#but the Ginger thing is too much to be a coincidence

[thepenultimateword]

The Un-Gingerbread || Secret Santa 2024

I participated in the Secret Santa writing event again this year! This snippet is for @gingerly-writing! I hope you enjoy! I know you said I could choose just one topic buuuut I ended up kinda combining them all together!

magical girl powers (especially for villains)

something cute and Christmassy turned deadly/bad (Christmas card full of blackmail, evil snow powers, etc)

super niche/useless superpower saves the day

“They’re Christmas cookies,” Hero said blandly.

“They’re suspicious.” Villain tapped the edge of the platter with the tip of their snowflake wand. Little swirls of frost spread over the surface of the plastic wrap, clouding over the little gingerbread faces.

“Some caroler or neighbor or someone trying to be spread Christmas cheer casually left a plate on your doorstep. End of story.”

Hero had never been the imaginative type. It was a little annoying actually: the power of disbelief. One of the only things that had ever rendered Villain powerless. It didn’t always work, especially now that Hero had seen Villain’s work up close so often, but when Hero got thinking too much about the laws of gravity, the improbability of a transformation sequence, the energy mechanics of magic, Villain found themselves dropping like a stone. 

In those moment they just had to hope Hero was close enough to catch them–practically a guarantee–and empathetic enough not say a word to anyone else. …Less likely.

Villain tucked the wand into a reality pocket–Hero was nice enough not mess with that one today-and swished their capelet around them as they turned toward the fridge. The next thing they knew, they were pouring a glass of milk just so they could look away. The hero’s dry gaze already felt like a drain on their powers without this extra dose of exasperation. 

“Look at the clothes,” they said.

Hero raised an eyebrow, but began to peel up the first layer of plastic wrap.

“Don’t unwrap them!” Villain cried, then as Hero’s eyebrow did a higher, more quizzical leap into their hair, “We don’t know what’s in them.”

“I don’t think this shoddy wrap job is keeping in any dangerous toxins,” Hero said.

Villain stomped a heeled shoe. “Don’t say such dangerous things out loud!”

“For that to work the cookies would have to actually be toxic. Which they aren’t.” Hero’s eyes flicked up and down before returning to the cookie plate and the unwrapping process. “Did you seriously do a complete transformation over this?”

Villain warmed a little. They didn’t make a habit of inviting heroes to their apartment, but something about this had shaken them. Something about those sugar pearl eyes peering up at them had felt…wrong. Though they’d claimed, even internally, that Hero was simply the first name to pop into their head, maybe…maybe they’d chosen them on purpose. Maybe they’d wanted a bit of logic to asway their anxiety. To tell them everything was truly alright.

“I’m just being prepared,” Villain said, then nodded at the plate.

The gingerbreadpeople were dressed like them. Not the comfortable, baggy outfits they wore as a civilian but their magical version–silver pompadour shoes with a snowflake sprinkles for the buckles, long icy blue tailcoat and capelet with a carefully iced imitation of the frost pattern emroidery, and whipped ruffles—so many ruffles, in the cravat, in the white undershirt, in the peeking cuffs of the sleeves; the Ginger-Villains even held their wand, complete with silver edible glitter so the snowflake head sparkled in the light.

“Coincidence.”

“Coinci– Hero! That’s me!”

“Yes, and half the city is convinced you’re some sort of ice fairy.” Villain could hear the eyeroll in their tone. “This isn’t the first cookie I’ve seen with your face on it.”

“But they are the first to show up at my door.”

Hero let out an enormous sigh. “Ok, honestly? Yes, it’s weird. Yes, it’s creepy. But I just don’t believe anyone could have figured out who you are let alone where you live. You’re ok. Throw them away if you’re so worried.”

Villain folded their arms poutily. “I’m sure that’s exactly what the sender wants me to do. One moment I’m dumping cookies, the next I have giant radioactive rats breaking down my door.”

They swished their cape again, more dramatically this time, making the full breadth of their displeasure known. 

Hero sighed again. They did that so much it was a wonder they had any breath left.

“Do you want me to take them?”

Villain blinked. “Really?”

“You’re just going keep calling me otherwise, right? And I have no worries about throwing them away in my trash.”

Villain picked up the platter hesitantly. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt on my behalf…”

“I know it’s Christmas but quit with the fluff. Hand them over.”

Hero thrust out their hand, waving their fingers impatiently. 

Well, if Hero really wanted the creepy cookies, who was Villain to stop them. They were a grown, capable adult who knew how to take care of themselves, and they were enemies anyways, so Villain didn’t need to feel guilty at all if–

Villain’s thoughts stopped short, plate half extended. The platter trembled a little in their fist.

“Are you really so freaked out that you’re shaking?” Hero said.

“I-I’m not.”

Something on the platter was moving. 

As the first Ginger-Villain rose to its feet, all Villain and Hero could do was stare. 

When the second one popped up, Villain threw the platter across the room.

The decorative plastic cracked against the wall, and about two dozen cookies scattered every direction.

The wall clock ticked a second of peace, and then the cookies were back up, faces smudges, bodies cracked, or a gory scene of cookie arms and legs and sugar pearl eyes littering the tile.

One cookie who was lucky enough to escape the throw with no more damage than a lost eye and a smeared tailcoat waddled determinedly forward while several others limped or dragged themselves behind.

Villain cursed. "What is happening?"

"It's not real. it's not real. it's not real," Hero muttered like a ritual beside them. But the cookies were real. And whatever disbelief Hero had been suspending was broken.

Fine. If Hero was going to be useless... Villain reached into the air and yanked their wand out of its pocket and back into reality.

They flicked the wand once, sending a pale coating of slick ice over the living cookies, stiffening their limbs and freezing them to the spot.

"There," Villain said, letting out a slow exhale. "Now I think we should burn--"

Crack.

Crick, crack.

Crick, crack, crackle, crack.

Steam wafted up from each cookie, and as they pressed forward, little fissures spread up the weakened ice-coating.

"Are they...getting hotter?" Villain said.

The embroidery detailing and facial features dripped down the cookie's bodies as they moved pooling in little sweet puddles at their feet. A few cookies picked up the nearby limbs and melded them into the now soft stumps.

"That shouldn't be as disturbing as it is," Hero muttered.

"Ok, I was going easy on you all because you're made of flour," Villain said, "but why don't you try escaping this?"

Villain swished their wand in a circle, this time encapuslating the cookies in a large, solid ball of ice.

Crack.

Villain conjured another layer.

Crick, crack.

Another.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Another.

The ice ball grew and grew, but for every layer of ice Villain threw up, the cracking only seemed to quicken.

Great billowing clouds of steam filled the room, obscuring the ice prison from view and Villain backed warily toward the living room, grabbing Hero's arm as they went.

There was one final crack; ice shot around the room like shattered glass and a wave of chilly water washed across the floor, seeping through the seams of their shoes.

As the cookies had heated in their prison, they'd mushed together, replacing two dozen zombieish Ginger-Villains with one enormous, thoroughly burnt Ginger-Creature. One beady sugar pearl stared down at them from the gooey burnt icing face.

"Hero, do something!" Villain shouted, digging their nails into the hero's arm.

Hero paused their muttered chant long enough to roar, "I'm trying!"

"What, a walking cookie is too realistic for you?"

"It reminds me of a horror movie! It's hard to disbelieve in things that have that sort of hold in my mind!"

The Ginger-Creature stepped toward them.

Villain waved their wand toward the pool of water on the floor, freezing it into a slick sheet. Unfortunately, they hadn't thought about their own half-submerged feet. As they attempted another step back, they found their blocky heels frozen to the floor.

The creature slipped a little with its next step, but ultimately its heating power left indents in the ice wherever its giant feet moved.

Villain lurched back, but the attempt was fruitless.

"Take off your shoes!" Hero cried, already in their socks and crouching down at Villain's feet and fumbling with the intricate snowflake buckles.

"They're magic shoes," Villain choked. "They don't come off."

"Then detransform! Do something! It's coming!"

Villain grabbed Hero by either side of their face, forcing them to look up at them.

"Hero, I need you're annoying, unimaginative, logical brain to start asking the big questions right now."

Hero stared at them wide-eyed. "I...I..."

"Come on! You always think of something aggravating! Like...how can this cookie see us when its eye is just sugar? How does the light pass through? And even if it does, how is that light processed? Does it have a cookie brain? That doesn't make any sense."

"How can it heat itself?" Hero said, voice a little trembly. "Nothing in gingerbread can conduce its own heat."

"Yeah, and why did the cookies have heat powers anyway when they were supposed to be copies of me?"

"How did it know how to shape itself? It's messed up, but it's still sort of a person. Do all the cookies have a sense of humanity? Do they have separate thoughts? Or are they one cookie hivemind?"

The smell of burnt sugar and ginger was suffocating now. Villain could feel the heat wafting off it as it's burnt foot came into view a mere couple of feet away.

Hero spread their arms out in front of Villain and looked up into the towering cookie's face. “You're not real.”

The gingerbread froze in place. It's entire body shuddered, and then abruptly it crumbled into a pile of blackened cookie dust. The sugar pearl rolled across the floor and into Villain's knee.

They both stared in silence.

Then Villain laughed.

They couldn’t help it. Emotional response maybe. They just laughed and laughed and went weak against Hero's side, grasping for balance around their waist. Hero hugged them with one arm around the head. Villain wasn't sure if they even knew they were doing it, or if the simply needed as much support after that conclusion as Villain did.

"I did it," Hero gasped.

"You did it!" Villain said giddily. "You're so boring, you fantastic stick in the mud you!"

Villain picked up the sugar pearl, rolling it between their thumb and forefinger a couple times, before popping it triumphantly in their mouth. As soon, as the sweetness hit their tongue, words sprang across their mind unprompted.

Merry Christmas, Villain. I'm sorry you didn't like my treat. My next one will be better.

[wolfstarlights]

So I had this class about a specific niche of Hollywood history this year and my main take-away from it is that Bolin’s arc in TLoK s2 is 100% inspired by Fred Astaire.

A sibling duo who rose to fame together but the older one leaves the industry so the younger one has to adjust and find his own path? Check.

Starts a career as an actor in black and white films that already have audio? Check.

Gets paired with an actress called Ginger and together they rise to new heights of fame/success? Check.

Anyway, I guess this is my contribution to the fandom. Do with it what you will.

[b00tyliciousbabe]

gingerbread

himbo bf x male reader

summary: spending time with your boyfriend and his family for the holidays. some fluff, lil angst, bad jokes (i apologise in advance), and minimal smut of course.

notes: merry chrysler! hope y’all pretty people are doing amazing. notoriously indecisive in true bootylicious fashion, i settled on one of my fave typa men - gentle giant himbos. think danny wheeler from baby daddy. now, i would never call my men dumb, but always be saying real stupid things. there’s a specific kind of wonder that you can see in their eyes…i’m whipped.

disclaimer: i also tried to keep it as open to as many tastes as possible, so a lot of who he is, you can do create yourself. but i had to make him a bit of a redhead, they too fine.

y’all better gass me because the way i wrote this 3 hours before the end of xmas day, enjoy babies <3

saved in his phone as gingerbread - he’s a ginger, and you get bred xx

you always loved spending time with your boyfriend’s family, almost as much as they loved you. his mother was the first to catch Y/N fever, mostly because you reminded her of herself and it was a relief to know that someone could handle her son’s antics . then it was his brothers, they loved how mellow you made him, as if all of his struggles melted away when you waltzed into his life. they felt like your guardians, wanting to protect you because they knew how much you meant to their baby brother. and his sisters…they’re lowkey your best friends. when you first met, y’all got on so well with one another bonding over fashion, pop culture, and weirdly philosophy.

his dad liked you as a person, believing you were a kind soul, but not the person for his son, because of how different you two were. they were a quiet luxury kinda family, which didn’t necessarily coincide with how connected you were with celebrities. this was until he saw how well you worked together. whilst working on a huge project for the family business, your boyfriend was stressed in the office. you walked in, ready to go on a date after he’d finished. ‘hey baby, you look hot, where you going?’ he’d forgotten, but you never held it against him. you loved to see the cogs turn in his head as he came to a realisation. ‘shit. it’s date night.’ he groaned head in hands. ‘I’m so sorry Y/N, work’s just been so busy, the clients wanted to move the order forward, the contractors needed more data on the financial markets, and…’ you sat down on his desk, holding his chin so you guys exchanged eye contact. ‘babe, it’s all good, i know it’s a really busy time for you.’ you stroked his face reassuringly, a sigh of relief emitted from his lips. ‘i ain’t leaving your side, we’re in this together,’ you said as you went in for a kiss. it was deep and sensual, and if you didn’t stop when you did, you would’ve left that room walking side to side. ‘so, what can i help with?’ you responded, looking at the documents on the desk. he stared up lovingly, ‘i don’t deserve you,’ he admitted ‘too good to me.’ which garnered a little chuckle from you. his dad saw how supportive you were, pulling an all-nighter for the benefit of your man. you were so tired that the two of you spooned on the couch in his office, and slept there. early the next morning, the two of you were met with a breakfast course on the coffee table and your respective starbucks orders. you kissed your bf goodbye, so he could work, and just as you were about to leave, his father stopped you. ‘good morning Y/N, did you enjoy the food?’ he questioned as you entered the elevator together. ‘it was lovely sir, thank you.’ you replied hesitantly. ‘the only thanks due is to you, i appreciate how you’re always there for my son.’ you smiled inside, longing to prove yourself to him. ‘I love him sir, he needs to know that any problem he has, automatically becomes our problem to solve together.’ he knew at that moment, you were the perfect fit.

one of the core memories of your relationship was the weekend in the alps. your boyfriend thought this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to have some alone time with you before the new year. with award season coming up, many celebrities needed to be styled, you legit had no time to see him, it was going to be amazing. you stayed in the chalet his parents owned, but neither of you knew that it’d be an entire sibling getaway. the two of you snuggled under the blankets, drinking hot chocolate, whilst listening to some quiet smooth jazz in the background. revelling in how cozy and warm it was, he was dozing off whilst cuddling and you decided to follow suit, but not before a quick kiss on your bf’s nose - he’s so cute. unfortunately, like most precious things, this didn’t last long. there was a huge clatter at the door, awakening you two. ‘what the fuck are you guys doing here?’ your man blasted at them. ‘oh hey lil bro,’ one of them said as the others made themselves feel at home. ‘we heard you lovebirds were here and wanted to see Y/N again, we missed him.’ they all waved at you. you blushed and immediately got up greet them all with hugs and squeals. ‘omds, i haven’t see you guys in ages, we have so much to catch up on.’ you blurted out in an excited frenzy. your love, on the other hand, didn’t share the same energy. whilst you had walked to his sisters, his brothers playfully punched your bf to cheer up. ‘you idiots, have the worst timing, he said as they got ready to get some wood for the chimney.

it was just you and the girls, as you gossiped about the drama that went down during fashion week as they ate up every word. you mostly had done a lot of listening to their relationship dramas and work lives, as you shared a couple giggles. you has made gingerbread men, as his sisters watched the master at work. ‘Y/N, these are delicious, how are you so good at everything?’ they praised which made you blush. the boys had returned, with your man wincing with pain as his brothers carried him in. ‘the dummy tripped on the snow’ they said snickering as you walked to help him. ‘how many times have i told you to be careful out there?’ you said, concerningly staring at the bruise on his hip. you touched it gently earning a wince from him as he pushed away your hand. ‘sorry babe.’ he stared dead in your eye and looked away, giving you the silent treatment. ‘what do you need?’ he continued airing. ‘i’m gonna get some bandages’ you said, unsure of what you did to hurt him emotionally.

‘the fuck is wrong with you?’ his sisters protested, thumping his head. ‘ow! what do you mean?’ ‘that boy loves you, so much so that he puts up with all of your shit and stupidity.’ they come to your defence. he looks to his brothers for help, but to no avail. ‘dude, I’ll be real, you fucked up.’ one says. ‘he was just trying to help’ another adds. like the youngest, he continues to deflect ‘well, if you guys hadn’t come, i wouldn’t have gotten hurt, and me and Y/N would have been happier. he finally admitted. ‘oh damn.’ their faces became gentler as they circled in on him. ‘I just never get to see him now, with work and everything, and i don’t want him to get used to not seeing me’ he started to get teary but hid it behind a scowl. ‘bro, you are meant to be with Y/N, i see it in your eyes every time he walks into a room, like he’s the only one there.’ your bf smiles at the mere thought of your face. ‘see, he ain’t even here and you’re cheesing so bad rn.’ they all laugh. ‘i don’t know how to tell him, he’s so good at communicating his feelings, i just, i just can’t do it the way he does.’ his heart begins to beat faster. ‘that’s the thing though, he knows you better than you know yourself.’ the eldest brother says ‘there’s nothing that he won’t be able to understand because the two of are so connected.’

you enter with the bandages and medical supplies. ‘here’s a chance to fix that’ his twin sister says as they leave and move to the other side of the mansion, locking the door behind them as they wave you bye for now. you sit beside him on the sofa, placing a hot compress on his bruise. ‘Y/N, we need to talk.’ you decided to give him a taste of his own medicine by being stand-offish ‘speak then.’ you say glaring into his eyes that made you melt every time but now. ‘i am so sorry for my rude behaviour, i know you were just tryna help my stubborn ass.’ you continued tending to his wounds, with an apathy rivalled only by the unconditional love you have for him. ‘whatever.’ you muttered. ‘aw, come on baby, don’t be like that.’ he grimaced. ‘like what,’ your voice growing in confidence ‘like someone who, as hard as they try, can never get their boyfriend to fully open up?’ you admitted. ‘you know that’s not the whole story.’ he looks down. ‘mkay’ you say, tired of arguin, he just needed to cool off. he takes a deep breath. ‘Y/N, you know i love you more than anything ’ your boyfriend boldly states, deepening your eye contact. ‘and you know i love you the same, but sometimes love is not enough,’ you struggle to get the words out, getting choked up as you hold his cheek for stability. he turns to kiss you, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. he caresses your thigh, as your tongues dance for dominance in the warmth of your mouth. you pulled back. ‘here goes nothing, babe, I’m afraid, afraid of losing you.’ he admitted desperately. ‘we barely ever see each other and I’m scared that it has, um, like, maybe, um’ he failed to articulate his thoughts, angering him further. ‘calm down love, i hear what you’re saying. you’re worried about the possibility of us being comfortable with rarely seeing one another and what that means for us.’ you always knew how to soothe his heart. ‘exactly, you’re just so good at letting me know what we need to do to make this relationship work that I’m clueless at asking for help.’ he smiled earning a chuckle from you. ‘we’re in this together boo, you won’t ever lose me.’ as he sneers into another smooch. ‘fuck.’ he moaned into your mouth as a tent forms in his boxers. ‘your voice always gets me going.’ you looked down and immediately dropped to your knees.

you hadn’t sucked your boyfriend’s cock in what seemed like forever. you pulled his boxers to his ankles as his thick cock sprung up, throbbing in the cool air of the room. you grabbed his pole, gaslighting him into thinking you were going to start at the tip. instead you began to massage his beefy, low-hanging balls in your mouth. ‘Y/N, fuck, that’s where the spunk is stored, not where you drink it from’ he snickered, removing them from your mouth. ‘you’ve got to st-UGHHHH’ you deepthroated with ease, loving how his dumb, naive nature was still translated to your time in the sheets. ‘that’s it baby, good boy’ he praises, looking at the slobber that made his dick glisten. ‘shit.’ he cums without warning, giving you an impromptu facial. ‘sorry darling, i came as soon as i saw you slap my dick on your thick lips.’ your boyfriend helped you to clean up, pushing his hand all over your face and fingering your mouth with his nut.

you moved to undressing, as you straddled your man. ‘i know you wanna pound me into tomorrow, but you can’t,’ gesturing to his bruise. he whined and cooed. ‘however…’ you whispered into his ear, jerking him of with a mix of his cum and your spit ‘imma help my man out tonight.’ as you sank onto his schlong with ease. his hands immediately grabbed your globes, as he licked his lips salaciousy, enjoying your physique. ‘so fucking hot.’ your bf mumbled. you started bouncing on his cock as he slowly rutted in you from beneath, your hole was already sore.

it was gonna be a long night…

@gayaristocrat imma save your fantasy for dacre, that man is 90s fine fr

[fishofthewoods]

Oh my god I woke up this morning and my Stardew Valley meta post had almost 150 notes????? Hello?????????? Anyways I started writing this last night because @moon-is-pretty-tonight left nice tags on the original so thank you so much!!

We know from the starting scenes of the game that the farmer's grandfather loved Stardew Valley. So why did he leave? Pelican Town is a good place to grow old; George and Evelyn are just fine. It's a fine place to raise a kid, but maybe he just wanted to raise his child closer to real schools and other children.

Or maybe, just maybe, he understood.

Was there a day when he was in his thirties where he looked at his friends and realized they weren't like him? That he could run faster than them, work longer, explore deeper into the hidden places of the valley?

Was there a day when he went to the wizard to ask him for help, for knowledge if nothing else? Did he learn then that his family was different? Special? Chosen? And how did he react? He couldn't possibly raise a child in the valley if they would be as strange and fey as him. He had to leave. There was no other way.

But years later, on his deathbed, did he regret that choice?

Is that why he gave the farmer the letter?

Is that why they went back home?

When the farmer steps off the bus that first day, the valley is still on the cusp of winter, just barely tipping over into spring. The flowers are starting to bloom, but a chill still hangs in the air. As soon as the farmer's boots touch the soil there's a change. The air gets warmer. The trees get greener. Not by too much, not all at once, but it changes.

The junimos watch the farmer as they do their work. They're new to farming, but take to it with frightening speed; their first batch of crops is perfect. None of the townsfolk tell them that parsnips don't normally grow in less than a week, that cauliflowers don't grow to be ten feet tall, that fairies don't visit when the sun goes down and grow potatoes and beans and tulips overnight. The junimos talk amongst themselves in their strange, wild language, and agree: this is the one. They're back. The valley recognizes its own, even when they've left for a generation. The farmers have come home.

Things change fast in the valley. The community center, empty and decrepit for so many years, is rejuvenated. (Lewis says it was abandoned only a few weeks after the farmer's grandfather left. Strange coincidence, he says, that it both came and went with the farmer's family.) The mines and the quarry, similarly abandoned, are explored for the first time in ages. The town becomes cleaner, brighter, more vibrant, happier.

And it is happier. Not just the environment, but the people. It's the talk of the town for weeks when Haley does her first closet purge. Leah's art show in the town square is a huge success. Shane's smiling for the first time since he moved to the valley. All of them, when asked, say it's all thanks to the farmer.

People love to ask why Lewis didn't fix the community center on his own. Why Willy never repaired the boat to ginger island. Why Abigail or Marlon never went down to fix the elevator in the mines, or why Clint didn't fix the minecarts.

But isn't it so much more interesting to ask how those things were there in the first place? How they got so broken down? If the stories the townspeople tell are true, the valley was once a beautiful place, flourishing and full of life; why did that change? When did it change?

Was it when the farmer's grandfather, the locus of the valley, its chosen representative, left town?

And if so, what happens when the farmer comes back?

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Part 7 - Date Activities

Slasher Handler Masterlist

NSFW under the cut.

CW: Non-descriptive mentions of torture, numbers and math, brief nudity, allusions to cannon-typical violence (Ghost's backstory), red herrings, bones

“Where ‘m I?” You slur around a dry tongue. Struggling to balance your weight on your hips, try to wrap your arms around yourself. Too late, you realize that there’s not enough slack on the chain to complete the motion. “Where‘re we?”

You want to scream. You want to cry and hide your face. You’re horrified to realize that you want Simon, your version of Simon, to materialize on the edge of the bed and comfort you. Unfortunately, all you can do is blink and sway.

“If you’re dizzy, you should lay back down.” Simon’s voice from that jaw-less skull is so disconcerting. In your nightmares, the skull mask sounds inhuman. Distorted, echoing. The burning bush overlap of every person who’s ever made you unsafe. Now, it’s just Simon’s measured speech.

But the rest of him is just as big and dangerous as you remember. He’s dressed like he expects to have to fight someone. His black jacket is covered by some kind of utility vest with a bunch of pockets. A handgun sits in a thigh holster, and on his other hip is the Big Knife. He’s not wearing his usual boots, these are heavier looking. If you weren’t so overwhelmed, you’d be terrified.

The masked killer on the other side of the room tilts his head and regards you for a long moment. The weird silence is such a Simon thing to do that you let yourself take your eyes off of him enough to take a quick look around the room. His chair is by the only door, a solid looking wood. To the left side of the room, there’s a bare folding table. On it, from what you can see, sit bottles of water, a bag of grapes, and some brown packaging. There’s another folding chair. At the foot of the mattress, there’s a huge, black hard case. The kind you’ve seen in action movies.

“Right now,” Simon finally answers. “You’re in the safe zone."

You blame the drugs in your system. It’s the only reason you can think of to look him in his eyes and blurt, “That’s not a fuckin’ answer, you cryptic asshole.”

You’re glad you’ve learned to read his eyes, because they’re amused when he stands. Even across the room, he towers over you. You clutch at the blanket to, what? Protect yourself? But Simon just crosses to the table and picks up a bottle of water and a sleeve of saltine crackers. He chucks both of them at your legs before returning to his seat.

“Sip the water, eat slowly,” he instructs. “And I’ll tell you the rules of the game.”

You can’t think of a reason not to, so you struggle for a moment with the bottle cap before bringing the bottle to your lips. Your mouth feels gross and fuzzy, but the water is cool. The crackers, when you finally tear the packaging, are exactly what you needed. You wish you had some ginger ale.

“You told Kyle that I’d taken you hunting,” Simon starts. “But I hadn’t really. First time was a happy coincidence. Second time, you planned the date activity and I kind of hijacked it, yeah?”

If your neck wasn’t so thick, I’d strangle you, you think. You take another sip of water.

“So I thought to myself, what parts of hunting might my sweet, clever girl be interested in? How can I make sure she’s having just as much fun as me? And I remembered your little cubes.”

You narrow your eyes at that. The Rubik’s cubes were one of the first signs that he’d been breaking into your apartment. By now, he knows that you know how to solve them. Two weeks after he’d moved in next door, though, he hadn’t figured that out. It had made your skin crawl to come home from work and see the colors in the wrong places. Now, sometimes, he’ll present the cubes for you to solve while you talk. When you hand him the completed puzzle, he scrambles it up and hands it back.

“You didn’t kidnap me to make me solve a giant Rubik’s cube,” you say.

“No,” he answers. If you could see his face, you think he’d be smirking. “But the first part of the game is a puzzle. You have to get out of the room.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, you want to scream. Instead, you slowly eat your way through the crackers and sip your water and think. The metal cuffs on your wrists are far enough apart that you can easily reach the locking mechanisms. They’re just tight enough that you can’t wiggle out, but they’re not uncomfortable. You can’t see where the chain to the ground is latched, so if there’s a clasp on that end, maybe this will be more simple than you think. You doubt it.

Daylight is streaming in through the window behind you. The shadows of the bars are very obvious, so the only way out of the room is going to be through the door. Simon’s sitting on the hinge side, but the only way you’ll get out before he blocks the way is probably if he’s on this side of the room. Facing the table, maybe. Preferably not standing.

Maybe you can strangle him with the chain.

You freeze as soon as the thought enters your mind, cracker halfway to your mouth. Wrapping the chain around the neck of that death mask only makes sense. But the idea of killing Simon makes you feel like vomiting.

When you look back at him, his eyes are as heated as they ever get. “Don’t worry, precious. I made you a promise last night. No killing, no wounds. No “Saw” puzzles. Just a little escape room. Told me you like those.”

Had you? That sounds like something you would have said, back in the beginning, to see what he would do. You take another sip to clear your mouth and settle your stomach. You’re already feeling better. “What are the rules?”

“You’ve got ninety minutes to get out of the cuffs and get into the chest. Once you’ve done both, the timer stops, and I explain the next part of the game.”

“Can I ask you questions once I get started?”

“Of course,” Simon says, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

You bite your lip. “When does the timer start?”

“You tell me when you start,” he says. “We’re not in any rush.”

“What’s in the chest?”

“That,” he answers, eyes crinkling with an obvious grin this time, “you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

That is not an answer you want to hear, but there’s nothing to be done about it. You rack your brain for any more questions. There are, of course, about a million. But the one that sticks out is, “Why were you so nice to me, last night? You could have just drugged me. You did, anyway.”

Simon doesn’t say anything for a long time, just looks at you. He holds eye contact, so you don’t look away. After a full thirty seconds, he hums. “You said you missed me. That you wanted to be with me. You asked me to stay. I liked it.”

The way he says it, warm voiced and slow and soft, makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. There’s a spark of something in his eyes that you don’t want to examine. You’re too afraid to look away. But then he blinks and lets his eyes drift up and away from you. The breath you didn’t know you were holding whooshes out of you.

“Guess I’d better get started,” you say.

When you stand to the side of the bed, you find that you’re wearing one of his shirts, a pair of underwear, and a pair of socks. The room isn’t unbearably cold, but it’s not comfortable. The chain to your cuffs is much longer than you expected. You think it’s long enough for you to walk all the way around the room, unimpeded. If so, it’s long enough to get out the door, with a little extra slack. It’s locked to a loop bolted into the floor with a key lock.

You walk around to the table to get a good look at everything. There’s the water. The brown packages are four MREs, which you recognize from camping trips back when you were a teenager. There’s actually a few different fruits - grapes, apples, bananas, a bowl of chopped watermelon of all things. All of that is gathered on one side of the table. The side close to the empty chair has a manila folder. A glance inside shows printouts, three pages of text and forms, with some of the information redacted.

You let the folder fall closed and walk over to the chest. There’s two combination locks, each with four dials, one with numbers and the other with letters.

That’s two wrist cuffs, the lock for the chain, and two locks on the chest. If the cuffs share a key, this might be doable. If not… “Two or three keys, and two combinations?” you ask.

“Two keys, two combinations,” Simon confirms.

You do a quick calculation in your head. “A little more than 20 minutes per puzzle. That’s pretty tight, but doable. What happens if I don’t get it done in time?”

You turn to look at Simon and catch him looking at your legs. When he meets your eyes, his are smirking again. “You lose time in the second part of the game. And you’re going to want that time.”

With a sigh and a shake of your head, you walk to the wall across from the table. There are some cracks in the paint, a couple of scattered, discolored spots. But it doesn’t seem deliberate. So you leave it and head back to the table. The folder is tempting, but obvious, so you start with the fruit.

Bag of grapes, three apples, five bananas. You open the package of watermelon and poke around in it. No keys. Not in the bag of grapes, either. The apples and bananas are whole. But one of the bananas has a series of numbers followed by Xs written on it in black ink. 11 21 32 XX. You pry it from the others, carefully, and take it over to the folder.

The metal chair is cold when you use your hand to pull it out. You turn back to the bed and grab the thin blanket to cover it, then have an idea. You shake the pillow from the pillowcase and strip the sheets from the bed. No key, but the pillow has another set of digits and Xs written on it. 7 13 26 XX. You lift the mattress to look under it, but there’s nothing else, so you let it fall.

“Can I have a pen?” you ask, absently. You’re surprised when Simon plucks one from his vest and holds it out for you. You snort as you walk over to take it. “Can I have the key to the cuffs, while you’re at it?”

Simon’s eyes do something complicated as you take the pen. Then he tilts his head, reaches up, and pulls a thin chain from under his shirt. On it dangle two keys, one a tiny cylinder of a thing, the other a proper key. He lets them both drop against his collarbones.

You dart your eyes between the keys and his eyes. “Are you serious?”

“’D prefer if you opened the folder,” he says with a shrug. “But I do have the keys. Cost you… 15 minutes for one.”

“Did you just make that number up?” You laugh. Then it hits you and you glare. “You’re distracting me and stalling.”

“You asked,” he points out, chuckling as you whirl on your heel to go back to the folder.

That is neither disputable or worth responding to, so you don’t. You drop into your seat and open the folder. The first thing you do is jot down the numbers and where you found them on the inside. None of the numbers are repeated, so you leave them for now. Then you pick up the first sheet of paper.

It’s the service record for one Simon J. Riley.

A lot of the information is redacted. Most of the page is blacked out lines. But you see that he enlisted in 2001, had some kind of redacted gap from 2003 to 2004, then resumed his service. Then it jumps out at you. 2007, KIA. You can’t help but look up at him, and find him watching you already. You scour the page for any other information, but there’s nothing. So you flip the page.

This one is some kind of tactical… memorandum? Too much is redacted for you to be able to get much information about who the report is for, so you just start reading.

Mission to Mexico. Drug cartel, name redacted. Compromised leadership. Someone got double crossed. You start feeling sick at the description of torture, but most of the details are obscured, so you push through. Then a line makes you pause, and you have to re-read it. You flip back and forth between Simon’s service record and the report.

“Simon,” you say slowly. Your stomach is really twisted in knots, now. You’re afraid to look at him, but you make yourself meet his eyes. “Were you buried alive?”

He says, “Yes.” Your heart breaks.

The next few lines are blacked out. You really don’t want to ask, but, “How did you get out?”

“Blood, sweat, and tears,” he says, vaguely. “Probably not something you want to think about, sweet thing. Don’t want to waste time.”

“I need to pause the game,” you tell him. “because I just read that you were buried alive.”

“An explanation will cost you an hour,” Simon offers. His eyes are crinkled like he’s smiling.

“Simon.” Your voice is sharp to your own ears. “What the fuck?”

“Tick tock.”

You know from past experience that getting any more information from him will be like getting blood from a stone. So you make yourself read on. There’s a confusing bit about… brainwashing? Without the full context the report is a mess. Multiple civilian casualties, then… mission objective complete? Lots of blocked out text, surrounding a single word. ROBA.

You jot that on the lower half of the folder, then skim through the documents again for any numbers. Besides the years in the service record, there’s nothing that jumps out. So you jot down 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2007.

You decide this is a good enough place to start with the puzzles. The numbers on the pillow seem simple enough. You’re not good at math, but you’re good at patterns. You eliminate a few possible addition patterns, recognize it probably isn’t pure multiplication. Considering who Simon is, you gamble that there’s probably no fractions or decimals involved, so it’s probably going to be some combination of multiplication and subtraction. And as soon as you think of that, you see it. Times two, minus one. So the last number is 49.

The the second puzzle, from the banana, tickles your brain because you know you’ve seen it before. The numbers aren’t doubling. And it’s not simple addition. Adding in sequence seems to work. Adding 10 to 11 makes 21, then adding 11 works to get to 32. Plus 12 would make the next digits 44. That seems almost too easy, but these kinds of puzzles usually are. And it is a possible answer, so you write it down.

The only other potential numbers are the dates. If you pick the last four digits, that’s 1347. Another code. Unless it’s 2222. Or 0000. Or 2020...

Now you have a few potential 4 digit codes, and a possible 4 letter code.

“Time check?”

Simon looks at his watch. “Sixty-two minutes left.”

You hum an acknowledgment, and flip the pages in the folder, and the folder itself. There’s nothing else, so you leave the papers on the table and take your notes over to the crate.

Simon makes an interested noise through his nose. “That was fast.”

“Haven’t found the keys, yet,” you answer, “Gotta get a move on.”

You start with the letters, because it seems straightforward. And then you’re a bit stumped, because the lock doesn’t have a B available in the third slot. Or an A in the first. So you’ll have to find a cypher or something before you can tackle this one. Disappointing, but you still have time. You move over to the other lock and hope you have what you need. 4944 doesn’t work. Neither does 4449, 9444, or 4494. 2222, 0000, and 1347 are all a bust. You make your way through 1374, 1437, 1473, 1734, and 1743 before you give up.

“Fuck,” you grumble.

Crouched as you are, you have a new vantage point to consider. You scuttle your way under the table without putting your knees on the ground, and look at the underside. Sure enough, there’s a doodle of two bananas with a pillow in between. The dates were most likely a red herring. Or they’re the cypher to the letters.

“I got the numbers wrong,” you grumble.

“You’re a smart girl,” Simon says. “You can figure it out. Fifty-seven minutes.”

You scoot from under the table and make to stand up, but something on your leg catches your eye. Dropping onto the now bare mattress, you lift the edge of your shirt, Simon’s shirt, and see writing on your inner thigh, upside down so you can see it easily. Four digits, 01 10, and another fucking banana.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you groan.

Simon snickers from his chair.

You grab your folder and pen and jot the new string of numbers down. 01 10 11 21 32 XX. Obviously, adding in sequence no longer works. It’s gotta have something to do with the number of 1s in the sequence, so you try to let go of math related assumptions. The first two numbers swap their digits. Then two ones. Then a two and a one. Then a three and a two. Zero plus one is one. One plus zero is one. One plus one is two. Two plus one is three. Three plus two is… five as the first digit? Sliding the tens to the ones place is one, zero, one, two… three. 53.

Banana pillow banana, then, is 5493.

Before you go to check, you stand up to lift your shirt up to look at your belly, then higher to look at the skin of your breasts. You ignore the low wolf-whistle Simon makes to do a quick inspection. Nothing jumps out, so you let the shirt drop a bit and pull your underwear away from your hips. You feel a bit silly staring at your own crotch, but it’s Simon so you figure nothing’s really off limits. And you’re rewarded with the discovery of a piece of tape with a doodle of a heart on it. The tape is garment quality, which explains why you didn’t feel it.

The heart doesn’t really give you much, but you pull it out and slap it on the folder anyways.

“Forty-nine minutes,” Simon says when you look up at him.

Back at the chest, you click the dials to the number sequence you identified and grin to yourself when the lock gives an easy snick as it opens. The other lock is still a mystery, but you’ve got one down, and still plenty of time to request the cuff key if needed.

You turn to look up at Simon from where you’re crouched. “How much does a hint cost?”

He pretends to think for a moment. “For that lock? Flash me your tits again.”

“Nasty,” you roll your eyes as you stand up. You lift the shirt up to your neck and are startled when he sits forward to rest his hands on your hips. The skull mask gets even closer, and then he’s kissing over your heart, eyes locked on yours. He leaves his lips against you through his balaclava, thumbs rubbing over the place where your hips meet your belly.

You stare down at that bone face from less than two inches away. You used to hope it was plastic. Now you know for a fact that it is not.

And then he lets you go and sits back, crossing his arms over his large chest. He looks at his watch.

“Forty-six minutes.”

You gape at him. “Where’s my clue?”

“That was your clue.”

“That’s the least helpful clue ever,” you complain.

“You found all the other ones,” Simon points out. “But I’ll tell you the solution if you let me fuck you.”

You scoff. “I don’t need you to tell me. I can figure it out.”

“I know,” Simon’s grin is easier to make out this close. “My clever girl.”

You grumble, but you can’t help but grin as you try to think of what the four letter sequence could be. On a whim, you try TITS. The letters are present, but that’s apparently not the combo. Heart has too many letters, but maybe has something to do with feelings. The lock doesn’t have the right letters for LOVE, forward or backward. Same with HATE. You try SRSK for Simon Riley the Serial Killer, but that’s not it. You’re on a date, so you try combining his initials with yours where it fits, but that’s not it either. In a fit of pique, you try TITS again.

Then you take a deep breath and think about Simon and you. Your relationship. DATE, KILL, and CARE are a bust. AMOR, EROS, HOLD, BOND. None of them work.

You’re getting antsy because you still need at least the key for your handcuffs and you're running out of time, but you make yourself take a deep, slow breath. SLOW and DEEP don’t work. And then you pause and look up at Simon’s face. At the skull.

BONE.

Nope. But it was worth a shot.

But thinking about skulls and bones makes you think of skeletons. Dead bodies. Cemeteries. Simon’s service record, breaking your heart.

BURY.

The lock clicks open.

You’re giddy as you swing the lid of the chest open. And, almost immediately, you scramble backwards, shoulders colliding painfully with Simon’s knees. Without thinking, you clamber up until you’re perched in his lap, staring in horror at the human skull grinning up at you from atop black cloth.

A piece of tape is on the right temple. In Simon’s scrawl, it simply says BRANDON.

[eatmangoesnekkid]

FLOW, CIRCULATION, AND THE LOVER

A Venusian Temple Arts Channeling Most problems related to the female (or male) body are due to a lack of circulation in that area where the ailment is occurring. Also, a lack of circulation will negatively impact your bag and coins. Said differently: in this system, unless you were born into "old money," you must own that the condition of your body is directly related to your quality of life. Circulation is related to your heart, blood, sensuality, sex, passion, deep feeling, creativity, and overall life force energy. And there is no coincidence that there is a large amount of shame and mysticism around the female body and its resourceful capacity for epic circulation i.e. creation and regeneration--not only for ourselves but for the cells of our loved ones and for the collective cells of our village/community. How beautiful, right?! This is what I was channeling in my first book when I wrote "A sensually activated woman is a wealthy natural resource for any community. Pleasure is power." If you are desiring to strengthen your skills as a lover Goddess which is your flow state capacity to create.... anything including tactile abundance like money and better health, without exhausting yourself, the circulatory system has to become your favorite system of the body. It has to be your friend, your loved one. Because the prime quality of a lover is that she knows how to inspire and stimulate circulation or flow states in others as well--a type of muse consciousness. It could be with her compassion, heart, use of language, use of hands, breasts projections, face/mouth/quality of conversation, dance, beauty, singing, etc. Artists, men, women, children, and animals are attracted to muse consciousness in different ways. Improving your circulation helps to not only open your heart (releasing current and ancestral heartache/heartbreak) , but also increases your lubrication and libido, repairs your skin into a suppleness, and keeps your systems healthier. You will not only look better, but you will feel better in a more authentic way. When you smile, it will be truthful and emanate from deep within. Keep your feet and belly warm during winter month. Once your circulation improves, the blockages start to move and issues start to repair. It is the heat and warmth from your energy FLOWING that creates new body narratives. A lover knows the beauty of stimulating good circulation in self and in another. Anytime there is pain or stagnancy in the body, it is an indication of lack of FLOW--meaning--a need for lover energy! A lover has to strengthen her connection to her hands as well. Hand-heart connection is all lover energy. Also the constant necessity of self-massage and self-touch is important for the body of a lover. Also, the skill and service of having your well-placed, prayed-over loving hands massaging the pain points or blockages of another is just as important. A lover also has to be able to relax and fully receive touch by another, whether a professional massage therapist or your lover. Other considerations: Drink water with a pinch of celtic sea salt/green juice. Keep ginger oil or powdered ginger in your apothecary. Use ginger paste (ginger powder/oil mixed with warm water) rubbed into pain or troubled sight or energetic stagnation including bald spots plus reducing sugar intake including *too much* fruit sugar and starchy carbs and dense meats -which slows down your blood flow while increasing some combination of movement, deep breathing, hot+cold water therapy, sauna/spa, sunbathing, walking, and the like are acts incorporated in a life of a lover and those who we care for. Train your mind to focus and stay calm--to be able to drop into deep presence and feel. Do to one thing at time like wash dishes without stopping to do anything else. Presence, an unscattered mind, is a high-skill and quality of a lover. Recalibrating the mindset and belief systems you've been holding onto for 20 years into more lighthearted, open-hearted frequencies are critical.

*I used "she/her" but lover energy is available to any gender in any shape or texture. *

-India Ame'ye, Author

[sgiandubh]

Out of the OL bubble

Sidenote: this post owes everything to the incredible sleuthing skills of an already longtime trusted friend, who wishes to remain discreet. All credit goes entirely to her - this is such an idiotic topic, yet the Ur Troll insists.

I answered one of you in the comment threads yesterday, that once you get the hell out of the OL bubble, things begin to make sense. Why? Well, because of distance and context, I suppose. And also because this always was the dirty little secret of our Dedicated Manipulative Trolls: to make you believe in a terribly poor narrative, fit for a linear world. A world without compromise, drama, secrets and lies. Collective lack of time, perspective and/or Internet research skills did the rest and gave birth to this monster: the OL Fandom.

We are now told and are supposed to believe that because Scottish Xena apparently chose on purpose (with this and only this, I could agree, but for opposite reasons) to show us she trains in a Cumbernauld gym, that means... well, you know the rest and it involves The Magic Golden Dirk. That troll was never exactly subtle, was she, bless her heart?

That mother and entrepreneur has a life of her own and an entourage of her own and business collaborations of her own and her own agenda. Some of it is shown on her Instagram account, most of it can be speculated. Connecting dots just for the sake of it is neither productive, nor remotely interesting.

Let's see, for example, how she reacts to a very insistent fellow German athlete, whom she is going to meet at the Hyrox Cologne event (13-14th of April, during the Landcon week-end):

😬😱

What is Flamingos Club? Nope, not an ikebana society, no:

Tee-hee.

They were there before, in good company, last year, when they actually first met (rings a bell?):

(April 2023, ok? I am still waiting for my own DeLorean)

Who is this guy?

Fellow athlete, HYROX Ambassador (something I bet the farm she wants to achieve) and a contestant in this year's German reality show First Dates Hotel, on VOX (https://www.vox.de/cms/sendungen/first-dates-hotel.html):

The concept is simple: a renowned German chef, Roland Trettl (no idea!) now takes his blind date cooking show to the next level, with singles from all over the country parked into a Spanish dream holiday resort (Mallorca), shake, stir and see whatever happens. The classical Endemol recipe, now produced by Twenty Twenty. It also has an UK version, running on Channel 4 (coincidence? I doubt that very much, thank you!).

On set, Max's 'love interest' is a certain Linda. He recently wrote her ' a sweet love letter', taking the good advice of his namesake cast friend Max-the-Bartender:

(I swear to God, I feel like I am prostituting my 🧠, right now).

There is obviously nothing to see, here (or is it, such as two wannabes desperately wanting limelight?). She leads the typical no strings attached life of a single mom and he is still looking for a real job:

Since VOX does not give his full name, neither will I. It took five minutes to find him, with a bit of luck.

Why on Earth would one connect that woman to S, rather than to this nice, ambitious Bavarian?

I know why. It's almost too damn easy.

Two words: Channel 4. Truman Show. Ginger and Fred (oops, these are Our Couple).

Is it anything we haven't seen before?

Nope. We've seen way worse. But gone are the Days of Flukenzie Floozy.

[Edited] - there is no need to further expose our people.

[jreads]

A Total Coincidence (Part 01)

Rating: totally family friendly 👍🏼

Word Count: 3.4K

Warnings: Foul language, Mentions of blood, It's pretty angsty

A/N: OHHHHH we're so back. If you're new here, welcome. If not, welcome back! I am extremely excited for this. Comments and reblogs are very much appreciated. You can comment on this post or the masterlist to be added to the taglist!

You work a tiring and thankless corporate job. It pays well but it’s draining. You put a façade on in the office, one of polite, unruffled professionalism, but it slips quite quickly as soon as you push your way through the polished revolving glass doors of the modern high-rise.

He knows all of this because he watches you.

It’s not creepy, he attempts to convince himself, because he goes to that coffee shop too. The cozy, dim-lit one that overlooks your place of work. Granted, he used to only go once every blue moon. He’s there far more often now, in a darkened back booth, at the same time in the day. 

A total coincidence.

Simon Riley never used to spend a lot of time in London. He has a permanent address there, under a fake name, just to smooth over certain legalities. He never bothered too much with the details. In between assignments he comes back to ensure everything is as it should be, and to water the small cactus on the windowsill, a joking gift from MacTavish following their op in Las Almas. It’s one of those low-maintenance ones; you should soak the soil once every two months just to ensure it doesn’t turn a duller shade of green. Simon is half certain he could feed the thing gasoline and it would still flourish. But he liked his routine. It was touch and go, busy, never too much time in one place. The injury threw a damn wrench in it all.

The team had been deployed somewhere in the South American jungle, attempting to uncover part of an elusive arms trafficking operation. While the job had been successful, Ghost had been rewarded with one in the gut. Hemorrhage, internal bleeding, the works. They had patched him up real well, but the Captain had insisted he take some time, at least until after Christmas. He hadn’t wanted to. There’s nothing to do. It gets all too quiet when he is left to his own devices. He gets restless. But in this café, under warm string lights and surrounded by chatter, it isn’t as lonely. Especially for the ten minutes just after 17:00 hours when you come in to place your order.

He isn’t entirely sure what had drawn him to you in the first place. I could have been any number of things. The light gait of your walk, the way you struggle with the heavy door, your sweet voice, or the way you treat the serving staff. They all like you. Especially the ginger kid with the glasses… he likes you a bit too much. It could have been the way you shrug off your blazer in the late summer heat, folding it into the crook of your elbow and rolling your neck. It could have been the way you usually fumble to hold everything in one hand, always one cup, one paper bag, along with your purse, jacket, blue light glasses. Peppermint tea, he had found out when he had walked too closely past you one day. You were delicately trying to pry the lid from your cup to let the drink cool and—even through the mask—he had smelled the fresh aroma of it. He lists all the possible causes of his interest as if there is some hidden, puzzling meaning behind them. Realistically, it’s probably just because he finds you real fucking pretty.

Whatever the reason, he has formed some strange one-sided connection with you. You haven’t noticed him, maybe you never will, because he sits in the darkest corner of the shop, hood pulled over his head and medical mask in place whenever he isn’t eating or drinking. He’s been reading a lot recently, James Patterson, John le Carré, but George R. R. Martin is his current. It’s a welcome change of pace. And a good excuse to spend the bulk of the afternoon here, nursing a black coffee and croissant BLT. 

It's still summer and in central London, it’s sweltering. The café has their AC blasting, but as the sun dips low between the buildings it reflects off city glass and into the tiny shop, heating it like a microwave. The warmth feels oppressive today, even with his change to an iced coffee. The hoodie doesn’t help. That’s one of the only downsides of being here; he can’t shuck the damn hoodie. The tattoos would draw enough eyes, but the scars would make people stare. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s people not minding their bloody business.

The ginger kid, Harvey, as his name tag says, sets an oscillating fan atop the espresso machine. Fat lot of good it’ll do on a day like this. As if in spite of his inner dialogue, its artificial breeze flutters Simon’s bookmark right off the table and to the wood-panelled floor. Reflexes faster than his memory, he bends down to grab it and bites his tongue to fight back what would have been a rather nasty string of curses. 

“You’ll have to watch it for a bit. No folding forward or back, or to the sides.”

“So I can’t even fucking move now, hey?”

“Just be careful. The stiches should hold, but I don’t want you testing it, alright?”

Well now he had just gone and bloody tested it. Fucking hell. He had copious bandages overtop, but he needed to make sure nothing had pulled. If it had, he’d be sitting in a pool of his own blood by dinnertime. Masking another grunt of pain and fighting off his dizziness, he heads for the bathroom. No one will bother the shit on his table, the employees are usually pretty good about that. 

The fluorescents flicker on automatically as the door shuts. He lifts his hoodie up and inspects the damage. Nothing is showing through, thank fuck. But he bets when he changes the wrappings later tonight, the gauze underneath will probably hold evidence of his stupid mistake. 

He hates it, the wound. And hates himself for it. It’s a reminder that he’s not invincible… that he’s anything but. That despite the skull mask and the layers of armour and the assault rifle slung over his shoulder, he’s only human. Weak. He’s had injuries before, stabs and slashes and broken bones. But none quite so severe as one well-placed gunshot wound. Usually he bounces back pretty fast, but this time…

Simon hates the paleness of the face in the mirror. He thinks, just for a moment, of throwing his fist into the glass, just to rid himself of the reflection. Opting instead for a frustrated sigh, he rearranges the sweatshirt once more before throwing the door open and rounding the corner, stopping just inches from where you lean against the wall, waiting on the barista.

Fuck, he hadn’t even noticed the time. Your back is to him and you’re on your phone, texting away. He snoops, just a little. He’ll reprimand himself for it later. It’s your mother. She’s asking if you’ve eaten and sending pictures of a mischievous looking grey cat. He watches your shoulders shake in a light laugh. There’s a lock of hair obscuring the pulse in your neck and he wants to brush it away.

Enough, you bloody creep.

“Pardon,” he mumbles, pushing past you.

“Sorry.” You press yourself close to the wall as he moves, barely looking up from the screen. He can smell your fragrance. You’re so small compared to him; he can’t stop himself from picturing what his hand would look like splayed possessively over the small of your back.

Fucking hell, he needs to stop.

You’re oblivious to his thought process, engrossed still in the conversation with your mum. Only when the employee says your name do you look up, smiling even wider and profusely thanking as you reach for your cup. He likes your name, he thinks. It suits you. What would it sound like on his tongue if he said it aloud?

He’s going bloody soft. Simon theorizes that Johnny is largely to blame. He had been introverted before that op, preferring to work alone, avoiding interaction with others unless completely necessary. Since then, he found himself missing the raucous laughter of the task force, the cracking of army humor jokes. He couldn’t find it in himself to care much, though. After all, it’s not like it was making him any worse at his job.

His reputation had preceded him in the jungle. Once the cartel had caught wind of 141 touching down, they were talking about him, fear lacing their voices. El Crânio, they called him. The Skull. The kill count had been fucking brutal.

It feels strange to be thinking about that in a place like this. It’s like two different lives that don’t ever intersect. Three even, if he counts his real identity. Ghost, Simon, and William. Will is the name he gives to the barista here, the one on the bills that come to the flat, the one attached to the SIM in his phone, the one on the fake driver’s licence and motorbike certificate in his wallet. He hates it, but he wasn’t the one who got to choose it.

He watches the way you play a coin from your change between your fingers, spinning it over the back of your thumb before catching it. You tend to fiddle with things while you wait: debit card, pens, hair pins, like your hands are aching for something to do. He can empathize. He’s started biting his nails again.

The employees have worked fast today, and you have your tea and biscuit in hand in record time. It almost seems unfair. Five minutes he gets with you, watching at a distance. At least he knows he’ll see you again tomorrow.

And he does. Again and again and again. Over a few weeks, the hole in his gut starts to heal, but it’s replaced with a new one. Something more insistent and far less easy to treat.

One day, you’re late. He starts to ruminate without meaning to but naturally, his mind goes down darker routes. He shakes the unwanted thoughts off, trying not to dwell on just how much they unnerve him. But you show up eventually, smile still plastered on. He wonders if it’s real. 

“They’re extending my day,” you’re telling the server. “Not by much, just one or two hours.” Something about an expedited move from digital to hardcopy files. “At least it’s overtime pay.” 

He doesn’t like it. The days are getting shorter; it’s getting darker earlier. He doesn’t like the idea of you walking home alone in the shadows of the London streets. Crime is on the rise; there’s all sorts lingering around the city at night. But then again, it shouldn’t bother him. It’s not his commute; you’re not his.

He sticks around most days though, just to make sure you get out alright. 

Today is different. It’s different because it’s 19:00 hours and you have dark circles under your eyes and you’re staring at nothing in particular and when the barista hands you your drink you say thank you, but you don’t smile. You always smile. And he’s trying to tell himself that it’s none of his business, that it’s not his problem but it is. Suddenly, it’s his biggest problem.

He holds the door open for you as you leave because it’s all he can do. You thank him, quietly, but don’t even look up from the floor. He won’t follow you; that’s crossing a line, a breach of privacy. So, he turns towards his own flat, looking back only once to see you disappear behind a street corner.

He sees your haggard face in his dream that night.

The next few days are more of the same. Even the coffee shop employees are starting to talk about it. How you look tired, shaky. Harvey talks about asking for your number as a way to cheer you up. The baristas all shut him down pretty quickly.

Weeks pass. He’s almost done the Game of Thrones series. But you’re only getting worse.

It’s October now, and the autumn chill is starting to set in. You wear a black trench over your office clothes, tugging it closed to fight the cold of the wind. Your eyes look bloodshot, hollow, like it’s been weeks since you’ve slept. He knows the look intimately; he sees it enough in the mirror. Ginge has asked for your number anyway, and you’ve politely declined. Ever the diplomat. He feels bad for smiling at the dismayed look on the boy’s face. Luckily, it hides behind his mask.

It rains the next day. Torrentially. It’s the kind that can dampen a thick cotton sweater within seconds, so he begrudgingly takes an umbrella with him. The shop is warm and ambient, a world within a world. The coffee tastes better on a day like today, warm, bitter, and reviving. He loses himself in his book, looking up only to realize that it’s passed your time. He thinks for a moment that he might have missed you, but that’s impossible. He could have blindfolds on and still feel your presence. 

You haven’t shown up. There’s a twist of something akin to anguish in his chest and he tells himself to calm down. Maybe they kept you late; you’ll show up eventually.

Except you don’t. 

Soon, the workers are wiping down tables and raising chairs. He has no choice but to abandon his station and venture back out into the cold. Something is off. It might seem silly, but he’s learned never to discount his hunches. So, he sets up camp in the courtyard, umbrella obscuring what little is visible of his face, and he waits. And waits. And waits. 

It’s nearing 22:00 hours when you finally exit the elevators and break for the revolving doors. He knows something is wrong immediately, your feet are moving too fast and you’re casting glances over your shoulder as if you’re being followed. As soon as you exit the building you’re running, as fast as your heeled pumps can allow.

“Fucking hell.” He’s up within seconds, umbrella closed and leaving him open to the onslaught of rain. He jogs to try and keep up, a safe distance behind but you’re too fast. By the time he rounds the corner, he’s lost you.

He’s checking each cross street, turning back on himself. The patter of raindrops is almost deafening, the cabs sending sprays of sludge up from the gutters as they race down the laneway. But through it all—as he’s been trained to—he hears sounds of a struggle. A scream, half muffled. It’s yours. He knows it immediately. Simon follows it as if he’s tracking you. One block north, one west. A half. Retracing his steps. There’s no sounds past the slick splash of car tires on wet asphalt. An alley lies to his left, no streetlights. He’s about to venture down it when you come hurtling around the corner, straight into his chest. Your coat is ripped, hair soaking, and he swears there’s blood on your clothes. Your tired eyes are panicked and laced with fear, looking at him with desperation. He doesn’t have time to be shocked. Because from behind you comes a hooded man, tall build, muscular, though not nearly as big as him. Taking hold of your forearm, he draws you behind him. The man pauses.

“Can I help you?” Simon asks. His voice is anything but friendly. The man seems to size him up and decide the fight is unwise, turning on his heel and walking briskly back the way he came. Good. He’d go after the guy, but he sure as shit isn’t leaving you alone in the middle of the street.

You ‘re clinging to the sleeve of his hoodie and shaking like a leaf. He has slid into that lethal calm familiar to field work, assessing the location, noting information, protecting. Once the man is out of sight, he’s got your face in his hands and your skin is so soft but so cold.

“You alright?” he asks, already fully aware of the answer. You can’t even speak, barely looking at him, just back down the alley as if your pursuer might remerge. Shock, he thinks. What was he supposed to do with a civvy in shock? Get them to a safe place, speak calmly and stably, check for injury. 

“Right, come on.” He pulls you lightly by the arm and you follow without much resistance, probably too weak to refuse. Like hell he’s letting you go anywhere by yourself right now. It’s almost unsettling how small your wrist feels in his hand, fragile, too easily breakable. 

His flat is warm, but you’re still shivering. Simon had deposited you on the couch after helping you shrug out of your destroyed jacket. A blanket sits around your shoulders now, and the kettle is boiling. He’s retrieved his somewhat depleted med kit from the bathroom, kneeling on the floor in front of you. Distantly, he curses himself for not replenishing bandages from the drugstore. There’s a nasty cut on your upper arm, open and bleeding, a knife slash. Anger isn’t something he can afford to feel right now.

“Let’s have a look,” he says, more to himself then anything. You haven’t said a word to him. But when he dabs at the wound with clean gauze, you grasp at his forearm, inhaling sharply. 

“I know. I gotta clean and stitch it though, alright?” He’s never been great at patch ups, but he has been trained. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but you can’t keep bleeding either. Fucking hell, he wishes he had gentler hands. Or something stronger than ibuprofen. 

“You drink?” he offers. You nod. Good enough. He brings you back a glass of whiskey. You down it, wincing at the strength, offering the empty glass back to him. He takes it, placing it on the low table before assessing you again. 

Clean. Disinfect. Needle, thread, vertical mattress stich. Under up, under down and tie off. This would be a breeze for the field medic. But his fingers are thick and much less nimble. You keep clutching at his arm through the sleeve, squeezing to stave off some of the pain. His eyes flicker up occasionally to check your face, but your own are tightly shut. He can tell you’re gritting your teeth, but you barely make a sound. Impressive, though it’s probably partially due to adrenaline. He ties off the final stitch. “Done.”

When you open your eyes there’s relief in them. And a loosening of tense muscles that is worrisome because it’s happening too fast. Your upper body is swaying, and your features are going unfocused, and he knows what happens next. 

He manages to cradle your head just before it hits the arm of the sofa.

Bloody fucking hell.

You wake up in a bed that isn’t yours. 

It’s plain. In fact, the whole room is. Grey-brown drywall and exposed brick. White sheets, white bedspread. The only real piece of décor is a bookshelf, spanning a considerable length of the wall, practically exploding with titles. What the hell? 

You rise onto your elbows only to gasp in pain. 

It’s a nasty looking cut, red and swollen around the edges but tied together with neat stitches. The sight of it opens a floodgate of memories, one after the other, ending with the man who saved you, shrouded in darkness.

Shit. This wasn’t good. None of this was good. You need your phone, but all of your belongings had been in your handbag, lost in that alley. You swing your legs over the edge of the bed, onto cool tile. Tiptoe out the doorway, taking in pieces of the quiet apartment as you go. Industrial design, morning light, a view of the city, a tiny cactus on the sill.

“You’re awake.” The Manchester accent is heavy and laced with concern. You spin on the source only to stop dead. 

His brown hair is so light it might as well be blonde, eyes dark with the shadow of lowered brows, skin peppered with pale pink scars. Prominent ones over his left eyebrow and bottom lip. The hint of a tattoo peeking out the collar of his t-shirt. Though eerily beautiful, his face is one that might send people running. But you find you aren’t afraid of him, not in the slightest.

“You wanna tell me what happened back there?”

If you liked it, please let me know! 🩶

[plugnuts]

Okay, I know next to nothing about FNF (except that the little blue-haired dude is bisexual and used to be in a relationship with the little orange-haired dude, but is now in a relationship with the brunette girl) (and that's all very cute). So what exactly is the story with this Yourself character? Also, is he the same as Silly Billy?

OKAY so there's a lot to unpack with this question here-- first I'll give a little background on FNF itself:

The blue haired dude is named Boyfriend, and the brunette girl is called Girlfriend, the ginger guy is called Pico (but he's not important to this question). GF and BF are obviously together, hence their names (even though in their view it's merely coincidence).

Now, as you know, BF is in a relationship with GF, right? In their own universe, yes, but Yourself (AKA Silly Billy as he's so commonly nicknamed (due to the name of the song he appears in)) is an alternate universe version of BF. Yourself is from a universe where his GF (AKA Herself) died in a tragic accident of some kind (of which we don't know) and is left in tatters, quite literally. He is shown to be a tall, lanky version of BF who appears to have lost himself when Herself died, no longer taking care of himself.

BF is normally shown as short, and this is to show off his innocence, to make him appear cute and nice. Yourself has lost that innocence, appearing at his full height, his true height. He shows that he can still be seen as innocent in the middle of the song he sings with BF as he shortens down, but that doesn't last too long as he soon grows back to his full height with a nasty laugh.

In the song Yourself sings with BF there's a cutscene near the end of the song that includes a lyrical portion, and as Yourself sings you can see Herself for a split second as he sings the line "So stay awake just long enough to see my way". He's singing with her as she appears, and you can even hear her voice in the song- and this is because her spirit resides in Yourself's mic, you can even see it glow in the beggining cutscene of the song. These lyrics are also a nod to the original mod's creator that had first created Yourself, Divide, who sadly died in his sleep due to cancer.

Yourself sings to BF with such passion, such pain, it's almost like he's warning BF to cherish GF and not lose her like he did Herself. Here's all the lyrics in the song:

I'll make you say How proud you are Of me So stay awake Just long enough Too see My way

My way

Yes, these are a nod to Divide, but I also like to view them as a nod to Herself as well. Like Yourself wishes for her to be proud of him even if she's no longer with him, to stay awake just long enough to see how far he's come, and how far he's fallen.

Also, in the frame where you can see Herself behind Yourself you can also see that Yourself has tattered angel wings, possibly to infer that he's practically dead, or some type of fallen angel - possibly as a metaphor for how broken he is without GF.

Now, a good chunk of this is simply speculation as there isn't too much info on Yourself or his story. Though, I do hope we get more on him someday.

I hope this clears some things up!

[loominggaia]

CONGREGATION OF MIDDAY, FAITH IN THE SUN

OVERVIEW

The Congregation of Midday is a religion that originated from the dark underground labyrinths of Lamai Nation. It was founded by humans who grew sickly from the lack of sunlight, so they began performing sun-worshiping rituals to heal themselves. Over time, these rituals expanded into a whole lifestyle and religious ideology.

Followers of this religion are called Middayists. The religion itself is sometimes called Middayism. Its symbol represents Luzkuro’s darkness on one side and Solahi’s light on the other.

While this religion began in southern Wokina, its followers have brought it to other regions over time. Middayist ideology is a hard sell in sunny regions, but has caught on in cold, dark regions such as the Shrieking Mountains and Waterwalk. Today, most Middayists can be found in Wokina and northern Noalen, but small populations exist on other continents as well. Followers are quite diverse in species, but it’s rare to see Middayist trolls, gorgons, cecaelia, or dworfs. It’s no coincidence that these species are sensitive to sunlight, and this religion requires rituals that are difficult for them to perform.

MIDDAYIST BELIEFS

-The sun is a goddess called Solahi. This goddess gave life to all things upon Gaia and beyond, and continues to foster life. She can be equally benevolent and wrathful.

-Darkness is a malevolent god called Luzkuro. He slowly drains life from everything he touches. He is an unholy harbinger of sickness and death.

-Gaia is not a sentient being. It is only a dead rock, but Solahi has allowed life to grow upon it.

-Sunlight is holy. Heat is nurturing. Fire is purifying. Darkness is an unholy substance that must be cleansed with light each day.

-Pyriads are holy daughters of Solahi, worthy of reverence and tribute. To harm a pyriad is a sin.

-Fungus is the “Mark of Luzkuro”, a signal that his unholy energy has infested an area. It must be cleansed from living spaces and should not be consumed for food until it has been purified by light and flame.

-The dead should be burned so that Luzkuro cannot claim them. The souls of the cremated will ascend to the Realm of Light, while the souls of those left to decay will sink into the Realm of Darkness.

-Sunlight is a gift from Solahi, which she offers out of love. Those who become greedy and take too much from her will be punished with sunburns. Those with sunburns are forbidden from receiving her gift again until the burn fades.

-Fish, egg yolks, and mushrooms (purified only) are sacred foods blessed by Solahi and should be consumed daily for good health. Garlic, coconut oil, oregano, ginger, cinnamon, citrus, onion, and chili peppers are also considered healthy by Middayist doctrine. Conversely, cheese, yogurt, beer, wine, and most fermented foods should be avoided because they are tainted by Luzkuro, and cannot be purified by Solahi’s holy flame.

-Cleanliness and holiness are one and the same. Keeping a clean person and environment is of utmost importance. Filthiness is a sin. Followers should wash themselves each day to please Solahi and keep Luzkuro away.

-Sleeping on the floor is an invitation for Luzkuro’s influence. Followers should sleep in cots, hammocks, or otherwise be elevated at least a hand’s length off the ground.

-Followers should show respect to their bodies by avoiding toxic substances such as alcohol and recreational drugs. Tattoos, piercings, and cosmetic surgeries are forbidden, as they offer unnecessary opportunities for infection.

MIDDAYIST RITUALS AND HOLIDAYS

MIDDAY WORSHIP: Followers congregate for an hour each day around noon to worship Solahi. They begin by stripping naked and going outside, so that the sunlight may directly touch their skin. They perform specific poses while they chant, ensuring that every inch of their skin is blessed by Solahi’s holy light. This segment of the ritual may last anywhere from 10-30 minutes, depending on how much sunlight is available that day.

Afterwards, followers put their clothes back on and begin the Feasting Ceremony, where they eat mushrooms, egg yolks, and fish. They believe that mushrooms are an unholy product of Luzkuro, but offer health benefits after being purified by Solahi. Middayists purify the mushrooms by cooking them over an open flame while they pray.

The most devout followers never miss a Midday Worship at their local church, but casual Middayists commonly attend just 2 or 3 of them a week, or simply perform the ritual at home. 

This ritual may be performed differently depending on the region. Followers in cold regions, for example, usually do not remove all of their clothes for sun worship; instead exposing their faces only. Vegetarian followers exclude fish from their feasting ritual, while carnivores exclude mushrooms. Vegans exclude both fish and egg yolks, and only eat mushrooms.

SOLAHI’S GREETING: Each morning at sunrise, Middayists greet Solahi by striking a match and saying a prayer. The flaming match is believed to purify Luzkuro’s dark energy that has taken hold during the night. Before eating or doing anything else, a Middayist’s first act of the day should be to wash themselves.

SOLAHI’S GOODBYE: Each evening at sunset, Middayists bid Solahi goodnight by singing a specific hymn and cleaning their sleeping area. Typically this is done by flipping their mattress and pillow, shaking out blankets, and sweeping the floor. Any mold or filth should be removed immediately, as sleeping among Luzkuro’s influence will bring an early death.

52 CLEANSINGS: On the last day of every week, Middayists clean their living space from top to bottom. Once their environment is clean, they finish the ritual by washing themselves with purified water (water which is boiled with herbs and then cooled). These weekly cleansings add up to 52 per year. Each successful cleansing pleases Solahi, while sloppy or missed cleansings give power to Luzkuro.

SEASONAL FASTING: A seasonal fast is done 4 times per year, on the first day of each new season. On these days, Middayists fast for 24 hours, drinking only clear liquids like water and broths. This ritual is said to cleanse the body from the inside. More devout followers are known to take laxatives to purge their bowels more thoroughly.

YEAR’S END: On the last day of the year, Middayists don pure white robes and congregate at their local church to honor Solahi with a large bonfire, where they burn cleansing herbs. The specific herbs may differ by region, but sage, lavender, and peppermint are common. Each Middayist writes down their sins, fears, and sources of stress on a paper card and throws it into the fire to cleanse their souls for the new year. The illiterate instead speak these things to the card.

The ceremony lasts from sunrise to sunset. During this time there is much dancing, singing, burning, and feasting upon sacred foods. At sunset, the big fire is finally extinguished with purified water.

CULTURE

Middayists are stereotyped as physically fit, health-conscious, and meticulously clean people. Some outsiders consider them to be neurotic, obsessive over their health, and obnoxious about their cleaning habits. Some Middayists look down upon non-Middayists, considering them filthy because they do not meet their religious standard of cleanliness. They can be seen as “stuck-up” for avoiding drugs, alcohol, and body modifications.

Cleanliness is a big theme in Middayist doctrine because this religion was born from the dark, damp, Lamaish labyrinths, where many species do not fare well. Mold, disease, and vitamin deficiencies are serious dangers in this underground environment, so humans and other susceptible peoples had to take great measures to survive here. By incorporating good health and cleaning into religious practices, they were able to thrive.

The Middayists’ strict diet and daily sun exposure protects them from vitamin D deficiency, while their rigorous cleaning protects them from dust and mold. Not all Middayists live in underground labyrinths like the Lamaish, but these practices are also helpful for those in wet, dreary climates.

Lamaish Middayists tend to take their religious practices more seriously, as they live in a less forgiving environment than most people. Followers outside this region are largely more casual about their rituals.

Many Middayist rituals and beliefs are incompatible with those of Vermists. As a result, there are many conflicts between the two groups. This conflict is most apparent in Lamai Nation, which has large populations of Middayists and Vermists living in close quarters.

SEE ALSO

Ask - Religion

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[narwhalandchill]

wait aint no fucking way an actual genshin loretuber even jokingly acknowledged the rabbit hole insanity that is childe 3rd descender theories what the fuck.

is it finally legal for me to break my self imposed silence on the subject without publicly and shamefully removing all my credibility on genshin lore. please please . this is a super fucking vulnerable moment for me guysssss

(under read more bc full disclosure 100% i Will embarrass myself here. this is NOT on my top of the line Childe Theories And Analysis That I Will Defend In Court Under My Legal Name if Questioned list please understand. this is way more self indulgent and wildly speculative for me as much as i do Genuinely see there being a ground for the theory to stand on. ik when im off to the deep end JKWDKJJKWDJKWD)

like seriously be Aware this WILL be a complete mess btw you have all been warned so like no refunds accepted. if youd like to keep an image of me in your head where i am even slightly respectable and realistic when it comes to my theories please stay there. in the light. where the sun shines.

......

...

so. you have chosen death. o7

ok firstly. YES i KNOWW childe 3rd descender theory is batshit stuff thats Why i havent said shit abt it all this time bc i do Not trust myself to be truly objective on the subject bc i Want the theory to be real so bad so its like of course ill readily disregard all other possible candidates for 3rd descender bc bias. and also see it as more plausible that ajax has sth to do w that and make connections more readily. than any lore enthused person existing without his continued rent free existence in their brain for the last 3+ years. so like. yes. listen. i Know i know its prolly not real. but also i must # speak my truth .

anyway the vid didnt even fully touch on all the like. shady fucking shit when it comes to the Curious coincidences. bc like. so firstly the star thing and connections w childe

so wei did bring up the whole . ajax is released on patch 1.1 called "a new star approaches" (and also polar star is his sig) . except like Theres More bc while i was researching random childe brain rot stuff (sadly dont remember/have a link to where i first saw it) . that title in CN is even more pointedly About ajax bc apparently its about a "guest star". and a guest star again according to that post at least is specifically considered an omen of bad luck in chinese astrology. a guest star approaching = a disaster approaching. like mayhaps a ginger guy resurrecting osial or something . huh . maybe ajax Is the guestpilled starmaxxer in that title. the approacherrrrrr, even

secondly. there are some well hidden references to ajax As A Star in the fontaine AQ too. bc the act III where we go looking for him after he goes missing is called "to the stars shining in the depths" except again i have found a source (yes no link to it saved once again my bad) that its titled "to the morning star in the deep water" in chinese. which is again star singular. curious

then theres the act III official description. that goes "the moment it seized its destiny, the star quietly fell from its lofty perch". and like idk abt yall but if its fontaine AQ act III and you ask me WHOS out there seizing their destiny of all things. It Seems Somewhat Plausible To Argue that its PROBABLY referring to the guy thats out there getting teleported to the primordial sea to face the creature thats Literally etched into the stars as his constellation. like . i have a very Difficult time trying to see the star that is seizing its destiny at this moment as Anyone but him reuniting w the narwhal for the first time in a decade and his 1st thought is to throw hands JKJKWDJKWDJKWDJK

(also. "fell from its lofty perch". fell from where. falling towards where. mayhaps even................ descending?????? if Seizing your destiny is taking your fate into your own hands.... a star that Falls from its perch.... that Descends after seizing its destiny....... Curious is all i will say. hey guys do you think your vision would mayhaps begin rejecting you if you start seizing ur own destiny and thus failing to follow the "duty" of predestined fate that same vision had bestowed upon you. guys do you think a star that seizes its destiny and falls from its lofty perch would get vision error 404. guys----)

also this is a smaller thing bc i think ascension mat theories are largely fringe and not that reliable (ning guizhong reincarnation "theories" ThoseWhoKnow) but i do think it can be acknowledged as a sort of. Extension to all these curious references to stars and being A Star when it comes to childe. he does use Star Conches for ascension . so like it can be a little extra on top of the other more serious more Professionally Certified star things hoyo is curiously attaching to him

so like . a star. a star also being a thing the traveler is repeatedly called. its so quirky that this pattern continues. so thats one thing

oh and also. if childes the non-descender (bc he clearly hasnt regained that status Yet) reincarnated soul of the 3rd descender.

you know what. a dead star. if its massive enough. like perhaps massive enough in some genshin metaphysical fantasy way. to be a star that counts as a descender with a will that rivals a world. if a heavy enough. star. dies. you know. you know what they turn into---

[THERE IS A MAD GLEAM IN MY EYES. YOU HEAR BOSS MUSIC.]

Anyway Hello Dear Reader Of Mine Humble Blog Would You Like To Spare A Moment To Discuss How The All-Devouring Narwhal That Consumes Any And All Stellar Object Coming Into Its Orbit Also Known As Ajax' Reflection In Teyvat's Skies Is Essentially A Sentient Living Black Hole And How A Black Hole Is Formed When A Star Dies? No? Okay.

like wouldnt it be super fucking funny if the constellation of the dead descenders reincarnated soul is a creature that for all intents and purposes is a black hole. like. a dead star. wouldnt that be funny

and before you ask. yes i have thoughts that would make ajax & narwhal are soulmates slash halves of the same entity that remains fully compatible with the 3rd descender brainrot but i. will Not subject you people to that. theres "respectably self aware insane theory i indulge in but know the limitations of" and then theres "jens top 10 personal jenshin impact plot twist wishlist please fulfill mr dawei pwease i swear itll be peak" like ffs. it might seem otherwise given the words i am saying right now but i do have Some propriety

the divine halberd was shattered into NINE piece---- (GUNSHOT)

whoa. what a loser high on her own hopium i wonder who that was. good thing the snipers got her ass there

back to your regularly scheduled programming. obviously theres other things that would very conveniently be explained by this 3rd descender shit as well like. dead eyes. soul of a dead descender thats in Literal Pieces body wise. the dead star that carries a curse above ground upon first making contact with the truth of his being aka post abyss training camp post meeting his mirror imaged destiny in his narwhal. a curse like mayhaps bringing chaos whenever he goes. an incompatibility with the world. drawing everything into his orbit being the eye of the storm or perhaps... the Singularity???? the event horizon??? a source of endless unrest and disaster........ just like the curse of a gnosis TEE HEE .

anyway super funny how that goes. and then another thing wei didnt really. fully go into is naturally the

(DEEP BREATH)

3rd son of his family with 3 older siblings and 3 younger siblings 3rd limited character ever released with 3 names and the 3rd weekly boss with 3 phases each representing 3 unique sources of power (vision, delusion and foul legacy) a 3 petaled symbol aka the triquetra of riptide and six in-game constellations divided into 3 subgroups with 3 unique prefixes (foul legacy, abyssal mayhem, havoc in eng) 3 days missing from teyvat and 3 months spent in abyss is 3rd to wield foul legacy after surtalogi and skirk

also the first character to receive a 3rd rateup banner ANYWAY (also the possible. is the 3rd reincarnation of the original ajax thing. but yeas)

[Me When I'm In A Be Suspiciously Associated With The Number 3 Competition And My Opponent Is Childe Ajax Tartaglia]

isnt it just silly. how many times it comes up. Nobody talk to meeeee its so over

theres prolly some other things too that i have driven myself to madness with when thinking abt this but idr em right now and like . not like this is any manner of serious respectable theory anyway sooooooooo

anyway ill stop embarrassing myself now. like as i said i have been legally forcing myself into silence on this bc listen. i KNOW this is bullshit i KNOW im a deranged biased childe main who will do Anything just to cook up a fantasy version of genshins endgame lore where My Dude is at the center stage and gets to be a massive fucking deal yes 100% deserve to be disqualified on account of terminal stage blorbo bias when it comes to theories on the subject i just. the fact that this is the FIRST time i see Any loretuber person acknowledge the theory. i just had to come in here and let it be known that. Yes. ive been seeing this shit and thinking abt it SINCE 4.2 dropped since that stupid fucking note about forsaking the self and being reborn in the abyss as a holy infant or a primordial human or a descender and that somehow Thats called Ajax. of all things. its horribleeee it eats me alive

[humblefryingpan]

DC/Danganronpa crossover part 4 <3

( Part 1 , Last , Next , Masterlist )

If this is the first one you've seen - I'm making a crossover of DC comics and Danganronpa by assigning the characters a vigilante that I think suits them

Time for Young Justice! I used drv3 characters for these guys and I haven't read the comics so some of this may not be 100% accurate

Red Robin - Shuichi Sahara

Most of my YJ were picked due to their connections with him, my Tim/Shuichi Reasoning is back in part 1

Superboy - Kaito Momota

- Dumb jock energy? (the two of them have really similar vibes imo)

- Incredibly homoerotic subtext with Tim/Shuichi, people often take it as a near-canon romance

- Astronaut / Half alien (space boys)

- K names (just a coincidence but its nice)

Impulse - Kokichi Ouma

Okay I know practically nothing about Impulse. I am going off of some fanon things I've seen and one clip from the yj show

- Pretty clever but too chaotic for people to notice

- That clip of impulse running away from everyone on the team reminds me of kokichi running away in the love hotel scene

- Pretty commonly shipped with Shuichi/Tim and Kaito/Kon, seen as a trio shipping or not

Wondergirl - Maki Harukawa?

The only thing I know ab Cassie is that she's Kon's gf. So sorry ab that, I didn't know who to put for Maki so I thought this worked

- warrior race and ultimate assassin

Miss Martian - Himiko Yumeno

Is she in the comics? Idk, I might me combining the comics and show but oh well

- A bit shy, doesn't really talk to people outside of their friend group much

- Miss M's powers feel a lot like magic, plus she can go invisible and Himiko was talking about making an invisibility spell

- I kinda wanted all the drv3 survivors on this team yk

- Short ginger hair

[that-darn-clown]

so, i now have a third Fnaf related thing. until i come up with a proper name for it, i like to call it "This Is The Closest Y'all Are Gonna Get To Me Doing Canon Fnaf"

this is mostly the result of me seeing some Fnaf designs and concepts and realizing "oh i can just. do what i want. with canon at this point."

so have some fun facts!

half because i think it's a cool concept, half because i want to make the designs different between this au and the Rewrite, Mike and Cassidy are both biracial. why is Liz the only completely white kid in the Afton family? well...we'll get there in a bit.

y'know Andrew from the books? Vengeful Spirit of the books? yeah he's here. he was one of Mike's friends prior to Getting Murdered. also close to Cassidy, but y'know.

i'm making Charlie more transmasc. specifically, she figured it out pre-Murder, but didn't get to explore gender stuff as much as he wanted :/ (still transmasc bigender, though. just more transmasc)

MCI kids are a bit different. Fritz is still here, though!

it's basically like a fusion of some of my own ideas and Dual Process Theory's timeline (Mike is (one of) the Vengeful Spirit(s), Cassidy is CC + got springlocked, stuff like that).

Cassidy, mayhaps, witnessed Andrew's murder. maybe. and Mayhaps William did some gaslighting. maybe.

Cassidy knew all of the MCI kids, especially Andrew.

Michael Definitely Took Charlie's Death And Andrew's "Disappearance" Very Well And Didn't Start Lashing Out By Bullying His Brother. Definitely Not.

the other Fnaf 4 bullies were some other kids who were "in the wrong crowd," as some might say.

Liz Gets To Live Because I Said So.

so...Willry happens in this universe. William had a Technically Affair ("technically" because Claire didn't care. if her husband wants to [REDACTED] his business partner, that's none of her business. she just wants to raise her children. similar situation to Anna; she's a lesbian and hadn't figured it out yet so she just went "huh. i'm weirdly more chill with this than i thought i'd be"). one day, William just. shows up with Elizabeth claiming "Oh I found this poor baby abandoned on my way home from work :( Guess I better take her in :(( Please ignore the fact that she's a redhead with freckles like my business partner that's just a coincidence"

then Liz got older...and it was kinda obvious that she inherited some traits from William (Bunny Teeth and the Bunny Ear Hair Things). so now it's a lot harder to just claim that it was a coincidence. the fact that Liz also had Henry's green eyes just made it ten times worse.

William ignored the rumors...and then a woman who worked at the Diner (Tammy Schmidt), who had ginger hair, green eyes, and freckles, claimed that she was the mother of Liz. so...Henry doesn't get outed as transmasc! yippee!

Claire divorced William (in 1981) because she did NOT like him roleplaying Icarus so hard and wasn't going to stick around to watch him inevitably fly too close to the sun. she was going to get her life together before deciding to take the kids (not Liz because. well, Liz isn't her biological daughter. this isn't to say that she doesn't consider Liz as effectively being her own child, but like. y'know. Not Her Kid Biologically Speaking), but uh. she ended up getting into a car accident only a few months later. RIP Claire 😔

William, being the "very reasonable" man he is, got drunk one night (because this man took the divorce Really well (sarcasm)), and because he internally blamed Henry for this mess (like he wasn't the guy who decided an affair was the greatest idea), and murdered Charlie. (which is partially why she's so pissed at him in this au; because he had the gall to take his anger towards Henry out on her. not that she would've liked it any better if he did take it out on Henry, but y'know).

the first four MCI kids (Bea, Fritz Jr., "Gabriel"/Gabi, and Isaac) were a mix of "William's on a minor power trip of sorts," "William unfortunately discovered the fact that he finds murder fun and now everyone's suffering," and "William isn't done hurting Henry. This time he's hurting Henry's business." Andrew's death was due to a minor argument that started between him and William over how Michael was doing that kinda. Escalated. William knocked Andrew out on accident, and then he went "okay guess i'll murder him now." so he springlocked Andrew. and Cassidy kinda witnessed it.

the Fredbear plush was a gift from Charlie and Andrew. Andrew partially possessed the plush to keep an eye on Cass and Mike (and it then led to him witnessing Mike being a dumbass for the next two years).

so...Mike, Andrew, Charlie, and Sammy were all around the same age (12-13) when the Murders happened in '81. so uh. Mike maybe had a crush on Andy that he never got to tell them about. he definitely doesn't have any regrets about that!! no siree!!

by the time Fnaf 2 was going on, Mike was kind of. spiraling. he recognized Jeremy as one of the few people who was nice to him after Things Went To Shit, so they started talking at work, crushes developed...and then almost half a year later, when Jeremy had started healing somewhat, they kinda went "hey we're adults. let's go to Nebraska." and then they did that. Mike had that sort of Mini Crisis that some traumatized young adults have where it's like. he has agency. he can do whatever. so he cut his hair a bit, dyed it bright red, got a tattoo on his chest, all that stuff. didn't call his dad at all during this. sort of started realizing how fucked up his childhood was. also met Tammy again, and she helped the two of them. Mike kinda changed his last name to hers, both because he viewed her as a mother figure and also because he did Not want to risk people finding out who he was.

Phone Guy survives. fuck it. he did kinda get maimed, though. unfortunately.

Mike found out about MCI stuff around the time of Fnaf 1. he was Not happy.

you now get: Charlie fun facts!

decided to give her both "weird girl" and "tomboy, but there's transness there" energy.

style vibes are sort of like. a mix of punk, "this looks like it's vaguely steampunk," and flannels. mostly because that's the kind of clothes he had readily available to him.

feral. extroverted introvert. she's even autistic. does the wildest shit and pulls Mike, Andrew, and Sammy along with him. sometimes even Cassidy (even though Cassidy was like a toddler at this point; three years old).

also just. really fucking petty and sassy. responded to a bully who was being homophobic and transphobic with, what effectively amounted to, the early '80s middle school equivalent of "You wanna kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid. 🙂"

still very protective over people, and a sweetheart. if it isn't obvious, i love this au version of Charlie. my beloved.

one time got some weed from a high schooler and went "hey guys wanna smoke this in the backroom at Freddy's on Friday night?" and then Mike and Andrew went "Fuck Yes." Sammy acted as the guard to the room. Henry and William were busy at Fredbear's, so they left one of the more reliable teen employees in charge for the evening. he walked in on those three smoking weed, was told "please don't tell our dads," shrugged, and just left. didn't say a word to Henry or William about it. Cassidy also walked in on it, but he wasn't going to snitch on them regardless. mostly 'cause he was three and didn't even know what they were doing to begin with. in Charlie's words, "8/10 experience, would do again."

just the most chaotic child imaginable. i've seen enough 80s movies to think that Charlie, a 6th grader, probably would've been believably this chaotic. like. you don't know how many movies where "kid in the age range of middle school to high school discovers weed and then proceeds to smoke some out of curiosity" was like. at least a minor plot point or scene. i also included this because I Can And It's Funny.

this song fits him perfectly. i'll let you listen to it to understand why, but. That's Just Her In This Au.

also, as for who the Vengeful Spirits/Ones William Should Not Have Killed are, here they are from Least Vengeful to Most Vengeful.

Charlie: doesn't hate William; just in UCN to do the ghost equivalent of kicking William in the balls repeatedly before leaving, hopefully with everyone else in tow.

Cassidy: Got Springlocked. also angry on behalf of his friends.

Andrew: also Got Springlocked. just pissed at William in general.

Mike: William killed him in the fire (neither he nor Henry planned for Mike to die this time. he tried to leave, but William didn't let him), William technically got him killed by sending him into the now-abandoned Freddy's, where the spirits (minus Andy, Cass, and Charlie, aka The Spirits Who Would've Recognized Him), confused, basically mauled Michael to death, where he then crawled out onto the streets and died. Charlie found him and brought him back, though. Mike's just pissed in general from where William basically ruined his fucking life. he'll probably be the last soul to leave.

also...if you're curious, i can tell you why the souls would see Mike and think he'd be William, when William would already be dead and springlocked at this point (something that they all witnessed, mind you). :]

Ough... like George I am a curious little monkey. Please tell me more ehehehe

[altocat]

What the hell are Sephiroth and Genesis wearing in Dissidia and Dirge of cerebrus? Parade outfits?!

Sephiroth's outfit didn't change TOO much apart from this incredibly flamboyant curtain-thing and a few dangly-bits on his wrists.

Genesis, however...I don't even know what he's going for here. He's grown out his depression-hair to frightening levels. I guess he stopped tending to it after losing both his friends and heading underground for his nap. The weird gothic straps though? No clue. I assume it's to coincide with the gothic vampiric element the game has, but he mostly just looks kind of...well dumb. He looks dumb.

And a lot less ginger??? I guess they modified some things for CC's design. Probably for the best. Gackt manages to pull off the look in live-action at least.

[lurkerbehaviors]

delusion time

I think tubbos nonbinary. Or at least has thought about it and it vehemently ignoring it. 

Theres alot of reasons why i think so and all of those reasons run along the line of mostly speculation (as is the nature of this subtwt) and personal opinions and accounts so i could be major projecting rn so take it with a grain of salt. 

3 things that come to mind is 1. I can't stop thinking about the strawberry dress thing!!!! But it's not JUST about the dress. He was 16-19 at the time (i believe) so it makes sense why he didn't go through with wearing it. The large audience he had around that time well surpass the viewership he has currently. The pressure to perform “correctly” and the anxiety of having so many eyes on you make self-expression stifling. It comes to mind an incident where he had “They/Them” as his pronouns in his discord server and it was like the whole twt blew up! 

Everyone was talking about it without bringing it up directly to him. We all know he lurks so he def saw it. Back then also, people were so stuck in being “progressive” and “Politically correct” that they might have created an environment or at least in his eyes a response where if he WERE to come out it would be negative or attract much attention which he already has issues with. He came out saying it was an accident later. Which is believable! 

It makes you think he shied away from his desires to try "feminine" things or question his sexuality or gender because of harsh scrutiny from the internet. 

Another thing, we know he has body issues that most likely stem from his days as a trampolist which got worse with the whole “Chubbo” thing. That still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. He still comments about how much he eats and his diet and all those things. So we know its not a total stretch to say the internet influenced him. 

Second, this drunk tvbathon night in particular comes to mind when I think about this. https://youtu.be/0ezYI_WcP-k?si=9JE3iJh8KGtuhpd2&t=13427

“He asks ch4r how it feels to be enby and how they knew. Now this could just be a curious question, nothing serious, but I'm not sure it wasn't with how quickly Lexie pulled him from that brand of convo looking almost worried and acutely aware of the camera. When Ch4r said "You're just a cis het man" he rebutted quickly saying he wasn't but not clarifying that he was gay, rather deciding on leaving it ambiguous. That struck me as odd but again, tubs is kinda like that too and he was DRUNK so his forgetting wasn't totally off the table. 

Now I'm of the mind that tubbo is autistic. so it could also be that he doesn't particularly feel "like a man" or a "woman" because of it. Now before we get up in arms, studies are showing a higher chance of ppl with Autism having gender dysphoria! Tubbo denies being autistic or neuro like the plague but cmon, dosent take a genius to identify a rock. 

The last thing that strikes me as odd is the fact most of his ex-partners or crushes are in some way, trans. Like its one thing to have maybe 1-2 partners to be trans. Not a problem, merely a coincidence!

But most if not ALL  OF THEM??? Ranboo, piso, that ginger guy everyone was freaking out about, strangely feminine bartender at the aforementioned bar, Ash???? 

Yeah, he had crushes on other types of people but almost 9/10 times the person he actually pursues/dates is trans. Fork found in a kitchen situation if you ask me. I also wanna add you naturally gravitate toward people with similar experiences as you. 

So yeah I could be massively projecting and that's fine but I'm not so sure I am. Just a thought that's been on my mind.

[hatsunevitu]

did i mention i love kyman crossovers? i have come up with a kyman au that is a crossover with infinity train.

first of all if someone has no idea what infinity train is, that’s a cartoon about an odd train with an endless amount of cars in it. people get to this train suddenly, and they have a green flashing number on their hand, each is individual. it represents the main psychological trouble a person has. number can go up and down depending on how far a person is from solving the problem. the main aim of the train is to help ppl solve their trouble and make peace with themselves. (for example the main character of season 1 was a girl whose parents were divorced, and she blamed herself for that. she could only get off the train when she realised she’s not responsible for their decision and sometimes things change for the better)

so basically m4 + butters got to the train to the different cars each, but eventually they would find each other. i think first of all kyle found someone like butters or kenny, and cartman found stan. they would wander around through all those cars trying to understand the meaning of the numbers. when they finally all met up they saw that everyone’s numbers are different (butters has the biggest one and kenny has the least one) except for kyman because they share the same number. and it really pisses them off, because they have no idea why the hell they have something (anything) in common. so they’d start arguing and fighting AND THE NUMBER SUDDENLY WENT UP.

cartman: Aye! Are you copying me or what?

kyle: What are you talking about, Fata– oh! Your number! The same as mine…

cartman: Yeah, Kahl, that’s what I wanted to ask you about!

kyle: I have no idea why it is this way. Probably a coincidence?

cartman: What are the odds of this, huh?

kyle: I don’t know! And fuck off already, I’m already pretty sick of hearing you again.

cartman: You’re sick?? I’m the one who is forced to stay in a godforsaken closeted space with fucking Kyle!

kyle: Ughhh, it was much better to walk with Kenny, you fat fuck.

cartman: Yes, I also prefer Stan’s company muuuch better! …Wait.

kyle: Huh?

cartman: The number. It changed. It was 167 and now it’s 176!

kyle: …Mine too…

cartman: So they are connected.

kyle: I guess they are…

cartman: Oh, screw it, now my number is connected to the jew’s number! That’s not good, I swear it’s a bad luck…

kyle: Shut up already, would you?? I’m trying to think. You made our numbers go up.

cartman: Oh, so now it’s my fault?!

kyle: Whose else could it be?

cartman: My number was totally fine until I met you! I bet you did something to it and now because of your tricks I’ll never leave that train and never go home and that means I’ll never eat my goddamn KFC dinner my mother had promised me today.

kyle: Oh, so that’s the only thing that bothers you??

cartman: No, it actually bothers me a lot that I’m stuck here with you, of all people!!

(lmao btw the numbers are not random, 167 is a number of s16e7 “cartman finds love” and 176 is “ginger cow :D)

so they fight a lot and their number goes up and up, and then cartman does one small nice things for kyle and number goes a but down, so he realises the number depends on their friendship??? so he starts using it trying to act nice and good to kyle (not genuinely ofc)

cartman, opens the car’s door for kyle: After you, my dear friend.

kyle: What are you doing?

cartman: What? Just trying to help you, that’s all.

kyle: …You enter this one first.

cartman: What. Why?

kyle: I don’t trust you. It’s probably the most dangerous one and you just want to lock me there or something.

cartman: Why would I do that, Kahl?

kyle: Because you hate me.

cartman: That’s not true! It’s just friendly fighting, nothing more. Come on, Kyle, I’ll help you with that car! Hey, and did I mention you look sooo great today?

kyle, raising an eyebrow: The fuck are you talking about? What’s the catch? And why do you keep looking at your number?

cartman: Oh my GOD! Can’t I just be nice to you for a goddamn minute without you suspecting me of some delusional ideas, you fucking jew?!

kyle: I want to know why you’re nice, because I will never believe you’re genuine about that.

cartman: Oh, for fuck’s sake, just keep going!

and he realises it doesn’t work until it’s sincere.

so it takes them about two months to fix their friendship and be honest about it. that they don’t actually hate each other, that they have much more in common than they thought. and then they’re stuck at something like 10, for, um, two weeks. nothing they do can change their number no matter how nice and good they are to each other. the thing is the train wanted them to be honest to themselves, and they couldn’t do it without admitting they like each other more than friends :3

AND OH GOD PLS TELL ME IT DOESN’T SOUND DELUSIONAL AND CRINGE BECAUSE IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS SHIT FOR LIKE THE WHOLE DAY.