#instead of fixing any problems he's merely creating more of them

[rabbitindisguise]

Other novels: this character is a drunkard and rapscallion squandering his inheritance with a poor relationship with his father

Me: eh

Sorcery and small magics: "But apparently, no one even thought me capable enough to cause trouble. In my flustered, curse-striken state, only one thing was clear to me: Someone needed to disabuse them of that notion."

Me: oh god I can't watch. This is too realistic *turns off my e-reader*

[goddessofroyalty]

Fandom: Arcane

Pairing: Jayce/Viktor

Tags: omegaverse, future-mpreg

Still not a prompt fill (I will start on them I swear!) but I’ve been meaning to write Viktor deciding he wants to have a baby with Jayce because of scientific curiosity for a while now. So I am glad this is written.

And yes I did have an image of them both open while I was writing this to compare which features I think Viktor would prefer from which one of them.

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

Viktor doesn’t often get to watch Jayce work.

There is nearly always something else that can be done while Jayce creates a new casing or frame-part. Either wiring to be soldiered or a formula to continue working through. So much work to be done and never enough hours in the day.

Not this time. They had hit a point where nothing further could be done until Jayce finished forging the guard that would separate the Hextech core from the external mechanisms. So Viktor had joined him at the Talis’ Forge despite having complete faith in Jayce’s ability to do it right.

Supervising just feels more productive than merely waiting. And Viktor does enjoy watching his partner work on the rare opportunities he can allow himself to.

He will not deny that Jayce is impressive to watch when he is at work.

His shirt has been abandoned from the heat giving Viktor full view of the muscles of his partner’s broad shoulders shining from sweat and golden from the light of the furnace. The alpha’s strength on full display with each hammer fall. The profile of his face defined by the shadows cast by his features.

From the moment he met him Viktor knew Jayce was impressive, both in body and mind.

The physical part was impossible for anyone to miss. Jayce was stunning to look at, the very definition of an ideal alpha. Strong and fit but not hulking. Broad shoulders that taper into a defined waist and warm arms that it is so very easy to imagine being carried in. He is fit and healthy and seems to naturally draw the eyes of all around him.

But it was Jayce’s mind that had actually made Viktor interested in him. The ideas in his notes were genius even if Viktor had seen where they could be improved. Jayce hadn’t disappointed after they started working together. His intelligence may not be the same as Viktor’s, but the ease he could conceive and create the exact tool to fix the problem before them was inspired. Working with him was working with Viktor’s true intellectual equal.

Viktor can hardly blame the fans that fawn over his partner when Jayce makes public appearances. Anyone would want Jayce as a mate. His genetics alone ample reason before adding in his gentle kindness and sweet awkwardness.

All of it traits his hypothetical children could inherit.

Although if Viktor seriously considers the possibility of Jayce and children, then, while Jayce has many traits that would be desirable to see passed down, he is not perfect.

While Jayce’s hands are very skilled at what they do they lack the fineness and dexterity of Viktor’s own. So a child would do well to inherit from Viktor instead in that regard.

Even with his strong square jaw Jayce’s brow and eyebrows always seem to overpower his face. It would be good for a child to have one more like Viktor’s – less prominent and with a lower hairline to soften it.

While Viktor appreciates Jayce’s intelligence far more than the average person he will admit his bias in preferring that his own would be passed onto any child of theirs.

Then there are the things that matter less which way they go. Jayce’s skin may seem to glow under the golden light of his forge or the sun but Viktor’s hardly blemishes apart from a mole here or there. They both have good eyesight and neither possess a particularly outstanding eye colour. The texture of both their hairs is equal in strengths even if different.

Together they could make a glorious child.

Viktor would be remiss not to consider how difficult a pregnancy would be for him before letting his mind follow the thought any further. His body is deteriorating, he knows, and the weight of a baby on his spine would do it no favors.

Hextech hadn’t been easy either though. And it had been worth all the effort and pain and risk it took to create.

He would need only do it once to test his hypothesis.

“What are you thinking about Vik?” Jayce asks, taking off the wielding goggles as he turns around. The rest of his gear already put aside.

“I think I want a baby.”

Jayce stumbles, knocking into the table next to him. Catching himself to lean against it. The muscles in his arm bulging from the force he’s pushing down on it with.

“What?” he asks, free hand gesturing emptily. “Like generally or-“

“No, with you.” Viktor cannot say he ever thought about having a child before. His work always far too important. The idea of having one with someone else is not at all appealing. But with Jayce-

They created Hextech together as partners. The kind of child they could make together actually feels exciting in the way the early days of their partnership did. An unexplored potential that Vitktor wants to see reached.

“Right,” Jayce says, glancing at Viktor then up at the ceiling and then the floor in rapid succession. His hand comes to scratch behind his ear as he pushing himself off the table to stand fully upright. “Like now?”

“Well conception rarely is successful on the first try,” Viktor says, reaching for his cane as he stands up and walks over to Jayce. More to pace as he explains the process than anything. “And a pregnancy takes 40 weeks if it goes to full-term. So in about a year. If we start trying now.”

It is better they do it sooner than later if they are going to. How long before the deterioration of Viktor’s body makes him unable to carry a pregnancy an unknown.

“You’re serious,” Jayce says with a weak laugh.

“Of course. I would not joke about something like that.” It would be cruel to. “So do you want to or not?”

“Yes! I mean, if you want. Are you sure? It’s- You’ll- Us- A baby-“ Jayce stutters adorably. Viktor hopes their child inherits Jayce’s earnestness. “Do you want to start trying now?”

Viktor gives a hum of contemplation.

“We can install that first,” he decides, pointing to the guard that should be nearly done cooling. “But tonight, yes. If that works for you.”

“I don’t have any other plans,” Jayce jokes awkwardly and Viktor notes Jayce’s smile as another thing he hopes they inherit.

[catgirlthecrazy]

The Two-Body Problem

Read on Ao3

At first, they were just reading in the library. Caleb was relaxed in his favorite reading chair by the fire. Essek was curled up on one end of the couch. Each wizard had a book. Each wizard had a glass—brandy for Caleb, wine for Essek. It was shaping up to be one of those companionable evenings where they wouldn’t say above ten words to each other. 

At some point Essek emerged from his book to accept a refill from one of the cats—and caught Caleb giving him A Look. The kind that smoldered. The kind that pinned you to the wall and kissed you til you couldn’t breathe. The kind that promised things too scandalous to be spoken of in polite company, that would have parents hastily covering their children’s eyes. Before he could even think of controlling himself, Essek felt his eyes widen, his lips part in the softest of gasps. Caleb’s lips curled into a smirk that made it clear that he knew he’d scored a hit; held it just long enough to make sure that Essek knew it too.

Then with deliberate casualness, Caleb went back to his reading. 

Well then.

Some little while later, Essek let out a soft sigh that could have meant any number of things, but was also carefully pitched to catch Caleb's attention. When he was sure that he had it, Essek made a point of licking the tip of one finger, and very delicately turning the page, then splaying his whole hand across the pages to smooth them out. Caleb’s eyes were fixed on Essek’s fingers as they moved with the exaggerated elegance of a ballet dancer. He actually licked his lips. Essek wondered if he was even aware of having done it.

Essek settled back once more, and went back to his reading as if he hadn’t done anything particularly noteworthy. Not that he could really focus on reading anymore; he was too busy  wondering what Caleb’s next move in their little back-and-forth might be, and how he could respond to it.

Except instead of doing anything overtly flirtatious, Caleb marked his place in his book, set it down on the side table. “Back in a moment,” he said, and left the room. Essek watched him go with no small curiosity. Whatever Caleb was leaving for, it would no doubt lead to fun and interesting things. Essek tried to go back to reading, more for the look of the thing than anything, keeping his ears perked for the sound of returning footsteps.

Instead, roughly five minutes later, Caleb materialized directly onto the other end of the couch that Essek was sitting on. He appeared in a seated position as if he’d been there all along, one leg crossed over the other, a book held open in one hand. Perhaps appropriately, it was The Courting of the Crick. He seemed for all the world to be completely absorbed in it.

Essek’s heart was racing, and not just because he’d been startled by someone appearing so suddenly so close to him. To translocate with such precision, not just to the exact right spot but while seated in the exact right position too. Even the slightest miscalculation could have had Caleb falling on his ass, ruining the effect. More than that, however, the lack of any visual distortion or portal effect meant that this was no mere Misty Step or Dimension Door. Caleb had used a full-blown Teleport for this. The Tower was created anew every day, so it was highly unlikely that he had an object tied to that exact spot on the couch. It didn’t matter how skilled you were, Teleporting without an anchor always carried some risk of failure. Caleb had taken that risk, just to show off for Essek. It was unfair how devastatingly attractive it was.

Well, Caleb wasn’t the only one who could show off. 

Mostly for the look of the thing, Essek pretended to go back to his reading, trying to get his breathing under control. After giving himself a little time to calm down, he closed his eyes and opened his mind to the manifold lines of force that compromised the fabric of space. With the delicate touch of someone weaving spider silk, he gave the lines between him and Caleb the lightest of tugs. Warping them just enough to create a new vector of gravitational force, one that would pull Caleb, millimeter by millimeter closer to Essek.

He’d gotten Caleb nearly halfway across the couch to him before the man finally noticed. There was no overt acknowledgement, of course. That would be admitting defeat. There was only a faint inhale of breath. A slight shifting of weight, as if Caleb's trousers were feeling a little too tight all of a sudden. But he said nothing, and his eyes remained resolutely pointed at his book.

It was tempting to draw things out further. Watch Caleb squirm as Essek reeled him in slowly, like he had all the time in the world. But Essek’s own trousers were starting to feel a little snug too, and he was eager to have Caleb's body on him already.

Perhaps a little too eager. Before either of them could register what had happened, Caleb jerked forward, slamming into Essek with startling force, bowling both of them over the arm of the couch and onto the floor.

For a moment, Essek just lay there, sprawled on the floor with Caleb on top, his brain catching up with the last twenty seconds. “I swear, this doesn’t usually happen,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. It felt important to make that clear. 

For some reason, this caused Caleb to burst into helpless giggles. “Let me guess,” he said, still laughing as he rolled off of Essek and onto his back. “You normally last five times that long?”

It took Essek a long moment to understand what he was getting at. He propped himself up on one elbow, the better to glare down at him. “It’s not funny.”

Caleb smirked up at him, utterly shameless. It was unfair how attractive he looked that way. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Essek narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to find out.” Once more, he reached out to the familiar lines of spacetime, carefully selected the four points he wanted, and yanked.

Caleb yelped as his hands and feet were jerked into a spread-eagle position and pinned there. “D-don’t threaten me with a good time.” 

Essek was disproportionately pleased at the strained quaver that had crept into his lover’s voice. “Oh, trust me, Caleb Widogast.” He palmed the now-considerable bulge in Caleb’s trousers, enough to force a moan out of his throat. Then he dug in his nails and squeezed. “I don’t make threats.”

[oksurethisismyname]

Hiiiii as a queer person living in the Bible Belt of the USA, I’m envisioning a “Christian trauma AU / general theology AU” because you know my main focus is always Sanji. This assumed that we’re in the USA, modern era, and I guess maybe a college or post grad AU for how they meet each other? This is a lonnnnnnnng text post so scroll at your own risk. To keep it from being toooo long I’m also sticking to east blue crew.

Hear me out:

There are a million different sects of Christianity so we’ve got a ton of angles to use.

Garp is catholic (but think FRENCH laïcité instead of American Amy Coney Barret Supreme Court justice weird catholic cult), Dragon straight up rebels against the strict structure and goes about his atheist ways. Neither of them really raise Luffy anyway so 💁🏻

Luffy ends up being agnostic. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in a higher power but he knows he needs to take action and that he can’t rely on a higher power to fix the problems of the world. Very Albert Camus, revolting against the absurd and holding himself to a higher responsibility in life

Zoro comes from a Shinto or Buddhist background. He’s not judging anyone’s religious beliefs unless they’re harming others.

Nami has religious trauma from the Baptist church that set up in her town and made it impossible to be herself. Belle Mere is so clearly queer and she’s harassed and dies at the hands of some zealous bigots who were emboldened by the words of the local Baptist church pastor (Arlong)

Ussop comes from a chill Protestant background (maybe Presbyterian?) But he’s more of a CEO (Christmas Easter Only) in terms of actually attending any sort of church. Honestly, with his dad out of the picture and his mom dying, he just had bigger things on his mind like living every day.

Finally, Sanji. Oh boy, Sanji has major “Quiverfull movement Christian” trauma from Judge. For those who don’t know, quiverfull is a Christian extremist movement where the idea is to have as many kids as possible and adhere to very strict purity rules and gender roles. Contraception isn’t allowed. Women wear long skirts and non fitted shirts to hide their womanly form (ew), and most of the time these parents homeschool there kids to avoid the “temptation” or “impurity” of modern society.

Judge had these 5 kids who he’s raised in this faith but Sanji never liked how Judge treated his mom. Why was Sora supposed to be “seen and not heard?” Why was it ok for his brothers to use scripture to bully and hurt and spread hate? Why would a loving god create women just to subjugate them? Judge wouldn’t like this, and once Sora passes away (probably because Judge wouldn’t let her seek medical care post birth of the quadruplets, so her health deteriorated for years), Judge locks him up and makes him do all sorts of horrible “prayer” and “repentance” practices, which are really just abuse.

Sanji would maybe escape when they go into town to get something mundane like a printer or a new wifi router (which only judge is allowed to use the internet). He’d probably bolt first chance he gets and when he meets Zeff, Zeff can recognize the signals of abuse. He takes Sanji in and even though Sanji never believed women were less than men, he still has years of trauma and gender roles beaten into him that he has to unpack.

His choice to cook? That’s a huge rebellion. Wearing tight fitting suits that look sinful? That’s a middle finger to his dad. He always treats women like goddesses because he feels so much guilt for the sins of his father. When he finally joins the Strawhats, he’s so overwhelmed with how free and nonjudgmental they are (of important stuff, obviously they’ll still poke fun at small stuff) that he feels comfortable dropping little comments here and there, opening up.

Ussop will be comforting Nami about something and sanji will tell him is so refreshing to see a man be so nurturing. He goes to Ussop often, asking how he’s so confident sharing his emotions.

Nami will be ordering them around and he’ll do everything she says with a smile, just happy to see her free to do what she wants (which is be a bossy bitch)

Zoro will talk about Kuina one night and Sanji will sob, overwhelmed with joy that she got to have all that strength and a friend like zoro even when faced with hurtful gender expectations.

Luffy above all is the most jarring for him. He grew up hearing about sin and sinners and temptation and evil but when he sees Luffy doing his thing, taking down bad people, fighting for the underdog, he knows that if there is a God (he she it they? Who cares), Luffy is doing their work.

——————

Bonus Gay Cherry on top is that Sanji meets Iva and gets into drag, starts performing, does some events, and through that gender liberation is able to find some peace in who he is, tucking away all the hate he was born into. And he ends up with zoro the end bye

[hayateart]

Today in fanfiction I will never write - Miraculous Ladybug - Monarch gets his wish

I caught up to the current episodes on Disney+ (which is s05e08, English order) and I have ideas.

We all know what Gabriel's wish is - to have Emilie back. And we know that Adrien is a sentimonster with at least 80% certainty (all other theories on the show turned out to be true eventually. This one will as well.)

Gabriel finds out his son is Chat Noir. Instead of akumatising him (which never ends well in alternative futures that never happened) he simply orders him to get Ladybug's earrings as Chat Noir. Just take them off of her ears when she's not paying attention.

Adrien of course does not want to do this. Gabriel might be his father but he is also the villain they fought for years already. He has almost all the kwamis captive and they are suffering. He realises he himself has been captive since birth. His father claims to love him but does he really love Adrien or just the idea of a perfect son he created? Nothing more than a doll.

Ladybug, on the other hand, has been his best friend ever since they got their Miraculous. She relies on him, she trusts him, and be it as it may, platonic, romantic, familiar, she loves him and Adrien loves her back. He cannot betray her!

Alas, he must. Gabriel cleverly forbids him to reveal his plan in any way to Ladybug or any of her allies. There is no way out.

Chat steals Ladybug's Miraculous, at the same time discovering Ladybug is Marinette, which makes the situation even worse. That's the girl that has a crush on him and he barely discovered he might love her back. She is the nicest, kindest person he knows and he just destroyed her.

Marinette herself just breaks down. She tries to fight Chat (she still doesn't know it's Adrien) but a distraught, brokenhearted girl cannot defeat a sentimonster who has been given orders. At the same time she figures the Chat in front of her must be a sentimonster created by the Monarch, because the real one would never hurt her, even when akumatised.

Adrien brings the earrings back to his father. At this point he's already a completely broken person. And then his father says that since it was Adrien who got him both Miraculous, he is the one to make the wish: "Emilie Agreste never died."

"Yes, father," Adrien replies. "Emilie Agreste never died."

The world shifts.

It is a normal day in Paris. Marinette wakes up in her room and she still has her earrings and Tikki says nothing strange ever happened. It must have been a dream.

Except, the world looks slightly off. Nobody is wearing the Gabriel rings, and there are no commercials with Adrien.

When Marinette gets to school, she notices that the seat by Nino is taken by a different person so she asks where is Adrien.

"What Adrien?" Nino replies, and so does every person Marinette asks the same question.

The world did change and Adrien Agreste does not exist in the updated version.

Everything else is the same, though. Monarch still attacks Paris but it is definitely a different Monarch - it is a woman for a change. Ladybug still goes out to fight her and save akumatised people and Chat Noir fights by her side. He seems different as well, a little sullen and a little slow. But Marinette has bigger problems than that. Her Kitty will have to wait.

They save the victim and cleanse the akuma and after the battle Ladybug explains the situation to her partner. She tells him what she remembers and how the world changed. They need to fix it!

But do they, really? Chat questions. It doesn't look like the situation is that bad. The world barely changed and what is the life of one person who was never born. Was he even real to begin with?

Marinette is hurt by these words but she knows she can make her Kitty understand. For now, they just need to figure out a way. Chat doesn't really agree to help her, but he's not actively opposing either. He's very apathetic in general and his flirting is a mere obligation.

After a while of fruitless research and aimless fights, Luka finally gets a hold of Ladybug. He's there to tell her that the world changed and offers his help to fix whatever happened.

Turns out that Marinette, Luka and Alix, both of whom had Miraculous afflicted with alternating/travelling the timeline powers kept their memories of the real world. Marinette must have because she is the Guardian. Together they are forming a plan to use the Miraculous to get to the point of world shift to see what actually happened. In order to do that, they need to defeat the current Monarch.

Before that, however, Luka/Viperion says he wants to speak with Chat. See if he can give him more conviction to fight for their cause. Ladybug arranges their meeting.

Viperion and Chat meet in private, just the two of them. Viperion asks why Chat doesn't seem to want to help them he asks the same question he asked Ladybug "why try to save a person that never existed?"

"If he's not real, why are you here?" Because he knows Chat's identity. "Adrien, what happened?"

Adrien breaks down and explains the situation. His father, the sentimonster issue, his mother. He has seen them in this world. They are happy! Why should he take that away from them if he's not even their real son, just a toy they made together! He will help Ladybug save Parisians, he will keep them safe but he will no longer be the reason his father went insane with grief and his mother died.

Viperion understands and says he won't try to convince Chat anymore. After all, it's not his decision to make. He will support Ladybug but he will keep Chat's secrets. He just asks how come Chat is still here if Adrien doesn't exist.

As far as Chat understands, Emilie never had the peacock Miraculous so she never created any sentimonsters, including Adrien (Felix is gone as well, the Peacock was never in possession of their family). But he is the Chat Noir and that's all he is in this world.

When he's not transformed it's like he doesn't even exist. Plagg needs to take care of his needs all by himself and that makes Chat feel bad. He asks Viperion that since he knows his real identity maybe he could take care of Plagg in his abscence. The kwami must feel so lonely.

"You must as well," Luka says and Chat doesn't reply. "Come live with me. I will take care of both of you. My real name is Luka and I used to be your friend in the other life. I still am."

And this is as far as I got. The new Monarch is Emilie who did try to create her perfect son but he was taken from her before she could. The Peacock Miraculous has been forever lost and she hopes that by attacking Paris Ladybug and Chat Noir will slip for her to get a wish of bringing her unreal son alive.

They find that out after a while and Chat is stricken with grief that he is the reason both of his parents turned to the dark side.

Also, if it's not obvious enough, it would be a Lukadrienette story. My OT3.

[lightcreators]

Gratefully,  he  appreciated  that  no-choice  of  emotional  distance.  Not  because  suddently  circumstances  were  going  to  be  fixed  themselves,  not  because  suddently  it  would  have  complete  knoweldge  about  reason  of  such  desire  of  that  Malfoy  …  it  came  inside  an  slow  understanding  about  actual  move  Lucius  son  wanted  him  to  do.  It  wasn't  personally  his  interest  to  involving  himself  inside  that  complicated  daddy  issue  he  was  facing  ---  where  he  didn't  need  any  reminder  about  how  he  never  experienced  it,  didn't  faced  such  problem,  considering  his  parents  were  dead  ---  nevertheless  was  less  expected  person  that  offering  …  hope.  A  word  in  which  the  parent  he  faced  inside  that  prison  was  probably  ignoring  his  son  lost  meaning  of  the  world  ;  didn't  believe  of  it  for  himself  …  and  if  an  miracle  didn't  born  coming  from  an  last  sensation  of  that  feeling,  he  would  dissolving  inside  his  hatred.  Draco  Malfoy  will  be  unable  to  reassuring  his  father  in  same  manner  he  could  try  it.  After  all,  he  was  concerned  about  his  fight  too  ---  he  was  helping  that  boy  to  get  what  he  wanted  …  because  he  knew  how  terrific  another  result  will  be.  If  an  miracle  didn't  coming  from  actions  of  his  son  …  each  member  of  the  Ministry  involved  would  have  preferred  suffering  of  Doloris  spell  couple  of  time  instead  about  what  will  happens  to  them.  Besides,  if  it  had  to  happens,  he  wouldn't  be  able  to  do  anything  for  stop  that  gear  :  whole  Ministry  will  wish  to  had  never  push  that  button  …

Unfortunately  no.  If  only  Malfoy  showed  how  brilliantly  he  created  damages  …  It  was  merely  the  beginning,  preface  of  something  that  should  be  far  more  worse.  For  now,  denial  protected  him  temporary,  where  he  will  do  anything  for  get  the  result  he  desired  …  nevertheless,  once  he  would  realizing  he  was  facing  a  delusion  …  future  executioners  would  become  victims  to  be  devoured  by  an  executioner  reborn  in  most  total  hatred.  As  much  he  couldn't  pretend  appreciating  truly  presence  of  Lucius  Malfoy,  saving  him  from  a  fatal  fate  seemed  natural  because  he  believed  redemption  was  possible  …  The  Ministry  searching  the  solve  the  problem  for  hidding  their  involvelments  weren't  an  wrong  argument.  Besides,  touching  towards  his  family  was  last  thing  to  do  …  Ah,  they  sadly  didn't  received  memo  as  much  one  every  year  about  how  dangerous  Draco  Malfoy  was  behind  brightness.  He  truly  wished  he  could  reassuring  him  of  that.  ❝  Your  son  has  been  magnificently  kind,  on  the  contrary.   ❞  He  noticed  inside  an  detached  tone  for  offering  clearly  an  information.  Considering  how  lies  and  Malfoy  were  friends,  he  wasn't  sure  if  his  father  noticed  fragmented  moments  of  anger  from  his  son  …  He  saw  it  too  much  often  for  believing  on  the  'good  guy'  ----  well,  somewhere,  he  was  a  good  guy,  sometimes,  but  he  perceived  most  often  how  bad  he  could  be,  how  always  more  horrible  he  could  turn,  insidiously.  Though,  for  his  next  answer,  he  preferred  an  half-truth.  Lucius  must  believe  his  son  was  fine,  until  he  met  him  personally,  and  facing  the  threat  and  wreck  created  by  circumstances.  It  wasn't  his  position  to  expressing  Draco's  emotional  state,  who  stopped  be  fine  a  long  time  ago.  Gratefully,  he  existed,  as  perfect  entertainment  to  prevent  him  from  doing  harm  !  ❝  He's  too  busy  trying  to  save  your  life.  The  honor  of  your  family  is  preserved,  and  will  remain  preserved.  If  anything  happens  to  you,  I  can  guarantee  that  the  Ministry  will  forever  regret  touching  the  Malfoy  family,  and  the  consequences  of  their  decision  will  be  beyond  their  control.  I  confess  it  to  you  with  complete  certainty.  I  also  help  him  on  that  incidentally.  ❞

Lucius's face goes still and cold. He stands stiff as the stone walls of the prison that keep him locked up. To show any emotion in front of someone such as Potter is a level of humiliation he refuses to abide, even in his current position. He stands with his hands behind his back, regarding the man in front of him with narrowed eyes as he works to regain control of himself. Narcissa, Severus - they never give anything away they do not wish to. Lucius doesn't have that level of skill. Not now. Not for something like . . .

Not for Draco. Lucius has only heard about Draco's escapades from his lawyer. His son's stupidity . . . and his betrayal. They will kill him and his son will have sent him to his death. Lucius had spent years protecting him, giving him everything he had, and then - this. Even hearing about it brings back the horrible, dizzying emotions he'd felt the first time hearing about it from his solicitor.

"I believe Draco has done enough already," Lucius says softly, as sharp and delicate as a scalpel. If he raises his voice, he's afraid his emotions will show. "Is there a reason my wayward son finds himself unable to speak to me himself? Losing his nerve, perhaps . . ?"

[douchebagbrainwaves]

APPARENTLY OUR SITUATION WAS NOT UNUSUAL

Enjoy it while it lasts, and get as much done as you can, because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. Sites of this type will get their attention. The fact that there's no conventional number. Don't fix Windows, because the remaining. And what drives them both is the number of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares. This is not as selfish as it sounds. For the average startup fails. It spread from Fortran into Algol and then to depend on it happening. Seeing the system in use by real users—people they don't know—gives them lots of new ideas is practically virgin territory.

Auto-retrieving spam filters would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous. When someone's working on a problem where their success can be measured, you win. I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. However, the easiest and cheapest way for them to do it gets you halfway there. No one uses pen as a verb in spoken English. We'd ask why we even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. Conditionals. Poetry is as much music as text, so you start to doubt yourself. Between them, these two facts are literally a recipe for exponential growth. In languages, as in any really bold undertaking, merely deciding to do it. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on.

It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're trying to ignore you out of existence. Google. Long words for the first time should be the ideas expressed there. If a link is just an empty rant, editors will sometimes kill it even if it's on topic in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can bear the risk of failure. I'm less American than I seem. The distinction between expressions and statements. So perhaps the best solution is to add a few more checks on public companies. Let me repeat that recipe: finding the problem intolerable and feeling it must be true that only 1.

Well, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind—to work on a Python project than you could to work on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem. A company that needed to build a factory or hire 50 people obviously needed to raise a large round and risk losing the investors you already have if you can't raise the full amount. And isn't popularity to some extent its own justification? I realize I might seem to be any less committed to the business. Surely that's mere prudence? The measurement of performance will tend to push even the organizations issuing credentials into line. Number 6 is starting to have a piratical gleam in their eye. About a year after we started Y Combinator that the most important skills founders need to learn. When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. Within a few decades old, and rapidly evolving. I didn't say so, but I'm British by birth. Investors tend to resist committing except to the extent you can.

I'm talking to companies we fund? But if we can decide in 20 minutes, should it take anyone longer than a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, the more demanding the application, the more demanding the application, the more extroverted of the two founders did most of the holes are. We funded them because we liked the founders so much. And such random factors will increasingly be able to brag that he was an investor. You'd feel like an idiot using pen instead of write in a different language than they'd use if they were expressed that way. The safest plan for him personally is to stick close to the margin of failure, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones: that a neighborhood with lots of graffiti and broken windows becomes one where robberies occur. S s: n. Bootstrapping Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all, it means you don't need them.

It's not just that you can't judge ideas till you're an expert in a field. And the way to do it gets you halfway there. Angels who only invest occasionally may not themselves know what terms they want. But the raison d'etre of all these institutions has been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period. If someone pays $20,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company they take is artificially low. But because seed firms operate in an earlier phase, they need to spend a lot on marketing, or build some kind of announcer. There are millions of small businesses in America, but only a little; they were both meeting someone they had a lot in common with. We present to him what has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival. S i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works for integers. He said their business model was crap.

I was a philosophy major. Programs often have to work actively to prevent your company growing into a weed tree, dependent on this source of easy but low-margin money. And I was a philosophy major. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley is watching them. I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. As many people have noted, one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to predict, till you try, how long it will take to become profitable. Raising money is the better choice, because new technology is usually more valuable now than later. The purpose of the committee is presumably to ensure that is to create a successful company?

One recently told me that he did as a theoretical exercise—an effort to define a more convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. This is actually less common than it seems: many have to claim they thought of the idea after quitting because otherwise their former employer would own it. If you look at these languages in order, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not so frivolous as it sounds, however. VCs they have introductions to. VCs ask, just point out that you're inexperienced at fundraising—which is always a safe card to play—and you feel obliged to do the same for any firm you talk to. The lower your costs, the more demanding the application, the more important it is to sell something to you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you have. What happens in that shower?

Thanks to Dan Bloomberg, Trevor Blackwell, Garry Tan, Nikhil Pandit, Reid Hoffman, Geoff Ralston, Slava Akhmechet, Paul Buchheit, Ben Horowitz, and Greg McAdoo for the lulz.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Facebook thrives on criticism of "disinformation"

The mainstream critique of Facebook is surprisingly compatible with Facebook’s own narrative about its products. FB critics say that the company’s machine learning and data-gathering slides disinformation past users’ critical faculties, poisoning their minds.

Meanwhile, Facebook itself tells advertisers that it can use data and machine learning to slide past users’ critical faculties, convincing them to buy stuff.

In other words, the mainline of Facebook critics start from the presumption that FB is a really good product and that advertisers are definitely getting their money’s worth when they shower billions on the company.

Which is weird, because these same critics (rightfully) point out that Facebook lies all the time, about everything. It would be bizarre if the only time FB was telling the truth was when it was boasting about how valuable its ad-tech is.

Facebook has a conflicted relationship with this critique. I’m sure they’d rather not be characterized as a brainwashing system that turns good people into monsters, but not when the choice is between “brainwashers” and “con-artists selling garbage to credulous ad execs.”

As FB investor and board member Peter Thiel puts it: “I’d rather be seen as evil than incompetent.” In other words, the important word in “evil genius” is “genius,” not “evil.”

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1440312271511568393

The accord of tech critics and techbros gives rise to a curious hybrid, aptly named by Maria Farrell: the Prodigal Techbro.

A prodigal techbro is a self-styled wizard of machine-learning/surveillance mind control who has see the error of his ways.

https://crookedtimber.org/2020/09/23/story-ate-the-world-im-biting-back/

This high-tech sorcerer doesn’t disclaim his magical powers — rather, he pledges to use them for good, to fight the evil sorcerers who invented a mind-control ray to sell your nephew a fidget-spinner, then let Robert Mercer hijack it to turn your uncle into a Qanon racist.

There’s a great name for this critique, criticism that takes its subjects’ claims to genius at face value: criti-hype, coined by Lee Vinsel, describing a discourse that turns critics into “the professional concern trolls of technoculture.”

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

The thing is, Facebook really is terrible — but not because it uses machine learning to brainwash boomers into iodine-guzzling Qnuts. And likewise, there really is a problem with conspiratorial, racist, science-denying, epistemologically chaotic conspiratorialism.

Addressing that problem requires that we understand the direction of the causal arrow — that we understand whether Facebook is the cause or the effect of the crisis, and what role it plays.

“Facebook wizards turned boomers into orcs” is a comforting tale, in that it implies that we need merely to fix Facebook and the orcs will turn back into our cuddly grandparents and get their shots. The reality is a lot gnarlier and, sadly, less comforting.

There’s been a lot written about Facebook’s sell-job to advertisers, but less about the concern over “disinformation.” In a new, excellent longread for Harpers, Joe Bernstein makes the connection between the two:

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/

Fundamentally: if we question whether Facebook ads work, we should also question whether the disinformation campaigns that run amok on the platform are any more effective.

Bernstein starts by reminding us of the ad industry’s one indisputable claim to persuasive powers: ad salespeople are really good at convincing ad buyers that ads work.

Think of department store magnate John Wanamaker’s lament that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Whoever convinced him that he was only wasting half his ad spend was a true virtuoso of the con.

As Tim Hwang documents brilliantly in his 2020 pamphlet “Subprime Attention Crisis,” ad-tech is even griftier than the traditional ad industry. Ad-tech companies charge advertisers for ads that are never served, or never rendered, or never seen.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

They rig ad auctions, fake their reach numbers, fake their conversions (they also lie to publishers about how much they’ve taken in for serving ads on their pages and short change them by millions).

Bernstein cites Hwang’s work, and says, essentially, shouldn’t this apply to “disinformation?”

If ads don’t work well, then maybe political ads don’t work well. And if regular ads are a swamp of fraudulently inflated reach numbers, wouldn’t that be true of political ads?

Bernstein talks about the history of ads as a political tool, starting with Eisenhower’s 1952 “Answers America” campaign, designed and executed at great expense by Madison Ave giants Ted Bates.

Hannah Arendt, whom no one can accuse of being soft on the consequences of propaganda, was skeptical of this kind of enterprise: “The psychological premise of human manipulability has become one of the chief wares that are sold on the market of common and learned opinion.”

The ad industry ran an ambitious campaign to give scientific credibility to its products. As Jacques Ellul wrote in 1962, propagandists were engaged in “the increasing attempt to control its use, measure its results, define its effects.”

Appropriating the jargon of behavioral scientists let ad execs “assert audiences, like workers in a Taylorized workplace, need not be persuaded through reason, but could be trained through repetition to adopt the new consumption habits desired by the sellers.” -Zoe Sherman

These “scientific ads” had their own criti-hype attackers, like Vance “Hidden Persuaders” Packard, who admitted that “researchers were sometimes prone to oversell themselves — or in a sense to exploit the exploiters.”

Packard cites Yale’s John Dollard, a scientific ad consultant, who accused his colleagues of promising advertisers “a mild form of omnipotence,” which was “well received.”

Today’s scientific persuaders aren’t in a much better place than Dollard or Packard. Despite all the talk of political disinformation’s reach, a 2017 study found “sharing articles from fake news domains was a rare activity” affecting <10% of users.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586

So, how harmful is this? One study estimates “if one fake news article were about as persuasive as one TV campaign ad, the fake news in our database would have changed vote shares by an amount on the order of hundredths of a percentage point.”

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Now, all that said, American politics certainly feel and act differently today than in years previous. The key question: “is social media creating new types of people, or simply revealing long-obscured types of people to a segment of the public unaccustomed to seeing them?”

After all, American politics has always had its “paranoid style,” and the American right has always had a sizable tendency towards unhinged conspiratorialism, from the John Birch Society to Goldwater Republicans.

Social media may not be making more of these yahoos, but rather, making them visible to the wider world, and to each other, allowing them to make common cause and mobilize their adherents (say, to carry tiki torches through Charlottesville in Nazi cosplay).

If that’s true, then elite calls to “fight disinformation” are unlikely to do much, except possibly inflaming things. If “disinformation” is really people finding each other (not infecting each other) labelling their posts as “disinformation” won’t change their minds.

Worse, plans like the Biden admin’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism lump 1/6 insurrectionists in with anti-pipeline activists, racial justice campaigners, and animal rights groups.

Whatever new powers we hand over to fight disinformation will be felt most by people without deep-pocketed backers who’ll foot the bill for crack lawyers.

Here’s the key to Bernstein’s argument: “One reason to grant Silicon Valley’s assumptions about our mechanistic persuadability is that it prevents us from thinking too hard about the role we play in taking up and believing the things we want to believe. It turns a huge question about the nature of democracy in the digital age — what if the people believe crazy things, and now everyone knows it? — into a technocratic negotiation between tech companies, media companies, think tanks, and universities.”

I want to “Yes, and” that.

My 2020 book How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism doesn’t dismiss the idea that conspiratorialism is on the rise, nor that tech companies are playing a key role in that rise — but without engaging in criti-hype.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

In my book, I propose that conspiratorialism isn’t a crisis of what people believe so much as how they arrive at their beliefs — it’s an “epistemological crisis.”

We live in a complex society plagued by high-stakes questions none of us can answer on our own.

Do vaccines work? Is oxycontin addictive? Should I wear a mask? Can we fight covid by sanitizing surfaces? Will distance ed make my kind an ignoramus? Should I fly in a 737 Max?

Even if you have the background to answer one of these questions, no one can answer all of them.

Instead, we have a process: neutral expert agencies use truth-seeking procedures to sort of competing claims, showing their work and recusing themselves when they have conflicts, and revising their conclusions in light of new evidence.

It’s pretty clear that this process is breaking down. As companies (led by the tech industry) merge with one another to form monopolies, they hijack their regulators and turn truth-seeking into an auction, where shareholder preferences trump evidence.

This perversion of truth has consequences — take the FDA’s willingness to accept the expensively manufactured evidence of Oxycontin’s safety, a corrupt act that kickstarted the opioid epidemic, which has killed 800,000 Americans to date.

If the best argument for vaccine safety and efficacy is “We used the same process and experts as pronounced judgement on Oxy” then it’s not unreasonable to be skeptical — especially if you’re still coping with the trauma of lost loved ones.

As Anna Merlan writes in her excellent Republic of Lies, conspiratorialism feeds on distrust and trauma, and we’ve got plenty of legitimate reasons to experience both.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

Tech was an early adopter of monopolistic tactics — the Apple ][+ went on sale the same year Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail, and the industry’s growth tracked perfectly with the dismantling of antitrust enforcement over the past 40 years.

What’s more, while tech may not persuade people, it is indisputably good at finding them. If you’re an advertiser looking for people who recently looked at fridge reviews, tech finds them for you. If you’re a boomer looking for your old high school chums, it’ll do that too.

Seen in that light, “online radicalization” stops looking like the result of mind control, instead showing itself to be a kind of homecoming — finding the people who share your interests, a common online experience we can all relate to.

I found out about Bernstein’s article from the Techdirt podcast, where he had a fascinating discussion with host Mike Masnick.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210928/12593747652/techdirt-podcast-episode-299-misinformation-about-disinformation.shtml

Towards the end of that discussion, they talked about FB’s Project Amplify, in which the company tweaked its news algorithm to uprank positive stories about Facebook, including stories its own PR department wrote.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#zuckerveganism

Project Amplify is part of a larger, aggressive image-control effort by the company, which has included shuttering internal transparency portals, providing bad data to researchers, and suing independent auditors who tracked its promises.

I’d always assumed that this truth-suppression and wanton fraud was about hiding how bad the platform’s disinformation problem was.

But listening to Masnick and Bernstein, I suddenly realized there was another explanation.

Maybe Facebook’s aggressive suppression of accurate assessments of disinformation on its platform are driven by a desire to hide how expensive (and profitable) political advertising it depends on is pretty useless.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_(41793470192).jpg

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[seosjoon]

jianam​:

The mess that had been created was more work than expected, even with so many staff on their hands and knees, the shards of glass seemed to multiply with every sweep of a brush. Jia had been pushed to the wayside by Paramount’s own staff, mutterings under their breath that her kind had done enough and the brush in her hand was on the verge of being weaponised. The voice that filtered from next to her had induced an instantaneous roll of her eyes. The voice had been enough for Jia to know exactly who stood at her side, she would have been able to pick out his voice in a warzone, and she allowed him the chance to finish his taunting. “That Jia is about to put her fist in your face.” She turned her head to look at him, fighting the urge to roll her eyes for the second time. She should have known that the slightest rumour of chaos would draw him out. “I didn’t let her do anything, she did this all by herself because Dae had, get this, the audacity to speak to her.” She stomped her foot while she turned herself to face him, uncovering another shattered thunderbolt that joined the millions of others. “And what am I meant to do? Now the Queen is pissed, she probably was going to choose Dae as her husband, and he’s disappeared to go after Nari, and both of them will be dead by the morning.” There was no pause between her words, not a breath taken until she had completed her ranted frustrations, staring up at Phoenix’s face until a new idea struck. “Actually, you might be useful for once.” She abandoned the broom in her hands and looped her arms around one of his, digging her feet into the ground to shove him forward. “You’re free to marry, go announce yourself to the Queen and ask her to marry you.” 

Phoenix nudged the tip of his nose, distracting himself from laughter because it wouldn’t be in favor of the servants that were working diligently to clean up, He wanted to take pleasure in knowing that this chaos was because of his presence, but as horrible as he was this was not his prize. “Death sentence? I thought the same, only something is off here and I don’t understand why she didn’t order soldiers to find them.” His fox eyes darted to one end of the table, trying to imagine how Nari could pull this off without being harmed, and in his train of thought he caught the slightest drop of blood. Intriguing. Phoenix parted his mouth, a speech interrupted by her words about marriage which caused him to gag reflex thinking about committing to anyone. “Now, hold on, Jia.” Saying no to Jia was equivalent to saying no to his sister, stubborn and full of positive energy to fix something that had nothing to do with him. Around Jia, he became a mere object to simmer down any fires burning, not the son of Hades, but he couldn’t find the evil inside of him to push her away like everyone else. “I have heard horror stories about the new Queen. I’m not going to sacrifice myself for the likes of two people who can’t see that they’re in love, let me go, love of Hades.” He attempted to escape her grasp, instead, he dragged her along with him without catching the crowd's attention. Phoenix leaned into her ear, whispering secrets that he should’ve kept himself but seeing that Nari was in the middle of everything. He had to advise Jia about the Paramount heir, eyes facing forward to dodge any incoming persona while he calmly walked towards the exit. “The queen is mad, well, not mad in the sense of insanity. She has a very rare ability due to being the heir of Zeus, his name is disgusting, but I’m not entirely sure what she can do.” He glanced around the empty area, inhaling sharply as he paused briefly. “You don’t know about the prophecy, do you? Of course, you don’t. You wouldn’t have asked me to marry her, I can’t even if I wanted to because of the moment she falls for me. She’ll die and I’m painted as treason snake then war will not be our only problem.”

[sumechiayuu]

I'm now ready to talk about how awful the episode I Only Have Surprise for You in Foster’s is.

[[MORE]]

Disclaimer: These are just my opinions, NOT facts. Respect my opinion and I will respect yours. And I love this show with all my heart, it’s one of my favorites. But even the best cartoons have their sour moments. Let’s begin, shall we?

The only episode I hate the most, and I mean THE MOST so far in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, is I Only Have Surprise for You in Season 4 Episode 5.

I’m just going to get this horrendous episode over with. Because this episode-goodness gracious-is downright AWFUL. Literally unbearable. Before I scream and rant, let’s talk about the plot.

So the beginning of the episode is Mac going to the house. He sees Bloo acting weird and suspicious and realizes that today Bloo has a surprise party ready for Mac. Mac hates this because on these days, the parties Bloo makes always humiliate him, as seen in these three clips. First, I’m gonna point out a few things wrong I see with these scenes already.

First clip: To start, why would ANY normal kid-especially 8-year olds-laugh and giggle in delight seeing their classmate naked? In real life, most kids in elementary school would be covering their eyes and going “Ewww” at the mere sight of nudity. It's just a strange scene in general. What's so funny about an eight-year-old boy being naked with his ass out? I will never know.

Second clip: This is an issue with the third clip too, but I would like to point it out here early on. So in this clip, alongside Bloo and the group of kids, you see Terrence AND the mom ganging up on Mac.

The problem with Terrence being included in this scene is that it weirdly implies that he WORKED TOGETHER with BLOOREGARD Q KAZOO out of all people to help humiliate his brother. If anything, Terrence would just beat up and humiliate both boys, as he beats them up in the PILOT EPISODE OF THIS SHOW.

Now the problem with his Mom helping out with the prank is that his mom is a no-nonsense kind of woman who doesn’t deal with childish things like the pranks Bloo did on Mac. Why in the world would she help Bloo out with such stupid pranks? Especially a prank where it involves MAKING A THIRD-GRADER’S MOUTH BURN WITH HOT SAUCE DISGUISED AS KETCHUP? Mac’s mom may have done stupid things like making a young child give up his imaginary friend, but she's not dumb enough to purposefully harm her kid. She still clearly cares about her two sons.

Third clip: I don’t have a lot to say except that Mac could've avoided being humiliated in a way. He could've either wrapped the ballet dress around his waist instead of wearing it, or he could’ve used the shower curtain as a towel.

After that little montage, we see Mac getting increasingly more and more nervous about his party before he goes Rambo mode after eavesdropping on the gang planning a party and decides to destroy and ruin the party in the only funny parts of this episode.

But then he finds out that the party was actually for Artie, a toddler that Goo “created”. Feeling bad after everyone chews him out for ruining a toddler’s 4th birthday party, Mac decides to make it up to him by fixing up the party. During this, I’d like to point out one funny scene that made me laugh a bit before I head on to the worst parts of the episode.

While planning the party, Bloo says that Artie likes clowns. Since it’s Mac’s “fault” he ruined the party, he has to dress as one to cheer up Artie.

Now we get to the most frustrating part of the episode; the ending. While Mac entertains the toddler, it’s all revealed that the party was a prank after all. And then Bloo makes the most punchable face imaginable as he rubs it in his face that his best friend-his CREATOR-is an idiot and that Bloo will always be one step ahead.

Incoming warning for an anger-induced rant here now. Viewer discretion advised, hehe.

First of all, let’s talk about the extreme out-of-character moments in this episode. Why would WILT-a character who gets so guilty about just LYING FOR A DAY in one episode, FRANKIE-a character who literally can’t stand Bloo and his annoying antics, and MR. HERRIMAN-a character who is strict and has a no-nonsense attitude, decides to participate in this mean-spirited prank?

Second of all, what did Mac do to make Bloo so spiteful to even think of doing a prank like that? Bloo may be a bratty jerk, but he still cares about his best friend. In The Bloo Superdude and the Great Creator of Everything's Awesome Ceremony of Fun That He's Not Invited To, even in a sick and delirious state he still tries to see his best friend have his birthday party. In the same episode, in Bloo’s fantasy Mac is a SUPREME OVERLORD in his eyes, showing that he respects his friend even though he doesn't outright show it. In Bye Bye Nerdy, though he was a little bit mean, despite eventually failing he does try to help Mac gain human friends, before the events of Go Goo Go. Bloo may be a brat, but he still cares about his friend.

So who’s idea was it to make Bloo THAT insufferable? The fact that there’s no real reason for Bloo to even prank Mac is a big problem with this episode. Onto the third thing!

And finally, the biggest problem is that there’s no established reason, not even a HALF-ASSED one mind you, that Mac deserves to be humiliated TWICE in one day. There’s no real reason behind it, and it’s frustrating.

See the episode Pranks for Nothing in Season 6. The reason why Bloo got pranked by his friends multiple times is because Bloo was misbehaving and acting out in the hotel room. He was ordering stuff messing around and doing things Mr. Herriman specifically told everyone not to do while they were there. He got his just desserts, AND he got punished for a reason that makes sense.

Like, there’s nothing Mac does to deserve the treatment he gets in this episode. Even in episodes where he acts out and goes wild, like Squeeze the Day and Crime After Crime, his evil crimes are…jumping on the bed and his version of a prank call is saying “this is a joke”. In this show, there’s nothing Mac during and prior the episode to even deserve the shame and humiliation he gets (I’ll give you a cookie if you understand that reference). The worst thing he did was ruining the party, and even then he had a reasonable justification to doing so (he thought he was going to be HUMILIATED BY HIS ONLY FRIENDS! How could that not be reasonable?)

In conclusion, THAT’S why I cannot stand this horrendous episode. It’s the only horrendously bad episode that makes my blood boil. EVEN THE BENDY AND GOOFBALL EPISODE HAD ME LESS ANGRY. That really makes you think.

And while I do recommend this awesome show, please, I beg you, just. Skip this episode. It’s not worth watching and it’s not worth your time. Don’t be like me when I was nine.

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

𝐺𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐶𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡/𝐶𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑠ℎ 𝑇𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 (𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑)

Warning: Certain NSFW scenarios are contained within this reaction. Read at your own discretion.

❥𝓚𝓲𝓶 𝓗𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓳𝓸𝓸𝓷𝓰

Hongjoong knew he should probably just look away, leave you be. But he can't seem to move. The way your chest rises up and down with each sharp intake of breath, the beautiful noises escaping your lips are enough to keep his feet planted on the ground, looking at you as you bring yourself to a euphoric state.

Not knowing what came over him, he slowly walked over to you, startling you when he stood in front of you. You sat up and tried to close your legs, but he reached out and held your legs open with his hands.

"You don't mind if I have a little taste.....do you?"

You watched in amazement as he slowly placed kisses down your inner thighs, before his tongue darted out and collected your juices from your orgasm.

"Fuck it."

Hongjoong whispered as he buried his face in your heat, your addicting taste making him eat you out like a starved man, threatening to bring you to another climax in mere seconds.

❥𝓟𝓪𝓻𝓴 𝓢𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓱𝔀𝓪

You don't know what turned you on even more: Seonghwa's expressions filled the lust, his long and impressive length that was even better than what you imagined, or the fact he moaned out your name as his hand stroked his cock at a fast pace.

It was such a dirty scene that you probably shouldn't see, but you wanted to keep watching. And that was exactly what Seonghwa wanted. He wanted you to catch him like this, make you witness the effect you have on him at times.

His eyes opened slightly, turning his head as he looked over at you. While you blushed intensely, he simply smirked at you.

"Like what you see baby girl?" He teased you as he walked over to you.

Part of you told you to run, but the other part told you to stay and see what he'll do, and deep down, you knew you'd regret it if you left. Seonghwa smiled and gently took your hand, placing it on his still erect cock.

"Wanna help Daddy out with his problem?"

❥𝓙𝓮𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓾𝓷𝓱𝓸

Yunho's first instinct was to go back, he shouldn't look at you while you're in such an intimate position. But the way you groaned in frustration, your eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, made him stay. He could tell you were having trouble, and although he might be risking a lot, he couldn't stand to see you struggle and he wanted to help you. Silently so as to not disturb you, he walked over to you.

Your hand was buried inside your panties, rubbing harshly on your clit since your fingers weren't helpful for actual penetration, not reaching deep enough for your liking. But then you felt a hand stop you. Gasping, you opened your eyes and saw Yunho towering over you.

"Please let me help you." His eyes and tone were practically begging you and who were you to say no?

Yunho gently pushed your panties to the side, your glistening folds making him suddenly grow hard. His fingers lightly ran up and down your folds before one of his long, slender fingers pushed deep in you, making you moan at how far it went.

Soon Yunho had 2 of his fingers in you, thrusting them in and out of you at a fast pace. He wasn't going to stop until you came at least 3 times, and in one of those, he wanted you to squirt all over his arm.

❥𝓚𝓪𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓮𝓸𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓰

Yeosang tried to quickly cover himself when you came into the room. He wasn't expecting anybody and having the dorm to himself, he wanted to relieve some stress. Now he was blushing violently and covering his face in embarrassment.

You honestly felt bad for disturbing him and scaring him. Walking over to him, you began gently stroking his hair.

"Hey Yeosangie, it's ok." You tried assuring him, but it didn't really seem to help.

You decided to try another approach. It was definitely bold, but what had you to lose? Slowly, you leaned in and started peppering his neck with kisses. Although it took him by surprise, Yeosang didn't pull away, he actually tilted his head to give you more access.

"Y/N...." Yeosang whined when he felt your hand go up his thigh.

"Shhh. It's ok Sangie, just relax."

You cooed in his ear as your hand took him out of his pants and began to stroke him gently, wanting to hear his soft hisses and pants again.

❥𝓒𝓱𝓸𝓲 𝓢𝓪𝓷

San had no intention of leaving anytime soon. You looked so pretty. Laying there naked on your bed, one hand dipped inside your folds while the other played with one of your breasts. It was a sight to behold.

Feeling his pants getting tight, his hand made a quick work of his zipper. He took his cock out and started stroking himself, his hand movements mimicking yours. He ended up walking over to the bed. You only became aware of his presence when you felt the bed dip. Right there in front of you was San, he had completely stripped himself of his clothing and was sitting near inches away from you.

"Don't stop baby, keep going." He encouraged you, as his hand went back to work on getting himself off.

His sexy stare urged you to continue and so you did. The new visual only helped to bring you closer to the edge and pretty soon you were a whimpering mess as you called out San's name. Hearing you get off on the thought of him only served to have him shoot his hot cum all over your thighs.

"Fuck! That was so hot." He panted as he tried to calm down from the high he just reached.

❥𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓜𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓲

You were worried. Mingi was spending too much time in the bathroom, you started believing he was feeling bad. When you pressed your ear against the door, you faintly heard him moan out your name. Thinking he was in pain, you opened the door expecting to see him hunched over.

Instead, you were met with Mingi, his pants down to his ankles as his hand was busy stroking his length.

"Oh shit! Y/N I'm so sorry!" He exclaimed as he covered himself, guilt building up in him.

You stood there speechless, now realizing what was really going on.

"I'm s-sorry Y/N...... I can't control what you do to me..." He confessed, fearing you'd look at him weird now and never talk to him.

But he was wrong. Instead, you went up to him and fell to your knees.

"What-what are you doing?" He asked when you pulled his pants back down.

"What does it look like I'm doing Mingi? I caused this, so maybe I should fix it." You winked at him.

Never in his wildest dreams did Mingi believe he'd actually see you sucking him off. It was even better than any fantasy he created.

❥𝓙𝓾𝓷𝓰 𝓦𝓸𝓸𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓰

Wooyoung smirked as he walked over to you. You on the other hand were now embarrassed.

"Why are you hiding yourself now princess? You weren't shy just 20 seconds ago when you were playing with your pussy."

You pouted in annoyance. Of course he'd have the audacity to tease you in this situation. He stood over you, his eyes roaming your naked body.

"Why don't you continue? Daddy wants to see the rest of the show."

His words were not what you were expecting at all. They left you frozen, wondering if this was real. Wooyoung only sighed.

"Too dumb now to play with yourself? Ok. Daddy will help you out."

His hand snaked its way in between your legs, his thumb rubbing your clit as 2 of his fingers curled inside of you. You then watched as his other hand took out his cock from his sweatpants.

"Come on princess. Daddy is doing you a favor by playing with your wet pussy. Can't you return the favor?"

Catching his meaning, you reached out and stroking him, loving the way he groaned at the contact. You both continued to get each other off until you both came at the same time.

"We should do this more often." Wooyoung said after you finished.

❥𝓒𝓱𝓸𝓲 𝓙𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓱𝓸

When you offered to help Jongho out after you caught him pleasuring himself in a closet before a performance, he could hardly believe it.

"Wa-wait...are you s-serious?" His eyes widened at the suggestion.

"Jongho you have a few minutes before you're due on stage. Do you want me to help you or not?"

Realizing he might never get the opportunity again, he immediately nodded.

"Yes...fuck yeah. Please Y/N." He begged you.

It was awkward at first as Jongho had never felt anyone's mouth wrapped around his dick before. But he eventually relaxed and let you do your thing. He thought you looked so beautiful as you took him in your mouth, he couldn't help but whimper out praises to you.

"S-shit! You look so beautiful sweetheart. P-please don't stop."

With a mutter of whines and curses, he ended up releasing himself inside your mouth. He almost passed out when he saw you swallow it all. It was the most erotic scene he'd ever witness in his life.

"Thank you so much baby girl. After this performance is over, can I please return the favor?"

Gifs not mine, credit goes to their respective owners.

[harbouredsoulss]

LURK

Author's note: You have no idea how happy I am to post again! 💞

I've been working on this for a while and am so excited to finally share this with you all. This is set to be a series, with the current number of parts unknown (though I'm currently working on that).

I also appreciate every single person who helped me when I was trying to work out how long my posts should be! You were all super helpful 🥰

warning(s): violence. mention of stalking. blood. a hint of smut. friends x lovers! panic.

pairing(s): ez reyes x [OC] ivána

word count: 2.3 k

summary: Ivána has a secret. She is in danger, and has kept this from everyone including her best friend Ez. What happens when this danger finally comes for her?

Nights alone were truly unbearable, though Ivána knew she was never truly alone.

There was always that heavy feeling -an inexplicable feeling that haunted her, to the point where she knew that he had to be out there watching her each and every move. The feeling clung to her, never abating.

Her home was locked down with the doors bolted shut, and windows sealed and secured. She had made it into a fortress since the first time he had made his intentions clear. She knew his kind; had seen it before. They liked to toy with their prey, and strike fear into their hearts, not long before they consumed them, body and soul.

Ivána knew she was just biding her time before the games would truly begin. The intimidation thus far had been nothing but mere warning of what was to come.

She lay in bed, tossing and turning, thoughts all consuming. She knew what she could do to make the problem go away. The police would be the best place to start and a smart move at that. Though that wasn’t who she was really considering turning to.

There were people she knew and trusted enough to protect her from harm. She had connections with people from all walks of life, some of which she grew up with, some of them considered family.

Her best friend, the one she had been secretly in love with for the majority of her life, Ezekiel Reyes, would do anything for her and she knew that. But she couldn’t bring herself to drag him into her mess. He had already gone through enough; he doesn’t need her problems added to his list.

At some point in the night, she did fall asleep. She fell to the faint pitter patter of the rain, which was rare for Santo Padre. It soothed her restless thoughts, and nudged her slowly to an unbroken sleep.

For once her dreams were not filled with terror, though there was still a flicker of anxiety as her thoughts shaped and manifested to their final form. In her dreams she spoke to EZ, hands caressing his face softly, lips barely a breath a part, whispering to him, telling him the truth, and allowing all her fears to be released. She allowed him to protect her. He encased her in his arms creating a barrier that separated her physical form from all the uncertainties her life was set to face -that plagued her mind incessantly.

Her mind gave in to her desires, ones she not would let happen in the real world. It allowed her a glimpse at what safety and love would truly feel like.

Unlucky for her, the dreams did not last, it was the arrogant sound of her alarm which happened to choose that precise moment, when her thoughts morphed into something more illicit, to interfere with her reverie. The idea of snoozing the alarm was tempting, as was remaining in bed hidden within the confines of her room. Though she knew she would be missed, and staying here, locking herself inside forever, would arouse suspicion.

The hospital would be nothing more than a brief reprieve from the game she had been made part of.

At least that’s what she told herself.

It wouldn’t stop her from looking over her shoulder as she made rounds, checking each bathroom stall, and cataloguing each individual in a waiting room. She was in a minefield and was sure to explode if she made the wrong move.

He had been doing this for quite some time now, though usually he left her alone at work. He left toying with her for when she was alone with no one to reach out to for help. He knew her hours, when she would begin her shift and when it would end. She figured he had someone hack into the hospital’s servers and access her roster. She also knew that if he was not going to be physically present, there would always be someone else from within his inner circle there to stalk her.

She stood in her bathroom, scrubs gripped tightly in her hands, eyes glaring at the fabric as she debated her choices. Her skin was like ice, with goosebumps coating her flesh as she stood there naked in the room, allowing her mind to tick over like a clock. She didn’t want to leave, and it took every ounce of strength she had to force her body to cooperate.

Her mind was at war with itself. Different parts of it were broken up over what she should do. Parts of her wanted to run and hide, whilst the other parts wanted her to stay, too scared to step a toe out of line and be killed.

Her eyes remained locked on her reflection, fingers tracing the length of her skin, up and down, from the curve of her breasts to soft bump of her waist. Her eyes fluttered closed as the soft movement of her fingers pulled her into trance.

It was kaleidoscope of colour that flickered beneath her eyelids as her body began to relax. Soon the mirage of colour transformed in to one whole image of Ez and herself.

Their limbs were intertwined, sliding against one another intimately. His breathing hot against the crook of her neck, fingers torturing her in the most delicious way possible. Sliding down the slope of her body, caressing her breasts, kneading her tender flesh as they ventured lower. They slipped between her thighs, and began rubbing her gently and softly. Edging her, at a leisurely pace, to her release.

It was a sound reminiscent to that of a gunshot that shook Ivána from her fantasy and filled her to the brim with terror.

She moved as fast her body would allow, though it resulted in her tangling herself in her scrubs, tripping over her own feet as tried to dress herself. She could hear the thrum of her heart pounding in her ears as she made her body move towards the living room, grasping onto the baseball bat she kept hidden behind her couch.

It was at that point she came to the realisation that it was not a gunshot she had heard, only what sounded like one. What she had heard was actually the sound of someone banging themselves against her front door.

She had every intention of calling out and demanding the name of whoever it was that was trying to take down her door, but it was the fear that froze her where she stood. She knew with every fibre of her being that the person on the other side of the door was not a friend.

It was only when she took a few hesitant steps away from the couch towards the entryway that the wood began splintering and a large crack struck through the length of the wooden panelled door.

Particles of dust and wood chips scattered across the floor as the banging continued. Her knuckles turned white; her circulation sure to cut off as she continued to grip the handle of the baseball bat, tighter and tighter.

She could hear whoever it was grunting as they continued to throw their body against the door.

It went on for a limited time, mere minutes, before she saw her front door fly off its hinges, bang against her hallway table, and land right before her feet.

A jolt of surprise and dread iced her veins as she took in the scene before her. It was only one man.

It took only one man to break into my home.

Recognition sparked as the cog wheels in her mind began to turn.

His face was red, with beads of sweat clinging to his flesh, soaking his brown hair, and plastering it against his face.

Ivána had seen this man before.

He smiled at her faintly, chest heaving, struggling to catch his breath. He held up his hand, his index finger pointed upwards.

“One…. Moment…” he rasped out; face still flushed as he struggled to catch his breath.

Her eyes were fixed on him, as he stood there both hands pressed on either side of the door frame, his head hanging low. It was a surprising sight for her. One that took an edge off the fear that was gripping her.

There was no awareness of time as she stood there like a deer caught in headlights. All the awareness was honed in on the man before her and his breathing, and how much easier it was starting to become. She knew she was running out of time, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything.

It didn’t take too long for his demeanour to change. No longer was his mouth agape with salvia bubbling at his lips, slipping down his chin as he tried to capture his breath. He brought his hand to his mouth and begun wiping it slowly, removing any hint of weakness as he did so.

Finally, he took a step towards her, entering her home, stepping on the broken door.

“Let me guess,” she started, taking a step back, “you’re one of David’s men?”

Her fingers curled tightly around the handle of the bat, using all the strength within her, to hold herself up right. The target she’s had on her back, the dread, anticipation, never quite knowing when he would strike. It was always clear that he was waiting for the right moment, which had now come.

The intruder nodded in return, making sure to smile at her wickedly.

“Matteo.” He answered, though she had no care for his name. Being one of David’s lackies was all she needed to know.

Ivána ignored him and instead widened her stance, preparing her body for the inevitable swing that she would take.

Matteo took another step towards her, chest heaving. The knock down of the door had clearly taken a lot out of him, although he tried to show her otherwise.

He didn’t appear to be too old, though she could tell he was not in his prime.

“You know why I’ve come; I assume?”

“To finally take me?” She guessed with a slight shrug to her shoulders, stance still wide, arms ready to swing, “though after that little performance, you shouldn’t feel too confident on your mission being a success.”

He wasn’t fazed by the scorn notable in her voice. He just stood there with his hands on his hips; a smirk plastered on his face, pure excitement gleaming in his eyes.

His gaze remained locked on hers, never wavering, though that was not before he allowed it to lingered down her body slowly, zeroing in on the weapon in her hand. It transformed his smirk into something more wicked; sickening.

“Oh, baby girl,” he said, voice thick and husky, almost as if the mere sight of her holding a weapon turned him on. He licked his lips, clucking his tongue as he did so, with an evil gleam now luminous in his eyes, “surely you must know that it’s a massive turn on when you think you can fight back.”

“You’re disgusting,” she spat; voice laced with venom, “you and your entire crew are nothing but pigs. If your boss wants me, he can come and get me himself.”

He laughed, a hearty kind of laugh. One full of promise.

He began his attack.

_____________________

Blood trickled down the sharp edges of the blade at an unhurried pace. Each drop leaving a faint echo throughout the room one might miss if they weren’t listening out carefully.

Ivána stood there frozen, arms rigid, and glued to her side, clutching the kitchen knife. Her breathing ragged, chest heaving with every painful intake of breath. Her body was battered with cuts, and bruises which, unbeknownst to her, had already begun developing across her flesh. There was no mistaking the red, angry, marks on her skin that were sure to ache, leaving a clear reminder as to what had happened. Perhaps the physical marring of flesh would clear, in time. Though that moment, standing frozen over her assailant’s body, knife caked in blood, would never fade.

Her body convulsed, though she was unaware, as the shock washed over her like a tidal wave. The knife slipped from her hand, clattering to the floor as she fell to her knees. Her body was wracked with loud uncontrollable sobs as the image of the attack flashed through her mind at a hastened pace. Her hands crimson, caked in his blood. Her breathing grew erratic and the panic began to set in, eyesight blurred with tears.

“Yo! Hermana.”

Confusion triggered an innate reaction within her at the sound of Angel’s voice, one that she was not ready for. She jerked forward and frantically began trying to clean the mess around her. Hoping to hide the mess - afraid of anyone else seeing it.

Had she been in a rational state of mind, she would have stopped herself. The attempt she was making was needless given the fact that all she was doing was using her hands to rub the blood around her.

“Ivána…” Voice trailing off, Angel stood within the threshold of the doorway, gaze locked on Ivána as she continued to frantically clean her kitchen floor.

Crouching down he reached out to place his hand on her shoulder, his voice softly urging her to stop. As he touched her, she let out a shrill scream, and lashed out at Angel. Her body and mind were still locked in the fight of her life.

She mistook Angel for another one of David’s men, come to finish what Matteo had started.

“Please,” she begged, voice cracking as her sobs turned heavier, shaking her body further, “Please.”

“I’m here,” Angel murmured softly, attempting to soothe her, “it’s me… Angel.”

“I’ve got you.” He murmured again as he reached towards her, both arms open in attempt to pull her body towards his in an embrace.

She allowed him to take her, his heart shattering when her body went limp in his arms.

If you have stuck through with this part thank you so much! I am really excited to make this a series and worrying about it being a flop! Especially given this part doesn’t really have EZ it, merely mentions of him. I have honestly read and reread over this so many times it’s gotten to the point where I hate it lol. Please leave feedback (if you wish 😂) and pleeeease let me know if you are actually excited to see where this goes. Any guesses? Again, thank you so much if you have actually read all of this and didn’t give up! I appreciate you so much! 💞 I am truly sorry if this was boring!! It’s just the set up so pleeease stick around

TAGLIST (OPEN): @appropriate-writers-name @thesandbeneathmytoes @abby-splace @tartanbumsters @noz4a2 @sesamepancakes @montanaraed

[cheekygreenty]

Little Witch - Part 21

The Darkling x Reader

The atmosphere in the Palace was welcoming and enjoyable yet you couldn't help but dampen the mood of those around you. Your smiles were visible fake, your laughs as forced as the diplomacy of the evening. It was hard to focus on anything but the Queen's request, you could still feel her cold touch on your hands, could still hear her voice as if she was standing next to you. Some would say being in the presence of the Royals was a blessing by the Saints, but to you it was a sudden blight; a curse.

The duties and obligations you had were out the window now as you looked for the particular head of red flame hair, completely ignoring the Kerch ambassador and his slurring words of trade agreements.

Did Genya tell her General that the charming Lantsov Prince was soon to be wed to the Deputy of the Second-army? Or did she keep that part to herself? You had a feeling it was the latter given Aleksander's behavior earlier but what if he knew- What if his obedient spy told him everything and he was looking at your predicament as an opportunity, even though it would hurt you to the core and shatter your moral values. There's nothing he wouldn't do for more power.

'Deputy Y/L/N, I presume?' A man in a military uniform adorned with colorful medals approached you from the side, silently shooeing the Kerch man away and taking his place despite your obvious air of hostility. You were in no mood for diplomacy.

'The one and only.'

'So I have heard.' You could make out the smallest tinge of an accent reminiscent of a Fjerdan rhythm through the spoken words. His blonde hair and long beard tell-tale signs of his druskelle service and enough for your anger to flare. 'Tell me, what kind of Grisha are you?' You didn't miss the disgust dripping from the word as he forced it through his teeth. No doubt he hated himself for being here.

'A powerful one.'

'More powerful than the Sun-Summoner?'

'Much.'

'I won't forget that.'

'I hope you don't. Tell your people too, it'll save me some time and perhaps some lives.'

'Is that a threat Deputy?'

'Yes' He snorted and looked around the lively room.

'Fjerda isn't here to fight tonight, we're here to party. I thought it would be the same for you, no?'

'I don't keep peace with people who wish my kind dead.'

'Neither does your General. But the West, I'm not too sure they're on the same page'

You bit back the urge to smack the tall man stone-cold. The West was a tricky situation that had been playing heavily on your mind for as long as you could remember. Although it was Ravka, Grisha were no longer safe there. Zlatan was coercing with the Fjerdans to capture Grisha in exchange for military backup and as much as it angered you to keep the First-Army General alive, it would create a whole other problem if he was found dead.

'West Ravka is Ravka. All Zlatan is is a mere General of the First-Army. He's no King.'

'You would be surprised. People would listen to a stableboy if he spoke of truth and justice.'

'And would Fjerda back him up too?'

He smirked and gave a nod of his head in amusement at your raging eyes. 'You drüsje get so worked up over words. It's actions that matter.'

'Not here in Ravka. Remember where and what you are. Then think of what half of this room can do to you' Without so much as a goodbye, you walked away from him with a huff and continued looking for Genya. You hadn't even seen Aleksander make an appearance yet but you didn't think you wanted to see him, not after your conversation with the Queen.

We wish for you to marry my son

Every time you thought you had shaken the haunting request, it came back with a shiver up your spine. It went against everything you ever believed in. You hated the crown, the Lantsov line, you hated the Ravka they created. But this didn't feel like something you could reject. It wasn't a proposal, it was an alliance.

You turned your head to the doors and watched as Zoya clambered up the stairs in her stunning blue silk kefta. Behind her, a Suli performer climbed up on her silks as if it were all she'd ever known. Her body swung gracefully and smoothly, not batting an eyelid at all her observers. It was memorizing and distracting, something for which you were thankful.

'Haven't you got some Dukes and Ministers to babysit?' Zoya appeared beside you, eyeing up the empty glass in your hand.

'Let them roam free for the night'

'As long as they're not groveling over me'

'Because your presence is so much more captivating than the Sun-Summoners' You rolled your eyes and made your way to get a new, full, glass.

'Thank you for finally admitting it'

'Where's Genya Saffin?'

She made a face and took a glass to, bringing it up to her lips and taking a small sip.

'With Alina. Why?'

'Oh nothing, just some details to hash out about Marie attending dinner' You covered up. 'I spoke with a Fjerdan dignitary. He had no problem hiding that West Ravka is coming to their aid.' Zoya was a good soldier and a great tactician, if you were to tell anyone such sensitive information, it would definitely be Zoya.

'I overheard a Zemeni ambassador say they were spotted at Zlatan's rallies. He's raising his ranks whilst our own coffers run out. We can't afford a war with each of our borders'

'Try telling the King that' The Lantsov King. Nikolai's father. Nikolai.

'Saints are you alright?' Zoya looked at you with wide eyes, then to the broken glass crumbling in your hand. You had been clutching it so hard you managed to smash it and slice the palm of your hand.

'Oh umm- I need a moment' You disposed of the glass on a nearby table and basically ran to the nearest washroom. Crimson red blood dripped slowly from your fingers as you tried to keep it from staining your kefta while you closed the door behind you.

This was the first moment since your talk with the Queen where you were alone. Truly alone, no ambassador looming over your shoulder or a Duke at your side. Alexander, Alina, and Genya were still nowhere to be seen and the demonstration would begin shortly but all you wanted to do was stay in this tiny and stuffy room, shut off from everything. You washed your hand down with water, hissing in pain as the water tinted red and carried away the signs of injury. The quarters were quiet and calm, a stark contrast to the liveliness in the hall not often seen in the Little Palace.

The Little Palace tended to be quiet, but the Grand Palace was different. The Grand Palace. The winter home of the Lantsovs. Nikolai. Marriage.

The gentle tears came like a surprise, rolling down your face with grace. 'Fuck me' was all you could say as your head rested on your uninjured hand. You still felt exhausted and overwhelmed now even more so but you liked to think you hid it well. What good was a Deputy in emotional turmoil at a party full of political vultures?

The door to the small space suddenly opened and none other than Genya Saffin walked in with ease only she possessed. She looked at you in shame then fixed her attention on her shoes, not meeting your broken gaze.

'I take it you spoke with Tatiana?'

'Why didn't you tell General Kirigan?' You sniffed and wrapped your hand in a handkerchief, not bothering to wipe away the tears that you continued to cry.

'I felt it wasn't my place'

'Why?' Your voice cracked, slightly distracting you but the meaning to your question was obvious. Why me?

'She wished to squelch his bastardry rumors with your standing reputation.'

'Does he know?'

'She wrote him, but he has yet to respond.'

'Why not Vasily? Is it to make sure a Grisha never sits on the throne?'

She stayed quiet, toying with her sleeve. 'She says you have the air of a false Queen but the mind of a demon'

'Nothing new there' You laughed and straightened up, using the handkerchief on your hand to pat your face dry, diminishing any last sign of your weak moment away. 'Is Alina ready?' She looked at you with pure pity on her face, the compassion bursting on her face busting at its seams.

'Yes. Last I saw she was with the General.'

'Thank you Ms.Saffin'

***

You didn't mean to miss the demonstrations, but you took your time walking back to the main hall anyway. It was only when you saw the darkened room and searing light did you stop dead in your tracks at the door. Alina stood there on the podium, the image of a Saint. Her black and gold kefta shimmered in her light beautifully, illuminating her face and smile. She was glowing. Her powers had brought her not only luxurious life but good health, something everyone prays for. The black looked well on her too. It set her apart from the sea of bright keftas and gowns. In a Palace full of Grisha and powerful members of society, only Alina and Aleksander wore the black keftas, not even you wore it tonight and it made you feel surprisingly insecure.

He stood to her side, enthralled by her show of strength and skill. He was fascinated with her, it showed in his eyes and on his face but it definitely wasn't a facade. Even watching them from afar you could see that he looked at her as if she was his Sun, the only thing capable of lighting up his night sky.

You didn't know how to look at her. Everyone around you was worshipping her, whispering silent prayers to Sankta Alina: the Sun Saint, but you stayed frozen and still. You were never faithful to the Saints, they never listened to you, so what good would pledging your allegiance to Alina be if you knew Aleksander planned to extort her?

The whole room was kneeling now, heads bent down in symbols of submission yet you stood. No doubt you stuck out like a sore thumb, but a leader does not bow to anybody, not even the Saints. He momentarily turned his head to look at you but his eyes were far from the softness he gave Alina. They spoke more than his smooth words ever could yet this time the silent exchange did nothing to soothe your muddled head.

A tap on your shoulder caused you to break your burning gaze away from the summoners and to a guard instead.

'Deputy, we have 2 First-Army soldiers who claim to have found Morozova's Stag' The Stag. Just my luck.

'Tell the General, I have no business with the stag' You waved him off and returned your stare back to the room, scanning the crowd like a hawk when her eyes caught yours. Queen Tatiana was looking through to your soul, demolishing any confidence you could muster at that moment.

Marry my son.

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

Part 22

Taglist (tell me if you want to be added to the Little Witch taglist!!) @theonelittleone @searching-for-gallifrey @0-artemis @lostysworld @xceafh @fire-in-her-veinz @patdsinner33 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @wizardwheezes @aleksanderwh0r3 @tomhollandisabae @hotleaf-juice @justmesadgirl @exo-1204 @houseofdupree @oberonpascal @eireduchess @lunas1x1 @adoringb @grisha-of-shadow-bone @rosiethefairy @carlywhomever @allisjustok @keepdaydreamingbb @luciadiosa

[hb-writes]

You’re Not Me

1924 

At Tommy's approaching footsteps, Clara glanced up from the papers scattered across his desk. She met his eye for only a moment when he finally came through to the office, her lips forming a straight line before she released a tired sigh and quickly tucked everything away between the pages of her school book. "I'll just get out of your—"

“No.” Tommy put his hand up as he stepped up to the desk. "Stay. Sit."

"You haven't got any work to do?"

Tommy always had work to do, the type of work that had no real boundaries, keeping him late at the office and then keeping him busy again once he made it home. His sister seemed busy with something similar lately, work that never quite seemed to be through, always asking few more moments of attention, requiring over and over again for one to enjoy a few less hours of sleep.

And despite the size of Arrow House, somehow whenever Tommy was home, the two siblings were constantly negotiating over the same small bit of real estate, his office being the place where both of them preferred to pass the hours of seemingly endless work.

"No,” Tommy said, watching her fidgeting hands as they tapped along the edge of the book she still hadn’t released. “I have work."

Clara nodded and readied herself to stand. "Then I'll just—"

"You'll sit," Tommy answered, lowering himself into the chair across from her.

Clara complied, taking a swelling breath as she relaxed back into the chair, sinking into the cushions and loosening the muscles of her neck and shoulders for the first time since she perched herself there hours before.

"Frances tells me you've not been yourself."

"Tommy, I haven't done any—"

"No one's said you've done anything wrong."

She knew where the maid’s accusations came from, and wasn’t entirely surprised by them. Clara had been the slightest bit snappy on Frances's third reminder that she should eat something. But Clara’s defensiveness in response to the maids' reports was a mere reflex by this point. She knew Frances meant well and she knew Tommy had made it part of the staff's duties, the looking after, and the diligent reporting, even though Clara was nearly an adult.

"You can't be skipping meals, working all hours of the night—"

Clara raised an eyebrow. "You—"

"You're not me,” Tommy interrupted, fixing her with his steady gaze.

Clara scoffed, folding her arms over her chest and shifting her eyes beyond him to the fireplace. "I know.”

Clara was keenly aware of that fact, the fact that she wasn't her brother, wasn't nearly as clever or efficient or hardworking and she couldn't help but wonder why he was putting her through all the schooling when it should have been him.

Tommy had started paying for her school when he was only twenty-nine. He could have just as easily paid for himself to go back. He hadn't been too old. And he was certainly smart enough for the rigors of university. And if he had done that instead, neither one of them would be suffering through her waste of an education now.

Tommy stood up and crossed to the whiskey, pouring a small bit and turning back to his sister. He gently raised the cup in her direction, an offer he didn’t make to her often. He thought a small sliver of the stuff might calm her very palpable nerves.

Clara shook her head and Tommy poured a more generous amount into the glass before taking a sip. "Are you going to tell me what all this is about then? Frances said it's been all week."

Clara absently shook her head. "It's just an examination. It's silly."

Tommy nodded as he took another sip, watching Clara watch the fire.

It wasn't entirely clear who was responsible for the expectations Clara Shelby placed on herself. No one had ever exactly said it, putting words to what Clara accepted as her responsibility. Even so, it had somehow become ingrained in her mind that since Tommy was paying for it, because something was being sacrificed so she could play at being properly educated young woman, nothing less than top marks was acceptable. Her brothers and sister had never had a single expectation of doing well in school and not a single comment had ever been made to suggest she wasn't doing well, but Clara had somehow set herself to a different standard. 

"Well, I'm sure you've done enough."

The bags beneath Clara’s eyes suggested she had put in enough effort, but she shook her head. There weren't enough hours in the day for the girl to feel properly prepared. She had a mind for quotes and the analysis of literature, and she could work through numbers and equations as if it were the first language she had ever learned, but something about a list of battles and historical events and important persons evaded her, the specifics slipping through her mind and becoming more and more muddled with each run through.

"I should go through it once more, but I can go, let you have your desk back."

Tommy leaned forward, dropping his hand on top of the book she made to pull up into her arms. "What's the examination?"

Clara pulled her eyes from his hand to meet his gaze.

"History," she mumbled, pulling her fingers from the book and leaning back into the chair once again.

"Since when is history a problem?"

Clara gulped, her shoulders lifting in an unintended shrug. "I don’t know. Can't keep it straight. Can't keep up with—I should have just gotten a certificate like every—"

Tommy shook his head. "Enough of that."

Clara huffed. "It's true though, Tommy. You should've just gone back yourself. Or saved the money for Charles. That'd have been a better investment than—"

"And what would I need a degree for?'

Clara's mouth came open but Tommy was quicker. "You're not me, remember? You'll have this degree. And another after that if you want it."

Tommy watched his sister, her eyes trained once again on the fire, her heavy breaths attempting to hide a shaky sigh.

"You're doing fine," he said, his tone softer. Though Tommy hadn't asked after or even glanced at a report of her academic progress in quite some time, he knew it was the truth. He would know if the school had concerns, would likely receive a call on the very day even a suspicion of concern arose. He would never have to ask and Clara would never have the opportunity to keep it from him because people simply told him things of that nature now.

"I've never once doubted this."

Clara let her brother’s words work their way around her mind as her eyes settled on the clock on Tommy's desk. Her breath slowly shifted, matching the rhythm of the second hand before she mumbled something, not daring to meet his eye as she said it.

"Maybe you should.”

Tommy took a few breaths. He wasn't in the business of doubting himself, not in his professional life, and not in his personal life, either.

"I believe in you, Clara. Wouldn't send you there if I didn't think you can do it.” Tommy pulled the book forward as he said it, pulling out notes she'd created for herself and looking over the rows of neat handwriting. “So, we'll go through it one more time to settle your nerves, and then you're off to bed."

"I'm not ready to be quizzed." 

Clara leaned forward to pull the pages out of his grasp, but Tommy simply moved them out of reach. 

"You are. History's just a bunch of stories, eh? You're good with stories."

"Can't I just—"

"I'll give you the event. You tell me what it's about."

Clara didn't feel ready to run through the list, didn't feel nearly prepared enough to rattle off a list of dates and names and scenarios, but she could sense her brother wasn't going to budge, so she sighed and nodded once.

"Alright, then. Good luck."

Clara rolled her eyes. "I'll need far more—"

She never got the chance to finish the statement, cut off by Tommy calling out the first event on the list.

Clara's mind dropped the sarcastic comment as it searched for an answer, the details coming to her with a bit more ease as Tommy glanced back to the papers, reviewing the answers for himself, his eyes lingering there longer than necessary as Clara slowly found the courage to tell him what she remembered, her answer nearly word for word the description she'd scratched out on the page.

Tommy nodded once at her response, a light snort sounding as Clara eagerly waited on his next question, another opportunity to prove she was worthy of being believed in. It wasn't something Tommy needed any proof of, but he sensed Clara did. No matter what he told her, whether it be wishes of luck or insisting she had his confidence, Clara needed to verify for herself that it was well deserved. 

Tommy’s willingness to lead her through a lengthy list of questions at this time of night had more clout than his words. It did far more to prove her brother’s confidence because Tommy was a busy man. He worked all day only to come home and work all night and he wasn't the type to waste his precious time on something he didn't believe in.

-----

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

[howtosingit]

Fic: i want your midnights

“It’s late, you should be asleep.” * Carlos prepares to return to work.

1.6K | Also on AO3

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TK wakes up alone in their dimly lit bedroom. 

Moonlight shines through the balcony doors to his right, bathing the rumpled sheets next to him in pale hues and shadows. He runs his hand against them, letting out a sigh at their coldness. Squeezing his tired eyes shut for a just moment, he chooses to ignore the sharp, quick pain that radiates from his stapled skull in favor of getting out of bed to search for his missing human blanket.

He finds Carlos exactly where he thought he would: sitting on one of the bar stools, his head propped up on his hand as he leans over the counter, slowly scrolling through something on his laptop. TK can see his leg bouncing slightly, his foot tapping against the stool’s leg from where it’s resting on a support beam.

“It’s late, you should be asleep,” Carlos says without turning to look at him, his exhaustion clear in the tone of his voice.

TK merely scoffs in reply, stepping away from the bottom of the stairs and crossing the room to wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. “I could say the same thing about you, babe,” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss against Carlos’s neck before burying his face in his soft grey shirt to inhale his favorite scent.

“Couldn’t get my brain to shut up,” his boyfriend explains, shifting to run his hand along TK’s arm around his waist, his eyes still fixed on the computer screen in front of him. 

TK hums, glancing over to the screen as well, unsurprised to see the 783-page APD manual taking up half the screen, a document filled with notes about protocols filling the other half. He’s seen the manual a lot in the past two weeks, pretty sure that Carlos has been pouring over it every chance he gets during his time off work. 

His boyfriend had filled him in on all the details of his suspension the day TK was released from the hospital, immediately saving him from feeling any ridiculous guilt about Carlos taking time off to care for him after his incident. 

Instead, Carlos had decided to take some time off for himself following his one-week suspension. TK knows that the investigation, as well as his short hospital stay and Grace and Judd’s accident, has thoroughly rocked their world, and he’s thankful that Carlos willingly gave himself time to process and recover. 

Now, however, their days at home are numbered. TK gets his staples removed tomorrow, and he’ll have a few more days of recovery after that before he’s back to work. As for Carlos, he reports for his first shift the next evening, one that TK knows he’s incredibly anxious about.

Which is why TK is not at all surprised to find him studying the ADP manual at midnight in their kitchen instead of sleeping in their bed where he belongs.

Without a word, TK reaches forward to grip the corner of the laptop, slowly closing it. Carlos doesn’t object to the action; instead he just lets out a sigh, his wide frame shrinking as he collapses in on himself, almost like he’s shutting down along with the device. TK rubs his back for a moment before sliding his hand up his spine and running his fingers through the short, cropped hair at the back of Carlos’s head. Gently, he guides his boyfriend to face him, taking in the tiredness behind his favorite pair of beautiful brown eyes. He gives Carlos a small smile, waiting until the other man returns it, before he leans forward to press their lips together.

Carlos gasps against him, his body shaking as his mouth opens up to TK’s affection. There was little distance between them before, but now they cling tighter, their bodies pressed together as their arms wrap around each other. Carlos whimpers softly, and TK answers him by sealing their connected lips, allowing none of their love to escape. They’re both too tired for the kiss to become the start of something more, but that’s okay. It’s a conversational kiss, one where Carlos says “I need to know you’re going to always be here with me” and TK responds with “I promise you there’s nowhere else I will ever be.”

They still cling tightly to one another when their lips separate, each of them gasping for breath in the sliver of space between them. TK’s head spins, his nose dragging against Carlos’s as they find safety and security in their warm embrace.

“Come be my blanket?” he asks after a moment, keeping his eyes closed. 

Carlos doesn’t respond with words; instead, he shifts, slipping off the bar stool and reaching to take TK’s hand. He takes the lead, moving to flip off the light switch before beginning the ascent up the stairs, dragging a willing TK along behind him.

They don’t speak as they climb into bed, each of them taking their sides. TK turns to face the wall, Carlos slotting in behind him to cover him completely. His boyfriend slides his arm around TK’s waist to link their fingers over his stomach before resting his chin in his neck, fitting perfectly in the slot created between his collarbone and left ear as if he was designed to do so.

For others, the arrangement might feel too close, too restrictive. To TK, there is nothing better than feeling Carlos’s touch against every inch of his body. The perfect human blanket providing maximum security and warmth.

TK waits until Carlos’s breathing settles, dragging his thumb against the back of his hand, before he speaks again.

“Tell me about the manual?”

Carlos huffs, the puff of air pressing against TK’s neck. “You ask as if you don’t already know,” he says into TK’s skin.

“I mean, I have an idea,” TK admits, tightening his grip on Carlos’s hand, “but I want to hear it from you.”

Carlos nods against him, pressing his lips against TK’s stubbled jaw. 

“I’m scared to go back.” TK hears the way his voice shakes.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to mess up again...”

TK makes a noise of disapproval. “You didn’t mess up, Carlos. You were cleared to go back because you did the right thing.”

“Yeah…” Carlos trails off. “But, I keep thinking about how it felt when no one believed me.”

TK lets the admission hang in the silence, waiting for Carlos to continue.

“I’ve never really fit in with everyone else in the precinct, for a lot of reasons, but I’ve never been a total pariah before.”

“You’re a better officer than all of them, that’s their problem.”

“I think you’re biased, Ty,” Carlos argues weakly.

“Oh, really?” TK fires back, rolling to face Carlos directly while still keeping them as close as possible. “Then why have you been studying that manual for two weeks now?”

“I-” Carlos starts, his eyes shifting to look past TK. “I’m just reminding myself of protocols so I don’t get rusty.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Carlos assures him. “That’s all.”

“So you’re not mentally reviewing every single call that you’ve responded to in the past five years?”

“No, I-” He cuts himself off at TK’s look, letting out another huff as he rolls his eyes. “How did you know?”

“Because I know you, Carlos,” TK reminds him, bringing a hand up to cup his boyfriend’s face. “You’re a good man, one of the best I’ve ever met, and yet every day you try to make yourself better.”

He watches as tears fill Carlos’s eyes, his bottom lip quivering slightly as he stares at him.

“So, what did you find? Have you made any bad calls?”

“I haven’t always followed protocol,” Carlos admits, his voice thick with emotion.

“Do you regret that?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I did the right thing.”

“You’re sure?”

Carlos pauses, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as he considers the question.

“Yes,” he finally answers, his voice strong and certain.

“Me, too,” TK agrees, running his thumb along the curve of Carlos’s cheek. “I’m always sure of you.”

He watches the tear fall from the corner of his boyfriend’s eye and run along the ridge of his nose. He leans forward, pressing their lips together again.

“Trust yourself, Carlos,” he says when he pulls away to find more tears running down Carlos’s face. “Trust yourself the way that I trust you. The way that I know I will always trust you.”

Carlos lets out a quiet sob, no longer able to hold it inside. 

“Promise me?” TK asks, refusing to let it go.

His boyfriend nods. “I promise,” he whispers around another soft sob.

TK smiles, sliding his hand down to Carlos’s shoulder and pressing gently. His lover understands immediately, rolling over to face the door out to the balcony. TK slides in behind him, mirroring their earlier positions, content to now be a blanket for Carlos. He presses his lips to the other man’s cheek, transferring all of his love to him in every touch they share.

“I love you, Carlos, and I believe in you, with everything in me,” TK whispers into his ear, tightening his grip when Carlos shivers beneath him. “And in case you forget that, I promise that will be here every moment of every day to remind you, no matter what.”

Carlos responds by bringing their joined hands up to his mouth, pressing a wet, shaky kiss against the back of TK’s hand. He has no problem hearing the words that Carlos can’t speak.

They stay there, sheltered in their loving embrace, until they both sink into a deep, peaceful sleep that they only ever manage to find in each other’s arms.

[blazekurumu]

Miraculous Analysis: Poor Little Rich Kids

Greetings Miraculous fandom,

Season four has come and gone. We have confirmation of season five coming out this summer. I decided to start a small series analyzing the show and all the little bits and pieces that make it so unique.

In today’s breakdown, we will discuss the trope of the “rich kids that have problems” and apply them to the children of miraculous who fall under this umbrella. We’ll go over the personalities, motivations, characterization, and how I feel they are included in the show and their overall impact.  

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Adrien Agreste:

Here’s the secondary protagonist of the show and one whom everyone seems to worship the ground he walks upon. Adrien has shown himself to be a very compassionate boy with values and motives around pleasing people, making them feel good, and making allies and friends in order to not feel lonely. He follows every order his father or other parental like figures in his life tells him. When in his superhero alter-ego, he shows off his true feelings and isn’t afraid to flaunt his skills, flirt with his partner, and feel inferior whenever she includes other heroes. With the power of destruction, he is easily one of the most powerful miraculous users in the show.

So why does he feel so one-dimensional?

True, as a fandom, we speak so highly of Adrien and never want to place any blame on him. If Ladybug rejects him, we want to pet him and make him feel better. If he feels replaceable, then we point out how Ladybug made him feel this way. Any ill actions that Adrien has committed get swept under the rug in favor of blaming our true main character. Have we all been blinded by this so called “sunshine child” that we forget that we are supposed to see the faults in both of our mains? Now that we learn that Adrien is a sentibeing, we are more inclined to place our sympathy upon him since he was created to be perfect. 

Therein lies the problem; when you give so much to a character who never has to suffer, why should I, as the viewer, feel bad for him? Things are going to work out in the end, he’ll get the girl, he’ll save the day, and maybe the show will revive his mother or whatever. In another show, people would call Adrien a brat for some of the ways he’s acted around Ladybug/Marinette. Instead of fantasizing about what he could be, we need to take off those rose tinted glasses and face his flaws. 

Chloe Bourgeois:

Well...let me get this out of the way first; I didn’t want a Chloe redemption arc. I felt like every show needs a mean girl character type to bring balance with our main female lead. Chloe came from a household that is pro “spare the rod, spoil the child” method of parenting. It’s the constant coddling, constant praise, and constant attention seeking behavior that we’ve come to know with those kinds of characters. So when season two was building up for her to be a “good” girl, I merely rolled my eyes. I know Chloes in the real world and when you give them exactly what they want, they tend to either be better or get worse. A lot of people had issues when she became laughably evil in season four and then teamed up with Lila. 

Well what did you expect from a girl who’s never been told no for her own life?

I’m surprised to find how many people defend her toxic behavior and abhorrent relationship with others. Did they want Chloe to be a hero because it would “fix her attitude” or did they just want her to a hero cause of this new trend of redeemable characters? I dislike Chloe and her elitist views make for good commentary on behavioral development. Had she received the proper discipline and attention as a child, would Chloe be a vastly different character? Her bad traits outweigh her good ones though, making it hard for someone to feel bad for her. Sure, she can be self-less...when she wants to. She can think about others...when it benefits her. She’ll work on a team...if she doesn’t have to do work. How can I like someone who has the capability to show me she can do good, but continues to relapse into her old habits?

Kagami Tsuguri:

Kagami is an example of sheltered parenting and placing high expectations on children. However, unlike with Adrien where it feels like the usual, the show surprises me by adding her motivation to develop friendships and meaningful relationships. At first, Kagami came off as a rude individual with blunt remarks and gave everyone the cold shoulder. Then she started becoming an Adrien love interest and started a friendship with Marinette. I believe the relationship she had with Marinette to be better than the one she attempted with Adrien. There was no chemistry between the two. Her good traits, however, outweigh her bad ones. We’ve seen her get jealous, be opposed to lying, and hesitate to bond due to social differences. Going back to her home life, we only know about her mother and their family reputation for being swordspeople. Her superhero side is shown to be quite headstrong, but loyal to a fault and trustworthy. Even with little to no knowledge about her, Kagami comes off as one of the more likable rich kids.

How is it that a female who comes from the same background as Adrien be a more fleshed out character in civilian form? Is it her heritage? Is it her true friendship with Marienette? The way she puts herself out there to help others and improve her skills? Her impact, while just a splash in a larger puddle, made huge waves despite the hate she seems to get from the fandom.

Felix Graham de Vanily:

Here we reach the climax of the anti-hero. Felix was introduced to be the twin cousin of Adrien and shown to be somewhat of a sneaky person. He impersonates Adrien, figures out the secret identity of Hawkmoth, tricks Ladybug into trusting him, and beats all the heroes at their own game. Sure he’s snide, conniving, and tricky, but there’s some good underneath the layers. He adores his mother, does care about Adrien, and is even shown sympathizing when his fellow sentibeings are being destroyed.

I’m actually quite neutral to his character. I haven’t seen what he could do when he really lets loose and his motives are still foggy. Do I get angry at him for causing the end of the world without knowing? Do I cry for him because he’s a character under stress and circumstances that he’s trying to control? Felix is vague, not much to him and kinda underwhelming until something pops up later. Knowing him, there will be a lot of changes in the next season should he return in style. 

Please note that this is my critique on the characters and take it with a grain of salt. I love Miraculous and want to continue to look at some of the smaller details within the show.