#im not sure this is my most coherent thought but i needed to get it out

[brekkie-e]

Something I think about a lot when it comes to the Vallaslin debacle- whether they should be maintained as a tradition in the future and what they meant in the past- is Felassan's place in the rebellion.

Felassan and Vallaslin theory under the cut.

We see some of Solas's agent's in Trespasser, Tevinter Night's, and other media. And it's a bit of a toss up whether an ancient elf who serves Solas has Vallaslin or not. Based off the info we have about the rebellion and what the Vallaslin were, one would assume anyone who makes it to Solas's side wants theirs off. Isn't that notion backed up by the murals we see in Inquisition? Solas taking off Vallaslin by the dozens?

Which brings us back to the agents who still wear them. The first thought that jumps into my head is, "Oh, these must be spies then. People who opted to keep them as a way of offering a specific service to The Cause™️."

And…. That brings me back to Felassan. He's not a spy. He's a general. One might argue he could have fulfilled the role of a spy at some point or another. But in TME- he's not working overly hard to fit in. The guy is unapologetically behaving as himself. He doesn't care if he actually believably passes as a Dalish guy. Sure, he brings up old tales, but the whole time he's practically begging Briala to ask him if he's really Dalish.

In the memories we see of him and Solas, he's a second in command. He's leading people on battlefields. There's literally nothing he does in the name of subtlety. I don’t really see him as a character who has “cut out for spy work” in their resume.

So why does he still have Vallaslin? If any free elf of Solas's time wanted them gone, if they served no deeper cultural purpose than to mark someone as property, Felassan's decision to keep them is called in to question. His role in the rebellion that we get to witness would make sending him to spy a moot point. He's a known entity. He's the Wolf's right hand. So why does the Wolf's right hand wear the very thing that Solas hates on his face with no shame? The codexes he wrote in Veilgaurd don’t scream to me that he carried any significant devotion to Mythal, let alone in a capacity that rivaled Solas’. In TME, he tosses out “Mythal’s tit’s” or “Mythal’s bosom” whenever he finds the chance. So why would Felassan keep a mark of fealty to her when Solas, in contrast, does not.

My point being is, I stand by the idea that even before the Dalish- the Vallaslin meant something to the Elvhen people beyond slavery. To maintain such specific designs through the ages after Elvhenan fell- they had to have maintained the tradition from day one. Fought tooth and nail to keep it from dying out during the Empire's reign. When an Inquisitor tells Solas they want to keep them, he honestly reacts like it’s not the first time he’s heard that response before. Which makes sense when you think of his closeness to Felassan. I wonder if she reminded him of his friend in that moment.

Whether the writer's want us to think they were maintained with full understanding of what they were from the jump, I don't know. But it's the only conclusion I have ever been able to come to that makes any sense to me. It has never been a possibility to me that they only began the tradition of wearing them again once they made home in the Dales.

This is full fanon territory now, but here are some of my thoughts on what they might have began as. With the revelation of the Elvhen connection to spirits, perhaps it was a way to signify which variety of spirit you originated from. I know Felassan gives off the impression that he’s younger than Solas, but I still think he was a spirit that made a body. “He sat crossed-legged, calmed his breathing until he found his true self inside the shell of his flesh, and sprinkled the herbs over the fire.” This is a line in the last few pages of TME, and I don’t know about you but that sounds like someone who feels they’re a spirit inside a meat suit to me. Now, we all saw how much Solas looked like Mythal’s Vallaslin as a spirit. Part of my theory here is that her Vallaslin wasn’t a direct copy of him, but an homage to the archetype of spirit they were. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say Felassan was a wisdom spirit. His dynamic with Briala is based on guiding her to conclusions and helping her figure things out on her own. Not unlike Solas and the Inquisitor. Except Felassan looked at the young woman thousands of years his junior and developed a paternal bond with her instead of a romantic one because he’s a king with standards. Point being, if the original wisdom spirits gravitated to looking like Solas- then Felassan might have looked like that as well at one point.

I don’t think I’m the first person to wonder if the Vallaslin were all based off the Evanuris’ spirit forms, but I keep getting caught up in how that began. There’s something interesting to me about wondering if they had a hard time adjusting to their new bodies and way they experienced emotions similarly to how Cole did. Solas talks at some point about how feelings worked differently in the Fade. I can’t help but wonder if the very first Vallaslin were an attempt to identify themselves. Put their true nature on their face since it was now hidden behind a flesh mask. If it helped old friends recognize one another despite new forms.

I also like this because of how it would mean that the Dalish wouldn’t necessarily have the core concept behind the Vallaslin wrong. They have placed a misguided religious notion on it, but in the end the decision of which god they honor with their Vallaslin is also a declaration of which spirit they identify with most. It declares something about their nature that others can discern just by seeing the marks on their face. The real reason behind the practice may have been lost but in some round about way the purpose was not.

Now, I should note that there are a few holes in my theory. I don’t know that I think they entirely sink it because so much of the lore has layers, but they’re there. The first is the fact Dirth’amen and Falon’din seem to be one spirit split in two. Whether that happened before they took a body or not, I’m unsure. If the split happened before- I don’t think that detracts from my musings because it means they could have developed further into fully realized separate spirits. But if it happened after it does beg the question why people would give them seperate Vallaslin outside of slave marking purposes. The other, and most damning, point is Cole’s line about Solas burning Mythal’s mark off his face. If the mark was to represent his spirit nature then why would it be referred to as her mark as opposed to his? Unless the line between Vallaslin for self expression and slave brands was blurred very early on. Though, it’s still not out of the realm of possibility that it began as one thing and by the time he got rid of his marks it meant another.

Anyways, regardless of the origins and my theories- we have atleast one significant Ancient Elvhen character who had every reason to remove his Vallaslin but didn’t. So when asking questions about the future of the Dalish and this custom- I’m always going to keep Felassan in the back of my mind. If someone who lived the worst of their cultural meaning, and was incredibly close to Solas still opted to keep his then the modern Dalish have every right to as well.

The irony of using Felassan, the certified Dalish Hater, to advocate for Dalish cultural value is not lost on me. I don’t apologize.

[the-kipsabian]

im gonna be pushing stuff to the sideblog today as im getting ready with this first match finally

so if my complete insanity and analysis of the character of kip sabian in aew is your jam hey everything will be at @anothersideofthebox!!

[court-jobi]

hi! i love your works so much!!! i was wondering if i could request a hawks x pop princess f! reader?

like he does security for her groups concert and hes like “pffft im number 2 why do i need to be here”. then he watches her during sound check and is like okay i need to know more about her. so while shes getting ready hes just hovering backstage trying to talk to her. after the show she finally gives him her number (def against her companies wishes) and hes like trying to be suave and flirty and shes like “oh my god why is this working”. just a lot of hawks being a lover boy and sending gifts to her company anonymously and cutesy stuff like that lol. they have to keep their relationship a secret bc her company has a very strict no dating unless we agree rule. can be pre or post war hawks btw! you can take this wherever you want with it as well! can be nsfw or not.

im sorry that was so long! i was trying to make sure my thoughts were coherent lol.

Ooooo I love this idea so much, what a lovely dynamic to picture: a fanboy Hawks for a change, perhaps?? ~ this was a fun one to work on! @strwbrrykthv i sure hope this one was worth the wait and that I've done it justice!

You all are seriously the best readers a gal could ask for, and these requests are ✨giving me life✨~ Keep 'em coming!!

Who Has the Mic

Words: 4.3k

Rating: T

Warnings: Pro Hero!Hawks x popstar fem!reader, forbidden romance, flirting, mostly FLUFF, mentions of canon-typical threats, protective instincts, Hawks is a little shitTM, we love him your honor

for my My Hero Academia Masterlist, check it out here!

Read on Ao3

Hawks falls prey to a special thrill out of extending favors to others. 

‘I owe ya one’-- such a simple nicety that in the beginning, he doubts anyone would truly come to collect on it. It makes him sound agreeable, charming, starved for connection even before the height of his inevitable fame. 

Then he rose and rose in the hero rankings, securing himself into the very visible and wildly popular top spot, in terms of viewer popularity. 

It’s now that the redemptions of Hawks’ pro-hero favors have come rolling in… The unexpected keeps him on his toes and entertains him for the most part; and if it’s all for the sake of protecting others, then why not have a little fun with it? 

Once upon an overbearing press conference, back when he was first tiptoeing into the public scene… Hawks begged a makeup artist on staff for a spot to hide out in the green room and sneak a snack or two (or ten). He was granted pity for a teenager expected to take a seat at the table of an albeit boring Commission presentation. Well, it seems that particular makeup-artist rose within the talent realm themselves, and ended up reaching out to “that flyboy kid” back for a surprising accommodation: 

Top tier talent warrants top tier security.

Hawks takes a call at his agency and soon finds himself ushered in for the Tokyo opener of the reigning top-of-the-charts pop star with a voice of gold. The first meeting of old acquaintances led the Pro-Hero to tour the brand new, sky-high facilities, then return for the load-in day of the stage. Again for first dress, and each night of the week-long residency.

He carries his presence on the stealthier side, far above the stage floor in the scaffolding. Up here, lights are rigged with steel supports running every which way, where he executes perfect balance while walking in a straight line atop them. He’s checked -double and triple- that each outlet is free from hazard, each line of multi-ton equipment has been secured and safe, so that even his ‘adventuring’ from up high is not a risk.

He’s happy for the variety of work he faces as a hero- but right now, he’s bored. He shouldn't be feeling so dreadful, especially on the job, but he is. It’s not his style to be so down, after all. But Hawks has checked into every nook and cranny of this place and for the sake of an understandably hypervigilant security team, has an eye for which points of entry and exit could use a bird’s eye view come showtime.

His muscles are used to far more fast-paced antics and time-sensitive chases; not traipsing around like a literal vulture ready to swoop in at any moment. Surely he’s needed elsewhere.

But the threats have been rolling in… as they do for all of these larger-than-life musician types who found their way into the spotlight. They’re at risk of going in blind if they don’t have a good team around them to help them see.

So here he is, playing guardian angel to do his part and make sure all goes smoothly. It's a big operation by his count; there’s sixty members on the tech roster, plus the venue stage manager and their contracted staff, then all performers, and of course the headliner. Now where she is, he’d like to know– for not so selfless reasons.

He’d know her music by heart, given how much of an earworm and personal anthem her songs have become for him. It’s rare that the tables are turned, where Hawks is the fanboy and someone else is the idol. That dream is his dangling carrot for completing this mission successfully: he has the most sought-after bodyguard duty in the nation, and as good as a front row seat to her show.

Yet in a weird sense, Hawks also kinda hopes he never meets her. Doesn’t want to crush that bubble, ruin the allusion of the woman he’s got set as his ringtone.

So, he just runs his headcounts on all bodies supposed to be present at the top-of-show meeting to busy his mind. All is in order. ‘Cues’ are rounding up the pre-show acts, each in plainclothes for this rough stumble-through. Still doesn’t see the little starlet yet, and he gets the residual feeling that this might be typical behavior of ‘the talent’ to show up whenever she damn well pleases. 

Though funnily enough, he spots a pretty thing down there sporting some Hawks merch! Always nice to see a supportive fan in the most unlikely places… 

It's a well-fitting quarterzip sporting his red feather blades down each arm, an item he vaguely recognizes from this season’s newest launch. She’s got headphones on and subtly bopping about in her own little world, perhaps running through tonight’s set under her breath, if her self-contained taps of the fingers are an indication of her keeping beat. 

Hawks��� curious attention to that girl on the fringes of the stage is pulled when he hears the strict timbre of the stage director he’d met on day one take center stage.

“Ok, time to rein it in. As we covered in the email from Sec-Eng- which I’m assuming you gen-z’ers have read,” the bossman snarks to the younger members of this crew down below, “we’ve got some additional eyes in the sky pulling security for this leg in the tour. So, I want to give you all a chance to get your excitement out -along with your thanks- to our equally chart-topping hero, Hawks~ who’s… somewhere around here.”

Hoodie girl blanched– as if she’d been told she’d need to share her internet history to her grandmother. Immediately, she tosses off her headset and starts frantically stripping herself of the jacket she wore. While enthusiastic heads all fly around in every direction in search of the hero, Hawks chuckles at the sight of her alone. 

“...//Well, he’s probably checking the perimeters anyway//. How bout we all just send a big thank-you, eh?”

The couple of ‘Hoodie’s fellow dancers were poking fun at her -poor thing still flushed and clammed up- while the group gave a loud, singsongy ‘thank you!!’ up to the stage doors, assuming the Pro-Hero might be busting in, grand entrance fashion on command. The love-laden response from the dancers makes Hawks roll his eyes lightly, but he appreciates their praise all the same.

They giggle about in jazzed excitement with one’s voice carried out squealish and feminine, despite their professional assembly,

“Oh my god, you must be in HEAVEN!! He’s gonna be watching you ALL NIGHT!”

‘Hoodie’ looks downright mortified. The others have seemed to gather around spouting nothing but encouragement to this little fan girl who's doing her best to put on a poker face. Adorable. 

“Now we also need to make some edits before the crew breaks for lunch, everyone, so we are gonna start today with opening of Set 5 instead- hold.. Hold on… WHO HAS THE GOD MIC??”

The mics table scrambles for the one handheld microphone with omniscient audio range to the house. Surely it's the one thing they wouldn't lose and should hand straight to the Stage Manager, right? 

Well, said mic was sitting unattended there on the cart earlier… all for the Winged Hero’s taking when he was making his preliminary sweep earlier. 

From his inner jacket pocket, Hawks catches his lip in his teeth as he remembers where to turn the thing on. Once his throat cleared and the mic blinks red in sync with the soundboard, he amplifies a little trademark bird whistle: for each and every soul in sight to hear. 

The stage erupts in excitement, as planned. ‘Hoodie’ immediately teeters over to one of the props hideaways and stows said jacket away. 

Hawks chuckles with the mic at chest level– only to call her out from his perch,

“Saw that, dear~”

Seems logic caught up with the poor thing, as she -finally- pieced together the true vantage point of her idol’s presence, and looked up. 

Sparing her too much embarrassment, Hawks simply cocked his head on a folded up fist and gave a little wave of some fingers to her. 

Despite her clear shock and surprise, she did smile brilliantly back and gave a little signed ‘thank you for being here’ rather than a scream like all the others.

The stage manager followed her line of sight to where the hero stands in wait, ready to dismount and return his bit of cheekily stolen equipment. Despite some bewildered aggravation to Hawks’ antics, he gestures with the exhaustion of a high school teacher.

“There now, see kids? That's how you protect your voices before a show!! Better than belting your way to the doctor’s office. Our star here sure leads by example now doesn't she–” 

In rare form for the hero, it's Hawks’ turn to be stunned. His fangirl: it’s you.

Everyone else may be calling that first call time your lucky day… but you were intimidated to the point of feeling ill. Thank goodness for your poker face; because locking eyes with Hawks’ stunning crimson canopy and giving you that wink and a grin about sent you into a heart attack. 

You're starstruck. The absolute heartthrob of an idol you revere as your favorite Pro-Hero has been standing over 150 meters above your head, watching for every sign of danger that could threaten you for the last week. 

That near guarantee of safety would trump your fleeting nerves– if you hadn’t given the first impression of a closeted fangirl like you did!!

Nothing short of awe crossed your mind when you so much as think of the hero. A very vocal fan whenever he came up in the news or your social feed amongst your inner circle. Hawks is a household name for you, who you were incredibly fond of… both in how he handled massive crowds or charmed in intimate, one-on-one interviews. 

You know the role; you suck up for cameras, too, as it's all in the optics. But for every PR-guided response you know is crafted by easy-going smiles or a disarming tone, you remember to see past the spectacle of Hawks and look for ‘him’. Remove the wings and hero getup: who is he? Can you spot the tells on camera like your mom can when she watches you? No matter how big of a global phenomenon her baby girl gets, she can still tell when you have a headache while having to give an appearance on a talk show. 

The man you spot on screen has to have a series of faults and slips. Even battle-ready heroes put their shoes on one at a time– just like everyone else. He’s sure to have a favorite lunch spot, a favorite pen to use for autographs, a favorite singer, even… 

Surely not you, but a girl can dream.

There’s a glazed-over glint in Hawks’ eyes when he very subtly checks out when being spoken to which gives you the strong suspicion you two may not be so unalike. And that list of little mannerisms has grown exponentially– with every day that's passed:

Hawks has difficulty staying still, you've learned. He’s also much younger than people assume. Carries a crafty habit of popping up unexpectedly in a way that’s youthful– and borderline cheeky. From atop a stack of amps, to a crowdless green room, to the rigging of lights where you've stunned the crowds for the last four nights, he’s perched out of sight from your thousands of fans. 

Though each little comment thrown here and there in praise has floated down to your ears in sweet jest, things come to a head when the last night of your show arrived: where the crushing realization sought to dampen your mood. 

After tonight, you wouldn’t have your angelic, crimson-winged shadow anymore. 

But Hawks surprises you once again. 

You nearly miss it, too, once your final round of ‘surprise songs’ is revealed and you are snuck down to your assigned hideout to get ready to leave the venue. It’s back in your can-lit dressing room that you’re making double takes down the hall looking for any sign of your security team; especially the one to whom you owe a hefty ‘thank you’ to for all his efforts.

-but as your half-redressed form has donned your beloved Hawks hoodie once more, you’re not so spooked to hear a familiar whistle from behind you this time.

Headphones slung back down around his neck and wings slimmed down to a more presentable manner for tight hallways like these, Hawks slips into your prep space with a speedy uptick of steps. A knowing whisper to ‘shut the door fast so no one notices’ eeks out of him, eliciting a smile from you.

Each one of your suspicions are confirmed with that one comment alone; he knows this game well. Still, playing along with his dance of keep-away from any prying eyes (or cameras) doesn’t mean your heart isn’t  hammering away in your chest at the knowledge of getting your hero all to yourself.

So here, Hawks traipses around your makeshift room with unbidden interest– which, for such a small space, is cute to know how many little details pique his curiosity. Your various outfits still hang all facing the correct way, your personal backpack sits beside it on the end featuring your mess of pins and collected patches from the locations you’ve toured thus far. The run schedule is still taped on the wall, and below it, your laptop has your notation software open and idle onscreen.

“Well, now,” Hawks chimes in with a little crouch over the back of your empty chair, “Surely I’m not looking at our next chart-topping hit in the making, am I?”

“Maybe!” you chuckle, joining his side to quickly save your work before you forget. “It’s getting the lyrics and melody to marry right that’s the hard part. Working out the latter right now, and it’s kinda kicking my butt.”

“But you’re doing it! Look at all this– wait. Is this what you were dancing to earlier?”

Damn his powers of observation. You’d been testing out the rhythm of the hook this week– when you’d been caught under his attention.

“...M-maybe?” you hedge again.

“I knew it-” Hawks beamed, “A stunning starlet and a mastermind. What can’t you do?”

Flattered beyond belief, you answer honestly, 

“Keep myself outta trouble with my managers. Trying to, at least,” you close the laptop to conserve its power, “but between the shows and speaking engagements, it’s left me a bit starved for time to actually make the music.”

“N’why would writing get you in trouble?”

“It takes me away from all the other things I ‘have to do’,” you sigh easily. “They can bring in anyone to make the music and keep pitching songwriting teams to me to take the load off. Just think something’s gotten a little out of balance.”

Without meaning to, you held Hawks’ attention– enough to make him sit back on the armrest of your couch and listen with undivided attention while you explained your creative process more. While most J-Pop performers would be thrilled to have outside writers create the work and easy into a performance schedule with pre-set work to learn, you loved to have a hand in the writing process too. As an art form, it’s personal when you have to perform season after season. 

You’ve chatted quite a bit here and there over these last several days, though not this extensively. He was interested in so much about this whole operation, to the point where you wondered if he’d ever met any of the performers who you knew presented at some of those hero galas he went to. Apparently not, by the way he’d lock onto your every word when you spoke. Either your timekeepers (or his) would inevitably interrupt you, so back to work you two would fly off to.. though you’d seem to circle back to one another and chat about anything and everything if given the chance- little spurts of talk that always left you wanting more.

He’d commiserate with you on that front as well– the balance of stardom and freedom. Bogged down by meetings and public appearances wore on him just as much as you. With every roadblock you described about your recent album development, Hawks nodded along with expected understanding. 

The revolving issue of personal safety might have brought him into your employ, but you know more and more cases like yours filled up his day-to-day life in ways you couldn’t imagine… but he even shed some light on that as well to you. He’d burst the bubble on hero work as an industry through little asides with you offstage: comments he’d likely get reprimanded for if he ever spoke them in a public statement. 

But you’d keep his secrets safe. What happens on set stays on set.

So even now, as he’s tucked himself into your dressing room while you puttered around chatting about your true dreams of getting a new concept album wrapped by the end of the year, Hawks tuned in with genuine interest that only made your heart skip a beat for him more.

“I haven’t always gotten the time to work on it lately… though this week, I’ve had a clearer head to be in here rather than under lock and key with a security force breathing down my neck– which is largely thanks to you, Mr. Hawks.”

“Oh please,” Hawks scrunches his nose and teases, “Mr. Hawks is what the lawyers call me. Just Hawks is fine!”

You exhale, squishing back any girlish outburst from your voice at how fussy he looked. 

“All the same, thank you for your help this week,” you pressed, “It’s -uhm- not often I get to meet my favorite Pro Hero on the job…”

A pleased smirk lifts Hawks’ cheeks, though you spot a funny kind of shyness in them when he studies your sleeve rather than look you in the eye-

“Favorite, huh?” Hawks smiles, “ n’here I thought I was the lucky one, sweet’eart-” he taps his headphones for emphasis, “One day I’m listening to you on repeat on my morning commute– and the next, I’m standing two feet from you!”

“--You’re kidding.”

From his pocketed phone, Hawks challenges you with a press and hold on the speakers to boost the volume as high as it could go. Faintly, you caught your own pop vocals from your second ever album casting from Hawks’ headphones. 

You can’t believe your luck– he’s really a fan? Of yours?

The mix of sentimentality and surprise must be palpable on your face as you grasp exactly which song has Hawks spellbound before he cocks his head with a sheepish grin of his own, 

“Believe me now?”

Words fail you, but you shudder out a little giggle that speaks volumes. He tests with a smile,

“Soooo guess you wouldn’t mind if I asked a horribly stereotypical favor and snagged a selfie while I’m here?” 

Eyebrows shot up to the sky as Hawks dangled his phone between you, you immediately pause. No one on your Communications team is still backstage (to your knowledge), but the engrained warning about checking your professional list of partnerships before posting comes to mind… annoying as it is. All you want is a pic with him, too!

“Nothing for socials-” Hawks assures you with a gloved hand, “If your handlers are just as pesky as mine, they’d never let me live it down. Just– something to keep me grounded, on the hard days.”

That reasoning… it almost broke your heart just as quickly as your potential disappointment had been earlier. 

With a knowing smile, you nodded sweetly to Hawks- he’s charming in a whole new light to you.

“Only if you send it to me too, hm? Favor for a favor?”

“ ‘Course!”

Sliding up into his open space, Hawks clearly knows his best side but keeps you right in the center of his shot. That smile he makes… you are going to keep this proud glint in his eye and sight of his hand around you locked into your mind forever– even if he forgets to send it to your insta handle after this. 

It’s too brief of a moment, watching his wing curl around you though the phone’s front-facing camera burgeoning you close, head tilting gently against yours. Keeping a close-lipped smile seared into your mind when you think of him now.

Then in an even more lightning fast moment, while he’s fussing with a weird flip of his bangs, you reach to tap the shutter as you sneak a kiss onto his cheek. 

He’s stunned by the move, but by the even brighter muted smile, you stand by with pride double checking his photo gallery that the shot made it. It surely did. 

“You have a hard job, Hawks; harder and more dangerous than anyone I know,” 

You step away casually.. Though the need for distance is more for your sake than just optics of your forwardness. 

“... Thought you deserved more than one lil selfie. Hope that’s ok?”

“H-okay?” Hawks breathes out, studying his camera roll with reverence, “Better’n ok..”

Outside a muted feedback from the PA system is calling for Exit team to assemble– get staged for your departure from the venue at last.

“That’s me. Better bounce-” Hawks piped up after a small clearing of his throat. You’re nearly too shy to look at him after this-

-but when a kiss greets your hand, lifted imperceptibly fast and squeezed just as fleeting as his words grace your ears- you couldn’t look away if you tried.

“- a pleasure, dear.”

And before you can utter any further word of thanks or manage something other than a shocked smile, Hawks slips out of the room and off to hand the reins back to your team. You can barely hear from the still-live walkie talkies that your security detail is back at their regular stations, and your Pro-Hero is off for his final step of his hired work. Soon he’d be relieved of his station and off to save someone else from an unsavory fate.

He doesn’t forget to send you the photos; and you now have his private insta handle.

The photo where you snuck a peck onto his cheek would be set as your internal screenshot if it weren’t for your niece’s constant borrowing of your phone when she visits you on set… 

But now, you’re back for a month-long stay at the studio– your reward for a successful first half of the Tour.

Encouraged by your protective muse’s spark at the thought of your new music, you decide to take that energy back to Chichibu. Your headphones might as well be glued to your head, with how much you’ve head-dived into your sound mixing apps and sampling library. In fact, it’s that unwavering attention to your music that you nearly miss the most obvious sight walking through the lobby of the unassuming recording studio. Almost.

But how could you really– when the largest floral arrangement you’d ever seen is gracing the reception table? That stunning piece looks like it costs more than the linoleum flooring the desk sits on. 

A few aides have been distracted by the sight, studying the typed message attached and racking their brains for any sign of a calling card. One of your cutting room techs was currently rounding the base of the standing arrangement for some tucked note, which made you giggle how intently she was studying the thing. 

You know the sound booth manager best out of this group of other visiting accompanists,

“Lucky, lucky girl~” she reels you in excitedly, plucking the card from the other’s sights and handing to you directly. “Sorry to say there’s no hint who it’s from… but it’s for you, little bird!”

You hedge at the pet name once again– the nickname stuck unwillingly not only for your melodic talent, but the association with your clear celebrity (heroic) crush. 

However, as you read the note, the immediate assumption that this may have been another gift from a venue host was thrown right out the window…

This was a personal gift:

To keep my genius company while she makes her magic~ No one can give us the stories you can; don’t ever  let them take your voice. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve heard. Can’t wait to hear the new demo!

“No matter how high or low I am.. a piece of me will be here with you. It’s- where I'd rather be... Till next time…”

“Next time? Wait, who sent these again?!”

“It was just the delivery guy, from that really flouncy place downtown~” the receptionist answers with interest.

“Nooo, I mean on the card! Who signed the card?

“There's nothing– no initials, nothing..” you confirmed, still reeling over the message. But as you trail off over the cascade of tropical flowers, the flecks of red blooms catch your eye and bring you to study harder. 

Then- tucked under some deep green curls- a spot of red hides. A quill amongst the mossy padding of the arrangement- not unlike a surprise found in a nest.

Sifting through under the guise of feeling tender petals, you grasp the soft, downy feather which bears a small post-it flag on the underside with a sequence of numbers on it. 

“Do you have any idea who?”

Balling it carefully in your fist just as quickly, you answer, “Couldn't tell ya. But the pop of red sure is pretty, isn't it?”

In your booth -set up with your sticker-laden laptop and butterflies in your stomach- you hold the sticky note in one hand, pinching the crimson feather precariously in the other. 

Face warmed and unbelieving of your luck, you think on what to send first to your mic-stealer…

To be continued?

[philtstone]

24. Showing up injured at their friend/mentor’s house: for shawn? :)

[emerges from writing this fic bloody and beaten and on the verge of collapse] ill explore karen vicks character in an overly complicated post-episode missing scene fic or die trying! set immediately post "right turn or left for dead". i genuinely dont know if im happy with this but i also cant figure out how to fix it. actually, it would have probably been easier to write if i was willing to rewatch the episodes its based on. which i am not, because i am a sensitive little soul. so i winged it. i think there are like 10 different ideas that crop up and theyre all equally fascinating as character threads but i have no idea if i tied them together in an even remotely coherent way. also, WOULD she say that??? i had to call my brother twice to ask. this is what yall get for sending me actually interesting prompts, huh

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Henry’s voice said on the phone. “I’ll send Shawn over with them on his way out. He's going in your direction, anyway.”

In her short tenure as the junior detective to Henry Spencer’s lieutenant, Karen Vick observed two things:

First, that he was a far more clever strategist than most people gave him credit for. Despite the ongoing wreckage of his impending divorce and a kid who was slipping through his fingers as everyone looked on, Karen didn’t agree with the other junior detectives’ impression of him as a smash-the-door-down old school hard ass with thinning hair and a worst attitude. The man played four dimensional chess right out of a bonafide Star Trek episode. When he really wanted something done, Henry Spencer could bullshit and bluff and battle plan with the pros, and half the time you’d get too caught up in the blustering misdirect to realize his game was intricately thought out three steps in advance.

It was how they caught the Shorttown Killer, and also how they got that idiot Trembley at the mayor’s office to finally replace their coffee maker. Karen went home to her then-boyfriend, now-husband, and, right before bed, pulled out an old school workbook and took notes.

The second thing was that Henry Spencer loved his son. 

Not a lot has changed since then, Karen thinks, staring down the weirdness that she now faces through her open front door.

“… Oh — Mr. Spencer,” Karen says, because it’s rude not to greet your employees when they show up at your home outside of work hours, and are also your old friend-slash-colleague’s kid. “Hello. Thanks for — bringing these over.”

“Dad said it was urgent,” Shawn says.

Urgent isn’t quite how Karen would describe it, but hearing through the grapevine that your department might be facing an audit sometime in the next quarter does light a fire under the proverbial ass. Karen would rather bend a few rules and make sure the last year’s i’s and t’s are dotted and crossed right than leave her detectives vulnerable to the whims of a mayoral stooge. 

In general, Karen prides herself on caring about the people under her command just enough that it inspires genuine friendship and loyalty. The just is important. Care needs tempering – it’s important to pull back, press pause, keep certain lines uncrossed. It’s especially important if you want to be successful as a woman in an authority position where lives are often on the line. 

What she’s saying is that she tries to make it none of her business what her employees get up to in their spare time. She really genuinely does. She’s shut O’Hara down gently midway through the twelfth sweetly-frazzled attempt to overshare about her dating life (or her efforts to befriend her next-door neighbor, or the endearing personality quirks of her last cat – rest in peace, Triscuit, you will be missed –) enough times to be well-versed in the art of I Won’t Ask, You Won’t Tell, But You’ll Probably Know I Care Anyway.

An invaluable rapport to maintain. In any situation, Karen thinks, but especially when you’re a person who regularly hires and works alongside Shawn Spencer.

She’s not sure whether what she’s looking at right now makes her want to second guess or double down on her usual policy. 

“Special delivery,” Shawn adds, like everything is super normal.

Karen narrows her eyes. She glances behind them into the quiet residential street.

“Shawn,” she says.

“Yes, Chief?”

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“Ha,” he says, half rolling his eyes to accompany a weird aborted grin. “No. Even I don’t think riding a motorcycle with a concussion is a good idea. What if someone who wasn’t me got hurt? That’s — that would be no good, then you’d have to arrest me. Wouldn’t that be a huge bummer for the whole team, Chief? Gus would cry. And my dad wouldn’t let me take his truck.”

Karen stares at him. Shawn stares at the ground.

“I got a cab,” he says.

“And you are … taking another cab – home?”

Shawn looks quite suddenly like he’s going to be sick.

“Sure,” he says. 

Shawn looks terrible. Bruised face, bags under his eyes, and a weird frenetic energy twitching in his limbs that doesn’t pair well with his general air of exhaustion. He’s holding his shoulders stiffly and can barely meet her eye. His t-shirt and sweatpants are rumpled, like he slept in them, even though it’s too early in the evening for Henry to have woken him up to send him here, and when he thrusts the promised files out into the air toward her, abrupt and, admittedly, Shawn-like, he only just hides the awkward wince that immediately overtakes his left side.

The last couple days have been a bit of a whirlwind, so Karen can’t say she necessarily blames herself for not looking more closely. 

Even so.

Slowly, Karen reaches forward and divests him of the case files. They slip a little bit, because Karen can’t seem to stop peering shrewdly at Shawn’s face while she does it, and on instinct he reaches forward to stop the stack from toppling. 

It does help, but the autopilot he moves on makes it harder to mask what is to Karen’s eyes a very obvious flinch. 

“Alright,” is all he says. “Well, good to see you. Time to head back to the old hay stack.”

Like a needle in a haystack and time to hit the hay, Karen supplies needlessly in her own head. Aloud, she says, in many ways against her better judgment, 

“Mr. Spencer, are you okay?”

Shawn sways on the spot for a second, one fist clenched, mouth half open. For a strange moment, Karen gets the impression that he’s trying really hard not to say the wrong thing.

“... As rain,” he finally manages, then nods to himself like he achieved some great feat. “Okay. Well –”

“Did something happen to your shoulder?” 

“What? No!” Shawn’s eyes flutter closed and he shakes his head, “I’m – fine, Chief. It’s not – I mean, I’m – normal, fine. Fine in a normal way.”

“That’s not something an individual who’s fine in a normal way would say,” Karen says. 

“Uh, is it not! It is. I would know, because I am that individual. It’s – I was – there’s just mild – pfft … stab wound – or something, who would even …”

Is Shawn broken? is the unhelpful thought that pops into Karen’s head. She’s never heard an attempt to bullshit collapse so quickly into pathetic nothingness before – certainly not from Shawn.

Perhaps even more than his father, the kid’s a pro.

And then the rest of the sentence catches up with her.

“A mild stab wound?”

Oh boy. She watches Shawn’s eyes widen with the panic that proceeds an unquestionable blunder.

“Chief –” 

“In.”

“Chief, I really, really don’t think –”

“Inside my house. Now.”

He’s certainly uncoordinated enough that he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Karen herds him  through the door as firmly as possible and leads them in a beeline past Richard’s office toward the bathroom, ignoring the reedy stream of consciousness that spills out of Shawn’s mouth as they go.

“Oh, hey, woah, it’s been like forever since I was in here. Did you redecorate? I swear that lamp wasn’t there the last time we visited. It could be the tacos I had earlier, but I’m sensing a distinct neo-modern Chinese aesthetic going on here, Chief, which calls to mind the merits of cultural appreciation in suburban home decor – hey, is that your husband’s office? Can I meet him? Is he home? That man is a true enigma to us, Chief, and it’s leading me to believe that he must possess all the facial and personality qualities of the pop superstar Mr. Pitbull Worldwide –”

Richard is home, actually, and Karen needs to alert him to the fact that they have an unexpected house guest, so, ignoring Shawn completely, she calls out,

“Honey? Shawn Spencer’s here for a couple minutes about a work thing! I’ll go up to put Iris to bed in a second!” in the finely-honed There Are Many Layers Of Complicated To This secret married tone that Richard should probably be able to catch through the closed office door. 

“Alright,” floats out her husband’s pleasant voice. “Tell him hi from me.”

Perfect. There’s about a ninety-three percent chance he understood.

They make it to the bathroom, only stumbling slightly. Shawn says,

“-- or The Rock. Does your husband look like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson? I really think that would make so many things about the Chief Vick family make sense –”

Karen closes the bathroom door with a snap and crosses her arms.

“Sit,” she says, in a voice that even he knows brooks no argument.

Shawn does. He looks – well, beyond uncomfortable, and more than a little bit miserable, and probably closer to completely dissociating than either of them are prepared for. Karen wonders belatedly if he's gotten any sleep at all in the last forty-eight hours.

“I’m assuming you have not been to the hospital.”

He gives her a baleful look, like he really expected better of her. She only just stops herself from rolling her eyes in response. And there’s that huge goose egg on his forehead, too. What, exactly, he got up to in between Carlton’s wedding reception and oh-eight-hundred hours this morning Karen has no idea, but he looks like someone’s run him through the world’s most aggressive industrial tumble dry cycle and spat him mercilessly back out. 

Or maybe over with a truck.

Sending a silent prayer to the universe that Iris never hit puberty and remains a sweet-tempered six-year-old forever, Karen gets to business.

“Well, I had to at least ask. Shawn. Does it need stitches?” He mumbles the answer the first time, and then looks beyond startled when she grabs him under the chin so he’ll look her in the eye. “Listen. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But you’re going to tell me the truth. Got it?”

Shawn grimaces so hard at her words it’s almost a flinch. 

“No,” he says finally, clearly enough that she hears him. Karen raises an eyebrow. “No, I don’t think it needs stitches,” he articulates, but doesn’t meet her eye.

“Hm. Alright. I have gauze and tape in the medicine cabinet. Can I … is it alright if I pull up the sleeve of your t-shirt?”

Released from her hold, he groans and presses his face into one palm. “Chief –”

“I don’t really know what you expected, coming here! It’s not like I’m any less of a hardass than your father.”

“Yeah, but I can bitch back at my dad,” Shawn says, sounding like he’s finally realizing the magnitude of his mistake. Karen smiles grimly.

“Tough. Now pull your shirt up while I get the first aid kit.”

While Shawn proceeds to wrestle awkwardly with his t-shirt in a muted shuffle against the toilet seat, Karen rummages efficiently through the cabinet and eyes him through the bathroom mirror. He seems oddly reluctant to expose himself. In fact, in a stark contrast to his usual insistence on making his presence and contributions as obtrusively obvious as possible, Shawn seems intent on shrinking into the aforementioned Asian-flavored floral wallpaper (which does need an update, unfortunately) with all the equanimity of an anxious chameleon. Karen feels her eyebrows crease. Taking the first aid kit in hand, she brings it over and deposits it into his arms, ignoring his small startle.

“How about you hold that,” Karen says. Shawn does, against his chest, like a pillow. She walks around him and surveys the damage, antiseptic gauze in hand.

He wasn’t lying about the severity, at least. It’s a shallow thing, already mostly congealed, and has only stained his shirt in a small smattering spot of crusty brown blood.

Karen swabs at it with the alcohol using light careful fingers.

“Ow, ow ow ah –”

“Don’t be such a baby. It’s hardly a life-threatening injury.”

“Super insightful, Chief,” Shawn snaps, as genuinely sarcastic as he’s probably ever been with her, “never thought of that myself. Totally the reason why I just had to go to the hospital.”

He doesn’t pull away, but she can feel the tension radiating through his back. She blinks, one eyebrow crawling up her forehead. 

Alright then. So that’s how it’s going to be. 

“I’m assuming your father doesn’t know about this,” she says.

Shawn grunts, noncommittal. Huh. Maybe he does know, then, and has just been disallowed from doing anything about it right now.

She tosses the first used antiseptic wipe into the trash.

Goddamn four dimensional chess.

She supposes she’s never been bad at the game. She may as well work her way backwards through the moves: Guster, the most obvious node in Shawn’s turn-to-in-a-crisis-system, would never voluntarily abandon his friend in a time of need, so Karen assumes that whatever this is has either already included his support or not been made known to Gus at all yet. Henry’s likely exhausted his own usefulness in the situation, and Detective O’Hara is …

Karen has to work very hard for her hands not to pause in a way that gives away her hard-earned mental sleuthing. A bad feeling wholly unrelated to her ill-advised hangover of the day before begins to bloom at the back of her gut.

“You have really small hands, Chief.”

Shawn’s voice is notably more subdued than before.

“Do I?” 

“They’re like … little kangaroo hands. Like the mom kangaroo from Whinnie the Pooh.”

“Didn’t you know?” Karen says, not unkindly. “They’re given out at the hospital when all first-time moms leave with their baby.”

He lets out a tired little laugh, more boyish than he probably means it to be, and in spite of herself Karen feels her heart clench. She isn’t blind. In all her last seven years as the leader of their chaotic little precinct, she has never seen Juliet O’Hara look as ill as she did yesterday morning. The usually sweet-faced young woman had all the pallor of a Victorian ghost, and stood so far away from Shawn in any given room that to an unassuming observer he might have had the plague.

There are only a handful of things, Karen thinks, that could have invited that particular evolution in their dynamic. She rips the surgical tape from its canister a little bit more harshly than is strictly necessary and fights the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

“So,” she says conversationally, laying the tape down in neat, gentle little strips, trying not to pinch the wound too tightly. “Any fun plans for the evening?”

Shawn sniffs. She can see him gripping his hands together over his knee from where she stands above him.

“Um, yeah, uh –” he clears his throat, “you know me, Chief. We’re working our way through a Robert Guillame marathon, which means some good old fashioned Benson, running commentary on the quality of that child acting, naturally.”

“Naturally.” 

“Then Gus and I were gonna hit up the new, the new chili cheese joint up by Hermosa, you know – they’re doing sliders –”

“Chili cheese sliders?” Karen hums, contemplative.

“Buy ‘em by the pound,” Shawn agrees. “Then I was thinking of getting a tattoo, maybe a belly button piercing, I’ve been really – really needing a change – would you let Iris get one, if she asked?”

“A tattoo?” Karen clarifies, cutting off the next piece of tape. The skin around the cut is warm to her touch but Shawn’s arms have goosepimpled. The hair at the back of his head sticks up unstyled, like he slept weirdly and couldn’t be bothered to fix it come morning.

“Of a marmoset. That’s what I’m thinking. With distinctly effeminate vibes.”

“Well, Dick hates marmosets. So I’d probably encourage her toward something else. Perhaps a sea lion.”

“Like Shabby.” The nervous note has bled into his legs again, and his earlier subdued tone has gone back to sounding strained. “Yeah, that’ll – that could be it.”

“All in one night, huh?” Karen says.

“I –” Shawn doesn’t even hiss when she presses down with a cotton gauze to cover the last of the thickened blood. His legs are properly jittering again. “I was – yeah, y-you know me, Chief, total night owl.”

“Shawn?”

“Yeah?”

“What about going home?”

Silence. Shawn doesn’t answer for a moment long and pregnant enough that Karen wonders if her question will be ignored entirely. 

Then,

“Chief,” he says finally, in an awful, tiny little voice, “I really, really fucked up.”

Finally, her hands do falter in their ministrations; as emotionally exuberant as Shawn often is, she doesn’t think she’s ever actually heard him close to tears. For a horrible moment she wonders if Shawn Spencer will suddenly start crying atop her toilet seat for reasons neither of them are capable of discussing honestly. Then she wonders if her horror makes her a terrible boss.

Boss – mother – person.

Oh, dear.

She sets down the surgical tape and lays a ginger palm over the newly-bandaged gouge in his shoulder. It’ll probably scar, but not at all badly. She doesn’t like to think about the far more obvious one just below, puckering in a violent yet unassuming divot. Another narrow miss for Henry’s boy. 

At this point there are so many of them to count, Karen has to question the statistical likelihood of the whole thing. Becoming a mathematical anomaly is, Karen can attest with confidence, not exactly the future the Lieutenant Spencer she knew dreamed of for his increasingly unmanageable teenager. 

Doing what he loved, on the other hand – absolutely. Being with a person he loved, even more so. Karen grits her teeth at the irritating web she’s spent the last six years constructing around herself and wonders if this evening right here is some kind of cosmic karma for leaving Iris in the care of nannies for the first three years of her life.

That sounds like the kind of thing those horrible parenting magazines and Karen’s mother-in-law would claim, anyway.

“Shawn,” she says slowly, because she has to at least knock this possibility off the list before risking her career in an attempt to mediate her detectives’ love lives, “did you … you weren’t – unfaithful, were you?”

“What?!” 

Shawn yanks his shoulder away and whirls around to face her with such a look of horrified betrayal on his face that it’s almost comical. 

“No!” 

Thank fucking God, Karen thinks. Aloud, she says,

“Well, I’m sorry, I had to at least ask!”

“No! No! What the hell, Chief!”

“Oh would you be quiet! I’m gathering my evidence here!”

“How could I – I would never – you’d even think that I could –”

“I know! Shawn, for God’s sake –” He’s scrambled to his feet in the cramped bathroom space, glaring, and has probably messed up all that surgical tape in the process. The half open first aid kit and his crumpled shirt press lopsided against his front and her garbage can is now full of oxidizing bits of cotton. Karen officially gives in to the urge to press her palms against her forehead. “I had to ask!” she repeats finally. “You and I both know you’re not gonna give me much else to work with, and you sounded so – so sad!” 

Shawn barks out a hysterical little laugh. Karen almost growls in frustration. 

“I am not going to risk all the very hard-earned rules I have in place without knowing for sure that my instincts aren’t wrong. Is that so hard to appreciate?”

Does it count as sound police work when the framework for your investigation is an unacknowledged lie? Karen doesn’t really know. Probably there’s another math metaphor to be made in there (you screwed your proof from the very beginning, maybe, Richard the professor would definitely have thoughts), or just a straight up joke. How to solve a case that’s cold before it ever has the chance to go live; a cover-up if she ever saw one. Unlikely that O’Hara will peep a word, and things will be a true mess for a few weeks, if she can’t make an educated guess about it. And no one will be explaining anything to Carlton, either …

Right before their goddamn audit, Karen thinks, aggrieved. She wonders if Henry considered this in his calculus. Send Shawn over, have her deal with him. Offer a huge unspoken you’re gonna be walking into a shitstorm tomorrow canary for her perennially chaotic mess of a coal mine. 

She can’t help but feel begrudgingly grateful, but that doesn’t mean she and he won’t be having words about this later.   

“Jesus, Karen,” Shawn mutters, pressing his face back into his free hand. Karen shakes her head and squares her shoulders.

“Well then! Back to the issue. You fucked up.”

“You know what? I can’t talk about this with you.”

“Oh, Mr. Spencer, I assure you I am more than well aware.”

Shawn blinks at her between his fingers, looking genuinely confused for the first time since he showed up at her door. 

Karen does not bother to clear up his confusion; it’s better this way, anyhow.

“Will you be sleeping at Gus’s place or your father’s?” she asks, crossing her arms.

“I’m – I don’t –” Shawn doesn’t meet her eye. The earlier thread of anxiety is back. “I wasn’t …”

So, neither. 

“Put your shirt back on,” she says. “We’re relocating to the living room.”

“Chief –”

“That was an order, Mr. Spencer.”

The living room is as quiet and mundane as it was an hour ago. It’s past Iris’s bedtime – she’ll have to go up, and soon at that. Karen seats her guest, retrieves a mug and a bag of chamomile from the kitchen, and removes the fluffy throw blanket from the basket behind the couch on her way back in. He’s deflated completely by the time the tea and blanket are set in front of him. Small and exhausted. Caught. It’s a horrible way to think about it. But she can’t avoid the hundred yard stare – Karen has seen it one too many times in people only just realizing they’re about to go away for life.

“Shawn,” she says, firm as she can make it. “Drink the tea. You’re dehydrated.”

“I’m … what?”

“Your lips are dry. You shouldn’t be dehydrated with a concussion.”

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Karen suddenly wonders if he’s going to get up and leave. She has experience with these things – she knows a runner when she sees one.

“I might as well have,” Shawn finally whispers.

She doesn’t catch it the first time. “What?”

“I – I might as well ha – Chief, I …” Deep shuddering breaths. He’s finally shutting down, she realizes. She can’t send him back out like this; Henry would give her the stink eye for a month.

Goddamn Spencers and their goddamn irritating overcomplicated lives.

Karen pushes the tea directly into his hands and tilts her chin so she can meet Shawn’s eye. He’s still lucid enough that she doesn’t think he’ll start hyperventilating, but now that the outrage and adrenaline has worn off, the symptoms of shock are pretty hard to miss. “Shawn,” she says again, and wills for him to understand.

“What if she – what if I never –” He can’t get the full sentence out. He looks at her, eyes wide and terrified.

Life sentence, Karen thinks again. The messy stack of files Shawn brought over sits almost unimportantly on the coffee table between them and a memory comes to her, unbidden, of words penned carefully in the corner of a modified police report that she pulled the minute the door closed on the McCallum case seven years ago. 

Date: May 4th, 1995. Reporting Officer, Spencer, Lt. H. Perpetrator a caucasian male, brown hair, five foot nine, insists on wearing those stupid earrings just to spite me. What the hell do you want me to write here, Chief? Spent two hours in the fucking principal’s office convincing them not to expel him one month off from graduation. All that effort, and I still booked the kid. It’s gonna follow him for life, and it’s gonna be me that did it to him. For life. You think he’ll ever forgive me? He’s the greatest thing in my pathetic little world and he keeps breaking my heart, and I can’t even properly accept that it’s my fault. 

How’s that for a fucking crime.

She needs to go put her daughter to bed. It’s the thought that keeps running through her head, oddly enough, like a strange antidote to the impotent anger and heartbreak and frustration she’s feeling for the people under her care.

With all the notes she took in that little workbook, she still let herself become complicit in the painstaking, convoluted resolution of Henry’s mistakes without accounting for all the variables.  

Richard’s footsteps sound muffled in the next room; he’s made his way upstairs in Karen’s absence. She needs to go. She wants to hear the soft and sleepy love you Mama that with her unpredictable hours and regular long nights isn’t nearly routine enough.

“Shawn,” she says evenly. “Do you love her?”

It’s hard to reconcile the smarmy kid who tried to barter with her for twelve hundred a day with the devastated young man sitting on the couch in front of her.

“Chief …” he starts, barely above a whisper.

“Good. Then she’ll see that. Detective O’Hara is a smart and observant woman. What she chooses to do next is her decision, but … you might be – well, comforted by the fact that she’ll know that – truth.”

Shawn stares at her. The tea steams in front of him, cooling in increments. She takes a deep breath and gets to her feet, patting his uninjured shoulder brusquely. 

“I have to go check on Iris. When I come back down, I can drive you to the Psych office.”

Iris is fast asleep when she gets there. A library book lays open face down over her stomach, and her soft brown hair fans out against the pillow, silhouetted by the soft glow of the unicorn nightlight in the wall above her. Karen turns off the bedside lamp, tucks her daughter in, and kisses her forehead. Just before she leaves, she hears it: murmured, half-awake.

“Love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby.”

Karen goes back to her living room, car keys in hand. She’s planned her next move in the driver’s seat enough times throughout her career that it shouldn’t be too hard. 

[buddhamethods]

10 BL Characters I Want Carnally

AKA I'm just a person with two keen eyes and dubious morals when it comes to enjoying media so don't take it seriously, I'm here for a good time.

Thank you @sndrys for tagging me! This was an eye opening experience putting this together. As it turns out I might have a type (ew).

1) Guy from Bake Me Please (2023)

The sole reason for me creating this list! Look, I dropped Bake Me Please almost immediately because it just wasn't for me BUT I've been lowkey watching through my dash. And let me tell you, my fingers gain consciousness and hit reblog everytime this baby's face pops up because...well...LOOK AT HIM. He is beautiful and he should get the guy (hehe get it) in the end idc.

2) Yok from Not Me (2021)

Yok is such a beloved character and for good reason! He is sexy, he is gay, he sets buildings on fire and steals cops' wallets on accident because HOW WAS HE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT GUY HE WAS STALKING WAS A COP??? I love you Yok, never change.

3) Palm from Never Let Me Go/ OurSkyy2 (2022-23)

The anger I felt for all the injustice and mistreatment our beautiful Palm had to face in this show took literal years off my life. It's rare for me to get this passionately protective over a character and yet here we are, in the Palm Protection Squad headquarters. Even Nueng is on the watchlist!

4) Tonhon from Tonhon Chonlatee (2020)

Not to out myself as an enjoyer of silly goofy times , but I did have fun watching Fish Upon The Sky and Secret Crush On You, so OFCOURSE I thought I would like this one too but GOD was it rough. Did I still finish it? Yes. Did I fawn over PoddKhao pairing and have been quietly praying for some kind of reunion ever since? Also yes. Was I foaming at the mouth barking everytime Tonhon AKA Podd was on my screen? I'm not gonna comment without lawyer present.

5) Tew from My Dear Gangster Oppa (2023)

Speaking of Tonhon Chonlatee...AH! Ai Long Nhai (TC's spiritual prequel of sorts) was sure...something. And by something I mean I saw Meen and decided I will never speak ill of men ever again, feminism quite literally left my body. And then a year later My Dear Gangster Oppa came out and guess what??! MEEN IS THE GANGSTER OPPA! Dreams really do come true, kids.

6) Wen from Moonlight Chicken (2023)

(or Tian from ATOATS or Mueang Nan fron FUTS). Mix...I will eat you. Always so dewy and healthy and sparkly-eyed. But Wen from Moonlight Chicken is something out of the realm of my imagination. The sex appeal? The maturity?? The gentleness??!! Somebody sedate me before I say something I will not be able to justify in court.

7) Vee from Love Mechanics (2022)

He is a pretty bisexual who makes the most abhorrent stupid decisions known to men and then weeps and suffers for them WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED? Once again, is the show flawless or even remotely coherent? Absolutely not. That being said Vee brought me so much joy by being stupid I'm forever grateful.

(also YinWar are so back GO WATCH JACK AND JOKER TRAILER)

8) Prapai from Love In The Air (2022)

To a certain extent I've enjoyed every MAME show I've watched. To do that you need to possess the rare ability called "I abandoned every shred of moral integrity to gawk at hot men". And Prapai? MAN is this bitch hot. Tall dark handsome? Check! Bisexual on a bike? Check! Stubborn and annoying? CHECK!

9) Xiang Hao Ting from HIStory3: Make Our Days Count (2019)

*incoherent wailing and sobbing* IM NOT EXPLAINING SHIT ABOUT HIM LEAVE ME ALONE

10) AlanJeff from Pit Babe (2023)

My newest obsession! I refuse to separate our local senior citizen and his favorite prophetic mechanic. Both of them are hot as shit in their own way. Alan is a sexy dilf with so much weight and responsibility on his shoulders it's a miracle he retained his optimism and youthful awkwardness. And Jeff is a prickly baby-cow-baby-deer eyed baby that is so touch starved it's actually a little funny. SO I GUESS ALANJEFF SANDWICH IT IS.

(don't be shy tag yourselves besties <3)

[felixravinstills]

im going to rebel and say ⭐️ because i absolutely DO want to hear u go one about dogfighting or whatever thing u come up with thanks !

ask game

sorry, I took a while. I had to like... keep my thoughts coherent. Hopefully I suceeded.

I actually won't be focusing on dogfighting (everyone cheered). I will still talk about Cave Canem Edit, because no one wants to talk about that fic. (I get it though... it made me sad. which is why no dogfighting focus.) I touch on this stuff in my author's note (my ANs are really like... my director's commentary half the time), but I am elaborating on my thoughts a lot more (hopefully).

I feel like most of my fics have me very focused on thinking in a character's head, but this one was truly meant to be a Festus Creed character study through dogfighting (as it says in the summary).

Personally, after my research, not a big fan of dogfights (wow what a controversial and brave stance), but I do think that they kind of instill a kind of code of honor to how Festus navigates competition (see this as expanding into having to run/make decisions for the Creed businesses). He would appreciate and admire good competition. For him, there maybe unspoken rules of engagement (like those deserving of admiration are not destroyed in the aftermath of a loss).

Festus' odd view of honorable competition also kind of works well with my interpretation of Persephone who (as I am sure you will remember) in Pelops' Shoulder fully believes that friendly competition for Festus' affection is totally plausible between herself and Artemisia, even going so far as to be actively trying to befriend Artemisia and encouraging her to not give up her pursuit as the other girl begins pulling away.

Also in my mind, while his perspective on Coral is fairly dehumanizing in this fic (comparing her to a fighting dog), there is a part of him that has to identify strongly with her to compare her to one of his fighting dogs. I think it makes sense that he would sour a bit to the idea of the Games because of her death. It's also potentially why he'd lowkey resent the dramatics of the future Games.

While his view of Felix is more positive than Coral (he does not not directly (through metaphor. I made him only use simile with Felix) compare him to an animal), I do think that in this fic, Festus sees Felix as someone he needs to guide and take care of (remember that they became friends/bonded closer in University in my headcanoning of this universe). There is kind of a dehumanizing in that... Seeing him as needing steering. <- obviously there are benign mentor figures who guide people but paired with his annoyance with Felix throughout, my intention was kind of like an impression that Felix's hopelessness in Festus' eyes means that Felix kind of needs him which while a pretty okay sentiment, can feel a little insulting and diminishes Felix's agency (especially paired with lost duckling comparison in the fic).

I think Festus is generally has good intentions and means well with most of his interactions, but in this fic, I was exploring how maybe it can also tip to the negative. Good intentions does not actually mean knowing what's best for someone. Taking Felix to the dogfight is an example of that (Pippa was right).

Another thing that I mention in the author's note is that this fic tries to explore this section in Tu Fui, Ego Eris more:

Coriolanus can feel the sharp tug on the back of his head from when Festus Creed had grabbed a fistful of his hair, trying to bring Coriolanus closer to strangle or strike him. [...] Coriolanus never quite figured whether he'd heard about Felix from Vipsania or Lysistrata.

I'm still not decided if in my more canon fics if I want Felix/Festus to be a thing, so you can kind of read it either way. Anyway, if they aren't a thing, I was like what could elicit such a violent response. Then I was like well, Festus perhaps started feeling a sense of responsibility to Felix (which don't we all to our friends? also I do think Festus felt that way towards Coriolanus too in a way). Additonally, Festus' idea of honorable competition comes back into play here, notice his anger at the foul play for his first/favorite dog, Laelaps, who is notably poisoned. You know that I don't poison Felix in my fics, but it kind of highlights the connection that I'm trying to form about why Festus might disapprove of Coriolanus' future actions.

This got really long, but I also have a cut section of this fic somewhere. If people are interested, maybe I'll post it.

[hyolks]

ALso i just said id died for ur wastelands au but I ALSO HAVE QUESTIONS! mainly abt Al. actually all abt al lol

so u explained that it was a blood problem n they had to cut off most of the infected parts (WHICH SOUNDS SO PAINFUL I FEEL TERRIBLE FOR HIM I WISH I COULD GIVE HIM A KITH) so how does his internal organ system work? does he still have his organs? if so, how do the digestive and excretory systems work? (HOW DOES MY BOY USE THE BATHROOM??) does he feel phantom pain? can he bathe or function as a normal being? what can or cannot he do?

honestly just go into more detail if you can bcuz this is brilliant so keep up the good work and i love yu al is so so handsome even w machinery being 85% of him i luv yu (not all questions must be answered. no pressure at all. u don't even have to reply if u don't want to. jus answer what u can!! : 3)

O7 i will try my best !! to be coherent !!!!!!! im word dumping. i love thinkin about this al.

LOTS OF BODY/ORGAN TALK !!!!!!

EHHHH so. one of my ideas was that al lost 100% of his arm and legs but a good portion of his torso was still...... there? i guess? and that the automail torso functions more as a shell to both to help operate the limbs and protect everything that was left. I thought of it like this so that he he could retain all of his organs. but also this leads to the imagery that Al is literally a nugget once you remove the automail parts (EXPLODES MYSELF) so i have ignored it bc i didn't like that !!

The main reason i thought of it like that was because it's never mentioned in the manga/anime whether or not theres automail organs and I'd imagine there isn't such a thing, so i wasn't sure whether or not to make the jump myself and give al automail lungs/intestines/stomach/etc. because that makes automail HELLUVA lot more crazy. the absolute magnitude of shit that winry and pinako would have to be able to do to keep al ALIVE would be fucking insane??

Idk if i mentioned it somewhere but i also thought of al particularly losing more and more of his body over time. Like. maybe the legs/arm were gone from the word go, but it would slowly keep leaching further and further up his torso or even down his neck to his chest since they either couldn't cut it all out. hence them being able to keep progressively working on Al's torso and creating/replacing the organs as he both grows older and decays. i primarily went with this because if Al lost all of that body mass right from the initial accident, he literally would not be able to survive. they would not be able to make automail organs fast enough.

it's something i need to do more research on bc currently I'm just word dumping onto this ask and am not looking at anything but! what IS the limit of organs someone can have as mechanical replacements? like there's artificial lungs and hearts in modern medical practice, but would having both put too much stress on the brain?? what is the neurological impact of that??? the amount of shit that al would need replaced would be insane. how the fuck would the brain comprehend that.

i didn't even think about it until just now tbh but i wanna know any opinions on if Al should have a bionic eye...? this would of course mean more facial automail which i'm nooot against? idk........

he very much feels phantom pain!!!!! he is in pain 95% of the time!! i think i mentioned the idea of al having to take sooome kind of pain-reliever to even be able to deal with day-to-day life, but with that train of thought i was worried i would toe into addiction issues coming up (bc. i mean. either he's in cataclysmic pain or he's not. i wouldn't blame him for not wanting to feel like a giant fucking bleeding wound) and i wasn't sure if that is a subject i want to tackle/am confident i could tackle and do justice with.

anyways. yea! i never thought about whether or not he had to use the bathroom honestly lol. i knew that i wanted him to still not be able to eat. which BLOWS he gets to be human (????? are u still human if you're 85% metal??????) but my guy can't have fucking pie??? such bullshit. i'll haveta think about how he gets energy though bc of the lack of food intake. (lol what if hes solar powered . KIDDING)

he bathes! he frequently has to oil the automail. he hilariously still has to brush his teeth. he still sweats on the skin he has left (WATER CONSUMPTION..... adds this to my to do list). being in the heat fucking sucks because that shit's just metal on skin babey ! so he's in more pain. thumbs up. can this guy get a fucking break

[clonerightsenthusiast]

welcome to hater corner. book asks 13 and 16

okay yeah i asked for this

i actually mostly read books that i really liked this year! even ones where i was like 'yeah i dont need to read the rest of this series' (cough fourth wing) i was reasonably entertained by.

so actually the answer for both least favorite book and most over-hyped book is the same one, and i will be murdered for it, but i did NOT like This Is How You Lose The Time War. i read it at the beginning of the year and really restrained myself while talking about it with the ppl who recommended it bc everyone else loved it so ive been SITTING on these opinions.

everybody and their mom has nothing but the highest praise for this book and maybe i just dont get it because romance isn't my genre but. it REALLY did not do it for me. i desperately wanted there to be any kind of coherent plot or sense of cause and effect between scenes but it's just a series of disconnected scenes of the characters talking about doing things with no explanation why that don't seem to have any impact at all on the state of the world. every so often we're told things are going badly for one side or the other but there's never any lines drawn from an action the other side took. i kept waiting for anything to come back around and it simply did not happen. and like, sure. it's a romance book. the time war itself is just a framing device for an epistolary romance. but GOD every conversation would have so much weight if red and blue were actually tangibly affecting each other's situation! if they were drawing lines between one of them destroying something and the other being put in timeout! if their actual war efforts had any weight at all then weighing their duty vs their growing connection with their enemy is much more meaningful! argahjagr im going to eat glass

people rant and rave about the prose but i bounced off it HARD. i found it painfully obtuse to the point where i was fighting with the text to have any idea at all of what was literally happening on the page. legitimately i didn't realize the foreshadowing for the plot twist bc the prose was so arcane i didn't realize there was supposed to be another character in those scenes and thought it was just the same narrator. and like, im an idiot so maybe that was just me but. woof.

and what KILLS me is the ending is REALLY GOOD. the book sprouts a plot at the eleventh hour and when the prose is forced to become more tangible because characters are actually interacting in a scene and their actions are actually relevant to what happens so it has to be clear what they're actually doing (while still being flowery and descriptive!!) it's very engaging and i loved it! and it's such a tiny fraction of a very short book! there is a version of this book that lives in my head where the whole book is like those last couple chapters and it drives me fucking insane.

so anyways yeah if you love time war im happy for you :))))))

[leynaeithnea]

Alrighty Circe saga let's gooo

14.I'm super convinced Ody was in denial. He knew but in that moment , aftert losing it all right when he was so close to home , he doesn't have it in him to process this , what eury did, I think he's so defeated he's drained and does not want to talk about it.

"A woman ... What?" Is so unserious honestly

Ody here vs in Scylla really really hurts don't make me even think about it ajjsjsjsn

15.I might be physically incapable of disagreeing with you actually. It's a good song but not the best, the good thing about it it's 100% Hermes, my man comes in , all charming and silly, grants ody a crazy power , tells him he'll probably die either way and then goes his merry way. Iconic , 10/10

16.furiosly blushing at the mere thought of acting this out with someone DAMN ( good for you kakdkskksns)

LYING CHARACTERS SUPREMACY!!!! *stars shaking * *explodes *

In Ody's defence when Circe immediately proposed lust I was also like ???? Girl what??? There must be another ten thousand better ways to go about this?? BUT I realize now that Circe is probably used to dealing with scums and filthy man that at the mere mention of sex become cocky and stupid becase they want her and because they believe they are so irresistible obviously she can't resist them. Meanwhile she is getting ready to stab them several times ( queen behavior honestly)

17.I can't express into words how happy I was he refused!! The circumstances were all perfectly placed so that he couldn't say no BUT HE STILL DID!!! RISKED IT ALL BECAUSE HE MIGHT BECOME A MONSTER BUT NEVER A CHEATING HUSBAND!!!! JAKSKSKSKJS

also when circe talks about the Underworld chills kaksksmsnsn her voice is so gooood

All in all a good saga obviously, but I just might like Hermes and Circe more than I like their songs

next up Underworld Saga!!! ( I'm also really scared and I'm pretty sure I can't form coherent thoughts about the songs , only tears and anguised cries )

Edit: i messed up the post and dont remember the first things i wrote but anyway, i might send you a bunch morw things including a reprise one reactor wrote for Full speed ahead....yeah..anyway

18. The Underworld

"All i hear are screams, everytime i dare to close my eyes [etc]" man hes so traumatized, he needs a hug, i love him

Just a man reprise PLS

"Captain" "Captain, why would you let the cyclopse live when ruthlessness is mercy-" ALL I HEAR IS SCREAMS......

question: why do the men join in when he sings "every time i dare to close my eyes" and the rest...mh......

I keep thinking of the infant from that night.... HES SO HAUNTED BY hIS ACTIONS SO SO HAUNTED

"This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms" POLITES MY BOY STILL THINKING THESE THOGUHTS AS HE WAS DYING WHYYYYYYY YYYYYY ...ouchy douchy

ALSO THE way Steven sings the last "greet the world with open Aaaaarmms" its a different pace/note (?) than the other times hes sung it and its so goood

the voiceacting with Odys "Polites- " "Polites...." ....

.....

and theN

AND THEN

"waiting...."

VOICED BY JAYS MOm; PLS??? SERIOUSLY? I still sob to that song occationally, in fact im listening to the song as im typing this and my eyes are teary rn

"i took to long"....hits some fears, esp bc I'm living a few hours away from home rn bc of college and additionally Im constantly stuck between having to leave one home behind for another (college, where my friends are, my moms where my gardens, cats and little sister are and my dads where my baby brother and they are) so im constantly stuck on like.....being missed and missing people and i know that it comes down to trying to make the best of the time we do have and enjoying each moment we get but man IT HITS OUCH

"bye mom.." ouch

AND THEN THE SCREAMS AGAIN ....so good......so ouchy......most painful day

BUT I FORGOT, ELPENOR I love this funfact so much "558 men" but only 557 before poseidon, siejseigje "i drank wine from a palace ontop of circes palace and fell and broke my neck in shame" i love this so much

19. No Longer You

...ngl, i love how most animators depicted Tiresias lowkey hot af with white hair and all, ....HIS VOICE IS SO GOOD

I want to dance to this song siejgsegi (im not good but i had some lessons for my prom and i can at least do the basics in walz x))

the "there is a world where i help you get home" is soooooo well sung

also "thats not a world i know" "what???"(what saga) but also OUCH rip ody

AND THEN THE PROPHECY

"i see a song of past romance" SUFFERING

"i see the sacrifice of men" SYCLLA

"i see portrayals of betrayal and a brothers finial stand" MUTINIY

"I see you on the brink of death" END OF THUNDER BRINGER??? OR LATER SONGS????

"i see a man who gets to make it home alive but its no longer you".....ody being like "bUT WHY?" yeah his anger is justified

"i see your palace covered in red, faces of men who had long believed you dead" IM SOOO EXCITED for that song

"i see your wife with a man who is hunting, a man with a trail of bodies..." "WHO" (owl) (istg i love how many memes this fandom has)

i also love how the choir techincally spoilers the whole act 2 but we simply dont know BECAUSE JORGE WONT TELL US THE REST THAT HAPpenS AFTER THUNDER SAGA grr

20. Monster

Ody having an existential crisis fr fr

"im the only one whos line i havent crosses" aaaaahhhh

"is the cyclops struck with guilt when he kills?, is he up in the middle of the night" THIS IS WHAT ODY IS eXPIRIENCING THATS WHAT HES TELLING US HOW BADLY HES COPING WITH ALL THAT HAPpeneD THERE

"or does he end my men do avenge his friend and hten sleep knowing he has done him right" THIS IS WHAT HE KNOWS ACUTALLY hAPPENS HE COMPAReS HIMSELF TO THESE PEOPLE AND OUCHY

"when the witch turns mens to pigs to protect her nymphs is she going insane?" HE FEELS LIKE HES GOING INSANE SOMEONE GIVE hIM A HUG

"or did she learn to be colder when she got older and now she saves them the pain" THATS WHAT HE KNOWS HE HAS TO BECOME

"when a god comes down and makes a fleet drown is he scared that hes doing something wrong" ODY BABY

"or does he keep us in check so we must repsect him and now noone dares to piss him off" ODY IS SCARED OF POSEIDON NOW HES TERRIFIED

"does a soldier use a wooden horse to kill sleeping trojas cause he is vile" THATS WHAT HE THINKS OF HIMSELF

"or does he throw away his remorse to save more lives with guile" HE HAS been STRUgGLING SO HARD WITH THE GUILD AND REGRET OF WHAT HE DID IN TROY BUT HE KNOWS, when he killed the infant, he already made the choice of his family over one live BUT it haunted him the whole time, it dictated his actions with Polyphemus and all of that which eventually led to 558 men lost

"if i became the monster and threw that guilt away, would that make us stronger would it keep our foes at bay? (oh baby, its going to work for all of one song im afraid)

"if i became the monster to everyone but us" ("us" his family or his crew I WONDER???) "and made sure we got home again, who would care if we're unjust" Villian arc right here and iM allll here for it

AND THEN THE CHOIR JOining in in "if i became the monster" AND THEN ODY SHIFTING TO "Oh ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" EMBRACING IT

"and deep down i know this well, i lost my best friend, i lost my mentor my mom 500 men gone this cant go ooon" the way this ascents and gets more powerful is sooo good

"I MUST GET TO SEE PENELOPE AND TELEMACHUS" his motivation and reason for everything, im so excited for telemachus voice

"AND IF I GOTTA DROP ANOTHER INFANT FROM A WALL IN AN ISNTANT SO WE ALL DONT DIE" WHEN HE KILLS ANOTHER INNOceNT SO HE CAN get homE OMG PLSSS

and then the whole last part is suchhh good music with choir and and everything aaaaah

"ill become the monster (BAM)" so good.

im scared of the thunder saga one though BECAUSE i have SOOO MUCH to say about this one

[chuuyascumsock]

Helloooo

That rat reaction pic was both adorable and had me laughing my ass offf(my sense of humor is lowkey highkey kinda broken so apologies 😭)

ALSO

ME??? A MONSTERFUCKER??????HUH?? THAT SOUNDS DEPLORABLE! But youre right so anyway- (kinda actually saw a monsterfucker bingo and did it{yknow just for funsies and shi} and like i ticked off 10 of the 24 boxes? i mean i think thats enough to qualify??? Right??)

okie soo umm i kinda waited too long to type out the thoughts and they um *disssipated* so immm kinda gonna string together the crumbs i still remember🥲

(Also like to clarify when i say werewolf,i kinda mean like the something between like that one halloween official art and atsushi when he’s in his weretiger form?)

Imagine werewolf chuuya who just cant keep his hands off you when he’s in heat,he just NEEDS you,CARNALLY

While you’re cooking dinner he’ll come up behind you and wrap his arms around you,nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck,lightly nibbling on your skin and just slightly grinding his crotch into your ass.

After a while you can feel his hard on and how hes desperately trying to hold himself back.

so you do the only sensible thing you can think of~

You turn around and kiss him~

You have no idea how it escalated from a passionate kiss to this,but now he has you bent over the kitchen island,your underwear discarded and forgotten while he frees his hard cock from his now-tight pants.he coats his dick in lube and precum before he thrusts into your rear,(although he’d love to go right at it,he knows your only human and would never want to hurt you) going at an inhuman speed and illicitting the most lewd little sounds for you~

His claws sinking into your hips to hold you in one place,all the while he’s letting out breathy “good girl/boy” and “that’s it take it hnghh you take me so good doll” s as he ruts into your ass.as he feels his climax nearing he goes harder and deeper his throbbing cock continuously hitting your g-spot causing you you whine and moan out loud,all which makes him go harder,the feeling of your tight little hole driving him over the edge and when he finally comes its thick sticky and he doesn’t let a single drop seep out.he continues rutting into you,fuckin his come back into you while keeping you locked in a mating press.after around two to three more rounds(now having moved to the bedroom) he slows down and makes sure your okay.he loves to see the fucked out look on your face as he cleans you up and as he sees your silly little hole white and glazy with his come he has to resist the urge to plug you up and let you stay that way until your next session,but if youve previously said your okay with it he’s definitely gonna do it-

Once your tucked in all nice clean (and *cough*plugged up) he gets into bed as well spooning you and lightly licking the bites and hickey now covering your neck and collarbone.

(I wanna add some more but i think this is already long enough.i hope this makes sense and sounds coherent at least,i think i got a little lost in the sauce🥲)

Also yess i saw that voyeurism tag👀👀👀 (got me wet just thinking about it🫣)

Ooh and also of smut,fluff,angst and crack,What’s your favorite??

And bestie(am i allowed to call you that?) im like 99.99% your irl personality is just as great as your online one🙄🤚

That isnt debatable btw🫶

I speak facts not fiction 😌

Well except for the smut,that’s fictional-

ACTUALLY NO FRICK IT THATS FACTS TOO!🙌

And to end this silly,goofy and unreasonably long ask id just like to wish you a lovely day/afternoon/evening/night filled with snackies,dopamine-inducing events and a lot of,as you said, H2hoe!

Stay safe and slay safe😌💅🏻

(Help its 4.50 am😭🥲)

-🧀

YOU DID, YOU DID GET LOST IN THE SAUCE, YOU WERE DROWNING IN IT 😭 BUT IT WAS GOOD SAUCE, DELICIOUS SAUCE EVEN. (Fr made me choke on my mango and everything while reading).

Glad you specified that you didn’t mean Chuuya like full furry mode or that would’ve been awky 💀

Literally Chuuya— but THAT WAS SO GOOD ACTUALLY. I can’t believe you wrote almost a full smutshot in my inbox, you should rlly write this down and post your own smut LMAO.

I forgot to add something to my Detective Chuuya summary, but it’s ok, I fixed it 🤭

My favorite genre is crack, I feel like I write top tier crack ngl, my Ai chats also look insane with all the silly stuff I do with the characters (literally mostly Dazai bc I kin him so doing platonically silly shit w/ him is my comfort).

AND YES YOU CAN CALL ME BESTIE— I feel like we’re definitely past that 😈 But I will have to deny my irl personality being just as good as my online one because I am socially inept 🥰

ALSO GET SOME SLEEP BESTIE CAUSE THAT’S SUPER IMPORTANT (I’m a hypocrite). BUT EAT A GOOD BREAKFAST AND FUCK UP THOSE CLASSES 💪😼

[trickstarbrave]

concubine au part 8.... part 7 you can find here

uhhhh honestly this chapter is just filth. rly dirty smut ngl. im also still sick so i hope it's coherent but i had fun writing it. and nerevar at least has fun LOL

warning for like. pregnancy talk/kink i guess. but uhhhh thats been happening the last few chapters. not where i expected this to go as a story but okay

--

Voryn was gone for a while, both for the dinner which was as awkward as intended, and for the after dinner mingling and drinks as was custom when you were hosting guests. 

A few hours flew right by, Nerevar napping for most of it. When he awoke, there was food waiting for him that he quickly scarfed down. He had been eating regular meals for a few weeks now with no issues, but part of his mind always savored the food. Too many times Anaryl would punish him with no food for the day, taunting him while he was hungry the whole while. 

Still, the longer he was awake, the more anxious he got. Voryn was gone a while--had he not slept that long? Or had something gone wrong. It wasn’t long until his restless energy had him pacing and frustrated. He wished he was there right now, making sure everything was going to plan and listening in. He’d often attend dinner parties and such, listening carefully to all the gossip and formulating plans. Not doing that left him nervous, nearly shaking with pent up energy and worry.

When Voryn finally came in, Nerevar was more than relieved, even as Voryn immediately sat him down and began fussing over him.

“I told you to rest.” Voryn scolded him, his voice still gentle. 

“I did.” Nerevar replied. “I napped, then I ate…” He sighed. “But I just couldn’t relax after that. You were out there, and I didn’t know what was going on, I couldn’t plan…” 

“Shhh,” Voryn hushed him, “Everything went very well, Neht.” Voryn stroked his cheek, the affectionate and gentle touch helping relax Nerevar. “I can tell you all about it and we can think of a plan together, alright?” 

“I’d… Appreciate that.” Now he just felt stupid getting so worked up over nothing. He knew Voryn could take care of himself, he just didn’t like not knowing what was going on, especially in such a difficult situation they were in.

“Here,” Voryn sat beside him, wrapping an arm around Nerevar. “Just relax for a moment, alright?” Voryn stroked his back through the comfortable sleeping robes he was wearing. “I won’t leave you here if it makes you this anxious, alright?” 

“No, if you need to--”

“If I need to.” Voryn stressed. “I just had you stay here to rest, but I don’t want you to be nervous, alright?” Voryn then gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “In the future I’ll try not to mingle with them without you.”

“What happened then?” Nerevar asked, after the shaking in his hands subsided. Voryn said it went well--maybe there was something Nerevar could use. 

“Not much, but I think I sold our little act well.” Voryn explained. “Dres Galar thought he had something to use against me: the knowledge of the birth control you were taking.” Nerevar made a sour face. “He was hoping to use the fact the drug can cause infertility to either make my act slip, or persuade me to ship you back.”

“And what did you say?” 

Voryn glanced away sheepishly. “I… Leaned into the role.” He began. “I figured the best way to approach it would be to give a very… Uncomfortable response.” He then coughed awkwardly. “Make myself seem to be quite the monster absolutely sick with want.” 

“Come on, spit it out.” Nerevar prodded him, smiling slightly from how flustered he was getting. 

“I told him I already knew about the drug and its effects.” That much was the actual truth. “And that I had the healers lie to you and say you were infertile.” Nerevar raised an eyebrow. “I then continued saying I… Intended to use it against you. You wouldn’t know to use protection if you thought you couldn’t conceive, and after you were lulled into a false sense of security…” 

“Oh…” Nerevar’s cheeks were slightly flushed. Certainly, that would be a pretty unhinged thing to say that he didn’t think even Dres Galar saw coming. Still though, it would help further their act. 

If only he could stop thinking about how weirdly arousing it was. 

“Does that sort of talk bother you?” Voryn asked, no doubt concerned given the last time the subject of infertility was brought up Nerevar burst into tears for no reason. 

“Not really,” Nerevar shook his head. “I know this is for our act, and you did really well playing it off like that. It does sell the whole dynamic we’ve made.” He hummed softly. “I think I can even come up with a few ways to play with that little idea you’ve thrown around.” 

“Oh?” Voryn asked. “Already thinking of a new plan?”

Nerevar looked back at him with a sly grin.

“You’ll probably be working in your study again tomorrow right?” Voryn nodded, also grinning slightly back. “And you’ll want your concubine in there, at your side, to admire while you work until you take a break…”

“Go on.” Voryn replied, still rubbing circles on his back. 

“A spy will at least be listening in, no doubt…” Nerevar climbed up on Voryn’s lap now, straddling him as Voryn’s hand trailed lower down his spine. “Wouldn’t it be fitting for a cruel man such as yourself to be fantasizing about it, whispering to your poor concubine how badly you wished I could have your baby… Taking delight in how I had no idea you were going to knock me up eventually?” He was practically purring in Voryn’s ear now, before Voryn’s hand dipped down to Nerevar’s ass now, groping him and earning a low groan from Nerevar’s lips. 

“Naughty little thing…” Voryn whispered back. “That is an excellent idea, isn’t it?” 

--

Nerevar was seated on the lounge in Voryn’s office, eagerly waiting. He was almost giddy with excitement, watching Voryn look over various reports, make notes, write in code, and sign documents. Occasionally they’d make eyes at each other, from friendly smiles to flirty glances, while Nerevar tried to keep himself entertained. But by this point he was barely reading the words, his eyes simply glazing over at the pages of his book, instead fantasizing. He even chastised himself for fantasizing too enthusiastically on multiple occasions, before that too faded as he instead could only think about what was to come.

Then finally—finally—Voryn set all of his papers aside, motioning for Nerevar to come closer. With a feigned sigh of annoyance he got up, moving to climb up onto Voryn’s lap and straddle him once more.

“My my,” Voryn remarked with a smirk, “You’re certainly well behaved today~”

“Just get it over with…” Nerevar groaned, though his hips were already squirming as Voryn’s hand began to slide up his thigh.

“You should know me better by now, Neht.” Voryn kissed gently at his neck. “I love indulging in you far too much to simply get it over with.” Nerevar shuddered as Voryn’s lips trailed down his sensitive neck in hot, wet kisses. He was already excited and trying desperately to keep his reactions under control, but fuck did Voryn make that a difficult task.

Then, Voryn’s hand slid up further, completely missing his arousal and instead rubbing gently at his lower stomach. Nerevar could have whined just from that, instead suppressing it by biting his lip. A spy from House Dres couldn’t see them in the privacy of the office, but they could hear so acting it out mostly would help make the sounds convincing. 

“Mm… Gods,” Voryn nipped at his ear now, making Nerevar hiss sharply. “I wish you were pregnant with my child.” A full shiver ran down Nerevar’s spine hearing that. Voryn sounded so convincing, his voice trembling slightly.

“I can’t--” Nerevar hissed, still squirming, “Remember?”

“I’m so disappointed in you for using that damn drug…” Voryn gave an annoyed sigh. “You could have seriously hurt yourself.”

Nerevar was trying desperately to play along now, wishing more than anything that Voryn was touching him so much more than he already was. The gentle strokes on his skin weren’t enough--they were more teasing than anything.

“Ah…” Nerevar gasped softly as Voryn opened his robes to expose his chest, beginning to kiss down from his throat. “Would you prefer I’d have been forced to have that bastard’s child…?” He was trying his hardest to sound disgusted and annoyed, but that was so hard to manage when it felt so good.

“You know I would have loved any child you had.” Nerevar shivered again at that. “I’m certain any child you could have would be perfect.” His words were honey sweet, like someone talking to a lover, whispering sweet nothings and beautiful little promises. 

“Stop it--” Nerevar groaned louder, before Voryn’s tongue flicked against a nipple. 

“I’d have raised them as my own,” Voryn continued, “So long as I could have you…” One of his hands now slid up the back of Nerevar’s thigh, massaging the muscles. The words were honestly kind of touching, if he thought Voryn actually meant them. Certainly Voryn would ensure the kid had everything he needed, but he’d never go so far as to say Nerevar should have had a child he didn’t want. To keep the act up, Nerevar instead grit his teeth, pushing the warm, fuzzy feelings down. 

“I don’t want a fucking child!” He growled, putting as much venom as he could into his words. “Especially not from that House Dres bastard--!” He channeled all the rage he felt when Anaryl would hold him down, mocking him. However, at his outburst, Voryn’s sharp nails pricked his thighs, digging in just enough that it started to hurt. At the small pricks of pain on his inner thighs he was groaning loudly, somewhere between pain and pleasure. 

“Behave yourself…” Voryn scolded, before his hand instead moved up, slipping past Nerevar’s undergarments to his arousal. His lips then close around a nipple, swirling his tongue around it and the nice, gold studs Voryn had put on him. Nerevar was whimpering now as his lips pulled away, now gently nibbling on the sensitive bud, his fingers only teasingly stroking him. “Gods… You really do get off on me punishing you, don’t you?”

“I don’t--” Nerevar tried to argue, but was cut off with another nip to his chest, a pathetic sound falling out of his lips somewhere between a sharp cry and a choked whimper. 

“Mm… Once again your body is honest…” Voryn purred. “You’re so wet for me…” Two fingers slid inside him, making him gasp and pant with desire, trying to rock his hips back against the sensation. “You were just as wet the first night I took you too… Laid out on my bed in chains, whipped until you could barely struggle, taking every inch of me into this perfect body of yours…”

“Stop it…” Nerevar groaned again. The mental image wasn’t unwelcomed though, all things considered. Maybe it was because he was already incredibly turned on, but the idea of being tied or chained up just for Voryn was also arousing. 

“If I could,” Voryn began, his fingers moving faster, “I’d find a way to cure you. If you don’t want a child from that man, I’m certain you’d love one from me…” Nerevar gripped Voryn’s shoulders tighter as Voryn thrusted against the perfect spot, making his legs tremble. The noises spilling from his mouth were quickly turning to pleasure, as he felt his orgasm coming on. “Oh Neht…” Voryn's voice took on a new tone, this time desperate and sick with want. “You’d look so perfect, heavy with my child…” He moaned softly against Nerevar’s skin, before leaving another mark on his collarbone. “I’d finally have made your body all mine~” 

Fuck, Nerevar was close. So damn close--he just needed a bit more, just a bit more--

Voryn suddenly slipped his fingers out, just as Nerevar reached the edge, earning a loud, angry cry. Still, he had no time to protest as Voryn quickly shoved his back to the desk, pulling his legs open. 

Well, Nerevar hadn’t expected Voryn to actually fuck him on his desk. He thought it would be Voryn taking him on the lounge, or Nerevar riding him on the chair. However this was very welcomed, Nerevar more than eager to part his legs and lick his lips as Voryn quickly began tugging his own robes open and Nerevar’s underwear off. Still, Nerevar wanted to use the freedom he had knowing they weren’t being watched, and slid two fingers down to roll them around his dick as Voryn stripped down to nothing but his inner robes barely clinging to him. He made eye contact with Voryn as he did so, smirking the whole while, before Voryn pulled his hand away and pressed his cock inside. 

“I want every part of you, Neht.” Voryn moaned, giving a few gentle thrusts at first. “I want to have you in a way no one else ever will…” The possessive tone of his voice was only exciting Nerevar more as Nerevar looped a leg around Voryn, clinging to him. “I love your anger, your tears, and every little moan of pleasure that spills from your lips…” 

“Fuck~!” Nerevar groaned. It sounded like a hell of a love confession, one Nerevar desperately wanted to be true. 

“No one else can love you like I can,” Voryn groaned, laying out over his body and pressing messy kisses to his jaw. “No one else deserves you--you perfect, dangerous, intoxicating thing…” 

“Stop talking like that~” Nerevar moaned loudly, despite loving every second of it. “Stop talking like a lover while you--while you do this~” 

“Oh? But I am your lover, aren’t I?” Voryn pressed a quick, messy kiss to Nerevar’s lips. “Mmm~ If I could marry you, I would… I’d make you my husband, Neht~” Nerevar shuddered and whined at the idea. House Dagoth would never allow it; Nerevar was legally a slave in the eyes of the public, barely good enough to warm Voryn’s bed. But gods he’d love to be clothed in House Dagoth’s robes, golden marriage mask on his face, and wedded to Voryn. “I only ever want children from you too…” Voryn nipped and sucked along his neck, as Nerevar felt his orgasm coming on once again. “I’ll pray to the three every damn day in hopes of a miracle--I’d even name your child my heir~” 

He finally came, gasping and moaning under Voryn as Voryn continued to fuck him hard and fast, chasing his own completion. He continued to talk, moaning and whispering the sweetest things in Nerevar’s ears, but he was too far gone in his own pleasure to hear it. Every nerve in his body felt so wonderful, tingling and alight with pleasure. 

“That’s it…” Voryn whispered as he too found release, listening to Nerevar moan once again. “So good for me, taking everything…” He then rubbed back and forth against Nerevar’s cock, making him gasp and tremble. 

“S-stop…” He whined. “I can’t--”

“Yes you can,” Voryn cooed. “Cum for me, Neht.”

“I-I can’t~!” He was trembling, pleasure overwhelming him. 

“I want to make sure my seed takes.” Voryn purred in his ear, earning a long, sharp whine. It was an old wives tale that an orgasm made you more likely to conceive. It was like he was actually trying to knock Nerevar up right now, holding him down, whispering and praising him the whole while, all while Nerevar could feel Voryn’s cum inside him. 

“I can’t--get pregnant…” Nerevar groaned, his eyes rolling back slightly. 

“It’s just a little fantasy, Neht…” Voryn whispered. “Just give me this…” Fuck, it was just like the little lie Voryn told to the noblemen from House Dres. That he intended to lie to Nerevar, lulling him into a false sense of security… 

Nerevar covered his mouth with his hand as he came, muffling all the words spilling from his mouth. No doubt it would be incoherent babbling for the most part, but he didn’t want a spy hearing anything they shouldn’t. 

“Good boy…” Voryn whispered in his ear. “Such a good boy for me…” Voryn peppered more kisses on his cheeks as he came down from the high of his orgasm for a second time. “Now, let’s get you all cleaned up for dinner…”

[spidermanifested]

this is not my usual type of post but ive been rotating some thoughts and i guess my blogs as good a place as any to get them organized. okay so this is basically my take on the entire discourse surrounding the "feminine (presumed cis lets be honest) women are uniquely oppressed for being feminine/making female characters quote unquote Less Feminine is antifeminist" thing. which i keep seeing come up. on this internet of ours

context being im a trans guy. grew up largely seen by others as female, probably, sort of. was about as far from a cishet womans feminine as you can imagine. not in a cool tomboy way. not in a way that society had a box for. and thats the thing, is that when you fail at gender, whether youre conscious of it or not, theres this extremely profound loneliness that comes with it. part of it was the autism but i made like 6 real-life friends total from ages 4 to 18 and there were no examples of anyone with an even remotely adjacent experience i could find in the media or irl. anytime a female character skirted a little too close to actual masculinity in a tv show or movie shed get that makeover eventually. i was bullied by both boys and girls but the girls who bullied me were uniformly very feminine.

and so i see people talking about how hard feminine women and girls have it, how the world hates them for being beautiful, and on the one hand its like okay, Misogyny Exists. thats not really refutable thats just the reality of it. society hates women. and as for eurocentric femininity specifically i understand its a hard tightrope to walk!!! you have to put on all these masks BUT make them seem natural, youre forced into these narrow boxes of acceptable behavior and appearance and desires, and if you under- or over-shoot then people get reminded the whole thing is a farce and get mad (often violently!) at YOU for it

........but then my thing is, that on one side of the tightrope, the "overperforming eurocentric femininity" side, the tradwife or girlboss or blonde bimbo side, theres an entire history of structural trope-crafting to break your fall, right. like its a shitty box but its the box society WANTS you to be in. they look at you and go "yep thats a woman. we dont like those but that sure is one". there are known social niches to carve out. theres a script.

on the unfeminine side theres just. nothing. its stone cold concrete down there. and apparently twitter would have you believe its actually that the "more masculine" somebody presumed female appears the more society respects them but that to me is the wildest and most nonsense take on the planet because if people see you as a woman or girl who has not taken the needed steps to justify your place as one of those things you might as well be an alien, or even a monster. theres no script at all. and i feel like this is one of the major experiences that trans and gnc people of every gender share-- god knows trans women get the brunt of the vitriol-- and from my knowledge a lot of nonwhite people too, and also fat and disabled people, like. there are SO many things that affect your ability to achieve even a fraction of success at this aspirational femininity.

ive had to see people for real make the argument that princess peach making an angry face is masculine. i think the most masculine woman anyone on twitter can imagine right now is like a businesswoman in a form-fitting pantsuit and light mascara. maybe the struggle of succeeding at femininity under patriarchy deserves exploration, ive seen plenty of coherent and reasonable points, its not without worth as a discussion. but i do not trust the general public with the topic without immediately sliding into bog standard gender policing and transphobia, and so in closing, when the mainstream feminist take on the whole thing seems to be "the more you perform the femininity expected of you the worse you have it", i get the sensation that nobody told me it was opposite day and im about to feel real silly

[tonydaddingham]

(1/5?)

so. the fall. both in general and crowley's specifically. i speculated about this quite a bit when i watched season 1 already and since, by and large, these speculations are still the basis for my thoughts now, that's also how i'll be structuring this. i'm going to go through the opinions/theories i formed based solely on the data available for season 1 first and then address new information from season 2 and how that's affected my conclusions.

a quick preface! i'm working off the assumption that go's god basically doesn't get involved in anything ever and the fall was consequently not her doing. nor do i think the metatron's heard anything more from her than anyone else has nor that he had even back then.

so the most frequent allegories of heaven i see are cult and abusive family and while i don't think that's wrong, my instinctive reaction was and still is dictatorship/surveillance state. heaven is literally the ultimate form of the divine right of kings. the metatron and the archangels cannot be removed from power because they were instated by god and their orders must be followed unfailingly because they are merely carrying out god's will. so angels starting to question god/the plan is threatening. immensely so, because the logical next leap is questioning the authority of the voice of the god and of the archangels. and sure enough that's exactly what happens! there's an uprising which turns into a war and the losing side are permanently exiled and branded as unforgivable traitors, pure evil, and any hint of something that could become dissent is cracked down on harder than ever because the archangels/the metatron can't risk anything like this emerging again. after all god isn't talking to them either and their power is very much not as divinely-ordained and unshakable as they would like.

now if there's one thing that season 2 did that was confirm my impression of heaven the dictatorship. the way gabriel is dealt with is deeply unsettling and looking at how isolated muriel is kept i'd wager there are no risks being taken that any angels could start sharing ideas again. before i thought there was an off-chance that the archangels assumed the fall was god's plan and that's why they did it but now i'm convinced it was purely political. (obviously they'd still think god intended it but i'm certain that was not the motive, that the motive was solely about staying in power. unsure what the metatron's view on god is. thoughts?) what's new from season 2 is the power dynamics at the top of the hierarchy. instead of the metatron and the archangels being a unified force on approximately equal footing, the metatron's more nefarious and more powerful than i assumed and is clearly the sole person at the very top, pulling all the strings and asserting himself as lone unassailable ruler and the archangels are infighting. gabriel's abusing his power michael's trying to usurp him and uriel's barely tolerating either of them. but while that makes for some interesting dynamics to play with i don't see how that changes anything about the fall.

wow 🦭 anon!!! firstly, please accept my humble apologies for the late-late answer to this!!! i got into a hyperfocus with an amv and then needed to make soooo many notes on what you've said so that i had a coherent response!!! 💃<- apology dance✨

anyway!!! by god im so excited to answer this; plot speculation is my favourite kind of analysis!!!

further asks and response under the cut!!!

okay so im basically just going to write up a train of thought without much coherency, incorporating both s1 and s2, so please do pop back if ive ignored something, or am missing something!!!

i completely agree with your assessment of god's involvement in the fall; following job, where i recently parsed out some thoughts on the conflicting interpretations of god's will where job, his family, and their suffering was concerned, im firmly of the opinion that god in GO is omniscient, but strictly amoral. whilst she might pull strings threaded through the universe (e.g. the knocking over of the candle in the bookshop fire is, to me, an example of this), she created and abides by free will. in her angels, in the fallen, and in humanity. I've gone over incarnations of this train of thought in #god is dead theory, if anyone fancies some extra reading.

but essentially, i can kinda see god's involvement in the fall being very similar to that of pontius pilate (depending on which account you read, to be fair) in the crucifixion of jesus, and leaving the fate of the angels that were 'rebelling' up to the 'people' - i'll come back to this. but i feel this could be a very fitting allegory insomuch of jesus being the scapegoat for humanity's sins, and dying for them to be absolved. the reconceptualisation of this in the context of the fallen is chilling, but apt (especially if anyone subscribes to some variant of the scapegoat theory - that being crowley, aziraphale, lucifer, or any combination of them. more in. #omelas/scapegoat theory tag).

bottom line for me on speculating about the fall, for me at the moment, is that god created angels. she created them to have free will, and free thought. this birthed angels starting to speak up about things they think could be different. some just wanted to make the stars live longer, some perhaps thought humanity were given too much importance, or god had too much power, altogether. i don't think god necessarily had an issue with any of this, because this was all according to how she wanted her creations to exist. but if she were to interfere in anything as an omniscient being, it would corrupt that very tenet - would influence free will, and render it obsolete.

so if god were to excuse herself, with very little - if anything - to say, it would stand to reason that her voice, the metatron, would take the metaphorical stage. now, i can see metatron's rationale going in two different directions (so far, and might be both or neither):

machiavellian (or dark triad) approach, in that he covets god's power and voice absolute for himself, to rule over heaven and its angels and wilfully disguise his own wants and desires as the word of god. and rebellious angels would threaten to upend his own authority in this regard

some kind of take on the divine command theory; specifically in ethics that morality is dictated by the command of god... ie. that something is good specifically because god commands it. DCT and voluntarism in general can be considered very flawed, (or so any ethics theory rooting in religion), for obvious reasons, but i could see this being what metatron genuinely believes. the absence of god renders him only with the great plan, and if the fall - because it's borne of free will - goes outside the scope of the plan, what other choice does he have but to eradicate evil from eden?

i find the second the most compelling of the two, but they're not mutually exclusive - metatron can still emulate machiavellian psychology and still think he's genuinely following the command of god, in good (?) conscience, in order to preserve a perfect heaven, without perhaps realising that his own free will could inform him otherwise. it would also, imo, bring back the conflict between the great and ineffable plans nicely - what is laid out by god, and what is entirely unknowable because it's literally dictated by every individual set apart from god?

moving onto heaven specifically... ive collected a lot of thoughts over the last 48h or so. first, mainly, that i agree with you in how to view heaven analogically; maybe it's because my experience in life has been very different to lots of others in the fandom, but my take on heaven is principally that of a police state, and what we're looking at is the institution itself. imo, there's a lot of shared characteristics between heaven and most kind of policing agencies, right down to the things that inherently open them up to corruption and resistance.

i hadn't thought to look at heaven in the view of divine right of kings, but this is very interesting. in at least one sense, yep - could view the metatron as being the defacto heavenly sovereign, and decreeing with power absolute. and given the reference to 1650 in s2 (and im personally hoping this might be a flashback in s3), this could potentially be a very powerful mirror (ie. charles I and cromwell during the english civil wars). for some reason however, this dynamic doesn't ring completely true for me - not quite sure why yet, but i'll probably come back to it.

the manner in which gabriel, and potentially muriel, have been dealt with in heaven is also unsettling. but i think personally for me, regardless of the political structure of heaven, what unnerves me is that it is potentially a facsimile of falling, but not in the way the narrative has so far posed it. hell are short-staffed - irrespective of why, we know this is an issue. but heaven seems to have a consistency in their numbers, inferred by the same problem never being mentioned in relation to angels. and then consider that gabriel at the very least is a powerful archangel; whyever would heaven allow gabriel to fall into hell, and work for them? no, it is safer to wipe his memory, and reduce him to what we can surmise is a very, very low rank of angel occupation/choir. is this the new falling? is this what happened to the fallen? i think there's something there.

now the thing is, thinking more on the fall has made me confront something. as much as their actions as thus shown to the audience so far are deplorable, the archangels are eminently empathetic in the context of the fall, and how they act afterwards. if we look at them considering that, what we consider to be, free will is in fact radical thought, is dangerous, and that acting on that will bring heaven down... well, it's actually somewhat understandable how they regard aziraphale.

let's take gabriel and how he speaks to crowley-as-aziraphale in s1: this is, to gabriel, an angel that has upset the great plan. literally stopped it in its tracks. is, to his mind, working directly against the word and will of god. a radical, gone native, and turned to rebellion. wouldn't gabriel be frightened out of his little head? of course he would! presumably he had to go through the fall too, watch as (we could hypothesise) his brothers (gn) fell to hell, and have to turn against them as traitors and dissidents. so, to watch as aziraphale presumably treads the same path must be terrifying, because of what it could precipitate. beelzebub in s1 even said it at aziraphale-as-crowley's execution, "it'll cause a riot!". and that's in hell - now imagine heaven.

we know that archangels are capable of change. we saw in job them have - if not a camaraderie - a cordial (albeit still quite condescending) relationship with aziraphale. this appears to deteriorate the longer that aziraphale is on earth, and his path diverges away from theirs. but we also see gabriel, fully as gabriel, fall in love with beelzebub. they are capable of it - and capable of free will.

all of this to say that i don't think it's conclusive at this time to implicate the archangels in what, as the hypothesis above indicates, is entirely metatron's doing. bear in mind that despite the recent trial, uriel and michael don't even recognise metatron. this could be memory wipe, or could be that despite how it's physically shown to us metatron in heaven as a floating head and metatron in human form are not recognisable... that being said, a) aziraphale doesn't recognise him either, despite seeing his head in s1, and b) metatron says, "you don't know me?!", which could either be a test, or as genuine incredulity that they don't remember the mf metatron. the whole thing, as LWA has pointed out on a couple of occasions now, reeks of the nuremberg defense ('just following orders'), and whilst it's unjustifiable, it's certainly understandable.

in any case, i think it has the potential to inform very heavily on the current inter-archangel dynamic in heaven - who trusts whom? who next will challenge god? who is hungry for power, and to bring down heaven? when you specifically consider uriel's disdain of michael assuming the post of supreme archangel, it could be jealousy or just out of pettiness, but michael doing so must suggest a degree of instability and concern too. it might not necessarily change anything about the fall retrospectively, but it does inform on how they punish angels, that step out of line, in a post-fall era.

re: the specifics of crowley's fall (and me bearing in mind the length of this answer!), i agree on pretty much every point you raised, each conclusion - ive covered similar thoughts in various tags: #AWCW spec, #the fall/the great war spec, and #scapegoat/omelas theory. one thing on whether AWCW fought in the great war; i agree, i don't think he fought. but i definitely think he was present. being fanciful, i think he might have hid, or someone 👀 attempted to help him hide, and get him out of heaven without bloodshed, or without violence ("sauntered vaguely downwards"). i don't think it succeeded, and i think potentially both were brought as traitors before heaven... and here is where i cycle back to the scapegoat/omelas theory.

and in any case - im not convinced that either of them, or indeed anyone(?) fully remembers the fall. it would make sense, from metatron's perspective, to wipe all seeds of rebellious thought (without accounting for the fact that they're born of free will, which cannot be erased) from all involved parties in heaven with a targeted memory wipe. as for the fallen - i think that's literally part of their having fallen; they can't remember specifics about their time as angels, or at least the specifics of why they fell. this would potentially be explanatory for crowley's tendency as an unreliable narrator as concerns his fall in particular. the one thing i do trust in particular as to his potential part in the fall is AWCW's line: "if i were in charge..." - take into account what ive said above, plus this kind of thinking being a very innocent but parallel to what we can assume lucifer's personal beef was, i think the origins of crowley's fall - and what his questions threatened - is relatively clear.

i know you've brought up other things too, 🦭 anon, but i wonder if this is something we can explore in further depth in another post? i feel this essay is enough to be getting on with for now, and would love to know your thoughts!!! again, really sorry for the delay, but hope this makes up for it!!!✨💕

note to self - topics left to look at! AWCW rank, and gabriel's first order archangel line, and his line as jim re: "all the morning stars..."

update: fuck it 🦭 anon, i was turning these topics over in my brain like a rotisserie chicken for most of the evening, so let's dig in anyway!!!✨

okay look, i'll admit (and as is clearly evident in my old posts), i was an advocate of the crowley is lucifer theory. obviously neil debunked this, no worries, glad to have nipped that in the bud. but i am still fairly convinced that crowley is going to own a lucifer-ish narrative as concerns his fall. if we go by hell hierarchy in GO and correlate this against influential material (scripture, and yes okay Milton), we can be fairly certain that lucifer led on the fall, fell first and became satan, beelzebub was a key part (to warrant being prince of hell), and that crowley got himself caught up with them at some point before falling himself. this is a part of crowley's recount of his fall that i do believe, but i think he massively downplays his part.

i think AWCW comes across a group of angels that do not rebuke him for having questions, and even talk to him about them, encouraging him. i think he feels safe with them, and becomes pals with them, and they end up sweeping him along in more 'dangerous', 'rebellious' thought... and right up until the moment they get caught/lucifer starts speaking out, i don't think AWCW realises the shit he's gotten himself into (or maybe he does, but it's easier to sink down rather than swim up). in any case, he's surely going to be implicated in instigated rebellion among the angels, and be punished accordingly.

now im not entirely sure on the specifics of a potential scapegoat allegory would come in here, but i do think it does (and history will potentially repeat itself in s3, given the promo images). i think perhaps lucifer and the gang start to panic, panic at the concept of falling (regardless of who is dolling out the sentence, god or metatron), and they pin the blame on AWCW. he started asking questions first, he caused all of this. i think that's potentially why metatron has such beef, and specifically refers to crowley "always asking damn-fool questions", plus throws him the Dirty Look - all of this mess, and everyone believes crowley started it, even if he didn't pull the trigger. obviously lucifer and all the fallen get similarly punished, so crowley doesn't carry the full weight of the fall, but that would potentially be a big chunk of his character core that once realised could make a lot of things about him suddenly make sense.

(as an aside, i do perhaps think that aziraphale is also implicated in here somewhere - ive explored it in the #scapegoat theory tag more - but do also equally wonder if crowley is posed as the scapegoat for the fall, and aziraphale will be posed as the scapegoat for the last judgement? interesting mirroring to hypothesise).

in terms of crowley's rank... sigh. i get the narrative and character potential of it, but... i don't think he was a Very Important Angel, however that might look. at the very least, i hope not. i got a few reasons for this, first of them being that i think it could be quite cliché, to the point of being a bit reductive. he is very obviously, in a rather on-the-nose fashion, painted as being an archangel in s2; for this reason alone, i get the feeling that this will in fact not be the case. (and im not an expert on pratchett, far from it, but my understanding is that a lot of his themes work with the concept of being "ordinary" which... this theory would arguably shoot out of the park).

we know that crowley is at least in the throne or dominion choir. the way that muriel says these ranks 'or above' suggests that they are on the same rank, not throne-above-dominion as strict christian angelology suggests. neil and terry turned this structure on its head anyway with the specific archangel structure, but i think it's far that the basic blueprint of GO!angelology follows the same outline. which suggests that crowley can only have been these ranks, or a cherub, seraph, or archangel.

i dont think he was a high archangel on the same plane as michael and uriel, let alone gabriel. i did suggest (in #AWCW spec, i think) that he might have been a lesser archangel like sandalphon or saraqael, and this still rings true for me if you cross-reference heaven hierarchy against hell hierarchy (there's obviously a lot to contradict this copy-and-paste, but im just talking in the vague sense). the other thought i have, is that i don't necessarily think that crowley's power is borne out of having been an archangel; i think it's literally borne out of having an imagination, as was intimated in s1, and i don't necessarily trust his "how did you know i didn't do it?" line to shax; we know that shax is not the sharpest of demons in this respect. as for the miracle he and aziraphale performed - i don't think the reason why it was so powerful has anything to do with either of them, and all to do with jim (#25 lazarii theory).

moving onto "first order archangel", im still not quite sure what to make of it, but... i dont think it was intimating anything beyond reasserting gabriel's rank as the top archangel. the supreme archangel position seems to be just that - a position, a role - but one that elevates already existing power (and i think that's what's indicated by the purple eyes, personally - having, to a degree, some of the power of literal god), and thus raising you to the tier (?) of first order. fundamentally, without the SA position and therefore without the FO rank, i dont think gabriel is actually any different to michael or uriel; they're all archangels, and it's just a question of promotion. in which case, i personally think gabriel was just being sarcastic and childish, and simply reinstating "hey, im the top dog here, im the only one at my level, so what i say goes'. it feels like a very gabriel thing to do and say, imo.

i'll be honest; im coming up empty on the elevator scene, but if we're talking about missing furniture - the scene before is crowley walking out of muriel's 'office' with muriel and saraqael, and then bang we're in the elevator with them all as well as michael and uriel. there's a whole, obviously interesting, conversation missing there, and i dont think that's inconsequential... potentially.

okay last bit and then i'll definitely be done!!!✨ "morning stars" - so i obviously can't say all of the above and then based on this be like 'okay yeah there were multiple lucifer-type characters' because, honestly, i think that might be a bit far-fetched. there are a lot of astronomical, mythological, and biblic references to 'morning star', and 'light/dawn-bringer' but none that, at the moment, seem to fit for me. so instead, i return to jim.

as i say in my #25 lazarii theory posts, i think when we look at jim, we're somehow looking at the shell of gabriel, but also a fragment of god. not sure how she got in there, but to me the whole fly/huge miracle/jim makes that ring true for me. so, when referencing the morning stars, i think god (who let's face it, appears to be talking at that point in ep2) is literally talking about the beginning, where on the first day, god created 'day', and specifically 'morning' and 'evening', and in wider context the heavens and the earth (genesis 1:5, KJV) - so morning stars... might just be morning stars?✨

[gu6chan]

tell us about barnabas 👀

YIPPPEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so first right off the bat i owe you an apology, you were so kind to reach out and this ask is like a month old and i actually finished it 2 weeks ago but thought "Barnabas' birthday is on the 27th, isn't it?" so i actually scheduled it for there 😭 im so sorry if it felt like i forgot about you!!!! i never forget about my asks, i swear skgdhbjhfd especially not as kind as this!!! i just take an extremely long time answering them, i promise aaaaa....

OKAY, SO (I may want to warn ahead of time for warnings of murder, CSA and general violence/mistreatment of kids)

There's a WHOLE bunch that i could go into in how his story DEVELOPS but i'll try my best just to give a basic rundown otherwise this could last forever!! There's going to be a few details left unsaid for the sake of brevity and simplicity since it's a lot but! I will do my best to explain this coherently 🫡 THANK YOUUUUU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ABOUT HIM IVE BEEN WORKING ON THE DOODLE HERE FOR THE PAST COUPLE DAYS SO I COULD DO THIS ASK JUSTICE LMAO

So!!! Generally speaking, Barnabas (His full name being Barnabas Johannes Mandalay) is a very important character in the little story I have!! It's divided up into four main parts which make up the primary story, with a couple side stories here and there :3<

Barnabas isn't really seen in most of the story till about the last moment, but he's certainly there!! He also gets to be a "protagonist" of his own story, Garden of Genesis, which is sort of like a de-facto "prequel" to the four main bits? That said, that will probably be the section of his story I cover here as it's.... literally HIS story lol Honestly, whether I'll ever do anything with this story at all or just keep it in my head I'm not even sure, so I'm thrilled whenever I get to yap about it!!!

But to explain who Barnabas actually is, he was born on October 27th, 1697, the son of the duke Johannes Mandalay and his wife, Rosemary, and the twin of a stillbirth, Edmund. Barnabas was deemed unlikely to survive due to an extremely weak heart that made even the act of walking difficult, and given the high infant mortality rate of the time, he was sadly cast aside with expectations he would die. His parents didn't want him dying miserably, so they placed him in the nursery they had prepared for them with plans to pick him up by next morning.

However, two servants, Empathy (11) and Henry (10), would eventually be led to the nursery holding the young baby Barnabas that night by a certain crow, which I'll talk about later. (Technically it was Empathy who was led to it and Henry who later stumbled across them both after hearing a ruckus and deciding to investigate, but...) The two decide to try their best and take care of Barnabas in secret, a task that they end up being pretty good at for two pre-teens! lmao

So time flies, and Barnabas is introduced back to his family! Of course, he's alive, but still very weak, not being able to leave past the premises of the manor and also needing to be pushed around in a wheelchair to get anywhere at all. His mother loves him and pays him attention enough, though,,, she's also kinda not getting her hopes up for him to STAY but his father is the exact opposite, even if he IS kinda skeptical that Barnabas is going to live, he still showers him with attention and praise and essentially spoils the poor boy rotten to the point everyone was kinda "???? what are you doing" 😭

Most IMPORTANTLY though, Barnabas' father was his main foray into religion, which Barnabas was absolutely TAKEN with. One of Barnabas' most cherished items is the small red bible his father left him, which he continued to carry around to the end of his life like a pacifier lmao

So skip ahead 2 years, his father DOES passes away in a freak accident and his mother is left to take the title due to Barnabas' VERY young age at that point, additionally not really able to find it in her to come back to her "Maternal" senses in her nihilism that came with the realisation of how fragile things really were. Barnabas is then raised by his servants (Now grown ofc), who he's come to regard as parents in their own right, though he sorely misses his mother, and considers his engagement to his cousin Maria a type of "gift" or sign from her. Barnabas falls into obsession with religion, setting on a dream to start a family on earth and become an angel when he dies so he can answer the prayers of people all over the world <3 he's a little baby lol

Here's a little thing I doodled for this ask (The colouring is a bit off, my apologies!!), Henry and Empathy at 24 and 25, respectively. Barnabas would be around 12, where most his story takes place! And I feel so bad for doing it but seeing how much I've yapped just getting his character established i might have to REALLY summarize... (This kid is REALLY important so there are just so many threads and characters to introduce to make the story make sense and aaaaaaa!!!) So in the most basic terms, his story goes like this: Barnabas, entirely dependent on religion as means to fill up his lack of any real parental figure in his life (Henry and Empathy are LESS than suitable parents and I dunno if I'll get to that in this post, but hopefully!!), is caught in the middle of a series of sadistic murders of servants in his own estate while trying - and failing - to move on by relying on unfortunately cold and/or misled people, such as his fiancée, "friends", and caretakers. this is really long so lemme just....

So the first character who he really meets on his story is Edwin: fast forward to when Barnabas is 12, while visiting the forest on his birthday he comes across a trapped crow. He frees the crow, only to find a boy greeting him later that night who came to thank him. Barnabas is very enamoured with this boy (unknowingly), initially only psychically at first, but coming to grow a,,,, romantic? emotional??? attraction later on (I'll opt for the best description being unhealthy emotional dependence, i think lol)? Edwin has a VERY important role with Barnabas but also another character! Mentioned rn Maria: Barnabas' cousin/fiancée, NOT a friendly person!!!! NOT a friendly person, she's the main,,, antagonist? of the work? So long story short she had a more or less normal upbringing for the times, though just had completely detached herself from typical human morality as a result. She ends up making a sort of faustian pact with Edwin after stumbling across him (All according to keikaku on his end) and in line with seeing humans more as objects and ofc as previously mentioned, having detached herself from any emotional permanence, expresses interest in watching them die and seeing the fallout from it. She has Edwin do the dirty work to avoid getting any suspicion or dirt on her hands, and initially plans to kill Barnabas as a "final end" before allowing Edwin to take her soul, though through the story ends up... Not falling in love, persay, but growing a sort of emotional permanence to him that results her forcing him into a suicide pact of sorts towards the end of the story. She only ever kills 2 people.... technically?

Finally there's Samuel, who I forget exists half the time and is the NEWEST addition to the story, as the initial draft I wrote back in like 2011/2012 was in DESPERATE need for a B Plot i kid you not the original story was so fucking bad.... 😭 So I still don't have him PERFECTLY established and honestly he's a bit of a woob so I PERSONALLY don't care about him as much, but long story short he's hired as a servant in the MIDST of the murders (to everyone's surprise!!) after being plucked off the streets by Henry. He's slowly rotting away from like several STDs which,,, people aren't GREATLY aware of himself included (As was the bit of the times) but is kinda no one's favourite kid, there's rumours flying around that he's whoring himself out for his position and Empathy doesn't care for him because of how just his existence "threatens" the image of a family she had made for herself (More on that in a bit!!). And its like the kid didn't even do anything tf......... However, Barnabas, free from all the anti-Samuel slander and the such, sees this weird sickly kid staggering around and takes to him very quickly!!! This kind of sparks a certain infatuation on Samuel's end, who begins to fall in love with Barnabas off the simple fact he was one of the first people to him with human eyes. Samuel takes it upon himself to "Protect" Barnabas' purity, which comes to a point when he starts growing suspicious of Maria's role in all the murders. Unfortunately the feeling of "I need to get RID of this tramp" is returned as she figures Samuel is a prime target to frame for the murders should things ever go south. She crafts this brilliant scheme after Henry's sudden death, one death she did not have calculated, and linking it back to Samuel herself. Unfortunately, this ends in complete failure on both ends after Samuel attempts doing away with her in a blind fit of rage after Barnabas grows deathly ill and he overhears Maria confess to Barnabas her role behind the murders and form their aforementioned suicide pact. Maria manages to wrestle the knife out of his hands and stabs him multiple times, leaving him to bleed out before she seeks to inform Empathy of his suicide. Interestingly enough, Empathy does dare to state her suspicion on it, however! Maria, more than aware of Empathy's feelings towards Samuel, is just like "Well it doesn't matter bc its easier for you now isnt it lol" and so the whole thing gets passed off as a suicide. Barnabas does NOT take the news well, however, and even despite Edwin's VERY panicked efforts to keep him alive, he ends up passing away from his sudden onset "illness" later on (Illness was really a pretense, what actually happened was Empathy deciding to let him by smothering him in his sleep because at that point, his declining psychical and mental state as a result of Samuel's death was enough to "ruin" her familial perception of her, Barnabas, and Henry to the point she couldn't bear it. She justifies it to herself by simply claiming it to be a necessary mercy kill, unable to fully face up to what she did or the thought it was based in.)

The general truth behind Empathy and Henry is that Empathy was raised by the church, and through the circumstances of her birth that led her to being raised by the church, she was forbidden from having a family or any children of her own. This led to her drive to become a nanny to begin with, eventually meeting Henry through their stumbling across Barnabas together and over time, either as a result of developing a sort of crush on him or developing a crush on him because of the "Father" mold she began to ascribe to him, crafting a sort of "mold" for her hypothetical perfect family and reacting,,, poorly? to anything that didn't fit within it. She ignored how Henry grew up to become a predator and his rampant sexual abuse of several younger members of the staff, and outright despised Samuel while not outright showing it despite her "Motherly" role to the rest of the Mandalay household. This is entirely because Samuel wasn't as quiet and couldn't "Hide" the effects of his abuse as clearly as the others, thus "interfering" in the perfect family image she had constructed for Henry, Barnabas and herself.

Of course, there's a few smaller bits I left out for the sake of brevity (as you can see i am a master of it) and the fact SOME bits of the story might be better fitted for another post (There's one important bit about Barnabas and Edwin's relationship because funny enough, it fits the story of two other characters better, being Zinnia and Alaundra!) , but!!! this is in reality like 0.001% of barnabas' story, after his death he ends up having his wish granted, somewhat, and becomes not just an angel, but a part of God himself. Barnabas' ensuing regret over this and the true purpose of his existence and becoming one with God is where things really kick off. Still though, despite starting off as one of my crappiest, In the Garden of Genesis and its characters have been developed into a story that has a really special place to me, I think! I don't talk about my OC's often since,,, I don't know how to explain it, for as often as I DO think about them, it never crosses my mind to talk about them? That said! Characters like Maria I roll around in my head constantly, and Edwin and Barnabas are just too cute lol <3 I really do apologise for how long it took me to get this out, but this being the first ask about any of my OC's, I REALLY wanted to do this justice!! It's a bit messy and I hope it's not too painful or awful to read, but this ask made my whole day when I got it.... and all the months it took me to answer it since then QwQ Thank you so much!!!!!!!

P.S: Because I couldn't find a place to put it, Edwin's name is actually Edward! "Edwin" is just a nickname Barnabas gave him after learning his name from Maria and it stuck (Much to his distaste).

[olympiansally]

EXCUSE ME??? YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THAT IN THE TAGS??? Im gonna need some Mikami/Beyond food-for-thought ramblings ASAP. Indoctrinate me into this cult, please and thank you <3

I laughed so much when I saw these, I show one inch of unraveling and yall pounce lmao You guys really want me to be the messiah huh? Just want me to let out the crazy! I guess everyone can blame you two for what is about to be unleashed then!! LMAO

Also, @seventhfracture my beloved it is hilarious that you chose to word this like that because one of the main things that plague my brain for Beyond and Mikami is an actual Cult leaders AU so like yes lets start the indoctrination, sure :’)

But alright alright here goes the rambling, because I make no promises of this being super coherent, but!

Beyond and Mikami have the most unhinged ship potential because they are exactly what the other wants, but in the worst way possible. I’m talking toxic levels of encouraging each other’s worst impulses, I’m talking “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”, but the thing the souls are made of is arsenic.

To me they are a twisted funhouse lawlight, but worse. Except, being worse is what lets them actually make it work because their thing isn’t competing, it’s encouraging.

Lawlight is all about I’m the only one who can stop them, I’m the only one who can keep up while Beyond and Mikami would be something more yes, yes kill them all, burn everything to the ground baby.

I will admit that I first started thinking about them in the silliest way. My brain just connected the dots between Beyond Birthday “I have never even been submissive to a traffic signal” and Teru Mikami “Kira’s most obediently submissive little worshiper” Mikami and I was was like oh, oh they would fuck so nasty!

And tbh I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them ever since lmao

And then, the more I though about it, the more I realized the dynamic between them would also be all kinds of interesting in ways other than just the kinky sex - which tbh, already makes the ship quite compelling in my book lmao. But the contrast in their personalities! The way they can give each other exactly what they want, but fully ruin one another in the process!!

To put it simply, Beyond has always wanted to be special and Mikami wants someone to worship. Now put them together? Nasty horrible codependence :’)

Growing up the way he did - Wammy’s, L, being the backup - Beyond has always been second best, has always craved being seen and valued. He has an arrogant sort of confidence that is a clear front for his feelings of not being good enough, not being worthy. And yet, he is the most unhinged, the most fearless, the most willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants - even in the midst of so many ruthless death note characters.

Similarly, Mikami doesn’t fear societal judgement. He thinks everyone else is wrong and he is the only wholesome righteous person alive, he thrives in not quite belonging because it allows him to twist himself into a “good man” martyr in his own mind - so much so that seeing someone acting in accordance to his own beliefs made him immediately assume that must be a God, because if he is heaven’s most perfect little angel, then whoever agrees with him while having more power to act on it must be a God. And yet! Mikami is just desperate to belong to someone, to make someone happy and in doing so, become someone valuable.

In a way, it’s all about their individual abandonment issues and lack of belonging and the way those experiences shaped them into people who find a wicked sort of comfort in their otherness.

In a way, that’s just like lawlight - except L and Light try to be justice, they try to do some good. But Beyond and Mikami don’t really care about what anyone’s perception of “good” is. Beyond doesn’t much care for good, unless it’s defined by someone he’s trying to impress and Mikami doesn’t think anyone but him truly understands what’s good (until of course he meets Light, but that’s not where we’re going with this). And that? The matching disregard for societal morality combined with the potential for codependency? It makes them a perfect template for absolutely deranged villains if ever put together!

And yes, Mikami’s whole strict orderly and organized way to go about things would probably clash with Beyond’s messier impulses at first. But that’s where their contrast becomes most interesting, because who better than crazy crazy Beyond Birthday to unravel Mikami’s uptightness? Who better to guide him into letting go? And Beyond’s single minded type of fearless focus given direction? Put under the guidance of Mikami’s certainty of a higher purpose? Beyond could take the shape of a chaotic vengeful God in Mikami’s eyes - as cruel and punishing as Mikami always dreamed consequences should be.

Meanwhile, Beyond - always second best to L, never good enough growing up, Backup - would revel in the worship, in being valued and it would likely push him to lean further into the whole thing - kill more, punish more, make it crueler. Not because that was his initial intention, but because he was raised to follow the instructions of someone he was meant to please and well, if falling in love means that person becomes Mikami rather than Watari, then too bad for the “criminals” of the world.

I think the fact that they feed each other’s desperation could be so… feral? I mean, Mikami is shown to thrive on scraps of affection - again, see Light - and Beyond has the potential for the type of cruelty - a byproduct of growing up at Wammy’s that L also displays, see Misa being tortured for example - that would make Mikami elevate him into the highest of pedestals, make him into that fearless God delivering divine punishment. He doesn’t share any of Light’s restraints due to trying to follow his dad’s moral code. Mikami is shown in canon to be even less forgiven than Light towards criminals, Beyond is supposed to be even less concerned about the greater good than L. Together? An absolute reign of terror! And the worship? The devotion?? That would probably be addictive to Beyond’s attention starved crazy, which means he’d lean into it and probably start performing right into Mikami’s belief system in order to reaffirm his godhood.

In a way, it’d be a vicious cycle of starved for affection, their very own lovesick ouroboros: Beyond delivers the punishing wrath Mikami has always hoped for and the fact that it’s being delivered by his own personal God reaffirms to Mikami that he is righteous, that he is special. The more Beyond confirms Mikami’s beliefs, the more Mikami is willing to worship, which in turn confirms to Beyond that he is doing the right thing and therefore should keep doing it, which makes Mikami love him more and so on and so forth.

If Mikami wants him to kill then it’s the right thing to do, if Beyond kills then it’s the right thing for Mikami to want - a never ending cycle. It’s the opposing force to lawlight’s combative friction, a downwards spiral in which the more they do, the more they are encouraged to do.

Anyway! I’m gonna cut myself off here before I get too carried away because once I get really started about them there’s so much lmao

But I will say that my favorite way to ponder their dynamic is as a twisted reflection of lawlight. I fully believe Beyond-wannabe-L-Birthday and Teru-wannabe-Light-Mikami would have thrown out the yearning immediately upon meeting and jumped straight into horribly entertaining codependency. My absolute favorite though? Lawlight investigating the shinigami eyed boyfriends. I mean the fun mirror versions interacting with each other while the twisted relationships unfold? Idk man drives me insane tbh

So yeah! This feels like more than enough for now, even though yes I could probably talk about them forever lmao

Thank you for indulging me my beloveds, it was fun :)

[thevoidofwinter]

im not gonna reblog that other post a third time just to add additional thoughts but fuck, man. literally the only people we've seen helping are local. the only government aid i've loosely heard of is smthn about granting $750. $750. are you reading that? don't get me wrong, any little bit helps absolutely, but for the people who have had their entire fucking lives destroyed in the span of a day, do you seriously think that's going to be enough? you can spend millions on military and shit but you can't send aid to your own fucking country when they need it most? i guess i shouldn't be surprised knowing the state of things for the past forever but its enraged me beyond belief to see how they're handling this.

its around 5 am as im typing this so i can't coherently gather my thoughts or fact check anything rn, im just. so mad. and so tired. its all so much. i saw houses split in half by trees, blood splattered across the inner seats of a crushed car (there was no one in it anymore but i genuinely dont know if whoever was in it lived or died), floods sweeping away whole sections of roads. and we're not even fully in the mountains, just super close. the only gas station that was open the day it all hit was only open for that one day before someone got shot that night and they ran out of gas. ive heard all around of fights breaking out in the gas lines, grocery stores, etc. even as the power is slowly being restored a little at a time. and theres still people who are completely cut off, trapped, and with little to no way to get resources without outside help. hell, we wouldn't have even been able to reach my grandmother to make sure she was okay if we hadnt had a chainsaw and other people come help us to get the fallen trees out of the road.

at what point are people going to finally see us as people and not your toys for classist jokes or ignore us for political reasons? get the fuck off social media and realize we are real, living breathing people too for once.