#he has never exhibited it and Literally No One In Our Family Has the Fucking Inclination To Put Together An ExhibiTion. I WONDER WHYYYYYY

[mothmvn]

[head in hands] oh my god. my grandpa's encyclopaedic and loving obsession with various microvarieties of crosses as a symbol across christian works is, like, definitely an asd thing isn't it

[cerastes]

Bro any time I think about Valkyria Chronicles I laugh my nipples off, the game is fundamentally flawed gameplaywise but, simultaneously, it's stupidly fun, which is the recipe for any club banger, it has a story that weaves flawlessly between "that's pretty poignant" and "this is some goofy goober shit", it's got the horrors of war but also this fucking pig piece of shit mascot, Hans,

It's an amalgam of white and black without any gray: It exists on extremes, and it never intersects, it's playing two parallel lines and coming to terms with the fact that you'll never see cohesion but that somehow enhances the end product in ways evidently no one intended. You have narrative comparisons with the persecution of jews and, at the same time, the game ends with the bad guy getting German Suplexed.

But I think the funniest aspect of Valkyria Chronicles The First is that the main character is the farthest thing from a war hero they could possibly muster with the expertise of a stoic Japanese swordsmith from the mountains crafting a god-cleaving blade: Welkin.

This Scout From TF2 Put Through An Anime Filter looking mother fucker was chilling in his hometown talking about how much he wanted to be a teacher and showing people his really good sketches of animals because he's also a gifted artist, when suddenly, the Dudes attack, and his reaction to the Dudes attacking is "hang on, I recall my dad hiding his actual service tank in the shed in the back" so he goes and, yeah, his dad's tank from a previous war is just there, chilling, so he takes it for a joy ride while the town baker, Alicia, armed with a rifle and infinite action economy due to the afore mentioned flawed gameplay, sweeps the entire god damn platoon of heavily armed machine gun troops.

The entire game is Welkin using his love for nature and his baker love interest to inflict insane personnel and materiel damage to an entire empire: Welkin and Alicia will come across a heavily fortified bridge, and the dialogue will go something like

"Welkin! They will pulverize us with the heaviest machine guns known to man if we step one foot in that bridge! They practically developed wooden low-orbit bombardment stations! What's the plan!"

"Well... Look at that duck over there. It's flying from the east to the west, right? Well, YOU SEE, that duck is known as a Balkunese Socioduck, and those, during this season, migrate from west to east, and they only exhibit this irregular flight path if a Matrisgel Weasel family is molting by the juniper berry bushes, their favorite food. Matrisgel Weasels only ever molt if they are put under the exact amount of stress caused to them by the sound of distant tank threads on the road, and they are known to hide in sturdy, stable soil."

"Welkin, SIR, what the fuck does this all mean?"

"If we follow the smoldering shrieking of the molting weasels, we'll find a SECRET PATH that will, as always, let us ambush, flank, and surprise our foes! Alicia, you know what to do."

"Ogggeyyyyy"

and then, invariably, no matter the level, thanks to Welkin's impressive knowledge of fauna and flora, and Alicia's literally infinite action economy in a game that wasn't properly beta tested in-house during development, they combine their powers like a piss poor Captain Planet and kill the absolute shit out of an entire Empire's worth of dudes, and it's legitimately one of the most fun and charming games you'll ever touch if you remember to not take it too seriously. I fucking hate Hans but I love this game.

[youngpettyqueen]

I totally agree with your latest update on your post about Charles. I saw this meme earlier and it definitely made me think of him. I won’t comment on who I think the first part applies to.

so glad you agree ok cause I am a Charles defender first and human second

and to elaborate on that sentiment like. yes Charles is rude and pretentious and arrogant, he's got flaws, but that's not all he is! boiling him down to just his negative traits no matter any context is just a disservice to his character, both as he comes right from the get-go and the growth he goes through over the course of the series. he's just as complex and layered as anyone else!

honestly after a rewatch im far more sympathetic towards him earlier on than I was on first watch. like, the arrogance and pretentiousness aside, because those are separate- his anger at being at the 4077 is completely justified. he has every right to be angry. this colonel literally sent him near the front of the line because he was a petty asshole who was pissed off about losing bridge. im not saying Charles was behaving particularly sportsman-ly but the colonel was absolutely wrong for that. and like, I get that they needed another surgeon at the 4077 with Frank gone, but Charles also had every right to be angry with Potter for keeping him there. it was fucked up!

but to switch gears to his virtues- not all of Charles' kindness was part of his character development I dont think. him defending the kid with the stutter comes to mind immediately, because we know he felt so passionately about that kid because Honoria has a stutter. there's also Yessir, That's Our Baby- he gets MAD on behalf of the injustice that baby faces! that's big brother instinct, but thats also just. kindness and care. oh, and the patient who loses mobility in his hand and is distraught because he's a pianist, and Charles goes out of his way to get him music he can play with only one hand? his whole speech about how he always wanted to play, but never had the gift? he's so passionate in that one! and of course we cant forget his family's tradition of anonymously donating to people in need around the holidays- for all his family's flaws, ive always loved that detail, and ive always loved that he tried to do it even in Korea. those are just examples off the top of my head, there's absolutely more

and then there's the kindness and care he exhibits as he grows as a character. when Potter reveals to everyone he's the last one of his old friend group still alive, Charles CRIES with them! he's emotional during Millie Carpenter's funeral and Hawkeye's eulogy! just the entirety of Sons and Bowlers, dont even get me started- he stays with Hawkeye the entire time, even when Hawkeye doesnt want him to and tries to chase him off, talks with him and comforts him and opens up to him and is vulnerable with him. the entirety of GFA and his arc there

like yeah Charles isnt always nice he has flaws he's not perfect but he's capable of so much kindness, he's so passionate, and he just cares SO much. he just doesnt show it often! he'll move a mountain for someone even if he would never admit to it! reducing him to just his negative traits is again just such a disservice to his character he's so much more than that

[sunsetmaiden]

When my ex dropped our daughter off yesterday. I was so mad because I drop her at school and pick her up 90% of the time and the other parents never talk to me or appear friendly at all. He went out this weekend with one of the school families and they all had a playdate and took the kids for pony rides. I made a comment about how he has always been 'Mr. Popular' and that everyone has always liked him everywhere he goes and how none of the parents talk to me at all. My remarks were quite acidic without me meaning to and they cut or something because I could tell he got really uncomfortable. Spotify was on shuffle in the adjacent room and literally right after I said that I Hate U by SZA came on. It was ironic.

I just feel so angry. He made some comment about it's because he's easy going. I think he just didn't know what else to say and I caught him off guard. I couldn't help it I just felt so mad generally I keep is short and pleasant so as not to cause any issue for myself

One thing about being a survivor of abuse, being a survivor of intimate partner violence especially in this dynamic with contact with abuser... it does make you unlikeable. Trauma survivors are not likeable when they exhibit symptoms related to their trauma. Are fearful, distrusting, stand offish, worn out and wrung out by stress and abuse. My health is in shambles. I look bad all the time. I sacrifice so much and work inconvenient night shifts so it's easier for everyone else. Of course no one wants to talk to me. I'm a walking zombie half the time just trying to scrape through trauma recovery and rebuilding my entire fucking life.

I do everything I go above and beyond I still sacrifice my own needs for him very often (working weekend nights, emotional and mental labour.) I have scraped and fucking clawed my way to the life I live and I did it by my fucking self.... Completely alone. I am an amazing mother who has broken generations of trauma and abuse. he is a mediocre father and gets praise and high esteem just for showing up. He is a convicted abuser and all he cares about is applying for a pardon in 10 years and then it really won't matter at all what he did. I guess it never did to anyone other than me.

[getinthehandbasket]

lol wtf?

The superintendent of my high school just sent my mom a Christmas card. The superintendent who is apparently still in the same role appx. 20 years after I graduated. Who never knew me but knew my mom in passing*.

He sent it to my house, which is the same address I lived at in high school. (Though I no longer live with my mom, so it's not her address.)

He didn't send me, the alum, a card. Nope, it's addressed specifically to my mom. Who, btw, doesn't remember him.

What. The. Fuck. This is.. honestly, laughably ridiculous. As in, funny wtf.

And it has a QR code for a "prayer for Christmas."

Did I mention that literally everyone in my immediate family - me, my parents, my partner - are all gay and/or queer?

Yeah.....

*I was in marching band, and my mom was really involved. She was the go-to for advil, etc. when the school couldn't legally hand out any. As a parent volunteer they "couldn't stop her" (aka, encouraged her so the kids were taken care of without risking the school's liability). She was also in charge of our GIANT PROPS my senior year. These things were so big they took up every second we had spare from our actual performance to set up and take off afterward. Anyway, Dr. D. also showed up to every one of our competitions, no matter how far away they were**. So they were almost certainly passing acquaintances. I think Dr. D. helped get our props off the field once or twice, including during grand championships.

**except the exhibitions we did in HI and FL, which, yknow, exhibitions. Not competitions.

[prettybbychim]

trigger warning for death and specifically the death of someone i knew

there’s this family i know, they babysat me a lot when i was a kid and i honestly remember my time with them more so than with my own parents. i ended up babysitting their kids when i got older

the wife got sick, i can’t remember if it was a new development or they already knew she wasn’t feeling good for awhile. but one evening, she sat down in the living room to rest and fell asleep. husband covered her with a blanket and he didn’t realize she was already dead by then. i believe they figured it out the next morning

a lot of fucking people died. the world was shutdown. they’re still dying and now the world is continuing on like nothing happened. had a lockdown for a few weeks and then everything is fine

it’s not fine and it’s still very real and somehow people started viewing it as a bad flu (let’s not forget that people also die from the flu very fucking often)

my mom is immunocompromised. she’s had covid like 3 times mostly bc she’s an idiot who disregarded masking and isolation. literally was still going to bars and clubs near nightly, kissing on guys and shit (had a wild phase following the divorce w my dad lol) on top of doordashing which is a very high contact job. everybody is touching everything and everything is touched by so many people

she got covid before it was officially a pandemic, before it was really on anybody’s radar. and she passed it to her boyfriend at the time

second time she had it she had gotten married to another dude. they both had it. his symptoms were fairly mild in comparison to hers. i begged her to go to the hospital, i begged and i pleaded and she refused bc she “was fine” and she was not fine. she could hardly breathe, hardly move. she’d fall to the floor from weakness and lack of oxygen. ended up with covid pneumonia, which is as it sounds, pneumonia caused by covid, from what i understand. and it comes back even now, it’ll just rear its ugly head at random

and she was so pleased to rub it in our faces that our concerns were unfounded. that she was fine and that she got better.

this is not the first time she has exhibited this behavior either, not only to herself but for others in her care. me, for example, but we’d be here all evening if i talked about it all. another example, my dog

so another trigger warning for animal death and neglect bc i have to get this one off my chest now that ive been reminded of it

my sunshine baby ripley was suddenly in so much pain and constant distress. would hardly eat, couldn’t walk up the stairs that lead to the backyard. i’d have to heave her up to get her back inside and she’d cry and howl because it hurt so fucking much. so i started walking her out in the front yard to potty

she was a lovable girl but she enjoyed her space. would get so grumpy if u sat close to her. just huff and grumble and go pout somewhere else. around this time though she clung to me 24/7. had to be laying on me, had to be touching me. i was also home 24/7 with no job, no money, and no car and i begged and begged my mom to help me take her to the vet and my mom said she was playing it up for attention

dogs tend to mimic owners when they’re in pain. limping like their owner does. she was not mimicking. she had far too many symptoms to just be faking it and i fucking hate the very insinuation that she was being an attention whore bc even if she was, then still means something is wrong and needs to be addressed, even if it is just throwing a ball with her longer than normal. she would not act out for no reason. they don’t manipulate, same for young children

and she had so many fucking reasons. i have pictures and i have videos bc my mom was never home to see it (re: prev boyfriend and bar hopping) and i wanted evidence to convince her and to also show the vet once i could actually fucking get her over there

she was in so much pain for far too fucking long. cancer was eating away her abdomen, multiple organs. i remember she’d shriek when i had to lift her bc i would touch her abdomen and i remember how bloated she looked

and i know we’re talking about covid but this is the exact same shit my mom was pulling on herself. i would beg and beg and she wouldn’t listen and she could’ve fucking died too. i blame her for the needless suffering of my sunshine baby and i blame her for her lack of care for herself, but she can do that all she wants bc it’s her body her life whatever but u don’t fucking do that to another living being. neglect yourself, be cruel to yourself, deny yourself necessary medical treatment but don’t you fucking dare force an innocent helpless animal who relies on you for everything to go thru that same shit

off topic again sorry

my experiences with covid were so mild compared to everyone else and i’m so tremendously fucked up by it. i can’t imagine what other people have gone through that they just Refuse to talk about for whatever reason. the whole goddamn world was traumatized by this shit, and i am not using the word trauma lightly here. i mean it, the entire world was traumatized and suddenly we’re supposed to act like everything is fine. like we didn’t experience terrible horrible unforgettable things as a collective.

it's practically taboo to still talk about covid but god i wish we could acknowledge the worldwide trauma it's clearly still causing in people. like, it's flat out just. not "polite" to talk about how a mass deadly event might, JUST MIGHT, emotionally affect us a little bit. how an airborne invisible-to-the-eye thing can just BE anywhere now. how abandoned we still feel by our respective governments. how we've lost family, friends, either to death or misinformation and cults, which they cling to because they're ALSO afraid but often refuse to admit it because it'd mean admitting covid is real and ongoing. we just. can't talk about it i guess.

[061801]

#randomcomplaining I gotta have the most fucked up group of friends ever. I need to classify each group because if I go back and read these for myself I wanna know who I’m talking about.

Ok so we’ll do:

Exhibit A- will just be my closest guy friend cuz I hangout with him a lot

Exhibit B- my brother, his bf, and our best friend (I don’t think I ever really complain about them besides when I argue with my brother but i will probs write about good things too)

Exhibit C- old workers from my first job (2 girls)

Exhibit D- old coworkers from my recent job (4 girls)

I wanna explain each group and why I feel like idrk if I want these ppl in my life except for a small exception of exhibit B because they’re basically family. Only thing is they all use substances that really influence my decisions on whether I use or not which is not their fault but it’s toxic for me to be around that environment. Otherwise

exhibit A- started off as just a friendship, we both told each other about guys and girls we liked or wanted to be with. Then he developed a crush on me which was fine for me at first cuz it’s not rly my problem (respectfully) now he’s overly touchy like even being in public he’ll try and grab my leg and make it seem like we’re dating or something and I feel like he just wanted to assert dominance to other men in the room like “don’t touch her she’s mine” WHEN IM NOT LOL. At first I felt bad but I’m so fucking sick of people feeling so bad for him because he’s so nice and he loves me so much. He’s a great person, but not for me. And idk why people can’t just respect that and stop making me out to be a villain because I don’t have feelings for someone. This is kinda my fault I guess but I used to change in front of him and I didn’t rly care cuz I thought we had established that we’re just friends. Well now when I ask him to look away he really thinks he has the right to go “no I’ve seen it before idc.” Or most the time he does look away but gives me a hard time. There’s even been times where he looked back and was like OH MY BAD I thought u were done like no u didn’t lol u just wanted to be a fucking perv. So obviously I’ve established new boundaries, I go to my bathroom to change, I literally scream at him when he touches me, I always talk about guys. That’s the funny thing too he calls me such a whore and I’m fake just cuz I don’t wanna be with him.

Exhibit C: I actually really love these girls. I’ve never had any issues with them. Tbh the only reason I ever debate if I should let them go is because I feel like I’ve been a bad friend. We all started to be friends because we worked at the same job and we all liked to party and we were all lowkey a little weird. We moved on in life and they both have full time jobs, both in relationships, and I’m still partying like a maniac so I think they just don’t want to be around that which I totally understand. I started to feel sad because they never invite me to places they go but that’s cuz they don’t always wanna be all drunk and fucked up and tbh I never ask them to do shit either so in the middle of this post I acc asked if they all wanted to hangout and play video games

Exhibit D: ok this group of ppl confuses the fuck out of me. Everybody talks about each other like someone’s always mad at one particular person in the group I feel like, or worried about someone. I’ve had one person in this group steal from me. She’s jealous of all of us. One of the girls in the friend group only talks to me when nobody else is really there otherwise I get ignored I feel like. Sometimes I feel like they’re just trolling me too but that could be my insecurities. These people never ask me to hangout anymore and tbh I don’t rly care lol I hung out with them when I was in a really bad spot in my life and although they’re not the reason for it I just associate them with that time unfortunately. I don’t mean to but yeah

[mushroom-ooooooooooooooo]

This is like...sooo tmi so if you see me on a daily basis like,,,irl. Like at school. Pls dont read this.

Cw: weird mental health stuff/ me talking about low motivation

So basically its the time of year where my body just shuts down. My bones feel like lead, it takes forever for me to get out of bed, and I just generally feel like crap. I love winter but the physical toll its taking on me this year is actually driving me wild. I woke up this morning and genuinely couldn't move my arm for 10 minutes because my bones just feel so heavy. And my joints are getting worse too. I can hear my ankles and knees popping every single time I walk, but especially when I walk upstairs. And most of my classes are upstairs at school. And my immune system also gets weaker, and because of that my psoriasis gets worse. I literally just go to school and then rest.

And thats a problem because my parents both have a physical disability. So all the chores go onto me. But guess who can't do them because I'm fucking depressed and in physically pain constantly? Me. My back constantly seizes up and i literally needed my dads help throwing taking the trash out the other day. I can barely stand long enough to do a "simple" load of dishes. (Simple meaning one for the deep clean we do of our kitchen every 3 months. Its gross. I wish they would rinse their dishes out.)

And all of this is affecting my mental health really badly. This probably sounds gross but I'm just now taking a shower. Its been 3 weeks. And I know its not their fault, but one of my friends made an off-handed comment one day and that made me feel a million times worse. And I've been really snappy lately and I feel so bad about it constantly. And my mom and I think I was misdiagnosed with ptsd because I dont exhibit any symptoms and honestly never did. Autism and ptsd share symptoms and I just dont think I have ptsd from whats happened in my past. And my brother also thinks he may be autistic. Autism also runs in our family, so...yeah.

I also feel like shit because I haven't been taking as good care of our cats as I should be. I love them and want to see them happy, but my parents also refuse to help clean their litter boxes. And thats the big thing I struggle with. And one of our cats has been doing their business on the floor. No matter how many times we clean it up,she still does it. And its really irritating, but i also think she just...cant get into the box. She's like...12-13 and I've been trying to get my parents to buy better things for the cats. We have 4. And we dont even have a cat tree for them. And my cats love climbing. They would have so much fun crawling on a cat tree. And I cant do anything about it because im a highschool student who cant even get a job. I don't even have my drivers learners permit yet.

And that's another thing!! I honestly think my parents are done parenting. My brother went off to college, and everything fell onto me. And like I understand that my parents work hard and that they're older (mom is 54 almost 55 and dad is 52 almost 53) and they need to rest but god damn. Im still a child. Most people arent the sole cleaner, cooker, and pet caretaker. Most people my age don't make grocery lists for their parents. Most kids my age focus on their part-time jobs and school. They actually did stuff before my brother went to college. I just want them to understand how I feel about it. I like cooking and I dont mind cleaning, but it becomes a problem when im the only one doing it. And yeah, I get $50 in allowance every month, and I'm grateful that my parents are able to afford to give me that much, but my mom always pulls the "we give you allowance for chores,". Chores is things like un/loading the dishwasher, taking the trash out, cleaning litter boxes, making bed, ect. Not cleaning the entire trainwreck of a kitchen by yourself and trying to make sure the floor is clean before your friend comes over for the first time in months. They're not parenting anymore, and it makes me upset. I feel like im just a random person in their house. Genuinely, my mom spends more times working on her acrylic nails than actually parenting. And she wonders why I get so irritated with her. She says hi to the cat before she does me.

And I don't even know if my dad likes me anymore. I think im just another financial burden to them. Im just a depressed high schooler with chronic illness who can't even go to school everyday. I feel so useless. I dont even know if I want to go to college. I don't even know how I have friends. I'm not a nice person. I get mean and defensive really easily, and my teasing turns mean really quickly.

I don't know why I am this way. Am I cursed? Is someone even reading this? All I do is shut people out and listen to music. I don't know why I became so rude. I just want to be remembered. But at the same time, I don't think I'm worth remembering. I'm not exceptional at anything. Even my once okayish writing has gone down greatly. I used to get praise for my reading skills and now I can't even read a 300 page book.

I feel so gross and useless and im depressed. How worse can it get? Im also extremely paranoid. I constantly feel like people are judging my every move. Even when im alone in the shower. I still feel people watching me. I should've probably told my therapist about that when I was still in therapy but my dumbass didn't even think to talk about that. Just that oh i saw my friend. Oh i started public school again. You know what? No one cares. And I probably wasted my therapists time. And my dads. Having to drive me across houston just to see her. No wonder no one likes me. Im fucking irritating. Thats why I have 3 friends at school. And 3 friends out of school. And one of them doesn't talk to me anymore, and another lives out of city.

The other is wonderful and amazing and I want them to constantly be happy and comfortable but I cant do that at my house because my parents don't help. Im starting to realize im kind of like a live in cleaner. Thats all I ever do in my freetime. Cleaning up after my parents. My mom acts like shes 15 and my dad doesn't rinse his dishes.

Thats another thing. Along with them not really parenting anymore, I think they've given up on me. Specifically on trying to get me to school. I miss school about once a week to once every couple weeks because I have bad flare ups. As I'm typing this, I can feel my legs aching. It hurts. And it makes it hard for me to go to school like that. The last time I did my back starting seizing during UIL rehearsals. And I couldn't leave. But today was one of those days and I genuinely felt like crap. My dad just agreed and didn't argue. Normally he argues with me about it because "I need to suck it up and do what the rest of us do.". I understand that everyone hurts and has bad days, but I genuinely get so bad during those days. And everyday has been one of those days for the last 6 months. But my parents don't really discipline me. They don't track my every move. They dont even make grocery lists anymore. Or really go to the store often. But our fridge and pantry is filled with a bunch of junk. Leftovers, empty foods that need to be thrown away, and literally so much more.

My mom is also a hoarder and constantly buys new things for herself. Like with her nail stuff. Im glad shes got something going for her outside of work, but why does she need 50 different glitters? I guess one could argue that im the same way with paints, but I dont leave my paints all over the living room area. And she literally has so much clothing. And most of it is on her floor. Its almosy unwalkable and I constantly stumble in her room. And our garage is filled with mostly her stuff. Clothes, old books, even her teacher stuff. Why does she have so much??

It irritates me because she'll say she doesn't have money for something, such as a cat tree, but then buy like...$200 worth of clothes and makeup at walmart, when we could've bought groceries and a cat tree with that. She just...irritates me idk.

Anyways, yeah. I think this is long enough for now. Goodmorning, goodnight, good...whatever idfk. Remember to drink water and eat something.

[voyeuristicvixen]

Capt’s Log No. 41_ FrEeEeEEe

Meroe’s Juneteenth Jam was a great success! Lots of people came out and enjoyed the festivities and all the performances were so inspiring! One day we had 100+ people touching down on the sim and at the end of the event, Strawberry Linden herself came through, it was a highlight of my whole SL experience not gunna lie. Strawberry is a humble and gracious person and Secondlife featured our event on their socials the next day. It was all just really fun and it also happened to be my first time helping to plan and execute an event for the museum in my pops Ras’s absence. It felt really good to know I made him proud. .

H.E.R performed! I absolutely love the messaging in her songs, it was the perfect way to open up the festival and to solidify the vibes of Meroe moving forward. Juneteenth is not a holiday that my pops, or I, celebrate like that... for us, the movement is a constant endeavor. We dont stop with juneteenth in the unifying of our people and diaspora, or in the upliftment and teachings. Its something that has to continue until we are truly free in mind and spirit. We are almost there! But there is still a ways to go.

Father’s day was a difficult day for Yemi and I, her dad has not been able to get online and I honestly didn’t feel or think he would care anymore about us or her. We talked today though and are friends so when he gets back on the grid, he will spend time with her. He said she will always be his daughter. That made me feel good, I told him that now Yemi feels more like mine than before because we get to spend more one on one time together. Lol But shes still a daddy’s girl at heart.

We still in our pink lady era though, I feel like since I lost my old IG page and went through the break up with Wav, people who were following our work and union have since been on different vibes with me. LMAO. I resonate with the pink ladies because they have rumors spread about them and reputations that are controversial or tarnished in some way by the general public and yet they give no fucks and they continue to do what they do regardless. Thats how I feel. People will talk and say whatever they want, FUCKEM.

We got a new dog, Orion! It took me forever to settle on a pupper that fit me and finally found this guy. My first choice was so opposite him, was a doberman! But I love Orion’s personality! It shines through more than any of the other pets I saw in the RezzRoom!

I usually write my little caption paragraphs under the photos and I realize these have all been above. I wonder which flows better. So I got accepted as a Secondlife Mentor! \o/ I literally signed up as soon as I saw the flyer I wasted NO TIME. Its something I was already doing on my free time anyway, so to be official with the tag and training it means so much to me, manifested that shit!

Last week I also got to witness my first probate, I have never been to one before and I know so little about SL greek life. It is a whole other world to me. I like how they raise money for RL causes. I think that is really dope and powerful thing that a virtual roleplay organization can still create real life change through their endeavors. It was such a honor to be asked by Gigi to witness that momentus occasion in her SL journey.

I legitly cried IRL. Anything that has to do with sisterhood, it hits home for me and triggers me deeply. I wish that someday I can be apart of that but I wont hold my breath! lol

I think its really cool that I am suddenly apart of a SL family, we’re so chill laid back and unofficial with how we do things. We dont all have to share the same last name we just uplift and support one another. I got my pops and my brother and my mama bear, DONT MESS WITH US!

The closing ceremony of juneteenth featured this great “Enter the diaspora” exhibit which is still up and you should go see it this week! This was curated by Valentine and she did an amazing job on it! I ended up DJing the party, and it gave me a chance to get in some much needed practice. I look forward to collabing with Jamrock and building up the mystory connections to its best!

The theme was comics, black and queer. I dressed as Nubia! Did you know that Nubia is a lesbian? I did not know that till I came to this exhibit. Theres so many hidden gems here!

Storm block the wind so I can light my joint! XD

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Who knows what they’re looking at here? Both are covers of Weekly Shonen Jump, circa 1981-82. A young Akira Toriyama was making waves with his breakout hit Dr. Slump, and our guy Eiichiro Oda would have been about 6, 7ish? Okay, neat...so who’s blondie up there?  Name’s Hibari, a name we’ve been thinking about lately in terms of One Piece. Titular character of a series called Stop!! Hibari-kun, one much more influential than most Western anime fans realize. 

Newest love Commander Hibari does seem like the right design to be a reference, but truth is this series was always one worth looking at through the lens of being an influence on a young Eiichiro Oda. It also has a pretty wild tale in its own right, so let’s have some fun with it!

We’ll call this “Exhibit A.” The loach scooping dance is a thing, the chopsticks up the nose are a thing, the combo is something I’ve only been able to source to Hibari & One Piece. I’d also just point out that a One Piece fan today reading would be hard-pressed not to see elements of Luffy and Nami in our leading lady. Mind you, this series was a huge deal when Oda was a child even if it was short-lived. Western anime fans now have stumbled across it as a niche interest, but this was author Hisashi Eiguchi’s second manga in WSJ. His first, a baseball comedy named Susume Pirates, was the workhorse for the magazine in the mid-late 70s. Keep in mind, this is the era the magazine was making a name for itself. 

This was pretty groundbreaking territory for shonen manga. Even just having a cast of mostly women. Young, stylish women being real and having their own fleshed out stories beyond just being a prop. It’s a romcom but the originator of a lot of tropes that make up the backbone of those today. Our actual MC is an everyboy named Kosaku. Mom dies, gets sent to live with a Yakuza boss and his four daughters. The third, Hibari, is trans as fuck. She likes Kosaku, he likes her, doesn’t know how he feels about it. Easy setup, easy one to go wrong...but Stop!! Hibari-kun never really does.

That’s about as far as we go trying to “explain” her. The pushy sister is fussy about Hibari’s “deviance” but honestly pretty damn helpful. Dad fumes but at the end of the day holds true to what he said at the start; its more about being bummed he thought he had at least one son to bond with. Kosaku ends up filling that role, the family relaxes over the course of the series and regularly comments on how Hibari used to be a lot more withdrawn. Hibari herself is always the coolest person in the room, a borderline Mary Sue but it works because there’s the implied idea she’s inherently a deviant to play off of.  Especially for the time. It doesn’t really faze her much though, or maybe she isn’t going to let it show. Hey, there’s an idea we’re used to. There are glimpses, you do see here and there the girl has a fair amount of what we’d call dysphoria now and a tendency to spend a lot of time hidden away in her room like a certain matrimonial bird motif I won’t shut up about. By all accounts it just seems like a way of cluing you in on how much time she needs to keep up appearances.

This is where Kiku’s story really does start to feel like one inspired by fond memories of this one from Oda’s childhood. So much of what you take away from Hibari-kun sorta depends on how you feel about that one particular trait going in. Did you see the whiplash in parts of the fandom after what we learned about Kiku in Udon? The same people who were quick to piece together “Oda’s Trap Card” based on clues no more difficult to understand than the implied subtleties of scenes we’ve looked at...suddenly couldn’t see any of that. Nope! Gotta take her super literal now because thinking about these things hurts some people’s feelings. If you have a shred of empathy or even legitimately don’t care either way, the undercurrent writes itself.  

Hibari does it under silly Yakuza/romcom antics, Kiku does it by ultimately being a small “role” in Wano’s grand play who keeps having an outsized impact for us. Both are lovely show-stealers. Anytime we wanted to have a big moment for Kiku in Wano she could punch even with about anything else going on. Usually with fewer panels. That’s all for today, but I’ll have a part 2 tomorrow.

[flashflashhundredyarddash]

flashfam and birdflash because im WEAKKK

so barry and iris take wally in because rudy is a FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT

lets imagine this happens early teens or so

wally never even comes out to his dad because he just. Knows exactly what his parents would think

he kind of. subtly tried to bring it up with his mom but she made her opinion Pretty Damn Clear so wally is like great this is awesome

as a result of both the superspeed + switching cities + adhd wally has practically 0 friends growing up which really concerns barry and iris

so barry is like, babe, i have a fantastic idea, im going to set up a playdate with batmans kid

and iris is like I GUESS

(also the way wally behaves in a relationship is 100% modeled after barry and iris because they literally have the perfect relationship. see exhibit a) babe as a pet name)

((this is also probably why hes a little upset when he finds out about barry and hal because its like. you think you understand your parents and then they hit you with this massive bombshell that kind of forces you to change your whole perception of them? and even though nobodys done anything wrong its still really upsetting? and maybe if wally had known earlier that barry was bi wally wouldnt have been so fucking stressed out about coming out?))

anyways. robin and kid flash playdate. a meeting for the ages.

wally gets a crush like. right away but doesnt realize so he oscillates WILDLY between being REALLY nice to robin and also being kind of fucking mean lol wally was very much pulling robins pigtails

like one day wally shares half his ants on a log that iris made him with robin and then the next he puts gum in robins hair and robin cries while alfred cuts it out

robin is like UGH kid flash is SO MEAN and bruce is like you dont have to hang out with him and robin is like NO IM GONNA

wally gets out of the mean phase quickly though lol

barry and iris realize right away its a crush and are like aw cute but then it... doesnt go away... ever...

so then they go REALLY hard on the PFLAG thing and keep like brochures and pride flags EVERYWHERE which actually does make wally a lot more comfortable

when wally comes out they all cry lol

wally calls barry and iris uncle and aunt but when hes much older he switches between aunt/uncle and mom and dad

anyways when dick leaves bruce/is fired/complicated feeling stuff dick spends most of his time at titans tower BUT also spends a significant amount of time at barry and iris' place

because the westallen household is adhd central, dick actually learns a lot of tips for dealing with his own adhd from them

dick is trying to Figure out his place in the world so he actually gets really into the journalism scene for a while because of both iris and clark

iris: hi this is my nephew, dick, hes my intern :)

clark: no, this is MY nephew, hes MY intern :)

lois bugs bunny meme: OUR nephew-intern

wally Does Not get it at all bcus he is 100% a STEM kid but hes still like i support you babe :^)

barry and iris LOVE dick. dick doesnt really open up about his situation but they kind of get the gist so barry is like. really annoyed with batman whenever they have to work together

iris writes a very scathing series of articles about the batman of gotham and dick is very vindictively pleased

dick actually finds out about hal and barry first bcus he comes downstairs and theyre making out on the couch and and dick is like UHHHH and halbarry are like UHHHHHHHH and dick is like I AM CALLING IRIS RIGHT FUCKING NOW and halbarry are like NO ITS COOL

iris is like. Mom supreme. dick for the past decade has had like no mother figures (selina doesnt really count because her and bruce are messyyyyy) so he both really wants iris's affection and also gets really overwhelmed by it

also barry. like, isnt emotionally constipated? wally tells dick that the west allens have weekly dinners where they talk about whats up with them and their feelings and dick is like aw thats cute and then wally is like dick u should join us and dick is like WAIT NO THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT

so dick is now required to be at family dinners once a month and talk about his feelings which is both exhausting and liberating

barry cries at the wedding and iris is like I Am Not Crying How Dare You Imply That I Am.

bruce and iris. the most begrudging in-laws. everytime bruce sees iris hes immediately reminded of the phrase "The Batman is a violent, depressed loner who gets his thrills by beating up homeless people and drug addicts." and its like jesus fucking christ iris way to gut the man

iris 100% uses the fact that shes dick graysons mother-in-law aunt-in-law to get sources. its a dog-eat-dog world out there, kid.

dick adores the twins bcus he loves babies

wally gets SO annoyed by bart its very funny to dick. wally and dick both grew up as only children but dick has had more time to adjust to having siblings so hes much more fond of bart than wally initially is

[jitterbugjive]

Something I wish more people would understand is how unhealthy and misguided I was in my early 20s. I came out of a life of mental and sexual abuse, for a bit I had a much older boyfriend than me that I didn’t realize until fairly recently was grooming me since I was 14. I was a hyper sexual teenager due to the exposure I had in childhood and I sought people out constantly to ERP with, even adults, without really thinking anything was wrong with that. I had an old friend who started running away from home to look for random adult men to sleep with so my understanding and feelings towards that kind of situation got all twisted and confused and I didn’t know how to help my friend. I had another friend who was pulled in to a 3 way by another minor and an adult, and the other minor was also the sort who actively looked for adult men who would be sick enough to sleep with her. And my best friend had a sister who was also exhibiting this behavior despite my friends’ many protests, because their mom didn’t give a single fuck about anything. I had an older babysitter, by older I mean in his 60s, who would bring up conversations about sex with me and show me porn on TV from when  I was 10-13. I was dealing with unchecked PTSD which made me overly reactive, prone to fits of anger and anxiety.

My point is, back then I didn’t have any kind of professional help or anywhere I could go for answers on things I didn’t understand or had a limited understanding of. When I ask the question ‘what do you do if a kid is seeking out adult sexual attention’ it’s not because I’m trying to blame kids for this, it’s because it scares me when kids are unknowingly, maybe even knowingly, exposing themselves to danger for whatever screwed up reason they may have. And no one wants to talk about that kind of situation, so I couldn’t find any answers. I couldn’t find an appropriate way to process my feelings on the matter, my understanding of it, the way I viewed it, I couldn’t find what the correct way to feel or deal with it was. Again, because no one wants to talk about it. With my naivety and personal experience, I at first held resentment towards kids like that, because I remember being put in danger because of them or they put my friends in danger, and those kids seemed very sure of their choices even when they were perfectly aware it was wrong. One of them I knew, even as an adult, didn’t ever think anything was wrong with what they did, they didn’t come with that regret you hear most people talking about. I regret the way I’ve reacted to these situations and I regret the way I phrased things when I was trying to come to terms with this issue that I’d been honestly traumatized by.

Another thing I didn’t understand in my early 20s was appropriate boundaries, because I wasn’t given appropriate boundaries as a kid I only knew one big basic thing: Don’t do anything sexually explicit with minors.

And when it came to RP, I thought that meant PG13 content was okay. I thought if there was a fade to black, or a time skip, or an implication, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Now, there are literally only 2 instances I can think of where there was any sort of implication of sexual acts between characters with a minor, I still made sure nothing explicit was shown or explored and I was of the impression that I was just letting the other person have fun because that’s what they were in to. And that was a mistake. Not as big of a mistake as it could have been, mind you, but I’d never cross that line. I thought I had a good line drawn in the sand but I didn’t really understand where it was supposed to be. Because if we’re gonna be honest here, looking back I know now even romantic fluff RP between an adult and a minor isn’t okay, even if it’s through characters and not as ourselves.

I know now how much of an emotional impact RP can have on a person, considering most of my romantic relationships started with RP. When you have a character you deeply connect to interacting with someone else’s character, it’s really easy to start mistaking your character’s feelings for your own. You could believe because your characters get along so well that maybe the two of you can get along romantically too. I’m not saying that RP shouldn’t lead to romance, but that it can easily blind a person from how their RP partner really is. So it’s dangerous to RP with kids like this. I should know, my abusive ex that groomed me until I turned 18 in order to date me certainly had me convinced we were meant for each other just because our characters clicked and my character happened to be a representation of myself.

Something I’m really ashamed to admit as well is a serious misjudgement on my part, where for some reason I assumed bodily fluids weren’t NSFW. Probably because I’ve seen people get away with censoring out naughty bits but leaving the spunk in an image, or just drawing the character with spunk on them or something. Point is, people were getting away with it not being flagged as porn, and my dumb brain was like ‘okay so it’s not that bad’. I need to make something clear here, I don’t entirely remember what happened or why it happened, but it’s true that Bedeviled Derpy had a post that showed spunk in 2 of the images and it was drawn from some sketches of mine by a teenager. I don’t believe I would have requested such a thing, I certainly didn’t script it to say ‘draw spunk here’, in fact the sketches don’t show any indication of a mess anywhere. I just remember being given the finished images with the spunk being added, and I was dumb enough to think “oh yeah this is totally okay for a SFW blog” and my brain didn’t even register like ‘hello yes a child drew this maybe ask them to remove the spunk also spunk isn’t sfw or child friendly in any way shape or form’

Some people, maybe only a handful, or more, I don’t know, but some people have this assumption that my mindset in all of this was like “Hahaha I’m taking advantage of a minor” and that’s just... not it?

I’m a colossal dumbass, I admit that, and I was really irresponsible, but it was NOT because I had any intentions on preying on a child. I just don’t do that.

The things I said and did, I did out of ignorance, and most of the bad stuff people talk about me saying was from 5+ years ago, before I got any help, before I had anyone to walk me through these incredibly complex emotions and opinions that were ingrained in my head since childhood.

I just wish that people could see I had no malice or ill intent, I wish people could realize they’re way overthinking my actions and taking things a lot more personally than they were ever meant to be. Maybe if they could see this for what it is rather than assuming I’m a villain who purposefully did everything wrong, they could learn to move on in a healthy way.

I understand I did a lot of harm and there’s no undoing that.

But I do NOT deserve to be accused of pedophilia. Pedophilia has literally ruined my life and my perception of the world. I’m a victim too, and just because I became an adult doesn’t mean I suddenly know right from wrong. That’s not how becoming an adult works. You’re allowed to make mistakes as an adult, being an adult doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes any more. Yes it’s easier to say to someone ‘you were just a kid, it was a mistake, you didn’t know any better’, but adults have a hard time knowing ‘any better’ too. We’re always growing and learning and I’d like to think people are smart enough to see that I have grown in to a better person.

I hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me, but I fear some people are too far gone down the rabbit hole of being convinced that everything was on purpose and from malice, that I’m some evil mastermind who thrives on manipulation and taking advantage of kids. I’ve only ever associated with 2 minors since becoming an adult and I have no intention of associating with any more that aren’t directly connected to my family or my friends.

Anyone who actually knows me would know I have a 0 tolerance for IRL pedophilia, when I found out a member of one of my groups was showing nudes to minors he was immediately kicked out and I kept tabs on the situation to make sure he’d be caught by police. When a member in my server was exposed for ERP and orbiting with a minor, I kicked him out too.

I worry about kids to a point that it’s part of my PTSD, I have anxiety attacks just worrying about how a kid might be getting harmed, the last thing I want to do is bring harm to them.

And I did cause harm, I didn’t know that was what I was doing, but I did, because I wasn’t mature enough to understand how to interact with kids as an adult. And again, I’m just incredibly sorry things had to even come to this. I’m not lying when I say I think about this every single day, and sometimes spiral in to really bad anxiety because of it. It affects me heavily.

I want to move on.

And I want the people affected to move on too.

Because dwelling on this isn’t going to do anyone any good.

[haleigh-sloth]

Hi 🙋‍♀️ my friend thinks that Dabi is going to be put down(killed) and Endeavor will be the one who’s going to do it as an act of atone. I told her that it was a horrific take because that would be a horrible way to atone and two your essentially saying that Endeavor should re-kill the son he failed and basically killed by his actions of neglect/abuse as a parent which would not be a good path to take! I also stated that three villains are being set up to be saved. She still doesn’t believe me, and asked if I could get a better perspective. So I’m here begging 🙏🏻 🥺 for your input please? Your definitely a lot more perspective and have a better eye than I!

Hey! So I’m going to answer everything, but first ask your friend to provide evidence of this, and to also explain how any of that would be even remotely acceptable to portray in a story that is aimed toward a very large, young, impressionable audience, in which a portion has undoubtedly experienced abuse in their own lives. How would those people feel reading that? What kind of message does that send? Horikoshi isn’t like a writing genius or anything, but he is not THAT incompetent. I mean...do give him credit where it’s due. He’s been building up their redemptions for a long time and he’s already established that as the next narrative challenge for Shouto, Ochaco, and Midoriya. I’m not going to say anything about your friend’s way of thinking because I can’t tell by the way your ask is worded if she believes that’s how it SHOULD go (which is....not good) or if she just has no faith in the writing (which is understandable but I’m gonna try to relieve some of those anxieties). In order to remain polite and civil I’m gonna go with the ladder and assume she just has no faith in Horikoshi, which is understandable, but not necessary! I hope you’re comfortable because this is probably going to be longer than I am anticipating, but oh well. 

Anyway, I’ll start with establishing what is deemed acceptable in the world of BNHA as far as killing goes.

*clears throat* It’s not fucking acceptable. Never was, never will be.

Look, please pinpoint to me where a pro-hero in the story has killed a villain and it was viewed as acceptable. And before you point at Hawks, I’m going to direct you here, here, and here. And there are so so SO many more posts I could find and link you to that explain my point further on that matter, but I won’t do that unless it’s asked of me. Regardless, Hawks murdering Twice was not acceptable, it was not portrayed as such, it was not viewed as such by the characters within the story. Therefore, it was not acceptable. And I’m fairly certain Hawks has a really rough road ahead of him because of his terrible choice, so prepare yourself for that.  But where was I? Oh yeah, establishing whether or not it’s acceptable to kill:

I mean there are more, but I don’t have all the time in the world. Tell her to read the story from the beginning and pay attention to what the story is telling its readers  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Now, we’ve established that heroes in BNHA do NOT kill. That is not what being a hero means in THIS story. Now, what else is something important in BNHA that has repeatedly gotten focus?

Family.

To me personally, the most important callout to the importance of protecting your family is here:

He’s calling out all heroes, but he’s saying this in front of Endeavor. Important. Note that. There’s an entire subplot dedicated to the importance of portraying that putting your family first is the utmost responsibility of a parent. Outside of that subplot, we are shown the very dire consequences of what happens when parents abandon and reject their children.

Exhibit A: Toga

Exhibit B: Toya, or Dabi

Exhibit C: Tenko, or Tomura

These adults are the result of parents who failed their families.

Look, regardless of what people want to say the story is about: whether it’s about heroes vs. villains (it’s not), or about Midoriya graduating UA and becoming the number 1 hero (it’s not), or about Midoriya mastering his quirk (it’s not), there is no denying that BNHA is about heroes SAVING others and parents protecting their FAMILY. 

Horikoshi made it a point to establish a clear difference between the adults and the children in BNHA. He also made a point to show ALL THREE VILLAINS’ origin stories and showed us that all it took was ONE BAD DAY when they were CHILDREN. There is literally a chapter titled “All it takes is one bad day” specifically to drill this into your head. Toga’s life went downhill after attacking that boy in middle school from suppressing her biological nature for so long. Toya’s life went downhill when his flames nearly killed him. Tenko’s life went downhill when his quirk activated and killed his whole family. All it took was one bad day in these children’s lives to completely ruin their futures and take any and every chance away from them at a normal life. 

So with the strong focus on heroes saving people and parents failing their children, why why WHY would it ever be acceptable for Enji to KILL his SON? That not only repeats the first mistake made (Toya’s death), but also negates ALL of the narrative focuses of the entire story. I just...that’s a very very deep disconnect that I can’t force closed unless your friend chooses to look deeper than surface level reading. And it’s not just BNHA that has narrative themes and focuses throughout the story. That’s ANY story you read. Well, any good story at least. I’m not a writer by any means but even I know the basic rules of story telling: 

Leave a message for your readers. Give your story a goal. 

Otherwise it’s just words and pictures on paper that don’t mean anything. 

So I gave you the basics of what BNHA is about, now I’ll give the specific moments that directly tell you that Toya, Toga, and Tomura are going to be saved and redeemed. 

Toya:

Toga:

Tomura:

Now....does your friend really think these panels up here just mean nothing? Because that’s not how manga works. The panels have meaning, especially the ones given the most attention to drawing detail, the ones given the most space on a page. All of these were given their own big moments in their respective chapters. Toga is going to be saved by Ochaco, Toya is going to be saved by his baby brother, and Shigaraki is going to be saved by our main character Midoriya. It’s clear as day right there. 

Now I want to take it back to the Todoroki family for just a bit once more. Their entire subplot revolves around reunification. That has been the established endgame since Shouto’s origin chapters. And honestly? You don’t even have to be smart to figure this out. Like when you see Rei in the hospital, you already assume that she’s going to get out and come home at some point within the story, making the family whole again. THEN you learn about Toya and you learn that he’s ALIVE after ten years of being presumed dead. You really think HE isn’t going to be brought home just like his mother was??? Fam, that is the established goal of the Todoroki Family Subplot. There is no denying this, it is there in the text, and it is not even a little bit subtle. Horikoshi is not subtle. At all. With anything. Ever.  

However, no matter how much textual evidence we are given, there are still people living in denial because it’s either A. Not the direction they want, or B. They really just aren’t grasping the writing. Either way, the redemption set ups are there, whether they like it or not. At this point I’m convinced that the only way to shut villain-haters down is to wait til the last chapter has come out and the villains are fine, Toya is reunited with his family, Toga is alive and well and finds community with the other kids (at least that’s what I predict), and Shigaraki is alive and well and surrounded by people who care about him, a family if you will. Other than just waiting for that moment, idk what else it’s gonna take for the bad takes to stop. 

Now here’s my reality check disclaimer:

Horikoshi could screw us all and just kill the villains off. But that would be bad writing and also ruin the ENTIRE STORY. And believe me I will bitch and bitch until I am six feet under and I will continue to bitch about it in whatever afterlife awaits me. But seriously..he won’t do that. Not to mention I have a million other reasons somewhat unrelated to the writing but more so to Horikoshi himself as to why I believe with all of my being that the three villains are going to get a happy ending, but that’s a different discussion for a different time. This post is already long as shit. 

I hope your friend will look a little deeper at the story so she can enjoy it for what it is. The story has flaws, the Todoroki subplot is definitely a MESS right now because of the focus on Endeavor 🤢, but I believe it will clean itself up and be great in the end. The redemption arcs of the villains are the most interesting thing about BNHA and I know I speak for a lot of others and not just myself when I say this but, the villains are the only reason a LOT of people are still even invested in the story to begin with. If it weren’t for them? We’d all be ghost. So, do with that what you will. I hope this helps ease your anxieties a little bit and helps your friend understand what to pay attention to in the writing.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 05 (first part)

(Masterpost) (previous episode) (this episode, second part)

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes of the Untamed

The Pride of Yunmeng 

Waterfall Date

Lan Wangji gets to experience the two extremes of Wei Wuxian’s interpersonal skills within the span of a few seconds. This is even better than his rooftop date with this horrible annoying terribly, terribly attractive boy.

Lan Wangji has come here on a mission to make Wei Wuxian do his homework, which is why he immediately tells him “let’s go to the library” gazes at him silently for several seconds...

...and then lets him adjust his sleeve for him and step allll the way into his personal space. 

Unfortunately Wei Wuxian is about to guess a Lan Clan secret, so Lan Wangji ends the conversation by saying “let’s go to the library” grabbing him by his sexy arm muscle and dragging him off. Did he hold his arm all the way to the library? Even if he didn’t, his “I don’t touch other people” later at the lake is clearly horseshit. I don’t touch other people unless they are named Wei Wuxian and our brothers aren’t watching. 

(more after the cut!)

Apology in the Library

Wei Wuxian splits his library time between actually doing his homework and trying to make friends with Lan Wangji. And he tries really, really hard, starting by sincerely complimenting LWJ’s calligraphy and offering a pretty okay apology for his prior rooftop antics. Lan Wangji tells him to put his leg down but doesn’t tell him to go sit at his own desk. 

Lan Wangji exhibits steely self-control as he resists this look, which would cause anyone else’s robes to spontaneously un-weave themselves into a pile of threads.

When Lan Wangji won’t look at him because he feels his apology was not sincere, Wei Wuxian becomes much more formally apologetic. First he says “sorry” two more times, and he starts prepping Lan Wangji’s ink.  This involves grinding an ink stick against an ink stone with water, to make a pool of ink for the calligrapher to dip their brush into.

This is not Wei Wuxian being annoying and messing with stuff on Lan Wangji’s desk, a la Zhou Yunlan (Guardian). This is an act of service; a genuinely helpful thing to do if you know how to do it properly --which all of these young scholars definitely do--and an action that casts Wei Wuxian in the role of a servant or junior. 

Then Wei Wuxian offers to kneel down (to offer a major formal apology), while giggling like an adorable dumbass. It's unclear if this is sexual innuendo, just being ridiculously unconcerned about dignity, being slightly into abasing himself for this beautiful person, or all of the above. 

After taking a long moment to consider all this, Lan Wangji slowly and deliberately gives Wei Wuxian three seconds of the eye contact he’s been begging for.

Then Lan Wangji spoils the moment by dropping a silence spell on him. 

Wen Can I Have Some Fun?

The Wen siblings hang out and talk about their secret villainy and then fret about how much it sucks to have a chronic health condition, which is pretty relatable TBH.

I know life seems boring now but just wait until you’re an itinerant zombie with nails in your head.

Wen Qing is a devoted older sister just like Jiang Yanli, although with less fainting and more scheming. 

Good kitty.

Porno in the Library

Now, since this next scene ends with Wei Wuxian being a boundary-crossing jerk, let's start by remembering that Lan Wangji has magically gagged Wei Wuxian against his will three times now, as well as hiding his vulnerable family member behind a ward while lying in wait in order to attack him. So, you know. Teenagers in lust. They are both learning what is and isn't okay.  

Lan Wangji steals a long glance at Wei Wuxian while Wei Wuxian is drawing. 

Wei Wuxian is putting the finishing touches on a gift for Lan Wangji. The gift is a portrait of Lan Wangji with flowers in his hair. This boy is SMITTEN. I think he knows it, too; he just doesn’t think it’s a big deal yet. 

Wei Wuxian, who is good at everything, is really fucking good at drawing. 

When Wei Wuxian presents the drawing to Lan Wangji he says “this is my gift for you.”  This is very good-mannered of Wei Wuxian; Lan Wangji had to supervise him for three days, so he is presenting him with a gift to thank him and say farewell.

Lan Wangji completely ignores him, which is really breathtaking, next-level rudeness.

Wei Wuxian isn’t bothered by this, however, and just embellishes the picture with an extra flower or something before offering it again. This time Lan Wangji takes in and is very very very pleased with it, as evidenced by his slightly widening his eyes and how carefully he places the drawing on the far side of his desk.  

Also he gives Wei Wuxian some prolonged eye contact, and engages in what, for him, is playful banter, calling the gift “extremely boring” when Wei Wuxian prompts him to use more words than usual. 

Then Wei Wuxian spoils the moment by pranking him.

Now - let’s look at this erotic-book situation. This is a boundary-crossing prank, yes, but it’s also an invitation to engage in some form of intimacy. For teens who have access to erotic images, looking at them together can be simple naughty fun. Or it can be a way of discovering and bonding over shared sexual identities and interest. Or it can prompt more direct engagement, up to and including having sex with each other.

Lan Wangji’s horrified reaction means that Wei Wuxian has to characterize this as a prank after the fact, but he might very well have intended it as an invitation to get horny together. 

Either way, his response to Lan Wangji’s “shameless” comment is bound to make an impression.

Wei Wuxian is from the clan of "be free" and he just doesn't see why this is a big deal. And now he’s told Lan Wangji it doesn’t have to be a big deal. And through him, the producers are breaking the fourth wall and telling every viewer that this doesn’t have to be a big deal and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed. 

Threats and rudeness and book destruction ensue, and Lan Wangji is left alone in all kinds of emotional disarray, with a bunch of torn up erotica to tape back together throw away.

Boys on the Rocks

Wei Wuxian brags about his prank to Jiang Cheng and bestie Nie Huaisang, telling them that he got Lan Wangji to cuss at him. He’s going to put a notch on his sword handle for this achievement.  

Jiang Cheng is pissed at Wei Wuxian about this, like he’s pissed at him about everything all the time. Possibly he has already started the seedlings of his lifelong jealousy of Lan Wangji.  

Jiang Cheng doesn’t realize that he’s essentially prepared Wei Wuxian to court Lan Wangji by constantly criticizing, hitting, and threatening him. After a decade of Jiang Cheng’s rough style of brotherhood, Lan Wangji’s elegant and refined hostility rolls off of Wei Wuxian like water off a duck’s back. 

Nie Huaisang wants to make sure Wei Wuxian didn't rat him out, but isn't worried about the destroyed book because he has a whole external drive full of porn. 

Several Brain Cells Trio

These guys do make some questionable choices together, but actually they are all really bright and effective in complimentary ways.

Jiang Cheng is growing into a strong future leader - authoritarian and dickish, yes, but also decisive and unflinching. Wei Wuxian is observant of things around him, always ready for combat, and thinks deeply and strategically about events.  Nie Huaisang is a bottomless font of knowledge, sourced from books and from his own observations. 

So when the Wen spy bird shows up, they spot it, drive it away, identify what it is, and understand that it’s a threat and that its presence has political implications.  

They are all goofballs at times, but highly gifted ones.

Doo Doo Doo Lookin Out My Back Ward

Lan Xichen asks Lan Wangji if he’s found out who was sneaking around his the back ward and Lan Wangji hesitates before reluctantly saying “Wei Ying.” 

Ok seriously - nobody calls him Wei Ying. Nobody refers to him in the third person as as Wei Ying. Calling him Wei Gongzi or Wei Wuxian would be totally normal. His own brother calls him Wei Wuxian. And Lan Wangji has only called him Wei Ying to his face when he was angry. 

But now--immediately after the erotica debacle in the library--he is Wei Ying when Lan Wangji is speaking of him privately with his brother. 

By the way, Lan Wangji's shoulders seem super wide in these robes, don't they? I'm not complaining.

Forgettable Disciple #1

Now we meet apparent nobody Su She, who sucks. He wants to take care of the water ghosts himself. 

He is a no-headband disciple which is like - none of the juniors in the later timeframe go without a headband. The guys who got set on fire at the gate had headbands. One of the Lan Rules is “wear a headband.” Is there anyone else who doesn't rate a headband? This is a plot point later when it comes to the ice cave but for now it just seems that he's that one perpetual intern who never gets promoted and never learned embroidery.

Doctor Qing, Medicine Woman

[OP laughed way too hard at her own joke just now.] Wen Qing is helping Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng is super happy to see her. When did he develop this crush? Because it's already in full swing. 

Did Wei Wuxian just sneer when he noticed Jiang Cheng’s crush? Like macking on Lan Wangji is more appropriate than this? 

I love you and I’m going to advocate killing everyone who matters to you

I’m a nosy jerk and I’m going to be your best friend for life, quite literally

Wei Wuxian complains about Wen Qing ignoring him and she gives him the prettiest, loveliest *sigh* death glare ever.

However when she sees that he's a little brother whose sister utterly dotes on him, she starts thinking maybe he's all right. 

For the Yanli-Qing shippers, there is a tiny breadcrumb here, where Yanli says they met by the river bank.  I don't personally ship my personal girlfriend Wen Qing with Jiang Yanli, but I support your ships wherever they may sail.

Continued in Part 2, right here

[lovelylogans]

the warmest hello (to the coldest goodbye)

once a spy, always a spy forever, forever the warmest hello to the coldest goodbye remember, remember -spies are forever, the tin can bros

warnings: undercover spy work, mention of weapons, drugging someone into unconsciousness/giving someone a roofie, essentially the start of an enemies to lovers fanfiction

pairings: virgil/logan, offscreen roman/patton

words: 4,465

notes: this is for day 7 of @analogicalweek! the prompt of the day is “free day” and i have decided to write a combination soulmates and rival spies au! please enjoy!

⁂

Not that Virgil would admit it, but, like literally every other marked person, he's tried to imagine how he might meet his soulmate. He just didn't ever spare any thought on what he'd do if it happened on the job.

His official cover to his friends (which was mostly his cousin Roman and Roman’s husband Patton) was that he was an analyst—he was always vague about what exactly it was he analyzed, but since neither of them were particularly mathematically inclined, and both were maybe a bit too trusting for their own good, they took him at his word.

Even when he was sent off on various unusual "business trips.”

It’s not like Virgil’s mark is very specific about when and where it’ll happen. Virgil knows that variations of "sorry about that” make for a large percentage of common soulmarks. 

There’s protocols in place, of course, but Virgil had never really paid attention to those classes while training to be a spy. The Lewis clause is the kind of thing Virgil didn’t pay as much attention to, because it didn’t seem as useful as understanding the technology or how to make a cover. The Lewis clause is what to do when someone meets a soulmate on the job—there are specifications for if the soulmate is a target, a team member, or an enemy.

Virgil hadn’t really cared at the time. He’d kick himself for that later.

Any number of meetings occurred accidentally—knocking something over, bumping into someone, or, like his cousin Roman's soulmate did, take Roman's coffee thinking it was his own hot chocolate. They got married two winters ago, just so they could serve hot beverages in cold weather.

He thinks the iteration stamped in black along his left inner arm, "I'm very sorry about this," with the addition of "oh no, it's you” tacked on at the end of his makes it likely that whatever he says will, A, likely be first, B, be somewhat unique, or unique enough to be immediately recognizable, and C, be in the aftermath of some kind of accident.

He ends up being partially right. What he says is first and it is somewhat unique. What his soulmate apologizes for is no accident, though.

Virgil does undercover work, sure, but it's very rare for him to enter the James Bond style locale he's at today, and that he’s been working for the past couple months; the marble ballroom he's circling is dripping with gold chandeliers and matching heavy, velvet curtains that accent the floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a string quartet in the corner, barely audible over the chatter of rich socialites. Virgil, deeply uncomfortable in his white-tie attire, is circling the room in an attempt at looking like he attends charity balls all the time.

He sucks at it.

As if on cue, his earpiece crackles to life.

"How the fuck did you ever qualify to be a spy?" Janus, his tech man and eye in the sky, snickers into his ear. "Your acting skills are horrendous. If you auditioned for The Room right now, they wouldn't let you into the cast.”

"Fuck off,” Virgil fake-coughs into his shoulder.

"Christ, at least try to look like you're mingling, not like you've stalked the target here."

Unable to stop himself, he glances toward the target he's meant to be watching.

The target, who is so staggeringly wealthy it could make Virgil, who is trying to pay off his student debt on a spy's salary (not as high as one might think) burst into tears. Or, much more likely, start ranting about the myriad flaws of capitalism. If so inclined, he could honestly probably steal the amount of money necessary from one of her offshore accounts, and it would be as unnoticeable as someone taking a penny from him.

Mary Lee Truman is standing amidst a flock of suited men, like a dove amidst a flock of dour crows; her dress is slinky silk, a shade of champagne that glimmers rose-gold in the right shade of light. She’s standing leaned to one side, her hip popped out and an arm crossed over her stomach, a crystal-cut champagne flute dangling in her fingers as if she was born to hold one.

Her husband, Lee Truman (fuck if that wasn’t confusing, it was really easier to think of them by their codenames) is off by the bar, seemingly getting himself another drink. 

His eyes stray to Mary Lee again; he can tell a couple of the suits are hired muscle, bodyguards, which makes sense, as the Trumans are allegedly a massive crime family, doing their dirty dealings in plain sight. A couple of the suits he recognizes from dossiers; one is a business partner of Lee’s father, who might not even know what the Truman family really gets up to; one absolutely knows what the Truman family gets up to, as Virgil’s read his rap sheet and knows he’s been in and out of jail due to his assignments from the mob.

There’s one suit there that really doesn’t seem to fit the mold of either category.

For one thing, he’s around Virgil’s age; for another, he isn’t rippling with muscle. Not that he doesn’t look fit; his well-tailored suit shows off his broad shoulders, his biceps, his lean waist. He’s dark-haired, and pale, and blue-eyed, and he’s standing next to Mary Lee with a look that Virgil would think of as dour, but now that he’s looking closely, the blue-eyed man looks almost... calculating.

This man wasn’t in the dossier.

Almost everyone at this ball was in the dossier.

Virgil looks away from Mary Lee and the handsome man, and instead decides to start taking up Janus’ advice; he slowly moves through the room.

Well. He's doing it to get closer to Mary Lee, but sure, he can attempt to mingle.

He traverses through the room, his fancy shoes clicking on the marble floor, mindful to not step on any dress hems—he has it easy, as his directive was simply to wear his white tie with his hidden weapons, his ear piece, and his lapel pin that records everything he's seeing. The women in the room provide the only splashes of color outside of the black suits and white shirts of the men, the gleaming marble, the gold- accented glasses and dishware. Even what little art he's seen follows that color theme -- white marble busts, abstract black and white paintings in their gilded frames, a gold statue outside the front steps, as if to greet the partygoers.

But the women of the party aren't beholden to this strict color scheme. Gowns of pink chiffon, red lace, blue taffeta, deep violet velvet, Virgil passes them all, keeping one eye out for rose gold silk.

He ends up instituting himself in a ring of people listening intently to an art history professor talking about the architectural significance of his building—he introduces himself with his cover name, James Walker, to the man next to him, who Virgil already knows is a Truman cousin. He gives a fake first name too—he says his name is Alex, when Virgil knows it’s really Bruce. Okay. Something to take note of.

He listens to the art history professor talk about art deco with just one ear, the other straining to eavesdrop on Mary Lee and her suits.

“Do you think our beneficiary approaches?” Mary Lee murmurs to the blue-eyed one, the one that wasn’t in the dossier.

“Oh, I know he does,” the blue-eyed man says to her. He has a pleasant British accent, the kind of voice that would be right at home on a nature documentary calmly narrating the eating habits of wolverines, or something like that. “According to all my research, our previous beneficiary is no longer within our purview. A new one will have been instilled in hasty time. As a matter of fact, I believe I would be able to point him out to you right now.”

Mary Lee sighs, a little, and the man continues talking about their charity. Virgil’s mind races. He knows the Truman’s “charity work” almost always acts as a sieve to run dirty money through, so what would it mean, that they got a new beneficiary? A new target, maybe? A new directive?

Either way, this is almost definitely some kind of code they’re talking in. He tunes a bit more into the art history professor’s impromptu lecture—he’s taking a brief tangent into talking about Tamara de Lempicka—as he ruminates on that particular conversation between the blue-eyed Brit and Mary Lee.

Then he ends up in conversation with an elderly woman beside him, who wants to know who he is—James Walker, I run a business a state or two over, I’m interested in diversifying my assets—and if he’s been to any art museums in town. Both he and the man he is meant to be have not, but it turns out she’s a curator and has numerous suggestions for him.

He also knows this woman, Ida Kelly, has been paying into the Truman business for quite some time, and has potentially ordered hits using the Truman’s muscle.

“Madam,” a suited waiter shows up at her side, as if on cue, and hands her a small glass full of what looks like a gin-and-tonic.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” she says, taking her drink immediately.

The waiter turns to him. There is a singular champagne flute on the tray. “Sir.”

“I didn’t order anything,” Virgil says stupidly, before he realizes that almost everyone here is taking champagne flutes off of trays, and he supposes this waiter just wants to clear his before he has to double back and get more. “Oh, all right.”

He takes it. It’s a delicate, crystal-cut glass. He’s almost a little afraid that if he holds it wrong, it’ll break.

“Really, we’re doing an Impressionism exhibit, and it is positively divine,” she says.

Very suddenly, there’s a hand on his shoulder, emanating warmth through his suit and Virgil jumps, a little—he hopes whoever it is didn’t feel one his knives. Or, God forbid, his gun.

He turns to see no one, when a hand touches his opposite arm, and he turns again. It turns out to be the blue-eyed Brit, who is staring only at Ida, brushing past him, allowing his hand to trail down Virgil’s arm, touching his hand as if to say, please stay there, I do not want to bump into you.

At such a close range, Virgil can smell his absolutely incredible cologne, see his defined jawline, the way his blue eyes gleam.

Ida brightens. “Darling!”

“Ida,” the Brit says warmly. “I visited that display myself, it was simply wonderful.”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” she says, clearly drinking up the praise. Virgil looks between them, feeling even more awkward than he has all night.

“Wait a goddamned minute,” Janus murmurs in his ear, after such a long stretch of silence that it makes Virgil jump again. There’s the sound of rapid typing.

“A victory!” The man says, lifting his glass—it looks to be full of whiskey. “A toast, to your latest triumph.”

“Oh, now,” she says, but when the other surrounding suits start lifting their glasses, Virgil lifts his, as well.

“To Ida Kelly,” the Brit says. “One of the finest artistic minds to walk the earth at our time!”

Virgil takes a sip of his champagne at the same time as everyone else; another woman in a deep green gown with a shawl edged in feathers takes Ida’s arm, rhapsodizing about the Impressionism movement and the latest event that her art gallery had put on.

It takes about a minute for Virgil to notice his vision going blurry in the corners.

It takes him about ten seconds of blinking hard and rubbing his eyes, hoping to clear it, to stumble over his own two feet.

It takes five seconds for Janus’ voice to buzz to life in his earpiece, urgent, “Virgil, get out of there, get away from that man, that’s Lo—”

It takes him about two seconds after that to notice that the blue-eyed Brit is looking at him with an expression clearly lacking remorse.

It takes him about half a second to realize the finger tapping one shoulder, his hand at his hand—the same hand that had been holding his champagne flute. He hadn’t been looking at his drink. The Brit had made him turn away from his drink.

The Brit put something in his drink.

Virgil’s been made.

“Good God, man,” another suited man says, when Virgil stumbles over his own two feet, “had enough of the bubbly, have you?”

Virgil ignores him; even as his vision is growing blurrier and blurrier, his eyes are intent on the Brit, staggering towards him, and he doesn’t even really know why. He’s been made, he should be running, but—

"Did you just fucking poison me, you fucking asshole?" Virgil slurs, and his sudden lack of physical control resoundingly answers the question before the Brit can; the arms that catch him before he can full flat on his face are muscular and warm. He’s distantly aware of the crystal-cut grass slipping from his hand and shattering on the marble.

The warm, muscular arms are more pressing than that. And, for a dirty rotten criminal who has probably killed people, the man is quite handsome. His bespectacled face swims in Virgil's vision.

"'I'm very sorry about this," he says smoothly, before his eyes widen in alarm. "Oh no.”

As Virgil is on the verge of unconsciousness, he hears, "It's you."

His last three thoughts before he slips under: did he just fucking say what he thought he said, then, good God his eyes are so blue, then, fuck, I should have paid way more attention to the Lewis clause.

⁂

Virgil is aware of three things as he wakes up: one, he feels like he has a dreadful hangover. Two, he’s pretty sure he’s in a plane or train or car or something moving, which makes him feel motion sick.

Three, he’s been stripped of his earpiece and his weapons.

He blinks his eyes open slowly, squinting; it’s night time, but even the low light is making Virgil’s eyes hurt.

This is a limousine, he can tell that much off the bat; the partition is closed, the glass tinted as dark as it legally can be, the interior leather light-colored, the bar fully stocked with different sodas and crystal-cut decanters full of various liquors, which makes him wince in memory of the champagne.

He feels like shit, but when he looks over and sees the blue-eyed Brit—his soulmate—his soulmate who had fucking drugged him and was working with the mob—it makes him feel even shittier.

“Ah,” his soulmate says. He’s sitting with one ankle resting on his knee, a squat glass of whiskey in hand. He has glasses on now that he hadn’t had on before. Also, his accent is no longer British; he’s got a nice Italian lilt to his voice, now. “Good. You’re awake.”

Virgil stares at him. He doesn’t say a word.

“I’ll admit this,” he gestures between them, “rather put a cinch in my plan on how to deal with you.”

“Would you have killed me?” Virgil asks. His voice comes out a croak. “If we weren’t...”

He trails off.

The man’s eyebrow arches, before he shrugs, and rolls up his sleeve. His soulmark is in the same place as Virgil’s—stamped across his left inner arm, in the spiky handwriting Virgil only uses in his personal notes, not the more uniform one he writes reports with.

Did you just fucking poison me, you fucking asshole?!

Undeniably a matching soulmark to his.

“My parents were quite bemused by it, when it showed up,” the Brit—or American?—the blue-eyed—his soulmate says. “I suppose we have our answers now.”

“Do we?” he says. 

The man takes a sip of whiskey. Then, he says, “Your predecessor was FBI. Are you the same?”

Virgil tenses. The man rolls his eyes again.

“Please,” he murmurs. “For an organization meant to be secretive, your lot are quite obvious when you trade moles in and out. One comes in, goes out, and coincidentally someone new is knocking on the door within the week. It’s absurdly simple to pinpoint who’s reporting back to your government. So. FBI, CIA, military...?”

“Who gives a fuck,” Virgil says.

“One should know what one’s soulmate does for a living, shouldn’t they?” he says. “This is a very unique situation. I’m simply trying to find out—”

“What do you do for a living, then?” Virgil snarls. His head is pounding, his mouth is dry and it tastes dreadful, his soulmate is an asshole working for the other side, and he’s being carted off to God knows where. This day is one of the worst of his life. Why couldn’t he have had a nice little café meet-cute, like Roman had had?

The man smiles at him, not particularly kindly. “I diversify.”

Virgil pulls a face, because he knows that’s poking fun at his cover.

“What,” Virgil says, “poison people on Monday, go to Ida Kelly’s resort on Tuesday, with a fun little Friday jaunt of killing people who cross the Trumans?”

“I’ve never actually been to the museum Ida Kelly curates,” the man admits. “It was an easy way to insert myself near you, to put it in your drink. And for goodness’ sake, it wasn’t poison.”

“Roofie. Drug. Whatever.”

The man’s eyebrows pull together, in a rather petulant expression. “I designed that myself, you know.”

“Well, it’s shit,” Virgil snaps. “I feel like I have the worst hangover of my goddamn life.”

“Yes, that was part of the design,” the man says, and offers him a glass of water.

Virgil stares at him. “Seriously.”

“No trust between soulmates?” He says.

“Yeah, well. Fool me once.”

The man shrugs, putting down the glass of water into a cupholder, before digging out a sealed water bottle. Virgil takes it and places it into a cupholder near him. No fucking way he’s accepting any food or drink from this man.

His lips quirk up into a smile.

“Where are you taking me?” Virgil says, ignoring the way that smile makes his heart pound.

“That rather depends,” he admits. 

“On?”

“Well.” He says. He uncrosses his legs, planting both feet on the floor. “I’m assuming that now the man in your little earpiece—he was rather rude—is aware that you have been, what is it you say? Made?”

Virgil nods.

“Well. Now that he, and therefore your employer, knows that you are made, you won’t be poking your nose into Truman business anymore, will you?”

Virgil grits his teeth. “Not undercover.”

The man ignores that. “And I know that no matter which you work for, the Lewis clause has been adopted across every arm of that government, and as such you’ll be prohibited from any mission that might bring you into contact with me.”

God damn it. How does he know the spy lessons better than Virgil does?

And then it occurs to him: Janus knew that man. He warned Virgil to get away from him, to get away from Lo—

He rolls this information around in his head. The Lewis clause isn’t exactly a widely advertised part of being a spy; there was a whole trilogy of novels that got adapted into secret agent movies, years ago, that concerned opposing agent spies coming to face each other again and again, and the secondary soulmate agents teamed up together. Which the Lewis clause would prevent, but the public who went and read those novels or saw those movies wouldn’t know that. 

So either this man—Lo? Lo what?—either knows a lot about spies, because he’s one of those know your enemy types, or...

Or he sat down and learned about the Lewis clause the same way that Virgil did, except he actually sat down and listened. Maybe he defected, maybe he’s dirty? Or maybe Virgil’s just overthinking it.

Look. Virgil’s got a lot of questions here. Chief among which:

“Where are you taking me?”

“Away,” the man says vaguely, looking at him. “Are you gay?”

Virgil gapes at him.

“I’d be perfectly fine with a platonic soulmate, but for the sake of disclosure, I am gay.”

“For the sake of disclosure,” Virgil repeats disbelievingly, and pinches the bridge of her nose, rubbing it. God, his head hurts terribly. 

“Bisexual, or pansexual, perhaps?” He prompts. “Asexual? Or... you could be straight, I suppose.”

“Ugh,” Virgil says reflexively, then shakes himself. “I’m not—okay. Fine. Yeah, I’m gay too.”

“All right,” the man says, as if noting it. “What’s your name?”

Virgil snorts.

“What?”

“Okay, I don’t—” he gestures to the limousine around them. “Again, you just drugged me. I don’t know where you’re taking me. You probably would have killed me if I hadn’t said those words.”

The man makes a moue of distaste.

“Or had someone kill me, I don’t know,” Virgil amends. “Either way, you’re working with that family, who I’m assuming aren’t pleased at having a spy getting caught trying to work himself into your ranks, so I’d rather you not know all that much about my life, thanks.”

“It’s not like I’m asking for your,” an infinitesimal pause, as if he’s wracking his brain, trying to remember something, “social security number or anything. A name.”

Virgil stares at this man. Lo—. Lo something. Lochlan? Loyd? Or was it a codename?

“Yours first.”

The man pauses.

“You drugged me,” Virgil says.

He smiles at Virgil. “Will you hold this over my head for the rest of our lives?”

The rest of our lives. Yes, that’s meant to be the fairytale ending for soulmates, isn’t it? A nice little meeting, the swell of overdramatic violins in the background, falling into each other’s arms and forming a life together. That’s the popular answer.

More and more recently, though, people have been advocating for choice; that soulmates are not always the best person for you.

Virgil doesn’t know which camp he and this man will fall into, just now.

“Yes,” Virgil says quietly. “Yes, I think I will.” 

The man sets aside his whiskey.

“Logan.” He says at last, and his accent has changed again; it’s vague, almost indecipherable, but if Virgil had to guess he’d say Midwestern American. Virgil wonders if it’s his real one. “My name is Logan.”

Logan.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Since discovering you’re my soulmate? I haven’t lied to you at all. Not a word.”

“Except for the accent.”

Logan laughs.

“Habit, sorry. It’s a long story that perhaps the man screaming in your earpiece will be able to tell you one day.”

Virgil jolts with surprise. “You know—?”

He cuts himself off before he can say Janus’ name.

“Reputationally,” Logan says, and, as strange as it is, Virgil believes him. In this, at least.

His soulmate’s name is Logan.

“Virgil.”

Logan smiles, his blue eyes glittering. “It’s nice to meet you, Virgil.”

There’s the sound of a soft knock on the partition, and it lowers; Virgil can’t see the driver.

“Sir? We’re here.”

“Right,” Logan murmurs, shaking himself. He reaches into his jacket and withdraws an envelope, offering it for Virgil.

Virgil hesitates.

Logan rolls his eyes. “It’s not like I’ve laced it with anything. I’m holding it with my bare hands.”

Virgil huffs, but he takes it, opening it and pulling out a thin piece of paper.

It’s a commercial flight ticket to Washington, D.C.

“Why D.C.?” Virgil says quietly.

“Most of those organizations are based there,” Logan says. “Is it too far a jump to assume that you are, as well?”

It is actually too far a jump; it’s not even remotely close, he lives in an entirely different part of the states. But. To be fully honest, he doesn’t want Logan to know the state he lives in, and therefore the state that Patton and Roman live in, until Virgil knows if he can be trusted or not.

Logan opens the limousine door from inside, revealing they’ve pulled up to the local airport.

“What, no private plane?”

“I assumed you wouldn’t trust that,” Logan says with a shrug. “The Trumans may be powerful, but you know as well as I that manipulating a flight of this nature is well outside their purview.”

Logan’s right, he absolutely wouldn’t have trusted that, but. This limo’s pretty swanky. For the time he wouldn’t have been obsessively running over every crack and seam in a private jet and interrogating the pilot, he probably would have had a pretty swell time.

Virgil swallows, looking up at Logan. “There are programs, you know? If you wanted to be a witness. Be in service to—”

Logan smiles at him in a way that’s almost pitying. “I left that life behind a long time ago.”

Virgil looks to the airport, then back at Logan.

“Will I see you again?”

Logan shrugs again, almost delicately. “Who’s to say?”

Virgil nods, once, and he says firmly, “I’ll see you later.”

Logan grins at him. “Not if I see you first.”

Virgil slips out of the limo, slams the door shut, and, with what feels like Herculean effort, manages to get into the airport without looking back to see if he can see Logan through the tinted glass.

He does exchange the ticket for another that’s an hour and a half later, though. He’s not a total idiot.

He gets through security pretty quick, and sits in one of the incredibly uncomfortable chairs, his brain pounding with his headache, the questions swirling around in his head making it even worse. Virgil puts his head in his hands.

He just met his soulmate.

His soulmate is working for a mob family.

He just met his soulmate.

His soulmate is apparently smart enough to specifically engineer a roofie.

His soulmate, though!

Janus knows his soulmate. Janus recognized his soulmate.

His soulmate knew about the fucking Lewis clause.

Was his soulmate a spy too? Was his soulmate in deep cover? Had he betrayed his organization? Was he a good person, or had the universe seen fit to hitch Virgil to someone awful?

How had Logan gotten entangled with the Trumans in the first place? Why wasn’t he in the dossier? 

Where was Logan even from? Did he like coffee? Hot chocolate? What had he studied in school? What was his favorite food? If they were normal people, would he have asked him on a date and not drugged him and dragged him off in a limo? 

Who was Logan?

Whatever the answers to his questions are, though. Virgil knows himself enough to know that he isn’t about to let this case go. Not the Trumans. Not him.

Lewis clause be damned.

[wssebastian]

well , well , well . . . would you look at what the cat dragged in ! ╰(◡‿◡✿╰)  umm quick story i was here a v short time before with the always lovely oh haeil c: i loved him sm but i’m sure no one even remembers him atp HAHA anywho life got wayyy too crazy but i’m in a much better place now !! so i’d like to reintroduce myself - i’m jada and it’s very nice to meet you all !! i’m coming to you with a muuuch different muse, sebastian kang , meta’s walking , drumming . . . trainwreck ! despite him being a p messy muse , i put a lot of time into him so i hope u enjoy !! i have some lovely friends here and i’m so excited to be back, so pls like this if you’d like to plot !! otherwiiiise here’s my profile , plots page, bio , and below you can find trivia !! pheeew lot of words so sorry but let’s get to it !!

background !!

just a general note i did a lot of freewriting for him before creating him officially, so some of that will be copied from the free write <33 i’m saying this bc if you see something written overly casual / conversational ,,, you’ll know why besties lol

born in auckland, new zealand, into an older family who had no kids. both his parents were engineers who didn’t feel they had time for kids, couldn’t get pregnant so kinda gave up ? until v late into their careers when they v shockingly got pregnant, mom was a whole 45 when sebastian was born and dad was a whole 50 !!!

he was seen as a legitimate miracle baby, his parents thought he was a precious child who couldn’t be harmed by society ! which i get but like .... ok they took it too far lol. it wasn’t even that bad until one day sebastian thought it’d be a great idea to chase a fucking balloon into the bird exhibit at the zoo, got lost on his way there, and boy his parents FLIPPED

his mom especially paaanicked, he was lost for hours bc he hid & they thought they’d loss their precious son forever. she literally took him and never has really been the same since, vowed since that day she would homeschool and well … she did !

so sebastian was raised homeschooled & pretty isolated which is … eh. like if a kid would talk to baby him they’d lowkey be like “wtf are u talking about??” bc he was constantly between talking like a kid tv show character and a boomer because tbh those were his only influences growing up

sidenote to all my homeschooled gang pls i know all our parents were not like this LMAO i am aware as i was homeschooled for a while however the kangs are a ... special case

sebastian’s dad only has partial hearing in his left ear , so he grew up bilingual in english & new zealand sign language as it’s how he primarily communicates when at home w his father. his first exposure to music was actually through him tho, as his dad and mom both loved funk rock of the 70′s & 80′s. his dad would always say that he loved despite being hard of hearing, he loved he could still feel  the instruments in his chest and that really stuck w sebastian from then on !!

his parents felt kinda bad for not having him in school tho so they did let him try out all different types of lessons, so growing up picked up hobbies such as gardening, baking, origami, etc. but the main ones that stuck were writing and drum lessons ! fun fact his parents only let him play drums once thinking it wouldn’t stick but kinda hated it did, from then on he begged and begged for a chance to play and they kinda just looked at him LMAO. yeahhh it took him a whole year but he finally got his first drum set and was hooked !! named his drum set mila after his celebrity crush mila kunis omg ....

anywho time skip he felt really detatched from korean culture, spoke baaaare minimum korean only to like, wish his grandma happy chuseok. so at around 16 he started gaining an interest in his culture ?? and around the same time he got into online video games bc well ... it made him feel like he had friends ? u know how this story goes, meta meets and decides to meet in person !!

but well before flying out to korea him & his parents had a huuuge fight. they were against the idea of him going out on his own, but he was an adult now so he was v stubborn !! they had a huge falling out and it caused a v uncomfy rift for a vlong time they’re just recently getting over 

also funny story - the whole time sebastian was playing video games w meta online he felt pressured to be some mysterious foreigner even tho literally no one asked ?? but the second they met in person he was socially awkward 2000x and it was pretty obvious he was fronting ?? long story short meta saw through his shit p easily and it took a loooong glow up process for him to actually be charismatic , like he is now !

personality

ok phew. onto the fun stuff !! now sebastian has quite literally did a complete 180 compared to his younger self.  he often jokes that he was a born charmer who was raised by the wrong family. bc the second he was out of his parent’s grasp he flourished socially. 

nowadays his korean i would say is upper advanced. from the time he started meeting meta online to around 2018 he went SUPER hard trying to learn, and obv he learns by speaking it everyday. but after that he kind of took a more casual learning approach? he can convey most everything he wants to say but if it’s something that’s a little deeper sometimes it takes him a second to rearrange the sentence in his head and it really frustrates him. if u tell him a korean metaphor or like bigger word not used in common convo he might just kinda . . . blink at u HAHA

looooves meta. no,  i mean he looooooves meta. he feels so incredibly lucky to be in a band as he NEVER would’ve thought it was possible, they were honestly his first real friends so being able to make a career out of making good music w them ?? he’s honestly still in amazement today.

idk what was in that hongdae air but those first years in meta made him have a whole vibe switch ?? he let his hair grow out, took a lot of inspiration from hongdae street styles, and had a looot of practice talking to pretty people in clubs. he also got his first tattoos ! he felt like he had to play catch up on all those years he was just cooped up at home, so quite literally went c r a z y w the partying after a while.

i’m ngl he probably has a very real fear he got some random girl pregnant in seoul and she’s just waiting on meta to get bigger before dropping the news LMAOAOAO

the funny thing is basically since he arrived he’s been branded the “sexy foreigner” or something LMAO, and it’s p laughable to the rest of his members when they know how he used to be. like he’s charming now yes but there’s no denying he was iiincredibly awk to start off with. visibly cringes if they mention any old blackmail

ok but here’s where he gets a little messier. over the past few years fame has really been getting to his head ? meta isn’t even as big as some groups but truthfully sebastian already thinks he’s the shit and will say it out loud too ?? too many pretty people told him he was pretty too, now he’s honestly cocky and is starting to develop the mindset he “deserves” his lifestyle bc of his fame ?? yo meta PLSSSS actively humble tf out of this man !! he really needs it bc it’s just getting progressively worse

also alongside this, bc he’s in a band and not a traditional idol group he’s kinda developed this superiority complex ?? feels meta is “real music” or whatever so he can sometimes come off as a bit pretentious to traditional idols, esp the younger ones ?? though the more time he spends in wishbone the less he feels this is true, he’s slowly gaining respect after learning how brutal training is

ok but that brings me to ladybug. maaaan he loves ladybug. in fact when it comes to girls he is v much so the likes powerful woman who look like they can step on him vibe ?? lowkey a milf stan too ?? LMAO pls forgive me i’m just the messenger ok. all i’m trying to say is sebastian talks a lot of shit but somehow knows every line of ddd .... hmmm ??

ok i didn’t know where else to put this but people call him both sebastian and ian ?? you’ll prob mainly see me use sebastian for writing purposes, but irl the usage is 50 / 50 ? his parents & long-term friends mainly call him sebastian, tho his newer friends or the ones who just like ian call him ian ?? do what u want he has no preference !

u know i’m really grateful for jaewon being his fc because they literally take photos the EXACT same way ?? like his stans probably are on twt begging for just one normal photo bc everything he posts looks like this, this, this, or this LMAO ?? what can he say he likes a good blurry aesthetic !!

( smoking, drug & drinking tw ) he’s a drinker & smoker, as well as stamped off a v wide range of substances ? he wouldn’t say he has an addiction to anything but nicotine though. he started off with regular cigarettes but has ben transitioning to vaping recently. wishes he could at least smoke less but at this time doesn’t have much hope to do so

bc he didn't grow up in korea age heirarchy doesn’t really make sense to him ? he feels respect has to be earned, which can sometime create some drama ?? he’s not too afraid to challenge older ideas if he disagrees, but on that same token if they’ve done something impressive he has no problem giving respect to younger people ?

his concept isn’t too far off from his real persona ?? except in the public his flirty side is less nsfw player, more attainable charmer ?? despite not having a lot of action on stages, when interacting w fans he has a lot of fun teasing them within reason and has that whole “i’m your idol boyfriend” thing going on ?? frequently “marries” fans and likes to make them shy ! probably has had to be told to tone it down LMAO

on that note he also loves variety bc he loves to let people see a side of him they couldn’t through music, has no problem speaking up for quieter members if they don’t wanna talk ?? the kind of member to put the group tea on BLAST tho LMAO, think the whole seventeen insomnia-zero episode ???? like sir SHUT UP UR GONNA GET US FIRED

because he craves affection he’s constantly flirting and in situationships / hookup culture, but bc he’s a free spirit rn he doesn’t wanna be tied down ?? so u get ... a v flirty man who will give u everythig u need physically but will RUN at the sign of commitment

loooves the drums omg he’s on a whole different level on stage. uhh he can’t stop breaking drum sticks tho LMAO ! anyways his personal drum set is still named mila, except the one in korea is called mila 2.0 ? y’all i know he’s embarrassing let’s not ... anyways despite usually being in the back he has a lot of fun w his facial expressions, occasional solos, and just rocking w the songs bc he honestly loves their discography ?? is this me projecting the inner day6 stan in me listening to wanna go back as we speak ?? .....

music-wise, still v into funk rock ! but nowadays he prefers actually listening to hip hop & experimental pop ? but he’s still v much a fan of rock in general, and it’s his favorite kind of music to actually perform

career-wise, he’s pretty satisfied rn ! he honestly preferred the early days bc it was all so new and he had more freedom. but he can’t help but acknowledge how good of a deal they got, maintaining creative freedom while gaining financial security ?? he really loves songwriting, so hopes to do that even more, as well as mcing in the future !!

i think that’s all !! this is so much i know but i doubt i’m finished i’ll probably still add more LOLL. if u got this far tho seriously you’re an angel i’m so impressed thank u for listening to my rambling and giving sebastian a fair chance <33