#i have a lot of thoughts about bacchanalia

[nunyabznsbabes]

Catholic Imagery in Yellowjackets: An Incomplete Thread

Shauna's infamous Saints line

Shauna as the Blessed Mother, wearing the light blue head wrap while nursing her baby in the dreamworld

The fact that there are seven confirmed survivors of the wilderness, which is a HUGE holy number in Catholicism that symbolizes perfection. There are seven sacraments, seven deadly sins, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc. etc. (one of each, for each!)

The fact that if Mari survives, which I legitimately think she might, there will be eight survivors - the Catholic number for resurrection

The tie between Holy Communion (consuming the Body and Blood of Christ) and their ritual of cannibalism - but reversed, in that Jesus "gives" His body for the spiritual salvation of those partaking in the sacrament, while the girls "take" the bodies of the others for their physical salvation

Lottie as a prophet (and also as Jesus)

Shauna's baby as Jesus

The reoccurring theme of forgiveness and redemption, or the impossibility thereof

The windowpanes behind Shauna in 2x06 as linking representations of the cross; like the Virgin Mary, her son has died/been sacrificed for the good of the collective

The use of physical objects, like Van's bone necklace, to protect against supernatural harm

Joseph's coat of many colors and dead cabin guy's coat that they're all passing around and hallucinating/having visions in

The repetitive motif of sacrifice; Laura Lee's of herself, their offerings to the wilderness, picking cards to determine who's going to die so that the others will live

[better-than-sleeping]

A part of Richard's isolation from the group that I would like to put forward is this:

I truly do believe the group care for Richard as a friend, even when their relationships start to spiral out of control near the end. But that care isn't always present throughout their lives, the same way most people aren't constantly obsessing over their friend's feelings 24/7, and he cannot understand it.

It's not just the stuff you would typically think of that proves this to me, like the twins going out of their way to include him, companionable rambles with Bunny, making food with Francis. The most obvious instance of this is Richard being excluded from the Bacchanalia, and yes, this obviously sucks as someone trying so desperately to be included and a part of the group, but also makes so much sense from their perspective.

If Richard had been normal, he would have been so weirded out! This could be a convenient excuse, but it could just as easily be the group showing their own desires to be accepted by HIM, in a kind of reverse of roles that Richard naturally doesn't want to pick up on, because that would be seeing them human, and fallible, and SIMILAR TO HIMSELF. Unthinkable!

Something I've not seen discussed is the little aside when he first falls in with the group proper and relates that they had found him just as aloof as he had found them. Their inviting him to Francis's house was simply an urge to impress him, and I can't see any other way of reading it than that. If they had simply wanted to include him, but didn't care about how he saw them, they could have simply kept inviting him to their houses and out for lunch.

But, it's the moments that also double as little instances of ostracism that really interest me: Camilla saying Henry didn't want to do another pig ritual because he thought it would upset Richard, the group telling him they've already involved him enough and that he shouldn't participate in Bunny's murder. The general reading of this (that I've seen so far) seems to be that Henry did these things purposefully to keep Richard apart from the group, he didn't know him as well as the others, an unknown quantity, someone he didn't care for as much since he hadn't known him as long. But there's a lot of ambiguity there as well, and I think what makes things so compelling is that uncertainty. It could be purposeful, or unintentional, or some inextricable combination of the two.

(As an aside- ironically, I believe Henry may care about Richard the most out of anyone in the group. Helping him while he was sick, worried about seeing Richard drunk during the day, it's all rather sweet, and I don't believe it was entirely some machievellian scheme.)

However, I like to see the isolation as mostly, if not entirely unintentional, because that makes it so much more cutting to me. It's subtle. They don't put any special thought into doing it, they just…don't even think how these things could make him feel.

The worst part is, as far as I remember, Richard never fully engages with his feelings about this, but they are felt so much through the story and his actions within them. They are moments that sunk deep within his psyche like a stone that's dropped into water and swallowed immediately without a trace. It sits very still inside him, unmoveable.

His acceptance of these moments as they are happening to him is likely a result of his history of loneliness and being apart from others. There is nothing unusual to him about this, that it would require further thought from him within his narrative.

A large part of Richard's isolation is due to his glorification of the people he deems worthy, which continues even after he begins to see their flaws. Despite them, he still can't bear to see them torn down to his level, people he can relate to instead of glorify or look down upon. I think there is an element of self destruction to this, not wanting to understand so he has an excuse to punish himself for self perceived deficiencies.

It's very intriguing, this uncertainty of how much of Richard's isolation from the group is imagined, or perhaps even self imposed in a kind of feedback loop, where he feels pushed away and so pulls himself away from them, to anonymous parties with people he professes not to care about, takes pills and sleeps for days, to numb himself from the pain of their rejection.

And in the process, this feeling of isolation is enforced, becomes more a reality through the concrete evidence he has produced by himself. Maybe the group see his behaviour and think he needs space, they give it to him. He feels lonely, he says nothing. Because he would rather freeze to death than ask for help.

[memescomicswriting]

It's Nice To Have A Friend

Chapter 5: My Heart, My Hips, My Body, My Love

Summary: Fate is cruel on how it goes about obtaining its desires. It must be fate, because there is no other explanation for how perfectly molded Y/N and Helaena are to one another. They complement one another like opposite sides of a coin. Where Helaena is shy, Y/N is outgoing. Helaena has a photographic memory. Y/N has emotional inteligence. They have the right temperament to be the missing piece in one another’s lives. Ying and Yang. Then there are the boys. Love them or hate them, they’re there. Even the adults cannot escape the Targaryen chaos, and the fallout doesn’t spare the minors simply because they’re adolescents. Follow how Y/N and those around her carve out lives for themselves amongst the weight of the Targaryen legacy in a modern Westeros.

Word Count 6.2k

Pairings: Aegon x Y/N, Aemond xY/N, hints of Jace x Y/N, Platonic! Helaena x Y/N, Father Figure! Harwin x Y/N, Mother Figure! Rhaneyra x Y/N, Mother Figure! Alicent x Y/N

Warnings: 18+ you’ve been warned

Lots of profanity, sexual innuendos, drug and alcohol use, boys being stupid jerks, infidelity, divorce, you get some smut this chapter!

A/N: Chapters drop on Thursdays. Please, please, please, please share your thoughts. I wanna hear them. I don't bite, promise!

Additionally, don't come for me with the Valyrian god names. Take it up with the official wiki I consulted.

Sereies Masterlist

Y/N would describe nostalgia as the misty scent of pine furs mixed with Weirwood sap. It was that scent that filled her senses during childhood adventures. If you added a whiff of smoke, countless parties came to mind. It was a tradition, the outgoing senior send off. Of course, some college students would attend as their siblings or close friends were that year’s crop. Afterwards, they were welcomed into the local bars. This was the toast to it all; a goodbye to the sanctuary of revelry they’d spent the last four years enjoying. Storries from previous years lingered like a legacy. What tales would their send off leave behind?

Y/N’s obviously flopped. It went from a proposed bacchanalia to a nearly year long feud with Aemond. That was over now; apologies made and friendships mended. Y/N could hold a grudge, but she wasn’t so cruel that she’d ruin Aemond’s send off in retribution. It was Jace’s as well. Part of her considered this a potential redo. She could leave pleasant memories in place of scars. 

Y/N made it to the clearing earlier than most party goers. Her intent was to arrive before Aemond and Jace, to help set up. This was for them and they shouldn’t be responsible for preparation. 

In a refrigerated bag, Y/N carried a few handles of liquor and litters of mixers. There never came a time where they had to ration booze, but if you wanted something specific, you had to bring it. She left her contribution on the empty kegs turned tables from years prior. Graduation years were spray painted across each one. They went back decades. 

Y/N planned to start directing drink set up when she caught the familiar sight of long silver hair on a masculine form. Aemond was crouched on one knee next to the firepit looking like he wanted to start it.

“You shouldn’t be setting up. This party is for the graduates. That includes you.” Y/N’s announcement startled Aemond, though to the untrained eye, he hadn’t reacted at all. Y/N knew his tells, but she knew better than to tease him. He’d be in a sour mood for the rest of the night.

A faint frown draped over Aemond. Part of him knew she’d gotten to him. He also hated Y/N seeing him struggle, and starting this fire wasn’t easy. “Well since it’s a party for me, I had to make sure it was done right.” 

“Control freak.” Y/N rolled her eyes and smirked knowingly. Before joining Aemond on ground level, she rearranged the firewood so air could better circulate and feed the flames.

Aemond scoffed, though he was slightly amused. “Says the girl literally taking control.”

Y/N kneeled down and claimed his tools. She worked, engaging in his obvious desire to spar. “Aemond, your talents surpass others in many things. Lighting a fire, I fear, is not one of them.”

She stroked his ego while taunting him. His favorite flavor of fun. “And yet the heiress knows how.”

“Huh,” It was a dry and dark utterance from Y/N. “With my history, yeah.”

That was the nail in the coffin to any quips Aemond could retort. How do you win an argument when the trauma card is played? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“No, no, I took it there.”

“Are you… okay?”

“Yeah,” Y/N sighed and relaxed back onto the forest floor with a plop. She crossed her legs and left her now free hands in her lap. “I just…wanted to understand it. The ways to start it, manage it, end it.”

Aemond nodded in consideration and focused on the unlit logs. “I can see why.”

“I know it’s fucked up.” Y/N continued and refused to look up from her hands and the lighter in them. “But sometimes I wonder what they went through.”

Y/N sparked the lighter and orbited her hand around the flame. Her fingers danced nearer and then distanced from the light like she dared it to grow and claim her too. “What did they feel last? Was it the flames? Or the smoke that did them in. Like if I know the feeling, I could go back and stop it all together.”

Aemond wasn’t skilled in comfort. He sharpened his tongue long ago and dulling the edge with sweetnesses was a difficult act. He tried the best he could, sharing what he knew. “Our ancestors used fire as a tool of divination and sorcery.”

She scoffed at his ridiculous connection. “And it only brought death and destruction to their enemies and to them.”

Aemond shrugged. Regardless of feelings of morality, it was their legacy and legacy was everything to Aemond. “It gave us what we have now.”

Her hard focus snapped to him. Defiance and a tad of horror lived within her gaze; though her words sounded like a caress. “Was it worth it?” He blinked and withdrew in slight intimidation. She spoke of how horrid fire and flame were, yet here he felt their heat radiate off of her. “The histories say they used dark magics to inject fire into their blood and the blood of their descendants.”

“Perhaps that’s why you’re always so hot headed.” Y/N mumbled.

His immediate reaction was a sharp laugh. “Very clever.”

Y/N side eyed Aemond with a sleek smirk. “I have to be, to keep up with you.” The lighter sparked a piece of kindling. She tossed it into the larger pile beneath the main wood. Then she earnestly addressed him. “Now, the question is, can you keep up with me?” The pair shared an understanding smile.

Hours in and the party was at its height. Many graduates seemed invested in this graduating class. Empty cups already littered the ground. This year’s keg was half tapped. Delinquency filled the entirety of the forest clearing.

Jace and a few of his tourney teammates arrived together like the rowdy pack of boys they were. Aegon and Helena, the last of age Targaryans left in the house, made their way together. Aegon didn’t mind returning to the familiar surroundings. Here, he was the biggest dragon in the clutch. As a rising third year university student, he was admired simply for his age and experience. Soon to be university freshman girls flocked to him like a moth to a flame. Each started by asking for his advice, but it quickly devolved into shameless flirting. A giddy sense of pride filled his chest. Aegon craved the desirability and praise he’d often been neglected. Having this many admires was the drug he spent the summer searching for.

Aemond was further up Y/N’s ass than normal this summer. Almost every time Aegon sought her out, Aemond was there. He was used to tolerating Helaena’s presence. She and Y/N were best friends. Aemond though, he’d never been this open with his desire to be close to her. Often as Aegon went to sneak in a smoke with Y/N, Aemond deterred his efforts. Aegon became frustrated with the lack of Y/N’s attention, but he’d never admit it. He felt like an addict in relapse with the attention he was currently receiving. Still, nothing truly felt the same as the first dose. In his case, that was Y/N. He hoped that the party being for Aemond, he’d actually drink to the point of getting drunk, and Aegon could claim some of Y/N’s affections.

He excused himself from his collection of fans with the excuse that he needed a new drink. Helaena happened to be by the drink stand with one of her other friends. Though few they were. It was the perfect opportunity to check in on everyone’s status and whereabouts.

“Sister. Rayel.” Aegon acknowledged as he poured a fresh concoction into his plastic cup.

“Hey Aegon.” Rayel’s smile was bright and wide. Aegon added her to the tally of girls he could claim.

“Where’s the party animal and Y/N?” He hoped the sarcastic replacement for Aemond’s name would make the question casual enough to avoid suspicion. 

Rayel jumped in before Helena could respond. “Oh, I just saw them walk off that way.” The enthusiastic girl pointed in a direction that was through the thick of the crowd. 

“You just missed them replenishing their drinks.” Helena clarified in a more even tone.

Rayel nodded in agreement. Her helpfulness, though nice, came across as an obvious attempt to hold Aegon there. “Yeah, they were talking about some favor she owed Aemond and wanted to talk in private. I think they’ll be gone for a while.”

Helena and Aegon locked widened eyes. Both were all too familiar with Y/N and Aemond’s history.  Every detail was well known as they endured nine months of ranting. Aemond wouldn’t bring up that cataclysmic affair for nothing. Helaena’s alarm made Aegon more perturbed. She knew more about this summer’s events than anyone else. If she had cause for concern, Aegon was fucking terrified.

…

Aemond had Alys in the corner of the room where the lights dimmed. His slender fingers lightly held her hips. Her graceful arms lazily draped over his shoulders. He was beaming. She was laughing. They looked good together. It was early second semester of his first year and he’d found someone just for himself.

Y/N watched on. She had a perfect view from the couch. It was a bittersweet feeling. Aemond had Alys, and she was happy he was happy. Helena had something with her classmate Jenning that no one could quite comprehend, but she was content. Jace pursued a girl named Anya. Aegon and Rhaela had their girls. Baela was satisfied with the title as the campus’ biggest flirt. Everyone had someone or something, and Y/N was stuck on the couch- drink in one hand, phone in the other, eagerly awaiting a text that would never come. She downed the remainder of her drink and allowed her head to rest on the couch’s back. She hoped the alcohol would quickly kick in or someone offer her a smoke.

The gods deliver, because she felt the couch cushions shift with someone’s weight. “Our little bird has left the nest.” Aegon, and his voice was jovial. Score, there was her plug and she’d play along. He was good company for her.

“Yes, he spread his wings and flew!” She was amused by the irony of it all. Her head lulled to the side to address him and she didn’t try to hide her sentimental distress.

Confused and slightly suspicious, Aegon dramatically placed his hand to his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re upset by it.”

“Not at all.” Y/N wistfully giggled. “I’m happy fo him. Just kinda… lonely. Yah know?” She shrugged like the feeling was a passing phase, something common.

Aegon rolled his eyes and reclined into the couch, clearly over whatever she was going on about. “You need to stop being a doormat for that guy.”

Y/N narrowed her vision, but remained friendly. “You’re one to talk. I can see at least three girls shooting daggers at me for daring to hold your attention. Cause you have them on the line!”

“Yeah, but they’re not you.” He stated as if it were as obvious as the sky being blue.

Her narrow vision rounded in confusion. “What does that mean?”

Aegon’s hands came down on his knees. “Ugh, you’re killing my buzz. This is a crossfaded conversation.” He rocked into a standing position and offered her a helping hand. “Come on.”

Y/N couldn’t help but smirk as Aegon pulled her through the mass of individuals huttled in this off campus house. She didn’t care what it looked like he was directing her to do. Onlookers could gawk or mind their business. She didn’t care. He jiggled a few closed doors. When he found one unlocked and empty, he held the door open for her. 

Y/N had no reservations about sitting on a neatly made bed. Aegon stood in front of her with a blunt between his lips. His lighter was sparking, trying to light the damned thing. Once he got it going and took a puff he handed it off to her. She inhaled and watched as he claimed the space next to her. They placed themselves on the edge of the bed, arm to arm.

Y/N coughed a little on the exhale. This wasn’t of the highest quality. “So you were saying.”

With the blunt between his fingers, Aegon took puffs between his thoughts. “You’re not the just-for-fun girl. Yeah, you’re a girl and sometimes you like to have fun-” His lips pouted in a very Aegon suggestion. “But you’re not the long term just-for-fun girl. You’re special. Yeah the ones on the line,” He curled his fingers to quote her. “Were mad because you’re the one my attention was on, but at the end of the day they know it’ll never be something serious. How many times has that ass made you think it would be?” Even with the mix of liquor and drugs entering her system, Y/N still hung her head in shame. “Every time.”

“Right,” Aegon passed back the blunt. She needed it. “He wants the benefits of being with you but none of the restrictions that come with it. He doesn’t see how special you are, dump him, for good.”

“It’s easy to say, but sometimes I think Jayton is the only one who will ever make me feel-”

“Feel what?”

“Special. He called me his twin flame, and, and…” Y/N’s eyes welled with tears.

“Oh my fucking gods!” Aegon groaned and placed his palms to his eyes. “I’m gonna have to kick his ass.”

Y/n turned to him with amused disdain. “Don’t!” She exclaimed but she wasn’t too adamant, and shoved him.

Aegon used the force of her shove to recline back with her sculpted into his side. Her head rested on his chest and she felt safe enough to silently cry. He took the blunt from her so she could curl up how she liked. He took the hits he wanted and passed it back when she requested. They went on like this until they finished.

Once her tears dried, she shifted herself so she was chest to chest with Aegon. Her hands folded on one another and she rested her chin there. Y/N sighed, gratified.

Aegon propped his head up against a pillow. “It’s been a while since we’ve done this.”

“Yeah,” She pondered the timeframe. “Why is that?”

“You were stuck up a jackass’ ass.”

She chuckled. She was high. He amused her. “Oh yeah, by bad.” They laughed together for a good minute. It felt nice to be this close again. “When did you become so wise?” She wondered aloud.

“Always have been.” He shrugged despite her laying on top of him. “Just never show it.”

“Why haven’t you found someone?” It was a sharp turn in the conversation, but Y/N was simply following her thoughts.

Aegon frowned. “Who’s going to put up with me?” She huffed. “I can think of several girls.”

“No, I mean the mess that is my family, my stupid behavior, my vices. They’d run the first time the rose colored glasses slipped.”

“Please, if that were true you’d only see me at mandatory functions.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“You’re special.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s true!”

Silence. Y/N didn’t feel like arguing and Aegon didn’t feel the need to prove the point any further.

Y/N’s chin popped up, proud and adamant. “I think they’d be a fool to see you- the real you- who loves and cares till it makes him bleed, and run.”

“You think?” His brow raised in disbelief.

Y/N sighed and shook her head at how ridiculous she found his self deprecating beliefs. “You’re handsome.” The smile that enveloped her lips and twinkled in her eyes was like reflected sunlight. “But there’s something ethereal about you when you let your guard down.”

Some of his curls clung to his forehead from the sweat he worked up earlier. She brushed them aside. It forced him to gulp. “Really?”

“Syrax, god of wine, ecstasy, and the handsomest of them all.”

Aegon’s Adam's apple bobbed. He searched for any sign of sarcasm, that she was teasing him. He found none. He received his fair share of female flirtations, but it felt different coming from Y/N. Her words were kind and genuine and seeped down into his very bones.  He believed the compliments when they came from her. Her words reached the lonely little boy, starved for affection, within him. The very one that sought her attention from their first meeting.

His eyes glazed over in desire. Slowly, he lifted his head so his lips were within a hair of hers. He hesitated, looking from her eyes to her lips. There was a breath. Then another. Then they dove into the unknown together. Once their lips met, there was no hesitation. Almost a decade of history relived in a singular act. Every fight, compliment, insult, embrace, comfort, shame, fear, joy, pain, acceptance poured into their efforts like freshly spilled blood from an open wound. That’s the only way to describe the intensity of the moment; pouring, blending into one another. Their motions weren’t rough but desperate.

This was a form of companionship they’d stood just beyond the reach of for too long. Each chased the other, afraid the feeling would dissipate if they came up for air. The room spinned, and between the drugs, darkness, and lack of air- faces were fuzzy. When they latched once again, Y/N’s fingers intertwined within the mess of knots in Aegon’s hair. His fingers danced along her sides in a track leading from her hips up to the swells of her breast. In his greed, he wanted to feel everything she had to offer.

Y/N’s straddle widened to accommodate Aegon’s hips. They’d been in this position before. When they were younger it was in the heat of a disagreement. As they got older, boundaries thinned and it became a dangerous standoff. They knew how to play this game. Y/N ground her increasingly wanting core against the already firm bulge in Aegon’s jeans. He hissed against her lips. She chuckled in triumph until she had to moan. Aegon thrusted his hips up in a circular motion. The moans Y/N made were sinful.

In retaliation, she leaned in to nibble down his neck and to his exposed collar bone. He whined. Actually whined. He groped the supple flesh of her bottom to stabilize himself. That backfired. She was in a skirt, so he truly clutched a handful of her skin. She was in a godsdamned thong.

“Fuck.” He spoke in an extended exhale. Y/N straightened her posture to grind on him like he was a fair’s mechanical dragon. He was awestruck by her unabashed lust. He himself sat up and chased her lips in need of their bruising bliss. His hands slid up her now untucked shirt and over her breasts. He kneaded them and it caused them both to groan.

“Aegon.” Y/N was pained by desperation. He reflected the same distress. “I want to feel good.”

He nodded with abandon. He wanted it to. He’d come into his own hand, and occasionally other girls, at the prospect of the dream he now lived. “I will. Sevens help me I will. I lo-”

His near declaration was cut off by an intruder clearing their throat. Aegon’s grip on Y/N tightened to hide any potentially exposed skin. Startled, they searched for the origin of the disruption. There stood Aemond with a glare from the depths of the seven hells. Alys’ eyes were awkwardly downcast and arms crossed.

Y/N scrambled to untangle herself. She tried to look more presentable. It wouldn’t make her any less guilty.

Aegon was deeply annoyed with the intrusion. “And you’re here because?” He looked over his brother like he was the weird outcast from the back of the class trying to sneak a seat at the popular kid’s table.

“Seems the same as you.” Then his lips sneered as he addressed Y/N. “But at least we’re sober enough to know what we’re doing.”

“Hey,” Y/N’s guilt faded into anger at his accusation. “We’re equally stoned.”

“I can see.” Aemond snorted. “That’s why you let him paw at you like a rabid dog. Or was it desperation?” He cocked his head to the side, words flowing with condemnation. “What happened to being the one person he’d never touch?”

Y/N retreated into herself. It was all too much. Her disappointment from earlier, the substances, Aegon’s words of comfort, the feeling of his lips on hers, where it was leading, and his near admission. Now Aemond. It all spiraled in her mind like water circling a drain. She was a sinking ship. This was it. She found it more difficult to fill her lungs with air. She needed out. She needed to get out. She needed to get out now.

Without a second thought to her state of dress, Y/N flew off the bed and to the door. Her words vomited out her mouth as she was on the move. “I, I, it just happened okay. Don’t make it a bigger deal than it is.”

With no regard for himself, Aegon went after her in his disheveled manor. His single focus was to make sure she was okay. Aemond caught his forearm before he could make it out the doorway.

Blind malice had a hold over Aemond. He spat his words into his brother’s panicking face. “Hurts to be interrupted once you finally achieve what you’ve always wanted, doesn’t it?”

Aegon shook his arm free. He would’ve decked Aemond if he wasn’t so concerned about reaching Y/N. “Fuck you, you jealous, unwanted, scarred, creep.”

He jogged down the hallways of the building and out the back looking for Y/N. She only stopped when her feet touched the dew soaked grass.

Aegon encircled her from behind. His arms applied the grounding pressure she needed. Her sobs were heartwrenching. “Hey, hey, shh. It’s okay.”

Y/N didn’t cease her cries. “He’s right. He’s right.” Her head dropped forward in defeat. “I was desperate to feel wanted and I came onto you. And I shouldn’t have! You’re my best friend’s older brother, and we’re at each other's throats all the time. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have. I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.” Aegon rubbed his face into the crook of her neck. He couldn’t let go. “You’re smart, and sweet, and perfect, and I wanted to.”

“I wanted to, too. Gods I wanted you.” Her breaths were rigid and alternating between too deep and not enough. “But the thought of ruining things… all I want is peace.”

….

The senior send off was just another party. Another time for Y/N to be a social butterfly. However, this time Aemond managed to keep up with her most of the night. She was oblivious to the curious glances cast in their direction. She focused on the conversations in front of her. Aemond was quieter, more reserved, and aware of his surroundings. He noticed. He enjoyed the presumed envy.

He left her side to refill their drinks. Making his way from one side of the crowd to the other wasn’t easy. He was taller, but his presence wasn’t as vibrant as Y/N’s or Aegon’s. They tended to have an easier time navigating the crowds.

When he arrived at the drink station he was greeted by his sister and one of his classmates, Rayel maybe. He faintly remembered only because Y/N and Helena seemed to enjoy the girl. She was too eager for his taste. She appeared disappointed when Aemond didn’t embrace her in conversation. Why would he? She wasn’t anyone he wanted. Still, he didn’t want to receive backlash for being rude, so he indulged in simple one word answers. Perhaps that took up more time than he thought, because soon Y/N emerged from the crowd.

“Ah, I see what’s taking you so long.” Y/N stepped around Aemond and hugged Rayel. “Good company keeps you busy.”

“Sure.” Aemond curtly answered as he added mixers into their cups of alcohol.

Y/N rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. “Ignore him.” She said to Rayel.

“We certainly do.” Helaena chimed in. She smirked at the grimace Aemond sent her way.

“How was your summer exchange program in Dorne?”

“Oh my gods Y/N, you would not believe how incredible it is down there. I was telling Helena, first you think it’s going to be all miserable dessert but the residence is centered around an oases!”

Aemond filtered out the conversation. He had no care for what this girl did in Dorne. None of it was important. Tonight, it was him and Y/N. He’d spent the party by her side, allowing many exchanges, was pleasant with those who she exchanged with, and even gotten a dance out of her. It was time to move on to what he’d hoped for all night. He listened in once more.

“We should add that to our travel list.” Helena suggested. Y/N nodded.

“Before or after Valyria?” Aemond mused. He’d play along for what he needed.

Y/N chuckled and batted at his arm gently. “No, this is for my trip with just Helaena and I, you ditz.”

Aemond hummed. “I see. So long as we still have our trip…”

“Yes, our trip.” Y/N circled her index finger to signify Helaena’s inclusion.

“Here, let me show you some pictures I haven’t posted yet.” Rayel chirped and pulled out her phone to show the girls. Aemond rested his drink on one of the kegs, turned tables and used his free hand to gently grasp Y/N’s forearm.

“Your drink.” The cup was exchanged and Y/N grinned a small but bright smile. Aemond suddenly felt like the only person here with her; like everyone else were just blobs of colorful reflected light. This wasn’t a solo occurrence.

“Thank you.” Y/N took a sip and Aemond preened.

“Hey, can we go back to our conversation earlier?” Aemond was too focused on Y/N to notice Rayel’s peeking.

“What? The one where you were bragging about restoring that old dragon modeled sports car or the one where you said Landon Hills has as much class as his stepdad has Lannister loans?”

“No,” Aemond collected his drink and cocked his head. “The one about the favor.”

“Oh that conversation.” Y/N played along. “Must be important for you to bring it up twice.”

Aemond was smug with his banter back. “So important that I’d rather discuss it away from frivolous girls and their coddled trips.”

Over the years, Y/N became accustomed to Aemond’s open disrespect to others. It was hard not to. He wasn’t always subtle. She simply shook her head and wrapped her arm around Aemond’s. “Someone’s feisty tonight.” Before taking a step she turned to Helaena and Rayel and spoke louder. “We’ll be right back.”

Y/N pulled Aemond through the crowd. She was going in the direction of the lake, but Aemond had other ideas.

“This way.” He took the lead and turned their direction to where paths forked. Exiting the sea of people he shrugged away her confusion. “I thought it’d be nice to take a walk where you didn’t have to shout in every conversation.”

She accepted the conclusion without any objection. It would be nice not to strain her vocal cords for five minutes. Plus, Aemond put up with the crowd for hours now and she knew that drained him. She could be nice and go along with his suggestion.

They walked down a trail in silence, sipping their drinks for a few minutes before Y/N stopped at an old picnic table. Thinking that was as far as he needed, she took a seat on the table top.

Aemond’s lips upturned slightly, gently, and he shook his head. Once again, he used his free hand to grab onto her. This time, he took her hand instead. He was firm in decision but soft in execution. It wasn’t strange for him to be this tender every now and again. Momentary hand holding wasn’t odd either, but then he kept her hand. He folded his fingers between hers. His thumb glided over the smooth skin of the back of her hand. 

They continued further down the trail until they came to a small clearing. The main party clearing was the size of a sport’s field. This clearing was the size of an inground swimming pool. It was easy to see an array of stars overhead, the light pollution of King’s Landing dulled by the vast forest estates of King’s Woods. The noise of the party and its music were a hum behind them. Y/N placed her cup down on the grass below and looked up at the stars above.

“Oh…” Her voice was hushed to match the stillness of the situation. “They’re beautiful.” She looked over to Aemond to find agreement, but all she found was the intensity of his gaze. He looked at her the way she looked at the stars. It was at that moment she truly understood the old saying: he looks at me like I hung the moon and stars. It caused her to swallow deep and it felt like a rock plummeted down her throat to her stomach. Trepidation tickled her skin like a current of electricity. There was no friendly excuse for the moment. She was on the edge of an unknown cliff about to fall, and part of her was excited for the drop. Everything in her was conflicted.

“Beautiful.” Aemond agreed, but they both knew he wasn’t talking about the stars. He was relaxed, and tender, and everything like the magnetic person he could be- if he just let the invisible weight of expectations fall. He shifted so that he went from being shoulder to shoulder, to being directly in front of her. She tried to hide herself by looking to the forest floor, their shoes, blades of grass, anything but meeting his eyes.

Aemond never dropped her hand. With his other, he took her jaw with his thumb to her chin. Through thick lashes she blinked and caught sight of how close his face was to hers. Her free hand laid flat against his chest. Whether to push him away or hold him close, she didn’t know. She took steps back but didn’t realize that she was pulling him along with her, still connected. Surprise took hold over her once she felt tree bark graze her back. She’d caged herself.

Y/N tilted her head forward to rest on Aemond’s shoulder. It felt like the safest option. The familiarity lulled her into pliability. Aemond dropped her jaw and instead cupped her cheek. He lowered himself so his temple rested on the top of her head. Eons passed in the seconds they stood together.

“We can’t” Y/N’s voice shook breathily from the difficulty she had breaking the silence.

Aemond’s hold on her cheek firmed as his fingers raised to brush through her hair. “We can.” He spoke with such conviction, beyond his normal tone of certainty. “I promise you, you’ll enjoy it.”

“I-” Their breaths mingled and she breathed in the alcohol scented puffs they exhaled. It enveloped her like the wind rustled the leaves off trees. The stomach lurching drop slowly crept to the forefront again.

“Just one kiss so I can know what it’d feel like” He tried to reason with her. He pulled back so he could tilt her for ease of access.

Her focus darted back and forth over his face. The dim light around them reflected off the whites of her eyes. Hypnotizing was the way he’d describe it. She was the maiden, a nymph, the goddess of love, Meleys herself. Everything he dreamed since he was ten. Before he knew what love and longing meant. It was right here in front of him, in his grasp.

“One little kiss.” He urged further. “To break the spell and maybe I can move forward.” In what direction, he did not specify.

“One?” Y/N croaked. Her eyelids fluttered closed and lips parted ever so slightly. Submission.

“Yes, one.” Aemond assured. Before he darkened his vision, he memorized every detail of her face. There was the way her brows creased in impatience. Orange blossom perfume lingered on her neck. Her perfectly plump lips were ready for him to seize and he did.

He ended her anticipation and brought the full force of his desire crashing down onto her. It was a tidal wave washing her out to sea. His lips molded against hers. His hold constricted, bringing her impossibly closer. She whined ever so high pitched and it caused him to smirk into the kiss. Everything was perfect in the world. He had everything he ever wanted in his grasp for him to devour- till he didn’t.

A bruising hand yanked him backwards by his shoulder. Aemond stumbled, heel catching a root, and he fell to the ground. He quickly went through the feelings of alarm, embarrassment, dejection, and finally hate. Above him, between his spot on the ground and Y/N, stood Aegon with balled fists. He looked ready to kill Aemond with his bare hands. After recognizing Y/N’s bewildered expression behind Aegon, Aemond could say the same.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Aegon wasn’t shouting, but his voice boomed in a serious way that caught both Aemond and Y/N off guard. “So desperate and depraved that you’d wait till she’s drunk to cash in a favor.” Aegon mocked Aemond with the word favor; like it was something pathetic. Like he was pathetic.

Something about Aegon’s words snapped Y/N back to reality. She was trying to get Aegon’s attention, pulling on his arm, hoping for his attention. “It’s not like that.” But there was a crumbling belief to her words. 

“It is!” Aegon hadn’t centered his tone for her. Though he wanted her to remain behind him, she rounded to be in the middle. In desperate exasperation he waved in the general direction of Aemond. “That’s been his plan the whole night! Hells, the whole summer! Control the situation, again!” Despite Y/N blocking his path, Aegon hollered over her to spit at Aemond. “Isn’t that right?”

Wounded pride turned Aemond into a predator. His rise was slow and calculated like he was building energy to pounce. Y/N didn’t recognize the look behind his eyes. Once angelic, now appeared demonic. He was blind to the rest of the world, including her.

Aegon pushed Y/N out of the way in time to avoid being caught in the crossfire. Though Aemond was the better fighter, wounded pride made his consciousness go blank and his base instincts weren’t enough. Aegon easily sidestepped Aemond’s first attempt at a blow. Aegon had gone in the direction of his weaker eye, giving him the advantage. Using it, Aegon uppercut into Aemond’s stomach, a sure way to make him collapse. 

History wasn’t linear, but a never ending, chaotic loop. Here Y/N was again, flinging herself into one of their scuffles. She ignored that all their most recent brawls devolved over her. 

Aegon had done enough. Aemond was down and gasping for the air he lost. He needn't do more. Y/N made sure Aemond wasn’t dying before standing with Aegon. It was an image that burned into Aemond’s mind like a brand. Every failure, every time he wasn’t good enough, that he felt small, helpless, pathetic, weak, and Aegon was there proudly looming over him with Y/N to watch. He’d never lose that picture nor the feelings that came with it. 

“He’s right.” A meak echo came from Aegon’s side. Y/N. “ We shouldn’t do this. I don’t want things to change.”

Aemond’s palm raised and slammed into the ground. It spooked Y/N. He spoke in a hiss. “You said to give you the summer.” He had no right to claim her. The logical part of his brain had no conflict with it. The wounded boy in him wanted to tear his surroundings to shreds then set them ablaze and watch everything turn to ash. All that so he could be the one standing proud over the ashes. He felt owed that.

Y/N found enough courage to toughen her words. “I said I might not change my mind at all. And you…” Her arms folded over her chest as they always did when she felt the need for protection. Aegon placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. She was shaking after all. She’d coiled into herself very serpent like, ready to strike. He watched as the emotions wracked her. She landed on disgust. “You never changed. I’m just a thing to possess to you, without autonomy. Screw you!”

She sobbed a curdling cry and collapsed into Aegon’s hold. Aegon forgot about Aemond. Everything was Y/N. He whispered soothing endearments to her. She was in his grasp at last. He’d take care of her from here.

A/N 2: So... thank you for reading. Let me know how you've enjoyed the story thus far. Any guesses as to what will come next. There will be a pause in new chapters for one to two weeks as I need to rewrite the next chapter. However, that means a better reading experience. Yay!

[cadybear420]

For this one for Jasmine

👯💌🩷😍❤️‍🔥

Details below! <3 <3

👯Threesome? Foursome? Orgy?

This is Bloodbound, you already know the answer to that lol. Jasmine very happily embraces an intense bisexual vampire polycule with Adrian, Jax, Lily, Kamilah, and Nikhil. Threesomes, foursomes, and orgies are very common for them. And she will indeed do all the threesome scenes + the Bacchanalia orgy scene in Book 3.

💌What do they seek out in terms of sexual compatibility?

Mostly basic stuff I think? Like having sexual preferences that align with hers (eg. since she prefers to top men, she actively seeks out men who are vers or bottom); though she is flexible, and generally will try to find some common ground with a partner she likes. Also, people who don't pathologize the fact that she's a (non-op) trans woman and can just be normal about it.

Generally she does prefer someone she has some level of closeness/familiarity with, but every now and then she may like to take a bit of a risk and sleep with someone like Priya or Dracula, just for the adrenaline rush.

🩷Do they prefer soft sex, or rough sex?

She enjoys all of it, but her favorite is probably somewhere in between, leaning more on the rough side. Passionate, but not mindlessly rough.

😍Do they see themself as sexually desirable?

She mostly hasn't thought much about it, but as she becomes more comfortable with her sexuality, she does start to perceive herself as sexually desirable.

❤️‍🔥Do they know their sexuality intimately or are they repressing some (or all) of their desires?

I feel like pre-Bloodbound, she did repress a lot of her sexuality. Post-transitioning, she would self-police a lot. She feared being labelled as "predatory" or "perverted" for expressing even the smallest bit of sexuality.

During the Bloodbound timeline in the vampire world of course, she would become a lot more comfortable with her sexuality and open to exploring more things.

[autumnshowell]

11:45 PM, December 31st

It's late, nearly midnight, when the door opens to her apartment. Autumn's starting to get used to the self-imposed loneliness of the past few weeks. Too ashamed to go to Morgan, too afraid to go to Aria. She's let messages hang unread until they just stopped coming. Elyse, Kevin, well... she just doesn't trust herself around anybody right now.

Partly, she's been in limbo, struggling with the curse of knowledge - knowledge that everything is different forever now.

A.J.'s calls come and she answers those though; she owes him, after all, owes him for a lot more than she'll ever be able to actually repay. He's been quiet today though, mostly. Likely recovering from whatever psychopathic bacchanalia he'd engaged in the night before. It's given her a lot of empty space for thought that isn't taken up by through-roads and efficient driving and making sure she doesn't barrel-roll another sports car.

She'd for the first time in actual years, felt compelled to write something today, and so the trip to Hawthorn had been conceived, but the pages in her book remained unfilled up until a ghost of a friend had appeared and summarily called her on her cowardice.

A second ghost happened upon her at a little past two; on her way through town, and convinced her of a few other things.

It's a lot, knowing about monsters, and even more so, she's starting to find, being one. Things that used to mildly frustrate instead infuriate. Things that used to make her sad instead make her angry. It's like all the roads in her mind have been up-heaved and repaved to all head to the same exact destination. It's tiring.

So when she collapses on her shitty blue ikea couch with the huge coffee stain on one end and opens her notebook to once again stare into blank pages, she's not expecting what she sees sitting there. Though she guesses, given the day, that she might have expected it.

"Hey, Tum-tum."

She can deal with Olivier being a dick. She could handle an impromptu meeting with Miss Moss's dearly departed Mr. Moss. But this one actually hurts a little. "Hey, dad..." His smile's warm, warm like she remembers, even with the space of fourteen years. His voice though, god, she'd nearly forgotten it. "Everything okay? You look bummed."

"Yeah." She says, feeling her jaw clench, almost immediately, wet worrying at the corners of her eyes. Her voice cracks without the decency to ask her first. "I'm not doing great."

"Yeah. I see that," he says, looking around the apartment. "Going through it a bit, I hear."

"Yeah." She says.

"I'm sorry Tum-Tum." he says. "I set you up for this, and ... it really isn't fair to you. I thought I was giving you a chance at something a little more normal and well... I really messed up."

"Why didn't you guys just... tell me?" She says, sitting up, jaw clenching even harder. Because sad is weak, and that thing in the back of her mind abhors it. "Why didn't you just own up and... I don't know... why didn't you just take me and go?"

"Oh, Autumn," he says, next to her now, sitting there. "I don't have a good answer for that. I was getting sick and I didn't... I'm sorry Autumn. If I'd have known she'd felt that way, I'd have never..."

"But you did. You did and it killed her and it's... it's killing me now. I'm scared, dad." She sniffs. "I... I think I really ruined things for a lot of people. And now I'm..." "Beautiful?" He says. "Talented?" "A monster." "Unmotivated," he corrects. "But that's no sin." "I don't think... I don't think that really covers it, dad." "Well," he admits, "maybe not. But I always thought it was a pretty good story." He looks at the clock. "Well... something's telling me I don't have a lot of time left, so I'll say this. Maybe you're different, but you're you, babygirl. No matter what changes, you're still you. You can't change the past, Autumn. But you're still there. You can only do your best to fix what you can, yeah? You're the little girl who cried for a whole day when they melted the Wicked Witch. That's the who I remember. So you messed up. Went a little overboard. Ate your mom."

"Dad!-"

"Whaaat, I'm dead, let me be morbid. You think you don't get that fascination with all those scary movies from somewhere? Look, Tum-Tum. You're going to wrestle with that. It's just how it is. But the people who are still here with you? You've got a chance with them. Don't mess it up. Don't save it for later, or hope for the best, or expect it to just blow over. Fix it, or die trying. Time's short, Tum-Tum. You think you've got plenty of it and then suddenly you're not there anymore."

"And what if-" "Nope. No what-ifs." He smiles. She swallows back her protest, and then she sees the clock, and knows what he'd meant about time. There's never enough of it. "I... really wish you could stay. I... well. There's so much. I wish you could meet some of these people... the ones I have to... fix things with. There's this girl, Aria, she's... " "Yeah? Well. Maybe one day we can do this again and I'll meet her. I'm sure she'll understand if you just... lay it out for her. Besides, she's mixed up with a Howell, so she's got to at least be a little brave, yeah?" Autumn looks at the clock again, because she has a lot more she wants to say, and ask, but it's twelve o'clock and she can hear fireworks outside her empty apartment.

[tashizweig]

i have a lot of thoughts about the way that yellowjackets always invokes bacchanalia imagery when the girls get feral but i am way too exhausted from medical stuff to put it into words. but SOMEONE should

[dandthegods]

My Uncle Dionysus

a short story

My Uncle Dionysus

By; Darren Almgren

Being a demigod is weird nowadays. Not that it was ever “normal”, but you don’t have legacy quests, minotaurs or hydras to slay, and the tax benefits are basically non-existent. But, one of the perks that I enjoy is my uncle. I can be myself around him and now that I’m on my own I can see him a lot more than my mother would approve of.

Last night, I went over to his apartment. We spent most of the night watching movies, eating pizza, and drinking. Well, I was drinking. It hadn’t occurred to me until that night that my uncle almost never drank - despite having such a well stocked liquor cabinet and an entire wall in his dining room dedicated to a massive wine rack.

“Hey, D,” I said when this dawned on me, “why don’t you drink when I’m here?” I swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “If you don’t mind me asking.” My uncle smiled and cocked a bushy eyebrow.

“When have I ever minded your questions?” He picked up my half full glass of wine and stared at it. “To be honest, I don’t have a taste for it. Never have. Everyone else tastes sweetness, earthy notes, chocolate, and maybe a bitter aftertaste. But for me…” he took a small sip and made a quizzical face, “it always tastes sour and metallic. Almost exactly like blood.” He put the glass back on the coffee table. “It’s still alcohol and will still do its job to get even a god plastered, but it's not the same.” He sat back and ran a hand through his shoulder-length brown hair. “I’ve talked to Jesus about it. He says it's the same for him too. Moreso, even. Maybe it’s the whole ‘blood of christ’ thing for him - its his literal blood. But me?” My uncle shrugged.

“What about the rest of it?” I asked. “Alcohol, I mean.”

“That’s just a preference thing. I’m known for my supposed love of booze, but I’ve never really liked it. Even when I was getting sloshed every other night back in the day, I still never actually liked the taste of it. I simply help others lose their inhibitions to let them love and explore themselves. I can have a good time staying as sober as your mom. How is she by the way?” I shrugged.

“She’s who she is. Doesn’t much care about what I do outside of work…especially who I’m with.Just cares about work.” I absentmindedly checked my phone, instinctively opening my work email app before quickly shutting it off before my inbox could even load.

“Yeah,” said my uncle with a sigh, “Athena really has changed a lot. But, that’s what you get when all people remember you as is a mathematician or a librarian or patron of teachers or some shit like that. It’s such a small pigeonhole. Gods are subject to how we’re remembered. Even me,” he gestured to the wine bottle on the table and at the rock and punk posters on the walls. “I’m known as the drunk party animal. Lord of the bacchanalia, and Dionysus: the sex fiend of Olympus. I play the part, but I haven’t completely dissolved into the stereotypes.”

“Yeah,” i said and took a sip of wine. “Mom doesn’t talk about it, but I can tell she  misses the old days. She still has her shield and spear hanging in her office.” I paused. “But all she talks about is work.”

“I was surprised when I heard you were majoring in accounting,” my uncle said. “Creative kid like you, I thought you would follow in my or Apollo’s footsteps. How’s the writing going, anyways? I liked that last story you sent me.” I leaned back into the plush recliner I was in and smiled.

“Thanks. It’s going good. I’m kinda stuck with this one part. I’m trying to write this romance in, I think it could work, but its the…emotions I’m struggling with. The actions I’m good on, that’s the easy part. But I just don’t have a whole lot of experience to pull from without resorting to pop-song-cliches.” The image of Matt, the guy I’d been on a few dates with recently popped in my head. The three dates we’d been on had been my longest relationship I’d had, and even then it wasn't going very far out of necessity. My mom would never approve of him, or any guy I brought home.

My uncle chuckled and stretched out across his leather couch. His slim body arched slightly as he got comfortable. His silk shirt was unbuttoned halfway to expose his hairy chest. It may have just been because of the leopard print of the shirt, but I suddenly understood why he was associated with panthers lounging out in the Grecian sun. A hand dangled down to the floor and he scratched his bearded chin with the other.

“I don’t know if I can help you much,” he said. “I’ve had a shit ton of dates, one-night-stands, and a few marriages. But it can be hard to put that stuff, those feelings, into words.” He looked around the living room then pointed to a tall, thin bookshelf in the corner. “That doll there I got from Maria. Gorgeous woman. Skin like good espresso and thigh that could crack a coconut like an egg. I spent a long hot summer in Spain with her. Even got to meet her brother. But she left by Labor Day.” He pointed to a Green Day poster hanging on the wall behind the TV. “I met a guy named…James? Jack? Something with a ‘J’. Anyway, met him and had a nice quickie in the back of his old pickup at the concert. Doubt he remembers me. That was back in ‘97, I think.” My uncle picked at the crocheted throw blanket draped over the back of the couch as the Queen record that was on started playing My Best Friend. “Emily made this for me before she died. 60 years I spent with her. Heart made of gold and eyes like diamonds. Took a while to get past it…” he trailed off in thought. 

“Was she ‘the one’?” I asked. My uncle shook his head.

“Nah,” he said, still rubbing the yarn in his fingers. “No, gods don’t usually get soulmates, or one-true-loves, or any of that kind of a connection. We live too long for that. Zeus and Hera and Hades and Persephone make it look too easy sometimes. But, they’ve had their fair share  of shitty decades. They’re part of the exception. Them and…” he trailed off again, then adjusted his shoulders and laid his hand across his chest.

“I met this guy once, way back in the day. Cutest thing ever I’d ever seen. First met him on a river. He was playing a peppy little tune on his panpipes while sitting cross-legged on this big log. Well, I followed the music and waited for him to finish before talking to him. You know how musicians can be when interrupted. I thought even for a satyr he was cute. Short curly hair, sun-tanned skin, and eyes like emeralds flecked with gold. We ended up talking for the rest of the day on that log. Talked about everything under the sun. In the quiet moments we just couldn’t stop glancing at each other and laughing when we caught the other looking.

“Spent almost every day together. And every night,” my uncle smiled at me and winked. I stifled a laugh while taking a bite of pizza. My uncle laughed. “Yeah, and it’s true what they say about satyrs, too. Can go all night if you let them.” He started chewing on a nail on his left hand. “Weird looking cocks, though. It’s the goat-hald, you know. But anyway. He was a lot of fun. I don’t think anything has made me laugh as hard as him. Could make anything funny.” My uncle looked at the ceiling and sighed. “But sometimes he tried too hard. The last time…” he stopped and his tone got really serious and sounded unnatural coming from him.

“We’d found the pasture where your great-great aunt Selene had her cows. We watched them for a while, then Ampelos got this idea to kinda mess with them. An ancient version of a rodeo. So, he found the huge bull and climbed on. It was so fucking funny to see this little goat dancing on the back of a bucking bull. He started singing and yelling about being the ‘master of the bull’ or something like that.” He ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head. “Whatever it was, it was really bad. Before we knew it, your aunt selene came down from her almighty throne in the stars and started yelling at Ampelos. He said something back. I guess it was the laughter with it that really pissed off Selene. And you know her generation, they’re quick on the punishments.” My uncle shifted on the couch and stared out of the open blinds at the full moon shining through. “And then he was on the ground…laying in the grass and cowshit…his stomach gored open by the bull’s horns.”

A shiver ran down my spine at the silence that ended the story. My uncle kept glaring out at the moon. I looked down, not sure what to do, but when I looked back at him, my uncle’s beard was bristling as his mouth trembled and his eyes were filled with tears. He lifted the arm that was draped down to the carpet and reached over to the wine bottle on the coffee table. He extended only his middle finger to touch the bottle. Instantly at his touch, a vine sprouted from the open mouth, twisting down and around the bottle and down the leg of the table to the floor. Leaves sprouted on the vine and between the star-shaped leaves bunches of dark grapes grew and swelled. When the grapevine started to wind up another leg of the coffee table from the floor, my uncle withdrew his hand and folded his arm across his chest. The Queen record ended and I got up.

“What would you like me to put on?” I asked as I got to the record player. My uncle didn’t reply or move. I lifted the needle and the vinyl stopped spinning. As I began to finger through the shelves of albums under the player, my uncle spoke up.

“Don’t let anyone tell you who you can or can’t love. Promise me that, kid. Life keeps rolling, so grab all of it that you can get.”

“Yeah,” I said over my shoulder. “Of course.” I flipped through a few more albums then found an old and battered Madonna LP. Thinking some dance music might cheer him up, I pulled it out and turned around. “Hey, what about —.” I stopped when I realized he was gently snoring. The green vine had faded to a withered yellow and the bunches of grapes and leaves were shriveled with some having fallen onto the floor. 

I put the record back on the shelf and went over to the coffee table. Quietly I picked up the plates and glasses and the pizza box and brought them to the kitchen. I put the half full pizza box in the fridge and the dishes in the sink. I went back to the living room and carefully cleaned up the table, careful not to disturb the wine bottle or the vine that grew from it. When it was all tidy, I turned off the living room lamp and left my uncle sleeping on the couch. Laying in the spare bedroom, I thought about my uncle’s story and what he’d said and didn’t say. In the morning, I texted Matt, inviting him over for dinner.

[anthonybialy]

Another Title Anything But Routine for Buffalo Bandits

I had to buy another championship shirt.  Thanks a lot, favorite team.  Incessant shopping is such a hassle.  The Buffalo Bandits have to sew relevant information onto another banner, which seems like a tricky project.  And they had to update the sign with the championship year.  Eh: there may be worse things than getting another number.  

Buffalo is New York’s lacrosse capital.  Albany can have their narcissistic twits taking your money to tell you how to live, and we’ll have Tehoka.  The Erie Canal Bowl resulted in shipping the Cup in one definite direction.  The league’s flagship franchise is winning like it, which is sweet news for those seeking precedent for things working out like they should for once.

Commemorate the first time since the first time.  Fans revel in a rather rare event, namely the second consecutive title accumulation since the first and second seasons.  The Bandits are back to back-to-back.

All you pessimists didn’t think the most awesome outcome imaginable was possible just a couple months ago. Someone as inherently cheerfully positive as me certainly wasn’t grumpy about any midseason losses.  I also think this universe is a blessing that’s all planned for happiness ever since late Saturday.

Cool professors weigh end of semester results more heavily than confusing early classes.  Better grades toward the end show accelerated learning upon familiarity with the subject.  The Bandits learned and adapted.  They’re the same team that started the season with occasionally shaky performances yet different.  Answer a zen riddle with wooing about winning.

It turns out the finish is the most important part.  The NLL is just another sports outfit that focuses on results.  It’s so predictable.  They only honor the top competitor.  There’s exactly one important time for comparing scores.  It happens at the very end.

The Bandits are an apology.  One other neighborhood team is competitive while the other is dreadful while both share the common characteristic of never winning the league’s final game.  They alternate every couple years.  Variety doesn’t always improve circumstances.

The Bills and Sabres oscillate between crushing dreams by getting close and being so inept that toxic waste spills ask to not be compared to them.  Meanwhile, Buffalo’s RC Cola wins it all again.

A year that ended with a title started off feeling like an eclipse season.  Clouds at the most inopportune time led to naturally thinking an event rarer than a Buffalo championship would be a letdown.  But our planet’s star and satellite burst through overcast skies at the moment of totality.  The lesson was not that things failed to work out but rather that we just had to persevere through trepidation.  The Bandits shined like plasma.

Nobody could’ve been too disappointed if this season ended like it began.  A lack of cohesion early in the campaign seemed to be leading toward making us cherish 2023.  Memories of a dreamlike run through the postseason might’ve been what sustained us through the offseason.  They do, but they’re blessedly from a couple days ago instead of nearly a year.

The only misstep was not waiting a few days to officially rejoice.  Partying before midnight until after noon would make Andrew W.K. proud.  But hosting a bash before sweeping up confetti from the night before was, in the words of Gilbert Gottfried’s epitaph, too soon.  Holding a congregation the afternoon after the win means the faithful didn’t even have a chance to finish expiring celebratory liquor before it turned sour.

The assembly held one short sleep after the season ended came at a time for those who thought last year’s weekday 5 p.m. bacchanalia wasn’t positioned oddly enough.  Hangovers still hadn’t set in.  Festive attendees of the season finale could’ve stayed out all night, gotten breakfast late into their personal days, then mulled around the plaza until the players showed up like a matinee following a night game.

What was the rush?  Social media comments about the gala include some from rueful backers who are rightfully bummed out that they missed posts about a shindig that one might think would be scheduled after a slight subsiding of the immediate hullabaloo.  I’m attempting to refrain from kvetching about ownership right now, but a Pegula-style screwup hindering the jubilation around their one ultimately successful franchise is on brand.

I felt lucky to have noticed they were convening.  As a reminder, always check social media constantly in case a team you admire wins it all and invited all their fans to live it up with them soon after.

My personal rally policy is to appear at any gathering in commemoration of a Buffalo club prevailing in an athletic tournament.  You may have noticed it’s rarely applicable.  Going annually is a relatively frequent pace, so your daughter will understand if you skip her wedding.  Move the ceremony to the front of the French Connection statue.

It’s better to show up on the back of a fire truck than in the back of a cop car.  Players demonstrated their skill at disembarking from engines serving as chariots for victors, which might be even tricker than scoring in a clinching game.  Everyone thankfully reached the ground safely before traveling through a most appreciative crowd then converging on stage to gleefully cuss in between lager swigs and cigar puffs.  This roster knows carousing like they do conquering.

I could get used to this.  The habit of filling a case with shiny metal sculpted into triumphant shapes is a delight that should never be taken for granted.  We spent 15 years waiting for last year’s glorious result, so this interregnum was a blink.

Overindulging in elation is fine for the moments after your beloved wins it all.  I’m trying to avoid feeling too depressed, which is why I’m not going to tally how many seasons of teams I like began with dreams of supremacy before ending  like a mob torching.

Nobody in Buffalo needs to be told those other two squads are still on the list like they’re trying to get a Trabant in East Germany.  The Bandits have Ian MacKay, while the others sit in the waiting room as described by Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye.  As part of my newfangled commitment to positivity while I’m still buzzing from the commissioner leaving hardware in town, I’m avoiding wallowing in obvious comparisons to the city’s other teams.  I will just say the Bandits offer a good example.

Winning a ring for the other hand inspires almost as much pride as no Bandit ever winning the league’s sportsmanship award.  The thrill remains intense even when there’s a recent example of pure bliss.  Nothing’s lighter to lift than a heavy trophy.

[apricusnights]

Chapter Two: Hidden Agendas.

Location: Somewhere between Capitol Square and Evergreen Basin.

Three individuals stand outside of a somewhat bizarre looking yet empty building. One of them turns to the others and begins to speak.

"Some people think that the ordinary doesn't attract attention. See that's where everyone gets it wrong. Truth is, the more out of place something is, the more people will eventually opt to leave it alone."

"Take this building for example. It's in the absolute center of the city. Do you think people care? Of course they don't. Everyone knows it's in the center. Everyone has seen it. Many people have been inside of it. It's looks fascinating though doesn't it? A bit of a whimsical design meant to be a tourist trap."

"However, the more time passes, the less interesting it becomes. Eventually despite it's appearance and location..nobody cares."

"You can read all about the history of the building and find nothing that would make you give it a second thought. Unless of course, you know a bit of history that isn't exactly available to the public."

"If I told you a story, could you keep a secret?"

Location: Lower Docks.

Fisher: "We're entering a dead zone Aryl, switch off your aShine."

Jae: "Yes Ma'am. Permission to speak freely?"

Fisher: "Granted."

Jae: "What exactly are we here for Ma'am?"

Fisher: "One of the scrapyards here is where we moved some of the Olympus escape crafts to. I need to take a look at something that has been bothering me. You're here because I can trust you."

Jae: "What do you mean by that Ma'am?"

Fisher: "I was noticing something while exploring the Olympus. A lot of the tech Paradise was claiming to have invented seemed awfully familiar. I was rarely alone so I couldn't get a good look until the very end."

"I managed to access a few logs in what I can imagine was supposed to be an off limits area. Seemed like a sort of lab but I didn't have time to stick around and find out. Whoever was running the show had access to all communications happening on that ship."

"Everything anyone said was heard and possibly recorded. The only issue with this is that most of us were running secure channels. The Bureau changes things up so often and has so many levels of security it should have been impossible to listen in on us. Unless.."

Jae: "You think someone got them access?"

Fisher: "I was on the ship with Roland Marigold, and Kelly Maza. Roland and Maza have never been particularly skilled with technology. Still, I can't count them out. Amelia knows every signal, every backdoor, everything. Hadrian is a genius on every level."

Jae: "And you don't think I should be grouped in with everyone else?"

Fisher: "I trust you Aryl, I know better than to go against my intuition, my intuition says you're one of the only ones I can count on here."

Jae: "So there might be a traitor somewhere in the Bureau..."

Fisher: "All of the attacks came from people who seemed to be stationed in with specific groups. It isn't hard to think we have.."

Jae: "An impostor among us?"

Fisher: "You're spending too much time with Rowan...but yes. Alright here we are. Take a look around some of the escape crafts and tell me if you find anything out of place."

Jae: "How will I know what is out of place?"

Fisher: "Trust your intuition Aryl."

Location: Diamond District.

Due to some of Paradise Entertainment's clubs currently being remodeled people had been flocking to The Bacchanalia. At one time considered the most popular hidden club in the city. It was likely even more popular now and slightly less hidden. You still had to work to get in..or at least had to know the right people.

The music was blasting as a rather striking woman wearing little more than a bikini top, and a mini skirt stood behind the DJ station. Her clothing seemed to change colors, putting on a small light show as she took requests from some rowdy patrons.

Sitting at a table near one of the corners of the room were several members of the Apricus Navy, currently on leave. Among them were Viridian, Van, and Nerys. Apparently, Captain Larsen had been invited but turned it down.

Nerys strangely had been asked by the bartender why she was here since her shift wasn't until tomorrow. Viridian didn't seem to be very inclined to dance even with Nerys pestering both him and Van to let loose a little. She shrugged and made her way to the dance floor, taking to it rather easily due to her part time job as a dance coach.

Van: "I'm going to go get us our drinks."

Viridian: "Don't even think about trying to ditch us, I have a tracker planted somewhere on you."

Van: "Ha, good one."

Viridian: "I'm not joking. If you leave it'll upset Nerys, if she gets upset the Captain will find you and rearrange your bones."

Van: "So no sneaking out of the bathroom windows, got it. Be back with the drinks."

Somewhere in one of the private rooms a masked man and a masked woman stood looking out at the patrons from behind tinted windows.

Masked Man: "It's interesting isn't it? Looking out at these people and wondering which ones still have their masks on, which ones discarded their masks, and which have new ones."

"Everyone wears a mask you know. Even if they claim they don't. Some people here wear one every day to try and fit in, perhaps to hide their emotions, live their normal lives. They come here and discard the mask for a few hours so they can be themselves."

"On the other side are the people who are wearing their masks here. The ones trying desperately to have a good time with their friends. To pretend they are enjoying themselves when deep down this is the last place they want to be."

The masked woman pointed out at someone. The masked man nodded in response.

Masked Man: "That's the one. Have fun."

The woman took her mask off and handed it over before walking out of the room and blending into the crowd.

Meanwhile at a table on the other side of the room.

Bonnie: "How did you even get her here?"

Ajax: "We gambled, she lost."

Bonnie: "You're also wearing an unbuttoned shirt and a pair of criminally tight looking pants. I assume that helped."

Nava glared at Bonnie but her eyes betrayed her as she looked back at Ajax.

Nava reached over and took a sip of Ajax's drink before he had a chance to stop her.

Bonnie: "Welp, drunk Nava is approaching..."

Ajax: "If she keeps sipping my drink she'll be here before the next song ends.."

Over at the bar another small group was chatting.

Amias: "Where's Jasper?"

Mel: "Oh his way, don't worry."

Amias: "What about your brother?"

Mel: "Probably trying to sabotage Jasper so he doesn't show up."

Amias: "Seriously?"

Mel: "No, he's just busy is all.."

The music changed again as Lye made her way through the crowd on the dance floor. Her gold dress was scandalously short and seemed to sparkle when the light hit it just right. The rather impressive pair of heels she wore were no hindrance whatsoever as she danced.

Lye smirked as she made her way over to Amias, still moving to the music. She reached out for his hand..

Amias: "Uh I don't..I mean dancing...."

Mel: "Oh just pretend you're on stage. I've seen you dance plenty of times." Refusing to let the poor boy throw away his chance and softly shoving him to Lye who took his hand and pulled him away.

Lye and Amias passed by Van as he made his way to the bar. The siblings making eye contact briefly before going separate ways.

Van walked over and placed his order at the bar, leaning back against it and tapping his foot to the beat.

???: "Come here often?"

Van turned to see a woman with short brown hair and green eyes. She wore a little black dress with emphasis on "little". A pair of black thigh highs, and black heels served to show off her legs even more. She certainly did seem dressed for attention. Van though only had one response to the question.

Van: "Nah, can't get in the mood with this many people around." Terrible joke, you can do better than that...

???: "I've heard worse. Can you dance?"

Van: "Usually not willingly or sober."

???: "I'm sure we can fix at least one of those problems.." Reaching out and taking Van's hand, leading him back to the dance floor. Surprisingly he found himself unable to resist...

Back in the private room the masked man was watching events unfold.

He looked down as his aShine went off. He'd answer.

Masked Man: "Don't be jealous, it's only research. I won't ruin your fun. While I have you here, did you get what I asked for? Very good. I'll let you get back to company business. See you soon." Turning off the aShine and returning to observe the club patrons.

[mywifeleftme]

187: Phosphorescent // Muchacho

Muchacho Phosphorescent 2013, Dead Oceans (Bandcamp)

I thought Muchacho was a masterpiece when I first heard it ten years ago, and it’s never really slipped in my estimation. We’re far enough now from the early ‘10s to have our own personal senses of what has and has not lasted—the water level has risen and the mountaintops have become islands. Muchacho is the soundtrack to the wanderings of a mystic with decidedly clay feet, someone whose eyes have been burned from staring too long at the sun in search of God, brimming with sweetness and a fearful need who’ll nonetheless disappear on you without notice for months at a time. A terrible man to date (circa 2010 anyway), in other words, but one with the magnetism that comes from living intensely, as though music, love, bacchanalia, and the soul are matters with real stakes.

According to singer-songwriter Matthew Houck, the songs arose after returning from a tour and finding his personal life in ruins: “lost the place, lost the girl, lost my mind.” And while depicting yourself on an album sleeve surrounded by multiple women in various states of undress isn’t the greatest mea culpa I’ve ever come across, as an evocation of the state of freedom and fragility that comes when the bottom drops out, Muchacho is captivating. Houck uses ‘Hej’ (sounds like ‘hey’) as his own pet name for God, and borrows the old mystical poetry trick of couching his lyrics as simultaneous addresses to an absent lover and to the divine. There’s a sense of surrender throughout, whether to the thrill of the drive (“Ride On/Right On”), dissolution (“Terror in the Canyons”), or the whirlwind (“A New Anhedonia”). A lot of the language has the taste of Bible leather, but at bottom, Muchacho’s weary vibe can be summed up in the words of its lurching title track:

“I found some fortune, found some fame I found they cauterized my veins Hej, I've been fucked up. And I've been a fool But like the shepherd to the lamb Like the wave unto the sand I'll fix myself up. To come and be with you.”

Houck’s plaintive moan and a shimmering fiddle loop that makes time feel simultaneously like it’s hurtling forward and suspended in place have given Muchacho’s best known track, “Song for Zula,” a long afterlife in soundtrack licensing, but there’s something (inadvertently, I think) subversive about a song with “Zula”’s caged, vehement grief turning up on a show like Superstore. What to make of a nostalgic sitcom montage on the importance of finding moments of reprieve at your workaday job being set to a piece that concludes with the words, “And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free”? That’s what happens when you let a song out into the world—but with any luck a few have followed its silver line back to Muchacho, and found themselves a shade more debauched and enlightened for the trip.

187/365

[aveegrex]

FIRST DATE HEADCANNONS

the first part took off so good I decided to feed the rest of y'all who simp for other characters

genre: fluff absolutely, a little nsfw in geto's part but just vague mentions of unspecified sexual activity characters: Sukuna, Todo, Geto, Inumaki, Noritoshi Kamo, Mahito pairing: jjk bois x gn!reader word count: 1,3k cw: oh I guess none, maybe just mentions of medical stuff for Mahito's but nothig specific. I guess I should warn you about horny Geto but like ???, also one mention of andrew tate so brace yourselves

author's note: I tried to do Suguru justice since he's hot but he's also extremely annoying in my opinion so please forgive me if that shows

Sukuna:

big scary curse with big scary thoughts, okay

let’s put it aside for a second and concentrate on his nature

at his core, Sukuna is a man who’s driven not by rationale, but his impulses and urges. Emotions, if you will. 

So I think he prefers bonding through those as well, and not so much through words. He doesn’t need a conversation to make an impression, and he doesn’t need to hear you talking to understand you. He needs to feel you. 

We also have to remember that he loves it when emotions are raw and bare. Battles, orgies, massacres, dances - they show the true sides of people. 

He loves darker settings and would probably be craving something that reminds him of a feast or bacchanalia 

Soooo… Techno rave as a first date? Yes?

Yes.

Bass boosted beats vibrating through your body, sweat and alcohol in the air leaving your mind hazy - oh yes, that’s his vibe. 

He’d love to move to the beat with you, hands roaming each other’s bodies, getting to know each other so close so soon. 

Don’t be shy, he loves seeing you move so freely to the sound of music

Overall a really unexpected yet very intimate first date experience.

Not for the weak of heart, but definitely worth a shot. 

Todo:

Big boi is all about extremes. He’s a passionate loud man, and would definitely try to make your first date fun, loud and energetic

More so, he’s a j-pop stan fella, a music fan

But we have to remember that he’s also a very intelligent guy and would probably want to have a conversation with you

Honestly, I’m thinking a festival with lots of music and dancing activities

And obviously a fireworks in the end

It’s fun and loud, it also leaves room for a chat, and it’s so bright and warm

Also, with all those little games he’d definitely try to win you the biggest plushie possible, pouting if he doesn’t succeed on the first try

Just tell him you believe in him and he’ll bring you that giant teddy with the widest grin possible

If you get tired of all the noise and fuss around, don’t hesitate to tell him that

And don’t be shy to find yourself in a quieter part of park later, making out with that hunk for dear life

Honestly, the date with Todo might be a little exhausting, but it’s a very sweet kind of exhaustion and he will certainly leave you satisfied

Mahito:

to get it out of the way, I find Mahito attractive and a little creepy at the same time, so no hate here to Mahito-lovers, I’ve got you

He’s a very curious man, a little too much sometimes

We know he’s interested in spirituality, things like philosophy and religion

And we also know he’s a little creep who likes seeing dissected and disformed bodies.

But given how he is self-aware and doesn’t want to scare you away, he’d probably try to dial it all down to something conventionally acceptable and just as amusing

So

Here we go

Gird your loins

A museum date. A mummy exhibition. An exhibition of ancient medical practices. A medical theater type of exhibition. 

That’s his jam, and it’s honestly rather interesting. 

He already knows some things about past medical practices, and would gladly tell you how ancient physicians thought that the gateway to the soul is through the nostrils, and how in Medieval times they thought that bleeding helps with inner demons. 

Can’t blame a boy with hyperfixation. 

So not only do you get a rather fascinating pastime, you also are to be provided with a personal guided tour. 

If he rambles too much, and the topic drifts to something not everyone’s gut is ready for, just take his hand in yours and lean into him

He’d immediately skip to something much more pleasant and will drag you to a different part of the museum so you could show him some of your favorites.

Also he’s the one to buy you a coffee to go after and walk you through the park, reminiscing on what you should do next time. 

A little weird, but adorably so, and certainly worth it.

Inumaki:

Ohhhhh we’re finally getting to the date that actively includes food

If he asks you on a date you just have to know that talking part will be rather limited

But I think Toge didn’t choose onigiri ingredients to be his language for nothing. The boy is definitely a foodie. 

So instead of just sitting down in a restaurant, he’d ask you to a culinary class!

Don’t worry, it’s a beginners’ course and the dishes are rather simple, the class being targeted more towards learning to cook for yourself. 

And couples are welcome to work in pairs!!

So, how does spending a couple of hours side by side with this boy sound? 

You two would definitely be the teacher’s favorites, since you don’t get distracted by chatter and are very concentrated on bonding through completing the tasks and steps together. 

If you’re not good at cooking yourself, it’s no big deal - he’s not a chef himself and would probably mime something cute and funny your way to make you feel better. 

After the class you two get to eat your creation and he’s sitting very close, refusing to take his own utensils, opening his mouth with puppy eyes instead. 

Feed the baby. Feed him. He’s done a good job making that sauce. 

A couple of days later he shows up to you unexpectedly with a little bento box. You’ll find an upgraded version of the same dish inside. 

Kiss him good after, he tried his best and was dead set on conveying his intentions through his silent yet endearing love language. 

Tuna that mayo, love. 

Noritoshi:

oh okay this one is way harder since I don’t know much about him, but let's try

a traditional guy gone rogue? 

I see that translating well into a traditional date with a fresh approach. 

Like movies, but it’s an open air cinema, or it’s a restaurant date, but the two of you are actually just tasting different street foods from the trucks around the park. 

He’s not very creative when it comes to date ideas, so he’ll put his soul into making the best conversation and guaranteeing you feel relaxed, safe and happy the whole time. 

So eventually it turns to improvisation with the two roaming the streets and just diving into stores, following some interesting alleys and chatting your hearts away. 

He’ll take your hand and leave a sweet chaste peck on it when you’re distracted by some toys on display. 

He’ll also be dying of happiness inside if he notices you shivering. Don’t get it wrong!! He’s just on cloud nine since now he has an excuse to offer you his warm jacket and see you in his clothes. 

Please take it, he might die of cold of course, but he’ll die a happy fulfilled man. 

Kamo might get a little anxious about walking you home though, just because he doesn’t want to seem intrusive.

So he’ll call you an uber premium, kiss you softly before you drive off (ugh you know those cinematic through-the-car-window kisses)

And will text you later, asking if you’ve gotten home safely. 

I dunno I just feel like he’s not that much of an asshole and is just trying to manifest a gloomy persona being a softie inside. 

Geto:

ermmmmmm

you fuck

sorry not sorry, the first date with this edgelord was initially supposed to be a one night stand

he just got a little invested with you and now he can’t think of anything else besides asking you on a proper date

ends up just too horny and desperate, succumbing to his monkey desires

yeah you fuck again

it’s absolutely the friends with benefits turned romantic partners situation

idk what else to say like at least he’s incredible in bed you do you bubs

do him from time to time though he’ll get out of this andrew tate phase and turn into a good boyfriend

MDNI, reblogs are welcome, you're free to use these ideas in your personal life although the success is not guaranteed lol

© 2022 AVEEGREX, all rights reserved. reposting and copying my works without my consent is forbidden.

[normal-horoscopes]

Actually yo what the fuck is andrenochrome?? My qanon chud mom talks about it a lot and I never thought to wonder if it was one of her batshit conspiracy things

HOOOO BOY BUCKLE UP LET ME SEE IF I CAN DO THIS

THIS IS GONNA CONTAIN MENTIONS OF PEDOPHILIA, NECROPHILIA, MURDER, AND ANTISEMITISM.

SO ADRENOCHROME IS A REAL CHEMICAL COMPOUND PRODUCED BY THE OXIDIZATION OF EPINEPHRINE IN THE BODY, FURTHER OXIDIZATION CAUSES IT TO POLYMERIZE INTO A NEUROMELANIN COMPOUND

BASICALLY, IF SOMETHING EXCITING OR STRESSFUL HAPPENS TO YOU, YOUR BODY TRIES TO CREATE NEW NEURONS TO MAKE IT LESS STRESSFUL NEXT TIME. ADRENOCHROME IS A PART OF THAT PROCESS. WE DONT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT ITS ROLE IS THOUGH.

BACK AROUND 1944 A PAIR OF CANADIAN BIOCHEMSITS THEORIZED THAT THE COMPOUND WAS LINKED TO PSYCHOSIS, CREATING THE “ADRENOCHROME THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA” BUT IN 1973 THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION POINTED OUT THE BLATANT FLAWS IN THEIR METHODOLOGY AND DISCREDITED THE HYPOTHESIS

THE COMPOUND SUPPOSEDLY CAN BE USED AS A PSYCHOACTIVE DRUG. ALDOUS HUXLEY AND HUNTER S THOMPSON HAVE BOTH MENTIONED THE COMPOUND AS HAVING AN EFFECT SIMILAR TO MESCALINE, THOUGH HUXLEY SAID THEY NEVER ACTUALLY TRIED IT AND ITS UNCONFIRMED IF THOMPSON EVER DID. HERES HOW THOMPSON MENTIONS ADRENOCHROME IN FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS:

“Where’d you get this?” I asked. “You can’t buy it.” “Never mind,” he said. “It’s absolutely pure.” I shook my head sadly. “What kind of monster client have you picked up this time? There’s only one source for this stuff.” He nodded. “The adrenaline glands of a living human body,” I said. “It’s no good if you get it out of a corpse.”

THOMPSON PAINTS IT AS THIS HYPER-RARE DRUG ONLY AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE WITH THE POWER AND RESOURCES TO HARVEST IT FROM LIVING HUMAN BEINGS

NOW, BACK IN THE 1940s WHEN FASCISM WAS ON THE RISE, FASCISTS WOULD ACCUSE JEWS OF THE MOST CARTOONISHLY EVIL THINGS THEY COULD IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMONIZE THEM. THIS IS CALLED “BLOOD LIBEL“ AND BACK IN THE 1940s THE HOT THING TO ACCUSE PEOPLE OF WAS DRINKING THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN IN SOME SORT OF NEFARIOUS RITUAL.

(HELLA TW FOR THIS NEXT BIT)

THIS HAS EVOLVED OVER TIME TO CONTAIN EVERYTHING FROM DRUG FUELED BACCHANALIA TO PEDOPHILIA. ADRENOCHROME HAPPENED TO FIT PERFECTLY INTO THE MYTHOLOGY. IT GAVE IT A PROFIT MOTIVE. BECAUSE SUPPOSEDLY, THE BEST ADRENOCHROME IS PRODUCED WHEN THE VICTIM IS KILLED DURING A MOMENT OF INTENSE PAIN AND/OR SEXUAL CLIMAX.

MEANING NOW IT WASN'T JUST LONE CHILDREN BEING STOLEN, FOR SECRETIVE ILLUMINATI PARTIES, IT WAS AN ENTIRE CLANDESTINE ECONOMY OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND NIGHTMARISH SECRET CHILD TORTURE CENTERS, ONE OF WHICH WAS SUPPOSEDLY LOCATED IN THE BASEMENT OF THE COMET PING PONG AND PIZZERIA IN WASHINGTON DC, THE LOCATION OF THE PIZZAGATE CONSPIRACY.

[rich-and-bitchy-is-my-type]

In Spite Of Me (let’s drive)

Chapter II

Part one Part Three

Tags: post-canon, semi slow burn, potential NSFW in later chapters.

Poppy doesn’t know what possessed her to agree to go with Bee’s crazy idea, but she must face the consequences of her decision now. These include a car with ridiculously tacky bumper stickers, gas station bought candy and dealing with Bee’s poor driving skills and overall lack of common sense. Maybe it will be okay, if she somehow manages to make it out alive (and without having murdered Bee Hughes in the process.)

Sooo here it is! I started writing part 2 of In Spite of Me and I decided it will be a multi chapter series. I don’t know how many chapters I have planned yet, but probably around 5-8. They’ll be shorter than part one, but I hope they’re good enough to make it up. I literally wrote this in less than a day so please forgive any typos you might see! Also, english isn’t my first language so if you notice any grammatical mistakes please let me know and I’ll fix it right away. Lastly, please tell me if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

------------------

The next morning is the last morning Poppy wakes up in her Zeta room before moving out. It feels strangely bittersweet, the room is pretty much empty now and the house is quiet, but she still feels like she’s not entirely ready to let it go.

She has made so many memories in these four walls. Most of them were… not that great, if she’s being honest. She remembers angry-crying herself to sleep after losing the Person to Watch award, or after being the human sacrifice at the Bacchanalia that Bee hosted (a part of her knows that she deserved that one. And maybe all of them, really.) A lot of her recent memories involve, well, her failures. There are bits of it everywhere around the room.

But not all of them were bad. Chloe and her used to have a lot of sleepovers together in this room, back when their relationship wasn’t so defined by the rankings or the votes. She taught Veronica some of her favorite makeup looks in front of her now emptied vanity.

There are bits of Bee everywhere around the room too.

If you had asked her about it a few weeks ago, she would’ve told you how much she wished she could erase those memories forever.

But now… she isn’t so sure anymore. She doesn’t despise the idea of Bee being a constant presence in her life that much anymore.

She gives her room one last glance before closing the door.

"Morning," Chloe tells when they bump into each other in the kitchen. "You’re leaving soon, right?"

"Yeah, I think Bee is supposed to pick me up in less than half an hour," she replies with a small smile.

That’s when she notices Veronica standing behind Chloe, looking at her phone.

"Can I just say how weird it is that you guys are going on a road trip together?" she says, not bothering to look up from her phone screen. "And now you’re calling her by her name instead of one of your nicknames. So. Weird."

Poppy knows that Veronica is right. In fact, she’s pretty sure that everyone else thinks that this (whatever it is that they’re doing) is weird. She can still see Zoey’s closed smile when Bee told her Poppy was going with her back to Farmsville, or Chloe’s vague “huh” when Poppy called her to tell her the news.

Hells, even Poppy herself thinks this is strange. It’s not like she actually thought it through.

"Well, yeah. It’s definitely weird," it’s all she says in reply.

Veronica puts down her phone and actually smiles at her. Smiles! Veronica! This day just keeps getting stranger.

"I think it will be good for you," she says as she stands up and grabs a box. "Well, my mom is here to pick me up. Kinda weird to be leaving this house after all this time, right?"

"I feel like I’m really going to miss this place," Chloe chimes in, looking around. "V, are you not staying for the goodbye party with all the girls?"

"Nah," Veronica shakes her head, eyes darting back to her phone. "Anyways, have fun in your trips. Keep me posted, I want all the updates."

She gives them each a quick hug (which is a lot more than Poppy had expected, to be honest) and leaves the room.

"So, uhm, I guess you’re not staying for the party either," Chloe looks at her.

"Bee should be here any minute now, so… not really."

"I see. Well, I hope you have fun. I mean it, Poppy."

"I know," she replies and meets her eyes. Chloe gives her a smile. "Thank you, Chlo."

Her phone buzzes and she notices that she has a new message from Farmsville Cornhusker. She should probably change her contact info to something nicer.

Farmsville Cornhusker: i’m outside 😜

She rolls her eyes and types a quick reply.

Poppy: are u a wannabe frat boy now? no decent person uses that emoji.

Farmsville Cornhusker: oh, because you’re such a beacon of human decency

Poppy fights off the urge to laugh. Who would’ve thought that one day she would be texting Bee Hughes without feeling the need to murder her?

Farmsville Cornhusker: are u coming or not? i don’t have all day

Farmsville Cornhusker: actually i do but i kinda wanna make it to the bed and breakfast on time

Poppy: fine, just let me say goodbye to chloe and I’ll meet u outside

Farmsville Cornhusker: tell her i said hi!

"Is that Bee?" Chloe asks her, trying to sound casual.

"Yeah, she says hi. She’s outside, so I should get going."

"Yeah, go ahead. It’s kinda cute, though."

"What is?" Poppy raises an eyebrow.

"You two! You were smiling at your phone just now. I’ve never seen you do that before," Chloe sighs dreamily. Poppy purses her lips. "I wrote a Destiel fanfiction like that once. It was an enemies-to-lovers slowburn."

"I have no idea what any of those words mean," she frowns. Some time ago, she would’ve mocked Chloe for simply using the word fanfiction. She’s trying to be nicer now, so she won’t.

"Nevermind. Just… have fun, okay? Try to enjoy yourself," Chloe smiles sincerely at her. She can notice a hint of worry in her voice, and it tugs on Poppy’s heart a little. Chloe is a good friend, after all.

"I will. See you when I come back?" it’s a genuine question.

She wouldn’t blame Chloe if she didn’t want anything else to do with her. She hasn’t exactly been the greatest friend, to put it mildly. But then Chloe throws her arms around her and Poppy feels like maybe everything will be okay.

"Sure. See you when you get back."

------------------

"Finally!" Bee says when she steps out of the house. Poppy notices she’s holding up a bag. "I was starting to think that you stood me up."

"You’re so dramatic, Hughes. You’ve been waiting for less than ten minutes," she rolls her eyes and points at the bag. "What’s in there?"

Bee laughs and pulls several things out of the grocery bag, listing them off as she places them on Poppy’s arms.

"A large pack of Sour Patch Kids, an extra car charger, and a six pack of canned cold brew."

Poppy hums in approval. "I don’t think I’d survive more than two hours in a car with you without coffee."

"Oh, really? Because if I recall it correctly, last time we were in a car you seemed pretty comfortable with me," she laughs and Poppy blushes furiously.

"God, must you always say things that will cause me a migraine?"

"You walked right into that one, Pops," she barely dodges Poppy’s light punch. "Hey! No more violence, okay? Now let me help you with those bags. Your little bird arms won’t support all the weight."

"My bird arms?" Poppy rolls her eyes again, but there’s an air of playfulness between them. It’s refreshing. "Just because you’re freakishly tall and strong doesn’t mean I’m weak."

"I’m trying to be nice here, princess," Bee smiles and Poppy feels her heart beat slightly faster. "Now, hand them to me so we can get going!"

Bee quickly packs both of their bags in the car trunk and it isn’t long before the two of them are sitting in the car.

"I’m really glad you’re coming with me," Bee tells her before starting the car. Her tone is serious, maybe a little timid. Poppy isn’t used to seeing her like this. Bee is usually so playful and sure of herself, so this is different. Almost endearing. "I know… I know things are complicated. But I am glad that you’re here with me right now."

She knows that Bee wants to say more. She knows that both of them should have a serious conversation eventually, to see where they stand and what’s going to happen next. But this is enough for now.

“I know," it’s all she says.

She wants to tell her that she’s glad too, that she is excited but also scared and confused. There’s so much she wants to say but can’t find the right words to do it yet. But Bee smiles at her, a genuine and beautiful smile, and Poppy thinks that maybe she understood the meaning behind her words.

So it’s okay. For now.

"Well then, let’s go!"

"Yeah, let’s go," she whispers back as she pulls her seatbelt on.

"By the way," Bee says casually, turning to Poppy as she stops at the redlight just before the turnoff to leave the street where their university campus is, "don’t you think this is how the best rom-coms start, Pop?"

She winks to let Poppy know she’s joking, and it eases some of the tension.

Poppy lets out an accidental snort. "In your dreams, maybe."

Bee grins at her and turns the speakers on low to their playlist and places her coffee in the center console’s cup holder. She backs out, honking at a guy who tries to cut her off before she turns to Poppy. 

"Okay, we need to come up with our background and shit."

Poppy tilts her head to the side, squinting her eyes. "Huh?"

"You know," Bee starts, making a left towards the freeway. They have a few hours ahead of traveling before they can stop for the night. "We need to figure out what we’re gonna say to my family."

"You mean that you didn’t tell them we used to be mortal enemies and all?" Poppy asks sarcastically, pressing her forehead against the window.

"Used to? Aw, Pops, don’t tell me that we’re friends already!" she laughs.

"Shut up," Poppy fights the urge to laugh too. This situation is so bizarre, but is it ever not when Bee is involved? "what did you want to tell them?”

Bee clicks her tongue, taking a drink of her coffee as she tries to think. 

"Maybe we could tell them we’re dating," she says wholly unaffected, skipping a song.

"Right. And when did we start dating?" Poppy asks, unsure why the words make her pulse pick up speed. 

"Maybe at the Person to Watch gala?" Bee laughs.

"Mhmm. Did that happen before or after I kicked your ass at the fountain?" Poppy retorts.

Bee pretends to mull the possibility over, stepping on the gas again to continue driving. "After."

"Then that means that our anniversary is coming up," she teases.

What is happening? Is she seriously flirting with Bee right now? Openly flirting? Maybe she got a concussion.

Taking a moment to think, Bee bites her lip. She watches the cars pass her on her side, and she waves at a little boy in the backseat. He smiles wide at her, his front two teeth missing. It makes Poppy grin too, despite herself.

"Then we should go to the beach to celebrate. Maybe we could watch the fireworks," Bee starts, careful and measured with her words in a way she’s never been. Poppy doesn’t know why this moment feels like it carries so much weight. When did the teasing fade and the conversation turned so serious? "I could find us a cute hotel near some good restaurants with plenty of menu options. We could have a good time."

"Huh," Poppy says quietly, kicking herself for feeling her body flush involuntarily. 

Bee clears her throat and tries to ease the tension.

"I know. I’m the best fake girlfriend ever." She flips her hair, making Poppy smile.

"Says the girl who ruined my dress with sunscreen."

Bee laughs with reckless abandon, and Poppy can’t help but watch the way her curly brown hair blows in the wind and her dark eyes shine. 

"That’s just our love language, Pops."

Bee grins back at her. Neither of them have any idea what they’re about to get into. 

The next three days should be fun.

------------------

"I’m hungry," Poppy complains. "Let’s stop for lunch."

Bee fights a smile.

"We’ve only been driving for less than two hours," she reminds her. "Can’t you wait?"

"No," she sighs. "Spending so much time with you it’s starting to take its toll on me. I might die if I don’t eat soon."

"Oh, really? Is spending time with me that exhausting?" Bee laughs.

"Yes," Poppy answers plainly. "And trust me, Hughes, you don’t want to see me in a bad mood. And being hungry definitely sours my mood."

"Is that so? Are you telling me that the charming version of yourself I’ve gotten to know in the past two years was just you in a good mood?" as soon as the words leave her mouth, Poppy lightly punches her arm and Bee complains overdramatically. "Ow! Fine, fine. I hope another drive through is okay with you."

"Yeah, whatever. Just hurry up and pick a place."

"So demanding. I like it."

They end up at yet another McDermots drive-thru because Bee wants to stick to their schedule so they can check-in at the bed and breakfast she picked, lie down and buy snacks for their drive tomorrow. They’re glad to be the only ones in line, and then their order is ready, Bee hands the woman at the window her card before Poppy has time to say anything.

"Hughes, I don’t need your charity—"

"I’m just practicing," whispers.

"What?"

Bee leans over, cutting her off with a quick kiss. She really needs to stop catching her off guard like this. "The whole fake girlfriend thing."

(She tells herself it’s just Bee being Bee.)

Poppy’s heart stutters.

(It’s just Bee.)

She watches as Bee —who’s totally unfazed—turns back to the woman, smiling. 

"She always gets mad at me for paying," she says like it’s the easiest and most normal thing in the world. "We’ve been together since last year and every time she says—"

"I don’t need your charity!" Poppy repeats, disgruntled.

Bee points at her.

"—and every time she says that. Such a feisty one, this girl. You know how former trust fund babies are."

The woman grins at them and hands them their food. "You two are just the cutest."

Poppy rolls her eyes, turning her face towards the opposite window.

Bee laughs. "Oh, we know!"

Once they’re out of the driveway, Poppy looks at her with a frown.

Bee can sense it

"What’s wrong, Poptart?"

"What the hell was that?" she scowls, taking a sip of her frosty. 

"Oh, you know. Just pretend," Bee replies and plucks a fry from where the bag is sitting between them. "But seriously, we should come up with some kind of explanation."

Poppy notices the change in Bee’s tone and shrugs uncomfortably. "What did you tell them?"

"Not much," Bee says. "My older sisters are busy with their jobs so it’s not like they have the time to question me about my life. My parents are just happy that I went to my dream school, but my little sister…"

She trails off. Poppy looks at her suspiciously.

"What about her?"

"Luna is turning 17. She was really excited about me attending Belvoire, and she kept asking me all these questions. I think she might have read the T."

"Oh," it’s all Poppy says. She feels her cheeks redden in embarrassment, and it’s not the good kind.

No, it isn’t embarrassment. It’s shame. Shame that Bee’s family might know about everything she did to their daughter in the past two years. Shame that they’ll be able to see right through her. But why does she care so much? Why does she want to make a good impression? It makes no sense.

"Don’t worry," Bee quickly adds when she notices her discomfort. "I told her I’m bringing a friend over."

"Great," she says. For a moment, a flash of hesitation paints Poppy’s eyes, as though she wanted to say something important, but it disappears in an instant leaving Bee wondering if it was ever really there. "Okay, then. I guess that we’re friends now."

Bee smiles and reaches for her burger. She takes a big bite. "Yeah, so you’re going to play nice, right?"

"Shocking, you have no manners. Swallow your food first," Poppy orders, lilting her voice to be purposefully condescending. "Then you can ask me again."

"It’s hot when you tell me what to do," Bee says cheekily, still chewing.

"It’s hot when you actually do what I say," she snarks back.

"No thanks," Bee replies easily, but she does finally clear her mouth of food. "I know you like it when I’m a brat."

She winks. Poppy loses her breath. It’s concerning how warm she’s getting under her collar. She tries to change the subject. 

"So does your little house have enough room for the both of us?"

Bee lets out a laugh. "Oh my god, Poppy. I was middle class! I had my own bedroom!"

She shrugs, grabbing some of Bee’s fries. "How was I supposed to know that?"

"Maybe if you had asked me anything about my life you would’ve known?" Bee retorts.

"I guess I’ll have to start asking you about your life, then."

Bee chuckles, and Poppy ignores the way her heart pumps faster when she hears that carefree laugh.

She ignores how easily she could get used to this. 

"I guess I’ll have to tell you, then."

Chapter III

Tagging: @somewillwin (espero que este bien arrobarte, si te molesta solo decime y dejo de hacerlo 😚) @ownagef

[qqueenofhades]

Modern AU Heartrender Husbands gives me the vibes of like they'll watch eurovision bc Fedyor wanted to and Ivan only begrudgingly agreed but in the end it's him who's standing really close to the TV with a bottle of beer loudly criticising the jury vote

Anon, your Mind. As 100% ever, I am so very easy to enable. As before, this is set in Phantom!Verse, and serves as a sequel of sorts to this (and as a further prequel to PEL).

Brighton Beach, 2014

It’s their first spring in their new home – they arrived in America in August 2013 and got this place, fittingly, right around Orthodox Christmas in January 2014 – and that means many things to them. Their apartment is in a formerly rent-controlled brownstone tenement right off the boardwalk, but prior to their arrival, it was occupied for fifty years by an old bat from Krasnodar Krai who apparently never, ever, threw anything away. (Fedyor is too scared to ask if she actually died in this apartment and her mummified corpse is lurking at the bottom of all the junk.) That is why he and Ivan were able to afford it, at least, but now that the weather is warmer, they have been spending all day cleaning, hauling boxes of crap to the dumpster, and trying in vain to get the smell of pickled cabbage out of the kitchen. It looks exactly like your Great Aunt Masha’s house, the one that traumatized you as a child and has never left your nightmares since. Home sweet home.

The upside is that the location is great, the apartment is surprisingly spacious and lovely – a big bedroom, a bathroom with two sinks and a deep claw-footed tub, a living room with high windows that let in lots of light, original crown molding and hardwood floors – and if it was located in the really chic parts of Brooklyn and inhabited by a tech-startup hipster rather than a Russian émigré spinster with definite hoarding tendencies, it would rent for some astronomical monthly sum. Fedyor has a three-ring binder full of paint swatches, sketches, furniture samples, and other plans to give it a total overhaul (he’s thinking a nice pale green for the living room?) But the one thing that spring definitely means is Eurovision, and it is just the ticket to relax from their grueling schedule of throwing boxes of junk away and hoping they don’t stumble upon a withered hand in a glass jar. He likes America and he’s excited for their new life, for all that they had no choice but to leave Russia in a hurry, but Eurovision is Eurovision.

Actually watching it, of course, is easier said than done. For one thing, Fedyor can’t find a blasted station that is airing it, when he could have just switched on the TV and found it right away back home. For another, Ivan is deeply dubious of the whole endeavor, having watched five minutes of it once when he was eighteen and turning it off in disgust, never to return. Fedyor spends a lot of time wheedling him to give it another chance. “Come on, Vanya. It’s fun!”

“It is a lot of homosexuals gyrating in leather to very bad music,” Ivan snaps. “They look ridiculous. And sound even worse.”

Fedyor glances at them – the fact that they’re sitting on the couch, he’s on Ivan’s lap with his legs draped over Ivan’s thigh, and Ivan’s arms wrapped around his waist – and coughs. “I’m not sure how to break this to you, darling,” he says, “but you are also a homosexual.”

“Maybe, but you would never catch me dead up there.”

“Of course not.” Fedyor rolls his eyes. “You might actually have to smile.”

Ivan makes a scoffing noise. Then he notices the full-on puppy-dog face that Fedyor is now giving him, and says, “Oh no. Oh no, Fedya. Do not look at me like that.”

“Why not?” Fedyor shamelessly snuggles closer. “Is it working?”

The predictable outcome is that Ivan grudgingly agrees to watch it with him, though they’re on American time now and Eurovision Song Contest 2014, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, is six hours ahead of them. Ivan thinks that it’s stupid to sit down and watch a lot of gyrating homosexuals in the middle of the day, when there’s still so much work to do, and tries to demand that they just watch the recording later. Fedyor says this is nonsense, you simply cannot watch a recording of Eurovision, and after a lot of investigation, finds the online streaming channel on his laptop and hooks it up to the TV so they can watch it there. Then he prepares his popcorn, his alcoholic beverages, and his glitter glasses, corrals his recalcitrant husband, and readies himself to experience pure joy. No wonder Ivan doesn’t get it.

However, the effect is both swift and remarkable. By the end of the first semi-final, Ivan is put out about the fact that Russia came seventh in the popular vote but was knocked down to eleven by the jury (this is evidence of an anti-Russian conspiracy, according to him) and when only Moldova, a tiny no-name non-EU former Soviet state, deigns to award them the full twelve points, he is openly incredulous. “Moldova?! That is all we get?! MOLDOVA?!”

“Well,” Fedyor says delicately. “There is that little situation in Ukraine, so I’m afraid we are not that popular right now.”

“That is bullshit,” Ivan grouses. “This is a song contest. The Tolmachevy Sisters are not Vladimir Putin. I am sure they have worked very hard to be here.”

Fedyor glances at him and wisely decides not to say anything. He is likewise a little peeved when the Russian contestants get booed by the Danish audience, but Ivan looks like he’s about to leap through the screen and throttle every single one of them. He thrusts out a hand. “Give me a drink, Fedya. I need it to suffer this indignity.”

Fedyor cracks the lid off a cold one and hands it over – there is the Brighton Bazaar just a few blocks away, stocked with Russian goods, so they are spared the ordeal of drinking Yankee beer – and Ivan takes a long slug. He thinks they can skip watching the second semi-final two nights later, since Russia isn’t in it, but Fedyor puts it on anyway. They both like Austria and “Rise Like a Phoenix,” sung by the bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst (there have been a few dumb comments about her from the usual suspects), but Ivan hits a fist on the arm of the sofa. “She was not better than the Russian girls,” he says loyally. “I still think that they should be the ones to win.”

“Right, well,” Fedyor says. “I think the only ones less likely to win are the Brits, and they never win, so we might be waiting a while.”

The grand finale, on May tenth, is an inadvertently hysterical exercise. They get up early and put on the pregame show, like the Americans do with their bewildering fixation on the Super Bowl, and Ivan gets even more furious when the Tolmachevy Sisters are booed again. “Are they not supposed to love everyone at this glitter bacchanalia? So much for the Scandinavians being tolerant and accepting people! The song is nice! They are nice girls! What is wrong with them?!”

“Come over here and give me a cuddle, Vanya,” Fedyor suggests. “Otherwise you will blow a blood vessel long before the show starts.”

Ivan growls like an escaped tiger from the zoo, but consents to sit down next to Fedyor. They both drink copiously once the festivities get underway, singing along loudly (and not that melodiously) to the various entries, Fedyor’s arm draped around Ivan’s neck as he sits on his lap and critically judges the acts before the official results pop up. Once again, the only twelve-point awards Russia gets are from former Soviet countries (Azerbaijan and Belarus) and Ivan looks like he’s going to have a conniption before Fedyor kisses him and he gets distracted for the next three minutes. “This is disgraceful,” he mutters, when they break away. “Not you, Fedya. Just the horrible way they have clearly rigged this show against us.”

“You know,” Fedyor says. “That’s Eurovision. You declare war on your neighbors when they don’t give you twelve points. Now they have the EU, they’re not supposed to fight anymore, this is the only way they can get all those old rivalries out. Just be glad that Australia isn’t in this year. You might have really blown a gasket.”

“Australia?!” Ivan shifts Fedyor to a more comfortable position on his lap and grabs for his third bottle of beer. “AUSTRALIA IS NOT IN EUROPE! It is not even anywhere NEAR Europe! WHY DOES AUSTRALIA GET TO BE IN EUROVISION!?!”

Fedyor laughs out loud. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Ivan says. “But this is still the stupidest thing I have ever seen.”

“Shh.” Fedyor nuzzles him. “Just give in, Vanya. Just give in.”

Ivan consents to turn his grumbling down to a simmer, and is somewhat mollified that Russia comes in sixth overall, which is better than even Fedyor thought they were going to do. Austria takes the champion’s crown, they can both agree that Conchita Wurst deserves it, and get up and dance around their still-junk-cluttered living room as she gives her bravissima performance. A few things have been thrown during the judging, but they can’t add much to the existing mess, and in Brighton Beach, “damage caused to the apartment because Russia got shafted during Eurovision finals” might actually be a legitimate excuse. As he leans against Ivan’s chest and grins into his neck, Fedyor has to admit that this place may just feel like home yet.

[screechfoxes]

(Fanfic letter ask game) F I L M Z ~

oh boy, some of these got long, sorry in advance

F: Share a snippet from one of your favourite dialogue scenes you've written and explain why you're proud of it.

this one took a lot of thought, but i settled on this snippet from bacchanalia (it was always going to be a distortion fic, to be honest)

“Who are you?” Jon asks, listening to his own voice echoing the question back at him. Her name is not Helen, because she isn’t real, she tells him. None of this is real. “I already knew that,” he tells her, and she laughs. That echoes too.

i think i like it less for the dialogue itself, both in this section and their later section of conversation, and more for the way i conveyed it. it's not subtle, perhaps, but i enjoyed having helen's dialogue conveyed as indirect dialogue, and how that showed what this place had done to her, how unreal she felt - or even was

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

tropey vampire fic. my one weakness. i've started writing at least one vampire fic for all of my major fandoms, even if they don't always get finished. (rip the four chapters of the homestuck vampire AU i was writing before i lost half a chapter to technical issues and so lost interest)

also, "character who was weak compared to other characters is secretly badass/powerful" is the reason i've read as many teen wolf and witcher fics as i have. i've barely watched teen wolf, and i'm not especially invested in the witcher in a fannish way. but those fics are good food for me if i can ignore/filter out the character bashing.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

like, once, if that. when i wrote fic on paper (which, jesus, that's three years ago now), the process of writing it up would be a revision process for me. for a while, i had a similar process where i'd have a blank document open and "write it up" from the finished document

now... well, it's harder to say right now, because a lot of my recent fics have either been A) me polishing up something i started months/years ago that's good enough to post, and i just want to clear it out of my brain without thinking about it too hard, or B) fics that have taken me a lot of very granular work where i've done a lot of rewriting during the initial drafting process

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you'd care to share?

i have a lot for The Untamed, mostly because i spent a week or so going through all of the kinkmeme prompts from 2020 to the present and saving any that i was remotely interested in writing. so now i have over 100 claims on AO3

but beyond those, i have a few ideas all of my own, and still some WIPs for TMA and Arcane that who knows if i'll ever manage to finish. i'm realising now that i haven't actually shared any premises but uh. too many ideas!

(hey, do you remember the homestuck faery dance/masquerade fics i think i mentioned to you back in like. 2016/2017? that's still a premise on the back burner that i want to finish somewhen. i have it all planned out except even years later, i haven't got an ending)

Z: Major character death—do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can't tolerate?

i've written it four times, according to AO3, and i'm sure i've read it, but i can't think of any examples

the ones i've written are two where the death is a canon death, and two where it's basically... everyone dies except the characters i'm focusing on. (actually, i might have a third one like the latter, but it's not tagged MCD)

i don't tend to go to fics for fix-its, so major character death is fine for me if it works for the story + the characters, and if it isn't in service of characters/relationships that i don't care about

[yellowocaballero]

The Crocodile's Dilemma: In Which Helen exploits Michael's Labor, Michael suffers an un-identity crisis, and unpaid internships should be illegal

It’s tough being a teenage embodiment of the Spiral. Your boss/wine aunt figure Helen’s a Tory, your inattentive cousin figure Mike Crew keeps attending philosophy classes and day drinking, and you’re pretty sure that this internship doesn’t have any dental. At least it’s good job experience for your future career in...being evil? But do you even want to be evil?

This small story is technically part of my Roleswap AU, but I specifically wrote it so that no knowledge is required. Still, if you’re wondering why Michael’s an eighteen(ish) year old, Mike Crew’s an Avatar of the Spiral, and everybody is obsessed with Melanie King, check it out. Still, no need. Rest under the cut.

Maybe Helen was right.

Not that Helen was ever strictly right, much as Helen was never wrong, but Michael just had to be doing this whole fear demon thing incorrectly. If someone had explained the whole fear demon thing to them two years ago (“Okay, so it’s like you’re the semi-sentient appendage of an extradimensional force of evil that has to consume trauma relentlessly in order to propagate its own debatable existence, also you’re nonbinary now, no those things are not strictly related, probably”), then they would have called them crazy. Which, of course, they were, but that wasn’t the point. So long as the point existed. So long as anything -

An essential theorem within quantum physics was the quantum Zeno effect. 

Simply put, it was the fact that a quantum state would decay if left alone, but does not decay under continuous observation. Even observing the results after the photon is produced leads to collapsing the wave function and loading a back-history as shown by delayed choice quantum eraser. If something was seen, it no longer existed; if something persisted unperceived, it would exist as long as it liked. 

So it was explained to Michael by the physics professor he was torturing that day. Michael had trapped the man in the physics building of his university, lured in by one too many late nights in his office and the persistent sense that his life was going nowhere meaningful. After a few classes spent sitting in on his Physics 101 class, maintaining constant and forever eye contact, Michael had eventually tricked the man into giving a persistent and ongoing physics lecture to an empty classroom, desperately trying to explain the inexplicable to a college freshman who did not care. Truly miserable, yet ultimately harmless - Michael’s favorite kind of trick. 

But, despite themself, Michael grew interested. They didn’t understand any of what the man was talking about, but that was all of the fun. Understanding ruined the magic of things; broke down the beauty of the universe into cogs and gears. No thanks. They could tell that it bothered the professor, that he said so much and yet knew nothing. That there was so much he would never know, and that he wasn’t so smart after all. How would any of his colleagues respect him?

“So photons degrade if they’re observed?” Michael asked one day, after...some period of time. They had raised their hand and everything, they were so proud of themself. Uni was just like secondary school after all. “Is that true of people too?”

The professor had sweated, deeply uncomfortable with Michael as a person and as a non-euclidean concept. “No - no, not at all. Humans are much more than photons -”

Michael grinned. It wasn’t quite right. “Are you sure?”

The professor sweated harder. “I - no, I’m not. But humans are constantly observed by - by the universe, or something.”

Michael grinned sharper. “Are you sure? Are you being observed right now? Are you sure?”

And the professor was not sure, not anymore, and the fragment of this man’s reality collapsed. 

Well, Michael thought to themself, slipping out of an improbable yellow door, that’s another Statement for the Magnus Institute. Not that they would read it. 

****

“Now, remember this - the first step to being a successful Avatar is presentation!”

Michael squinted at Helen dubiously. “I thought we were fear demons?”

Helen sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with two sharp knife fingers. It looked as if it hurt quite a bit, but Michael reasoned that they had probably gone through the fifth dimension. “This is the stupidest dimension - fine, fine! Fear demons, then. It is absolutely vital that we conduct our business with style, grace, and the slightest sprinkling of pizazz!” 

Just for the flourish, Helen twirled her fingers, and a faint shower of confetti came raining down from the ceiling. Michael sneezed. 

“I thought it was vital that we harvest fear and trauma from people to propagate our cursed existence,” Michael said. 

Helen’s eyebrow twitched. “More than two things can be vital, Michael. Please pay attention. Now, as a demonstration, I’d like you to take a gander at that man over there.”

Obediently, Michael looked across the bar. They were sitting on barstools in a high-class pub, because Helen knew her worth and never settled for anything less, with glass counters and lots of private booths. But all pubs had their sad men drinking alone, and this one was no exception. 

This man wasn’t sullen and slow like a lot of them. He was wearing a nice suit and thin tie, looking straight out of Canary Wharf. Michael silently agreed with Helen’s choice - they took eat the rich very seriously, and also literally. He also seemed a little jumped up on something, with shaking hands and erratic eyes. 

“He looks happy,” Michael observed. “Think it’s his birthday?”

“He’s on cocaine, Michael,” Helen said flatly. “Cocaine. We are at a posh bar, and he is currently doing a line off his watch.”

Oh! Michael suddenly felt very uncool. They had never been one of those people in secondary school who did cocaine. They hadn’t been cool. “I knew that,” Michael bluffed. “What are we going to do to him?”

“Take the teenager as your intern, they said,” Helen groused, “it’s investing in the future, they said, it’ll stop them from eating you when they grow up, they said.” She sighed, jabbing a finger at the now very obviously coked up man who was staring at the bottles behind the bartender as if they were whispering secrets of the universe into his ear. Helen liked that one. “Use your intuition. Find a good angle to squeeze. What are his weaknesses to exploit?”

Oh, Michael knew how to do this. They shifted vibrations just a bit, dropping out of what Michael liked to call the ‘mild’ spectrum into the ‘spicy’ spectrum. They were distantly aware of a patron’s glass shattering. 

They squinted at the man, picking out his little fears and insecurities like Dionysus picking grapes. Maybe. Michael had gotten a C in English, but they were somewhat cognizant of the Spiral munching heavily on Bacchanalia. Sometimes they felt like some of those children who spoke in tongues and claimed to be from a past life. That had also been the Spiral.

“He owns a Nintendo NES,” Michael said confidently, absolutely sure that this was important. Helen groaned. “His house is painted white, and his girlfriend does tax fraud.”

“Something relevant?” Helen hinted desperately.

Michael just squinted at her. “Relevant to what?”

“...good point. But something useful, please.”

Picky. Michael scowled, but gave the man another good gander. “He only remembers faint details of his father’s face, and he worries that his recollections aren’t accurate,” Michael proclaimed finally. 

Helen clapped, delighted, as Michael took a careful sip of their water, turning it into fizzy water. She took a sip of her own wine, turning it into champagne. Or maybe just sparkling unreality? “Wonderful. Now, how should we play this? Insert a false father into his life, completely separate from his recollections, or is that a bit too Stranger? I suppose we could do some good old-fashioned gaslighting, but sometimes that’s just a bit too Melanie, if you catch my drift -”

“Are you jealous that the Archive girls are better at gaslighting than you are?” 

“Shut it, kid,” Helen hissed, before taking a long drag of her champagne. “My vote is that we convince him to top off his coke bender with some LSD. Then he hallucinates - oh, he hallucinates that he’s in a mental institution, that’s a good one -”

“Why don’t we shift everything thirty cm to the right?” Michael asked brightly.

Helen squinted at them. They beamed back. 

“You are so bad at this,” Helen said. 

Michael would have felt crushed if Helen didn’t express this sentiment roughly once per lunar cycle, contrariwise. As it was, they bore the criticism with a stiff upper lip. Helen had her way of harvesting fear from unsuspecting humans, and Michael had theirs. “Look, Helen, you’re being uncreative! We don’t have to traumatize people every single time.”

Helen squinted further. “We’re personifications of deceit. We eat trauma.”

“No, we eat confusion,” Michael pointed out patiently. “Look at it this way. If you give someone one really terrible experience, then they repress it for the rest of their lives and consider it a brush with Hell. One and done, see? But if you minorly inconvenience them for a really long time, then they’ll never be able to break out of it. They’ll feel as if something’s wrong, but they’ll never know it. You can keep the game going for years that way!”

The idea was very good. Michael had been working on it for a while. Truth be told, Michael felt bad traumatizing people outright and making them scream and cry and everything. They always felt as if they were doing something wrong by making other people’s existences a living nightmare. Michael much preferred rigging a corn maze so you were stuck in it for days inside the maze but only an hour outside. It was funner, and much more confusing. 

But Helen just pursed her lips and stared Michael up and down, making them squirm awkwardly on their barstool. Finally, as if she was delivering a life sentence, she imperiously said, “Well, we all have our different styles, I suppose! It would be quite boring if we were both exactly the same.” Michael nodded vigorously at this, and Helen held up a scaly claw. “But! You’re my intern, which means that you’re learning from the master here. So shut up and let me teach you how to ruin lives.”

“Yes, boss,” Michael said miserably. 

Helen tsked, but she patted them on the head anyway. It tasted like batteries. “Honestly, kid. A literal bleeding heart’s fun for the whole family, but a metaphorical bleeding heart will get you nowhere in life. You can’t exist as you are and feel bad for them. It ruins the point. It’s a paradox.”

“I thought we liked paradoxes, though?”

Helen shrugged, downing the rest of her wine. “Rules for thee but not for me, honey. But I’m a good boss and drunken aunt figure, so I’ll appease you today. Now come on, let’s convince this bar to vote for Brexit.”

They did. It was quite fun after all, tricking a roomful of people into doing something actively against their own interests. But something about the whole thing left a strange taste in Michael’s mouth: not the good kind of strange, or the bad kind of strange that was also good. Just strange, and undeniable, and something that couldn’t be exploited at all. 

****

Maybe Helen was right. 

Not that Helen was ever strictly right, much as Helen was never wrong, but Michael just had to be doing this whole fear demon thing incorrectly. If someone had explained the whole fear demon thing to them two years ago (“Okay, so it’s like you’re the semi-sentient appendage of an extradimensional force of evil that has to consume trauma relentlessly in order to propagate its own debatable existence, also you’re nonbinary now, no those things are not strictly related, probably”), then they would have called them crazy. Which, of course, they were, but that wasn’t the point. So long as the point existed. So long as anything -

Michael was a bad fear demon of the Spiral and Infinite Twisting and That Is Not What It Is and The Twisted Door, etc, etc, All Fear Its Name, etc etc all Hail, because they didn’t always like how their internal monologue could no longer be described through common language. Words and images and understandings were nothing but approximations for Michael now, and sometimes it was frustrating existing outside the boundaries of understanding. Which, of course, was the point, so long as the point existed, so long as anything existed -

It wasn’t always easy. Still, nobody ever got what they wanted if they weren’t willing to put the effort in. The adult world and labouring under capitalism wasn’t easy for anybody. That was what Mum had always said. Who was Michael to complain about their 9-5? Or 24/24? Or infinite/infinite? Or nothing/nothing? Or -

Was it too much to ask to have a linear thought once in a while? 

Helen wouldn’t understand. There were only two other approximations of concepts that Michael knew, and Helen would hardly be any help. The other “person” would probably be a better sounding board, but there was the fact that he was kind of pretentious. Still, it was better than nothing. Well, it was nothing, but only in the sense that everything was - argh!

A yellow door appeared in a nondescript basement, and Michael appeared with it. They melted out of the “wood”, taking a second to check their outfit for this apparition - a nice vintage 50s dress with a painstaking stitch that reminded one of the oppressive nature of housewifery, nice. They elongated their curly blonde hair from a roguish mop into a nice little shag and melted into the crowd. 

It must have been a passing period, because Michael was buffeted to and fro by tall white men wearing backpacks and shorter white girls hoisting strangely identical water bottles. Somewhere Northern, Michael decided, likely private and small. Not that it strictly mattered, but it helped to solidify their grip in reality a bit if they had some idea. They already knew geography was purposeless and a distraction from the real issues, like shrimp, but occasionally it could be useful. Helen had been careful to impart the central tenet of existence as a non-euclidean concept in undefinable space in the twenty seventh dimension: location, location, location!

It was obviously the Philosophy Department, because all philosophy classes were held in old basements built in the ‘60s in identical hallways. For kicks, Michael turned all of the school hallways inwards and sent them in a mobius strip, and changed all of the door numbers into a headache. The key to enjoying your job was to take initiative in the workplace environment and to just have fun with it!

Michael found themselves in front of a door identical to all of the others, with fake laminated wood, and they decided to go in. The universe had guided them to this door for a reason, and who were they to reject its call? 

The small classroom was like most other small, private colleges in unpopular departments that nobody cared about. Lots of single person desks - Michael snapped their fingers and turned them all into left-handed desks - complete with a smartboard and a teacher’s podium. It was already half-full, so Michael carefully slid into a chair in the back and pretended that they had been there all along. A student wandered close, convinced that this was her seat, but Michael successfully convinced her that a different seat near the front was hers, prompting an impromptu game of musical chairs that sent ripples through the otherwise sedate classroom.

There was a blond student already sitting in the front, flipping through a spiral notebook and clicking a pen in no particular pattern. He was wearing a pea coat, jeans, and his hair was weirdly perfect. Michael wished they had a notebook. Was this what you did in university? They had never had the opportunity to go. 

Actually, they had never quite graduated secondary - three months away from graduation, actually. It probably wasn’t all that important. You didn’t really need a diploma to become a trauma eating fear demon. Was there a university of eating fear? That would be funny. What would the classes be in, ‘Enforcing the Powerlessness of Capitalism 101’? What was the difference between that and a Business major? 

Maybe Business majors were the real fear demons, Michael thought grandly. It was a good thought, they would have to remember to tell it to Melanie later. Melanie would approve. Hadn’t Tim been a business major? Yeah, in that case she would definitely approve. 

The student sitting in the front seemed to have finally noticed the game of musical chairs, and as the professor started clearing their throat and announcing something unimportant to the class, he turned around to find Michael sitting in the back of the class. They waved cheerfully. The student scowled. 

‘What are you doing here!’, the guy mouthed angrily. 

‘Hi Mike!’ Michael mouthed back. 

‘Go away!’ Mike mouthed back. 

‘But I’m going to eat your teacher :(‘ Michael mouthed back. They didn’t actually frown. 

‘ >:(!’, Mike Crew mouthed back, also without changing his facial expression. 

This was probably why Mike wasn’t Michael’s biggest fan. Which was a pity, because Michael thought Mike was really cool. He had the coolest name, for one. But shorter, and snappier. Mike was the kind of name girls would call you at clubs. Michael was what, like, your Mum would say as she yelled at you to clean up your room before her book club girls came over. Why were they girls? They were, like, fifty.

Mike Crew was an Avatar of the Spiral completely unwillingly. Chosen as a child and chased throughout his life by an improbably long lasting Lichtenberg scar, he had eventually succumbed to the inevitable and transformed into an even more improbable man. Personally, Michael found it strange that ‘inevitable’ and ‘Spiral’ was in the same sentence, but - well, it had to be everything at one point. Even a melting clock was right once an endless twilight. 

Strangest of all, Mike Crew was a philosophy major. The class, of course, was a high level philosophy course. Mike Crew had been in uni - well, a while - and he tended not to waste his time with the boring shit anymore. Michael listened with interest as the professor dived into the lecture. 

Two minutes in, Mike subtly gathered his things and slipped into the conveniently empty chair next to Michael. He was still glaring at them, as Michael tried their best to look innocent and cute. The effect was a little ruined by the inherent maliciousness of Michael’s pores, but they liked to think it was the thought that counted. 

“To continue our conversation on the topic of paradoxes,” the professor began, “I’d like to introduce a few thought experiments for your consideration as a class. I’ll mention the concept, and then allow you to break into pairs to discuss them.”

Mike leaned into Michael’s ear. “We were discussing Descartes!”

“But isn’t this more interesting?” Michael asked. 

“If you give my professor a mental breakdown we’re going to fall behind on the syllabus!”

“The first paradox I’d like to bring to your attention is the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” The professor flipped to a new slide, which helpfully had a big crocodile on it. Michael admired it. They had seen a crocodile at the zoo once. “Similar to the liar’s paradox, the premise states that a crocodile, who has stolen a child, promises the parent that his or her child will be returned if and only if he or she correctly predicts what the crocodile will do next. The outcome is fairly obvious if the parent states that the crocodile will return the child, but the crocodile faces a dilemma if the parent states that the crocodile will not return the child. No matter the outcome, the crocodile is made a liar: if  the crocodile decides to not give back the child then the statement proves to be true, and he ought to return the child, thereby making it false. Whatever the outcome, he still violates his terms.”

Michael raised their hand. Mike forcibly lowered their hand. 

“If I give your professor a mental breakdown then you’ll have extra time for the test,” Michael whispered back. Mike seriously considered this notion.

“The next paradox is slightly related,” the professor continued. “The Infinite Hotel Paradox.” Michael’s face stretched into a grin as Mike Crew groaned. “It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often. This is what we call a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. Therefore -”

“Okay, yeah,” Mike Crew said, slumping in his seat. “You can eat him, this guy is just begging for it.” 

“Yay!” Michael went in for the hug, before Mike pushed them away. Michael’s quest for a cool big brother failed yet again. “Do you want to call the -”

“They’re your hallways,” Mike said, persnickety as always. Maybe he was just jealous that he wasn’t a hallway? 

Michael raised their hand, patiently waiting for the professor to call on them. He stumbled in the middle of his lecture, adjusting his thick glasses. 

“Uh, yes, Miss -”

“You no longer understand gender,” Michael said pleasantly, as they always did whenever they were misgendered. It was an understandable mistake, so they didn’t do it maliciously. Frankly, they just thought it was healthy. Everyone should not understand false things. “Professor, I have a question about the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” They waited for the professor to nod, somewhat confused. “How do you know that didn’t really happen?”

The professor blinked lethargically at them. “It’s a thought experiment. It’s not real, it’s just an idea proposed by philosophers to represent -”

“What makes you so sure?” Michael asked cheerfully. “Crocodiles eat babies. Or dingoes. I think I read a story about this happening in Australia, didn’t you?”

“I - I suppose I did, yes -”

“We wouldn’t talk about it if it didn’t really happen.” Michael felt their voice fall into a rising lilt, like an attractive song that was played to a concert hall but heard only by you. They were distantly aware of Mike lulling the rest of the students into their own hazy daze: aware enough to be confused, but trapped in their seats and the fog of misunderstandings. “Fiction isn’t real. Reality is real. But a thought experiment is in between, isn’t it? Something that strains the boundaries of reality, that proves the fundamental concepts of life, told through a framework of an intrinsic lie. A paradox is a lie telling the truth. You are a truth speaker telling only lies. What you know isn’t so much as anything at all, is it? What do you really know, anyway?”

“One of us tells only the truth and the other tells only lies,” Mike Crew called out, bored. But his eyes were shining in endless refraction, infinite rooms holding infinite guests. “But is it really a lie if you had mistaken it for the truth? What lies are you living, Dr. Young?”

Dr. Young was stammering, eyes swimming, and Michael didn’t dare to break eye contact. It was a delicate spell they wove, but Michael wasn’t so bad at bringing this simmer to a boil. Cooking was about improvisation, and Michael had always been great at that. 

“If your life is a lie,” Michael breathed, “then are you really alive?”

It was clear, when it happened: the professor started inhaling deep, deeper breaths, chest wracking with heaves. His eyes rolled up in his head, he clutched at his chest, and he finally slumped down on the floor. He twitched, jerking slightly, and he would continue jerking. At which point the students would become aware, and they’d call an ambulance for him, and he would be perfectly alright in the end. If a little mentally scarred. 

“Damn,” Mike Crew said, almost impressed, as both he and Michael stood up. He shoved his pens in a backpack, glad to be free of his examination for another week. “What’d you do to him?”

“Made him think he was dead,” Michael said serenely. “He thought his heart had stopped beating so he had a panic attack. He’s going to have to make an appointment with a psychiatrist but he probably should anyway, work’s very stressful for him.”

“Guess I have the rest of the hour off,” Mike sighed, as he held the door open for Michael so they could slip out of the back of the classroom. It was yellow, and a little strange.  “Want to grab a pint with me at the campus pub?” He paused a beat. “Wait, are you even old enough to drink?”

“I’m as old as eternity and reborn every second.” Michael paused a beat. “But I was eighteen last time I checked, and I’ll probably be eighteen for a while, so yes?”

“Great, let’s roll. I need a drink.”

****

Mike’s uni’s pub (Michael had asked the name of the uni but the information had, unfortunately, been lost in next Tuesday, so they’ll know then) was the exact opposite of the high class pub Helen had taken them to. Instead of glassy, shiny, and chromey, Mike’s pub looked strongly as if very many people had puked in it and the staff had tackled the problem somewhat half-heartedly. Michael enjoyed the sight of the puke existing in all points in time simultaneously, giving it a sort of weird yellow-ish shine. Actually, maybe all puke had that yellowish sheen?

When they asked Mike about it as they hopped up on the bar, he just sighed. He flagged the bartender down for a pint, and when the bartender squinted dubiously at Michael they revelled into the micro-confusion of ambiguous ages. Micro-feeding? Like mini muffins?

“Helen made a mistake hiring you. She’s stuck us with a perpetual teenager.”

“I’m as much a teenager as you are a uni student,” Michael said pointedly. 

“I’m not an embodiment of the It Is What It Isn’t Is,” Mike said, oddly aggressively. “I’m just a normal Avatar.”

“Fear demon.”

“Melanie King isn’t always right and I don’t know why everyone thinks she is.” Big words from an honored Special Guest on her show. There were many in the fear demon community who would kill for the honor. It was a good thing she hated intruders in her Archives - otherwise they’d never leave. “But I’m no different from - that douche Peter Lukas or that stoner Elias Bouchard or that btich Annabelle, okay? I’m just a guy. Who eats trauma. Plenty of guys do that.”

“Very good denial of reality!” Michael approved. “Normally Helen tells me to go further into denying reality as a concept, though.”

“God, you hallway people are impossible to have a normal conversation with.” Mike huffed, clearly not as irritated as his words would imply. Michael also approved of the incongruity. “I’m assuming that you’re here for absolutely no reason and that you have no idea why or how you ended up at my uni.”

Michael shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, I am here for a reason.” At Mike’s extreme surprise, they hurriedly clarified, “Not with any goal, meaning, or intention in mind! But I just wanted to talk about something to someone who wasn’t technically another facet of my meaningless whole. Helen and I are as index and ring fingers on the same hand, but we don’t really get each other sometimes, you know?”

“Does that make you the pinky finger?”

“I actually had a hypothetical for you.” At Mike’s nod, Michael snagged a napkin from the stack on the sticky bar and began creasing it, somewhat anxiously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, you were a teenagerish nongendered sentient hallway intern who happens to eat trauma.”

“This isn’t much of a hypothetical,” Mike said flatly. 

“I’m a hypothetical person. And I’m only a person hypothetically.” Michael started making little folds in the napkin, twisting it up into a strange origami. “So, let’s say, hypothetically, that this person - their name is Michael - enjoyed being them. It wasn’t always fun, and sometimes they kind of missed the world making sense, or at least not making sense in a familiar way. And sometimes Michael got tired of being a sentient hallway and wanted to finish secondary. And maybe even sometimes Michael grows sad that both their parents were eaten by their new boss, who is kind of a Tory! But that’s all fine. Michael’s probably happier like this than they ever were even when they did have parents.”

Mike Crew stared at them a little, slowly sipping his pint. 

Michael hunched their shoulders, and folded up the napkin further and further. They had read somewhere that any piece of paper can only be folded seven times. They folded the napkin seven times, then eight, then nine, then ten. That was something nice about the way things were now, they supposed: no rules, absolute freedom. Only rules, no freedom. That was what Dr. Yung would call a paradox. “But maybe the worst part about this new job is that Michael doesn’t really like hurting people. Sometimes it’s fun to randomly make people very upset, and you always kind of end up doing it anyway, but after a while Michael feels kind of bad about it. Michael likes doing other things better, like making terrible roundabouts and rearranging the pages of books. Maybe they even like reading books. They like reading comic books backwards, from the last page to the first, so every panel is a surprise.”

“There’s lots of ways to be a fear demon,” Mike pointed out, almost gently. Maybe only because he could relate. “Look at me. I’m not feeding off anyone. Just myself.”

“But I like the way I do it,” Michael said, frustrated. “Helen keeps trying to get me to do it the way she does it, but the point is that we aren’t the same. What’s the point in having two of us if both our viewpoints are the same? We’re different in every way, but we’re the same being. I just want to be the Spiral the way I want. Not the way Helen wants.” Their voice lowered, almost unwilling to say what they were about to say. “Not the way the Spiral wants.”

Mike stared at them for a long time, slowly sipping his beer, and Michael focused their efforts on forcing this improbable napkin into something that could be beautiful. A lotus flower? A mobius strip? Or should they just let it happen as it happens, and see what form it decided to take? 

Finally, Mike said, “You are the Spiral.”

“Then why am I always disagreeing with it?” Michael asked miserably. 

“Why are you, Helen, and the Spiral always disagreeing?” Mike pointed out. “Maybe that’s the point. So much as anything’s a point. Isn’t it the most perfect paradox of all, to split yourself into portions that are always disagreeing and bickering? Maybe everything you’re feeling is on purpose. I mean, it’s kind of improbable that you’re feeling at all, right?”

“I retained a lot of humanity,” Michael said. “Maybe a bit too much, actually?”

“Right.” Mike nodded decisively. “Then that’s the appeal. A human mind will always strain against its confines. It will always want different, want the same, want the old and the new and the perpetual and the fleeting and the eternity and the moment. What’s more nonsensical than a human? What’s more contradictory than human nature?” A dark shadow passed over his face, just for a second. “The Spiral kidnaps us and turns us into it. One part of our minds is entrenched in its eternity, and another part is always screaming in agony. But predominantly we are the unholy mixture of human and Entity, oil forced into water. It’s so intrinsically horrifying and wrong that we just get used to it. We are both demon and human, and so we’re neither, and so we’re both. Isn’t it weird, Michael, that unlike so many other Avatars, none of us want to be here?”

“You’re a very philosophical person,” Michael said diplomatically. 

“Thanks, I think too much about my lot in life.” Mike Crew sighed, slumping on his barstool and knocking back more of his pint. “I wish you and Helen would stop showing up in my life so often. When you aren’t around, I can almost pretend I’m a person.”

“That’s why we show up,” Michael felt obligated to point out. 

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said glumly. “I always know. I can’t stop knowing.”

There was nothing Michael could say or do that fixed this, or that could make Mike feel better. They understood, just a little - that nostalgia for a kinder time. But maybe it was more that Mike never had those halcyon, innocent days. He had lived life since childhood in aching knowledge that his days were numbered. Maybe that’s why Mike was allowed to live life as a human even now: his human life was just as confusing and isolated as his afterlife, and that when fear stained every second of his life there was no point in ceasing it. 

Maybe Michael couldn’t keep their human life because they had been happy. At the very least, they had been ignorant. That was one thing the Spiral could not abide: ignorance. 

These days, Michael knew everything. They knew everything so, so much.

So, in lieu of comforting falsehoods, Michael offered Mike Crew a slightest sliver of truth. They passed Mike the little piece of origami that they had made, and let Mike cradle it in his large and smooth hands. 

The origami had no shape. It wasn’t folded into anything. It was just a meaningless amalgamation of points, corners, and creased paper. It didn’t look like anything at all. 

“See?” Michael pointed out. “It’s a bear.”

Mike Crew smiled weakly. “Looks like a sea goat to me.”

There was something beautiful in ambiguity. When something was nothing, it could be everything at once. That was rather Michael’s favorite thing about it. 

“I think it’s a self-portrait,” Michael decided. 

And that, at least, was as true as anything else. 

***

Michael wandered their hallways. 

On some level, they were pretty much perpetually doing that. Even as one facet of them talked with Michael in a campus pub, even as another helped Helen convince a high class pub into voting Brexit, even as they traumatized a physics professor, they wandered these hallways.

Make no mistake: everything in this story has/will/is happened/happening simultaneously.

Of course, on another level Michael was literally their hallways, and thus they were not so much wandering as existing. Pulsating, one could say. Even twisting, if one would be so bold. 

There was a mirror, in the hallway. Not a funhouse mirror - although Michael did enjoy popping out from those and scaring Nikola - but just a mirror. Gilded around the edges, ornate with swirling curlicues. You could see yourself in it. You could see a lot of yourself in it. It wasn’t what you had always looked like, not really, but you just had the sense that this was what you really looked like. Maybe you had always looked like this, and everybody was just too polite to tell you. Were you really a brunette? This mirror had to be right. You had been a blonde all along. Nobody had told you. They were laughing at you. They were laughing -

But this was Michael, and Michael’s, and nothing in here could harm them. It was even comforting. They looked at themselves in the mirror, and saw themselves same as ever. Or not same as ever. They were still Michael, so far as Michael was Michael.

Shortish. Blondey. Raggedy hair. Curled as much as anything’s curled. Fun clothing that they really enjoyed. Tall shoes, because they liked feeling tall. Similar dimensions to the golden number. Non linear, but who’s counting? It was what they typically looked like. 

But, just for a second, Michael even fooled themselves. They saw someone in the mirror that they were not, someone who they had never been, someone who they never will be. Someone different.

Michael, just like everyone else, couldn’t stop themselves from reaching out. Come back. Come back! Let me touch you, let me be you! Michael’s fingers brushed the shiny glass, and the world tilted sideways, and Michael fell into where the sidewalk ended.

They emerged, or maybe they had always been, inside a bedroom. It was a nice little suburban bedroom. It had a peaked ceiling and a window seat. The walls were a soft, navy blue. There was a young person, lying on the shag carpet, leafing through a book. Big headphones were over their ears, and they were bopping along to music. Disco. 

Michael stood, an intruder into a familiar space, and watched the stranger. Their throat felt oddly tight, and their eyes felt strangely hot. The stranger was smiling faintly, flipping the pages of their book somewhat mindlessly. They were reading it for school. Flatland. It was just an assignment, but it was really fucking them up. It was making them think about all of these things that they didn’t normally, in new dimensions. It was really cool. All of their friends were just reading the Sparknotes, but they really wanted to talk about it with someone. 

 This, of course, had happened. It will happen in the future. It was happening now, as Michael watched the scene with an electric sadness. It would never happen, because the Spiral had never been here, and never would be, and always was. 

A knock echoed on the door, several sharp raps. Michael didn’t notice, legs swinging to the music. 

The knock on the door hit louder. “Michael!” A voice echoed from behind it. “Michael, are you ready to go?”

Michael reached up and slid off their headphones, without looking up from their book. “Coming!” They called back. “Be right there!”

The Spiral watched Michael, who hummed absentmindedly as the door knocked again. Dad was downstairs, making sure the gas was off and shutting off the lights. Mum was knocking, knocking, knocking, on a door that was and will always be wood. 

“Have you packed yet?” Mum called. 

“Sure I have!” Michael yelled back, glancing at the empty suitcase on the bed and the messy pile of clothes right next to it. They pushed themselves up, flipping the book shut and rising to their feet. “Be right out!”

“Hurry up,” Mum called, as the Spiral mouthed the words along with her. “We’re going to be late!”

The Bermudas aren’t going anywhere, Michael thought spitefully. They stuffed their clothes haphazardly in a suitcase, took far more care to pack their laptop and DS, and shoved Flatland in a side pocket of their backpack. 

When Michael slung on his backpack, unfolded the handle from their suitcase, they were not even looking at the door they left through. They were entirely focused on managing the unruly suitcase, and walked straight through the crazed yellow door.

Of course, Michael walked out. Slightly stranger, a little better, a lot worse. Exactly the same. They were back in their hallways again, fresh from their little suburban bedroom and the child exiting one world and entering one quite different. Maybe one part of that child would always be in that bedroom, another part in these hallways, and another part always caught in that doorway and the transition. 

Simultaneously, in all points in time, Mum knocked on that wood door, and Michael never let her inside. Simultaneously, at all points in time, Michael watched it all happen.

They hadn’t expected it to be so comforting. At all moments in time, in a little corner of their heart, Mum knocked on their door. If the Spiral lived in your soul and beat your heart, it was easy to find the beauty in it - the magnificence of eternity, and the joy in the moment. Mum was with them - literally, as he was pretty sure Helen was still digesting her. Maybe nothing was ever truly over - just over there.  

Michael stuck their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune that highly resembled the Shepherd’s Tone. Their hallways pulsated comfortingly, and Michael carefully toed off their platform shoes and eyed down the infinite hallways. No rugs for a while. 

Maybe Michael, Mike Crew, and Helen should get together more often. Just the three of them. They would drive each other batty. It would be a lot of fun. 

Michael set off running down the hallway, and skidded on their socks down the hardwood floor, whooping in joy as they skidded endlessly towards eternity.