit of this magic will have heavy magic spread on all the inner walls of their body and will kill them (it's not a disease, but it spreads inside and kills). The usual effect of the stable super heavy magic was to magnify the powers of a spell or enchantment (it allowed spells to be stuck in it), however it could be used for everything. 

Karsus used this element to enhance enchantments on walls, for example projecting illusions endlessly. This means that this product has the ability of keeping a spell functioning in it (as we see that this black weave keeps the function of the Karsus' avatar). [Dangerous Games, 2e]

Naturally, heavy magic absorbs life energies (maybe another characteristic fitting the concept of disease and necrotic effects). There is an event (2e) related to this aspect in which the renegade arcanist Wulgreth became a lich after heavy magic overflew him [Power and Pantheons, 2e]

As it is easy to see, this concept shares a lot of similarities with the object stuck in Gale's chest. But there is still more:

In the novel Dangerous Games (2e), strongly focused on how Karsus experimented with Heavy Magic, it is explicitly said that Karsus infused himself with super heavy magic before casting Karsus' avatar (probably to magnify the spell power but we also know that heavy magic can get spells stuck in it). He grew taller, and glowed in a white-silver radiance. Babbling arcane chants, the super heavy magic raged within him until he came into a state of being between a man and deity. Then it followed his folly. Karsus “died”, turning his body into red-hued stone, bound in eternal torment to relieve repeatedly the moment he became aware of his folly. 

So there exists a chance that a pieces of super heavy magic (in which Karsus was infused when all this happened) may have kept Karsus' Avatar effect stuck in them. One of these pieces could have been recovered later around the red stone where Karsus is now. This could potentially be the object or, at least, in what it had inspired Gale's “orb”. It's also worth noticing that one of the main characters in this novel Dangerous Games was looking for ways to safely contain heavy magic and avoid its damaging effect, so there is extra lore information about vessels that could justify the sealed book that Gale found in Waterdeep. 

As an extra detail on this matter, we know that the runes of teleportation may have been made with heavy magic: "Gale: See that rune? Netherese, I think. Weave's so thick on it, it's almost viscous." 

Since Gale is calling "Weave" to the element attached to the teleport runes, it makes me wonder if this was a slight variation that Larian made of the canon concept of Heavy Magic to not add new concepts to the already complex world of Forgotten Realms. Maybe, in the end, both hypotheses are the same: the second one is strictly more canon-related than the first one, which is more or less the same but simplified in terms and concepts. 

As a last conclusion from my personal point of view, I see no much sense in calling this thing “orb”. In game it's clearly described as an amorphous black mass, not an orb. And it made me remember Gale's original description, when the EA was not released yet: it's the only way where I can see its nonsensical origin, which was done in a completely different context. 

Gale has one ambition: to become the greatest wizard Faerûn has ever known. Yet his thirst for magic led to disaster. A Netherese Destruction Orb beats in his chest, counting down to an explosion that can level a city. Gale is confident he'll overcome it, but time is not on his side.

After the game was released in EA, Gale's description changed radically, and therefore his current description has a different approach entirely, removing the concept of "orb" for what we know in the game: “ancient chaotic magic”. 

Wizard prodigy: Gale is a wizard prodigy whose love for a goddess made him attempt a dread feat no mortal should. Blighted by the forbidden magic of ancient Netheril, Gale strives to undo the corruption that is overtaking him and win back his goddess’ favour before he becomes a destroyer of worlds.

This is one of the many details that make me believe that Gale's original concept/character was changed significantly before the EA release. But this is a mere personal speculation. For more details on netherese magic, read the post of "The Netherese in 1492DR".

Source: 

2nd edition: Powers and Pantheons, Netheril: Empire of Magic, Dangerous Games by Emery Clayton. 3rd Edition: Faith and Pantheon, Magic of Faerûn 4th edition Player's Handbook 5th edition: Player's Handbook, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

This post was written in May 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[gwynpool]

it’s 2AM and i just finished Rule of Wolves (spoilers definitely up ahead)

first, to inform everyone, i read the spoilers when it got leaked in twitter cuz i can’t help myself. (it’s a sickness, i know) i think this is important since it definitely influenced my perspective upon reading the book. also, this is my first time being early in a party so yay me! going in ROW was easy for me because i started King of Scars the day before book 2’s actual release date so everything’s fresh.

secondly, this is really long so i’m sorry. i just have a lot of feelings and need to write it all down. on with the rant.

King of Scars was wonderful to me since it gave me my favorite Shadow and Bone character and the girl who i used to hate for being a mean girl but who I now admire with every ounce of my being. It also introduced a new ship that I am now obsessed with and is ruling besides my love for Jude&Cardan. Not to mention, it gave us Nina, whom though i’m not entirely a fan of due to all my love focusing on Kaz and Inej, allowed the connection between Shadow&Bone with SixofCrows.

Moving on, ROW was a ride and whirlwind of emotions. unfortunately, it wasn’t always the best kind.

I love the fantasy elements of it (tho it was a huge leap especially with the saints power thingy) and the politics because i am a sucker for scheming and stealing thrones.

the zoyalai teasing and angst was painful but in the best way since slowburn is what keeps me going.

nina finding comfort (and attraction, apparently) from hanne made my heart flutter because i haven’t gotten over matthias but this allowed a sort of closure and next chapter for our waffle-loving queen.

the promised wedding by leigh wasn’t what i expected but i’m not complaining since david&genya deserved nothing but happiness.

almost everything seems going well (aside from the fact that aleksander was ressurected apparently)and then everything crashes and burns and i just have to wonder why?

so the promised funeral alongside the wedding one, immediately comes after two? three? chapters as they were attacked during the afterparty of the wedding. and guess what? leigh killed the fcking groom.

the thing is i already knew he was going to die (with the spoilers and all) but i did not expect it to come immediately after the freaking wedding. not even halfway through the book!

being spoiled, i think, took most of the pain from the event but it doesn’t lessen the fact that it was completely unnecessary??? like though the characters grieved, nothing much was affected from his death? also, don’t talk to me about the character development for the survivors from this tragic event because there. was. absolutely. NONE.

and then we have the fricking darling ressurected. i love him in the first book of the grishaverse though i knew he was still a villain, don’t get me wrong. and my heart ached but was also relieved with his death in the third. he also inspired one of my all-time favorite fantasy villain(antihero?) in the form of Adelina Amouteru in the Young Elites series.

Ceased to be a Darklina fan and am now shipping Aleksander with Adelina because their power tho? like clings to like and they are both imbued with unfathomable darkness. somebody write fics please.

but bringing him back was what for exactly? leigh bardugo preached on how toxic the darkling character was and how we really shouldn’t like him in terms of agreeing with his ideals and yada yada. and yet she brings him back because apparently, he’s the only one paying her bills.

his conversation with alina tho had me expecting some darklina crumbs with fan service on the side since the stans were all raving about it on twitter *vomiting noises from toxicity* but i was surprised since it just further reminded us of how he truly is a villain in his very core and would do anything to get what he wants. so all in all it wasn’t entirely awful and it actually made me like Mal a bit. (never was a fan of him but that’s my issue, not the character’s)

setting aside the darkling issue a bit, the POV from Mayu was skippable. i mean obviously it still needs to be read for the Shu politics and the khergud existence but it just made me want to go to the next pov. Same goes for the “the monk’s” POV since you all know how i feel about him and the cult with it’s assembly and shit ended up also being unnecessary towards the end. honestly, i could do without the journey of the starless saint and his cult.

i truly enjoyed the fjerdan plot to my surprise and i like how nina kind of went through the last of us 2 circle of hate journey. it was definitely difficult knowing her pain and all that she went through and still choosing to be the better person. and yet, i can’t help but be more proud of her development. also, the supposed death of hanne got me going for a second and was actually ready to storm leigh’s home to fix her mistake. thank god it was plot twist. that’s all i have to say on the nina POV because i don’t wanna ruin my good feeling on this.

the crows cameo gave us a mini heist and it just made me miss reading their adventures. also the suli scene tugged at my heart.

imma skip zoya’s transformation but it utterly made me feel amazing and i have never been more glad that she’s kind of overpowered. she deserves it so fck all them haters. you can choke.

nikolai’s revelation and decision for the ravkan throne was not all that surprising, even without my knowledge of the spoilers. i honestly had a feeling that he was always his best self when he was strumhond and he only chose to fulfill the duties of the king because at that time, there was no other choice. so him giving up the throne to his beloved soldier, summoner and saint was a quite satisfying choice of route. there has been some others who would contest nikolai’s decision to step down as something unnecessary in the grand scheme of things but i would stand by my belief that nikolai made the best choice for ravka and for himself. not to say that i didn’t want to see both the queen and king side by side ruling but what are fanfictions for?

zoyalai is canon and endgame. finally. i can die now.

now the last two chapters was a toss up. for the first one was the darkling’s sacrifice. okay, so i was also spoiled by this from twitter but when i was reading the book, i keep expecting it to be brought up and it wasn’t. so i honestly thought that maybe that spoiler was a prank. lo and behold it was not and it wasn’t until the very last end. so the buildup was goddamn awful. the whole concept of the thorn wood and sort of atlas moment was just no. like you’re just springing this up now? when we’re supposed to be tying up loose ends but making sure it had history and buildup to well, back it up.

also leigh outright writing genya saying it was not a redemption for the darkling and him being unapologetic about his crimes (basically being a truly evil asshole) doesn’t remove the fact that it still comes off as a redemption arc especially with what is now the synopsis of SOC 3 but ill get to that. he still was the one who did a heroic deed and that fucks me up because it was just devastating to me after making peace with his end in ruin and rising. not because i was hurt that he died yet again boohoo but because it kind of invalidates everything that alina, genya, zoya and countless other victims went through.

on a side note, the darling stans on twitter who keeps defending his actions, i would really advise you to reflect on your decisions cuz it is honestly unhealthy. also, you lot talking smack about nikolai and zoya refusing to sacrifice their lives? stop twisting the story to suit your toxic admiration, nikolai was even first to offer up his life and would do so if it was actually possible. so just go hide in your darkling cocoon and stop hating on other characters to justify your favored aleksander.

the very last chapter aka coronation was good because it gave us inej ghafa cameo as captain of her ship and bonding with our resident privateer and also genya, alina and zoya bonding. but it was bad because apparently the darkling chronicles is still not over and now we’re supposed to grant him death like that’s going to make everything okay? i know forgiveness and breaking the circle of hate and revenge is a huge theme in this duology but honestly, this is just too extreme. with nina it was understandable and the people she hated were born of twisted mindset and circumstances but the darkling? hahahah no. he is a literal immortal who was delusional so now that he’s paying for his crimes, you want to allow him death because you have nightmares? zoya, goddamit no! same to you genya and alina. and so this will be the plot for the third six of crows? why can’t we just stop making this about him. now he gunna steal kaz’s thunder? over my dead body.

in the end, i gave this book 4 stars in goodreads because if i ignore the darkling plot, it was a really good use of politics and fantasy merging in a storyline. i can’t fault leigh for choosing to do this since it’s still her book so i definitely don’t have a right to dictate what i expected from this. also, i have a half a mind to believe that she fell in love with ben barnes and had him in mind writing this so i really cannot blame her because i have been under that man’s charms since prince caspian came out. the spoilers i read made me more open in reading this (backwards thinking but eh that’s how i roll) so i’m not at all crushed by what transpired. it was just weird and was lackluster in its attempt to give ravka some sort of peace. frankly, i just want to read the third six of crows book to maybe find some sort of calm in all this craziness and also delve in some zoyalai fanfiction because it was a long time coming.

shameless promotion but if you guys want to check out my nikolai duology spotify playlist, here’s the link:

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x01- Previously on...

Welcome back!! I’m so excited to be writing one of these again. I think this hiatus has been the longest I’ve gone without new Diane Lockhart content in ten years, and it sure feels like it. A lot of important stuff has happened in the time since TGF season four ended (not concluded—ended). Most notably, CBS All Access became Paramount+ and suddenly started offering a lot of content I care about! I kid. 2020 was quite an eventful year, so I was curious how television’s most topical show was going to take it on. TGF is always forward-looking, but too much happened in 2020 to be ignored. And while I didn’t think TGF would have much to say about the pandemic, it seemed impossible to imagine a season five that pretended it never happened. Going into this premiere, I was expecting that they’d either skip COVID entirely or include very few references, but after seeing this episode, I feel like the writers took the only approach that made sense. And that is why they are the writers, and I'm just some girl on the internet who writes recaps.  

Anyway, before I dive into the episode, I should also note that my pandemic boredom spurred me to actually pay $30 to watch this episode early as part of the virtual ATX Festival. Yes, I paid $30 on top of the money I spend every month on Paramount+ for this show. But I write tens of thousands of words about each TGF episode—are my priorities really that surprising? I note this not to brag or even to poke fun at myself, but because watching the episode before I knew a single thing about it (not even the title!) completely changed my viewing experience. I’ve never had an experience like this with TGW or TGF. I’m one to search for critics tweeting cryptically about screeners and refresh sites looking for background extras (haven’t done this in the TGF era, though) and read every single piece of press I can find. For any big episode, I usually know the outline of what to expect going in (I even knew about Will before the episode aired in the US!). Not this one! So, I got to be surprised, and I had to—gasp—formulate my own opinions before I knew what anyone else thought! It was really pleasant, actually. I think the structure of the episode worked extremely well for me because it caught me by surprise... and also because I’m the kind of person who somehow managed to write a college paper about Previously On sequences.

I see Tumblr has made it so that “keep reading” expands the post in your dash instead of opening a new tab. I absolutely hate this. Here is a link to the post you can click instead of the keep reading button! 

The ATX stream started mid-sentence, meaning I missed the “Previously On... 2020...” title card and skipped right to Adrian saying “I’m retiring.” It was pretty easy to pick up on the device (the directness of the scenes at the start, their cadence, and their placement in the episode made it clear this was meant to mimic a Previously) but the second title card hit way harder because... well, I had no idea if this was meant to be 2020 or some moment outside of real time until a bit later in the episode.  

Man, before I get any farther into this, two things that I don’t know where else to put. First, this episode had to cover so much ground. They had to write out both Adrian and Lucca—more on that later--, figure out how to deal with all of 2020, figure out how to either wrap up or continue all the truncated season 4 plotlines, and set the stage for a new season... in 50 minutes.  

Second, just wanna shout out the Kings’ other Paramout+ show, Evil, which you should absolutely be watching even if you hate horror. Evil is a Kings show, so it is unsurprisingly topical (sometimes evil takes the form of racism or misogyny or Scott Rudin) and at times very, very funny. I would be recapping it if Paramount+ weren’t attacking me personally by airing it at the same time as TGF. Ever hear of too much of a good thing, people?! (On that note, I am VERY upset with myself for not having made a Good vs Evil joke about the Good shows and Evil. I didn’t even think about it until Robert King made the joke on Twitter, and it was right fucking there. How did I fail so miserably?!)  

So STR Laurie, who wants a 20% downsizing, is still a thing. Noted.

This scene with Landau is the only one in this previously that is actually old footage, right?  

Unexpected Margo Martindale! Yay! (Ruth Eastman is a character who is so much more effective on Fight than she was on Wife and I’m quite glad they’ve had her appear on Fight several times. It kind of redeems season seven. Kind of.)

I don’t think the writers intentionally chose for Adrian’s book deal to be with Simon & Schuster because it is the most politically fraught publisher (the number of stories about controversial memoirs they’ve picked up in 2021 alone...) but I kind of like that Adrian’s Road Not Taken involves S&S. My guess is they chose S&S because it is owned by ViacomCBS.  

“Years ago, I wanted to create a law firm run entirely by women, but it never worked out. So, why not now?” Diane says to Liz. One of the advantages of having twelve (!!!) seasons of Diane Lockhart is that we’ve seen what she’s talking about. And we’ve seen her put this idea forward multiple times, too. I have my reservations about Diane’s brand of feminism, and I’ll say more about how fraught a Diane/Liz firm would be as the show explores the potential issues there, but on the surface I’m kind of excited about the prospect of a Diane/Liz led firm. Diane has wanted this for ages, Liz is a good partner, and this actually makes sense (unlike the nonsensical Diane/Alicia alliance of late season seven, where the only rationale was “well, Alicia needs to betray Diane in the finale, but they’re not on good terms. So maybe we make them business partners so then the betrayal stings more?”). Plus I fully love that Diane would end up running a firm with Alicia’s law school rival.

(Has TGF mentioned that Liz and Alicia were law school rivals? No. Am I still clinging on to that as a large part of Liz’s character? ABSOLUTELY.)

Julius is on trial for Memo 618 reasons; Diane is defending him. So this is still happening. (There’s more old footage here.)  

Do they put these references to one/two party consent in these episodes as a wink at the fans? It has to be intentional. (Please do not ask me what the actual law is on this, this show has thoroughly confused me.)  

I knew Cush was filming stuff for TGF, but I didn’t know it was for the premiere. She was just posting about it a few weeks ago, so either they shot a lot of it right before air or she posted a while after filming. Anyway, yay Lucca!  

Bianca’s still around. And, TGF gets to shoot New York for New York, since Bianca is there. I do wish TGF could do more location shoots; there’s something about seeing an actual skyline that feels more real.  

Bianca wants Lucca, who has never been outside of the country (except to St. Lucia, as Bianca reminds her) to go to London and buy her a resort. It’s supposed to be a three week stay and Bianca’s already arranged childcare. Speaking of children, because of COVID and filming constraints, that’s Cush’s real kid in this scene! You can’t really see him, but I recognized his curly hair from Cush’s Instagram, and the Kings confirmed in an interview.  

Adrian wants to write a book about police brutality cases he’s worked on. Ruth very much does not want him to write that book. She wants him to write a book without substance about how white people and black people can work together. He, understandably, has no interest in writing this book. (Also, you can see in the background that Ruth doesn’t think Biden’s odds of winning the Democratic primary are good—there is a big down arrow next to his picture, which definitely dates this scene.)

Oh, David Lee is in this episode. He acts like an asshole towards Marissa when she’s trying to help him.  

Marissa, not happy with the lack of respect, calls Lucca for advice “for a friend.” Lucca mentions she’s in London and Marissa does not believe her and keeps going on and on about her frustrations and her new desire to become a lawyer—quickly.  

Marissa wanting to become a lawyer because she “hates being talked down to” is not a plot I would’ve expected but it’s also one that makes a lot of sense. I think Marissa’s used to being respected and praised even when she’s doing things that aren’t glamorous, so I see how she’d get very restless when she’s no longer outperforming expectations and is instead taken for granted.  

Bells toll in the background on Lucca’s side and Marissa asks where she is. Lucca again notes she’s in London and Marissa still doesn’t believe her.

I’m going to miss Lucca so much, especially since we’ll also be losing a lot of the Millennial Friendship scenes with her. Cush is fantastic (even if she never really got enough to do here) and she plays so well off of the rest of the cast. I even sometimes liked the writing for Maia (who?) when she had scenes with Lucca, Lucca is that good.  

Jay wakes up sweating and unable to breathe, so he deliriously calls his father-figure Adrian. This whole scene is shot like something out of Evil and (I’m getting ahead of myself here) this plot is the only thing about this episode I felt was a misstep.  

“I think you’re my father,” Jay says to Adrian. Heh, I didn’t catch this line the first time around (maybe subliminally I did, since I just called Adrian his father figure lol) but I love that it is included here. Adrian and Jay’s relationship definitely deserves a goodbye.

Adrian calls an ambulance and also gets to Jay before the ambulance somehow. Adrian notes that Jay might have “this thing from China” and... we’re doing the pandemic, y’all. (Minor nitpick: on March 13th, 2020, when this scene is dated, COVID was not “this thing from China”-- we were all aware of it. March 11th was the day Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they’d tested positive and the NBA shut down and travel was restricted and every single brand that had my email sent me a message about their plans and measures. March 12th was the last time I was in my office, and we’d been getting emails telling us to wash our hands and prepare to work remotely for weeks. I went to San Francisco in mid-late February and distinctly remember deciding to leave a burrito unattended on a table while I washed my hands because I was paranoid about COVID... and then I remember making a specific trip to Walgreens to buy hand sanitizer so that didn’t happen again. My point is, Adrian lives in the same world I do. On March 13th 2020, he would not be treating COVID like it was some new thing he’d vaguely heard of.)  

(I am going to nitpick this timeline, but please know that I’m only doing it because I can, not because I think it’s necessarily a bad choice. Lines like this do feel a little forced, but I see the reason for introducing COVID as something new rather than going for the line that’s exactly historically accurate. I also am pretty sure there are references to dates in March/April in s4 of TGF that are now going to be contradicted by this episode, but I truly do not care. The writers get a pass on this one.)  

We skip slightly back in time to the beginning of March after the MARCH 13TH title card, or maybe this is supposed to be after March 13th and my own memories are preventing me from believing these face-to-face interactions were happening. Who knows.

Michael Bloomberg is... here, again, I guess? He asks Diane to assist with a Supreme Court case about gun control. I guess it does add some weight to the plot and make the stakes feel higher.  

Oh hey, this case is the 7x17 case!!!! Love that continuity.  

Diane and Adrian are both at the office late, working, and there is an unnecessary split screen that feels even more unnecessary when you consider that the editing alone was enough to create the parallel.  

Diane and Adrian have a nice convo (which I’ll really miss, their dynamic is great and this really feels like a successful partnership) as they wait for the elevator. When the elevator dings, they nearly tumble down into nothingness because... the elevator never came. Apparently this is a reference to an law old show I’ve never seen that killed off a character this way, and it’s meant to be a wink at how they are not going to kill off Adrian.

I do not know why I remember this, but I do: after they killed off Will, a critic (Noel Murray; I just googled to confirm my memory) who didn’t want to spoil things tweeted, “Exactly 23 years and 2 days ago, Rosalind Shays fell down an elevator shaft.” Please tell me why I remember this reference that I didn’t even understand well enough to have tracked down the original tweet in under a minute. (https://twitter.com/NoelMu/status/447942456827326464)  

Back on this show, Diane and Adrian share a drink and talk about their wishes. Diane wants to argue in front of the Supreme Court, and Adrian encourages her to speak up. His own near-death experience motivates him to trash the book Ruth has him writing, and Diane trashes the (bad) legal strategy someone else prepared for the Supreme Court.

DIANE IS WEARING JEANS!!!!!! Tbh, I think my favorite part of this episode is how many slice-of-life scenes and settings we get. These are always my favorite moments. I love the satirical and political stuff too, but the character moments are what get me invested enough to write these. (Yes, Diane in jeans constitutes a character moment.)  

Diane tells Bloomberg she wants to be involved and advocates for herself. Kurt gets a call on their landline (hahaha) from Adrian.

God, I love Diane and Kurt. Not only is their banter fun, you can just see a different, more relaxed side of Diane in these scenes. Diane tells Kurt she has good news for herself, but bad news for him since she’s arguing for gun control. She asks him to help her prep for court, too.  

So this is before Jay is rushed to the hospital, because now we are back at the hospital with Julius, Diane, and Marissa. I do not believe any of these people would be setting foot in a hospital like it’s any other day on March 13th, 2020. But I'm trying not to nitpick.

I get why they chose to give Jay a rather severe case of COVID. I just don’t get literally anything else that follows from the initial shock of Jay having COVID.  

I see why the writers chose March 20th (the actual Illinois stay at home order) as the next date for this timeline. I still do not believe that people were in this particular office on that date.  

You know what else I don’t believe? That RBL just shut down for two weeks and was like, no work is being done. Did law firms really do this? I can believe it if it’s an excuse to cost-cut, and I know there were massive layoffs, but this seems... really weird???  

Why are they setting up a teleconferencing infrastructure (didn’t they have one at LG? In season five?) if they are not planning to do work?  

Lol Diane explains what Zoom is, very slowly. She asks everyone to “download a program called Zoom.com” which is one of the first Zoom jokes I’ve chuckled at in a while.  

Marissa is not happy to hear that there’s no work for her in a work-remote world (this I believe 100%), so she calls Lucca again with more questions about law school.

Love these NYC and London location shots. Wish they could do that for Chicago.

Lucca asks Bianca to help get Marissa into a law school, fast, and Bianca tells Lucca to use her name... then offers her a job.

Marissa is at the office, alone, boxing up her things, when one of the office phones rings with some dude offering her a spot in a law school class. I guess we are really all-in on this! (Why would Lucca have given a firm phone number not specific to Marissa, though?)

Adrian and his corrupt girlfriend decide to shelter in place together. I still do not understand why he is okay with her being corrupt. I also don’t really understand why they’re going from talking about sheltering-in-place to George Floyd. How did we just skip from late March to late May? Are Adrian and corrupt gf having a conversation about sheltering-in-place two months into sheltering in place?  

Okay, I am not doing so good at this no-nitpicking thing. Again, I understand why they need to merge several scenes into one to keep things moving. And I guess they could just be getting around to this conversation.

I’m going to nitpick again, I can’t help myself. How did we just go from a scene of Adrian specifically talking about sheltering in place to a scene of Adrian bursting into a bustling and maskless DNC headquarters room? How!? The only masks in this scene are on TV!! There are like ten people in this scene!  

Anyway, more importantly, Adrian tells Ruth off and screams at her that she needs to listen to him instead of acting like she knows the way forward. He is completely right.  

Why is travel from London closing down in May 2020? Is it because this scene is supposed to be at a different place in the episode? Liz is asking Lucca to come back home from her three week stay in London (which has now lasted three months but travel is just now closing down), and Lucca’s hesitant to come home.

This is all happening via Zoom, btw. Lucca’s in her hotel, Diane and Adrian are at their respective homes, and Liz is in the office. All of this feels right. There is a chat off to the side of the screen where you can see Adrian and the others discussing how to unmute on Zoom. Very real. Though probably not very real in late May 2020. Feels more like April. I am convinced this scene got spliced in later to help the episode flow because everything in this scene (except the TV footage that definitely was added later) feels like it should be happening in the March section.  

Lucca mentions that Bianca offered her a job, and at this point we as viewers know how things are going to go—Lucca's going to end up taking it. Liz types in the Zoom chat that they don’t want to lose Lucca. When Lucca tells them how much Bianca’s offering ($500k/year, go Lucca!), Diane types “Shit.” into the chat. “Shit’s right,” Liz replies. “Yes... What should our counter be?” Diane replies. Lucca is kind enough to point out the messages are not private (again, this feels like March not May) but I think knowing that their reaction to topping $500k is “shit” tells her all she needs to know.  

Diane’s background still says that RBL is a division of STR Laurie. Weird how little we are hearing about the overlords except the 20% staff cut.  

Liz and Adrian chat and decide the only way to keep Lucca is to make her a partner. Which, yeah, if you’d just made her a partner years ago when you told her she was in the running for partner and then offered it to fucking MAIA, maybe she wouldn’t be considering Bianca’s offer. Lucca is definitely one of RBL’s stars, and I don’t think she’s wrong to feel like they don’t value her enough. They treat her well enough to be upset about losing her, but not well enough to have already made her partner and not well enough to actually give her authority (even though she runs a whole department). I’d be pretty unhappy too. It kind of feels sometimes like they take her for granted, and I don’t know that Lucca is one to feel like she owes a company anything. She’s more of an “I’m out for myself” type.  

Madeline and the other partner we’ve seen a few times who isn’t Liz/Diane/Adrian, walk into the office (wearing masks! Which they take off as soon as they enter a room with Liz! Without asking her if she is okay with this! TV logic!) and ask who is replacing Adrian. They think this is a good time to reevaluate having a white name partner of an African American firm, and they are spot on. Liz tries to deflect, noting that Diane is already a name partner and was before Liz even joined, but Madeline and other partner (whose name I really wish they would say so I can stop calling him “other partner”) won’t let up. Their position is that Diane shouldn’t have been made a name partner then—all she did was bring in ChumHum, an account that quickly left the firm. Good point.  

“What is this firm if it’s not African American? It’s just another midsized all-service Midwestern law firm, one of 50,” Madeline argues. The other partner says Liz needs to remove Diane and promote two African Americans to name partner. Liz laughs and asks if they mean themselves. Madeline does not—she's concerned about the number of black associates they’re letting go. Liz heads out, but this conversation is very much ongoing.

And I think it’s a very interesting dilemma! There’s a lot of mileage the writers can get out of this, because I don’t think there’s a right answer or a wrong one. It’s all about what Liz decides she wants the future of the firm to be. If Liz chooses Diane, she might be choosing something that works for her personally or that she thinks is a safer financial bet—but she’ll be choosing to work at a firm that can no longer be thought of as a black firm, and she’ll be choosing to move away from her father’s vision for the firm. And since the plot hinges on what Liz will decide rather than what’s objectively the right path forward, there’s a lot of interesting tension there I can’t wait to see.  

(My favorite thing about Adrian leaving is that Liz will likely get more to do, especially when it comes to managing the firm. Adrian tends to speak up first, but Liz is more than capable of managing without him and I’m so excited to see what she does when her ex-husband isn’t constantly talking over her.)  

Marissa and Lucca video chat with Jay. He’s still in the hospital. One thing that bugs me about how this episode handles COVID is that I never really get the sense that any of the characters are particularly afraid of the virus. Maybe none of them were. But you’d think you’d see a little of that fear, the weird dance of trying to assess others’ comfort levels with masking, etc., in an ep specifically about living through this time. ESPECIALLY since someone they all know and are close to has been hospitalized for MONTHS with this thing! It’s just so weird to go from a scene where people wear masks until they come in contact with other people (when masks matter the most) to a scene of someone in the hospital with COVID.  

And now Jay’s weird hallucinations start as his battery dies on the video chat. I really, truly, hated these hallucinations. I was ready to be done with these from the second they started. They’re weirdly shot, they go on for too long, and they feel like the clunkiest parts of Mind’s Eye when Alicia starts having a debate in her mind about atheism mixed with the (far superior) hospital episode of Evil.  

I don’t have much to say about these hallucinations except that I hated them a lot. When there’s the reveal that Jay is hallucinating a commerical, I almost came around on the hallucinations because that’s kind of funny and inspired. And then several more hallucinations popped up and they had a round table and Jesus got added to the mix and I was like, nope, this is bad in a very uninteresting way. I reject this.  

I feel like the Kings didn’t have much to say about COVID, the actual virus. This episode is definitely more about what the characters’ lives were like during COVID and not the pandemic itself. I think they likely got a lot of their COVID commentary out of their system with their zombie COVID show The Bite (I have not seen The Bite due to it airing on Spectrum On Demand, which I have no way of accessing. Like, I would have to move and then decide to pay for cable in order to watch it.) I also suspect a lot of their commentary on COVID isn’t going to be specific to the virus and is instead going to be about things like mask-wearing and vaccinations becoming political. And, really, that’s just a new variation on talking about polarization... and they’ve been talking about polarization for years.

In fact, they even wrote a whole series about an outbreak of a (space-bug-spread) virus that caused political polarization before Trump was even elected. BrainDead is basically commentary on the pandemic before the pandemic even happened. Soooooo I get why they are more interested in recapping 2020 than in doing a Very Special Episode about themes they’ve been talking about for years. (I still think they would’ve benefitted from at least one character being afraid of getting sick or getting their family sick.)  

There is likely some interesting content in these Jay hallucinations. I hate them so much I cannot find it. You know when you’re just on a completely different wavelength than the writers? This is an example of that.  

Also I’m not a fan of the shadowy directing. I think this is meant to look cooler than it does.  

Have I mentioned yet that I absolutely love the “Previously On” device for this episode? It’s such a fun, propulsive way to get through the slog of 2020. Scenes can be short and to the point, and each scene has to do a lot of lifting to fill in the gaps. I think that leads to scenes that are better constructed and telling on lots of levels—where are people when they’re quarantined? Who’s wearing casual clothes and when? What about this scene defines this character’s life at that moment in time?  

Bizarrely, even though this episode is pretty much all plot (this happens! Then that!), I actually found this to be one of the most character-driven episodes TGF has ever done. There’s a lot of story, but most of that story is about how the characters reacted to 2020 rather than overarching plots that will weigh on the rest of the season. This episode covers a lot of ground, but it does it with character moments that resonate.  

Now it’s July and Diane’s prepping to argue in front of the Supreme Court. Kurt’s helping her witness prep and it gets a little personal... and that ends up turning Diane on. Good to see McHart hasn’t lost its spark. (Remember how Kurt cheated on Diane in season 7 of Wife? No, me neither, because that never happened.)  

Corrupt judge is back. Adrian playfully tries to distract her from work. Then he takes a video call from Liz, who updates him on the conversation she had with John (so that’s his name) and Madeline. I guess that part of May was close to July? Anyway, Adrian isn’t surprised to hear that people are upset at the prospect of Diane being one of two name partners.  

Liz is at the office in workout clothes and I love it!

They’re losing 15 black associates (and Adrian and Lucca) and 4 white ones, Liz says. This sounds like a very big problem. (I’d be curious to know what that is as a percentage of the firm and how the racial composition shifts.)

Liz knows it’s not exactly up to her if Diane stays on as name partner (the other partners get a vote, but I think Liz knows she has a lot of sway here). She’s also wondering if Biden could win, and if so, would it be to the firm’s advantage to be black-owned? Interesting.  

“Well. If you’re thinking it, then Diane’s thinking it, too,” Adrian says. He’s right. “White guilt. It runs verrrrry deep on that one, huh?” Ha. He is right about that, too. I actually can’t decide which of these interpretations is correct, because it could be either even though they seem contradictory. (1) Is Adrian saying it with a hint of mockery because he knows Diane will fight for her partnership even as she would say she’s a huge supporter of black businesses? (2) Is he saying it because he knows Diane would have enough white guilt to realize what her presence as a partner means and think through the implications? I think it is, somehow, a combination. I’m interested in this line because this whole dilemma (from Diane’s POV) is something that’s very familiar. Diane’s always been an idealist who will betray her ideals for personal gain. That sounds like an attack, but I mean that as neutrally as I possibly can. There are so many examples of this that this is kind of just a character trait of hers at this point. Usually those ideals are about feminism, but this situation seems closely related.  

Adrian overhears Corrupt GF talking about Julius, Diane, and Memo 618. You would think she would wait to have this conversation until there is no chance of Adrian overhearing, because if Adrian overhears, he might...

... do exactly what he proceeds to do and hop into a car with Diane to give her a heads up. (I think I’m just going to have to accept that the mask usage rule on this episode is “we use masks to show that the characters would wear them, but we don’t want to have scenes where characters are fully masked because that’s annoying.” If that’s not the rule, then why else would Adrian be masked outside... and then take off his mask as soon as he gets into a confined indoor space with Diane?  

Baranski looks ESPECIALLY like Taylor Swift in this scene.  

Adrian tells Diane what he knows. He dug deeper after overhearing Charlotte, so he has even more info. “If you tell me, I will use it,” Diane warns. Adrian knows that, so he takes a moment to decide. And he decides that he cares more about Diane and Julius than about his relationship with a corrupt judge.  

Diane and Julius are masked in court. Visitor and the judge are not. They use masking in a clever way in this scene: Diane uses being masked to her advantage because it means no one can possibly read her lips, so she can use the info Adrian fed her against Charlotte without any fear of spies. Charlotte, who is unmasked, guards her lips with a folder, as the Visitor watches interestedly.  

Diane convinces Charlotte to recuse herself. Charlotte says she’s making a mistake; Diane does not care.  

The new judge is, unfortunately, the idiot who doesn’t know anything about the law. Uh oh.

Charlotte decides she’s done sheltering in place with Adrian. He tries to talk through the conflict, but Charlotte says “You made your choice, Adrian. Julius Cain over me.”

“The choice was about right and wrong, Charlotte,” Adrian tries to explain. I mean, yeah, but if you’re dating a judge who has admitted she’s totally corrupt, didn’t right and wrong go out the window a while ago?

Adrian seems to think the other people involved in the events are bad and Charlotte is good. I am not convinced. I don’t think she’s the big bad, but I don’t think she’s good.  

Charlotte points out that he invaded her privacy. She is right about that. “You said the choice was between right and wrong. Turning over my emails was the choice,” she said. I get her POV. But also, she is corrupt.  

I do not like the way the part of the scene where Adrian physically restrains Charlotte to keep her from leaving is shot. I don’t think this is an abusive scene but I think it should’ve been shot from a little farther back so we could see it’s more like Adrian reaching out in desperation than trying to choke Charlotte. Because it very much looks like he is trying to choke Charlotte.  

He tells Charlotte he loves her. She says it’s too late and leaves. “Maybe you won’t be with me. But you keep down this path... you’ll be done, I’m telling you, you’ll be done.”

I think something that I’ve been missing in these interactions is that I didn’t quite realize until this scene that the Adrian/Charlotte dynamic is more interesting than Adrian liking a corrupt judge. I think he truly believes Charlotte is a good person who got caught up in some bad stuff, and that she can bounce back from it. I’ve always seen Charlotte as someone who is corrupt for herself and then ended up going along with the corruption of others, too, so I’ve dismissed her and the relationship. This is the first scene that has felt real to me, and the first scene where she’s felt like more than a caricature. Kind of sad it’s the last she’ll get with Adrian—now I’m actually starting to find her interesting. Notice how in these last few sentences I’ve used her name instead of “Corrupt GF”!  

Charlotte says she loved Adrian too, but that’s not enough. Awww.

He can’t really be surprised though, can he?  

Now it is August and we get to see Diane and Liz react to the announcement of Kamala Harris as Biden’s VP pick, and I would like to thank the writers for giving me the opportunity to see Diane and Liz react to this. It’s kind of fan-service, but it’s also a nice tie-in to the girl-power theme of the Diane/Liz alliance.

Diane and Liz realize that Adrian’s probably not a good candidate for 2024 if the DNC only wants one black candidate and Harris is the clear front-runner. Liz suggests keeping him on as partner instead, in a way that very much implies this would be her ideal solution. Diane, being Diane, says she was liking the idea of an all-female firm. Liz hesitantly says she was too, and Diane senses the hesitation.

“Let’s look again at which associates to fire. I’m worried we’re losing too many African Americans,” Diane switches the subject. How have they still not made this decision? If any employees know downsizing is coming, and they’ve had months to act on it, assuming there are jobs elsewhere, people would’ve been jumping ship by now.  

But that’s not the point of this scene. The point of this scene is that Liz corrects Diane: “Black. You can just say Black people.” Very nice moment underlining the tension. Diane means well, but she’s still acting like a white lady who doesn’t know how to act around black people... and she wants to (and, I guess, already does) run a black firm. Major yikes.  

Marissa and Lucca are talking again. Marissa does not want to be in law school—she just wants to be a lawyer. Lucca won’t accept Marissa’s refusal to memorize meaningless rules: “Marissa. I know that you know how to play the game, but you have to pass the bar to get into a position to play the game.” Why does this line make me love Lucca? This line isn’t even anything amazing. It’s just a line that cuts through the bullshit and makes a good point.  

Marissa keeps going, insulting all of her peers and teachers, and Lucca figures out how to cut through that, too: she tells Marissa that she’d hire her as a lawyer if she killed someone, but only if Marissa passes the bar. Marissa is instantly intrigued.  

“Why are you leaving here? I’ll miss you,” Marissa says.  

“Because they won’t pay me what I deserve,” Lucca says in a matter-of-fact tone. “Anyway, I thought they fired you.”  

“But they didn’t mean it. It’s like the smoothie place—they kept trying to fire me and I just kept showing up,” Marissa replies. That checks out. (Love the callback!)  

Lucca tries to get Marissa to come over to England. Marissa shuts that down as Lucca gets a news alert—and it’s not good news.  

Our next date is September 18th, 2020 and I will get my nitpicks out of the way up front! I don’t really know why it is daytime for Lucca when she reads the news, considering it was already the evening in the States when the RBG news broke. And, also, it was Rosh Hashanah, so Marissa probably would not have been sitting in her bedroom studying... she most likely would’ve been with family or friends. OK I’M DONE. FOR NOW.  

Diane is getting ready for her arguments in front of the Supreme Court. It’s almost time! She’s in casual clothes but has on a wonderful mask. She’s standing in front of Kurt’s guns to make a point (love that she’s using her video call background to her advantage) and there are several people in her bedroom getting the tech all set up. I have noted before that they only built one set for Diane’s apartment, and it’s just a massive bedroom. Diane choosing to be in front of the guns does a nice job of cutting off my question about why she’d be arguing in front of the Supreme Court from her bedroom rather than the home office she absolutely would have.  

Kurt walks in and tries to shake hands... he’s clearly not very COVID paranoid, and Diane seems to be, and... that’s something I might have wanted to see? How was Diane okay with Kurt taking risks that also affected her?

Diane confirms she intentionally chose to stand in front of the guns. That’s when Kurt gets the push notification. He pulls Diane into the bathroom to show her the news. He hands her his phone and Diane’s face falls. She starts tearing up. “2020 just won’t let go,” she says, speaking for us all.

Normally I hate things that are like, we’re going to contrive this so the news hits at the worst possible moment! This works for me, because the Supreme Court plot for Diane feels more like something that exists to be a through line for the episode. It would also be a little hard to work in RBG’s death as a main plot point—and it is definitely important enough to be a main plotpoint—if it didn’t also affect something in the world of the show.  

Also, another reason I like this contrivance is that it makes it all the more powerful when Diane says, “It’s over. He gets to nominate someone. Another Kavanaugh! We’ll have a conservative court for the next 20 years. My whole fucking life!” She’s not thinking about how this affects her case (and that case is basically a life-long dream for her). She is thinking about way bigger things, and knowing that her mind goes to the bigger things before the personal with news like this really underlines how big of a deal RBG’s death was.  

Diane tells Kurt, “I don’t deserve you. You don’t agree with me.” “I can still feel bad for you,” he responds. He holds her while she cries.

Jay’s hallucination thing is back. Now Karl Marx is here. So is Jesus. I’m so done with this. It’s nice to get a break from writing.

Malcolm X is also on the roundtable and now they’re talking over each other in that way that everyone on this show always does. (RK gave an interview about Evil where he said he likes having the children on that show talk over each other because he grew up in a household like that. I did not need to read that interview to understand that RK likes scenes where people talk over each other.)  

If anything happened in those hallucinations, I missed it, because I didn’t pause the episode. Because I do not care about the hallucinations. Because I hate them.

Now it’s November 2020... Diane’s watching election results and rocking back and forth. She tells Kurt he can go watch Fox News in the other room (so they do have more than one room!). He says he’s fine—he thinks Diane needs it more.  

“Yes, but Kurt, if you stay, I know this isn’t sensible, but... Trump seems to get more votes whenever you’re sitting on this couch,” Diane tells him. Ha, I relate to this kind of superstition so hard. “Are you serious?” Kurt says. “I am so deathly serious,” Diane responds. “Whenever you’re sitting here, Arizona goes for Trump. Humor me, please. Just go in the other room.”  

When Kurt tries to kiss her, she pulls away: “No, no, no. No kiss. If you kiss me, we’ll lose Georgia.” This scene feels so, so real and perfectly captures what it was like (at least for me, though I don’t have a Republican husband or anything) watching election results come in.  

“Uh, if you lose, we’ll be fine, right?” Kurt asks. “Kurt, let me just say this. I’m only saying that we won’t be fine so that the universe will grant me a win,” Diane responds. This scene is so fun and so good! It simultaneously captures a relatable mood, adds some levity, gives us a window into Diane’s life, and shows some of the tensions in her marriage?! I want this all the time!  

Kurt leaves the room. Diane pours more wine.

Later, with Diane still rocking back and forth with anxiety (just you wait for the several more days this will drag on!), Kurt brings in the champagne. “That was for when Hillary won. I can only drink it if Biden wins,” Diane protests. Did I also refuse to drink any celebratory alcohol until things were absolutely certain? No comment.  

“It’s odd you progressives resisted religion. You seem to have a hundred religions to take its place,” Kurt says, speaking on behalf of the writers’ room. (This joke doesn’t get written if the writers don’t believe this and probably even see it in themselves.)  

“Go away, Trump. I mean Kurt,” she shoos him away. Have I mentioned yet I love this scene?  

“Love me even if you lose?” he jokes (though I do wonder if this isn’t that joking? I think it is, but he keeps saying it!) as Diane gestures at him to get out.  

I could do without the joke about Diane’s heart on the TV for a couple reasons. One, it goes on too long. Two, I was very worried something would actually happen to Diane. You’d think that would make the scene feel more tense, but it does not, because it takes me out of the moment.

“Ok, God. You know I don’t believe in you. But I will believe in you if Joe Biden wins. I’m sorry. I know that that’s not what Jesus taught. There’s nothing in the New Testament that says, ‘Believe in me, and I’ll make sure your candidate wins,’ but I need Joe Biden to win. I’m sorry, God, but I just do. I need some faith.” This is a little much but... yeah. Also, is this the first time Diane’s flat out said she’s an atheist? I think it is, though I’ve assumed as much for quite a while.  

The next day in court, masks are no longer required if you’re a series regular and votes are still being counted. I remember those days. Marissa thought Diane was checking in on Jay... Diane was not. She was checking on vote counts.  

Apparently Jay’s finally being released from the hospital!

Bad news for Julius—the idiot judge finds him guilty of some nonsense charge and sentences him to seven years in prison.  

Diane says not to worry, and Julius asks “Why not?” Good point.

Then we have election results! We skip, specifically, to December 14th and the electoral college vote. I’m a little sad we skipped over the huge party that was November 7th, but I get why they’d rather keep things moving along. I think showing November 7th in an uncomplicated way would’ve just been too close to fanservice. But, man, what a day.  

Diane, in a red hoodie with leopard print that she somehow manages to still look classy in, is ready to pop champagne. Then she hears that on January 6th, a joint session of Congress will count the electoral votes and there might be a debate. “Nope. If I open it now, something bad will happen,” she reasons. “I’ve waited four years. I can wait another few weeks.”

It’s been almost a year and they’re still somehow negotiating with Lucca, but I understand why they’d space this out across the episode. Otherwise we’d have to say goodbye to Lucca in the first like, 15 mins of the episode and all those scenes would be in a row. I can forgive (and still nitpick) choices like this when the reasoning behind them seems sound.  

Adrian says they don’t want to lose Lucca. He, Liz, and Diane are all in the conference room, and they ask Lucca for a yes or no on their latest offer by the end of the call. Diane offers Lucca partner—she'll be the youngest partner in the firm’s history—and she’ll get a $500,000/year salary. Adrian tries to sell her on being part of American history by being part of the firm.

“We are a black firm, Lucca, and we need you,” Liz says with a lot of passion for someone who knows she might very well partner with Diane. Diane looks at Liz with a bit of suspicion at this, wondering if Liz is showing her cards.  

Lucca manages to make the wifi malfunction (or she gets very lucky) and uses the disconnection to call Bianca for a counteroffer, even though they said they needed a yes or no on the spot.  

“They used George Floyd because they want you for less. They have never appreciated you as much as I do. All those scars, all that time being taken for granted and undervalued has made you a fighter. It’s made you someone I now want,” Bianca tells Lucca. She gives Lucca a counter offer of $1.3 million and the title of CFO. Lucca takes it. Is there really another choice? (If she were concerned about loyalty to the firm and the partnership was what she wanted, she probably would've just taken it.)  

(Also, the partners can’t really act like Lucca is making history by being the youngest partner ever when they passed her over for partner two years earlier and offered it to Maia! To MAIA! Who had like three years of work experience! And yes I was fine with Alicia and Cary getting partnership offers with four years but, one, that was a scam, and two, Alicia and Cary actually worked. Oh, I see I still hate Maia with a passion. Back to THIS season...)

Lucca apologetically informs Marissa she’s leaving and the offer was just too good to turn down. I believe it. I also believe Lucca wants that job more. What has loyalty to RBL gotten her? She's someone so talented and good at her job that she just gets job offers from acquaintances all the time (starting with Alicia!). RBL appreciates her, but just enough to appease her while still undervaluing her. I don’t know that I would’ve believed a plot where Lucca actively job hunts, but I definitely believe this.

“Marissa, we don’t have to work together to be friends,” Lucca tells Marissa. I’m going to miss this so much. Why is this the best material Lucca’s gotten in ages?! I think one of the things that makes Lucca such a great character is that you can see why everyone instantly wants her on their team. She’s a fantastic friend (without giving too much of herself), she’s not a pushover, and she is incredibly sharp and able to get to the heart of any situation. I love her and I’m sad we won’t get to see more of her.  

(On that bit about friendship—I can’t write about Lucca’s departure without writing about the moment I realized just how great of a character Lucca was. It was in 7x13, when Alicia has her breakdown that’s seven seasons in the making... and Lucca supports her. But the writing, and Cush’s performance, never make it feel like Lucca exists to be a part of Alicia’s story. Lucca seems like her own fully formed person who happens to be supporting Alicia at this moment. I don’t think I can overstate how tough of a task it is to get me to care about the other person in a pivotal Alicia scene, especially when that other person was added to the cast in the final season and many suspected she’d just be a replacement for a different beloved character! Anyway, Lucca’s been great for years, and I’ll miss her.)  

Just when I thought I couldn’t hate the hallucinations more, we get a hint that they are going to continue: Jay sees one right after he learns that Marissa’s used her quarantine to start law school and he’s done nothing.  

Jay says he carries a gun now and it’s “performative.” I have no idea what that means and Marissa and Lucca don’t seem to, either.  

Another thing I like about Lucca’s final scene is that it isn’t rushed. We have time for all that, and also for Lucca to tell Marissa about the time she stole her breakfast sandwich, and for Marissa to react to it, and for Marissa to find Lucca’s Birkin bag, and for Lucca to tell Marissa to keep it, and for Marissa to react to that, and for Lucca to sappily say “think of me when you use it,” and for Marissa to nonsensically reply, “you think of me when I use it,” and there’s still a little bit more of the scene after that!  

Marissa’s silly line makes Lucca tear up. “God, I’m gonna miss you guys,” she says. “I’m gonna miss this. You make me smile. I didn’t smile much before you guys.” Awwwwwww. This is also so true to character! Her friendship with Alicia aside, Lucca’s definitely said before she’s not one to have friends (which is hilarious because she is, as I've said like 100 times, a fantastic friend and also just like, the coolest person??? Who wouldn’t want to be HER friend?!).  

She says she has to go because she’s getting too emotional and says goodbye. She’s also super sappy and when Marissa says, “you were the best,” she responds that they were the best TOGETHER! Awwwwwww.  

What a nice, fitting goodbye for Lucca. There’s no bad blood or fireworks—she just makes a change like a lot of people do. I’d like to think she’ll still be friends with Marissa and Jay after this. I don’t want too many Lucca references in future episodes, but I would really like it if we see Marissa and Jay update each other on the latest from Lucca, or if a scene begins with Marissa closing out an Instagram post from Lucca of her kid, or something. I wouldn’t want clues about what Lucca’s up to, but I’d love to see that she’s still a part of Marissa and Jay’s lives.

Now it is January 6th. Liz, Adrian, and Diane sit on the floor of the mostly empty office, watching TV coverage and drinking. It’s so relaxed it’s almost surreal, and it, like many other moments in this episode, feels like a slice of life. Everyone’s dressed casually and no one is worried about appearances or looking like the boss.  

“God, have you ever seen anything like it. It’s so fucked,” Diane says. Adrian’s more optimistic—the courts rejected most of the challenges to election results! “System worked,” he says. “Yay.” Liz says in response. She’s not as optimistic as he is.  

“Liz. Liz. Sometimes when things work out, there is no parade. There’s no congratulations, but I’ll tell you this: We live to fight another day,” he explains to her even though she makes a good point that a system just barely hanging on doesn’t bode well for the future. (She doesn’t say all this, but that’s a very loaded, “Yay.”)  

“Yeah? Then why are you leaving the law?” Liz asks. Diane seconds to the question.

Adrian announces he’s still retiring—and he’s moving to Atlanta. He wants to go to the south to help “create and consolidate political power.” He’s excited to start over and inspired by Georgia going blue. This is a very nice exit for Adrian. I fully believe that he’s interested in political organizing, that he’d be good at it, and that he’s ready for a change. I don’t think he’s always the most progressive person (of the three in this scene, Liz is absolutely the most progressive one, though Diane probably thinks she is!), but I absolutely think he thinks of himself as an activist and I believe that if he’s going to step away from the law, he’d do so to make a move like this.  

Adrian—and Lucca, but especially Adrian—probably both got better exits thanks to the events of 2020. If Adrian had just left to be groomed by the DNC, that would’ve been a predictable and boring ending for him. His candidacy would, obviously, go nowhere, and the whole thing felt weird from the minute it was introduced. But this? Adrian being energized—like so many others were—by the ways the world changed in 2020 and using his already announced departure from the firm and recent breakup as a chance to start over and make change? This is great!  

Adrian asks Liz and Diane what’s next for them. Liz says that she thinks the Biden admin will be better for black businesses. Adrian asks if they’re replacing him, and Diane says, “I think the big question is, are you replacing me?” She’s smart. I like how this scene goes from friendly to tense very fast, with everyone kind of testing the waters. Adrian tries to force the conversation, Liz opens with something vague yet pointed, and Diane speaks what’s previously been unspoken.

Liz says it’s not her intention to push Diane out. “I can’t change the color of my skin,” Diane replies. “I know,” Liz laughs. Audra’s delivery is fantastic on that line.  

“Hey, I’m gonna fight for my partnership,” Diane says. “I know,” Liz says. The tone of this scene is so different from previous partnership drama on these shows and I’m excited about it. This is just a bunch of adults talking about business decisions with each other and treating each other as equals?? It's not backstabbing?? Or drama?? No one is hiding things?? It’s refreshing and I hope this plot stays like this. We’ve done so much partnership drama that I think drama that stems from a real, pressing question that has no easy answers and isn’t anyone’s fault is going to be much more fruitful for the show.  

Adrian heads out—ah, I see now this scene is set in his empty office and this is why they are on the floor—and gets a nice last moment with Diane. And then they give him a last moment with Liz, which I knew they would but was still glad to see.  

Liz asks if he knows what he’s doing—he says he’s not sure.

Adrian asks if Liz knows where she stands regarding Diane. “It’s going to be interesting,” Liz says. I don’t think she’s decided what she’s going to do yet.

It wouldn’t be an Adrian and Liz scene if Adrian didn’t have some unsolicited advice. “Diane’s a terrific lawyer, but this firm belongs to you.  Your dad built it. He did, Liz. Despite all his faults. You got to run this place the way you want. This is a black firm. And after today, the world needs black firms. You got me?” He tells Liz. He makes it seem like Liz gets the choice and then tells her what to do. She says, “I got it,” signaling she understood him but not that she necessarily agrees.  

I cannot wait to see what Liz does next!!!!!!! About this but just in general!!!!! Without Adrian there giving her constant advice I feel like she can grow so much and the show will have to give her more to do!!! I think Adrian, for all his many wonderful qualities and all he brought to the show, can suck all the air out of a room with his charisma, and Liz usually ends up suffering as a result. She’s such a capable lawyer in her own right, but Adrian has a way of making it always seem like he’s right—even in arguments she wins. I’m excited to see Liz lead (or stumble at leadership; she is fairly new to management) without Adrian’s direct influence.  

Liz walks Adrian out and it’s cute. They run into Marissa and Jay. “Everybody fun is leaving,” Marissa notes. Liz is minorly offended, but playfully. Heh.

Adrian asks Jay how he’s doing; Jay says he’s a long-hauler but he’s doing okay. I like that they included that moment in Adrian’s goodbye sequence. It’s a very little thing, but it underlines that Adrian cares about Jay.  

Then Liz interrupts to note that Trump pardoned a lot of convicted and corrupt Republican officials....... including Julius.  

Everyone celebrates, but especially Diane and Marissa. Diane lets out her wonderful laugh and then we, finally, get to the credits. Because now that the previouslies are over, it’s time for the real show.

The credits are absolutely delightful, btw. I was a little worried some of the kittens would blow up, though! Once I relaxed and realized what they were up to—literal puppies and kittens because Biden won—I couldn’t get enough of these credits. They work so well because they accurately capture the way I (and all of these characters, except maybe Julius and Kurt) feel about the election results, but it’s so exaggerated that you know the kittens and puppies aren’t a realistic representation of our new reality. They’re just too good to be true, but you may as well enjoy them for a minute. I’m sure we’ll be back to exploding vases next week.

What a great episode! My timeline nitpicks and whatever they’re trying to do with Jay aside, I was blown away by how well the writers managed to move on from season 4, tie up loose ends, and write out two main characters. And they did it all while making me revisit the events of 2020, a year I don’t think many of us want to spend much time thinking about! This episode was enjoyable, fun, emotional, and clever. I don’t know what to expect from the rest of the season, but I’m definitely excited about the show in a way I haven’t really been in quite some time.  

This season’s naming convention seems to be titles that end with ... and only have the first word capitalized. I want to see more. 

Season FIVE? There have already been as many TGF seasons as there were TGW seasons prior to Hitting the Fan?! Time flies. 

Please writers: No topical episodes this year-- no pee tape, no Melania divorce, no Epstein. None of that business. 

Sorry if I repeated myself here. I never proofread these things, and I wrote half of this on Saturday and half of it today (Wednesday) and the days in between were an absolute blur so I cannot remember if I said the same things about this episode twice. 

[fallenhero-rebirth]

Brain update

First, let me say that this isn't about what anybody has done. My reactions are not in proportion to anything that has happened, and might be considered odd, weird and sensitive to people involved.

So let me explain.

I'm an Aspie (what we call ourselves in Sweden), on the autism spectrum. Yeah, might have guessed that from the story I'm writing, Sidestep is not the only one trying to figure out how people work.

Over the years I have built up an arsenal of knowledge and analysis to be able to pretend to be neurotypical, something that I can manage alright most days, but which breaks down once you get to know me better. I'm open with this at my current job, and luckily both my bosses seem to be okay dealing with open communication and just telling me what I need to do.

It was not always like this, and that is one of the reasons why I had a breakdown and needed to get off discord/tumblr.

Back in the late nineties, I had finally got my dream job. I was a product developer in the food industry, part of a rather small department of middle-class academics. I was the new hire, everyone else had worked there for years, and things were going well. Or so I assumed. I got cool projects, got along well with one of the sales people, and well, my boss was weird but bosses always are.

Three years later. Our parent company wanted to sell us off, everyone was starting to get worried about their job. We tried to expand into things were weren't equipped to do (you don't bring spices into a fruit jam line, will be hell to clean) and while I did the projects, I also raised an (in retrospect) too big stink about the fact that we were wasting time developing things we couldn't produce without expanding. My boss (who I had learned was a devout christian) started to get really weird, I got called in and he wondered if I was a member of a cult (I was often wearing a headscarf at the time because pressure on my head is good for stress relief). I also got told off for wearing army boots to work (we had lab shoes in the lab), because (I kid you not) if we had danish visitors to the lab (we didn't have visitors) they could be offended since they had once been occupied by Nazis. Yes, at the time I was an Antifa metalhead/satanist, it was a very volatile time in sweden and nazis were everywhere. Now they're a political party, go figure.

It all came to a head when I was confronted with a folder one of the secretaries of the department had where she had written down every odd and strange thing that I did, and there were a lot of accusations of things I quite frankly blocked out. Around this time I was suffering from bad burnout, had memory loss, my hair was falling out and I lost two bikes because I forgot where I parked them. All because of workplace hostility.

So for the first time ever, I went to the company doctor, who immediately sent me on a one month sick leave, and gave a reference to a therapist. When I went and told my boss, his reaction was "It can't be anything at work," in a dismissive tone. I wrote my resignation right then and there, left the building, snuck back a Saturday to clean out my stuff so I didn't have to meet anyone. Luckily I was backed up by my union, so I got unemployment despite quitting, and the therapist helped me get back on my feet and hook me up with some antidepressants.

Still, I was a wreck for years.

At the time, I had NO idea I was an Aspie. It weren't talked about, the only thing I knew about Autism, was from the various portrayals in movies, and well, in the nineties you can guess. Rainman pretty much was it.

What destroyed me the most was not that people disliked me, I didn't like them either, we didn't have anything in common, and middle-class people always scared me. No, what broke me was the fact that my system failed.

See, I had built up myself over ten years into someone I wanted to be. Smart. Capable. Metalhead. Researcher. Activist. I thought I knew the rules. How to interact.

It turned out I knew nothing. People had been talking behind my back for years, and I didn't know. Getting annoyed by my ticks, and I had no idea. Nobody ever brought anything up to my face until it exploded one day out of the blue. This is why I have ranted about anons on this tumblr. This is why I have been so openly against passive aggressive posts and bullying, especially the anonymous kind, because it destroys people and I don't think the people who does it knows the impact they can have. I hope they don't.

I have never gone back to the lab. I can't. I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it when I'm writing this. I retrained. Became a machinist. Back to the working class I came from. Eventually started writing.

And this is exactly what these last months have felt like.

I thought I understood things. I was pretty open with being old, an Aspie, not understanding memes, or humor, or tik tok, or certain aspects of people's behavior like jealousy, but the problem with joking about this is that it's so easy to take as just a joke. That I'm just making fun of myself (oh it's that too). I got advice from some of you, which I ignored, because I thought that I could be different. That there was no danger in getting close. That I could be just another voice in the crowd. An occasionally evil avocado. That this couldn't blow up in my face, that everything was cool.

And then it did. And I was wrong. And the talking started, and things were coming out that I had no idea that was going on. That I was being held responsible for. Opinions that were spoken in my name. Events I was supposed to have been aware of and supported. All of a sudden I was omniscient, aware of the true passive aggressive meaning of every reblog, aware of every post in every room in the discord I wasn't even running. Wasn't even a mod on. All of a sudden I had power, and I had used it to hurt people. The people I cared about. Everything I wrote was taken in the worst possible way, twisted into things I never meant, and the more I tried to talk to people, the worse it went.

Look. I know this was at heart a war between people that just doesn't like each other and the things they do/the ways they behave. I'm still not entirely sure who's been involved, and I'm not interested in finding out. I tried to build a supportive space, reblog everyone's art and fics, encourage people to make their own things, get a kofi, get some money, make some friends.

And herein lies my problem.

I thought I understood how to be, and now I don't. I have no idea who hates my guts and who doesn't (well, except some who has very vocally let me know). I can't trust anything. I can't trust anyone. And it sucks. Someone I trusted stabbed be in the back because they were convinced I stabbed them in the back and that sucks more than I can describe. Every time I make a comment on AO3 or twitter it's after psyching myself up for half an hour, and I'm usually a wreck afterwards, because my brain doesn't know if they hate me too, and if I am imposing on them and making their day bad.

So yeah. I need to figure out how to be. How not to have a nausea attack every time I accidentally click open tumblr from pure reflex, looking away from the screen just not to see how may messages I have.

I never wanted to be the aloof author, but maybe I have to be. The question is if I can. I have been told I can't comment on pics or fics, because then I have favorites. And that makes people jealous. And it makes people think I take sides. I have been told I can't be on the discord, because then I will be held responsible for what the mods do there, and everything that's said even when I'm not around. I should apparently have someone manage the tumblr, it's not something that I, an author should do.

I now understand the authors who just stay away and remain distant, because people give themselves the power to write the narrative for you.

Part of me wants to tell people what I've told my current bosses, don't assume, just talk to me. I don't pick up/do passive aggression, I don't understand hints, I have trouble with nuance, I don't listen to gossip, I don't interact enough to know anything that's going on. Just ask before assuming.

Except that right now I can't. I can't talk about any of this. It's too close. It sets me off. It's getting better, sure, I'm on medication again, but the smallest thing still can ruin my entire day. I have no idea how long it will take me to recover and come back to some semblance of normality. I'm not posting this myself (my partner does). Writing is going well, because it lets me not be myself. I need those walls again. The therapy of writing about pain.

I'll rebuild them. I'm not entirely sure who I'll be on the other end of it. We'll see.

I have consciously not spoken about any details because those could be misunderstood, this is not a passive aggressive callout to anybody. I have no hard feelings towards anyone, I am not angry or upset, just confused and sad. I am truly so very, very, very sorry that I've hurt people, both by action and inaction. It was never my intention. I will do my best to do better in the future.

Still working on how to do that.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Heroes: Sweet or Shite? - Part 1: SILVER

There are some heroes I like. And there are some heroes I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the heroes in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves over the course of time. Two things to keep in mind:

1. These reviews will be focusing mainly on game portrayals. Though alternate media will occasionally be mentioned, it'll be for the sake of adding onto a point if a portrayal is similar enough, or to compare and contrast if a portrayal is different enough.

2. These are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, I decided to challenge myself by starting off with a complicated one. Born from the future, and never content to stay put in said future, it's the saviour whose debut came from the most unfortunate game... Silver the Hedgehog.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in the distant future, there was an idealistic young hedgehog named Silver, gifted with the power of telekinesis for reasons unknown. With his amazing potential, he was truly destined for a wonderful, prosperous li-just kidding, it was shit.

“All two of us.”

For as long as he knew, the world was forever plagued by Iblis, the terrible Flames of Disaster. Cities stood in ruin, flames stood high, the floor was lava... it was a bitter life to be certain, all thanks to Iblis. Not even defeating the titular creature did much good, since it would simply come back to be a shitty boss fight another day. What was he - and his friend, Blaze, a character we definitely never saw before and definitely didn't have a completely different backstory before - to do?

Trust the first person he sees, of course. Even if they look like they might be related to the same Flames of Disaster that he fights so constantly.

If he had eyelids, he'd be winking at the camera.

This mysterious fellow, Mephiles the Dark, informed Silver that if he were to wipe out Iblis for real, he would need to take a trip into the past, and eliminate the root of the problem... Sonic the Hedgehog? That was what Mephiles claimed, yes. What was his proof? There was no proof.

That was good enough for Silver.

Oh look, it's Fleetway Sonic.

After an elaborate series of events, which should sound exciting but really isn't because it was just Silver going “Iblis Trigger grrr” in varying tones of voice, he was finally able to corner the blue hedgehog... twice! And despite having less fighting know-how than the hero who saved the world plenty of times, he effortlessly came close to killing the blue hedgehog... twice!

This looks like a jobbing for...

Why twice? The first time was halted by Sonic's friend Amy Rose, who Silver had met beforehand after she mistook him for Sonic, an understandable mistake that even the keenest of eyes would be forgiven for making.

The second time was also interrupted, this time by Shadow the Hedgehog. There's only room for one controversial non-blue male hedgehog in this franchise, sonny boy. Actually, his reasons were more benevolent than that: he wanted to show Silver the truth about what was going on, by time travelling to the incident that gave birth to Iblis. Why was one able to to this, so long as more than one Chaos Emerald was present? No one knew.

That was good enough for Silver.

“I challenge you to a dumb-off.”

As it turned out, Iblis was one half of a sun god called Solaris, the other half being the aforementioned Mephiles. The Duke of Soleanna wanted to reunite with his late wife by harnessing Solaris' power, which succeeded from a certain point of view since he's dead now too. The resulting blunder split Solaris into two halves. One half was all brawn, with little capacity for intelligence. The other half was Iblis.

Understanding the error of his ways, and after making peace with Sonic, Silver went back to the future to try something different, which consisted of doing the same thing he always did. Luckily for him, the script decided it would work this time, albeit at the cost of Blaze sacrificing herself... Maybe? Sort of? It’s not entirely clear what happened to her, and it’s not like this was the last we ever saw of her.

~La laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, heading to a better game, la laaaaaa~

But ohhhhh nooooo, turns out THAT didn't solve anything either! In the present, Sonic was killed by Mephiles, after the latter realised he should probably do that already if he wanted to make any progress at all with his plan. This incident led to Iblis being brought into the present, and they fused to become the omnipotent Solaris once more. Such power... such divinity... such devastation...

Actually, he was really easy. The antlion from Underground Zone was harder.

Manchild robots - 1, god of time - 0.

With their super forms in tow, Silver, Shadow, and the revived Sonic joined forces to defeat Solaris, with Sonic in particular going the extra step in retconning Solaris out of existence entirely. Since time itself reset, meaning Iblis was no longer a memory, Silver's timeline was given a second chance. What was he to look forward to in this new, promising future?

Shit.

The Design: Let's take a closer look at Silver's appearance, shall we?

Or rather, a certain thing that's wrong with it.

He's holding up fifteen fingers.

Yes, you all know what I'm pointing to: the hairstyle. Let it be known that I'm very aware of the intention behind this design choice. It's supposed to be based on the Japanese Red Maple Leaf, which holds a lot of relevant symbolism for Silver's character. This is a fine idea in theory, and I can respect the intent and the creativity.

But here's the thing: If it looks like a ganja leaf, people are going to say it looks like a ganja leaf. I know some fans will gnash their teeth at me saying this, but the fact of the matter is that intentions and ideas, no matter how good they may be on paper, don't always translate well into the final product. Unleashed Secret Rings Black Knight Sonic '06 in general is certainly no stranger to showcasing examples of that, and Silver's hairstyle is no exception. There are ways to incorporate symbolism in a character’s design without making them look like meme bait in the process, and no amount of “umm ackshually” will change that, I'm afraid.

That said, there's another reason why I'm staying clean of Silver marijuana: it doesn't work for a hedgehog character. With the other hedgehogs, their hairstyles are simple and get the point across: Sonic's goes without saying, Shadow's is more angular to befit a slightly rougher hero, and Amy's is a cute bob cut of sorts. But Silver? Even without the ganja, you've still got the two tentacles making up the back of his head.

I'd rather not be reminded of hentai quills, thanks.

“I thought Crusher-san would like it :’(”

I do find it hilarious that they went through numerous designs for Silver, and this was what they chose to go with. Some of his prototype designs may have fared better had any of them been used instead... but we didn't end up with any of those ones. We ended up with this one, therefore I'm judging this one.

But don’t worry, it’s not all bad with Silver...

The Personality: As far as actual character goes, Silver's personality is as straightfoward as most characters in the series, yet it's no less interesting, because it took a while for it to fully evolve to what it currently is. The seeds of his character - a good-natured yet awkward and rather insecure kind of guy, who doesn't fully understand how the present time works - have always been there, but it was often downplayed in earlier titles due to him being hungry for Iblis Trigger blood... or being an arsehole for no reason.

Although to be fair, everyone in Rivals is an arsehole for no reason.

Eventually though, after the writers gave him a Snickers, these traits got more opportunity to shine. Mostly in side media admittedly, but it's been noted in the games as well. With no Iblis to angst over, he's proven to be a surprisingly bubbly chap, who just wants to know how you're all doing, fellow anthro kids. And whereas his naivety was previously used for intended tragedy to benefit the evil plan of a guy who thought taking the -istoph- out of Mephistopheles would make him inconspicuous, now it's been used for a bunch of low-key contexts that do a much better job at endearing him to the player.

Finally, something I can relate to.

Hell, he even seems to have learned from the Mephiles incident, as he was quick to make it clear to the next shadowy deep-voiced anthro with demonic eyes he met that he wasn't gonna fall for any of them fibs no more, ya hear?

“YouTube and Twitter don’t count.”

All in all, it works well enough, in my opinion. His personality does pave the way for some funny and wholesome moments, and since they’re no longer trying to build him up like he’s Shadow 2.0, he's nowhere near as much of a tool as he was before. So I guess you could say... I like it?

Does this mean I can say that I like the character as a whole then, design and '06-induced idiocy aside?

Well, not quite...

The Execution: This is where the complication part comes into play. We know now that I like his personality, not so much his design, but that's only the half of it. It would be more accurate to say that I like his personality... and dislike everything else.

Aside from that, obviously.

For starters, the creation process for his character and story was summed up with, in their own words, “Think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z”. So he comes off as rather lazy and uninspired. Now I'm not expecting my Sonic characters to be 100% unique, there's always going to be similarities to other franchises no matter what you do, even if subconsciously or by complete coincidence. Taking inspiration in itself is no big deal at all.

But... was that it? Copying a DBZ character to such a blatant extent? Was there no other thought put into it?

Naturally, this ties into an overarching problem: the franchise's mid-00's habit of trying way too hard to be the anthro Dragon Ball Z. Sonic has had DBZ influences since the early days, with the Chaos Emeralds and Super Sonic, but it didn't assimilate itself into every waking aspect of his universe. It was merely an additional flavor that added to the complete package, in the same way that a Death Star with a moustache didn't mean the franchise was suddenly Star Wars the Hedgehog.

But come the turn of the millenium, nearly every main title in the series ended with Super Sonic and/or Super Shadow saving the day, while everyone else either stood around being useless, or only helping in ways that no one actually cares about. Including the in-universe President apparently, since only Sonic and Shadow were featured in the photo on his desk.

Amy smiled. “I guess the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, huh?”

This reached its peak with - of course - Sonic '06, with Silver in particular being an obvious result of this then-ongoing trend. And yes, it would be unfair to use him as a scapegoat, considering it was already a problem long before he turned up. But moreso than even Shadow, it's an era that Silver is forever a relic of, for better or for worse.

But it doesn't stop there. Since Silver is considered a mainstay character, his gimmick of being from the future also creates problems of its own, because in order for him to make further appearances, he keeps turning up for little explained reason, and thus he suffers the Deadly Six problem of being shoved into places where he doesn't belong, for fanservice's own sake. Take Sonic Colours DS for example, where he went back in time JUST to check out Eggman's theme park... Okay...?

On one hand, I’d visit it too, since it's made by Eggman. On the other hand, I’d stay clear of it, since it's made by Eggman.

And when there IS a justification with more weight to it? It's just recycling the '06 routine of trying to avert his ruined future, which isn't much better. The cause may differ depending on the story, but if his future is a permanent shitehole for one reason or another, he might as well cut out the middle man and stay in the present altogether, since that's where his friends are anyway. But they seem intent on not doing that, despite the future schtick being a noose around his neck at this point.

In hindsight, maybe this was a hint to how the rest of the arc would turn out.

And then there's his dynamic with a certain purple cat... No, not Big. The other one.

“I’m here, by the way.”

Simply put: I don't like this dynamic. At all. Or rather, I don't like how they keep milking it. Blaze's backstory was radically changed to justify her presence in Silver's future, and it really shows, since she barely even shows up half the time, as if the developers themselves forgot she was in the game. But her backstory has since been restored to her original alternate dimension interpretation, so hanging around with the grey hedgehog is all good now, right?

To be brutally honest, I probably wouldn't care for this dynamic regardless. But I would be more willing to tolerate it, and I'd refrain from groaning every time they're seen together... if they weren't intent on playing it up so much in spite of '06 being wiped out, sometimes with a bit of commentary involving their thoughts and memories, which only succeeds at making things more confusing. If Blaze is around, Silver will be nearby, and if he's not at first, he will be soon enough. This franchise does have a problem in general with restricting who's allowed to interact with who (I personally believe Sonic Heroes may have led to this, or at least it accelerated it), but I'd argue it's at its most insufferable here, with Blaze's potential and her entire world taking a backseat to being the sidekick of Ganja Man.

And you might say “Well, it's part of the franchise now, so you'll just have to accept it”. To which I ask: Have you accepted Two Worlds? Have you accepted Solo Sonica? Have you accepted Sonic's friends not doing much as of late?

Yeah. That's what I thought. “It’s just how it is” doesn’t mean you can’t criticise it.

Meanwhile, Marine is lucky enough to get so much as a shout out.

So yeah, I have quite an extensive list of grievances involving poor Silver. But... very little of it has to do with him, right? They're all indirect problems that he just so happens to be linked to, as opposed to someone like Chris Thorndyke, who is genuinely a shit character through and through. This is more comparable to Tails being bitchy in Lost World, or Amy being manipulative in Chronicles, or Sonic being a smug dumbass in IDW, or Shadow not wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Boom. Frustrating, regrettable, but not really the character's own fault.

Yet even after all that, there's one last kick in the teeth... How do you fix all this? And how do you fix it when he's since gained a sizable fandom, many of whom like him for these very attributes? If you leave it as it is, you're stuck with this big, awkward mess that everyone pretends to ignore. If you try to do something about it, you'll get complaints about disrespecting the True Silver Spirit, and you’ll get questions about why you didn't create a new character instead... And if you did use a new character for the sake of a clean slate, THEN you'd get complaints about not using Silver.

It's a tough call to be sure, and it's such a shame because like I said, I do appreciate his personality, so I can't say he's bad outright. But with all this... clutter, I can only put him in the average category. So, in he goes.

Crusher Gives Silver a: Thumbs Sideways!

Well, I'm glad this one's out of the way. Putting my thoughts into words with Silver was harder than it should have been. I do slightly regret starting this series off on a rather downer note, but rest assured, it's a lot more positive from this point onwards, since while I have higher praise for some heroes more than others, the hero characters as a whole fare a lot better than the majority of villains not named Eggman.

I guess you could say that I hope to show why Sonic's friends aren't as shitty as the haters would suggest. ;)

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Syntax6

Syntax6 has 17 stories at Gossamer, but you should visit her website for the complete collection of her fics and to see the cover art that comes with many of the stories (and to find her pro writing!). She's written some of the most beloved casefiles in the fandom. I've recced literally all of them here before. Twice. Big thanks to Syntax6 for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m delighted but not surprised because I’ve written and read fanfic for shows even older than XF. Also, I joined the XF fandom relatively late, at the end of 1999, so there were already hundreds of “classic” fics out there, stories that were theoretically superseded or dated by canon developments that came after them, but which nonetheless remained compelling in their own right. That is the beauty of fanfic: it is inspired by its original creators but not bound by them. It’s a world of “what if” and each story gets to run in a new direction, irrespective of the canon and all the other stories spinning off in their own universes. In this way, fanfic becomes almost timeless.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

(I feel these are similar, at least for me, so I will combine them here.)

First and foremost, I found friends. There was a table full of XF fanfic writers at my wedding. Bugs was my maid of honor. I still talk to someone from XF fandom pretty much every day. Lysandra, Maybe Amanda, Michelle Kiefer, bugs…these are just some of the people who’ve been part of my life for half my existence now. Sometimes I get to have dinner with Audrey Roget or Anjou or MCA. Deb Wells and Sarah Ellen Parsons are part of my pro fic beta team. I have a similar list from the Hunter fandom, terrific people who have enriched my life in numerous ways and I am honored to count as friends.

Second, I learned a lot about writing during my years in XF fandom. I grew up there. Part of this growth experience was simply due to practice. I wrote about 1.2 million words of XF fanfic, which is the equivalent of 15 novels. I made mistakes and learned from them. But another essential part of learning is absorbing different kinds of well-told tales, and XF had these in spades. Some stories were funny. Others were lyrical. Some were short pieces with nary a word wasted while others were sprawling epics that took you on an adventure. The neat thing about XF is that it has space for many different kinds of stories, from hard-core sci-fi to historical romance. You can watch other authors executing these varied pieces and learn from them. You can form critique groups and ask for betas and get direct feedback on how to improve. It’s collaborative and fun, and this can’t be underestimated, generally supportive. The underlying shared love of the original product means that everyone comes into your work predisposed to enjoy it. I am grateful for all the encouragement and the critiques I received over my years in fandom.

Finally, I think a valuable lesson for writers that you can find in fandom, but not in your local author critique group, is how to handle yourself when your work goes public. Not everyone is going to like your work and they will make sure you know it. Some people will like it maybe too much, to the point where they cross boundaries. Learning to disengage yourself from public reaction to your work is a difficult but crucial aspect of being a writer. You control the story. You can’t control reaction to it. It’s frustrating at first, perhaps, but in the end, it’s freeing.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I participated in ATXC, the Haven message boards, and the Scullyfic mailing list/news group. For a number of years, I also ran a fic discussion group with bugs called The Why Incision.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I started reading XF fanfic before I began watching the show. I had watched one season two episode (Soft Light) and then seen bits and pieces of a few others from season four. I’d seen Fight the Future. Basically, I’d seen enough to know which one was Mulder and which one was Scully, and which one believed in aliens. An acquaintance linked me to a rec site for XF fanfic (Gertie’s, maybe?) so that I could see how fic was formatted for the web. I clicked a fic, I think it was one by Lydia Bower dealing with Scully’s cancer arc, and basically did not stop reading. Soon I was printing off 300K of fic to take home with me each night. I could not believe the level of talent in the fandom, and that there were so many excellent writers just giving away their works for free. I wanted to play in this sandbox, too, so I started renting the VHS tapes to catch up on old episodes (see, I am An Old). After a few months, I began writing my own stuff.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to The X-Files. I’m not a sci-fi person by nature. I think my main objection is that, when done poorly, it feels lazy to me. Who did the thing? A ghost! Maybe an alien? I guess we’ll never know. You can always just shrug and play some spooky music and the “truth will always be out there…” somewhere beyond the story in front of you. You never have to commit to any kind of truth because you can invent some magical power or new kind of alien to change the story. I think, by the bitter end, the XF had devolved into this kind of storytelling. The mytharc made no kind of sense even in its own universe. But for years the XF achieved the best aspects of sci-fi storytelling—narrative flexibility and an apotheosis of our current fears dressed up as a super entertaining yarn.

What eventually sold me on the XF as a show is all of the smart storytelling and the sheer amount of ideas contained within its run. At its best, it’s a brilliant show. You have mediations on good versus evil, the role of government in a free society, is there a God, are we alone in the universe, and what are the elements that make us who we are? If Mulder and Morris Fletcher switch bodies, how do we know it’s really “them”? The tonal shifts from week to week were clever and engaging. For Vince Gilligan, truth was always found in fellow human beings. For Darin Morgan, humans were the biggest monster of all. The show was big enough to contain both these premises, and indeed, was stronger for it. The deep questions, the character quirks, the unsolved mysteries and all that went unsaid in the Mulder-Scully relationship left so much room for fanfic writers to do their own work. As such, the fandom attracted and continues to attract both dabbling writers and those who are serious craftspeople. People who like the mystery and those who like the sci-fi angle. Scientists and true believers. Like the show, it’s big enough for all.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I look at it like an old friend I catch up with once in a while. We’ve been close for so long that there’s no awkwardness—we just get each other! I love seeing people post screen shots and commentary, and I think it’s wonderful that so many writers are still inventing new adventures for Mulder and Scully. That is how the characters live on, and indeed how any of us lives on, through the stories that others tell about us.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I ran the Hunter fandom for about five years, mostly because when I poked my head back in, I found the person in change was a bully who’d shut down everything due to her own waning interest. A person would try to start a topic for discussion, and she’d say, “We’ve already covered that.” Well, yes, in a 30-year-old show, there’s not a lot of new ground…

Most other shows, Hunter included, have smaller fandoms and thus don’t attract the depth of fan talent. I don’t just mean fanfic writers. I mean those who do visual art, fan vids, critiques, etc. The XF fandom has all these in droves, which makes it a rare and special place. But all fandoms have the particular joy of geeking out over favorite scenes and reveling in the meeting of shared minds. It will always look odd to those not contained within it, which brings me to the part of modern fandom I find somewhat uncomfortable…the creators are often in fan-space.

In Hunter, the female lead joins fan groups and participates. This is more common now in the age of social media, where writers, producers, actors, etc., are on the same platforms as the rest of us. Fan and creator interaction used to be highly circumscribed: fans wrote letters and maybe received a signed headshot in return. There were cons where show runners gave panels and took questions from the audience. You could stand in line to meet your favorite star. Now, you can @ your favorite star on Twitter, message her on Facebook or follow him on Instagram. In some ways, this is so fun! In other ways, it blurs in the lines in ways that make me uncomfortable. I think it’s rude, for example, if a fan were to go on a star’s social media and post fanfic there or say, “I thought the episode you wrote was terrible.” But what if it’s fan space and the actor is sitting right there, watching you? Is it rude to post fanfic in front of her, especially if she says it makes her uncomfortable? Is it mean to tell a writer his episode sucked right to his face?

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I own the first seven seasons on DVD and will pull them out from time to time to rewatch old faves. I’ve shown a few episodes over the spring and summer to my ten-year-old daughter, and it’s been fun to see the series through her eyes. We’ve mostly opted for the comedic episodes because there’s enough going on in the real world to give her nightmares. Her favorite so far is Je Souhaite.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don’t have much bandwidth to read fanfic these days. My job as a mystery/thriller author means I have to keep up with the market so I do most of my reading there right now. I also beta read for some pro-fic friends and betaing a novel will keep you busy.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I read so much back in the day that this answer could go on for pages. Alas, it also hasn’t changed much over the past fifteen years because I haven’t read much since then. But, as we’re talking Golden Oldies today, here are a bunch:

All the Mulders, by Alloway I find this short story both hilarious and haunting. Scully embraces her power in the upside down post-apocalyptic world.

Strangers and the Strange Dead, by Kipler Taut prose and an intriguing 3rd party POV make this story a winner, and that’s before the kicker of an ending, which presaged 1013’s.

Cellphone, by Marasmus Talk about your killer twists! Also one of the cleverest titles coming or going.

Arizona Highways, by Fialka I think this is one of the best-crafted stories to come out of the XF. It’s majestic in scope, full of complex literary structure and theme, and yet the plot moves like a runaway freight train. Both the Mulder and Scully characterizations are handled with tender care.

So, We Kissed, by Alelou What I love about this one is how it grounds Mulder and Scully in the ordinary. Mulder’s terrible secret doesn’t involve a UFO or some CSM-conspiracy. Scully goes to therapy that actually looks like therapy. I guess what I’m saying is that I utterly believe this version of M & S in addition to just enjoying reading about them.

Sore Luck at the Luxor, by Anubis Hot, funny, atmospheric. What’s not to love?

Black Hole Season, by Penumbra Nobody does wordsmithing like Penumbra. I use her in arguments with professional writers when they try to tell me that adverbs and adjectives MUST GO. Just gorgeous, sly, insightful prose.

The Dreaming Sea, by Revely This one reads like a fairytale in all the best ways. Revely creates such loving, beautiful worlds for M & S to live in, and I wish they could stay there always.

Malus Genius, by Plausible Deniability and MaybeAmanda Funny and fun, with great original characters, a sly casefile and some clear-eyed musings on the perils of getting older. This one resonates more and more the older I get. ;)

Riding the Whirlpool, by Pufferdeux I look this one up periodically to prove to people that it exists. Scully gets off on a washing machine while Mulder helps. Yet it’s in character? And kinda works? This one has to be read to be believed.

Bone of Contention (part 1, part 2), by Michelle Kiefer and Kel People used to tell me all the time that casefiles are super easy to write while the poetic vignette is hard. Well, I can’t say which is harder but there much fewer well-done casefiles in the fandom than there are poetic vignettes. This is one of the great ones.

Antidote, by Rachel Howard A fic that manages to be both hot and cold as it imagines Mulder and Scully trying to stay alive in the frosty wilderness while a deadly virus is on the loose. This is an ooooold fic that holds up impressively well given everything that followed it!

Falling Down in Four Acts, by Anubis Anubis was actually a bunch of different writers sharing a single author name. This particular one paints an angry, vivid world for Our Heroes and their compatriots. There is no happy ending here, but I read this once and it stayed with me forever.

The Opposite of Impulse, by Maria Nicole A sweet slice of life on a sunny day. When I imagine a gentler universe for Mulder and Scully, this is the kind of place I’d put them.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Bait and Switch is probably the most sophisticated and tightly plotted. It was late in my fanfic “career” and so it shows the benefits to all that learning. My favorite varies a lot, but I’ll say Universal Invariants because that one was nothing but fun.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I never say never! I don’t have any oldies sitting around, though. Everything I wrote, I posted.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I write casefiles…er, I mean mysteries, under my own name now, Joanna Schaffhausen. My main series with Reed and Ellery consists of a male-female crime solving team, so I get a little bit of my XF kick that way. Their first book, The Vanishing Season, started its life as an XF fanfic back in the day. I had to rewrite it from the ground up to get it published, but if you know both stories, you can spot the similarities.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

The answer any writer will tell you is “everywhere.” Ideas are cheap and they’re all around us—on the news, on the subway, in conversations with friends, from Twitter memes, on a walk through the woods. My mysteries are often rooted in true crime, often more than one of them.

Each idea is like a strand of colored thread, and you have to braid them together into a coherent story. This is the tricky part, determining which threads belong in which story. If the ideas enhance one another or if they just create an ugly tangent.

Mostly, though, stories begin by asking “what if?” What if Scully’s boyfriend Ethan had never been cut from the pilot? What if Scully had moved to Utah after Fight the Future? What if the Lone Gunmen financed their toys by writing a successful comic book starring a thinly veiled Mulder and Scully?

Growing up, I had a sweet old lady for a neighbor. Her name was Doris and she gave me coffee ice cream while we watched Wheel of Fortune together. Every time there was a snow storm, the snow melted in her backyard in a such way that suggested she had numerous bodies buried out there. How’s that for a “what if?”

What's the story behind your pen name?

I’ve had a few of them and honestly can’t tell you where they came from, it’s been so long ago. The “6” part of syntax6 is because I joke that 6 is my lucky number. In eighth grade, my algebra teacher would go around the room in order, asking each student their answer to the previous night’s homework problems. I realized quickly that I didn’t have to do all the problems, just the fifteenth one because my desk was 15th on her list. This worked well until the day she decided to call on kids in random order. When she got to me and asked me the answer to the problem I had not done, I just invented something on the spot. “Uh…six?”

Her: “You mean 0.6, don’t you?”

Me, nodding vigorously: “YES, I DO.”

Her: “Very good. Moving on…”

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My close friends and family have always known, and reactions have varied from mild befuddlement to enthusiastic support. My father voted in the Spookies one year, and you can believe he read the nominated stories before casting his vote. I think the most common reaction was: Why are you doing this for free? Why aren’t you trying to be a paid writer?

Well, having done both now, I can tell you that each kind of writing brings its own rewards. Fanfic is freeing because there is no pressure to make money from it. You can take risks and try new things and not have to worry if it fits into your business plan.

(Posted by Lilydale on September 15, 2020)