#anyone. is there an audience for this joke anywhere

[itsdappleagain]

jesus no

[eightstarr]

pacify — sevika.

summary: is it possible to miss a stranger, or does one thing negate the other? maybe you miss sevika because she isn't a stranger, because she stuck her claws far too deep in you and never let go— or just because she looks really fucking good sitting there, looking at you like she's waiting for you to say "hello again".

warnings: mild descriptions of violence, smut (mdni!), pre time jump sevika!

notes: my thesis with this one is that eating out a woman you love will revolutionize you in a way nothing else can and i'm joking but also dead serious. also dear god please me and who… okay bye i love you

・。.・゜✧・. ────

“You know, I’ve always liked this place the best.”

It’s the first thing you remember him saying, blue uniform to match his now slightly reddened eyes, vile alcohol in his breath. You’re at a different bar, not Vander's, the first actual job you ever had if you don't count what came before— the shiny rock of a stranger’s ring in your pocket, another’s gold coins in your bag, all from the quick trips to the city above with your father. “It’s not difficult to steal from a Piltovan,” he’d say, squinting at the engraving on the inside of a sparkly bracelet, a small bounty spread over the kitchen table, “they’re all show, all ego.”

Now watching the smirk on the Enforcer’s face after he downs his fourth glass without taking a breath, a laughable skill for an audience of no one, you find it hard to disagree with your father’s assessment. The well nurtured instinct to wonder what you’d get if you slipped your fingers inside the pockets of his tailored jacket grows loud and tempting in your head, but you shove it away and keep your eyes on the dusty floor you’re meant to sweep, determined to keep this job.

“The drinks are better than up there, I’ll give you that,” the drunk man continued, half empty fifth glass tipped dangerously towards the brooding barman, your only coworker tonight. There’s barely anyone left in the bar at all except a couple regulars. Tension has been brewing through the entirety of your shift, an argument in one of the booths during your first hour, a drink on someone’s face by the third, a wave of tired scoffs when the man in uniform walked in near the end of the night; the last nail on the coffin. In your head, you’ve listed all the possible exits you could use to escape enough times to memorize them.

The man takes a surprisingly controlled sip, thin lips furrowed in a grimace. “Wish it was enough to make up for that fucking stench.”

The air in Zaun is different to foreigners. You’ve never minded it the way they do. It's your air, the first to ever fill your lungs, the one you’re so used to that you can feel the way it shifts— the way it becomes a stench, as he called it, when blood is about to be spilt.

The barman does, to his credit, offer you the chance to leave. Or orders it, morelike, his sharp eyes meeting yours and then a tilt of his head towards the door. Maybe he pities you for the nerves splashed all over your face, or maybe he’d just find it a shame to lose an employee he hired barely a month ago. “You. Out.”

“Out?” the Piltovan repeats, turning his head, his voice grossly high pitched. “Why? What's gonna happen now?” he’s drunk enough that you notice the seconds that pass before his eyes properly focus. You remember the exact way his smirk faded, the deep-set wrinkles between his eyebrows when he recognized your face, a nauseating anger. “No. No, you don't move.”

Enforcers never go anywhere alone. Maybe the man had just remembered this, just now realized the true risk of his cockiness when it's not backed up by two or three of his colleagues. Maybe that's why he finds it easy to target you rather than the angry figures lurking in the tables behind him. Maybe that's why he draws his gun so fast.

“I know you, little thief—”

A woman approaches at the same time he does, and you don't know why exactly you decide to focus on her instead. A plea, maybe. You remember the dull gray of the brass knuckles on her fingers, the thick leather belt hung around her lower waist, the thump of her boots against the old floorboards. You've never noticed her before. How ridiculous it feels to think that she was there all night. How lovely that she could be the last thing you see. There's comfort in her being there, a morbid, sad thing that feels almost like company. At least you’re not alone in the room with the monster, at least there's someone to watch you die. 

Her hand falls on the Enforcer’s shoulder and she pushes him back with little effort, the quickest movement, almost without thought. The man stumbles (blame the well praised alcohol or Sevika’s strength), and the glass that had stayed in his hand shatters against the edge of the bar at the same time his gun fires a loose shot to the wall behind you.

Next comes a blur, a vague memory of hearing the Enforcer hiss in pain, a thread of red spilling down the open palm of his hand.

“You got somewhere to go?”

Her voice is the first and only thing that brings you back, the only sound louder than the heartbeat pounding in your ears. She sounds smooth, clear-headed, not like a woman who just stepped in the middle of the fastest paced violence you’ve ever encountered. Gray eyes move across your face, then the rest of you, and you quickly look down at yourself as if to check along with her that you’re actually unharmed.

Your lips feel awfully dry when your tongue brushes against them, enough air passing through to let you breathe, but not quite talk. You nod your head and remember in a rushed, distorted thought— somewhere to go, yes, home, now.

Sevika returns your nod, small praise, an odd way of saying something like good job. Less odd than the quiet satisfaction you feel for having earned it. She tilts her head towards the door, short black hair brushing her shoulder, her voice the kindest you’ve ever heard to this very day. Perhaps the thing you remember most. “Go on, love.”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

Years pass, deaths and joys and new odd jobs, and you still think about it. She sits at the back of your head like a softly worded reminder. And then one day, as things go, you find her again. Her making a deal at the back of The Last Drop, you behind the bar serving drinks.

There's a chance she doesn't remember it. What are the odds that she thought about you at all after the incident? You were just a stranger on a random night. It's not often that people fully understand the weight of what they did for someone, the trickle down of an action, of a kindness. There's a chance for you to go home, alone and unchanged. Instead (and not for the first time) you work for an hour longer, unpaid labor for a chance to serve her a drink.

Sevika doesn't come every night. You see her maybe once a week, talk to her maybe once a month. You don't expect tonight to be any different, but—

“You gonna watch me all night?” she mutters it into her glass, swallows the last sip before she looks at you. The are tiny wrinkles beginning to form on the corners of her eyes now, along each side of her lips from her smiles. Watching her is entrancing, the easiest thing you do, as natural as drawing a breath. “What are you still doing here?”

You blink downwards at the washed glass in your hand, continue to dry it like it could ever be half as interesting as being under her spell. “Working overtime.”

“Vander can't afford to pay you overtime,” Sevika scoffs, the corner of her mouth lifting in a smirk. 

You frown, maybe a little flustered. “He—”

“She's right. Why are you still here?”

The man himself stands tall to your left, glaring at this one permanently stained spot on the bar, working at it with a rag like he hasn't tried the same thing a hundred times before. There are dark shadows under his eyes, a purple hair tie on his wrist— Powder’s, if you were to guess. You’ve grown close to Vander since you met him, even closer when he hired you to work here. “‘S not a favor,” he’d said, quickly catching the suspicion on your face. “Just a gesture to him.” Turns out a lot more people knew your father than you thought; Vander isn’t old enough to have grown up with him, but they still found ways to end up at the same places. If he hadn’t been so secretive about who he was beyond the man who raised you, maybe you would’ve met Vander years ago, became friends at some bar in your teen years instead of at a diner a few days after your father’s funeral. But gaining a friend is a timeless thing, it obeys luck, not sensitivities. One day he wasn’t there, and then the next he was.

You spray some cleaning liquid over the spot on the table, roll your eyes as he leans closer to wonder at how the stain begins to slowly fade. “I’m working,” you repeat.

He looks at you from the corner of his eyes, one eyebrow raised. “I ain’t paying you.”

“I know, okay? It's fine,” you cross your arms over your chest, embarrassed to have been caught even though neither Vander nor Sevika seem to know what the real reason behind you staying late is. “It's a busy night, take it as a favor.”

“I can't afford favors.”

“Good thing they’re free, then,” you deadpan.

Sevika chuckles at the banter, forever amused at your unreserve, how simple you make things. It makes no sense to her to be that generous, that open, but it makes even less sense to think that you’d be any other way. Sevika isn’t particularly trusting, but she is loyal— the more you talk, the more watching you becomes addicting, her thing. She fixates on learning new things about you, clings to your words like a cat to its owner’s scent and wonders, over and over and over, if you remember her. From all those years ago. From last week. With you, she’d take anything.

And when she does finally see you up close, finds a good enough excuse in asking you for fire or a refill, there's little you could ask that she would say no to. It's senseless and thrilling and above all, it's true. She feels it down to her bones, painfully clear, like it's written all over her face.

“What do you do, Sevika?”

Sit and wait for you, she thinks, and instead replies, “What?”

“For work,” you clarify, your hand against the bar, leaning slightly forward. “I see you every week and I still don't know.”

You do know what she does, at least as much as anyone else does— too little to run your mouth, enough to stay away. And if you didn't know, you know her enough to be certain that she wouldn't tell you. It's a pointless question. Unless, of course, you’re as infatuated as you are.

Sevika takes another gulp of her drink, her eyes tracing over the line on your waist where the apron ties behind your back, the soft curve that the pull of it forms. She needs a smoke. “Same shit as everyone else,” she answers, and palms her pockets for a cigarette case. “What do you do? Other than this.”

“This is it,” you watch her flick open the case and shrug. You don’t sound particularly sad or frustrated, just plainly aware. “I pour drinks for people who all seem to do the same shit.”

Sevika hums, sets the case down, a click of metal against well worn wood. An unlit cigarette sits between her index and middle finger. “Be honest,” she starts, and it's the same voice that's been talking to you this whole time, but the gruffness still manages to catch you off guard. “Am I just as bad?”

You chuckle, the same addicting shimmer of genuineness in your eyes that she chases everytime you speak. “Just as bad as what?”

Her eyes follow your hands where they go to pull a lighter from the chest pocket of your apron. “The drunks that flirt with you while you do your job,” she lets the cigarette hang from her lips and leans forward.

“Hm,” you hum. The reflection of the flame sparkles in her eyes before you pull it away, orange against gray, odd and pretty. “I don't know.”

You’re not sure if she looks amused or slightly offended. It's a nice view regardless, the way her eyebrows lift and her lips curve downwards for a second before she breathes out, spilling smoke from her mouth as she talks, “You don't know.”

“I guess I didn't realize you were flirting with me.”

Sevika chuckles, a tiny half moon of a smile line on her cheek when she smirks, smugly aware of the way your eyes are looking at her. “You’re funny.”

Sevika is loyal. It would be easy to say that she doesn’t get what this feeling is, that it’s meaningless, that she doesn’t understand it— but she knows. She knows what it is even if it goes unnamed, because she’s the one deciding to keep it, stubborn and tight gripped, close to her heart. It’s in her dreams, in her first thought of the morning, in the disappointment that sours her mouth when she doesn’t find you at the bar. It’s in her stomach, tugging with need, when she looks at your face and realizes that if she asks if you wanna go home with her tonight, you will say yes.

She takes the leap. Parts her lips, names herself yours. “You wanna get out of here?”

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

You rarely pour your own drinks anymore. It’s a funny thing— Sevika doesn’t ask about your preference, which liquor is your favorite, if you’d like for her to do it for you. She figures it out like she does most things, making a study out of it, watching you enough. Maybe a little extra, too. The cork slides up with a pop!, her fingers around the neck of the bottle. The warmth of her still lingers on your thighs, your own fingers sitting restless over your lap now that her hair is not close enough to play with.

It’s been months since the first night she came home with you. You wouldn’t yet say that the newness is gone, or that you’re as quick of a student as she is, but there are things you know about Sevika already. Vivid truths, bright like the visions of her in the sunlight that you dream about sometimes. Reassurance is one of the first languages you learn from each other.

For Sevika, it's almost always about touch— you notice it immediately at the core of most of her silences, the way closeness makes her demeanor shift to something calmer, more true to herself. Slide closer to her on the couch and her arm will find itself around your shoulders immediately. Pat the empty spot next to you on the bed and she’ll let out a heavy sigh of relief, join you in sleep instead of torturing herself about tomorrow’s line of business. Part your lips when she's kissing you late at night with no goal other than to kiss you and she’ll let out a sound that vibrates through you and changes her mind on what was once an innocent gesture; she’ll tug your shirt off instead. Brush your hand over her shoulder when she's resting her head on your lap and she’ll guide it to her face instead, a lazy hold on your wrist while your thumb brushes her cheek. Coming to love her is the warmest science. But it’s not always exact.

You watch her pour you a drink at the bar table that sits in front of your bed— watch the dark hair that sits against the nape of her neck, messy and loose, watch the waistline of her pants sitting low on her waist, watch the bareness of her back. If there’s a reason why you decide to say it now, you don’t yet realize it. The words just spill out of you before you have a chance to stop them. “I remember you, you know."

Sevika’s hand hovers over the whiskey glass before she hums, resuming the movement and bringing it to her lips. "You didn't say."

“You didn’t ask,” you rest your back against the bed frame, watch her carefully.

The air sits still and you see her shoulders lift, muscles shifting as she shrugs, a big gulp of golden liquor sliding down her throat. Her voice comes in a mutter, low and almost shy, "Thought I might scare you off.”

The idea is so ridiculous that it's almost laughable. A startled chuckle dies in your chest and leaves room for aching sadness, your back leaving the frame as you lean forward and pray for her to turn around. "He was going to shoot me. Nobody moved a finger but you, Sev," you shake your head, try to manage your expression from saying too much, from confessing to something that’s been inside of you for years. At the tip of your tongue sits a raw desperation for this exact unraveling, for her. "How could you scare me?"

Another moment passes before Sevika turns to face you, lower back against the edge of the table, holding her drink down by her side. She won't look at your eyes— can't, maybe. You wonder if she's considering leaving, if she's already decided that she will, as soon as this is over. A part of you, small but dramatic and loudly pessimistic, is surprised that she’s entertained you this long. Even more surprised when she asks, "Is that what this is?" a turn of her head and the gray in her eyes finds you in a second, mechanical and unforgiving, the snap of a bear trap. You don't think you could look away if you tried. "Are you here because you think you owe me something?"

Your reaction is something close to a flinch, your frown deepening, feet firm on the floor instantly. "You can't seriously think that."

Sevika feels the regret come instantly. It splatters on her face, the pads of her fingers rough when they're brushed over her cheek to wipe herself clean of it like she does blood, gunpowder, fear. She watches out of the corner of her eye the way you part your pretty lips and can hear it in her head, imagine it so clearly, you asking her to leave. 

She's already reaching for her coat to make quick work of obeying your wishes when, instead of that, you ask, "You wanna know why I’m here?"

Sevika lowers her hand and the glass hits the table with a thud. Her head tilts to make the slightest nod— and that's as much of an answer as you'll get, you think.

“Look at me,” your finger sits under her chin, a touch barely there, the rise of her head more her choice than your doing. “You’re good, Sevika,” she grimaces, feels like she's swimming in gross viscous shame older than herself and barely surviving it. You press your thumb into her cheek, firm but kind, and keep her from being swept away by it. If she used to find your openness sweet, right now she finds it fucking miraculous. How can you call her good and mean it, how can someone else know so deeply that she could be, that she will be, when most days she doesn’t even know it herself? How can she look you in the eyes and deny you that truth? Her face relaxes, grimace replaced by an aching need as she listens to you. “I see it better than most, but they all catch up eventually. Whatever you put your mind to, you’re fucking good at it,” you pause, try to read her expression and find yourself unsure, but calm. How lovely to think that there's still so much to learn. “You don't owe me and I’m not trying to change you… you don't need—”

Sevika rests her hand over your cheek, a warm hum from her throat to acknowledge what you're saying, a desperate shake of her head to say but I do. “I need you,” her forehead falls against your own, in her brain a chant of please.

You look at her through your lashes, nod your head and feel warm, warm, warm. Her hand guides your face closer, a needy pull of her fingers where they press against the back of your neck, your whisper of “me too” spilled into her mouth. Sevika kisses like there's nothing in the whole fucking world she’d rather be doing, nothing that could possibly distract her. She has kissed you in nightclub bathrooms even with someone's knocks shaking the flimsy door, in alleys with her knuckles still bloody from a fight, dangerously close to opening hours with your back against the very bar where she rests her drinks every night. She's hungry, insatiable, and every time you can't wait to part your lips and let her in.

It takes godlike strength to hold on for as long as you do, but there's power in making her wait too, a satisfaction that feels drunk and just as divine as it makes its way down your spine. A few more chaste kisses take seconds or a century, and Sevika indulges them for as long as she can before she breaks, falls to her knees at your altar and breathes, “Please.”

There's nothing you like more than hearing her beg, except maybe what happens after you give in— the relief, the sigh against your mouth, the wet warmth of her tongue and the desperation in the way she pushes her body against you like she hadn't til then realized just how famished she’d been. Her hands wrap around your waist meanly, pressing indents, and you're too busy soothing your own hunger on her lips to realize that she's switched your positions.

You feel the harshness of the table against your back and pull away to look down, catch up, your daze maybe a little too obvious judging by the curl of her mouth. She's panting as much as you are, though, tongue peeking out barely to brush over her lips, tingly and wet from your kisses. “Up,” she says with a tilt of her head, more a warning than a command, her hands already down on your hips to get you sitting over the wood.

Sevika is a sight, pretty and inviting and overwhelming— you reach for her waist and pull, entranced by the way she follows, the way your legs interlock. A thin layer of sweat glimmers over her chest and you've never found so much beauty in the undercity’s humidity, never felt yourself get wet as easily as she makes it, never been so desperate to find some relief from the aching between your legs. Your thighs squeeze into Sevika’s and looking up to meet her eyes feels like a punch, like the sweetest blood, a sea of glazed-over gray barely visible against the black of her pupils. A mirror of your wanting; how the hunger grows when it meets reciprocation this delicious. You lean forward to taste it from her lips and she meets you halfway, a hand traveling up your spine and ending at your neck.

You don't know when you started grinding against her, but you know you want more. And you know Sevika’s holding back, savoring the same power you’d tried before, a smirk against your lips when she feels you speed up, hears you moan from somewhere deep in your throat. It suits her, the way she holds control. Sevika likes to wonder if she’d ever hold on longer, make you really wait. Sometimes she thinks she might, and then (like now) your voice fills her ears and clouds every thought that says anything other than please, god, fuck, let me make you feel good. “Don’t be mean,” you say this time, breathy and achingly sweet. “Please, Sevika.”

The first grind of her thigh against your pussy makes you end a kiss with your teeth biting into the meat of her lower lip, rougher than you intended. “Fuck, Sev—” you say, cut yourself off with a gasp when she does it again. Sevika figures out the angle unsurprisingly quickly, a hand on your hip and another on your ass to guide you back and forth at a rhythm that matches the movement of her own hips, enough fervency behind it that you know she needed this as much as you did. Maybe more, judging by the groans she spills on your neck every time you press up into her.

Full lips kiss at your pulse, open mouthed, her breath cool against your skin when it meets the wetness she left there. Your nails rake over her shoulder, over her scalp where your fingers are buried in between strands of dark hair— and when Sevika groans it sounds raw, a broken noise, her hips moving desperately faster. You can feel her warmth on your thigh and you've never wanted so badly to have her undressed, laid out, rubbing her pussy against you, leaving a mess on skin rather than the fabric of your pants. She's getting carried away, you know it, chasing her high and barely giving you a chance to catch up. You've never wanted anything more than to let her use you.

“You feel so fucking good,” she grunts, wrecked with need for you to pacify when she lifts her head from your neck, her eyebrows furrowed. You watch her get lost on your lips and you can imagine what they look like, how plump she left them, how the pride of that must simmer in her lower abdomen. Her thumb brushes over them once, then again, and you barely register that she's asking for permission before your mouth moves on its own accord to let her index and middle finger inside. It's filling, just what you needed; how beautifully unsurprising that she knew it more than you did, or that she needed it just the same.

You're fully caged in now, your back pressed against the wall, Sevika’s free hand on your waist still steering you back and forth on her thigh. “Too— hm, fuck,” her fingers slide out of your mouth and press wet indents into your cheek as she holds your jaw, traps you in her eyes. She’s far too gone to warn you but she doesn't have to, it's so painfully clear. Her eyes two dark pits to swallow you whole, lips parted, the grinding brutal and so fucking good— she says it until she can't form the words anymore, her head tilted back, thighs stuttering and tightening around your leg as she comes.

Your tongue tastes the skin of her bared neck and you feel yourself get closer and closer, fed by the feeling of her nipple under the pad of your thumb, by the shaking moans she spills into your ears as you keep grinding against her. Sevika must feel it too, in the same way you did, notice the change in your breath or the speed of your hips— because she pulls away and knows to soothe the needy desperation on your face with a messy kiss before she gets down on her knees.

“Shh,” her shushing comes soft and agonizingly kind, your whines barely contained as she presses kisses to the inside of your thighs. “What happened to my patient girl?” she asks, a tilt of her head and a smirk, the meanest angel.

Your palms press onto the table to lift yourself up enough to let her slide your pants and underwear off in one motion. “Spoiled me too much,” you answer, your mind foggy, drunk on the sight of her kneeling in front of you.

It takes Sevika a moment to reply, the pads of her finger pressing into your thighs. Her eyes meet yours and she wants to tell you, how could I not? You’re not trying to change her, you’d said, but you do. These days, she doesn't think about anything else like she used to— I love you prefaces everything. I love you, so I’m winning this stupid fight and making some money. I love you, so I gotta get home alive. I love you, so I think we could change this city. I love you, you should have every-fucking-thing. But Sevika's not really a woman of many words, especially not when you're looking at her like this, especially not when she's this hungry, so she shrugs her shoulders and says (like it explains everything, and maybe it does), "Look at you.”

The intensity of her makes your legs squeeze together, but you barely make it an inch before she’s pulling them apart and hooking them over her shoulders exactly how she likes.

Your face feels like it's burning, heat crawling up your neck, your grip on the table tight. “Please.”

Sevika barely manages to pry her eyes away from where you're open and glimmering, soaking her fingers after just one brush of them against your lips. Her voice comes out strained, drowned in hunger. “Please what?” 

You must sound worse, but the thought barely registers, hardly matters. “Please, Sevika, make me come.”

And she does— pretty nose bumping perfectly against your clit whenever her tongue is too busy inside you, her lips shiny and wet and relentless. Like everything else, she's fucking good at it.

[twilightkitkat]

Everyone knows that Deadpool can break the 4th wall. It's a large part of his charm: being able to directly address the audience and make popculture references that don't exist in the MCU.

It's a common gag in fanfiction for Logan to be slightly weirded out by this but to just let it go.

But can we talk about the implications of knowing about 4th wall? The potential?

Imagine Wade, knowing that he's trapped inside a story that nobody else is aware of. Knowing that his fate is in the hands of the storywriters and that if he doesn't perform well for the audience, his universe could cease to exist. Knowing that he's just a character and being completely alone in that knowledge.

Knowing that he's played by an actor. Knowing that nothing is really in your control. Knowing how your fate rests in the hand of corporations and money. (Knowing nobody is safe as long as they can be used to further your character development.)

He knows that there's a plot and the general rules of it. He knows that The Conflict can't be resolved that easily and when the end of the movie is coming. He knows how to tell narrative death flags.

He partially makes references to keep the audience engaged (to keep his existence renewed) and partially because it's funny to see everyone confused over a joke only he gets.

But every reference is trying to see if anyone else knows, too. He's throwing out the bait. (Trying to see if anyone knows that the world they're living in is fake.)

And everyone sees him as crazy for it. Schizophrenic, manic, insane. (And maybe he is. It's not like he can prove it to anyone.)

Wade assumes things about the world and they're generally correct. He knows the rules of the game, knows the writers, and has a razor-sharp intuition that has his allies questioning him sometimes (he knows popular tropes).

And so, when he realized that he was in a movie with Logan, he made a lot of assumptions. That they would have to work together. That they'd overcome their differences and grow closer.

But most importantly, he assumed the limits. Disney wouldn't make an openly gay character, would they? Deadpool is fine because he's a joke but Wolverine would never be seriously gay, even if he was queer in the comics.

So he sees it as safe to flirt and joke because it wasn't going anywhere. Being gay was funny to the target audience, but that was it. It'd never be taken seriously in a superhero movie. (Especially with characters as popular as Deadpool and Wolverine.)

Wade was either getting Vanessa or nothing. That was how the story was written.

So he never takes Logan's feelings seriously. He cared about him in a very family-friendly bro kind of way and that was it. He doesn't even consider the idea of romance. He jokingly flirts and spews innuendos, but they never went anywhere. Wouldn't go anywhere. Ever.

And Logan is confused because he thought Wade was attracted to him, yet he keeps brushing him off as friendly when he tries to be sincere. He one time legitimately shared a bendy heart straw with him by Wade's request and Wade just played it off as a bit.

And also, Wade keeps making references he doesn't understand. That nobody understands. And he'd chalk it up to saying random shit except Logan starting paying attention and it's all oddly cohesive and creates a singular story. It ties together in ways that complete nonsense doesn't.

And that's leaving out Wade's "intuition." How he makes comments about "tropes" and "cliches" like they're in a movie except that he ends up being right. Almost every time. It's like he can predict the future, but in a vague yet oddly specific way. Like he can see how things are going to go.

And sometimes, when Wade thinks Logan isn't paying attention, he notices how he mutters to himself in dread. And how something bad almost always happens after.

It makes him disturbed and painfully, achingly curious. What was Wade seeing that he wasn't? It could be that Wade was a secret prodigy, but that didn't seem to be the case? Some of this was too specific and far-fetched.

(All while Wade laments over the lack of agency in his own life, subject to the currents of the story while being painfully aware of it. He couldn't live a life of blissful ignorance like everyone else. It's like he saw a tsunami hurdling toward him—even if he ran away at full speed, the plot always caught up to him somehow.

Trust him. He'd tried to outrun it.)

[anotherfcknschlattsimp]

heyy! i was thinking about how schlatt is generally a private person, so could you please write about what it would be like trying to hide the relationship and the eventual reveal? thank you!

he's so absurdly paranoid

at home? always has to be touching you

holding your hand, sitting with your legs touching, little kisses all over your face, neck, arms, anywhere he can get to

but with the blinds closed and all cameras facing away from you two

date nights are either inside or with a third person so you can brush it off as three friends hanging out

but he plays footsies with you under the tablecloth because he can get away with it

would avoid flirting with you on camera, which leads to people noticing the different way he treats you, how he looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars, how he laughs genuinely at all of your jokes, how he just stares at you when he doesn't think he's in frame

and then one day you're both at let's say mizkif's house because when is that man not recording, you both think you're safe and out of view, but then another streamer decides to sneak up on you guys (shushing their audience and everything) and ends up capturing you two in a sweet kiss

schlatt holding your hip with one hand to pull you closer, the other used to lean against the wall and cage you in to keep you there

the cleanup for the slip was EXHAUSTING

took all of your mods about 3 weeks to finally calm down the angry simps and the obsessive shippers

couldnt take the clip down, you finally got one down and three more appear

he's still not comfortable with pda, but he does calm down a bit about how strict he is about it

finally having 2 person dates (rip Ted probably)

everyone calls you jambo and [ERROR]'s mom, regardless of your gender

speaking of gender

he has another mass purge of followers, but this time anyone who says anything bad about you being a woman/man/nb/cis/trans/etc.

minecraft wedding

the rocks in your background are all from him and his few trips outside

(lots from Japan)

NSFW

some people notice a little big something in schlatt's pants when he looks at you too long

everytime you two have to stream all day, or are otherwise unable to get a moment to yourselves to sneak a kiss, he makes absolutely SURE that he makes up for it

going for hours, making you cum at LEAST 5 times

every position you two can get in

he doesn't care how many times he finishes, or if he even does

he just wants to show you how absolutely LOVED you are

AAAAAAAA FIRST EVER FIC/HCs/ANYTHING, PLEASE LIKE IF YOU LIKE IT, COMMENT, SEND REQUESTS, ETC.

p.s. my keyboard doesn't have a caps lock cause im on a fucking chromebook

[sulumuns-dootah]

Can I request a headcanon of wbh kings reacting to a gn mc who's a actress/actor and watching a horror killer movie mc played in (mc is the final person to die)

WHB kings w/ MC acting in horror movie

⟡ Masterlist ⟡

A/N: Hi! Sorry for the wait, Fall is always kinda rough on my mental health U.U

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

When you told Satan that you're in a horror movie, he was super excited

Certified horror movie enjoyer right there

Oh and when he found out you were on the poster of it?

Suddenly it's all over Gehenna and many screenings are scheduled in pretty much all the cinemas

Before, however, it is shown anywhere publicly, Satan wants to watch it with you alone

During the movie he'd joke that he's expecting your character to be one of the first ones to die since it's a rule that hot characters die first

But then he realizes there's only about 20 minutes of the movie left and your character is still alive

Maybe you're one of those final survivors who don't die?

Nope :)

Just as the final credits start to roll in, the killer jumpscares the audience by surprise lounging at your character and kills them as the credits roll list all the names of everyone who took part in the production

       ༺☆༻

Similar to Satan's reaction, but Mammon only has a screening in a handful of cinemas of his choosing

Obviously,as the star you are, the screening also has a meet and greet with you included

Bimet was the one to organise everything, so you can imagine how expensive the tickets are

Mammon will also want a private screening before letting anyone else watch it

And since for example Texas Chainsaw Massacre did it: If there's a scene with your ass all over the screen, Mammon will be obsessed and make it his personality for the next century :)

Now, getting back to the end of the movie and seeing your way too suden death, you sneak a peek at Mammon to see his reaction and he, to be fair, looks unmoved

But then you notice him being more clingy than usual

When you ask him about it, he'll give you, honestly, the best answer:

"Seeing you die made me realise I don't ever want to loose you in reality"

       ༺☆༻

Exact opposite

Nobody except for you and him are allowed to watch it

Now, Levi will be happy to tell everyone that his partner is an actor/actress in movies, but will never say which ones

What's it to them? They can't appreciate your presence on screen correctly

The next thing you know they'll be making fan edits and write fanfics about you and either the killer or some random self-insert instead of Leviathan - your ACTUAL partner

The movie will kinda become shadow banned in Hades bc the people will fear their king will find out they watched it and hang them to death for it

The only one to openly talk about it is Glasyalabolas bc of course

He's hoping he can catch some other demons while they pretend to not know what he's talking about despite secretly watching it

(Oof, I can even imagine: You know how are those videos like 'Top 5 movies you shouldn't watch'? Your movie will be every no.1 on those lists :D)

       ༺☆༻

When you told Beel about your new found stardom, he tried acting surprised but you both knew his act was bad

He knew even before you knew and accepted the offer from the casting director

And you could swear you think he was there during the shoot

Or at least you thought you saw him for a flash by the catering table, moments before someone started raising all hell because someone ate all the pizza again

So when you suggest a movie night with your movie, he already has some stuff prepared at some secret location

Maybe he might even send some pics of you cosying together to Bael just to piss him off

       ༺☆༻

Belphegor just to happened to be half-awake when you came excitedly running to his room

He had half the mind to just fall back asleep, but then you started talking about some movie you were in, so he decided to give you at least some of his time

"Oh, and you want me to watch it now or...?"

Sure, you can join him in bed and watch it with him, but he can't promise he'll stay awake the whole time

Maybe only until your character dies, because after that you won't mind, right?

Oh boy, did he not know...

To be fair, he does watch the whole movie until then, but might not be awake long enough for him to give a review of your performance

       ༺☆༻

"Oh, you're in a movie, my pretty little bitch? Sure, let's watch it."

You know where this leads to...

By the time the first kill happens you're already folded in half, taking Asmo in and screaming louder than the poor victim in the movie

But Asmo actually is interested in your character, so whenever you're on screen, he slows down and shushes you so that he can hear the other you

By the time your character dies, you've already cume multiple times and are about ready to pass out just like in the movie

After the movie's over, Asmo will actually give you a good review and ideas on what to work on (including your stamina ;))

       ༺☆༻

You didn't even get to be the one to tell Lucifer

Of course Gamigin had to accidentally let it slip while begging Lucifer to partake with the rest of demons in a movie night

You wanted to surprise Luci by putting the movie on and seeing if him or any other demon catches on to recognise the bad-ass final girl/guy as you

After that Luci hears you scolding Gamigin for the slip up so he decides to act like he didn't know you'll be in the movie

He's not really convincing, but it's the thought that counts, right?

After the movie's finished, you anxiously ask everyone for the opinion

Everyone has nice things to say, except for the SFX team and the many inaccuracies they noticed

But... Luci is silent

At least until everyone's gone to bed for the night

After that he'll have you sit on his lap and whisper so much praise into your ear

[tgcg]

yeah so whenever i was working on sbahj i probably would say what i felt about my shit was akin to like

whatever jrr tolkien felt when he was writing the hobbit

but i dont do that shit for fame yknow like im just putting my realness out into the atmosphere and if the hives are gonna swarm to that aroma like the crispest of fresh deepfried jpgs in the windows vista then who am i to argue

even bro said it was pretty good and thats fucking unheard of he was constantly scoping my site for new comics

i can sway any man slash woman

thing is

i never even showed him that site myself or any of them now that i think about it

he always just knew probably from the moment i set them up like he had some kinda dope-sensor thatd trip when i started being awesome

but my point is

i wasnt out here trying to get his or anyones approval with my art

he was just hip to everything on the web and i think my audience just has some kinda

sense when some absolute avant garde shit is afoot and a new media sensation is coming up on the horizon

geromy peeking his head up in the distance like a hella sweet baby infant sun

all giggling and shit

yknow i wonder if i couldve made it big with my stuff if i had the time to actually grow up and whatever

his smuppet business was multi-billion dollar shit karkat it was no joke

and we still never had space to store weapons anywhere that wasnt the fridge

he gave me the biggest room in the apartment but why couldnt we just-

[pyrrhiccomedy]

a collection of thoughts about Veilguard

it's pretty good! it's a fun, straightforward adventure story where you play the good guys, the bad guys are bad guys, and there's one morally ambiguous character but don't get scared, you have the whole game to decide what to do with him. the combat is fun, the cast is likable, and the world is pretty. if you like fantasy rpgs, you will probably like this one!

I said the cast is likeable. I didn't say they were interesting. everyone kinda comes off like they've been to therapy for at least six months, and have put in some effort to "do the work." Your party's character flaws are things like "people pleaser" or "rude (but still well-intentioned)" or "justifiably cynical." These are all more or less functional and mature adults who want to get along and experience very few obstacles to doing so.

The obstacles they do experience to getting along are pretty flimsy, and are sometimes resolved in under a minute.

Le wokisme is a problem with the factions, which is a problem with the game, because the game revolves around the factions. None of the factions are allowed to be - again - morally ambiguous. There's a faction of treasure hunters, but don't worry, they have experts to make sure they don't sell anything important to anyone's culture. There's a faction of assassins which in a previous game have been shown to be harsh mercenaries who traffic in slavery in order to acquire children to raise into professional killers, but don't worry, they've mellowed out a lot since then, and now they ~don't kill innocent people~ and all of the members are excited to be there. There's a faction of death-worshipping necromancers, but don't worry: they're pretty much treated as a joke faction, and they don't do anything darker than raising some friendly skeletons to do custodial work.

A lot of the game takes place in the Tevinter Imperium, which we know from previous games to be a racist imperial power built upon the labor of a mostly-elven slave force. I say we know that 'from previous games' because it really doesn't come up in this game. The Tevinter faction is a group of slave abolitionists, but you don't actually help them free any slaves. In fact, you never even meet any slaves. In fact, you never even see any slaves. In Minrathous, the capitol city of the slave empire.

We also never see any anti-elf racism, in Minrathous or anywhere else, or meet any elves anywhere who have much of anything negative to say about the current world state. I think it would have been interesting to engage with why some elves might actually support the Morally Ambiguous Guy Who Is Looking To Tear Down The Current World Order In Order To Restore The Elves To Their Bygone Glory, but then your protagonists might have been placed into an ethically dubious situation at some point, by opposing a guy, who is, among some more alarming intentions - let me be so clear - trying to free the elven slaves. And god forbid we make the player uncomfortable!

There are no titties in this game. You do fuck your love interest on the eve of the final battle, as is traditional, but there will be nary a titty in sight. That, like ethical conundrums or moral ambiguity, is evidently too grown-up for the target Veilguard audience.

Whoever it was on the writing team who was interested in the Qunari has either left the team, or is no longer interested in the Qunari. They are a non-presence, and the Big Grey Guys With Horns who you fight are just violent assholes who don't follow the Qun. They've also been redesigned again. They basically just look like tieflings, with even more awkward foreheads. RIP to a genuinely original fantasy race. We'll always have Sten and the DA2 Arishok.

Fans of previous games will, however, be pleased at how generous the writers have been with answering outstanding questions! You will learn what the titans were, what happened to them, what the Blight is, what caused the Blight, what the Golden/Black City is, why breaching it unleashed the Blight, who the Tevinter old gods were, what the deal was with the elven gods, and (not that anyone was in doubt of this after Inquisition anyway) that the Maker is fake for sure for sure.

Every religion in Thedas is proved to be fake by the end of the game, though, so it feels a bit less like "kids raised evangelical stick it to Big Church" this time.

Morrigan is back! Isabela is back! Dorian is back! Welcome visitations.

People are being shitty about there being an explicitly non-binary character. Fuck those people obviously, but I do wish they'd found something better to call this character than "non-binary," such a modern term that it slingshot me out of my fantasy world full of dragons and magic into a corporate diversity and inclusion training module.

Being a mage doesn't matter anymore. Sorry if you were hoping it might, but honestly that's on you. If they chickened out of doing anything with the mage conflict set up in DA:O and DA2 in Inquisition, I don't know why you expected they'd find a renewed interest in engaging with it now.

You can't be a blood mage. You can't actually do anything evil. Your PC is a Hero. I don't have a problem with this, exactly, but it contributes to the feeling of the series having moved to the kiddy end of the pool over the years.

Overall, I think this is almost surely going to be the last Dragon Age game, and I think that's almost definitely a good thing. It's a fun send-off that takes you on a whistle-stop tour of nearly all the places left in Thedas you haven't seen yet, ties up nearly all of the loose ends, and lets you hit an ogre with a warhammer so hard that he goes flying like he's full of packing peanuts.

Time enjoyably, but not meaningfully, spent.

[katiemccabeswife]

Necklace

Katie McCabe x Reader || You lost your necklace and you need it back.

The final whistle sounded throughout the stadium and the girls on the pitch almost simultaneously dropped their chins to their chest in defeat. The game went alright but Liverpool ended up getting a goal just after halftime and you, nor the girls, could find the opportunity to equalise it, let alone go one further.

After shaking hands with the other team and the refs, you did your routine of clapping the audience and taking photos with fans.

This wasn’t your first game and this wasn’t your first loss, you understood that sometimes you don’t play as well as you could have and sometimes the other team is just better so you understood the confusion on the girls' faces when you started crying.

Whilst you didn’t get any goals, you did have a blinder of a match. You successfully saved 5 balls from going into the box and won a few tricky challenges, anyone with 1 working eye could tell you did well. 

A necklace that normally sat around your neck was always a comfort, whether you lost or won, it reminded you of the hugs you used to get from your mother and holding it between your fingers was the closest you could get to that now. So when you reached for your neck and found that it was bare, tears instantly sprung to your eyes.

You looked around you briefly before the tears started to pour. You had been all over the field and fell over on all sides, it literally could have been anywhere. One hand had gone to your mouth and the other over your heart, you were trying not to hyperventilate but you needed to find that necklace.

You jumped slightly when hands settled on your shoulders, “It’s ok love, losses happen, we’ll get ‘em next time.” Your girlfriend, Katie, soothed.

You shook your head and let out a breath, “No, no, no,” You were trying to catch your breath and couldn’t express that you didn’t care that you lost.

“It is though love, you played beautifully, player of the match if it were up to me.” She tried to joke.

You took a deep breath and swallowed, “My necklace is gone,” Katie’s face dropped and she pulled you into a hug.

“Alright, do you remember if you had it before the match?”

“I did, I always make sure it’s on, and and,” You had to take another deep breath, “I always kiss it when the whistle sounds. I definitely had it.”

She moved to be an arm's length away and nodded, “Right, did you have it at halftime? On the pitch and in the room?”

You tried to think back, “Umm…” You shook your head as you couldn’t think.

“It’s alright love, it won’t be far and it won’t walk away on its own. Take a deep breath and try to think.”

You put your arm over your eyes and tried to even your breathing, “Um. I-I had it when I went to the bathroom at half-time.”

Katie clapped her hands, “Great! I’ll go look in the toilets. You go look it the room and then we’ll meet in the tunnel and look there, alright?”

You nodded and Katie took your head between her hands and kissed you on your forehead before pulling you, jogging slightly towards the tunnel. You looked everywhere in the room, high and low and Katie did the same in the bathrooms.

When you saw Katie waiting for you in the tunnel, talking to Jonas, you knew she hadn't found it and began to cry again.

"Hey, Y/N, we will find it, I've already got the girls looking on the pitch," Jonas spoke calmly although it did little to console you. You nodded and left with Katie, who wrapped her arms around your shoulders, to look for the necklace on the pitch.

The sight of all the girls looking warmed your heart. You were close with all of them so they all knew the history of the necklace. It had been passed through 3 generations and whilst your mother never got to physically hand it down to you before her premature death, it was a little piece of her with you all the time and it bought you solace before games and after losses.

Your heart melted a little bit more when you saw that a few girls from the other team were also looking. You heard your name being screamed from the crowd and when you turned around and saw a bunch of fans pointing at the floor you ran over to them, trying not to get your hopes up.

“Hi Y/N! After you took a photo with me, I noticed that a necklace fell on the floor, is it yours? Is that what you guys are looking for?” A girl no older than 16 asked you. You bent towards where the girl was pointing and found your necklace. You hugged the jewellery to your chest before hugging the girl in front of you.

“Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this necklace means to me,” You said while hugging the girl. 

“You're welcome, thank you for being you. I love watching you play and it encourages me to play my best. I wish to become you someday.” The girl spoke.

“Oh my gosh, aren’t you the sweetest, here,” You took off your shirt and gave it to her and called out for a sharpie. Someone ran over to you and you signed the shirt before hugging her once again.

“Thank you,” She said while crying.

“No, thank you,” You said.

You turned around to tell the girls that the necklace had been found but you saw them watching you. You made your way over and hugged Katie who then gave you her jacket. 

“Turn around, I'll put it back on you,” She smiled. When you turned around you were facing all of the girls.

“Thank you guys so much for looking,” You were still crying but you laughed as you wiped your tears. A round of ‘no worries’ and ‘your welcome’ came from the group before they swarmed you and hugged you.

After the group dispersed Katie came up and gave you another hug, “You alright now?” She spoke calmly.

You nodded into her neck, “Thank you for looking. And for getting everyone else to look, I love you.”

“I love you too,”

[kiame-sama]

Oi! Can you stop posting things that get stuck in my brain so often? Joking, but I mean a lot of things you bring up a lot of fun ideas in your AU that just stick in my brain. Hope I’m not bugging you too much with messages. However, you have introduced my lil emo catholic boy Rollo so I must ask: how would Rollo and Malleus (and anyone else tied to fire) deal with a fire bug?

Like not necessarily someone who starts fires, but someone who LOVES fire. Like I could stare at fires for hours. They are just so pretty and the flickering and swaying look just look amazing. Imagine all the different colors of fires! Especially when I poke it or have something like a match.

Ima go before I start ranting about fire again. Hope you’re keeping warm and have a great day! Can’t wait to see that fish prince get hit shins kicked!

Warnings: Grim and Ortho are platonic only, yanderes, yandere behavior, yandere temper, different levels of yandere, use of magic to amuse the Human, Rollo wrestling with self-loathing, Malleus is malleus,

- Grim is thrilled his Hooman loves his little ear flames and will intentionally make them flare brighter when he wants more attention. Mostly he just uses his ear flames to make them smile.

- Ortho will laugh and be excited to tell the Human about the hair flame many Shinigami have, giving details while he consciously makes his hair slowly change color flame. It takes some effort, but he cycles through the visible light spectrum before he needs to take a break, his hair snap returning to the usual blue. He's happy to tell them all about it, so long as the Human will listen.

- Idia is going magenta and doesn't even know it, warm hearts forming in his long flame hair as he internally fanboys over the Human looking at him with such an interested gaze. The way they stare at the flickering light and flames as he just burns brighter. He loves it and will burn that sight into his memory.

- Papa Hades quickly picks up on the Human's interest in fire and flames, happily using his magic to create flames for them. Different shapes, colors, creatures, he is making a show of fire to marvel at and enjoy. It has been too long since he has last had an audience so enraptured and it soothes his heart.

- Rollo is struggling with himself over this. He dislikes his flame and the fire that fules his very core. Get a bit too out of hand and *poof* gone. That's how he sees it, at least. It is tragically sweet to him for the Human to adore the things he hates most about himself. Leave it to a divine Human to see the good in the wretched and sinful. He will slowly begin allowing his fire to flourish, if only for the Human's sake. He does adore them quite a bit and will willingly do what the Human wishes of him.

- Malleus loves that the Human enjoys his flames. He will show off his mastery over summoned flames and explain how they differ from Dragon-fire which he can only ever create when angry. Any time the Human wants to see his magic displayed, he will create a bright green flame for them. Eventually he will gift them a crystal containing one of his green flames, around it will spin a group of green fireflies. So they can take his flame anywhere they go and always marvel at his fire.

[digonthis]

Catered Audience- Pt. 2

Spencer Agnew x f!Reader

2.2k words

( ᴅᴍ ᴏʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴛ ғᴏʀ ᴛᴀɢ :] )

slow burn-ish, fluff, mutual pining, all that shit

part 1

‧₊˚ ✩°｡⋆♡ ⋆˙⟡♡ ⋆˙⟡♡⋆｡°✩˚₊‧♡‧₊˚ ✩°｡⋆♡ ⋆˙⟡♡ ⋆˙⟡♡⋆｡°✩˚₊‧

Spencer walked up to a wheezing Alex, wiping the sweat from his brow as a goofy grin spread across his face. He pulls the red hat off and tosses it at his friend, praising his acting as he caught it. “You’re improving so much on camera, this video is gonna be great man…” he manages between snickers, hanging the hat on the camera stand. “I can lie, I was a little worried at your idea of a Limp Bizkit impression at first but everyone was in tears!”

He was only half listening as Alex gave his review, eyes scanning the room. Shayne and Amanda were still on set cleaning up the dartboard and Courtney was over with the ‘audience’ of cast and crew gathered to watch. As his eyes traced everyone in the room he was disappointed to not be seeing someone specific… someone he’d never seen before.

In his few moments of peace between turns, walking to the back of the dart line had given him the chance to look over the peanut gallery of familiar smiling faces, and his stupid sunglasses had hidden the fact he’d watched the same one every time after he’d noticed it appear. Big, bright eyes and a crinkled nose when she was laughing really hard, which wasn’t near as often as others. Usually a hand would shoot up to cover her face after a moment or two, concealing her grin. It was to the point where he’d started picking her laugh out of the crowd, running bits on that he knew she’d liked. He could have sworn he saw her learning forward in her seat a little more when he was actually starting to win. She was a complete stranger on set to him, and a gorgeous one.

He kicked himself for not remembering who she was even sitting with, but he honestly couldn’t bring his eyes anywhere else. The pressure only made the jokes flow a little freer and the stakes a little higher, but now that it was over she was nowhere to be seen. The first time Spencer had ever felt somewhat pressured to win darts to impress a girl, and she didn’t even stick around after.

Spencer tuned back into what Alex was saying, he was now mentioning that the catered dinner was here. It was always cold by the time he’d gotten to it, busy with editing or meetings or some other production, but damn sure still better than anything he could make.

Dinner that night was a great time for Spencer, being the center of everyone’s attention and praises. Selina even mentioned in passing that she knew the caterer loved Limp Bizkit too, a weird coincidence. He was glad to know people liked his bits, but the random girl he’d seen earlier was the only thing at the front of his mind. He couldn’t exactly just ask anyone who she was, how would he describe that casually? What was she even wearing? Why wasn’t he just paying more attention in the first place? Why any attention at all?

…whatever.

All he could really do at this point was hope she’d be back. Or she wouldn’t. Whatever.

That was only the start of a long week of filming, and telling himself he was thankful for the distraction felt a little too weird and clingy to justify. A little bit of him did hope that she would be back to watch again soon, though. Maybe even stick around long enough for him to get a good look at her, or ask her name. Or not. Whatever.

A long sip of kickstart was just what he needed before the dreaded Eat it or Yeet it episode he was slotted in for in just a few minutes. Stupid bib and all, Spencer sat at the table dreading having to put something foul in his mouth for views. Nonetheless, he threw a smile on for the cameras and the game began with Courtney’s little explanation. Nothing caught his eye until the second-to-last dish, which he reached out and buzzed just a second after Angela had buzzed. He still made a big show of fighting her for the plate, humour for content of course. She made an ordeal of finally letting him have it, and his triumphant bite wasn’t quite as sweet as he’d hoped.

His face paled at the nasty flavour, something briney like pickles or olives disguised as a sweet treat was definitely a mental challenge and one he ended up spitting into the trash as Angela mocked him, claiming karma to be at work. He just laughed and nodded in shame, bowing his head guiltily as the others poked and prodded at the mysterious ‘food’.

His attention was soon grabbed again as the big bite was brought out, though. A stunning and gigantic layered dessert was placed in front of Angela as she clapped and cheered like a little kid. A cake, maybe? Spencer couldn’t really tell through all the commotion, all he could really tell was that it was technical, fancy, and looked a whole lot better than what he’d stolen off of her. “I’m taking this whole thing home and eating it for dinner tonight, I'm so serious!” Angela cheered before putting another bite in her mouth, amping up the energy for the end of the video.

Courtney announced the dessert’s name, mentioning it to be a custom order from their caterer. This only made Angela laugh harder, almost doubling over. She pointed a shaking finger at Spencer, her sentence taking a few tries between all her laughter.

“That’s the one- she thought you were so funny too- she watched the shoot with me literally yesterday! She even told Selina about it, right Kiana?” She puffed out, whipping her head to Kiana who nodded from behind the camera, grinning at the absurdity of the whole ordeal.

Spencer’s guilty smile dropped for a moment. “The… who?” He asked, coming to a realization. The girl from yesterday… that was the caterer. And she thought he was funny. Enough so that multiple people knew about it. She likes Limp Bizkit. She told Selina.

Luckily, Angela’s unhinged giggle fit kept cameras mostly off of him, and one dramatic pan-in on his blank, absent expression could be played off as all part of the karma and regret bit. He reached his fork over suddenly, intent on at least getting a bite of the cake. A devious grin spread across his face as he did so, snapping back to character again as his fork slid through the layers. Angela lunged for him, snatching the fork from his hand.

She kept teasing him for a while, making sure there was enough content for a long, hilarious finale to the episode. The crew ate it up, Spencer now in full-character anguish as he wasn’t allowed even a single bite. In reality, he was a little bummed about that but it was nothing compared to the quiet excitement in him knowing that the mystery girl was someone often around the office, someone who he’d never noticed from burying himself in all his editing and work. Someone he could start noticing.

The rest of the shoots in that week went well, Spencer wasn’t in many videos after that. Editing was smooth, the complimentary characters and natural banter making it fairly easy to clip and edit visuals and sound without too much fine-tuning. Send them off for review from the others, get the thumbs-up, and hit upload.

In the next little while, Smosh had two big Spencer hits in terms of memes. For Smosh Games it was obviously Fred Darts, and for Smosh Pit it was the moment Angela called out his karma and the camera zoomed into his blank, dead-eyed face. Older fans compared it to Joven from the old secret santa video, but everyone got a kick out of how defeated Spencer looked next to such a victorious and energetic Angela, with the intricate dessert receiving a lot of praise in comments too. 

This was all great for Spencer, everyone was really happy with the comedy and vibes he brought into videos. Still, he was kicking himself over the fact that he couldn’t get this girl out of his mind. She was a stranger who happened to like the same music as him, allegedly, and thought he was funny. Also allegedly. 

Smosh hadn’t made any catering orders since, it not being necessary as there were no super excessive filming hours as of late. She was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t ask his dear friend Kiana a little more about her. Much to his disappointment, all she could really manage was a smirk and the command to ask her himself if he wanted to know anything about the girl. Mildly frustrating, but fair and expected.

Next film week, try not to laugh was up to start. In light of his great work recently, Spencer was casted for this one. He had a few good bits of his own, but once he was in the chair the cast was eager to make him break through his usually stone-faced demeanor.

A few bits were good, but not quite good enough. A few small chuckles, but he held strong. Next up was Tommy, walking out dressed as Fred Darts, and then immediately falling to his knees and spitting out his own mouthful of water as Angela comes out dressed in a chef’s coat. Spencer is confused for a second before she goes “i’m the hot caterer-” and in seconds his water is everywhere and he’s doubled over laughing wildly/

“You just have to rub it in don’t you?” He asks, already picturing the black and white jump-cut he’ll edit in later of his meme’d face after losing out on the caterer’s dessert a few weeks back. Angela and Tommy high-five, having finally broken Spencer, and Kiana shoots him a knowing look from behind the camera.

All Spencer could do was shake his head and laugh, hoping nobody else would use this obviously effective bit on him again in the episode. (They definitely did.)

Angela and Kiana were a dangerous duo, especially when it came to teasing. Everywhere Spencer went, there was a sneaky little comment. “Did your little girlfriend make you that lunch? I hear she’s a good cook…” “I hear Spence’s girl likes 90’s metal, too, I should ask her for song recs…” Just little things, enough to make his face red but nothing more.

That’s why when the next catered filming day rolls around, Spencer sticks his nose in his laptop with the excuse that he’s busy when you arrive with the food, intent on not seeing you. A literal stranger, someone he’s never even spoken to. A bad first impression with a bright red face and two teasing coworkers wouldn’t line up well with his chill guy reputation, so he would stay put until he was sure you’d be gone.

Angela was surprised at the way he’d flinched when she snuck up behind him, triggering a snicker. “Your girlfriend made you a treat~” Was all she said, placing a small box on his desk before sauntering off with an oddly genuine smile on her face.

Spencer picked up the box to take his mind off the fact that the little tease had his cheeks warming, running his finger over the neat handwriting in the corner, just his name. The package’s contents only made the small blush worse, his only choice was to laugh it off. “Dude…” He said with eyebrows raised, holding the box out to Alex, who was sitting at his own desk editing. 

Alex looked at the contents, a single cupcake with little hearts on it. “Aww, that’s cute. She made you a cupcake. I bet she saw the video.” He said casually before turning back to his work. “No way, Angela must’ve added it to the order. Another little prank or somethin’.” “Ask her yourself.” “Uh… too busy.” Spencer said back a little too quickly, still eyeing the cupcake with caution. It really was a cute cupcake, it almost looked fake with how perfectly symmetrical and flawless the decoration was.

He abandoned the small box for now, continuing to edit before Alex had the chance to egg him on any more. Alex, who soon after left to go get some dinner. The catering order receipt was stapled to one of the bags, and he couldn’t help but peek. No sign of any cupcakes on the receipt, or anything of the sort.

“Oh, did I forget somethin’?” A voice asked worriedly from behind him, the caterer herself packing up some dishware had noticed his snooping. “No, sorry. Was just curious how much this office eats.” Alex replies casually, stuffing the receipt into his pocket. “Food’s great, by the way. Everyone around here likes you a whole lot.”

This made her smile, and Alex smiled too. Everyone in the office did like her, but from what he was seeing it was definitely some a lot more than most others.

Part 3 >>

[child0feden]

A DARK DREAM

øystein “ euronymous ” aarseth x reader

- general dating headcanons for øystein!

my second headcanon request, eek! i hope you like it anon! øystein was such a cutie <3

- requested by anon | view my metal masterlist here

reading music recommendations: parasite by venom - poser killer by death grips

- unlike a relationship with varg, your relationship with øystein is not really all that complicated in the slightest!

✩ øystein is almost always extremely open about how much he is absolutely beyond in love with you and how damn near smitten he is with you, no matter who may be around and watching the two of you…

- he really just could not care any less, he will make out with you just about anywhere in the world and love up on you in front of anyone and everyone

✩ øystein cannot get enough of showing you off to his friends and even completely random people at concerts or in his store, he is always introducing you to people as “ my partner ” just before your name but this is not to undermine you nor your worth! he is just so genuinely proud to call you his partner

- if øystein ever sees people ogling you, he usually just smirks knowingly because yeah, you are hot as hell alright but you are with him and he has little to no real problem telling them with zero hesitation

✩ when you first started dating, øystein was kind of a major hardass when it came down to being romantic but after just a couple of weeks, his walls quickly crumbled away into dust and he revealed his incredibly cheesy side

- when it comes to dates, øystein will never say no to taking you on a good old fashioned movie date to the local cinema!

✩ he will take you out to see some new horror movie just about anytime, buying you any overpriced snack your heart desires, so long as you do let him get a little bit down and dirty with you far up in the back row, that is…

- if øystein sees something in a store that really reminds him of you like perhaps a plushie or a piece of jewellery, he will buy it with no hesitation at all but he will glare and frown at the cashier if they look at him weird for buying a plushie… you try to tell him to hold back on the gift giving due to you knowing helvete really is not doing all that great and the rent is way too high for what he ever gets back but he never does, he lives just to spoil you and he lives to see the smile that comes across your face when he gifts you something so sweet…

✩ before a concert, øystein basically needs to make out with you for at least five minutes before going up on stage

- you will paint his corpse paint all nice and neat for him whilst sitting comfortably on his lap then when you are done and admiring your work, he is pulling your head right down to him, quickly connecting your lips together in a deep kiss and mumbling a “ thank you ” against your lips… he is super overly grabby and handsy during make out sessions, his hands just cannot be idle, he has to be squeezing your ass or groping your boobs or at least just running his hands up and down your hips…

✩ after a concert, øystein is always so beyond hyped up and energetic, he is always damn near running over to where you are standing backstage before pulling you into a deep, sloppy open mouthed kiss and wrapping his arms around you as his corpse paint smudges all over your face, twirling you around as you laugh against his mouth and bring your hands up to tangle in his messy dyed black hair

“ fuck! y’see how many people were in the audience, vakkar? holy shit, i was good, right? ” ( he is very confident in his playing but he loves getting compliments from you, he eats them up like a starved man )

- you always gladly help him dye his hair, pointing out when he needs a re-dye and making little lighthearted jokes about how his natural blonde colour is showing through really bad now that most of his black dye has worn off over time

✩ øystein will glare at you whenever you point that out but he does make a mental note to pick up some hair dye later… and he does prefer when you dye it for him, he likes loves the feeling of your hands massaging his scalp and you make much less of a mess with the black staining dye in you shared bathroom

- a personal little headcanon of mine about øystein is that i think he would definitely have a little button pin machine at home! he has absolutely taken a picture of your boobs or your ass and made it into a pin before, sitting down and giggling like a dumb teenager who is seeing a nude body for the very first time whilst making it at his little machine

“ look! it looks good, no? i think it looks good, god, you have amazing tits… ” ( he genuinely goes to put the pin on his jacket and your eyes nearly bulge out of your head as you yell at him, he is so pouty when you tell him that no, you do not want your boobs on show on a pin on his jacket )

✩ i will say it, i think øystein is a major bath person instead of a shower person

- he just absolutely loves taking baths with you! he adores having you leaned back and relaxed into his pale chest as you chat about your days together, one of his arms hanging just over the edge of the white porcelain bathtub as he holds a lit cigarette between his fingers

✩ øystein will act like he is just so annoyed by the bubbles caused by all of the bubble bath that you poured into the warm water but you can tell he actually quite likes them

- you think they might take him back to his childhood a little, back to easier times when bubble baths were just awesome and he had no worries about money or the future

✩ he will always scowl when you give him a cute little bubble beard or big bubble mountain on top of his head before it turns into a cheeky smile and he begins softly splashing your face with the warm water

“ oh, you don’t like it? no? quit it with the bubbles, vakker ” ( that nickname? and in the bath no less? yeah, it takes less than a minute for you to jump his bones, even more water splashing to the floor as you bounce on him, steam coating the mirrors and his cigarette long forgotten on the tiled ground )

- if you are not from norway, øystein would definitely have your home country flag on the little flag wall in helvete!

✩ hey, why would he not want to celebrate the amazing little country that gave him his beauty?

- speaking of helvete, you probably become kind of close with both bård and occultus with the two of them working there so often and all!

✩ bård is pretty quiet and does not talk all that much but if you ever ask him about what horror movie he is in the midst of watching on the tv in his little corner, he will definitely give you a couple quick facts about the production of said movie! he thinks you are very pretty and øystein is very aware of that, he is always cracking sly little jokes towards the younger boy whenever you are around him which causes bård to blush like a madman before shaking his head and looking away

- this man is always playing his guitar for you and if you do not know how to play, he is always trying to teach you in his spare time! he wants to share one of his favourite hobbies and hell, his profession with you

✩ øystein is obviously just super passionate about playing the guitar and he loves that you really do listen to him when he talks about playing and how you actually try to learn how to play yourself, with his help and guidance of course

- you adore when he wears his glasses, always smothering him in kisses and baby talking him about how incredibly cute he looks as he grumbles and tells you to fuck off but the beaming little smile on his face tells a very different story on how he feels about your love for him and his adorable glasses

✩ he will never really admit it but he definitely loves being loved on by you! your love makes him feel so genuinely seen and so actually appreciated

- øystein will never get over just how good amazing he thinks you look when you are wearing his leather jacket…

✩ you do not even need to mention that you feel a bit cold for him to offer his jacket up to you, he would honestly rather you wear it than him, wether you need it or not

“ look so pretty in my jacket, vakkar… y’wanna keep it tonight? ” ( as if he would ever try to take it back from you )

- if you are like me and cheap kebab food is somewhat of a comfort food for you, øystein is all over that

✩ oh you are awake at 1 am, feeling kind of bad because you are on your period or you are just in kind of a bad mood? øystein is placing a soft kiss on your head before grabbing his leather jacket and going to grab you some kebab food from your regular place

- it has absolutely gotten to a point where the owners of the kebab place know him by name and always know exactly what he orders for you and sometimes something for himself

✩ he just walks in, does not even need to say a word before they ask if he wants his usual and he gives a “ yep ” before placing the money on the counter and walking outside to have a quick smoke…

- you will eat the food together on the couch, cuddled up in a comfortable silence, øystein holding a chilled glass coke bottle in his hand and leaning his head down to take any bites you offer him, your eyes both glued to the small tv as a horror movie the two of you have already seen multiple times before plays through his vhs player <3

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

How to Use Absurdist Humor

I will often excuse away the “worst” of Marinette’s behavior with a very dismissive, “It’s an obvious joke, so there’s no point taking this as a serious character beat. Let’s not waste our time here.”

While I stand by that statement, I can see why some people struggle with this approach. Miraculous has made the unfortunate choice to tie the humor to parts of the narrative that have actual meaning to the audience. This undercuts the power of the humor, making it hard for some people to separate the humor from the actual character beats, so let’s step back and look at a show that did this right to show what I mean.

That’s right, folks, it’s time for more gushing about Kim Possible!

For today’s case study, we'll start with episode 17 of season one: The Twin Factor. In this episode, Kim is stuck babysitting her little brothers while on a mission to stop her arch nemesis. You may be thinking that Kim's "flaw" in this episode is the fact that she brings two 10-year-olds on a dangerous mission.

You would be wrong.

This is the lead-in to Kim bringing the twins along:

Kim: Er, speaking of forgetting, I totally spaced on the baby-sitting. Mrs. Dr. Possible: Kimmy, you made a commitment. Kim: Two commitments, actually. I'm suppose to go on a mission today. Mr. Dr. Possible: You'll just have to take the boys. Kim: Mom, can you please tell Dad that's a bad idea? Mrs. Dr. Possible: Oh, Kimmy. I'm sure Jim and Tim would love to visit a secret lab with you.

This is how you do absurdist humor. Is this technically horrible parenting? Yes, but there is no way that anyone is taking this seriously. It’s just so over the top that anyone trying to criticize the Possible’s behavior comes across as completely missing the point.

The other important factor is that Kim’s parents are played as genuinely loving and supportive parents, just in a really absurd way. This is a very natural bit of loving family dialogue about a totally ridiculous version of a normal family conflict. None of these three characters show off flaws that we expect to see address here save for their complete lack of concern about Kim’s life-risking adventures.

If Kim’s parents were shown to be genuinely neglectful or if Kim’s adventures were played more seriously, then this humor wouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it does. It would still be an obvious joke, but it would stumble the landing if you knew that the episode would go on to see Jim and Tim die. (They don’t, btw. The absurdist humor carries on, I’m just giving an extreme example of a plot beat that would kill – or at least weaken – this humor.)

Another example of Kim Possible doing absurdist humor right comes from the next episode in season one: Animal Attraction. In this episode, Kim is up against Senior Senior Senior, an eccentric billionaire who pursues villainy as a hobby, leading to exchanges like this one between him and his son:

Jr.: Did we not leave Kim Possible on a conveyor belt to her doom? Sr.: Yes. A proper villain always leaves his foe when he's about to expire. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Well, it would be bad form just to lull about, waiting for it. Jr.: Why? Sr.: Tradition!

This episode has a lot of moments like this. Moments where Jr asks why they don't do the obvious, more easy/effective thing and his father blows him off because that's not how villains do things! It's totally illogical logic and it's great. I love it! Perfect example of absurdist villains and a great way to keep the show from getting too serious. The writers never wanted you to feel like Kim was in over her head.

If you look at these two examples and compare them to Miraculous, you'll notice a big difference. While Miraculous does occasionally pull off good absurdist humor, a lot of the absurdist humor is more questionable because it's tied to the show's central conflicts.

As an example, let's talk about Marinette's inability to confess to Adrien and all the nonsense tied to that. Her many failures and attempts to know him better are clearly jokes, but they have this serious edge because the show has not set up the love square as nothing more than a source of humor. This is our end game couple. The audience expects to see their romance developed. The longer the show goes on without doing that and the more absurd Marinette's attempts get, the less the comedy works.

Another good example is Lila's lies. There is a solid argument to be made that the writers are trying to be funny with Lila's extremely obvious lies, but it doesn't work because the lies are a source of serious conflict. Lila is working with the villain! She gets Marinette expelled! We want to see her outed! Every obvious lie she tells just grates on our nerves because this is not the time for jokes!

To be fair, you can use absurdist humor in more serious shows. Another of my personal favorites is The Good Place, which relies heavily on absurdist humor, but has a very serious and heartfelt overall plot. The humor works there because the show knew when to use the humor and when to be serious and also because The Good Place is not a formula show. It's a serialized show. One big story told in 20-minute chunks. This meant that the humor had more room to breath and could be more closely tied to serious conflicts. When every story has to stand alone and be finished in 20-minutes, that blending rarely ever works. You're trying to do too much.

Kim Possible's writers knew this, too. The two tie-in movies (Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time and So the Drama) are still comedies, but they both have far more serious tones because they had the time to do that. While the episodes run about 20 minutes, both movies run a little over and hour which meant they could be more serious than in a standard episode.

So why did I write all that up? Because I was watching Kim Possible and thinking about how much better the humor generally was and I suddenly realized how easy it would be to be confused by Miraculous' humor if you didn't have this kind of background. I've seen enough absurdist humor to identify it with ease and even I struggle with Miraculous at times. Like I'm still not sure if Lila's lies are supposed to be a joke or not.

If you're new to absurdist humor or struggle to interpret less overt humor? Then I can see how you'd take Miraculous way more seriously than the writers intended because a lot of the absurdist humor simply isn't absurd enough. That doesn't change the fact that it's humor and I'm still going to treat it as such, but I can see why it goes right over some people's heads and leads to complaints like, "Marinette has his schedule for the next three years!!!" That was a joke, but I get why you're missing it.

[spotlightlowlife]

manipulating the audience hazbin a helluva easy feat

I will stop these titles one day

Anyone notice how Lucifer behaved a chauvinistic dude bro when faced with Adam, made worse that he was in the presence of his daughter.

So did Lucifer cheat on Lilith?

Or was this yet another sugar sugardaddy x sugarbaby power x pov exchange only with the inclusion of the most liberal woman ever?

Adam didn't initiate the gotcha girl and gotcha girl again mockery and gave no impression of caring about this, why was this the only thing Lucifer had to rub in his face? Adam would actually go on to open up about his envy of the sinners not appreciating him for being their ancestor.

Lucifer simply thinks sinners suck and agrees to the exterminations happening.

He is welcome to be smug.

This is just fine.

This franchise has a pattern of this, it gives the impression that this is intentional knowing full well that along as the audience backs the right horse, they can do no wrong, insert anything anywhere and loyalty or silence prevails.

We witness Angeldust, after persistently S harrassing Husk opening up about how he isn't as comfortable or confident about the world he's in. We see for ourselves that as sex positive as he tries to portray, he's nowhere near in control.

We then in a later episode witness Sir Pentious get SA as a gag, made worse that he was inebriated but still managed to do nothing but resist. This same episode Angeldust gets a serious scene standing up to his S predator.

Valentino is the prominent sexual predator of these stories, because Angledust is unhappy.

Elsewhere his royal, prehistoric 'good twin', Ozzie the prince of lust isn't to blame for the sexdolls he puts out of his lover Fizzoroli, the prince of greedy who shows no interest in sex outside of adding it to a checklist of things that sell is to blame, we are abruptly told this and guided to accept it because 'cute ship', even though that ship has moved into not so fun sugardaddy x sugarbaby territory, edging towards that of the awkward transactionship of powerful, bored prince Stolas and reluctant, disadvantaged little imp Blitzø, a predatory setup that's ok because both characters get the positive spotlight and Blitzø benefits and doesn't behave like a textbook victim.

Pentious didn't and did...

Stolas backstory is very significant, there is no sex positivity with his character, he was forced into a betrothal when he was a little child, forced into marriage as a teenager and made to have a child. His elders are to be honoured.

Who else found themselves in this exact same situation? Stella. They have an identical backstory.

Notice how, simply by switching some known characters around, Mammon and Fizz's interactions were a diluted spin on Blitzø and Moxxie? Fizz has a whole life away from Mammon, whose pageants chooses to compete in yearly, joint venture merchandise he promotes and phone calls he takes. He has a lover, a palace to roam around in and a day job. Blitzø works full time with Moxxie, breaks into his home, voyers on Moxxie and his wife, follows them on dates and has screwed their mutual ex for that reason.

Both Mammon and Blitzø push Fizz and Moxxie into work when they don't want to, however we have no evidence of Fizz always being reluctant, on the contrary we once saw him look forward to going to pageant rehearsal. Unlike Fizz however, Moxxie has shown open resistance to doing things in the form of crippling fear, reason and angry argument, it all makes no difference. Mammon commented on Fizz appearing to have gained weight however fat jokes aimed at Moxxie have been plentiful, something Blitzø has partook in.

The tone is that Mammon is the villain because Fizz is sad, Fizz who had not been shown to be another Moxxie previously but when it come time for him to be a victim, he was places into a Blitzø Moxxie relationship which this time around wasn't funny.

The tone alternatively is that Blitzø is eccentric, excusable and a fun lead to follow and Moxxie is the punching bag.

Notice how striker is a "supremisist" for wanting to bring down those at the top but it's perfectly ok for Blitzø to kill nobodies like himself.

elsewhere it's ok for Alastor to do the same to those like him with the reluctan support of Charlie who's goal it is to save these people.

Despite there existing an actual cannibal town, pimps and selling of souls being something she is acutely aware of, we are swayed to take Charlie's side as she sits in a position of power with her select besties at her hotel, that may have hard dr ugs on the premises, doing very little outreach even though we see community among extras, who does deals with literal lesser devils, in a world her dad created, her dad who allows exterminators to deal with who he sees as nuisances but she sees as 'family' and there's no conflict of interests, who do we see as the black and white baddies from day one? The angels.

Those who don't even sit at the top or know how things work to be specific.

Not Vaggie though.

Your favs are allowed to be dbags too, it doesn't make you reprehensible to see this and still like them!

[a-book-of-creatures]

What notable books (or author) on folklore and/or mythology would you consider to have reliable info, and which ones definitely don't? It's a broad ask, but what are the first names that come to mind?

Very good ask! I'll try to see if I can put my thoughts in words, but if you need any further examples or evaluations let me know.

Here's a general rule: primary sources are Good. Books that directly reference primary sources are Good. The more distance between a book and the primary source, the less reliable it gets. Always ask yourself, where is this book getting its information from? How does it present this information? If you're not dealing with primary sources, always check to see how information is presented and where possible errors could creep in.

For example...

Books like these are the gold standard for reliability. If I was handing out ratings, they would score a perfect 5 out of 5. Everything is extensively cited (the second book is practically all citations). You can't go wrong with these.

In general the more specialized a book is, the more reliable it is. So the excellent Meeting With Monsters gets a very respectable 4.5 out of 5. Very detailed info just about Icelandic monsters. Why not 5? The authors engage in some speculative creature building where they treat the monsters as real animals and invent features for them (the hrosshvalur has dorsal spines teeming with bacteria that infect the wounds it causes, for instance). But these are restricted to marginal notes and do not interfere with the actual information.

More general books generally get less reliable. Again, ask, where are those sources? What are they?

This one is often held up as the encyclopedia of mythical creatures currently in print. It's a decent starting point to start looking for things. It has sources and each entry is linked to its sources. The entries are written in a dry, concise encyclopedic style. But it relies far too much on second and third (and fourth, etc) hand sources. Scratch a little past the surface and you start finding weird mistakes, errors, inaccuracies. Snowballing misinformation. I would consider this to be of average reliability at best. A 2.5 out of 5 or so. Best used as a suggestion to dig into deeper, better things.

This one is a broad introduction to dragons, but instead of an encyclopedia, each "entry" (chapter?) is presented as a retelling of that story. And with that comes very low reliability and heavy use of secondary sources. The retellings make stuff up that isn't anywhere in the originals and miss a lot of the point of the stories - and spread misinformation that continues to propagate online. Also there's plenty of cryptozoology in there so eeehhhh.

This one is obviously aimed at a younger audience, but I'm mentioning it because of one amusing detail. It seems to be a good introduction for children to dragon mythology. Except it presents with a straight face the marsupial dragon as a dragon from Australia. The marsupial dragon, you know, which was written into Dragonology as a joke? And Dragonology wouldn't even have made my primary-source-reliability anyway! Some due-diligence was not duly diligenced, if I may say so.

Then there are books that are just... confusing.

Like anything by Pierre Dubois. On the surface they seem well-researched. But the references and cross-references are more opaque than... uh... a very opaque thing. He clearly has a lot of them, but it's anyone's guess where the information he got came from (no cross-referencing, you see). Combine that with him just making stuff up to pad page numbers and it's never clear what is "true" and what he wrote (and some of it is distasteful, not going to lie). Sometimes he even misses the interesting part of legends just to write his own stories. The most charitable take is that this is literary fantasy, and maybe what he's said can be traced to actual reliable folkloric sources, but after having used him as a source of information I cannot recommend him. You could also argue that Dubois never does claim that this is a scholarly reference, but it sure is presented as one.

I have so far restricted myself to books that claim (or seem to claim) to be references on myth, legend, and folklore. Books that engage in speculative "creature building" (e.g. Dragonology, The Flight of Dragons, etc) would not be reliable as references, but they're still great books. You just wouldn't use them as sources of information.

... or would you? Sometimes non-reference books get treated as such, and then the information they made up gets reified by being parroted uncritically by later books. Like Woodruff's book above. A fake "long-lost expedition journal" by Pliny the Elder, it's an excuse for (gorgeous) art and Latin practice. Except that some of the made-up stuff in there found its way out of the book and - uncited - ended up in supposedly serious works. Like the Pyrallis being a dragon, or the two-headed Hyperborean frogs. Confusing. It even got a minor news mention because people were taking it seriously!

Anyway, how about you? Any books you find reliable or unreliable?

[secretmellowblog]

I hope tumblr doesn’t die because No other social media site is as good for long, thoughtful, nuanced analyses of media. Yeah tumblr is also full of dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts, but you can make dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts anywhere —-there are no other popular social media sites that let you easily format and share long essays on the media you enjoy, and then have conversations around those long essays.

Fandom on all the other big social websites just seems so utterly …shallow. And it’s not because people on other websites aren’t thoughtful or don’t have deep things to say, but because these sites’ formats do not allow for any kind of long nuanced conversations.

Tiktok? Things have to be crammed into a super short video with an attention grabbing headline, and you can’t hyperlink sources. Instagram? Everything has to be in an image format with strict limits on length, and nothing will be shown to your followers anyway because of how Instagram’s algorithm works, and also no hyperlinks. Twitter? Strict character limits, and if you split it into threads it means someone can retweet a part of your essay completely out of context, and also very little freedom with formatting.

It frustrates me so much. If I go into the Tumblr Les Mis fandom I’ll find really compelling long essays on the original novel (including essays being written for the ongoing book club) on the story’s historical context, or the parallels between different characters and their narrative foils, or the way the politics were defanged for certain adaptations, or the way Victor Hugo’s personal life and failings affected the novel. But on tiktok I’ll get the same five shallow stale jokes from 2013 over and over, or maybe the same “DID U KNO THAT IN THE MUSICAL JAVERT AND VALJEAN SING THE SAME LEITMOTIF” style of basic Intro To Les Mis 101 For Babies media analysis (which is what Tiktok considers deep media analysis), or stale “LOL JAVERT ACTS GAY” style jokes as if we’re living in the early 2000s and calling a character gay is still a funny punchline. And it’s impossible to have any kind of deeper thoughtful discussions than “DID U KNOW <x Kool Fact>” or “lol <shallow observational joke>” on tiktok because the platform just isn’t built for building niche communities around in depth conversations. it’s built to churn out bland generic content for as wide an audience as possible, which means pointing out a small detail like an Easter egg and calling it “cool” is deep media analysis, because you cant have longer more in depth conversations without alienating people. And I hate it. Bc like, it’s not because there aren’t smart clever thoughtful people on Tiktok— there are—it’s because Tiktok isn’t built for these conversations, and anyone who wants to have them has to really fight against the things the website encourages or prioritizes!

Or like, if I go into the LOTR fandom on Tumblr, I’ll find tons of extremely long analysis and fanfic, and analysis of queer readings of the story. On Instagram people will still shriek in terror if you suggest the characters are gay, and most of the popular lotr posts are stale memes recycled from like 2007. There’s really no room for thoughtful media analysis, and even if you did create it, instagram’s algorithm would make sure no one saw your post anyway.

And everyone’s going to say “the algorithm shows you what you’ve seen before so maybe it’s your fault ~” or whatever but i do look for things I want! I do! “The algorithm” doesn’t know me or what I want or value or care about beyond this meaningless surface level.

The only thing that was worthwhile about these sites was the great visual art people were creating, but now the websites are overwhelmed with meaningless soulless machine-generated AI glurge, and it sucks. It just really, really sucks.

I’m honestly confused about why people don’t use tumblr….There’s no character limits! You have freedom with post formatting, and can insert images throughout textposts to illustrate specific points you’re making beneath the paragraphs where they’re necessary! You can add hyperlinks, linking to your sources! People can reblog your entire essay and share it, and then add on with commentary that then becomes part of a larger conversation! People can find your stuff through the tagging system! Reblogging means posts stay in circulation for years instead of being dead 30 minutes after they’re uploaded! If you want to have genuinely interesting text conversations about a piece of media, there really isn’t a better social media website for it anywhere.

To be clear, I’m definitely not saying Tumblr media analysis is *always* clever and thoughtful or etc etc. there are shitposts and nonsense here too (plenty of which I’ve created lol.) I’m saying that Tumblr gives people the tools for in-depth insightful analysis to happen. Whether people choose to do it or not is their own decision XD. But the reason lengthy in-depth conversations and book clubs are even possible here is because Tumblr is built for allowing these conversations to happen, in a way other sites simply aren’t.

It’d really suck if it died, because it’d be a huge blow to…being able to easily find long insightful in-depth media analysis written by fans. I currently don’t think there’s anything that could replace it.

[rescue-ram]

Hawkahy opinion: I don't think Hawkeye has a priest kink.

Obviously a big reason people would be into shipping the priest is because they're titillated by the concept of priestfucking more broadly, and of all the weird stuff people project onto their blorbos a benign and relatively common fetish is fucking nothing lol.

But tbh it does scan as kind of out of character to me. Like I just don't buy that Hawkeye would be into priest fucking, and if anything I think it would be a bit of a turn off.

When I was first mulling on this, I was kind of like "Well maybe he'd be turned on by the priest thing not because of the priesthood specifically but just the general naughtiness of breaking taboos..." but then I realized that Hawkeye almost never expressed genuine sexual interest in anyone who isn't a conventionally attractive, single, and uncomplicatedly sexually available woman- and the few times it is complicated he's legitimately squicked out and put off. I just think of he was going to be turned on by the idea of breaking vows he'd be into adultery at least as much as Margaret is lmao.

Plus, he's not Catholic, he wasn't raised Catholic, we have no reason to think he was even raised in a "high church" liturgical Protestant tradition. How and why would he have the life experiences to form the associations that make up a priestkink?

Hawkeye likes Mulcahy and respects him, but I think that has 0% to do with him being a priest. Mulcahy could be literally anything but if he conducted himself and related to Hawkeye in more or less the same way, I think he'd still like him just as much.

I will say that I think on both a Watsonian and Doylist level, the fact that Mulcahy is a priest frees him up to flirt with Hawkeye in a way that's a little different from other characters. Generally, Hawkeye flirting with men is treated as a joke in itself, but there still needs to be a little "no homo" at the end of it. This usually comes in an annoyed rebuff or outrage, or the joke being ignored and not commented upon. If the person flirts back, it has to be very obviously a joke. With Mulcahy, any flirting at all is a joke because of the implied taboo of the priesthood- the characters and the audience both know this ain't going anywhere. There is a different quality to their flirtation, because they don't have to immediately defuse the joke, so there's several scenes I can think of that have a warm or sincere vibe, where Hawkeye's teasing is a little gentler than normal and Mulcahy seems genuinely amused or flattered.

But again, that vibe kind of hinges on nothing actually happening. I think if Mulcahy was genuinely interested, Hawkeye would be totally thrown off, and tbh I think he'd find sexual inexperience to be a turn off as well- his taste in women would suggest he prefers partners who are sexually confident. I don't imagine it would be a completely insurmountable difference, but I do see it as an obstacle for a hypothetical relationship to overcome rather than an incentive for it to exist.

But really, all of this is a preamble to my TedX talk on why "Hawkeye gets turned on by roleplay emphasizing Mulcahy's priesthood" is overshadowing the underrated high camp potential of "Mulcahy gets turned on by roleplaying being a frat boy with Hawkeye"-