#I think this is a fine solution to it

[celestite-caroline]

in this experiment we will give Toffee a more coherent color palette

[shepscapades]

[dbhc flavored] Hermit a Day May: Day 14 — Doc!

Featuring both a current-day s10 doc and a verrry early s8 post-deviant doc! :]

[goddess-of-frot]

In the midst of all this I cant help but wish there was some dedicated online community space for transfems (Please do not invite me to discord servers)

[ashipiko]

DANCE WITH ME YOU LI-IA-IAR ♡

OVERBLOT ASHI??? ANYBODY??? the ANGST that this baby can store!!! SHEESH!!!!!!! <3 I only have one post dedicated to her and liar dance lyric analysis (the post is kinda outdated in gen) BUT…… I also have an overblot monologue as a treat 🫶 I wanted to better explain her angst and so!!! BABAM!!! enjoy

ASHI’S MONOLOGUE:

Sometimes I wonder why I ended up here.

A place named “Twisted Wonderland”, and at a school named “Night Raven College”.

At first, I figured that I was the odd one out— Y’know, the Ramshackle prefect and everything. The magicless girl at the magical all boys school? Nuts, ain’t it?

I’m known for a lot of things. Things that are different from the others. The fact that I stand out is part of the Ashi charm, something I’m known for.

But… Over time I found myself sorta feeling in place here.

Because as much as I try to believe it, I can’t safely say that I’m better than anyone else here.

I’m a fake. I make conversation and lots of friends, but for what? A backup in case something goes wrong? A sense of protection for my reputation? In what case are any of those friendships something I truly want? In what case are any of these strings more than just a tool instead of a thread made of my real feelings?

Behind this, I’m no different from any other student here. Even through my individuality, my cheerfulness, my endearing oddness… I’m still a horrible person. Using people to get what I want, toying with people and their feelings in order to gain power and gain a spot the top. All to become untouchable. It’s screwed. It’s not right.

My insides are ugly. The truth of me is something I want to keep tucked away deeply, because I don’t want people to see this part of me. A brash, annoying, selfish version of me, everything people hate to see. I don’t want this side of me to be seen because people will run away— people I don’t care much about, sures, but people I love, too. I don’t want to drive them away. So I keep quiet and give them a shallow show.

I give them a source of entertainment that’s controlled by the real me, every calculated movement translating into a marionette-like response. The only show I allow you to see is one that’s so carefully crafted by the chaotic clown backstage. The one that is shunned away from the light, the strings being the only hint of the puppet’s phony existence to the foolish audience.

But suddenly, I feel as if being here has started to let this side of me come crawling back into the spotlight.

It scares me.

It scares me to be vulnerable, let all of my faults lay out on the table like playing cards. To take the risk without the protection, to gamble everything I’ve built up away just like that. But you…

You.

You make me feel safe. You make me feel as if I don’t need to hide anything. I can give you the key to my heart and you would have no malicious intent. You wouldn’t cut out the parts people don’t like. You would enjoy the performance in full, every bit of it.

You make me believe that I’m nothing special, and yet something so valuable at the same time.

It’s silly. You’re silly. And yet that’s something that’s helped me.

It’s helped me realize that that truly is just how people are.

We aren’t villains. We aren’t antagonists. We aren’t monsters.

We are nothing but people, with faults and feelings that should be valued.

I am more than just a jester, a sake of entertainment.

I’m a person who is entirely worthy of love. All of me.

It reminds me that I must’ve came here for a reason.

Because this is where I belong.

[amiharana]

just so obsessed with the idea of revali silently loving link and pining so much for him, but holding back because he's already created this facade that he despises link, because zelda and mipha already loved him first, because why would link ever choose him? so revali keeps it all inside and tries to display his bitterness at unreciprocated love as jealousy and arrogance at the imbalance of their roles, and tries desperately to fall out of love with link.

but it's as though the little hylian won't let him.

link, who practically insists on staying by revali during battle, who stares at revali with that wide blue-eyed gaze, who naps peacefully with his head in revali's lap when they're alone. and revali should be ecstatic at how close they are, but it hurts more than anything. this isn't fair to him, to be so tantalizingly close to link but to never be able to have him more than this. it's so suffocating, revali doesn't think he can stand to do this any longer, or else it might kill him.

but he continues to let link do whatever he pleases; silently tagging along after revali to the archery range, sitting beside him at mealtimes and letting him sneak more bites from revali's plate as though revali doesn't see him, even going as far as to let link sleep with him in his hammock after what revali assumed to have been a very bad nightmare. no one says a single word when revali and link arrive late to breakfast, with link clinging sleepily to revali's wing and revali looking strangely peaceful.

try as he might (he's not trying at all), revali can't say no to link (and neither does he want to), so he supposes he might as well endure this suffering a little longer.

"why do you let me do all this?" link whispers to him once, in the dead of the night, wrapped around revali in his hammock. and revali is silent for a moment, trying to come up with some sort of answer that could defend his actions. but he can't.

"i don't know," he says simply. he can't tell link the truth.

"does it bother you?"

"do you think you'd still be in my bed practically choking me to death with how tightly you're wrapped around me if it did?" revali winces at how biting his words are, but link just hums and snuggles deeper into revali's neck. he doesn't stop link.

"if it bothered you, you'd tell me, right?" the little hylian murmurs.

revali thinks about it for a moment. and he decides, no, i wouldn't. if you wished to be warm, i'd let you use my body as fuel for a campfire.

"go to sleep," he says aloud instead, softly, gently. he couldn't tell link that either, and he probably never would be able to. he wouldn't ever have the chance. "we have battles to prepare for in the morning."

revali wraps his wings snug around the blond, and link practically purrs in content, dozing off immediately into the warmth. like this, the rito almost smiles. if burning himself alive was the only way to have link, even for just a moment that couldn't always be guaranteed, then revali would just have to make sure he stayed alight; to be the bonfire keeping link warm throughout the night.

[coldshrugs]

s a l i a n c e

loud. brash. has never met a stranger. sal wants to know what's wrong and how they can make it better, preferably with some tasty street food from their solution 9 stall! can they tell you how they invented pizza rolls? please let them tell you.

they're learning what wanderlust feels like now that there's a world beyond this lightning dome. and they have no shortage of bravery; when they're not on the clock, they're helping oblivion try to smuggle folks with roots in etheirys out of alexandria and back to their homeland.

[unfilteredcurse]

People fighting whether if XiaoJin or HwoaJin is better are so funny, because the obvious and the only correct answer is that they're a polycule. 🧡❤️💙

[alphabetcompletionist]

i cannot, for the life of me, figure out the E puzzle. am i stupid or is there something im missing here? im losing my mind

man (wrong?). i already gave one hint. go find some peers and work it out together. make a forum or something. you'll want it later

A CDEFGHI KLMNOP RSYUVW YZ

22/26

[lenaellsi]

sorry i am willing to give aziraphale the benefit of the doubt to a point but. to say that CROWLEY abandoned HIM? like. what did you want him to do. yall want crowley to go back to heaven? to make himself an angel again??? go back to the assholes that cast him out and change everything he is??? crowley was angry and mean and inarticulate and pushy in that fight but he was not WRONG.

(related: I have no idea why everyone's suddenly decided that crowley doesn't give a shit about saving the world. he's against working with heaven and hell obviously, but he was the one who wanted to stop the apocalypse in the first place. he only tried to jump ship last time when: 1) the end was only hours away, 2) from his POV he had no idea where the antichrist was or that aziraphale had found him, and 3) he was being actively hunted by people who were planning to torture and destroy him. that's not the case in s2. you can't just heap fault on him to make this a 'both sides are wrong' thing so it's easier to fix. his words were "you can't leave this bookshop." that's not something you say if you plan to leave the bookshop.)

aziraphale is walking into an obvious trap because of his skewed views about heaven and hell and that is the truth of it. it's a mistake. he's not a 'bad person' for it because people aren't BAD for making mistakes, but the idea that crowley needs to apologize to him for not wanting to go back to heaven is fucking ludicrous. it was a horrible thing to ask of him, good intentions or not. that's it.

imagine if crowley had told aziraphale "hey great news! we can be grand dukes of hell together and really make a difference. all you have to do is become a demon :)" like. aziraphale would have been furious. and rightfully so! what is the disconnect here i am baffled

[lord-squiggletits]

Part of why I hate this fandom's take on Autobots vs Decepticons is ppl (mainly 'con fans honestly) who can't have any nuance of the situation whatsoever and love to write plots like "oh the humans are racist and abusive towards Cybertronians so this is how Megatron is right" no actually I don't think colonialism/imperialism and racism are justified so long as you can point the finger and say "they were the aggressors first" or "their hands are no cleaner than ours bc their society sucks too" sorry. Please come up with better sociopolitical narratives in your war story.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i think its weird that i have to make this disclaimer but the internet is crazy so wtvr,, anyway,,

if i say i dont like something, that doesnt mean "that thing is bad and nobody should post it.."

i swear literally every time i even mention that i dislike something, people will go "wow does that mean u fucking hate me cuz i post that thing? ur a fucking stupid bitch and all ur opinions r wrong" LIKE ?? er.. no. just because i say i dont like certain characterizations of certain characters (the saiki k fandom is CRAZY about this cuz i can state an opinion on literally any character and a group of people will still go 'well only we're allowed to post our opinions about them because we're always right!1!1!'), or certain ship tropes (mentioned my hatred of toxic yaoi maybe once or twice on here months ago and people STILL get mad at me as if i said toxic yaoi lovers r evil or something), or certain ships, or WHATEVER, does not mean that i HATE the people who are posting them or that i think they shouldnt post them at all, NO, im just posting about my personal tastes on my personal blog and it would be extremely weird and hypocritical if i decided that i was the ONLY person that was allowed to do that,,

i think the only reason people assume that is because there are a lot of other people on here who ARE like that, and a lot of people toe the line between posting that they dont like something and posting that they think everyone who likes that thing is stupid, annoying, and wrong,, so i guess all i can say is, sorry for whatever made you make these assumptions but they arent true about me so plz leave me alone ʘ‿ʘ ur doing the same thing to me that ur accusing me of but i didnt do it in the first place so ur just actively being a dick for no reason

[sainamoonshine]

I hate the question “do you prefer being slightly too hot or slightly too cold” because not a single person in the world ever answers the question that was asked. Everybody invents a different question which is “which is easier to solve, being too hot or too cold” and they answer that. And then I’m always the one single loser who answers the question straight (I think the feeling of being too cold is more uncomfortable than the feeling of being too hot) and people end up arguing with me about it. Like yes I get it I get you want to logic me to death by arguing that being cold is better because I can put an extra shirt on yes you are soooooooo clever but that is off topic and it is not the thing we are fucking discussing right now.

[godsfavoritescientist]

Building off of what I wrote in my fic "Sparks," I'm really compelled by the idea of Ford genuinely no longer being interested in sailing around in a boat with Stan by the time they were seniors in high school.

I like the idea of it not being just a symptom of the resentment that had been building between them, nor it being a dream of Ford's that only paled in comparison to west coast tech, but it being a genuine loss of interest on Ford's end. I think it complicates things even further in some really juicy ways.

Like, imagine going through high school slowly losing more and more interest in the dream you've shared with your twin and only friend ever since you were little kids. How do you break it to him? How do you explain it to him without making it sound like a rejection of him? Without it making him hate you?

How do you explain it without it feeling like a spit in the face to all the hard work he's put into a plan that started out as a way of him comforting you by telling you "it doesn't matter what people say about you, you're going to be an adventurer who sails away into the sunset and never has to hear their mockery ever again, and there will be babes and treasure and heroism, and then they'll all see how cool you really are!"

And all through high school you think to yourself, "he's going to move on to more realistic dreams any day now, and then I won't have to say anything about it!" But no matter how many times you mention something else he could do with his life that he seems interested in, or bring up the challenging logistics of traveling around long-term in a boat, he sounds just as committed to the childhood dream as ever, and completely oblivious to how apprehensive you sound.

So resentment grows, little by little. Because that's easier than confronting the soul-crushing levels of guilt that are building up inside of you, every time you don't take an opportunity to tell him you don't want to do the plan anymore. You don't have a single person in your life who modeled how to have difficult conversations for you. As far as you know, having this conversation with Stan would crush him into tiny little pieces and then he would hate you forever, and you can't stand the idea of losing the only friend you've ever had.

So tensions grow. A lack of interest turns into a bitter resentment that, if you were really being honest with yourself, is directed more at yourself than it is at Stan.

And then the falling-out happens, and it seems like you were proven right. Stan hates you now, and he's never going to forgive you for giving up on his dream. But two can play that game, so you try to hate him too. Because if you hate him too, then maybe it won't hurt as much that he never came back. That he never even turned up at school, or by the boat, or in through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. He knows what dad's like, and how he says impulsive exaggerated things when he's angry, and haven't you both dealt with his harsh words countless times before and been able to dust yourselves off and joke about it later? So why isn't he back at home, joking with you about how absurd your dad acted that night, being impossible and belligerent about ruining your dream, but at least now you're even, because you've ruined his dream too.

-

And now imagine you find out he risked the lives of everyone in existence to bring you back, right after you had accepted your fate was to die killing Bill. It would be terrifying and confusing and infuriating. If he cared so much, why didn't he do something to reconnect with you sooner? Why did he ignore you in favor of trying to make it big without you? Why didn't he take the infinitely safer and simpler action of reaching out to you without you having to track down his address and send a desperate plea for help? You were convinced that he didn't care enough to bother with you unless you had an important enough reason for him to come. But even then, he thought your plans were stupid. He didn't want anything to do with you, not even with the world at stake.

Did he save your life out of guilt? Does he pity you that much? It doesn't add up with what he did in the decade leading up to shoving you into the portal. And the dissonance between the version of him in your head that hates you, and the man who held out his arms to welcome you back to your home dimension, is so strong that you feel like you're being lied to again, like you're back in the depths of gaslighting and manipulation that Bill put you through, even though there's no way that's what Stan is trying to do... right? You can't figure it out, so you run away from it. You don't want to know the answer to whether or not Stan hates you, because you don't know which answer would hurt more, so you try to make him hate you more than ever, because at least then you would know for sure how he feels.

And in the end, after he sacrifices his memories for you, and for the world, things seem clearer. The layers upon layers of confusion and anger and hurt seem to have washed away like drawings in the sand, leaving behind the simple truth: that you two had an argument, and didn't move past it for forty years, and despite everything you put each other through, you both still want to re-connect.

So you sail away in a boat together.

And at first, it's wonderful. It's exactly what you want. It feels like an apology to Stan, and a thank-you for saving the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the rift between you two, and it's good to be back on earth, and you wonder why you ever doubted the dream you two once had.

But then, after the first long journey you spend on the sea together, when you get back home to dry land, Stan is already talking about planning your next adventure out on the open sea. He recaps every adventure you had on the first trip, over and over again, and he wants to chat with you all through the morning and long into the night, and you don't have the words to explain to yourself that you don't have enough social battery for this, and suddenly you're slipping back into the horrifyingly familiar feeling of Stan being overbearing and needing space from him and how could you think that? How could you think that about him after everything he's done for you and everything he's forgiven you for? But the longer this goes on, the more you realize that you still don't want to spend the rest of your life sailing around with Stan. It's great fun in moderation, but the idea of your whole life revolving around Stan and going on adventures with Stan and being in a boat with Stan with no time to be by yourself thinking about your own things and figuring out your own dreams makes your skin crawl with a claustrophobic kind of panic that you still don't know how to put into words forty years after the first time this feeling grabbed you by the throat and ruined your friendship with Stanley.

But the first time this happened, it nearly ruined his life forever. You can't let yourself feel this. You don't feel this. You're happy to spend the rest of your life fulfilling Stan's lifelong dream, and making up for the time you crushed his dream, and sure, maybe he crushed your dream once too, and maybe it would be nice for him to support your dreams like you're now doing for him, but you can't say that. He saved the universe, and it would be horrible and ungrateful and cruel for you to try to voice these feelings, especially when you don't know how to voice your feelings without it making other people feel like you twisted a knife into their gut. So you try to pretend the feeling isn't there.

You go out on a boat with Stan again. You planned out another incredible journey together, and this should be fun, and you should be happy about this, but the unspoken feeling you shoved as far down in yourself as it could possibly go is eating you alive. The worst part? Stan is starting to notice. You have never been good at hiding your emotions. The trick to it has always been to convince yourself you don't feel it at all, and not think about it, and that has always worked like a charm. But whenever the emotion claws its way back up to the forefront of your mind, you can tell Stan knows something is wrong. So you can't even give him the happy ending he deserves. You can't even convince him that you want to be here on the open seas forever with him, like he deserves. And you keep trying and trying to hide it, but Stan keeps asking in roundabout ways, like "You're being awfully quiet, sixer," and "whats that look on your face?" and eventually it comes exploding out of you like a shaken-up soda bottle dropped on its cap.

And then it's like you're back at home in New Jersey again, standing in the living room while dad grabs Stanley by the shirt. It all comes pouring out of you, in the worst possible way, with the worst possible phrasing, like a pandora's box of monstrousness, and Stan tries to fight back against the sting of your words, but you're made out of acid and you're burning through him and you can see it on his face, and there's never any coming back from this, not this time, you'll just have to either jump into the ocean or become a monster forever, so Stan can hate you more easily again, and-

-and at the end of the outburst, you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with your brother, in dangerous waters, and you have things to do to keep the boat running smoothly.

You can't run away from him. He can't run away from you. You're stuck here for at least a couple more weeks, even if you turned around and sailed back towards shore right away.

-

And the thing that compels me so much here, despite how unbelievably angsty it all is, is that it sets up a situation wherein the Stans might end up forced to actually address the decades of resentment and confusion and wanting-to-reconnect-throughout-it-all that they thought they could gloss over and heal with enough time spent adventuring together on a boat. They might end up forced to actually address the crux of the issue that drove them apart in the first place: Ford wanting a little more space to feel like his own person, and to feel like he's able to have his own dreams, too.

It wouldn't happen easily, nor right away, but if they were stuck together on a little boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by magical creatures they have to protect each other from in order to make it back home alive, then after they had one fight where they brought up all the things they silently agreed to never bring up again, it would probably happen many more times, and each time it would leave them both angrier at each other than ever, until eventually something honest slipped through amidst all the saying-anything-except-what-they-mean bickering. And once enough of these honest moments slipped through, then they would have a thread to tug on to start to unravel the gargantuan knot of their decades of unresolved conflicts.

And then, eventually, maybe Stan could learn that he can have a good friendship with his brother without needing to be glued to him at the hip, and Ford needing a certain amount of alone time doesn't mean he dislikes him or wants to abandon him, and Ford could learn that he can be honest and have a meaningful connection with someone without it driving them away and making them hate him.

[kushanna]

finished episode 4 👍🏻 still gotta finish the tea party (dead kinzo YEAH) and the ???? bit but mostly finished it. stuff is getting soo out of hand, i am soo displeased with how downhill the last two chapters after the cause of the tragedy (top 5 chapters so far) went, it was one of the few times i was actually kinda disliking what i was reading. i just really djsgddj dislike when something is stated and then almost immediately taken back or when something is hyped but ends being... not that cool

did we. really need a whole ass new aunt character. omg! if they had to bring eva back from the dead (lol) and summon eva beatrice, if they needed the character of eva there to get the point across anyway, did we REALLY need the whole ass sumadera aunt character... to even exist. maybe that's just me, but if she never shows up again (i'm sure she will) and that was her only role in the story i'm gonna be soo pissed (i guess it's good to know more about kyrie in general too. still, something about that made me pissed). and the way chdkcj we only saw the GRASS of rokkenjima, ange ✨ learned about magic ✨ and that was it, omg fuck OFF. that trip to rokkenjima was SO hyped and then it was just 😐 so we could learn a lesson 😐 smh. so funny how at the end ange was just "see you in hell, eva, need to go kill beatrice ✌🏻" LMAO that seems very aggressive after a whole hour of talking about love and compassion lmaooo but sure, i get it, go off, do what you have to.

UGH the whole "yeah, battler's back. yeah, i just got him back. yeah, he's a bit shaken but he's holding up" omg! bullshit! everyone acted as if that was the GRAVEST thing that could possibly happen and then two seconds later yeah. he's fine. yeah, that was just a scare. AND the whole "no, of course you're battler. it doesn't matter if your mom's not your mom. yeah, sure, you're battler" omg!! bullshit!! the whole thing was presented at first as if it were some WILD revelation that shook the very foundations of everything we know and then two seconds later yeah. you're battler. take ahold of yourself, battler. that's what i mean about presenting something and then immediately taking it back... it's not the thing itself that i dislike, it's just that, structurally speaking, that was a very frustrating way of presenting information. maybe it was on purpose, and if it was it worked because:

anyways. some time ago i saw folks saying that by the end of episode four you should already have a pretty solid idea of things which, well, seems a lot to expect of me at this point lmao. i guess i should reread the previous episodes cause that's also something the voices of the internet tell you...? so i should do that, obviously not through the vn again cause i'm not insane

[queenlua]

Phoenix Wright / Kristoph Gavin "What the fuck are we even doing together?"

The disbarment hits the papers, and suddenly every Tom, Dick and Harry that Phoenix has ever met is blowing up his phone.

Amazing how many of them there are.  There's his aunt Jessie, whose sole previous communication with him these past ten years has been a dutifully-sent annual birthday card.  There's Gary from that internship Phoenix did his last summer in law school, calling from five states over.  His barber, for some reason.  And a bunch of guys that he hasn’t talked to since 1L.  Like a freaking class reunion in his phone, except through one-way glass, so he can't get a look at them.  It'd only be fair, after all, if he could judge them right back—judge them for whatever biglaw job they burned out of, or how much weight they've put on, or how divorced they are, or whatever it is people henpeck at those sorts of things—

And it's amazing how many of them won’t even admit why they’re calling.  Hey Phoenix, it’s been a while huh, just wondered how you’re doing these days, well if you get this call me back—

Right.  As if.

He plays the voicemails back every night, after Trucy’s asleep, sitting alone with a bottle of cheap swill, and he lets the voices wash over him until he’s comfortably numb.

When Maya calls, two weeks later, he recognizes it right off because he’s got the Kurain area code memorized.  And he stares at those digits a long while, deciding—because, hell, he owes Maya an explanation, doesn't he? Edgeworth, Larry, it's whatever, but Maya didn't ask to get mixed up in any of this—

Then he swipes the call straight to voicemail, and stops listening to the voicemails altogether.

Which he should’ve known wouldn’t be enough to put her off.  So he shouldn't be surprised when Maya shows up at his apartment a week later, banging on the door and hollering for him to come out, Nick, it's me—

His apartment looks like shit.  He knows that already, from the look the pizza guy's been giving him this past week, every time he opens the door.  He doesn't need to see that look on Maya's face, too.

“Do you mind,” he says, blocking the entryway with his shoulders.  He says some other things, probably.  He already had a good buzz going before she got here.

She squares her shoulders and shoves past him.  Then she barges into the nearest closet, roots around until she finds the swiffer and some wet wipes, and starts going at his place with the same vigor he used to have when he was cleaning up the office.

So it takes some doing, getting her to leave.  He stands in a corner and says nothing while she's sweeping and scouring and chattering.  I had to find out in the paper.  The paper!  You KNOW how slow news is to get to Kurain, Nick, you could've called—

You weren't here, he snaps.  He says it like an accusation, as flinty and sharp-edged as any he's ever flung in a courtroom, stares her down—and she's not a hardened criminal, she's barely an adult, she isn't steeled against this sort of thing.  She just blinks and stares back at him like a kicked dog.

It's a low blow and he knows it.  She's got a life in Kurain, she's got Pearl to take care of, and everything that went down with Godot was just two months ago, and he kept saying he'd go visit her in Kurain but he hadn't done that so who wasn't there for who, really—

But it does get her to leave.  Which is what he wanted, after all.

The next morning, he pulls up the call history on his phone, for the first time in days.  It’s a wall of missed calls from the very same number, that familiar area code.  He flips over to the voicemails, and ventures a click on one of them at random—Nick, I’m on the train down, I don’t know why you’re not answering your phone or why you didn’t just tell me what happened but I'll be there soon—

And he almost takes it back.  Almost calls her back, I messed up, Maya, I'm sorry, I'm messed up—

Except then, that night he’s at the Borscht, he's sitting across from Kristoph, right.  Kristoph, the only guy who's seemed normal about all this, whose sympathies are tinged with the comfortable chilliness of professional courtesy, who's been kind-but-not-too-kind.  Halfway through the first course, Kristoph mentions seeing a young lady at the train station this afternoon, he just happened to be passing by—and she looked just like that assistant of yours, Phoenix, wearing that most unusual garb—is it a spirit-channeler custom, or just a current fashion, do you know—?

All the hairs prickle on the back of Phoenix's neck.  Kristoph smiles like he’s describing nothing more consequential than a strange, alluring bird at his backyard feeder.

And that's when it clicks, when Phoenix realizes the thing he can't prove yet, the thing that'd make him sound crazy if he tried—that he's being watched, that he's been set up, that this Kristoph is a wolf waiting by his door.

Phoenix forces his best shit-eating grin.  How about another glass of that wine, Kristoph.  How about this dessert menu, Kristoph.  Like those birds that draw other, bigger birds away from their nest by flashing their wings just so.  Better that Kristoph have Phoenix in his sights than anyone else.  Better that he does this alone.

[rocketbirdie]

.