#but the actual birthing part was easy and smooth

[goddessofroyalty]

Do you have any details on Mylo’s birth? I think you said that Silco almost died? What were the circumstances like was there any indication it was going to be a difficult labour? I would honestly read a whole fic about it.

I think I've rambled about this before but only at a high level 'he nearly bled out' way.

Silco had postpartum hemorrhaging right after Mylo was born. Specifically the kind which is caused by the wound left from the placenta being delivered not clotting fast enough. They were able to get it under control with uterine compressions and medication but it was very touch-and-go in the initial moment when they realised what was happening. And definitively the kind of situation where he got lucky (more so than his labor complications with Viktor and Claggor where the risk was to them more than to him). Up to that point it was probably his easiest labor of the three boys.

There was an indication in that Silco had high blood pressure while he was pregnant. However I don't know if they caught it and even if they did if they would have predicted it would end up with that result (it's a risk of high blood pressure but that doesn't mean it's a sure-thing).

[pauking5]

Runaway 🏎️ Chapter 2 🏁

Pairing: Naozumi Hiyama x fem reader oc

Genre: racing AU, enemies to lovers, rivalry, suspense, a whole lot of teasing, gender power games, spice

Word count: 13.1k+

A/N: Chapter 2 already? Hope you're enjoying it so far. I spoiled you with this one ;) Things are slowly getting heated, both racing wise and a little up close and personal this time around. I'm rallying behind what's hopefully my last uni work this week so hope this one's good. Enjoy lovelies.

Raiko's Playlist: Monster - A7S with Alok, Locked out of Heaven - Bruno Mars, Youngblood - R3HAB Remix, Greedy - Tate McRae, Ocean Drive - Duke Dumont, Into You - 3LAU Remix, She Doesn't Mind - Krmoni, Something On My Mind - Purple Disco Machine & Duke Dumont & Nothing But Thieves, Bad Boy - Chungha & Christopher, React - Pussycat Dolls

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Day 2 of Tour de Tokai

"Rai, take it easy," said Tanaka worriedly over the coms. "The new suspensions will break if you push them too hard."

You would happily take it easy peasy lemon squeezy if the road wasn't turning the car into a fucking death trap, going at over 100 kilometers per hour on the most difficult and curved track in the world.

Any miscalculated sway of the wheel could project you into the ditch at the side of the road, kissing goodbye to any chance of completing this stage. Which unfortunately did happen in the first one this morning.

That bold black lettering spelling out DNF next to your name on the scoreboard was not what you expected after bagging third place on the first day. Bitter wasn't even close to describing how you felt. Sour, dejected, with an ever-growing pit of disgust for this tour sounded more like it.

Frankly, it wasn't even supposed to happen. It was a rookie mistake. One that cost you a bunch of points.

At one turn, halfway through the race, your car hit a rocky mound neither you or Tanaka saw in the pre-race drive. An anomaly that birthed itself from thin air most likely. Coming towards it at full speed with no time to break and avoid it, the car slid over it scratching a big part of the chassis by the loud screech drilling in your ears and the lower back bumper, sending your rear right into a deep ditch.

You revved the engine multiple times to get it out and back on the road but the car simply refused to work with you, wheels spinning in the gravel underneath uselessly keeping the car suspended. You were towed out by the marshals, driving back to the station in shame after hogging up at least ten minutes off everyone else's stage time. The rest of the drivers scowled at you, angrily waving you off the road to get to the start line. Being called a rookie in insult after that and not something else was actually a compliment.

Tour de Tokai was spread out so unevenly and it bugged you beyond prevail because it put insane pressure on the car that was barely out of the factory still. With new components too.

The first day had one long stage over 40 km but it was a full paved track, much more easier to take on, hence the good result you had yesterday. Today on the other hand, consisted of three awful stages around a mix of tarmac and off-road dirt tracks in the depths of the valley, over shorter distances but challenging on every part of the car. You already screwed up one of them in one of the more rougher patches of terrain. It was out of the way. But at what cost? At the cost of my cheerios being spilt on the floor this morning. That's what.

Thankfully, you only had two more stages left for the day. Then the final two tomorrow. If your car managed to stay in one piece until then. Tough life out here.

You were currently on the second stage, driving down a dirt road just like the one that put you out of the race. Tight, soliciting and full of chicanes. You tried your hardest to keep the car on the road this time.

Half of the smooth grey asphalt already ended, leading into a curved forest path, sheltered entirely by dense pine trees on each side. The early afternoon sun peaked out through the branches, blinding you even through the laminated flaps on your visor, further adding to your irritation.

"4 left 50," spoke your co-driver, usually steady voice broken by the jolting path.

Medium corner in 50 meters. A little breather.

"2 right very tight over crest," he shouted, hand shooting up to the safety handle as you ran over a bump.

Very tight corner over the hill.

You accelerated up the hill, going airborne for a few meters before the car landed back down on the ground with a jarring wobble shaking you in your seat.

"1 left 100."

100 meters running up to the tightest corner.

A hairpin section in this hellhole after two taxing corners that pulled the car sideways brutally. Just what you needed. This was a no go drifting portion. The desire to go wide was so overpowering, but you couldn't push the limit. If you went the slightest into understeering the car, it was game over again. Another DNF. More points lost and even more damage on the car the current fund couldn't cover until you did some promotions.

Come on, honey, you rubbed the steering wheel in support, trying to get the car to listen to you. Stay with me. We're almost there.

Sure enough the dreaded hairpin section came into view faster than you could prepare for it. Up ahead, the road dove into lower ground to the right - a sharp C turn - harbored by a high hill lifting into greenery on one side and an excavated one that curled above the road with a few public stands on the other.

You cut the gas and tapped the brake just when you entered the slight curve of the curb, tyres skidding over the coarse gravel. It was tight as hell.

The forces of the momentum you gained on the straight portion pre-corner shoved you back in the seat so harsh you felt that turn with your whole body. Your forearms shook trying to keep control of the wheel in your hands, heaving breaths like crazy. Don Tanaka got squished to the door, belts working overtime to keep you both strapped safely. Your boot pressed to the floor with all your might to keep it near the pedals, rear at the back lifting up in the air.

Exiting the curve, you turned the wheel straight cueing the throttle back in way too fast. The tyres screeched horribly loud behind the car as you lost grip of the road.

"Fuck!"

The car took every incoming bump jerking you in all sides while you grappled with keeping it on course. You were going way too fast on wild ground, untouched by cement. You had to slow down. It would inevitably add more time to your lap that you can't make up anywhere on the rest of the course, but at least you wouldn't crash into a hill at 100 kmph or flip over in an area that was too inaccessible for marshals to come get you. You couldn't risk it.

Fuck this.

It wasn't up to debate. You let the throttle loose. A quick glance at your speedometer and your anxiety was quickly replaced by anger at seeing the speed decrease - 90, 80, 70 kmph. Way too slow. The heaps of bumps and craters scattered to smaller mounds, still threatening your safety, but they were manageable now.

Seething with burning rage, you let the speed decrease till it got to 50 finally gaining back full control of the car, then amped up the speed again, pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared alive under the hood, pumping fuel like a beast as it propelled you forwards at breakneck speed.

Now we're talking, baby.

"5 right 200 very long."

Easy wide corner in 200 meters.

You had some time to catch up there. Hitting the throttle again to increasing the speed even more you took it like a pro, drifting over the last off-road patch, sliding back on the straight asphalt. The crowd in the stands stood up, cheering loudly over the roar of the engine as you took the straight fast like lightning.

"Last one. 6 left 50. Flat out."

Flat corner in 50 meters. Take it fast Rai. Bring it home.

Taking the corner with a wide drift, the car finally reacted the way you wanted it to for once, gripping the road nicely. You gained an extra 20 on the exit, cutting off at least half a second on your lap time. If that even made up for the rest of the time you lost in those shitty corners.

The cheers got louder than the music booming over the speakers, crowds getting smoked by the dust you raised up in the air with that last drift. Before you knew it, it was all done. This stage anyways.

Who even picked this course? I hope they slip and fall in the toilet every time they go for a wee for the rest of the race weekend.

Driving back to the station, you parked the car neatly in place. Unfastening all the belts to ply your body away from the seat, you slumped against the wheel with eyes closed, letting out a long heavy breath you've been holding in for a while. The adrenaline in your body plummeted so fast it left you panting like you ran a marathon, trying to catch your breath and let out some built-up steam.

That was so nerve-wracking. No amount of training or racing over and over again would prepare you for the obstacles that can just jump at you out of nowhere. Obstacles that can very well end your career that barely even started.

Thanks to your quick reaction time, you avoided a lot of road hazards that could've sent you and Tanaka in flimsy hospital gowns. You did get control of the situation before it was too late, which was great. But some of those calls were way too close for your liking. So, so close.

"Hey," Tanaka piped up, gloved hand patting your back gently. You turned your still helmet-encased head at him. "You did good out there. Others would've let it crash in the side and pay for the damages, but you redressed the car back on track. It takes a lot to pull that off."

You pulled off the helmet, running a hand through your hair in frustration. You did almost crash. But you saved it. Because you had more stages left and no back up car for it. Because your father put way too much money into it to let it smash to pieces and pay for the damages. Because your co-driver's life was in your hands just like yours for that matter. There were so many reasons why you tried so hard to save it. Though none of them calmed that worry in the pit of your stomach that it could've been so much worse.

But you were a driver. Things like these were part of the job description. You can move on for a while but they'll always haunt you.

"Come on," he took your helmet. "Let's go see the scoreboard."

"I'd rather not," you smiled apologetically. "I'll go get some food. I could eat a week's worth of steak right now."

You were hungry as hell. But getting out of the car and away from the track for a bit was more of a priority and you hoped Tanaka would see past it. A therapy session about why shit happens sometimes was not what you needed right now.

"Okay," he chuckled. "Let me know if you need anything, lightning strike. I'll be around."

"Yeah," you nodded quietly more to yourself.

You got out of the car, passing a few smiles in sympathy to the team that got working on replacing the back bumper right away. Some of them patted your back in the same supportive manner.

On your way out of the station you passed by the screen displaying the scoreboard. You tried your hardest not to stop by but your eyes just fleeted there in curiosity. A curiosity that was left better unsatisfied.

Rai Suruki - 12th place - 1.53.07. Out of twenty. Not too bad all things considered.

Dwelling on it for a bit you tried to let it go. At least you weren't in the shoes of the one unlucky driver that ended up with a DNF at the bottom. Poor bastard- Wait. Getting closer to the screen to make sure your eyes didn't betray you, you read the line again in shock.

Naozumi Hiyama - 20th place - DNF.

Before it even registered in your head, the screen changed to replay the scenes right before disaster. You watched the distinctive blue hues on his car whizz by as he got past the first corners like an expert, lap time near perfect midway through the race. Until he drove into the tight corner that nearly broke your car in half. He took it just like you did, tight and miscalculated, unaware of the chaos on the other side.

What happened to you happened to him too - he lost grip on the back, taking on the uneven rocky bumps at full speed. All that knowledge of rally was thrown out the window in seconds as he struggled to keep the car under control. Then something even weirder happened - fumes leaped out from under the hood. Engine failure.

Instead of slowing down to prevent a crash and the engine from overheating more, he accelerated, hellbent on keeping the few points he gathered so far. What the hell was he thinking? The front tyres of his car took a high mound that sent him airborne landing right in the deep channel of the next corner, smashing the front into a hill portion. Nope, he wasn't thinking. That right there is idiocy.

The angry screech of tyres in the station next to yours sparked your attention. You peeked your head in at the side, bending over a tool table watching the chaos unfold. The front bumper cover was smashed into the car, like it just swallowed it up, along with a big part of the hood. Mechanics rushed over, struggling to get the hood open and cool the engine sending smoke through the broken cracks. Other staff ran around with fire extinguishers just in case the car caught fire.

Those were replaceable, already at the ready by the side. What wasn't replaceable was Naozumi's impending wrath about to rain down on the team like metal pikes.

Naozumi got out of the car boiling with fury, throwing his helmet off into the seat, smashing the door shut making the whole car shake at the impact. You looked back with pity at your little blue and gold princess, muttering I would never do that to you. Turning back, you caught him running an angry hand through the mess of his helmet hair, closing in fast on the same man he had a scuffle with just yesterday.

"Care to explain why I got an engine failure mid-race of all times?" he shouted at the mechanic, tongue pushing his cheek impatiently. He didn't really look like he expected an answer, simply wanting to vent off his own mistake.

"I told you not to push it. Not my fault you're too hardheaded to understand simple directions," he shouted back, having had enough of his tantrums.

"There's one more stage left today. If this happens again I will make sure-"

He struck a nerve with that unfinished sentence, making the taller man drop what looked like a new water pump for the engine right on top of the tool box with a loud clatter.

"Make sure of what exactly, your highness? Throwing me off the team? That didn't work the last time you tried, did it?"

Naozumi clicked his jaw and glared at him with all his pent up rage before he stormed off to his trailer to cool down. He didn't give a shit about the looks the people around fixed on him, and they didn't dwell for too long either, everyone scattering back to their jobs.

Seems like no one was taking today that well.

Padding around the vans lined up with all kinds of fast-food only dimmed your appetite. The good ones were closed for a break until the last race, which was in an hour. Your body needed the food so bad, you were willing to drive to a restaurant in the city, which was like two hours away. If only you had time.

Ready to give up, you spotted a nice looking bacon and ham sandwich at a shabby stand just on the side of the food court. Scouring over their window from a distance, it looked like the last one. Better than going back on an empty stomach.

You jogged up to order before anyone else could. Too engrossed in reaching the till you failed to notice someone slide in before you. Too late to pull the breaks, you collided into a hard shoulder, nearly losing your footing and falling face first on the ground. Strong hands gripped your upper arms to keep you upright just like you caught theirs in return.

Looking up, your quick apology got stuck in your throat. Two round chocolate balls gazed down at you, eyebrows raised in surprise. Those eyes could put chocolate to shame, glowing like priceless pralines, the special kind you eat once a year on Christmas.

Dark brown hair framed the side of his face, matted in messy waves. A pair of black sunglasses sat on top of it, pushing the front locks into small curls. Trailing your eyes downwards, you were greeted by two moles on the side of his face, right under his lower lip, stamped like two mini vampire bites. Cute. White fireproofs in darker logos stretched over his broad chest, complimenting his tan complexion so well. You were grateful for the strong hands that held your arms in a firm grip since your knees went a little weak.

Otherworldly was the only word you could find in the empty sea of your mind to describe this man. And not even that one did him justice. Not even close.

He seemed just as entranced by you, trained on your face for a while then swiping down your racing suit that was still done up to your neck, preserving all the heat of your previous ride as well as pulling the outside heatwave into it, turning into a body sauna. Or was it all coming from him? You couldn't tell.

His warm eyes searched your face with concern.

"Are you okay?"

Even his voice is beautiful.

"Huh? Me? Yeah, yeah. I'm good," you finally straightened letting go of him. "Are you uhh... good?"

"I'm good," he said, his palms loosening on you until they slid down, away from you.

"Good."

Placing your hair behind your ears out of nervous habit, you looked back at him, finding a smile so sweet on his face it could give you a sugar rush if you stared too long. Dear heavens.

"I don't think we've met before," he started extending a polite hand to you, smile fully popping with dimples now even though those moles on his chin eclipsed them fully. "I'm-"

"Akira Shinkai," you cut him off breathless, grabbing his hand in excitement. "You've been in Sigma Academy. You're also the youngest of the junior series that got picked to drive at a top team and you hold countless records on track. You're a legend," you said all of that in one breath.

His head dipped, ears going the smallest tint of pink, as did your cheeks at the realization that you were kind of fangirling over him big time. Who wouldn't if they had the chance to stumble upon rally royalty? Dad doesn't count. He's expired already.

"And you're Rai Suruki."

He knows my name.

"I saw your stage back there," he added.

All your excitement washed away at the mention of your near fuck up of a race.

"Yeah," you rubbed the back of your neck. "It wasn't my best."

"Are you joking?!" His chocolate orbs widened at you like you said something wrong. "That was some badass understeer maneuvering if I've ever seen any. You're the legend here."

Oh. That was unexpected. Getting complimented by one of the current best drivers in rally racing like you didn't step into the car just yesterday. It got your heart thundering in your chest, rising the blood to your cheeks once again.

"T-thank you," you cleared your throat looking away. "You did great too," you hit back remembering his insane lap time on the board. His smile only deepened at that.

"They do have some good sandwiches here," he pointed at the van behind you. By the looks of it, he was a regular at the stand. Even the older lady at the till gave him a smile in recognition that he reciprocated just as warmly.

"Too bad they only have one left," you sighed defeated, looking back at the lone sandwich.

"You can have it," he urged.

"No, I'm good," you waved him off. "I was craving something else anyway."

"You sure?" he quipped an eyebrow, not really buying your retreat.

Well, you did bump into him almost decking him over to buy it. Looking back and forth between his brown eyes and the deliciously packed sandwich on the other side of the glass window, bacon and salad leaves hanging so appetizing on the side of the bread, you nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

No, you weren't sure. You were far from sure. But you weren't about to have the who gets the sandwich dispute. Passing him one last smile and another speedy apology for bumping into him, you walked off with your tail between your legs before he could argue.

That looked like the best sandwich on earth. Everything looks delicious to you when you're hungry, Rai. Well yeah, but that one might've tasted heavenly. Too late now.

You roved around the rest of the stands, trying not to breathe in too much of the smell of barbecued meat and fries and salad and all the delicacies that could be in your stomach already but lingered in the air instead. The other stalls at the end of the food court had insane long queues or no food available yet since they were still cooking the late batches.

I'll have more luck in the forest at this point.

A hand grabbed your arm out of nowhere. You were about to sucker punch its owner when you came face to face with Akira once more. He ducked out of the way and caught your fist before it could plant itself in his face.

"What-"

He held up the large bacon and ham sandwich between you as a sign of peace. "This sandwich is way too big for me to eat alone. Wanna share with me?"

"Are you sure? I don't wanna steal your lunch." You lowered your fist down. "We barely get to eat as is."

"Which is why you should have some before we're called back," he pushed it to you again, hopeful that you would accept his friendly offer. Before you could even debate it, your stomach grumbled loudly making him laugh. "I guess that settles it."

"Fine," you gave in.

You found a table off the radar just at the edge of the food court, beside a luscious green patch of dense forest, away from perpetrators like the press or the crew. Birds chirped around in the trees, sun shining so bright you were glad for the umbrella above. It was a little corner of quiet in the chaos. Akira sat down opposite you, pulling out a cup filled with fries to the brim out of thin air.

"Where'd you nick that from?"

"A fan gave it to me."

That must happen quite a lot if he just willingly accepted stuff. Was he sure it's not poisoned or something? Your stomach rumbled again in need of fuel. Ah well, might as well die by eating french fries.

Splitting the sandwich in half, you knocked the halves together like a toast and dove in. The soft baguette melted into your mouth along with the perfectly greased bacon, the squishy ham and the rest of the salad leaves and round tomato slices. It even had a nice sauce on the inside. He was right. They do make some mean sandwiches.

Shimmying out of your suit to cool off, you were left in your fireproofs, letting the breeze card through your hair, enjoying the food in sheer delight. The adrenaline rush came and went so fast back there on track that it took most of your energy with it. Filling up with food was the only way to restore it and if it was good food, you were guaranteed to get it all back quicker.

"This sandwich is so good," you mumbled with your mouth full.

"I told you," he mused through big bites of his own.

"Yeah, you did," you chuckled.

You both finished the food and sat in a comforting silence. Drawing random patterns in the wooden table, you felt this sudden need to find out more about the man before you. Though you weren't sure what to even ask since most of his information was out there thanks to his fangirls. By god, you weren't one of them, but you did know a lot about him. Okay, maybe more than a normal person should know about him, but alas.

Just when you mustered up a question he beat you to it.

"Have you been racing for long?"

"For about 8 years now. Started with karting, made my way through the juniors for a bit and some lower series and now I'm here."

"I bet it's nice having someone like your dad support you in it." He looked down at the scrunched up sandwich wrapper in his hands, passing it from one to the other with something akin to bitterness in his eyes that went away as quick as it came.

"It is," you nodded with a meek smile. "Most of the time anyway. It's hard trying to revive a dead team after so long but I'm trying my best."

"Are you trying for yourself or for him?"

That was a damn good question. You never thought about it in depth before. You jumped up at the thought of finally being helpful with something that you and your dad both loved with a strong passion. But was it for him, to make him forget the pain and move on from the past? Or was it for you and ensuring you had some kind of a better future doing something you loved? Beats me.

"I think maybe a bit of both?" you said, unsure of which one weighed more or less than the other.

"Eh, it doesn't really matter," he said softly leaning back to stretch his shoulders. "You've been here for two days and you're already showing results others would dream of having so early in their career. Give yourself some credit," he ended with a knock on the wooden table, pointing back at you.

You stared at him in awe. He really was so well-spoken. That and the fact he glowed like an angel with a missing halo above his head. Or maybe it was the afternoon sun shining warmly over him.

"Thanks," you replied sheepishly. "What about you? Why does Akira Shinkai race?"

He smiled looking at the ground and sat thinking for a while. You just looked at him soaking even more of his calm presence in. His chin laid on top of his palm, eyes peering off in the distance like you just asked him what he had for breakfast Wednesday last week. Then his eyes suddenly lit up.

"I want to become someone people look up to. I've always liked cars of all kinds and the minute I sat down in a go-kart I just knew I wanted to race. I guess I kinda wanted to feel that thrill on a daily basis," he chuckled at which you laughed a little too.

"Sureeeee, 'cause going at lightning speed on some of the most dangerous roads known to men multiple times a day is everyone's dream when they get in bed at night."

"Maybe it is. Who are we to judge?" he lifted his hands up in surrender making you laugh some more.

On the way back to the station, you both talked some more. About your hopes and dreams, your families, and the rest of the stages left. You both cursed the damn track that nearly totaled your cars and found out you had a lot in common. Behind that idol-like presences in the media, he was actually a very laid-back guy.

Coming up to your pen, he smiled warmly at you once more. That sweet, honey-dripping, serotonin-inducing smile. Talking to him put you in such good vibes that you forgot all about what made you upset before. Until you felt the energies shift for the negative at your back.

Whirling around, you came face to face with Naozumi. He seemed a tad bit calmer than before when he used his mechanic as an emotional punching bag, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. Spotting you, he threw that unnerving shit-eating grin on his face sending it your way with a small wave. All your good spirits warded off at the gesture.

You abstained from throwing him a middle finger in response settling on a scowl. Then his eyes went to your lunch companion, throwing him a way more conceited smile. Akira stiffened beside you for a moment, zeroing in on the other driver, before he turned back to you in a haste like he was suddenly in a rush.

"Good luck out there."

"You too."

"See you around," he bid you goodbye, regarding Naozumi with another loaded look before he went on his way.

You lingered by the team banner, watching his back retreat farther in the distance before it disappeared into his team's red and black pen at the end of the paddock lines. At least one of these men knew how to politely introduce themselves.

Spinning back, you caught Naozumi still behind you simply watching you with some kind of assertiveness that pushed your buttons. You wanted to ask if he needed help finding respect and manners when he just walked off to his own pen. Weird.

Walking to your car, you came face to face with Don Tanaka's sharp stare. What is it with men and staring today? His foot tapped the cement so fast you were sure it could drill a hole to the other end of the planet if he amped the speed just a tiny bit. It was the kind of staredown you get after going to a party with the popular clique, getting home past your curfew. The one that also meant your pocket money would cease their presence in your wallet for a month.

"What?" you gulped out, confused at being received so warmly.

"Why are you fraternising with the enemies?"

"Enemies?" you paused, even more dumbfounded. "I'm not following."

"Naozumi Hiyama and Akira Shinkai," he shook his head in disappointment. "Do I need to remind you we don't need press to jump on us and that your father kinda has a bad history with their teams?"

"Whoa, hold on. Rewind the CD. What do you mean by bad history?"

He walked you off to the deserted lounge area by the pen, making sure you were alone. In all the years you've known him, you've never once seen him this stressed. The man was a trainer. If anything, he was the stress.

"Sigma Racing's team principal used to race your father back in the day. They used to be sort of best friends, if we put it that way."

"What happened?"

"Once they got past the junior series, they both went after the same team and your father got picked instead of him. It all turned really sour between them after that."

"How sour are we talking?" you interjected. "Like gooseberries or those really sour gummy jellies that you choke on when the sugar bits get stuck in your throat?" He threw you a look asking for more seriousness. "Okay, continue."

"Sour in the sense that he tried to sabotage your dad every chance he got. Be it in racing or life itself. He never liked seeing him so successful, always living in the shadows of the second place on the podium, with his own racing, with his team, even with business. Being second to everything your father did got to him in the worst ways. Your father didn't even mean it to be that way."

"He tried to make amends, didn't he?"

Knowing your father he probably tried to mend that crack in their friendship until there was no more glue left in the world to put the pieces back together.

"Every chance he got. They were so close it was hard to even watch it fall apart from the sidelines."

Sounds like dad.

Rewinding back to the whole enemies part, you failed to see where Akira and Naozumi stood in this story.

"But Akira isn't related to that guy," you pointed out. "He just drives under him."

"Yes, but Sigma Racing didn't become one of the top teams in Japanese rally through genuine hard work," he sighed heavily. "A lot of people are unaware of this because they hid it well," he leaned in closer, warily looking left and right before continuing, "but they pulled a lot of strings to get to where they are today. Some of them not through the finest approaches."

You wouldn't question that information since Tanaka worked as a trainer for them for a while. But you did wonder just how much dirt he had on them. But that was a rabbit hole to dive into another day.

Okay, so Sigma Racing was red flagged before you even looked their way. Thankfully, no one knew you tried out as a ghost driver for them about a year ago or it would raise a scandal that would send your father to the intensive care unit. Throwing that to the side you went to the other walking red flag deemed as an enemy.

"What about Naozumi?"

"Well, not Naozumi directly, but Tsuzuki, Spica Racing's director. He used to be a shareholder in Suruki Racing before the team fell apart. He was your father's biggest sponsor, providing most of the parts for the cars. One day, right before chaos started raining down on the team, he retracted all his support just like that," he snapped his fingers, "out of nowhere."

"Without a notice?"

He shook his head. "None. He cut down all ties with your father without a solid reason."

"Okay, but Naozumi and Akira don't seem to have anything to do with this mess. It seems like more of an old generation battle we don't want to be part of."

"I really hope you won't get dragged into this mess," he rubbed the edges of his moustache. Something he did when he was really worried. "What I mean with all this is that I just want you to keep an eye out. Rally racing is a dirty world. You never know who's out to get you."

Great. Now I have to watch out for every breathing soul around me. Never a dull moment here.

A loud voice boomed over the surrounding speakers around the paddock, announcing that the next and last stage of the day starts in half an hour.

"Let's get you ready."

The last stage of the day went better than you expected it to. The course was a full tarmac one this time with really wide corners. You only had to look out for dips beside it where your rear could slip and get pinched, and the dangerous sharp corners where the crowds loved to gather like sacrificial lambs. The car held a lot better too, gripping the road firmly on all turns.

Without further damage on the car, you finished fifth this time around, sandwiched in between Akira and Naozumi on the scoreboard. The latter had another mishap in a turn nearly ending up in a ditch again. There were fumes coming out of his ears rather than the engine when he got out of the car, ready to throttle anyone in his way, but at least it wasn't another DNF to shatter some more of his pride.

Surprisingly, your father plied himself away from the office headquarters in the hotel and came down to the station to congratulate the team on their efforts. You waited at the end of the line, watching as he smiled and patted everyone's shoulders for the good work. When he came to you, he stopped, smile slightly falling around the edges.

You had a hot and cold relationship with him. Most times it was the latter, cutting icy through the days when you were in the car. He placed a hand on your shoulder and gave you a squeeze in support then turned back to everyone. That was as much as you'd get for now.

"I know you all must be tired," he started, taking in the sullen faces around the pen. "But our official car show is on later tonight in the hotel events hall. Go rest, dress up and come have a drink on the house."

That damn car show. You would rather be anywhere else than interacting with more people. You kind of had your social battery drained out for the rest of the day and it was barely 5 pm. But you had to be there for your father and the team.

Shortly after, the team dispersed to each their own. You trudged back to the hotel and had a well-deserved relaxing shower, washing off the fumes and sweat. When you came out, you were met with a dozen shiny designer bags all over the floor and your bed, together with your extremely stressed PR Agent.

Kate Yuzumi, or Yuzu (how you called her when she became a stress ball about to explode into pieces), has been in charge of your press-related endeavours for as long as you've been racing. She lived a huge chunk of her life in the States, before her parents returned back with her in tow. Now in her late 20s, she worked under your father, managing every little detail about your public image. She was also your only female friend in an overtly masculine rally world, just like you were hers.

She was the best at her job. A lioness in the wild jungle occupied by so many tigers. But there were times where she let it eat at her sanity, like now for example. She ran a mad hand through her long amber hair, messing around the soft caramel highlights on top as she paced your hotel suite from corner to corner, scribbling down in her notebook in a very frustrating manner. One harder press of that ball point pen and she would put a hole through the lined paper.

You cleared your throat announcing your presence. She whirled around to you, eyes blazing in a frenzy.

"Finally, you're out," she breathed out in relief. "Any longer and I would've called reception to cut down the water supply in your room."

"Really funny," you narrowed your eyes at her. "What's with all this?" you nodded at the endless heaps of bags littered around the room. You walked to one of the closest bags, decked in baby pink and paper ruffles, digging your hand through it to pull out a shimmery black dress.

"You need to look your best tonight. It's the first car show the team is having in years and your father insisted you dress accordingly."

You let the material slip out of your hands with a disgusted look on your face. One that she caught right away.

"No sulking or trying to evade it, Rai." She came up to you and placed both of her hands on your shoulders. "You're the only driver Suruki Racing has. You represent the team and you need to be there tonight, as boring and daunting as you may find it. Your father needs you there," she said softly, rubbing her thumbs over the bathrobe you wore. You gave her a look telling her you weren't in the mood to be poster girl after today.

"It'll be over before you know it," she urged.

"Yeah right," you blew a raspberry. "Those things always last so long."

"Well, you are part of this world now. So, woman up and go take charge of it," she smiled brightly, sounding so encouraging that it lit up a spark of content in you.

Slumping your shoulders with a pout, you decide there is no point in fighting it. The last time you tried to avoid an official event by hiding in the team garage, your father grounded you by having Tanaka train you like you were getting shipped to a Bear Grylls episode the next day. The very skin on your bones hurt like you saw hell briefly after that. Not doing that one again.

"Fine," you gave in. "Help me pick something normal out of this hurricane of clothes. It looks like a unicorn puked in here."

"A very stylish one," she held up a finger.

She ushered you back to the bathroom, picking up a hair dryer, a few dresses laid out on your bed and some branded makeup bags on the way. "Come on, we're running out of time. The event starts in two hours and you're far from ready."

Dolled up rather uncomfortably, you made your way to the event hall. Your heels clicked against the dark floors, looking at the décor your dad planned - gold and blue was the theme present all around. From the tables to the chairs decked in light sparkles to the crystal bar at the right of the stage lit up in blue with rows of champagne glasses, the team colours were everywhere in elegant and deep tones. Your father had a thing for interior design even if he denied it. Tanaka always joked he could work in the field if he ever got tired of racing.

It wasn't long before the hall was filled with chatter. You didn't expect so many people to come. Most were probably curious about you rather than the car or your dad's attempt at trying to be the main event again. Press came early and took up a lot of space, likely hoping to get a scoop of info out of you. Even the team principals, some drivers and bosses of other teams made their presence felt.

Your dad was busy greeting the crowd, shaking hands with that golden boy smile plastered on his face at all times. You hardly even got a chance to see him this week. While you've been stuck in training, testing and racing, he's been hauled up in the conference rooms going over paperwork or talking business night and day. The few nights you did get together, you would sit at dinner and make small talk, keeping to each their own.

Ever since he started revamping the team, he drowned himself in it completely. Not body and soul like before, but quite close to a robot devoid of feelings. Like he needed to breathe that success back into it no matter what.

With a troubled sigh, you stretched a hand to the bar to grab a glass of champagne. Your co-driver joined you, a glass of white wine in his hand.

"Champagne should be for the podium," he teased.

"It should be for whatever I want it to be," you stated, taking a sip in small vengeance.

"And what is it for now?"

Tanaka rounded around you, leaning against the bar next to you. You just stared ahead at your father, taking a bigger gulp of the alcohol with bitterness. He smiled at the two of you in sympathy.

"Nothing," you smiled back in reassurance, focusing on the swirl of the mellow golden liquid in your glass.

"He'll come around. Just give him time."

You nodded, more to yourself. Hopefully he will do it before he runs himself into the ground from stress. To see me race and be a father sometime like we promised. Following him through the crowd, you spotted him still in his tracks losing the dazzling smile on his face for a moment and sure enough you saw why.

Right in front of him sat Sigma Racing's team principal. Raven-haired in a clean dark suit, about the same age as your father, just a little more battered by it. The crooked grin on his face resembled a scowl so alarming, even you got angry at the condescending look he gave your father. They both held each other in a strong gaze, filled with a lot of ire, tension from it drifting away to the rest of the hall till it reached even you by the bar at the back.

Your father extended a somewhat friendly hand his way. A luxury he probably didn't deserve. The other man simply looked at it, scrunching his dark brow in suspicion before he shook it with a firm grip. Some words were exchanged between them, by the looks of it not that peaceful then they let go of each other. Just when you thought the great Hiro Suruki couldn't be moved, he looked like a boulder bigger than him just shoved him to the side of the road. There had to be more than just bad blood between them.

Before you knew it the event was in tow. The classical music drew out to a minor background noise for a tap of the microphone grabbing everyone's attention. Your father finally took to the stage, letting his prepared speech roll off his tongue like charmspeak.

"Hello and welcome everyone!"

He was welcomed himself by a big round of applause. Huh, he still has it. Fixing the bowtie matching his beige suit he continued even more relaxed.

"For those who don't know me, shame on you," he chuckled and the crowd followed. You could see so many familiar faces in the audience, there would hardly be anyone who didn't know him.

"For those who do, thank you for supporting me all these years with good thoughts. Or bad. We accept those too." That drew another laugh from the crowd.

"After nearly ten long years, Suruki Racing is back in business and better than ever. We started again from zero, putting everything into a new car, keeping the old glamour of the team, bringing in new spirits," he spared you a glance. "We couldn't have done this without you, the team and the star driver representing us on track."

Oh, no, no, no. Please don't call me up on stage. Please let me sit on the sidelines. Please, please, please.

"Please welcome my daughter."

Fuck me. At least don't use the government name.

"Raiko Suruki, the lightning strike powering Suruki Racing."

He used the government name.

Throwing back the rest of your champagne, you went up the stairs floating on the sound of breaking applauses and joined him on stage with a smile matching his extremely bright and fake one. This was all for show. No one gave a rat's ass about it anyway. But out of politeness and respect for your father you went with it.

Camera flashes burned in your vision from all corners of the room, momentarily blinding you as the press snapped pictures of you. Once you reached him, he turned to you with a grin. "Would you like to do the honours?"

Going behind the curtains, you got in the freshly polished rally car and turned it on, greeted by the purr of the engine as you gave it a good powerful rev announcing its arrival before you drove it on stage. The instrumental music boomed again as you reached the crowd, trumpets carrying out over the noise of the engine. You gave it a few more revs to drown out that horrible music. Your father laughed nervously as he turned to you with gritted teeth, shooting you a look to cut it out before he spinned back to the public with a smile.

Getting out of the car, you went to get off the stage thinking that was all when he called you over again. Mentally groaning that you couldn't get back to the shadows of the bar faster, you turned back and headed for him. He took a few questions from the press while you sat by his side, looking pretty, zoning out in your own world. That was until the press started directing questions at you and the microphone was pushed in your hand.

"What-," you let out, the sound of your uncalibrated voice bouncing off the speakers with a screech. "Sorry about that," you laughed nervously. "What was the question again?"

"Why did you choose to race in your father's team?" asked a female journalist. "From your broad skill set and experience, you could've been picked by any other team on the grid."

A shit show. That was what this was.

"Uhm," you paused, trying to think of something smart to say. Kate didn't really prepare you for this. You scanned the crowd, catching her figure by the bar at the far left. She rolled her hands around motioning you to just talk. Just wing it.

"I wanted to stay within the family business and help dad," you looked over at him giving him a sweeter and truer smile than the crowd could ever pull out of you, "get his dream up and running again. Suruki Racing means the world to him and it means the world to me to see him happy."

At that, his features softened and he looked like your dad for once tonight, under all the spotlight and glamour. He mouthed a subtle "Thank you" under his nose that you caught when you looked back at him. "Always" you mouthed back.

Thinking that was all, you prepared to pass the mic back to him when another reporter shoved a question your way.

"Why did Suruki Racing choose a female driver out of the wider talent pool out there?" asked a male reporter this time, his gaze piercing through you with something utterly similar to distaste.

Even the public turned their eyes on him, appalled at the tone but just as curious at the answer he would receive, focusing back on you.

One - he was clearly implying that you didn't have a talent for driving, comparing you to the other people in the junior series who were all predominantly men. Two - he was making it even more obvious that females didn't belong in the sport from the way he accentuated the words female driver like it was a bad omen. Three - the way he asked the question made your skin crawl with hot blood.

Before your dad could take your mic and reply to the question that was obviously meant for you, you lifted it back to your lips and stared the man down with all your might.

"Suruki Racing didn't choose me," you seethed, calm and collected. "I worked my ass off for it until I got good enough for the sport to accept me."

A few heads in the crowd nodded in acknowledgment at your words. It was hard to get into a rally team for everyone, not just women. But the reporter still wasn't satisfied with your response and he made that clear with his next affirmation.

"That doesn't answer my question," he shot back, obviously trying to get a reaction out of you.

Prove them wrong, echoed Tanaka's words in your head. Don't let them get to you. Keeping your composure level-headed without giving him the satisfaction to see your rage, you replied.

"Suruki Racing picked me out of the wider talent pool out there because I proved myself to be a capable rally driver."

"A capable rally driver doesn't put the car in a ditch mid-race," he argued, still not backing down.

This dude was looking for a bone to pick with the wrong dog.

"No," you countered. "A capable rally driver gets third place first time on the job and overcomes challenges rather than giving into them like most of your very talented idols must be doing."

He threw his head back, barking a laugh so irritating it got harder to keep calm and carry on being civil.

"That was just pure luck."

"Pure luck will not be my foot through-" your face, you wanted to say but stopped.

You leaned towards him a bit too menacingly, forgetting that everyone else was kinda there, watching it all unfold. Waiting for you to step wrong. He didn't deserve the mercy for that potty mouth of his. But this was too public to cause a scene. Straightening back, you coughed awkwardly.

"Through the gas pedal each race. I'm here to compete for Suruki Racing and I will do so until the team no longer wants me."

With that you shut him up and handed the mic back to your father who nodded at you in contentment.

"I think that was all for our Q&A session. Please enjoy the rest of tonight and good luck in tomorrow's stages!"

Finally off the stage, you went back to the bar and hogged a few more glasses of champagne. Thinking this was just the beginning and much worse awaited you was unnerving to say the least. You were downing your third glass when jet black hair appeared in your peripheral vision. Looking over you found a really amused Naozumi peering right back at you. He checked you out shamelessly, letting his dark eyes browse you from top to bottom.

Kate picked out a midnight blue satin dress for you, hugging your curves in all the right places, with a huge back drop exposing your behind. A semi-precious trail of shimmering stones fell down your back from where the straps were joined, all the way to your lower back where it connected with the rest of the dress. Your hair was pulled into a braided bun, little side pieces framing your face softly. You looked less like yourself and more like one of those models he hangs out with on the usual.

Letting your eyes do the same, you lingered on his own attire. He wore a navy suit tailored to his body a bit larger than his tight racing suit, giving him a broader form but still rounding around his bulky biceps with a strain. His hair was no longer a messy bird's nest from the helmet, fixed into a neat hairstyle. His dark strands sat so thick and orderly in small waves, it was hard to believe this was the same hair those heavy hands rove through like it was an Olympic sport.

The man could really look his million dollar smile when he wanted to.

"Didn't think you'd be here tonight," you mused, playing around with the champagne in your glass.

"I kinda have a thing for public humiliation," he beamed, giving you that smirk reserved for the masses of ladies waiting to fall at his feet.

Some of them already clocked him next to you, batting their mascara filled eye lashes at him in thirst for a piece of him. You wondered how it felt being one of them. So smitten and drawn to him like he wasn't the biggest red flag on earth.

"Oh well, I would say you came to the right place for that." You took a bigger sip from the glass, letting the dry bubbly liquid run down your throat. "But you do that after every race by yourself anyways, no offence."

"None taken," he replied, leaning on the bar to browse the bottles on the racks illuminated by led lights.

Surprised that he didn't argue on that observation like it was his nature to, at practically every single thing that annoyed him, you regarded him once more. He seemed oddly calm. Maybe way too calm. But then again, you met the guy like a handful of times. You didn't know him that well. Maybe he had his good and bad days and the ones on track were the bad kind.

He looked like a tough nut to crack. He definitely had more layers than the racing suit he wore. And if anything, Naozumi Hiyama was a puzzle you were better off leaving wrapped up on the shelf for now.

His deep voice cut through the animated chatter around you, grabbing your attention once more.

"That was really ballsy back there, rookie," he said with a wry smile.

He was talking about your near assault on that reporter that was looking for a tabloid story. He watched the exchange from the back of the hall with slight irritation himself. If that was him in your shoes, he would've punched the guy multiple times just to get all his questions out in a more productive way.

"One more word and I would've kicked his balls to Narnia."

A deep chuckle rumbled out of his throat at that. You knew what you signed up for coming into this world and he respected that. Some of the fuckers that have been here for longer didn't even have that decency.

He eyed the glasses of champagne next to you, stacked high in several pyramids. You moved to the side thinking he wanted one. He shook his head, asking the bartender for whiskey on the rocks instead. It suited him much better than champagne for some reason. Just like whiskey, there was this strong hit about him at first sight, so smooth and raw with his words, that blended into a surprisingly bittersweet aftertaste just like his smile. The ice crashing in the glass only added to that hard exterior he put up for the world.

You were curious if he was this icy with everyone. Was his interior just as arctic and brutal to someone who made the effort to get through to him or was Naozumi Hiyama an impenetrable iceberg that sunk all the ships of amicable intent? And now you were curious about the very devil you were warned to stay away from.

Get your bearings around, Rai. He's danger in far more ways than you can think of.

"Champagne is only for podium," he piped up.

"Ah, not you too," you rolled your eyes.

Was it a men thing that you weren't aware of? Why did you have to celebrate something huge to pop open a bottle of champagne?

Last time I checked, whiskey was more expensive than champagne.

"Tradition is tradition," he simply shrugged.

"Is it bad luck or something?" you leaned over with interest, trying to gauge out the meaning of this weird tradition. Or rather the meaning it held for him.

He lifted up his raven eyes from the drink, glass steaming at the contact with his warm hand. Pointing them with measured grip on your own, the corner of his lip tilted up in experienced manner. Like he's seen the worst of it if he gave in to the will of Dionysus with so much as a small sip of champagne before the big day. You didn't take him for a superstitious person until now. But that look told you he was its victim many times. Who would've thought that Naozumi believes in karma.

"Don't jinx what you don't know," he stated, like a silent mantra he recited to himself all the time.

To beware the unknown and leave it to fate. Control what you know, not what you don't. Just like your pre-race ritual.

Maybe you were more alike than you thought. Not temper wise. He won that part fair and square with the outbursts he had after nearly every race. But in other parts of common ground. You wondered what else was silently shared between you.

Before you could peer more into the wild force of nature beside you, you were joined by another one, much more brighter and cheerful than the storm at your left, but still as deadly as a tornado behind the wheel.

"There you were," interjected a soft voice from your right.

Akira joined in the conversation, briefly regarding Naozumi with a smug grin. You gave Akira a small smile, turning back to find that Naozumi made himself scarce with his glass of whiskey by the time you looked from one to the other. He had this weird habit of waltzing in and lighting up all your curiosities then leaving just when you were about to satisfy them. Browsing the crowd for him, you found no trace of him.

"Here I am," you replied back, brushing off the meek interaction with the other man. "Were you looking for me?"

The music slowed to a slow melodious tune that stabbed your ears painfully. Curse your father for his very bland taste in music. You'd expect more from someone with a golden earring that blasts Metallica every morning as his alarm. He wanted to look good to the world but this was actually how he killed all excitement. Not that this event even had excitement in the first place. Unless you counted your stage debut for an entertainment moment.

A few couples in the crowd took to the dance floor, swaying lightly on their feet. Team principals with their wives, mechanics with their spouses, a few drivers and their model girlfriends too. They drew each other close, dancing on the tempo of a slow mellow waltz. You never understood what it was about slow music that was so alluring to people and drew them together to hold each other so close. For one moment where they danced like their souls connected, they forgot everything about their problems and the reality of the life we were all living. Not running at full speed. Simply just being.

"I have been looking for you," said Akira, rather excited about something.

He offered his hand to you in the most gentlemanly way someone of the opposite gender ever did towards you. The kind of gentleman you see in those princess movies, where the girl gets whisked away by the nicest guy, golden carriages and diamond tiaras included. You swore you could see his eyes sparkle like stars lost in the resolute distance of the night sky. Or it was just the drunken haze of the champagne talking.

"Would you care for a dance?"

He asked so softly with that dizzying smile of his that it made your knees weak.

Dancing with the Akira Shinkai? A hallucination surely.

There was no way this prince charming came out of nowhere and asked you, a nobody yet, to dance. That and the fact that you weren't even supposed to be talking to him, considering everything Tanaka told you. Plus the previous heated interaction between your team leaders. A heavy mix of feelings that kinda weren't yours, but your father's.

"Okay," you yelped.

Okay? Rai Suruki. Akira Shinkai of Sigma Racing asks you if you care for a dance and you say okay?

He led you to the edge of the dance floor, placing his hands around your waist to pull you closer. You weren't sure what to do with your own, setting them against his chest for now. He swayed you side to side to the slow music. You focused on his deep brown eyes, getting sucked into their void with each sway. They were so big and round.

Conversation, Rai. Make some conversation.

"Thank you for the sandwich earlier today."

Great. 'Cause talking about sandwiches is conversation.

"No problem. I saw it got you a few places up the board."

"But it brought you down a few," you looked up at him, feeling a little responsible for that.

On the crescendo of a soft violin aria, he spun you out, bringing you back in closer than before. Your hands weren't pressed to his chest anymore, but circled around his shoulders to keep your balance. Your faces were so close that your breaths were nearly brushing off each other's lips. When did he get so close?

His lips parted catching the attention of your eyes instantly. Those were some delicious rosy lips if you've seen any. Get a grip Rai. Mentally scolding yourself for the inadequate direction your thoughts were going in, you focused back on his eyes. Though even that was a mistake.

"If anything, it wasn't half a sandwich that made me lose places," he chuckled, eyes crinkling into crescent shapes. "This tour is so complicated. I hate it with a passion."

"That I can agree with," you giggled.

The song changed to a really sad tune, slightly upbeat violin changed for the sorrowful piano in the back, drowning out every bit of energy you had left for the day just like that. That's it. If this continued any longer, you'd fall asleep standing.

"Will you excuse me for a moment?"

Heading for the dj booth on top of the stage, you climbed up the steps careful not to trip in your heels and cause yet another scene. You walked behind the dj and nudged his shoulder. He put down his headphones wondering what it was you wanted.

"For the love of god, please change the playlist," you asked, prying your hands together.

He looked at you briefly, thinking he'd get away with just a song request from you. Too bad he just met the one person in this room who didn't mess around when it came to music.

"This is what Mr. Suruki said to play," he spoke over the track, moving to put his headphones back up when you nudged him again. You weren't leaving until he changed the disk. Even if it involved violence.

"The crowd is dying out there," you motioned to the public that was genuinely exhausted and bored out of their mind. "Here," you fished out your phone and connected it to his laptop before he could complain about you hogging his deck, pulling up a file on his laptop and downloading it. "Play this mix."

"Won't that get me in trouble?"

"I'll make sure he pays double."

That seemed to convince him. He gave the mix a quick listen through his headphones, eyes widening at the music choice. Even his face brightened as he gave you a thumbs up.

You walked off the stage going back to join the small crowd. A few moments passed and the sorrowful instrumentals faded into energetic electronic dance beats. People sitting around the tables moved back on the dance floor, this time getting into it better than soft waltz music could make them dance. The lights dimmed to a steep blue, letting a light show peak through. You successfully turned the event hall in a club.

You got back to Akira, a knowing smirk on his face.

"You are full of surprises, Rai Suruki," he grinned.

You bopped your head to the beat, moving your hips in sync with the music, feeling awakened rather than half-asleep. The alcohol finally pumped through your body along with the deep bass, sending the blood in your veins running like waves on an open sea. Your hands latched back on Akira's making him move with you in languid moves.

"Just wait till you get to know me better," you yelled over the music.

He snorted at you with a shake of his head, that turned into a full laugh carrying over the music. You made Akira snort. Double points in the charisma book. He whirled you around, back crashing into his chest. A confident hand sneaked around you to pull you closer by your waist, now moving hip to hip to the song. His lips brushed to your ear without warning.

"This dj is so good," he whispered, sending chills down your spine.

The whole mood shifted around you with the next song, so full of life and energized. Some people in the crowd yelled the lyrics, throwing their hands in the air. He seemed to enjoy himself too as the man on the deck pumped up the speakers even louder, letting the mix boom out and rouse the spirits.

You simply nodded with a small smile. The dj was good for sure. That and the fact that he was kinda dancing with her.

Showered once more, to get rid of all the makeup, and in the comfort of your loose nightwear, you finally dove head first into the bed like a submarine submerging in the depths of the mattress, snuggling your head into the silky pillows on the bed. Your silky soft pillows that you packed everywhere you went. Who trusts those hard hotel deadlifts under their head? Not what you wanted to lay on after being pushed around in a sports two-seater the size of a space capsule.

Getting comfy under the covers, you let out a sigh of content at the warmth enveloping your body in each and every neatly tucked in corner under you. You closed your eyes, willing mother sleep to take you into her loving arms and lull you into deep, restful slumber.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day with the last round of the Tokai track and you could use better points after today's performance. Going for podium wasn't even in the cards yet. The car had better days ahead of it. You had to keep from pushing it more than necessary. But the points could help you catch up.

The lights dimmed down in the room, the jungle outside the hotel ceased riveting and it was just peace and quiet. Perfect, serene and silent.

You were barely hanging on the last brink of consciousness when something rattled against the wall behind your head. Your eyes flew open checking around the room and the headboard to be met by the quiet pitch black again. The headboard was still where it should be, no sign of anything that could move it. Shrugging it off, you crashed back into your pillows and tried to go back to sleep.

Until you heard that sound again. And again. The third time, it was accompanied by an awfully female voice struggling to moan. What the fuck? It grew quiet again, then all of a sudden you could hear her loud and clear, pushing that really annoying mewl out of her throat in sync with the banging in the wall. Pulling your other pillow over your ears, you tried drowning the lewd sounds out but it only proved futile as the minutes on the nightstand clock passed and she was still struggling to commit to one fucking tone to come to.

For the ever-loving shit of sleep.

Throwing away the covers, you left the amazing comfort of the bed and wore your slippers. You flung the door open, marching down the corridor to the room next door. The moaning was even louder out here, bouncing off the walls like it was played from speakers. You stopped in front of the door, banging on it with bubbling annoyance at being denied sleep due to someone prioritizing their funky time more than the peace of other people under the same roof.

All sounds stopped upon your angry knocks. Crossing your arms over your chest, you blew out a breath waiting for the resident of the room to open the door. Then it dawned on you that you weren't sure just what you were going to tell them and how they were going to react.

Would they make it a big deal that you cockblocked their big night? Hopefully not. What if they deck you in the wall for interrupting? You looked behind at the hard wall decorated with a lamp and gulped. I have martial arts training.

You tapped your foot anxiously thinking of an amicable solution when the door finally pried open revealing an almost naked Naozumi, wearing only a pair of black briefs that sat way too tight around his jewels for your liking. You choked on air. Dear lord. Your jaw dropped somewhere to the first of lava at the center of the earth as you took him in.

His neatly arranged jet black hair was now a thick mess straying in all sides from possibly being grabbed at with womanly strength. Only a woman hungry enough for a taste of him would do that kind of mess. Something stirred deep down inside of you at the sight. You didn't like it one bit.

Your eyes trailed down his exposed torso taking in every ridge of muscle from his toned pumped up pecs, the carved squares of his abs that might as well be the best washboard you've ever seen, to his veiny biceps curling around his middle before you could take a peak at what lay beneath his belly button as he leaned on the door frame.

Heat crawled up your neck the longer you stared at him unable to tear your eyes away. By god was he handsome. And hot. Hotter than hell could ever burn.

He watched your shameless perusal, making sure to catch the pink tint spreading across your cheeks and the way your tongue swiped over your bottom lip in thinking, things at which he chuckled lowly. Openly checking him out like this was unlike you and he was curious just how far you'd take it if he just let you. Testing it out, he unraveled a hand away, watching your eyes instantly latch on his lower abs like a cat jumping after a laser. He shifted on his legs, causing the muscles on his waist to bend on one side and stretch on the other. He was so broad and big, it overwhelmed you.

You knew he was packed just from sneaking glances at those white fireproofs, catching them strain underneath with each move of his body, but this was next level. You looked at the power nestled between his meaty thighs and swallowed a thick gulp of air, reeling back up his body. Sweat glistened on the trunk of his neck under the flickering light of the corridor - a clear product of what he was up to before you interrupted.

The sound of a door opening and closing down the hall brought you out of your daze like a truck hit you at full speed, then rammed over you again backwards.

You were in the hallway of the rally teams hotel, looking at a very naked and sweaty Naozumi. You cockblocked Naozumi Hiyama of all people. The playboy extraordinaire. You'd be lucky if you got out of this unscathed. Or with your braincells intact because the longer you stared at his abs or the dip in the crook of his neck you lost a huge amount of them.

"Can I help you?" he asked, irritating smirk that's been slowly getting under your skin bright as day on his face.

"Yes," your voice came out on a broken pitch. You cleared your throat trying again more sure of yourself. "Yes you can."

You struggled to look away. It was physically impossible to when he looked like one of those ivory sculptures of naked Greek gods you see in museums. Though he wasn't fully naked like them. Okay, let's lose the word 'naked'.

Your train of thought got stopped by his smooth voice, slightly tinted with amusement.

"What is it I can help you with?"

That seemed to oil your brain back to work.

"Can you stop moaning so loud? Some of us are trying to get some sleep," you looked him dead in the eye.

"That wasn't me," he said, moving to the side slightly.

You got a view of his own hotel bed, pillows and clothes scattered across the floor in heaps, graced by a woman on top of it tangled in nothing but a white sheet. She softly waved at you. Before you knew it, you waved back with a nervous smile, too entranced by her beauty. Her long platinum blonde hair cascaded down her collar bones, complimenting her tender milky skin and petite form so well. Adding her bright smile to it, you could swear you just saw an angel from heaven. She is way out of his league.

"Are those Lightning McQueen pajamas?" asked Naozumi rather confused, pointing to your nightwear.

Your nightwear had the face of the popular Cars character in the middle of your long sleeve top. The pants had several miniature versions of it, checkered flags and the iconic golden Piston Cup, all over them on red background. A Christmas present from Tanaka you adored. Well, not anymore, considering you currently looked like a toddler sitting before two bare deities.

Your hands shot out to try and cover most of it but it was no use. He already saw it all, including your Mater slippers sized to scale, hugging your ankles better than any pair of boots could, and he was simply just smiling at you. There was a curiosity about you in his eyes. The same one you had about him.

You cleared your throat, embarrassed in a dozen different ways, looking forward to hitting the bed and sleeping.

"Just fuck quietly or something."

The woman behind him called his name softly. He turned back around to the beautiful angel waiting for him. Even her voice was angelic. Seriously, what was she doing with this excuse of a man? By the earlier sounds of it and the sight before you now, he clearly was the one who struggled to satisfy her.

"What did she say?" she asked.

He rolled back to your form in the hallway and just smirked at you, uttering the next words like they weren't dripping with the most sinful implications.

"She said you weren't loud enough."

A scarlet red hot tomato package on a ketchup bottle. That was how furiously you were blushing right now. Those words weren't even directed at you but at the woman behind him. Though you couldn't help the flurry they started in your belly since he looked at you so intensely when he said them.

"Really? Why doesn't she join us?" she asked excitedly sitting up on the bed.

His smirk turned into a full toothy grin at that remark.

"Right? Why don't you join us?"

I'm out of here.

Not staying longer for the incoming teasing attack at your already crumbling sanity, you started making your way back to your room in shame, his laugh booming behind you. You threw him the middle finger this time only making him laugh harder.

Please choke on her pussy and die.

You closed the door and sped-walked to the bed, getting back under the covers, sighing at the warmth still preserved under the big heavy duvet. Since it was quiet again, you thought it all stopped. Until the previous strangled moans turned louder and louder and the rattle in the wall turned into a full rhythmic bang, fully shaking your own bed with you in it.

I'm going to fucking kill him.

🏎️ Glossary of terms and other useful information 🏎️

Stages - A rally consists of several stages over the course of three days, usually at the end of the week. These are series of timed races where the drivers take on different portions of track in the selected area of the race region. There can be 2-4 stages in a day, stretching over 20-50 kilometers.

DNF - Did Not Finish. When a car does not finish the race due to falling off the track. You either hit the gravel, spin out with understeer, or hit a road hazard. Basically anything that can get you out of the time frame of completing the track stage.

Pace notes - Taken by driver and co-driver on a ride along the course pre-race stage (also called a recce for reconnaissance). They point out road hazards and corners that the driver isn't able to see during the fast race. Example: 5 left over crest - hill portion approaching.

Oversteer - Happens when there's too much power applied than the tyres can take, making the car slip and push in the other direction of the turn. Balance is important here.

Understeer - Happens when the car turns less than you want it to in a corner. For example, you force the steering wheel to the left too briskly and the car doesn't turn entirely. The tyres screech and lose grip.

Overdrive is based around the fictional Asian SEIKO Cup Rally Series, mostly focused on Japan. Tour de Tokai is the 3rd round out of 13 rounds in the calendar, taking place right at the beginning of the movie. The champion of the series is determined by the total number of points accumulated at the end of the series, advancing to the World Rally Championship!

Next

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[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2024-08-15 continued

(Previous post - current page 610)

Rested up some and back into this now! Rosebot is sounding quite a bit like the Horrorterror-advised Aradia Megido back in Act 5.1 isn't she. Let's get this ball rolling and actually see what sorts of civlization(s) they've brought about. Are we going to meet actual new characters from these races, or will they be played off as unimportant, or given semi-important roles whose actions still emphasize their theoretical hero titles like the carapaces (WV, PM, etc)?

==>

Whoaaa, look at this lanky motherfucker. I don't see hooves, so this has got to be one of Rose's... tentacle hair is more likely than dreadlocks, I'm guessing, but why do those feet look like elf shoes?

DIRK: Do you feel the part? ROSEBOT: It doesn't really matter what I feel. ROSEBOT: We have a job to do, and I'm trying to enjoy myself to the best of my ability while we do it. DIRK: Trying, huh. ROSEBOT: Speaking frankly, I've grown tired of... Rose gestures about the lab, the vats of our ectobiological triumphs and failures, blasé and almost weary in a way I haven't seen from her in a while. It calls to mind the exhaustion she felt before ascending, what must feel like a lifetime for her ago, and rings faintly of mortality in a way that concerns me.

There has to be some part of Rose that knows that what they're doing -- all of this, the abuse of power, doing whatever they want even if it leads to closing the great loop of Paradox Space -- isn't going to end well for her. I think part of her has known things couldn't end well for her as soon as she left Kanaya, so she's just... having what "fun" she can with the time she has left, and the only thing that's kept her diving deep into her work with glee instead of stopping is the REPEATED narrative interventions by Dirk to keep her brainwashed into moving forward without succumbing to her moral doubts. But it can all only continue so long until the weight of her sins is crawling on her back, and that comes with the sense a good Seer of Light would have that she's not going to get away with what she's done lightly, even if she believes she's too far along and too far gone to stop it, too close to their goal.

ROSEBOT: This. ROSEBOT: Fussing over all the tedious minutiae of getting the baby's room ready. ROSEBOT: The prospect of this Contest was entertaining to me for a time, but the longer it drags on, the closer we draw to the due date, the more it... repulses me. ROSEBOT: I'm glad you've agreed that we're basically done tinkering here. I don't think I have much more patience for it. DIRK: I can tell.

Dirk had to smooth over and make her dismiss how repulsed she was at the awful actions they'd proposed to do, OVER AND OVER AND OVER early on until she was practically sadistically gleeful in creating fucked-up monsters, but... now, he really doesn't have to do that much anymore. Rose feels she CHOSE all that she's already done, and the weight of that sin is sufficient that she can't stop anymore because if they DON'T FINISH DOING THIS, then all the immorality of what she's already done would be wasted, would all just be meaningless CRUELTY instead of the meaning that would even partially justify it in the end.

As appropriate when they're basically creating the concept of Sburb from the ground up, and the incredibly harsh cost of an entire civilization that comes with the opportunity to birth new universes from their ashes.

ROSEBOT: I'm also glad you've elected to hear Terezi out vis-a-vis the timeskip and save us the hassle of guiding the Deltritans manually. ROSEBOT: I know it must be hard for you. It'll actually be incredibly easy for me. Just time traveling forward is a no-go; at the frantic rate our pursuers are hurtling towards us, they'd catch up to Deltritus far before it had a chance to birth any sort of civilization at all, and that'd be a mess, especially with us only due to pop in millennia after the fact. We'd probably return to a planet totally unfit for Game candidacy.

I was wondering about that-- if they let their pursuers arrive early into the civilization's existence, the pursuers would have a chance to interfere with those civilizations' development before the game even starts. Heck, as long as Dave Strider is with them and willing, there's a risk they could interfere with the civilization's development even if they somehow wound forward the entire PLANET, which it sounds like he's implying they need to do somehow... what's the solution to make it inevitable in a way so that everything's "already happened" by the time the pursuers arrive and they can't interfere with the session's start?

Localized time travel, while technically possible, tends to get pretty fucked even in the most ideal of circumstances, to say nothing of the fact that it's way outside my wheelhouse as a Heart player. The concept works pretty well for my purposes, though, and as a burgeoning omnipotent narrative god, I can mimic it in a way that's functionally identical. The move here is that I'm going to envelop the local galaxy group in a pocket of my influence and narratively accelerate it via Bullshit so that whatever's going on in here goes on faster, so we can get to the good shit faster, so we can get on with our jobs, and so you gawking voyeurs have more of our lives to guzzle greedily down.

Christ, that's some Lord English sounding levels of temporal control over part of the universe, there! His narrative powers are fucking bonkers.

Why the galaxy group? Why not just the solar system, or even just the planet? My answer to that question is twofold. Firstly, I want the Deltritan societies to have a convincing view of their place in the cosmos, at least locally. What kind of civilization worth its soul-searching salt doesn't look to the night sky with wonder and curiosity in their hearts? It wouldn't do for them to exist in a world where the sun never sank below the horizon, or where the stars didn't dance tellingly across the sky, revealing the kind of hard-hitting secrets only astronomy can. Secondly, I'm showing off. I've been really coming into my own, powers-wise, and it's not just my Heart abilities that have shot up a few exponentially longer echeladders.

He's acting like Andrew Hussie or an equivalent author in the ability to make up an action needed and justify it via whatever excuse needed, like some strange Meteor machinery or the like for creating First Guardians or warping items between post-and-pre-Scratch timelines, or the like. Author powers can be truly terrifying; and author powers also explain how he can ensure that because the entire civilization existed within his narrative influence before the pursuers got there, he can narratively assure that no Dave-based time travel backward interfered, I'm betting.

He still would want his pursuers to arrive in time FOR the session that had already started, because I'm sure that session will in part be the battleground he uses to confront AL (alt!Calliope) and the others and deliver them the defeat his ego demands they face.

ROSEBOT: Dirk? Of course, Rose isn't talking about the mechanics of the timeskip. She's talking about the reasoning behind it, and the lack of precise control over Deltritus' development that will result as a consequence of it. I just figured I'd take the time to address the "how" factor to you all before the fucking pedants among you started making a fuss, acting like I haven't thought all this shit out. Yeah, you. You know who you are. Also, I'm stalling. Uncharacteristic of me, I know. ROSEBOT: Dirk. DIRK: Sorry. DIRK: Got caught up with something.

So Dirk either HAS successfully kept fooling Rose that he doesn't have narrative powers, or Rose is successfully bluffing that she hasn't at LEAST figured out that he's doing some sort of narration or has some influence without knowing the full extent of how it may have affected her... unless part of her STILL deems the final result more important even if she has an inkling that she may have been manipulated.

Why is he stalling, though?

ROSEBOT: Far be it from me to stand between you and your enigmatic somethings. DIRK: You're welcome to stand wherever you like. DIRK: Anyway, no, it isn't that hard for me. DIRK: It'd be fun, but as I keep having to explain to people, I'm willing to compromise on certain points. DIRK: Though I will say it's unfortunate to hear you making them, instead of our complainer on retainer. ROSEBOT: What can I say? ROSEBOT: I don't feel particularly inclined to play house right now. DIRK: Not even with me, huh? ROSEBOT: Not even with you.

You can only keep someone brainwashed into tolerating your company completely for so long when you're so obviously a piece of shit. And as Rose's Seer of Light senses bring her closer to understanding the personal consequences to HER of her actions, potentially -- the ones that were far off in the future when she made her "decision" to help with this operation -- the less she's going to be thrilled about owning it all. And she has VERY complicated Mom-related feelings about playing Mother most likely, even to an entire race. She would rather dodge the responsibility than fuck it up, just like she did with Yiffy. That's part of her existing trauma, most likely.

Also "play house" is a good intentional pun on playing Sburb.

==>

Cool-ass panels of them walking up out of the cave, followed by this gorgeous sunset shot where Rose looks absolutely melancholy:

For a while, neither of us says anything at all. Then, still silent, Rose turns and leaves the lab, a billowing stream of orange. I follow after her, at a respectable distance, and together we leave the mouth of the cave, making our way up the steps carved into the cliffside it now burrows into until finally cresting the plateau, and wordlessly taking a seat together at the edge of the cliff to look out over one of Deltritus' vast and alien oceans. "Wait, what's with the ocean?" you might ask. A while back, it became apparent that while my Deltritan offspring were to be terrestrial, Rose's were going to be aquatic.

That's actually an excellent way to keep the civilizations relatively separate and avoid their intermixing their cultures too much before The Game begins. Also, the Ocean and deep water's unfathomability is deeply tied with the Void, so if this race ends up being the ancestor race of the Horrorterrors, it makes sense that their monstrous progeny could live in the unlimited black strangeness between universes.

Back when I figured we'd have a more active role in their development, it felt appropriate to me that our base of operations should straddle land and sea, existing impartially at the precipice between the two competing worlds.

Yep, as I just said/thought-- keeps the civilizations separate.

I elected to transport (via Bullshit, of course) our humble grotto and the wreck of the Theseus to these cliffs overlooking the sea, that we might watch over our children from a locale more suitably dramatic and liminal than some fucking plain in the middle of nowhere.

The Bullshit he's referring to, the author's ability to handwave, simply means exploiting the fact that things could plausibly have happened offscreen in order to not have to write out the detailed mechanics of (say) the machine that they alchemized/built and used to transportalize their base smoothly to a new location, and can be used to employ all sorts of tactics offscreen... including, potentially dangerously, retroactively set-up countermeasures for whatever someone is about to do to you by simply narratively declaring that you prepared something for it beforehand, sort of like Joseph Joestar in Jojo Part 2. To Rose Lalonde, it'd theoretically be seamless, where she'd have the mechanical justifications that were created offscreen even if Dirk didn't even have to "write" the specifics.

Now, however, the effort (insofar as it was one, which it wasn't) seems to have been mostly in vain. No seagulls cry here, anyway. Rose and I made a lot of other filler-fauna to help our species integrate into the local biosphere while working through our respective game-plans, but I never got around to replicating or approximating seagulls. I guess I'm not gonna bother. It doesn't particularly feel like much of a home, anymore. As we sit side by side, watching the horizon, Rose is even harder to read than usual. I begin to feel the twinge of a vexation that I've been all too aware of over untold trillions of iterations of myself, a dread that's reared its head again recently. The fear that my plan isn't understood, my efforts aren't appreciated. That I'm alone, again.

You were always alone-- you FORCED Rose to understand and fully empathize with your plan, even if parts of her Ultimate Self were callous enough to have that dark capacity within her. And part of you knows that but wants to deny it so you DON'T feel like you're alone again.

I worry that she's slipping away. Growing disinterested in our time together. And I'm not willing to lose her, so as much as it feels like admitting a kind of defeat, I prepare to make her- ROSE: Thank you for taking me with you, Dirk. ...... DIRK: Yeah?

Whoa, holy shit.

So Rose feels like even the sinful meaningful acts she's doing here are worth it, now? But is still depressed? Possibly because she's been led to believe THERE WAS NEVER A PLACE for her back home, or that she'd have led things to ruin there instead of committing their crimes of creation/destruction way out here?

And again, it's showing us that-- whether due to Rose's genuinely built-up feelings, or if she's guessed the truth and is successfully bluffing about not knowing about the narrative abilities-- Dirk doesn't need to brainwash Rosebot anymore to keep her on board with the plan, unfortunately. She's too invested, committed too much of a Great Evil to not want to ensure the results that would make that evil even partially worthwhile. :C

==>

I hate that he "won" like this-- we ALL hate that he "won" like this. Even if it eventually turns out Rose is bluffing or figured it out. But Rose has to get her companionship somewhere, and as the abusive uncle-like figure that he is, he's made himself the only possible source of validation, the only company that could possibly "understand" her anymore. She has no one else left to cling to. :CCC

ROSE: I may be less than enchanted with this stage of the work, but I know it's important. ROSE: It's just straying dangerously close to a lot of things I'm trying not to fixate on right now. ROSE: Wounds that are still fresh, for me as a sum and for the myriad legions of my parts. ROSE: Home. ROSE: Family. ROSE: Petty, little things. ROSE: Personal things. DIRK: Those are important, too. ROSE: Not as important as this is.

Yup, as I guessed earlier, the fact that she's necessarily playing the absent mother figure feels like committing her Mom's sin and her inability to raise Roxy as Alpha Rose all at the same time. Those versions of her are all part of her now, and this is tapping into parts of all those traumas.

ROSE: For all my temporary discomfort with the prospect of settling down on Deltritus and starting what could very loosely be considered a family with you, I want you to know that my heart is in what we're working towards- DIRK: Technically, you don't have a heart. ROSE: Shut up. ROSE: - and that I'm happy to be here with you. ROSE: Not drifting around in a constrictive, small pond, getting caught up in trivialities like politics and celebrity and romance, ROSE: But saving the fucking universe. DIRK: ...

Technically, this all might be "necessary" to save Paradox Space or create it in the first place, rather; but it didn't have to be done this way, done by THEM, and Dirk Strider is the one who demanded arrogantly that HE wished to be responsible for it all, for writing it onscreen, for the trauma it'd cause to be the one who did it and his ambition to be the writer of all Paradox Space as a result, instead of an unknown civilization of frogs offscreen or something as it may have otherwise been. But Rose as an overembracing Ultimate Light Player here ultimately craves importance, and finds it more comfortable than the terrible fears of messing up relationships or even just being looked at as a goddess by Earth C's population, somewhat like Candy Jade expressed she felt earlier. Being a "Hero" and doing something "Important" (Light) is the only way her terrible self-esteem and negative judgment of herself, especially the negative self-judgment Dirk forced her to embrace by brainwashing her down this path, can consider her EXISTENCE worth anything at all. :CCCC

(Also, the Ultimate Rosebot "not having a Heart" is only true in the technical pun sense, since her soul as an Ultimate Self is present at full power within the robot and not fully digitized, with only a tenuous link to her body on life support, so she doesn't necessarily suffer the Auto Responder's disconnectedness with Dirk's broader "Heart"/Soul that allowed it to be malleably transformed into Lil Hal, Arquiusprite, and then Doc Scratch. Meaning that whatever happens to Rosebot, for now, Rosebot is still essentially Rose Lalonde. But if the connection between her main body on life support were ever broken, and Rosebot were LEFT with only the malleable AI algorithms designed to SIMULATE Rose, then... she WOULD be without a Heart, without a specific soul locking her unique personality down, and then would be vulnerable to being molded into something else like the Cueballs or Skaia or the like, possibly...)

Relief pulses through me in an immense wave. Relief and unfathomable, indescribable pride. It's almost paralyzing; I just sit here for a while, grateful for my shades and their ability to protect me from making eye contact with my daughter, who is in this moment as brilliant as the aspect that adorns her hood. I should tell her. DIRK: Well. DIRK: You're welcome. She scoffs at my barebones response, and I'm forced to marvel at her ability to communicate so weightily, conveying such a minutely specific blend of emotion as understanding, affection, acknowledgement, encouragement, admonishment, and so many more, all with the hardware of a literal machine. She's an incredible person.

Dirk DOES care about Rose, quite a lot, but that only makes his abuse of her even MORE fucked up. That's often the case with abusive relationships, especially parental ones.

To my credit, I am also an incredible engineer.

And he takes credit for the molding he's forcibly DONE to her to bring her to this point, to bring out these awful sides of her Ultimate Self willing to actually do this with him, the utter fucking asshole. >:( Which is again, characteristic of an abusive paternal relationship.

At any rate, Rose might be beating my ass on the emotive front, but I'm still capable of articulating myself well enough, and I'd better start soon or I'm going to begin to look like a real fucking dork. DIRK: I don't think there's anyone I'd rather be doing this with than you.

Thanks for at least opening up your feelings a BIT to respond to hers properly, at least, you asshole prick who still deserves to die.

DIRK: The rest of them just don't have it in them right now to understand what it is we're fighting for, here. DIRK: They can't grasp the stakes. DIRK: Even now, they're on their way here, actively trying to stop us from saving them all. DIRK: They'll probably catch us right before our entrance into the Game, actually.

Technically, AL and Dirk share almost the EXACT SAME GOAL here, a desire to close the loop of all Creation in a way that makes sense as a story. The main place they disagree is who should be in charge of it all... AL clearly believes that Dirk SHOULDN'T be in charge and it should be left to propagate on its own once set up, needs to deny him his ambition of becoming the tyrannical forever-author of almost all Paradox Space. But AL has a hard time letting go of control, and as much as she believes Dirk must be stopped, her actions tell the story of someone who may be just as willing to become the Forever Author of Paradox Space HERSELF too.

DIRK: I won't insult you by asking if you're going to be okay when the time comes to face them, demanding answers they won't accept to questions they aren't even asking, because I know that you will. DIRK: So I'm glad to have you with me. DIRK: I'm glad you understand.

Yeah, we always knew this was going to be the play. No appeal or objection their pursuers make isn't going to be met with a "this is more important than you understand" from Rosebot and direct opposition that stops and traps and stalls them (though short of killing them), and any appeals that Dirk has just been "brainwashing" her are going to ring hollow to her ears after all she's truly, herself, invested in this course of action even outside the brainwashing.

This isn't going to be easy to fix.

==>

DIRK: I'm doing this for all of us. I'm doing this for all of us.

The same false justification his iterations like Bro have used to abuse people all of his myriad lives. He cares much more about him (and his) being the one to have DONE it than the fact that it gets done.

Wait, what's this next link? Candy? Who's Big Kahuna-- oh right, Meenah (or one of her codenames she mentioned last time for one of the others)?

(Big Kahuna: Check the door.)

Ah, Karkat's home!

(BIGGEST KAHUNA: Return to base.)

KARKAT: KEPT YOU WAITING, HUH?

Why'd they have to make Solid Karkat here look as sexy as fucking possible in adult form. Oh who are we kidding, of course they fucking had to, and we love it. :D

(Rebellion Commanders: Confer.)

MEENAH: took you long enough bossman

KARKAT: I THOUGHT I ASKED YOU TO STOP CALLING ME THAT WHEN WE'RE ALONE. MEENAH: big bossman KARKAT: NOT BETTER. MEENAH: sweetie-pirate KARKAT: BOSSMAN IT IS. MEENAH: you got it bitch KARKAT: I CAN WORK WITH BITCH.

Hahahahah! These two have a great dynamic. (They're a couple in this timeline right, instead of him and Dave?)

KARKAT: ANYWAY, THINGS ARE RAMPING UP OUT THERE. KARKAT: ARE YOU JUST ABOUT WRAPPED UP? MEENAH: yep MEENAH: its a good thing youre back i just got off a real shipshow of a call with mrs fencesitter and agent short shorts a lil while ago MEENAH: looks like serious shit is about to pop off KARKAT: YEAH, I WAS LISTENING IN.

Fun conversations here, also calling out Roxy for only halfheartedly aiding the rebellion so as not to do much damage to Jane, which Jane in her current state couldn't possibly appreciate as still being any less than betrayal and which likely put even more of a wedge between Roxy and Meenah.

KARKAT: ALSO I'VE ALREADY HAD KIND OF A GAUNTLET OF A FUCKING DAY ALREADY AND I DIDN'T NEED THE PAN-ACHE. KARKAT: I KNEW YOU HAD IT UNDER CONTROL. MEENAH: youre lucky youre breamy as hell when youre out there doin tacticalypso or id have mutinied and kraken over this whole operation for myshellf

Breamy = "Dreamy", right, they're together romantically like I remembered.

(==>)

KARKAT: CONSIDERING NONE OF THE MAJOR PLAYERS HERE HAVE ANY SENSE OF TACT OR SUBTLETY WE'RE GONNA NEED TO MOVE OUT PRONTO. KARKAT: HOPE YOU'RE FIELD-READY, BECAUSE WE'RE GONNA NEED TO B- MEENAH: oh fuck yes MEENAH: dude let me say it KARKAT: YEAH, GO AHEAD.

Let's make this shi(p) happen?

(==>)

MEENAH: bring in the mothafuckin LOBsT-ERs

Excuse me??

(Also, having random war flashbacks of Sniper Lobsters in Elden Ring.)

(LOBsTERs: Assemble.)

*Sigh*

(An hour later...)

Okay THAT shot's pretty cool.

Karkat doing tons of tactical talking and shit...

MEENAH: KARKAT KARKAT: WHAT. MEENAH: krillax KARKAT: NOT REALLY AN IDEAL TIME FOR THAT, ON ACCOUNT OF THE FACT THAT WE'RE PROBABLY HOURS AWAY FROM THE MOST CRITICAL ARMED ENGAGEMENT THE REBELLION IS LIKELY TO SEE. MEENAH: it hasnt been an ideel time for like 6 sweeps MEENAH: you need to take a breatht-stroke KARKAT: ... HAHAHA, WHAT? MEENAH: you know what i mean MEENAH: youve been runnin yourshellf into the fuckin dirt for ages MEENAH: take a you moment KARKAT: MEENAH, THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME TO TAKE A ME MOMENT. MEENAH: actually in like a day or so were either gonna be tridentumphant and busy as fuck or dead in the water so its like the best possible time all fins considered MEENAH: youve been out on field ops for like a week

Yeah, as a Knight of Blood, Karkat is EXTREMELY unhealthy about not using almost all of his time too diligently on his responsibilities.

MEENAH: maybe i wanna chat with my buoy toy for a lil bit KARKAT: YEAH, ALRIGHT. KARKAT: I DUNNO, FUCK. UH... HOW ARE YOU DOING? MEENAH: how are *you* doin KARKAT: PRETTY FUCKING STRESSED!

Pfffffff

KARKAT: ALSO THIS COVERT-OPS SUIT IS TIGHT AS ALL FUCK. MEENAH: well if its any consolation that may be rough for you but its a pretty great time to be your rear admire-all 38) KARKAT: MUCH OBLIGED. KARKAT: ... KARKAT: SERIOUSLY, MEENAH, I APPRECIATE IT. KARKAT: IT'S BEEN KIND OF A ROUGH... KARKAT: DECADE AND A HALF? KARKAT: BUT THROUGH ALL THE SLOG AND THE SHITTY TIMES AND THE UNCERTAINTY YOU'VE REMAINED REMARKABLY COMMITTED TO THIS. KARKAT: HELPED ME TURN THIS ABSTRACT, FRUSTRATED DREAM INTO A FUNCTIONING FUCKING REALITY. KARKAT: YOU NEVER WAVERED. KARKAT: YOU NEVER FLAKED. KARKAT: YOU STUCK BY ME.

Yeah. Dedication means a whole fucking lot to Karkat, both as a person and as a Blood player. And the fact that Meenah, who flaked out in some ways just to BE here instead of with her (Vriska) girlfrond in the dream bubbles, did a pretty good job of NOT flaking it seems like, especially since this sort of Rebellion effort is exactly her jam. The main risk she might start flaking is if shit ever starts to get peaceful again.

(==>)

She continues to look VERY good. :#|

MEENAH: not like dave huh KARKAT: WOW, STRAIGHT TO THE POINT.

Ah damn, yeah.

MEENAH: i mean hey i figured youd wanna glub about it MEENAH: conchsiderin KARKAT: SO YOU HEARD THE NEWS? MEENAH: yeah i mighta been listenin in on your converseation myshellf MEENAH: along with like half the comms team MEENAH: you left your mic on KARKAT: UN KARKAT: FUCKING KARKAT: BELIEVABLE. MEENAH: its all good MEENAH: actually pretty much everyone ate it up there was like gasps and cheers and occasional applause and shit MEENAH: not shore if youre aware of this but it turns out people fuckin love you KARKAT: WELL COLOR ME GLAD MY OPERATIVES FOUND IT INSPIRING THAT I TOOK CRITICAL TIME OUT OF MY MISSION TO PREVENT THE ENTIRE PLANET FROM BACKSLIDING INTO STAGNANT CONFECTIONARY FASCISM TO YELL AT A HAPLESS DIVORCEE.

Everyone's always cheered for you, my self-depricating dude. You're a rock star.

KARKAT: ANYWAY. KARKAT: YES. KARKAT: NOT LIKE DAVE. MEENAH: how you feelin about that KARKAT: I DON'T KNOW. KARKAT: I THINK MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, JUST FUCKING... KARKAT: DISAPPOINTED. KARKAT: EXHAUSTINGLY, FRUITLESSLY DISAPPOINTED. KARKAT: WE USED TO SPEND SO MUCH TIME TOGETHER TALKING ABOUT HOW TO FIX SHIT, YOU KNOW? KARKAT: SPITBALLING ALL THIS FRIVOLOUS AND/OR GRAVELY SERIOUS CONJECTURE ABOUT WHAT TO FUCKING *DO* WITH OURSELVES AND THE WORLD. KARKAT: AND THEN AS SOON AS IT STARTS REALLY MATTERING, AS SOON AS IT BECOMES CLEAR IT'S TIME TO DO *SOMETHING*, HE JUST WILTS. KARKAT: THEN HE SPENDS YEARS MILLING FECKLESSLY AROUND IN THAT DOMESTIC TORTURE LABYRINTH OF A RELATIONSHIP KARKAT: *MARRIES INTO IT*

Lots to gripe about there, yeah.

KARKAT: AND SUBSEQUENTLY DECIDES THAT NOW'S THE BEST TIME TO PLAY SPIES, PRESUMABLY SO HE CAN CONTINUE TO AVOID HAVING MISERABLE MATRIMONIAL PROCREATIVE SEX. KARKAT: ONLY FOR JADE TO FOLLOW HIM INTO THE CAUSE!

What the fuck??? Not just him not being into sex with Jade, but-- PROCREATIVE sex with Jade? Wouldn't that be impossible for him and her with her dog-ascension-replaced equipment downstairs-- unless we're talking about conceiving with surrogates, which Dave would DEFINITELY FIND any excuse to avoid doing himself, or unless he's trans-masculine, which is a damned popular headcanon for good reason?

KARKAT: WHICH, YOU KNOW, WAS OBJECTIVELY A PRETTY BIG BOON TO THE REBELLION. KARKAT: GOOD FOR MORALE, AND OBVIOUSLY THEY WERE INCREDIBLE FIELD AGENTS. KARKAT: BUT FUCK WAS IT A SAVAGE PAIN IN THE CHUTE. KARKAT: DO YOU REMEMBER THE PERIOD EARLY ON WHERE I HAD TO ASSIGN ANOTHER CLERK TO MISSION CONTROL WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE WAS TO MANAGE THE TWO OF THEM SO THEY KEPT THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY UNTIL THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO BE EVEN THE SCANTEST APPROXIMATION OF NORMAL AROUND ME? KARKAT: THE FACT THAT IT WAS NECESSARY AT ALL IS STILL FUCKING APPALLING.

Ugh, yeah, I was already pretty much imagining it would have sucked hard in exactly this manner back in those days.

KARKAT: AND THEN FINALLY, *FINALLY*, WE GET HIM SITUATED, HE'S ACTUALLY MANAGING TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WHO EVEN KNOWS HOW LONG.

KARKAT: AND HE JUST FUCKS OFF AND KARKAT: AND DIES. KARKAT: HE JUST CALLS IT THERE. KARKAT: SO KARKAT: DISAPPOINTED. KARKAT: DISAPPOINTED IS HOW I'M FEELING ABOUT THAT.

:'C

KARKAT: BUT- KARKAT: FUCKING- HOLD ON, I NEED TO TAKE THIS.

So what new developments are we discussing now?

(Karkat: Answer urgent comms.)

KARKAT: *WHAT*. SOLLUX: finally he picks up. SOLLUX: hey man. KARKAT: DON'T FUCKING "HEY MAN" ME.

BAHAAHAHAH! His old annoying-ass best bud! Who may or may not be contributing to the war effort with some sick hacking between video games.

SOLLUX: there's like a bazillion m0oks swarming ar0und my crib and none 0f the grubereats dudes are accepting orders right n0w. SOLLUX: probably 0n account 0f your inc0nvenient ass war. SOLLUX: could y0u pick me something up?

SOLLUX READ THE ROOM

KARKAT: MAYBE YOU'D GIVE MORE OF A FUCK ABOUT THE REPRODUCTIVE FUTURE OF OUR SPECIES IF ARADIA WAS EVER ACTUALLY THERE LONG ENOUGH FOR YOU TO GET SOME. MEENAH: ohhh snapper

Wait, so Aradia actually might possibly time travel back in her personal past over to the Black Hole trapped timeline to hang out with Sollux on rare occasions?! Is she capable of crossing back and forth when nobody else can? I highly doubt that-- but Davebot insisted she WAS still seeing someone... is it possible that she's asking to borrow alt!Calliope's powers whenever it strikes her on the rare occasion to go back for a date? No, it doesn't feel like AL would do her that favor... who the fuck is Aradia still dating? A DIFFERENT Sollux? Someone else??? Or does she have a free travel ticket that breaks the rules so hard that the whole Plot Point thing shouldn't even be necessary to break through!?

KARKAT: BETTER GET BACK TO IT, THEN, DON'T LET ME KEEP YOU. KARKAT: I'LL JUST BE OUT HERE FREEDOM FIGHTING AND DEPLETING JANE'S GROUND FORCES SO SHE WON'T HAVE ENOUGH MANPOWER TO STORM THE METEOR AND PUT A SPOON THROUGH YOUR SPINE, OH AND ALSO FERRYING YOU YOUR FUCKING FAST FOOD, I GUESS! KARKAT: GOOD LUCK! KARKAT: HOPE YOU GET A HIGH SCORE! SOLLUX: yeah im kinda in the z0ne right now. KARKAT: AWESOME. SOLLUX: hey kk KARKAT: WHAT. SOLLUX: are we still friends? KARKAT: OBVIOUSLY, DIPSHIT! KARKAT: STAY SAFE, ALRIGHT? KARKAT: ... KARKAT: ... KARKAT: DUDE! SOLLUX: s0rry im still gaming. KARKAT: BYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOLLUX: alrighty bro g0od talk.

D'awwww. Same as it ever was between them. :'D

(Rebellion Commanders: Finish up here.)

Oh, the top of the Meteor (memorial) is still buried above ground, to eventually eons in the future become Calliope and Caliborn's home (EDIT: or would have if this wasn't the Candy timeline, I forgot, but the Meat timeline has it as a similar memorial there most likely). Makes sense; it just extends deep ENOUGH underground for Roxy to have described the lab as such after going through the transportalizer.

KARKAT: YEAH, I'M DISAPPOINTED ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING WITH DAVE WENT DOWN. KARKAT: BUT TODAY NEEDS TO BE BIGGER THAN THAT. KARKAT: IT'S NOT PRODUCTIVE FOR ME TO SIT HERE AND WALLOW ABOUT WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN AND WHAT MORE I COULD HAVE DONE FOR ONE PERSON WHEN NOW, MORE THAN EVER, I NEED TO FOCUS ON WHAT COULD BE AND WHO'S WITH ME NOW. KARKAT: WHO I'M DOING ALL OF THIS FOR. KARKAT: WE'VE BUILT SOMETHING AMAZING TOGETHER, AND IF WE CAN HOLD ON JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER IT'LL HAVE BEEN INCALCULABLY WORTH EVERY OUNCE OF STRUGGLE.

Yeah, said like a true Blood player and great leader.

...Lol at the crew's reactions subsequently.

KARKAT: COMMANDERS HARLEY, MARYAM, AND LALONDE ARE INBOUND, AND NOT LONG AFTER THEY GET HERE THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BATSHIT STUPID! KARKAT: BUT THINGS HAVE BEEN BATSHIT STUPID FOR A LONG, LONG FUCKING TIME, KARKAT: SO LET'S DRAG THAT IMPERIOUS CORPORATE BITCH DOWN FROM HER AIRSHIP AND REINTRODUCE A LITTLE NORMALCY!

Almost time to try and stabilize this whole damn timeline yeah, which may indeed incidentally give them the avenue to win against a more grounded-in-reality Jane Crocker.

(==>)

Quite the intimidating lineup of enemy ships.

MEENAH: target fuckin acquired

(Jane: Educate these fools on the art of war.)

You are in no position to educate anybody, Mrs. Mistress Executive. Dehydrated, grieving, and coming off of a particularly nasty sugar high, Sun Tzu wouldn't even let you substitute at this rate. What would your curriculum even be? Furious Fudge Flinging 101? Because you are completely losing your shit right now.

Hahahahahhaha.

Luckily we have already seen the beginning of these histrionics here.

Yeah, when Jane was yelling for her poison-tasting water boy because her throat's dry and she's ballistic. Jane doesn't exactly have the ROLE as a Maid of Life nor the personal experience to be a master war tactician-- all she's good at is enforcing order and anxiety (due to her Bard of Doom synergy theoretically) and, as a Maid of Life, having tons and tons of power, money and influence to throw at the problem and hope to overwhelm it with sheer might alone. Not much tactical about it.

(==>)

Oh, we're back to the tail end of that conversation! Is Jake going to decide on something he can actually do to *help* stop her here? And of course we're getting further Brain Ghost Dirk perspective.

JAKE: Oh flip. JAKE: Sorry janey i was handling an urgent matter. JAKE: Had to pop down the little boys office to shred some important papers. JANE: What? JAKE: Im spending a penny at the local water closet. JANE: Jake. JAKE: Im in the bathroom. JANE: Oh.

Hahahahah. Classic Jake-anachronisms.

JANE: UGH! JANE: You are always in the bathroom these days!

Doing spy shit, yes.

JAKE: Well my job is to taste test all your water for poison, JAKE: dear. JAKE: Forgive my impertinence but perhaps if you trusted the troops more, we could avoid all of this folderol and i could be promoted to standing by your side? JAKE: Thatd help my besieged bladder, for sure. JANE: Not happening. JAKE: Oh! Of course! JAKE: Silly me.

Jane really never trusted Jake for anything important, even when she WANTED him for a relationship. It's like there was hardly ever a potential timeline where their relationship might actually go well, it seems, unless they both got some seriously miraculous psychotherapy.

JAKE: May i ask... why? JAKE: Not to make a tit of myself here. JAKE: But wouldnt an enemy spy be childs play to spot, seeing as our troops share such similar faces? JAKE: Pretty much the exact same face? JANE: I once thought it an asset too! JANE: How clever I saw myself... JANE: "Hoo hoo! We'll avoid instating a draft by cloning an army!" JANE: "Unprecedented genius!" JANE: "Brand consistency!"

Oh wow, they've been CLONING TROOPS. That makes some degree of sense as a sort of counter for her "concerns" about the rate of troll reproduction, too. Also, she's MAKING LIFE, which seems a good hero title pun.

JANE: Of course, I realize now that if any serviceman developed mutinous, deviant intentions, he could simply slink back into the safety of the crowd.

JANE: The perfect cover for a tiger amongst zebras. JAKE: Grrr... JAKE: Friggin double agents, man. DIRK: (Amazing. Can I get a cherry on top of that?) JAKE: Why i oughta... the very thought! DIRK: (Fuck yes. Marlon Brando in the motherfucking building.) JANE: Exactly. It's horrifying.

Lol.

JANE: Thankfully I have practiced instinct where assassination is concerned. JANE: An instinct that has only sharpened in the wake of... recent tragedies. JANE: I won't be lulled into any such false sense of security this time, that's for sure! JAKE: Is that why the old henhouse has been feeling a bit spacious recently? JANE: I may have a handful or so of men in the brig. JANE: For safekeeping. JANE: They have snacks! A water trough. JANE: All unpoisoned, might I add. JANE: Who gives a toot anyways, we'll be depositing them out onto the battlefield soon enough.

Jane Crocker HAS technically been dealing with assassination attempts since childhood, too.

JAKE: Speaking of the battle... JAKE: What was the pre-established plan, again? JAKE: Just trying to refresh my simple mind on the details. JAKE: Especially the ones that situate our son near The Point. JAKE: I take it we have protocols in place a tad more delicate than simply "bombs away!" JAKE: Right? JANE: Sigh. JANE: Jake, do you remember when I went to the moon?

OH FUCKING HELL YES THAT INSTAGRAM STUFF WAS (at least Candy) CANON SHE'S SENDING IN ROBOT JACK NOIR AND HIS FELT CREW YESSSSSSS I WAS HOPING THEY'D COME BACK!!! It's the only way to make this fight interesting!!

Looks like she's about to recap anyone who missed that instagram compilation of the assassination attempt that teleported her to the moon before it was about to be shot into a crescent shape by the Carapacians as a ridiculous act of godly devotion and then she captured and rounded up the whole New Midnight Crew in collars. Jack Noir is a fearsome and fun adversary to be up against, especially when the presumed Prince of Blood is running with a destructive crew.

(Jane: Start monologuing.)

That's right, I remember, Jack brought a bunch of them back to life to work for him using Die's doll or something. Seems she has enough of a handle of them to not use prison collars on them now.

JAKE: Uuuuuuuuuuuuh. JANE: No? It was a huge deal. JAKE: Was this around the time all those carapacians took a big chunk out of it? JANE: Yes! JANE: You see, prior to that expedition, I'd been cooking up a contingency plan, of sorts. JANE: I put some serious man-hours into it. JANE: If things were to go tines up, our last line of defense is a machine that will emit a guided beam to a location of my choosing.

MOON LASER!!!! I'm getting Dr. McNinja flashbacks (which I'm a fan of if you couldn't tell by the avatar, sorry the site is down.)

DIRK: (A laser?) JAKE: So were destroying The Point now? JANE: No! JANE: No, no, no, no. JANE: Definitely not. JANE: We are *capturing* The Point. JANE: But if we don't... JAKE: Ah. JAKE: Contingency plan. JANE: Contingency plan indeed.

Jane doesn't care what the Rebellion thinks about this being important to the safety/integrity of the entire timeline or whatever, or saving the universe. She wants to win. If she can't have it, nobody can.

JANE: A surgical, precise, and most importantly *unexpected* means of victory, with virtually no crossfire. JAKE: Does that seem... JAKE: Sound? JANE: You know, Jake, you've been giving me the 3rd degree all day. JAKE: Hm? JANE: You're typically content stumbling through life as a soft-headed bimbo, and it's only now of all times you start showing stark, pointed interest in happenings outside of yourself? JANE: I find that odd. JANE: Suspicious even. JAKE: Erm...

He's definitely become more active in trying to figure out how to stop things and gather information as the critical moment approaches, yeah. And Brain Ghost Dirk's resurgence (if he ever left) is likely pushing him too.

JANE: You're thinking, "She's a bad mother," aren't you? DIRK: (Here we go.) JANE: Don't you try to deny it.

Oh pfff, not suspicion but marital fucking discourse. Heheheh.

JANE: I see you, up there on your high horse. JANE: Interrogating me! JANE: As if you have the right! JANE: Just what did *you* do, besides whimper like a kicked dog, as they took our boy away!? JANE: "TAVVY!" JANE: You can fly, you idiot! JANE: You're such a harmless, dunderheaded fucking nonentity that those seditious connivers would have *let* you tail them! DIRK: (Ouch.) JANE: Everything he has, *I've* provided. JANE: Everything he is, *I've* nurtured!

Jake probably trusts "Tavvy" in their hands more than yours, but that's neither something you know nor can accept. And the thing about Jake is that yes, he's a doormat, but Pages in Homestuck often seem to need to be given a long time in flourishing, non-traumatic environments to bloom into anything resembling their true role and power, and Jane has never had the confidence in him to try to build him up instead of spitefully knocking him down.

JAKE: (Criminy, bro, she has a death laser.) JAKE: (Like goldfinger.) JANE: Remember how I willed him out of my body, 3 months premature, because I was so excited to see him? JAKE: (The rebellion isnt prepared for that.) JAKE: (What are they going to do?) DIRK: (Fuck if I know, refract it off Commander Vantas' massive tits?) JAKE: (Were going to lose.)

HOLY SHIT AT THE PART I BOLDED JANE IS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NUTS, she could have stunted her child's growth just for that selfishness! "Arrested Development" indeed!

Jake looks like he might be gearing to do something actually heroic for once. Like, say... to fly HIMSELF up to the moon and destroy a fucking moon laser.

JANE: You might be a primo actor, English, with that perfect smile and that stupid, sexy fake accent. JANE: But you are not a caring individual. JANE: My Dad... JANE: He had so much love in him that you could feel it when he entered the room. JANE: Across all the iterations of yourself, do you think your children ever felt even a MODICUM of that?

FUCKING OUCH SHE'S GOING FOR THE JUGULAR

JANE: Jade? Terrifying, JANE: I hate even thinking about it. JANE: And I don't doubt for a second that there were more. JANE: How do you imagine they turned out?

That's right, I've only played part 1 but Hiveswap indicates there were other children, with him even using Roxy as babysitter for his frequent absences. The Page of Hope, er... with Hope's phallic and white-blast reproductive symbolic connotations, er... might spread his seed a little wide.

JAKE: (I finally grew the gumption to get off the back foot, and were all going to meet the reaper regardless.) JANE: Let's face it. I held you accountable. JANE: Without me, you'd have left Tavros behind in a peanut factory. JANE: Asphyxiating on the floor, crying "Daddy, where are you! Daddy!" DIRK: (Dude.) JAKE: (JOLLY JESUS FUCKING CHRISTMAS!!!) JANE: What the fresh hell are you mumbling to yourself? JANE: Y- JAKE: WILL YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN CAKE HOLE!!!!!!! JANE: !!!!!!

YEAH THAT'S TOO MUCH INSULT FOR EVEN HIM TO TAKE. Even Brain Ghost Dirk is shocked at how low she's going. CHEW HER OUT, ENGLISH!

(==>)

JAKE: Listen to you, lecturing me about parenting and flagellating me with fucking... infanticidal peanut snuff fantasies! JAKE: Tavros isnt even allergic to peanuts anymore! JANE: What?

What?

How...?

(==>)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED JAKE HOPED HIM BACK TO LIFE OR SOME SHIT?!?! GAMZEE???

JAKE: Hes been cured since he was thirteen! JANE: How???? JAKE: Gamzee. JAKE: Via some vile cosmic caper or another it is *always* gamzee! JAKE: He found out! JAKE: Started rambling on and on about "how motherfuckin' malicious" it was to see "A dIfFeReNtLy AbLeD bRoThEr MiSsIn' OuT oN tHe NiRvAnA oF tHaT nUtTy MoThErFuCkIn' NeCtAr."

Yeah, Jane being in ANY sort of relationship with Gamzee was a war crime towards her whole family and reality itself.

DIRK: (Why are you doing the voice?) JAKE: "ThErE's WhOlEsOmE, hOlIsTiC hEaLiNg PrOpErTiEs AlL uP aNd StUfFeD iNtO tHe HaRmOnIoUs UnIoN oF pB aNd J." DIRK: (You don't need to do the voice.) JAKE: "WhAt EvEn Is ThIs SuLtRy BiTcH oF a LiFe WiThOuT a LiTtLe PeAnUt BuTtEr JeLlY tImE?" DIRK: (It'd be so sick if you stopped doing the voice.) JAKE: Then he pulled the "OuR dUtY aS sTrOnG mAlE mOtHeRfUcKiN' mOdElS iS tO nUrTuRe AnD gUiDe ThAt LoSt LiTtLe LeGuMe-InToLeRaNt LaMb," card. JAKE: "We StRaIgHt Up GoT tO bE tHe ChAnGe WhAt AlL nObOdY eLsE eVeR gOt DoWn To BeInG iN tHe WoRlD, fOr ThE lItTlE nEgLeCtEd NuGgEtS *wE* aLl WaS." DIRK: (Fuck me, then.)

Jake is invoking Gamzee's spirit Hopeways here, he HAS to do the voice, BG-Dirk. No getting around it.

And yeah, Gamzee would find insane fucking ways to abuse their son and Jane would turn a blind eye to it because of her pointless clown lust, it seems. NO WONDER TAVROS KICKED HIS CORPSE!!!!

JANE: He always felt you two had a common tragic upbringing. JAKE: I know... JAKE: After that, the insane clown started stowing peanuts around the mansion, tricking little tavvy into eating them! JAKE: Poor squirt was thrashing throat-first into anaphylactic shock bi-weekly. JAKE: I epipenned him so many times, i learned needlekind! JAKE: Worried myself as sick as our boy was, just wishing that nutty nightmare would nix. JAKE: Then, wham. JAKE: It did! JAKE: Thank god! JANE: I- JANE: I had no idea. JAKE: Of course you didnt! JAKE: You werent there!

Preach, Jake English!!!!! Preach all over this neglectful asshole bad excuse for a mother who gave Tavros privilege and little else!

JAKE: You might have expelled him into existence with your easy-bake tuna canoe.

SDFJ:DSKLJ EASY BAKE TUNA CANOE ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS JAKE XD

FUCK THAT'S HILARIOUS

JAKE: But i kept him alive! JAKE: I raised him! JAKE: Nelsons knickers, half the time it feels like "uncle" fucking gamzee had more hand in his upbringing than you did! JANE: Oh... my... JANE: I never... took a second to stop and think... JANE: I don't remember when he took his first steps. JANE: Or what his favorite food is. JANE: I didn't even fucking breast feed him! DIRK: (Which is fucking crazy, all things considered.) JANE: I don't... even know what his first word was. JAKE: It was "honk." JANE: Jesus Christ.

Oh my God. She's actually fucking seeing it. Maybe only for a moment, but... she's actually fucking SEEING IT. This is a radical breakthrough.

Ever since the talk between Jade, Rose, and Kanaya back there got SO FUCKING REAL, I should have been suspecting... is the stabilization they're attempting at the Plot Point working RETROACTIVELY to make the entire Candy timeline make more sense, and bringing even people as far out of character as Jane Crocker back closer to reality, radiating its effects somewhat backwards in time and not just forwards? To help people like Jane and Jake and John and such finally BREAK OUT of their respective head fogs and truly see what's been going on around them all this time???

(Canon Roxy over on the pursuit ship might even be helping Callie WRITE HER STORY BETTER than Callie started off doing! That would explain a lot, while possibly even providing a Void pocket to keep the plans they're writing to have it influence the main timeline back invisible to the dueling Authors!)

((ALSO also, if you wanted Candy to be closer to Canon, Gamzee's chucklevoodoo influence and Bard of Rage role would have gone a long way to keeping Jane in a relationship with him and unaware of the abuse of her son.))

Jane looks like she's about to come to terms with something serious, but I'm pretty sure we can't have her reverse herself just yet. Which means something is going to make her even madder-- something is going to blow her up and waste some of what she's finally realizing.

Jake might successfully chew her out, say he's leaving her, hang up and fly out from the ship (not telling her he's off to destroy the Orbital Laser), while Jane contends seriously with her sins as she approaches her climactic battle and provides an opportunity for Roxy to possibly save this version of her later...... but something gives me the feeling that this version of Jane is going to be kept irredeemable, which means that the most efficient way narratively to accomplish that... is for Jake to fuck up here by accidentally revealing he's been working for the enemy. By, for example, yelling at her for threatening to destroy the Plot Point when it's their best hope to save the universe/timeline when she knows HE SHOULDN'T KNOW THAT unless he'd known about The Point before all this. At which point he would HAVE to vamoose in a jiffy to avoid capture, and Jane would be too enraged to fully dwell on her failings in motherhood and relationships just yet. I think in the next couple pages we'll see which happens.

(AND, as I've pointed out repeatedly in the Epilogues and my earlier HS^2 liveblog-- (NO WONDER Jane never resurrected Gamzee even though she FULLY had the power to do so, and held an entire public funeral to appease his followers without revealing that she could have snapped her Lifey fingers and revived him this whole fucking time! She kicked him off the ship in the first place before Vriska killed him after all.)

Please tell me I haven't hit the image limit yet I HAVE to keep reading...

(==>)

JANE: He must hate me. JAKE: Oh, janey... JANE: It's true. JANE: Look at the way he acted during the hostage negotiations. JANE: His life was threatened, and Tavros didn't call out to me once! JANE: Like he... he knew I had other concerns. JAKE: Well, JAKE: You do.

Yeah, Jane never prioritized her family. She debated saving Tavvy mainly for the cameras.

JANE: Do you think I want to? JANE: I wanted this family! JANE: I can't help how much goddamn pressure I'm under! JAKE: Nobody asked you to shoulder any of that. JAKE: ...Dear. JANE: I had to! JANE: The rest of you couldn't be trusted! JANE: None of you even bothered to graduate high school! JANE: While you were all being shut-ins, and self-destructing, and fucking... cavorting!!! I was making public appearances. JANE: Somebody had to represent us, so people wouldn't assume the worst! JANE: They waited 5000 years for us, and for what? To see there was no plan, no reason, that none of their gods were really on their side. JANE: I had to become an adult before ANY of you decided to catch up. JANE: Sigh. JANE: If Tavros never felt any love from me, it's because I barely had anything left to give.

Holy shit, Jane feels the same way as Jade. Trying frantically to live up to the title of Goddess for the planet because she feels OBLIGATED to by her self-esteem, except she took a different route and threw herself into the role permanently at the expense of her family.

JANE: No wonder you both left. JAKE: !!!!!!! JAKE: Er... im not following. JANE: Come on, now, Jakey. When you went to go stay with John. JAKE: Zooks, you knew id skittered away this whole time? JAKE: And you arent mad? JAKE: Why? JANE: Because I love you, you bobo. JANE: I have loved you since I was 13. JANE: Sure, going off the map right after my father died was not the kindest timing. JANE: But you were always going to come back. JANE: And I mastered forgiving you a long time ago.

Whoaaa.

JANE: I even forgave you for Dirk. JAKE: Forgave me for... for being with him? JANE: What? JANE: No, I was always an ally first when it came to that. JANE: What's a... a dalliance between bros, really? DIRK: (Word.)

What is she talking about now? Is she blaming JAKE for Dirk unaliving himself in the Candy timeline???

Okay I'm paranoid about hitting the image limit soon and I'm willing to defer this revelation for JUST a moment, so let me post this now and start immediately writing my third liveblog post of the day. :)

[r0semultiverse]

The Summer Maiden is Ruby & Yang's Long Lost Sister

Hear me out, what if Summer was pregnant, but didn't know it yet when she went off on that "mystery" mission?

Perhaps Ozpin's mission wasn't the only mystery at that time.

There's literally so much we don't know about the timeline of Summer Rose & we know she had her secrets too.

Next thing you know, some young girl shows up looking like the spitting image of Summer Rose!

It's possible that Summer Rose went off on this mission without knowing she was pregnant when she went MIA. Raven would have been with her too. Maybe she even died during child birth.

Let's assume she (Summer Rose) is the summer maiden for a moment here. Why isn't Ruby the current summer maiden? Well, Summer knew Taiyang & everyone else in her family would be in danger if she thought of them as she was giving birth. A baby summer maiden of a well known family? That's an easy target for those after the maiden powers & could get her entire family killed.

Raven knows how Summer really died, but is sworn to secrecy because she helped deliver the third sister, our current summer maiden. Summer asked her to protect the child, but Raven is not about that life.

Raven takes Sumer Jr. to Vacuo in secret & essentially just drops the baby on the doorstep, telling them to keep the child a secret & protect her. Summer Jr. becomes the hooded secret protector of Vacuo, being one of the youngest & most experienced maidens still alive. She is raised in secrecy by Theodore or some others in Vacuo. Imagine her surprise seeing someone who looks a lot like her popping up all over remnant.

Summer Jr. is probably shocked & very interested, but is maybe raised very sheltered as a means to keep her out of the public eye.

Summer Jr. could also be the middle child of a previous partner before Taiyang & part of her secret, when she left, was going to check up on that previous partner & her third child.

Another albeit less likely situation is Summer adopted a child on her journeys. Maybe this is also the previous summer maiden's kid & Summer ran into the previous maiden as she was passing on her powers to her child. Summer being very maternal, takes Summer Jr. under her wing for a while.

Regardless of what the actual answer will be, we have a young girl that looks like Summer Rose & Summer Rose is dead as far as we know! Whoever this is will be our smooth tie-in to put Summer Rose lore in the episodes without it cutting away too much from the main plot. She will be our Summer Rose lore segue! We will finally have answers!

How do you all make sense of this? Let me know your thoughts!

[jsmuts]

Summary

The thing about Adam is, he's got a very youthful and inexperienced mind. After being created from a birth pod, prematurely, he struggles to understand human affection and interactions. But, he still has needs and his golden cock leads the way.

A - After Sex

How does he tend to you, after you're done. Is he a cuddler? Give you aftercare?

Adam doesn't really know what to do, once you’re both laying there and panting away. He’ll cuddle you, though it might feel a bit stiff. Adam’s still getting used to human interaction and learning how to show such physical affection. But give him some time and he’ll gain enough confidence to relax and snuggle up to you.

B - Bottom or Top

Pretty self explanatory. Is he a top or is he a bottom?

Adam’s very versatile. He goes with the flow a lot, making him quite submissive. That is, unless he feels a really strong surge of emotions - then he gets very dominant and will really throw you around a bit. He has no preference though, when it comes to being a top or bottom.

C - Cum

How much does he cum? Where does he like to cum? Is it unique in any way?

Adam cums a lot. Although it's not fertile, as his race is recreated through birthing pods, he still shoots a lot. Thick, gooey and glowing gold. It's a bit warmer than humans’ typically have it too. Not hot, but warm enough to feel the difference. It tastes quite sweet, like syrup.

His favourite place to cum, is in your mouth. He loves to watch you gulp his tasty spunk. If he can choose, he wants you to cum in his mouth - he loves to swallow every drop he can.

D - Dirty Secret

Do they have any dirty secret? Something they want to try or something they feel guilty/shameful of?

Adam doesn't have many secrets, as he doesn't really know what’s taboo or strange and what’s ‘normal’. Usually he’s just sheepish about asking for sex, he just doesn't know how to initiate it or when is the right time. Sometimes he’ll ask while you’re at a bar or on a date at a Terran coffee shop.

E - Experience

Do they have a stacked body count? Are they fumbling around or nervous?

He doesn't have much experience, due to the fact that Adam’s only recently been created. He’s gradually been experimenting throughout the galaxy with aliens and creatures, finding what works for him and what doesn't. Adam is quite nervous to begin with, but he quickly grows confidence.

F - Favourite Body Part

What is it about people that they love to look at the most?

Adam’s always so fascinated with imperfections. Scars, freckles, moles, stretch marks - anything that makes you unique. He’ll often kiss and trace these imperfections with his tongue or fingertips, exploring your body in intense detail.

G - Gag Reflex

Is it delicate, is it resilient? How many inches can they take?

Adam’s gag reflex is nonexistent. He’s able to take almost any sized cock, no matter how rough it is. Some may even consider it to be like fucking a fleshlight, with how easy Adam makes it look. He drools a lot around it though, soaking any cock that runs down his neck.

H - Hair

Do they have body hair? Pubic hair?

Except for the gold, slick back hair on Adam’s head, he’s smooth as an actual bar of gold everywhere else. Not a single body hair in sight.

I - Intimacy

Are the close to you? Are they open and honest? How emotional or romantic can they be with you?

Adam struggles with intimacy. He’s still trying to understand his own emotions, so he’s not very good at understanding yours. But he’s protective over you, ready to blast someone into another planet if they so much as harm a hair on your head.

J - Jerking Off

Do they like to jerk off? How often do they masturbate?

He quickly figured out how amazing jerking off was. He masturbates quite a lot, whenever he has time or gets bored. Thrusting into his fist and grunting away. But he’d much rather fuck you, instead.

K - Kinks

What fetishes do they have? Any kinks they love to explore? How open are they to trying new things?

Adam’s pretty much open to trying anything. However, he particularly enjoys fucking as a group. He wants to fuck your ass while he watches someone fuck your mouth - or let you pass his ass around any other horny aliens on Knowhere. He still enjoys one-on-one sex, but he LOVES when others can get involved too.

L - Location

Where do they like to fuck you the most?

Adam loves to fuck in a new location every time. Whether that means a different rooftop in Knowhere, a completely different landscape on Contraxia or bending you over in a pool on Vormir.

M - Marking

Do they leave hickies? Scratch marks? Bruises? Any evidence on yours or their body, from your time together.

He loooves to create his own little imperfections on your skin. Be ready to have a body absolutely coated in hickies, bruises and claw marks. He’s going to make you into his own.

Unfortunately hickies don't really appear on Adam’s golden flesh, but he still loves to feel your teeth sink into his tough skin.

N - Nope

Things that turn them off

Adam doesn't have many boundaries, but one thing he definitely doesn't like, is degrading. He lived for so long in a species that thought it was perfection and degraded anything that wasn't flawless- Adam doesn't want to be reminded of that. He wants you to feel safe and secure. He wants you to be praised.

O - Oral

Again, fairly self explanatory. Blowjobs, eating out. How they go about doing such things.

As we discussed, Adam has a non existent gag reflex, but he also just loves to suck dick. He loves to milk you for every drop you have to offer - he craves it.

He also loves to facefuck. Yeah, he loves to see you choke, another imperfection of your race, unable to take every inch he pummels down your throat. He’s not always aggressive about it, but every now and then, when he feels a certain way, he’ll use you like a sex toy.

Adam doesn't need his ass to be eaten, it always seems to be slick and open for anyone to use, whenever. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love to feel a tongue wiggling its way inside of him - exploring every perfect, golden squishy wall.

Adam’s tongue goes deep into your ass. You wonder how it's possible, but he can eat you out like a fucking vacuum. He loves it too, slurping and grunting into your ass, while he devours your insides.

P - Position

What's their favourite sex position?

When he’s topping, Adam favours the doggy position, the most. He can fuck you deep, hard and fast. His powerful thrusts can absolutely ram every inch inside of you as you drool all over the floor.

But as a bottom, Adam likes to ride you. Whether it's reverse cowboy or not, he just loves to fuck himself on your cock. Sometimes he’ll use his ability to fly, to move up and down on you.

Q - Quickies

Do they like them? Would they rather take their time and slow it down?

Adam doesn't mind a quickie, but he’d rather take his time, take it slow. Savour every moan that escapes your lips, feel relish thrust and revel in the sweat that drips from your forehead.

R - Risky

Are they freaky in the streets? Do they enjoy the thrill of being caught?

Adam has no sense of risk. He doesn't understand what’s so wrong with fucking you in front of a huge crowd in the middle of a Walmart, or bouncing his ass against your hips in the same room as any relatives you have. Why is something so fun, so taboo?

S - Stamina

How long can they keep going? Is there a round 2 or 3?

Adam can keep going for literal days. But of course, he knows that’s not normal so he’s okay with cutting it short. As much as he’d love to fuck you until you’ve passed out or actually starving of hunger, he’s okay with resuming your sesh later.

T - Toys

Do they own sex toys? Do they have certain favourites?

He’s never owned any toys, but he certainly enjoys them. He’d rather the real thing, or finding an orgy he can join somewhere in the Galaxy, but fucking a flesh toy that can use a large variety of alien mouth heads or dildos shaped like cocks humans could never even dream of. It's fun, but where’s a slut he can play with?

U - Underwear

What kind of underwear do they wear?

Adam normally wears these alien jockstrap-like underwear. He only wears them for support and comfort. They’re all golden, too, so it blends right into his skin.

V - Volume

How loud can they get? Are they big moaners or quiet grunters?

Adam makes a lot of loud grunts and guttural noises. He doesn't make sounds for your enjoyment, they’re just a way of him expressing his overwhelming lust and euphoria. It's very primal. He doesn't talk much, besides telling you how beautiful you are or how good you can “take it”.

W - Wrecking Ball

How much of a mess do they make during sex? Ripped clothes, knocked over furniture? Or, are they fairly tame and careful?

Adam will rip your clothes off, smash you against walls, break furniture and throw whatever’s in your way, across the room. He doesn't care, when he's horny, nothing else matters. It's rough and reckless but it's all he knows.

X - X-Ray

Take a peek beneath their underwear...

Adam’s got an entire third leg. 9 and a half inches that’ll make your eyes roll to the back of your head. Girthy and straight, making it a powerful beast.

His balls are hefty, like two golf balls that shine and shimmer like actual, golden jewels and as smooth as marble too.

Y - Yearn

What's their sex drive like? How often are they wanting to get down and dirty?

Adam’s sex drive can be quite intimidating. He wants to fuck, whenever possible. He wants to fuck and fuck and fuck. It can get tiresome. Now, if you don't want to, he can be patient… just don't be surprised if he pouts as he’s waiting around or looks for somebody else to fuck in the meantime.

Z - Zzzz

Any sex dreams? What's their favourite?

Adam’s favourite sex dream was one with Star Lord. He dreamt he was getting fucked from behind by the grizzly Terran. Adam was in the middle of Nowhere, as Quill revenge-fucked him. Pummelling his ass hard and deep, completely dominating Adam’s hole. It was sweaty and messy, as everyone who lived on Knowhere watched and masturbated to the sight. They were waiting for their turn, but Adam woke up before Quill ever finished. Needless to say, Adam found the nearest body to recreate it with.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Corrupted, chapter 17 - Wager: A TMA x Malevolent crossover starring Tim Stoker and disembodied Hastur

In the aftermath of Maxwell Rayner’s threats, everyone is shaken… and Hastur has an idea Tim’s not at all sure he likes.

AO3

--------

Elias drives like a hot knife through butter—quicker than expected, potentially dangerous, and startlingly practical. His vehicle is some fancy thing, sleek and silver, eerily silent on the road, and he does not turn on the radio. It is like being in some kind of luxurious room on wheels. 

Tim stares out the windows (surprisingly untinted, somehow uncomfortably exposed) and marvels at the fact that his seat is so comfortable, he could sleep in it. Unfortunately, he’s too angry to enjoy it.

Why… why… did everything seem determined to eat Jon?

It’s weird, right? It is weird. He isn’t crazy. It makes no sense. Why the fuck is Jon everybody’s punching bag? (He will ignore the fact that people like Jon are always everybody’s punching bag because this seems more extreme than mere bully bait.)

There is something going on here, or his instinct is broken. Can you still hear me?

Yes. And he can hear me.

Elias gives no indication of anything at all, but Tim remembers. Think he can hear me?

I don’t know.

He’s got some kind of other game going.

I assure you, Tim, he has more than one.

Many games going. Unsurprising; the man isn’t even in his own body (which had yet to be explained), but Tim doesn’t like feeling… used.

That’s what it is. That’s what instinct is telling him. Somehow, protagonist of his own story or not, he and Hastur are not Elias’s goal here. Elias is using them, and it has something to do with Jon.

Tim realizes his hands are clenched on his lap and forces them to relax.

“I’ll do my best to make things welcoming,” says Elias. “I have a full bar, which, I’m sure, will help.”

What a weird, awkward car ride. “Sure. You throw a lot of parties?”

“There are persons of note whom I host, from time to time.”

“Persons of note? Good news! We broke your streak,” says Tim.

“Oh,” says Elias, and his gaze flicks to the rear-view mirror. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Tim frowns and peeks behind him.

Jon sits there, miserable, staring out the window. 

Right, so that didn’t help calm things down.

Easy, Tim, Hastur murmurs. 

Fair. Exploding in an enclosed vehicle probably won’t help. He has to get past this, recover himself, reconnoiter. “So, Elias! How does a guy in charge of a spooky supernatural whatsit afford something like this?” He pats the arm rest. “Pretty sure owning your own jet would be cheaper.”

“Inherited wealth does have its benefits,” says Elias mildly, navigating with a smooth grace as if this tank of a thing were sleek as a watersnake. “One does what one can with what one has, after all. And might I remind you that you now work for the ‘spooky supernatural whatsit’.”

“Yay, we’re all family , now,” says Tim. “Seriously though, inherited? The hell are you, part of the royal family?”

“Goodness, no,” says Elias. “What a pain that would be.” 

“Why?” says Tim. “Not like you’d actually have any responsibility.”

“Now, you should some respect for our game traditions,” says Elias with a sidelong grin, absolutely devilish, far more flirtatious than ought to be allowed.

Surprised, Tim laughs. “Not a monarchist, then?” 

“Hardly,” Elias says. “The exception, of course, being a certain saturated King in our midst.”

Hastur rumbles approval like a cat whose back is stroked.

Tim rolls his eyes. “For one second, I thought you were flirting with me, but nope—it’s just with my bodiless passenger. He can’t even suck your toes, boss.”

Elias delicately clears his throat. “Not toes, perhaps.”

“Geez.” Tim stares at him. “What dialed you up to eleven?”

“Surviving tends to leave me in a particularly good mood,” says Elias. “Celebratory, even.”

Tim peers, eyes narrowed.

‘Inherited’ is a distinctly incorrect term here, wouldn’t you say? Hastur says.

“Not at all,” says Elias. “From birth certificates to DNA testing, I am the sole inheritor of this estate.”

“Uh,” says Tim. “And deliverer of some really odd phrasing?”

One of us is more honest with you than the other, I’d say, Hastur adds in a positively indecent rumble.

What was that delivery? “Don’t you start,” says Tim. “Old guys flirting is so five minutes ago.”

“For the love of hell, are we even going to talk about what happened?” Jon suddenly blurts from the back.

Poor guy. The bandage on Jon’s throat stokes Tim’s anger again. “Yeah. We should.”

“Not now,” says Elias firmly. “Not until we are seated, fed, and have had a chance to process all of our actions… and their consequences.”

Consequences? What, now he’s blaming Jon?

Nope. Tim swats his arm. “No. Bad Elias.”

Elias gives him a sidelong look that isn’t easy to interpret. It’s not… exactly dangerous. It’s not angry; it’s not even fully annoyed. It is, Tim decides, the look of a big lion wondering just what the little turtle ramming into his foot hopes to accomplish.

Tim grins, charm cranked to 1000.

It works. Elias shakes his head and focuses on driving, wearing a tiny, crooked smile.

Tim turns and catches Jon wiping his eyes.

Oof. “Hey,” says Tim, softly. “Listen. I don’t care what silver-spoon over here says: you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Jon looks at him. His brown eyes are liquid, wide, and for this moment, unguarded. “I brought an enemy inside the Institute.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Tim. “It’s never wrong to be kind. Just because some asshole takes advantage of it doesn’t mean you were complicit in his bad choices.” 

“Wrong? No. Wise? Well…” says Elias.

“Hey,” says Tim, a pinch sharply. “Not cool.”

Elias says nothing.

Jon is all eyes and sorrow; it seems that blow landed.

Of course it landed. Punching bag. Tim sighs. “Look. I’m taking this very seriously. I just happen to deal with bad things by being really sarcastic at them until they wander away in confusion due to my cutting wit.”

“And how well does that work for you?” Jon drawls.

“Better than you’d think,” says Tim. “I promise we’ll get this all figured out, all right? But right now, I need you to push back against the paralyzing guilt our asshole boss decided to dump on your head for his ex-boyfriend’s behavior, all right?”

Elias’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. Interesting, Tim thinks.

Jon’s gaze drops. He has very long lashes, and thick; it’s an oddly softening feature on his otherwise sharp face. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am. Uh. Through the wisdom of pretty-sure-I’m-younger-than-you, and have probably had more therapy.”

Jon gives him a look. “No, I don’t think you are.”

“I mean,” says Tim, wondering if he ought to backpedal, “possibly?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” says Jon.

“Oh,” says Tim, who had guessed wrong by about ten years and definitely needs to backpedal. “Cool, cool.”

Jon looks dubious. “You’re…” He gestures vaguely. “Twenty five?”

“Thirty. I can buy my own beer, and everything,” says Tim.

“You certainly won’t need to do that tonight,” says Elias, making it sound uncomfortably illicit. “I will provide for all your needs.”

It goes  right over Jon’s head; he looks out the window, distracted. “Thank you,” he says.

Tim eyes Elias. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Did you think you were the only one with weaponized charm?” Elias says back like honey on skin. “I can play that game, too.”

Oh, Tim does not really want to deal with that. “Sure,” he says. “We’ll just have a weird flirt-off until HR cans us both.”

Hastur laughs darkly. As if. You know very well that this one is mine.

“Okay, this isn’t exactly what I’d call productive,” says Tim in lieu of screaming What the actual fuck. “We’re all stressed. Let’s go on to another topic and just rue the day this happened, yeah?”

“Rue the… what?” says Jon. 

Tim reddens. “Er. Out-charming each other,” he says.

“Oh,” says Jon blankly, then looks back out the window.

Your little friend is broken, says Hastur with great pleasure.

Oh, shut up, Tim thinks at him.

Hastur laughs.

#

Elias pulls down a street filled with the kind of building that normally has been chopped into condos by now, but here, in this particularly affluent part of London, still remain single-family. Elias’ own home (“inherited”) is a four-story sprawl, whitewashed, with tasteful green shutters, a manicured lawn with The Shining-style topiary, and a long, circular drive with room for quite a few more cars. 

“Home, sweet home,” says Elias with a knowing smirk, and leads them inside through the black, studded door.

That door is the most interesting part. The Bouchard family home is everything Tim dislikes about rich people’s houses: to him, it feels soulless.

It’s all subtle white with charcoal accents, quiet and reserved and thick with pinky-lifting, eyebrow-raising, poverty-disparaging silence. It’s the kind of place that creates shame for making noise or being underdressed. The kind of place that makes one feel watched from the many portraits, judged, and found wanting.

Or maybe he’s just reading into it. He wouldn’t have thought Elias was some two-hundred-year-old body-hopping pagan priest, either, but here they are.

“There are numerous bedrooms upstairs, and all are well-appointed,” says Elias. “Choose whichever you like. If you’ll pardon me, I will start dinner.” And he marches away, leaving them in the grand sitting room, apparently unbothered by whatever they may get up to in his absence.

“Guess that’s the kitchen, then,” says Tim, watching him take a left further down.

Jon hunches like he thinks he’s going to be snatched, stuffed, and put behind glass. “Are we sure about this?” he murmurs.

“Not even a little,” says Tim with a shrug. “But I mean, better than other options right now? Rather keep him where I can see him, you know?”

Jon’s eyes are absolutely huge. “What are you saying? He’s not our enemy!” he whispers.

Eh… “We ran into a lot of mysteries tonight. That guy’s got a history, and a lot of things he isn’t telling us—and at this point, I think we’re owed some answers, don’t you?”

“I suppose,” Jon murmurs back. 

“Come on. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you,” says Tim, offers his elbow, and waggles his eyebrows.

Jon gives him a dry look.

Tim winks with great exaggeration.

Jon finally laughs, gives in, and takes his arm. “You’re absurd.”

“I am! Aren’t you glad I’m yours?” says Tim as they go down the hall together.

“You’re not mine,” Jon says.

“Pfft, sure you are! You’re my forebear. My work-elder. My senpai. ”

“You are hardly my kōhai,” Jon says, and then frowns, slowing. “That’s odd. I’m not sure how I know those terms. I don’t speak Japanese.”

“Neither do I,” Tim says. “It’s just anime lingo, anyway. Fan Japanese. Fapanese, if you will.” He waggles his eyebrows again.

Jon doesn’t get the pun. “I don’t watch anime.”

“You don’t?” Tim places his hand over his heart. “Don’t tell me you’re into rom-coms.”

“I don’t… watch fiction.”

Tim gasps. “No. Say it ain’t so, boss.”

“It is so, and I am not your boss.” 

“Indeed, he is not,” says Elias as they enter the kitchen. “I am.”

It seems the kitchen is well-appointed, too. Tim takes in the professional hood over the eight-burner stove, the “breakfast nook” that seats ten, the tasteful white marble and charcoal accents. “I’m all about a good dose of hedonism once in a while, boss, but this is a huge place for one person.”

“I readily admit to hiring cleaning staff to handle it,” Elias says. “Have a seat. What can I get you to drink?”

“Nothing,” says Jon.

“Whatcha got?” says Tim. “How about just… you have a nice whiskey, maybe?”

“Barrel-aged, and delightfully Smokey,” says Elias.

“That. Thanks.” He glances at Jon, who stares at his hands as if lost in some other place, and sighs. “Right, so. Let’s get this out of the way. Elias, you owe us some answers.”

“Do I?” says Elias, presenting him with a fancy crystal tumblr and about two fingers’ worth of booze.

You do, rumbles Hastur. That is quite the growl Hastur managed in the space of their minds. Tim’s impressed (and scared, and a little turned on, but whatever). That man knew you. That man was aiming for you, and endangered all of us to reach you. 

“Ah,” says Elias.

If we are going to be in danger because of you, which was not disclosed before employment, there will be trouble, Hastur promises like warm syrup, or maybe an evening in a mountain cabin on a bear-skin rug, or perhaps satisfaction over some kind of torture pit.

“What?” says Jon. “What is—oh. He’s talking.”

“Yeah,” says Tim. “Threatening, actually.”

Jon’s eyes go huge.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” says Elias, not even trying to hide the smile in his voice. “There’s no need to frighten him more than necessary. Jon is very new to all of this. To the… truer nature of reality that stares him down, observing every action, recording every thought, without emotion, without assessment, but with all-inclusive, all-encompassing sight.”

Jon’s expression is somehow both hungry and terrified.

Both Tim’s eyebrows rise.“De-escalated that like a master,” he says, dryly. “Bad Elias. Not helping. Also, I’m just about as new as he is.”

“You handle it differently because your position is different,” says Elias. “You have a built-in guide, and also a great deal of power. Jon has neither. He has every right to be overwhelmed.” And he hands Jon a drink in spite of Jon’s preference.

Being culturally polite, Jon takes it, sips, and starts coughing.

That’s not all he takes. The words could have been reassuring—the kind of statement that takes pressure off, easing the gas, but that did not happen here. Powerless. Ignorant. That’s what came across.

“Jeez,” Tim mutters. “Cut a little deeper next time.”

Elias smiles.

“I just don’t understand what’s happening,” Jon says suddenly, his dark cheeks flushed. “Once I do, I’ll have a handle on everything.”

“Yes, I actually believe you will, which is why I involved you,” says Elias as if he were just being encouraging all along, and sits with a glass of red wine. “I’m not usually quite this… close to the front lines. I might not be stepping as gracefully as I ought.”

“Uh-huh,” Tim says.

Well? Says Hastur.

“That man was a colleague of mine once,” says Elias, “a very long time ago, when we were both young. Suffice it to say, we chose different means of preserving our lives.”

And different gods.

“Yes, rather. Opposing patrons, in fact.”

That, Tim understands. “Sight versus darkness.”

“More the fear of being seen without so much as a washcloth to hide beneath, versus the fear of never seeing at all, including whatever lurks in the shadows to get you. Diametrical.”

Tim stares. “That’s so fucked up.”

Elias shrugs. “We had quite the falling out.”

“But why was he here?” says Jon. “He was offering you something, as if he knew a bomb was dropping and he had the only shelter.”

Elias is silent; he sips his wine, staring into the past. “This is not the way I’d prefer to do this,” he says. “It’s not good to spoon-feed you; you need to learn on your own, which the Eye will reward, empowering you.”

Jon stares at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“I just want answers,” snaps Jon like a man denied coffee.

“You will have them—in the right way, at the right time.”

This is about Jon again, though they are both ostensibly being addressed. Somehow, it is. “Will we, though?” says Tim.

And Elias gives him that look again, like in the car; it’s not a threatening look yet, but it is far from safe. “You are both employees of the Eye. Knowledge is what it grants, as well as takes. Yes.”

“Really not doing a good job at ratcheting down that tension, boss,” Tim warns.

Elias sighs. “Here is the compromise: I will provide you with the files to read, saving you the time of reading unrelated things. You will learn what that old fool hopes to happen… and, in the process, grasp what is at stake—and also begin to understand why I permit Gertrude to behave as she does.”

That is a lot of promises. Are you wiling to wager on it?

“What?” says Tim.

“I’ll even take a wager on it satisfying yo,” says Elias.

“What?” says Jon.

“Whoa, hold on,” says Tim. “He doesn’t even have anything to wager that isn’t, you know, mine, so I might put the kibosh on this.”

“Unless I offered something that appealed to you, perhaps?” says Elias.

Your institute, says Hastur out of nowhere.

Well that gets a response. Elias pales.

Jon sees it. “What? What’d he say?”

“Uh,” says Tim intelligently. “Really?”

Really.

“I thought we were trying to stay under the radar,” Tim stage-whispers.

And we are already seen by the Eye, which does not seem inclined to eat me. It simply wants to watch whatever happens… and I feel that more knowledge can help protect me.

Elias is still pale. “You’ve laid out quite the challenge.”

“What challenge? I don’t understand,” says Jon.

“Unless I’m going mad, which is perfectly possible, these two are betting we can read what he gives us and be fully satisfied with answers, which is absolutely vague, or Hastur… gets the Institute, somehow? How would that even work?” Tim says.

“What?” Jon says, low.

“Look, I’m not a mad gambler, or anything, but what in hell can we offer in equivalent exchange?” says Tim.

“Well, that’s simple,” says Elias. “I want the King in Yellow tied to me, by contract, even when he has his own body.”

“How is that simple ?” blurts Tim.

I see you understand my end goal, purrs Hastur.

“I do. Well-played, your greatness; your reputation proved true. And you’re correct, of course—that would distinctly alter my priorities,” says Elias.

“What? About what? I have not agreed to this,” says Tim.

“Priorities? For what?” says Jon.

The oven beeps.

“Excuse me,” says Elias, walking away.

“What the hell just happened?” Jon hisses.

“I’m kind of wondering that myself,” Tim hisses back.

It’s the perfect idea. Expedient, and cutting through his nonsense. We’ve just forced him to abandon most of his plans. 

“Um. We did?” says Tim.

Yes. Even if we lose, I’m still tied to the place, and now he understands I will take it from him. The only way he keeps his Institute is if he gives me what I want.

“Since when do you want the bloody Institute?” Tim whispers.

Tim, Hastur rumbles, and Tim almost misses the root-like feeling of Hastur’s own magic threading these words, sewing the concept together, coating so it goes down smooth. How did you feel when blind?

“Ouch,” says Tim. “Going for the big guns.”

Answer me.

Tim sighs. “Helpless and afraid.”

Tim. I’m helpless.

“You’re really not.”

I am. Without a body of my own, whatever power I seem to have isn’t… much. I want a body. I need help. I need strength. I need to be able to defend myself—including by going to my cultists, whom you despise without ever giving them a chance.

Tim sighs again. “But the Institute?”

He’ll trade anything to keep it in his power. This will save us years.

Tim rubs his face. “Hm,” he says, noncommittal.

And Jon, who has only heard half this conversation, murmurs, “Time.”

That’s the warning before Elias returns. He’s smiling; he’s wearing cute oven mitts, minty green with pink hearts on the backs. “Dinner is served.”

Tim throws his drink back.

Oh, my.

“Fortification, my man,” says Tim, standing, feeling vaguely like he’s going into battle, or asking for a promotion, or maybe taking debate club.

Jon stands with him.

“I think this turned out well,” says Elias, gesturing. “Come along, now. It won’t bite.” Which he follows up with a terrible laugh.

Jon shivers.

Tim rolls his eyes. “What, is your lightning machine on the fritz?”

Elias smiled.

Tell the eyeling he will be fine. I have no plans to harm him, Hastur says graciously.

Sure, that would lower paranoia levels. Tim does not do that. “So what’s on offer?”

“Leftovers, I’m afraid,” Elias says as though speaking a great tragedy. “Roast beef and vegetables.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.” Tim keeps Jon close.

Jon does not complain.

They sit, and they eat frankly ludicrously good roast, and Jon sips whatever Elias gave him and relaxes enough to stop trembling, and Tim has two more shots (and probably shouldn’t but he is stressed). Everything seems lighter, and they talk about absolutely nothing beyond weather and the pattern of Elias’s china. 

Which looks like eyes. Because of course it does.

Elias says nothing about the bet as he leads them upstairs. “I have a very good laundering service. If you drop your clothes down the chute in your bedroom, they will be clean and pressed by morning.”

Tim knows he’s on the edge of drunk. He also doesn’t care right now, and fondles the thick white robe on offer. “Oh, this is nice.”

“I try. Rest well. Breakfast is at six-thirty sharp.” And Elias retreats, presumably to his own room.

Jon looks both wired and tired. “I’m not satisfied with the answers we got.”

“You want those files he offered?” says Tim, pretty sure he isn’t slurring.

“Yes. Whether you engage in whatever wager or not, I want the files.”

The hunger in Jon is… inhuman.

That was an odd thought to have, and Tim shakes it out of his head.

He’s born for this, observes Hastur. Insatiable.

Tim ignores that, too. “Well, I don’t know what we’re doing yet.”

“Just be careful. All of this, it’s… a lot.” Jon hesitates. “And I am completely sure we were followed here.”

“Wouldn’t be surprising,” Tim says. “Gods and monsters. Aliens next, I’m betting.”

Hastur’s chuckle is deep.

“Well. Goodnight,” says Jon awkwardly, and retreats.

Finally alone, says Hastur like this is some sort of tryst.

“Uh-huh,” says Tim. “Hey. Hey, Hastur. Hey. Can’t say I appreciate you making an offer like that wager without telling me first.”

It’s going to be fine. We both know he’s using us, anyway. A chance to use him back and get what we want is worthwhile, and this idea is flawless, says Hastur in a confident, almost naively happy tone.

Tim laughs. “I think you’re drunk!”

You’re drunk.

Tim snaps his fingers. “And we’re sharing a bloodstream! I forgot I could do that to you.”

I have no objections, says Hastur in the kind of tone that usually accompanies sidling in beside someone in a booth at a romantic restaurant.

Tim laughs again, takes his shirt off, then pauses. Just listening to his gut, he takes the portrait of some old man in Victorian garb off the wall and puts it on the floor, facing away. “We really may have fucked up by taking this job.”

No. He’s too afraid of dying to truly refuse you when you’re ready to leave. 

“If he’s really invasion of the body-snatchers, maybe. Guess I’m just wondering what other old friends he has, and whether he might decide we’re too much trouble to just let go.”

He wouldn’t dare. Hastur sounds so confident.

“I think he would, and you’re too used to cultists to understand that just because some guy likes what you are doesn’t mean he wouldn’t still shank you.” Tim pauses. “Yeah, that made sense,” he says, pleased with himself.

Hastur is silent as Tim gets in the shower. (And it’s a damn nice shower, and he reluctantly admits to himself it’s worth whatever Elias paid). He washes, grateful for the chance, and uses the brand-new toothbrush and toothpaste, as well. 

“Rich bastard,” he says, donning his wonderful robe, “but at least he thought of the basics.”

Hastur’s voice has somehow gotten deeper. I don’t intend to see you come to harm. You know that, don’t you?

Tim takes a minute before replying, just fiddling with the robe’s belt. “You mean that this time. It’s not all, ‘Such a pity, couldn’t be helped.’”

I do mean it. You still don’t truly understand what I am, and I can forgive your insolence because of that.

“Yow,” Tim says.

Modern education has utterly failed to instill you with reverence for the divine.

“The gods are gone, remember?” says Tim, feeling clever “So what would be the point?”

Hastur laughs, low and frightening. I look forward to furthering your education.

Well, Hastur is drunk, so Tim can forgive him, too. He still feels watched, though, and it’s making him a little nuts. “Really not reassuring, when you say shit like that.”

I am what I am, Tim. My nature is to take what I want and gather those whom I want near me.

“Maybe your education needs some furthering, too,” says Tim, who can’t figure out if there are cameras in here or what, and finally turns off the lights in defeat. “It might be good for you to hear ‘no’ and learn to respect it.”

Tim, said Hastur in that oh you sweet young thing voice that raises his hackles. You are my favorite human in this generation, but we are not equals. I am—

Tim won’t let that go any further. “No,” he says, and adds a buzzer sound. “Eeeeeh. Nope. Stop. Hastur… I like you, and I hope however this shakes out, we can still be friends and all, but I’m never going to be some acolyte. I don’t worship. Not even you.”

And Hastur… purrs.

It’s bizarre, a psychic memory of some weird, literal rumble that seems to have nothing to do with air or vocal cords or sanity. We’ll see how you feel when you stand in the presence of a god.

Tim swallows and pulls the blankets up to his chin. “What on earth brought this on, anyway? First in the car, and now this?”

Because, Tim Stoker, when I finally have my way with you, I am going to make every lover you’ve ever had seem like a vague, virginal dream.

Tim discovers he’s too drunk to think of a comeback. “Shit. What?”

Hastur’s laugh is dark, and almost cruel, and he falls silent.

Tim stares at the dark ceiling, at the patterns of street lights and passing cars, and decides this is a nest best left unpoked.

Sleep takes him at once. He dreams all night of being stared at by a giant, unblinking eye, and while it doesn’t judge him (he feels like it can’t), it’s x-ray penetration is terrible, and he dreams of weeping because it will not stop.

[sizhui]

Under the cut is a very short piece i wrote today as fanfic for the enstars story Performance in which wataru portrays a lesbian Juliet. I combined it with Eichi's angel scout story to write a little story that is actually more about my personal thoughts than wataei. This is barely wataei guysthis isn't wataei

Anyways enjoy 💕

(i)

Juliet comes back to herself all of a sudden, as though startled awake from a dream.

Standing within the rectangle of the passage that connects her bedchamber to the small balcony, she feels like she can see the entire world - outside, it’s really blue. Catching the sorrow as it falls, the city is wet and glistening, too slippery for memories to stick. The thrum of the young girl’s heart feels distant, as though coming from outside and rushing in. She takes a step forward.

Having left the house, she finds it easy to continue moving, as though the clean air had oiled her joints. Both at once, she takes off her cap and kicks off the satiny slippers she’d put on only moments before. They roll over a few times from the force of the throw, and finally still as far from her feet as they could go. With that out of the way - slowly so that death does not catch her preemptively - she steps onto the ledge of the balcony and clasps her hands together to pray.

How to begin? As sorrowful as endings are, that much hope a beginning ought to bring! Maybe it’s appropriate, though, to make this one somber - one final prayer in the short, dull tale of Juliet Capulet.

Our Father who art in Heaven…

She pauses, uncertain. Having prepared for the ceremony of death in earnest, she thought for sure that she’d find some grandiose parting words, that her little suicide’s splendor would be a firm slap to bring them all to their knees. She thought so as she braided her hair, but once outside there isn’t much to say. Juliet’s life, and death too, painted the image of a girl with the lowest of the low class desires. In the end, she only thanks the Lord for giving her a chance, however brief, to breathe on this earth, and smoothes out the crease on her skirts.

Amen.

“Thanking God at death’s door rather than cursing at Him for birthing you into such misfortune… Fufu, how strange!”

Juliet’s first thought is that a boy must have come to her balcony, and turns to shoo him away in weak anger - for how dare boys desecrate the place where she once stood, calling out innocent words of love? - but rather than standing beneath her, the boy is perched beside her, the rich, delicate mass of his wings soaked through with rain.

Long ago, at a time when she still feared to call Him useless and opted to use him to her favor instead, Juliet’s mother would say that God sent his angels to witness the deaths of impertinent girls. Running through the gorge like a headless chicken or sitting on the rim of the well would surely result in a choir of them laughing like jingle bells as you plunged to your demise.

It must be him, she thought in her polite delirium, finally, you’ve come. I’ve been waiting. Every time she sat just a little too close to the abyss, leaned just a little too far over the railing, had it not been in rehearsal for this? No, this one’s death shall not be a fit of passion! It was thought through, sought after, and most thoroughly prepared for.

“I resent many a human, but I’ve never once blamed Him. Isn’t it more strange for a bold little messenger to blame Him in my place?”

The angel tilts his head to the side like one of the curious little birds on their daily pilgrimage to the kitchen’s windows, as though expecting a crumb of mercy, a crumb of understanding.

“...being a messenger of God doesn’t mean I have to look up to Him, you know? Dreaming up all the sorrows in this world and then sending someone else to witness their consequences… I think that sort of thing is more cruel than the Devil himself.”

“And what would you know of the Devil, a creature who hasn’t tasted temptation?”

The angel’s laugh is nothing like what she imagined - a hearty chuckle, falling at the end into a labored wheeze. The bitterness of a deadweight clinging to your neck, an impossibly old and weathered millstone.

“More than you do, a maiden who cannot even embrace the one she loves in fear of the laws of God.”

Blood surges suddenly into Juliet’s cheeks, a wan hand coming uselessly to grip the flesh of her thigh through the damp fabric. So this thing has even been watching her, listening to her little morning soliloquies! An insult to her person would have been fine. An insult to God, or even to Romeo-sama, she could bear! But it’s the dig at the selflessness of her quiet love that wounds her, the claim that her restraint is mere cowardice - for she loved Romeo-sama like an ideal, like an oath, like the savior who taught her to condemn from her heart the blades of hatred that her family carried in their hearts!

“Have you come to witness or to complain, Angel? Why not complain to the Lord who imagined my love as sinful? If he won’t even lend an ear to you… then this world isn’t worth sticking around.”

“Very well,” the Angel shakes his head in amusement. “It’s as you say, truly. I’m just a little witness sent to absolve girls of dying alone. What do I even know about suffering?”

Oddly pacified by his snide remark, Juliet abandons her ready position on the ledge in favor of sitting on it cross-legged.

“Useless as your vigil is, can you promise me this? When Romeo-sama… when Romeo-sama tries to follow me to Hell, will you divert her from her path, so that she may find Heaven? For a good, honest soul like hers, there should be room enough. I’m sure that even the Lord will understand.”

The fine feathers at the tips of the Angel’s wings dance a subtle vibrato as he giggles, and without thinking, Juliet reaches out to touch them. The wing shies away from her hand as though it has a mind of its own, because the Angel is still busy reprimanding her:

“Those who raise a hand against themselves all end up in the same place. Don’t you know? Life is a gift from God, and He does not take kindly to the ungrateful.”

“Haah…” Juliet turns away, an indescribably resignation. “It seems there’s no way out anymore. I really should have… killed that girl long ago.”

“Oh? Now that’s an interesting way of doing things,” His curiosity seemingly piqued, the Angel scoots closer, his bejeweled legs dangling above the backyard. “You want her to see Heaven so badly that you’d send her there yourself? I certainly commend your dedication. Most would just hope that their love would forget them, move on, and find happiness with someone else.”

“If that girl’s deviant ways could be mended, my harsh rejections would have done so long ago,” says Juliet with utmost certainty. “Aah, isn’t it cruel? All because my love isn’t right, isn’t holy –”

Having stopped pouring, the remains of rainfall glisten almost pure white on the roof tiles and brass gutters.

“ – all because of that, I can’t even be a proper sacrifice. If I can’t live for love, I thought I could at least die for it! Isn’t that much permitted for me?”

“You can live and have it be torture, or you can die and have it be pointless. Well? Which one will you pick?”

The spidery, gauze-like membrane that covered the Angel’s face is beginning to slip down. It reveals a young face that bears a hint of mockery in its laxness, taut in some place over the fine bones like the surface of a drum that life had hit full-force. Only the blue of his eye is different: wanting.

“Juliet,” he says. “Have you heard the story of angel births? I heard nannies say that whenever the northern wind blows out the candle of a sick child, an angel is born from a cloud with their face on.”

“Well? Is it true?”

“I wouldn’t know. You’re still a sick child yourself, though. I might just keep an eye on the Heavens and see if I’ll spot these eyes of yours somewhere.”

“My eyes? What of them?”

“In a sunlit rose garden, there stood a sole thornless flower perched in the middle of the greenhouse! Though it bloomed and bloomed madly through the seasons, protected from the predatory hand of winter, in the end it was still taken by the house’s mistress and left to wither in an ornate vase. This is you, Juliet Capulet. A rose bred for plucking.”

“Shall we show them, then? A beautiful requiem…”

“For us alone? Fufu… those are some pretty words. I wish something like that were possible in this world God made.”

“I reject Heaven and earth both, then! Instead of leaving somewhere, we shall go nowhere. On that account, the space we’ve left behind shall gape all the more empty!”

“And what of your Romeo-sama? If I leave with you, who’s left to set her on the right path?”

“Once we’re gone, we’ll most certainly be forgotten! Though that girl will know that she’s missing something, she won’t even know if it’s a thing or person. She’ll probably… hunger for life. But once I erase my existence, the original sin of seducing her would be annulled, wouldn’t it? Oh, Angel, can I really save her this way?”

With a thoughtful expression on his face, the Angel places one half of the gauze over Juliet’s head: a bridal veil and a funerary shroud, and at the same time a duvet that two children had snuggled beneath to read a book in the late hours of the night.

“I don’t know. But wouldn’t you die to find out?”

They stand, and with bare feet Juliet runs to take a leap into the familiar depths of the night, the depths she’d stared into since childhood, imagining this very sensation… but rather than coming closer to kiss her on the mouth, the orderly garden below is growing more distant!

“I’m flying!” Juliet calls out. “We’re flying! You tricked me!” And the Angel finally laughs like he was supposed to, a pitter-patter of sand crystals on glass.

The houses in the distance are already dots, human lives cannot be seen from above.

By the time she reaches the fires of Hell, Juliet will surely have forgotten them all… but for a thornless rose like hers, “not knowing” may already not be that far off from Heaven.

"Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all."

(Nadja, André Breton)

[merrock]

CHARACTER INFORMATION

face claim: Carlson Young

full name: Marianne Mae Fusselman

nickname(s) / goes by: Marnie

pronouns & gender: cis woman, she/her

sexuality: bisexual

birth date: September 22, 1995

birth place: Beaverton, Oregon

arrival to merrock: 2023

housing: She lives with her great-aunt in the rural countryside.

occupation: Barista

work place: Cobblestone Cafe

family: Her great-aunt Mae, parents out-of-state, one younger sister

relationship status: single

PERSONALITY

Marnie is serious — too serious, she knows . She often finds herself preoccupied with uncertainties, concerns, dreams, memories, and life’s bigger questions, mulling over thoughts until they’re smooth as river rocks. She fears vulnerability and, in the past, has evaded being known by others. Now, she’s arrived at a point in her life where she realizes she needs those genuine connections. Once you earn her trust, you will find a pragmatic, direct, and steadfast companion in Marnie. She’s someone who will help you purge your wardrobe and finally donate half your shit to charity, or insist on cooking you a hearty meal with lots of vegetables. At the bottom of it all, she wants to show up for the people she loves and take care of them as best she can. She would love friends with whom she can have a real, good, honest laugh — something she’s been missing for years.

WRITTEN BY: Rain (she/her) est.

BACKGROUND / BIO

Marnie spent a lot of her childhood moving around the country for her father’s job, and thus learned to be highly adaptable; the flip side of that coin is that she has felt unmoored for a long time. She’s fixated on the concept of “home,” and in the process of trying to find it for herself, has bounced around from state to state in her own right ever since she turned 18. She’s always been a very creative person, leaning heavily into writing short stories, plays and films during her high school years. For a long time, she felt that making it as a writer was what her entire life hinged upon. She went to college in Philadelphia and struggled hard through an entire undergraduate degree program in screenwriting just to discover that she just isn’t cut out for keeping pace with the intensely competitive film industry. Once so certain about her identity, she found herself freewheeling, and has spent years picking up odd jobs and temporary gigs, struggling with feelings of purposelessness but unsure about what she should commit to and so afraid of making a wrong choice. A consistent thread throughout her life has been food service, for a few reasons: the jobs are very easy to get and to leave, and she actually really enjoys the work. She steered toward working in coffee shops a few years ago, and takes great pride in her craft as a barista.

Now at the end of her twenties, broke, lonely and growing weary of the patterns her life has taken, she’s come to Merrock to live with her great-aunt Mae, who she lived with for a few years as a child and still remains close to. She seeks clarity and peace, community and companionship, routine and regularity, and work with meaning — at least, she thinks she does. A small part of her, so small she can almost ignore it, worries that even if all of those things are presented to her, she won’t be able to embrace them. But for now, she does her best to brush that aside, and step into her next chapter with an open mind and heart.

[ohgodmyeyes]

i saw that you said it’s canon that Anakin has a fat kink and i need to know where it says this cause as someone who’s fat it makes my brain go brrrrr in all the right ways and lowkey is a bit of a confidence booster…

ooh i think i remember tagging it about padmé, too!

unfortunately, i was sticking my tongue in my cheek when i did... however, that doesn't mean i think my supposition is necessarily baseless.

anakin is raised a slave on a planet where security and dominance mean being able to feed yourself, and feed yourself well. his general disdain for the hutts notwithstanding (they aren't even humanoid), it isn't really difficult to imagine anakin viewing fat bodies as attractive or aspirational.

it's a little kernel of an idea that i think it would be fun and realistic to play with. fwiw, i don't think anakin is so innately attracted to padmé because she's 'conventionally pretty', whatever that means... 'conventionally pretty' in star wars being heavily subjective/influenced by culture. it's easy to forget that anakin isn't necessarily seeing his world through our eyes; i actually think she stands out to him because she's so very unlike anything he's ever seen before: a well-hydrated, adequately-fed, smooth-skinned young humanoid woman wearing clean clothes and not toting something heavy on her shoulders would be a pretty rare sight in mos espa, all things considered. if he's ever seen anyone remotely like her before, they were (like it or not) probably dancing in a chain bikini for some rich asshole.

another thing i think is that part of his continued infatuation with her has to do with the perceived extravagance of her lifestyle, and the power and respect it affords her. part of him might resent those things, sure, but sometimes i believe even more of him craves/idolizes them... and, coming from a place where food is such an important part of the social hierarchy, i don't think it's too much of a reach to consider that he might (even if subconsciously) come to the conclusion that big = desirable... either on himself, or on a partner.

for as dysfunctional as i think they'd be in practice, i love imagining anakin and padmé into the future: being comfortable; being happy; maybe even having more kids. i think anakin would be fascinated by the kinds of changes a person's body undergoes while they give birth/recover from pregnancy/breastfeed. (*something that makes their relationship feel a little extra tragic to me is the thought of their closeness & affection actually having the potential to be bolstered by padmé's postpartum period: she would be vulnerable in a way she's not used to; he would be able to take on a caregiver role without feeling as though he's being pandered to.)

i don't think it's unreasonable to presume that anakin would be attracted to people he perceives as independent or exotic or successful; fat, to him, could easily represent any/all of these things. i think he'd be proud to show off a bigger-than-average partner, if he had one; at the same time, i also think he'd be awfully pleased to be with someone capable of keeping him well-fed... because where he comes from, that's not exactly a bad thing.

definitely not disregarding the notion that he'd have trouble adjusting to the privilege, but i think he has trouble adjusting to privilege when he starts to grow into his role as a jedi & when he starts to claim his power and authority as vader, too. for a romantic partner especially, it's a process i think he might even take pleasure in.

so yeah... not legitimately canon, no, but close enough as far as i'm concerned. (also his love is unconditional... but that's another post for another time lol.)

and if anyone reading this ever gets hired by diznee to write an official novel... well, maybe they'll be nice and allude to it for me. :'))

[lordrandreaming]

Good day and excuse my keyboard, just HOW MANY times does the slutty monk man get dragon pregnant?? and are they all live births or eggs? I need to know for science 👀

I'm led to assume your asking about Wakase and Geto x3

For those who don't like it CONTENT WARNING: Mpreg, Mpreg birth discussion, yadda yadda don't like dont read

More under the cut~

So these two are CONSTANTLY at it because Geto is a horny little slutty monk man that missed Waka so much, he WANTS SO MANY KIDS!! You know, just cause!

Lol, jokes aside, Wakase and Geto have *canonly* 7 kids. The first being Tatsuya, the second is his sister Emiko, and from there, we have a set of twins, one by themself, and then another set of twins xD

I haven't picked names, let alone genders yet, but they have plenty of kids! Geto is that motherly type who wants to be pregnant 24/7.. So yeah, not going off of JJK canon and my own (where Geto lives his happy gay life with Waka and Gojo) Geto and Waka have all these kids year after year xD

Geto uses Curse Reversal so he can hop on that dragon dick as soon as possible and get LAID 👌 (haha get it? 👈👈)

But anyways, for the most part all of Geto's births are live! I love the prospect of a live birth, since I get to write about the struggle of bringing life into the world! (and everything inbetween 😋) messy, dramatic, that's what I love to write!

Geto is always ready for when the baby arrives, so he and Waka don't need human intervention to make sure their baby arrives safe and sound. Besides, Shoko is always lingering waiting for Geto to message her too! So she's also a valid option.

Geto has read alot, but nothing could prepare him for the real thing! Mimiko and Nanako are around, probably not in the room with him- since he doesn't want to scar them for life xD

Wakase is kinda useful? At first, anyways. With Tatsu Waka wasn't very prepared. Geto was more prepared than him, and he's the one giving birth!

It didn't go as smooth as either would have hoped, they had to clean up *alot* of blood and birth fluid after. Well, Waka was the only one, since Geto literally just gave birth to his son, so it's the least he could do.

Following the birth of their other children, it goes alot smoother! And faster. Since Geto's hips have become wider with each birth, it's much easier to push out a kid.

But, I have a certain AU where Wakase is much more curse like, so he has ears, horns, claws, paws, and a nice long tail! I haven't sat down to write anything yet, but, yes sir.. This would be the egg au!

In actuality, I haven't written anything! But.. Egg preg Geto is really fucking cute. He'd be just as round as he would normally be, but there is a lack of movement which concerned him until Waka tells him he harbors an egg! (Or more, maybe a whole clutch 👀)

It would start out like a normal pregnancy, maybe minus morning sickness! It wouldn't be as long, since it's not a normal pregnancy!

If Geto is pregnant with a clutch, there is the possibility that not all the eggs are fertile, so maybe Tatsu is the only egg that hatches after being laid.

Giving birth was easy for Geto, since it's eggs about the size of his hand, they are a beautiful metallic blue and super smooth. Cold to the touch too after having sat an hour outside of Geto's body.

Tatsu being the only baby that emerges out of his egg, Geto is absolutely distraught but knew this was a possible outcome since Wakase is such a specific kind of curse, there was the chance that none of the eggs would hatch. He's happy to at least have one, being Tatsu!

The only egg that actually grew, since the eggs didn't come out hardshell. All the other eggs remained soft while Tatsu's egg grew and expanded, hardening its shell after a week before he hatches out!

Tatsu comes out ADORABLE! He's got lil nub horns, cute lil pointy ears, smol claws and paws, and of course, a tail! Wakase is speechless looking at his son, meanwhile Geto is the one cleaning off the egg goopy and wrapping Tatsu in a warm towel before holding him and crying- he's very emotional!

For the rest of the soft shelled clutch, Waka and Geto construct a glass box with a velvet blanket that sits on a shrine in a room Geto has dedicated to his children. Tatsu is allowed back there of course! He did come from the clutch.

The next clutch has a higher hatching rate! Probably the whole clutch of 6! So Tatsu gets his siblings anyway 💙✨

Reguardless of AU, Waka and Geto get to have at least Tatsuya and Emiko. The other 5 children do not exist in canon, because the event's that take place do not allow that.

*cough* When Tatsu is 1, is when Geto ends up pregnant with Emiko, but he's only a month along and might not know he's pregnant. And this is around the time that he conducts the Parade of A Thousand Demons on Christmas Eve..

Everything progresses as should, Geto dies and gets taken over by Kenjaku, who finds out his host is pregnant! Waka is far from happy.. As he's alone with a one year old on Christmas. When Waka finds Kenjaku holding Tatsu, he is very displeased.. Since he knows immidietly that, this isn't Geto.

For the remainder of Kenjaku's pregnancy, he stays with Waka while planning his Culling Games, and collecting Sukuna's fingers.

After Kenjaku gives birth to Emiko, he bails. If he stayed, he would find out quickly that Emiko does NOT like him.. But he didn't! So Waka is left with a one year old Tatsu who's crying for mama, and a newborn.. Who cries alot.

Poor Wakase.. Died nine (to ten) years ago, only to be brought back as a curse, start a family with his highschool sweetheart, only have the children they had to be all that's left of Geto.

Tatsu grows up not knowing anything about Geto's disappearance, him and Emiko don't remember :(

But there is ANOTHER AU, where Geto has a whoopsie and goes through teen pregnancy because he and Waka are STUPID, and Waka dies before Geto can even tell him.. So Tatsu would be 10 when Waka comes back, and Waka doesn't even know that he has a son..

Emiko is conceived and born within the year Waka and Geto reunite, and they get to be a happy family! Emiko is a momma's girl, and is attached to him 24/7..

But the loss of Geto hits harder. Tatsu becomes super withdrawn, refuses to call Kenjaku 'mom' and doesnt even address him. Emiko, who is usually glued to Geto, refuses to be any where near Kenjaku. She would sooner run to Gojo than Ken!

It's easier for Kenjaku to bail on them, since he isn't stuck the whole 9 month's with Emiko, she hates him too! So no fuss no worries.. But that doesn't mean at night, when Waka, Tatsu, and Emiko are all cuddling.. That they all don't think about how much they miss Geto.

Another seperate AU has Kenjaku stuck with Waka and the kids, because OOPS! He winds up pregnant with Twins xD! So he stays and has to be mommy ✨

Another AU let's Geto and Kenjaku exist at the same time in seperate bodies! So Waka has TWO Geto's who are pregnant and needy and probably plotting against him, eachother, or both.. Either way! They get along decently (being stuck with eachother) and eventually neither of them minds.

If there is anything to gauge about this post.. Is PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT WAKASUGU!!! I'M SO HAPPY TO ANSWER THIS ASK MWAH MWAH ILY ANON PLEASE ASK MORE THINGS LIKE THIS!!

[parentingtheoryandpractice]

Violet's birth story

So, fair warning—this is going to be a drawn out, high context version of what ultimately could be a very short birth story. And if you want to really understand the progression of how I have related to labor and birth over the years, I’ll link my previous four birth stories below.

Lydia’s birth story

Zeke’s Birth Story

Maya’s birth story (and reflections on previous births)

Alexander’s birth story

This pregnancy was not an easy one for me. Will and I decided to have our (almost certainly) final baby closer to our next youngest than we have ever spaced before, since we were pretty eager as a family unit to move to a different life phase that was less pregnancy, baby, and toddler focused, in large part because we wanted to have a different type of focus and energy for our older kids while they were still kids. We knew it would be more work in the short term, and I would be leaning on Will a lot for a while, which has proven true.

We also moved while I was pregnant, which I overall very much stand by as a decision, but that was pretty brutal. We tried to time it so that we’d be moving when I was in the second trimester, since that seemed like it would at least be easier than the alternatives, and that almost/mostly worked out, but of course the timeline got pushed back some. 

And then the second trimester was also a bit less of a smooth period than I had expected, since I had three episodes of nerve pain that meant I was pretty out of commission for a few days, which was itself inconvenient, but also led to a bunch of uncertainty on my part, since I didn’t know what was going on, or that it was only going to be three times. (All that could be a full-length post of its own, which I may try to write up at some point. As far as I can tell, not only did it all fully resolve, but maybe my body map and body mechanics are actually improved relative to my previous baseline, and I am better at something like Focusing in a body way, thanks to my friend James who explained to me how to do that.)

That said, compared to how things can go, I would still call my pregnancy pretty uncomplicated. I thought I had some blood sugar issues (which could again be its own whole post), but I got a cgm, tried some other blood sugar monitors, paused my Vitamin C since it turns out that can make glucose monitors read a little higher, and my eventual conclusion there was that my first blood sugar monitor was reading too high. I did somewhat limit my carb intake, but after an initial period of lots of tracking decided (in consultation with my midwife and the doctor she works with) to treat it as non-clinical, and I stopped taking measurements. 

I also had some iron-deficiency anemia, as I have had every pregnancy, and taking a bunch of iron pills didn’t seem to be working at first, but just as I scheduled some appointments to pursue an iron infusion, my numbers came back up. 

And for most of this pregnancy, especially as I was approaching the end, I had a lot of anxiety about birth. With that too, there’s a lot I could say, but I think the high bit is that, while I didn’t anticipate any bad concrete outcomes—I never seriously worried that the baby wouldn’t be born healthy, or that I would be physically at risk—I did have a visceral sense that it wasn’t going to “be okay”, and that the experience would be a bad one for me. And “bad” not just in a fleeting sense, but in a way that would leave my mental structures worse off than they were before. 

I never found a concise way to verbalize exactly what I was worried about, but I’m very grateful for all the people (especially Will, Kenzi, Anna, Steph, and James) who listened to me talk at length in repetitive inarticulate ways about what my issue was. And for all the people who wrote up and published their birth stories, since (as has been my habit), I read a ton of them in the weeks leading up to my birth. And at the end of the day, I think the anxiety eventually worked as intended. I processed enough and set the right sort of intentions that it was pretty much gone. I remember a conversation with Anna right around my due date where I expressed that I figured birth would be unpleasant, but in an accepting way, and my desire to keep talking about it was largely gone.

Some of the more legible takeaways I had from all my birth processing were:

-I was pretty willing to let go of some things I had previously been (mostly implicitly) aiming for in service of having an easier birth.

-One such thing was accurately tracking what the experience was like for me. (So… I expect my written recollections to involve mostly the right amount of error bars anyway, but that’s part of the epistemic status of all of this.)

-Another one, somewhat to my surprise, was caring about the timeline. Talking it through, it became clear to me that I had few to no concerns about having a long labor per se, as long as the intense and overwhelming part wasn’t long. (My understanding of Kenzi’s later summary of this, which I liked quite a bit, was to think of early labor as for positioning, not dilating, and that moving to dilating before the position was good often wasn’t desirable.)

-Related to that, one of my conclusions was that during my labor with Xander in particular, after having gained a more explicit model of how my muscles worked during labor over the course of my previous labors, I was expending a lot of wasted effort trying to make things go faster, and my guess was that it didn’t speed things up and probably did lead to it feeling harder. So my plan was to not do that.

-I can’t remember if this was explicit, but I think another constraint I let go of was having other people be able to track much of what was going on for me in realtime during labor, which iirc I’ve written about mattering to me in the past.

-And, somewhat presciently (spoilers), partly since I found a great collection of unassisted birth stories to read, I made my peace with the idea of a delivery that was fast enough that the midwife wouldn’t make it, and talked Will about that some too. 

-I also tried to consider which of the painful sensations it would be helpful for me to be especially aware of during labor, and which I could essentially safely tune out. My conclusion there was that anything that was telling me how to move my body seemed important, and that it was probably good to be pretty aware of any potential tissue damage from tearing during the pushing stage, but that microtears that were happening because of muscle exertion, and general muscle fatigue type sensations probably weren’t that actionable or important to pay attention to.

The one concrete and mundane-feeling anxiety that remained was that we would all get sick. We had all been sick multiple times recently, and then Xander had gotten sick  shortly before my due date, and right around when I did give birth, Zeke was also just getting sick, which was not a surprise to us given all of our sick friends and his recent exposure. 

But I am very grateful to report that (per my questionably effective request to my immune system) I didn’t get either of those sicknesses!

For a while, I had been saying that I didn’t want to make any plans at all for Thanksgiving, since it was two days after my due date, but as that week got closer, my sense was that I wasn’t having a baby anytime soon. And my midwife’s sense was similar. She said the thing she mostly goes off for her brith timing predictions is amniotic fluid levels, and that mine were high for someone who was going to give birth soon. So we decided to host Thanksgiving after all (with a backup plan in place for if I was in labor or if I had a baby by then). 

And indeed, my due date came and went, Thanksgiving happened, and I continued to have the impression that I wasn’t very close to having the baby. It wasn’t that I was never experiencing contractions, but I’d been having intermittent regular contractions (which I suppose ought to be called Braxton Hicks, but I don’t tend to experience them as painless…) for months, and the ones I was having didn’t feel different. My energy was pretty good, and I started talking more walks. And I stopped taking my iron pills, since it takes a few weeks to make red blood cells from iron anyway, and I wanted to give my digestive system a break.

And then Saturday night, I felt something happen with my bag of waters. I’m still not totally sure what it was, and I didn’t find the ph strip my midwife had given me in the middle of the night to check whether it was for sure amniotic fluid (all the plausible alternatives are acidic instead of basic), but I think it must have been. That said, it wasn’t a huge amount—I’ve always had my bag of waters break near the end of labor before, and I know it was nowhere near that amount of fluid. Maybe more like a cup’s worth, most of it all at once, and then with a little more leaking out after that throughout the night. My midwife’s guess when I texted her about it was that it was only my forewaters, which wasn’t a term I had known until she mentioned it. In any case, her conclusion was that it didn’t sound like a “frank rupture”.

But I do think it kicked off something, and at that point at least I no longer had the subjective sense that the labor didn’t feel close!

At 9:46am I told my midwife there was “not much happening in terms of contractions since I got up”, and whenever Will got up I told him about the same thing, but he took over with the kids anyway, and I proceeded to spend most of the day resting, relaxing, working on a jigsaw puzzle, hanging out in the bath, and intermittently experiencing contractions that felt “real” enough, but weren’t in any sort of consistent pattern. For example, I’d have a few in a row that were about 7 min apart, and very noticeable but not at all overwhelming, but then I’d change positions and go 20min without feeling much of anything. This went on for most of the day, and I made sure to keep eating and drinking, and resting, though I am pretty sure I didn’t end up sleeping at all. 

A little after midnight, I sent a message to our friends that were going to take Xander if we needed that during labor saying “I think Will has already given you an update, but I think I’m in early labor? […] I think there’s some chance things speed up and it’s tonight, but also easily could slow down and then speed up again at some point tomorrow. I think given what I’ve been feeling labor will not totally stop until I’ve given birth though”.

At that point I’d been timing my contractions for about an hour, and they were pretty variable. Most of them around a minute, but some shorter or longer, and a few that were under five minutes together but a bunch that were longer too. 

By then, I had been back in the bathtub for a while, after being in and out all day, and I think it was around then that Will set up shop in there with a backjack and joined me. I mostly had my eyes closed, and I remember not noticing that he had come in, in part because I had put Fauré’s Après un Rêve on repeat—which I think was the only time during labor I had music on. I think I picked that song because my midwife had mentioned a few times that the way she thinks of labor is (my words not hers), was kind of like that I had to go to a journey to a different dimension to go get my baby. At some point a few keep earlier I’d made a playlist of some music I’d felt somewhat inspired by (this song was on it), and I’d been enjoying music a lot in the past few weeks, but once I realized Will was there, that seemed both better than music and like I was no longer inclined to have the music on. 

And some more about my headspace around then… Until around that point in labor, I hadn’t been very focused on labor between contractions, and had been watching little bits of reality TV on my phone, but after about midnight that changed. I got the idea a couple of labors ago, I think from The Pink Kit, that it was good to use coping strategies even during early labor so that reaching for them became more automatic when I needed them more later on, which I was doing, but this time (for the first time, I think) I basically found it helpful to use my coping techniques between contractions too, starting around midnight (which, having discussed it afterwards with my midwife, is what we decided to call the start of my active labor). 

My main coping techniques were deep breathing (in part because I figured oxygenating my muscles was going to make everything work better and hurt less), trying to tune in to exactly how my body wanted to be positioned (leaning on the sort of body type focusing I had practiced during my episodes of nerve pain), and reciting words to myself m. The main words I was relying on almost the whole time, as I have in the past, were The Litany Against Fear, but I’d decided when I was making the music playlist to also include this Irish blessing, which I first heard of because the head of school I attended used to say it to graduating seniors. It had more of a gentle, relaxed vibe—more about things being easier for me instead of me coping with something hard—and I wanted that to be in the mix. 

Overall, it became increasingly clear to me as I was laboring that I was aiming for as little sympathetic nervous system activation as possible, and with that goal in mind, a bunch of my cognition seemed pretty counterproductive, in much the way that meditators I have known often talk about it. Basically all of my thought about the future seemed notably tinged with anxiety, in a way where I wanted to let go of them. And the same was true of a bunch of my self-referential thoughts, even about what was happening right then. Same with analysis. I had some pleasant hypnogogic type thoughts about the different patterns from the jigsaw puzzle I had been working on earlier that day, and some other ones about the reality show I had been watching between contractions earlier. I also remembered something Steph had told me about seeing each contraction as a spiritual journey, and I tried to learn into that way of relating to it some, which seemed good too.

I also started doing a pulling down type thing on the side of the bathtub that felt right, and I think I was mostly squatting at that point. The house we moved into recently has a wonderfully massive bathtub, and while I had also borrowed our midwife’s birth tub, in large part because I found the birth tub I used for Xander’s birth really helpful (it was bigger, softer, had lovely handles), I hadn’t asked Will to blow it up. The place to blow it up would have been the bedroom, but Xander was asleep in there. And while we did have friends who would watch him, not only did him sleeping as much as possible seem even better, those friends (and also a bunch of our backup options) were all sick, so I was somewhat invested in him sleeping through the whole birth if possible.

And partly to that end, partly because it felt right overall, unlike with my other births, I was pretty much not vocalizing at all. If that had seemed like it was making labor harder to cope with, I think I would have made whatever noises seemed good to make, but the way I was relating to it was more that noises would have been wasted effort, so it worked out. 

The main thing my more logistical brain was still doing at that point was trying to track where labor was enough to figure out when to call the midwife. I had texted her a log of my contractions around midnight, but since she hadn’t responded to that I (correctly) assumed she was asleep and I’d have to call to reach her. So I got out of the bath, had a contraction or two on the birth ball (that I had ordered at the last minute), and called her at 1:25. I told her the contractions seemed to be about five minutes apart at that point. She asked how long they had been like that and I said I wasn’t sure. Then she asked if they had a clear peak, and I said they did. She said didn’t I think she should come since she was an hour away, and I remember saying something about how I wanted to defer to her about that. She told me she was coming, and to tell Will to make up the bed with the waterproof liner and extra sheet and fill the birth tub. I knew I wasn’t going to ask Will to do either of those things just then, but I was in a pretty internal place, it didn’t seem worth saying that out loud.

I got right back in the bath after that, and at that point my conclusions was that there was nothing more to plan, and I could more fully relax into wherever labor wanted me to do. I think Will had mostly been with me pretty continuously for a while, but at some point I think he left to go pack a bag for Xander in case he needed to go to our friends’ house. At a different point, I remember telling him not to go anywhere. I don’t remember whether he was even thinking of going anywhere at that point, but I think I must have had an intuition that things were getting close.

Almost everything from here is increasingly hazy in my memory, but I do remember things getting more intense, though still not exactly overwhelming—more like reaching the edge of it during the peak of the contractions. I also felt some nausea, though not enough that I was close to throwing up, and did have a “hmm could this be transition” type of thought in response to the nausea that I didn’t focus on much. 

I was intermittently checking my cervix, as I had been all day, and I felt pretty dilated by then—definitely active labor—but I couldn’t have quantified it. I could feel the head very distinctly though! I’m still not sure when the rest of my waters broke. I think there was one moment where I thought it might have happened, and since that was the only one I registered I assume it did happen then, but since I was in the bath it wasn’t an obvious dramatic thing.

But at some point I do remember feeling a different sort of pain, more like a potential tissue damage type, and one where I was inclined to vocalize. I picked up the washcloth in front of me and bit down on it, which felt right, and around then it became obvious that the baby was moving downwards. I can’t quite remember what if anything I managed to communicate to Will, and I’ll have to find out from him exactly when he realized what about what was going on, but from there things happened very quickly. 

I couldn’t have said how long between that first pushing sensation and when I could clearly tell that the head was coming out, but it wasn’t long. I did try to pause a little with the head somewhat out, and not rush that part, so as to prevent tearing, but I think the pause was maybe on the order of seconds. 

And by then I’m pretty sure the midwife was on speakerphone. I think what happened was that she had called on her own for an update, but maybe Will had called her? Maybe even I had asked him to call, though I don’t remember doing that, and I don’t think I did. In any case, having her there on speaker was exactly what I wanted, so I was very happy about that part, and also in a quite nonverbal place. I remember her asking some question about what was going on with the head, and me thinking “well, right now it’s not out, but I can distinctly feel her ear”, but it was totally beyond me to actually say that part out loud. I did have in mind what she had reminded me, which was to make sure the baby’s head stayed under water until she was all the way out, since once the baby is exposed to the air and likely starts breathing, at that point it’s not safe for her head to go under the water again. 

Once her head was fully out, I may or may not have said anything, but I was very much remembering Xander’s birth, where it seemed to take forever to then push the rest of his body out. (It didn’t actually take long at all with him—but I do think I didn’t do it until I waited at minute or two until the next contraction.) This was faster though—basically once her head was out there was a brief pause, and then I kept pushing and her body was too, which was a massive relief. A massive relief, but then I also wanted to make sure she was breathing as she was supposed to. She seemed to me like she was breathing right away, but also like she was pretty much asleep, so I didn’t feel totally sure. I did some amount of rubbing her, blowing on her face, and talking to the midwife. Before too long I remember her producing at least one cry, and me asking if that meant she was for sure breathing now. I remember our midwife saying that if her muscle tone was good, that was what I should pay attention to. And it did seem like her muscles were working fine, and I remember noticing her hands opening and closing, but also in general newborns are so floppy at first!

In any case, I would say that I pretty quickly felt settled about her breathing, in part because the midwife didn’t seem concerned at all based on what we were saying. And the part after that is also somewhat of a blur, though I think I was already in a quite different and clearer headspace than I had been during labor, and was communicating with Will in a more straightforward way. He was getting me towels, and I was mostly keeping Violet out of the water so she didn’t get cold, but I wasn’t quite ready to move out of the bath yet. I also didn’t want to drain the water yet, since I figured it might be good to let the midwife’s look and see how much blood I had lost. I think I had Will take a picture of that. (I could tell by looking myself that it wasn’t much though, so I didn’t feel worried about postpartum hemorrhage.) Violet also pooped some meconium around then, but it wasn’t too messy—it was mostly on the towel I think. Though later there was a bunch of it on the floor of the bath, and I’m not sure if that was the same poop, or whether it came in stages. 

I had been trying to get Violet to latch ever since she came out, but it took a while for her to do that. She was pretty sleepy! But at some point before the midwives arrived, she did end up latching, which seemed to me like a good sign that I could probably get the placenta out soon.

I also asked Will to bring me the large metal bowl we had set aside for the placenta, since I felt some urgency about getting it out. And I think it was around then that Will left to go let the dogs out and the midwives in. I think since he had already taken the picture, I did drain the tub a bunch, and once there wasn’t much water left I decided to try pushing the placenta out. I used some gentle traction on the cord, since in the past I had had midwives tell me it was okay to do that, and tried seeing if i could push on purpose, and I felt it move! That part was definitely easier and more straightforward than I had remembered it being with my past two labors, which was neat. But then it got a little stuck once it seemed like it was out, and I was pretty sure that was just the bag of waters, but not sure enough to want to pull on it. Once the midwives came, a few minutes later, they confirmed that the placenta looked complete, that was just the bag of waters, and it was totally safe to pull the rest of it out, which I did. 

And that was the birth! We put the time down as 2:20, and the midwives arrived around 20 minutes after that, shortly after I had pushed my placenta out too. We took around another two hours to do a bunch of post birth stuff, like getting the baby’s blood type from the placenta (negative, so I didn’t do a rhogam shot), checking me for tears (just a very small one that didn’t require stitches), weighing and measuring the baby (I thought she looked like she was about eight and a half pounds, and she came it at 8 lbs 6oz after she had pooped, and 20inches, which the midwife said was maybe a bit of an underestimate), and assorted other logistics, like me getting out of the bath, putting on a postpartum pad and some clothes, me taking some ibuprofen per my plan so the afterpains wouldn’t hurt so much, me peeing, oiling up the baby before putting a diaper on her so the next meconium poop wouldn’t get stuck on her as much, etc. The midwives also went though a chart with me that shows typical development and gestational age, and while my placenta was a little calcified, as is typical for an almost 41 week baby, some of Violet’s markers were closer to 39 weeks. So maybe that’s why she took her time coming out.

(As an aside, given Violet’s actual stats, which seemed fine and similar to all my other babies, I feel good in hindsight about the way I related to my blood sugars during late pregnancy. Her head was also a little bigger than her chest circumference, so that wasn't an issue either.)

Once the midwives left, we got Lydia and Zeke to meet the baby, Will managed to take Xander into his office to sleep with him there, and I had the bed for me and Violet. I didn’t sleep much that night, but I was very happy :-). 

Will and I are overall almost certain Violet will be our last baby, and I feel extremely grateful to have gone out on such a positive note with birth—this one was my clear favorite, though I also remember Maya’s birth quite fondly, and I believe I learned things and took away important insights from each of my births. Overall, before I had this last birth I would have said, as a summary, that overall I didn’t really like birth, and now I don’t think I can say that anymore. It’s probably worth anyone reading this taking that with a grain of salt, since I did explicitly let go of my desire to remember things in a precise way, but I think it captures something very real and quite important to me anyway. 

And aside from being a very cool experience, I like to think that this time I learned something that I can take with me about anxiety. Both from how helpful I think my pre-birth anxiety ultimately was in guiding my processing in productive ways, and from how helpful it was to relax and fully let go of even subtly anxious thoughts during labor itself. 

I used to be sort of baffled by some of the birth stories I would read or hear from people I knew by how easy they seemed, even though Maya’s birth had some aspects in common with them, but now that I had this last experience, I no longer do, and the range of labor experiences that seem intuitively plausible to me has expanded. I also remember after my first birth talking to the instructor of the birth class Will and I had taken somewhat incredulously about this video she had shown us of a Russian woman giving birth in a bathtub very peacefully, since it seemed so different not just from my experience, but from the experiences of pretty much everyone in the class. And the instructor had said, somewhat apologetically, “well, it was probably her fifth baby”. So now maybe I’ve come full circle by having a very peaceful labor with my fifth baby too. 

A cool thing about this birth that feels like a bonus to me is that because I think I succeeded at my plan to not expend a lot of wasted effort, partly due to my intentions, but maybe even more because it was my fifth time, and my body had a more targeted sense of which muscles were involved and not involved, my body felt way less sore than it ever had before postpartum. I’m writing this a little less than a week later, and while it is still my model that rest and recovery is important, I feel remarkably good physically. 

I was lamenting to a friend how it seemed sort of wasteful that I finally figured out how to do this birth thing just as I was never going to do it again, and she said that wasn’t this sort of the tragedy of life—we accumulate all this knowledge that’s ultimately pretty hard to transfer, and it’s very cool but also feels a bit like a waste.

If I have one regret from this birth, it’s that I don’t have any video footage of it. I would love to have more of a concrete record, and I really wish I could show Violet a video of her birth one day, but at least I’ve written this up while it was pretty fresh in my mind.

And if you got all the way here, thanks for reading a very long and drawn out story of a short birth! I’m very grateful for how it all played out. 

[savingthrcw]

what if the point of her character is that she doesn't have a super specific past or personality because she's The Liar which can make her fit in pretty much any fandom - birth name is Elizabeth but the name she feels most real to her is Stella, because it was given to her by her baby sister. Goes by whatever name feels more appropriate around your muse.

And like, when she's herself she's chill and uncaring at the same time, would definitely spend her days having cocktails by a pool after a night of dancing, either living the Life or eating McDonald to cure her hungover (or the historical version of trash food), can't stop conning even if she's rich because she still can't resist a good crime, probably has a mountain of diamonds somewhere. Especially can't stop when she can punish someone who is being cruel.

But when she's LYING, she can be anything and anyone. Her gift, which she excels at, has always been to lie/con/act, BUT she decided to use it for good after she found out how nice it felt to help people (Leverage style) or avenge them or whatever else she can offer, and she's the kind of conwoman who gets Christmas cards from her former marks because either they never found out she tricked them or were still charmed after discovering the fact (again, Leverage style, if you've seen it think of Sophie). She WILL even give away her beloved money if it means saving people, but she'll do it while complaining a lot. She will destroy those who scam sick people too. She's got no fighting skills but has connections that can make her dangerous.

If you want to interact maybe she's "working" or maybe she's at the point of retiring, or she's being hired to do her job by the other person, or, more easily, your muse or a person close to your muse is the NICE type, and she feels compelled to help when they are in trouble, especially if it means freeloading for a while. She could be in the police's radar in certain fandoms and tasked to help (technically there is no charge against her whether because her fake identities are the wanted criminals or because like I said her marks just can't hold it against her)

shippy wise: she's only good at flirting when she's acting a role (she gets shy if flirted with otherwise, she's not that smooth). I historical/fantasy fandoms she's a widow, who impulse-married a boy she was in love with as soon as she was of age, already thinking of retiring by then and staying out of the game while married (because yes, she was already into this as a kid, her whole family is a mess of criminals) but he died a couple of years later and she was done with romantic commitment for the time being, at least in her real personal life. In modern verses she didn't marry the guy, life just got harder so they simply split up and she went back to what she was good at. Also, she DOESN'T sleep with her marks to con them, she only sleeps with men she actually likes. She claims it's because it'd make the game too easy and she likes a challenge. If a guy is too kind and gullible as opposed to a gullible bastard, she CANNOT con him, she doesn't have the heart for that.

and if anyone is interested let me know!

specific of fandoms where she can't just be human:

baldur's gate 3: a bard with very high charisma and deception obviously, and maybe spells to charm people.

dragon age: rogue and spy, bit like Leliana. Still has spells to charm enemies.

grishaverse: a tailor who specialized in changing her own face first but besides that she's the same person from the bio

marvel/DC: can be a completely normal person dragged in for her ability to lie or, if it works better for our plot, an alien with the same skills but also the ability to make people believe ONE lie at a time until she drops it (the rest is up to her regular acting)

ouat: part of Robin Hood's gang at first but moved because she wants to make more money, would be a tax collector when cursed

merlin: a sorceress that has obviously a lot of extra charming powers but much like in the mcu cannot and will not abuse of that power

icons not mine! credit to hollowedartist and buffyism

[vibetribetarotcoach]

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🚨 Retrogrades got people acting wild? Feeling drained at work, on the train, in the club, or just from scrolling social media? Baby, it’s time to armor up. A protection charm is your lowkey spiritual bodyguard—keeping weird vibes, bad energy, and negativity OUT while keeping YOU unshaken, untouched, and thriving.

✨ Why You NEED This During Retrogrades ✨

📉 People from the past creeping back in? (block & cleanse, bestie) 🌀 Overthinking & stuck in your head? (Retrogrades love to stir the pot) ⚡ Super self-critical or doubting yourself? (Be kind to yourself. This charm helps.) 🚫 Feeling energetically drained for no reason? (It’s giving spiritual leech. Let’s fix that.) 💨 Your social battery running on fumes? (Protect your peace, always.)

🔮 What You Need: Budget-Friendly & Bougie Options

You can find most of these items at your local crystal shop, a craft store like Michael’s or Walmart, or even your Dollar Tree. Be creative and make it your own!

🖤 Crystal Options (Pick One or More!):

💎 Black Tourmaline (absorbs negative energy like a sponge) 💎 Amethyst (blocks psychic attacks & stress) 💎 Clear Quartz (all-purpose protection & clarity booster) 💎 Obsidian (cuts off bad energy FAST) 🛍️ On a Budget? Use a smooth rock you find outside & charge it with intention!

🌿 Herb & Plant Options (Pick One!):

🍃 Bay Leaf (wards off negativity—write your intention on it!) 🌿 Rosemary (cleanses & protects, plus smells good!) 🌾 Lavender (calms & shields from stressy people) 🌱 *Salt (yes, salt!) (cheap, easy, absorbs bad energy) 🛍️ On a Budget? Use a dried leaf or even a sprig of grass with your intention set.

✍️ Sigil, Symbol, or Word (Personalize It!):

🔮 Write a protection sigil, your initials, or a phrase like:

“No bad vibes, no bad ties.”

“Shield ON, energy STRONG.”

“My peace is MINE.” 🛍️ On a Budget? Write it on a napkin, a dried leaf, or scratch it into wood with a toothpick.

✨ How to Make the Charm (Wearable & Portable!)

🎨 Make it a necklace, keychain, or even a hidden charm!

DIY Necklace or Keychain: Get a small charm bottle or locket from a craft store (Michael’s, Walmart, or an old thrifted locket). Add your chosen crystal, herb, and sigil inside. Wear it daily for protection.

Already Have a Necklace? Tie a small cloth bag with your charm inside to your existing chain or tuck a small paper sigil inside a locket.

Pocket Charm: Wrap your crystal & herb in a small cloth or paper and tuck it inside your bag or pocket. Easy & discreet!

💼 Where to Keep It (Choose What Works for You!):

🎒 In Your Bag or Pocket (Keep your protection close while on the go!) 👞 Inside Your Shoe (Use a bay leaf or small paper with a written intention to manifest protection, good luck, or to stop someone from messing with you. If it’s personal, write their name & date of birth, then circle it three times with a message like “back off” or “leave me alone.”) 📿 In a Locket or Necklace (For the jewelry lovers—wear your protection with style!) 📱 Inside Your Phone Case (Tuck a small sigil or written intention behind your phone case—modern witches stay protected!) 💄 Inside a Lip Balm Tube (Clean out an old lip balm tube, place a tiny rolled-up sigil inside, and carry it everywhere!)

✨ How to Activate It: Quick & Easy

Hold your charm in your hands. Take a deep breath. Set your intention. (“I am protected. No bad vibes can touch me.”)

If you have smoke (incense, sage, or your fave scent) pass it through quickly for extra energy. (Your happy smoke can be part of your manifestation work, too! 🌿💨)

Kiss it, tap it, smack it, or just whisper, “It is done.” Or say something that feels right for YOU—“I know that’s right!” “Sealed & secured!” “Period.” Whatever hits.

✨ Retrogrades are wild, and 2025 is all about transformation—stay protected, stay grounded. If you need more tips, want a reading, or just wanna vibe, DM me! Let’s manifest and protect our peace together. 🔮💜

P.S. 💫 Anything can be a charm if you put intention into it. Your water bottle, your daily tea, that bracelet you never take off, even your car mirror charm—it’s all about the energy you feed into it. Wanna turn it into a real protection charm? Grab your herbs, your crystals, and take a sec to charge it up. Hold it, meditate over it, set your vibe. That’s it. Your routine is already a ritual—make it yours. 🔮✨💜

[mercuriians]

do you feel like a young god?

synopsis ☆ blade truly wishes that his path had never collided with yours.

content info — NSFW (minors stay away plz), angst angst angst, fem! reader, regular fic but with a twist on the format. violence at the very end so be aware of that.

word count — 2.1k words.

author's note — this has been in my drafts forever. normally i don't write angst but i was listening to halsey's badlands album & it instantly gave birth to this fic. the entire album is so blade coded that it hurts. anyways this is just 100% pain and smut, there is no comfort. nonetheless i hope you enjoy this drabble and its unplanned christmas theme (i apologize in advance 😓) ALSO i'm working on reqs as we speak i swear

BLADE has never had time to entertain romantic affairs, or even indulge in spontaneous sexual encounters. such matters reeked of the kind of superficial sentimentality that he's long discarded due to its blatant, disgusting lack of appeal. since he’s remembered, all he’s ever really wanted is to taste death, to be enrobed within its earnest invitation and to finally relieve himself of his all-consuming burden. there was no room for anything else—especially something as trivial as fulfilling the human heart’s wishes.

YOU didn't plan to get involved with the agenda of the stellaron hunters, but perhaps your hopes were ultimately futile when your older sister was their very leader. really, what's funny was the fact that even though you two were related by blood, and were raised together, you only shared two traits: a sharp gaze tinted with magenta and the useful gift of perception. otherwise, you might as well have been nameless strangers. you were kind, forgiving, and preferred to heal rather than harm; kafka was the complete opposite, her manicured fingers gleefully stained with scarlet.

BLADE remembers finding himself in an unusual state of confusion when he had first met you. your appearance in itself contrasted against your team members; whereas they wore dark shades of black, purple, and red, you were clad in smooth clothes of pure silver, which didn’t make sense since they would end up dirtied and tainted either way. he remembers disapproving of your very presence because you seemed entirely unfit to fulfill your job—to kill mercilessly and to follow elio's script without an ounce of remorse or hesitation. "you don't belong here," he'd sneered, his vexation only increasing when he saw the docile smile you'd given him in response.

YOU weren't ever truly angered by the blatant acts of disrespect that blade displayed during the earliest stages of your connection. some would argue that you possessed the patience of a saint, and though you wouldn't exactly disprove such a claim, you'd say that it extended far beyond that. there was something you saw behind the scarlet hue of blade's gaze, something that lain dormant behind all the hostility. for a reason unknown, you soon grew the desire to discover it, and to maybe in turn help the man in some way. it didn't matter if a part of your soul had to be sacrificed—you would do it.

BLADE found it all too easy to decline your attempts. it was a continuous, repetitive process, where you’d seek him out and offer a few questions that seemed unassuming at first, and he’d respond by pointing out the obvious holes ruining your facade. he didn’t know why you were suddenly so eager to uncover information about him—or, to “properly acquaint yourself” as you’d innocently described it—but he didn’t care either way because it wasn’t worth trying to. at least those were the words he told himself for the first four months.

YOU managed to break down the weakest parts of blade’s walls by the fifth month. it was slow, and arduous, and yes, a bit frustrating—hearing him curse you out wasn’t really a motivating experience—but ultimately your efforts prevailed in the end. finally, if only a little bit, he opened up to you, and he began giving short but actual responses instead of a mere grunt or a simple click of the tongue. and so he started filling in small snippets about himself. how he found pleasure in the familiarity of a sword. how he despised the way your sister called him ‘bladie.’ how kuding tea was one of his preferred drinks. how he couldn’t remember the last time he dreamt in his slumber.

BLADE was rather astounded by the change in behavior you seemed to have withdrawn from him. at first he denied the reality and brushed off the occurrence as him simply taking the easier route, so that he didn’t continue to waste unnecessary effort on dodging your pesky questions. but here was the truth—he wasn’t lazy, ever. he always did things for a reason, always justified his actions with some kind of logic, no matter how immoral. something strange was happening, and he wasn’t entirely sure why, but he still tried to maintain a form of apathetic distance. blade convinced himself that things were remaining strictly professional. even as his pale hands somehow found themselves entangled within your soft hair during one stormy night, and even as his chapped lips pressed against yours.

YOU were surprised but not at all unwelcoming of the unorthodox suggestion that blade gave you one day. in a tone that betrayed no emotion, he asked—well, perhaps demanded—that you two enter a sort of arrangement that he called “being each other’s respective stress relief.” in a more straightforward, explicit manner, you two would use each other for physical pleasure whenever needed. that was where the intimacy started, and it was where it ended. with your heart beating a bit more than it should have, you agreed. blade smiled—a small, predatory kind of smile—before engulfing you in a harsh kiss, backing you into the wall as his hand squeezed around your neck.

BLADE relished the sounds that he was able to elicit from you—sweet, pretty little moans, desperate, high-pitched whines, and of course, the breathless mantra of his own name. every ounce of it made him swell with smug pride, and made his cock harden even more. your eyes would shut tightly whenever you felt particularly overwhelmed with pleasure, and of course he’d always force you to open them. after all he needed you to see just how much of a slut you were for him, just how much he’d ruin you with the marks he’d leave all over your skin and the countless orgasms he’d trigger within you. somewhere in the very back of his mind, there was a faint voice that warned him of the territory he was threatening to cross, just barely short of touching the edge. but he ignored it in favor of savoring the depraved sense of exhilaration that electrified his veins, knowing that he was the one corrupting his colleague’s sweet, innocent, naive little sister.

YOU found your heart beating impossibly faster every time your lips met his, every time he quietly snuck into your quarters and whispered things that were only for you to hear. of course it was only inevitable that you fell in love with the man himself. long forgotten was your goal to solely fix him because in a strange, almost twisted way, it was like you were healing yourself with every scorching touch of his fingers, every relentless thrust of his hips. and for better or for worse, it felt like he was starting to care for you against all odds, and you saw it through the littlest of things. how his dull scarlet eyes seemed to brighten just for a second when he saw you, how he started to stay the night after he ravished you, how his fingers traced your beautifully bruised skin with an uncharacteristic gentleness when he thought you were asleep. you loved it, and soon his embrace was the only thing you learned to crave.

BLADE seemed like he was caught in a peculiar trance ever since you two had agreed to the "stress relief" arrangement. it was unimaginable, really—or at least it should have been. not once had he felt such unbridled emotion for a woman, or for any person in general. he detested the sensation at first. hated how vulnerable it made him feel. so, whenever he felt particularly exposed, whenever you smiled at him for too long, he used your body as a distraction. he'd mark your skin as if he was nothing more than a mindless animal, would pin both your wrists above your head as he snarled, hips smacking against yours. the strategy would work for some time, but the moment he saw you fall into a peaceful slumber—exhausted from all the rigorous activity—the emotions would come rushing at him again, full force. soon there was a voice at the back of his mind, whispering of how he was falling into a trap. one that he had arrogantly, unknowingly set for himself.

YOU started to feel a shift in blade's behavior, noticing how he became more distant as the days passed. your conversations shortened and shortened until they became almost reminiscent of the ones you'd have at the beginning of your relationship. your nightly sessions dwindled in frequency, eventually reaching the point where he barely even knocked on your door at all. all of it drove you to the brink of insanity, worry consuming every ounce of your being until you couldn't handle it anymore. "what the hell?" you had hissed, pulling the man aside once silver wolf and your sister had retreated to their quarters for the night. "why won't you talk to me, blade? what did i do?" but even that didn't work. all he did was scoff and push past your figure, shaking off your grip when you reached out for him. the next day, you were so distraught that, in a fit of desperation, you asked your sister for help. but the only thing you received was a look of warped pity and an obscure comment. "once the candle burns out, the room grows dark again." kafka murmured.

BLADE couldn't handle any of it anymore, his seemingly endless endurance having reached past its limit. he hated the way you looked at him in confusion and anger, and most of all, betrayal, as if he had stabbed you in the back. he might as well have. but above that, he hated the way you reminded him of his curse's weight. in another life, he had thought of immortality as a gift—a gleaming trophy awarded only to those who had gone above and beyond to prove their superiority. how foolish he had been. immortality was a burden, its pressure so insurmountable that it felt heavier than holding up the sky itself. from the very beginning, he'd known that being immortal meant that he'd have to watch the people around him fall prey to death's embrace, but somehow that simple fact evaded his mind when he—it still pains him to admit this—developed feelings for you. he wasn't quite sure if what he felt was love in its raw form, but he was pretty damn certain that it was the closest he was going to ever get. because as selfishly and disgustingly sentimental as it was, the last thing he wanted was to see you wither with age, until you were nothing more than another corpse. and so with a shaky breath, and an unstable heart, he decided to handle the situation in the only way he knew how to.

the truth was that YOU truly were one of the most perceptive people out there, even as heartbreak dulled your senses. so you heard the muted footsteps and saw the swiftly approaching shadow. you knew who it was, even without sparing a glance. still, you remained motionless, your movements almost painfully frozen as your eyes slid shut. tears silently rolled down your face, staining your skin even before the sword pierced through your chest. crimson seeped through your silver blouse like ink on a blank canvas. you fell to the ground, exhaling unshakily, unrivaled pain blooming within every inch of your body. you felt the strength being drained from your spirit, but you mustered the will to meet blade's scarlet gaze. "guess i should have expected this, huh?" you murmur, fingers moving to feel where he'd stabbed you. silently, blade crouched down to your level, his expression unreadable. you reached for his hand, neither of you flinching when his skin became stained with your blood.

"all of this was a mistake," BLADE muttered, tone betraying not even an ounce of emotion. still, he kept his fingers intertwined with yours, and that action alone was enough. "my fate is already determined, but you sealed your own the second you approached me." the wind was cold and unforgiving around the two of you, its invisible talons recklessly combing through the man's ebony strands of hair. but blade paid it no mind, not even when a particularly harsh gust threatened to overwhelm your last words. and as time would tell, those were the very words that would haunt him in the future.

"i'd seal my fate over and over if it meant that i'd see you happy again." you whispered, and for once you failed to notice one crucial detail.

for the first and last time, blade's vision grew blurry from his tears.

[shesnowamomma]

New Season

I love reading my previous entries because it’s like the ‘past’ me is giving advise to the ‘present’ me. It’s like I’m giving myself a reminder or wake up call.

It’s the new year and I felt like I entered a whole new season in my life. I just can’t imagine I am what I am now. I am truly a family woman now.

I gave birth to my 2nd child on August 12. It was an unexpected delivery. I thought I’ll be giving birth at the end of August. I was actually wishing that I would give birth on Mama’s birthday. But I gave birth on my 37th week and 2nd day of pregnancy.

Fast forward to now — my baby turned 5 months. Everything has been & is smooth and easy (oh’ i hope i wont jinx it!)

There are more responsibilities for us, husband & wife. Outside family and work, we’re working on other things to have other sources of income.

So yup, we’re onto a LOT of things right now and to be honest, I feel it’s too impossible to do. I just hope God can grant me different bodies so they can all work at the same time.

My personal goal for this year is to go slower, despite of all what we need to do…I aim to be slower and be more present with my husband and kids. Soon my kids will be both toddlers & for me, it’ll be a crucial part and our presence are the most important to their early years.

We will try our best. All for our kids. ❤️

P.S

I’m just writing down whatever goes into my mind. So sorry to my future self if you’ll get confused haha. And also, hubby gave me an Iphone 15 Pro as my birthday present. I really appreciate him knowing he’s a frugal one 🤪

#01132024

[tasmiq]

Jumu'ah Sohbet: 29 September 2023

We have just passed our Shaykh Taner's 82nd worldly birthday on 28 September 2023, with much sadness because we are missing him, and with gratitude that his existence provided us a panacea for our spiritual thirst, in our search for more! However, his spirit blazens - brightest in his older students - of our multinational Tariqa (spiritual school following a specific path).

In the likes of your Shaykh Nishaat, Aunties Rubina, Rosie, Amina, your Abbu, and humble Shaykh Mohammad Abdullah of Mexico who delivered the last Saturday Sohbet. He had attracted various spiritually-thirsty Spanish and Portuguese people to Allah and was appointed by Shaykh Taner to be the leader of his virtual following in that part of the world. With frequent cases of lost-in-translation, in the end, he bowled us over with a deep offering of heart language that unites us all.

#1. As a former Qur'anic Arabic student, I was taken with his first point that we intrinsically must keep an open mind. The Arabic expressions for world, heaven, and hell appear in their plural forms. There are various interpretations of the levels or gates of heaven and hell, and as to why the word for world appears in its plural form.

However, if we believe the existence of Buraq, who carried our Prophet Muhammad SAW on Laylatul Mi'raj actually happened... We must have faith that there is always more to our limited understanding of Allah! And it will all be revealed to us in time as we traverse our spiritual journey with our nafs and evolving soul that have a synchronous relationship. We aspire for unity with our soul such that this will extinguish our nafs, insha'Allah! I wonder why we Sufis are called the mystics, when mysticism has always existed in Islam.

#2. Shaykh Mohammad then referred to his writing. He had written that Allah plucked us from His essence and sent us on a journey in this world for the development of our soul. However, this all depends on the use of our free will. Free will determines the pace of reintegration with our Source in Allah. Basically, our souls are perfect but incomplete, which requires a process to attain completion.

We therefore began as a spark of Allah's essence, and we were sent on a journey of development. At birth, we immediately begin a process of indoctrination through the material world. The materiality continues for a long time, but sooner or later, the soul begins connecting with the physical consciousness. However, it's not an easy or smooth process. It's actually a shock therapy, which I can truly relate to as an accident survivor:

Alhamdulillah × infinity

#3. We begin as Nafs al-Ammara (the commanding soul), where we have no free will and are controlled by materiality. Here, there is a lot to learn and unlearn. At the level of Nafs al-Lawwama (the self-critical soul), where we see the reality of the world and in ourselves, and ultimately seek answers from God. Now, free will is a key aspect of our presence here where we choose Allah instead of nafs because the soul obligates us to search for the truth. The soul and the body develop reciprocally through growing consciousness.

We are basically the hands of God at this point, or we are working towards it. The materiality in our attachments to this world is insignificant nonsense and an addiction! This addiction is not cured until we hit rock bottom, as I have 😅 A shock was necessary to wake us up and acquire help so that we can advance to the next step of our spiritual journey!

Zikr is physical, and it prepares the body to receive, clean, and organise things so that in devotion; contemplation, and observation, we begin to understand what is happening in and around us. The important step is self-observation to determine the truth. Shaykh Taner even advised us to live in the third person. This is a literary expression where an anonymous person is writing the book, with the intention to learn through observation. By observing ourselves, we can learn to change because we can't change what we don't know. We can actually use our negative emotions to learn because when we observe it, it diminishes immediately!

#4. The deepest of all was Shaykh Mohammad's explanation of why we perceive Allah as Al-Wadud (the Source of love). It intuitively makes sense because I have been infamously referring to the love of Allah as a hippy emotion.

Love is a frequency and not an emotion. It is a frequency over which Allah connects with us. It is a connection that synchronises and tunes us into Allah's frequency. It's why we are invigorated when we are in nature for us nature-loving folk or made to find freedom when we are natural, for city slickers instead!

#5. We are commemorating Milad un-Nabi (the birth of our Prophet Muhammad SAW), as noted here:

The Mountain of Divine Light (2:55)

The current lunar month is the month in which the birth of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is commemorated. Before he received the first revelation, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) would go into seclusion in the Cave of Hira on the Mountain of Divine Light (Jabal Noor) near the city of Makkah for several days. In that secluded place, he received the first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel

One way for us to rediscover our purpose in life is to retreat temporarily from the distractions of our daily worldly activities in order to reflect on our purpose in life, to focus on worship and gaining closeness to God.

Well, as I was reflecting with your Abbu, how blessed am I to be afforded this kind of seclusion through my current disabled life. Where I am just managing my devotions, observation, and deepest contemplation - like never before. Subhana'Allah and Ya Shakur!

This concludes our swim in the deep ocean of contemplation and consciousness, with gratitude to Allah for blessing us with our Shaykh Taner! Allah, please bless him infinitely for unlocking our minds, hearts, and souls ...