#i don't know if anyone has coined this before but let's make it a thing and not ever forget it

[demonscantgothere]

I propose a new shipping name for Celedriel. We know them by their second names, Celeborn and Galadriel. Combined together, it makes Celedriel. Now, consider their original names: Artanis and Teleporno. Drumroll, wait for it . . .

. . . Artporno is their new shipping name.

[ckret2]

So a while ago some friends were talking about fans who claim the Same Coin theory is canon. And I made the mistake of saying:

Do you know who also has tons in common with Bill? Mabel. Yet nobody claims Bill reincarnated as Mabel. …wait now I want a "same coin but it's Mabel" AU. Funniest Bill reincarnation option. The all-seeing arsonist is making macaroni glitter art. The omnipotent tyrant is crying because a unicorn called her a bad person.

And then I overthought it for two months.

So—AU where after death, Bill's soul shoots 13 years into the past and reincarnates as Mabel. I'll call it ✨ Sparkly Coin AU ✨

Don't leave yet. Lemme show you why it works. Behold the eerie amount of parallels in their personalities, dialogue, behavior, mannerisms, tastes...

I could have kept going but my attention span ran out. All right, we all on board now? Convinced we could segue from one personality into the other? Great. Now here's why you should be interested: the juicy post-Weirdmageddon angst potential.

As long as a small fringe of the fandom still thinks Weirdmageddon is Mabel's fault, why not amp that up x100 and have some fun with it?

Is everyone sold now? Great. Let's get into the details. I've got 8 more pieces of art under the read more.

So the AU starts the instant Bill dies. Thanks to invoking his deal with the Axolotl—one way to absolve his crime, a different form, a different time—the Axolotl gives him a new shape and shoots him thirteen years into the past. Apparently, the Axolotl thought it would be very funny to stick Bill in the family that defeated him.

Which probably made for a jarring transition.

(It's fine, she's like 10 minutes old, she probably can't even tell who she's looking at. Not being able to tell who she was looking at is what got her into this situation ayyyy)

When Dipper & Mabel come back from Gravity Falls complaining about this triangular jerk Bill, their parents mention that Dipper's name was nearly Bill. See, after they knew they were going to have a boy, one night their mom dreamed about a visitor—some kind of magic pink salamander??—calling her child "BILL." Then at the next sonogram they found out they were having twins, the girl must've been hidden at a weird angle the first time, and they wanted matching names, so they thought, Bill and Bell. But they didn't really like Bell; but eventually they stumbled on Mabel, so to keep the names matching they switched from Bill to Mason. Isn't that the darnedest thing?

(Of course, Mabel and Dipper assume Bill harassed their parents to try to trick them into naming a kid after him. To be a jerk.)

When Bill meets Mabel, he's unaware that she's his future self—Bill's notably bad at doing things like, say, double-checking to see whether he's going to die anytime soon—but like... he can tell something's up.

Naturally, before visiting Gravity Falls, there were echoes of who Mabel used to be—but nothing anyone would be able to identify without context. All her Bill-ish quirks either smoothed out with time (see: how between second grade and fourth grade Mabel went from being the "freak" to the popular girl in class), or else they were accepted by her family as Mabel-ish quirks.

After they meet (and kill) Bill, they have the context to understand some of Mabel's behaviors... and unfortunately, some of Mabel's latent Bill-ness starts surfacing after she's been directly exposed to her prior incarnation.

The part of the Pines family familiar with Bill thinks the worst case scenario is that maybe Bill's survived and is slowly possessing Mabel; but far more likely, they think this is just some weird way of trying to subconsciously process last summer. Mabel doesn't think she's being weird, you guys are being weird, stop giving her weird looks. They get attacked by one triangle and now she can't wear yellow or pick up macrame as a hobby??

(It's not all red flags and uncomfortable triangle imagery, though. When Stan asks her what she'd like as a gift for some important event, she shyly admits that she thinks she's starting to outgrow her plastic gem jewelry and maybe she's old enough to get her first piece of real gold jewelry, if that's not too expensive? And Stan's never been so proud of her. Thirteen years old and already thinking about buying gold!)

But of course, the real fun starts when Mabel finds out.

That's the face of a girl who's just discovered that she tortured her great uncle. Now imagine running into the brother she possessed.

But I've already spent a million words and thirteen images on this post. If enough folks are interested in the AU maybe I'll expand on it later. Let me know what y'all think.

[gravegoer]

Take a hint. ✿ part 2

my masterlist

sevika putting up with more oblivious reader!! this time, how does she react when her subtle ways of flirting don't get to you. every move she makes seems to bounce right off your head and land back in her hands !! [short little blurb at the end for the cute ending]

After your previous encounter with Sevika, you start to see her around more than you'd like. After having a few drinks with you and playing a game of cards (which you lost), you think you could even call the woman a friend.

You dont notice it, but she's gone soft. Specifically around you. Surprisingly, she didn't make you pay her for the forsaken poker game. Even more surprisingly, it seems as if you never had to drop a coin when you're in her presence.

Wanted a drink? It's on her. Ran into her when grabbing a snack? You just earned yourself a free pastry. Grabbing a ride home in the dark? She's got your cab. (And threatened the driver)

All of this in your eyes was simply nice deeds from a nice friend. In other peoples eyes, the undercities most threatening woman had been tamed.

She insists on walking you home after an encounter at the bar with the repeated saying, "I have nothing better to do, so I guess I'll do you the favor."

She glares at anyone who even tries to look your way. She knows you're a pretty thing, but she wants you for her eyes only. Obviously, this goes unnoticed by you as her nasty looks are sent over your head.

The people in Zaun are undoubtedly curious about your relationship. In a way, it almost scares Sevika, knowing that if the wrong person knows about you, you could immediately turn into a liability.

Having said this: she tried to keep her "affections" away from prying eyes, but she couldn't help but smirk when you asked questions about her arm or her job, even Silco, seeming genuinely curious. She'll answer with a teasing remark and an almost genuine smile.

Of course she does still have her guard up around you, only having known you for a few months. But one day caused her to be more vunerable with you more than she ever has to anyone since she was a kid.

A loud thud wakes you, its the middle of the night, what the fuck could that possibly be?

You glanced at your clock, the minute hand on 35, the hour hand on—two?? It was the ripe hour of two a.m., and you couldn't get some peace and quiet in Zaun. You almost rolled over to the other side of the bed before you heard an almost silent grunt from outside.

This prompted you to sit up and grab a jacket that was resting on your nightstand, still barelegged you made your way to the front door. The door creaked as you opened it, and you jumped at the sight of Sevika, on the ground, leaning against your doorframe. "You do know it's dangerous to open your door in the middle of the night to a stranger, right?" Sevika teased.

You panicked, "Sevika! What happened—I mean, why are you— did you plan on sitting on my doorstep if I wasn't awake? You're seriously reckless!" You tugged at her arm trying to get her up.

"Slow down, I just needed a place to sit and catch my breath thats all." She grunted at your motions, stumbling up but standing nonetheless.

"Catch your breath? Are you crazy?" You catch a glimpse at the blood seeping through her shirt, "Shit— are you okay?" You led her into your house, letting her plop down onto the couch with a grunt.

You told her to stay there (not like she could move) as you went to the bathroom to grab some bandages and other miscellaneous things you assumed you needed. You barely noticed your hands trembling when you opened the cabinet. You were worried. Extremely worried. I mean, you knew her job was dangerous, but like this? Damn.

As you re-entered the living room, Sevika was perched haphazardly on your couch, barely fitting with her size. She clutched her torso, where blood stained her shirt and dripped down her arm. You hurried over to her, dropping to your knees beside her left leg to move her hand and survey the wound. "Already on your knees for me?" She let out a strained chuckle.

You rolled your eyes at the crude joke, "Will you be serious?"

She went quiet while you pulled her shirt up and started to disinfect the wound. She hissed at the slight burning, but you continued. At a particularly tender spot, she grunted and grabbed your wrist for a moment but pulled away quickly.

"How did this happen?" You questioned, less shakey now that you had her on your couch, somewhat fixed up.

"Just some enforcers, trying to mess with Silcos people. He gave me the task of getting rid of them. The usual," She stared at you her gaze shufting to the goosebumps on your bare legs.

"The usual?" You muttered to yourself.

You motioned for her to scoot forward so you could wrap the bandages all the way around her exposed (but now clean) torso. If you were looking, you'd see the way her face contorted in embarrassment. But of course, you weren't.

"So...why my doorstep? Like, why not... I dont know— Silcos?" You shrugged.

"Silco? Seriously? You think I'd go to the guy who put me in this mess over you?" She scoffed, shifting in a way that wouldn't strain her wound. Then, she brushed her hand over your leg, trying to calm the coldness with the heat of her hand.

Humming at the warmth, you asked, "So what im hearing is you like me more than your boss?"

"Well yeah? You're—" She cut herself off when she caught your gaze, looking up at her through your eyelashes.

"I should go, I need to report back to Silco." She quickly gained composure again but made no move to get up.

"Back to Silco? Sevika, I think you can wait the night. You're hurt." You unconsciously leaned into her touch, her hand still resting on your thigh.

You got up, heading to the bathroom to put your leftover supplies away; leaving no room for disagreement.

You could hear her shuffling around outside and stand up to open the bathroom door. You open it to her standing closer than you expected, leaning on the doorframe. Her flesh arm balanced just above your head, mechanical arm on her hip.

"You're too sweet on me, y'know that?" The woman questions a hint of humor in her voice.

"Well thats what friends are—" She cuts you off.

"No. No more of that friend bullshit. Do you not see what im always trying to imply here?" She was now getting irritated.

"Sevika what the hell are you talking about?" Before you can barrage her with more questions she groans and clutches her torso, head falling onto her arm.

Your demeanor instantly shifts, now putting your hands atop her mechanical arm with concern. She pushes your hands away and groans either out of pain or frustration (probably a mix of both). "Let me help you." You wrapped your arms around yourself, sighing at Sevikas' sudden outburst.

"You've done enough. We are just friends, after all. You dont need to overstep." She started walking (stumbling) towards the front door.

You followed after her in frustrated strides, faster than her limping form. Standing in front of her, you blocked her path to the door, "Are you trying to imply we are more than friends?"

"No. I just said we are just friends? Did you hear me," She spoke shortly and with an obvious temper.

"Dont be smart with me," You pointed a finger in her face.

"I've been trying to talk you up, okay? I thought you'd notice, but i guess you're just as dumb as I thought you were," She stood motionless, waiting for you to speak.

"Wait..like the guy at the bar that you said tried to get into my pants?" You cocked your head to the side, making a face.

She almost growled at you, pushing you out of the way so she could get to the door. I mean, seriously? She's going to basically confess to you, and you twiddle it down to her wanting to get in your pants? She's no better than the guy at the bar, right?

Before she can even touch the knob you pull her by the shoulder, spinning her already weak body around (something you definitely wouldn't be able to do when she's at full health) and stared up at her. "I wouldn't mind it." You said a little too confidently.

You slid your hand down her mechanical arm and held onto her forearm. "You wouldn't mind.. me trying to get into your pants?" She cocked an eyebrow.

"Yep."

"Alright." She sighed, sliding her human hand down her face, "I just thought you knew. Since you're always doing shit like that, " She motioned with a tilt of her head to your hand on her prosthetic.

"Like what?"

"You know nobody else wants to touch my mechanical arm. Especially in the way you do." You recall all the ways you held onto it when you walked together or tapped on it languidly when you're bored.

"Well, im not scared of you, you know?" You spoke somewhat defensively.

"Yeah. I caught onto that." She grumbled.

"Can we just go sit down and talk about this?" You sighed.

Not letting you pull away, she latched her other hand onto the back of your neck and pulled your head up towards hers. She bent over ever-so-slightly to meet you in the middle and pressed her thick lips against yours.

Her mouth tasted like a burnt cigar and something bitter, but you leaned in nonetheless. Your free hand gripped onto her bicep and pulled her impossibly closer. A grunt escaped her mouth at that and you realized she was still hurt.

"I'm sorry did I hurt you—" You pulled away.

"No." She lied, trying to pull you back in.

You retaliated and giggled at her eagerness. "Can I sit you down and make you something to drink before we 'talk' about this?" You quoted yourself, knowing talking most likely wasn't needed for the next few hours.

thank you for reading :) i have to taglist yet, so pleasseee specifically, comment if you want to be on it ! for now, I'll tag the people that have commented on part 1 so far !! <3 im slightly new to this, so support, tips, and reuqests are ALWAYSSS appreciated

@lesbo-tuliplvrr @luvmei

and i hope you guys like this as much as i did <33 thank youuu kissessss

[eightstarr]

pacify — sevika.

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

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

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

・。.・゜✧・. ────

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know you, little thief—”

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

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

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

“You got somewhere to go?”

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

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

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

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I can't afford favors.”

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

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

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

“What do you do, Sevika?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[goldfades]

headcannons of you being a media girl for the team and KK constantly annoying you and pulling you with her to make tiktoks

you cannot tell me that kk wouldn’t be all up in that camera

“welcome to the kk arnold show-“

“ KK GIMME MY DAMN CAMERA!”

𝐔𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍 𝐖𝐁𝐁 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐑!𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

─ warnings | nothing but light banter, pretty much nothing else?

─ taglist | @xocherishxo @iienstein @yazmunson @euphternal and here's a link to my taglist if anyone would like to join!!

─ ev's notes | so instead of like media girl hc's, i'm gonna do manager, it's basically the same thing except manager kinda does everything, it's not limited to photos and social media. it's BASICALLY the same just more of an umbrella term LOL, i hope y'all enjoyed!

you've been the manager for the women's bb team since freshman year and let's just say it's SO chaotic but very rewarding

and yes, you're so right

kk would force you to be in the videos and you're all like force smiling, looking like you're being held hostage

everyone in the comments are SCREECHING cus your answers are always so hilarious and they all love you

"who has the best music taste on the team OTHER THAN YOU?" "other than me?????" "yeah.." "no one, i have the best one"

but people love you sm

i feel like they'd make compilations of you interacting with the team (in specifically the tiktoks bc they're funny af)

eventually people coin the term... "y/n and her toddlers"

you're like the mom of the team (obviously cus ur the manager) but like in more ways than just one

like the freshman first start to open up to you, every comes to you for advice, etc etc

they all just ADORE you

cus who wouldn't?

since you're in charge of the social medias, you FEED the paige bueckers girlies

you take so many pictures of our girl and everyone on tiktok loves u for it

on the buses to games, oh god bless u

especially the really long car rides, everyone will do anything but sleep when the only thing you're tryna do is sleep

LIKE EVERYTHING, they will bring cases of redbull bc they swearrrrr it's team bonding

(they just wanna shit talk everyone they know)

they drag you into everything, especially like if two (or multiple) of the girls are having problems bc you usually know how to deal with them

they adore you yes, but they also fear the fuck outta you

so you make them sit down and talk it out (with you + any seniors at the time to make sure they actually do) then BOOM it's fixed

again, you're like their mom

here's a little snippet of what it's like being their manager 😗

──

"Hey y'all, welcome back to the KK Arnold show! Today we're gonna go interview the mysterious Y/N," KK shouted as she looked at the camera with a smile, beginning to walk to the sidelines of the empty court. She gestured to keep walking until they eventually reach you.

You looked up to meet the camera with a confused smile as you setup your camera. KK couldn't help but let out a laugh, causing you to shake your head in amusement.

"Everyone wanted to have an interview with you, how do you feel about that?" KK finally got out after she stopped laughing, unable to maintain a straight face at your confused expression.

You laughed softly, adjusting the camera before responding, "Uh... well you know, it's part of the job."

KK shook her head dramatically as the camera zooms in on her face, "She hates you guys, Y/N is a D1 hater-"

"No, oh my god shut up!" You laughed as KK gave you a mock glare. "I love you guys."

"How do you feel about the edits?" KK held in her laugh as she glanced back at you then the camera, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Of... Paige?"

KK shook her head, "No, of you."

"There are edits of me?" You couldn't but laugh as you shook your head, taking a seat on the bench as you finished up setting up your film camera.

"Yeah, the people are going feral." KK smirked, clearly enjoying your reaction. "Oh don't act like you haven't seen them, we send them to you on the groupchat."

You glared at KK before she bursted out laughing, putting up her hands in surrender. "Bro, leave me alone."

"No, you signed up for this when you became manager." KK joked as you held in your laugh with a thin-lipped scowl, pretending to be annoyed.

Before you could respond, Paige and Nika walked out to the court and KK waved them over. "Guys, Y/N's being a hater again."

"Aw, be nice to the freshman, Y/N." Paige joked as she joined you on the bench. KK sent her a glare as you and Paige laughed, Nika joining you two on the bench with a grin.

You shot KK a playful glare, though the corners of your lips couldn't help but twitch upwards. " Yeah, freshman privileges only go so far, KK. Don't push your luck."

"Bro," KK sighed exasperatedly as all three of you laughing. "Anyways back to the interview, how do you feel about the Paige edits?"

You and Paige glanced at each other before Paige began laughing. "Actually, as an veteran-edit watcher, they're really good. I don't know about the audios though, they're not very cordial."

"Oh my god, Y/N watched the KK Arnold show confirmed?" KK gasped as laughed loudly, joined by Nika and Paige.

"Bro, I recorded that video."

KK's smile dropped as she dramatically side eyed the camera and gestured toward her neck. "Cut the cameras, cut the damn cameras."

The camera didn't cut, it zoomed on all three of you laughing loudly. KK tried to maintain a serious expression before she sighed dramatically, "the haters are gonna keep hating."

"Facebook ass quote," Paige mumbled as you began laughing even harder, feeling your stomach beginning to hurt as tears began to build in your eyes.

"Oh you really wanna play with me right now," KK joked as she stormed toward you and Paige as the camera cut dramatically.

↳ make sure to check out my navigation or masterlist if you enjoyed! any interaction is greatly appreciated !

↳ thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡

[quantomeno]

One of my absolute all-time favourite moments in the Bionicle books is the introduction of Downfall, where Hahli is sitting on the shore of Ga-Metru, talking to Kopeke before she starts her story.

There are so many things about this scene I love, all the little implications.

I know Kopeke was chosen by fans to be the new Chronicler, but I really think it don't think it could have been anyone else. It's perfect from a narrative perspective, and the subtle "long a trusted aide to Turaga Nuju" just primes you to think of Matoro. By now, the reader has likely got some idea that Matoro might have to sacrifice himself, and this just places it front of mind.

What I really love it for is the atmosphere, because it is so calm. Hahli's sad but she's trying to hold herself together: "sometimes the best way to make sadness go away is to let it float from you on a tide of words".

And then when she tries to talk about it, she can't and instead talks about Jaller's belief toa are invincible, and how she was sure they'd make it home.

I mean, it just illustrates the key theme of the Ignition saga where things are no longer black and white like they were on Mata Nui, and where victory isn't a happy ever after. There's no magical 11th hour resurrection here.

“Sometimes a hero has to do something else besides beat the villains and come home covered in glory. Sometimes, he has to make a sacrifice so that a lot of people — people he’s never even met, and who don’t know his name — can live.”

It's such a beautiful scene and it's a testament to Greg that his writing manages to bring me to tears with just this short passage. He had a tendency to focus a bit too much on making things 'cool' and exciting, but the other side of that coin was he was very good at adding drama. I wish Bionicle had more quiet moments like it does in Downfall, because both this scene and Matoro's sacrifice are so poignant. (I call Matoro's sacrifice a quiet moment because, despite the rush leading up to it, everything slows down and it's just Matoro, the Ignika and his thoughts)

[cryptid-intraining]

People are definitely taking what Lando said out of context, I do get what he was trying to say- that the timing of VSC's, SC's and red flags are entirely random and can swing a race completely in someone else's favour and that in this instance, McLaren got unlucky with it.

But the thing is, he could have said that. He could have just said, "yeah, Max drove incredibly today and unfortunately we just got unlucky with the timing of the red flag".

Yes, people would have still found something in that statement to criticize of course but it is a significantly less aggressive and harder to misinterpret way of saying it.

Instead he said "it isn't talent, it's just luck". Which is obviously going to get misconstrued and twisted and he has to know this. Genuinely what, if any, PR training have they given Lando because it feels like he's just digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole every week where he underperforms.

Lando fans always say he's always harder on himself than anyone else and I do believe that but the issue is he's also taking it out on everyone around him.

This touches on the parasocial what I'm about to say next but I honestly don't know how they're going to stay as close friends as they were before after this season. Lando has at best been letting the adrenaline get to him in post race interviews or at worst being genuinely egotistical in his answers when it comes to racing with Max.

Just look at the differences in how Max responded to Lando's win in Miami versus what Lando said and how he acted this weekend, in Austin, in Austria. Max immediately came to Lando's defense when journalists started to question the timing of the safety car in Miami, the iconic "if my mother had balls, she'd be my dad" not even allowing for the discussion of whether luck was a factor in Lando's victory because it shouldn't be but when the coin is flipped, Lando always somehow sounds like he's making excuses. It's just bad form and it hurts him.

[zyettemoon1800]

Hi! Can you possibly write a NSFW alphabet fir hobie brown?

Aftercare

He is so loving after y'all are done. He will go run you both a bath while he gets you both something to eat. However, if you don't want to move or eat anything, then he will just get a towel and clean you off, and make you drink a cup of water before going to bed. If you are also a Spiderman/ spider woman he will make some lame excuse to Miguel as to why yall you can't leave the bed.

Body part

On him, he loves his hands and how they grip your plush stomach or thighs or how he can make you messy in under ten minutes.

Cum

Though he loves you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you, he does not want any kids as of right now and he is not a fan of wrapping it up so he will most likely just pull out and cum on your stomach, face, ass, or back. However, if you are on the pill and you don't mind, he will happily cum in you.

Dirty Secret

I can see Hobie as an exhibitionist. He wouldn't mind taking you underneath a table, on top of a skyscraper, or in an alleyway. However, the one place that he wants to do it more than ever is in Miguel's office. Just the thought of Miguel catching yall makes him ready to explode.

Experience

He is not a man-whore however he has had his fair share of bedroom guests.

Favourite Position

Any position that has you on top of him. He hates the idea that women should only be a bottom and will fight anyone when he says that having women on top is even better. He also likes it when you sit on his face. Weight is not a thing he cares about and he wouldn't mind suffocating beneath a fat pussy and some thick thighs.

Goofy

He is not an overly goofy person when you two are having sex. He might crack a few especially if it's your first time and he is just trying to lighten the mood and get you to relax.

Hair

He does not shave and is a firm believer that you should not do it either. The hair is there for a reason so let it be. Now if you wanna trim it or make your bush into some cool shapes, he is all on board. Depending on what shape you are trying to do, he might just do it with you so yall can match.

Intimacy

It is not rare for him to be seen hanging off of you in some way or another. It's not that is jealous or anything, he just loves being by you.

Jack off

If you are not around and he really needs to rub one off then he will jack off. Always if you are not in the mood, then he will take care of himself

Kinks

Slight Daddy Dom kink

Slight Breeding kink

BDSM ( can go both ways)

Cum Play

Pet Play ( on your part)

Food Kink

Location

He usually will just go into your or his room because he knows that it is the safest option. However, he will also do it on top of a random skyscraper or somewhere in the Spider HQ.

Motivation

Just sit on his lap or bend down to pick up something and he is already to through you on the nearest surface.

No

He is not sharing you with anyone and he will not do anything that you are uncomfortable with or anything too risky

Oral

He is much more into giving than receiving when it comes to orals. He prefers to be buried in you more than anything. However, he wouldn't mind if you gave him a blowjob as a way to get him up in the morning.

Pace

His pace can change from a flip of a coin. Somedays wants to go hard and fast to get rid of any stress that he has, while other times he is soft and sensual.

Quickies

Yes, especially when he should be out on a mission or on patrol

Risk

This man will fuck you in an alleyway by a very busy street and won't stop even if he hears people getting close to yall

Stamina

On a good day he could go maybe three times with ten-minute breaks in between and a round could last for about 20-30 minutes.

Toys

He doesn't mind you using toys on him or on yourself. He is a fan of vibrators and handcuffs.

Unfair

If you are being a brat and just giving him a hard time for no reason then he will edge you for an hour or two and no amount of crying or pleading will make him stop.

Volume

He has always been a vocal person so of course that would extend to the bedroom. He will be in your ear moaning and groaning while calling you a good girl or a slut all depends on what you fancy.

Wildcard

He is known for just throwing you over his shoulder he wants your attention. It doesn't matter who you are talking to.

X-ray

He is about 7 inches soft and 8.5 inches hard. He also has the Jacob's ladder piercing.

Yearning

You really don't have to do much to get him excited, however, he is a sucker for some short shorts or a body con dress. Seeing your curves and rolls just spill over just does something to him.

Zzz…

He doesn't go to sleep directly. He will make sure you are all good and he may play with his guitar for an hour before cuddling up with you.

[eccentricallygothic]

for a fic idea: chris evans x reader going on a date to a carnival and then having a picnic

Thank you so much for the ask/request! This is literally the first Chris as Chris piece I've ever written omg! I prefer to write requests in hc form so I hope you don't mind…? Hope you enjoy <3 

Disclaimer: For whatever it's worth, this is a fictional version of Chris hence fanFICTION because I don't know him in real life and I don't want to either so no silly talk from anyone, please <3

Warning(s): Fluff, kissing, rides, minor consensual groping, tickling, picnic.

Note: Reader is definitely gender-neutral. Requests are open. 

Chris definitely spoils. 

He's one of those boyfriends who tower over pretty much everyone else in the crowd and have to constantly move his broad shoulders around to avoid touching anyone else.

Holds your hand very tight in his bigger one.

Because he knows how upset you get if someone pushes you both apart as it has happened in the past, resulting in you almost getting lost and crying. 

Has to wear a cap to avoid being recognized so you prefer to hang near the areas where there's masquerades and the like so you can enjoy some privacy as well as freedom. 

Buys you basically everything you look at. 

He's definitely the kind of person who is always so excited about the rides that he drags his partner with him while promising them that he will be there with them and they can hold his hand. 

Isn't a lie, man protects you like it's his job. 

But has more embarrassing photos of you on said rides than you'd like to admit. 

So much carnival food and mini games. 

Coming back home from such places with a huge stuffie is mandatory. 

"Chris!" You squeal as you struggle to jog beside him, your breath hot in your masquerade mask and a hand on your bulging tummy. All you had said was that the caramel popcorn smelt nice. And then you had had to deal with a whole tub of it after he had already bought you so many things to eat before. "Hang on, oh my God!" 

It is cute how his 'mature' age has not harmed his vivacity because it makes him so fun to be around. He is very easy going and just plain comfortable. You don't have to worry about pretending in front of him and he doesn't do it either. 

His good nature and open display of his affection for you is always heartwarming and honestly… downright attractive. 

A confident man who plays no games with nothing but love and adoration to offer.  

"Come on, baby! The photo booth is finally empty!" Chris is excited like a child as he basically shoves the coins in the slot. He has had an eye on the previously packed booth for a while now. 

It was little things like this that mattered to him a lot. 

From your favorites to little souvenirs, cute clips and pictures of you to how you liked your drinks, all your little rituals and what each of your facial expressions meant to everything else, he had them all memorized through quiet observation. 

Being the extrovert that he is, your boyfriend is otherwise very vocal about his affection for you but that does not mean that he makes a show of these things. 

They're just little things that he likes to do for you; his precious baby.

You yelp and then giggle when he plops his butt down on the seat inside the booth with a loud smack before pulling you in with him– more like, on him. 

"Chris!" The squeal has no effect on him and he goes on his goofy ways as you both pose with your masks on for some pictures. 

Then something suddenly shifts in your boyfriend, as it often does when you're in his general vicinity, and he pushes his mask up before doing the same to yours after turning your face towards his. 

His lips are on yours before you know it and his hands bolt from your waist and knee right to your ass, the tight squeeze making you draw in a sharp breath against his mouth. 

The clicks of the camera keep on going as you circle his neck with your arms, pulling him closer and letting his tongue dominate your mouth as you whimper from his natural dominance that comes out in moments like these. 

He doesn't have hardcore tastes for intimate activities but he is always willing to try for you. 

"Taste so good as always, baby" Chris is breathless when he finally pulls back and rests his forehead against yours, the reel reaching its limit at the same time; almost as if it's aware of how private the moment is. 

It's the little quirks. How he wraps his arm around your waist when you become too self aware in public sometimes, or how he tightens his hold on your hand when there's a crowd, the way he's always looking over you and covering the edges and corners of the furniture around you with his hand to make sure it doesn't nick you and how he goes the extra mile to make sure you're reassured and comfortable.

You love this man with your whole heart.

"Or maybe it's all that caramel popcorn" you tease and he widens his bright blue eyes, thick lashes decorating the area below his eyebrows in the prettiest way. 

"Caramel popcorn?!" You start giggling at the comical way he says it. "Did someone say caramel popcorn?!" You know what's coming and so your Snickers increase in volume and you protestingly bounce on his lap, vehemently shaking your head and trying to get away but Chris is a strong man. "THE TICKLE MONSTER ALSO WANTS SOME CARAMEL POPCORN!" You throw your head back and your body twists when his fingers dig into your sides, the blush that his kisses had caused on your face now darkening due to how you were screeching against him, your tummy in pain from all the laughing. 

It's only when there's tears in your eyes and the annoyed people waiting outside call out for you two that you sheepishly step out with your masks down.

This particular carnival has cute little tent-like pavilions facing a huge screen in one of the prettiest gardens that you have ever seen. You don't have to do more than tug at Chris' sleeve and he follows your gaze before buying you two a spot. 

He insists that you don't pay for anything and to let him spoil you because all he wants is the unconditional love and genuine companionship that you provide him.

And honestly, who are you to reject all that Marvel money?

Just kids and jokes, of course. You try to chip in when you can but damn, it's hard to do that when your boyfriend is literally Chris Evans. 

The rest of the evening goes by with the both of you sipping some soda and feeding each other light snacks as some romcom plays on the screen, your form perched between his limbs with you back to his chest, Chris' chin propped on the top of your head and his thick arms cocooned around your body. 

.

Really hope you liked it <3 

[charliedawn]

How would they react to a fan ?

(Only one of the stories will have a bad ending. Can you guess which one ?)

Penny :

To be honest, it was a surprise for Penny to find an adult who could actually see him.

He usually stayed hidden until a nice prey came along, but he had just finished one of his "dinners" when you found him.

He ha no escape and sought to mess you up with some freak show and very loud sounds of cracking bones...But, was surprised when you started clapping enthusiastically.

"LOVE the show ! And LOVE the fake blood !", you told him with the largest smile on your face and he tilted his head quizzically at you before looking at his bloody hands...What fake blood ?

He was certainly a little surprised at first, his surprise quickly turned into amusement.

He laughed and just thought you were entertaining. He had never met anyone like you...And he didn't know if it was a compliment—but he liked you.

"You're funny ! I think I'm gonna call you puppy !"

He then leaned forward, all amusement having left his face as he whispered.

"...Tell me. Do you like my smile, puppy ?"

Suddenly, your smile faltered as you started smelling a very metallic smell from his bloody mouth.

Okay...Maybe, it wasn't fake blood afterall.

Pennywise :

Pennywise had been practicing his magic tricks away from the sewers, in case Penny would see him and make fun of him.

Penny had told him that children weren't interested in magic tricks anymore, but he still had the will to practice...Just in case.

He sighed as he made a coin disappear in one hand and reappear in the other.

But, there was no joy in it.

Maybe Penny was right afterall...Maybe...Maybe, people just didn't like simple magic tricks anymore ?

But then, he heard someone clap.

His head snapped towards the source of the sound and he was surprised to find a surprise guest to his little solo show.

"Loved that. Do you have any other magic tricks ? Would love to see them."

His eyes widened a little and he suddenly stood up before his lips split into a malicious grin.

"Well, aren't you the little cutie pie...Tell me, what or who made you think it was a good idea to come here ? Wanna thank them for getting me my dinner for free."

You laughed. It threw him off.

None of his victims had ever laughed in his presence...It was strange. That's when he started digging in your head and realized why you weren't scared. He chuckled.

"Oh ? I see now. Seems like we got ourselves a little fan of horror stories, huh ?"

You wiped a tear away and nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry...I just can't. I love the whole 'horror clown gig' you got going on."

He bit back a dark laughter and the urge to correct you. It was no 'gig'. But, it had been so long since he last had an audience.

He sighed and sat back down before smiling and eyeing your pocket significantly.

You understood and checked your pocket, only to smile at the penny now in your pocket.

"Aww...Thanks."

'Don't thank me yet, sweetheart.', he thought. '...~Not when you just got sold for a penny..."

Freddy :

To be completely honest, Freddy hadn't expected when he got summoned into someone's dreams.

He was minding his own business in his own dream world when he was sucked into one particular dream.

But, not anyone's dreams...One filled with missing posters of the kids he killed and many of his old belongings.

....Why in the heck was everything there ?

The only thing he couldn't recognize was the sleeping angel on the bed, staring at him with wide eyes and a rapidly beating heart.

He first thought you were afraid, but no...You weren't afraid.

You were...thrilled. He then realized what was happening and chuckled to himself before letting his bladed run-on your bedsheets until reaching you.

"...So, you're a fan, huh ?", he teased while letting the tip of one of his blades run down your face. "Pretty too...Lucky me."

He hummed appreciatively before cackling mischievously.

"...I wonder how much you can take before you break ?"

Freddy is narcissistic. Knowing you're his fan would end up in a significant boost to his already gigantic ego.

One I'm not sure you'd survive...

Jason :

Jason's sole objective is to protect Crystal Lake. So, he never imagined someone would actually enter willingly to find him and ask for his autograph.

His first reaction ?

Confusion.

A...fan ?

Michael never had a friend. Imagine his astonishment when he hears that he's got fans. He'd be hella confused.

What...What was he supposed to do with you ?

You weren't particularly disrespectful or destructive towards his nature. But, he did feel kind of weirded out by the fact that you would have a portfolio on his every crime...

But then, he realized exactly why you were a fan when he found you tending to a squirrel with a broken leg.

It wasn't about the murders.

It was about his mission.

You knew he protected the fauna and flora of the forest and you respected him for it. It brought him a bit of comfort and reassurance on your true purpose.

He then started trusting you more and more and even started to enjoy your company to a certain extent.

He then offered you to stay with him and you didn't hesitate before accepting.

You had SO MUCH to learn from him afterall...

Michael :

You : "Boop. Got your nose."

Myers *trying very hard not to pull out his knife and stab you where you stand*

The first time you met Myers, he was needed someone to watch over his 'kids' (including Brahms, Jason, Five and Ester) while he was away to find a job.

You were the most...ANNOYING...babysitter in the world. But, he had no choice as every other babysitter had quit on sight of the 'kids' in question—especially Brahms.

So, he had to accept you.

Finally, after a couple of months...he had learnt to accept your presence, but didn't understand why you would be so excited around him.

You even insisted on reading when he was and helping him on cooking. Two of his favorite SOLO activities.

He finally decided to face you about your clearly weird behavior around him and didn't expect it when you answered with a large grin.

"Why Mr Myers...I am just such a BIG fan of yours."

He was renderer speechless, even though is mute.

Then, you leaned forward, as if to share a secret. But, when he bent forward, you booped him again.

Michael was surprised, but you were gone before he could as much as react.

He watched you intently as you hopped away and his eyes narrowed in slight worry.

That's when he noticed something....His knife was missing.

Brahms :

Brahms was thrilled when he realized that you were a fan of his. He didn't know why though ?

But, it didn't matter to Brahms. The only thing that mattered was that you liked him.

"You...fan of...Brahms ?", he asked before smiling from ear to ear. "Brahms...Brahms have fans ?!"

He was so excited and even though he had absolutely no idea how you found him or became a fan—he immediately invited you to stay with him.

You accepted and then started explaining that you had always wanted someone to play with. You knew you were too old for dolls, but you ha always wanted to play with someone.

And he couldn't have been happier to consider you a playmate.

You started playing together and Brahms could finally be himself around someone who understood him.

Brahms can be wary with strangers, but he is quick to befriend when the other person shows as much interest in him than him on them.

So, it wouldn't be too difficult to earn his trust, as long as you follow his rules.

Norman :

"Get away. Shoo. Shoo."

He would try to push you away.

Norman is the most famous slasher. The oldest. The most experienced. He perfectly knows that having fans isn't necessarily a good thing.

He had his fair share of psychos and paparazzi following his crimes over the years, some who even made it a personal challenge of theirs to hurt him.

They wanted to find out what made him tick, and some succeeded by pretending to be clients at the hotel and take an interest in his business.

He even wiped his hands after shaking yours on your first day.

He doesn't like having nosy people around, and even more those who make it their personal objective to unnerve or hurt him.

But, he quickly realized that you weren't like them.

You respected his business and even though he knew you to be a fan and a journalist, you never seemed to ask sensitive questions.

You were all "How are you's" and "How can I help". He was a little surprised at first, but quickly became used to your presence.

You weren't rude and even though you had inquired more than once an interview, you had never been insistant on it.

"Everything is going to be fine, Norman. I just want you to tell me the truth. The whole truth..."

Finally, he indulged as you had helped more than your fair share and when he sat down in front of you and squeezed his hand encouragingly—he had no choice but to believe in your sincerity.

Norman *sighs* : "Fine. My name is Norman Bates and I...I am the first slasher ever recorded in history. And, this is my story. My truth."

J and Arthur :

J laughed and Arthur frowned in incomprehension when they found you at their doorstep—asking to become their apprentice.

They both had very different feelings on the matter.

J was amused and took pleasure in carrying you around town while shooting and blowing stuff up.

Arthur on the other hand was wary at first and had asked you to stay behind and gave you a number of things to do in order to keep you safe.

J didn't bother about your safety and made it his personal duty to turn you into his personal Harley Quinn. So, he told you to disobey Arthur and made you follow them.

J *smirks before throwing you off an helicopter and jumping after you* : "CAREFUL ABOUT THE LANDING, AHAHAH !"

...Arthur was the one who jumped after the both of you with three parachutes.

"...Idiots.", he whispered to himself before rolling his eyes.

But, he still cackled as he fell behind the both of you.

J used the helicopter jump as proof of your sincerity and didn't need more.

However, Arthur...Arthur was worried because you were a fan of the Joker.

And Jokers never played fair...

Bo and Vincent Sinclair :

When Bo opened the door, he really wasn't expecting someone to actually be here to visit the wax museum.

It had been so long, he had completely forgotten about the flyers him and Lester had spread a while ago around the country.

But when you held out the slightly crumpled sheet in his face with stars in your eyes, he couldn't help the large grin that spread across his face.

"Well...Ain't that some lovely surprise ? A fan."

He tipped his head at you before sending you a cheeky wink.

"Came to visit our famous wax museum, huh ? Can't blame ya. It's to 'die for'."

Bo laughed and took a step back before calling for Vincent.

"Vincent ! Visitor !"

*Imagine that man walking towards you like that. My soul would leave my body*

Vincent came in and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw you, his eyes widened in slight puzzlement.

He turned towards Bo quizzically who clicked his tongue and replied with a smile.

"We got someone real interested in your work. Thought you'd like to give them a tour ?"

Vincent stayed still for a few seconds before raising his hands to his mouth in glee. He then turned back towards you and seemed excited as he grabbed you and threw you over his shoulder to run to the museum with you.

Bo watched the both of you with a mischievous grin and pushed the rifle he was hiding with the tip of his foot under the table.

He would have to deal with you later...

[ramjam]

Hi... long time no NnT-Analysis.

I want to talk about Lancelot and Tristan's dynamic. I'll be putting it under a read-more so I don't spam your dashboard.

First, let's take a look at their designs.

Tristan's Signature Color: Blue-ish Teal

Lancelot's Signature Color: Pink-ish Red

According to color theory, these two colors complement one another. Nakaba utilizes complementary colors quite often in his designs. You'll notice this in many of the most important pairs. It's a visual way to emphasize the connection between two people.

The use of complementary colors goes as far as Lancelot's Sin disguise. When he takes that form, he wears a teal collar... Just like how Tristan wears a collar with Lancelot's red.

Both of them also got their hair colors from their mother, while the style is more similar to their fathers. They have what has been described as a "feminine" appearance. Lancelot is incredibly bothered by this, to the extent he tries really hard to present as masculine. Tristan on the other hand doesn't seem to be bothered by it himself.

Their first volume covers also mirror one another.

Their namesakes are pulled from Arthurian mythos. In some of the original stories, Lancelot and Tristan do act similarly as friends who are "two sides of the same coin" in a way. Fated companions who counter one another.

Going into actual plot stuff now. The way their stories are intertwined, the particular tropes their relationship embodies, and why it's important.

The growth of both of their characters is often explored through their connection. For example, Lancelot first learned to read hearts while dueling Tristan.

Ban references the moment Lancelot received his scar here. Tristan was so excited while dueling his friend, that he lost control of himself. The heightened emotions awakened the dark magic in him that he inherited from his father. Tristan blacked out, striking Lancelot.

This was a significant moment for both of them. Tristan and Lancelot both experienced an "awakening" here, which set them down their respective paths and cemented their bond.

Lancelot is quite literally marked by him. With this scar, there will always be apart of him that is irreversible tied to his relationship with Tristan.

Additionally, the fact Tristan had hurt and permanently scarred Lancelot is what triggered Tristan's anxiety about fighting. It affected him so deeply that he began to fear combat, instead wanting to pursue a path of healing. So that it would never happen again.

The bulk of this film takes place when they're both 14. Which is a few years after Lancelot initially went missing. He felt the need to hide his identity, but even in his disguise, he wanted to somehow push Tristan to his peak performance.

This illustrates how Lancelot never once viewed him as a threat. Tristan isn't a monster to him... He wants to see him exercise the strength that Tristan is so terrified of.

(I wish this site had CC, but Lancelot wolf-whistles at him before this line...)

Lancelot knows Tristan well enough to be aware that these fears would hold him back in combat. He takes action when they fight together, pushing and prodding him until he is forced to conquer that fear and act.

Tristan's hesitancy comes from his care for Lancelot. He's terrified at the thought of ever hurting him-- or anyone-- again. Lancelot sees this differently. He views Tristan's attitude as if he's viewing Lancelot as someone weak who needs protection. He has faith in Tristan's strength and never doubts him. But that faith only makes things more complicated when Tristan avoids facing him. Lancelot knows he's capable and he wants to be his equal in that regard.

Earlier, I referenced Ban's comment in the one-shot where he wonders if Lancelot's behavior at that time had to do with this duel. There's an implication that part of why Lancelot felt so restless and inadequate had to do with Tristan's rejection. This was worsened by the fact that Lancelot had learned to read hearts, so he could see what Tristan must've been thinking in that moment. Tristan's concern doesn't come from viewing Lancelot as weak, but that's how Lancelot interpreted his heart and his words.

Between that and being babied by his parents, he lashed out and ran away to "prove himself." Which is how he went missing to begin with.

He didn't want to stop like Tristan did. He wanted to keep going. Tristan's strength motivated him, but Tristan didn't return those feelings because of his own self-loathing.

In the end, Lancelot is the one who convinces Tristan to embrace his power. He vowed to be there to stop Tristan in case things ever go too far.

Lancelot reads Tristan's heart in this moment and smiles to himself.

Lancelot's love for his friend manifests through his desire to propel Tristan to his peak potential. Through Lancelot's affection, Tristan changes forever. His pure faith in Lancelot and his intentions was all he needed to conquer his fears. To him, he doesn't need to be worried about losing himself, because he has Lancelot.

Many years pass since this moment, but Tristan still views Lancelot as that anchor he needs by his side. Tristan's control over his power has grown significantly, but he still fears using it without Lancelot by his side.

Something interesting about their dynamic in the present day is the way the dynamic has flipped. While Tristan respects Lancelot's power, now he is the one feeling weak in comparison. This is also a testament to the strength of their bond. While Tristan feels they're no longer "equal", it doesn't drive a wedge in their relationship. He isn't resentful or jealous, it doesn't push him away from Lancelot. Their bond is too strong for that.

Not to mention, what seems to bother him more than anything else is the fact that Lancelot won't discuss how he gained this new power. He's bothered by the way his friend vanished without a word for so long, and now refuses to talk about what happened.

Regardless, this just means that Tristan trusts Lancelot's abilities without question. The moment he arrives, Tristan believes so strongly in his ability to win above anyone else. If anyone can defeat the King of Camelot, it will be his closest companion.

Circling back to Lancelot being his anchor: This is pretty common in fantasy Shounen. Leading characters who possess dark magic often have a partner who they rely on to bring them back down, or stop them from going too far and losing themself. However, you usually see it between the leading male main character and the female secondary protagonist... In fact, this is the exact dynamic Meliodas and Elizabeth had with each other in the original manga.

This dynamic came up frequently whenever Meliodas went full-demon mode. But this page from the Holy War arc in particular really reminds me of Lancelot's line where he says he'll "beat Tristan into the dirt if he has to."

Considering these two are Tristan's parents, you'd think the parallel with Tristan would be between him and Isolde, or something. But it's not. It's with Lancelot.

Their chemistry is so natural. They spend some time apart, but nothing really changes. The play off of each other so easily and understand each other so deeply.

Lancelot teases him for a lot of things. Being air-headed, being childish around his parents, etc. But it isn't mean-spirited, and Tristan knows that. It's just an aspect of their relationship and one of the ways Lancelot shows affection to people. That's Tristan's best friend who is mean to him, but he still calls him by a cute little nickname ("Lance.")

The implications that Tristan has called Lancelot out for being like his father before is really funny. Quick lines like this convey a lot about a relationship, it demonstrates that familiarity.

I have a lot more I could say about them, but Tumblr apparently has a 30 image limit per-post. I'm just really excited to see what comes next for them in the timeskip. I suspect all of these building themes are going to come together in some pretty important ways the closer that we get to the main conflict of the sequel.

This analysis isn't necessarily meant to be shippy... But I do ship them, lol... ❤️

[oikoraart]

I might explode if I don't share this, so here goes an unhinged rant/theory that has to do with the Book of Bill. brace yourself!!

ALRIGHT SO background: yesterday I read a post talking about Silas Birchtree being one of the best iterations of "Bill using a human body as a flesh puppet" (agreed), and somewhere (I can't recall if it was op or a comment I'm sorry) there was this joke about Bill having a thing for people with tree surnames. and I was like haha funny yeah, and then moved on with my day.

but NOW IT HIT ME.

IT'S NOT SIMPLY TREES, OR LIKE, ANY KIND OF TREE.

HE FIRST WENT FOR A GUY WITH THE SURNAME BIRCHTREE. BIRCH. YOU KNOW, THAT WHITE TREE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS EYES ALL OVER???

AND THEN, OH THEN HE WENT FOR PINES. A PRETTY TRIANGULAR-LOOKING TREE IF YOU ASK ME.

AND- OKAY I'M PROBABLY JUST REACHING HERE BUT HEAR ME OUT.

DOES HE,, DOES HE HAVE SOME SORT OF STRONGER INFLUENCE/PULL TOWARDS THINGS THAT SOMEWHAT RELATE TO HIM?? (not really sure why he'd go for trees* twice but- TRIANGLES, EYE(S), BILLS?, CIPHERS)

AND YOU MIGHT BE THINKING "nah he's just that badly egotistical, he picks like that on purpose" AND AT FIRST I WAS ALSO GOING TO JUST SIT WITH THAT CONCLUSION (and not write this post) BUT LIKE ACTUALLY NO THAT'S NOT IT.

BECAUSE alright let's say for the sake of argument that Bill could've had anyone else with a big brain and self-esteem issues construct his portal (debatable) and he just happened to choose Ford because "ehehe surname relating to me and birth defect too"...

BUT HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN SILAS???

THE GUY JUST RANDOMLY DIED. HE CHOKED ON A COIN THAT HE TOSSED AFTER FAILING TO MAKE BUSINESS IN THAT TOWN. JUST THEN DID BILL KICK HIS LITTLE CULT-FOR-PORTAL-CONSTRUCTION PLAN INTO MOTION, WHICH, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, WAS DESTINED TO FAIL FROM THAT CHOICE ALONE.

HERE it is WAY harder to make the argument that he could've picked anyone from the town because, unless he was planning to fail on purpose, why would he choose a rotting body as a host?? it makes no sense: it puts a time limit to get it all done before the body is completely useless. it doesn't make any sense unless that was his only option. maybe he was already planning on entering the guy's dreams but then he just dropped dead and Bill went "ah shit. well, time to work with what we have, I guess!"

SO! in short, I believe that whoever Bill uses as his puppet/anchor to this world has to meet the requirement of somehow relating to him (his imagery and/or motifs), not just out of preference, but because it's a must, some sort of limitation or arbitrary rule that he has to follow, for him to be able to get to you.

...and personally I think that THAT'S SO COOL AND INTERESTING OMG MR. HIRSCH YOU ARE SUCH A BIG BRAINED MAN-

SO YEAH. I might be going a little insane. perhaps. cheers to that!!

now I have to figure out how/if this rule checks out with Alex Hirsch himself because (canonically? I think?) Bill has controlled him before and (iirc) is implied to still be tethered to him in some way

*the only explanation I can think of for trees would be the fact that [tree -> three -> triangle] but like idk that might be too far. or maybe that's precisely why he can only go for things related to specific trees, like [birch = tree + eyes] and then [pines = tree + triangular shape]. maybe the rule is even more complex than I first thought... hmmm

[pluraldeepdive]

Let's Fact Check: Was MPD renamed to DID for Harmful Reasons?

(Disclaimer: This post contains descriptions of ableism and disbelief in plurality. I do not condone any hatred towards any person mentioned on this post. If you see anyone attacking them, please report them for harassment! This post was made to spread awareness, not negativity.)

In this post, we will be investigating the claim that multiple personality disorder (MPD) was renamed to dissociative identity disorder (DID) for harmful reasons.

Origins of the claim

This claim most likely originated from a (now privatized) wordpress blog post made in 2019.

Click here for an archive of the blog post.

In this post, the author is discussing a blog post they found that's written by Allen J. Frances, the chairman of an outdated edition of the DSM. After reading his blog post, they came to the conclusion that Frances renamed MPD to DID out of malicious intent towards people with MPD because his blog post states that he does not believe in MPD.

This wordpress post was later linked on Twitter, where many users began repeating the claim. As it spread across Twitter and other social media platforms, the claim has adopted several variations. Some people claim that Frances attempted to get rid of MPD entirely, some claim that he renamed it as a scheme to erase all plurality, and some claim that “DID” is an ableist or offensive diagnosis because of all of this. It seems like most of the people spreading these claims do not have DID themselves, however.

Click here for a link to an imgur folder showing examples of this claim in online plural spaces.

The post by Frances

Now, let's look at the blog post that was cited as proof that MPD was renamed to DID for harmful reasons.

Click here to read his post (TW for fakeclaiming and ableism).

This post was written in 2014. In it, Frances is expressing how he doesn’t believe in what he calls MPD. He personally adheres to the debunked skeptical models which suggest DID is created through therapeutic suggestion or is a “fad”. He talks about how he wished he could remove MPD from the DSM-IV, but couldn’t do so. The next best thing, to him, was to allow controversial statements to be injected into the manual. These statements were removed in the current edition of the DSM.

Frances does not mention anything about the diagnosis's name change.

Addressing bias & concerning behavior

First of all, it’s important to look into the author of the wordpress blog to understand how reliable their word is. The author is a median system who I found out, from the blog, is @/multi_sapphire on Twitter. She also runs the blog @/acting-nt on Tumblr, which is a fact known by many in the online community.

At the time of making her blog post, she did not identify as having DID. She is openly anti-psychiatry, as well. While I don't want to make this a big focus, this system also has a history in the plural community of being very hateful towards the DID label. I have had to make a PSA about them before for posting hatred in the DID tags (source). They are the coiner of the term "traumascum" among other things (source). Many, many PSAs have been made about her by other systems about various concerning behavior (source).

Frances’ post can be easily triggering to anyone with DID, OSDD, or plurality. It’s understandable how a system, who was already unfavorable towards psychiatry, came to think that all of the changes made to DID in the DSM-IV were done out of malicious intent. Let's investigate that next.

Addressing how the DSM is made & who coins names

For anyone who doesn't know, "DSM" stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is a handbook used by clinicians to diagnose mental disorders.

The DSM-IV is an outdated edition that is no longer in use. It was published in 1994 and was replaced by the DSM-5 in 2013. While Frances was the chairman of the DSM-IV, he was kicked off the taskforce and has nothing to do with the current DSM. Most of the changes he made were completely reversed in the current manual.

The DSM taskforce is run by many people. Diagnoses are divided across different work groups who receive input and data from researchers that specifically research and work with people with those disorders. Suggestions are proposed from the researchers to the work groups, who then analyze this, conduct field trials, and propose changes that should be made to the DSM (source).

While Frances oversaw the taskforce, he is not listed as a member of any work group or researcher in the DSM-IV. This means he did not come up with any of the proposed changes to the DSM-IV.

Why MPD was renamed to DID

All of the dissociative disorders were renamed at the same time! All of them, except for DPDR, were changed to have the word “dissociation” in them. Researchers explain that they proposed this change in order to make the dissociative nature of these disorders more understandable.

Psychogenic amnesia was renamed to dissociative amnesia.

Psychogenic fugue was renamed to dissociative fugue.

Multiple personality disorder was renamed to dissociative identity disorder.

Atypical dissociative disorder was renamed to dissociative disorder not otherwise specified.

When it comes to DID in particular, there are two main reasons for the shift from multiple personalities to dissociative identities. Hersen et al. states the one of these reasons is that the term 'personality' defines "the characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings, moods, and behaviors" of the whole brain (source). This is what makes alters identities rather than personalities. According to this definition of personality, having multiple personalities would mean having multiple brains! The second reason is that the older term emphasized the alters over the dissociation (same source).

In my opinion, refocusing on the dissociation rather than the alters allows people with DID to have the full spectrum of their symptoms recognized, and helps distance plurality from disorders. Many plural systems don't view their systems as the problem. Many systems don't have DID, either. The shift in this diagnostic language has made it much easier for that distinction to be made! It's very unfortunate that false claims have been made about this, casting more stigma onto both DID and non-DID systems.

Summary

To summarize everything:

The claim that MPD was renamed to DID for harmful reasons most likely originated from a 2019 blog post.

The author of the blog post was reasonably concerned about a figure of authority being ableist. However, their own biases against the DID label likely influenced their claim that the DID label was created by said figure of authority.

In actuality, that guy did not come up with the name "DID." Researchers are the ones who did.

MPD was renamed to DID in order to make it more understandable and put an emphasis on dissociation.

All dissociative disorders were renamed along with DID to include the word "dissociation" in them.

[sorrelchestnut]

Birds on a Wire, Lucanis/f!Rook, 2/?

Part One.

The next morning she is awake before him, as has become usual the last few months.  Lucanis sleeps well these days, now that he no longer fears what his body will do once unattended.  Her troubles with the dreaming world have no such simple solutions.  Lucanis makes a mental note to confer with Emmrich the next time they meet, and goes looking for his wayward lover.

He finds her in the courtyard, debriefing with the Caretaker.  "-need tending," she's saying.  "They all think they're real now and start wilting if they don't get watered.  And Bellara will be back from Arlathan in a couple days, can you make sure she eats and sleeps at regular intervals?  She's pretty good about it if you remind her."

"Of course, Dweller.  I will see to it."

"Thanks, mate.  I know things have been quiet but if you have any problems in the Crossroads send a message through the Treviso eluvian.  We'll be back in a flash to see it handled."

"Of course, Dweller.  Safe travels."

"We'll certainly do our best.  Hullo, pet," she says, turning with a smile as he approaches on her right.  "You all packed?"

"The essentials, at least," he confirms, hefting his duffel.  "What about you, is that all you're taking with you?"

Rook shoulders her own much smaller rucksack and grins at him.  "Not much to take, you know me.  Couple spare daggers and a change of clothes and I'm all set."

Clothes that are just as stained and tattered as the set she's currently wearing, unfortunately.  The past months have not been kind to anyone's belongings but…  Lucanis pictures his grandmother's face and winces. "We could both use a refresh of our wardrobe," he says diplomatically.  "We'll have to visit my old tailor, if he's still in business."

She only shrugs.  Someone told Lucanis once that Rivainis like to wear their wealth; clearly no one saw fit to inform Rook.  "Your coin, dove.  You ready to go?"

"At your lead, signora."

If someone told him six months ago that he would grow accustomed to traveling halfway across the continent in the blink of an eye, Lucanis would have laughed in their face.  But he thought the same thing when he first took a life, and with enough repetition that grew to hold all the intrigue of yesterday's lunch.  Today he steps through the eluvian at Rook's heels and into the cool, damp air of an Antivan winter, and thinks only with irritation that it looks as if it's going to rain.

Rook's clearly thinking the same.  "Oh, look at that sky.  Might have a storm on our hands."

Ugh.  "You're not wrong," he's forced to agree, eyeing the sky with disfavor.  "If we don't hurry we're going to get caught in it."

"Oh, you think?"

He turns the skeptical look on her.  She's practically bouncing on her heels, giddy as a child.  "You cannot be serious."

"Do you know how long it's been since I've even seen a storm?  In Minrathous it's a light drizzle four hours a day like clockwork, and the Crossroads are mildly sunny night and fuckin' day."

Yes, and Lucanis loves it.  He'd go back right now if he could.  "Have you ever tried to run rooftops in a downpour?"

"I've boarded ships in a hurricane, love, still think they're cracker."  She laughs at the expression on his face.  "Can't help it, I just love loud weather."

"Thunderbolts and lighting!" Spite agrees.

It's Spite's nature to be argumentative, and if he can suck up to Rook in doing so then all the better.  But Lucanis thought better of her.  "You are a very strange person.  There is nothing enjoyable about wet clothing."

She laughs again and slings an arm around his shoulders.  "Aww, poor grumpy Lucanis.  C'mon, Spite, let's go before his highness gets his feet wet."

There is a fledgling waiting for them at the canal docks, though Lucanis did not take the time to send his grandmother a reply.  She must have set the boy to wait as soon as she sent the letter, as if to remind Lucanis that it is beneath the First Talon to procure his own gondola.  He tucks his sigh behind his teeth.

"Your name?"

"Marco, monsignor."

Lucanis doesn't recognize him, but then, he doesn't know most of the fledglings in Treviso these days.  Caterina kept herself busy during the occupation, pulling in all manner of disaffected youths with dreams of being freedom fighters.  He wonders wearily how many of them will survive the brutal reality of a Crow's apprenticeship without the numbing salve of patriotic fervor to fuel their ambitions.  There will be a great many failures over the next few years, is his estimate, and as always, those few who succeed will be forced to cut their matriculation from the throats of their less fortunate brethren.  And Lucanis will have to be the one to order it done.

(didn't want this. never wanted THIS)

"Good to meet you.  Are you to take us to the villa?"

"Yes, monsignor."  His gaze roams unsubtly around the empty dock.  "And will, ah, your luggage be traveling separately?"

"Most people just call me Rook, lad."

Under other circumstances Lucanis might enjoy the fledgling's wide-eyed look of panic.  "Signora- Monsignora, I did not mean-"

"Ignore her, Marco," Lucanis instructs with a sigh.  "We're ready to depart when you are."

Rook gives the white-faced boy a clap on the shoulder and jumps into the waiting gondola, sure-footed as a cat.  Lucanis follows her more circumspectly, dropping his duffel at her feet.  "Play nice with the children, cara."

"I'm always nice."

"I know of several who would disagree."

"Yeah, but how many of them are still alive to say so?"

"Ah, the 'leave no witnesses' approach.  Very Antivan."

"Learned from the best."

Lucanis soon falls silent as the gondola progresses through the canals, his capacity for banter exhausted by the presence of their witness, but Rook nobly takes up the banner of conversation with some convoluted story of a failed treasure hunt involving three pirate ships and a dragon.  Lucanis listens and makes noises at all the right intervals, but his attention is fixed on their surroundings as they pass.

(enemy territory)

It's not like this for normal people, Lucanis thinks.  Neve is justifiably cautious taking a stroll around Docktown's meaner streets, but she watches the crowds, looking for a common thug or paid mercenary to try their luck.  Harding keeps an eye on her purse and Taash shoulders through crowds like a ship cuts the water, but neither of them move through the world as if death could come at any minute.  Even Rook, who handles her blade with a particular familiar flourish that Lucanis has very carefully not questioned how she might have been taught, doesn't share his reflexive, ceaseless paranoia any time they go somewhere he hasn't personally vetted.  He wouldn't wish that fear on his worst enemy - but neither would he want her denied of any tool that might keep her safe.

(WE will keep her safe!)

That's what Lucanis's mother thought, and his father, and all his aunts and uncles.  Thirty years ago, House Dellamorte numbered in the dozens: five children, four spouses, eight grandchildren, countless body servants and retainers.  Of those, only Lucanis remains.  And he dares to imagine Rook beside him in this pit of vipers?

(blood and brine.  storm and steel!)

True.  Rook has survived worse things than any the Antivan Crows can offer, that's to be sure.  Even now, her laugh comes easy, her haphazard tale flowing like good wine - but her gaze is watchful, flitting from the rooftops behind Lucanis to the streets ahead and back again.  And underneath the fold of her tattered traveling cloak, her hand rests casually near the hilt of her sword.  Perhaps it will be enough.

Part Three

[azdoine]

Whenceforth art thou, Hell?

Nona the Ninth appears to confirm Abigail Pent's suspicion that the River has been deliberately broken or sealed, per the comments of Varun and Alecto:

The Captain’s voice was like old teeth. “He left them too long—you left them too long, my salt thing.” ... Afterward Alecto went down to the ship and stood before John, purposing to travel through the River, and was grieved to find it yet dead.

However, a common thread of discussion I see in theorycrafting goes that if John has closed whatever gates may lead beyond the River, then his actions here are somehow for the sake of sustaining necromancy as an institution - as if, at the eleventh hour, we'll learn that all magic has somehow been fueled by burning through God's giant Philosopher's Stone all along. I cannot accept this interpretation. To me, it raises an infinite regression: how could John possibly have used necromancy in order to invent necromancy?

Moreover, this kind of plot twist disregards the internal logic and deflates the significance of TLT's social critique. The Tower doesn't need to be a secret hydroelectric dam in the River for converting human damnation into worldly power, because the engine of suffering has been in the real world the entire time, and it's just called colonialism. The price to be paid for working necromancy is a price to be paid overtly and in this life, either by the coin of explicit necrocapital or by the coin of grief.

If the path to a hypothetical River Beyond has been closed, I think it's for a much more banal psychological reason: John is a mission-oriented avenger who refuses to accept any check on the reach of his judgement.

“There can be no forgiveness for those who walked away,” he said. “Just as there can be no forgiveness for me—even though I rip the very fingers from my hands … throw them into the jaws of the monsters who hunt me … as I run from them across the universe, end to end. Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me. Nothing.” He drew his gaze away from her—his black-and-white, chthonic stare—and looked out over the dunes. He said, “But that’s the grace of it, Harrow. If I’m God, I can start over. The flood, you know? You can wash things clean. That’s all the end of Earth was … making things clean. It gets dirty again, you clean it again. Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right? Sometimes I think the only reason I haven’t done it already is that I can’t bear the idea that I wouldn’t be able to touch them—that they’d still be out there…"

People regularly overlook the psychological significance of John's long reach in the context of understanding his behavior. Death and physical distance are no escape from a sufficiently powerful necromancer, because his enemies can be summoned out of the River - which bridges locations across unimaginable gulfs of space - and subjected to further torments in person.

(this is another reason I don't believe that John's expansionist project is being carried out in order to hunt down and slaughter the resettled generational descendants of the trillionaires; based on what we've read, John simply shouldn't need to settle for such a pointless blood feud, let alone carry out his revenge-by-proxy in the physical world. however it came to be that the dead are trapped within the River, everyone who lives is certain to enter his kingdom of death eventually, to sit and wait for him to sieve them from the waters.)

From here, it also makes sense on John's part to arrange for a specific place for the interment of problematic souls. He has to be able to keep some people pinned in place in the palm of his grave-dirt hand - otherwise he leaves a potential attack surface for anyone to try to summon the dead as their witnesses and ask for incriminating information about the King Undying. John certainly admits to deliberately leaving many souls on ice in proportion to their moral desert, for which Harrow accuses him of malfeasance:

"We’ll get them all back … some of them, anyway … or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn’t do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. And my loved ones … The ones I left, I’ll bring back." ... "I want to know how many of the Resurrection are left, and how many you began with, and what the discrepancies are. I want to know where you put them. They didn’t go into the River. I want to know why she was angry … and why you were terrified."

Alecto The Ninth is set to invoke the harrowing of hell, but I still think we have to be very careful not to overstate these mythological allusions or buy into John's mystique here. The Locked Tomb is a setting with an intensely organic and visceral metaphysics, where the embodiments of the divine - Alecto and John, John's hands and gestures, the human soul itself - are "merely" congregations of smaller powers. "God is a dream, Harrow, and you all dream me together" - the secular minutiae of life and magic are divine only where we remember they're worth deifying!

As John's godhood was once demystified to expose him as an oversized Lyctor, if I want to understand the nature of Hell and the Tower in advance of Alecto, I think I have to let go of my assumption that the answers to all of these questions isn't hidden in plain sight, that there must be a dizzying twist. Let's assume a man did it, and not a god; and ask, how would any man go about trapping ten billion souls or damming the River?

[always-just-down-the-street]

Okay, chat, so I am trying to work out a timeline for the Misremembered Lanes AU, and I am realizing there are two very interesting points to tackle before I even get to the finale- And honestly, both of them are way too interesting of topics to just do myself, so for the fans of the AU, here are your two major points.

Everything's A-OJ in Season 2.

OJ's elimination in Season 3.

These both feel like the first major wrinkles/differences in this AU's timeline compared to canon- because these two moments, they tackle directly into something I mentioned OJ struggles with. Control.

What happens when he's finally given control of the show, but now has to deal with new contestants that...don't know him enough to excuse his egomaniac/control freak tendencies or have the subconscious belief that because he won last season, he must be good? What happens when people actually question him, not like the people who just stay in the hotel do? Would his facade slip? Would anyone notice?

On the other hand- what happens when he finally loses all control? When against all odds, the "king of Inanimate Insanity"...finally has to face failure, face elimination? Would he begin to relapse into his original programming? Would he feel a relief he hasn't felt in so long but can't explain why and now chases after it once he's back at the hotel?

And on the other side of the coin, how does Taco change before the finale? Does she have any lingering feelings haunting her during S2 like OJ does? How does this influence her alliance with Microphone or her attempt to take over the show in Truth or Flare? That's definitely a fun one.

Consider this a post where anyone can post their headcanons or ideas for the Misremembered Lanes AU- they can follow these points or they can just be general ideas you might have about the AU involving OJ and Taco, maybe Suitcase and Box since they're included now, and obviously in saying that, all spoilers are allowed. Who knows, maybe I'll even make them canon if I think they fit enough (or are cool enough)...

In fact, let me begin with an idea of my own, get the wheel spinning.

~ 0 ~

What if Taco and OJ's buttons in MeLife are flipped after the S1 finale?

OJ's button spawns Taco, Taco's button spawns OJ- MePhone thinks it's some weird kink that occurred due to the 4S downgrade and it becomes one of the many things he hides, this one half because he just doesn't want anyone thinking he's about to revive Taco apropos of nothing and half because he genuinely doesn't know why.

But when the revelations start happening, MePhone distracts himself by wondering a question:

"Why would the downgrade cause OJ and Taco's buttons to be flipped, anyway? Neither of them died while I was dead, else they wouldn't respawn at all like Bow- did 4S do something? Or…"

And that's when he remembers those initial drawings he made.

OJ - Egotistical, Hates Losing, Caring?, Manipulative? Taco - Unpredictable, Wild Card, Underdog

…Their buttons aren't flipped.

They're flipped.

And consequently, when Suitcase tries to summon OJ and Paper…Taco's just as confused as everyone else when she appears next to him instead.

~ 0 ~

So, what do you all think? Feel free to say so in reposts or comments or whatever you do.