#after you see one 'innocuous' post after another and another and another. what does it say

[rinbylin]

watching this extremely american movie with an ensemble cast and every other scene is me realising this is a character i saw in a previous scene then SUDDENLY thinking about one of those 'cDraMas ArE alWays liKE ThiS Ha HA' running jokey posts on this webbed site by its supposed fandom about how 'there are just always so many people in cdramas! so many characters you won't ever remember anyone haha!!' like buddy idk how to tell you that's not just a cdrama thing you just keep treating cmedia like it's some special alien thing. sick sick sick of it all

[dreamescapeswriting]

Exposed ~ BC

‧₊˚ ☽ ⋅WORD COUNT: 3.4

‧₊˚ ☽ ⋅PAIRING: Chan x reader

‧₊˚ ☽ ⋅GENRE: established relationship, angst, soft ending, chan being protective boyfriend, your relationship is leaked,

‧₊˚ ☽ ⋅Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - October 2024

‧₊˚ ☽ ⋅MASTERLIST

It started off like any other day. Everything felt normal when you woke up, you and Chan had kissed goodbye like you did every single day before work and everything had been as it should have.

The usual hum of the office buzzed around you, and you sat at your desk with a smile, still laughing with your colleagues about a ridiculous moment that happened during the morning meeting.

“I can’t believe he actually said that,” you chuckled, glancing at your friend across the desk. You couldn't believe one of the interns had taken over the meeting after your boss had left, acting as though he'd know exactly what he was talking about... newsflash...he didn't.

“Does he even know what ‘synergy’ means?” you giggled a little and your friend, Sarah, shook her head, trying to keep her laughter under control.

“He’s just throwing words around to sound smart. I thought we were all going to lose it when he started talking about optimizing our optimized optimizations.” The two of you burst into laughter again, drawing curious glances from the people nearby, glares soon followed and you rolled your eyes. It was one of those lighthearted mornings—work felt manageable, and the little stresses of life were nowhere to be found.

Even your secret life with Chan didn’t feel overwhelming today, sometimes it felt hard to hide that part of your life from everyone you knew at work. But for nearly four years, you had both kept your relationship perfectly hidden, enjoying your time together away from prying eyes. You didn't care that you had to hide it, you understood why since life with an idol wasn't going to be all it was made out to be in the fanfictions you sometimes found yourself reading.

"Poor thing, maybe we should invite him to lunch though, just so we don't make him feel isolated," you told her as she nodded along with you. The last thing you wanted was to be mean to someone who clearly was trying his best here.

Soon the laughter died down, and you leaned back in your chair, reaching for your coffee. It was still warm—just the way you liked it. Everything felt routine. Normal.

But normal didn’t last.

Your phone, sitting innocuously beside your keyboard, buzzed once. Then again. And again. It wasn't like you to get so many notifications unless your friend was off from work and spammed you with reels so you bit down on your lip. You weren't exactly allowed your phone out so you glanced at it briefly, expecting a couple of messages from Chan or maybe a group chat blowing up. But the notifications were relentless.

Your brow furrowed as you picked up the phone. Your heart skipped a beat when you saw the flood of messages—dozens of notifications on social media, texts from unknown numbers, and even missed calls. Confusion turned to panic as you scrolled through the chaos, trying to make sense of it all.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, noticing the sudden change in your expression. Before you could answer, another notification popped up on your screen—a tagged post from one of Chan’s members. Your stomach dropped as you read the caption:

CHANGBIN(jutdwae): "Congratulations on four years! You two deserve all the happiness."

You blinked, reading it again to make sure you weren’t imagining things. Not only was there the captain and tag of your Instagram there were countless images of you and Chan together.

No, this couldn’t be happening. It had to be a mistake. But the fans knew. They had pieced it together. The relationship you had kept under wraps for years was now out there for the world to see.

Your phone was going insane and there was no way you were going to be able to get into contact with Chan at this rate so you slid the phone into DND mode.

“I—uh, I have to go,” you mumbled, standing up from your desk, but your legs felt weak, your mind racing. There was no way this was happening, Changbin was usually more careful than this. What was he thinking?!

Your coworkers had started to murmur, glancing at their own phones, probably seeing the same posts and comments. Some of them gave you sympathetic looks, others were confused, staring at you to make sure that you were the person you claimed to be.

"Yn, wait." Sarah sounded panicked as she walked with you, holding your lower back as she shook her head at you,

"What's wrong-" That’s when you noticed it. Outside, through the wide office windows, a crowd had gathered. A large one. The people were holding their phones, taking pictures, pointing. You could hear the muffled sounds of their voices growing louder.

Oh no.

“Y/N, talk to me...What’s going on?” Sarah asked, standing beside you, worry etched into her features. You swallowed the lump in your throat, Sarah knew you were seeing someone you couldn't talk about...someone well-known in the media but she'd respected you when you couldn't tell her who.

“Fans,” you whispered, unable to tear your eyes away from the window. You had no idea how you were even going to get out of there with that mess building up outside.

“They know. About me and Chan.” Sarah’s eyes widened in shock at the name. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were drowned out by the sudden realization that the fans weren’t just outside—they were here for you and clearly weren't just going to walk away anytime soon.

Your phone rang suddenly, startling you out of your daze. It was Chan. Thanks to him being in your favourites he was the only number able to get through to you,

“Y/N! Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry. I swear we’re trying to fix this,” his voice was panicked, almost breathless. You knew his management were going to do everything that they could to make this all go away but you were still stuck,

“I’m at work, Chan,” you whispered, struggling to stay calm. You knew how crazy people seemed to be when it came to idols but you had no idea it was going to end up like this,

“There are fans outside. How do they even know where I am?” He cursed under his breath, and you could hear the tension in his voice. He said something to someone in the room before he bit down on his lap,

“Stay inside. Don’t go near them. I’m coming to get you.” He told you but you heard arguing on the other end of the line, Chan's voice raising as he yelled back at whoever was yelling at him.

"Chan..." you whispered, you already knew what he was going to say next. There was no way JYP was going to let him walk out of that building to come and save you.

“I’m at the company, but they’re not letting me leave. There’s media everywhere outside, and they won’t let me out,” he sounded helpless, something you weren’t used to hearing from him. Chan was always calm and composed, but now he was frantic, desperate to fix this. You hated that he was in this mess right now and you weren't right there to support him throughout it.

“I know you've got shit to deal with...B-But Chan, I don’t know what to do,” you admitted quietly, your hand shaking as you pressed the phone to your ear. Tears were building up in your eyes at the thought of walking outside and being mobbed...What if one of them hurt you? You were sure STAY wouldn't but there were some fans just crazy enough to try,

“It’s really bad, Chan.” You whispered as you saw people banging on the windows and screaming. There were police doing what they could to disburse the crowd but it wasn't exactly something that was just going to go away with a snap of their fingers.

You could hear him pacing on the other end, muttering to himself, trying to figure out a solution.

“I’ll call someone. I’ll get you out of there. Just... just stay away from the windows. I’ll figure this out.” At that moment, your boss appeared beside you, his expression serious as he glanced out at the growing crowd outside the building.

"Chan, my boss is here..." You kept your eyes on your boss who seemed worried about all of this,

"Baby, I promise you I'm going to fix this...T-Text me...or something, please...Please," The desperation dripping from Chan's voice made your chest tighten,

"Sure...I will, baby, I gotta go...I'll be okay."You promised before ending the phone call. Your boss straightened his tie, Jason wasn't usually known for being overly caring about his employees but right now he looked worried for you. As did a lot of other people inside of the office,

“Y/N, we need to get you out of here. Follow me,” he said softly, motioning toward a side exit. You looked back at your desk—at the normalcy you had only moments ago—and then at the chaos outside. Your heart pounded as you nodded at your boss.

Your boss led you through a hallway toward the back exit, shielding you from the chaos outside.

"Sarah is going to go outside with a hood up, she'll distract them long enough for you to make it to the car." Your boss explained as he walked with you hurriedly toward the parking lot. A lot of the focus was on the front doors as screams erupted.

When you finally reached your car and made it home you figured all of this mess would be over. That you could hold up inside of the house and forget this whole thing had happened but as you pulled up it was clear that wasn't on the agenda for the night. You froze at the sight in front of you. Your apartment was swarming with people—fans, stalkers, media. They were everywhere. Cameras were shoved in your windows as people scrambled to get the smallest information about you from them.

You couldn’t go home. Your home was overtaken by fans who luckily hadn't noticed your car yet so you started driving and with trembling fingers, you called Chan again.

“I can’t go home,” you told him as you did your best not to cry. There was no way you could drive if you were crying. Chan's silence was deafening. You knew he felt responsible, that he was desperate to fix this, but there was nothing he could do right now.

“I’m getting you a hotel, no one will know okay?” Chan finally said. You could hear him typing on his laptop and you bit down on your lip at the thought of it. You were never going to have your normal life again,

“Stay there tonight. I’ll come to you first thing in the morning, I promise.” You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you. You trusted him—he would fix this. But for now, all you could do was hide away, waiting for the storm to pass.

"I love you, Channie." You whispered as you continued to drive aimlessly until he gave you the directions.

"I love you too, I'm going to sort this...I'm not going to let you get dragged down." He promised before sending you all of the details you were going to need.

"I've booked it under Patricia Kennedy, no one will trace it to us," He said as you smiled softly at the thought of using a fake name, like some kind of spy.

Hours had passed, and even though the hotel room was silent, your mind was anything but. The dark curtains were drawn tight, shutting out the world outside, but it didn’t stop the gnawing anxiety in your chest. You had blocked the door with a chair, even though you knew it was overkill, but after everything that had happened today, you couldn’t help it. The thought of anyone else finding you made your skin crawl.

Your phone was still on DND and didn't dare try to see if you had phone calls from friends. All you knew was that your phone was close to death thanks to it overloading with numbers. You'd managed to private all of your social media accounts and uninstalled them to stop some of the notifications, and you'd tried to call your phone provider to block unknown numbers but there was too much for them to handle.

You sat curled up on the bed, your phone clutched tightly in your hand as you waited for Chan, he had called to tell you he was on his way, but time seemed to stretch, each minute dragging slower than the last. Even in the safety of the hotel, the fear refused to let go.

A knock came at the door, sharp and sudden.

Your heart jumped to your throat, and your grip tightened on the phone as you stared at the door. It was just a knock, but your body froze. What if it wasn’t him? What if someone had followed him here? What if—

“It’s me, baby. It’s Chan.” His voice came through the door, soft but certain.

“Please open the door.” You hesitated, your hand hovering over the door handle. A part of you was still scared, irrational thoughts swirling in your head. You couldn’t help it—the day had been too overwhelming, with too many eyes on you, and too much chaos.

"Yn, I promise, it’s just me. Please,” Chan’s voice was gentle but urgent, trying to calm your panic from the other side. He tapped on the door once again and you stared at the handle.

“I’m here now.” You exhaled shakily and, after a long pause, slowly removed the chair from the door and unlatched the lock. With trembling hands, you cracked the door open, just enough to peek out. The sight of Chan’s concerned face melted away some of your fear. He looked stressed and exhausted, his hair was in all kinds of directions and he looked unkept which wasn't like him at all,

“Hey,” he said softly, offering a small, reassuring smile. You stepped back and let him in, closing the door quickly behind him. As soon as the door shut, Chan’s arms were around you, pulling you into a tight, protective embrace. His familiar warmth was the only thing grounding you, and for the first time since the day started, you felt a tiny bit of safety. You hid your head in his neck and did your best not to cry, you didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did about all of this,

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled against his chest, your voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t know if it was you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he murmured into your hair, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head. He stroked your back softly, he would have done the same thing if he was in your position.

“You��ve had a terrible day. I’m just glad I’m here now.” He gently pulled back to take a look around the room. His eyes landed on the tightly shut curtains, the chair you had used to block the door. His brow furrowed slightly, and you could see the worry etched in his face.

“You blocked the door?” he asked softly, though there was no judgment in his tone, only concern. You nodded, feeling a little embarrassed, you scratched the back of your neck as you glanced over at him.

“I didn’t want anyone getting in.” Chan reached out, pulling you back into his arms as if he could protect you from everything. There were already plans in motion to get a guard for you, there were some stationed all over the hotel as he stood there.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he whispered. “No one’s getting in here but me. I promise.” You leaned into him, letting out a shaky breath.

“I feel like I can’t breathe. Every time I think it’s over, it’s just... not.”

“I know,” Chan said softly, rubbing gentle circles on your back. The two of you had hidden for four years, and this was something you'd talked about but nothing could have prepared you for it,

“But we’re going to fix this. I’m going to fix this. You shouldn’t have to go through this, not because of me.” You pulled back slightly to look up at him, his expression filled with guilt. You shook your head at him and touched his face softly, running your thumb along his skin.

“It’s not your fault, Chan.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched. He'd already fought with Changbin about it and apologised for it, he knew that accidents happened but he'd been stressed and took it out on the younger member.

“I should’ve been more careful. We’ve kept this a secret for so long, and now—”

“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head. “This isn’t on you. It’s just... an accident. It’s no one’s fault.” Chan’s eyes softened as he cupped your face gently, his thumb brushing against your cheek.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right,” he promised.

“I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll protect you, okay? I’ll keep you safe.” Tears welled in your eyes, but they weren’t from fear anymore. You knew Chan would do everything within his power - and more - to protect you, you had no doubt in your mind.

“I know,” you whispered, leaning into his touch. “I trust you.” Chan pulled you into another hug, holding you close as if he could shield you from the world outside. And for now, in the quiet of the hotel room, that was enough.

Days passed after the chaos of the leak, and things slowly began to settle. The initial frenzy had been overwhelming, but JYP Entertainment had stepped in, issuing a statement about the mistake, and calling for fans to respect your privacy. The company took legal action against those who crossed the line, and while the attention hadn’t completely disappeared, it was manageable now. Your numbers had been changed and you'd managed to delete most of the followers who were fans in your social media accounts.

Chan had kept his promise. He had stayed with you every step of the way, ensuring you were never left alone to deal with the aftermath. You spent a few days holed up in the hotel together, the world feeling small but safe as long as you were by his side. You mostly lived in his shirts and off room-serive which had been more fun than you'd been expecting.

One morning, you both sat on the hotel room bed, the soft glow of sunlight peeking through the curtains. The two of you were quiet, sipping on coffee, the stillness a welcome change from the chaos you had endured. It almost felt normal again.

“Are you ready to go home today?” Chan asked, glancing at you with a hopeful smile. You nodded, taking a deep breath, you'd been wanting to stay longer but only because you were enjoying being so close to him.

“Yeah. I think I’m ready.”

“Good,” he said softly.

“I know it's been a lot, but we made it through. I knew we would...” He ran his fingers over your skin softly and you smiled. You looked at him, really looked at him—his face filled with determination and love, he looked better than he did when he first arrived here. Even though things had spiralled out of control, you couldn’t imagine going through this without him by your side.

“I couldn’t have done this without you,” you admitted. “You kept me sane.” Chan smiled warmly, setting his coffee cup down before reaching out to take your hand in his.

“We’re in this together, always. Nothing’s going to change that.” You squeezed his hand, feeling the truth in his words. After everything, you knew your relationship was stronger than ever. The world might have learned your secret, but it hadn’t broken what you had—it had only made you closer.

As the two of you stood, getting ready to head back home, Chan paused and turned to face you.

"I love you...okay? Them knowing, changes nothing. I promise you that we'll get into a routine," He told you as he pulled you into his arms and kissed you softly.

"I know baby, I love you too." You wrapped your arms around him and he backed you up toward the bed again making you giggle.

"Maybe we can spend a few more hours locked away though," He whispered in your ear.

[wearenemies]

dashboard simulator

mutual 1: *poor quality image of pete wentz* does anybody know where i can buy a crowbar. for sexual purposes

mutual 2: my mikey way tulpa is coming along well

mutual 3: its so over after this mcr is breaking up forever theres no hope for us didnt you see the messaging in their staging. god. fuck its over

mutual 1: *image of patrick stump’s bulge*

mutual 4: im killing myself tomorrow

mutual 5: both of these blog posts may seem innocuous at first, but in fact when considered in relation to one another we can observe several similar phrases, and a pattern emerges in the pacing of his prose that proves without a doubt that he’s having an extramarital affair with his singer. first, the recurrence of the phra

mutual 1: i need to get a man pregnant

mutual 4: *joe trohman image* killing myself cancelled hello gorgeous 😍😍😍😍😍

mutual 6: mcr is releasing new music next week i know this deep in my soul the messaging in their staging is unmissable guys we have never been so fucking back in our lives

mutual 1: *image of patrick stump’s bulge*

mutual 3: *image of two members of my chemical romance publicly beating the snot out of one another* do you remember how we used to run

mutual 1: *image of patrick stump’s bulge*

mutual 7: frank iero is like a delicious steak to me i need to rip him apart like a feral dog

mutual 8: *the most stunning lovingly rendered drawing you’ve ever seen in your life of two middle aged musicians making out nasty style* just a quick doodle :)

mutual 4: my fucking bus was late killing myself is officially back on

mutual 5: *web weave consisting of sections of beautiful niche literature, medieval biblical illustrations, 17th century oil paintings, james baldwin quotations and peterick interviews*

mutual 1: *image of patrick stump’s bulge*

mutual 7: do you guys think i could cite unholyverse in my applied religious literature thesis i cant ask my professor because she blocked my email but idk i think it counts as a good modern text

mutual 2: guys i think my mikey way tulpa might be starting to crave blood

mutual 6: *ray toro image* im experiencing divine ecstasy i need her to [DATA EXPUNGED]

mutual 9: i cant listen to fall out boy anymore guys i had a nightmare where andy was chasing me in the dark forest it seemed really real

mutual 10 (unattached to bandom): out of the beatles john would for sure have the biggest boobs

mutual 1: what if it was called when we were freaky fest

[lune-redd]

Hello, it's Lelly.

As you may know, I have recently deactivated my Twitter account. A lot of people are speculating I left because I was being harassed for drawing my older depiction of Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls as chubby. However... that's not the direct reason I left. In fact, I didn't really see much of the comments of folks on there getting riled up about it as I muted the tweet the morning I saw that it blew up. I was only merely aware of it all by being told about it from friends, with there being some other users on the site making other really fuckin' stupid comments about my art.

This does however lead into why I actually left Twitter, and it's because of Twitter's overall toxic nature. Overtime, I've really gotten sick of how absolutely revolting Twitter has become to experience. The site is basically built around dunk culture and doom scrolling. You know that one tweet of someone making an example of Twitter's utter stupidity by using pancakes and waffles as an example?

I bring this up because I think this fits my point about how Twitter has this thing of assuming the absolute worst about the most insignificant things, even the most innocuous. The "Bubbles obesity" comments weren't the only stupid comments that came out of that post. I also got a quote retweet that I was "forcefully feminizing Buttercup", even though the whole fucking point of that drawing was to depict a usually tough character in an unusual situation for her. I have also gotten stupid comments on other drawings though, like the one where Mitch pushes Buttercup down for trying to look taller than she is and I got called a misogynist for it, though I'm pretty sure that one was bait (Twitter users have a tough time figuring out what is and isn't bait, it's dunk culture that I'm about to talk about really doesn't help this).

The site's dunk culture is also really fuckin' bad. Quote retweets are a disease, as unlike Tumblr's reblog comments, quote retweets count as a different post. Someone disagrees with you? Show your audience how stupid they are on your page! Hey, are you trying not to see the most abhorrent racist statement imaginable? Well TOO BAD FUCK YOU here's a le epic own giving them all the attention in the world even though one of the most common internet rules are DON'T FEED THE FUCKIN' TROLLS YOU IDIOT. Oh hey, are you trying to explain how you prefer a certain artistic choice over another in something you like? Well you're a deranged ungrateful whiny nitpicker, get owned!

I've seen so many of my friends be belittled for simply discussing their artistic preferences of things they're passionate about. I had a friend who said he prefers the original Crash Bandicoot design over his redesigned look in Crash 4, and had legitimate reasons for why he felt that way (even if he didn't really explain them clearly), and he got dunked for it which made me mad. I'm sick and tired of it all. The reaction to my art is only a mere example of the shit I despise about that site.

I had been planning on leaving Twitter for quite some time, as my follower count was growing nearer and nearer to 10K. I had planned on leaving after 10K followers because that amount was wayyyy too fuckin big for me to handle. I'm a young and growing lad, and I felt it wouldn't be good for my mental sanity to handle all that, so I dipped. The amount of attention I've been getting is simultaneously both wonderful and extremely overwhelming. Even the explosion of new followers and asks on here is quite the load! (Seriously, calm the fuck down y'all) I am very grateful for all the supportive asks I've gotten even though I won't be able to answer them all, thank you all so very much.

tl;dr I didn't leave Twitter because I was being harassed or anything, but rather because of the site's overall toxic and belittling environment.

Adios.

-Lelly

[skufdaddyswansea]

Okay, I have a few more scattered thoughts in regards to Curly that either didnt fit or I just think are kinda weaker points. (and also there were a couple things i had to go back and get more screenshots for. ...again....)

Also I feel like I should add a disclaimer: I feel like I'm starting to sound like Curly's #1 Hater but I'm really not. I like him a lot! I honestly like all the characters, even if it's in.... different ways. Sometimes you like a character because they're likeable and fun, sometimes you like a character because they're interesting and deep.

(And sometimes you like a character because you want to put them in the microwave.)

Moving on.

At some point this scene really got stuck in my head. It seems pretty innocuous at first, but it actually says a lot.

Technically Daisuke is the one who screwed up here, but the fact that he was even able to mess with the vent long enough to set off the foam is on Swansea. This is his area, Daisuke's his intern (like it or not), he needs to be keeping an eye on him.

Curly can see that! And firmly but respectfully bring attention to it! He can in fact be a good leader, when he chooses to be.

So it's also interesting that this scene is followed by Jimmy's psych eval. While dealing with Jimmy so Anya doesn't have to may have been a good move, his method subtly enables Jimmy's dismissal of Anya and her work's value.

Now I want to pivot and talk about the code scanner a bit.

During Curly sections, it's always in our inventory, and as Jimmy we pick it up in the cockpit where he's... extracted from, so I feel like it's safe to say that Curly is usually carrying it on his person.

And yet.

This is another one of those things that doesnt really seem like a big deal. The Pony Express is pretty buckwild about the kinds of shit it keeps locked up with the code scanner.

But there is one glaring problem here.

Granted, this one is more of a stretch. I can't say confidently that anyone else on the crew had easy access to the code scanner. In fact, given their annoyance with everything being locked up I'd say it's pretty unlikely. It's just something that's been buzzing around in my head, but after writing it out it feels pretty weak.

But it does feel worth mentioning that if anyone other than Curly would have access to both the code scanner and the Pony Express Protection Kit (TM), it would have been Jimmy. Not to mention that if anything were to, say, incapacitate Curly, Jimmy takes over and gains control of the code scanner. Which is exactly what Anya was afraid of.

And he is pretty quick to grab it, isn't he.

Which leads me to my next point.

I touched on this a bit in my last post, but I want to elaborate on this exchange specifically. I think it's pretty revealing.

At this point, Curly thinks Anya is suicidal. He tells her she could have come to him. That he would have done anything to help her. That he should have considered that she doesn't undergo the psych evaluations, he should have thought of that, so that way he could have known.

But he did know. She told him.

Even still, when he saw Anya in this state, the only reason he could imagine for her distress was the company going under.

As long as Anya kept quiet and carried on as normal, he really didn't think it was that big of a deal.

You can see this again when he finally talks to Jimmy about it. It's simply a "difficult situation." But nothing they can't get through together.

Not to mention, Curly twice glosses over Anya's fear that Jimmy will try to kill her. Her second attempt to communicate this is followed quickly by the scene in which Jimmy attempts to kill the entire crew.

Okay, one last thing I want to touch on here. It's about the way Curly (and by extension Jimmy) use the phrase, "We can fix this." And its variations. Again, I brought it up pretty briefly before, but there's always more to say about it.

Now, Jimmy uses this phrase (or more frequently, "I can fix this.") to an almost comical degree ("Almost the entire crew is dead, but I'm going to fix this. With my gun! :)"). But they both use it it in pretty much the same way.

For others, it's an empty promise. "I'm on your side." "I'm looking out for you." "I'll protect you."

For themselves, it's a denial of reality, a self-soothing mantra they use to desperately clutch at the reins of a situation that has long since spiralled out of their control. Everything will be back to normal soon. I just have to fix it.

thanks KC Green

[calaisreno]

Loyal, So Quickly

Greg and Mycroft have another chat. See An Arrangement.

560 words / Prompt: Intimidate

Mycroft Holmes doesn’t do things like other people, Greg realises. Where another man would text or call, ask to meet for coffee, Holmes kidnaps people. 

Not exactly kidnapping, but it’s a bit intimidating to be followed by a black car, invited in by a beautiful woman who does not smile. Maybe that’s a condition of working for the man: no smiling allowed. 

“I assume you’ve met my brother’s flatmate,” Mycroft begins without preamble.

“John Watson,” Greg replies. “Yeah, I’ve met him.”

“What do you think of him?”

“Seems like a good bloke. I mean, I think he’s trustworthy.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I can see he has a steadying effect on your brother. He keeps Sherlock’s attitude in check at a crime scene.”

Holmes seems to be making a mental note of this. “How much does Watson know about my brother’s habit?”

“When he found out about the drugs, I could see he was surprised. It didn’t take the world’s only consulting detective to see that he won’t tolerate that. Now that he’s aware, he’ll have an eye out for it. A doctor’s eye. Sherlock’s not going to jeopardise their relationship, though.”

“And what relationship is that?” The grey eyes narrow. 

“Your brother doesn’t have friends, Mr Holmes. Even me—he doesn’t consider me a friend. I’m just DI Lestrade, the person who supplies cases and needs Sherlock Holmes to solve them for me. We don’t hang out, have a pint and discuss the footy. We’re colleagues, I suppose.”

“You’re suggesting that he considers Doctor Watson… a friend?”

“I don’t know. Never seen him with a friend, so I’m not sure what that would look like.”

“And what about Watson?”

Greg remembers after the cabbie was shot, talking with Sherlock, who was wound up, talking a mile a minute, describing a man with a strong moral principle, a crack shot, a fighter. He’d noticed Watson standing behind the tape, waiting for Sherlock, looking innocuous. And he’d realised. Sherlock himself hadn’t realised until a moment later, when he begged Lestrade ignore me. 

He felt a bit proud, seeing something Sherlock hadn’t seen. So he watched, and saw more. Sherlock, walking towards Watson, Watson looking at him. They exchanged a smile and a few words, and he knew. 

He didn’t know Watson well yet, but he’d worked with Sherlock for a few years, and had never seen him look at another person like that. Admiration. Longing.

And then there’s the unsolved murder of Jeff Hope. Well, that bullet anyway. The man died of an aneurysm, but technically it could be murder, if the gunshot was what set things off. Not that he’s going to share his suspicions about that with the elder Holmes. No point setting up Watson for another interview. Though he’s sure that if anyone can stand up to Mycroft Holmes, it’s John Watson.

The look on Watson’s face. 

I think he would kill for Sherlock. I think he would die for him.

“He’s a loyal one. You can trust him. He won’t leave.”

Holmes is quiet for a long moment. Then he nods. “I hope you’re right. I think he could be the making of my brother. Or he could make him much worse. Either way, I will be watching.”

His smile reminds Greg that he’s not the only one likely to be followed by a black sedan.

--

I'm posting my #mayprompts2024 here on AO3 and in this collection. Please add yours!

[shorelinessightlines]

He ended up doing it on a Sunday. Race weekend. Daniel put his fist through the drywall after his first DNF of the season, and Max broke up with him on the spot.

It had felt very 2018, their argument. Max's head fills the blank spots in his memory with old footage from their pre-Renault days. Daniel, for better or for worse, has not changed so much—it makes it easier to substitute the finer details.

Details have always been difficult for Max, which makes him feel shitty. People think he can't remember because he doesn't care, but he does, he swears he does. There's a lingering, near-permanent part of Max that aches for the smell of Daniel's burnt eggs and charred toast late at night, one that hurts more when he wakes up in the morning to the sound of birds and not the smoke alarm going off.

Caring makes no difference. He's unsure if they were still in their racesuits, or if they'd changed out of them in the few hours it had taken for media duties, debriefs, and post-race apologies slash unfollowing-sprees to wrap up.

The particular characteristics of their argument fade away to this: Daniel had said, "Fuck you, Max," innocuous and unsurprising, but it had brought him back to days at the karting track, the other kids flitting around and shouting swears they only just learned how to say.

Max had run them into a barrier, they complained to their parents, but he would already be sprinting over to Jos, holding up his helmet like, Did you see that? I was brave. I didn't back out. I did exactly what you told me to do.

"That is unfair," he had responded, feeling not very much like himself, and Daniel had looked at him like he had two heads.

"You're dumping me."

Daniel, likely, had never been dumped in his life. Why would anyone dump Daniel? Daniel was fucking perfect and this—this was just another thing Max had managed to fuck up.

"I am not dumping you, Daniel, always you use such ugly words, it is—"

"Max, oh my god, shut up. You're dumping me, and I get you're having a rough time right now, but this is—god, this is just crazy."

Max sniffed then, maybe, sad and angry and violent-feeling. Boiling inside. Hating Daniel in the moment and knowing he would miss him in the morning.

"You—Daniel, you know. Fuck you, this is not fair."

Max told Daniel about the karting tracks. Max told Daniel everything, like his crush on Mark Webber growing up and when his dad died. His hands had been shaking from the weight of his phone in the middle of their Monaco apartment and all Max could think to do was tell Daniel, because he told Daniel everything and Daniel would surely know what to do.

"You wanna talk about unfair? I just had one of the shittiest races of my goddamn life and—" Daniel swiped a cheap lamp to the floor. The bulb shattered. "—my boyfriend is breaking up with me at the racetrack not four hours later. Fuck, isn't that unfair, Max?"

Max's voice tembled when he talked. "You punched the wall. You are so violent, Daniel." It comes out wrong, but it's true. Daniel is violent like Max's father. So is Max, most days.

"I am not Jos," Daniel spit; he knew what Max meant, he knew Max better than anyone and it was still so angry. Daniel hated Jos, and god, Max never used to think like this before but it's so easy, these days, to be reminded of his late father. Last names, misplaced shadows, bruises that had purpled unevenly on Daniel's knuckles—familiar and disgusting and angry. This is not fair.

It was a regular spat—Daniel yelled and cussed Max out and punched a wall and broke a lamp and it was all normal. But fuck, all Max could do was be reminded of the karting tracks, of his dad, and that made Max feel even worse because everything reminded him of his dad and racing reminded him of his dad and Daniel reminded him of his dad and the hole in the drywall reminded him of his dad and—

Max remembers (details, details, details—) the distant way he had said, "I will not do this with you anymore."

It's only been a few days since Max and Daniel broke up. He thinks he is already starting to regret it.

---

Max has taken to imagining a life where he is, perhaps, a fish.

It would fit the empty, white nature of his apartment—if it were in reality a fishbowl, and he just swam in circles endlessly. If Daniel were his fish-friend and they lived their fishy lives together. Nothing could be so bad, of course, if there was Daniel.

But, this is not possible. Jimmy and Sassy would simply eat him.

"Nah, mate," Not-Daniel materializes on the couch. Max doesn't question it; Not-Daniel has been showing up on his couch a lot as of late, to fill the vacancy Real-Daniel left behind. "Nah, Sassy wouldn't eat you. Jimmy, now... that's another story."

"You underestimate Sassy."

"Oh no, far from it," Daniel's voice is strange and round because he's gaping his mouth open and shut to imitate a fish. He looks silly. "Sassy's too cunning. She's waiting for Jimmy to eat you so she can tell me what happened and I'll throw Jimmy out the window. Then she'll have the apartment all to herself. It's quite the plan, actually."

Max laughs at that and blows imaginary bubbles to Daniel, which he catches and throws back at him like a baseball. Then Max throws a pillow, and Daniel laughs too.

"I wish we were really fish," says Max. "I don't care if Jimmy would eat me." In the perfect world of his daydream, Daniel responds:

"Yeah, we'd make the best fish couple, don't you think?"

Of course, Max broke up with Daniel two weeks ago, so he has taken to telling these things to Lando instead. Lando has much less interesting responses, like, "Are you sure you don't want to see a therapist?"

Max scowls.

"I do not want to see a therapist. Why would I need a therapist?"

Lando raises an eyebrow, then both eyebrows. A strange habit.

"Your dad died, like, a week and a half ago," Lando ticks off on one finger. "You broke up with Daniel after five years together, you drove possibly the worst race of your life last weekend, and now you think you're a fish." Lando wiggles four fingers in front of the camera. Max wishes Lando were here in real life so he could shove Lando's dumb fingers into Lando's dumb face.

Then he reminds himself that Lando is his friend, and then Max feels shitty and angry and just like his dad. (Everything these days reminds him of his dad.)

"How lovely."

"Nah, I wouldn't say as much." Lando has a strange expression on his face, the grainy quality of the phone camera merging his eyebrows together into a caterpillar. "Mate. Get help."

"I do not need help."

"That's exactly what Daniel would say." Fuck you, Lando.

Max feels a sudden, sharp pang of anger and regret at just the sound of Daniel's name—wrong on Lando's tongue, marred by a British accent and a chaotic friendship that always managed to make Max insecure. Fuck you fuck you fuck you. You don't know him better than me.

"Daniel would not say that," he says instead of screaming. His voice sounds odd and strained. Mean. Angry. "Daniel is—Daniel would not say that."

Lando says, "Maybe not when you knew him, but you two haven't been teammates for five years. That changes more than you might think.”

"Daniel—"

"—didn't tell you when he got fired, did he?" Lando raises his eyebrows again, because he knows he's right and he is a smug dickhead.

No, Daniel didn't tell Max when he got fired. Max found out through Instagram of all places, and it had felt especially strange back then because they lived together and Daniel told him everything.

It was an exchange—Daniel would spill all his insecurities and his break with Michael and the way the car felt more like a death trap than a vehicle most days, and Max would tell Daniel about how much he missed eating breakfast with Victoria on Saturdays, about the dumb photoshoots Red Bull made him do now that he was a world champion, about Jos and the moment he died and the way Max felt shitty and free and so violent.

But Daniel didn't tell Max when he got fired, and he didn't tell him about his eating problems, and he didn't—fuck, Daniel was so kind and so gentle and sometimes he punched walls so hard the plaster crumbled from the power of his fists.

Daniel was one of those things that hurt more that it healed. Soft and tender in the right places—if Max pushed too hard, he would bruise him. If Max touched his shoulder he might scratch himself on Daniel's sharp edges; might break, like the walls did, under the force of Daniel's anger.

He feels like he's breaking, now. He needs Daniel, all the time, bruises and scars and plaster and all. (He needed his dad, too, and he has come to wonder if needing vicious things has been written into code, much like racing has. If his dad taught him brutality with the braking zones, at the karting tracks all those years ago.)

"I can recommend you a therapist," Lando is saying in this coddling kind of tone, the one you would use on a baby.

Max had never been coddled. It feels odd to hear it now, at his grown age, by a friend two years younger than him who probably found out Daniel was fired exactly when Daniel did.

He says, "Fuck you," and doesn't really mean it.

Lando responds, "Can't do that if you're a fish."

---

Jos's funeral is on a Sunday. Race weekend. The Australian Grand Prix.

Max is convinced Jos wrote that specifically in his will just to screw Max over one final time. Unnecessary, really—Max still jumps at his own shadow, when he mistakes the rigidity of his own shoulders for his father's.

Max catches a glimpse of his silhouette on the grass, bulky and stiff next to the thin lines of other attendees. He grimaces.

It's too sunny out, for a funeral. Max feels overheated in his black suit. Victoria stands at his side and wipes sweat from her brow, equally uncomfortable in a black dress and heels. Jos's other children, most of which Max honestly forgets exist some days, stand ramrod straight and look appropriately sad, sweating through their Sunday-best while their perfect blue eyes and slightly chubby faces scrunch up in grief.

Max tries to imagine Jos yelling at these kids and thinks bitterly that to them, Jos was maybe a good father. A good man, husband, citizen. They must miss him so much, they must be so sad he is gone.

Max tries to find an emotion within him that is not confused or afraid, and comes up empty.

His half-sister finishes the eulogy abruptly—it's wet-sounding, something guttural and painful clogging her throat. After that, the rest of the service passes by quickly. He stays behind with Victoria while all the guests file out and his half-siblings get ushered to the car by their mother; it would probably look bad if Max were the first to leave his father's funeral.

When the last guest has disappeared into the parking lot, Max flops down beside his father's freshly-dug grave and puts his head to his knees. Victoria sits down much more gingerly, careful not to ruin her dress.

"He was a weird dad," she says, unprompted. Max supposes this is the part where they are supposed to mourn him. "I don't remember too much of him. He always took you places and left me home with Mom."

"He took me to the karting tracks."

"Yeah, I know." She sighs. "You missed a race for this. He would've hated that."

Max supposes he would have. He can't decide if that makes him sad or angry or—or vindicated, somehow. Max is sure that if Daniel were here, some more prominent emotion would have risen to the top, just to pick a fight with whatever Daniel wanted to say.

They could never seem to settle when it came to Jos Verstappen.

"Do you think Daniel would have missed the race to be here?" The words bubble up, unbidden. Max practically chokes on them. To be with me, lies unspoken between them, solid like a rock in Max's throat.

Victoria looks at him with something like pity. "He had a habit of doing anything for you," she says like it's a bad thing, "if only you would ask."

Max does not say anything to that. He's not sure there is an answer to be had.

Victoria nudges him with her shoulder. "He won today, you know."

"He did?" The fondness cuts its way out of him. Home race. Big deal. "That's good. He deserves it, of course."

"Hm. He wouldn't have, if you'd been there."

Max bristles at that. He used to like being better than Daniel, being compared to Daniel. He used to like it because Jos liked it, and he wanted Jos to like him.

"Daniel is a good driver."

"No championship, though."

"You sound like Dad."

Victoria smiles, wry. "Fuck, don't we all somedays. You know, I yelled at Luka at the karting tracks the other day to brake later. It was like something came over me, you know? It felt like—like this is what we were born to be. And that felt dumb and ugly and I fucking cried in the bathroom when we got home."

Max gets that feeling. "I broke up with Daniel because he punched a wall," he offers, and it's so stupid, the way Jos has wormed his way into the best parts of their lives and rotted there, like a dead dog in the town well.

"Ah. I was wondering why you didn't ask him to be here."

Max shrugs. He is silent for a while, trying to pick out the right thing to say, and then:

"Do you miss him?" Victoria asks. "Despite the violence?" He wonders if she means Daniel or Jos.

He says, "Is it bad, if I do?"

---

Max is not all that surprised when he wakes up on Tuesday morning and finds Daniel on his couch. It used to be their apartment, after all, and Daniel still has the key.

Daniel is awake when Max stumbles into the living room. His stubble makes him look more tired than he actually must be. He says, "Howdy," in an exhausted and sheepish tone, and Max says, "I was going to drop off your things, I promise."

Daniel blinks.

"That's not what I'm here about."

"Oh." Max blinks too. "How was Australia?" He’s pretty sure he’s already had this conversation with Daniel at least four times in the past week since the funeral. Well, there's no harm in trying again.

"It was great. I won."

"That is good, for the team. I knew you could do it, of course, I told them so."

Daniel shakes his head. "You would have won, if you had been there."

"You sound like my dad," Max blurts out. It is true. You do sound like my dad. Victoria sounded like my dad. Everyone sounds like my dad.

Daniel narrows his eyes and doesn't say anything. Please do not look at me this way. It is not my fault he is haunting me.

Max scrambles to find something else to talk about. "I will make us breakfast," he says, already shifting away from the couch. “Cereal is fine, yes?”

"Uh. Sure. Sounds nice."

Max escapes to the kitchen, which is, in reality, only a few feet away. Still, the separation of the counter and the couch enforces a sense of distance—protection.

Daniel, of course, does not obey the invisible boundaries Max has outlined in his head. He rises, takes a few steps, and now he is in Max's space; lingering like he doesn't know what to do with himself, purposeful and aimless and intrusive.

"Do you—do you need help?" Daniel is peering over his shoulder. Max looks at him, their faces close. Then, he looks back at the two bowls he had laid out on the countertop and frowns.

Max's shadow splays itself across the countertop, and the broad line of Jos’s shoulders stares at him, aloof and alone. For a second, he wonders if the silhouette is Daniel’s, and it is Max who is the ghost.

He feels his heart sink, like the other four times Not-Daniel has woken up on Max's couch since Jos's funeral. Not-Daniel is still saying: “I can help, if you want me to.”

Max feels inexplicably angry, at that—wants to scream that of course he needs help, he has always needed Daniel’s help—Daniel used to char the toast and burn the eggs and make coffee that tasted like burning rubber. Max has not yet learned how to make breakfast without Daniel fucking it up.

Jos used to fuck up the breakfast too, a traitorous voice whispers in Max's ear, and he tenses.

It is different, of course, Max knows this. Jos burned the toast because he didn't care if Max ate ashes. Daniel burned the toast because he loved Max, and he couldn't help but ruin some things.

Max remembers to reply, trance-like, “No. I am okay. Sit back down.”

He turns to look at Daniel, and finds he has magically appeared on the couch once more.

The first time this happened, Max had freaked out, had thought he was going crazy. Now, it’s more disappointing than anything.

Logically, Max knows that he dropped off Daniel’s copy of the key a while ago, along with Daniel’s hoodies and knick-knacks and journals. Daniel has not actually been in their apartment in a very long time, and Max knows this because he has not had to replace a dented pan or nicked glassware in a decent amount of time.

He asks Not-Daniel, as he preps two bowls of cereal: “Do you remember what we were wearing, when we broke up?”

Daniel has always remembered little things like that. Small, tiny, minuscule details that Max could never seem to grasp.

“Nah, mate. I forgot.”

Details. Max was never so good at them.

[huramuna]

the calico bastard - chapter 3.

 aemond targaryen x strong bastard oc (series) previous part | next part

summary: After his takeover of Harrenhal, Aemond encounters a dreamy-eyed, wistful bastard of House Strong, who piques his interest and changes the course of Westerosi history.

warnings: smut (eventually), angst, canon typical violence, canon typical misogyny, depictions & descriptions of death

wordcount: 3.4k

a/n: alys rivers doesn’t exist in this universe, alysanne takes her place somewhat. a/n 2: this is my first fic, i got the courage to post it -- please be nice n' leave a like if this interests you!

art by me of alysanne • an edit by me of alysanne as a child • aesthetic board

wuthering heights - kate bush • leave me for dead - GAYLE

Alysanne didn’t get much sleep that night, not after what she’d seen— the future and the present. 

She paced around her small room until the light trickled from the horizon. Aemond’s harrowing screams echoed in her ears, her chest heaving and falling. 

There had only been one time before she had such a violent vision. 

It was eight years before— Alysanne was only ten years of age, just an unloved bastard girl of Harrenhal. 

Except, she had one who loved her. The only one. 

“Pick me up, pick me up!” Alysanne cried gleefully, “Breakthbonthes, pick me up!” she held her arms up, her words whistling through the gap in her baby teeth— she’d yet to lose those last few teeth right at the front, causing an admittedly quite silly lisp. 

Ser Harwin Strong— her brother, or half-brother as it may be, had returned to Harrenhal after a long time away. 

Her father, too, had returned— but Alysanne could care less, they were indifferent to one another. 

But Harwin— Harwin was hers, her brother, the only person to ever treat her like a person, like she wasn’t lesser. 

She ran on bare feet out to the gates, jumping and waving her arms as she saw the procession arrive. The little girl would recognize the curly mop and mountainous build of her brother anywhere. 

“Ah, my little lilac!” Harwin boomed from atop his horse, spurring the stallion into the gates, “By the Seven, Alysanne, you’ve grown.” 

“The maesther says I’m too schmall for my age,” she grumbled, kicking up dirt. 

“Ahh, and what does he know, anyhow?” Harwin grinned, dismounting his horse and leaving the reins to the stablehand. “The poor sod can hardly see past those caterpillars of eyebrows atop his head, eh?” 

Alysanne giggled, putting her arms up once more, “Please pick me up— wanna be thall… t-tall,” she tried to correct, spitting a bit through her gapped teeth. 

Harwin chuckled— it was a rich, soothing sound. His whole body seemed to erupt with the joy he brought as he laughed, like a deep and generous clap of thunder before the skies opened up. 

Alysanne felt her heart rattle around in her chest at the noise. 

“Let me get this heavy armor off, lilac,” he hummed, “C’mon, tell me about what you’ve been up to.” 

Alysanne skipped and hopped alongside Harwin as they walked through the courtyard, where he left his armor at the smith to be polished. She babbled on about the books she read, the birds she saw, and any innocuous thing she could conjure up. 

Each thing, no matter how small, boring, or insignificant it may be, Harwin would respond, whether in agreement, asking a question, anything at all— anything to make Alysanne feel special. 

“Alright— c’mere, little lilac,” Harwin finally acquiesced, kneeling down slightly. 

Alysanne squealed in delight as he ran into his arms— only to be met with darkness. 

A cold, withering darkness. Usually, being encapsulated by Harwin was warm— warm and bright, like the sunniest summer day.

But she felt cold— cold like the North was, colder than anything she felt before, like after a flame had been extinguished. 

Then, her vision went red— red, orange, yellow, crackling fire— warm, warm, too warm. Hot, hot— it was smoldering, she was screaming, feeling the skin melt from her bones and char into ash— and she wasn’t the only one screaming. 

She heard the cries of men— two very familiar to her— 

Harwin, Harwin— open the door, open the door, brother, please! She screamed and clawed at the door until it melted before her into glowing lava, sizzling at her feet— and behind it, Harwin— his hand on the knob, no, fused to the knob. 

His hand wasn’t attached, snapped off like a charred piece of firewood, his body strewn across the floor. His face peeled from the muscle and sinew, popping and blistering against the heat. His mouth, now just a hole, was twisted into an everlasting scream—

And then she was back. Back to the warmth and brightness of Harwin’s arms. He was shaking her softly, jostling her shoulder as a small crowd was gathered. 

“Alysanne,” he murmured frantically, “Alysanne, wake up, my girl.” 

Her eyes fluttered open, filled with tears— they rolled down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a whimpering sob came out. 

“Shh, don’t speak, it's okay,” he cooed, turning her away from the prying eyes of the crowd, “I’ve got you.” 

Ser Harwin Strong and his father, Lord Lyonel Strong, perished that same night in a fire— a supposed accident.

But Alysanne— she had known. She saw it, and had said nothing. She hears Harwin’s ghost muttering to her at times, his warm and gentle voice now saddened by ash and smoke. 

She contemplated her life for days, months and years after— she had lost the only family she had— and she could’ve stopped it. 

Since then, she relented from touching people or being touched. She never wanted to have that power— she didn’t want to see their deaths, hear their screams and have their ghosts linger in her head for the rest of her life. 

Now, after seeing Aemond’s supposed death, she felt a responsibility to change it— not for herself, not for Aemond— but for Harwin. For what she could’ve done, should’ve done. 

She wiped an errant tear from her cheek as she dressed for the day. She forwent the corset— damn the thing— and dressed in another kirtle, a paisley color. 

Her hands moved deftly as she tied her curly hair up into two braids— nothing like Flora and Beth had done— but it did the job nonetheless. 

The rest of the keep wasn’t awake yet— or so she had thought. She walked out in the courtyard barefoot, as usual, and found it odd as she heard another pair of feet crunching gravel near her. 

Turning around, she came face to face with Aemond. He looked… exhausted. 

His brow perked, “What are you doing up this early?” he asked as he kept walking, a nod of his head in indication that he wished for her to follow. 

She let out a sniff, “I’m always awake,” she grumbled, “I need to tend to Banshee.” she trotted alongside Aemond, her short legs having to work double time to keep up with his long legged strides. 

“‘Banshee’? I know that Harrenhal has its fair share of ghosts, but I haven’t heard the wail of a banshee yet— and even so, how does one tend to a Banshee?” he prodded, putting on a pair of leather gloves as they walked. 

“… Banshee isn’t a ghost,” Alysanne said, a slight tinge of annoyance lacing her voice, “Banshee is my horse.” 

They stopped at the stable, which now housed more horses than usual on account of the soldier’s occupation. Alysanne slunk to the last paddock, which was in truth, not in good shape. It had its fair share of bite marks and hoof prints. 

Aemond watched as the strange little bastard lady stood on her tippy toes, clicking her tongue and holding out her hand over the top of the stall door. 

A rumbling snort was heard before an absolutely monstrous horse head dipped over the door. It had a gray spotted snout and a neatly trimmed forelock and mane. 

Alysanne hummed as she undid the lock and led out Banshee. He was a ginormous draught horse, built purely of muscle and power. He had a light gray coat with black dapples— as well as some long feathering near his hooves. He was easily taller than Aemond by a foot.

The gelding let out a snort as he looked at Aemond, then turned his focus back to Alysanne, nuzzling the top of her head, earning a small giggle from her.

Aemond Targaryen, rider of the largest dragon in the world, was slightly aghast at the size of this horse. He exhaled, “That has to be the biggest fucking horse I’ve ever seen,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. He looked back and forth between Alysanne and Banshee, “How do you even get on his back?” 

Alysanne looked at Aemond, slightly bewildered, “You ride Vhagar— how do you get on her back?” she countered as she led Banshee out into the courtyard. 

Aemond, fascinated by Alysanne and her monster horse, followed, “Well— a fair bit of climbing, and she has some rope rigging around her saddle.” 

Alysanne pat Banshee on his neck— at least, as far as she could reach. “Well, think of Banshee as a small Vhagar,” she hummed, “It isn’t graceful, but a fair bit of climbing,” she mimicked his tone, “does the job.” 

The prince was slightly amused by this. “Well then— go on,” he pressed, “Let’s see how the bastard fares getting atop her horse.” 

Alysanne let out something of a growl or a grumble in annoyance, clicking her tongue after. Banshee lowered himself slightly, to a point where she could snag onto his mane and scramble up his neck, sliding down onto his back. It was hardly graceful, and was comparable to how a bat scrambles upon walls before taking flight.

“No saddle? Reins?” he questioned further. 

Alysanne cocked her head, “No?” she snorted, as if it was the silliest question she’d ever heard.

The prince pinched his brow in what seemed to be frustration, “How silly of me— you don’t even wear shoes, of course you’d ride your beast without the proper tack.” 

She rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything further. She murmured something to Banshee, who let out a whinny and began his walk— it was slow and bumpy, but Alysanne kept her composure. 

“Be here when I return, girl,” Aemond said before they got out of earshot, “I’ll have need of you.” 

Her brow furrowed. Need of her? For what? And where was he going? 

Alysanne and Banshee’s leisurely walk turned into a relaxed trot as they exited the gates of Harrenhal. They were half a mile away from the ancient castle before a thunderous roar was heard, and the rising sun was eclipsed by the gargantuan green beast known as Vhagar. 

Alysanne scratched Banshee as he got a bit fidgety as the dragon flew low in the sky, just above the treeline. “S’okay, my sweet boy,” she hummed, wrapping her arms around his neck as far as she could reach, “You won’t die by a dragon— I’ve seen it.” 

As Vhagar began to disappear from sight, something clicked in Alysanne’s head. The dragon was riding towards the God’s Eye— which meant Aemond was as well. 

It… it felt like too soon— no, the battle couldn’t be today— but she had seen Harwin’s death just hours before it happened… 

She spurred Banshee into a full on gallop, pressing low to his back to hold on, “Please, please,” she whimpered, tears already forming in her eyes. 

As they approached the shore of the God’s Eye, she looked around, scanning the sky for any sign of the bloodwyrm— or even Vhagar. 

She slid off of Banshee’s back, letting him graze as she walked the pebbled beach of the lake. She paced back and forth until it was high noon, the sun rising in the sky to its apex. 

A few more hours passed until late afternoon, the sun beginning its descent back towards the earth. A temporary eclipse of Vhagar returning had Alysanne giving a small breath of relief— until the giant dragon turned, lowering down to find a spot to land.

Banshee strayed near the woodline, as far from the dragon as possible— Alysanne shared his unease, a deep pit settling in her gut. 

She ground her teeth as she approached the landing dragon, the powerful flaps of her wings actually causing Alysanne to fall over— which apparently earned a laugh from Aemond— a laugh? When had she heard him actually laugh? 

Watching as he gracefully slid from Vhagar’s saddle, not before unstrapping himself (earning Alysanne a breath), she got back to her feet, dusting off her dress. 

“I thought I spotted that elephant horse of yours,” he called out, walking towards her. 

She shrunk back, “What do you want?” 

As he got closer, his expression became more visible. He seemed… lighter. More elated. His hair was swept back from the wind and his mouth was crinkled in a small grin— not that of a predator like usual, but like that of someone who was… joyous?

It was a difference of night and day— his pained anguish the night before, and his almost boyish  demeanor now. 

It confused Alysanne— she hadn’t accounted for this, such a strong change in emotion from him. It settled the pit in her stomach ever so slightly. 

“What do I want?” he repeated with a questioning tone, “Nothing— I merely wished to see if your beast had bucked you off yet.” he stopped a few feet away from her, not getting too close. His arms were behind his back in their usual resting position. It seemed as if he was respecting her boundaries. 

“Banshee wouldn’t— not to me, atleast,” she picked up a smooth stone from below her idly, rolling it around in her palm, “He’s a killer, you know.” 

“A killer, hm?” 

“Mhm,” she hummed, “Stomped in a few men’s heads over the years— ones that tried to ride him, besides me.” 

Aemond’s lip curled slightly, “Seems he’s bonded with you as his sole rider, then. Dragons are much the same. They get to choose who they bond with— test their mettle, and find them worthy.” 

Alysanne looked towards him as they conversed— they began walking around the shore near each other and she hadn’t even noticed. He still kept his distance, to which she was grateful. “Vhagar finds you worthy,” she commented, “It must be an honor.” 

Aemond picked up a rock as well, weighing it in his palm, “It is. It’s the highest honor of any Targaryen’s life— to be chosen by a dragon.” 

She stopped at the lapping waves, dipping her feet in the water. With a swift movement of her hand, she sent the stone skidding across the surface. Once, twice, thrice. 

A few moments later, Aemond did the same. Once, twice, thrice. 

Alysanne gave a lopsided smile at that as she straightened back up. She felt at ease— like a leaf on a cooling breeze. Not only at ease, she felt brave. 

Slowly, she lifted her head, taking in the features of Aemond’s face before landing on his eye— which looked right back at her. 

She felt a rattling in her chest— like a caged bird flapping and ricocheting against her bones. A strange heat came to her cheeks. “We make up one pair of violet eyes, you and I,” she murmured suddenly, “One lilac between each of us…” she stared at his remaining eye, to which he stared back at her one, paired with the rich, earthy brown of her other eye.

His brow furrowed momentarily, “An interesting observation,” he picked up another rock and skipped it across the waves, “You remind me of someone, you know. My sister— Helaena, her grace, the queen,” he whispered, his voice taking on a softer note, “I feel like you two would have much to talk about.” 

“I’ve heard she is fond of insects,” Alysanne answered, walking from the shore to the grass, where she began picking plants from the soil, seemingly with purpose, “I quite like a good moth myself. They liken themselves to have false eyes on their wings, so they do not have to stare down predators.” 

Aemond didn’t comment— he just watched her pick plants. 

“Herbs,” she said, as if feeling his questioning stare on her back, “For my medicines.” 

“I didn’t know you were a maester as well as a bastard,” he said– more likely than not with a smug grin on his face.

“I may be odd in appearance, but you must be blind in both eyes if you think I resemble a smelly, mean old man.” she quipped back.

He didn’t say anything more, just setting his jaw in a hard line. This earned Alysanne a satisfied smile– the bird had silenced the dragon. 

In her joyful reverie, she went to pick a bundle of chamomile– but her hand plunged into a bush of stinging nettle. She let out a yelp like an injured animal, pulling her hand back and looking over it.

Apparently, her yelp had caused some concern from Aemond, who rushed over– he broke the boundary they had set, and even more, he reached out to her hand. “Let me see,” he grumbled.

“No, no–,” her cry was cut off as they touched, and her vision went black once more.

It was storming. Thunder rumbled the ancient stronghold– but they were not in Harrenhal. She couldn’t quite fixate where they were, until she heard the tumultuous crashing of waves against chiseled stone. Storm’s End– the seat of power for House Baratheon.

Why was she here– why… Aemond was here as well. He was stanced as usual, his hands behind his back.

Another boy was there, as well– brown, shaggy hair and brown eyes. Harwin? He looked like Harwin– he was turning away from Aemond, walking out.

“Wait,” Aemond called out, “My lord Strong,”

Strong? There were no more Strong Lords– and not a young boy like this. Who… was he? When was this?

“Did you really think you could fly about the realm, trying to steal my brother’s throne; at no cost?”

“I will not fight you– I came as a messenger, not a warrior,” the young boy spoke. Alysanne could see his body language– he was… afraid.

Aemond smirked, “A fight would be little challenge. No,” he said, putting his hand up to his eyepatch, taking off the leather and revealing his sapphire eye underneath, “I want you to put out your eye. It is payment for mine. One will serve,” the prince drew back his coat, throwing a dagger to the floor towards the boy, “I would not blind you. I plan to make a gift of it to my mother.” 

The boy shivered, falling into himself inwardly for just a moment– then he took a breath, puffing out his chest, “No.” he declared, staring Aemond down.

“So you are craven, as well as a traitor.” Aemond hummed for a moment, the sound of Lord Baratheon’s cries to stop drowned out from blood pumping in his ears– hers as well.

Alysanne felt his contempt, felt his rage– bubbling, boiling right under the surface, just like the Fourteen Flames of Valyria. The madness in him was palpable, threatening to break his bones and turn him into a beast hewn of scale and wrath and tear this ‘Lord Strong’ apart brick by brick. 

She shivered; he truly was fire made flesh, an echo of a warrior long past– a god of War in his own right. 

“Give me your eye! Or I will take it, bastard!” Aemond exploded, advancing on the little Lord Strong like a predator–

Then they were in the sky, Aemond chanting taunts atop Vhagar– words that Alysanne didn’t inherently understand, but she felt it– in her bones, rattling around her chest and stomach.

It was a chase– a game of cat and mouse– or dragon and dragon as it may be. But Alysanne knew it was nothing of fairness. What was fair in a dragon of War, named after the Goddess of War, chasing a hatchling just large enough to carry a young boy? 

What was fair in that?

What was fair?

In her fairness, in her twisted justice– Vhagar’s massive jaws snapped the smaller dragon into pieces, along with Lord Strong, the remains of his existence scattered into the sea. 

The rage of Aemond quelled– quelled into a dull ache. It was replaced by a new feeling, mayhaps one Aemond hadn’t felt before.

Guilt. Remorse. 

Kinslayer. Accursed.

What had he done?

Her eyes opened– she wasn’t crying like usual, when she saw death. Usually it was impending death, something that perhaps she had a chance to change– but this… was the past, wasn’t it? Something she never could change, something that had already been lived and gone and was a done deal, sealed with the bow of death. She didn’t feel panicked, no– she felt hollow.

Aemond was holding her up again, cradling her like a delicate flower. He cleared his throat as he stared down at her. “What did you see?” he asked, his voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. 

“Kinslayer.” she murmured in response, her voice broken.

[bookofmirth]

In Silver Flames what do you think this meant:

“The world seemed to pause at the words. As if it had been following one path and now branched off in another direction. In a hundred years, a thousand, this moment would still be etched in his mind. That he would tell his children, his grandchildren, Right then and there. That was when it all changed.

Azriel went wholly still, as if he, too, had felt the shift. As if he, too, were aware that far larger forces peered into that training ring as Gwyn moved.”

I don’t want to read too into it and be called delusional. I know some like to say that for Azriel it’s the start of something new. He felt a shift. This did happen a few days after Solstice and he helped Gwyn with the ribbon. Kinda wish I knew what was going on through his head during this moment.

But the wording is interesting. I think this does show that we’ll be seeing more of the Valkyries. They’re role might be bigger/more important. I don’t see how people came up with Gwyn being evil. It doesn’t really make sense to me.

So I have actually written a post about this before! You can see that here.

People think Sarah is subtle, but honestly she's not. We can't say yet with 100% certainty that that quote will be meaningful, but... That quote is a huge flashing neon sign! She's literally telling us that something important is happening. One of my posts for after the hofas release is actually related to everything you are saying here, about fate, the Valkyries, the Illyrians, and what I think might happen next with Az.

I pointed it out here, too, more to say hey, it's canon that Az and Gwyn (and Emerie and Nesta and Cassian, and even Mor!) are going to continue working together. And not only that, sjm used some pretty strong language to describe the importance of that work.

We know for sure that Nesta, Emerie, Gwyn, and the other Valkyries are going to keep training with Azriel and Cassian. We know that after having passed the Blood Rite, Azriel and Cassian wanted to perfect their techniques. We know that Mor has toyed with the idea of training with the Valkyries. All of this is established fact in canon, it is not theory, it is fact. I don't think that it's a stretch to then say that we will see these actions continued in acotar5 is wildly out there, or that Sarah writing that "fate stood up" is meaningless. (You could say the most innocuous, un-debatable fact, like Az is an Illyrian, and somewhere, some dinghole jackass would call you delusional. Don't let this fandom convince you you're wrong.)

I don't know if you read CC or want my input on how I think hofas plays into this, but there are definitely some arrows pointing to "yes". :D

[opinated-user]

I think I've really figured out why everyone says Lily sends herself asks. It's that she gets to editorialize whatever's being thrown at her into something not as bad, or something more ridiculous. And since she probably has you guys blocked, no one can show up and go "hold on that's not true", you have to do it on your own blog. Then "fans" can cherry pick the easiest points to dismantle and report back to her. If she could refute directly she would have done it already, but she can't.

i mean... it's also just obvious. like i said on another post, it's not like LO ever put any real effort in hiding it. a lot of times those asks would come in while LO had her askbox disabled, so you either believe that some person got extremely lucky to manage to get one message in the small window of opportunity while LO was allowing it... or she send it herself to disabled it immediately after. sucky-boy has only ever interacted with LO (one time with MO), never had any posts of their own and ever since we have been calling them out, mysteriously they stopped posting altogether. they never even tried to defend themselves, they just poofed. sometimes sucky would ask a question and LO would diligently answer them with long parragraphs full of her thoughts and feeling. but then you'd have another anon asking the exact same question and LO would bite their head off. and again, on itself i don't mind about self send asks or sucky boys. LO trying to fight those allegations like they were this huge deal that makes or breaks anything is just weird to me because... i don't care. if anything i think it's more pathetic from her to keep making this a thing when in relaity, it does not matter. it only matter insofar LO can protect her own ego and convince herself that she can get away with everything, even the stuff that is so innocuous nobody cares. LO only ever uses those asks to herself as an excuse to pontificate about a subject, drop some unsourced rumors about whatever person she dislikes at any given moment or say more lies. we can call out the lies no matter who comes from, if LO or some legitimate anon just wanting to stir the pot to see what happens. LO's still the one lying, enabling the lie or openly supporting the lie. we can debunk her with archives, screenshots and more. if anything, it's a meme at this point, just like every critical blog being secretly Brittany is disguise. nobody actually takes it as seriously as LO does.

[partly-cloudyskies]

tagged by @big-meows always happy to talk about mah storeez

How many works do you have on AO3?

29. seems like a lot, where does the time go?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

630,542 where??? time??? go??????

3. What fandoms do you write for?

lessee we got ur ducktales, ur gundam with from mercury, night in the woods, amphibia, outer wilds, xcom and deltarune. man i really forgot about that single xcom fic i wrote. i really did intend to write something in that fandom. i still might maybe idk

4. Top five fics by kudos?

There Will Be No Dancing i've always been really happy with this one. i feel like I really caught the energy of the characters. i'm glad people seemed to catch that energy y'know

Hypothesis i wrote this almost immediately after deltarune came out i think it was like the 2nd one with that pairing and i always kind of felt like it got kudos mostly cuz it was so early. i mean it's not bad but idk, i think it just got out the door early and that's why it got attention. my favorite part is the bit with berdly

Under the Shadow of the Snack Falcon the first fic i posted when i started writing fanfic again after, like, over 20 years. i'm glad it's in the mix

Orbits imo this is my most, like, technically accomplished fic. in terms of structure and theme and that. there's another outer wilds fic i wanna write. been sitting on it for a while. hope i get to it someday!

Rite of Spring my night in the woods magnum opus (that i completed, sorry glass factory). i named it after the stravinsky ballet. i felt like it was thematic, idk. i really had fun writing for lori

5. Do you respond to comments?

i try to. i mean people make a stink about comments being important so i try to reply to the ones i get, even if it's something innocuous like 'thx for reading!'

some fics i don't respond at all and it's usually cuz of any number of badbrain circumstances i am under at the moment. always feel a lil bad about that. not enough to make a stink of it, bad in the sense that you see a banana that you left out too long and now it's all brown and mushy. that kind of bad

well, all any of us can do is try

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the view from mars, i suppose? or maybe it's monument. or quests! i kind of liked quests.

view from mars is kind of a bog standard teen crush melodrama, but i liked writing the girls from amphibia so i thought i'd give it a try. would like to do another amphibia story someday.

monument is an outer wilds fic, so everyone dies (spoilers i guess) and it's about, like, your work outliving your life and then even your work eventually disappears and then what's left? and maybe asking what's left isn't even the right question. you know. existential stuff. play outer wilds

quests is me indulging myself cuz i have a thing for pairings where one half is gonna have to take care of the other half and like, is lena really up for that and what happens when she gets in over her head cuz webby gets in over her head. idk i'm too much of a sap to take this to its angstiest conclusion and it gets resolved p quickly which might make it seem a little pat but the story did what i set out for it to do so i'm cool with it

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there will be no dancing, probably. it's got a pretty sweet ending. just don't read the stories in the rest of the series. it's fine it's cool

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not that i've seen. i did see a comment where someone was asking a leading question like they wanted to get into some Discourse but i just ignored it and nothing came of it and we all lived our lives

9. Do you write smut?

ya when the notion strikes. if we're examining the ways characters interact with each other sex is one of those ways and it'd be weird to exclude it over all the other imo

10. Craziest crossover?

i never actually tagged this is how we grow as a crossover huh. but @big-meows was the one to initially conceive of a stardew/ducktales crossover so i ain't taking credit. i guess the only other option is red brithright, my current wip: star wars and witch from mercury

it's not really a crazy crossover tho. they're both sci fi franchises that started in the 70s and prominently feature protagonists with complicated relationships with their parents and have laser swords. kind of an obvious crossover

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of. it's hard to know if i'd care even if someone did. i guess i'd be miffed if someone were making money off of it somehow

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i have had requests, never saw if they actually did it but i always said yes

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i've had some beta-ing but idk if i'll ever co-write. i've got a pretty light presence in fandoms so i doubt i'll get involved in anything more collaborative then, like, prompt weeks

14. All time favourite ship?

idk man i mean i wouldn't devote days of writing to any ship unless they were my all time fave to some degree. weblena's always gonna have a place, sulemio is the new hotness but i think there's something enduring in it. i'll always have a soft spot for barrisoka

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i like to think i'll finish all wips eventually. yes i know that's dumb but i still like to think it

16. What are your writing strengths?

idk i like to think i'm p okay at juggling an ensemble. like when there's a lot of characters and giving them all a little moment to characterize themselves. even if it's just a single line. i hope that comes across. and i love to have a sense of place, like an environment that feels authentic. i love a good place and want others to feel like they can see it. who knows if that works

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i think i tend to get bogged down in details to the point where i have to step back and ask myself if i've lost the thread of the story. like i'll get preoccupied with how characters get from point a to point b when that shit don't matter

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

don't think i've ever done

19. First fandom you wrote in?

starcraft. used to be part of a writing group that did varying degrees of starcraft. all ancient history by now

20. Favourite fic you've written?

hm. probably there will be no dancing. like yeah again i feel like i was pretty on for that one. punchy and funny and written deep in the perspective of the pov character. i really do wish i could keep that kind of writing for long projects! but alas

if you see this feel free to do your own!

[detectivehole]

I feel deep catholic guilt and discomfort whenever I see art that glorifies satanic stuff or even posts that are anti-God, even though I wasn't raised catholic. Is this normal for people. I'm personally very pro God even though people think I'm a devil worshiper based on my appearance and interests

it's fine that you vented, i don't mind

ftr im just some dude i can't offer significant advice (i'll take a shot) or speak for other people. im not particularly smart or insightful

tldr: you're not abnormal for it but religious guilt that interferes with your life is not good for you. you should speak with a therapist and take time for considerable introspection

catholic guilt is not the only form of religious or even christian guilt; many religions, notably (because i am from the west and most familiar with them) abrahamic ones, can cause or even deliberately wield guilt as an extension of ensuring faith. catholic guilt is often a distinction made because the catholic faith is notorious for its weaponization of guilt in its practice. if you experience religious guilt, but were never or are not catholic, it is not catholic guilt- this isn't, like, a defense of the concept, i just think making that distinction is important for someone struggling with religious guilt. knowing exactly what you're dealing with is important, you don't want to confuse it easily with something else

feeling religious guilt either because you were raised religious or because you live in a culturally christian (im assuming based off the question) society is not good for you, but it is arguably pretty normal. that being said it is absolutely something you should focus energy on and work towards overcoming and processing- there is no reason to feeling guilty and afraid of innocent, innocuous, and harmless behaviors, things, and actions, just because a flawed doctrine has demonized them arbitrarily. your moral compass, and the convictions you hold that's violations might cause guilt, should be held 100% of your own volition after your own careful consideration- not held because of fear, forced faith, or exclusively because of outside influence

religion itself is not a evil or bad, neither is it good and just. it is a neutral concept that is capable of an immense amount of beauty as well as an immense amount of ugliness. religious people are, the vast majority of the time, totally normal people with totally normal senses of right and wrong- whether it's strictly in-line with their faith or not; identical in this way to any non-religious person, or another person of any other faith

all i mean is that you should be considering what you belive and why- if you find it has no conflicts with your faith, that's perfectly fine. if you find it does, that's fine too. just make sure you make the choice on how to move forward in life for reasons of genuine conviction, compassion, and logic- nothing else. do not let anything else control you

if god remains important to you, then that's just fine. just make sure you have a healthy relationship with the concept- no nonsensical, arbitrary guilt

--

im not entity certain what "pro god" means but whatever it is i am likely not myself. i was raised with religious influences but i hold no genuine religious convictions of any kind. i resent aspects of christianity that have hurt myself and others, as well as many fundamental aspects of the christian interpretation of life and the world, so despite complete lack of faith, i frequently take jabs at the concept and often with a "pro satan" tone. this is all to say i don't think we can entirely empathize on that front, and whatever ive told you has been said with a low backing drone of resentment to the concept of of a christian god. i tired to be impartial in the above text, but it's important to make you potential biases known

hope all that texts literally anything at all to you 👍 sorry it makes little sense

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Hi I literally goshed over how cute the dog ask was! So I came up with an idea for part 2 how would the riddlers react to ether there hench men or another members of the rouges gallery making there dog an Instagram account and said dog becoming Instagram famous with over 1,000 followers ps I luv your writing

"Riddler's with Dogs Pt 2" Riddler Party Ask

I'm glad! This is definitely in my Arena so I'm happy to give more! After this one I have a cat ask for riddlers too, so look forward to that. And thank you for the praise <3 Part one is here!

TW: None

Gotham

It was Victor. Victor would have done it for Penguin's dog Edward but then his boss would have gotten all pissy and it wasn't worth it. What's Edward (the human) going to do when he takes pictures of Oswald (the dog) for Insta? Riddle him to death? Try to outshoot the shooter? Please.

Edward and Oswald (the human) hang out often enough for Victor to sneak video and pictures of the little guy. He documents care videos of things Edward does for "records" when Oswald (the dog) has to be taken care of by others. Really, he's posting them on Instagram.

Once Edward finds out, he's frustrated and demands for Victor to take it all down since it's not even his dog! That is, until Victor is showing off the numbers Oswald (the dog) is doing. One of his most popular photos is a candid pic of the dog in Oswald (the human's) lap snoring when Edward was away one weekend.

....He can't deny it makes him a little happy to see the positive comments and likes on all these small, innocuous moments that otherwise would have been taken for granted. Victor can keep it up. For now. But there's definitely going to be high end glamor shots added via Edward himself.

60s

one of the younglings had to introduce him to the concept. Always on her tiny phone snapping photos of everything including Pascal. Then one day she's trying to explain what Instagram is. So it's like a digital photobook. That sounds adorable, but really, is it relevant to anything?

She then points to the number of followers and says that's the amount of people who want updates about Pascal and his antics. Edward brightens at the thought. Wait, there are comments? Oh, would you look at that, they love him!

Edward is like that happy, dorky uncle who now wants to be included on the photo taking. What's the perfect cinematic shot? The Instagram game turns to short videos, which then turns to tiktok shorts once he's shown how to do that... Pascal ends up getting a fancy riddler suit jacket of his own with the proceeds.

Imagine you're a hostage in 1960s Gotham. The Riddler has overtaken the event with his goons. There is a corgi in a question mark themed suit. One of the goons is filming the corgi shaking his little hips as he walks. Riddler poses a question for the audience at home. This is going to take hours if Batman doesn't arrive quickly.

BTAS

Query and Echo did it. They aren't a constant presence like they were at one time, but they still appreciate the occasional team up with their favorite man in green. And they fall in love with little Curie.

They tease him for trying to retire and "settle down" with his dog... As they take pictures and video with filters of her in her little fashion coat. Echo jokingly makes the Instagram at first as they're all a little tipsy on wine. Then both of them post pictures and videos of her with Edward in the background.

Then... Oh, shit. This got bigger than they ever planned. Sure, cute animals are popular but- Edward isn't mad when he finds out. In fact, he's amused and downright smug. Of course she's popular, look at her!

He ends up making a small video game with her as the star. Hey, don't blame him for making profit off of a popularity hype. It's a good game, brings in honest money and puts his name back on the market. Win-win in his opinion.

Zero Year

Despite being notorious for not playing well with others, he has to have some goons later on to help with the heavy lifting. One of them ended up being good with Minerva so Edward thought, what the hell, they could clean up after her when he's busy. What he didn't realize is the guy ended up taking photos and posted a few of them online. That curly tail is to die for!

Edward caught the man on his phone looking at photos of Minerva and found the account with less than 100 followers. Photos that were fine but not great. So he took over the account immediately.

He immediately decided to up Minerva's aesthetic game. High quality photos, photo shoots, cosplay- Yes, cosplay. The amount of followers bumps up past 1,000 within a couple weeks. It doesn't help he messed with the website algorithm. Just a little. Everyone WILL appreciate his dorky beautiful dog.

Arkham

The one time he decided to actually hire people instead of just robots to do his bidding, and they do this. First, one of them decided to show off his doggie grooming background and freshened him up. Unnecessary! Asimov was fine! Then he's getting messages from Harley of all people telling him his dog is online and famous.

He corners his henchpeople who shrug saying it was a fluke. Passing the time when they wait around for orders! People love the one-eyed little creature. And they love seeing Edward show rare soft moments towards him.

People call his dog ugly-cute and he's offended on behalf of Asimov. Asimov is perfectly fine the way he is. He's not ugly! Someone has to explain that's a good thing and he scoffs them off.

At some point he gets tired of having henchmen around in his space and boots them to the streets. Then he hacks into the account and changes the password and authentication so the account can stay up. If he remembers he'll throw videos up, usually of Asimov doing tricks showing how smart he is.

Telltale

Funny enough it's his buddy Catwoman who does it. Selina KNOWS an Instagram worthy pet when she sees it. And this puppy is CUTE. Plus she's probably one of the few people he'd allow in his space besides Bane and actually trust. Bane is also in several pictures with Columbo. He knows the show, it was one of the few things that would ever play on the one shitty, shitty TV in the prison he grew up in.

She's delighted to tell him once the account gets popular. He scoffs and doesn't believe it until she shows him the numbers.

He supposes people have good taste about the pain in his ass. Then the memes start where they compare the riddler's dog to the TV show detective he's named after. He says how ridiculous they are and how people should use their time better, but Selina catches him giving a sensible chuckle at them often.

2022

Let's be real, he started the Instagram account. He figured his followers could go see pictures of her when he's not streaming and she's in the background. What he didn't expect was a flurry of other followers that have no idea who is is, but want to see more of wiggly Ava. It's enough to make him anxious.

The pictures aren't the best or the quality of videos but she's just so delightful and when he opens up about her story, it garners even more views. There's something so genuine about the presentation.

He tries to get some overlap into his Riddler persona but it doesn't work out. Batman follows the Ava account. Just to make sure there aren't any secret messages there. That's it. Absolutely not because the dog is adorable.

[cadyrocks]

Some discourse passed my dashboard today, and I want to comment on it.

It's a little weird to see people talking about "what Scott Siskind (of Slatestarcodex and Astral Codex Ten fame) believes" based on his writing. Like, sure, you can glean certain things from it (like his obsession with IQ tests), but... well...

Have we forgotten about this email?

Like, not to put too fine a point on it, but here's a pull quote:

1. HBD* is probably partially correct or at least very non-provably not-correct. [Links to blog posts by racists] This then spreads into a vast variety of interesting but less-well-supported HBD-type hypotheses which should probably be more strongly investigated if we accept some of the bigger ones are correct. See eg [another link to a blog post by racists] (I will appreciate if you NEVER TELL ANYONE I SAID THIS, not even in confidence. And by "appreciate", I mean that if you ever do, I'll probably either leave the Internet forever or seek some sort of horrible revenge.)

*note: "HBD" or "Human biodiversity", as used by these folks, was just the latest euphemism for "scientific racism"; an attempt to back up hereditary racism and eugenics with a patina of (bad) science.

I think this is probably the most important thing to know about Scott Siskind (other than maybe his disgusting but entirely expected and typical response to Kathy Forth's sexual abuse and suicide). He was knowingly lying about how racist he was, and he likely still is.

Once you admit to "hiding your power level" on your beliefs in the scientific validity of racism, anything you write will necessarily need to be filtered through that lens. Things that might seem innocuous if written by most people might come off very differently given this context. The consistent tolerance of racist bigots (including very famous racist bigots like Steve Sailer!) in his comments sections starts to feel less like a genuine principled defense of free speech and more like he's just generally fine with platforming racist bigots. Things that might vaguely sound a little bit "eugenics-y" start to sound really fucking bad when the person saying them has been shown to have racist sympathies that he knows would get him in trouble and was hiding on purpose. Racist sympathies he supports by linking to a famous white supremacist.

So what does Scott Siskind believe about dysgenics? Why should anyone care? He's a racist who believes in hereditary explanations for gaps in racial performance (as opposed to, y'know, the long and ongoing history of systemic racism, colonialism, and exploitation). Whatever his beliefs on eugenics or dysgenics are, odds are good that he's not being cogent about how he really feels, and that his beliefs based on those arguments would be interpreted differently (and more correctly!) by people who know that this dude drank the scientific racism kool-aid.

The degree to which this man is still considered a public intellectual after the leak of those emails is a good sign of how tolerant we are of lying, cowardly racists pretending to be Very Serious People.

[gnotknormal]

Spotting art scam accounts- people who are pretending to be artists edition.

My GOD I am getting so tired of these fuckers. They annoy me to no end but I'm so sad and concerned about how many people they might trick. I'm even more concerned about the art they steal from other artists in order to pretend they are who they are saying they are.

My guess is they take your money and run, or they just AI some shit and then disappear. So here's some tips on how to find them.

I recently got followed by a "rabeccartist" (clearly Rebecca was taken) This is your first clue. They almost always just use a normal western sounding forename. Never an artist nickname or anything. While its true a lot of legitimate artists use their name, its very rarely just their first name - how would you ever be searchable by potential clients?!

Let's see what's on Rebecca's profile!

Could seem innocuous enough, but the hints are here.

Really, first and foremost pushing their commissions without even explaining who they are or what their vibe is.

Almost always say or imply they can do nsfw commissions

No links to a portfolio or mentions of other sites they're on (yes I know not everybody goes everywhere but tumblr isn't exactly the place you get exposure - and how would these artists have got commissions already if not posting on other sites?)

Claims that aren't backed up by posts on their pages

E.g. "creating a world of unique characters" is huge bs. This profile only features "client work" and reblogs of other artists.

This is the pinned post. Showing some other red flags.

Incorrect/unreasonable tags (some real artists do mess with tags to get some exposure, so this isn't always a red flag on its own)

"Client work done"/"commission completed" - with no indication of how they even know the client or got the commsion from. No mention even of what is included in the picture or what the request was for?

Next image

Apparently another commission! But this one is a totally different style "furry oc"?? Really? Whose OC? Tag them! Link to their website!

Also I only just notice they just straight up tagged this as AI art so...

And this page leads me to another blog by someone called Helen. (Again, another name- and they pretty much are always womens names).

It was the only picture liked by Rabecca. Rabecca's page doesn't show any of her original characters or artwork for fun or any sort of world building despite her profile offering a "world of unique characters".

So over on Helen's page

Same vibe. Nsfw commissions mentioned, all it says is they love to draw. They usually also offer 3D and 2D commissions. Profile image is clearly not the same artist that drew that lion.

Now I don't watch this show, but someone in the comments helpfully noted this was just a screenshot from the show. Also, this profile doesn't even mention Helluva Boss on it like the other one does (don't come at me if this isn't Helluva Boss I just said I don't watch it). "Client work done" again with no name, no specifications, nothing.

There's the lion. Fan art? Of who? Why? It's lovely art but clearly different from the only other thing on the profile that claims to be done by this artist.

And looking at Helen's likes...

Ah! What a surprise!!!

These are both scam accounts. Most likely by the same person. And honestly? I see these on Instagram all the time so I was kind of surprised to see them here. They all have the same or similar MO.

It's kind of funny, although I'm concerned people COULD, I'm so confident that people don't fall for this. I don't know why you would. After all, I am a legitimate artist @gnot-art with years of art under my belt, who sells commissions and showcases my own work on multiple platforms and people rarely commission me XD people don't generally just commission random artists they find on the Internet!!! It's so absurd.

What's even funnier to me is the other main art scam- where someone pretends to be a paying client and rips you off. (I can make another post about how to spot those, too, if anyone wants it). I just find it hilarious to think these 2 types of scam accounts are constantly only ever interacting with each other because they haven't even worked out how unlike actual art profiles what they've made is.

Anyway, I recommend that if you want to commission an artist, you follow them for a bit and get to know them and their style to see if it fits with what you want.

And no legitimate commissioning artist will EVER DM you begging for you to buy something from them.

Have a great day ya little frogs ✌️

[mikesavagenewcanaan]

Mike Savage New Canaan SUV's, Muscle mass Cars, Ladies, and also The Pope

Be straightforward, does the title of this post strike you as being difficult? Are you scratching your head wondering what is the link between The Pope, Muscle Mass Cars, Females, and SUV's? If so, be patient and also continue reading because we are about to connect-the-dots for you. We begin with The Pope. If we can concur that, no document, no declarations, emerges from the Vatican without The Popes express authorization and true blessing, after that we can continue. It got on June 19th, 2007, that the Vatican, under the management of His Sanctity Pope Benedict XVI, released a record innocuously titled "Standards for the Pastoral Care of the Road".

It was this 36 page record of 10 'Thou will' and 'Thou shall not' commandments that triggered a causal sequence that made its way from one continent to another. The very first to experience and respond to it were the high-performance automobile loving Italians. Both Italian Ferrari proprietors and car dealerships were heard to gasp when they learned that the Holy See had actually all of a sudden taken a rather aggressive placement in the direction of high-end cars and truck possession. After that, like an ill-wind blowing, the rest of Europe's premium auto producers and also owners began to really feel a general pain. That pain, that unwell wind, then went across the sea to America where Catholics, that had simply parked their Mercedes, BMW's, and Lexus's in the church car park, were observed agonizing in their seats. But the worst of its result fell on the female, in particular, the females that possessed high efficiency luxury Sports Utility Automobiles. So why was it that it was women premium SUV proprietors, that were the most distressed? Well, it was because, they had been concealing, lugging, nurturing, and also living with an unrealized key, and also now it was understood, and also there was no other way to refute or run away from it.

Mike Savage New Canaan

They might no more reject that envy as well as a lust for power had actually passed amongst generations of women. They might no longer leave the fact that they, their mommies, as well as grandmas, had yearned to really feel, as well as have possession of, the power that men had felt as they guided their muscle mass vehicles, Harley Hogs, monster vehicles, and high-performance cars. Then rather unexpectedly, what had actually been rejected to them as being somehow undesirable arrived as well as appeared to them in the form of an SUV.

Mike Savage New Canaan

Besides, that would certainly attempt to take issue with a 'football mommy' 'little organization mother' or Pop Warner football mama, driving a brood of young players and their equipment to and fro from methods as well as video games? Nobody that's who. It was practically touching, heart-warming, a slice of Americana, to see a ladies behind the wheel of a SUV transporting a team of uniformed youngsters to their sporting activity destination. Rephrase, it was an appropriate view that stayed acceptable also when women were no longer moving any person but themselves to the manicurist. It was only when the SUV started to take a very tough turn from its original utilitarian function that a few brows started to rise concerned of why a woman might be driving a vehicle that was originally indicated to offer traveler space together with towing as well as off-road capacity. Particularly a single woman who one felt in one's bones was never ever mosting likely to be hauling anything with her BMW X5, neither was she ever before mosting likely to allow it to be damaged by the bramble as well as brush of harsh and also rough terrain. Admittedly, also if one wished to, one would nevertheless stop at the idea of beginning a disagreement with a female actually turning nose up at you from her perch inside a Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes-Benz G-Class, or Lincoln Navigator L. Specifically when one takes into consideration that she could, if she wished to, roll right over your fuel-economy sedan.

So then, what exactly was the Divine declaration that triggered so much angst as well as eagerness? 2 sentences that is all it was. The first, sentence was snuggled in the area entitled "Vanity and also individual glorification" and said, "Cars and trucks specifically offer themselves to being made use of by their owners to flaunt, and as a means for outperforming other individuals and also exciting a feeling of envy." This is adhered to by the fifth rule warning, which reduces to the chase by stating,, "Cars will not be for you an expression of power as well as supremacy."