#i do like the themes presented in there and the fact that that there's kinda no clear antagonist??

[marvelwitchergilmore]

One Night

Summary: Joaquin Torres x fe!Reader -> One Night is never just one night.

Disclaimer: 16+ with sexual themes, FwB/enemies to lovers, swearing, platonic!Kate Bishop. Not Proof Read.

One Night. 

They say it just takes One Night for everything to change. You just didn’t expect it to be that night. 

When Kate walked into the compound kitchen and living area that morning, she had been expecting no-one. Not a single person. 

Clint was at home with Laura and the kids, Natasha had wrangled Steve and Sam to help her plan Yelena’s birthday party, Bucky had been sent to talk to the cake shop since the owner seemed to always take a shine to him and practically melted any time he walked through the door. She was in her late eighties, but was quite possibly the most terrifying woman Natasha had ever met. So, Bucky it was. 

Kate figured Joaquin would still be in bed since he’d finished up his work pretty late last night. He was still in his office when Kate walked by, having worked two hours of overtime herself. 

As for Tony and everyone else, they were taking their long awaited vacations. 

And as for you. Well, Kate had never woken up before you. In fact, nobody had. Not even Steve who’d wake up at four-thirty every morning to go for a run. Everyone was pretty sure you didn’t even own pajamas. They’d never seen you in them, for starters. And Kate was 97.6% sure you were a vampire, or some kind of supernatural creature that never seemed to sleep. 

But that morning…

That morning she walked into the kitchen and living space to see you, stood by the kitchen island, stirring some creamer into your coffee, dressed in pajamas. 

Kate had to take a mental image. Maybe more than one. You were human?!

Your hair was down from the usual braid-into-bun. You were wearing a short length, earthy green robe. With, from what Kate could gather, was a matching set underneath. 

You hadn’t spotted her yet, which was also unusual. You’d usually say the person’s name before they even walked into the room, already knowing who they were. It made trying to get the jump on you all that more frustrating. 

But Kate couldn’t even take any satisfaction out of scaring you when you jumped after spotting her, because you were in pajamas. 

“Jesus, Kate. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Why were you in pajamas? 

Was it your birthday? 

No. Natasha had found out your birthday after hacking Shield’s computer system. It wasn’t your birthday. 

Had you finally taken time off?

Were they a present? Maybe a Secret Santa gift for last year?

“Kate?”

“You’re in pajamas.” 

Those were the only words she could form as she tried to figure out why. 

You chuckled and looked down. “Yeah. Because it’s the morning and I just woke up.”

Kate’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “You slept in?”

You looked at her, a little dumbfounded. “Yeah. I had a late night last night.”

“Doing what? You usually clock off at six like the rest of us.”

You shrugged. “I had some paperwork to catch up on. Are you okay?”

Kate had to physically shake her head in order to restart her entire body. Once she had done that, she moved closer into the kitchen like a normal person. 

“Yeah. Yeah. Just surprised to find out you own pajamas. I thought you just kinda woke up ready for the day.”

“I wish, but no.” You smiled before lifting your coffee mug to your lips. And you were glad you had something to cover your face with because what happened next was not a situation you had fully prepared for. 

“So, now that I know you own more than just tactical gear. I was thinking we could-”

“Morning.”

Kate looked behind her after hearing Joaquin’s voice as he walked inside, also in his pajamas. 

“Morning,” you replied. 

Kate’s head whipped around to look at you as Joaquin passed her. “Coffee?”

“In the pot,” you told him. 

Kate was starting to give herself whiplash as she looked between yourself and Joaquin. The cogs started turning and the longer she watched both of you, the faster they started turning until they all finally clicked into place. 

“What were you saying, Kate?”

Kate’s mind was screaming. 

“Kate?”

The chair she had been sitting on practically fell over. “I need to speak to you. Now. Right now.” Kate rounded the kitchen island before taking you by your elbow. 

“Hey, watch my coffee.”

Keeping a hold of your mug, you tried your hardest not to spill any as Kate dragged you from the room, down the hallway and around the corner and through the double doors that led out to a different section of the balcony. 

“Kate, that the hell is wrong-”

“You slept with Joaquin?!” 

Your shoulders somehow both relaxed and tensed. “Oh. That.”

“That?!” Kate spat in shock. “That?! Y/n!”

“It’s not as bad as it seems.”

“It’s not as bad as it seems? It’s not as bad as it seems?”

You looked at her, “Are you just gonna keep repeating what I say?”

“Y/n! It’s not like you two are known for frollacing on a beach together. Quite the opposite.”

Kate had you there. It wasn’t exactly a secret to people that you and Joaquin weren’t the best of friends. Or even co-workers. You didn’t know what it was, you just never got along. You spent more time fighting with each other that it would be more believable to be known for doing as much on a beach together, rather than frollocking. 

“Kate-”

“How-How did this even happen? How long has this been going on? Oh, my god. Was it an act? Just to throw us off the scent?”

“No, no, no. Kate.” You put your coffee down on a table before taking her by the shoulders. “It’s nothing like that. It was just one night.”

Kate just sighed, “It’s never just one night.”

“Yes, it is.”

Kate became a little calmer, or rather, was starting to internalise her freak out. But it didn’t last long because the minute you let go of her, she threw her arms in the air. “God, I can’t believe this. God, what are the others gonna think?”

“They’re not gonna think anything because they’re not gonna find out. It was a one night thing. It didn’t mean anything.”

“You’re in pajamas. How long ago did-” Then Kate shook her head. “Nevermind, I don’t wanna know. Actually, yes I do. Hm, no. No, I don’t. Hm. Yes. No. Yes. Okay. No wait. Don’t tell me. Tell me.”

“Kate?”

She just nodded. “Tell me.”

“Are you sure?” You asked, suppressing the smile on your face. 

“Yes.”

You waited for her to stop you again, but when she didn’t, you finally told her. 

“It was late last night, and yes, he’s good. Whoever he ends up with will be a lucky woman.”

Kate looked up at you, a little shocked. She was pretty sure that was the very first compliment you’d ever given Joaquin. Like, ever. 

“Wow.”

Kate finally sat down. After a morning training session and finding out about you and Joaquin…she was exhausted. 

You sat opposite to her at the coffee table. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

You raised an eyebrow with a chuckle escaping you. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Kate looked at you. She did. She was more curious than scared. “How about I go and get dressed and we can head into the city? Go and check out that new boutique?”

“How do you do that?” That was what Kate had been planning to ask you before Joaquin walked inside. 

“Give me twenty minutes.”

Over the next five hours, Kate asked you every question she could think of twice. 

What the hell happened?

Did he kiss you first? Or was it you? 

Did you enjoy it?

Did he enjoy it?

What the hell happened?

And you’d explained everything. At the makeup counter, at the deli, inside the curtain set up for two dressing rooms in the new boutique, at the coffee shop and on the drive both in and out of the city. 

“I just…I can’t even imagine you two having a conversation. I mean, that’s what gave it away this morning. You never tell him where the coffee is, even when he asks. And you never say good morning to him.”

You chuckled. “Kate, it’s not a big deal. It was just one night.”

“That’s what they all say. And before you know it…it’s not just one night anymore.”

You had just rolled your eyes and brushed it off. You and Joaquin had both agreed before and after that it would be a one time thing. 

You’d kissed him by accident. And after pulling away, he’d pulled you back. It had only gotten more heated from there until eventually you collapsed beside him in his bed. You’d both fallen asleep shortly afterwards and as much as part of you wanted to stay laying beside him when you woke up, you knew you couldn’t. 

Though, maybe you should have. It would have saved you watching Kate have an aneurysm at realising exactly why you were in your pyjamas, why you had slept in, and why you were talking to Joaquin like you actually considered him a friend of some kind. 

And you were both adamant it was to be a One Night thing. But apparently neither of you had factored into the conversation how good it truly was. Not just the sex, but not fighting each other all the time. 

“I need you.”

You’d been walking down the hallway, minding your own business, when Bucky suddenly nearly pulled your arms out of its socket as he dragged you inside the training room. “Sam’s stuck me with the elementary kids.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” You asked, sounding a little mad. 

“Just demonstrate something to the kids.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. You and Joaquin figure something out.”

“Joaquin?” You practically threw up his name before Bucky answered, “Yes,” and threw you towards the training mat where you were met with Joaquin. 

“Okay, kids, these two very helpful volunteers are gonna show you what sparring is.”

“We are?” You and Joaquin asked. 

Apparently you were. 

Which was how you found yourself and Joaquin explaining small moves that the kids could copy, safely. However, Joaquin had been enjoying himself far too much, so taking the opportunity to explain a small self-defence method, you sent him flying to the floor. 

All the kids took in a breath, some laughed, some gasped. 

But once Joaquin laughed, letting the kids know he was okay, they all relaxed. 

“Okay, rugrats. You’ve got fifteen minutes to use the climbing frame!” Bucky announced before letting the kids run free. Meanwhile, you remained on top of Joaquin. 

“That was fun.”

“Really got the drop on me, didn’t you?”

“Those kids were boosting your ego far too much.”

“My god,” Joaquin breathed. “Are you jealous?”

“Hell no,” you laughed. “Just don’t think your ego needs inflating anymore than it already has.”

“Well,” Joaquin suddenly flipped you and had you pinned under him. “I could say the same about you. You forget I know what I’m doing, Angel.” 

For that last part, he leaned down and whispered it low so only you could hear. A slight whimper threatened to escape you but when you were met with Joaquin’s eyes once again, one of the kids had dropped an end of a bench, reminding both of you where you were and who you were around. 

Carefully, Joaquin climbed off you before lowering his hand down to you to help you up. Without thinking, you accepted. You were greeted with the same kind of electricity you’d experienced that night when he’d intertwined his fingers with yours, pinning them above your head before tantalisingly moving down your body…

“If you don’t need me?” You called out to Bucky. He brought his forgotten attention back to you both. 

“Yeah. Thanks!”

You just nodded, before nodding at Joaquin. His hand waited as long as it could to let you go as you walked away, his gaze trailing after you and you left the training room and hurried back the way you came before Bucky had pulled you inside. 

Later that night, long after the training room and a short while after dinner where you and Joaquin had tried to avoid contact; seemingly making more than either of you had done in three years. He knocked on your door. 

All he wanted to do was check in on you. Maybe apologise for what happened in the training room. Maybe ask why you hadn’t scoffed at his choice of food combos at dinner like you usually did. But instead, once he opened the door, the wind was knocked from him completely. 

“I just wanted to-” Joaquin was trying to find his words again after seeing you, but he was struggling. 

But that didn’t matter. Because your lips were on his almost instantly. Pulling him inside, his hands pulled you closer to him. You shut the door and he pushed you against it. 

Hours later, sweating and gasping for breath yet again, you both told each other it was just a One Time thing. Well, a two-time thing. 

Yet, just as Kate had predicted, it wasn’t. 

“It happened again.”

Those were the first words out of your mouth as she opened her apartment door. “I told you.”

“What happened?” Yelena yelled from the living room, a pint of ice cream in her lap. 

“It’s Y/n!”

That was all Kate had to say as she invited you inside for Yelena to reply, “Did she and the Bird Boy sleep together again?”

“Did you tell her?”

Kate shook her head as she locked the door. “She already knew. Don’t ask me how.”

“Did she bring drinks? This conversation is gonna need drinks!” Yelena called out. 

Over the next three hours, you sat on Kate and Yelena’s couch, mortified at what had happened. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be a one time thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be a one time thing. If you both enjoy it, and I can tell you do-”

“Yelena!”

“What?” Yelena asked. “You’ve been less pissy since the first time. I’m just saying…if you both enjoy it, enjoy it.”

“But it’s more than that.”

“What is?”

When you didn’t answer, both Yelena and Kate looked at each other, already knowing. 

“Y/n…”

Kate pushed your hands from your face. “Do you like Joaquin?”

“No! No, of course not!”

Yelena dug her spoon into her pint of ice cream. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

You just groaned. “I can’t. What? Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Kate said, shaking her head. 

“She thinks you and Joaquin are gonna get married.” 

“Yelena!” It was Kate’s turn to yell at her roommate. 

“What?”

You looked at Kate. “You really think that? Really?”

Kate had been the one person to see everything. Every reason you gave as to why you didn’t like Joaquin. And clearly this marriage concept to her wasn’t new. 

“Look, I just think, sometimes, the lines between love and hate can be a little…fuzzy. Yelena?”

She just shrugged. “If you want to fuck him, fuck him. But if you love him…”

You barked out a laugh. “Whoa, hey, hey, okay. No. No. We’re not- no. I don’t love Joaquin.”

Yelena hummed to herself, holding up her spoon, “The lady-”

“Hey,” Kate raised her voice and Yelena kept hers silent, but still acted out what she was going to say. 

“Kate?”

“Look,” Kate took your hands in hers. “Maybe this was it. But, Yelena’s right. If you like Joaquin, maybe you should tell him. Before someone gets hurt.”

It was sound advice. And you gave yourself some time to figure it out. Maybe it was just the sex. Maybe he’d just muddled your brain. Time away would be good. 

But time didn’t fix feelings as you came to find out. 

After the third One Night, you’d accepted a three month placement from Hill. Maybe time away would do you good. And it worked, for the first six weeks. Joaquin didn’t cross your mind once. 

Until the day he walked inside your tent with some of his tech gear, “Where can I set up?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Don’t sound too happy to see me.”

You would come to learn Joaquin had been sent in place of Yelena. A woman you sent a very, very long text to: who only replied with a kissy face and a good luck symbol. 

“I’m gonna kill her.”

“What?”

You looked up at Joaquin, “Nothing.”

It took three weeks and thirty different fights, including mini spats, for something to break between both yourself and Joaquin. 

“Do you do this by accident, or do you just enjoy being a pain in my ass?” 

“Says the guy who can’t leave me alone to do the work I’ve been trained for!”

“Well excuse me for giving a crap about my team-mate?”

You barked a laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you. I’m pretty sure you’d rather fly me to the top of the Empire State and drop me.”

“Believe me, that hasn’t not crossed my mind once or twice.”

You were just standing opposite each other, your chests heaving for breath when all of a sudden his hands were in your hair, your hands were pulling his overshirt from him and his lips were crashing against yours. 

With his tongue dipping inside your mouth, tasting you, he moaned. “I’ve missed this.”

Shaking your shirt from your arms, your hand slipped into his curls and pulled his kiss closer to you. As you ass bumped against the table set up, Joaquin moved his kisses from your lips to across your jaw and down your neck. 

It was the first time neither of you talked about it being a One Night thing. Because, between the kissing and the breathy moans, a silent agreement had been made. This could never have been a One Night thing. 

You couldn’t keep lying to yourself. You’d missed it, too. You’d missed him. 

And part of that conversation came to a head the next night when Joaquin found you in your tent since you’d been avoiding him all day. 

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Joaquin-”

“No, I don’t wanna fight. Not tonight. I just want an answer.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you.”

“Yes, you have. Despite our history, I know you, Y/n. You’ve been avoiding me. Why?”

You stopped folding your clothes and looked at him. For the first time in forever, you too didn’t want to fight him. Not with him standing there looking all…Joaquin-like. A kind, yet worried face. A comfortable presence. 

You moved closer, pulling him in to kiss you. This kiss was different. Rather than raw and needy for sex, it was a little more delicate. But there was still a force behind it. 

“Because I’ve missed this, too. I’ve missed you, Joaquin.”

Joaquin looked you in your eyes as you stood, inches from his face. You weren’t lying. Even when you’d been fighting him, and he’d been fighting you, one thing he’d known since the beginning was when you were lying. 

He was apparently the only person you knew with that skill, which just added another thing to the list of why you hated him so much.

You weren’t lying. 

Joaquin didn’t say anything. He just kissed you. And kissed you. And kissed you. 

And for the first time, you both took it slow. Well, slower. 

“I think this is gonna be more than a one time thing.”

You laughed as Joaquin broke the silence with his sentence, and his laughter joined yours until you kissed him, crawling to straddle him under your bed covers.

By the time you both got back, it was like nothing had ever happened. You and Joaquin seemed to fall right back into your old ways with each other. 

But none of it was real. 

The truth was in how he kissed you late at night, and in how he would brush his hand across your hip as he passed you in the kitchen. It was in the way you’d pull him around the corner in an empty hallway and kiss him. It was in the way he’d lean against your body and it was in the way a quiet moan, only he could hear, would leave you as his leg pushed between both of yours. 

The truth was in the way he’d watch you as you sat up in bed, reading over different mission material. It was in the way you’d look at him when he was training in the training room, early in the morning, the sun kissing the sheen of his skin as he ran his third mile on the treadmill. 

The truth was in the way he followed behind you, no matter who was around either of you. It was in the way you both fought less with your superiors about being placed together for different training exercises and missions. 

The truth was in the way you had both been slowly falling for each other, despite wishing for the opposite. 

“I’m gonna ask Y/n on a date.” 

That had been the statement Joaquin had blurted out to Kate one afternoon when everyone else was at training. 

“W-w-what? Oh, yeah. No, that’s cool.”

Joaquin just looked at her, “You’re a terrible actor.”

“I am not!”

“I already know you know.”

Kate relaxed. “Oh, okay then. So, you’re gonna ask her out? Finally!” Kate smiled. 

“I just can’t decide where. I want this to be perfect. But I don’t want to set us up for failure.”

Kate watched as Joaquin sat beside her on the sofa and pulled out his phone, scrolling through the different options he had written down in his notes app. Any of the options he had would be good. 

But that wasn’t what made her smile. 

It was the fact that Joaquin was putting so much thought into it. He always put a lot of thought into things, but knowing it was for you. For both of you. It made her want to say “HA!” to Yelena. 

But if Joaquin was being completely honest with himself, from knocking on your door and hearing you walking to open it, he’d never been so nervous in his entire life. 

“Joaquin,” you seemed surprised. Probably because he had knocked in a way that might throw you off in thinking it wasn’t him, giving him a few more seconds to psych himself up. 

“I want to take you on a date.” Well, there went the speech he’d prepared. “And I’m hoping you’ll say yes because this isn’t just-”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes,” you repeated. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

“You will?”

You smiled and nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

Joaquin smiled before stepping inside and kissing you before you closed the door. 

You didn’t quite know when or why, but you and Joaquin had gone from being at each other’s throats aggressively to it being affectionate. And for some reason - one that Kate would probably explain to you one day - you wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

And neither would Joaquin.

[dorkydegeneracy]

Let's get some things very straight (LOL) about that ICONIC Buddie argument last night.

Eddie WAS NOT the aggressor in this altercation. In fact, Buck was in a mood before Eddie even entered the kitchen. Eddie asked why Buck had gone grocery shopping when he had previously promised to do so himself. He was asking a question. Buck's whole demeanor suggested he was clearly bothered: "I was out. It's fine." Obviously a chippy response to which Eddie replied "It doesn't feel like it's fine." Because he knows Buck. And he obviously wasn't fine. Granted, Buck had reason to be upset: he was the last person to find out that Eddie had been offered the job in El Paso. Under normal circumstances, Buck would have been the first person to know.

However, these are obviously not normal circumstances. Bobby is dead. Eddie explains why he didn't tell Buck. His reasoning isn't because he believes Buck is selfish. Yes, Eddie is being petty here. It was kinda a shitty thing to say (although that might have been THE LINE of the year, so I am so glad that he said it), to which he later admits. However, his reasoning is a little deeper than that, and easy to discern if you listen to what he says: "You've been spiralling. Since the funeral. And no one knows how to talk to you about it."

This harkens back to Eddie's conversation with Hen and Karen earlier in the episode. Buck is presenting a façade that he is okay by trying to take care of everybody else, as Bobby requested of him. Asking weird ass grief questions. But the people who love him. The person who loves him, wants him to drop the act and actually process his own grief.

Add all of that, to the fact that Eddie is trying to process his own grief and one would understand Eddie's reaction to Buck stating (in an equally petty manner, I might add) "Sorry I'm sad that Bobby is dead." NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Note that in this instance, by saying that, Buck is explicitly thinking about his own feelings and not considering the feelings of his family who are also grieving. That is definitionally selfish. Eddie, rightly responds "You're not the only one that lost him! We all lost him." Because he is trying to let Buck know that the way to help is not through stupid psych evaluations; it is by talking about how each other is feeling.

Buck: "Yeah, I know."

Eddie: "Really? Because you never asked what it was like."

Eddie then proceeds to explain his emotions about Bobby's death.

And let's make it even more clear: Eddie WAS NEVER going to hit Buck. He would never hit Buck. He grabs his shoulder and points his little finger in his face. It's a call back to their grocery store altercation.

Unlike Buck, who puts up a façade as a way to avoid processing grief, Eddie's grief manifests as anger. That was the whole point of his street fighting plot line. He used fighting as a way to blow off steam. The problem with the street fighting wasn't that he was fighting: it was that he was doing so in an illegal underground ring. That story was never meant to characterize Eddie as a violent person. Because Eddie is not a violent person. He uses his passion for MMA as an outlet. Not everybody who knows MMA is a violent person. The opposite is actually true. Very few MMA fighters are violent people. It's an art. Just like dancing or figure skating.

Buck then apologizes to Eddie, acknowledging his TEMPORARY moment of selfishness. Eddie then expresses that he has yet to forgive himself for not being there.

"If I was there, could I have made a difference."

Buck misinterprets this statement as Eddie believing that Buck didn't do everything he could to save Bobby's life.

That's not what Eddie is saying at all. What he does say in response is

"I don't know Buck. I wasn't there."

Eddie hates that he wasn't there to save Bobby's life. Which is a large, and understandable, part of his grief.

The whole theme of this conversation is that these two are not communicating. Had they done so, they would not be upset at each other. Obviously, it is hard to effectively communicate during times of grief. So in reality, both Buck and Eddie are at fault here. Both have valid motivations behind their words and actions here. This is what grief does. It makes you act irrationally or out of character.

Yet, their miscommunication pre-existed Bobby's death: It started when Eddie decided to leave for El Paso. And the reason they were not communicating then is because neither of them understand or want to admit their feelings regarding the move. These feelings are that of love, which neither party is willing to admit yet. Yet.

Next week might be the first opportunity for either of them to voice those feelings.

[morninkim]

as a flash fan, having now watched the flash movie, i can safely say

it's fine i liked it

[meticulousmaker]

another random thing that stands out to me rewatching Steven Universe as an adult:

throughout the show there's this clear Vibe that Steven has inherited some big magical destiny, right? and it makes sense narratively: he's the son of Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion, now being raised by her friends who were the last remaining survivors of an interstellar war. he's like a human child in most ways, except he has magical powers that start to become more obvious as he's getting older. no one like him has ever existed before. it's a big deal. raising him and figuring out how he's going to grow is its own unique challenge, because nobody knows what to expect. so of course there's this magical destiny vibe, given all that.

What's interesting to me, though, is that this magical destiny is in no way literally, physically present in the story, it's just something everyone kinda feels. Like, there's not some ancient prophecy about a half-gem, half-human savior. He's not the Chosen One in any literal sense, he just happens to give off Chosen One vibes. And I say that's interesting because it means that the fact he was kinda raised with this Chosen One vibe is completely a decision everyone around him made, for better or for worse. And the show is aware of this, because the weight of Rose's legacy and everyone's expectations of him is a constant theme, and as Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all grow and develop, they also realize the downsides of them putting those expectations on a child. Like, Steven spends his whole childhood being told about how great Rose was, and how because he's inherited her gem he will probably inherit her powers - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine how awful things could have been if Steven had no exposure to the Gems and no knowledge of what they were or how they worked, and then his powers started coming in? It was hard enough even when he was surrounded by the most qualified Gem Experts on Earth. But being primed for all of this "you're going to have your mother's magical powers" stuff put a heavy weight on his shoulders, and then the fact that nobody else quite knew how his abilities worked meant he was constantly faced with the adults in his life looking to him with concern because they didn't know what was happening with him. That's gotta leave an impression on a kid - and, well, throughout the show and especially in SU Future we definitely see that it does.

I like the way the show handles the pressure that's put on him, and the fact that everyone is just... trying their best in a completely unprecedented situation. Nobody knows what to do or how to raise this kid, and that inevitably causes problems but everyone is trying. And Steven can feel that everyone is trying without knowing what to do and he just wants to help and not be a burden and none of his caretakers have said that he's a burden but he can feel everyone's confusion and concern and the expectations he's not living up to and he cares so much, about everyone, about everything. He's in an extremely unique position that grants him opportunities to help that nobody else has, and he feels like he's failing everyone if he can't fulfill that, and in the end it never should have been his job to fix things but somebody had to try. Somebody had to try, and he was one of the only people with the ability to stop the Diamonds, stop the war, stop the lies, stop his world and everyone on it from being destroyed... and he was just a kid.

[iimplicitt]

Ahhh okay I'm so glad you like the idea, I was kinda nervous ngl <3

HUNGRY EYES PART ONE | LN4 OP81

pairings: business partners landoscar x secretary! character

a/n-warnings: suggestive themes, language, inappropriate work relationship, secret relationships, older! lando & older! oscar, 18+, unprotected! smut, age gap (secretary is in her 20s), power play, sir! kink is alive and thriving, semi-public smut, choking, spitting, fingering, oral! (fem receiving), multiple parts SORRY i got carried away

wc: 4.6k

“She’s mine,” Oscar bit out, tempted to punch his long time business partner in the face.

“Sure, mate.” Lando smiled, looking wicked. “Wasn’t what she was telling me inside of my office, though.”

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ⠀ ♱⠀ ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

Her first month had been uneventful, to say the least. The paperwork was plenty, the calls all rerouted, emails answered swiftly, but still she grew bored halfway through the day. Pen tapping against the desk, the click click click matching in rhythm with the clock mounted on the wall behind her. As if taunting, each tick telling her she was wasting her youth away.

She could never rest easy, never felt like she could even lounge. Always performing, keeping her posture in check.

So many men around.

The hallways of the law firm constantly paraded by swathes of testosterone. Glowing eyes that looked at her chest as they muttered their good mornings as they walked to their desks. Or their gazes would be fixed on the two doorways on either side of her. Anxiety knitting their brows and tongues being burnt on too hot coffee.

This morning was different than no other, only there was a voice muffled behind the door on her left. Mr. Piastri was in office today. Early, he had been there when she arrived. Already in a meeting and an email waiting in her inbox, asking for invoices. A space down a PSA, not to be late.

She ground her jaw. She was never late. In fact, as her eyes flicked back to clock behind her she was early.

Biting her tongue, she simply sat herself down and smoothed out her skirt. Attaching the necassey files and ignoring his last statement, aggressively hitting send.

In her time there she had hardly spoken a word to him. Neither of them, really, her bosses. They didn’t frequent the building often, probably out doing business on some yacht in Monaco. Meetings drowning in champagne before waltzing into courtrooms with their three pieced suits and egos so big Narcissus would go slack jawed.

The few times she had spoken to them it tended be one sided. Their gazes on their phones as they walked by her desk, their only conversations, if she could call them that, done over email.

But she would watch the other men in the office, how they held their breaths, eyes waiting, practically drooling anytime either of them walked in the doors or held a meeting.

She grew rather spiteful.

Watching through the glass of the meeting room across the floor as Mr. Norris, the other owner, stood casually with a hand in his pocket as he went over some presentation. Seeing how the men of the firm practically swayed with each movement.

Great Mr. Norris. Brilliant Mr. Norris. Shining Mr. Norris. God-like Mr. Norris.

How the endearments piled up.

She scoffed.

“Problem?”

She flinched, turning to see Mr. Piastri leaned against the tall edge of her desk on one elbow, following her glance to the conference room and a barely there smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but other than that his expression remained blank. Stoney. As it always had been. Even when she heard him in meetings, his tone was always even. Dry. Slightly rough around the edges, but even tempered.

Commanding.

She swallowed dryly. “No, sir.”

His eyes turned back to her, his brown eyes looking dark in the lighting of the office. Shadows danced across the sharp planes of his face, casting certain parts into darkness. Making up a phantom. Staring at her as if he’d only just realised she was there.

“It doesn’t paint a pretty picture if our secretary is scowling at the CEO.” He commented, voice smooth. Sometimes it felt like he hated her. She often caught him staring at her, the slightest of frowns on his lips. Practically invisible, but there. She couldn’t read him. Which unnerved her. Nearly all the men in this office were like an open book, their pages pathetically falling open in her lap.

“I didn’t realise I was here to look pretty.” She shouldn’t have said it but the words were out into the air nonetheless.

He blinked at her, eyes slowly dancing to her name plate and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he’d forgotten her name.

Mr. Piastri’s tongue ran along the inside of his cheek as he looked at her again. Really looked at her. Taking her in from head to toe and she felt a blush start to flare up her neck from his apt attention.

“You aren’t. Nor are you here to scowl.” He tapped a quick rhythm on her desk. “Don’t be late tomorrow morning.”

She should’ve waited till she heard his office door shut when she next spoke, “prick.”

Maybe she would’ve paled if she realised he’d heard her. Maybe she would’ve seen that string pull at the corners of his lips again before he disappeared inside his office.

Her eyes drifted to Mr. Norris again, her eyes narrowing slighting over her monitor as she watched an easy smile grace his lips as the presentation concluded. Muffled applause sounded from the conference room and she found her fingers hitting the keyboard a little harder than usual.

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ⠀ ♱⠀ ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

“Good morning.”

She jumped slightly at the words, careful not to spill her coffee as she looked up at the passing figure of Mr. Piastri.

Was she imagining things? They hadn’t spoken in two weeks. Then again, he hadn’t been in the office since then. But he had never once said good morning to her.

“Good morning?” It left her like a question as she stared after him, only catching a glimpse of the slightly amused expression he wore before he shut the door to his office.

When she turned she jumped again, this time she did spill coffee and the hot liquid soaked into her white blouse. A string of curses leaving her lips as she quickly pulled the fabric away from her burning skin.

Her other boss, Mr. Norris, standing in front of her desk looking anything but sorry.

He clicked his tongue. “Someone is jumpy.”

She couldn’t help it as she stared at him. He’d never come to talk to her, not since her first day when he showed her where her desk was and that was it.

His eyes flicked down to her soaked top, his expression unreadable. “Are you busy?”

“I—“

“I need you to accompany me on a meeting.”

“Now?”

He hummed, already beginning to walk away.

“But,” she looked down at her shirt, at the list of emails she needed to answer, at the stacks of paperwork. “I— Mr. Norris—“

“We don’t have all day,” he called over his shoulder, his finger already pressing into the lift button.

Feeling as though her brain was short circuiting, she quickly scraped a notepad and pens into her purse before following after him. Sparing a glance to Mr. Piastri’s office, wondering if he knew where she’d run off to.

Stepping into the lift behind him, she swallowed thickly and kept her distance. Her wet shirt already started to feel cold and she wondered if she was having some sort of nightmare.

She eyed her boss out of the corner of her eye, watching how the light caught against his tan skin and sharp features. His hair always a mess of curls, a contrast to the neat hairstyle Mr. Piastri always adorned.

With shaking hands, she took out her phone and began drafting an email to the whole office, saying she would be out in a meeting when a large hand suddenly covered her phone screen.

Eyes flicking up, she was taken aback by how glittering his eyes looked. Darkened by the shadow of his thick lashes.

“That won’t be necessary.” He muttered, pulling his hand away before shoving it back in the pocket of his slacks.

“What?” She said dumbly.

“This meeting is a need to know sort of thing.”

She raised a brow. “Okay, but everyone is going to be wondering where I went.”

He looked down at her, a crease lightly forming between his brow. “Do they really bother you that much?”

She balked at him. “What is it that you think I do all day?”

His lips tugged to the side, revealing a dimple. “Make coffee?”

She could’ve sworn her eye twitched before a light laugh left him. “I’m kidding. They’ll survive you being gone for a few hours. Besides, maybe they’ll actually get their work done.”

“Meaning?”

The lift doors opened and he stepped out, leaving her to follow after him.

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ⠀ ♱⠀ ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

She had gotten caught up late into the evening, well past the office closure to catch up on everything to-do, due to their shareholder meeting Mr. Norris had taken her to.

He was… not what she was expecting.

Sure, she saw how the men praised him from afar. But to actually sit next to him, watching how charismatic he was. Words woven carefully, expertly twining around those he was doing business with… she felt a little dazed. Or maybe that was the wine.

Nonetheless her cheeks were rosy and she was charmed. Not to mention he had taken her shopping for a new top.

Saying she could have whatever else she wanted but the whole thing felt entirely overwhelming. She wasn’t used to his attention.

Her whole body felt too warm as she stepped out of the dressing room to look in the mirror, catching the sight of him in the reflection leaning against the wall, eyes on her and tongue running along the inside of his cheek.

It felt wrong. Unprofessional. But nothing was happening, she knew that.

Mr. Norris was just… a lot.

She shook the memory away as she gathered her things, the only light in the office being her lamp and the red glow of the emergency exits.

Just as she shut off her lamp, a crack of lightning followed by the blinding light flickered through the windows and she groaned. Of course it would rain.

She looked down at her new shirt, knowing it was about to get soaked all over again because she didn’t have a coat or umbrella.

When she stepped outside, she rocked on her heels for a moment as she stood under the awning. Her eyes watched as rain pellets shot to the pavement and exploded against the already flooding streets of London.

Sighing, she held her bag close to her side and stepped out into the storm, the rain making quick work to drench her from head to toe as she walked.

She tried to hail a cab as she made her way towards the station. Anything to get out of her current predicament, eyes squinting against the blinding lights and the shadows playing tricks on her.

It wasn’t the safest scenario, she knew that. A woman out in the night, alone for that matter, was like a beacon for trouble.

So when a sleek black car slowed down she kept her head low and kept walking, her teeth chattering slightly and her heart racing before it came to an abrupt halt as a voice rang out from the vehicle.

Her name carried on the storm by a familiar voice.

She paused, her heels clicking against the puddles around her feet and she turned, trying to see through the window that had rolled down.

“Mr. Piastri?”

His expression for the most part was neutral, but his eyes glowed from the baseboard, looking at her like she was insane.

She probably looked insane. Wet strands of hair fell in her face and mascara was running down her cheeks in rivers of charcoal.

“Get in.”

“But sir—“

“Get in the car.”

His tone left no room for argument and she quickly slipped into the seat, the expensive smell of leather surrounding her and she watched as he reached a hand out to turn up the heat.

She still shivered, eyeing him like a deer in headlights as the car pulled away from the curb.

“I—“ she looked around the sports car, feeling a lump in her throat. “Your seats—“

His fingers flexed on the steering wheel, not looking at her. His whole body stiff. The air tense. “I’ll live.”

She blinked at him. Her mind not quite catching up. This was the second time she found herself alone with one of her bosses in a car that day. Only this time around the waters felt much more complicated to navigate.

He seemed agitated. Though his features were stoney and blank as per usual, there was something palpable circulating around him.

She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say anything. The silence felt awkward and she played with a wet strand of her hair for a moment. “Sir-“

“Why on earth were you out there walking? In the rain, might I add.” His fingers flexed again. “Alone”

Her mouth opened a couple of times. So he was annoyed at her? Her brows furrowed. “I had to work late.”

His jaw rolled slightly. “Right, Lando.” Her other boss’s name left his mouth like a curse. “I have no idea why he took you to that damned meeting. And now look at you. Wandering the streets—“

“I’m not five, you arse.” She snapped. Not loving his tone but she could mildly appreciate his concern. She had to then remind herself this was her boss and she bit her tongue, pulling her eyes away from him. “Sorry,” she muttered.

It was silent for a moment and she began to worry she had royally fucked up.

Mr. Piastri’s voice was quiet, his voice nearly as warm as the heat blowing out of the vents. “That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day.”

She froze for a moment before her fingers tightened on the hem of her skirt. Her stomach swirled a bit, a combination of worry and something else that was wholly inappropriate. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean—“

A light laugh left him, though it seemed more of an exhale.

He still wouldn’t look at her.

“It’s fine, your bluntness is appreciated. That being said, I prefer you didn’t call me anything such as a twat in front of my employees.”

She was being let in. Only a little bit. She couldn’t help it as she started to smile. “So only in private, then?”

She watched in fascination as that string pulled slightly at his mouth, his dark eyes sliding over to her for only a moment and it made her head spin. Her stomach swoop.

“Only in private,” Mr. Piastri muttered.

She felt like a line was being crossed. Just slightly. It was being carefully tread. Invaded. Redrawn. She knew better. Then again, maybe she was just delusional.

Her eyes then widened as she realised something. “Oh, I never told you my address.”

His fingers thrummed against the steering wheel, a nervous tick maybe? Did she make him nervous? The street lights made his eyes glow every few seconds and the smell of his rich cologne swirled around her.

He was quiet for a moment and she was about to just tell him where she lived to fill the silence when he finally spoke, the words snatching the air from her lungs.

“How about a drink?”

Her lips parted slightly, taken off guard by his suggestion. It was an offering. She knew that, she wasn’t stupid. But she still felt like she needed to pinch herself to see if this was real.

“Is that allowed?” She wanted to slap herself for the dumb question. She knew she needed to be smart about this but the air was hot and heavy, her head swirling, and when he looked at her again his eyes briefly danced down to her mouth and she threw her common sense out the window.

“It’s a yes or no, darling.”

His eyes held hers as street lights flicked by, the hum of the engine rattling her to her core and the world was spinning.

The word yes left her in an exhale.

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ⠀ ♱⠀ ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

It was reckless. Utterly stupid. Wildly inappropriate. A screaming HR violation.

But the wine had made the world feel fuzzy and made her feel like the world was at her fingertips. That at the end of the day, did it really matter?

The world was ending, so fuck it. Right?

That’s what she kept telling herself.

That’s what she told herself as he pulled up to a nice bar. That’s what she told herself as she let him order a bottle. It’s what she told herself as she downed another glass. What her mind whispered as they stumbled into the back of a cab, the liquor in her veins making the world come alive as she felt the brush of his body against hers in the back seat. It’s what she told herself as she laughed behind her hand as she watched him struggle to open the door to his flat.

It was only a quiet murmur as she leaned against the counter, watching him pour two more glasses. Taking in the drunken flush of his cheeks and how his usually perfect hair was disheveled. Unkempt.

He looked devastatingly handsome.

She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

She’d gone out drinking with plenty of coworkers before.

They hadn’t even properly touched.

It was fine.

Cordial.

Friendly.

Until it wasn’t.

She leaned over the table, looking at some of his records he had brought out when he was suddenly behind her. His presence a heavy shadow before slowly she felt his body press into hers, his hands falling right next to her own on the table. Surrounding her. He was restraining himself, just barely. His breath held as his mouth danced close to her neck.

Her eyes flicked down to their hands. Almost touching. Her heart beat in her ears.

She wrapped her pinky over his index finger.

Permission.

She was spun around, his mouth on hers, the sudden contact almost violent as he backed her against the window that overlooked London from his penthouse. Her head would’ve slammed into the glass, but his hand had snaked into her hair and absorbed the pressure.

His fingers twining, tight, and yanked. Making her mouth fall open in a moan and he all but lunged on the opportunity. Tongue slipping into her mouth and exploring, his own groan leaving him and he slowly became unbound.

She felt more intoxicated in the sight of him unraveling than any of the alcohol she had drank. Oscar Piastri was always so composed. It felt like a privilege to see him like this. A power trip to know she was the one undoing him.

She couldn’t think as his mouth slid down to her jaw. Couldn’t think as his teeth sunk in, biting and soothing. Couldn’t summon a thought as his thigh wedged between her legs making her moan.

She didn’t think about how he was her boss. Didn’t think about how he was too old for her. Didn’t think about how half of London could see her riding his thigh and his hands pulling up her skirt.

He pulled back slightly, eyelids heavy and his fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt.

“Did he buy you this?”

She felt dazed. Her hands falling lightly from his hair to his shoulders as she looked down at her blouse. “Oh, Mr. Norris—“

The sudden sound of fabric ripping cut her off, her gasp barely leaving her before he was on her again. Her shirt fell to the floor in tatters, the cool air biting at her skin and she shivered when his warm hands danced up her back to undo her bra.

Just as it fell to the floor he picked her up as if it was nothing, her legs easily wrapping around his waist as he carried her through his home.

He kicked open a door which she could only assume was his bedroom before she let out a quiet yell as he dropped her onto his bed.

She sat up in her elbows, her mouth dry as she watched him undo the buttons of his shirt.

“Take off your skirt.”

“I—“

His hand reached out and gripped her jaw, tight but not painful, making her look up at him.

God, he was devastating.

Brown hair fell over his eyes, his cheekbones looking carved from marble by the low lighting of his room and he stared down at her, his gaze lustful and coated in barely tempered violence.

“Do as you're told.”

“Yes, sir.”

His fingers slid down to her neck and tightened as he tugged her forward, landing a messy kiss on her lips before dropping back to continue undressing himself. All the while his watchful gaze stayed on her as he observed her slip out of her skirt.

When she went to reach for her underwear he slapped her hand away as he crawled on top of her, spreading her legs with his knees as he went.

Mr. Piastri laced his fingers with hers and dragged her hands up above her head, his lips dragging against her ear as he leaned down.

“You have been haunting me, I hope you know that.” His teeth dragged down her throat, making her gasp as he settled his weight between her hips. She could feel him. All of him. Her thin underwear not leaving much to the imagination.

Part of her couldn’t believe this was happening. The other part didn’t want to think at all.

He leaned back and picked up his tie from where he had thrown his shirt on the bed, holding eye contact as he leaned over her again to tie her wrists back, then looping it around his head board.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

She loved it.

Before she could realise what was happening, he was sliding down her body and pushing her knees back, up, and out. Mouth latching onto her through her underwear and her hips bucked up at the heat of his mouth.

It was dizzying. And a bit embarrassing if she were honest, given the noises that were leaving her mouth and her body felt like it was being scorched as he laughed into her before pulling her underwater aside, fingers sinking in.

She clenched around him, desperate for anything. More. Hands tugging on their restraints and her back arching off the bed.

He leaned up on one hand, the other still dragging in and out of her, smiling like a devil who had just struck a bargain.

“Oh you young thing,” he mused. He was watching her so carefully. His voice dropping into a tone she’d never heard him use before. “You’re dripping.”

A whine left her involuntarily and he shut his eyes briefly at the sound.

“This is wrong,” he muttered, but still he lowered himself to his knees, nose dusting along the inside of her thighs. Making her shiver in anticipation.

“Please,” she managed to get out, breathless as she watched him.

“God, forgive me.” And he dove in like a man starved, fingers picking up their pace, another added, his mouth latching onto her clit.

She was shamelessly grinding into her boss’s face.

He was fucking her with his fingers and tongue, making her see stars. That small voice in the back of her head mumbled what on earth am I doing? But it was quickly snuffed out as she came. Hard. All over his face and his name was a shout ripped from her lungs.

He was climbing over her again but the world was still flickering in and out of focus as she came down from her high. His face buried in her neck and she gasped, arms yanking down but they were still bound tight as he sank into her, pushing her well beyond overstimulation.

She cried out, feeling more so than hearing him laugh into her neck as he slowly pulled out before slamming into her again. The thrust was brutal and unforgiving. Delicious and painful. Electric.

Too much.

He leaned back, one hand on her waist to yank her down onto his cock as the other rubbed circles into her clit.

She began to shake her head, tears pricking her eyes, moaning and everything was too vibrant. She was trembling. Coming again already but he didn’t stop.

“I can’t, I can’t—“

“No?” He said softly, slowing down his digits and he began to pull out of her. “That’s too bad,” he tsk-d. The sudden emptiness felt like whiplash and she was about to backtrack what she said when he suddenly yanked her back down on his cock, his hips rolling forward to somehow get even deeper than before. “You’re going to be a good girl and take it, though. Aren’t you?”

“I— Sir, oh my god—“

His hand snaked around her throat, choking her as he fucked her. “Use your words.”

“Yes,” she gasped out, feeling light headed with the pressure of his palm.

His hips snapped against hers. A warning.

She quickly corrected herself. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Piastri’s hand left her throat and she sharply breathed in air, though it quickly left her again as he hand found his way back down to her cunt.

Barely a second later she was coming again, liquid squirting out and over his abdomen. It was almost painful, too much, too everything. Wonderful.

“God, what he would do to see you like this,” he muttered against her skin and she wasn’t sure she heard him right. Who? Her body tried to pull back as he kept thrusting into her, though he got more sloppy. Erratic. He was close.

Something snapped in her. A woman possessed, perhaps. Dazed and fucked out, maybe.

She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and met her hips up with his thrusts, deeper and painful. A moan mixed in with her voice as she said, “more.”

“Fuck,” he rasped out, fingers digging into her hips so hard it was going to leave bruises and she watched in fascination as he came. His head was thrown back, the muscles in his stomach tightened and sweat glistened along his body as she felt his release began to drip out of her as he slowed down his pace before coming to a stop with his hips sealed to hers.

He collapsed, arms briefly catching himself so he didn’t crush her but she didn’t mind. Everything was so hazy. It felt like heaven, having him so close.

She wanted to touch him, desperately, only to have the reminder her hands were still tied and they began to feel sore.

“Sir,” her voice was soft, scared to break the spell.

He lifted his head. He himself looked dazed, a beautiful mess she felt honored to see. Fucked out in his own way and his eyes drifted to her hands, that smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he reached up and untied her.

Her hands fell, the flesh tender around her wrists and she felt her heart lurch a little as he rested his head back down on her chest. Exhausted and still feeling the tail end of intoxication.

Slowly, her hands drifted into his hair, playing with it softly.

“Oscar,” he said. His voice made her pause as she felt his heartbeat slowing against her skin.

“What?”

He lifted his head to rest his chin on her sternum and her hands fell from his hair to hold his face, her thumbs dancing along his cheekbones. His eyes were glowing and his own hand reached out to tuck loose hair that had fallen behind her ear.

“Call me Oscar.”

She smiled slightly. “Only in private?”

He observed her for another moment, still hard to read but that was okay.

Eventually he leaned up, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of her head.

“Only in private.”

part two

Tag list: @theonottsbxtch @fortunapre @c8lap1nto @ashbone @taasgirl @stopeatread @dying-inside-but-its-classy (let me know if you’d like to be added to the list!)

[absolutelynotsanebaby]

I’m constantly thinking about how Cole is such a balanced mix of his parents. Obviously the first thing is that he looks like both of his parents (resembling Lou earlier in the show and then post-redesign more like Lilly, which is fun if you interpret it as him growing into his mothers features) but it goes past that right into his themes, fighting style, and morals especially.

So, his true potential episode has him lying to his dad and planning to steal the fangblade/blade cup. Everyone kinda knows this as the accidental coming out allegory but it’s VERY compelling to look at Lou’s reaction as him not even really being mad about Cole being a ninja. He seemed angry and disappointed in the fact that Cole wasn’t who he thought he was, in the sense of him not actually wanting to follow Lou’s footsteps and the fact that he was stealing the blade-cup. Lou specifically says these two lines; “I can’t be proud of any son who thinks stealing is right. And I’m not going to wait around to watch you make a mockery of our family’s legacy!” And then after their performance “more importantly I saw you fight. Those serpentine were up to no good, trying to steal the show, and I saw you stand up for what is right!”

(<- direct quotes are taken from this post by razzle-zazzle, which you should read btw, inspired me to finally write these thoughts down.)

(Also it’s worth noting Cole also denounces stealing later lmao, as seen in here.)

This is pretty direct proof that he values doing the right thing, and distinctly doing things the right way (<— also a trait cole VERY much shares). Which is something he did have to relearn and adjust upon understanding his son not doing exactly what he wants doesn’t have to be bad (self promo but this post goes into how Lou’s mindset affected Cole’s btw). The second statement is also very reminiscent of what Lilly says to Cole in MOTM, the “promise me you’ll always stand up for what is right” talk. To tie this together basically while MOTM is a very clear and thorough look at how Cole takes after Lilly, Lou is very present in his moral system too. Additionally, Lou is an incredibly passionate man, and clearly expresses and puts himself into dancing which very much mirrors how Cole treats being a ninja sometimes, and his arc about finding himself.

That segways nicely into the fact that Cole’s fighting style is ABSOLUTELY a mix of the strength and power of his mother, and the gracefulness of his father. You actually see Cole denounce his father’s grace by the way, way early before his true potential moment. He seemed insecure about it, which is certainly some kind of toxic masculinity thing because his younger self did not feel like that.

See, Way Of The Departed;

It compliments his arc about learning who he is, and becoming softer because of it really well. He doesn’t have to be insecure about his dad being elegant, because that isn’t a bad thing. He can learn to love dancing in his own way to, in a way that’s safe and his. He can incorporate it into how he fights, and this is something pointed out by @/razzle-zazzle but the tripple tiger sashay resembles an attack too.

Basically, Cole is both his parent’s child, and they equally influence the person he’s become, but he’s not just an arbitrary mix either. He takes the legacies of both and molds them into his own, for the better. He finds balance! It was always about balance with him.

[calypsolemon]

I keep stopping myself from making a post about this bc I keep getting the feeling like I got this idea from somebody else and I dont wanna present it as my own if thats the case. However I really haven't seen that many people actually talk about it so.... does anybody else out there think that maybe the 16 realms.... weren't originally separate?

Like just thinking about it. Wu was shocked that the merge came early, but he knew it would happen. Which means its like, a scheduled event that he was informed of, likely through his father. He also answered "yes" to Arin's question of if he caused the merge. Of course, Arin understood this to be a confession of direct responsibility, but simply though Wu's reactions in flashbacks alone we know the situation is more complicated than that. It's highly possible that the reason why he answered that way, was because he was supposed to do something to stop it, but failed to do so.

I know this is like, a lot of conjecture rn so bear with me, but if that assumption is indeed correct, it would mean that the sixteen realms need regular upkeep just to stay as separate places. And that..... would be kinda crazy if the 16 realms were created separate, right? Why would they be attracted to each other like magnets, only held apart by active force, if being separate was their natural state?

Then add in the fact that the show has repeatedly spoken of unity as a theme, and a force for good. Nya talks about how the ninja are not truly united with missing members of their team, the crossroads represent a unique blending of cultures that allow new bonds to form, characters learn and fight best when they are working in tandem with others they are close to. How is it that everyone is better, stronger, more in-tune with the universe, when they are working together, but the realms themselves are assumed to be most natural and healthy when segregated?

All this to say.... I think the realms were created as one, and something, some truly monumental and traumatizing event (perhaps.... the death of a source dragon?), caused the gods to see fit to divide the world. And ever since then, it's been desperately trying to fit itself together again, even though it could not return to what it once was, and the effects of joining again would wreak devastating consequences on the parts that could not be reconciled.

[anilyan]

It’s my birthday, so I’m taking the chance to spread my agenda! ^^

Do you remember what the scribe of Enkanomiya said? “The Primordial One may have been Phanes.” Wouldn’t that confusion be understandable if Phanes both was and wasn’t the Primordial One? Or rather, if was just one part of the Primordial One, aka his soul?

I will argue that Venti is Phanes, and also two things about Phanes (that are technically their own theory):

Phanes is the soul of the Primordial One, just like what Cocouik was to Ochkan

Phanes was created through the Chemical Marriage between the Primordial One and Istaroth

Yes, I am coming back with a refined version of my old “Venti is Phanes” theory, after studying and organizing my thoughts and what I knew about the lore. The old post was pretty messy.

(I actually spent weeks preparing posts about other aspects of the lore, but meanwhile we got the moons web event that kinda ruined my time to shine, along with some leaked artifacts that basically confirmed much of what I was theorizing about, so I missed my opportunity and the things I was about to bring up won’t feel as special anymore. To feel a bit better, I decided to go back to my true agenda - Venti brainrot, that is. But I will still incorporate important lore parts that I studied into this post, and expand on them properly over time.)

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Section 1: What is Phanes? 2 theories:

First, let me remind you of what the book Before Sun and Moon says:

“The Primordial One may have been Phanes. It had wings and a crown, and was birthed from an egg, androgynous in nature. But for the world to be created, the egg's shell had to be broken. However, Phanes, the Primordial One, used the eggshell to separate the "universe" and the "microcosm of the world."”

The next theories about Phanes, that I will present next followed by connecting it with Venti, may be true at the same time:

» Theory 1: Phanes was born from a Chemical Marriage between the Primordial One and Istaroth

Many ties between the PO and Istaroth are obvious, not just because she was very very likely a Shade, but also because she was probably the Moon-themed White Queen to the PO’s Sun-themed Red King, who joined in a Chemical Marriage. That produced the egg/pearl/wtv that birthed Phanes, necessary to the creation of the world.

Please notice that there is evidence that, at some point, Istaroth was the Ancient Seelie who married the Traveler from Afar, but that is not incompatible with the fact that she was bound to the PO first. In fact, I think that the fact that she was likely the Ancient Seelie is a crucial aspect, especially given the crown that she dropped, which in turn was probably the golden-ring artifact created by the Rhine Maidens / moons who confered power to the PO. I have posts about that on the way.

Let me explain. I will summarize what a chemical marriage is (I will eventually make a post fully dedicated to this concept, and to show in detail why all the pairs I mention from genshin fit this doomed narrative).

The chemical marriage / chemical wedding is a concept in alchemy that represents an union of opposites: male and female, sun and moon, gold and silver, sulphur and mercury, body and spirit, red King and white Queen. DON���T mistake this with actual marriages or ship stuff, btw.

It’s meant to produce a new and improved product, the Rebis (an androgynous being, sometimes called the Philosopher’s child), or according to some tales, the Philosopher's Stone. That stone is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold or silver.

(I can’t help but recall that Venus/the morning star, aka Istaroth, in Chinese, is called Jīn-xīng (金星), the golden planet of the metal element - and Istaroth and her rhine maidens/moons/fates are likely responsible for the golden ring/crown mentioned in the drama Der Ring des Nibelungen.)

According to Jakob, the Seal of Chymical Marriage can be used to seal off the source of life, aka the Primordial Sea, which sounds similar to creating a world/pearl/philosopher’s stone/egg/dream bubble that floats in the sea of quanta or wtv is the logic used across Hoyoverse’s worlds. Basically, a necessary process to create the world, or perhaps reshape it and change it to be inhospitable for dragons yet hospitable for humans, essentially what the Primordial One did at the very beginning. In other words, the eggsehll was used to separate the sea, a sea of elements and souls and such that granted shapeshifting and abilities to the dragons, like a sort of hivemind that is incompatible with the individualism of humans. For more info on that, check the Men of Lithin book.

The Chemical Marriage is hinted at by Albedo, through the stages of the Magnum Opus in his Ascension - although in the game, the 2 last stages are swapped, with Rubedo coming before Citrinitas (perhaps to reinforce the goal to obtain gold) in the game.

That process also sometimes involves a dove. It’s in consideration to the 3 parts of a person, body (the king), soul (the seelie) and spirit (the dove), and in Christianity, the dove often represents the Holy Spirit. The marriage is sometimes blessed by a descending dove from starry heaven. The dove sometimes is the one that brings the ring. There are other trinities that can be associated with this.

Last but not least, here are all the pairs I could think of from Genshin that execute this, that I will elaborate in detail on a different post. They are made of a Seelie or prophetic being who shared forbidden knowledge with a King, who tried to save humanity by creating a hivemind, bringing tragedy: Traveler from Afar and Seelie (who may still be Istaroth), Decarabian and Amos, Zhongli and Guizhong, Deshret and the Goddess of Flowers, Liloupar and Ormazd, Remus and Sybilla, Ochkan and Ixlel… and potentially in the future either the Traveler with the Abyss Twin, or the Traveler with Paimon.

We can also compare Istaroth and PO to Chronus and Anake, two serpentine beings who created the egg that birthed the world. But according to some mythologies, what came from the egg was Phanes instead.

It’s technically more complicated than that, here is a list of alternate possibilities I found for his origins:

Phanes hatched from the egg of Chronos and Ananke

Phanes hatched from the cosmic/orphic egg placed in Aether (who was the personification of the bright upper sky and another son of Chronos)

Phanes is a first-born deity who emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe, and is a god of creation, light and goodness. The Abyss part is extra intriguing because the world has an abyss half, and some in-game books even compare wine with the Abyss, and also with the idea that drinking the abyss/wine is a way to acquire Forbidden Knowledge - check this video for more on that.

Sometimes Nyx is also involved - she is Phanes counterpart. In some tales, she is Phane’s wife, sometimes his daughter, and in others she creates an egg from which Phanes is born, so wtv. I don’t know who Nyx is (besides being likely The Night Mother from the book of the Six Pygmies), but it’s pretty clear that the Abyss half is under her responsibility in some way.

If you refer back to the quote from the book Before Sun and Moon…:

It doesn’t clarify if Phanes and the PO are the same entity or not, the scribe just decides to treat them as the same. I have my own explanation for it, in the next section precisely, but my answer would be “more or less”

It says that Phanes was birthed from an egg, but then proceeds to give a different purpose to the egg, or at least to the eggshell

Here is my interpretation: The PO and Istaroth created an egg/pearl with a chemical marriage, and Phanes was born from an egg. Once he broke the eggshell to be born, the eggshell was used (unclear if by the PO or Phanes) to change Teyvat, to create the world as it is now: a bubble separated from the rest of the universe by a fake sky, less hospitable for dragons, where Abyssal matter and the Primordial Sea stuff are separated from humans, etc. So technically, yeah, Phanes was involved in at least one step for creating the world, and that guaranteed step was the breaking of the eggshell.

This is not in the book, but in the Gnostic Chorus custcene, there is a black serpent tied surrounding the gnostic/genesis pearl. The pearl and an egg are sort of interchangeable, and according to mythology, Phanes is a figure that has the serpent Ananke coiled around him. So that matches up well.

» Theory 2: Phanes is the Primordial One’s soul, just like what Cocouik was to Ochkan

Och-kan, a half-human half-dragon being who hated dragons, sabotaged the plans of his father (the Sage of the Stolen Flame) by following the human Pyro Sovereign Xbalanque - and, after Xbalanque’s death, forbid people from worshiping either the Night Kingdom or even other gods. In his quest to save humans, he became a Tyrant, whose erratic behavior only got worse after excavations that led him to meet Ixlel.

Ixlel was a prophetic figure that used to lead the dragon civilization of the area in the past, who at first was an ally of Och-kan but, upon sharing secret knowledge and prophecies with him, was betrayed. She got revenge by convincing him to use his draconic nature to power his city, by putting his Soul in the Core of Chu'ulel (who later became Cocuik, freed only much later by Bona, after the Cataclysm). Even after Och-kan was overthrown by rebels, he couldn’t die because of that split between body and soul, and his now fully dragon body was used by his father to be an Abyssal conduit, until the interference of the Traveler in the present.

This story has many more details, and once again matches the concept of Chemical Marriage and prophecies that doom Kings, so you can check my post on the topic for proper details.

There are several similarities between Venti and Cocouik:

Color scheme and overall shape is the same, that was literally what everyone first thought when seeing it

In wisp form, he had 3 wings, or rather, 3 separate parts that didnt even connect to his body, they just floated behind him, sort of like the wings of the twins at the start of the game, and exactly like the 3 wings of Cocouik. And in human form, his Vision has a single wing with 3 parts.

The power that Cocouik displays against the dragon resembles the power that Venti lends to the traveler to use against Dvalin in the flying sequences. That is the power to supress the corrosive power of the Abyss - it’s what Venti uses, and it’s in the description of Cocouik’s ability too

The description of Cocouik also mentions a halo, within which the Traveler is protected form the Abyss, and halos are often associated with angels

So… if all of those things are comparable with Venti, why would the fact that Cocouik is the soul of a dragon not be?

Oh, right, there was a sus leak that broke my mind months ago and seemed completely nonsensical, but since I started cooking this theory, I can’t help but look back at it. It claimed that Venti was the guide of the Primordial One. Humm… yeah, if Venti was the soul of the PO, I could see that. Maybe he is assuming Istaroth’s role now that she is gone in supporting the PO?

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List of EVERYTHING sus and interesting about Venti

Some of the following things will correlate to the theories presented above, while others are just fun fancts that I didn’t know where to place.

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Appearance

» Wings:

I already discussed the relevancy of Venti’s angel form and how that ties with being a Seelie, and potentially cursed at first. But the wings are also relevant for another reason: Phanes is described has having wings.

But there is more:

Both in his fake Vision and in wisp form, he only has wings on one side of his body. Just like Cocouik. Possibly hinting at an incomplete nature, or at a duality of natures (dragon and seelie, or the others I already considered)

The wisp wing is formed sort of by 3 wings/parts, and the same is sort of true for the wing in his Vision. The number 3 might just be a coincidence, but it would also fit well with the connections between a chemical marriage and the involvement of the dove, with that third presence representing how a person has 3 parts, body, soul, and spirit. And I already argued why I think Phanes is the PO’s soul.

It’s also possible that this connects with the idea that angels supposedly have 6 wings. So by just having 3 or 3 parts, that is **half of that, aka half angel/**seelie

Funnily enough, in Archon Form he has a wing at each side, and I can’t fully point why that contrast given the previous 2 cases. It’s similar to what happens to Arlecchino in boss form.

Contrary to what the statues portray, the wings in Archon form don’t connect to his back, instead seemingly fusing with his cloak. In Wisp form, and Cocouik’s case, the wings also didn’t connect. That resembles the wings of the twins at the start of the game, the mechanical wings of The Sage of the Stolen Flame, and the wings of the Seelies/envoys always depicted in murals.

In Archon form, the wings have a circular metallic part further hinting at how the wings might be mechanical/not a part of the body. Besides that, the shape has 3 tips, and strongly resembles the wings of the boss Lord of Eroded Primal Fire / Gosoythoth when imitating the form of the Pyro Sovereign. Once again connecting Venti with dragons, although dragons and seelies are really just variations of the same species.

» Other characteristics:

Phanes is also described as androgynous, which, yeah, Venti definitely is. The androginity also matters in the context of a chemical marriage between a union of opposites, since Phanes is supposed to reunite the trates of both “parents”, and the gender-neutral appearance is not the only fusion relevant here. If he turns out to be part dragon part seelie, that is just as relevant.

One thing lacking in Venti, that Phanes has, is a crown. Not even his Archon form has one, at least, not so far. But some people point out that the base of his beret hat has a golden intricate line that could kinda be interpreted as a mini-crown.

Another interesting point about his appearance is the fact that, in wisp form, the top of his head was shaped like an apple, with even a stem and leaf-shape on top. I will talk about the relevance of apples next.

His whole wisp form heavily resembles Cocouik, the soul of a dragon, and I already went over why that matters in one of my theories. The powers Venti lends to the traveler to shoot against Dvalin also resemble the powers of Cocouik used against Ochkan.

And ofc, he has a Cecilia in his hat, and I will go over the relevance of that.

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“When I first arrived here, I too was like Dvalin, cursed and left to waste”

During the Mondstadt Archon quest, Venti says that "When I first arrived here, I too was like Dvalin, cursed and left to waste".

Here are some guesses of mine that could explain that:

We know that his Archon form presents him as an angel (source: manga, official arts, and in-game arts and statues) and that angels are seelies (thanks to Natlan’s Archon quest). We also know that the Seelies and Moon kingdom fell, probably symbolizing the end of the Unified Civilization, as a consequence of the marriage between a Seelie and a Traveler from afar, who in turn was likely the Second Who Came, who waged war more a less at the same time as Nibelung and his War of Vengeance. Refer to my (future) other theories for more details. What matters here is that, after that event, the Seelies were cursed to lose their minds and original form, thus why they present as we currently see them in-game. And if angels were seelies, that was probably Venti’s fate too, thus why he showed up as a wisp to the bard.

Since he is comparing himself with Dvalin, maybe his curse was instead related with abyssal corruption. We don’t know what happened to the Primordial One who is currently afk, but if Venti was his soul, and considering that Nibelung used forbidden knowledge and maybe even abyssal energy (unsure of how much those two things overlap), perhaps Nibelung tainted the PO in the confrontation.

Alternatively, maybe he was cursed at existence, which could also explain how he somehow got involved with the bard and the rebellion in Mondstadt and possibly didn't have a strong identity before that? If he was derived from the primordial one, and the PO was the Usurper who took the power away from the original dragons, I don’t think it would be unheard of in stories for the off-spring of authority figures to be cursed by those who hated them.

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Knowledge of secret information, and songs of the past, present and future

» About General types of knowledge:

He is the one narrating the Gnostic Chorus cutscene, so he knows about the origins of Teyvat and other important stuff.

He ruled Mondstadt for a long time alongside Istaroth (the Thousand Winds temple was used to worship both of them), so she might have shared relevant knowledge with him from the period of the Unified Civilization, and even from before that.

He knows of others worlds, and titans: "In other, distant worlds…Pangu gave his blood to form the rivers and seas…the gods sacrificed Purusha and cut his body to pieces, and then fashioned all living beings with those parts…the brain of the giant Ymir became clouds. Their sacrifices seeded life in the unliving cosmos. These songs sing of the primeval ones."

In fact, he tells the Traveler about that in the manga prologue, and I don't think none of the things there were discarded - in fact, judging by the element of the traveler (Pyro) in this scene, I and some people speculated for a while that we would return to Mondstadt after Natlan.

» About music - I have a whole post on the importance of music for Teyvat incoming:

He claims to know all songs of the past, present and future, which even denotes knowledge that transcends time, fitting for the son of Istaroth, the Thousand Winds of Time - and also for a Seelie/Angel, which we know he is given his Archon form, who were always prophets.

Istaroth is heavily connected to the moons, who controlled the Fates - past, present, and future - and who were named after song and poetry: Aria, Sonnet, and Canon. The loading screen song, that is the theme of Genshin, is even called Dream Aria. Dream Aria might very well be the Sourcesong that I’m going to elaborate on soon.

Seelies/angels are in turn connected to the moons, and they are at least from the period of the Unified Civilization. They, just like possibly the dragons who originally inhabited Teyvat, know well the value of song. That once again matches with Venti, in part because of his angel archon form, and in part because of how he values song as a way to preserve the truth.

People theorize that Venti is trying to find the Sourcesong, or even knows it already, thus why he knows songs from past, present, and future. According to the Aranara, all songs in the world derive from the Sourcesong, that can diverge into different memories, just like a river diverges into creeks, yet just like creeks eventually flow into the sea, the songs converse.

In other words, that definition might hint at the creation of a hivemind and fusing the souls of the people into a collective conscience, similar to what some God-Kings ended up doing in their attempts at saving humanity and controlling Fate, with Remus being the most relevant since he used the Symphony of Fate to weave the threads, and fates, as if they were strings of an intrument. They only attempted those feats after meeting with Seelies. [Check my future post about Chemical Marriage to see an exhaustive list of all cases of that in genshin]

Venti also canonically states he can read the the rhythmic flow of energy dispersed by the Abyss Order and copy its magic with his lyre - that was how he took down the barriers during the Archon Quest.

His constellation is called Carmen Day, "God of Songs", although in practice that's the title he is less refered as. As 4clover31 on tumblr added: "Carmen also means God's Vineyard, plus, the term Carme or Carmen was used by Romans to reference a poem with a ritual and propitiatory tone."

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Venti’s strength

Funnily enough, I don’t find this point relevant for my theory, because even if he turns out to be the weakest Archon currently, there can be many explanations for that, and that is not indicative of his original strength. So it’s possible that he was extremelly powerful and still the soul/son of the PO, while being weak now.

But here is a list of what the fandom usually points out, and the different sides of the argument:

Venti is currently weak:

That’s what he claims, justifying it by saying that the strength of an Archon depends on how much faith the people of the Nation have in their Archon. Since he doesn’t actively rule Mondstadt, and people are free from his influence, he sort of implies that they don’t believe in his enough and that he his willing to let his powers pay the price for his ideals

He hasn’t showcased particularly strong powers even when Mondstadt was in crisis, or when trying to stop Signora from taking away the Gnosis.

We also know he has been gone for a long time, returning to Mondstadt during the Stormterror crisis, so it’s possible that he hasn’t regained his powers.

Maybe he was strong when returning to Mondstadt at present, but he delivered the Anemo Authority to Dvalin by the end of the Archon quest, so even if he lied initially, he is actually weaker now.

Venti is currently strong:

People who defend this argue by using Venti’s own definition of what grants power to an Archon, basically by pointing out how, in some ways, he is more worshipped than many other Archons, even if he doesn’t use that to rule the people. He has a Church, people in Mondstadt clearly pray to Barbatos and mention him often, and they completely adhere and live according to his ideals

As such, there is no reason for him to have lost the powers he once presented, like when he terraformed the land of Mondstadt and also completely changed its weather (after Old Mondstadt got rid of Decarabian, since at the time Mondatadt was covered in snow)

Consequently, Venti simply pretended to be weak out of respect for the autonomy and independence of the humans

Some people who believe this think he was just pretending until the Gnosis was taken, while others think he handed out a fake Gnosis and didn’t even try to resist Signora, and there is even people who think he lost the Gnosis but that hasn’t affected his powers

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Cecilias

The only characters in the game connected with Cecilias are: Venti, Istaroth (we see that in Ei’s second story quest), and Albedo (a prototype primordial human, who uses Cecilias as his Ascencion material too)

Cecilias were confirmed in an event, and then at the start of Natlan, to represent “the true feelings of the prodigal son”. But that information actually is as old as his announcement, way back in 2019.

An inactive user in this post found that the name Cecilia possibly came from a Latin word meaning "blind", and according to this source, “Cecilia is as much to say as the lily of heaven, or a way to blind men.” SexyPoro also commented that it’s a variant of the word caecus, that can mean other variations of blind, such as Devoid of light, Vague, Aimless, Invisible, Hidden, Secret, Obscure

Fun fact, Caerus, that sounds a lot like caecus, is an alternatively spelling of Kairos, another of Istaroth’s names. Kairos is a Greek god that resembles Hermes, and who needs wind to fly. Guess that might explain why she ruled Mondstadt alongside Venti for a while, like the Mondstadt saying goes, seeds of stories need to be brought by the wind before they can be cultivated by time.

The Saint Cecilia is a virgin martyr in christianity, and the patron of musicians, composers and poets.

Cecilias are also an important symbol in HI3. They are the symbol of the House Schariac, known for Divine Maidens, warriors who have a chance of taking in the Holy Blood. The Abyss Flower in that game, a ‘Divine Key’ and weapon from the civilization’s Previous Era made specifically to kill herrschers, is also a Cecilia. It’s very possible that Istaroth/Kairos turns out to be an expy of HI3’s Cecilia. She’s known for wielding the Abyss Flower.

The closest real life inspiration would be the flower trillium, which represent the Holy Trinity in Christianity, in turn correlated with the chemical marriage (remember when I mentioned the addition of the dove so that the number 3 represented body, soul and spirit? And how those 3 parts are important for parallels between Cocouik and Ochkan?)

Cecilias look a lot like triquetras, once again connected with the Holy Trinity in Christianism, while in Celtic culture it represents the triple goddesses (3 goddesses that function as a whole, like the Moirai or Norse Norns, who in turn are a bit like the Tribbies of HSR and the 3 moons/fates of genshin). Triquetras are a recurring symbol in Genshin.

Everything here hints at the importance of Venti’s birth and lineage. And while he might just be connected to Istaroth and things stop there, and it would be enough to justify that importance, it’s still possible that it means a little more.

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Venti and apples, the fruit of Fate

Here is a list of every connection between Venti and apples that I could find:

In his wisp form, the top of his head is shaped like an apple, including stem and leaf.

He is always asking for apples, even as payment. He also offers them sometimes. He also really enjoys apple cider.

While terraforming Mondstadt, he created the Golden Apple Archipelago

Speaking of golden apples, he literally offers one in one of his birthday arts, and the text that accompanies it is one of the most suspicious things ever: “It is written that there is a whole tiny world hidden inside an apple core. Here, this half is for you. Let's take a stroll in the tiny little world. But remember to keep it a secret because... you're the only one I want to bring there.” Please keep this in mind.

Mondstadt is a land full of apples. There are a few apple trees in Liyue too, and ofc thishas to do with the inspirations behind Mondstadt, so it’s a tenue connection, but still fitting.

Especially in anime, Apples are often depicted as the fruit of Fate (look no further than Mawaru Penguindrum), and in Inazuma, the girl giving Fortune Slips is called Gendou Ringo, with Ringo meaning ‘apple’ in Japanese.

In Sethian Gnosticism, in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they succumb to the serpent’s temptation and eat the forbidden fruit (often imagined as an apple) from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That is depicted as a good thing, and as the first step towards freedom from Yaldabaoth (a demiurge, chaos entity and false god, who keeps the souls of people trapped in physical bodies).

I can’t help but wonder if the connection with apples means that he has secret knowledge and awareness of fates and the future, and is waiting for someone else to learn it too, to assume control of Fate or to break free.

If he derived from the PO, that would also made him sort of serpent/dragon-like, or at least part dragon part seelie/angel. He is probably holding fate in his hands - and if an apple contains a tiny world, according to what he said, holding it is not too different from holding the Genesis Pearl - once again tying him with the Gnostic Chorus.

The fact that Venti has only offered one half of the apple in his birthday art may connect with the fact that Phanes only rules half of the world, while the other half, potentially the Abyss, belongs to Nix, the Night Mother. It may alternatively connect to the idea of Chemical Marriage and union of opposites, since that seems to be a fundamental pattern in Teyvat, as I already mentioned.

(Thank you to u/HashtagLowElo on reddit for reminding me of this) In Lyney's teaser, when Lyney is sitting at the bard with the drunkard, Lyney took his drink and transformed it into an apple scented wine. As the man closed his eyes to drink it, Lyney transformed it into an apple before talking about the connection between miracles and magic tricks while also going on to hold the moon. So, the apple was somewhat compared to the moon.

The Golden Apple is specifically relevant in mythology. For example, in Greek Mythology, the Golden Apple of Discord was thrown by Eris at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, leading to the Judgement of Paris and the Trojan War. In the Garden of the Hesperides, golden apples were guarded by a dragon and were part of Hercules' labors. In Irish Mythology, golden apples are depicted on the Silver Branch of the Otherworld.

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Sacramental Wine, Dionysus and Phanes

Some myths say that Phanes was Dionysus (god of wine… amongst other things), or Eros (god of love, yes I’m simplifying), and oh boy isn’t Venti the god of all of that too? Although this is complicated since it has to do with gods being iterations of past gods and such.

Okay, this gets less obvious now. Phanes is a first-born deity who emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe, and is a god of creation, light and goodness. The Abyss part is extra intriguing because the world has an abyss half, and some in-game books even compare wine with the Abyss, and also with the idea that drinking the abyss/wine is a way to acquire Forbidden Knowledge.

Let’s keep talking about wine. I have to start by recommending this video by Ashikai that I used for a lot of the info that follows.

Sacramental Wine is consumed after sacramental bread, in celebration of the Eucharist. The Catholic Church maintains that by the consecration, the substances of the bread and wine actually become the substances of the body and blood of Christ, and in genshin, a similar process happens when a being consumes the body/blood of gods - sometimes even inheriting powers and an extended lifespan, although corruption as well.

The different types of liquids/elixirs in genshin can even be compared to real life ones: leyline liquid is nectar, primordial seawater is absinthe, and forbidden knowledge is wine. Refer to Ashikai’s video for explanations on the first two, but regarding wine, in the book A Drunkard’s Tale, a character says: “What you humans call wine, we wolves call the abyss”. I already shared how many things connected to Venti relate to the Abyss, from Cecilias to the origins of Phanes.

Fungi (more specifically, yeast) are required to make wine, for the processes of fermentation, and you can see in the list of game examples below how much fungi are relevant in the process of eucharistic rites and how often they are sacramental, as a way to grant powers or memories. Mushrooms in a circle also form the so-called fairy-rings, and besides the importance of rings in the context of genshin as objects that confer power to god-kings, they are also considered a portal. They are also called witch’s rings.

» Mondstadt and wine

Mondstadt is heavily known for its wines, and not just for the production of it. During the distiling process, the portion of alcohol that evaporates is even callled Angel’s Share, the name of Diluc’s tavern. Angels, or seelies, in turn tend to have alcoholic beverages associated with them (really, watch Ashikai’s video for more evidence).

Wine breewing is also heavily connected to witches, who have strong connections with Mondstadt. The witches are also connected to Venti, as revealed in the second Windblume Festival.

Speaking of witches, I already mentioned how witches’ rings or fairy rings are made of mushrooms and considered portals.

Albedo is a famous alchemist created by the witch Rhinedottir. Alcohol is one of the possible solvents used in alchemy, known as alkahest. In Lulian alchemy, quintessence is a solvent distilled from wine, sometimes called aether. Alkahest is the ascension material used for the sword Cinnabar Spindle, and cinnabar in turn refers to the Rubedo stage of the Magnum Opus. That’s typically the final stage, although genshin swaps it, with citrinitas/gold, but usually the Magnum Opus ties with the Chemical Marriage - you know, the thing I said that created Phanes.

Oceanids are often associated with turning water into Wine. The weapon Dialogues of the Desert Sages supports that idea. The oceanid of Springvale, also sometimes called a fairy, blessed/cursed Diona to always make great alcoholic beverages. Oceanids also strongly resemble Hydro Idolons, and Idolons are the kind of ghost most associated with Istaroth, even being one of the names for the Sin Shades from Enkanomiya.

In the Alchemy Ascension event, conveniently said by Venti while standing with Diona, he says “If alchemy has the power to transform matter… I wonder if it could also be used to turn water into wine?”

Kaeya’s Skewers are soaked in Death after Noon, Kaeya’s favorite drink, and if you check the list of examples, you can see that the medicine for Caribert required drawing water in the early AfterNoon, and it was used to water the mushrooms growing on the body of Caribert’s dead mom. The drink is also made with absinthe. The drink, or Kaeya’s skewers, are also mentioned in many sus quests, like Canotila quest about dissolving people and their memories, and in a dialogue with Xamaran.

» Examples of sacramental food/wine in genshin

The desert is full of such examples, from Apep who got to eat King Deshret after his death to gain his knowledge, to the Consecrated Beasts (”consecreated” even means “blessed”.

Jacob in Fontaine also turned into a Iniquitous Baptist abyssal creature after consuming the flesh of a dragon, and it’s possible that other abyss creatures - not hillichurls - went through a similar process, especially considering how all of them have a type named after religious positions (even mages, since the word comes from “Magi” who was a Zoroastrian priest).

Rukkhashava mushrooms, in CN, are called Rukkhadevata Sacramental Mushrooms. Before the description change, it said that the Akademia Sages consumed them to honor the sacrifice of the goddess, and remember her wisdom, like in a Eucharistic ritual. This mushroom is based on the Reishi mushroom (believed to give immortality in Taoism). Wanderer, who tried to ascend to godhood, and Collei who contains remnants of a snake god, need this as an ascension material.

In the first Caribert quest, we see a red/cinnabar version of these mushrooms. They grew in the body of Clothar’s dead wife, and while mushrooms grow on wood, Norse mythology believes that humans were carved from trees. He also had to draw water in the early afternoon (Death After Noon is the name of Kaeya’s favorite drink) to tend to them, and for the medicine. The medicine for Caribert created from those mushrooms had to be blessed by a god, and it followed a similar recipe to the Memory Recipe taught by the Aranara: a Rukkhashava mushroom variation, a lotus (Kalpalata/Barsam), and a purple flower (Sumeru rose/Yajna grass). It’s a sacramental beverage.

Fun fact, the taxonomic name for the Reishi mushroom is ganoderma, and there are mushroom-like aquatic ascension materials called Sea Ganoderma in genshin. Their description says “In the folktales told in a certain land, these mouthless, noseless creatures are the transformed souls of children who died young.” They are used by Yae Miko (guards a Irminsul tree) and Kazuha (ganoderma really like mapple trees)

Xamaran, the giant mushroom in the Chasm, is often taken as the irminsul tree of the area (it even looks like a dragon tree), or instead as a mushroom growing in the body of the main Irminsul (like how mushrooms grow on trees). The name sounds like Shahmaran, a mythological being from Persian mythology who was half human half snake, and the name can be broken into "queen/king of serpents" - and serpents in genshin are somewhat interchangeable with dragons. There are tales both about the queen and the king. What matters is that in the Queen's tale, her flesh leads to recovery, her broth leads to knowledge, and her extract leads to death.

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Confused timelines and slumbers

I don’t think there are many instances of this, but there are a few examples that fans point of Venti possibly confusing timelines - either because the wind is free from the confines of time, or because of Venti’s connections with Istaroth and even poential prophetic abilities.

One is during Mondstadt’s AQ, when he tells the Traveler to meet at the “usual place” when we have never met him there before.

Another is a voiceover hidden in a menu, where he greets the Traveler with “Ah, Traveler, we meet again! What? You don't remember me? Ahaha, well, allow me to join you on your quest once again.”

He had to dissapear and go into slumber multiple times, usually after seemingly using a lot of his power: some time after establishing new Mondstadt and making sure that the humans got it (we see him waking up in the manga and realizing how corrupt the aristocracy had become), some time after helping Vennessa win and form the Knights and still taking some time to raise Dvalin, and after the fight against Durin. People theorize it’s only after moments where he spends lots of power, but since we don’t know the exact circunstances that made him go to slumber for the first 2 examples, it’s hard to say.

There was an old reddit post by u/ahellbornlady (thank you to Jolita_Bonita on ao3 for finding it for me) that even theorized that Venti met the Traveler not in some kind of past life/time that was reset - I have seen people theorize that too but it's not really what I believe - but rather in dreams, since they were both in slumber after the Cataclysm. It's even possible that the poem that Venti shares during the first Windblume event - that changes in CN depending on the gender of the Traveler, proving it's about them - was about how they met. It has some interesting verses like "Who was it that stroked your bloodied, determined visage. By stream flowing small, by boulder standing large." and "Who was it that embraced your weary yet noble soul, in dreams deep, in skies soaring." I have an upcoming post about dreams too.

He also wakes up in this location in the manga, that strongly resembles a location shown in the trailer of the anime, so people guess it will be important. The location even shares one of the symbols of Venti and Istaroth (edited pics from https://x.com/Yivvee/status/1899111907627516062/photo/2).

This also looks a lot like a portal, which is interesting considering that the base of his big statue has inscribed at the base "Gateway to Celestia" (thak you to 4clover31 on tumblr for the reminder)

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Illusions, fake identities and lots of pretending

Voicelines from Archons say “About Venti” instead of “About Barbatos”, although all other gods are refered to with their god name. There are exceptions in the patterns of speaking about the topic from the archons, for example Furina is an obvious exception, Nahida never met the other archons, etc... Still, when mentioned, he is never called Barbatos. Even Neuvilette calls him Anemo Archon.

Even in the Archon quest, in the same conversation where he tells us about allogenes and Gnosis after the confrontation with Signora, Paimon says that the “Tone-Deaf Bard is just one of the many Barbatos incarnations” - I wonder if the CN text says this as well...

He doesn't currently use Barbatos' Lyre. Now, that might just be because he is pretending to not be Barbatos, and consequently he couldn't just demand it from the church, as we have seen to an extent in the Prologue. But there might be more to it, since he could have just opted to take that lyre with him or hid it somewhere else before going into slumber, instead of delivering it to the church. So what if that is not his lyre (it could be from the Nameless Bard, or from Istaroth), or what if it is the Lyre of Barbatos but he is just a fragment of Barbatos?

Celestia also doesn't seem to like him (Voiceline Mora about Venti - IV). Could it be because he refuses to take the throne? Because it just doesn't approve of his behavior and attitude? Or maybe because he isn't fully Barbatos? And yet, his bigger statue in Mondstadt has incribed at the base "Gateway to Celestia"...

He has shown his illusion abilities by faking the repair of the Lyre right before Signora showed up to steal his Gnosis, which makes some people believe that the Gnosis he gave away was fake.

Winking. He is always winking. In most official arts, and very often in-game too. Why would that be relevant? Because eyes, especially having eyes covered/closed, are very significant in genshin and hint at the ability to perceive the truth instead of the illusion/dream created by the Irminsul. Check my future post about patterns in the Hoyoverse for more info - I will try to list every example there, from Kaeya’s legacy, to fictional Fischl, God-Kings and their artifact sets, and ofc Irmin. He might not be immune to the Irminsul changes, but he certainly tries to combat that with stories.

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Queen Gnosis

Arguably the most important piece in chess, not counting the King and its limitations, and it’s also the piece that Venti had (maybe still has, depending if the theory that he gave away a false Gnosis to Signora is correct or not)

Funnily enough, some connect the chess queen's fluid movement to the moon’s shifting cycles, and queens were often linked to fertility and cosmic balance, just like moons were.

It might also be a hint to him currently representing Istaroth’s role in her absence.

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Dissapearances for long periods, Death and Leylines

In the Orphic tradition, Phanes is said to be a dying and resurrecting god, killed by the Titans who devoured his flesh but rescued by Athena and resurrected by Zheus. Maybe, to which extent, we could correlate the Titans (Athena and Zeus) to the dragons, Istaroth and the Primordial One.

Venti dissapears for long periods of time, and dying and resurrecting could be a way to explain that.

Dionysus, the god of wine - who, like I mentioned before, is often equated with Phanes - dies at the hands of the Titans, and that has been considered the central myth of Orphism. I elaborate more about Orphism, and specifically Orpheus, in a following section.

Dionysus was the patron god of the Orphics, who they connected to death and immortality, and he symbolized the one who guides the process of reincarnation. That strongly resembles Venti’s ability to help souls pass… to wtv is the place of the souls, Irminsul or something, like he did in his story quest, and that is likely what allows souls to reincarnate in Teyvat as well.

Unsure how that works exactly, but Istaroth and Venti definitely have some strange connections with death and leylines. And since this post is about Venti and not his mom, let’s also not forget that he shines in the leyline color multiple times too. In fact, his Archon outfit has more blue than exactly green, and same for his wisp form, although that might be an extension of angels being seelies.

It’s fairly known that the artifact categories correspond to the Primordial One and the 4 Shades, and one of them is the Plume of Death. It’s usually associated with Ronova, the Shade of Death, but even so Venti is heavily associated with feathers. Even in Natlan, those who carry an ancient name have it engraved in a feather-shaped obsidian toten, in turn having connections to the Night Kingdom.

Venti and Istaroth are mostly associated with Cecilias, but they also have some light connections with dandelions - more specifically, Venti is the only anemo character that dandelions are drawn towards after being blown, and the parts that fly are basically seeds of dead flowers. That ties in well with their quote about “seeds of stories” (in other words, the memories of people), and their connections with leylines and souls of people who passed on. In Teyvat, souls are often refered to as flowers in metaphors (I will expand on that in a future post about symbols in the game).

Venti also has a few connections with Windwheel Asters, basically stars (and Aster is also the beginning of Astaroth, one of the inspirations behind Istaroth). And stars and constellations are in turn heavily connected to the fates of people in Teyvat.

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Similarities to Orpheus the Bard

For the Greeks, Orpheus was a legendary bard, and the founder and prophet of the so-called "Orphic" mysteries.

He perfected the lyre invented by Hermes. Venti also probably perfected the lyre of the bard, and (noticed by 4clover31 on tumblr) in the Chasm there is a letter that mentions his lyre: "Not if my destructive self were made to be the lyre of Barbatos".

The suffering and death of the god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans has been considered the central myth of Orphism - and I already mentioned before how Dionysus and wine and all of that have their own connections to Venti. There is also the fact that Phanes belongs to the Orphic myth as well, although as a different entity: Dionysus at most, but not Orpheus.

Besides the bard and lyre aspects that clearly match Venti, the fact that Orpheus was a prophet is also very fitting since, as I mentioned before, Venti knows the songs of the past/present/future, and is probably a prophet given how Seelies/Angels always are.

So I propose that Orpheus corresponds to Venti’s bard identity, that he takes to avoid assuming the role of an Archon, while Dionysus/Phanes correspond to his Barbatos aspect.

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Compiling Abyss Connections

Look, most of this section are things mentioned in others, I just wanted to point out that there is a not insignificant number of connections between Venti and the Abyss... And I also didn't know where else to include the Inverted Statue.

The Abyss Order uses an inverted Venti Statue, for their ritual in one of the Archon Quests. Could just be coincidence, but with the ritual in Liyue, it would make more sense to use a statue of Morax

One of the potential origins of mythology Phanes says he emerged from the Abyss

Venti gives us one half of the apple in that birthday art I mentioned - the other half possibly represents the Abyss

He is always drinking wine, and wine is called Abyss by the wolves

He can understand the music of Abyss creatures, even using it to dispel barriers in the prologue

The Abyss Flower and Divine Key in Honkai 3rd is a Cecilia

It's possible that he hasn't even been to Celestia, or at least seems to indicate he isn't wanted there, although that voiceline can be interpreted in many ways

I will just mention how in the recent 5.6 stream art he is mostly in the shadow - tenue connection, but still

You know the "purifying abilities" of the Traveler, that have the great side effects of healing the beings they target, that are now understood as the Traveler just absorbing the abyss taint for themselves? Venti has multiple times displayed similar purifying abilities, like when lending powers to the Traveler to fight Dvalin (again, like Cocouik), healing Xiao with his music, and maybe more that I forgot.

Check the proof/pictures for these things in sections above

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Mondstadt

Mondstadt, the fairytale land with connections to every part of Teyvat (the Prologue was literally used to introduce everything, and every character there is representative of future content). I couldn’t leave out the Nation that Venti is an Archon of.

First, let’s talk about the period before Venti’s Archonhood, while he was just a wisp caught up in Old Mondstadt:

Decarabian was a participant of the Archon War - but what exactly motivated him?

The Archon War: It took place right after the fall of the Unified Civilization when Archons were the solution necessary to help stabilize Teyvat after the disasters brought by the War of Vengeance. Decarabian’s opponent was Andrius/Boreas, who likely came from Snezhnaya, and brought snow and blizzards to all of Teyvat. Mondstadt was completely covered in snow.

The safety of humans: To keep the humans in Mondstadt safe, especially from the cold, Decarabian enclosed them in a wind barrier (some, like the Lawrence Clan and possibly the Gunnhildr Clan not yet named that at the time, managed to leave the city). He micromanaged the city, forbid rebellious songs (although the CN version of Venti’s retelling implies that he only accepted hymns), and his winds were so strong that they forced people to bend their backs. He mistook that as respect, unaware that the humans resented him, which later led to their revolution to take down their god.

All for a Dream: Becoming a Tyrant in an attempt to protect humanity is not the only similarity he shares with other God-Kings. He was trying to attain a Dream, possibly another hivemind project - according to Fragment of Decarabian’s Epic, "If it were not for the song of freedom that shattered the city in an instant, Decarabian's dream would have gone on forever.” He might even have something akin to Deshret’s mausuleum or projects from other god-kings under his tower, the only location in the whole game that, if we try to access it, makes Paimon say something different than the usual: “Watch out! Don't go near there!”. In the cutscene of his death, he looks like a Sun when exploding, further connecting him to sun-kings or red-kings. Something something eternal dream and hiveminds.

Besides his goals, his appearance might also connect him to God-Kings.

We never see his appearance - possibly because Hoyo intends to show he was a dragon or had draconic features, which would make sense given that his tower has arches big enough for a dragon, a floating platform above, and was chosen by Dvalin as a nest. More likely than not, he even had the Authority of Anemo and was a Dragon Sovereign - not just because he was the God of Storms, but because he was associated with a divine throne that was destroyed during the rebellion. That has been officially confirmed now in this post (check pics below), but that was actually never hidden. The og ENG translations were simply bad, and replaced throne with crown for the purpose of rhyming, but you can see that this fan translation by dkniade pointed that it said throne in CN, along with mentions to a god’s seat.

ENG translations also still call Decarabian of Anemo Archon, which is simply incorrect because the Archon War wasn’t over yet, but maybe that was because they mistook it as Anemo Sovereign?

Amos was also far more important han people realize:

It’s unclear how Decarabian met Amos - maybe under his tower, closer to Leyline stuff? - but she was almost certainly a Seelie.

Amos became Decarabian’s lover who later joined the rebellion against him.

Her appearance, white white hair and blue clothes, already gives some slight seelie and moon themes.

She was the only member of the rebellion with a name (Either because the name of other members was forgotten to history, or maybe something more significant, like them rejecting their names and the roles they represented, or maybe names in Old Mondstadt were just the things people did, like being a Bard. I’m not counting last names, since we have those).

She had prophetic dreams, as you can see in her quotes in Amos’ Bow, and the biblical figure of Amos was a prophet - and Seelies were prophets too.

Seelies also often sided and protected humanity, which is what she did by joining the rebellion. Players often assume that she was human because of the dreams she had for humanity, but nothing actually states that.

Last but not least, she might have been the one who killed Decarabian (again implied in her bow), and it probably takes a non-human powerful being to do so.

What about the other characters involved?

Like I said before, the others had no names, only last names at most. Possible exlanations: 1) the name of other members was forgotten to history 2) they rejected their names and the roles they represented (since we know how names are tied to a person's fate in Teyvat) 3) maybe names in Old Mondstadt were just the things people did, like being a Bard 4) names were possibly hidden to hide their identities from the Irminsul

The rebels came up with the Windblume tradition, although it had a different meaning back then

Nameless Bard: We don’t know much about the Nameless Bard… but he was the rebel who led the rebellion, and whose form Venti took after once he died, due to being a dear friend of Venti. He had a Cecilia pinned to his chest, which is relevant. His lyre was different from the typically large lyres of the time, as mentioned in the description of the teapot lyre. I can’t help but wonder if he is a reincarnation of other rebels from history: The young man (probably an Alberich, but that’s another theory) from the period of the Unified Civilization, that was possessed by the Traveler From Afar and went to the Ancient Seelie to free her. It’s possible that he later reincarnated into story Ajax (the one who ended in Hyperborea) drawn by vague memories of the seelie he once loved. My other guesses, besides the Nameless Bard, are the Crimson-Eyed Youth who rebelled against Och-kan. I am undecided if currently he is represented by Alice or Childe, to be honest - in part because Idk to which extenct we should separate the identities of the female Traveler from Afar and the male figures she possesses.

Red-haired warrior: He was a traveler who wasn't from Mondstadt (no idea how he managed to enter), and he was with the bard when he died in the cutscene. He is potentially an antecedent of the Ragnvindr family, but it's not certain, since he left Mondstadt after the death of his friend.

Gunnhildr: The Gunnhildr clan wasn't called that at the time - it changed name in her honor after she was a hero in the rebellion. But before all of that, she and her clan managed to leave the city and, when suffering in the cold outside, she prayed, somehow manifesting or attracting Venti. It's unclear when did she return to the city or how, but we see her in the final battle in the TCG card.

There are mentions of figures from other clans that were involved, like Lawrence members and the Imulaukr Clan.

Andrius: After Decarabian was taken down, Andrius realized he wasn’t fit to rule humans and became a ghost, the rebellion leader was dead, so was Amos, and the red-haired warrior felt hurt and left. So the Archon position went to Venti, who took the form of his friend and terraformed Mondstadt, but didn’t take the Divine Throne. That might be the actual reason why he is the “weakest of the archons” if that really is true. He also tried to not exert authority over humans.

Official translation vs Literal fan translation vs Recent official post

Alright, and what about present Mondstadt?

Aristocracy period: Venti ruled Mondstadt alongside Istaroth for a while, with the Temple of the Thousand Winds dedicated to the worship of both. It’s unclear when Istaroth was forgotten by time, and why Venti had to get into slumber, but he was gone for a long period and, when he woke up, the Aristocracy of Mondstadt (especially the Lawrence Clan) had become arrogant, betrayed its principles, and abused their power to crush the freedom of people. The temple was converted into a fighting Arena, much was destroyed (including the original library), and Natlan’s refuggees (Vennessa’s tribe) was turned into slaves and gladiators. Venti helped fix that and, after realizing that full freedom could backfire, established the Knights of Favonius and the Four Winds, with Venessa as part of both groups.

Dvalin: It is unclear when exactly Dvalin and Barbatos met, but the poet in Breeze Amidst the Forest (implied to be Venti himself) says it occurred in "ancient times, when the gods walked among us in their prime." This puts their meeting somewhere between Barbatos' ascension 2600 years ago, and his departure from Mondstadt between 2000 and 1000 years ago. Venti helped people realize that the dragon didn’t pose any danger, and raised Dvalin, teaching him to speak the human tongue. It’s very possible that Dvalin is a reincarnated Anemo Dragon Sovereign, and that Venti entrusted the Anemo Authority to him. 500 ago, during the cataclysm, Venti and Dvalin fought against Durin’s attack, Venti had to go into slumber and Dvalin got poisoned. Mondstadt’s Prologue was all about about helping save Dvalin from Abyssal corruption and show to the people of the present that he is still a good dragon.

Mondstadt and witches: The witches deserve their own post, but it’s really interesting how they have such strong ties to Mondstadt, with two witches even taking residence there temporarily (Rhinedottir somewhat, and Alice). The second Windblume Event took us to the floating island where the witches used to reunite over tea, and for the first time told us about the members of the Hezenxirkel. It also told us of how they at some point challenged the Anemo Archon, for unknown reasons, but he befriended them instead. Interesting detail: In the cutscene about the witches, there is a moment that display’s Istaroth’s star, the same that is the symbol of Khaenri’ah - I have a post about Istaroth and that symbol almost ready too, so I won’t elaborate here, so points for another connection between witches-khaenri’ah-istaroth-venti. The Imaginarium Theater, a domain from the witches outside of space and time, also has a portal in Mondstadt. Oh, and the summer events are always connected to Mondstadt AND the witches.

Mondstadt and Wine: I already have a whole section about that, but it’s definitely no coincidence. It connects to witches, it connects to the Abyss, it connects to seelies (Angel’s Share), it connects to so many things… please go read my section if you haven’t.

Abyss: The portal is located in Musk Reef - one of the areas terraformed by Venti after he ascended, that was previously he tip of the tallest snowy mountain, known as Pilos Peak. Currently, the island looks suspiciously like multiple moons overlapping (that symbol that everyone went crazy over after the recent web event, despite being present in the game for a while). Its structure is divided into the "Abyss Corridor," which connects worlds (Teyvat was disconnected from other worlds, or at least that’s what the Legend of the Shattered Halberd book implies), and the "Abyssal Moon Spire," which leads to the unknown (possibly the same spire created by the Seelie Ancestor). In each level, we collect stars.

Flowers: Some of the flowers prominent or exclusive to Mondstadt have very interesting meanings. I already went over Cecilias, so go read that section because it’s huge; Dandelions represent wishes that are carried over to the Anemo Archon when blown, but their seeds can also represent the souls and stories of people, which in a way is almost intercheangeable given how the wishing screen kinda grants us the souls of campanions; Windwheel Asters represent stars, also very relevant for Genshin given the constellation system; Lampgrass only glow at night, so they are part of the series of flowers that change with the moon; Roses don’t seemingly exist in Mondstadt, yet two characters (Lisa and Noelle, and Rosaria has thorns in her attacks) wear them, and associated with secrets in Monds (see Noelle Hangout), and are in the cover of a big chunk of fairytales.

Gateway to Celestia (thanks to 4clover31 on tumblr for the reminder): The base of Venti's massive statue in Mondstadt has inscribed at the base "Gateway to Celestia" - people have translated and figured that out from the very beginning of the game.

Eyes of Storm, Istaroth and the Nameless Island: Idk where I'm going with this but it's interesting how, although Eyes of Storm are primarily featured in Mondstadt, the Statue of the Omnipresent God in Inazuma that many people theorize to be a depiction of Istaroth has a necklace shaped like an Eye of Storm. See this image edited by CatWithBlueHat. The quests where we first learned about Istaroth/The Thousand Winds of Time also included Eyes of Storm. (thank you to 4clover31 on tumblr for reminding me of this)

The important citizens of Mondstadt: There’s just so many that I have to break this in parts, but I really don’t like it when people dismiss Mondstadt, because everything there was a well-done setup to future content:

Kaeya is one of the few Khaenri’ah survivors, and from the Alberich dynasty no less, who not only took control of Khaenri’ah after King Irmin felt “indisposed”, but also was important far before that, being possibly one of the oldest lineages of Khaenri’ah;

Diluc is strongly connected with the Fatui, that he opposes, and with a secret organization that is probably the Hexenzirkel, judging by the cups in his mansion, Angel’s share and several other hints;

Jean is a descendant of Old Mondstadt, more specifically, of the original Gunnhildr who through her wishes attracted wisp Venti, and she is alsoboth the Dandelion Knight and the Lionfang Knight;

Rosaria has lived with bandits since childhood, was found by Varka and put in the church, and she isn’t a very faithful nun. More importantly, some people suspect she is originally from Nod-Krai - she is canonically from a mountain village and the bandit gang has endured freezing cold.

Albedo is an homunculus created by Rhinedottir, a witch, through Khemia, that he also practices, and he is technically Durin’s brother and adopted into Klee’s family;

Klee is Alice’s daughter and might very well become a super strong witch herself, and she also inherited Alice’s book;

Mona is Barbeloth’s apprentice and therefore can read fates, and another powerful witch;

Lisa is another powerful witch who was invited to be part of the Hexenzirkel (she declined), who also knows many truths and secrets;

Eula is a member of the aristocracy who goes against her family, and was taught by Amber’s grandfather;

Amber has a grandfather from Liyue, who dissapeared;

Fischl/Amy cosplays book Princess Fischl, who likely represents Istaroth and is from books written by the suspicious Mr.Nine, the author whose codename is A., so probably by Alice;

Razor has ties to Sumeru family, and his story introduced us to Boreas/Andrius;

Bennet was likely found in the Mare Jivari, a destroyed region in Natlan where wind doesn’t blow, and his bad luck is probably an extension of the curse that people from Natlan had before the Archon Quest, that prevented them from leaving the region because of Leyline issues;

Diona was one of the first characters we saw that displayed atavism (regressive animal traits), along with her whole family, and she also introduced us to the concept of fairy oceanids, and their connections with wine.

Sucrose is another character with atavism, likely a fox, and foxes are important on their own even with fairytale connections like the tale of the dandelion sea. She is another alchemist.

Noelle is very unsuspicious, but it’s interesting that she wears roses, and the fact that those flowers mean secrets in Mondstadt was even highlighted in her Hangout quest;

Mika and Barbara don’t seem to have anything weird going on.

Varka is out in an expedition with most of the Knights of Mondstadt, and will definitely be an important character too;

Dahlia is another upcoming character who will likely be important, given his leaked appearance with horns and unconventional traits for a deacon.

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That's it. My goal was to write the most extensive and in-dept post about Venti possible - you guys tell me if I succeeded and if this makes sense xD

I think I did, because reddit told me this

[solarnomoon]

tame - nishimura riki

ni-ki always stood out to you, or atleast, in his own way. when you started noticing him more, it was easy to like him.

pairing >>> ni-ki x male reader

tags >>> college au, fluff, friends to lovers

warnings >>> swearing, substance usage, suggestive themes

wc >>> 3,073 words

author's note >>> ni-ki is just so freaking pretty i want to give him the biggest hug and never let go＼(≧▽≦)／ also js remember this is ooc also if you guys ever to just talk about random enhypen stuff or virtually anything im always down to talk n stuff anyway i hope u guys enjoy this one!! it kinda spawned out of nowhere and also all over the place so idk lol bye!!

it wasn’t like you to fall for a boy so easily. at least, not in the way that occurred, especially for a guy like nishimura riki. it was cheesy, to say the least: you two have been acquaintances since middle school, quite literally knowing each other for 6 years now, even now attending the same university (completely unintentional, of course). you always just kinda knew him as that lovely kid that was the same height as you, even throughout high school. don't get it twisted, you weren't that tall, but regardless of the fact, he was the same height.

the first time you saw him the summer after high school was at your orientation. you were placed in the 12th group, and when you reached the meeting spot, you noticed riki immediately, much, much taller than before, giving you two a height difference that wasn't present before. the second thing you noticed was the drop of his voice, which you discerned from his "yo, y/n!" coupled with a slight wave.

"ni-ki? what-" and before you even finished your sentence, the orientation leader interrupted, telling the group as a whole that they were about to start as you happened to be the last person they were waiting for. your conversation had to be put on halt until 20 minutes later where she began a tour of the school.

while you began to follow the group to the first destination, ni-ki reconvenes with you after speaking to a couple of the other group members, nudging your shoulder with his own to get your attention. "y/n, i didn't know you committed here? i thought you were gonna go to ucla for sure," he questions you with a voice of slight familiarity.

"no yeah, i was, but i thought about it and i just wanted to go here." he hums in acknowledgment, giving a few seconds of downtime before you begin to speak again. "dude, when did you become so tall? and have that deep ass voice? weren't we like basically the same height a few months ago?"

a few other differences were left unspoken but assumed nonetheless. first off, his hair, which historically was left black and much shorter throughout highschool, but now was longer with an ombré effect going from a light grey to black at the ends. secondly, his style, which flipped 180 from sweatpants and a normal shirt to something straight out of k-dramas. and lastly, his piercings, double lobes with a helix on both. or maybe one? point is, he looked good. too good.

he laughs, knowing this must come as a shocker to you because last time you checked, he was completely anew. "well for one, i turned 18 and was basically allowed to do whatever i wanted with my body. for some reason i went through a second puberty," he signals your height difference by putting his hand out flat at the top of your head and then bringing it to his, just shrugging. "also, i got a modeling job that allowed me to buy random ass clothes. so... yeah!"

your mouth slightly ajar combined with your head tilt let him know you were still in fact lost, so he continued on. "well, you know that dance group i've been in since a few years ago right?" the nod coming from your stature allowed him to finish the thought, "so basically some of the guys in that group like... told? their manager about me and gave me a chance to attend one of their casting calls, and i made the cut."

the group stops in front of the library, allowing you guys to sit down at one of the slabs nearby, half listening to your tour guide, but more focused on conversing with one another because you two had already toured the school when filling out college applications.

"wait, congrats ni-ki, that's insane!" you turn to him, giving him a quick cheeky smile with two thumbs up, and he just chuckles at you, putting his face into his hands at the sight of your cuteness playfulness. "what, did i say something wrong?"

"n-no, it's just... nevermind..." he tsks at you, not wanting to reveal the fact that he found you cute for a second.

you two continued to chat about anything and everything, eventually learning more about the guy that you would've never known previously. for one, he hates the color pink, even though all of his friends tell him that the color suits him—even his model designer thinks pink is his most suitable color. you also learned that the group that he's apart of, enhypen, is actually pretty popular on tiktok and youtube: garnishing over 4 million subs on youtube and 2 million followers on tiktok. he's also been with his group for multiple years now, and you even met some of them at sports events and stuff, like sunoo and jay.

other things include the fact that he has an older and a younger sister, he loves to dance, he likes to play piano, and one time he met jung ho-yeon before she was on squid game and he was so confused on why they looked so familiar, he thought they were long lost siblings or something. then he found out that she's korean.

he still believes it though...

soon enough, you guys find yourselves at the end of the orientation, having made friends with others, but especially between you two. you asked him if he could hang out during summer, but he has plans to go to japan the rest of summer, so you just plan to hang out during your time in college.

᧔◍᧓

the one thing that you didn't talk about was your rooming situation, so imagine your surprise when you're in the middle of your move-in, and in the hallway, you see ni-ki, walking into the suite right across from yours. "no fucking way, nishimura riki." you yell to him due to his headphones over his head, and he turns over and immediately puts a grin onto his face.

"y/n l/n." he puts his box down and walks over to you, embracing your smaller body, allowing you to practically melt in his scent and hug. once he lets you go, he just gazes at you, still smiling. "how have you been?" he leans against the wall in his cool-guy-esque fashion, but after talking with him the entirety of orientation, you know that he's a lot more of a nerd and introvert than he lets on.

"it's been good! honestly dude, i missed you." you don't miss the fact that his cheeks slightly flush with color, losing the eye contact that was previously held. "how was fucking japan, you looked like you had so much fun on your story and shit!" while asking, you point toward his box, silently questioning if you could come in and help him with his stuff while you updated each other.

while speaking, he brought you to his room that was surprisingly extremely decorated: full of neutrals and darker tones with some pop of color, many boxes and clothes on the floor but already pretty put together.

"wow, you're already way farther in the move-in than i am—i feel like there's just so much fucking stuff," you explain, taking a seat on his bed. you bounce on it a couple of times, mouth wide open by how comfortable it is. "wait, ni-ki, how did you do this?"

"mattress topper." he replies, placing his last box down on the floor and beginning to re-arrange his clothes onto the outside hanger he had bought. "looks like we're gonna be neighbors, y/n," he said in his deep tone, always catching you off-guard, but somehow giving you a tinge of butterflies in your stomach.

"yeah!" you chirp, excited to explore the newfound friendship with ni-ki.

᧔◍᧓

after the first month of university, many people in both of your guys' social circles had created a conceived notion around ni-ki: that he was a nonchalant, cool guy.

you knew this wasn't him at all though.

but you understood why people had thought that of the guy. for one, he's 6 foot something (he doesn't tell you his exact height just to tease the fact that he's much taller than you). next, he dresses stylistically as if every day is his last waking day. lastly, he loves to observe, and not talk much, but every time he did, he always had something witty or something flirtatious to say.

that is until people saw how he was whenever he was with you.

the cool guy persona had completely shifted into something more friendly, more recognizable as a regular person. ni-ki explained his day rapid-fire, telling you basically everything that happened, showed you a specific dance that he and his members had learned, or maybe gave you a sneak peek of what he was gonna wear to some fashion show. he also would tell you about his interests, the things he did on the side, even the people he met. when his friends saw how different he acted around you, they confronted him first, then confronted you after.

"what did ni-ki say?" you ask, wondering why he acts so different around yourself than other people.

"he just said that's how your dynamic was." heeseung had shrugged. "even though we've been members together for like 5 years now, i've never seen ni-ki open up this much to someone. it's like you guys are like... dating or something."

the sentiment gets a cough out of you, not expecting those words to come out of his mouth. "w-what?! of course not, we're just friends!" you deny frantically, waving your hands in front of him. "me and ni-ki are just friends."

just then, an arm wraps around your waist, a voice entering the conversation, "who's just friends?" ni-ki questions, smiling at you and heeseung.

of course, heeseung just looks at you, looks at the arm around your waist, then at ni-ki, and back to you. he raises his eyebrows and puckers his lips before walking away. ni-ki turns to you in confusion. "what's that all about?"

᧔◍᧓

as time went on, you and ni-ki had become exceptionally comfortable with one another, becoming each other's ride or dies. unfortunately for you though, it meant he had become increasingly flirtatious with you. you knew he was straight, he had explained his previous crushes to you and what he was looking for in a girl, but you on the other hand had fallen susceptible to his advances, convincing yourself that this is just what friends do.

on his birthday, he had brought you to smoke at the "top of the world," so he called it, which was literally just a trail that led you to the top of a scenic cliff. romantic, you thought, but you knew it was just out of you two becoming best friends.

"y/n-ie," he starts, the nickname sticking after calling you that one drunken night during halloween. "what do you think about teddy bears?"

you passed the joint back to him after taking a hit. "teddy bears? ni-ki, what the fuck are you on about??" the words come out a little too harsh for your liking, so you quickly follow-up, "sorry, i didn't mean it like that."

ni-ki gets up and turns to you. "that was kind of mean," he pouts, putting out his joint before putting back into the metallic holder he had thrifted. the taller had shifted slightly closer to you, wanting to lean his head on your shoulder. it was a little awkward due to the height difference, but the guy made it work, and it made you begin to sweat on your palms.

"sorry, ni-ki." even through the nervousness, you had half a mind to pretend like nothing's wrong, so you lean your head on top of his just barely. in case he questions it, then you could always play the ambiguity card: 'i didn't do anything, it was all you.'

"it's okay baby." he also started calling you that after thanksgiving, when he heard sunoo calling you it. he crossed his arms and wouldn't talk to you for the rest of the day until you came over to his room and asked you why sunoo called you baby and he couldn't, so after that it was a deal that he was allowed to.

you checked the time, which just hit 12 am. "oh, happy birthday ni-ki." you tell him, reaching from your tote bag for a smaller, paper bag within. you hand it to the guy, looking into his eyes for validation. "for you, it's not a bomb, i swear!"

he takes it from you and opens it, revealing two keychains that matched, alongside bracelets from his favorite brand. "y/n..." he trails off, not knowing what to say to you.

"i know, i know, the bracelets are expensive. but ni-ki, you're my best friend. i would do anything for you." you tell him, not wanting him to freak out.

the bracelets had been on his mind since the summer, you remembered from one of the random conversations that you had during orientation, and even though it was a long time ago, you knew he had been wanting them for months, but couldn't allocate the right funds to get it, especially because he was building his closet at the time.

"y/n... i... thank you." he finally stammers out, looking back at your eyes. even in the pale moonlight, you could discern the water in his eyes, but you knew that he hated when he cried, so you didn't say anything of it. "you remembered, huh?"

"uhh, duhh! of course i did," you joke, attempting to lighten the mood. you place your hand onto his shoulder to give him some comfort, but he takes that arm and uses it as leverage to push you onto your back, crawling on top of you. "w-woah, ni-ki?!" you yelp in surprise, not comprehending what just happened.

he just grins, placing his large hand on your face, rubbing your cheek softly. "y/n..."

little did he know though, this was your final straw. you couldn't take it anymore, the incessant flirting, the changes in his behavior around you, hell, even the constant sleepovers that he asked you all the time. so you did the only thing you could think of: run.

᧔◍᧓

of course it didn't really work though.

he was miles more athletic than you were, so he caught up to you within like 5 seconds which is honestly embarrassing on your behalf but you were too sad and a little turned on to even care.

"ni-ki, let go of me, i can't take this anymore!"

the taller just holds your arm, but the rest of his body was frantic, like he was afraid that if he let go he'd lose you for good. "w-what, y/n, what! you can't take what?!" he yells, not knowing what happened.

you twist your head around, looking at him like he grew a second head. "what do you mean, this! i can't take it, calling me nicknames and pet names, flirting with me constantly, sleeping over, acting different around me than your friends. friends don't do this, so you need to st-" and with that explanation, he gently grabs your head, leans down, flutters his eyes shut, and places his lips onto yours.

the scent you know and learned to love floods your senses, and with that brief moment of confusion, he grabs your waist and pulls you in closer, deepening the kiss. and considering this is all you've wanted for the past months, you allow him to take your lips, kissing him back with the same softness.

after moments pass you by, eventually he lets go of you, wanting to look at your reaction. "y/n, i really like you. i kinda... always have. even since we were in middle school." your mouth opens to say something, but you let him speak. "you were always so... cool. and i just... i wanted to be something to impress you... if i'm being honest, i knew you were going here, to this college, sun told me, so i wanted a chance, a possibility, anything to impress you."

he lets go of you, reaches into his pocket to fish out the matching bracelets. "these are beautiful y/n. but, it would be more beautiful if i could put this on you, use this as a courting gift even, and show you that i really do like you, and i want to be yours."

he unclasps the bracelet, handing out in front of him. "will you let me?" you reach your arm out, allowing him to put it on you.

"yes, nishimura riki."

᧔◍᧓

with that, nothing really changed. except for the fact that you and ni-ki are now dating, of course.

people around you realized that the cool nonchalant guy was ni-ki from the dance group enhypen, giving him massive amounts of popularity quickly (you didn't even know popularity in college existed...)

however, it also came to light the fact that you were dating ni-ki, and you slowly began to be known as y/n: the ni-ki tamer, which was crazy in your opinion, but ni-ki loved the title, so you let it slide.

other than that, you started to become integrated with the rest of enhypen, the rest of the members seeing how ni-ki changes when he's with you, but they realized it was for the better as you all hung out, as they saw a side of him that didn't even know existed.

you loved enhypen, they took you in as their own and integrated you into their friend group, even giving you free dance lessons just so you could also join in some of their choreos.

"guys," you pant, exhausted from the lesson ni-ki was giving you. "why did you not tell me that ni-ki is considered the best dancer in this fucking group? and why did you let me take lessons from him?" you complain to the rest of enhypen, who are watching from the sides.

"you have to suffer like we have," jake shouts while jungwon cheers for you.

sunoo and jay also just laugh, the former explaining, "i swear, before you, ni-ki was a fucking nightmare if we didn't get the choreo correct."

"alright, enough talking, more dancing, y/n, one more time."

you love ni-ki. but damn sometimes you regret falling for him.

...

nah, not really though.

[tarotmundomonde]

Love reading 18+ , astrology themed

So this is actually a Venus conjunct Rahu aspect based love reading. The cycle lasts about 10 months and this time it began in April 2024. So keep in mind, this is not an overall next 10 months PAC reading, but it's about what that aspect will add, what lessons it will bring to your love life for the next 10 months. I also added to it an 18+ part. It's my first time doing so, so let me know, what you think about it.

pick a number 1-5 OR an emoji 👰‍♀️ 😛 🎡 🤷‍♀️ 💥

PS: The messages are really long, so I had to replace texts with screenshots. Thank you for your understanding~

(ps. this reading is for practice and for fun)

1.👰‍♀️

And you know, what's so great about that? Because that's then, what you attract. Someone, who glows, someone magnificent, someone super attractive aka to your taste, someone you'll have a heart to heart connection with. And then you will have a very blossoming sacred union with a lot of embraces and affection expressed to one another. They will reach out to you. Like said, maybe this sacred union is with someone you already know, but it's like they can't come forth, before you are in your power first. But the cards say that miracles will happen and to remember to be playful! Then 18+ messages. The shifts shows. It's the same message as before. For example in intimacy, at first your energy makes it difficult for anyone to approach you. There is intimidation and fears and awkwardness. And if you learn your lessons, then there is this quick shift and the rest is history. Like the intimacy will reach the stars! This pile actually shows that you will have a s*x life. Most definitely. The attraction is going to be very intense, but it looks like you will both try at first to hold back till you just can't. Like the energy will be very heavy and intense. And then you find each other in each other's embrace going at it 🤣 It seems you will discuss your preferences and a lot of tease can be seen from the cards. You are gonna love your person's body! This person, they know how to enjoy the pleasures of sx. They know their pace and their speed. This person will be like their body is a present. Kinda like they are the cake and you should come and… enjoy. Yeah, this person has some real stamina, just saying. And you know what's great? Reciprocity, equal give and take. This person knows, how to be generous and make sure you both equally enjoy it. And it's gonna feel very natural to be with them. No wonder the cards talked about a sacred union. So pile number 1, you've got nothing to worry about. It looks great!

2.😛

possibilities. And that it seems there will be new love coming in. Very deep emotions and feelings, happiness and love. So that's great news for you pile 2! But especially, if you have multiple options, those are things to really pay attention to. Like, can the person make you laugh? Then 18+ messages. What comes to intimacy, it looks like it will take some time for someone to melt, to open up to it in the connection, whether it's you or them. It's also possible you could be dealing with someone at a distance. There is also a more intuitive approach to intimacy with this pile. Someone here doesn't want to open up, unless they think this is love. Whether this cycle adds to your s*x life or not is 50/50. For some of you, it could be due to physical distance. It looks like this pile will attract some flings or hook-ups, friends with benefits. So in more details, this is how it's coming through. If you are at a distance, you will must likely only dream about each other. If you meet, you'll have questions like will you meet again, when will you be able to be together again, etc. If it's a fling, random hook-up, friends with benefits, it looks good, but it's lacking something. Maybe it's just uncomfortable, for example doing it in a tiny car with very little space. Or simply the fact that it's lacking a foundation, so there is no real bonding, no sparks. It looks like you will be thinking, who is next and is there someone better out there and such. It seems like you'll be left thinking that in general it could be even better. Like said, it's good, but if you'd have a real connection, if they were your partner, then it could be fantastic. Something like that.

3.🎡

give it to you, same in bed. Now, what comes to the hot stuff, there could be quite a lesson there for you. I'll tell you, what it literally looks like. That you think the size will do it. That the key is the size of their D. And you will be shown that it's far from enough. Basically, it looks like you'll do your best, you'll put on your best performance for your partner, but it's one-sided. Only you put in the effort. And they'll just use their body once and that's it. It looks like you'll feel left out hanging. You will feel robbed. And based on the cards, this is explained in the most nice way possible. So your dreams of a big D being the magic wand that will give you all you need will be shattered into pieces. The key is going to be to understand that chemistry is really important and that your partner knows how to use their magic wand and that they want to use it. Basically if they have the hots for you, they should embody it and want to show you their passion for you, if you catch the drift. But like the cards show, you can always bring it up and talk about it with them and see then, how they react to it. If they care about you, it would show. If they don't wanna even hear it, don't wanna change, etc, then think about it, think if that person really is for you.

4.🤷‍♀️

fleeting chemistry or true bond. And it turns out to be true bond with fiery chemistry. It looks like you are saying no to temptation and no to just lust. You demand love, and patience, time will show you what the person is about. And they are patient and they respect you. It's like they are literally saying that you are gorgeous and so hot and they want you, but you decide. Like they are leaving an offer on the table, saying they want you so if you want them, call them -type of message. Hope it makes sense. So if you need someone's touch, this person is willing to give you it all. And interestingly, the cards are showing that you focusing on yourself and on your solar plexus chakra healing and in general focusing on yourself and being true to yourself in regards to s*x and love, it's bringing you good karma. Just so you know.

5.💥

possibility that you are trying to manifest someone in particular and of course, if you are not into manifestation rituals, it seems someone is manifesting you. But the cards talk also about love messages coming in. And about a long-term commitment coming in. Perhaps even engagement. Then 18+ messages. It seems you are more open to intimacy than your possible partners. So you could feel like they lack vulnerability. Physically they do want to touch you, but it feels like you are more gentle than them and they might be more rough. Like they offer you the temptation and the D, but it's like what they do comes with the intention of doing the deed, whereas you seem to want more intimacy and closeness and hugs. It looks like a lot of temptation, doing things to make you do what they want you to do, to make you do the things they want to get from you. For this pile, everything is possible, you may have or not have an active sx life, at least based on the cards there isn't really any additional energy adding to it. The same theme of lack of vulnerability is strongly present in the cards. It feels more like friends with benefits or a rebound. But the person here is not vulnerable and not open to open their heart. It just like sx that is agreed on, it looks even like your person would be absent-minded. And they only want it when it's convenient for them. And definitely the cards show someone, who'd want to have a rebound, as all they want is the healing and that's it. So yeah, friends with benefits or a rebound. If you meet someone, who is serious about you, then it seems this person does not want to rush things with you and want to first take their time to enjoy the romance with you.

[gojos-thot-patrol]

HII!!! and happy birthday to you ♡♡ i love ur works sm, for ur special birthday event, could i request — ryomen sukuna, mean, " i love you, and you don't deserve that " ?? AGAIN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND HAVE THE BEST YEAR!! (｡>﹏<｡) feel free to change it up! you're the birthday author afterall<3

AHH these are late, but in my defense I got very drunk then had to work off the hang over lol.

that being said, thank you so much Nonny!! This is so sweet and I feel kinda bad because this one got pretty dark. Trigger warnings for Domestic abuse, non con/dub con implied, emotional abuse and manipulation, and yandere themes. you have been warned, Dead Dove, Do Not Eat.

Now Presenting...

Starring: An cold complicated Ryomen Sukuna, taking it out on a Reader that doesn't deserve it.

There were few things on this earth Sukuna found more vile than humans. Maggots, maybe, but at least maggots served a purpose- they were important to the nutrient cycling of many ecosystems. But what the fuck did human do? They destroyed with reckless abandon, conquered without a second thought, and bread like roaches to continue the destruction long after they were gone. They were creatures of hate. And maybe that’s why Sukuna couldn’t stand them. They were just a little too much like him.

That was all with one exception. Y/n was a human that challenged every thought he had about humans. She was kind and generous, but still not afraid to get her hands dirty for what she believed. She proved that much when she ran out to stop him from destroying some elders home of all fucking things. He didn’t know what was funnier, that she thought she could challenge him, with her meek frame and zero battle experience, or the look on her face when he threw her over his shoulder. 

He had planned to throw her to his hoard of underling curses and let them tear her limb from limb. A fitting punishment he thought, she wasn’t really worth his effort. When he got to the throne room, he looked down at the writhing mass of curses below the tall platform his throne sat upon. He watched them all move as one, entangled together in a breathing wet sea of shit and hunger. They needed to eat.

And then he looked at her. The way she clung to his arm, the genuine terror in her eyes. She didn’t look like she had before on the battlefield, so willing to give her life to save another. Now she looked as if her entire being was made of ice and terror, as if she’d shatter if the breeze blew the wrong way. He felt a tightness in his chest, like some otherworldly being was pulling the sinew that laid there apart, cord by cord. And he threw her into his sleeping quarters instead. 

And ever since that day all those months ago, Sukuna had been complicated. A fucking human complicated him, it was almost comical. He caught himself being vulnerable around her, and he coludn’t fucking stand it. For every quiet sweet moment they had, he had to double down with two or more acts of brutality to make himself feel better. Except, it never made him feel any fucking better, in fact it made him feel actively fucking worse. The betrayal and hurt behind your eyes always made him feel minuscule, and it only made his hate of you burn even brighter. 

It was moments like these that made his skin crawl. When your head was resting on his chest, arms wrapped around your body as best as they could be, legs still trembling in the aftermath of your shared sin. When he realized his heart was calm, and his claws didn’t crave blood in your presence. His reaction to comfort was always visceral anger. 

“Get off of me wench.” He growled, jerking his shoulder up and launching you out of your near sleep state. You looked so hurt.

“Oh, this again?” You muttered.

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Whore?” Sukuna scoffed, unable to believe you felt comfortable enough to talk to him with such a tongue.

“Nothing.” You sighed, shaking your head and trying to turn away from him. You didn’t get very far before his talons were digging into your shoulder, forcing you to face him again.

“No no, If you’re going to say something, say it. Don’t try to take the cowardly way out now.” He warned. You shook your head, knowing better than to make eye contact right now.

“I just don’t want to fight-”

“Oh, you think this is a fight?” He laughed, “that would almost be cute if it wasn’t so pathetic.We don't fight Y/n. You forget your place, and I remind you of it. Fighting implies you to be my equal, which you never will be.” he said, his voice dripping in condescension and laced with contempt. His poison shot straight into your heart, coursing through your blood and to your tongue. You were so tired of his bull shit. 

“Oh, really?! Is that what happens?!” You laughed back to keep from crying, “Because from my view, You realize you have a heart and get so scared of it, you have to hurt someone smaller than you to feel like a man aga-!” Yea, you weren’t shocked when he struck you. You held your face, knowing there would be a bruise you could take fingerprints off of forming. You’d long since become used to his treatment. He grabbed you by your hair, yanking you to look at him. You could feel individual follicles being pulled from their roots as he raised you off the bed, as he drank in your scream as if it was the finest of wine. 

“Listen here Brat,” Ryomen always had a way of making even the most mundane words cut into your soul, “You’d do well to remember who the fuck you are talking to when you speak to me. I am not your friend, I am not your lover, you are fucking nothing to me. You’re less than nothing to me. Wrong me a-fucking-gain and your villiage won’t stop finding pieces of your body.” He snarled, throwing you off the bed. 

You braced for impact, but that still didn’t stop the collision from sending sharp waves of anguish through your already bruised ribs. You took in a sharp breath and tried to keep the tears swelling in your eyes from spilling over. He wanted you to cry. You wouldn't give him that satisfaction. You got to your hands and knees as quickly as your body would let you, then sat up as best as you could.

“Do you know what your problem is Sukuna?” You mumbled from the floor. He raised an eyebrow at you, genuinely shocked you had more to say after that. Normally, physical violence shut you up pretty quick. 

“And what is that Y/n?” He asked. You took an edge breath in.

“Your problem is that you don’t want to keep being a warlord. You’re tired of it, it bores you, you want to do something else. You found something that only makes that feeling stronger. And you can’t stand it! Because you don’t know who you are. You have no idea who Ryomen Sukuna is without the power and the blood thirst, and that fucking terrifies you.” Sukuna didn’t even argue, and he wasn’t surprised you read him so clearly. You had always seen through him as if he was nothing more than a fragile bubble. 

“And do you know what my problem is?” You growled. You waited all of 3 seconds before responding to his silence, “My problem is that I love you. And you don’t deserve that.” A chuckle left Sukuna, but it was humorless. His eyes didn’t hold any anger or angst, he looked as if he was made of stone. He finally got up from the bed, and moved to you. He crouched down to be at your level. 

“Things are only going to get worse for you from here on out. I hope you're prepared.” he said, zero emotion making its way to his voice or eyes. He pushed you onto your back before standing up again and leaving the room. Once he was back in his own sleeping quarters, he punched a hole in his wall.

How fucking dare you tell him you loved him! Who the fuck did you think you were?! And why the fuck would you confess that after he threw you to the fucking ground? As if you were nothing more than a used cum rag! He roared as he ripped some random piece of art off the wall and smashed it against the floor, splintering the wooden frame. Your words kept echoing in his head, phantoms that wouldn’t let him rest. I love you, and you don’t deserve it.It made him sick. Because he didn’t deserve it. And because he loved you too, and you truly didn’t deserve that.

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

Inspired by @absolutebl and @heretherebedork's posts about 10 BL endings they wish had been April Fools Jokes, presenting:

10 BLs with plots that felt like an April Fools' Joke:

(Full disclosure: I loved all of these shows. I finished all of these shows. Whether they were good, bad, frustrating, or anything in between, they scratched an itch in my brain and entertained me to no end; like any well-executed April Fools' prank).

But before that, some honorable mentions:

1. Century of Love (hi grandpa. He's probably too young for you. Also, why is there a fox spirit here? Is this a transmigration series or a fantasy series?! Pick a lane dude!)

2. Pit Babe (ah, Pit Babe. Are you an omegaverse? Are you a sports-themed bl? Are you gay X-Men? Are you the unholy amalgamation of them all? I love this color on you.)

3. The Boy Next World (so he's lying about the parallel worlds... he's just a stalker. Or, wait, there is a parallel world? But he's stal-- oh, now they're both stalkers? What the hell is going on? Well at least the leads are pretty.)

4. Four Minutes (I fried my own brain trying to understand the plot of this one. I spent my viewing hours just listlessly looking at the characters doing something on screen, praying that one day, any day, it will all make sense.)

5. Jack and Joker: U Steal My Heart (this shouldn't make the list. BUT that special episode was a JOKE. I refuse to accept it as canon.)

AND WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

10. Battle of the Writers

Because let's be honest, after the couples got together (which they achieved at an average length of one episode each), THE PLOT WENT EVERYWHERE and NOWHERE all at once. OOH they were childhood friends, OOH now this editor is trying to steal this writer friend from his boyfriend, OOH now this other guy goes on vacation and falls for a random islander, OOH lead character randomly LOSES HIS EYESIGHT, then gets it back an episode later. OOH random actor has a crush on the lead writer.

True to its title, I fully believe that all writers involved in this show had a battle inside that boardroom to see where the series' plot is supposed to go. Sadly, they all won.

9. Dead Friend Forever

...was this a BL? Maybe. Well, they made out with each other a lot in this. I spent half of the runtime wishing half of the characters were dead, and the other half wishing the rest would get the hell out of that school. Pretty, balanced ride now that I think about it.

(Barcode and Ta' characters should have ended up together. The fact that they didn't made this series a true April Fools' joke)

8. Choco Milk Shake

Some of the leads spawned from pets. That's it. That's the premise. Otherwise, this is pretty low on the list because the execution isn't as outrageous as the initial plot. I was kinda wishing they would run with the crazy, but this is Korea. This is as crazy as it'll get.

7. Venus in the Sky

This was as plotless as Battle of the Writers. The only reason this beat out the others on the list is because the plot was so glacially, PAINFULLY slow. The pacing alone was a bamboozle all on its own. Plus, characters would do the devil's tango OUT OF NOWHERE, in the weirdest places. At one point they went to town with each other's bodies while the front door and windows were OPEN. That poor, traumatized neighborhood.

6. Anti-Reset

Main dude fell in love with a ROBOT, programmed by a company, owned by his UNCLE. Thank the heavens the robot didn't look or act remotely like a robot, otherwise this would be at the upper part of this list. The robot can... cry? Are the tears made of motor oil? Battery-fluid? Gasoline? Speaking of fluids, I have questions... bedroom wise...

5. History 4: Close To You

This was a rollercoaster from beginning to end. Manchild meets old crush at his workplace, woes her by... pretending to be in a relationship with his best friend? And then falls for his best friend. Then there was a harrassment lawsuit somewhere in there? And two dudes got married? Aight, aight.

Don't get me started on the stepbros. It's a bit ickier than Unknown's premise, because here their respective parents are still MARRIED to each other when the stepbros start doing the devil's tango. This all feels like unintentional grooming. I'm with your parents on this one, sorry.

4. Utsukushii Kare

I'm gonna say it: Hira deserved better. And I know Kiyoi is made out to be this emotionally-stunted, tortured soul who's secretly been in love with Hira all along, etc. etc. I don't care. Hira deserves to be loved by someone who expresses it openly and proudly. And isn't a bully. Yes I said it.

(Kiyoi did get better in the following season. Hira still should have chosen that photographer friend from college)

3. Word of Honor (I'm counting it. That canon ending where they live together in the mountains is as homo as any on this list)

In hindsight, this one might not be as crazy as the others on this list. Villain assassin falls in love with villain cult leader. A match made in purgatory because turns out, someone else out-evils them both. But as a couple, they made sense.

If only they didn't COMPETE to unalive themselves or each other EVERY OTHER EPISODE. Dude bro puts nails in his own body. Other dude bro jumps off a cliff. Dude bro surrenders to the enemy and suffers torture. Other dude bro sacrifices his life energy so his main dude can survive.

I swear if this was released fifteen years earlier during the bury-your-gays era, both Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu wouldn't have made it past the third episode. Draw the curtains, plot will now focus on Gu Xiang. But no, it's 2021. The gays found the censored unlimited plot armor.

2. Secret Crush on You

The premise? Simple. Guy has crush. Crush likes him back (multiply by five couples).

The execution? UNHINGED. Toh, the main character, keeps a MUSEUM's worth of souvenirs (ehem, trash) of his crush. He kept a paint can. He kept a plastic bag. He kept leftover food, guys. FOOD. He keeps his crush's leftovers DEAR GOD.)

Toh also gets drunk every time they're travelling somewhere, intentionally KISSES the girl who's trying to steal his crush away to... fend her off? Tries to kiss Saint's character because he scored him a photoshoot gig with his crush (Suppapong I'm blaming this all on you). And his crush Nuea is INTO ALL OF THAT. What the ACTUAL HELL.

The rest of the cast was precious. That's the only reason this didn't top the list.

And the biggest joke of them all:

1. My Stand-In (because WHAT IN THE YAOI HELL WAS THIS?)

Screw the bury-your-gays trope. The gay will bury you, resurrect you, make you an escort, and... marry you?

Prior to My Stand-In, I have never seen Poom Phuripan (Joe's actor) act in anything else. From his MDL, he's been in a LOT of projects as a former Channel 8 agent. In Asia, that means you're under a steady rotation of guest and supporting roles in soap operas, most times as either the most expendable character, as a villain, or the anti-hero for bigger stars.

As for Ming's actor, I've only seen Up Poompat in one thing-- a bl called Lovely Writer. I am however aware that he started quite young in the acting industry, had a supporting role in Girl From Nowhere, and did a movie with GMM's Phuwin (didn't watch those before My Stand-In. This was all random info I absorbed from the general internet).

So I know both Up and Poom had more acting experience than most of their bl contemporaries. In their case, they've both been nominated for minor awards in previous roles. They would, on paper, be experts at this point.

And THANK GOD for that. Because only an expert could properly JUSTIFY what the hell My Stand-In's plot actually was.

This is the only show I've seen in my lifetime where one main lead acts like an absolute a-hole, gets little to no character development, gets NO PUNISHMENT for his actions (no, Joe's death doesn't punish Ming. It punishes JOE. He's the one who DIED; screw your tears Ming), then STILL GETS THE HAPPY ENDING. Oh, and he's rich too.

Why does fate love Ming? We don't know. Fate is Ming-sexual.

Meanwhile, the true main lead suffers unjust amounts of physical, emotional, social, and truly dysmorphic trauma, yet... remains a sweetheart? Joe, my friend, you died twice, I THINK YOU'RE ALLOWED TO STAB PEOPLE NOW. Did I mention he's an orphan? And that Joe lost his career because psycho ex-situationship Ming made him miss his big acting break by HITTING him with a bat and KIDNAPPING him. So he found another job which actually KILLED him DEAD. Then he was miraculously resurrected in another body for a second chance at life, only for him to become the boytoy of... psycho ex Ming?!

Why does fate hate Joe? Because they're Ming-sexual, that's why.

I hate Ming on paper. I HATE him. If I hated Kiyoi as an otherwise misguided school bully, then Ming gets all my rage as the most SPOILED, INSENSITIVE, truly HOMICIDAL mc to ever grace my screen. Each episode felt like a turn, and all turns went left. This was... romance? No, this is a True Crimes episode fr fr.

But that just adds to the surrealness of it, because good lawd Up and Poom can ACT. Up is one fine man, but I don't think his looks alone could have justified Ming's garbage character. Up played the role with such CHARM and nuance that I couldn't look away from his trainwreck. It was masochistic. It's his fault. But was it truly? OH NO.

And Poom's acting was a REVELATION. I've seen other great Thai actors before, and not just in BL. Being Asian myself exposed me to Thai series long before I saw my first queers on screen. Poom could best a lot of them. He played Joe in otherwise natural, blink-and-you'll-miss it actions, sometimes just through his eyes. But he played it in such detail that you could physically feel how lonely he was. How frustrated. How yearning. Truly IMPRESSIVE.

My Stand-In alone convinced me to watch all of Up and Poom's back catalog. They've each played monsters and villains and comedians and love interests in the weirdest series. You guys gotta give 'em a chance. Producers, I introduce to you the one ship in BL that can make your WEIRDEST premises watchable. Hot take: give them the accursed omegaverse Pit Babe cannot commit to. I'm sure they'll be able to glorify your kinks (unless Noeul Nuttarat wants to take a stab at it)

Bonus fun fact since you made it all the way here: did you know Up Poompat's original nickname was ALSO Poom (as in the nickname of his current bl partner?) He used Poom during his BL ship run with Kao Noppakao, as well as many of his previous shows and YT channel. He changed his nickname to Up after he screentested with a DIFFERENT Poom that was supposed to be his new bl partner, but it fell through. Then purely coincidental, he found another partner also named Poom, so at least that worked itself out. So how many Pooms does it take to make a ship? Just one apparently. Otherwise it would be PoomPoom. Sounds like a champion Pomeranian. (Ha, a joke!)

And that's a wrap for the biggest April Fools' pranks on Asian queer television to date. Thank you and sound off which BL you think should make this list. Stay kooky, folks!

[ingleaisle]

While i DEFFO think it would have been great to see in the main story outright, i do also kinda wish that ppl who reference the side comics/media of delicious in dungeon would like. Actually think critically abt the ideas espoused THERE as well bc i don't think it's an accident that ryoko kui made this comic

AND this comic

or even this extension of the main story

Not to mention the frequent asides actually DISCUSSING human-like monsters (the fishmen, dryads, harpies etc.)

Just to take it at face value that:

the characters know what they're talking about

Are operating under correct or even just assumptions

Esp when the story itself takes pains to make that actually a p major core theme in its own right.

Ryoko Kui CLEARLY has put a lot of thought into being p critical of the discussion surrounding ideas of race and even humanity and how that intersects and who gets to be involved in those discussions, and that goes beyond simply the different species of sentient peoples in the story, even if that gets a lot of focus (Toshiro/Shuro is an obvious and frequently-cited example of this, and i also think you can glean a bit from Kabru and Rin, particularly in the way they both ended up in the custody of elves, in VERY different but still paternalistic/condescending ways).

Like even with races like the Orcs, there is a kind of care put in pointing out that their relationship to humanity is a hell of a lot deeper than "they have a different number of bones, thus are not REALLY human" (and i don't think the fact that that SPECIFICALLY was Invoked as a difference was an accident either, given irl systems of racism)

tl;dr pls think critically about the presentation of the various races/species of folk in dungeon meshi, bc it's not face-value stuff that should be taken for granted and there's DEFINITELY Commentary in there

[mostlysignssomeportents]

It’s been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk

On THURSDAY (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On FRIDAY (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

This week on my podcast,This week on my podcast, I read my June 17, 2004 Microsoft Research speech about DRM, a talk that went viral two decades ago, and reassess its legacy:

https://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

It's been 20 years (and one day) since I gave that talk. It wasn't my first talk like that, but at the time, it was the most successful talk I'd ever given. I was still learning how to deliver a talk at the time, tinkering with different prose and delivery styles (to my eye, there's a lot of Bruce Sterling in that one, something that's still true today).

I learned to give talks by attending sf conventions and watching keynotes and panel presentations and taking mental notes. I was especially impressed with the oratory style of Harlan Ellison, whom I heard speak on numerous occasions, and by Judith Merril, who was a wonderful mentor to me and many other writers:

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

I was also influenced by the speakers I'd heard at the many political rallies I'd attended and helped organize; from the speakers at the annual Labour Day parade to the anti-nuclear proliferation and pro-abortion rights marches I was very involved with. I also have vivid memories of the speeches that Helen Caldicott gave in Toronto when I was growing up, where I volunteered as an usher:

https://www.helencaldicott.com/

When I helped found a dotcom startup in the late 1990s, my partners and I decided that I'd do the onstage talking; we paid for a couple hours of speaker training from an expensive consultant in San Francisco. The only thing I remember from that session was the advice to look into the audience as much as possible, rather than reading from notes with my head down. Good advice, but kinda obvious.

The impetus for that training was my onstage presentation at the first O'Reilly P2P conference in 2001. I don't quite remember what I said there, but I remember that it made an impression on Tim O'Reilly, which meant a lot to me then (and now):

https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/844

I don't remember who invited me to give the talk at Microsoft Research that day, but I think it was probably Marc Smith, who was researching social media at the time by data-mining Usenet archives to understand social graphs. I think I timed the gig so that I could kill three birds with one stone: in addition to that talk, I attended (and maybe spoke at?) that year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, and attended an early preview of the soon-to-launch Sci Fi Museum (now the Museum of Pop Culture). I got to meet Nichelle Nichols (and promptly embarrassed myself by getting tongue-tied and telling her how much I loved the vocals she did on her recording of the Star Wars theme, something I'm still hot around the ears over, though she was a pro and gently corrected me, "I think you mean Star *Trek"):

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4IiJUQSsxNw&list=OLAK5uy_lHUn58fbpceC3PrK2Xu9smBNBjR_-mAHQ

But the start of that trip was the talk at Microsoft Research; I'd been on the Microsoft campus before. That startup I did? Microsoft tried to buy us, which prompted our asshole VCs to cram the founders and steal our equity, which created so much acrimony that the Microsoft deal fell through. I was pretty bitter at the time, but in retrospect, I really dodged a bullet – for one thing, the deal involved my going to work for Microsoft as a DRM evangelist. I mean, talk about the road not taken!

This was my first time back at Microsoft as an EFF employee. There was some pre-show meet-and-greet-type stuff, and then I was shown into a packed conference room where I gave my talk and had a lively (and generally friendly) Q&A. MSR was – and is – the woolier side of Microsoft, where all kinds of interesting people did all kinds of great research.

Indeed, almost every Microsoft employee I've ever met was a good and talented person doing the best work they could. The fact that Microsoft produces such a consistent stream of garbage products and crooked business practices is an important testament to the way that a rotten organization can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm a fully paid up subscriber to Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (not so much his other views):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Coase says the reason institutions exist is to enable people to work together with lowered "coordination costs." In other words, if you and I are going to knit a sweater together, we're going to need to figure out how to make sure that we're not both making the left sleeve. Creating an institution – the Mafia, the Catholic Church, Microsoft, a company, a co-op, a committee that puts on a regional science fiction con – is all about minimizing those costs.

As Yochai Benkler pointed out in 2002, the coolest and most transformative thing about the internet is that it let us do more complex collective work with smaller and less structured institutions:

https://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF

That was the initial prompt for my novel Walkaway, which asked, "What if we could build luxury hotels and even space programs with the kind of (relatively) lightweight institutional overheads associated with Wikipedia and the Linux kernel?"

https://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/10/coases-spectre/

So the structure of institutions is really important. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the idea that there are "good companies" and "bad companies." Small businesses, family businesses, and other firms that aren't exposed to the finance sector can reflect their leaders' personalities, but it's a huge mistake to ascribe personalities to the companies themselves.

That's how you get foolish ideas like "Apple is a good company because they embrace paid service and Google is a bad company because they make money from surveillance." Apple will spy on you, too, if they can:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Disney and Fox weren't Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table at MPA meetings. They were two giant public companies, and any differences between them were irrelevancies and marketing myths:

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

I think senior management's personalities do matter (see, for example, the destruction of Boeing after it was colonized by sociopaths from McDonnell Douglas), but the influence of those personalities is much less important than the constraints that competition and regulation impose on companies. In other words, an asshole can run a company that delivers good products at fair prices under ethical conditions – provided that failing to do so will cost more in lost business and fines than they stand to make by cheating:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Microsoft is a company founded and run by colossal assholes. Bill Gates is a monster and he surrounded himself with monsters, and they hired monsters to fill out the courts of their corporate palaces:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

To the extent that good things come out of Microsoft – some of its games products, the odd piece of hardware, important papers from MSR – it's in spite of the leadership; it's the result of constraints imposed by competition and regulation – and that's why Microsoft pursued such an aggressive program of extinguishing its competitors and capturing its regulators.

In retrospect, I think one of my goals in that talk was to convince those people doing good work for a rotten institution to go elsewhere and do other things. Certainly, that's one of the goals I pursue in the talks I give today. At the time, some of Microsoft's highest-profile technologists were publicly resigning over the company's war on free/open source software, so it wasn't an unrealistic goal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030214215639/http://synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html

What I did not expect what that publishing the talk on my site and blogging it on Boing Boing would spark a wave of public interest that would get its message in front of several orders of magnitude more people than I spoke to at Microsoft that day. Partly, that was because I released the talk into the public domain, using the brand-new Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (which was later replaced with the CC0 mark, due to legal issues withBu its drafting):

https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035835/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Some mix of the content of the speech, the spirit of the moment, and the novelty of that wide open license sparked a ton of interest. Jason Kottke recorded an audio version that Andy Baio hosted:

https://kottke.org/04/06/cory-drm-talk

My brutalist ASCII transcript was quickly converted to beautiful HTML by Matt Haughey and Anil Dash:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622235333/http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

For people who needed a hardcopy, there was Patrick Berry's printer-friendly stylesheet:

https://patandkat.com/pat/weblog/mirror/cory-drm/doctorow-drm-ms.html

Multiple people recorded (and sold!) audio versions, and then there were all the fan translations, into Danish, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (both EU and Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish. I stayed in touch with some of those translators, and they helped me translate the position papers I wrote for UN WIPO meetings. Those papers were so effective that ratfuckers from the copyright lobby started to steal them and hide them in the UN toilets (!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20041119132831/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Re-reading the speech for my podcast on Sunday, I expected to be struck by the anachronisms in it, and there were a few of those to be sure. But far more clear was the common thread running from this talk to other talks I gave that took on a significant life of their own, like my 2011 "War On General Purpose Computing" talk for CCC:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

And my work on Adversarial Interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

And my most recent work, on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

In other words, I've been saying the same thing – in different ways – for more than 20 years. That could be depressing, but I actually found it uplifting. Two decades ago, I was radicalized by a fear that the internet would be seized by corporations and governments and transformed into a system of surveillance and control. I found my way into a job at EFF, where I worked with colleagues across multiple disciplines – coders, lawyers and activists – to fight this force.

At the time, this was a fringe cause. Most of the traditional activists I'd come up with in the feminist, antiwar, antiracist, environmental and labour movement viewed digital rights as a distraction and dismissed its partisans as sad, self-obsessed nerds who mistook fights over the management of Star Trek message boards for civil rights struggles:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

I thought I was right then, and I think history has borne me out. The point of waging these fights – both in the wide public sphere and within political movements – is to get people activated before it's too late. Every day that goes by is a day when the internet becomes more inhospitable to political organizing for a better world – more surveillant, more controlling. I believed then – and believe today – that the internet isn't more important that the other fights I waged as a young activist, but I think that the internet is fundamental to those fights.

Saving the planet, smashing patriarchy, overthrowing tyranny and freeing labor are all fights that will be coordinated – Coase style – on the internet. Without a free, fair and open internet, those fights are infinitely harder to win.

The project of getting people to understand, care about, and fight for digital rights is a marathon, not a sprint. When I joined EFF, it was already 12 years old. There were six people in the org then (I was the seventh). Today, there's more than a hundred of us, and we're stretched so thin! The 30+ year old idea that internet policy will intersect with every part of every fight has been utterly vindicated.

Back in 2004, I asked Microsoft why they were willing to fight the US government to the death over antitrust enforcement, but were such wimps when confronted with the entertainment industry's demands for DRM. 20 years later, I think I know the answer: Microsoft understood that DRM would let them usurp the relationship between creative workers, entertainment industry companies, and audiences. Their perfect instincts for seeking out and capitalizing on opportunities to seize monopoly power drove them to make deliberately defective products, in the belief that their market power would let them cram those products down our throats:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/27/protect-your-investment-buy-open/

Here's a link to the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/16/my-2004-microsoft-drm-talk/

And here's direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470_-_My_2004_Microsoft_DRM_Talk.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

[psychopomp-namine]

some thoughts on the photo diving ability users

this is more of a speculation post. I want to talk about the main theme of link click, revisit cheng xiaoshi's character arc as we can now compare him to other users with the photo diving ability, as well as some thoughts on the narrative roles of shao yuanyuan and lu guang. they all kinda relate to each other, so I'm putting them here in one post.

i. past or future, let it be.

others have pointed out reasons why the possibility of cheng xiaoshi also time looping would be a disappointing turn from his character arc, which I agree with. I will not go into that here. instead, I wish to revisit a theme that I really wish link click would go back to as its main motto: "past or future, let it be."

I still believe this is and has always been the core theme of the show as a whole. and it's one of the reasons I personally fell in love with S1 and even in S2. you can't change the past. and even if you could go back to the past, you're only doing so to change your future, but you can't undo what has already happened. you can't jeopardize the present. past or future, let it be.

although yingdu deals with butterfly effects instead of closed loops, I don't think it's exempt from this lesson either. the fact that lu guang is now learning to make this final timeline count and that he is, for the first time, looking towards the future and not the past (because this is the "last time") is him finally reaching the same place as cheng xiaoshi in terms of the character growth cheng xiaoshi exhibited by early season 2. they are, for the first time, running towards the same direction together. a shared future. this present future. there are no do-overs after this.

even if cheng xiaoshi ends up diving into the past and timeloops for whatever reason, I don't want it to be the solution to everything. changing the past has never been the solution in link click (yingdu arc notwithstanding). it goes against the main lesson of the show. so if he ever does that, I want it to be because he wants to stabilize the past and prevent any more changes to it.

more than two people timelooping for each other, I think there's more catharsis in two time travelers committing to make this final timeline really count. this is the last time. this is their only time. so, past or future, let it be.

and if the lyrics to songs like train trail and break are anything to go by (they literally include the phrase "past or future, let it be"), I think we'll definitely still loop back to this theme again in S3.

ii. revisiting cheng xiaoshi's character arc

on that note, I want to make a quick comparison of our photo diving ability havers, because I think lu guang and shao yuanyuan serve as a useful comparative lens for us to see cheng xiaoshi with. I did this in the tags of a previous post but I think it deserves its own post now.

cheng xiaoshi gets called immature a lot sometimes by other people, which I don't really believe to be true or an accurate description of him. and shao yuanyuan provides me with another reason that bolsters my belief in this.

the ability to change the past is a dangerous power, but it's cheng xiaoshi who learns the lesson of link click the fastest. past or future, let it be. lu guang is willing to erase the present timeline by diving into the past, and shao yuanyuan is doing... whatever it is she's doing to save cheng weimin.

in comparison, cheng xiaoshi matures relatively quickly about not abusing his powers, and he is overall more resistant to the temptation of using time travel to undo death by S2. after emma, cheng xiaoshi learns not to change a death node. not even that of his best friend's, whom he loves very dearly. this is a marked contrast not only to lu guang, but also to his mother.

it's a very underrated aspect of him because cheng xiaoshi is often described as impulsive and reckless, but he does take these lessons to heart and as long as he's given space to think things through, he comes out with rather emotionally mature decisions. I love this aspect of him sooo much. his big heart carries so much responsibility, and he takes it very seriously.

which is why I am very confident that in S3, we can trust cheng xiaoshi with the timeline. so much so that I do believe he can make things right without having to change the past drastically (but I'm very sure the show will tempt him to anyway).

if there's anyone in this show who can be trusted to take care of the timeline, it's cheng xiaoshi.

iii. shao yuanyuan and lu guang's narrative roles

on the flip side, let's talk about our other two divers. there's a really great "what if" post written by @sonchop that I've been thinking about recently that I'll touch upon later. I highly recommend reading through it.

when talking about lu guang, we have to remember what constraints the writers are writing under with regards to his character. see, lu guang is a tricky character to write under censorship rules. my personal understanding (which may run contrary to some fans', but I believe there's a lot more lu guang apologists here on tumblr lol) is that lu guang is meant to be a hypocrite willing to do morally questionable things for cheng xiaoshi. but he is also most likely slated for a happy ending. it will be difficult to make both things happen under censorship. these are the limitations the writers are working with.

for example, let's look at how lu guang was written in yingdu arc. lu guang wants to murder vein, hence why he talked about creating an "unchangeable node" -- aka, a death node. his intentions are very clear, and the show even frames this by animating him as wang qing's puppeteer and even "crushing" his hand as vein gets a heart attack. but he can't be shown directly actually murdering vein if we want to give him a happy ending later, because that's a no-no under censorship.

think of it as similar to how in S2 they had to pivot the red eyes concept because they can't let red eyes remain at large after stabbing lu guang.

so lu guang has to be written in such a way where his intent is not necessarily "morally acceptable" but his actions are in such a way that a really good lawyer can defend him in court. he didn't technically kill vein. he's not the murderer technically speaking. you can't charge him guilty just for talking to vein for 30 seconds.

the way I personally see it: lu guang is in a precarious narrative position and needs to be written delicately to “deserve” his happy ending under censorship rules.

so. circling back to the post I mentioned at the beginning of this section. my theory is that introducing shao yuanyuan as the main wildcard of the timeline changes will be what narratively "absolves" lu guang from his own timeline trampling "sins" thereby making it "acceptable" for him to get a happy ending. a sort of situation where, as the post says, what if shao yuanyuan's own timelooping caused the butterfly effect that led to lu guang timelooping. he wouldn't have needed to timeloop if they fix shao yuanyuan's timelooping. (<- speculation only)

anyway, so I think in S3 it'll be interesting to see how far they can take lu guang. but I probably won't expect him to like, actually kill people himself or whatever. the best he can do is probably something like his chessmaster style "gambling" in yingdu. which I guess works out for the liu xiao paralleling.

at the same time. for the bittersweet ending likers, there's still hope!! even if it's possible they'll give lu guang a happy ending, I think cheng xiaoshi will lose something in any ending. with the way they're setting up shao yuanyuan's role, I don't think cheng xiaoshi can have both his parents and lu guang together in his life atm. maybe they'll show us something in the future to make that possible, but for now, I don't see it. (something something, "just because you can't see hope doesn't mean it's not there)

anyway. if cheng xiaoshi is supposed to be the character — the hero — who learns to embody the lesson of link click ("past or future, let it be"), shao yuanyuan is the character who, as far as we know, refuses to. I mean, she left cheng xiaoshi in 2008. he's an adult now. she hasn't learned to let go in all these years. it'll be a wonder if we can find a way for her to let go after all this time. and lu guang so far is the character in-between the two spectrums. he could have ended up like shao yuanyuan, but the ending of yingdu makes me think he's committing to this "last" timeline. his line about looking into the future is an important moment for him.

it'll be interesting to see the three of them deal with the timelines in S3.

again this is all just thoughts and speculation. in any case, whatever happens in S3, I am very excited for what's in store for us, as I'm really liking what they're setting up with our three photo divers.

[dearestaussiechannie]

☀︎ Your Mom Showed Me Your Baby Pictures ☀︎— Lee Felix

word count: 2.4k

paring: Felix x afab!reader

genre: Fluff

warnings: afab!reader, boyfriend!Felix, pet names (sweetie, love, beautiful, sunshine), kissing (goes no further), engagement, proposing, mentions Hyunjin, if I left anything out please let me know, kinda proof-read

Felix had thought out absolutely everything that you guys would do for your vacation back to his parents house in Australia. He had the restaurants picked, theme parks, beach days, you name it and he’d planned it. Sadly things weren't going to his plan. Due to the sudden change of weather, you'd caught a cold.

It's been three days and your symptoms are barely easing up. Your fever had finally broken early this morning but you still had body aches and a sniffly nose. No matter how much you insisted that you could do everything he wanted, he refused to let you leave the house, which wasn’t a bad thing since this meant that you'd get to know his siblings and parents better. 

Everyone had been super understanding and helpful while you were sick, whether that was his mom making you something to eat that was light on your stomach, or Olivia coming to watch a movie with you (on separate sides of the room so she didn’t get sick), or Rachel bringing you a fresh blanket out of the laundry when Felix had told her you were shaking from your fever. 

They had all been so nice, even before you were sick and just got to talk to them over the phone. His mother and father would constantly ask about you if you weren't present for the calls, at least that's what he told you, sisters texting you constantly to just check in. The funniest conversations were with Olivia though. She would constantly send you funny memes of her older brother or the thirst traps that would pop up on her tik tok, messaging the same thing every time, “this is what you’re into *barf*”. 

Today was no different besides the fact that you'd pulled yourself out of Felixs’ room to sit in the living room when his mother saw you. Her smile warmed the room just like her sons would, making you smile back to her. “Hi sweetie, are you looking for Felix?” She asked you before walking over and rubbing your shoulders, placing her hand on your head to see if you still had a fever.

You now see where Felix gets his tenderness from, it was the woman standing in front of you. Going back to her question, you shake your head before wrapping the blanket tighter around you. “No Mrs. Lee, I just wanted some fresh air… the room was becoming suffocating.” you respond, watching her roll her eyes when you call her that as she's told you many times you just refer to her as mom at least a hundred times by now. “Gotcha, well he went out to lunch with his father and sisters, so it's just the two of us here right now. Are you hungry? I can make you something.” but before she finished speaking, you're being pulled to the table and she disappears into the kitchen.

You sit and listen to her little stories of when the Lee siblings were little, giggling when she makes sure to tell you the embarrassing things Felix did while he was still in school. Eventually food was done and she'd made enough for the both of you to have lunch together, saying it was nice was an understatement. The food was delicious and her company was amazing, always making sure that you were okay and didn't need more to drink, getting you the medication you needed for your cold, talking to you not only about her kids but also asking you about your childhood and your parents.

Once lunch was over, the two of you had moved back to the livingroom and continued the conversation on the couch. Suddenly she stands up and hurries out, only to return with large books and a bright smile. “Has Felix ever shown you any of his baby pictures?” She asks as she sits back beside you, quite close so that you could look through the books together. You simply shake your head with a large smile, excited for what would come next.

The two of you flip through the books, giggling at the silly photos, stopping when his mother would start telling the story behind certain ones. You couldn't hold in a particularly loud laugh when you see a photo of him from the early years of grade school, leaned up against what looks like a tree in a white button up with a blue grid pattern. “He looks like a little business man!” you say as you look over at his mother who's nodding her head laughing with you. “That's what happens when dad picks your clothes for picture day.”

You flip through more pages, taking a couple pictures of the ones you'd want to look back at. Some time goes by and you've finished looking through the photos, his mother puts the books away and not soon after, the rest of the family walks through the door. You smile when you see your sweet sunshine walk inside, making his way straight to you. You stand up and hug him tightly, his arms pulling you tightly to him by your lower back before pulling one away to feel your head. “No fever, Love?” he asks you, brushing the hair out of your face. “It broke this morning before I woke up, I've been spending time with your mom.” You respond, looking over at her before you see her put a finger over her lips, silently shushing you and you know why, his baby pictures.

A few days have passed since then and since you were finally feeling better, the two of you started doing all of the things that Felix had planned. You're out at dinner with your boyfriend and you couldn't have asked for anything more. The two of you ate and held small conversations, telling him about lunch with his mother the other day and him telling you about everything he did with his father and sisters while you were sick. Dinner was eventually over and the two of you were on your way back before Felix suddenly turned in the opposite direction of his house. 

You just look at him for a few minutes before curiosity gets the best of you. “Lixie, where are we going?” The question leaving your lips, making him glance over at you before slowly grabbing your hand in his free one, pulling it up and rubbing your knuckles against his lips. “You just looked so pretty in that dress, I wasn't ready to go home yet.” He answers, car turning again making your eyes fall away from him only to be met with the sight of water, the moon reflecting on it and waves gently splashing against the bay. Your cheeks flushed as he parked the car, getting out and walking to your side, opening the door for you and slowly taking off the white heels that matched your dress before helping you out of the car.

He carried you to the sand so that the road wouldn't hurt your feet. You insisted that if he had let you keep on your heels, you could have walked but he didn’t want them to be ruined by the sand. Once into the sand, Felix slowly puts you down, making sure both feet are on the ground before completely letting you go. He looks at you with a smile, glancing quickly down at your lips before putting his hands on your hips and pulling you close to him before gently placing his lips against yours. The kiss is very gentle, lips moving against the others with a slight rhythm, your arms draped over his shoulders as you play with his hair and his hands moving to your lower back, rubbing small circles.

Once you break away from the kiss, you lean your forehead against his before giggling and running towards the water. You're about to shin deep when Felix finally gets in since he had to take off his socks and shoes as well as roll up his pants quite a bit so that they didn't get too wet. He runs up to you causing the water to splash and you to squeal as the cold water suddenly hits the back of your thighs, his arms wrapping around you, kissing your shoulder gently. “Now we're both all wet, what about your car?” you ask him, raising an eyebrow when he starts giggling, smile shining so bright even in the dark.

“So… there's actually towels in the backseat. I knew that I would eventually take you to the beach so I put them in the car just before we found out you caught a cold.” He admits, moving a hand from your back to the back of his neck, rubbing it slowly. You can't help but laugh before cupping his cheeks to make him look at you then showering his face in soft but quick pecks. This makes him chuckle, putting his hands on yours before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone, putting on a soft playlist that Hyunjin had sent to him when he told him his plan. 

“May I have this dance, beautiful?” he asks, nerves building in his stomach with his hand outstretched to you. You nod, softly placing your hand into his. The two of you dance slowly, hearing him hum along before he slowly spins you making you laugh as the water splashes around you. You both somehow manage to make it back into the sand as the song changes, sand sticking to your feet but the two of you could care less. The only thing that mattered in this very moment was each other.

“I want you to spin three times for me this time with your eyes closed, okay?” He asks, words more like a demand than a question so you simply nod. He smiles sweetly before spinning you, making sure your eyes are closed on the first spin, he reaches into his pocket and drops down onto his knee. He watches the way that your dress spins with you, the way your hair flows in the wind so effortlessly and the beautiful smile on your face as you make that third spin. He knew now that he was making the right decision. His nerves climb into his throat when you've stopped spinning.

You open your eyes only to realize you're facing the wrong way which makes you laugh. “Lixie why didn't you tell me to turn arou-” You ask him, lips falling silent before you could finish your sentence when you see him. He's in front of you on one knee, smiling so bright you’d bet your last dime that it'd put the sun itself out of business. Your hands quickly cover your mouth as you step closer to him, each step shaky as if you're unsure that your legs can hold you up.

“L/n Y/n, you're the most amazing, beautiful, funniest, most caring person I've ever had the opportunity to meet. You always make me smile, help me through anything that I’m having trouble with and even though you get into my baked goods before I say anything about it amazes me. The way that you also take care of my friends makes me realize every single day what an amazing person you are. I’m in love with you and have been since that first date we went on. Will you make me the happiest man to walk the earth and spend the rest of my life with me? Will you marry me?” He asks a bit shaky in the beginning, finding more confidence in his words as he continues.

“Yes!! Oh my god Yes!!” you shout at him with excitement before you drop to your knees in front of him. He gently grabs your hand and slips the ring onto your finger. It was a perfect fit and he couldn't thank Olivia more for finding out your ring size for him a few months ago. You look at your hand in his and the beautiful ring on your finger as you feel your bottom lip begin quivering. You look up at him, noticing that his is the same, eyes watering as yours do the same. 

You quickly wrap your arms around him, hugging him tightly and kissing him a bit hard but neither of you care. Both of you stay like this for some time before slipping apart, staring at each other, laughing softly as he rubs the new ring on your hand. Eventually the both of you make your way back to the car, drying off after using a water bottle out of the car to get all the sand off. The ride home wasn't a long one but time has felt at stand still since you saw him on one knee. 

You both walk back inside and to his room, changing into more comfortable clothes and crawling into the bed. You put your phone on the charger and he finally sees your lock screen. “What was that?” He asks, a bit shocked when he sees the photo. How'd you get that? Isn't that his moms coffee table? “Hmm?” is all you say back to him, acting clueless as you try to finish getting ready for bed. “Y/n. How'd you get that photo?” He asks, knowing the answer but he wants you to confirm it. “Oh, you mean the little cutie on my lock screen? Your mom showed me your baby pictures the other day and I just couldn't help it. I wanted to be able to look at it again without having to bother her.” You answer him.

“This is what I get for telling her that I was gonna propose to you while we're here.” He rumbles as he rubs his temples. “Oh shush. You look like a cute little business man who is now all grown up and oh so very very handsome and engaged.” You say, pushing your hand in his direction which makes him smile. He gently grabs your hand and his phone in the other, taking a picture of your hand and sending it to his group chat. 

1 Attachment. “I did it you guys!! She's gonna be Mrs. Lee Y/n soon!!”

He then locks his phone, hearing the pings going off but his attention has shifted back to you, gazing lovingly at you as you brush your hair. 

“I’m in love with you, Beautiful.”

“And I’m in love with you, Sunshine.”

©️ dearestaussiechannie, all rights reserved.

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