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ganondoodle · 1 month ago

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botw2 (totk rewritten) ganondorf design post 2.0

(the better, less rambly one, bc i shouldnt be allowed to write when its past midnight- not deleting the other one bc i am a little whimp and am getting so bad decision paralysis over it its made me cry, this one is more heavy on design and the basic plot of the game)

Basic plot summary (shorter version- longer version at the end):

sheikah in service of the ancient queen discover remnants of the past while excavating for luminous stones, these remnants were being defended/kept safe by the sonau (engl. zonai) little shy cave dwellers who have kept these last ruins save but secret bc they thought it could lead to disaster seemingly aware of the ever repeating cycle and believing it to be not divine but a self perpetuated one built on the one sided history of the past, which is a threat to hyrule and its golden legacy; these ruins speak of a world threatening evil being born as the king of the gerudo, the ancient queen thus plans to lure him into a trap to seal him away before he can realize his destiny, he learns of it however and is forced to confront the queen through breaking into the castle, she sees that as a confirmation of her fears and it escalates into a battle between them that kills everyone that was in the throne room except the young princess- the queen sealing ganondorf as the room and parts of the castle is destroyed and buried beneath the ground. (the game largely revolves around finding clues about it, especially in sealed off caves of the now long extinct sonau)

except for the scene in the throne room nothing is clearly shown of the past, but it is the background behind everything

(zeldas main struggle in this game will be having to come to terms with her families legacy, what she thought and was taught not being true, the dark secrets buried everywhere, and perhaps trying to be better, now that all of hyrules been destroyed and the lands and people yet survived)

Mummy version:

what you discover beneath hyrule castle after going to investigate the failing of shiekah tech all around, it is a clearly shiekah made system all around, though the chamber you find him in was built around him after the sealing, it being implied they used his spiritual power as the main energy source for all future tech, once disturbed the seal breaks and fuses to zelda (similar to the og trailer with link) he wakes up, the shock of suddendly being back in this broken body leading him to rather viciously attack them, the mastersword breaks and link loses his arm, the cave crumbles and zelda flees as she drags link behind her- the cataclysm happens and links gets his shiekah tech arm.

(in the little sketch there is a very roughly approximation to where ganondorf is located at the start and mid game fight, the arena you fought calamity ganon in is in reality a sphere with the lower half being an energy reserve for the royal family and further down the mechanism for the rising pillars from botw, its located between the castle and ganondorfs chamber, to quickly react when the malice build up has reached a critical point to detect immediately and start the defense programm- its all broken but still explorable after the mid point)

ganondorfs body is very damanged, the hole in his chest from the seal leads into an empty cavity, the ribs broken and bent in a swirling pattern like a gravitational pull, his right arm was desolved over time as he defensively grabbed the queens arm in his last moments; the face is more bone and there are no eyes, he does not move his jaw to speak, his hair is more like smoke after a certain amount of progression in the game the castle that fell into the underground (current hyrule castle) bc of the cataclysm is made accessible, as you venture in link is grabbed and pulled further in, seperated from zelda, she later rejoins you in the dungeon, acting all normal unless you are observant and see her using her left arm only and walking past things she normally wouldnt- at a certain point once the camera is not watching her, she suddendly starts to attack you viciously, as it was ganondorf in disguise- after the second half the real zelda breaks into the room with your friends in tow (yunobo, teba+tulin, riju, sidon) and he drops the disguise, the rest of the fight is against his mummy form, at the end of which is the cutscene of the confrontation with the queen, it is the only time you are given a direct window into the past. (plus its shown in that cutscene he has the ability to disguise himself as others, but only AFTER you have encountered it as to not ruin that moment..)

post revival/restored: this is how he appears at the end of the game, the last dungeon is within the forgotten plateau, there is a longer cutscene of zelda and him talking while tension builds until the fight begins once your friends arrive (sidenote, this is also only unlocked with more progression, including the koga and deku dungeon and the master sword restoration quest)

this design isnt fully how he was in the past but fit to the circumstances now, but restored to the best of his abilities; he is older (50+) with greying hair; i wanted to make him look both strong and a little worn out, but with a vibe of incredible power he is well aware of as well as warmth the outfit is elaborate but mostly aimed to be practical, its easy to see he used to be a proud king, and still is, even if no one remembers him anymore; he wears a little armguard on the left to for deflecting purposes, his belt is also switched around to how it was originally to make drawing his sword easier with the left arm; a little wooden boar figurine carved from the wood of long extinct trees hangs on his belt, a gift from one of his daughters perhaps he wields magic with ease and his moveset makes it clear just how good of a fighter he is, even after thousands and thousands of years without motion, his moves are controlled and practiced- the magic is also NOT just based on malice, malice might be what keeps him alive now but its not all he is, he wields lightning and simpler moves with other elements, perhaps implying that magic was more widely spread back in his day .. or he has learned to wield it in part to the repeated interactions with the other races (both in the past, and as calamity ganon- it is made clear that whatever the malice eyes saw he saw as well, (also explaining how he can speak their languages) though it is also implied that the calamity as such is not fully his own making, but something familiar reaching out to try and help him break free -NOT anythign demise related, leave the guy alone- but going with the idea of the calamity having been what remained of oot ganondorf after degrading over all this time- a kindred spirit reaching out to take revenge together in a way

Beast Ganon(dorf), normal

Beast Ganon(dorf), charging magic

phase 3 of the end fight, after phase two he takes out all your friends and tranforms, chasing you (link and zelda) through the ground until breaking through to the surface of the plateau where this battle takes place.

his design is loosely inspired by the smoke version of calamity ganon and twilight princess beast ganon, his face and teeth mostly from the calamity- his back is split open with a shiekah tech spine, given his connection to it via being its power source as well as overtaking it in botw, reddish smoke eminating from it, hes has 5 limbs as he is still missing his right arm, the big dark arms are made of malice and in phase 2 he takes one of those big arms to 'rebuild' his missing one, though it is not as well usable like a real one, his braids carry over thoguh now dark black, when charging magic it lights up in waves; the tail is flat and he moves not all that beast like, more draconic really, able to float for short periods of time and 'swim' through the ground reminiscent of moldoras his attack pattern is changed to fit this appearance, but he still uses magic in varying ways, thouhg swiping and biting after you as well, he will sometimes go for zelda directly but she will usually protect herself in a bubble of light- typical weak point is within the mouth though he makes sure to not give you alot of opportunities, typical staggers migth include destroying a front leg (since those are all made of goo)

my aim with this was to create a beast version both familiar and very different, with the vibe of, this is still him, just another appearance, though angered and more agressive he has not lost himself, perhaps even enjoying it a little, feeling a little more alive again, though he does not care for this world, he is a stranger here, this isnt his time and all that ever mattered to him is long gone, destroyed or forgotten, now all that matters to him is to end zeldas rotten family

Phase 2 and Phase 4 (out of order bc big boar lad wouldnt fit on here)

in phase 2 he 'rebuilds' his missing arm with one taken from the boar form, as it appears afterwards, he changes his sword into a larger one during the second half and can change its hilt length on the fly, making it both a big sword and a spear- the malice arm will be used to mimic some of links abilities, like the hookshot, grabbing onto you from afar, pulling you closer or flinging you around, while still being largely a swordfight with magic- he can aim lightning directly at you just as you can via the shiekah arm and rijus ability, if you are quick enough you can activate it at the same time as he does and catch the charge instead, either refilling your magic meter or deflecting it back at him (like the god ol back and forth)

phase 4 is the final phase after beast (phase 3) his design is a mix of all forms, he is larger than in 1 and 2, furry all over and although much more human again his hair is all smoke like, the armguard fused to his arm like golden scales and the wound in the chest now broken open again with malice eyes staring from within

after phase 3 it seems like the battle is over and zelda steps up to do just as she did at botw end, but before she can finish it a swordslash cuts off half her right hand, as ganondorf isnt done yet and changed from phase 3 to 4; zelda is then disabled for this last fight (no fighting support and repairing weapons), shes been taken to safety by your friends, who finally managed to follow you up here, and you, link, are now the last one standing- his moveset is a mix of it all, quickly changing between swordplay and swipes, magical abilities and grab attacks, it is faster than the previous ones and he dodges much more as well, its meant to really be a challenge

(also heres a sketch of his swords?)

Long plot summary: the shiekah in the service of the ancient queen of hyrule discovered ancient remnants of times long past (aka the old titles, long forgotten) while excavating for luminous stones (as they were developing their tech and needed something to fuel it) that speak of a world threatening evil born as the king of the gerudo, which the queen takes as a warning of the past, and as there currently is a ganondorf as the gerudos king who refuse to unite under her banner but are otherwise on neutral terms she plans to imprison him in a stasis between life and death before he can become that world threatening evil she now believes he is destined to be in order to save everyone and delay it from returning as long as possible (assuming there will be no other male gerudo born while the current one is technically still alive)

(the discovery of said remnants of the past also involves the shiekah persecuting the sonau (zonai), little shy cave dwellers who keep their distance from everyone and have kept these last ruins save but secret bc they thought it could lead to disaster seemingly aware of the ever repeating cycle and believing it to be not divine but a self perpetuated one built on the one sided history of the past, self fullfilling prophecies, which is a threat to hyrule and its golden legacy)

its a plan enacted over years, including secretly manipulating things to make the gerudo farmlands wield bad harvests (NOT in a 'desert was green and lush uwu' way, but they have had their techniques to thrive), forcing them to trade with hyrule and starting to depend on it- the goal being to put ganondorf under so much pressure until he is willing to let go of their sovereignity for the sake of his people or otherwise willing to talk, the meeting with the queen however would be to lure him into a trap and enact the seal

ganondorf here is a new one, he is named so in honor of old myths and legends, he is older (50+) and has two daughters, a proud king and firm in his stance to not bow to anyone yet wanting to avoid conflict for the sake of his people and family; he learns of the scheme before its fully realized, including that the many years of failing crops and dying animals might not be a play of nature after all (through hyrule soldiers talking too much after a having a few too many drinks? something something about their view of the gerudo, since thats always in the games, lets make use of it no?) he sends messengers and messages to the queen, requesting an audience, but she rejects all of it and refuses to talk with him, as the plan isnt fully prepared yet and she has become fearful of him over the years of obsessing over the warnings of the past and the worlds fate, as she sees it, depending on her and the success of it

at some point he has had enough of it and disguises himself and his two most trusted advisors/warriors (potentially his mothers?) as the shiekahs leader and two underlings to finally get to the queen, aiming to confront her about everything- it works and they are let into the castle, overwhelm the guards locking the doors so its only him, his advisors and the royal family with a few taken out guards etc. the queen sees this as a confirmation of his true nature coming through though- he can see there is nothing he could do to convince her he is not what she thinks he is, he attempts to be diplomatic but she is unwavering in her faith

she gives him a choice, to be sealed willingly so he can be remembered as a noble king who gave his life for the world before he became the beast that would threaten to destroy it all, or refuse and risk war and defamation. he refuses of course and a fight ensues, escalating to the point of the throne room itself being send below the earth and the death of everyone within it, with the exception of the young princess of hyrule (who will go on to keep this secret safe and spin the story her way)

it is implied that ganondorf had not told alot of people about hyrules schemes, wanting to deescalate the situation and it ending in a way no one anticipated, but theres remnants of old gerudo villages hidden away as some stayed loyal to him, likely of one of his daughters, as the world turned his legacy into a frightful tale and the gerudo falling under hyrules rule, one chose to resist as the other chose to bow

( .. i hoped to strike a balance between what i like and what zelda stories usually amount to while leaning much more clearly into a hyrule critical lense .. without, hopefully, being too overtly so)

(i thought about making the mid game cutscene into a rough comic or storyboard but im honestly very unsure about it all again q-q)

(i hope this version is better, i will never post these drawing again i swear im done with this part ..)

#ganondoodles #zelda #art #tloz #ganondoodles rewrites totk #botw2 #ganondorf #i feel so dumb about it all #writing really isnt my strength is it #either way i should have at least given a little plot summary on the other post #i cant really talk about his design without going in the whys and hows of it #so uhm ... sorry for posting another one #im leaving my decision paralysis at the door by writing a new post but keeping the old one #idk why but this makes me so nervous #i feel like im taking a test in school that will determine if im allowed in or not aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah #the designs are starting to grow old as well even ...........#i almost want to redo it all #but i also feel so tired of it #next thing i will post is gonna be soemthing different i promise

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hocktuah · 3 months ago

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ｃａｓｕａｌｔｉｅｓ

☆ ｎ. ｈｉｓｃｈｉｅｒ ☆

summary: you & nico agreed to keep things casual, but ten seconds into the third period of tonight’s home game & a costly injury changes the fate of your affair indefinitely. (warning: mentions of bodily injury, allusions to smut, and a reference to my blurb, ‘learning the game’ — read at your own discretion!)

genre: angst + happy ending

word count: 3.9k

You swear the last eight seconds were a nightmare Nico would wake you up from with his husky voice and dewy lips against clammy skin. As the gaps between his eyelids remain dazed, and the grimace on his face persists, though, you find yourself pinching the skin on your forearm for confirmation. What you just witnessed on his flat screen wasn’t a figmentation—the team captain you love was undoubtedly harmed on the ice. It is a vast juxtaposition to the end of the second period, where he’d scored his second natural hat trick of his career and beamed under the rain of toques, baseball caps, and what looked to be a fairly immodest brassiere. You take no acknowledgment of the last-mentioned and instead celebrate with him as though you are in the rink with the rest of the chanting crowd. At one point, you whipped out your cell phone and texted him: So proud of you, call me when you can! <3 In the quiet apartment located on the outskirts of New Jersey, you cheered boastfully during the swap of the goalie nets, and squealed to nobody in particular, “That’s my boyfriend!”

There was nobody you could announce it to. As far as your friends and family know, your relationship with Nico hasn’t passed into the territory of exclusive, which was true at the start. A few coffee dates here, and a Sunday hike there are all that you’ve indulged their prying ears in for the last year. The late-night phone calls, extra team hoodie with his last name and number emblazoned on the back, and key to his home you now shared stayed confidential. Even Nico’s teammates–the ones he would go as far as to call “brothers”--probably knew less than your mother did.

The idea of keeping your relationship private never bothered you much, though. You’d never been the type to kiss and tell. (A hottie lamottie ice hockey captain is no exception.) Plus, Nico’s inclination to protect you from both the limelight and vulturous media teams made the option to object when he insisted it would be best for the two of you a moot point. Were you exhilarated by the late-night rendezvous spent in some hole-in-the-wall dive bar, or the thrilling mission to keep what you two had like a dirty little secret? Not necessarily. But you trust him with your whole heart, and that is reason enough for you.

★☆★☆★ ★☆★☆★

“Any reason for the undercover gear?” Nico’s eyes did all the gesturing for him as he viewed your ensemble. He vowed to be the only person present at The Prudential Center (or “The Rock” as he refers to it) for your private tour of his workplace. True to his word, the arena is soaked in an eerie silence with only two bodies occupying it. Minus the rooting fans, referees and red uniforms, it could pass for a game night. He refused to spill how he managed to have this okayed by the building owners, management, etc. You remembered him shrugging at your gawk when he first proposed it, flashing his teeth as he answered, “Perks of being captain.”

This time, it was you who played innocent. As you stared up into his curious eyes, you hoped he wouldn't read your lustful intentions easily. “Just wanted to try something new.” The khaki dress mimicking a trench coat skirted your calves as he guided you past the bleachers, penalty boxes and player seating. When you adjourned to the locker rooms, an unmistakable flare of sweat and metal singed your nostrils but Nico paid no mind to it. As long as he’d been working here, he’d probably ask what smell you’re referring to if you commented on it.

“Alright, Schatz, let’s put some gear on you and I think you’ll be ready to skate.” Nico unlatched the hinge to a spare locker, where spare padding was stowed away from prying eyes. While his back was toward you, a tentative hand began toying with the bound knot at the front of the gown. “I hope you don’t run cold, I forgot to sneak an extra pair of gloves in here since the last game. What are you wearing under there anyway?” He turned back to face you and stiffened at the sight of your naked figure, and the aforementioned dress forgotten in a pile beside you.

“Oh…” He didn’t hesitate to approach you with a slow-building smirk. Mirth lingered in his eyes as his fingers took purchase of your hips and drew your body closer to his. A chill trickled down your spine from the icy fingerprints that left indents on your skin, and you could feel your nipples begin to harden with the lack of cloth. Scratchy chuckles echoed throughout the room, as desire rolled off of you in waves. The mutual yearning was palpable in his voice.“Guess that answers my question.”

“What can I say? We wagered. And I’m a woman of my word.” A delighted hum escaped him, as he started rubbing teasing circles in the spaces of your lower ribs.

“That you are.”

The wager in question was a spur-of-the-moment stake you offered last night prior to the game. You were wishing him luck from the other side of the phone after flipping to the channel the game would be broadcasted from, and his confidence was deflating by the second as he rambled on about how the last few practice days were going awry, and the games before those were an even bigger shit show. He needed motivation, and you were elated to offer it.

“Why don’t we make things interesting?”

“What do you mean?”

Biting your lip, you asked him “Is anyone around?”

“Just me. Why?”

“Every goal you score, I’ll reward you.”

“Reward me, huh?” His voice morphed into a more uppity tone. “How so?”

“Use your imagination. And tell me what you come up with…good luck, baby.”

“Wait, Y/N-” You hung up the phone before he could ask if you were insinuating what he thought you were. No more than an hour later, he’d be scoring the first natural hat trick and beaming for two different reasons.

“I’ve thought of a few different ways you could reward me…” his hot breath and coarse mustache tickled the shell of your ear as he pressed a kiss below it. “You ready?”

“I’m all yours, cap.” Minutes later, the placid locker room was overflowing with moans and pants and other debauchery.

★☆★☆★ ★☆★☆★

“I’ll tell you now folks, this is the nastiest hit we’ve seen one of the Devils take in a while. Let’s see that again.” Per the commentator’s cue, the television and all its high-definition project the casualty from a new (and arguably better) angle. The rubber puck glides in the air of the rink after being whomped by the stick of an opposing team member. Against the wall of the rink, Nico never takes his eyes from the disc until the last moment, when a burly player sporting a jersey of differing colors checks him harshly against the bordering plexiglass, and the wobbling saucer collides into the shield protruding from his helmet.

You couldn’t hold back your wince at the gruesome replay, much like analysts who are now rattling off about a possible power play for the home team. You wish to see how bad the extent of his injuries truly are instead of what caused them with a small clue that “Hischier will be taking a visit to the sports med in the dressing room for that one.” The camera cuts back to his red jersey retreating past the stands as he clutches his side and limps away with assistance from one of the refs. When the cameraman pans over to the sanitization team scraping crimson droplets from the ice, you are already exiting the door with Nico’s car keys clutched in a fist.

Amidst your night drive to Prudential Stadium, you listen hopelessly to the radio static while flipping from station to station. The dimly lit street lamps and traffic only build your anxiety to new heights, as you cruise through any side roads at her disposal. “Come on, come on…” you murmur, unsure if the plea is for the next station to be discussing tonight’s game or hoping the wind will catch your begs and carry them to Nico’s ear. The unharmonious crackling and overplayed pop hits persist, before being broken up by two familiar voices.

“...been a monumental night for the New Jersey Devils as they’re close to celebrating the fifth win of their season.”

“Yes.” You hiss victoriously.

“And it looks like we’re still waiting on an update from the medical team on the captain, Nico Hischier, who took a pretty hard hit earlier tonight.” A knot slowly tightens in your stomach as you press your foot to the gas pedal and barrel through a yellow light. “It didn’t look pretty when he was being escorted off the ice, and I know some fans watching the game tonight are pretty devastated. The rest of the team is staying determined though, as the opposing player at fault only got put in a two-minute penalty during the powerplay at the beginning of this quarter.” Your grip around the steering wheel tightens.

“Bastard shouldn’t be allowed back on the ice at all.” You spit.

As you navigate through the congested arena’s parking lot for a free space, you feel foolish. What would he think to see you in person at one of his games? Drawing unwanted attention and interrogative questions about the relationship that neither of you had discussed proper answers to is all the reason for keeping this affair hush-hush. Would he pretend like you’re just another fan in the crowd supporting her home team? Would he drop his eyelid in a wink and skate off with a smug smirk? More importantly, what would you do in that position? How would you even get inside without a pass—

How are you expected to be let inside at all?

Before you can fall victim to a deeper thought spiral, the sound of your boyfriend’s name brings your attention back to the radio.

“And it looks like the medical team is coming to us with an update on Hischier. We’ll be back with that after these messages from our sponsors.”

“Unbelievable.” You scowl and lean back against the rough polyester car seat. The silence and not knowing are becoming torturous for you minute by minute. Sparing a glance in the rearview mirror, red watery eyes woefully greet you. “Please be okay, baby, please…” You cry out, yearning for his warm embrace or his fuzzy voice to sing you a lullaby or scruffy beard to tickle your skin in between relieved kisses. “Please be okay.” Your voice comes out raspy as you turn your gaze to the glove box. Feeling sticky and snotty from the tears, you unlatch the compartment’s handle and relish in the sight of his secret stash of drive-thru napkins. Your clammy, trembling hands grab a few for good measure but halt at the sight of a red, velvet cube peeking out of the rest of the impromptu tissues.

You peer from car window to car window, observing the empty parking lot and settling your gaze back on the box. Wasting no more time, your napkin-free hand rushes to grab it and flick on the interior light in the process. You fling the lid open and almost begin crying again. The gemstone encrusted in diamonds glints beneath the yellowed wash, and it takes little time to deduce that the ring wasn’t a simple splurge, but one of the first steps to forever with Nico.

As the commercials over the radio conclude, your phone begins buzzing in sync with it. Jumping in fright, you delicately close the box to tuck it away in your hoodie pocket. The phone illuminates the inside of the car even more with a photo of Nico taken just a month ago.

★☆★☆★ ★☆★☆★

His eyes peeled open at the sound of a camera shutter, and your whispered swears. The cool bed sheets splayed over your bodies coaxed him awake, as he exhaled sharply through his nose, and while you fiddled distractedly with the volume of your phone, Nico took the chance to tighten his hold on your hips and position himself above you. You squeaked between devious giggles, hand still clutching your phone with a small smile. He drew his face closer to yours and relished in the sweet aroma of your conditioner. In a few instances, his hair reeked of the same sugary fragrance and you had to bite back a smile at his usual excuse: “s’not my fault yours smells better.”

“Whatcha doin’?” He asked innocently.

“Nothing.” Your response was just as harmless, but his eyes flickered down to the phone being pressed further against your chest, and he quickly became skeptical. He emitted a low hum, and you bit your lip to shield a grin.

“That so?” He tried again.

“Yup.” The answer is curt and accumulated more suspicion when complemented by reddened cheeks. Another low hum escaped him as he nuzzled his bearded face into the crevice of your neck and shoulder. After he pressed a chaste kiss to your skin, he rambled something in German, far beyond your comprehension.

“Du hast glück, dass ich dich liebe, Schnügel.”

“You love me and want to…snuggle?” You tried translating anyway and earned a few quiet laughs in response. The vibration of his laughs against your body kindled a homely warmth in the depths of your stomach. You never dealt with the fabled butterflies when it came to Nico, only a burning comfort that never seemed to be extinguished.

“I want you to show me what you’re hiding.” He once again attempted to reach for your phone, which you slid beneath the pillow, barely out of his grasp.

“Uh-uh, don’t think so.”

“Is it a sequel to Hockey for Dummies?” He guessed. You scoffed and shook your head.

“Nope.”

He gasped and raised his eyebrows. Something tantalizing swirled in his eyes as he continued to prod, “Is it…a naughty picture of you?” His voice lowered to a whisper.

“No.” You whispered back and giggled, squirming embarrassed beneath him. “You got to see all of me last night, anyway, perv.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He shrugged. “So what is it then? Do you have a secret shrine dedicated to me that you’re adding to, or something?” You snorted and rolled your eyes.

“If a couple of old t-shirts and a bottle of your shampoo count as a shrine, then yes. That’s precisely it.” He gasped.

“That’s all?” Feigning agony, he flopped down to his original spot on the mattress. Like a soldier wounded on the battlefield, his hand that was once teasing the skin around your hip reached up to clutch his heart. “Here I was, thinking you truly loved me. I have books you’ve read, a blanket you’ve knitted, even the perfume you wore to dinner last night.”

“Maybe because I brought that bottle of perfume over last night, you goof.” The knitted blanket was gifted to him last winter by her, too. You’d be more offended had he not mentioned it. Playfully, you poked him. “Anyway, I’d probably have more of your stuff to show off if you…” Your voice trailed off, as did her gaze on the comforter still haphazardly covering them. Nico knew where you were going with the sentence, though. He admitted to you and himself on several occasions you weren't deserving of the commute to his home, nor the excuses of work always getting in the way of nights they could be spending together at your humble abode. And humble, it was. The first night he stayed over at your studio apartment he felt like he’d been crammed into a pintrest-ified dollhouse. You argue that the limited space makes it more “cozy” .

“I know, meine liebe, I know." His hand rose to entangle in her locks, and the feeling of his digits as they ran through her messy tendrils was near orgasmic. You reached to reclaim her phone beneath the pillowcase and frowned at the screen which still displayed a photo of him as he blissfully snoozed.

“Sometimes it gets hard, not waking up next to you.” The realization dawned on Nico, then. This was not about having two separate places to talk, eat, and sleep together whenever they preferred. It’s about the fact that they have not discussed narrowing it down to one. He shifts his gaze to the nightstand, where your retainer case stayed. Then they flickered to the top drawer of his chest, where a piece of your cheeky briefs dangled precariously on the corner. Your body wash settled in the corner of his bathtub rail. You, a mesmerizing sight to behold as you laid lackadaisical in his shirt and under his sheets. Nico concluded he didn’t want bits and pieces anymore. He wanted the whole damn package. He wants all of you.

“Come on, up.” He insisted as he jostled her arm.

“Huh?” Confused, you followed his lead and crawled out of bed anyway to join him at the foot of it. “Where are we going?” He couldn’t hide his grin. There had been no him or her since their first month together. It was always both of them.

“To make a copy of my house key for you.” Your eyes widened, and now he’d felt unsure for jumping at the opportunity. “Unless you plan to pick the lock every time I’m not here–”

Your body collided with his in an instant, aglow with radiance and devotion for the man that stood in front of you. “Yes, please.” You answered as though it were a proposal, rather than a gentle command on his part.

Proposal. He pondered the word to himself on the drive to the nearest handy store, sparing glances at you every few moments that you weren’t looking back. Is that what’s next for the two of you?

“Did you want to stop for coffee on the way? You never got to make your morning cup.” You gently reminded, before adding with a sly smirk, “Plus, we did keep each other up pretty late last night.”

But Nico didn’t need to keep second-guessing with you.

All the answers were simple because all of them were yes.

★☆★☆★ ★☆★☆★

Through her discovery and onslaught of tears, you muster a fond smile and answer the call.

“N-neeks?” You get out through stuttering breaths.

“Love, are you crying? What happened?” You wanted to hug him and slap him across the face at the same time for the idiotic question.

“What do you mean ‘what happened?’ Twenty minutes ago you got slammed to the floor and a hockey puck to the face, that’s what happened!” You catch a quiet wince on the other end of the line and are now wanting to slap yourself. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…I’m fine.”

“Nico…”

“I swear I’m okay. Just had a bruised rib and a couple of cuts on my cheek. The sports doctor just left and cleared me for our game two weeks from now.”

“No broken bones?”

“Nope.”

“Heart’s still beating?”

“It better be, or my girlfriend’s gonna kill me.” He coughs out a few laughs, but you can feel the hurt behind them.

“Um…I was so freaked out when I saw them lead you to the dressing room that I drove here.” You sniffle, looking up at the car’s roof.

“Wait you–you’re at the stadium right now?”

“Yeah, pretty stupid of me considering I can’t go inside.” Nico wants to ask what’s stopping you before it dawns on him; you have no ticket, no pass to the locker rooms, not even acknowledged to be related to any member of the team like the other WAGS (“As in Wives and Girlfriends” he remembers you telling him).

“Meine Liebe, where are you parked?” Amidst all of the turmoil tonight’s put the two of you through, you manage a dry laugh.

“Nico, you can’t sneak out in the middle of your own game.” Part of you hopes his injury warrants omitting the post-game interviews, photo ops, and everything else in between, so you won’t be wasting much more time in the humming car.

“What? No, of course not.” He insists, “I’m sneaking you in.” Your laughter turns to a choke.

“Excuse me? That’s a ridiculous idea!” You want to add the fact that nobody would recognize you, let alone be as amicable as they are to Nico. As pure as your intentions are, you’re still a stranger. A foreign body. (And to some very appreciative fans, a threat.)

He exhales something between a breath of relief and a humored laugh. You hear it bounce off of the locker room walls. “Petal, I don’t know if I can hide you any longer. I-I don’t want to. Do you?” He volleys you the question, and the weight of the velvet box nestled in your pocket increases ten-fold.

“No. I don’t think I’ve wanted us to be a secret for a while…” You admit through a wobbling lip.

“Where are you parked?” He asks once again. The buzzer sounds through his end of the phone, and this time you aren’t reluctant to answer.

His appearance was like a car wreck you couldn’t look away from. The disheveled hair (once slicked and combed) and patchwork of bandages and bruises on ivory skin was gut-churning to view up close, but before you could properly scold him, his swollen lips were greeting yours in a sentimental reunion. Bodies we’re filing into the corridor as you did so. A chattering stream of staff, coaches, players, and WAGS come at you head on like a wave.

“Woah, Hischier! We leave you alone for half a period and you manage to find a girlfriend?” A deep, accented voice slices through the invisible line your mouths convene at, and you turn your attention to the source. A brawny figure topped with blonde hair marches up to you in a striking red jersey matching Nico’s. You glance at the number 63 on his sleeve, and it only confirms your assumptions. Jesper Bratt was exactly as Nico described him to be, chaff jokes and all.

Another body donned in red pushes past Jesper’s to stand before you. He leans down, and says with a monkeying smile and voice just loud enough for those around to hear, “Ma’am, if you’re in any danger, blink twice.” You glance down at his sleeve, too. 86. Luke Hughes, you think, or is it Jack?

“Oh, fuck off!” Nico’s arm stretches out to shove him away, before situating the limb around your waist. When his hand bumps into a firm object poking out the side of your pocket. He stiffens beside you immediately, and you gulp as if you’d done something worthy of punishment. Of course, you were going to bring it up one way or another to him later in the night after all the post-game chaos had ticked by, but you suppose him finding out this way works just as well. The players forming a crowd around the two of you only grows, and they’re too caught up in laughing at their antics to notice their captain’s ungiving posture.

“Well, you gonna introduce us, or what?” Luke, (definitely Luke) queries. In the center of eyes and lingering questions, Nico’s whiskey ones connect with yours for a silent proposal. Without wasting any more time, you nod.

“Everyone, this is Y/N, my fiancée.”

#nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl x reader #nico hischier #nico hischier fanfiction #nico hischier fluff #nico hischier imagine #nj devils #nico hischier angst #nico hischier blurb #hocktuah writings

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rel124c41 · 7 months ago

Text

THE LOST ART OF KEEPING A SECRET. jade leech & floyd leech

The aquarium receives new additions perhaps once every two weeks; usually they are cute little things with rainbow fins and gem eyes. These two are not cute little things; they're huge and they have human faces. "Well I've got a secret, I cannot say" - Queens of the Stone Age, Track 2 on Rated R. a gift for @hallowed-father; based on their beautiful fanart 💕

tags: aquariums, late night conversations, captivity, situational humiliation, dehumanization, mutual pining, dubious ethics, kidnapping, vivisection, nursery rhyme references, eventual happy ending

word count: 12,668

The first two times you try seeing them, all you see is your reflection.

It makes sense unfortunately. With the lack of any light, you are going to have a hard time seeing them. Cloudy black settles over the skeleton and hair shaped vegetation. You can turn your head on a swivel (which you do on the second try) but there is no way to discern what swims through darkness. Instead, all you see in the aquarium tank’s water is your face.

Each uniquely human feature of yours squints in the nebulous, oscillating dark. To an observer, it would seem that you think if you flatten your eyes into pressed almonds something will reveal itself to you. Nose scrunching, you squint in a grandmother who lost her glasses way that is simply laughable.

There must be something inside the exhibit.

Nothing. Nothing but your desolate reflection.

On a small plaque, the words no use of flash photography wags a censure finger at you. Besides the cerulean halo on the corners where the wall meets ceiling, the room must remain dark at all times. Even during operating hours – or so you have heard from Deuce – they refuse to allow any other light in the secluded room.

Besides the ultramarine ouroboros, the oval-shaped room is dark beyond dark. An extreme that is on another level than what you are familiar with. As a nightguard, you are familiar with the dark. Quite familiar.

For example, there is one aquatic animal that you managed to see that other people cannot find nine times out of ten. In the shadows, spider crabs hide. They call their environment interestingly enough: the twilight zone, a part of the seafloor that gets little light and is very cold. With only three crabs in a sizable aquarium, it is understandably hard for others to find them. While the guests that linger after hours or closing staff puzzle over their location, you find them with ease. Behind the ship, by those bones, in the left corner no no higher in the left corner; your eyes have long since adjusted to the nocturnal proclivity of your job.

(One of the closing staff employees joked you were like a cute, little opossum. You think he meant it as a flirt; you found it insulting. Pressing your shades higher up on the bridge of your nose, you clocked in with your head down, vexed.)

However, in the tenebrous depths before you, you are like a disgruntled archaeologist standing in a desert of Swiss-cheese holes. Unable to locate anything. Tilting your head in a slightly different direction, your eyes squeeze into petite slices, searching.

The flashlight in your hand is a heavy temptation. If you just raise it, the absence of light will readily receive it. Melted pinks and greens of vegetation will pop, brown and amber of decorative rocks will shine, and whatever colors lie on these new fishes will certainly look like a gorgeous splendor under visible light. It would take the smallest wrist motion. Your reflection held in black water stares back at you, glaring daggers. ‘C’mon, do it,’ your reflection urges.

Light slugs over your sneakers, contemplative. ‘Perhaps not,’ you think with regards to the penlight. You know that you loathe having any type of light in your face; do unto others as you would have done onto you. The button of your tool clicks off. By now, you should already be down by the stingrays.

‘Third time might just have to be the charm,’ you think with a frown.

In the fishbowl glass, mummified with shadows, your reflection mimics that childhood disappointment.

‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’

Turning to leave, spine to the aquarium tank, you miss the first instance of light emerging out of dark.

It pulls upward like an ember blown skyward out of a campfire pit. The movements of it are languid. Flickers of yellow orbit in a whirlpool, lazy like they have just woken up. That clean circle becomes distorted, shrinking and growing like window-shades are being maneuvered over it. Then, a twin of yellow joins the first, a hair keener than the first. Both circles of light hang in the shadows, not brightening or shining beyond an intensity that is noticeable. Shrewd with their intentions.

When the door to the oval room clicks close, the window-shades pull down like a blink and the aquatic water changes from being speckled with playful yellow back to tenebrous black.

As it turns out, the phrase ‘third time's the charm’ holds an eternal merit. Because the next night, which is the third time you look into the aquarium tank, your wish is granted.

The unluckiest charm; the unluckiest wish.

The aquarium gets new deliveries once every two weeks. As the nightguard, you are not kept on the up-and-up unless Deuce Spade is working. And as an honor college student, Deuce is usually scheduled – during daylight hours of course – on the weekends when exam season is not keeping him occupied. So, you missed the news about this new delivery initially. All you knew about them was from the very insightful texts of Deuce Spade (two in total):

The new deliveries can’t be around light. Think it's anglerfish?

and

Apparently not anglerfish, those have to live under pressured water. Why do people act like that’s common knowledge to know??

Your available information is: they are not anglerfish. That is all.

You really are left with no hints to what hides in murk. After two weeks, no plaque detailing the species is nailed to the wall or statued on a slanted board. The room is void of identification. Perhaps that is the reason your body seems so magnetized towards deciphering this mystery. No identification by now is unusual. Plus, night shifts drag like limping feet; why not try to stall off boredom?

This time around, you power off your penlight before entering the room. Instead of letting the light stamp a circle of itself on the ground, you enter pure darkness. Blue vibrates above you. Not complete darkness, you correct, stepping on the path that limited blue illuminates.

The room and tank resemble an egg with a cut-off top. The room is oval shaped but missing a quarter of its full shape, the top half knifed off to make room for a tank full of about five hundred gallons of water. When you reach the wall, the length is forty feet, this sliced egg-top, you place determined hands in your slacks pocket.

And squint until the muscles in your eyes quiver with strain.

Penguins must be kept in cold waters. Vents are constantly blowing cold air into the exhibit to keep it under forty degrees. As your breath comes out in a puff of frosty air, you wonder deeply just what kind of species can be kept in such frigidness. Deep sea penguins? That would certainly be interesting.

Your reflection challenges you with a mimic of your squinting. Keep dreaming, it says. No matter which way you look over tenebrous shadows of vegetation and rocks, nothing is making itself clear to you. This time you risk inching closer. From this distance, you can count the vertebrae-esque leaves of a winding ludwiga. Ice seems to heartbeat off the glass, kissing your features.

What can you see?

Nothing. Nothing but your desolate reflection.

That is until a little organic lantern – small like a dragonfly– comes alive in the water. Despite your excitement, you keep yourself frozen and still. Your tiny gasp bleeds out your mouth and hits the glass gradually. The dragonfly powers on and off in two blinks. Morse code for ‘I’ but you doubt this animal knows that – you just happened to take a college elective for Morso code. You watch this single, pinprick lantern with great interest.

‘I think it really is an anglerfish. I mean, it makes complete sense. Deep sea water temperatures. The utter lack of light. Maybe, the researchers found some way to replicate the pressures, and the staff just doesn’t know yet. That would be revolutionary.’

Then, a second dragonfly joins the first. On a black-emerald and black-turquoise torrent, the ember dips down low. Glittering like a sun-rays on water, it slithers closer with curious intent. It was leagues keener than its twin, metaphorically hexagonal instead of circular. This dragonfly too powers off and on in quicker blinks. Four blinks which is ‘H’ in Morse code … useless knowledge.

Anglerfish cannot communicate. The entire ecosystem of a brain from fish to human is different, like trying to compare a tropical amazon to a winter wonderland. Just far too different to understand one another.

But, it is impressive that the aquarium was able to get such a deep sea creature to survive in a simulated habitat.

“Hi there.” You wave your fingers. Pressing yourself closer to the glass, you wait for your eyes to adjust and register the razor teeth and fat jowls of an anglerfish brown face. Cold air starts to swim under your jacket, your body’s tilt causing the material to slip. Then, you make eye contact.

Eye contact? Eye contact. Turns out those lantern-shaped dragonflies you are looking at are not the bait anglerfish have attached to their bodies. It is not a hunting evolution you openly leer at. Rather, you look them in the eye.

All the fire of your wonder extinguishes like a pinched match.

As if the vents are working overtime, a sudden chill falls over you. Goosebumps settle over your shoulders. You jump back and misty gray air (your gasping breath) explodes in front of you. It is not your desolate reflection that swims in front of you. Someone else’s face is in there.

There are creatures in there; that is undeniable. What fights to make itself conclusive in your reeling mind is the image of the creatures. Creatures – so completely alien when compared to the mixture of muscles that make up an anglerfish– with human faces. Human features. A nose. A pair of lips. A pair of squinting eyes, staring right back at you.

One of them throws their head back in laughter when you fall to your ass, reeling inward and outward. What the fuck is a human – two humans! – doing inside an aquarium tank at 2 A.M.!

You climb back up to your feet with all the grace of an injured crab. Your left arm feels longer than your right; you feel like the ground has morphed into quicksand and is suckling on your right boot; all of your world has become disoriented. In your jacket, your penlight weighs down your left side like a brick. Pulled by a mental riptide, you wrestle until you finally stand on two (trembling) legs like all bipedal humans should. Earth tilts as you watch the one who laughed move forward, blue blanketing him.

He taps the glass. Exact over the bullseye point of where you stand, reeling, in the glass from his point of view. In intelligent acknowledgment of you.

You two lock spheroid eyes, analyzing each other with hell-bent resolve. Mapping the features of each other in your brain’s fusiform face area so you can recognize each other at later times. His human features settle like all the others before him in your cerebrum. Packaged in the inferior temporal cortex, packaged in the fusiform gyrus. The human visual system that specializes in recognizing faces accepts him.

‘That is a face. I will recognize it later and recall it as one thing only: a face.’ Just like that, your brain, your fusiform gyrus mails you the annotation.

A part of you wants to cry and the other wants to puke. You do neither. You react with a different system of your body.

Muscles press your flashlight’s button on and muscles move it up quickly when the second one starts to move closer to the glass. You do it out of fear. And with strange, instant regret.

The one closest to the glass folds into himself, seething. A webbed, tooth-white-with-green-gradient hand covers his eyes in agony. His other hand slams the tank in a tight fist. It knocks the world back into orientation. You flee the scene with your flashlight swinging wildly back and forth with your sprint.

This time there is no laughter.

You rush out like they are chasing you, laughing over your shoulders. With a harsh crash to the ground, panting in disbelief, you pull trembling knees towards your stricken face. What the fuck – what the absolute fuck! A carapace cloak falls over your brain to ignore knocking thoughts and rationalization. Wordless beyond three words, they swirl in your head. What the fuck – what the fuck.

Your spine lies on another exhibit. Stingrays lie underneath the aquarium’s sand, sleeping and unaware of you. Part of you knows you will not be able to sleep in the morning.

“What the fuck.”

You unlock your phone with your face when you get home.

The lamp glows, allowing your phone to register the face identification. As quickly as the string is pulled on, it is tugged off. Dawn rests against your black-out curtains like zombies pounding on doors sheltering food. Brightness on the screen is kept down to the lowest possible setting. You type the name of where you work into your phone.

‘There has to be information on them. You can’t just have that’ – pale-green faces with matching gold eyes – ‘that living in an aquarium. And if it’s in an aquarium, shouldn't that aquarium be like inside Area 51 or the Oval Office. Anywhere but nowhere!’

You click on the website of your place of employment. The types links are highlighted in white bubbles: GET YOUR TICKETS, WAYS TO SAVE, and ANIMALS UP-CLOSE. Your finger follows the last tab and you come across a Let’s Get Started sheet, asking if you are a member and, if not, to start booking. A colorful curse parts your lips.

You return to the home page. Take in the organization again. Okay, there are some links above too: Visit, Animals & Exhibits, Learn, Research & Conversation, News & Events, Support Us, Shop.

Gravitating towards Animals & Exhibits, you watch as a list unfurls like a scroll. None of them are unusual animals. From beluga whales to steller sea lions, you are looking at a dead-end list of regular animals which you have passed multiple times on your nightguard route. Aquatic animals whose features do not turn your entire morning full of sleep into restless pacing.

This is nauseating. For piscine features to be manipulated like that. Sea creatures come in a variety of features that are unique to them; eyes that reveal the innate instinct to survive above compassion or companionship, dorsal fins that branch off their body like tiny mountains, or those puckering lips that circle to suction fish-feed from the surface of their tanks. Those features you can compartmentalize with the aquarium you work with well. They belong there with the other undersea creatures. Your heart pangs in disgust.

This is immoral. For human features to be manipulated like that. A face you might see walking out of a movie theater, hand in hand with his girlfriend. A face you could have the possibility of getting to know if you were not a college dropout; someone in your biology or english elective or calculus class that would ask for help with a certain question. Staring into that man’s left umber eye and right gold eye, you realized how all those features made him human. Your heart pangs in sympathy.

This is? You take a tranquil breath that soothes you like medicine from an inhaler, and the next thought sets your world back on the correct axis. This is out of your paygrade.

You return because, fucking, of course you do. A job is equivalent to a life. You experience less hardships when you have a good job – which you thankfully do. You have a good job that you must keep.

One: legally, graveyard shifts pay more than others in your state. Two: it was ideal for the degenerative disease you have. Three: “I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money is good. I need money. Money –'' There have certainly been better mantras sung in your car; though, this melody keeps you sane. Most importantly, it keeps your foot steady on the accelerator. So with three very good reasons – really just two overlapping ones and a single unique one – you return to work the next day like nothing is wrong.

Thus, you are going to ignore it. Thus, “I’m going to ignore it,” you tell yourself. Thus, you are going to stand in front of the oval-shaped room’s door for the larger half of thirty minutes, studying the steel. Ah, this is far from ignoring it.

It is just … absent of sentimentality, you know that they are only fish. Fish that you see on guys’ dating profiles, fish that you eat with a medley of dipping sauces, fish that shit in the very water they swim in. You are no PETA advocate that will say fish are like the monkeys of the ocean, learning to use rudimentary tools and are sophisticatedly smart because they form social groups. However, despite this, there is a tiny pebble in the river that manages to disrupt the entire flow; the pebble wants you to apologize to them.

Which is outlandish and pure insanity!!

Which is really why you should not push the door open with your hand. And, which is why you glare at your traitorous fingers and listen to the creak of an opening door, bemoaning how utterly stupid you are to be opening this Pandora box of possibilities.

You let the flashlight sway once in an overarching cut across the room. Then, you point it at the ground and squint at the aquarium again. Besides a few layering shades of ebony speckled with blue, there is really not much for you to distinguish in the stomach of shadow. Putting yourself on an even playing field, you flick off your flashlight and step forward.

Feet shuffle inch by inch. Looking straight, your acuity of vision decreases bar by bar. Gravity shifts like a restless faultline has awoken under your feet. You want to run away while you walk forward.

When you touch a hand to the frigid glass, you finally feel steady again. Once more, your exhale makes itself physical in a small cloud on the tip of your nose. The temperature is graciously grounding.

“I’m okay,” you remind yourself. You blink to stabilize your vision.

Apologize to the fish then you can finally leave. Simple enough.

Yet, as you wait and squint, no glowing eyes emerge in the dark. You hold yourself there, waiting for just a flicker of motion in what seems like everlasting comatose.

This is pointless. Why am I even here? I doubt they remember my face, much less hold a grudge over it. Fuck, why did I let myself get sentimental over some eldritch homunculus that is an affront to biological evolution! Why aren’t they at Area 51 or the Oval Office – why did faith push them here?

Inner seething concluded, you turn your flashlight on and the room brightens. For a split second, your face lies its reflection on glass with a resentful aura. You maneuver light towards the door with determination. Your body follows, making a hasty turn towards your exit. There are rounds around the aquarium to be made, iced frappuccinos in the breakroom you want to drink, and momental, life-altering plots to be ignored forever.

Until the glass behind you thuds in tension-raising noise like when a bird hits window-panes with little to no warning.

Breath caught in your throat, you whirl around to make eye contact with him. He wears such a handsome face, one that could belong to a heartthrob actor if not marred by the fins replacing his ears and the mossy green hue of his skin. His playful inquisitive eyes are entirely human in shape and structure; the black pupil and then the color ring of an iris. Too bad they too are disfigured by rare and nauseating colors, olive-umber and gold.

That right eye reminds you of lighthouses on the coast. Captains are not supposed to stir towards lighthouses; they avoid the light, even if it carries a certain warmth. Why is he looking at you so warmly?

Somehow, you just manage to catch out of the corner of your eye the motion of his hand. An acute nail points down at your beaming flashlight which imprints a halo of light on the carpet floor. Then, he raises his hand up to around his shoulder. His fingers move in the starting shape of someone about to play thumb-war before he starts to move his thumb up and down. Clicking an imaginary button, signaling for you to turn off your flashlight.

Stunned, you numbly do. Light is pulled and magnetized back into the pen’s surface, like an object beamed up into a spacecraft, at a speed unseeable to the human eye. The eye contact between you two is almost an intense lip-lock that both of you cannot part with.

This is one you shined the flashlight at. Right into those encapsulating eyes. The right one is yellow like liquid spilling out of a pineapple. Bright and playful.

“I- I uh,” you fumble with your apology. He probably won’t understand a word. You purse your lips nervously. Are there any words in the English language that can package up your sympathies from homo sapien to fish; is opening your mouth even worth it? “I wuh-wanted to –.”

Your apology withers when the eel-mer starts to tap on the glass.

Intentionally, you listen. Yet irrationally, you expect to see or hear more Morse Code. Perhaps it is his anthropoid features that misled you to the conclusion that he might know the coded language. With a needle-hook nail, he taps a rhythm.

It’s nothing though? The letters are gibberish, with even the number 5 sitting pretty between an O and a C. Of course it is not a code. Coming to your senses, you doubt he could even understand your apology if you gave it to him. There is a fine line drawn in the aquarium’s sand: fish and humans are not equal, one is more intelligent.

With some infinite patience, the fish taps the glass again. You listen and recognize it as the exact same taps and pauses from before.

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter under your breath. You hold eye contact, scrutinizing him. So used to having zero company, you surmise aloud, “I must be so sleep-deprived and loopy that I dreamed you up … A piece of undigested beef like Scrooge said.” As if to solidify his independent self and independent thinking in your solipsistic world, he taps the rhythm again.

This time – you think because of the repetition – you finally understand why he is tapping. It almost sends you flat on your ass once more.

Oh. You throw a hand up to your mouth, faintly covering up a disbelieving laugh of joint horror and amusement. Disbelief crystallizes itself in the air; a tiny cloud of your reeling mind dissolves in front of you as you drop your numb hand. “Hah.”

The fish taps a nursery rhyme. One you know from kindergarten. One you would clap the rhythm of with your hands. You remember vaguely the pattern you’d move your hands to play with another child. The vague lingering sense of being hushed and secretive while playing your little singing games, giggling in the back of the classroom, bites your goosebumped flesh.

How appropriate for a man trapped in an aquarium to know the nursery rhyme A Sailor Went to Sea. He does it again, the lyrics plucked from the cobwebs of your memory: A sailor went to sea, sea, sea; to see what she could see, see, see; but all that she could see, see, see; was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

You don’t know fully how well your sight would fare in the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea. Still, with a hesitant squirm, you approach the frigid glass. The man inside the aquarium waits this time rather than launching right back into tapping.

Raising your arm, you make certain to dig your nails into your palm. A little reality-checking pinch never hurt anyone. One of those pallid nails rises up and taps back. Feeling like you are the spinning ballerina, you listen to the melody of this Pandora box plays unchained and uncaged in the ice cold air:

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

To see what she could see, see, see

But all that she could see, see, see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea

There is no way to get around it. The third shift is lonely. Here in this aquarium? They only require one person to clean all the tanks, turn off decorative filters, and supervise aquatic life. That sole person has been you. With an iced frappuccino and penlight as your pirate’s sword and hooked hand, you have managed the task of protecting this vessel well.

Just because of your longevity of working as a third shifter, it does not make it come easy. Two tabs in your eighteen open Safari tabs are on articles about coping with night work. Coping with solitude when the entire world works in the opposite of you. One article details trying to stay on top of social interactions. All these shifting hours have been mistakenly used up. As you move through hallways like a haunting shark, you roll in your mind all the lost opportunities and all the regrets of having people in your life that you could’ve formed relationships with but never did.

Your metaphorical ailment has been sleep apnea. Eye scorned. Unable to catch your breath. You've been awake for years with no company. Along with being alone, you have been so achingly tired. Circadian rhythms in a body never change.

Your friend plays well in rhythms. The instrument of his disposition is easy to read after a month of ‘knowing’ each other. He has the attitude of a drummer.

It is hard to get yourself used to his existence at first; he remains uncaring to your fretting. Lacking melodies or harmonies, he seems like the type that would rather keep things easy and simple than embellish.

You come to visit? He wants to play. You’re too exhausted to play? He can entertain himself. What you have is very plain sailing and hardly involves any talking unless you start it. Besides, he is still just a fish and thus cannot converse with you.

He really enjoys tapping on the glass. He plays a variety of rhythms; ones you do not know then, very strangely, some that you do know. As night by night moves along in time’s steady march, you grow comfortable enough to play back. He will play a rhythm only once, you copy it back with aid from your memory. You have even started to show him music on your phone, seeing how quickly he can pick up on certain beats and mimic them for himself.

Sometimes though, all he wants to do is simply listen. Which is activity the two of you share in tonight, absent of that third member who you are sure is hiding deeper among the burrows and the oscillating, five ribbed kelp. That distant drummer in your phone floods the cold room with music.

A small booklet covers your heart as you lie wistful. The floor is rough cement. There is no better place to lounge though. Underneath your head, a furry gray seal pup you borrowed from the toy store acts as your pillow. You try to think of yourself weightless like you are in water as you remain close-eyed and contemplative.

Like a siren call, music slithers out of the bottom of your phone’s speakers. Legs crossed over one another, you briefly tap your foot along to the rhythm that you are sure your friend is enjoying. “Look for reeeflections, in yo-our face; canine devotioo-ton, time can’t erase; Out on the cor-ner or locked in your room; I never buh-lieve them and I never assume-uh!”

Speaking of your friend, you have not bothered to check on him in a while. One of your diseased eyes peels open. Face held in a wink, you estimate if your friend is close enough to the glass that you should be able to see him clearly enough despite all the darkness.

You do not expect him to be lounging right there beside you. It gives you a little shock of surprise. A moment passes by and that feeling suddenly intensifies to a shock of the heart. Not in a romantic way but in the way of a death row prisoner being electrified to death.

You bolt upright, skull and hair flying off the seal pup plushie. Prescription sunglasses tilt down from their forehead perch, landing crookedly on your nose. The creature waves a sharp set of gradient-covered claws in your face. The only reason that your electric heart runs above its normal BPM is because that glowing lighthouse-esque eye is on the left side rather than the right.

“It’s you.” The creature, who you have not been becoming friendly with for an entire month, smiles at you and your shocked voice.

Though you are certain he has been watching you – not just while you were resting your eyes on the ground for a much needed cat nap, but for the entirety of these thirty-one nights – his eyes still flutter around the space where you sit in observation. He takes in each individual item around you like trying to find certain objects in spot-the-difference puzzles. After a moment, you ask while pointing to your phone, “Do you not like the music?” His wandering eyes are magnetized to your face when you address him.

Hell, they are intense. Intenser than any eyes you have really looked in before, rivaling even the strictest teachers you had or the meanest secretaries you have known. The colors in his gold and umber iris swirl like tiny galaxies of brown dust and broken stars. Intelligent eyes like those are daunting and, thus, terrifying to level your gaze with.

Despite knowing you will not get an answer, you march on in your one-sided conversation, “I get it that music isn’t everybody’s thing. Does it disturb you?” You wait. The newcomer does not talk either. “Ah, not a fan. I get it.”

You may receive no verbal answer, however you sense he does not want to play patty-cake through a sheet of reinforced aquarium glass. “Whatever yooo-u dooo-oh, don’t tell anyone; whatever yooo-u dooo-oh, don’t tell –” The song cuts off as you press the pause button.

“I should have been more considerate,” you apologize, able to steadily carry on this solo because you have grown used to it. You do talk a lot to the other fish. Almost in the same way one can carry on an unbalanced conversation with a pet cat or dog. “You just swim over to let me know and I’ll turn it off. I would never want to disrupt anyone’s sleep.”

‘Just like I would never again want to shine a light in anyone’s eyes.’ You still regret that with each fiber of your being.

For a silent moment, you two observe each other. Though you are a hundred percent certain this is not his first time scrutinizing you. You realize his hair is a mirror-flip reflection of the other fish’s just as he raises one of his hands.

Maybe he is like the other fish. Despite not giving the impression of a drummer, he might still want to play that rudimentary game of patty cake where you two match and copy each other’s rhythm. Perhaps it is all their fish brains can comprehend. Even though his eyes might seem intelligent, he is nothing more than a piscine creature. However, that thought stalls when a single, black-dyed claw reaches up to his own throat, tapping it delicately.

“Hm?” You tilt your head curiously.

In response, he takes his index and middle finger and taps once more his own throat. Then, he takes those fingers and depresses them over the reinforced sheets of glass.

“Do you want me to,” you trail off, eyes stuttering over the items at your disposal. “I can’t sing if that’s what you’re getting at. I’m no singer.”

Eyes, one of them full of shattered stars and the other full of blown-up planets, stare on. Unchanging and showing you no inclination of what he wants you to do. The other fish will at least whine, squint, or show joy if he thinks whatever words your vocal cords stretch into will entertain him. “Though, I could,” you trail off again.

Trailing off is an awful habit of yours. You rarely can make full, complete conversation after almost half a decade of night shifts. However, those intense eyes encourage you to go on. “I could read to you?” Your fingers point towards the booklet that had fallen off your chest. “If you want?”

Once again, no answer. But, at least you are not staring alone at your desolate reflection. His figure behind the glass – the yellow eye on his left side watching each of your body’s movements – is so very real and alive. At least, you are not alone this time. Though, the company is unorthodox biologically.

“Reading … I can do that.” Only for a little while though. Eventually, your eyes will start to blur at the tiny scripture. However, as you pick up the book and place it in your lap, the first line is big enough that you can read it easily, “Once upon a time –”

As a wedding gift, Pandora received a box from Zeus. Though gifts by definition are simply something given from person to person, the word gift carries with it a subliminal, secondary definition. Gifts are to typically be opened.

Acting against that thought, Zeus warned Pandora to never open the box. You never understood that.

Why would one dangle temptation in front of another’s face? Why even plant an apple tree in the Garden of Eden? Why even craft a box if it should remain shut evermore? Temptation is a seductive thing. It slithers up into a body with shining honey eyes and lures like a hook. Because of this, it is best to keep it under lock and key.

If Zeus really did not want the box opened, he should have kept it as a hidden secret underneath thousands of layer crusts in the mountains.

As the story goes, curious Pandora opens her wedding gift. From it, the four horsemen of Judgement Day leap and gallop out, thick plumes of disease rattle out of the box in shaking coughs, and envy and greed claws their way out with black, knife fingernails, raping Pandora of her beautiful face and stealing her glittering necklace. Bleeding scratches upon her cheek and lungs filling with disease-ridden smoke, Pandora slams the box shut with a regretful hack.

Only one thing remains in Pandora’s box. Hope remains trapped inside the wedding gift. Alone, hope paces the perimeters of the box in their curiosity. Marveling at how much room and space they have to stretch out, hope takes a long, peaceful nap for all eternity.

You wish you could take a long, peaceful nap. You have a lot of trouble managing to fall asleep fully without waking up in intervals. When you work against your body’s natural circadian rhythm that is simply what happens.

Today, you have what Doctor Safari’s helpful tabs are telling you is a third shifter headache. To alleviate them you take no pills. Far too smart of an idea to take those. Instead, you take an iced frappuccino out of the break room’s fridge and turn off every single light in the aquarium, down to the blue LEDs that snake on the ceiling.

“Much better,” you sigh to yourself in relief. In nebulous black, your feet carry you to the place where company awaits and has been awaiting for about two months now.

It has been a slow trail of companionship. Progress is not fully linear. Part of you has forgotten how hard it is to socialize after years of isolation.

To be honest, you feel like a man who has lived up in the mountains alone for years, living and hunting by nomad methods, only to be shown a cellphone as soon as you reach the mountain's descent. However, they must feel the same way. They have lived down in the ocean for years, living and hunting in aquatic methods, only to be brought up and shown the eye of a penlight shining in their face. The three of you are all just struggling along in finding how to make companionship work.

But God, does it work. You hesitate with it, suddenly remembering the fins as placeholders for ears or the tails under their belly-buttons. Yet, human eyes and smiling lips will restore your content in the next moment. Something about them solves your loneliness.

They may never speak. However, you often have trouble navigating the maze of words. In the end, you consider them friends in an unease definition of the word.

By the time you make it to Pandora’s box, your coffee is drunk down to the last drop and you use the chilled glass container as an impromptu ice pack across your forehead. Where you come through is not the typical oval-shaped room. Instead, you venture up a tongue of metal steps to the top of their aquarium tank. It is a circle-shaped room. Designed largely like a pool, the only lighting is three spheres on each wall. The room consists of a gaping black hole of water and a slight drop in floor elevation so staff can stand ankle-deep while feeding or caring for them.

At least, you assume. Because the first time curiosity lured you to the top of their tank, your fingers had been nibbled at. Nothing extreme and more like dogs cobbing to show affection, but it still surprised you when the right-gold-eyed one took your hand in his.

Now, you carry along with a plastic bag of treats and tread into the water without hesitation. Walking in the familiar steps of your companionship as you have done night after night. They are eager to see you it seems.

Too bad the world tilts and you are suddenly no longer looking down on them but eye to eye. You realize what has happened with gritted teeth. A careless trip of unbalanced feet, now you sit on hands and knees in inch-deep water.

You also realize something with more horror than before. The prescription sunglasses that were perching on your forehead have been knocked off and are slowly slipping inside the tank’s depths.

“No, shit!” You cry out before, with one-track-mindlessness, you duck your head underwater like a hungry mallard.

Your eyes fly open as soon as you submerge yourself. You watch as languid sunglasses drift lower and lower. Ribs tight on the cement floor, you spear out your arm in a panic, missing the edge of the glasses by a finger’s width before they go down further and further.

No, no, no! Those glasses cost a fortune!

Stupidly, you consider the idea of diving right into the rest of the tank before you realize another thing. It paralyzes you, shocking and binding your heart. The entire sight of the tank is so easy to see. The bottom of the ocean floor is as clear as crystal, enough where you pick out each gradient of sand. It is comparable to being a person putting on their prescription contacts in the morning, everything clearing up with the right correction lens.

Usually, your vision is always mildly blurry. Enough where you can navigate night to night without any serious medical aid. But that lingering, splitting-headache pain behind your irises dulls like a blanketed sound.

It allows you to watch clearly as delicate, black fingertips scoop up your ebony pair of sunglasses.

Relief fills you as the fish with upturned eyes gently brings them up to you. You surface from water just as both fish break the surface too. It dawns on you that you haven’t been this close, eyes parallel to one another with you on your knees.

No reinforced aquarium glass separates you this time and yet, calmly, you say, “Thank you. I really can’t thank you enough for retrieving those for me.”

A giant grin grows on the one with downturned eyes. Though you hold a hand out to the other, this one seems to think your gratitude is for him for he loops his arms around your neck, squeezing you. He starts to pepper kisses on your cheek, which you suppose resembles how dogs like to lick their owners.

Your outstretched hand never receives the glasses. Instead, the fish with upturned eyes takes to placing your sunglasses back on the perch of your head. The temple tops fit snugly behind your ears. You watch as the fish with shrewdness in his eyes starts to move the tendrils of wet hair out of your face.

As your hair is tucked and your cheek is kissed, you wonder just once more why faith has brought them to you.

“(Name)?”

You smile at Deuce’s surprised gap. Today, you wear Noir sunglasses. The lenses are as dark as vantablack, refusing to allow any light touch your retinas. Even the artificially colored lights of an aquarium during operating hours is too much for you.

Deuce is in charge of the photography printing booth today. Twenty or so different families, couples, groups of teens flicker in rows across the screen he stands in front of.

“You sound almost disappointed.”

“No, no, not at all,” he rushes to amend. “Just haven’t seen you out in –”

“The sun?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Even a vampire needs a change of pace.”

Like an examined showhorse, you show off your plain teeth. No fangs or shark teeth to be found.

“I’ll tell you though. Driving here? A complete nightmare.” And, it really was. Usually you drive one handed. Your right hand lies on your thigh, tapping along to the rhythm of the radio’s drums. Today, you had to grip the steering wheel with both hands.

“Well, it is a summer weekend after all. Sucks to get stuck in traffic. ” Deuce nods his head in sympathy.

“Ah,” you look to the side. “Actually it was kind of just weird driving with other people on the road.”

Deuce’s eyes brighten in particle understanding. He might not entirely comprehend it but he still goes, “Oooh. Because you’re so used to driving at night.”

It is not that entirely. “Yeah,” you give a small, lying smile. When you remember driving, you remember it like a dream. You drive in a single lane, all alone in your white truck. Bordering you, two lanes of heavy, steady traffic move in succession towards the opposite direction. Going somewhere you are not.

Your isolated Chevrolet Silverado was so high up on the ground that you felt a bird. The width of your truck was so wide that you felt you were shouldering your way through a crowd. That is only what felt like happened, not reality. “I just felt a little disjointed.”

The photographs on the monitor keep changing in flickers. Your eyes fall on them. Mother with daughter. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Father and mother and only son. Three girl best friends. Grandfather with two girls and one boy. Blank.

“Did you get your photo taken?” He asks. He must have noticed your gaze. Has to do his job after all.

“Ah no.”

You look at the empty block of spotlighted blue. Dark cobalt around the edges and white in the center. How many photos do you have of yourself? You feel in that moment … if you ran away somewhere, no one would notice; there’s no photographic evidence that you exist.

“Nah; had to fight to let them let me pass. Oh, it’s just mandatory. Completely free of charge. And then, they started thinking I was insecure or something so they started complimenting me. Had to explain,” you tap the side of your sunglasses in reference, “and then, finally they let me go. So much fuss for just a photo.”

“They’re really that insistent on it?”

You nod.

“So what brought you out into civilization anyways?”

“Wow, rude.”

Deuce laughs. You smile strained. Every time you speak, it feels wrong. You are being too mean or not engaging enough. God, why can’t you just talk to someone like a normal person and carry a conversation smoothly? There is no desolate reflection for you to spy on the laptop, just an empty space of spotlighted blue.

“Visiting some friends.” is your reply.

The publicity on them is quiet and hush. So much so that you feel the world has already known about them – two merman pulled from the bottom of the deep sea, sea, sea. It is entirely possible. With how disjointed you are compared to 99.9 % of the population, it is not so far-fetched to think that they have been in the public’s eyes for a long time and wonder over them has died down.

However, this exhibit is still listed as the first one. Out of how many? Well, you suppose you will find out later if more are to come, if this is going to be a big success. You only found out from working the night shift, seeing the date on the break-room calendar.

COME SEE, FOR THE FIRST TIME, CREATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON! That is the first message you spy on the aquarium walls, following along with the crowd. Must have been put up by the morning crew. In bright letters, strung underneath party streamers, a multitude of phrases bounce and shout. Instead of being in awe over the pictures of them, your mind focuses on each line detailing: unprecedentedly new; for the first time; never seen before!

Yet, no one shrieks in terror at the sight of them in the posters. Even when you and others are filed into the aquarium auditorium, the crowd murmurs to themselves softly instead of shouting. Under the hypnotic spell of voyeurism, everyone seems more anticipatory than agitated.

You fixate your glasses tighter to your face as you scale up metal stairs, looking over your shoulder at the water. This is where they do the sea lion or seals show. You have not seen a single one in an entire decade. Under the shadowed surface, you can spy two serpentine lengths flowing through currents.

“Bet this whole thing is a scam. We should go back to Disney in Florida next year; it’s warmer there. More stuff to do too.” You cast a glance at the daughter in her early twenties sitting next to her mother before moving further up.

You do not pick the top row but you do pick an isolated section. Sandwiching yourself next to a stone pillar, your butt lands on the rickety metal bench. Just as you are about to readjust your glasses, making sure that sides of the lenses are atom to atom on your skin, you are interrupted by a loud, consecutive ‘woah’ that you are not a part of, that swims through the crowd.

But, you manage to see a glimpse of it just in time.

You are not sure which one of the two it is. Yet, all the same, you watch entranced as one of them breaches that ink pool. Bioluminescence tints his body in glittering blue topazes. It is like watching a shooting star suddenly fly across the dark night skies.

The porcupine quills of black that make up his fins bend and the dragon tail of sapphire that makes up his lower body arches. Aerodynamic, he flies through the air and manages just in time to snag the large, squirming spider crab that hangs from a ceiling beam on a metal wire. He disappears with the same speed as his appearance, taking with him into the black hole of water his meal.

Yet, before anyone can close their hanging jaws or the water can stop rippling with the impact of the eel-mer diving back under, music blares from the speakers, moving spotlights suddenly slide over the water and crowd, and a man comes out of the backroom and onto the stage.

You are just done wincing from the bright flash of a spotlight surfing over the bench you sit on when the man suddenly exclaims, “How are we all doing?” You stay tight-lipped as the crowd cheers. “C’mon, you can do better than that! How are y’all doing today?” The crowd cheers, claps, and responds in a long Goooood!

Cringing with shut lips, you suddenly remember why it has been a decade since you watched an aquarium show. The script is always a bit childish.

“We have two very special guests for you today. The strong guy you saw just a few moments ago was Flotsam. His brother, Jetsam, is here too. Jetsam, why don’t you come out and say hi to everyone.”

You lean forward, enraptured with the sight. Serpentine coils cut through the water, water jetting up with the force of how quickly he swims. Onto the wayward platform that bobs in the black hole, Jetsam pushes his body up onto it. Instead of a pair of flippers, he waves his clawed fingers to the awestruck audience.

“Flotsam and Jetsam are both eel-mers. Found and rescued from the northern waters, they are the first of their kind and are very excited to show you all what they can do!” Thus, the spectacle begins.

They go through a variety of tricks. From doing a few figure eights in the water, shooting balls into hoops, and even a freeze dance to the music blaring through the speaker, the mixture of tricks they do feels almost infinite. When the staff member rolls out a clownfish mailbox, announcing the birthdays of a few children in the audience, you wonder how long they must have been training. Days upon days of practice drilled into their memory.

Birthday children come up to the auditorium’s yellow line as the eel-mers hand out little high-fives to them. One child even proclaims, “Ew sticky!” before his dad tickles him under the arms and picks him up, returning to their bench. Even though it is their first show, Flotsam and Jetsam seem so well-versed in social etiquette.

However, you cannot help but find it a little demeaning. It seems so beneath them to have to perform like this to a leering audience. Sure, the rewards for each trick is generous, a stocky Japanese spider crab tossed and crushed in their razor sharp jaws, but it feels so ignominious.

Despite the horrified joy swimming through everyone’s gasps and aws, your heart is so sad.

Another round of tricks starts up. This time it involves a dual pair of bongos. As the staff member picks up a squirting spider crab from the cage onstage, he speaks into his echoing earpiece, “Now, our here, Flotsam is an exceptional drummer. We often find him playing something new every morning, completely of his own free experimentation.” Flotsam swims and props himself on stage as the staff member continues, “Today, we’re going to have him show off a skill to you fine folks!”

Your heart buries itself deeper and deeper into sadness. Perhaps, he never was intelligent. Perhaps, he is just another dumb fish. Canine obedience hammered in through reward and punishment, rhythms only learned because it is trained in him. As you two lock eyes, you cannot find anything that would dispute this theory.

You wait, as does everyone else, for Flotsam to start drumming away as promised. In addition, you wait for his eyes to flicker away from your unrecognizable face hidden by your sunglasses. Neither happens.

“A little indecisive today. I understand, there is just so much good music in the world,” the staff member stalls for time. He rips off a crab leg, holding out the reward by Flotsam’s suddenly demure face. “Why don’t we start off with something easy, buddy. A bit of the musical scale. Do-Re-Mi?”

‘You want to watch out for his teeth,’ you think, rubbing your fingers over the little scars you have from his nibbling. They really are such sharp instruments to break through the shell of a Japanese spider crab.

Thoroughly entrenched, the audience watches the repercussions of a box that was supposed to remain closed being opened.

Disbelief ripples through the crowd like one subtle wave. It is the only sound you participate in. Finally, in sync with the crowd of awake people. Someone to your left moans out of a low groan of phantom pain. The volume of interlocking disbelief grows when the staff member raises his hand up into the light. His trembling red hand hovers in front of his face to verify the view, his ring and pinkie finger bitten clean off.

Poor bastard’s wedding ring is probably sinking down to the bottom of the tank alongside the crab leg that Flotsam spat out.

Volume pitches and rises. A woman screams. Naturally, that rouses up the attendance like puppet strings. The staff member falls on his bottom then crawls backwards. Crawling away from Flotsam like one, big stumbling crab. Since the seatmate to your right is a stone pillar, there is no one to trip over your feet in their rush to leave but you watch hypnotized many individuals shove and trip their way through bodies blocking the stairs leading down to the exits. Then, calmly, you stand on your metal bench to overlook the crowd.

Flotsam’s eyes are wide as he stares at you. Reminds you of two tunnels branched off in a cave’s stomach. His fusiform gyrus lights up like newly plugged in Christmas lights, recognizing you. The little pea that makes up your fusiform face area– that clocks in every night to a job rarely done, cobwebs on the cubicle's laptop and dust as a seat covering – recognizes him too.

It already was recognizing him, seeing him as what he really is. Your lips crack open, “Flo -.” Then, you start barreling down the metal steps.

Weaving in and out of the disjointed crowd, you race down, sometimes landing on the cement floor and sometimes landing on the metal benches in your hopping steps.A shoulder jostles you so harshly that your sunglasses fall off your face. Between rows of benches, they dive to the floor. You trip, trying to make the leap onto a metal bench. The sound you make as you fall onto metal is so tiny in the cacophony.

The world goes white. It is like flash blindness from a nuclear explosion.

Tears pour out your eyes. You clap a hand over them in shame and to hide from the bright … too fucking bright … lights.

When you finally pick up your sunglasses, marks of shoe soles stamped like tattoos on your upper arms and hands, the auditorium is empty of a single soul. Not even they remain swimming in the tank. Someone must have sedated them and dragged them out. You are alone once more.

That night, you dream a dream that is more memory than a mystified fabrication of wonders or terrors.

Tender like a newborn, you lie on a wafer-thin sheet of paper that unrolls itself from a cylinder like one big, white wave. Perhaps an iceberg is more appropriate. Hospitals are as cold as the arctic. On the paper iceberg, on the fence of girlhood and the fated teenage years, on the tongue of a vivisection, you balance with broken ankles. Under your thin gown, flowing air and goosebump-freckled skin collide. Blue tints your bottom lip.

You are laid down, anticipating future pain.

“Lay down and I will be with you two shortly.” He had said this and nothing more.

The scent at the doctor’s office is ozone with a hint of vanilla. Near your toes, the long neck of a giraffe stretches skyward, painted on the bricks. Under bright, too fucking bright, light, metal tools glitter like slick seashells. You can feel the prescribed numbing droplets in your eyeballs slowly seep in.

You pinch your eyes shut, feeling like there is a cement block lodged and scraping between the bones of your temple. Why wouldn’t they give you something for the pain? When you open them, they are held open by a speculum and hooks like you are nothing past being an animal in a zoo doing your daily checkups.

Oh, and you are sitting upright on the paper iceberg now.

Must be the dream’s altercations. Time skipping forward in intervals.

Dreams are always like a pile of bones. The skeleton all jumbled up and disorganized that you move from femur to ulna. You are not graced with a lot of time to think on the analogy as a very big kitchen knife leans towards your pried open eye.

The muscles in your cheek twitch when it cuts. With the skills of a head-chef slicing an egg, your eye is cut perfectly down the imaginary midline. Both sides are even.

He scoops out one side of your eye like a person pulling back from a whole cake with a single slice. It is more inky black and sickly gray. The hues of your eye-cake that is. Far from the bright blue or pink frosting of a cake, it stays saturated in montone hues. You always thought an eye would look like the diagrams in school, colorful with reds and blues, but it is a sickly ebon and ashen gray.

The cornea is hard as a freshly cut nail and the half globe of retina slimes in his gloved hand like glue. Now looking at it, it appears the flesh inside an eye reminds you more of a bruised plum’s insides. A muted hue of purple-black rather than full ebon.

It is the lens of your eyes that really captures the doctor’s attention. He takes the half-cut marble in a pair of tweezers. Between those lobster claws of thin steel, your lens which makes up a pupil is rotated back and forth in observation.

An eye, though entirely soft and vulnerable, has only one hard bit inside like the tough seed of a peach. It can be cut but it will give resistance. With one good eye and half of your other, you watch the hard material between the lobster claws be pinched in and out to test the give and resistance of itself. Steadfast, it does not bend under the squeezes.

That half-cut pearl glitters.

Time skips again, moving bone to bone like switching channels. Instead of smells and sights, sound takes over the scene. The faint buzzing of the air conditioner as it breathes over the giraffe’s neck. Water oscillating back and forth over rubbing soapy hands cries loud in your ears. Though, faintly, you can hear the blood from your eye that slips down your chin hit the pad of the paper iceberg you sit on.

The tissue in your hand crinkles softly in sound as you wipe away blood tears. In a chair that might as well be across the globe of Earth, your guardian sobs in intervals with a trembling chin. “Guuuh … gah … hu-hu-hugaaah.” You keep soaking up blood, dabbing the tissue against your face as it whispers in light friction.

After he finishes washing his hands of your sanguine, the doctor intones two words like a priest giving the final prayer at the start of Armageddon, “cone dystrophy.” That is the last sound your ears can bear to hear before you jolt awake.

Your current doctor has given you exactly twenty-one little sheets. Ishihara tests; multiple circles with a number made of circles in the center. They are tests for color blindness.

That morning, the colors red and orange permanently fuse into one shade.

You took three nights off work. A little mini-vacation. The first was so you could spend the daylight hours watching the show with Flotsam and Jetsam; the second was so you could attend your doctor’s appointment; the third was so you could clean up what has been neglected in your apartment. Vacations are supposed to relieve the average worker of stress. You find yourself an outlier, once again.

“Blind by thirty? Blind by fucking thirty?” You bundle up the graphic shirt you were trying to fold into a circle and punch your mattress. The pile of already folded shirts tilts and falls in an arch to your right. “That fucking asshole,” you sneer.

Unraveling the graphic-tee-ball, you straighten your hunched posture with a deep sigh. No use taking your frustration out on innocent clothes. The wrinkled shirt joins the tower once you rebuild it. You reach out and grab a pair of socks. Foolishly, you thought organizing your apartment up for a very overdue spring cleaning would help to organize the disorder running rampant in your head.

Forlorn and desolate, you look at the laundry mountain. Too bad that is far from happening.

It is just … A person takes a guess at jars full of jelly-beans or what they’re significant other might have made for dinner, those are the true purpose of guessing games. The audacity of a person to guess when someone else is going to blind. You almost tear the sleeve off your cardigan when you pull in from the mountain’s maw. How dare your doctor estimate your finite health with such casualness.

You suppose it makes sense. The Salvador Dali-esque dream you had the night before, coupled with losing the ability to differentiate between red and orange; all of these were just the bad omens setting up the stage for your doctor’s appointment.

Mostly a homebody and not a frequent traveler, there aren’t many sights you are dying to see. However, the idea of losing your sight causes you to grieve it prematurely. Mourning the death of yourself. To just wither up inside this box-shaped apartment as a tomb, the thought of that is odious. You shudder and fold a towel.

Across the mattress, you look at your CRT television cloaked in a thin, see-through blanket to dim the lighting. On the square, a blue pick-up truck punches through metal and wooden gating. Even though the movie wrongly uses the sound effect of glass breaking, it is still impactful as you watch the pick-up truck reverse into an open boating harbor connected to the ocean. The whale and little boy harnessed to the back slowly sink in.

Freeform is playing Free Willy. To be honest, you are just biding time until the Harry Potter marathon starts up. Thank God, this movie is nearing its end because it is putting dangerous thoughts in your head. You just want to see little Daniel Radcliffe under the staircase and be interrupted by commercials every twenty-five minutes.

The orphaned boy pushes the orca whale out to sea. You fold another article of clothing, unsure if it is orange or red. The hope that Pandora kept in her box begs for freedom.

It is an open secret now. That is a little contradictory, if you do say so yourself.

However, it is the truth. The public now knows them without embellishment. With the shining gandour and seductive metaphorical-lingerie, it comes to their attention that predators are still predators. No matter how human they may look.

The thought saddens you. Slowly and unsurely, you have been starting to humanize them in your mind. When you wrestle with the locked doorknob of the oval-shaped room, you grow sadder.

It makes sense though. Flotsam and Jetsam? They should have been kept in the Oval Office or Area 51; instead they were brought to an aquarium in the middle of nowhere, used for publicity. The crux of humanity rears its ugly head. Sharing each fetish and body part to the audience is the sin of being a curious human. Everyone is a voyeur for something. No one can keep their mouth shut nowadays, always needing to post about their lives. So, they brought Flotsam and Jetsam here to do the exact same thing.

To think there was a time when you were disguised by their humanity. And now, it's all you hope to preserve and keep safe. Ascending the stairs to the circular-shaped room, you contemplate if there could ever be an inch of humanity in an animal. As a set of honey eyes peer at you from across the black hole water, you wonder if it is only canine obedience in their faces.

Two against one, you all take a moment accessing each other. There are no plastic bags of yummy treats hanging from your arms. No thumping rhythms of songs echo on the walls. Instead of familiar friendliness and comfortable companionship, you all seem incredibly wary of each other.

“Ya can come closer … We wouldn’t hurt ya, Shrimpy.”

Who the fuck said that?

Frozen in disbelief, you can do little besides watch the black hole ripple in violent sprays. A harsh slap echoes off the wall as a clawed hand breaches water only to grab the face with a right gold eye. Both drop under the water as your mind reels, spinning around options like a broken, juiced-up carnival ride.

You are tired! You are so tired that you must have hallucinated that! Being awake for so long on the night shift … Why, it must be entirely possible to hallucinate every once and a while! An evolved headache of sorts!

Yes. You grab onto that thought. Those words were hallucinations. Too bad your grip on the thought grows flimsy when Flotsam breaches the water, snarling, “I wanna talk to Shrimpy! Jade, lemme go! Get off!” A clawed hand grips the back of his hair and pulls him right back under.

A vivid hallucination you are having. Yes! A paragon of hallucinations and headaches after so many night shifts!

Despite the fear, you stay rooted in your spot. Not close enough to where the spilling water of the tank touches your shoes but close enough where you can watch the water steadily. Every once in a while, the sound of rocketing water echoes in the room. Dragon tails of green-blue fracture the surface. A clawed hand will rise up like a zombie breaking dirt only to disappear in seconds. Water flies in turrets and towers.

Maybe because of the fear, you stay in your exact same spot and watch. Things start to calm down eventually. Bubbles pop on the surface like they are conversing under there. But, that is impossible because fish cannot speak.

‘Don’t backtrack (Name),’ you think to yourself. ‘Their entire existence is impossible. It’s been impossible since the beginning. This is just another step into that twilight zone. Another unorthodox secret brought to the surface.’ The thought makes you feel disjointed like a pile of bones.

It had hurt. The day of the show. You do not why but it had hurt to know they weren’t yours alone. That the secret had been open for some time and it was not just you and them. Thus, you stay and wait for them to breach the surface one more time.

They both do simultaneously. Water cutting the visage of the rest of their body from the shoulders down. Red returns to the scene, staining both Flotsam and Jetsam’s faces in thick scratches. You barely get a second to analyze the wounds before Flotsam shouts, “It was haaard, ‘kay? I wanted to tell them the pretty nickname I made for them! And tell them I liked the new rocks they put in our tank!” He pouts childishly. “It’s so borin’ not being able to talk. I got so bored! You’re boring.”

Even when Flotsam snaps his sharp teeth at Jetsam, he remains unpulsed. “Forgive me for trying to look out for your well-being, but both of us agreed in junction that we would under no circumstances talk to humans.”

“But Shrimpy’s different from the rest!”

“Under no circumstances, Floyd.”

“I knooow,” Flotsam? Floyd? whines. Then, his downwards angled eyes slide over your comatose form. An excited grin comes up to his face. “Doesn’t matter now though. Shrimpy!!”

You are barely given a second to gather your thoughts before Floyd barrels towards you. Spindly arms wrap around your neck and suddenly you are down on your knees in an inch of water. The kiss on your cheek this time feels much less like a dog licking to show affection; it resembles more a human kissing you on the cheek which causes you to fluster.

“Truly, you make things so difficult at times,” Jetsam? Jade? tuts. The sound of him swimming through the water draws closer. His deep timbre sends a cardiogenic shock through your ribcage as he addresses, “I do apologize for my brother. He was a bit desolate without you here the past two nights.”

For some reason, you wonder how Jade felt in your absence too. Hands holding onto Floyd’s upper arms for a semblance of balance, you reply, “Uh, I took — I took a vacation.” The words feel like marshmallows rolling off your tongue. Gluttonous, fluffy, unreal with their texture. This really is happening, and you have to come to terms with it.

“Told ya it wasn’t because they were scared of us.”

“I never made such a connection. Merely hypothesizing.”

“Mmh, hypothesizin’ my ass,” Floyd grins as he turns to … sniff your hair?

Pushing him away to gain a bit of distance, you address the one you find the least distracted of the two. “You — You can talk? Why — Why didn’t you say anything to me before?” The companionship you had? Was it truly so fragile that you two had to keep secrets from one another?

“Well, you see, (Name),” — your name is so tantalizing coming from his voice that you feel like you are being resurrected from a heart-attack, defibrillator pounding away on your chest — “it was a matter of safety for my brother and I. If we were to say anything —.”

Floyd interrupts, “Everyone’s kind of a bigmouth buffalo fishy here so we keep ours shut.”

“The day to day conversations of the staff, the chatter from the people who visited us in the daylight hours, the unending gossip. We figured it was best to keep our lips sealed for the time being. Who knows how they would have reacted.”

“Nothing’s better than having a few tricks up your sleeve, Shrimpy.” Finally, you are done being squeezed as Floyd falls back into his tank. He rests his hands behind his head and floats buoyant.

“It is an epidemic, I fear. Fufu. Secrecy is such a rare trait to find nowadays.” Jade crosses his arms on top of the cement incline that you kneel in, looking at you sweetly. “Almost a lost art of sorts, eroded away after centuries of geological and evolutionary advances.”

Then, ping-ponging back and forth, they start to slip each secret (that others would probably want under lock and key) they’ve heard.

“Your manager’s wife is infertile thus he avoids conversations about children or preschool.”

“Lucas hit a guy with his car two years ago in a hit-and-run. Didn’t kill him but still.”

“Martha’s daughter just had an abortion. She gripes to Tatiana about how to possibly be supportive about this.”

“Ashley doesn’t like her boyfriend and they’re breakin’ up soon.”

“Deuce is going to fail his statistics class if he scores lower than a 95 on his next test.”

“Patrick is proposin’ to his girlfriend on December 1st.”

“We could keep going,” Jade says with a sly grin. “However, I think the point has gotten across.” He trails one fingernail across your thigh and smiles when you do not flinch. “All that useless prattle makes for some divine entertainment. Besides, matching up with more animalistic expectations can mean others are wildly underestimating us. Having the upper hand is better, always.”

Scrutinizing over his wandering fingernail, you ask quietly, “Is that why you attacked that man?” The question is meant for Floyd. Jade pulls his keen nail back all the same.

“Nah,” Floyd does not look at you as he answers, fixated on the ceiling. “It was humiliatin’. Being looked at that way by ya, Shrimpy.”

You blink in surprise. Shame is such a human trait. Born of social circles and social behaviors that are just uniquely tied to the bipedal species you are. The look on Jade’s face seems to agree with the consensus. You watch green-blue muscles glide through the water, simply drifting to a tame current. You watch black fingernails tap on cement in a tiny rhythm.

Floyd continues, noticing your silence, “Shrimpy’s the only one that talks to us like people. Everyone else just treats us like a spectacle.”

The heart in your ribcage knocks. You cannot Free Willy the entire aquarium. But, your Chevrolet Silverado has enough room in the bed for a kiddie pool or two.

Faintly, you recall a distant memory, when you read to Jade so many weeks ago, just as you open the oval-shaped room with the stolen key:

“The creatures stung Pandora over and over again and she slammed the lid shut. Epimetheus ran into the room to see why she was crying in pain. Pandora could still hear a voice calling to her from the box, pleading with her to be let out. Epimetheus agreed that nothing inside the box could be worse than the horrors that had already been released, so they opened the lid once more.

“All that remained in the box was Hope. It fluttered from the box like a beautiful dragonfly, touching the wounds created by the evil creatures, and healing them. Even though Pandora had released pain and suffering upon the world, she had also allowed Hope to follow them.”

For the past decade, photographic evidence of your existence has been nonexistent. You have found yourself to be an outlier; the world operates to a different rhythm that you have not been able to copy, relicate, or even play along to. Living in perpetual sleep apnea of the soul, you have only found true connection with two other people.

The blue ceiling lights are off as is now the new normal. Without the aid of your penlight, you make your way into the space with confident steps. Sunglasses perched on your head, you find that what has been slowly developing has reached the summit of itself. An impromptu, unorthodox Free Willy plagiarism.

The dark is easier than ever to see through tonight. You smile back when they smile at you.

Floyd is curled up close to the glass, calling for your undivided attention with his placement. Subdued yet stealthy as ever, Jade lingers behind yet close enough to be seen. Floyd crosses his body across the glass-canvas up and to your right. Jade crosses his body to your left, floating demurely lower.

The glass-canvas is painted with a few smudges of handprints. Some are from yourself and others from the only and only drummer. He depresses his dominant hand on the glass, leaning in close. His right hand waves up in dark waters in a fervent, warm greeting. His excitement to see you is palpable. You raise your own.

Both of their eyes shine like spotlights. The only light that you have looked into and found it does not hurt. Jade’s anticipatory smile slithers onto your face in a perfect mimic. You are going to rob the aquarium of those glittering gold dragonfly eyes. Tomorrow, there will be nothing for the staff or customers to find in nebulous darkness.

Nothing. Nothing but their desolate reflection.

#twisted wonderland x reader #jade leech #twisted wonderland #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #floyd leech #twst floyd #twst jade #more floyd centric than jade centric

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urauntiefaye · 2 months ago

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faye faye! can i please request some thoughts on &team and what their secret kinks might be/stuff they want to try out in the bedroom but haven’t told you(srry if you don’t understand, english isn’t my first language)

&Team and Their Secret Kinks 🔞

WC: 2075

TW: Smut, AFAB reader, usage of the word girl, Exhibitionist Kink, Cosplay/Roleplay kink, Threesomes, Food Play, Perv Euijoo(panties sniffing), Knife/Fear Play*In Yuma's just in case this is triggering for you*, Oral*Harua and Takis*, Daddy kink, Pet play, Corruption Kink Maki is in this so if uncomfortable scroll away or don't read his, Not Proof Read, let me know if I forgot anything!

A/N: I got what you meant don't worry! I hope you enjoy, because I know I did fantasizing about these 🤭 Also, after Yuma it gets a little shorter? Oh and there's a photo reference in Fumas,

Kei-

Kei has an exhibitionist kink, he can't help but get off at the idea of other people watching him. The idea of having others watch him fuck you sends blood to his cock so much. But he doesn't just want someone in the room with you two watching y'all. No, he secretly wants to start up an OnlyFans account and have you both become camstars. He wouldn't tell you though, scared you might think he's a freak or that it'll make you uncomfortable. He would completely understand too if you do feel that way. You would find out about this secret kink of his when you're drinking with your friends. Playing truth or dare, and he chose truth, the question being “what's something you've always wanted to try in bed but too embarrassed to try”. When he tells everyone your face would heat up fast. The following day when you're both a little more clear minded you'll ask him about what he said last night. Confirming that he indeed wanted to try it out. When you do get down to setting up the account and posting your first video views and subscribers would flood in. Your first live stream would get Kei so fucking wild up. Taking requests from the viewers on what he should do to you. And the fact people are commenting that they wish they were the ones fucking you. God his ego would RISE knowing that he's the only one that can touch you like this and they all just have to sit back and watch 😵‍💫

Fuma-

So I've mentioned cosplay and roleplay for this mans before. And I feel like you two would do it, but it's very light and not that freaky shit. Like you dressing up as a nurse or maid, ya know that tame shit. BUT he would want to try and up the stakes a little. Being too worried of how you'll react or feel to it. He literally thinks there's something wrong with him, because why the fuck does he want to see you dressing up as an anime character or something. Like he came across a video of the girl dressed up as succubus and the role play was the girl casting a spell on the dude and fucking. And he couldn't help but imagine you as the girl. He's convinced you wouldn't want to do it because who the fuck would. But when you were on his phone Google restaurants in your nearest location, accidentally exing out of the webpage you were on. You'd go to history to find it again, but ended up stumbling upon the video. Now you wouldn't say shit, but from the looks of it he's watched it so many times. Coming up with an evil idea, you decided to purchase an outfit similar to what the girl was wearing. And when it came to one of your nights, he'd be waiting for you to get dressed while he sat in bed. Once you stepped out he swore his heart jumped out. Let's just say the night was very long and he just couldn't keep his hands off of you. (Also why do I get the feeling that Fuma is into Goth chicks? Like not really that dominant Goth, but the Goth girlie who has tarot cards and crystals*lol not me projecting and borderline self inserting-*

Nicholas-

Nicholas is pretty open about his kinks. He just never really saw it as something to hide or be embarrassed about. Until one day 🤩, he watched a threesom video, and went down a rabbit hole of them. Mostly only watching two males and one girl, where the two guys would pleasure the girl. Not really focusing on the ones where it was two girls and guys because he just doesn't like or see himself having sex with another girl. But the idea of another guy joining you two, in touching and making you feel good. He just really wants to see how you'll feel. He wouldn't dare say it to you, as he's worried what you'll think. So when the topic of threesomes came up, because you mentioned one of your friends said that they were in a poly relationship and had them often. He would try and take this as his chance saying ‘oh, that's cool…so how do you feel about them?’ trying so hard not to be obvious. You would say you didn't mind it, but it's a topic you'll need to discuss with your partner to make sure there's boundaries and that everyone is comfortable. Noticing his demeanor you would pick up what was going on in his head. Smirking to yourself telling him you wouldn't mind having one if he's down. Which he so is, thinking of who should join you'd decide on one of the other &Team members since you trusted them. And when you do, Nicholas would feel like he's going to faint just by the way you moaned and looked from having two dicks inside you at once.

Euijoo-

Pervy Euijoo has my heart. So Euijoo has soooooo many kinks that he REFUSES to tell you. You would think he's just this soft Dom who enjoys vanilla sex. Especially if you're innocent too-, oh oh he has just a corruption kink too. He is secretly freaky and I could go on about Pervert Euijoo for so long. One of his secret kinks is that he kind of wants you to catch him in the act of being a perv. Like he would often sneak in your room and sniff your panties, even wrapping them around his now stiffened dick and just fucks them. Your underwear is always going missing too and not knowing why. Ugh!, but the main thought that runs in his mind when he's jerking off to your panties is the idea of you walking in and catching him. How you'll be shocked and shy, going up to him asking what he was doing, he'll try to explain but he just imagines you getting down or your knees to be eye level with his member. And he’ll teach you how to please him, and just corrupts you so much. But he'll never let you know, only just fantasizing about it 😣

Yuma-

Yuma is another who is super open about his kinks. So him not telling you one would be so fucking surprising to you. Really looking at your boyfriend like ‘who are you, and what have you done with my Yuma?’. But I feel like he'd be really into some risky, almost dangerous type kinks like fear play, and knife play and stuff. He often fantasizes about dragging a knife down your body, pressing it hard enough against your skin, just enough to break through the barrier and make you bleed. But not hard enough to where you'll need to go to the hospital or some shit. He really wants to carve his name in you too-. He also just loves to see the fear in your eyes, not knowing what he'll do but trusting him enough to do whatever he wants. He really just can't get over it, but won't bring it up because that's some insane shit. Finding out about this won't be until Halloween or something. Where he jumped scared you and the way you screamed made him pop a boner so fast. You'd question him about it and that's when he admits everything. If you agree to try it out, he'll be pretty gentle at first, and would make sure you remembered the safe word, giving you a very serious talk about how you need to use it if you want to stop or back out. And to not hold back in fear you'll disappoint him, because he could never be disappointed in you especially not with something like this.

Jo-

Jo would secretly want to try pet play or something. He overheard a few members talking about it and not knowing what it was he'd Google it later that night. Coming across videos and photos he immediately wanted to try it out. But he would say shit because it's something new and he didn't know how you felt about it. Honestly he probably won't ever tell you about it either, so for y'all to try it out you'll have to be the one to bring it up. But when you do, and you come out in a cat or Bunny lingerie set, booooooy would he pounce on you so fucking fast. Like his entire personality would do a whole ass 360. Once he felt more comfortable with it he'll even go out and buy you new lingerie and even a custom made collar with his name on it or your nickname. Also for some reason I think he'll be into you wearing really frilly lingerie too, and possibly holding a teddy bear or something? Jo being into innocent feminine people?

Harua-

Food play…he specifically wants to put whip cream on your body and lick it up. He found out about this via Twitter and has never gone back since. But he also knows it can be sticky, and even cause UTIs if not careful. So he would tell you, knowing that stuff. But once you logged into his Twitter because you were going to post a silly little thing but instead came across some photos and videos of those things. You wouldn't lie, the way the guy in the video ate the girl out with syrup or whip cream made you wet as fuck. Now both non stop thinking about it but you also won't say anything hoping he'll go to you about it. But he WON'T and you would eventually snap and ask him. He would get so embarrassed too because he's been caught. But when you tell him you would want to try it out he's going to the store that day. It's safe to say when you tried it out you both loved it, but would definitely take a shower afterwards and possibly have another round there.

Taki-

Wants to watch porn with you so bad it almost hurts. But not just watching porn, he wants to watch porn and do the same exact things the people in the porno are doing. Like if the guy is eating the girl out, he'll start eating you out. But he thinks he's so fucking weird for wanting that 😭. He can't help it though, whenever he watches porn he just imagines you being there with him. Swearing to himself he'll never say a single fucking word about this to you though. So when you barg into his room unannounced, seeing his pants and underwear scattered across the floor, one hand wrapped around his dick, the other holding his phone up. He'd think this was the end for him, but when you sit down next to him and look at his phone asking ‘what are you watching?’. He mentally starts crying because his wishes have been granted. The screen showing the girl sucking the guy off as she played with his balls. You get a mischievous idea and start copying the girl in the video. Guys he might actually pass out from this.

Maki-

He'd want to try a few things, but your relationship being so new and just starting to have sex he won't tell you. One of the things he would want to try out is more Dom and Sub dynamics with rougher sex. Usually you two have fairly vanilla and soft sex. But he'd want to try and hear you call him Daddy at least once. And whenever he watches domxsub videos he replays the scenes in his head but of you and him instead. Like I said he'd be too weary of telling you since it's still pretty early on. It wouldn't really be mentioned until it was a slip of the tongue type deal. When you two were making out and about to have sex, that he would let it slip, that he wanted to hear you call him Daddy. You'd freeze at first trying to process what he had just ask you. Maki would realize and pull away, apologizing nonstop. You'd have to grab his face and kiss him, telling him you don't feel uncomfortable just that it took you off guard. You both swear he's never fucked you as hard as he did until that night.

#auntiefaye🧚🏻‍♀️#&team hard hours #&team smut #&team hard thoughts

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azdoine · 5 months ago

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stolen planets

this is a minor point of order, mostly unrelated to the stuff about the River that I'm trying to get to later, but it's an idea I've never seen anyone post about in their consideration of John's empire and agenda.

early on in AYU, while dwelling on her miserable slog through convalescence, Judith mentions overhearing an inscrutable bit of BOE slang:

The stomach pouch was removed on a previous excursion to what they said was an abandoned “steal planet.” I understand that they use the word “steal” for what we would term “shepherd.”

I say slang because why else would you use the present tense verb in place of a past-tense adjective here, if not as colloquialism? however, this slang appears nowhere in NTN, where we spend great chunks of time airing out BOE vernacular.

Reading between the lines a bit, we can easily guess what the BOE troops meant by "steal", because they spend the rest of the short story trying to get Judith connected to one:

The ship was a Gorgon-class vehicle... it was the last time they had tried to design a light craft that still had room for a stele. Blood of Eden must have captured or stolen one intact.

However, this is still an unusual way of speaking; we've never exactly heard of a "stele planet" before, and we know BOE had to get their stele from Mercymorn, as opposed to finding one in the corpse of a flipped planet.

Looking for 'plot holes' and errors in the continuity of a magic system is rarely productive, but if we comb back over HTN, AYU, and NTN, there appear to be some interesting inconsistencies in the presentation of stelae.

In HTN, John describes stele travel as vaguely dependent on obelisk infrastructure, forcing his Lyctors (who can travel freely) to lay down more of them - the reader is encouraged to that stelae are warp drives, and that obelisks define the regions a stele can transit between.

God said, “We came up with the stele instead, and the obelisk, which are less to do with travel than they are to do with transmission. But there will be times in your future when you will have to move unfettered by needing an obelisk, and even times yet to come when you will fulfil the sacred Lyctoral duty of setting obelisks...”

“Where we are going there are no obelisks for a stele to hook on to,” said the Emperor.

Certain asides in AYU and NTN double down on this interpretation, making references to "obelisk anchors", and establishing the need to locate an anchor at one's intended destination before embarking on stele travel:

Someone else said more clearly, How will we know where the anchor is? And the voice said, I’ve given you the blasted co-ordinates, haven’t I? It won’t be in the ship’s stellar registry, so you’ll have to do the input work yourself. And you must follow the route I’ve given you afterward.

“The Ziz isn’t Cohort standard. And it’s not as big on the inside as you think. Look at the windows—see how there’re none on the back end? It’s mostly engine. Not plated either. It’ll get to sublume without many problems … but it definitely doesn’t have room for a stele. Camilla is right. It can’t travel by obelisk anchor.”

However, AYU makes it clear that a stele also has a role to play as an anchor:

Under this duress I told them I understood how the stele worked but had no ability to use it myself... I said one necromancer alone would not be able to use it as an anchor and that it needed to be energised on a thanergenic planet, so it would never be of any use to them.

NTN even seems to flip-flop around, with people locating a stele to anchor onto, and using obelisks like an array of engines rather than to define one end in a point-to-point transition.

"The Warden convinced the Oversight Body, convinced the Sixth House to come with us. We showed them the secret of the installation. We helped them find a stele that would anchor such a big thanergy transition … which means, we helped them move."

"How’d you get it through a stele? With the weight of that thing, you’d never survive River displacement.” “Five hundred and thirty-two obelisks,” said Camilla.

Here's my tinfoil hat for you: if a stele and an obelisk both have similar roles to play in FTL travel - as suggested by their both being named after words for monuments - then the obelisk should have a similar necromantic nature. They may both be similar names for the same thing, or two different versions of the same thing, at least.

If nothing else, given that they're clearly both "anchors" rooted in Fifth House spirit magic, obelisks and stelae must have similar demands for upkeep and maintenance. And how can a Lyctor possibly set up such an obelisk out in space?

We know that each anchor relies on great quantities of freshly oxygenated and thanergy-enriched blood - that is, each anchor is sustained by a thanergenic fluid still flush with thalergy, per Pyrrha's comments to the effect that blood wards are more thalergy-rich than bone wards. Such anchors also have to be charged with power from thanergy-rich planets.

Mercymorn was able to produce an automatic oxygenation unit via the use of flesh magic, but blood cells need external organs to stay alive. For purposes of sustaining a very large anchor with life and death, a simpler option might be to make your runes with very wide chisel cuts or specially treated surfaces, so that they can't be blotted out by debris, and then leave them in a liquid ecosystem. Place them at the bottom of a water basin teeming with microorganisms, and then allow the micro-ecology to start dying off in the same thanergenic background radiation that you're using to charge up the anchor monument.

For example, by carving into the seabed under the salt-water ocean of a dying planet - a stele planet.

#the locked tomb #as yet unsent #tlt meta

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deminetly · 3 months ago

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𝜗 ACTIVITIES 𝜚

⠂⠁⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠂⠁⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂

make posters for fake events and leave them around town

buy a cake, some balloons and a present for yourself, pretending like its your birthday

go for a run through the forest in a flowy white dress

tape googly eyes on trees

read a book and highlight every word you find beautiful

start a new religion

thrift old electronic items and take them apart

world build a fantasy universe

melt an ice cube in your hands

go to an art museum and try to guess the meaning behind pieces

lay down in a field and try to find shapes and clouds

unlock new locations to yearn in

stare at a candlelight for hours and just think

enter imaginary portals through woods

befriend a crow

follow a cat or a bird around to see where you end up

lie in your journal

thrift or make small dollhouse furniture

start collecting something (stamps, buttons, stickers, or trinkets)

make a trinket dish from clay

watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast about a topic that interests you and take notes in your journal

go to places alone until you meet somebody naturally

make clay houses for fairies

make charms from clay

go to a graveyard and find your birthday

make ocs, their lore, relationships to each other and personality

ask your classmates for homework answers and analyse handwriting

design emojis for emotions you’ve felt but couldn’t explain

start a philosophy club with your imaginary friends

learn or make a new language

find an unpopular band and research fun facts about it

go out and collect junk for junk journaling

go out and find a place that you would like to live in if you were a fairy

solve/make sudokus

find your old journals and read through them

build or plan out a treehouse

make specific and really random playlists

meditate

make your own paints from natural ingredients

draw your childhood plushie as a person

buy an old painting from a thrift store and restore it/add your own touches

grab a couple of things from around your house, pose them together and draw or paint them

try to capture an emotion by painting or drawing it or make up a totally new emotion

do a study or research project on another artist

draw something that challenges you until you’re fine with the end result

re-create an old painting

write your own fairytale

draw carpets

design movie posters

personalise everything you own

go to an antique store and contemplate the forgotten history behind every object

try to capture a scene from your dream

watch I believe in unicorns (movie)

try shifting

make an altoid wallet room for your calico critter

make a pinterest board for your future home inspo

paint squidward

write a poem about pomegranate

thrift old magazines, cut out letters as well as cute pictures and make a collage

rank studio ghibli worlds you would live in

make statues from foil or clay

mini research projects

thrift flip ties

freeze random things

draw your non dominant hand from different angles

do makeup inspired by random pictures

write an essay about why fairies and unicorns are real

have a deep conversation with your mom

make up a movie plot, design posters and print them out then leave them around town

watch “poor little rich girl”

world build your own planet with all kinds of different creatures and lore

have a pinterest board called “pinterest bag” and save anything you want in there

make ocs (find pictures/draw them, make their personality and lore)

make a trinket box from a matchbox

write an assay about a life lesson

go for a walk with a mug of tea or a bowl of cereal

create new words for emotions or feelings you’ve felt but couldn’t explain

learn to insult people poetically

research black holes

guided meditations

go to an amusement park just to scream

make up your own typology system

attempt to break a random world record

pierce your house plants

search up philosophical questions and answer them or even make up your own

draw yourself as an angel

make nature potions with lake water sand grass rocks etc

find a secret hangout

get into spirituality

try to lucid dream or research other peoples lucid dreaming stories

go for a walk after rain and collect snails

manifest

make a new mythical creature

worldbuild an imaginary universe/planet

organise beads

try to draw scenes from your dreams

watch old disney movies

start a new religion

find shapes in clouds

build a hangout for fairies

make a trinket shelf from clay

glass art

paint on spoons and forks

make duct tape wallets

decorate your wired headphones

make a becklace from rings

newspaper art

make stamps from erasers

make clay picture frames

make earrings from random items (q-tips)

make a fabric sketchbook

make keychains from bottle caps

make 3D collages from paper

make an altoid wallet candle

make a mini version of your room

recycle your old clothes

make paper stars

research paradoxes

try lucid dreaming meditations

argue with your plushies about the philosophical takes/views you gave them

like a candle and stare at it until you get an idea

fake journaling (make up a persona and journal as if you wear them, make up situations that happened)

buy cat food to hold in your purse at all times in case you see a stray cat

make jam and decorate the jars (bonus points if you gift it to your grandma)

research the deeper meaning behind childrens cartoons

craft a doll, take it to cute places and have photoshoots

write down the longest midwest emo song titles you can find

watch or make a video essay

thrift old magazines, cut out the coolest things and make collages

stare at your own reflection for hours

go for a walk but you can only go back once you’ve complimented five people

decorate your bag with diy patches

try something you think you’re not gonna like and write about whether you liked it or not in your journal

make a spacehey profile

design new posters for your favourite movies

nap on a med of moss and be observed back into earth

sing your favourite songs to your cat in cat langauge

telepathically send people dreams

walk around town and perform fake plays in front of security cameras

create fake evidence suggesting you went on an adventure that you never really went on

paint all of your toe nails different colours

open your window and breathe in the fresh air, absorbing the world around you

shower without any lights or music

design and build a new musical instrument

when out of inspiration, take your journal and a camera, go on a walk and take pictures/write down anything that inspires you

stick quotes/poems around town

drink tea outside after it rained

play a movie on mute and improvise the dialogue

with a camera and a pair of boots, make a photo log of a day in the life of an invisible man

learn morse code

make a “my five stages of grief” playlist

write a love letter to your favourite season, seal it in an envelope and tuck it into a book you only read during that season

as you go for a walk discreetly scatter wildflower seeds along your path. imagine how in the future a small patch of flowers might bloom unexpectedly because of you

build a tiny altar to your daydreams. find a small shelf or corner, decorate it with objects that represent your wildest dreams and fantasies (crystals, feathers, dried flowers, trinkets)

have an indoor picnic. lay out a blanket in your living room at midnight, make yourself a snack and read poetry by the candlelight

use your feelings as inspiration to draw a whimsical map, labelling places like “the valley of nostalgia” or “the Hills of quiet contentment”

have a tiny art show at home, create a few tiny pieces of art like drawings, sculptures or crafts (no bigger than a coin) set them up in a small display area

host a tiny funeral for a habit you’re ready to let go off. write a short eulogy, light a candle, say your goodbyes and thank it for serving you in the past before letting it go

get a jar and each day add a small object or note that represents your mood (like a shiny bead for happiness and a cloudy pebble for sadness) watch your jar change as your life does

write a letter, seal it in a glass bottle and send it into the ocean

write a poem with words found in your junk drawer. dig through your junk drawer, pull out random items and let each object serve as a prompt

leave a small secret gift for a stranger. wrap a tiny object (like a pressed flower, a kind note or a little charm) and leave it somewhere in public for someone to find (a park bench, a library book, a bus seat)

find a beautiful rock, paint a face on it, carry it around for a week, taking pictures of the adventures you went on together

bake a single cupcake or tiny cake just for yourself, decorate it, light a candle and make a wish

go for a walk and pretend you’re on a quest. imagine you’re searching for a magical object or solving a mystical riddle as you wonder, narrate your journey

make a playlist for an imaginary creature

write a thank you note to an inanimate object (like your favourite mug or pen)

put together a time capsule for a fairy (add buttons, crystals, dried flowers, pearls, trinkets, glitter, a poem) and bury it or hide it in a nook of a tree

go for a walk with a glass jar and fill it with tiny magical items you find along the way, go every day until it’s full

invent something absurd and useless, like an umbrella warmer or a toast unbutterer

take a colouring book and break the “rules” (colour outside of the lines, make the sky green)

create a tiny world in a jar (put in moss, stones, crystals, water etc)

make and decorate a dollhouse to leave it in your garden for a fairy

craft a magic wand

make a trinket necklace

make a memory box

start collecting dead bugs

make drinks that look like potions and have a stargazing picnic while drinking them

write postcards to imaginary places like a floating city or a forest made of glass

build a bug hotel or bird house

try stole balancing

carve a candle

create your own tea blend using herbs, flowers and spices

write penpal letters to an imaginary friend (a fairy, mermaid or unicorn) make up an ongoing story thats happening across multiple letters

try to mix a new colour and name it

instead of walking or running, go skipping

research ways the world could end

look for bones in a forest, near a road or river

write a fake history for a mundane object like a spoon

invent new words for oddly specific feelings you’ve felt

create a tiny menu for an imaginary restaurant

attempt to do something so random that it might be the first time someone ever did it

make an all about me page (include style, hobbies, kins, pride flag, pronouns, age, a quote)

make a pinterest board for your younger self. pin things that they would have liked

make snow animals on trees

play dress up while watching a dress up video on YouTube

research where random memes started and where they came from

think of whimsical questions to debate (are clouds better than pillows? are sandwiches tiny beds for ingredients?)

decorate your shoes

gather old hats, decorate them wildly and exchange them with your friends. invent backstories for their previous owners

paint rocks with faces, name them and set up an adoption agency for friends to adopt

decide on your halloween costume and start collecting everything you need for it already

turn a corner in your room into a museum with weird exhibits like hair from a unicorn or a rock that can talk

rewatch your childhood favourite movies and cartoons

try a new hobby every day for a week straight and vlog it

create a secret handshake for yourself

invent a new holiday and celebrate it

have a secret handshake with the moon and do it every time you spot her

write your favourite word in your journal in as many fonts as you can invent

set reminders for random times, writing down little rewards that future you can give herself

make a “this reminds me of me” pinterest board or journal page

make your own tarot cards

write a love letter to yourself

go on a winter run (run through the snow, throw snowballs at trees, make snowangels, dance around the dark streets)

write an essay or journal page about why you would choose happiness over money or money over happiness

ask the universe a question and shuffle your playlist to see what it has to say

listen to every song called sleep walk and rank them

instead of bedrotting try treerotting

draw other people artworks in your style

try to create an organism inside of a bottle or bowl

make a music video (lizzy grant style)

try to create a new dimention or perspective by drawing it

start writing down if you notice any changes in your life or other people around full moons

start taking dice with you everywhere to help you make decisions (even numbers mean yes and uneven numbers mean no)

make your own eyeshadow palette (with pictures from pinterest) and name the eyeshadows

try to think of a feeling youve felt but couldnt explain then give it a name, make a playlist specific to that feeling and write a poem about it

make a playlist just for staring at the moon at night and make it a routine to listen to it everyday

try to remember things you used to enjoy as a child to experience them again (movies, songs, hobbies, toys, etc)

watch a video on a topic of your choice and take notes while drawing the person in the video

stare at an empty journal page until you get an idea. dont stop until its filled

make an intro for yourself (a minute long clip introducing you, add a song you like behind it)

make a pocket shrine

deeply analyse and overexplain something in your journal

go to a bookstore and let your intuition guide you to a book/ask a cool-looking person for a recommendation

grow plants in tea cups

make a secret blog and write the username on random bridges and walis so people can find you

develop a relationship with the moon (research about her, interact with her, give her a name, talk to her)

start noticing signs and patterns

do a spell that shows you what your soulmate looks like in a dream

analyse your dreams (whats a topic/person that keep showing up?)

start researching astrology, laws of the universe, the moon, witchcraft, etc

invent a ‘new vibe’ and make playlists and pinterest boards for it

start saying thank you to everything. enjoying a tasty mango? thank the universe

say nice things to your water before drinking it (creates good energy)

go for a swim fully clothed

put a hammock out in a random place and read a book

find a secret hangout you never tell anyone about

sing and dance around in a forest

lie on the ground while its raining

meditate in a forest

walk until you see an animal

feed ducks

make gifts and write letters to your future partner

rewrite any scenes you didnt like from your favourite movies/books

make your own album - get a few songs you like and have the same vibe into a playlist and design the album cover and think of a name

make diy instrumnets

make perfume from water, flowers and essential oil

make a magazine about your interests

go to a beach with a jar and bring the beach home with you (add sand, seashells and water into the jar)

#thought daughter #hobbies #activity #outdoor activities #whimsy #whimsical #deminetly other #deminetly #deminetly activities

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thydungeongal · 6 months ago

Text

First day of Adventuring

Our intrepid heroes, Jimothy, Montgormery, Theophany, Chuckles, Theodore, and Stevelyn (introduced in a previous post) arrive in the village of Balaz's Wish in the Empire of Irazor.

Irazor is ruled by necromancer Lucien of Irazor, a level 12 Magic-user. He has well-brushed brown hair, glowing black eyes and a nose ring (Uncomfortable). In the pocket: a dirty handkerchief, 3 sp and 2 gp.

The village of Balaz's Wish is a simple village nestled between two mountains. As the party arrive, they immediately head to the local drinking hole, "The Lost Torch Tavern," to check the local bulletin board for leads.

Help requested! A heirloom of sentimental value was stolen from me. I will reward anyone who is kind enough to get it back. Yours, Kyranthia of Akaana Heading to Hammering? Payment guaranteed to a trusty courier. Ask for Berwin Lacy

Montgormery, who has named himself party leader, decides that a simple delivery quest is unbecoming of a man of his noble stature and his retinue, so he leads the party on a visit to this Kyranthia of Akaana!

Kyranthia of Akaana. She has bulging red eyes, delicate features and gap teeth (Exhausted). In the pocket: a quill and 3 sp. Her Decorated Sword is lost (or so claimed). Finder's rewards is 230 gp.

The party then goes to gather some rumors at the tavern while having some drinks, overhearing the following:

Kyranthia of Akaana’s decorated sword (actually Sword +1, Locate Objects) is somewhere in the Hideout of the Feared Hopes Avoid going to Nightmare Wetlands. There’s a Giant Leech there. Safia of Atali is very secretive recently.

A quirk of Hexroll is that once I reveal the first rumor it also revealed the secret about Kyranthia's sword. Well, regardless, the party now has an approximate direction to which to head: while the exact location of the dungeon is still a mystery, they know it is due East-Northeast.

Deciding that they are much better off heading North via the road instead of trying to cut straight Northeast through the mountains, they follow the road and chance upon a peculiar sight in the woods.

There's a stream of clear water here, flowing gently between the woods, over the smooth rock ground. When exploring this area, a giant triangular artifact made of polished iron, with large pointy spears attached, can be found wedged near a water stream. There's a 1-in-6 chance to find a secret door leading inside the artifact and a successful INT check will allow using a contraption inside it. If used, the object will magically levitate and will travel 1d6 hexes in a matter of minutes before crashing into the ground again, dealing 1d6 damage to anyone inside.

No one in the party (even Montgormery) is stupid enough to try and mess with a UFO. Regaining their bearings, they decide to head Northeast, into the woods.

And find a tavern at the bend of a river.

"The Baker's Torch Tavern" is welcoming travellers and adventurers near a water stream.

The party decides to call it a night at this point. They dine on some local delicacies and have some ale, and then go to bed. (At this point the generator kind of fucked up imo: the tavern only has two rooms available. Instead I had everyone pay the prize of the roof and bench.)

Here's a quick look at the menu:

Stewed slices of chicken, glazed with garlic and wine and served with baked potatoes for 2 sp⬝ Stewed fillet of fish, glazed with red wine and served with steamed vegetables for 2 sp⬝ Stewed fillet of chicken, marinated in honey and herbs and served with steamed vegetables for 2 sp

And here's a look at the map (I have accidentally been pressing here and there and everywhere, so it's actually showing much more than it should):

What I have omitted from the above description: checks for random encounters (since they didn't yield anything interesting) and the roll for getting lost (the party didn't get lost so they have their bearings for now).

#thysologirl #dungeons and dragons #old school essentials

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occasionallyprosie · 1 month ago

Text

“A Song On Repeat”

Chapter 4

Brothers being brothers and a couple more secrets revealed

First | <<Previous | Next>>

Read On AO3

He woke up bundled in cloth against a warm chest and it took a while to draw his hazed mind from the dregs of sleep and recall what happened.

He very much was still a bunny.

He nudged the blankets away with his nose until he could squirm out, thankfully not held captive by the sleeping Rancher. The morning sun filled the small room--Legend normally roomed here with Hyrule, he wondered when Hyrule had left.

He noticed Twilight's wolf pelt in a heap across the room... He genuinely had no idea why.

He gingerly moved to the edge of the bed and tried to gauge the drop. The problem with bunnies were that they were extremely fragile, he'd learned dropping a rabbit just from holding them at your chest could kill them, or just injure them enough that euthanasia was the only option left.

He didn't know what was a safe distance to fall. He really didn't want to find out, but his bag was on the ground and he needed his moon pearl.

He could try... goddesses knew he wasn't fragile, no matter his form.

He moved closer to the edge and began to slide his front paws down the edge, trying to lessen the gap before he completely dropped--

A squeak escaped him as a hand the size of him pulled him back.

"Careful," Twilight rumbled, voice slightly strained. "Bed ain't that low to the ground, Apple."

He twisted and glared best he could at the Rancher, who'd apparently awoken just in time to stop him from jumping. He would've been fine! Maybe.

Twilight—who looked a little pale—leaned over the edge and set him on the ground before he sat up. "What're ya up to?"

He bound over to his bag and with some struggle, nudged it open and promptly stuck his body into it.

"Need help?"

He scrabbled further into his bag and out of pure memory of location his nose brushed the little pouch which held his moon pearl. Teeth catching the fabric, he kicked himself back out of the pouch and sort of flopped back onto the wooden floor.

Twilight made a noise that Legend would've hit him for. It was soft and almost cooing.

He glared up at him and tried to pull open the pouch.

"Oh Ordona help me," Twilight rasped, his voice too strained. Legend didn't deign that with a response.

He startled as the air shifted and Twilight's hand entered his vision. He darted back on instinct. Twilight slowed, then continued to open the pouch and let the pearl roll out onto the floor.

Legend darted and grabbed it, everything twisted and he found himself sitting back on the floor, bright pink bangs falling over his face.

Twilight laughed softly, knelt in front of him and he mussed his hair.

"Ge'off!" He shoved him, scowling and glaring.

Twilight just grinned. "You’re adorable, Kit."

"Don’t you start calling me that," Legend threatened, throwing that demented pinecone at Twilight. It hit his chin but he just laughed at him.

"Too late, you’re a little kit, a baby bunny, you’re smaller without that cute little tunic."

"Go die in a hole!"

Legend huffed, slumping into the floor and base of the bed, holding his moon pearl tightly.

"Alrigh'," Twilight said, smiling softly and he offered his hand. "Come on, it's probably about time for breakfast."

"You say a word about this and I will kill you."

"Aw, we both know ya ain't gonna do that. All bark and no bite, ehh, Kit?"

"I'll show you no bite!" He lunged at him and Twilight laughed, easily wrestling him off and pinning him to the ground. That didn't stop him from kicking his stomach and shoving him off.

Legend jabbed his fingers into Twilight's ribs.

He squawked. "You little rat!"

Legend managed to escape his returning attack and he ran out of the room, shutting the door behind him for the seconds it gave him on his escape.

"You want to go that way?" Twilight challenged.

Legend darted down the hall, far more agile than the rancher who pursued him. He slid down the stairs and called a good morning to Malon and Wild in the kitchen, both looked startled for the brief moment he saw them but next thing he was doing was jumping overtop the sofa and skittering to the side as Twilight tried to follow.

By the time Twilight landed and adjusted himself in the living area, Legend was darting out the door to the side.

"Catch me if you can, Rancher!" He taunted.

"Items?" He called back.

Legend debated with how he would handle a wolf chasing him and decided, fine, let's play cat and mouse--or rather, wolf and rabbit. He may lose a bit of sanity, but he trusted Twilight not to hurt him.

"Sure!"

And he was gone.

Running around the farm was easy, he was familiar with escaping responsibilities by doing so, and this wasn't too different.

He got out to the overgrown, unused training paddock as he saw Wolfie sprinting down the path from the house toward Legend.

He grinned.

The shadows--not darkness, not the twilight--wrapped around him and he was in full control of his transformation.

He heard the startled yelp from Wolfie as he ran back toward the stable through the untamed growth.

Legend slipped through a gap in the wooden walls, a gap Wolfie wouldn't be able to follow through, and he hid in a corner of crates and hay bundles, flopping down and letting the warm, content feeling simmer as he held onto it.

In time, he heard the doors open and he hid further behind the crates, deciding on his escape route.

"How did you even get away?" Twilight questioned aloud. "You just disappeared."

Oh if he wanted to do disappearance acts, Legend could accommodate.

"Kit."

His voice was far closer.

"You expectin' me t'move the hay ta find ya? It ain't that heavy."

Legend moved to the edges of the crates.

Twilight was about to grab one of the bundles and as he did, Legend darted out past his legs.

"What the--How?!"

Legend transformed back, the shadows guiding his form and he landed neatly atop the railing to keep the hay from falling down the stable.

He grinned at the rancher, knowing his magic--his innate magic that was normally left untouched--caused his eyes to gleam just a little.

"Ain't ever seen a shadow magic user before, Rancher?" He taunted.

Twilight stared at him, then his eyes sharpened. Legend had to give it to him, his lunges were fast. He yelped as they both fell to the first floor of the stable. They rolled and tumbled, he got up faster but Twilight stayed down as he instead dragged Legend back down by the ankle and tried to pin him.

Legend knew exactly what would be coming for him if Twilight successfully got him down, and he was not about to give in to that. Instead he fought him off, kicking and snarling.

Unluckily for him, even if he was a fairly decent boxer, Twilight was a certified wrestler.

"No--" Legend was cut off as he snapped his mouth shut to hold back the burst of laughter as Twilight danced his fingers under his ribs. He screeched and squirmed.

"Ge--het--stohohop!" He scrabbled at his hands but to little effect.

"Nuh-uh, you made me run 'round the whole farm, I'm gettin' my revenge."

"Don’t you--Forest! You--You jerk!" He screeched, forced laughter drawn from him.

"Jerk? Jerk?" Twilight sounded scandalized by the insult. “I ain’t a jerk, this is a jerk move."

Instead of going for his upper ribs, he went for where his ribs stopped and Legend made some embarrassing, high whine-squeal sound. He tried to kick him off, shoving at his chest and hands, but to his luck he was significantly weaker than the rancher.

Eventually, thank the three, Twilight let up and Legend whined weakly as he collapsed into the ground.

"Not even barking now," Twilight teased.

Legend glared at him, breathing heavily.

"I... I hate you," he wheezed.

Twilight just grinned. "No ya don't."

"Yes I do. Now get off me."

Twilight snorted. “A'ight."

He got off him and offered him a hand, Legend had half the mind to ignore it but he, stupidly, took it.

Twilight pulled him up and then over his shoulder. Legend yelped.

"Hey! No--"

"Boys."

Legend went quiet and he dropped his head so he could see past Twilight's hip to see Time in the doorway, amusement clear on his face.

"Yeah?" Twilight's grin was audible in his voice.

"Breakfast is ready. And the Champion wants to talk with the Collector."

The warm feeling from screwing around with Twilight had faded by the time breakfast was finished, and Legend was left alone with Wild in the kitchen to clean the dishes.

"So..." Wild began hesitantly. "What... do you know?"

Legend hummed softly. "I know about the spirits and their gifts, I know what happened by..." he thought carefully, picking through various memories of his own, "the fort. Hateno, I think. I know that. And how many years Calamity Ganon held Hyrule Castle under his power. I also know about how you got into Gerudo Town, and the snow and sand boots."

"You--" Wild stared at him, jaw agape. "Gerudo Town? How did that come up?"

Legend ground his teeth, clenching his jaw for a long moment. He redirected his gaze down at the dried plate in his hands while forcing his jaw to loosen before he spoke. "I didn't reset the moment the battle was over every time."

Wild frowned, he looked over at Legend with confusion in his eyes. "Huh?"

He inhaled carefully before he met his eyes. "It was a 72 hour cycle, Champ. Sometimes it was mid-battle that it happened, sometimes it was hours after, sometimes I was caught in shock to use the spell and..."

"And...?"

"There was so much blood," he murmured. "So… so much blood." Legend saw blood blurring the edges of his vision, he could almost see that forest and not the kitchen they were in. "Goddesses, there were a number of times it was just the two of us left and you—I… Neither of us were very… present. Sometimes you told me stupid stuff just to make me laugh, even if you were still crying. Like Gerudo Town and that guy you snagged those shoes from."

"Oh, sweet Hylia, Vet," Wild breathed, eyes wide. "I'm so sorry."

Legend just cracked a weak smile. "It's alright. Don’t worry."

"It's not alright--I'm sorry, but--We all know it."

He took the next dish to dry off, avoiding eye contact now. "It will be fine. I've dealt and handled worse."

"Doesn't mean you’re okay now."

"If I was, I don’t think I would've woken everyone up last night screaming."

Wild startled. "Rancher said he didn't think you really remembered."

"I may not have the Triforce of Wisdom but I'm not an idiot, I also have very good memory, thank you.”

A rhythmic knocking caught their attention.

“Sorry,” Four said immediately, “but, uhh, I was wondering if when you guys are done, if I can steal the Vet?”

“We’re almost done,” Legend said, gesturing to the almost empty basin of dishes. “Meet you…?”

“I’ll be out on the deck.” Four vanished around the corner.

“So…” Wild began. “About Gerudo Town—“

“I have so many outfits and we’re about the same size.” Legend shot him a smirk. “Remind me next time we’re at my house, I have a huge collection.”

Wild lit up.

#linked universe #lu legend #linkeduniverse #lu warriors #lu time #lu twilight #lu hyrule #lu wild #lu sky #fluff #angst #hurt/comfort #lu fanfiction #prosie writes #bunny legend

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sugurusdiscordmoderator · 1 year ago

Text

just an idea that came to my head in my sleep last night🤭

18+ MDNI

Ino Takuma (18) x f!reader (23) x Nanami Kento (27) One Shot

4K words

cw: masturbation, threesome, oral (both) public-ish teasing, age gaps, DP, butt stuff, creampies, just my smuttiest dream basically

—

After you graduated from Jujutsu High, when you were a new baby sorcerer without schooling, each graduate received a mentor. Your assigned mentor was none other than the Kento Nanami. You learned all of his techniques, tips, and personality. In fact, you two got a little closer than mentor and mentee relationships should be, especially after some of the stressful, long, missions. It was your secret, calling him Kento behind closed doors and stealing glances around the hallways of jujutsu high.

Now, you find yourself with your own mentee, Ino Takuma, who idolizes you and Nanami. You are very candid with Ino and teach him everything you know from a professional and personal matter in the sorcerer world. You begin a friendship with him, the same way Nanami took up a friendship with you. After all, you’re all professionals with stressful jobs and could die any day now.

Ino has been begging you to to let him hang out with you and Nanami. Even though you and Nanami have only hooked up a few times, you still hang out a good bit outside of work.

‘Hey Kento bb, my mentee Ino would love to meet you. Can I bring him to happy hour with you this week?’ You send via text to Nanami.

‘Mentee? Have you been seducing him the same as you did to me?’ He responds.

‘No. Still professional but we’ll see 🤪 lol jk’

‘Good. I’m not good at sharing but I guess I’m in for drinks.’

‘Sounds great, Thursday at 4?’

‘Yeah. Looking forward to it. xx’

You roll your eyes at the kisses Kento sends at the end of the message and text Ino the location and time to meet up on Thursday. You invite him to swing by your office and you can walk there together.

—

Thursday comes around and that morning you find yourself shaving your entire body in the shower. You’ve been a little lonely since the last time you and Kento had alone time and your mind wanders as you let the hot water run over you. You reach your fingers down to your folds and think about the last time he touched you, in your office at the school. You sitting in your desk with your dress hiked up as you gripped his tie. He was such a gentleman, he got you to cum around his fingers and then sucked your juices off of them, expecting nothing in return. That means you owe him an orgasm. You wonder if you can convince him to come home with you after Happy Hour. Your wetness covers your fingers and mixes with the shower water as you stable your other hand on the shower wall, legs shaking. You rub small circles on your clit as your ring and middle fingers gently push in and out of your squelching hole. But then you remember the shower head you recently installed and how it is detachable. You reach up to grab it and and focus your left hands on penetrating yourself while you move the shower head to focus on your clit. After a few minutes of thinking about Kento, his muscular arms and his tight blue shirt, and his thick veiny cock that twitched every time you walk in the room. Your mind wanders to Ino, how confident he is and find yourself imagine what if would look like if you were on your knees in front of him. Before you know it you’re moaning and cumming around your fingers, not sure which man pushed you over the edge. You finish your shower flushed red and panting. Trying your best to get ready and get through the workday without thinking about the throb under your skirt.

Before you know it, it is 3:30 and Ino knocks on your office door. You wave him in finishing up the last of the paper work for your upcoming mission. “Hi y/n!” Ino greets, always so cheerful.

“Hi Ino, you ready to walk over?”

The two of you make small talk on the way to the local ramen bar that has an amazing happy hour. You order a glass of wine while the two men opt for sake.

Ino talks about his schooling and recent missions and how he is excited to now be a full time sorcerer. You can tell Nanami is skeptical about his optimism. He has seen the ugliest parts of the sorcery world, and the corporate world too. You’ve seen behind his hard exterior at the end of the day and that’s one thing you’re afraid to show Ino.

“You know kid, it’s a lot harder than it seems out there now that they fully trust you. Friends die every day. Y/n has seen some tough stuff but watching your friends die has been the worst part. Something that Gojo, Shoko, and I have been unlucky enough to experience.”

Ino remains quiet glancing over to you. “Nanami, let’s keep it a little positive. He is relatively new to being my mentee and I don’t need you tainting his attitude,” you awkwardly chuckle.

“Speaking of tainting,” nanami gives you a side eye and smirk next to you, “what all has she taught you yet? I need to make sure my pupil is taking her responsibilities seriously.” You feel Kento’s hand creep to the seam of your skirt playing with it as your cheeks begin to flush.

“Well I’ve learned a lot about her cursed technique, and she’s introduced me to her classmates from back in the day. We’re going on our first mission together next week and I’m not sure what else we have planned!”

“Hmm do you have other plans outside of the classroom y/n?” Nanami squeezes your thigh. Is he…jealous? Of your mentee’s relationship with you although nothing has happened?

“Y/n-San, are you feeling alright? Your face is kind of red?” You feel Nanami’s nails dig into the squishy part of your thigh as he waits for you to respond.

“Oh, um, yeah! I’m good. The wine is just getting to me I think. Should we order some appetizers too?” Nanami slides his hand closer to your core almost as if he is rewarding you for your answer.

Your mind flashes back to your shower this morning and your dirty thoughts of the two men. Better yet thinking of being on your knees for your mentee while your mentor has his way with you.

“So Ino, did you have any interest in girls during your schooling?” Kento asks with his neck muscles straining as he stares at this glass of sake.

“Well there is one but I don’t think it was mutual.” Ino avoids eye contact. Oh no. Is he implying that he has a crush on you? His mentor?? Just then you feel Nanamis thick fingers brush on the outside of your panties. You gasp and look Ino directly in the eyes like a deer in headlights.

You blurt out “would you guys like to continue this meeting at my house? It isn’t too far from here and I’d like to get to know you better Ino.” Kento rubs small circles outside your panties that has you clenching around nothing. He knows given the opportunity you’d take both men at once considering you asked him for a threesome with Gojo before.

Nanami throws 5,000 yen on the table to cover the cost of the drinks and tip and ushers you out of the booth with a hand on the small of your back and gives your ass the tiniest squeeze thinking Ino wouldn’t be watching. You make your way out the door and start the 2 blocks towards your house.

But, Ino definitely saw that squeeze. And he catches his eyes lingering on your ass for too long as Nanami holds the door for him.

You enter your house and grab a bottle of wine pouring for the 3 of you and excuse yourself to the bathroom. Nanami follows you though, leaving Ino in the living room even more stunned by these actions. His mind is reeling, especially since he can’t stop thinking about your body and how your big eyes look up to him while you’re sitting at your desk and he’s standing in front of it.

“Kento-!” You begin to squeal before a large hand is over your mouth. He closes the bathroom door behind him. And comes up behind you in the mirror, one hand over your mouth the other roughly going up your skirt and moving your panties to the side.

“Such a dirty girl. Probably thinking about the two of us all over you this entire time. Wasn’t even his idea probably. You just can’t help but fuck any sorcerer you can get your hands on.” He growls quietly in your ear as he stares into your eyes through the reflection in the mirror. He sticks his middle finger in your cunt without warning. He pulls it out and shows you the glistening, “Would you look at that my princess?” You whimper at your favorite pet name for you of his and watch as he raises it to his lips and sucks it off. You whine behind his hand for more, needing release from him. “You’re going to go out there and tell Ino how much of a dirty girl slut you are. That you’re not qualified to be a mentor considering the dirty secret you’ve been keeping about your relationship with your mentor.” You shake your head and close your eyes “please no” comes out muffled as Kento still holds you in his grasp. He moves your panties back over your mound and grabs a hold of the back of your skirt, lifting it, and places a loud hard slap on your right ass cheek. It stings but you roll your eyes back for more.

“Later. I’ll fuck you after Ino leaves unless he thinks he deserves a chance with you too.” Kento whispers as he opens the bathroom door.

Ino is looking around the living room at your accolades and accomplishments as well as pictures with friends from your high school days. He definitely heard a spank come from the bathroom but is trying not to wrap his head around what he thinks is a secret relationship between you two.

As you and Kento emerge from the bathroom your face is as red as ever and there is a significant bulge from Kento’s pants that he pretends he doesn’t notice.

“Are you two dating?” Ino blurts out. Embarrassed how jealous he feels because of his crush on his mentor who is 5 years his senior.

Nanami chuckles. He laughs. You look over at him waiting for him to answer being the oldest and most wise of you two. Your mouth agape not knowing what to say and still shaken up after your interaction in your bathroom.

“Sorry I shouldn’t have asked like that Nanami-san, I don’t want to disrespect your love life.” Ino only looks to nanami for his approval now as your barely forming a coherent thought.

“Well,” Kento sighs, “it seems you’ve been the first to catch us. Go on and tell him y/n”

Staring at the ground you explain, “Nanami and I started getting closer shortly after he became my mentor. It started on a long overseas mission, and we’ve kind of been friends with benefits for 3 years. Not dating. But we just hook up with each other. Some times with a third person, but usually just us. We have to keep it a secret from Yaga and all the other higher ups. The only ones that know are Shoko and Gojo.”

“A third? As in a threesome?” Ino only asks about the threesome out of everything you just spilled.

“Yeah, Shoko joined us once.” Kento smiles thinking back as he palms at the tent in his pants.

You’re still overly embarrassed staring at the ground thinking you just ruined your chance at a professional relationship with your mentee.

“And what about me?” Ino walks over to you, tilting your chin up so you make eye contact with him.

“I-I don’t want to mess up being your mentor. I want to teach you well.”

“Well it seems Nanami-San taught you very well,” Ino says winking down at you rubbing his thumb over your bottom lip.

“Kento, are you okay with this?” He walks over to stand behind you rubbing your shoulders. “Yeah hunny, whatever you want. As long as he agrees to keep our secret.”

“Yes sir. Of course.”

“Good. Now y/n tell us what you’ve been thinking about since you’ve obviously been flushed all day.”

You finish your glass of wine and look back at Nanami. “Well I wanted to know what it was like to be on my knees for my mentee. And teach him what good head really feels like. While my mentor is behind me teaching me a goooood lesson.” You stand up tugging at Ino’s black hat to pull it off, and Kento’s hand lands another spank on your ass.

“Good girl. Now get on your knees and show him good before I do my part.”

You grab Ino’s hand and move towards your bedroom as Kento follows already knowing where you’re heading. As you get in the bedroom the sun comes through the window giving an amazing glow across your face. “Can I kiss you first?” Ino asks and leans down. You nod and lean in to press your lips against his. He kisses you slow and passionate at first, something you’re not used to with Kento. You slip your tongue in his mouth and begin to unbutton his pants eagerly. He hungrily kisses you back while unbuttoning your blouse accidentally ripping off a button in the process. He dotes you with wet sloppy kisses from your cheek to your jaw down your neck to your collar bone. He runs his teeth over your bra strap, “may I?”

“Please” you whimper making eye contact with Nanami sitting on the bed as Ino takes off your bra and gently kisses your titty and licks your nipple.

“Ino, let me teach you how to treat her.” Kento demands in a sexy voice, curling his pointer finger for you to come to him. You walk up to his demanding presence as he begins toying with your right nipple, pinching hard, making your eyes roll back. "When you have a good little slut like y/n, she needs to be treated a little rougher to be satisfied. He glances over at Ino taking your left nipple in his mouth grazing his teeth over the mound before biting and pulling your nipple, looking up to see your reaction. You let our a whimper as he motions for Ino to come try it out on your right nipple. The sight nearly makes your legs give out seeing two extremely attractive men have their way with your tits. Licking, sucking, and biting at your boobs , each leaving their own hickies. You beg down to them after your nipples feel fully stimulated.

"Please, I need more!" You direct your attention towards Ino, knowing Nanami wouldn't accept your pleading. Ino stands giving you a gentle kiss on the forehead, "get on your knees baby." You do as he says, kneeling in front of where Kento is sitting but facing Ino. Using your right hand, you get to work pulling down Ino's black boxer briefs letting his pretty cock spring out. A solid 5 inches that stands up nice, leaking precum from the tip.

"S'pretty" you whisper as you lick up the back and suck on the tip, swirling your tongue around to taste his precum. Ino blushes at your comment and gathers your hair into a ponytail, ever so gently guiding you down his cock, but definitely not forcing. As you suck the soul out of Ino, making him a whimpering mess, Your left hand works it's way up Nanami's khakis to rub his bulge through his pants. You unbutton and unzip his pants to reach his boxers and grip his cock hard to make up for the teasing he put you through at the restaurant. You should've known better, Kento always has the upper hand.

"Here, you're doing great princess but I think he needs to be taught how you really are," Nanami takes control of your ponytail from Ino grasping it much harder. Your eyes go wide with Ino's cock still stuffed in your mouth realizing what is about to happen. Using his grip and advantage of sitting above you, he begins using your mouth to fuck Ino's cock roughly. Your eyes start to water but you keep rubbing Nanami and looking up at Ino innocently. He has to close his eyes so he doesn't cum right that second.

"That's a good girl." Nanami gruffs and smiles watching you cry over your mentee's cock.

"Nanami-san, is it okay if I cum down her throat?"

You look over to Kento, "mhm go ahead," he says still staring at you as he puts his hand over top of yours to rub him harder.

Ino fights for your attention, "look at me baby I wanna see your eyes when I give you my seed." You direct your eyes back up to him trying to blink the tears away. he brings his hand to your face to wipe your tears with his thumb, "fucking shit princess" Ino grumbles as he grabs the side of your face proceeding to cum in the back of your throat. You swallow and stick your tongue out for both men to see.

"C'mere hunny, I want to try something." You get off your knees letting Nanami take control. "Ino, are you good at eating pussy? I only want the best for our little slut."

Ino nods, "I think so..." blushing as he looks over at your flushed face noticing you wiping the mix of cum and spit off your chin.

Kento grabs your chin, "princess sit on his face." You and Ino look at each other wide eyed, "o-okay" you respond. Ino lays on the bed and Kento takes your panties off. "There you go baby, good girl, he's gonna make you feel so good." you crawl on to the bed proceeding to spread your legs on either side of his head and making eye contact as you feel like hot breath on your pussy. He takes his own initiative now, licking circles around your clit before sucking on it. Your moans start spilling out as his tongue works his way up and down your slit and going into your tight hole. You are in such bliss you hardly noticed Nanami taking his pants off and freeing his cock.

God nothing is quite as heavenly as Nanami's cock. So veiny, 7 inches, so thick and heavy that it doesn't even stick straight up hard. You start drooling as a combination of seeing how heavenly his dick is and feeling Ino tongue fuck you. "Open up baby, my turn to use your mouth." You have to practically unhinge your jaw every time you suck Kento off. "Yes daddy," you say quietly. You stick your tongue out for him to slap the tip on. He smirks and makes a grunt in satisfaction as you start tracing your tongue up and down his long shaft. You start sucking the tip and slowly moving further down. Even his private parts smell amazing like his ocean rain body wash. He lets you work at first, starting easy after how hard he fucked your face against Ino. Just as you start to deepthroat Kento, you feel Ino bring his hand up to rub your clit with his thumb.

"Fuck Ino you're going to make me cum" you pull Kento's cock out of your mouth to say.

"Oh baby you don't have to talk to cum," Kento shoves his dick back down your mouth smirking as you pout up at him for not being able to praise Ino. As you are giving him a dirty look your eyes start to roll backwards and you feel your legs start to shake. Your moan vibrates against Nanami's length and Ino starts to move even faster noticing how close you are. Just as you are getting close your mouth gets stuffed even more, Kento pushing you as far down as you can go (he can tell, he's made you cum so many times that you are like an easy to read book). Your eyes close shut as your nails dig into Nanami's arms. "Let go baby, cmon and cum for us slutty girl," he practically growls. Your tight wall clench and unclench over and over again for Ino's tongue and he moans below you tasting all your juices.

Kento releases your head and lets you get proper air as you ride out your orgasm. "Inooooo" you whimper as Nanami strokes your hair. You roll over on your back to lay beside Ino as you catch your breath.

"Yeah, I'd say he's good to answer your question earlier," you giggle looking up at Kento. He smiles down at you sitting on the bed again and looks through your nightstand where he knows all your toys are. He pulls out your lube and you close your eyes out of embarrassment.

"So my mentor gives amazing head, has a daddy kink, and uses sex toys? Jesus, you just keep getting better." Ino smiles at you fixing your hair, his cock fully hard again.

"Yeah and it gets better," Nanami says, "baby can you spread for us? Can you let Ino and I fit in your tight pussy and ass?"

You nod, and Kento opens the lube and you know to bend over letting the boys see your pretty holes. Nanami smears the liquid over your asshole poking his thumb in as you moan. He says to Ino, "She loves anal, so fucking good at it. Since you're the guest I'll let you have her ass." Ino smiles and runs his soft hands all over your cheeks up your back, making you relax. Kento lays on his back and pulls you to straddle him. You slide up and down his hard cock, rubbing against your clit and clenching before he's even inside. He reaches up to wrap around your throat as you coat him with your wetness. "Put it in baby I can't wait anymore," as he gently squeezes and your eyes roll back again. You slide him in, god he is so big you don't ever get used to it. Every time you fuck Kento it feels like you're losing your virginity. As you adjust to him and work your way up and down he slides his hands down from your neck to your tits groping and moving down the your sides to squeeze and spread your ass. You feel Ino's thick fingers prodding at your ass slipping in his pointer finger and rubbing himself with his other hand.

You ride yourself on Nanami's cock and Ino's finger, as he slips his middle finger too. "Oh, Inooo fuck yes," You moan throwing your head back. "Please call me Takuma baby," he strokes your hair again making you feel so pretty. Before you even have his cock in you, you feel pressure growing in your lower abdomen.

"Don't you dare cum yet princess, not until you're fully stuffed baby," Kento groans up at you. You close your eyes trying to not think about how good you feel. Ino takes out his fingers and lines up his cock with your hole.

"Look at me. I want to watch your face as he puts it in." You look down at Kento placing your hands on his chest slightly digging your nails in. Ino slides in and you can't contain how good you feel anymore. You look Kento directly in the eye as you start to cum on his cock, him thrusting up into your tight hole. Ino is whimpering again at just how good you feel, never imagining he'd be in this situation. Both of your holes clench, and you cream on Kento's cock. He breaks eye contact to look at where he is thrusting up into you. "Such a good slutty girl," he grunts and you can tell he's close by the vein popping out of his neck. Your moans become incomprehensible, eyes watering again in so much pleasure.

You know Nanami gets off seeing you feel good and his thrust begin to get sloppy watching your tits bounce as him and Ino thrust into you. "Baby I'm cumming up deep in you," his eyes close as you are a whimpering mess from overstimulation. You feel his hot cum fill you up, god he always cums so much. He caresses your face coming down from his high as his thrust still.

Takuma takes this opportunity to finish the job and begins thrusting harder into your ass, one hand reaching around to grab your nipple. "Takuma, please cum for me please please," you beg.

"Fuck, whatever you ask princess," he continues his reckless pace while you're all but limp. He feels his balls tighten and spurts into you for the second time tonight. All three of you coming down from your highs together, whimpering, out of breath, and you can't help but smile.

"It was everything I fantasized in case you were wondering," You lay down on Nanami's chest as he kisses your forehead. Ino pulls out and politely goes to grab towels and start a shower for you all. When he comes back Kento grabs his attention, "Hey take a picture of her holes leaking from us so you can remember this."

You blush gently pushing his shoulder. "Kento, maybe we will need your help on our mission next week."

AN - this is the first smut I've ever written I'm so sorry if it sucks

#nanami kento #jjk kento #nanami x reader #nanami smut #pretending he isn't dead #jjk smut #ino takuma #ino x reader #takuma ino x reader #nanami x reader x ino #ino x nanami #kento x reader

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jockw · 2 months ago

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Any nevermore headcanons?

Heya Mythawolf!

I've been thinkin bout it today when I saw this on my way home, so. Doing the same as last time, marking characters' names in colors to make it obvious. These are mainly modern tho, hope that's alright - it's also long so imma add this line for the mobile users that wanna scroll by easily

Modern Lenore would've bickered a lot with her parents for sure, getting grounded but never anything bad as a punishment. I think at worst they'd take her devices/gadgets away to make it severe, but she'd somehow have something to enjoy coddled up in her room. I also headcanon that Lenore doesn't drink alcohol because of her mother, not because she drinks basically everyday and her liver is begging for help — no. Simply put; because she just don't want to. Maybe for special moments, like new years and all, but not on a regular basis.

Going back to my previous headcanon about Annabel being vegan/vegetarian; I still see it happening!

It's a fascinating idea, because I barely see much vegan/vegetarian representation in fictional characters. But hey, my tastes in stories are wild so of course I'd rarely see such things. Perhaps I should make one myself.. anywho. Back on track, she'd definitely feel uncomfortable being near people that eat meat very messily. As in, seeing the oil roll down on the person's mouth to their chin as it almost drips onto their shirt kinda disgust. Though Annabel would never show or force her disgust to people who are meat lovers, she isn't one of those who goes "You are an animal killer! How dare you eat their flesh?!" (No, I'm not calling all vegan/vegetarian pricks. I don't think every one of them forces other people to become a plant eater either).

Prospero wears glasses, he enjoys a good book but it wouldn't have taken him double the amount of time if he had glasses with him. I'd say.. this is mostly general for any universe I s'pose? Our handsome boy is a bookworm, 'sall. You'll find him easily in school libraries, community libraries, bookstores, etc..

Duke and Pluto are deadass gamers. They like to play tons of games, cards, D&D, Monopoly, you name everything man. Hell, add Free Fire in the pot too.

I think if they were addicted to gaming, they'd also have a Twitch channel together and post their videos - mostly it's them playing together/against each other in some matches. Otherwise, we're gonna go to the Rabbit Hole and add a little problem; they're far too gone in the virtual realities that their friends are worried.

Well, Berenice is definitely some alcohol lover and like, slay because yes. We love her who she is. I believe in the world there are alcoholics who can control their liquor, and know when to stop. I see Berenice like that, unlike Lucille who continues from the Webtoon (although it's not much regardless).

Our little vamp gal would be the one winning in drinking parties, even if it's some random in a bar taking shots. She'd so win.

Eulalie likes to travel, she wouldn't mind having a travel buddy too. Doesn't matter who, even if it's Montresor. She likes to learn more about culture, see the landscapes and— go into France, in the secret passageways under Paris to search the catacombs just to take a selfie with it. Yes, she watched As Above, So Below - the movie and now she's trying to find the exact locations to get there. Her favorite to go to place is somewhere in Australia because she got bitten by a tarantula one time.

Will wears Hello Kitty pj pants btw.

I think that's it for now!

Cause i still gotta answer 2 more asks lol and I'm freezing, hope ya enjoy mate

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sucrealacreme · 7 months ago

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Supe Busters - Soldier Boy x female reader

Chapter one

Summary : Vought has many secrets, project W is one of them. What happens when said project turns against them?

You dealt with supes on the daily. I mean, it was truly your only job. Vought called you a villain, a criminal, Atomeris they called you. A supe who has been brainwashed all of her childhood by both her parents and an anti-supe cult.

They made up fake stories about you. Built a whole new you. You weren’t the kind nurse anymore, no, you were this evil witch who should be burned at the stake according to them.

Each time they called you evil, criminal, an animal, you wanted to cry. You just wanted to help people by bringing justice to those who felt superior to the law. Those who could hurt people without consequences.

Your very first supe was Icy BABY. An ice controlling woman who caused multiple deaths by making huge and shampooing spickes of ice everywhere. Vought said it was to stop a robber, or a murderer, you couldn’t remember what they came up with.

But you knew why she truly did that. She just thought it was fun. Simple as that. The cunt thought it was funny to see inferior beings die so easily. So you did what you had to.

During one night, you and your team of other fucked up supes tracked her down and beat her up down before you did what you do best.

Months ago, you got your hands on compound V. You studied it days and nights to be able to control it. The blue liquid was a weirdo really. It had so many different molecules it took you almost two months to finally crack it's nature. And with it's formula now printed in your brain, you could now separate it from blood. So to put it simply; you could unsupe supes.

And that's exactly what you did to the Elsa wannabe. It was truly a sight for sore eyes to see her try to attack us with her now weak force and speed.

That night wasn’t just to serve justice. No. It was to prove a point, to warn Vought that from now on, their toys weren’t as invicible as they once were.

“Fucking cunt I can tell ya” said the black haired man to Hughie. “Yeah well Soldier Boy did scared the living shit out of him. Can't blame him for running away right?” Butcher looked at him like he grew a second head. The other man started to feel anxious under his hard stare and could feel himself starting to sweat.”The only thing I did was telling him what I would do to him if he wouldn't give us their damn locations” “Oi for fuck's sake. You threatened him to punch a hole where his dick was and to use it like a fleshlight”

“And I meant it” said the tall, green-eyed man before leaving the room to smoke a good ol’ joint.

“We lost our only suspect linked to this shit hole and we have yet to find any like places where those people could be hiding and the both of you are fighting for shit” Hughie was now not only anxieuse but angry at the situation. I mean, they’ve been looking for weeks for those people and the one guy who could have helped them get a connection left in the middle of the night. “He’s gonna act right from now on I can tell you that much.”

“Oh yeah? How do you fucking know Butcher?” said Hughie “It’s either that or he's going back to being the sleeping beauty

waiting for his bloody prince. I'll contain him from now on, like a god damn mommy birdy” Butcher said with his signature smirk

“Your words not mine” said Hughie, pointing at him while leaving the room.

“There was an explosion today at Times Square Ashley. It allegedly happened when two unidentified people attacked our New-York mayor out of nowhere. Many are injured and even worse, there have been fourteen deaths. Now, some say it was a terrorist attack, others some sort of uprising super abled villains. What do you have to say to those people?”

“Well Cameron, we are scared to announce it was in fact some sort of twisted version of supes who caused those deaths and injuries. Now, if supes were included as part of the US military, those tragic events wouldn’t have been. You see, the American government made an atrocious decision three years ago. He decided that supes were just entertainment, and not valuable defense assets. So now we are facing situations like this. Where criminals think they can do whatever they want and not risking anything because well, no ones gonna stop them they’re super abled!”

“That’s tragic Ashley. Now, what can us patriots do to change this situation?”

“Thank you for asking Cameron. Well, you can join the “Supes are our best defence” protest this friday at 2 pm in front of the White House. For our watchers outside of Washington, Vought is ready to give away plane tickets at a low rate price for those who wanna join. We thank you for your support.”

“Thank you Ashley for this strong speech.”

“Alright who did this.” Said Florence, a woman part of your team who could control airwaves like light and sound and all of that.

“I don't think it was any of us Flo, why would we attack the mayor? It's against our own values” Orleta, fastes woman in the world, said with an anxious laugh.

“Oh you think it's all a fucking joke now uh don't ya Orleta? You know, you might be physically fast but mentally you're fucking sl-”

“Alright, alright let's all calm down, I'm sure if someone here did this they had a reason. Now, whoever did this please come forward and explain to us the reasons behind such violent actions” said the group leader, Evangeline. Evangeline was kinda like homelander, minus the maniac part. She wasn't as strong nor as fast as him but she could still fly, laser people and all that. A magnificent woman. She was like a patient leader to all of you. Evangeline used to be a preschool teacher before this whole mess. None of you really know much about her except that. Magnificient, but mysterious.

“As anyone thought that maybe it’s Vought who’s trying to make us look bad once again? I mean they do it all the time and we did in fact get a rise in popularity with the whole Silver man mess…” you said, unsure of your theory. You weren’t sure of it but it would make more sense then one of you to kill innocents. Something you straight up fight agaisnt.

“Yeah I agree now that would be way more plausible then one of us doing it. I mean we kill supes, not civilians” that was Florence. She was your best friend. Together, the both of you could take down 5 supes at the same time. You were one of the deadly duos in the team.

“Yeah exactly, that’s their job not ours,” said Oletra now relieved that everyone calmed down.

“Alright then. It’s settled. It was once again Vought. Like usually.” Evangeline then left the room her heels clicking on her way out.

“We found something,” said Annie entering the living room of her appartment with Hughie.

“Oh thank God cause we lost the guy”

“What guy?”

“You know the with like metal powers and all?” Said Hughie with a nervous smile

“You lost the fucking silver man?” she said, in disbelief that under three hours The Boys could lose such a valuable asset.

“Yeah but you know now we have a new track, yayyyy” the man tried to loosen the tension

“Yeah ok anyway. We think the team, oh what's their name again”

“Illusion?”

“Yeah them, me and Kimiko found one of their guys entering some weird facility. When we entered there was only a locked door. We didn't try to force it open or anything we were only two. They're probably like thousands there.”

“Oh that’s good, that's really good Annie. Butcher's gonna want to Kiss you” said Hughie while laughing and kissing his girlfriend. They finally found something and this time it couldn’t escape.

A/N : So that was it for part 1, hope yall liked it 😊

A/N 2 : So this is the second version. If you saw something else, it's normal I changed à few things 😊

@demodemo909

@weaponxgames

#soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #soldier boy #the boys x reader #the boys #jensen ackles

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rebelpapermaker · 5 months ago

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I'd like to throw my hat into the ring of modern FNAF theories:

Michael is the rogue indie developer.

Hear me out:

There is a clear divide right now in the FNAF games: games sanctioned by Fazbear Inc (Help Wanted, the racing game) and the games that came before. Help Wanted is supposed to be a VR recreation of those early games, right? But where are the details? They'll reference little things, inside jokes, but they won't go over the actual plots of these games, the biggest example being Sister Location and Pizza Sim. They have to change those plots completely, turning Sister Location into a more standard FNAF experience and Pizza Sim into a minigame.

Maybe we've been looking at "Michael is the protagonist of FNAF" the wrong way, although I do think he is a character we play as in each of the first six games; maybe the story of FNAF is initially told to us by Michael through these unsanctioned games, including all the gory details that only he could possibly know. Who else could possibly be around who knows not only the details of the multiple bite incidents, but what happens to Michael in Sister Location, as well as pizza sim- and for that matter, FNAF 4 with its intricate nightmare scenario.

"how could Michael have made the games if he got scooped?"

Canonically, remnant heals the body. I agree with everyone that purple zombie Mike is way more fun, but the cutscenes with ennard wearing Mike around actively tell us this: when ennard leaves, it forces its way out his mouth- why not leave through the gaping hole it entered in? Unless that hole was closed up now. Mike turning purple could be from the constant bruising being puppeted around by a robot would give you, faster than the remnant could possibly repair it.

Also, zombie learning to code to share a company's dirty secrets is pretty fucking funny.

"Michael died at the end of pizza sim"

I think that's a convenient thing for Michael to imply, with several reasons why he chose to. Number one, if Fazbear Inc is actively trying to find the person exposing the company for its past, telling them one of their major suspects is dead could be helpful. Number two, why were we told in the game that a way out was planned for us? We are explicitly told a way out exists, and then once we get to security breach, we see that the tangle is running around- something that shouldn't be possible. There is the possibility that the tangle found the way out, but consider the more compelling option: Michael took the way out, and the consequence of that was monsters escaping. And once again, it's Michael's fault, though not on purpose, that the horrors continue. Michael should have stayed, and that regret is reflected in the game. Everything would have come to an end if he had.

The wall code in the sister location room in security breach is also a big hint to me. Clearly we're supposed to associate that room with Michael. I've heard many theories on who could have written the wall code; none of them make much sense combined with Michael's room. They make sense on their own, but we have to take where the code is placed into account too!

I do think that if this theory is true, robot Gregory is also true, but that's a very long other post lol. And ultimately I have no fucking idea if this is right!! This is FNAF, we may never know, but might as well toss another idea out there.

(it's also been pointed out that glamrock Freddy's manner of speaking, if we're going to compare it to characters we've heard talk, is much closer to Henry, both character and speech pattern-wise. We don't hear much from Michael, granted, but combined with the comments we see him make in the logbook, he doesn't match Freddy's demeanor very well. There's also AI in there of course, but I think it's worth noting)

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf theory #michael afton #please talk to me about this!!#I know this isn't anywhere near perfect #but i think it's interesting!#original

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kylieswift31 · 8 months ago

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Taylor swift, the mastermind and a journey down the rabbit hole...

Introduction

This started off as an exploration of Taylor's Swift's music videos and lyrical analysis, but throughout the process of analysing the delicate music video I began to uncover a deeper layer to what was being shown. This in itself felt like a big connection, but upon further exploration I discovered what felt like a much bigger puzzle piece connecting everything Taylor has been working on up until this point. I thought that was where it ended only to discover more and more all over again. In the end, the rabbit hole is so much deeper than I could have predicted, but the journey was worth the wait.

I was discovering deeper layers and connections as this came together, and my intention was to provide my discoveries with you in a similar way. I could go back and delete most of it and leave you with my discoveries, but I don't believe that's what Taylor would have wanted.

If you want to share this or add to it please go ahead, but if you do, try not to spoil the ending for others before they've had a chance to find out for themselves. Being able to see the connections for yourself as you go along adds much needed context to the connections discussed, so treat this like a book and take it one chapter at a time. After all, once you open pandoras box, there's no going back.

If you're interested in learning more please keep reading, but be warned this is going to be a really long post. I have broken this down into 13 parts, (it started off as 3) so feel free to pause after each one if you need to and come back to it when you're ready.

I fear I have reached the bottom of the rabbit hole...

Will you join me?

🕳🐇

Chapter 1

The delicate music video

"Is it cool that I said all that? Is it too soon to do this yet?"

Taylor Swift has been leaving Easter eggs in her music, outfits and interviews for years now. These can range from hidden messages in the lyric booklets to bigger clues for upcoming albums and songs, as seen in the you need to calm down music video. There are many Easter eggs in the delicate music video too, but it's also hinting at a bigger theme some have seen throughout Taylor's work over the years. If we dive deeper into the lyrics, music videos, interviews and performances we might get a greater understanding of what Taylor is sharing with us throughout her work.

Opening credits. Instead of sharing my opinion on all of this with you from the start, I'll provide my findings and allow you to make your own assessment along the way...

The delicate music video starts with a close up of Taylor on the red carpet, surrounded by people wanting the latest update on her love life.

"This ain't for the best

My reputation's never been worse, so

You must like me for me"

She composes herself before the interview starts, stepping into the persona of pop star Taylor.

"We can't make

Any promises now, can we, babe?"

A passerby hands Taylor a sparkling note from a secret admirer.

"But you can make me a drink"

Taylor is makes her way inside. Despite the damage to her reputation, Taylor is still really popular with her fans who want to take photos with her.

"Dive bar on the East Side, where you at?

Phone lights up my nightstand in the black

Come here, you can meet me in the back"

A man dressed in a red concierge uniform tries to get to Taylor, but he is carried away before he gets too close.

"Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you

Oh damn, never seen that color blue

Just think of the fun things we could do

('Cause I like you)"

She's surrounded by bodyguards on all sides now. Taylor starts to notice how they move in sync when she does. If she takes a step back, so do they.

"This ain't for the best

My reputation's never been worse, so

You must like me for me

(Yeah, I want you)"

When she's left alone, we see her reading the note she received earlier. The location of her dressing room suggests that it's private and secretive.

"We can't make

Any promises now, can we, babe?

But you can make me a drink"

Taylor gets distracted by a group of girls walking into the room. When she turns back to the mirror her reflection has disappeared. She leaves the note next to the basin to investigate.

"Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it chill that you're in my head?

'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)"

The people around Taylor can't see her, no matter what she does to get their attention. She appears invisible, something she's been writing about in her lyrics since debut.

"Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it too soon to do this yet?

'Cause I know that it's delicate"

Ditching her red shoes is the first step she takes to embrace this newfound freedom and then continues to tear away the bottom of her dress. We start to see a lot more playfulness and freedom in the way Taylor moves knowing that no one can see her.

"Isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?

Isn't it delicate?"

Taylor is dancing her way through the hotel and there's no one paying enough attention to stop her, they appear to be too focused on their roles at work to notice her.

"Third floor on the West Side, me and you

Handsome, you're a mansion with a view

Do the girls back home touch you like I do?

Long night with your hands up in my hair

Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs

Stay here, honey, I don't wanna share

('Cause I like you)"

We see the concierge guy being carried away again. Here it is implied that he had made another attempt to get to Taylor, but again failed to do so.

"This ain't for the best

My reputation's never been worse, so

You must like me for me

(Yeah, I want you)

We can't make

Any promises now, can we, babe?

But you can make me a drink"

The climax of the dance scene shows Taylor start to feel overwhelmed with it all. It was fun to begin with but the look on her face shows how lonely it’s become to be doing all of this on her own.

"Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it chill that you're in my head?

'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)

Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it too soon to do this yet?

'Cause I know that it's delicate"

Next she enters the elevator. It’s already occupied by an older woman in a red dress. She smiles at Taylor, who becomes hopeful that she’s become visible again. The lady starts applying lipstick to her lips as Taylor turns to find that she was looking at her own reflection in the mirror the whole time.

"Isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?

Isn't it delicate?"

Taylor has left the hotel and is now in an underground train station. She’s still dancing, but with less enthusiasm than before.

"Sometimes I wonder, when you sleep

Are you ever dreaming of me?"

As she steps onto the train she falls at the feet of the man, who is eerily similar to Taylor’s character in the man music video.

"Sometimes when I look into your eyes"

Taylor perks up again with a lovestruck look on her face, clutching her heart. It's a little dramatic but she appears excited.

"I pretend you're mine all the damn time"

The next scene shows Taylor dancing in the rain at night, on her way to the bar. We begin to see there is graffiti on the walls as she goes up the street. They mention Reputation and lyrics from delicate.

"Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it chill that you're in my head?

'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)

(Yeah, I want you)"

The way she bows in this scene, as well as the graffiti behind her, reflect iconic imagery from the hunger games catching fire movie.

"Is it cool that I said all that?

Is it too soon to do this yet?

'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)

('Cause I like you)"

The dancing sequence concludes with Taylor's final pose on the hood of an old fashioned car.

"Is it cool that I said all that? (Isn't it?)

Is it chill that you're in my head? (Isn't it, isn't it?)

'Cause I know that it's delicate (isn't it delicate?)

(Yeah, I want you)"

Here Taylor has finally reached her destination, the bar mentioned in the note from her secret admirer. This is the first time we will see them meet. The red neon lights indicate that the bar is called the golden gopher, open nightly 365.

"Is it cool that I said all that? (Isn't it?)"

Taylor is clutching the note to her chest as she steps into the bar, hopeful for what she will find when she opens her eyes. It seems like she's making a wish that this will all work out for the best.

"Is it too soon to do this yet? (Isn't it, isn't it?)"

When she opens her eyes we see several people sitting at the bar turn to look at her coming through the door. Every person at the bar could be her secret admirer, but it’s implied the man closest to the door is her match because he's the one in focus.

"'Cause I know that it's delicate"

We’re left with one final close up shot of Taylor, rain soaked and worn out from her journey, as she lights up with recognition upon seeing the person who was there waiting for her all along.

"Isn't it delicate?"

End credits.

Chapter 1 conclusion

Choose your own adventure

Here is where I invite you to think about the story and come up with your own conclusions about how it ended.

Level 1.

Do you believe that the story is just about Taylor finding love again after her reputation was damaged? If so, the story ends for you with the guy at the bar waiting for her.

Level 2.

Maybe you picked up on a deeper layer of the story being about the girl at the bar? And that amidst her reputation being damaged she was also coming to terms with having a queer relationship that she had to keep hidden to protect her career? If so, then the story might end here for you with the girl at the bar waiting for her.

Level 3.

Or perhaps you wanted to go a little deeper still? By re-examining the story searching for clues, you might start to pick up on an even deeper story being told about PR relationships (where a public relationship could allow a private relationship to remain private). The story could end here for you with the person of your choice waiting at the bar.

Level 4.

An even deeper meaning that is yet to be revealed?

Before you continue

Looking back through my findings, the note from the secret admirer, the strange facial expressions, the concierge guy, the lady in the elevator, the graffiti and the lyrics could all be clues to reconsider and investigate before moving forward.

Chapter 2

The Truman show connection

“Help me, I’m being spontaneous!”

You might have noticed by now that this music video is a perfectly executed retelling of the Truman show. More on that later, lets explore the movie in a bit more detail first.

The Trueman show is a movie from 1998 featuring Jim Carrey in the role of Truman Burbank, who lives in the picturesque town of Seahaven. He has a wife, a nice house and car, he goes to work every day and spends his free time hanging out with his best friend. He leads a picture perfect life, or so it seems?

Truman's day starts with greeting his neighbours while on his way to work. "Good morning! Oh, and incase I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!" It's apparent from the first day that Truman has a consistent routine with his drive to work, stopping to get the paper and making his way up to his office. Truman's life appears to be perfect and full of happiness, but slowly we start to see the cracks forming in the facade.

The first crack appears while Truman is at work. He's ripping a picture of a lady's facial features out of a magazine and making a secretive call to the directory assistance looking for someone by the name of Lauren or Sylvia Garland.

His boss delegates a job for him to complete that involves travelling across the bay via boat. As he makes his way to the dock we learn that Truman has a debilitating fear of water, caused by his dad drowning when he was younger and this prevents him from getting on the boat. The next crack comes when Truman recognises a man on the street that looks eerily like his father, but gets whisked away before they can talk.

Through Truman's interactions we start to learn that he has a dream of moving to Fiji, and to explore other parts of the world. The only problem is that he lives on an island and is afraid of water. When he mentions this plan to his wife he's reminded of their financial obligations, making it impossible to leave Seahaven.

After another day of work we see Truman in the basement unlocking an old chest that is full of nostalgic memorabilia from his past. There's old toys, photographs of his father and a map of Fiji inside the lid. We get the sense that the basement is Truman's only personal space within the house. As he pulls out a red cardigan from a plastic bag, we get flashbacks of his high school years. His attention is torn between Lauren Garland and his current wife, Meryl. We see Truman is interested in Lauren, but Meryl is persistent as she tries to get his attention.

During a study session in the library, Truman and Lauren have a moment alone for the first time. We start to notice that Lauren has green eyes (just like the picture Truman saved during his present day). She's also wearing a red rose shirt, red cardigan and a red and white badge that says 'how's it going to end?'. As the library closes they sneak away together to the beach. After a while, we see a car driving onto the beach and Lauren gets dragged away by a man claiming to be her father. She hastily reveals that her name isn't Lauren, it's Sylvia, and that everything Truman knows about his life is a lie. Her father claims that she is having an episode because of her schizophrenia. "We've tried everything. Hynotism, shock therapy." And that he's not the first, she brings all her boyfriends down here. She begs Truman to come and find her. As her father drives away, he reassures Truman by saying that he's taking her to Fiji to receive more help. All Truman is left with is her red cardigan.

The flashback ends here and we find out that Truman didn't follow her to Fiji at the time because his mother got sick, really sick. Instead he settled down and married Meryl, while living with the loss of what could've been with Sylvia. We return to the present day as Truman is in the basement holding a photo frame of his wife Meryl. It seems like a loving gesture at first, until he turns it around and opens it up to reveal that he's been collecting a collage of facial features, in an attempt to recreate a portrait of Sylvia from memory.

Eventually we see Truman on his way to work again, but this time the radio in his car is starting to glitch. We hear a strange transmission about Truman's location. There's a high pitched feedback sound as the frequency is returned and the regular channel continues. The cracks in the facade are now bigger than ever.

Truman appears sceptical of everyone around him for the first time and almost gets hit by a bus as he starts to panic. He rushes into a building near his work and just misses the elevator. Another elevator door opens, but as he goes to enter it, it's revealed that there is no elevator and it's just a storage room that is full of people moving about.

As he seeks out his best friend Marlon for help, we learn that Truman feels concerned that he is being followed or set up for something. They leave the supermarket with Truman talking loudly about his birthday and we see them again later in the day sitting at the beach watching the sunset. Marlon describes it as perfect, painted by the big man with a paintbrush. Truman begins to open up about his secret plan to go away for a while.

The next scene shows Truman's mother and wife reminiscing over photos from their past. His mother reminds him of her wish to have a grandchild before it's too late. Meryl offers to take her home with plans to discuss Truman's birthday plans, leaving him alone with the photo album. Upon closer inspection he discovers that a wedding photograph reveals that Meryl had her fingers crossed at the time, implying that her commitment to the marriage was fake.

The next morning Truman tries to confront Meryl, but she claims she doesn't have time, because she has an urgent amputation to perform at the hospital to get to as a result of an elevator disaster from the day before. Truman wishes her good luck and says he will have his fingers crossed for her, suspiciously. Truman follows her to work on his bike and sneaks through the hospital to see if she's lying about this too. The doctors are forced to perform the surgery on a patient pretending to be under anaesthesia.

We're starting to see that those closest to Truman have been lying to him. In a bid to escape, Truman goes to a travel agent looking for a flight that leaves immediately, only to learn that there's nothing available. He perseveres and tries the bus instead but that doesn't work either. Truman seems unsure of what else to try. We see him sitting in his car in his driveway when Meryl gets home from work and she gets into the car with him. Truman tries to tell her that he has figured out that the same people have been going past again and again, like clockwork.

She agrees to go to Fiji in a few months in an attempt to placate him, but Truman locks her in the car and attempts to leave town. "Blocked at every turn. Beautifully synchronised, don't you agree?" It's becoming really obvious that the town is working together to prevent Truman from leaving town now.

They reach a bridge over water that Truman is too scared to drive over at first. Instead of backing down he forces Meryl to steer while he's driving with his eyes closed. "We're over the bridge!" As Truman continues to escape, they are still faced with roadblock after roadblock. There's fire over the road that smokes up the car and an emergency at the nuclear power plant. As they stop Truman thanks the police officer for his help with directions. He replies with "you're welcome, Truman." This is the final straw that creates a big crack in the facade as Truman realises that everything he knows is a lie.

He runs off into the woods but gets trapped and returned home again by the police officers. Meryl offers to make some cocoa as if she's advertising the product at the same time. Truman confronts her looking for answers, only to be accused of having a nervous breakdown. "You're a part of this, aren't you?" he exclaims.

As they're arguing in the kitchen Meryl fearfully calls out "do something!" The next minute his best friend Marlon turns up with a six pack of beer. Meryl leaps into his arms crying as he comforts her, but he's looking at Truman when he says "everything's going to be okay, it's all going to be fine." The next scene cuts to them sitting at the end of an unfinished bridge together as Truman begins to tell Marlon what he's been through. "Maybe I'm losing my mind, but it feels like the whole world revolves around me somehow." Marlon replies by saying "that's a lot of world for one man, Truman."

Truman is concerned that everyone he knows has been in on this lie. Marlon reassures him by saying that he's been Truman's best friend since he was seven years old, that he's the closest thing he's ever had to a brother. "The last thing that I would ever do is lie to you. I mean, think about it Truman. If everybody is in on it... I'd have to be in on it, too."

The conversation ends with Marlon saying that there was something that started all this trouble, implying that he's done something to help. They turn around as we see Truman's father walk towards them through the fog. After many years Truman and his father are finally reunited.

Chapter 2 conclusion

We have now reached the turning point of Truman's story. Before we get any further I invite you to reassess your answer to how the delicate music video ended before we continue.

Level 1.

Did Taylor end up with the guy at the bar?

Level 2.

Is Taylor queer and despite the risk to her career end up with the girl at the bar?

Level 3.

Is it both? Has Taylor been in public relationships with men to protect her queer relationships with women and to keep her career safe?

Level 4.

An even deeper meaning that is yet to be revealed?

Chapter 3

Lights, camera, action!

“I think I’ve seen this film before”

The first time you watch the Truman show, the focus is on Truman and his journey. There have been cracks in the facade of his story from the beginning, but halfway through we reach a turning point as it becomes obvious that Truman is also the star of a 24 hour reality TV show that broadcasts his life to the public without his knowledge. Every move he makes is being observed by the outside. I left out some of these details from part two so you could see Truman's story unfold first, so lets go back through some of the initial clues before we finish his story.

The very first scene is not of Truman, but the director Christof, talking to the audience of the Truman show. There are many clues throughout the movie hinting at the fact that the town of Seahaven is a set designed for the viewer's access to every aspect of Trueman's life.

The first time we see Truman on the screen it is through the lens of a TV screen, the same way the audience of the show does. It feels very intimate, like he is talking to us, but in fact he is talking to his reflection in the bathroom mirror and is not cognisant of our presence. This is a space that is usually private for everyone, yet the viewer has access to this part of his life too. As Truman leaves the room the screen cuts to a black screen with the timestamp 'Day 10,909'.

When Truman leaves for work in his car we feel like we're watching him from within the dashboard, as you can see the blue numbers on the display overlaid on our view of him. The people he greets along the way seem a little too friendly and one group seem to push him back against the wall to give the camera a better angle of him.

Later on as the love triangle is explained via flashbacks, we see commentary from people working in the Truman bar as they watch the show. They explain some of his backstory for us and talk about watching his greatest hits videos from time to time. Everyone Truman comes into contact with knows who he is.

I mentioned in the last part that we were at the turning point in Truman's story. This second half of the story is when we start to get a proper look behind the scenes of the show we have been watching, as we see more from the directors point of view. Truman's best friend is receiving directions on what to say via an in ear device to convince him that they're not lying. The fog on the bridge is added for dramatic flare, there's a shot of viewers surrounded by the Truman show memorabilia and we see the emotional music playing is being choreographed too. The next scene is the first time we see Sylvia as an adult. She's sitting in her living room with an assortment of photos and newspapers in front of her, watching Truman on her TV too. It's clear she still cares about him.

The show continues with a recap of how 1.7 billion were there for Truman's birth, 220 countries watched his first steps and how the world stood still when he kissed Sylvia for the first time. They explain how as the technology improved over the years, their consumption of Truman's life increased too. "An entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras, and broadcast live and unedited 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to an audience around the globe." We get a glimpse into where Truman is living. Seahaven island is the largest studio ever constructed within a dome like structure, and it's location is just beyond the Hollywood sign. The moon is fake and the director has been working from within it the entire time.

We start to find out how they had to manufacture ways to keep Truman on the island. His father dying played a big part of that, but to the viewers it is just a plot twist in the show they've been watching for their entertainment. They have 5,000 cameras now, but started off with just one. They've been watching Truman's life since he was conceived and he was legally adopted by a corporation to fulfil the role on the show. Everything on the show is for sale, including their wardrobe, food products and dollhouse style versions of the homes they live in. "We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented." This is the director's response as to why Truman has never left Seahaven or found out about the show.

The interviewer is still taking calls from viewers and this time we hear Sylvia is on the line. We're shown that her home is full of anti-the Truman show information, with artefacts pinned up on the walls of her home. She has been collecting evidence since she was kicked out and is still trying to protect him, with evidence that there's a darker side to the show that we haven't seen before now. The director has a persuasive viewpoint on why Truman is happy living the life as he knows it. The interviewer attempts to placate the viewers by saying "well, aside from the heated comments of a very vocal minority, it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience." The director lets the audience know that Truman's wife will be leaving soon and a new love interest will be introduced.

The next morning we go back to Truman in the bathroom again, as if he's just started another regular day. He seems playful, using a bar of soap to draw an alien outline on the mirror, while at the same time indicating that he feels alienated too. His trip to work is just like the one at the start of the movie, but this time each interaction feels a little more forced. The cameras are more visible now. We view Truman through a hidden camera inside of the pencil sharpener. His boss introduces him to his new love interest Vivian, who is wearing a red cardigan just like the one he kept hidden away that belonged to Sylvia.

After an afternoon of working in the garden, the cameramen are keeping watch as Truman is asleep in the basement. He informs the director that he moved down there after Meryl packed up and left, leaving him home alone. The director is concerned about a change in his behaviour so they send Marlon to investigate. When he gets there and finds there's a plastic snowman in the bed, Marlon's pretending that it's a game because they're still broadcasting the show. He stands in front of a map to Fiji pretending he doesn't know where to look, only to whip around and open the door.

Inside the broom closet is a hole in the ceiling Truman created that leads to a secret tunnel out of the basement. Marlon sticks his head out of the hole like a gopher to find that Truman is nowhere in sight. The director yells "cut transmission!" and the live stream is ended for the first time since it began. Everyone begins to panic as they try to locate Truman and deal with the fallout. There are soon hoards of people combing the streets. In one last ditch effort to find him the daylight gets turned up in the middle of the night. Everyone's wondering what time it is and rumours are circulating amongst viewers that Truman might be dead.

Finally they locate Truman. He managed to get on a boat and is sailing away from Seahaven for the first time. He pulls the collage picture of Sylvia out of his pocket, the only thing he took with him. The camera cuts to show us she is relieved that he's finally escaping. The director manufactures a storm to force Truman to turn around. He would rather risk Truman's life than lose the star of the show. Lightning strikes the boat multiple times before he falls overboard. Just as they think Truman drowned, he screams out "is that the best you can do?" Truman begins to sing "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?" while fighting back. The biggest wave of all hits the boat as everyone watching is waiting with bated breath to find out if he survives or not, and he does. The boat comes to a stop as it crashes into the edge of the dome. Truman tries to break his way through the wall but is unsuccessful. He begins walking along the edge until he reaches the infamous staircase that stretches up into the sky with a door leading to the outside world.

Finally in a last ditch effort to persuade Truman to stay, the director talks to Truman for the first time just as he opens the door. He's pleading for Truman to stay, to let the show continue as it is, claiming that he knows Truman better than he knows himself. "You've never had a camera in my head!" is the only thing he says in defence.

The camera cuts to show Sylvia is still anxiously watching from home, praying that Truman will have the courage to leave for the first time. The director begs yet again, saying he is being broadcast to the whole world. We get one final "Incase I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!" as Truman takes a bow and steps through the door. Sylvia begins to rush out of her house and everyone watching at home begin cheering in celebration.

As we sit there hoping for an epilogue to the story, the credits start rolling. We’re left having to come up with our own interpretation of how Truman's story ended.

Chapter 3 conclusion

Choose your own adventure

Here is where I invite you to think about Truman's story and come up with your own conclusions about when he discovered that he was being lied to.

Level 1.

The movie ends and you go on with your day content with knowing that he was able to leave at the end?

Level 2.

Do you go back and watch the movie again? Maybe you investigate and re-examine how Truman first realised something wasn’t right?

Level 3.

Maybe you dig a little deeper still as you start to see the signs that Truman knew all along? How there was a minority of viewers on Truman’s side? And despite his struggles he found a sense of playfulness in the life he was living?

Level 4.

An even deeper meaning that is yet to be revealed?

Before you continue

The Truman show challenges our perception of how ethical it is to have such unobstructed access to Truman’s life. We’re left questioning if our entertainment was worth the price he was paying by spending his whole life living in the spotlight.

Chapter 4

The accomplice

"The devil's in the details, but you've got a friend in me"

When you get to the end of the Truman show movie you start to realise that not everything you saw was as it seems. You could accept this as the ending or you could go back and watch it again, keeping an eye out for all the clues leading us towards a deeper meaning to the story being told.

We've known for some time now that Taylor has included references to the Truman show through her use of Easter eggs, but what I've discovered is that the layers of references to this movie go so much deeper than we've ever realised before now.

We can see references to the Truman show in the first scene of the delicate music video, as we get a close up view of Taylor before the camera zooms out to reveal more about the life she leads. We start to see the cracks form the moment when someone wearing red tries to approach her too. This is the point where everything changes. We see Taylor start to pay attention to her bodyguards moving too perfectly in step with her, just like Truman notices that the people around him appear to be choreographed.

When Taylor is reading the note she received, her facial expressions and dance moves begin to mirror Jim Carrey's mannerisms. Her playfulness is short-lived and the reappearance of the characters in red take on a more complex meaning now that we can see that they are a reference to the Truman show.

The turning point for Taylor's character begins when she becomes overwhelmed. It's all fun and games, until it becomes lonely being invisible. Truman appears to feel the same way. Everyone was so enthralled by the show they were watching that they didn't notice how hard it was for him to not be able to live his life in the way he wanted to. We see him talk about leaving town over and over again, but from the outside we can see that the director is working against him. It makes us contemplate if forcing the star of the show to continue his role is worth it? There's even a point where the director talks about his hopes for the first on screen conception. When does it go too far before it becomes unethical?

Just as Truman escaped the life he felt trapped in, we see Taylor approach the same fate as she enters the bar. The name of the bar, the golden gopher, is a nod to the Truman show too (and what started this deep dive beyond just the Easter eggs). The note she's holding also reflects the collage picture of Sylvia. At last Taylor steps through the door, just like Truman did.

Looking back we can start to see the clues that Truman has known the truth since Sylvia left, based on what she told him as she was being taken away. We see Truman working in the garden several times and once he escaped we can deduce that this is something he's been planning for some time.

Here's the point where we need to consider Marlon's role in Truman's life. We know that they've been best friends since they were kids and have grown up together. So it makes sense that Marlon found ways to communicate with Truman. We start to see that is true with the comment about the sunset. It's an honest observation but said in just the right way that lets Truman know the truth about the life he's living. When he shows up to save Meryl, we see that he's talking to Truman as he says that it's going to be okay. Afterwards when they're sitting on the bridge, you can see that he means what he's saying, despite being told what to say.

Now if we go back and read the delicate lyrics again we start to see a thread of communication with her secret lover has been occurring the whole time. If we believe that Taylor's note was from a female love interest, we start to understand the motive behind needing to find a similar way to communicate without drawing unwanted attention. Looking back, the note Taylor received in the beginning wasn't the first.

At the end, both Truman and Taylor finish their story with a dramatic bow towards the camera. This is our first hint at the the secret hidden meaning I alluded to with the choose your own adventure questions earlier.

If you're ready to fall the rabbit hole then please keep reading...

Chapter 4 conclusion

These quotes are from the very start of the movie, however I’ve saved them for this section as they play a big part in the connections between Truman’s story and Taylor's story.

"We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We're tired of pyrotechnics and special effects. While the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life." -Ed Harris as the director, Christoff

"Well, for me, there is no difference between a private life and a public life. My life... is my life, is the Truman show." -Hannah Gill as Meryl

"It's all true. It's all real. Nothing here is fake. Nothing you see on the show is fake. It's merely controlled." -Noah Emmerich as Marlon

Chapter 5

The tipping point

"When you are young, they assume you know nothing."

The key to the secret hidden meaning I’ve been alluding to is hidden within the Truman show movie. The final bow at the end invites us to go back through their story yet again to uncover the deeper layers. Is this the secret clue? At the end of a theatre performance, the cast will come back on stage one last time to give their final bow of the night as the audience applauds the performance they've just witnessed. So we then have to consider that Truman and Taylor's final bow was an acknowledgement of the fact that they have been putting on a performance the entire time. But who was the performance for? Us.

As we dive even deeper we uncover the final clues. The soliloquy he performs to himself in the mirror, greeting his neighbours with his famous catchphrase, the way he answers the radio host's questions in the car. It's likely Truman knew about his role in the show since Sylvia left, but we can't dismiss the possibility that Marlon had informed him long before that. We know they had less cameras in the beginning so it would've been easier to let it slip without anyone noticing.

From what we can see, Truman was content with the life he had and found. He displays a sense of freedom in being a part of the performance until he found out that his father was still alive. This tipping point in hindsight is when Truman became aware of how far his family went to keep the show going.

This changed everything and is the final crack in the facade that led to Truman planning his escape. As we revisit the flashback to the love triangle, we start to learn how much Truman sacrificed along the way. Through the development of Sylvia's character we start to see the significance of the colour red. To the viewers at home it is a symbol of heartbreak and loss, and that Truman's attachment to the cardigan is based on his feelings for her. But for Truman we can assume that it is more like a symbol of hope that he might finally be free one day. Other symbols we see her wear include a red seahorse pin (their school mascot) a green bauble bracelet and the 'how's it going to end?' badge. When he reads the badge in the library, he quietly admits that he's been wondering that too. After Truman finishes reminiscing about the past, he slyly reveals that the badge is still pinned onto the cardigan. The collage picture of Sylvia also shows that he never lost hope of finding her again.

Red is the colour used throughout most of the Truman show memorabilia, but done in a way that reference Truman's on screen character. What started out as a symbol of resistance slowly became a symbol worn proudly by the audience. If everyone is using the colour for different reasons, how do you know what side they're on?

As we continue the story we return to the scene with the glitch in the radio and we're starting to see more cracks in the facade. Beer seems to have become a codeword between Marlon and Truman. As they watch the sunset, Truman's comment about going away for a while is a truthful admission to Marlon, while allowing the viewer to believe that it's just another wishful thought about going to Fiji. The scene in the hospital and the amputation is where we start to notice Truman has become bolder sharing his concerns with the viewer.

The following scene where Truman is sitting in his car showing Meryl how everybody goes by over and over again (followed by driving laps around the round about while joking about being spontaneous) reveal that he's known all along that the townspeople have always moved around him like clockwork.

And if he knew the entire time, what was the point of the story? To allow the viewer time to first process and accept the information they were presented with, before being presented with an opportunity to uncover the truth. Truman reached a point where his own well-being was more important than the character he had been portraying to the audience. Those who had seen the signs watched on with anticipation and those that didn’t were left feeling shocked and confused.

There are many more connections throughout the rest of the story I could share with you, but will withhold sharing them now so you can discover more connections for yourself in the future. Our exploration of Truman’s story ends with the realisation that he discovered the truth for himself, and in turn allowed us as the viewer an opportunity to do the same.

Chapter 5 conclusion

It was never my intention to go into so much detail about Truman’s story, but the depth of the layers involved play an integral part in our understanding of the connections to Taylor's story, without needing to speculate on her personal life. Skipping over this much needed context would be like skipping to the answers in the back of the book, (or ruining the ending of the Saw movie) without having the chance to come to your own conclusions first. A lot of the upcoming expedition won't make sense if we don't learn about Truman's life.

When Alice falls down the rabbit hole it’s not a quick descent. It was a slow journey where nothing seemed to be happening as she travelled through layers and layers underground, until all at once she found that she had suddenly landed at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

"I think that it's perfectly reasonable for people to be normal music fans and to have a normal relationship to music, but... if you wanna go down a rabbit hole with us come along, the water's great. Jump in! We're all mad here!!"

Chapter 6

The cracks in the facade

"You just see right through me"

It’s well known that Taylor’s work has long been inspired and influenced by her favourite artists, historical figures, folklore and fairy tales since the very beginning of her career. But what most don’t see is the cracks in the facade of her public persona, and how the facade we see is inspired by the Truman show.

During the delicate performance on the eras tour we see how the themes surrounding the Truman show movie inspired the visuals on the stage. Slowly we see cracks forming in the glass, until at last there's so many cracks the entire thing shatters into tiny pieces. But what causes the cracks? Taylor. At first they appear as she's walking, followed by stomping on purpose and then jumping on the stage to shatter it completely. It's worth considering that the snake patterns on her outfit could also symbolise the lines of the cracked glass. This performance is the reason why I became so interested in learning more about the song.

The story Taylor's been telling us goes much deeper than just the easter eggs if you're willing to look deep enough. To understand why Taylor has referenced the Truman show in such detail with the delicate music video, we also need to consider that she relates to his character on a personal level too. I'm sure by now you've picked up on the similarities between Taylor's life in the spotlight and Truman's role as the star of a show. I'm not the first to pick up on many of the Easter eggs she has left along the way, and there are so many who have put in a lot of hard work to understand Taylor's history that have made my journey here a little easier.

It's long been known that the eras tour poster is a nod to the Truman show. We've known for a while that the stage is a key to the vault. If the era's tour is a part of the story Taylor is telling us, then the Truman show is the script she is reading from. And the actors? She showed us that in the anti-hero music video.

We have the Taylor that's trapped inside the house, the pop star Taylor that knocks at the door, the giant Taylor as well as the dead version of Taylor. If you haven't heard of this concept before you might believe that there's only one version of Taylor, the pop star version. But just like Truman's story, if you look a little deeper you start to see that there's more to the story. The Taylor inside the house and the one knocking on the door represent the private and public versions of Taylor. The dead version is the side of herself she left behind when pop star Taylor took over. And the giant Taylor? Perhaps she's represents the version of who Taylor wanted to be before she became the most famous person of our generation.

In the funeral scene we meet her two sons and daughter in law. Chad, Preston and Kimber might represent the Gaylors, Swifties, and the critics, but they could also represent the best friend, wife and mother. in Truman's story.

We could guess that the director could represent her past and present management, but it’s more likely that Taylor is the director too. After all, who wrote the soundtrack for the story being told?

Before we continue

To see the story being told by Taylor, we need to do so through the lens of queer flagging. If this isn't something you've considered before, I invite you to do so with an open mind. The giant Taylor on the tour visuals is providing us with a glimpse into the consequences of us not seeing the private version of Taylor underneath the pop star persona she's been presenting to the public. There's been a long history of famous couples having a public relationship to protect a private relationship, also known as bearding (similar to a lavender marriage). Looking into the history of queer people such as Chely Wright will give you an insight into why many stay closeted to protect their career. I won't be going into more detail on the PR side of things, so feel free to explore that side of things on your own.

Chapter 7

The Easter eggs

"Every bait and switch was a work of art."

If we know that there's a deeper meaning Taylor is hinting at, what are the clues we need to look for? When Truman told the director that you can't see inside my head, we can assume Taylor is trying to say that you can't see inside her heart. If we compare the lover house to Truman's story, we begin to recognise the facade of the pop star persona.

In the lover music video, we first see the lover house is within a snow globe and our first shot of Taylor is through the peephole. The couple dancing throughout the house seem to be sharing a romantic moment, but the entire experience feels voyeuristic. No rooms off limits as we see them in the bathroom swimming inside of a fish bowl. "Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close, forever and ever?" plays at the same time. It feels like we're asking that of her. It becomes uncomfortable to realise how much we want to have access to every detail of her life. We could also counter that by asking why are we being given so much access to a space that's meant to be private?

Their moments together feel so intimate that it's easy to lose sight of their performance being acted out on a set. The only room that seems to be personal to Taylor is the attic, and it’s just like Truman's basement. If you look closely you can see a similar trunk to the side as she's reminiscing over old pictures on a projector. This song hints at the performance she's been putting on for us and the lover house reveals that it's a facade.

All the little Easter eggs throughout the music video seem like advertisements now that we’ve seen that they advertise memorabilia on the Truman show in a similar way. Other Easter eggs include Taylor’s bauble earrings, her lover has a seahorse patch on his jacket and the board games are Taylor Swift themed.

One of the reasons the house is a facade relates to what we know of her queer identity. Taylor was rumoured to come out as bisexual at the beginning of the lover album release, with the Me! music video. The lover era was full of queer themed easter eggs like rainbows, unicorns and the entirety of the ‘you need to calm down’ music video. This was enough proof for those who were ready and willing to see the queer flagging. But many others don't look into these alternative meanings, and in doing so miss out on seeing any further than the pop star facade. Just before the new album was released Taylor learnt that her masters had been sold and the plan to come out was put on hold. This drastic change in aesthetic and the queer flagging wasn't well received by many fans.

Lets consider for a moment that both the reputation and lover eras had been planned to unfold in the way they did all along. Truman saw the people preventing him from leaving were predictable enough to blindside them when they least expected it. Logically if Taylor knew what the roadblocks were before she left her old record label, she would have known how they would retaliate after she left. So it seems like she started to leave clues that were just subtle enough that most people wouldn't pick up on straight away, but with more context would show that there was a deeper story being told the entire time. Everyone assumed reputation was directed at the critics from her past, but looking back this bait and switch was more of a message about the future and the beginnings of her escape plan.

The contrast between reputation and lover was done on purpose, luring the sale of her masters to happen at what they thought was the peak of her career, leaving her free to move forward with a bigger plan. We could also consider that the contrast between the themes and style of each album was done on purpose to blur the lines between the two.

Midnights and TTPD were supposed to follow lover, but were set back to a later date because of the lockdowns. The benefit of this delay meant we got folklore and evermore as well. The ‘I can see you’ music video shows us that the plan was about getting the masters back all along. We see more references to the Truman show in this music video too. The vault is reminiscent of the moon shaped structure the director worked out of and the getaway van escaped over a bridge, just like Truman did.

The teenage love triangle we hear about on the eras tour is now more meaningful than just a high school crush after seeing Truman’s experience. Taylor originally claimed this was a fictional love triangle, but as she only mentions Betty now it seems like there is more significance to the characters in the story than we first thought. And recently she's started calling herself the narrator of the story too. This feels like a clue that we should consider that she has been showing us her version of events from different perspectives all along.

Chapter 8

The one worth fighting for

"I'm the problem, it's me"

Now that we've explored how Truman's and Taylor's story ended, we can start to unravel the clues of what they were really fighting for all along.

There are many similarities to their story, but a key piece of the puzzle lies within the reflection. Truman's story starts with talking to himself in the mirror. The way he heaves out a long sigh before he turns around and walks away in the first scene begins to tell the story of a layer of frustration under the surface of the person he sees reflected back at him in the mirror. Further into his story after his failed attempt to escape, we see Truman in the bathroom again but this time he isn't talking to himself at first, just staring at the mirror. His demeanour soon changes as he starts drawing the caricature of an alien in a moment of apparent silliness. Yet, if we consider what Truman is thinking and feeling this time, we start to see the loneliness he was feeling the entire time and that the happy facade is just a mask he puts on for the audience.

During the delicate music video, the first time we see Taylor's reflection is in the mirror of her dressing room when she's reading with the shimmering golden note. The way her reflection vanishes is a similar concept to Peter's shadow, with Peter Pan being a frequent reference in Taylor's work. The battle between feeling invisible and enjoying the freedom that comes with Taylor wearing her facade as a mask is shown throughout the music video. The loneliness becomes more apparent during the scene with the older lady in the mirror. We watch on as Taylor's demeanour becomes harder to maintain, a sign that she always felt more isolated than anything else. As Taylor gets onto the train we hear her singing "sometimes when I look into your eyes I pretend you're mine all the damn time." And at the same time she's in in front of the character from the man music video who represents the public persona of Taylor. Her demeanour changes to a look of determination for the first time, and this is when we see that reuniting the public and private versions of themselves is what they're fighting for. And if they're fighting for themselves, the lover we see them longing for then becomes a diversion.

Before we move on, we need to acknowledge that the mask or facade they are wearing acts as a mirror reflecting what the viewer wants to see back at them. Just like Taylor showed us with the visuals of the delicate eras performance, the mask is breakable. Now we know that Taylor's the one breaking down the facade herself, it becomes harmful to refuse to see Taylor for who she really is underneath the pop star persona. And just like with Truman leaving in the end, Taylor has shown us that she's choosing herself now, regardless of the consequences. So we can choose to join her, or sit back in defiance until she walks away.

"It's me, hi

I'm the problem, it's me

At teatime everybody agrees

I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror

It must be exhausting

Always rooting for the anti-hero."

Chapter 9

The great escape

"What if I told you none of it was accidental?”

We've spent all this time weaving Taylor and Truman's story together, and now it's time to pull them apart again so that we can see the version of Taylor's story she’s been telling us.

You might have been wondering what Taylor was alluding to when she was on the Jimmy Fallon show in November 2021?

"And so that's when the Easter eggs started, but when it got out of control was when I started to realise that it wasn't just me that had fun with this, that they had fun with it too. And I should never have learned that, because then I couldn't stop. And then all I started thinking of was how do I hint at things, like, how far is too far in advance? Can I hint at something three years in advance? Can I even plan things out that far? I think I'm gonna try to do it!"

I could spend all day going through the Easter eggs, but there’s one Easter egg in particular I’d like to focus on next.

All of the connections to the Truman show have been leading us to this final clue of the story...

Are you ready for it?

...The man wall.

It's the most talked about Easter egg across all parts of the Swiftie fandom. It's full of potential clues for future vault releases, with many theories on how to decode it. But what if the biggest easter egg of all is actually being used as a bait and switch tactic? A trap set to draw our attention in, that we don't notice the bigger picture?

"When everyone believes ya,

What's that like?

I'm so sick of running as fast as I can"

If you look close enough, you can see a polaroid shaped outline underneath the black karma letters, as if something that was once there has been taken away. Just like the collage picture from the Truman show, this missing piece represents the secret note from the delicate music video. The one piece of evidence that meant something to them, when so much of their lives were full of half truths and lies.

Taylor's song Florida! reflects Truman's dreams of moving to Fiji. Talking about going to Fiji encouraged the director to reveal ways to keep him in town, and we can see that Taylor used her attempts to come out in the same way.

So if Truman's map of Fiji was a disguise for his master plan, is the man wall a disguise for Taylor's master plan too? The wall is made up of tiles and the rerecords are laid out in a shape similar to an infinity symbol or a butterfly. But if you look even closer still, you will see the crack down the middle of the man wall map. It's not just a map forward with the rerecords, but is it concealing the escape route too?

If Taylor's been referencing Truman's story over the years, how do we know that it's because she relates to his character? We won't know for sure if the map is concealing a hidden tunnel.

Unless...

Chapter 10

How did it end?

"I gave so many signs"

...she's showed us her plan over and over and over again!

"You put me on and said I was your favourite."

By hiding the truth in plain sight for all to see, we see yet again that Taylor inner world has been invisible to us since the beginning of her career. She has been telling us a fictional story about a teenage love triangle, meanwhile the music videos have contained one of the biggest Easter eggs of all time.

The story could end here with Taylor living happily ever after, or once again we could dive a little further to see the deeper meaning of the story being told. Here is where I will invite you to consider that the timeline starts with cardigan, delicate and then with willow. This then reveals how the story began, the ways she felt trapped in the lie she was forced to live, how everything changed and then her determination to escape.

The cardigan music video is set in an old cabin, but instead of a whimsical vibe Taylor is dressed more like the Cinderella version of herself in the bejewelled music video. The attic is also a part of the set during the folkmore era of the eras tour. This is the only real piece of the lover house, the rest was burnt away on screen. And just like Truman's story, Taylor is showing us the deeper truth to her story if we're willing to see it. We hear her singing about the cardigan that holds memories of a lost lover. Taylor opens up the lid of the piano and shows us that her music is her secret escape from reality. "I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind." As the adventure through the woods continues we see her almost drowning in the ocean. "Tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy" plays as she's swimming to the piano. Just when all hope is almost lost, she steps through the lid of the piano again and returns back to the cabin. We see her sitting at the piano once more, this time drenched and cold. Taylor wraps herself up in the old cardigan and we're left with one last shot of the silver stars that are embroidered on the sleeve as she composes herself.

The willow music video picks up at the same point that the cardigan music video ended. The only difference is that there's a strand of golden light leading into the lid of the piano. If we compare this to the end of Truman's flashback, we can see that after almost drowning, Taylor has been reminded of something worth fighting for, the moment where everything had changed. Now as she follows the golden thread into the piano lid and through the woods, it's with determination. We're introduced to her lover as she looks at their refections in the river. This is the one worth fighting for. "That's my man." Taylor seems to sign her name in the glow of the tread before diving into the river. A flashback to a younger version of the couple playing in a fort begins, but just as the boy disappears and leaves the younger Taylor alone, we see that he left her hands tied up in the golden tread.

As we return to the present day we start to see reflections of the delicate music video. She steps out from a curtain and into a glass display box with her banjo and begins performing for the crowd, just like Truman did after his failed escape. As the camera zooms out we recognise the location is similar to an old fashioned circus with posters, lights and circus tents set up around her. Just as she's singing "that's my man", the lover from earlier steps forward from the shadows. They reunite through the glass pane, but it feels like the glass case was intentional to keep them apart.

Just as Taylor tries looking for a way to escape, she pulls back the curtain she came through only to find that it's boarded up. She pretends to find a way to get through the glass, only to reveal that she knew there was a trap door underneath her the entire time.

Taylor escapes through the tunnel and enters the scene with the golden orbs. She performs the dance with the group as we hear her singing "every bait and switch was a work of art" before following the golden thread once more. Her lover removes a mask he was wearing to blend in to the crowd. Just like Truman's best friend was secretly in on the escape plan, so too is Taylor's lover. The golden tread leads her through the night, through the piano lid and once more Taylor returns home. Just as she's reached the end of the golden thread she looks up to find her lover waiting there for her. They are reunited once more as he takes her hand. "Every bait and switch was a work of art" repeats once more as they turn and step through the cabin door together, and into the woods.

Chapter 11

Oh we're invisible

"picture of your face in an invisible locket"

The more we revisit Taylor's story, the more we see the deeper layers hidden within. "And so I changed your name and any real defining clues" leads us to consider that Taylor has changed the details surrounding her story and its up to us to decode it.

As we've seen in the delicate music video, Taylor's reflection represents the private version of herself. This alters the meaning behind the willow music video. As we go back again, Taylor is peering into the reflection of the river once more. She's singing "Lost in your current like a priceless wine. The more I say, the less you know. Wherever you stray, I follow. I'm begging for you to take my hand. Wreck my plans, that's my man." When we see him again through the glass in the box, we start to realise that his return is the catalyst for Taylor's escape. Just like Truman's dad's return was the catalyst for his story.

So if the man represents another side of Taylor, the man music video is more than just a commentary on the patriarchy. The man music video is the first song on the eras tour that's available as a music video. The male character is this outgoing person wanting the most out of life, yet we see that he's lost sight of everyone around him. At the end of the video we see another version of Taylor is sitting in the directors chair and realise that Taylor had been the man and the director all along. Taylor's pop star persona is no different to Truman's performance facade. So If all of the moon and black hole references are a codeword for cameras, we can deduce that the man is also putting on a performance. There's even a glimpse of the ma checking himself out in the mirror before he leaves for work with a black hole visible in the reflection.

There's another big connection we still need to make. Why does the man pee on the man wall? Is it a sign of disrespect and refusing to see the private side of Taylor and the history within the rerecords? Is he so caught up in the fame and doesn't want to stop? Our understanding of this scene requires Truman's story to help decipher the meaning behind it. His performance was a bait and switch. The facade he presented after his plan had failed had been on purpose. If everyone thought he was resigned to staying after all, nobody would see his master plan to escape coming.

So the answer to the man wall is that the first bait and switch was also a bait and switch. (Like a double bluff.)

The first bait was the coming out during the lover era and the switch was knowing the enemy would reveal their hand. And the second bait was the rerecords on the lover wall and the masters heist, with the switch being the missing polaroid picture and the hidden version of Taylor. And what's on the polaroid picture? Proof that Taylor is queer. And how do we know that? She's been telling us since the very beginning. "I'm just sitting here planning my revenge", she sings in picture to burn.

The writing on the wall implies that the old Taylor was left behind during the fearless era because it's written in red. Does that mean the old Taylor being dead during reputation was yet another bait and switch? The fearless Taylor was in the vault with the picture of speak now. The 'I can see you' music video reflects the story told in the delicate music video too. "Pass me a note saying "Meet me tonight." Then we can kiss, and you know I won't ever tell"'. Truman's story shows evidence of having help from his best friend to escape, and here we can assume that Taylor played a large role in rescuing herself. We then have to wonder if the picture was actually her reflection in the mirror all along, or metaphotically at least.

Before the story can end, we need to acknowledge that our consumption of Taylor's life has played a part in her private persona feeling trapped. In 'Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus' Taylor talks about about how she "changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules, all to outrun my desertion of you." She killed off the old Taylor, just so that we would stay. "If you want to break my cold, cold heart, just say I loved you the way that you were."

Taylor's uses codewords (ghosts, stars, maroon etc) throughout her discography to conceal her truth in plain sight. Wine is used to show us how her truth has become so watered down that she's lost sight of who she was before.

Chapter 12

The bridge

"I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairytale"

Not only did Taylor hint at the tunnel being an Easter egg, we hear the lyrics "I come back stronger than a 90's trend" at the exact same time she goes down the tunnel. And which trend is she referencing? the Truman show. Just when you think there's nothing left to solve, the clues just keep coming.

The lockdowns postponed Taylor's plans of coming out, so she had to find a backup plan. That's when we got folklore and evermore. They were both released in 2020 and she just recently combined them as sisters. Taylor's apparent disdain for evermore makes more sense if we consider cardigan represents the folklore album and that willow represents the evermore album. When you join the two halves, they become sisters. How could she love them separately when they were destined to be together?

So if we know that cardigan and willow are inextricably linked, then the golden thread we see her following in both music videos is the thread joining them together. And if it's leading the way to evermore, then the thread creates a bridge. But it's not just any bridge, but it's London bridge. And the concept is all inspired by the Tinkerbell movies.

The series was released in the early 2010's and is based on the character from Peter Pan. Tinkerbell's story is centred around feeling like she doesn't fit in at Pixie Hollow. We can see so many references to Tinkerbell's story in Taylor's work. The themes she touches on, the Easter eggs, even her philosophy and determination. If you look close enough, I think we might find that the clocks, stars, bird cages, tea cups, rainbows, car and doll house can all be references to the series. And lets not forget the karma coffee cup and clock too. Both the golden thread and the orbs are created with pixie dust in Pixie Hollow, but the key for it to work is that you have to believe.

And here is where we discover that "every bait and switch was a work of art." The ending of the Truman show was really a trap all along, with the door coming down during the karma performance used as a distraction. The real ending was about rescuing and then reuniting the sisters, the private and public versions of Taylor. The secret to this was in the seasons. Tinkerbell and the great fairy rescue is all about spring and summer, just like folklore. And then Tinkerbell the secret of the wings is all about fall and winter, just like evermore. The shift that occurs between these two movies is the first one is about wanting others to believe in you, and the second is about learning to believe in yourself. We can't forget the third part of the love triangle though, Tinkerbell and the lost treasure. And then Tinkerbell and the secret of the wings might just be the epilogue to the story.

"Just because you've never seen a fairy, doesn't mean they're not real!"

"Now, Lizzy, seeing is believing, and without proof, it's just a fairytale."

"You don't have to understand,

you just have to believe."

A big theme in Tinkerbell and the great fairy rescue is a difficulty communicating. As she befriends a girl who loves fairies, they use clues and symbols to communicate. Something both queer and neurodivergent are familiar with, communicating differently to the majority. I believe that's a big reason why the majority of Taylor's identify with either or both of those, and why a lot of us see the same traits in Taylor.

All of the connections we made to Truman's story are still important now, but there's one correction I'd like to make in light of the Tinkerbell references. The lover house. "Dear reader, burn all the files, desert all your past lives." I believe Taylor burnt down the lover house from the lover era, but the house we've had since folklore reunited is now the fairy house. What once was a facade is now a safe haven.

Chapter 13

The tortured poet

"The professor said to write what you know, looking backwards might be the only way to move forward."

There has been many connections made so far that link songs from the tortured poets department to previous eras, and I believe this is intentional. If we examine Taylor’s work from a muse-less perspective we can see more connections to the story. If we take a look at the tortured poets department summation you will see it's inviting us to look back to find the answers. Tinkerbell helped create a book in the third movie as a way to communicate the truth of the fairies. So if midnights and TTPD had been the plan all along, then dear reader and the manuscript become bookends for Taylor's story.

We're now left with only one question left unanswered.

What was the conversation that lead Taylor to change everything?

"People often greatly underestimate me on how much I'll inconvenience myself to prove a point…"

I never expected to be answering this question, but what's one more revelation when we've already discovered so much? I won't go into detail on this, but if we know that Taylor changes the pronouns and the details to hide her truth in plain sight, then you can begin to uncover the deeper layers to see the story she's been telling us over and over again.

This is Taylor's version of a book she has hidden inside her work...

"All too well"

Dear reader

An upstate escape

The first crack in the glass

Are you real?

The breaking point

(Champagne problems)

The reeling

The remembering

Thirteen years gone

The manuscript

The epilogue

If we look back at the aesthetic of the lover era, it reveals the plan was laid out from the beginning. The false coming out was intentional so the master sale wouldn't disrupt the grand plan. But it was also an opportunity for Taylor to leave the clues for those who could hear her truth. The me rainbow shows us the bridge between the two sisters, and the butterfly is how they will reunite. We've all been waiting with bated breath to see what comes next. But then again, we saw it all play out in the fortnight music video.

Taylor has hinted at bridges during the eras tour, but the once place we haven't looked for one is on the man wall. Looking back we can see there's a teal blue and green bridge across the top of the wall. Debutation perhaps? Have we been so focused on the the map that we haven't seen that the bridge/tunnel was hiding in plain sight ? It's always looked like it was just another part of the wall. The man gets married 58 years later. There's also the train station connection to the man and Taylor from the delicate music video. Did he take the missing polaroid picture at some point and we're going back to see how he did it? Just like we figured out that Truman had planned his escape all along, Taylor is showing us that she's breaking the glass on purpose and these music videos are outlining her plan to do it.

And the eras tour is still the key. If the lost treasure is the masters heist of the rerecords, it's happening each night with the surprise songs. Adding TTPD to the setlist was an intentional distraction from the reunion that occurred when the folkmore sisters merged on the setlist for the first time in Paris. All that's left is to cross the final bridge when the tour returns to London and I think Travis has an integral part to play in that during the folkmore set. And when the two sides of Taylor reunite?

Her version of the collage picture.

"Like a rainbow with all of the colours."

🌈

Conclusion

Every bait and switch truly was a work of art.

To finish off with a fairytale reference, Taylor's ability to be leave a Hansel and Gretel style trail of breadcrumbs through the forest has led us to gingerbread house full of Easter eggs. Her ability to weave together such complex layers of connections over many years without being detected is going to be a legacy to rival the success we've seen within her music career. The way she has weaved both the stories of Truman and Tinkerbell throughout her career is truly worthy of the mastermind title.

The stylistic connections to the Truman show felt like a significant piece of the puzzle. Throughout this process I never expected to stumble so far down the rabbit hole that I feel like I'm left holding the golden ticket in Charlie and the chocolate factory, when I relate more to his grandparents in real life. Taylor's work has provided a deep sense of comfort and reassurance in the midst of a chronic illness relapse that left me bed bound. I've been a huge fan since the begging, but have also stayed because of the community I've found within both the swiftie and gaylor side of the fandom. I never would have come to find all of these connections if it wasn't for the hard work everyone else has put in before I came along.

I recommend going back and watching Taylor's interview with Jimmy Fallon during the release of Red TV. The box of lies skit is worth a watch too, Jimmy Fallon's reaction is exactly how I felt seeing all of these connections come together.

The story Taylor has been showing us was never a revelation of her muses, but a slow unravelling of her experience as a famous person who has had very little privacy throughout her life. She's giving us a peak behind the curtain and allowing us to see who she really is beyond the larger than life character we've all built her up to be.

All I hope for is that Taylor chooses herself in the end.

"All's fair in love and poetry"

Sincerely, a now very tortured poet,

Kylie x

🧡

Tortured poet credentials: I've been a huge fan of Taylor Swift since 'love story' was released in Australia and became a Swiftie following the release of Midnights. I began catching up on the parts of her discography I was less familiar with earlier this year, and then in the midst of a severe M.E. relapse I began to dive deeper into her work. 'Soon you'll get better' has been a comfort and lifeline along the way. I became a Gaylor not long after TTPD was released, as certain songs such as 'but Daddy I love him' didn't make sense to me at the time for someone my age to be singing about. Listening to TTPD with the context of a female muse, as well as the new visuals on the eras tour, added some much needed context to the story being told. I came for the music, but stayed for the community during a time in my life where I felt more 'invisible' than ever.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading x

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