#it is almost ridiculous how strong the chemistry is

[petew21-blog]

Romania dreaming

It has been a few months since I met George on the site for long distance dating for gays. He was from Romania, kind of cute twinkish guy. Never had much luck. I honestly can't say why I went on that website, maybe I was just bored, but it turned out as the best decision of my life.

It was strange cause from the start, we knew we had chemistry between each other, but the distance made it complicated. We often sex-chatted on the website. About what we would do to each other and so.

One day I told him I wanted to jerk off furiously, because of what he wrote, but my rommate was unfortuantely in the room. Then just a strange idea popped into my head. "What if you'd swap into his body? Then you could be with me." George told me about his Romania ancestor magic skills he had, but he did just some small parlor tricks from time to time. The bigger spells were harder. He needed a friend for that. A friend that I could be. And that I could benefit from too

George loved the idea, but was scared at first. "What if the other one in my body ruins my life while he is me? I can't let that happen."

"Ok, you know what. Find anyone hot from your life that you would like me to swap into and I will come to see you. Then you'll swap me back and I'll see what the other person did. Maybe the spell makes them think they're us. That would be neat" I suggested

George was more confident now and even sent me some photos of his straight colleagues from work, so that we could see if they behaved differently after swapping back. I immediately set my eyes on Daniel. His hot, absolutely 100 % straight, colleague who worked out. Insanely hot.

We both agreed. I got ready in my bed. I told George to start the spell at 21:21. I looked at the clock and still had some minutes left. I tried to fall asleep. Maybe Daniel would be asleep in my body and it would be easier. Then it hit me. Strange nauseating feeling and the light

I was standing in the locker rooms. Cold win from the AC on my bare torso. Bare torso? Holy shit. I am shirtless in the locker rooms of some gym. That's something I never expected to happen to me. I looked down. First thing that caught my eye were the shorts. Then I looked at my beautiful muscular torso. My new arms. Then I caught my new reflection. In the mirror was the guy that I saw in the photo. Daniel. "Daniel" I said aloud. His voice sounded so strong and commanding. If he told me with this voice to get down on my knees and suck him, I would. Speaking of sucking I looked in my shorts. Nice flacid shaved cock. "Gotta find out how big you are when you're hard big guy". His phone vibrated. Fuck, I almost forgot I was suppose to send Daniel proof of swapping bodies

I sent the photo to George's instagram. Then I wrote:"This is what you'll be looking up at tonight while you suck me off"

"Peter? I can't believe it. You're really him. You have to come over!"

I wanted to get his stuff and leave immediately, but the some of his friends got to the locker and ridiculed me for being a pussy and leaving without lifting. I don't know if it was Daniel's personality or something else in me, but I felt like I had to prove them wrong. And then I said things I didn't even know. Shit about cars, girls, FUCKING GIRLS. I even lifted without knowing how. This body was on autopilote.

I left early without saying anything. Bunch of messages from George waiting for me and being stressed out what happened. I explained and asked for his adress of his dorms.

The twink I used to talk to late at night was waiting for me in black compression shorts and black shirt.

"Heey...." was all I let him say out loud. I agressively pressed him against the wall and kissed him. Tongues twisting around each other, my teeth biting his lips, hands feeling up and down his body. Slowly we were working our way to his bed. I set him down and took of my shirt. He was visibly shocked, that his work colleague was now in front of him stripping down. I whip out my hard dick and pushed it into his face. He obliged immediately and worked his way with his tongue around the bright purple head of my new dick. He was working it like a pro, trying to swallow it whole, not gagging. But that didn't matter, I had to fuck his ass. Now.

I turned him around, not even stripping him, only pulling a bit of his shorts from his ass. I spit into my hand, got it on my dick and pushed myself in. He screamed out. But I didn't care, I just pused inside and kept thrusting. He was so tight. His ass was so tight around my shaft. I shot my cum inside of him. Pulling out and immediately searching for clothes to leave.

"You're leaving?!"

I snapped out. "Fuck, jesus George I am so sorry. I don't know what happened. I think Daniel's personality still had effect on me. I didn't mean to be so rough on you. Please forgive me."

"It's ok. It did hurt at first, but it was worth it. I still can't believe you're him now. And I lost my virginity with Daniel who I crushed over for years! That's so amazing!"

"Wait, this was your first time? But, you told me all the stories. Was none of it true? Jesus, George, maybe if I knew I would have fought Daniel's personality harder."

"I didn't expect we would me irl. I honestly didn't expect the spell would wrok, but here we are. Daniel is here. In my room. Wait, I have a great idea!" he started casting a spell

"Wait!" I wasn't fast enough to stop him.

But now I was looking at Daniel. From his point of view. Already feeling more submissive than in Daniel's body. The personality of the original body truly does have an effect on the one swapped inside.

George was now posing in front of the mirror. His eyes focused on his biceps and all the tense muscles.

I was now in George's twink body. I could feel his ass hurting from the sex with Daniel's body. I could feel the cum in his ass. I felt the attraction towards Daniel's body. But I didn't feel right like I did in Daniel's. I wanted to swap back.

George now got to his new dick, which was already throbbing hard again. How that's possible, I have no idea. But as soon as he started jerking his new cock he looked at me and I felt his predator eyes on me. Fuck, this is gonna hurt

The next morning I woke up sleeping next to George still in Daniel's body. We didn't sleep much tonight, but don't get me wrong, while the sex felt great I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was in the wrong body. As soon as George woke up I told him about my dysphoria with his body. He got mad. I could tell that Daniel's personality took over. And then few seconds later I found myself in my original body again already in my university lecture.

For several weeks George didn't answer my messages. I could only see as his Tumblr profile had more and more photos of Daniel's body in the gym etc.

Not only was I worried, but I had to admit to myself that I was extremely jealous. I was in that body first. I need it more than he did

I kept spamming him with messages and then one day he answered. The message said:"I need to fuck this guy in gym. I'll swap u with him tonight. Be ready". Man, I think it's better to have one body close to Daniel's rather than be far from him

He did as he said in the message. I woke up again in the bright gym. Now lifting. I proceeded to not cause suspicion.

This guy I was now in was really handsome. More muscular even than Daniel I dare to say. I could feel that his personality was not as strong as Daniel's. He seemed more kind in my eyes, but who knows who he is. I may not know before George tells me. I saw him on the other side of the room eyeing me. Stalking me even. I left the body on autopilote and finished the workout. His body was probably used to take photos after so I let him

Maybe I could stay in his body. He is really hot. And more handsome too. But I don't know. He is the type I would love to have as a boyfriend, not to be him.

I followed George to the showers. We were eventually the last people in the gym. I got into the lockers. Patiently waiting for him to speak.

"You're Mihai now. He's the owner of the gym. So we got the place for ourselves. Let's hit the showers"

I followe him. Mihai, what a nice name for this guy. I don't feel that Mihai is someone who would just follow others and do what they tell him to. Maybe I figured out how to overpower the personality of the person.

We got naked and stared at each other.

"Nah, this is wrong." and yet again he proceeded to perform his ritual

I was now Daniel again and was looking at Mihai. Now the reality of how he acted hit him. And as I suspected before, Miahi was irl a very nice guy. "I am so so so sorry Peter. I didn't know that Daniel had such a strong personality. I tohught I could fight it, but most of the time I just found myself being the passenger, but still enjoying his life. It's so weird. But I feel better now as Mihai. Maybe you should stay in Daniel's body for now. I'll learn to control the personality of others, just as you did and then we can safely try to swap with other people. What do you think?"

"I think" I said as I turned on the water in the showers "that you need a post workout shower. And that George and Mihai need to get to know themselves better" I smiled at him kneeling down to the nice hairy cock already waiting for my mouth

Few months later

Are you asking if we stayed in their bodies? Well yeah, kind off. We made their bodies our main ones. We got them to live together, start a relationship and now even if we swapped into other bodies Daniel and Mihai bodies continue what we established. Romantic right?

Me and George often take trips to some new locations travelling around the world, enjoying life of other people. Most of the time we try to find some straight friends travelling to foreign locations, trying to score some pussy there and slightly changing their vacation plans. Heh, there was this one time where we didn't even exit our hotel room. For a week. Crazy right? That was wild. But maybe I'll tell that story another time and tell you how our life in Mihai and George is proceeding

But now we are in the bodies of these two gym bro friends, waiting for the gay bar to open. See you

A story from messages we came up with while body swap roleplaying with @hunkpossesion

I changed the plot a bit, but still the hot bodies remained.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - We Are Surprised

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

May 2024 Wk 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Godday (Sat YT) ep 2 of 12 - Oh it’s fucking great. It could all go horribly south, of course. But it’s awesome at the moment. Messy gay and one of them is already pining? Got to love it. Including the negotiation.

I’d love a good sex negotiation, it’s almost as good as linguistic negotiation. This show makes me happy. All that said, it’s moving awfully quickly for a 12 episode run. Not sure what’s gonna happen on the backend. 

My Stand-In (Thai Fri iQIYI) ep 3 of 12 eps - I’m still enjoying it but I’m ready for him to die again now. 

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 5-6 of 16 - Toey is going after the Namgoong Award for Best Wingman this year, I see. And in exchange, literally all the rest of the friends are going to be his wingmen. It’s adorable. I also like that Phuwin got to be the aggressor for the first kiss. I like that this is mostly just boys flirting, and not really any prescribed seme/uke stuff. In general, I think these last two episodes I improved the show in my regard a lot. But then middles are always GMMTV's strong point, it’s whether they can stick the landing that’s an issue.

Two Worlds (Thurs iQIYI) ep 9 of 10 - Apparently we have the Frodo walking into Mordor episode. Also the sides were cute. In Thailand (like Taiwan) all gangsters are gay, apparently. 

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 5 of 12 - It’s cute but very cringe and dorky. Silly singing. Terrible pickup lines. Still, that was a ridiculously charming confession.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues YouTube & Viki) ep 12fin - Oh so good. Very few shows that feature one-sided long-term pining of this kind can resolve the unevenness of that power dynamic into a more stable and equal footing with such class. We really got to see the object of the desire turn completely around and become equally besotted. An age gap, stepbrothers trope like this one is hard enough but at this length? Very well acted boys! Unknown managed to show the older brother softening in a believable way that’s pretty unusual in narratives of this type.

All in all?

Unknown is a wonderful BL with a pitch perfect portrayal of long term pining, age gap, and the stepbrothers trope. The acting and chemistry are ON POINT (especially from the leads) which made the resulting characters very believable. When it dwells in intimate family drama, it's stunning. It's slightly less successful when it leaves the home and goes gritty. It's few flaws are the result of curtailed length. It could have used more breathing room to deal with side plots, characters, and companion character development. The editing was occasionally choppy and packed with flashbacks that broke the emotional tension. Still, those are mere quibbles. This is an excellent show that I know I'm going to be recommending a lot. 9/10

Finally Taiwan hits another one out of the park.

About.

Damn.

Time.

Blue Boys (Korea Sat YouTube) 4 of ? - Oh it’s so good, and they are so tortured and it’s just charming and I can’t EVEN. I just love it. I love that Korea is giving us this right now. You’re an idiot if you’re not watching this show, it’s truly spectacular.

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Well well well Japan. I see how you kneed. I enjoyed this episode better than the first two, and I am way into our Bad Boy second lead. I can already feel myself succumbing  to the syndrome. Next week = the obligatory onsen ep! 

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - Omg most adorbs failed linguistic negotiation. 

Boys Be Brave AKA Roommates (Korea Thurs Viki) ep 5-6 of 8 - I love the side couple. It’s a shame we’re finally getting some truly great class conflict and it’s relegated to crumbs.

Love is like a Cat (Korea Mon Viki) eps 11-12fin - Well that was a waste of time. There was no connection (of any kind) between the leads. The language thing was hella weird and likely added to that. The past history of the Korean character was necessary to know from the start, its lack throughout, meant there was no depth to his character. They tried to tackle all the interesting stuff in the final 2 eps. AND they even killed the dog. I never thought I'd type this sentance, but Peach of Time is better.

I don’t know. 5/10 I guess

All in all:

A disappointing lackluster and barely cohesive BL about a jerk Thai actor (speaking Thai) who has to work for a Korean animal rescue cafe as a publicity stunt. It's difficult to believe the leads like each other, let alone fall in love. The acting is stiff, the characters lack motivation and cohesion, and there's not much to recommend this show beyond some pretty visuals. Also, they kill the dog. All in all, a disappointing and unsuccessful joint venture that mostly highlighted that between Thailand and Korea the style of BL, narrative approach, language cadence, and acting techniques all clash.

It's airing but...

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

You Made My Day (Thai YT) ep 1 of 5 - mini series staring the I Will Knock You couple Tar & Bom, started but I couldn't find it. I also didn't try very hard.

A Balloon's Landing (Taiwan movie) trailer - A frustrated Hong Kong writer, Tian Yu, meets a Taipei street gangster, Xiang (Fandy Fan from HIStory2: Crossing the Line), and the two of them embark on a journey to find the Bay of Vanishing Whales. Along the way, they discover unexpected twists and turns and close bonds, which brings out the message that "there is always someone like you in this world who is waiting for you. This released to cinemas in Taiwan, no word on international release.

Memory in the Letter (Thai WeTV) - it's done, tell me if I should bother?

Fan's Only Corner

Someone asked in a comment (which tumblr promptly ate) about group sleepovers in BLs. It's happened a few times but the only one I can recall being noted and particularly lovely (and VERY college) was in Nitiman. There's also one in Lovesick.

Next Week Looks Like This:

5/16 Blossom Campus (Korea Thurs Gaga & iQIYI) ep 1 of 6 - Strongberry doing classic uni BL! Weeee!

5/19 OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ????) ep 1 of 10 - LeeFrank are back - not unlike the undead (as it were). But how do we feel about it? Unsure given their track record.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

May Releases

VBL (Taiwan) is releasing 4 'Special Episode' epilogues to their 4 2023 shows every Friday this month on Gagaoolala, Viki & Viu. Not sure on search terms or how to find these. (Or, frankly, if we need them.)

5/10 – You Are Mine

5/17 – VIP Only

5/24 – Stay By My Side

5/31 – Anti Reset

5/25 The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer - HoTae & DongHee are back but unfortunately not in a cinema near me. Side couple from Unintentional Love Story, same actors, same character names. I love them. I NEED TO SEE THIS.

5/28 My Biker 2 (Thai movie YT?) - trailer

5/31 The Time of Huannan (Taiwan movie) - May not be BL

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

LOVE a smile kiss. Love it. Two killer kisses from PondPhuwin. Elegantly done, boys. Thank you very much.

I love them a lot all of a sudden. (All We Are)

It's hard to give MaxTul a run on their crown as best bodies in BL, but boy these two are giving it their, erm, best. (Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[hauntedtacocalzoneshepherd]

Dreamworks posted a video for pride month about Yasammy and some comments are just ridiculous. I know this isn't exclusive to them and I know I should have been over these idiots by now but it still makes my blood boil. I mean I get it you are a homophobic bigot but how can you belittle their love and chemistry and call it forced(Not a single interaction between Sammy and Yaz felt forced to me. Not when they were friends or girlfriends. Their scenes had a purpose from the beginning) or say they were better as friends when it has been shown and stated over and over again that they were almost always meant to be lovers. How can these people completely disregard the obvious love and affection they had for each other. Their romance was a beautiful saga that certainly didn't happen in one season. Yasmina's feelings didn't appear out of nowhere. You can't tell me they haven't noticed that Yaz is a completely different person with Sammy since the beginning of CC. How much she cares about her. I mean how many times did we see Yasmina make heart eyes to Sammy before we even got close to season 5. Same goes for Sammy. She was clearly falling for Yaz with every interaction they had. Also I think it shows a lot that most of their memorable scenes from CC happened before they became a couple. Throughout the entire CC series they've built a strong foundation for a relationship and in CT we saw that thanks to the strength of their bond they can solve any issues they might have. Anyway my point is their story is beautiful, natural and well written. And I am really sick of people claiming otherwise. If you don't want to see it then don't watch. I really don't understand ppl who get out of their way to make a rude comment. Sorry for ranting I just needed to let it all out.

[ocn-blvd]

pink bubblegum.

author’s note: was listening to this song while high and couldn’t help myself :3! enjoy <3

warnings: smut, mentions of alcohol consumption, smut, confusing situationship, and smut

the hard candy clanked against your teeth as you sexually hummed at the cruel sucking at your center. you mindlessly followed the slow rhythmic flow of her tongue on the pastel lollipop in your mouth; even catching the spelling of her name on your clit.

the sugary treat matched the color of your skirt and long socks that went past your knees. your nipples hardened to the air that nipped your bare chest, your free hand pinching the bud and massaging the lump of fat from time to time.

it wasn’t unusual for you to be in this position - you under her as she fucked you ‘til you were dumb - but it wasn’t as often as you’d like, as much as you hated to admit it. it was recently when you two started having casual sex; the first time was while the two of you had alcohol in your veins, but you kept doing it despite being involved with someone.

the situationship you shared with another woman was… complicated. no matter how hard you tried, you weren’t receiving the same amount of love you were trying to give. it was exhausting trying to justify and make up unjust reasonings for the erratical behavior out of the sake of what felt like ‘love’.

it didn’t help that this woman cheated on you while you were vacationing in the cold mountains with your family. you only found out when she posted a picture with the two of them on her main snapchat story and not the private story she took you out of. it wasn’t like you two were in an established relationship - but ever since then, things have been rocky.

and of course, ellie knew every major and minor detail of this ridiculous mess of a ‘relationship’. she was the first person you’d think to call and rant to, and she’d always listen on the other line, mentally telling herself that she could treat you so much better. she’d always ask tell you to come over so she could physically comfort you.

when she opened the door to your disheveled eyes that were filled with liquid, staining your face… let’s just say she wasn’t too pleased about it.

she hated seeing you so blue and it contrasted her red; angry at the woman who played with your precious heart and feelings. she knew you didn’t deserve it— and she also knew you were too good for that woman… so why haven’t you left her for her.

it started with ellie engulfing you in her strong arms that wrapped tightly around you, and her head atop of your shoulder, smelling your bubblegum scent that blinded her senses. it was addicting… you were addicting.

she pressed gentle kisses behind your ear and slowly pecked her way to one of your many sweet spots she knows. your breath hitched - just like she expected. she wanted to make you feel better at any cost, and it worked like a charm.

out of all of the women ellie attracted and flirted with her, you caught her eye. you two met at a summer party almost a year ago as dina introduced you to each other; from then on, the sexual chemistry between the two of you was sensible from a mile away.

she liked how you responded to her being rough. pulling at your hair, smacking your ass, and gripping your throat always got a kick out of you. she only found out about this kink when accidentally pulling on your strands in the heat of the moment. when she heard the sigh you made, she dropped her hand. and without disconnecting the slobbery kiss, you connected her hand to the back of your hand again, making her groan as she tugged even harder.

“bet i make you feel so good compared to her…” her words muffled against you as she grated her teeth over your sensitive spot, sending a shiver down your spine and an arch to your back. her mouth, cheeks, and chin were covered in your slick as her face was dug so deep into you. she wanted to suffocate in your scent… in your taste.

“yes- ngh! you… really do..!” you shamelessly cried as you let go of a choked moan, moving the lollipop away from your mouth and gripping ellie’s hair with your free hand, holding her hair up. she studied your face that contorted in pleasure. your eyes occasionally opened to look down at her before rolling to the back of your head.

she hated hearing your cries of sadness but couldn’t get enough of your cries of pleasure. she’d much rather a tear running down your leg than your pretty cheeks - unable to keep her head away from between your thighs.

her hands gripped at your marked inner thighs, causing them to turn a darker shade of purple. she flicked her tongue over your wet clit, that’s overstimulated from your previous orgasms, before sliding the sore muscle into your pussy, moaning at the taste of you. you bucked and rolled your hips against her as she reached her hands to grip your hips, holding you still.

you whimpered and whined at her harsh grip - the pain added on to the pleasure as you moaned a moan ellie could only imagine to hear from you. it will always be her favorite song.

when she was done, she planted smooches on your marked thighs up to your marked neck. you didn’t even bother to complain about them, skipping the possibility of getting caught.

her hazy green eyes dashed over your fucked out face, using her slender thumb to wipe away a tiny tear from the corner of your eyes. she smirked as she stared at you, eventually looking at your lips.

“you look perfect,” she affirmed to you in a hushed tone, letting you know your worth. she always dropped small compliments on you and letting you know how glad she is to have you around.

she daydreamed about moments like this - about all the sexual acts she wanted to do to you. though she didn’t know how you actually felt about her. she didn’t know whether you two had something or were just each other’s flings - and the fear of telling you how she really felt consumed her every time she’d think to ask. or maybe you were just using her for pleasure…

but all her worries lessened in this moment where she had you, laying in her bed, being a moaning mess because of her. if that wasn’t a win, she didn’t know what was.

[lilislegacy]

i saw your post about percy and annabeth kiss in boo and how you think it’s ridiculous that people think percy and annabeth are better as friends. well guess what? i’m one of those people. i hate how the main male and female leads are always forced together and that’s exactly what riordan did too. percy and annabeth would have been so much stronger if they had stayed this super amazing platonic friendship where everyone thinks they are going to date but they are like nah we just besties. and i think seeing that is a lot more powerful than just another badly written teenage romance. their chemistry feels forced and unauthentic, they obviously get annoyed with each other way too easily to be in a relationship, and they become dangerously co-dependent. and fine, maybe they would date for a few years since everyone would make them feel like that’s what they are supposed to do. but then i think they would realize that they are better off as friends and don’t actually have romantic attraction for each other. and that’s exactly what i think would happen if the author was true to their characters and not just writing for himself. but honestly i think there is a solid chance that they are both asexual, which there is a TON of evidence of, and wouldn’t even want to date in the first place. so sorry not sorry but percy and annabeth are definitely better as friends, and the people who don’t get strangely obsessed and attached to a basic and forced romantic pairing can see all the evidence in the books as to why.

ok this has been sitting in my inbox for a bit. i have almost answered it in several different ways, one being just saying “that’s an opinion!” but i think im just going to react to it honestly.

you have every right to believe whatever you want to believe. your imagination is your own. go crazy. or don’t. but it’s your own opinion and you have every right to have it.

however, to openly claim that the author isn’t staying true to their characters is not your right, because he is the one who invented them. they are his creations, so he’s actually the only one who knows exactly what’s right for them. the characters are based off of him and his wife who he has been married to for many many years - who are still very much in love with each other to this day - so i think percy and annabeth are actually one of the most authentic romantic pairings of all time. i am sorry that you don’t pick up on their naturally written chemistry and attraction for each other, because i think it’s a very important part of the story. it’s a very important part of their characters and their actions.

and you are absolutely right about one thing: they are best friends and love each other very much in a platonic way, and we DO see that a lot! it’s very clear that they are best friends first, and have that as a strong foundation. but they also have more there. they have strong romantic, and some implied sexual, feelings on top of it. and that’s okay too. it’s possible to have both a strong friendship and a passionate romance. that’s what makes them such an incredible pairing, in my opinion. they grow together. they start off as platonic friends and turn into young adults who are very much in love. it’s very natural, especially given everything they go through together.

so you can totally hc them as being just friends. thats okay! but i don’t think it’s okay to call other people wrong or blind or “strangely obsessed and attached” for believing in a romantic pairing that is very much supposed to be romantic.

thank you for the ask. have a nice day :)

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Peggy Carter

She’s a victim of Stucky mainly bc of the way marvel used her to give Steve an ooc ‘happy ending, but I know I’ve seen some posts calling her toxic or something it was 2019 so In CAT:FA, she’s introduced as a confident British agent. She has some chemistry w Steve Rogers (although more fans (on tumblr at least) preferred Steve and Bucky). She wasn’t just *woman who is strong*, but also had some emotional depth, with an actual range of emotion outside of angry and sad. She had a spin-off show, and she just continued to fight Russians and misogynists, even having chemistry in an almost wlw relationship and an eventual marriage to a famous shield agent. She went through character development and just was an awesome character. Then you know what endgame does? It has Steve Rogers travel back in time and take all of that development away. Most fans were mad at Marvel, and a lot were mad at Steve, but some fans threw Peggy completely under the bus, saying that they traded the (fanon?) queer ship/(canon) friendship for a bland love interest, which, um, she was so much more then that? I remember people really disliking Peggy, which isn’t fair to her character when she is/was so much more then that.

Peggy is vilified by people who ship Steve with his war comrade Bucky Barnes. I’ve even seen people claiming baselessly that she was secretly HYDRA the whole time. 

She gets in the way of stucky which OBVIOUSLY gives people, most of them women themselves, the right to be ridiculously misogynistic. Dismissing her character arc, traits, presence in the movies and her part in Steve Roger's life, saying she is insignificant on the ground of very subjective readings is one thing, but outright calling her 'just some old coochie', among other colourful, wonderful things, is another. They also keep reaching to villainize her (saying she's a literal nazi which she's not) and cancel her so their ship is somehow made more valid for it, erasing the competition as it were.

Sharon Carter

she “got in the way” of stucky shippers, in the comics she’s like the love of Steve’s life 

When she first appeared she was unfairly treated by fans for "getting in the way" of the Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes ship. A shame because she's a really good character. I'd talk more about how unfairly Sharon, and her actress Emily VanCamp, have been treated by the fanbase and the creators, but that's a different story.

She and Steve Rogers were meant to have a romantic relationship, but the entire fandom and many Stucky fans dislike her because it wasn’t a good ship. I think she isn’t the best but she doesn’t deserve so much hate

[clairecrive]

Hi

I wanted to request a bane x reader fanfic where bane don't wear a mask and he come come across a girl avery young one at that and they have such strong chemistry and then they fall for each other of course bane is reductant at first but then he abandoned his job as a mercenary to be with her and spend time with her.they go shopping they go to beach they like to devour each other they simply can't get enough. Thanks alot

"Guy for That"| Bane x reader

A/N: hello, hello! I know it's been a while, but I hope this will count as tagging, and you'll find yourself back to this. This kind of picks up in the middle of things but the context is what you asked for <3 It is also inspired by "Guy for That" by Post Malone. Hence the name lol. Enjoy ✨

(okay but how cute is he in this gif omg??)

I'm pretty good at breakin' down a heart But pickin' up the pieces is the hard part She's searchin' for someone who's gonna build it back But I ain't got a guy for that

Before meeting Bane, y/n had never believed in that portrayal of love where the two were inseparable and never had enough of the other. She had always loved her me time and, so far, had never been with someone that made her want to spend all of her time with them.

However, when a certain beefy bald man came into her life, she finally understood.

It almost embarrassed her to admit but she always wanted more. More time together, more of his attention, more of his care, more of their conversations, more of their quiet moments, more of his hands on her, more of them laying in bed talking about everything and nothing.

Just more of him.

The only thing that appeased her embarrassment was that Bane seemed on the same wavelength. He always came back for more. She needn't ask for it.

It had been the most magical months of her life.

It hadn't been with its challenges, though. Living with a mercenary wasn't exactly a piece of cake. But they had handled everything together.

So when Bane came home one night and asked her to sit because they needed to "talk", she knew it was just another hurdle they had to cross.

Never would she have imagined, though, that his reason was... ridiculous. Simply put, it was absolute nonsense and y/n wouldn't stand for it.

"Unbelievable," y/n scoffed.

"What?" Bane's temper was rising as well. Gesturing vaguely to himself, "Did you think I'd be your prince charming?"

"You know I don't give a flying fuck about princes and princesses, Bane!" She said, her voice raising at the absurd implication.

"You're a fucking mercenary, for fuck's sake. Do you take me for a fool?"

"If you think of me as someone who could put your heart back together, then yes. You might as well be one."

Despite being filtered by his mask, Bane's voice had the uncanny ability to portray every shade of emotion. So, y/n knew when it was flat and monotone, like in this instance, it was on purpose.

"You know what, Bane?" she chose to be the bigger person and ignore his insult. "I'm not having this conversation with you. Either you have a valid reason for wanting to break up or I refuse, okay? You cannot break up with me."

"Being concerned for your safety and questioning the future of this relationship is a valid reason to have this conversation." He quipped.

"Using your line of work is a useless argument because I already know, don't I? Knew it from the beginning actually."

"Should I question your sanity as well then?"

"Why is it a problem all of the sudden when this," she said pointing to them, "has been going on for a while?"

The question was rather rethoric but when she saw that Bane was about to reply, she knew he wouldn't let this go soon. So, raising a hand, she stopped him, "I don't think it's about you being a mercenary at all."

"I think things are getting real, and you're getting scared," she said softly despite the frustration she was feeling. It was a sore spot for both of them, letting go and trusting the other. But y/n knew that for Bane it was even harder given his past.

She knew that was exactly the point, and Bane's silence confirmed it. Sighing, she took his hands in hers. Hands that had inflicted an immense amount of pain but that could also been so gentle and caring when it came to her. Those hands that she loved feeling caressing her skin, whether it was during aftercare or in those lovely, quiet moments they shared.

"Look, babe, I know it's scary, okay? Fuck, I'd even say terrifying. But I want you to know I'm not going down without a fight."

Bane's piercing eyes were unblinking on hers. It felt like he was staring into her soul. And y/n was hellbent on proving that her word was true. Bane had been such a solid presence in her life these past few months. Now, she was ready to return the favour. He could lean on her for stability. No matter his impressive size, she wouldn't crumble.

"Let's just go to bed, okay? We can sleep on it and talk about it tomorrow."

"I've got some work to do."

"Okay then, I'll be here when you get back." Y/n stood up and left the room after leaving a kiss on his temple.

Whether it was true or not, y/n would leave him alone for tonight. She had said her piece, and if he needed time to process it, then so be it.

She would be here when he returned, and she was not going down without a fight.

[zeemczed]

On Pesterquest, The Aftermath of The Homestuck Epilogues, and Why Homestuck Appeals To Us Still.

It's 1 AM, I'm exhausted and can't sleep, and I'm gonna bullshit a little. Ramble incoming, please read past the break if you still care about Homestuck, ignore if you don't, yadda yadda yadda.

Homestuck started out intriguing, it got better, it got wilder, and then it just kinda... broke under its own weight. And that was deliberate. Hussie delighted in this. The entire theme of the work in the end was breaking. Breaking the 4th wall. Breaking the premises. Breaking character arcs. Showing how stories break characters just by containing said characters.

Then came the Epilogues, and the Huss tried to break us. The fandom itself.

And... by all accounts... shit didn't work. We saw his clumsy attempt at satirizing the very nature of the fandom that we'd created (we, not he, as fandom is always the work of the fans, not the original creator of the work) and kind of collectively flipped him off.

Because we're Homestucks. We're already self-effacing to a ridiculous degree, but we know what works underneath us, we know what works underneath the plot, we know why we're here, and it's not for Hussie's masturbatory themes.

It was the worldbuilding and the characters.

That was it. The plot became negligible, because the creator didn't treat the plot with respect. We were just there for the character development, and when that went south (particularly in the Epilogues), we collectively said screw that, we're doing it our way. We wrote our own stories, our own epilogues, our own fanventures and AUs and fucking everything else imaginable.

We said, collectively, FUCK THAT, WE'RE PROTECTING WHAT WE LOVE IN THIS WORK BY TAKING IT FROM YOU.

Now, what does that sound like?

The ending of Pesterquest.

We're locking away OUR collective versions of the main cast, so they can be happy, or whole, or at least logically consistent, or at least not running in the opposite direction of the character development that everything SCREAMS they should have (looking at you, Jane).

So.

With that in mind, in 2023, what is Homestuck now?

What do we treat it as?

Commedia dell'arte.

It's a group of strong characters that can be put into almost any story. A nigh-universal cast, diverse and interesting, with built-in relationships and chemistry that can be savored or jettisoned as the plot requires.

But that's the kicker.

We have plots we care about.

And thus, we have transcended the original work. And with it we have helped the characters ascend. We have protected and guarded them, and they will not be remembered as characters from a webcomic that "used to be good".

Keep writing, Homestucks. Keep drawing. Keep spitting out incorrect quotes (which might as well be fucking correct at this point), scribbly comics, podfics, and fanventures that eclipse the original in all but word count.

Because, by all accounts, we're winning.

(Disclaimer: Yes, this includes the crew that are working on Hiveswap; it's pretty obvious they still Care About This Shit, and it doesn't share Huss' incredibly nihilistic late-game BS. I am including every HS creator EXCEPT The Waste of Space in here.)

That is all.

[tadpal]

So what is the double

it's a cdrama! fun fact about me is that parallel to other things i am almost always watching a telenovela/melodrama. i like high stakes i like big twists i like overacting!! this one is a melodrama and i think does get a little ridiculous in places but overall follows an internal logic and external theatrical framework that imo works well for the suspension of disbelief etc etc!

basic plot summary is about a woman who has been wronged by her husband assuming the identity of a dead noblewoman, who has been wronged by her family, and seeking justice and revenge for both of them. it deals primarily with the injustices of women, and imo in a way that really enters into the feelings of grief and unfairness that being repeatedly hurt by the people that claim to protect to can leave you with. what stuck out to me particularly was the sense of loss our protagonist+her identity feel as they deal with the years lost to being hurt and used. while individual schemes may or may hold up to your own inspection, the strength of the characterisation really sells it for me. naturally this leads to a very strong romantic storyline, as i think the writers really understand their two romantic leads, why they seek eachother out, and how they compliment eachother. the actors have wonderful chemistry and their performance in certain quieter scenes !!! waaaahhh!!!!!

not to mention the costuming!!! gorgeous AND used to convey character and thematic progression!!! lots of fun!! AND the set design!! again super gorgeous! not to mention the cinematography which is gloriously indulgent and isn't afraid to lean into the melodrama and heightened reality of the series!

i think it's a wonderful example of sincere tv!! which in a moment where even melodramas aren't immune from winking at the camera to tell the audience that the writers also think this is all silly, is really refreshing to me!! genre tv that clearly loves its genre!!!

it's definitely not going to be to everyone's taste but it recently finished releasing on (uk) netflix! perfect time to give it a go! also!! shout-out to the main song! which is still stuck in my head and is so breathtakingly lovely!!!

[positivelybeastly]

What's your take on bendis interpretation of beast?

To put it bluntly, I think it sucks.

And because it's me, we gotta overanalyse, SO HERE WE GO.

For starters, Bendis is just a very . . . limited, writer, in general. If you search his name on almost any comic book related forum that he's done an associated run for, you will invariably find a lot of people talking about some fairly massive characterisation slip, or some intense continuity fumble, or a run that started strong and ended badly.

Superman, the Guardians of the Galaxy, to say nothing of individual characters who have suffered under his pen like X-23, Jon Kent, or Wanda Maximoff - the man just isn't good at writing characters that aren't his own. This may be why his run on Alias is so strong, that's his character, she's acting within the boundaries he set, that's completely fine. But other characters?

If you want to see a more professional level takedown of especially his dialogue, have a look at this. It's a fairly damning examination of the tropes that drive his writing, but try the quiz at the end of the page and see how many of the characters you can identify by dialogue alone. You will be shocked at some of the ridiculously huge deviations from a character's established voice he's responsible for.

But we want to get specific, so let's get specific, shall we?

So, in order to establish why Bendis' characterisation of Beast is out of whack, we gotta establish what Beast was like beforehand. In the past 10 years before 2013, what's he been up to?

Well, Hank's well into his secondary mutation storyline at this point, struggling with a new, more animalistic form that comes with a strong bloodlust, one less finger, new senses, new drives, and a strong sense of body dysphoria/dysmorphia that I, personally, quite identified with. Hank's neuroses are still fairly strong on this, but he is getting better, in no small part thanks to . . .

Abigail Brand. Hank's partner (I don't like to use the term girlfriend or love interest for Abigail because they honestly feel a little beneath her), they have an intense, occasionally combative chemistry, but they love each other to the point where Abigail tells Magneto in dialogue that she wants Hank's children at some point, and Hank has a near nervous breakdown when she's temporarily killed in Si Spurrier's X-Men Legacy.

Struggles with ethical and moral quandaries related to mutantkind's survival, as well as the use of lethal force in superheroics. Between the Ghost Box laser strike, the Secret Avengers nuclear bomb, the Endangered Species experiments, and the Secret Invasion Legacy Virus bioweapon, Hank has been involved in quite a lot of ethically dubious things - by his standards, anyway. By the standards of Cyclops or Captain America, Hank literally hasn't done anything wrong, but Hank holds himself to a different moral standard. This is especially important.

A tenuous relationship with the X-Men, to the point where he's only come back to the Jean Grey School to spite Cyclops during Schism/Regenesis. Prior to this, he had left the team, and multiple members were downright hostile to him on first seeing him again afterwards.

So, we start off All-New X-Men #1, and what's up?

Hank is dying because his body has randomly started to mutate.

. . . Why?

Iunno, just is.

The more I think about it, the less sense this really makes, because literally every other time that Hank has mutated, there has been an insanely specific reason why. He ingested MGH, he was experimented on, Infectica/Pestilence touched him, Sage jumpstarted his mutation, etc - but here, it just sort of. Happened? And this really bothers me, because Hank's mutation is really important to his character arc. His relationship to his body and his outward appearance and how he experiences the world on a tactile, emotional level is one of the building blocks of the character.

But because feline Beast isn't drawn consistently, and people are nostalgic for 90s simian Beast, we're getting a new form just 'cause. I feel like a fairly massive rule in writing is that things never happen just because, and yet, this whole thing is happening just because.

It's also killing him. Now, this opens up a really interesting can of worms that I don't think Bendis really thought through, because this is actually a tragic, on-brand thing to happen to Hank - he hates his mutation so much, and now it's literally trying to kill him. He also fairly obviously does not trust the other X-Men to be able to help him (which is proven correct by the narrative) and is in a helpless, depressed enough state of mind that he accepts he's going to die.

I feel like Bendis didn't realise what he'd done here? He's set up Hank as this isolated character (which he is) who doesn't feel like he can trust the X-Men to help him (he can't) and who is in a depressive enough place in his life that he doesn't drop his normal workload to do anything more worthwhile with what may be his final days on Earth. He just keeps trudging on, lugging around heavy equipment to the X-Jet, coming when called, telling his friends he's fine. He's given up on fixing what's wrong.

Fellas, do we call this attempted suicide? Iunno, maybe we do?

And it's in this state of mind that Hank hears Bobby say, man, if only Scott could see himself in the past, he'd hate present Scott.

Now, I don't really accept the conceit that Hank hates Scott enough to blow open the timestream in a fit of pique. I straight up don't think it's his style, he's not been established to have the capability, Hank can occasionally be reckless but mostly with his own life, not other people's. Especially not when we have all of these exchanges to consider. But fine, Hank's in an altered state of mind, he's dying, he's panicking, he's not thinking clearly.

Bendis will promptly forget all of these facts and pretend that this is some grand plan Hank had, and no-one ever even addresses that Hank was about to die. The X-Men are all very happy he's alive again when his younger self fixes him, and no-one ever asks, so hey why didn't you mention you were dying? Which? I think? You would do?

Abigail Brand will also be established to have broken up with Hank off panel for some reason so that Bendis can have Hank make a joke about not getting any in a while.

Bendis has already blown out two of the four main storylines that Hank had through the 00s for basically no reason. Because he doesn't like cat Beast, and because Abigail would logically stop Hank from doing something this stupid and care that he's going off the rails, so they've got to go.

Friends, they were broken up in 2015. We still don't know why. We have never. EVER. Gotten a reason. They apparently still care enough about each other to finger empty eye sockets, but not enough to, you know. Kiss or hug or fuck or be on panel together.

In fact, I'm gonna fuck you up right now. This is from Kieron Gillen's series during Secret Wars.

"Abigail Brand's War Journal.

Today I answered two questions. Firstly, what had happened to Hank. Secondly, of Perfection, the zombies or the Wave; which I hate the most.

I was hoping Hank was still alive. I hate myself for that now. If Doom above listened to my prayer and arranged this, then it's my fault.

I should have hoped he was dead. If he was dead, the Annihilation Wave wouldn't have been able to capture him, and turn him into what tried to break through the Shield this morning.

Killing him wasn't easy, but that'd be just as true if they hadn't changed him. Who would want to kill Hank?

McCoy was a kind man. Kinder than me. Kinder than anyone.

He didn't deserve to end up like this.

I don't want to write anymore."

Abigail Brand is not a women often inclined to sentiment. But Hank inspired it in her because he's so kind. He's soft. He's gentle. He's loving. He's tender. He's moral. He's just.

You can hear the love in Abigail's words, just as I tend to believe that you can hear the writer (my boy Kieron Gillen) loving Hank, too. There's just such a sadness and a sense of tragedy and lost opportunities here. There's a sense of someone so wonderful and so great being lost.

Where is any of that in Bendis Beast? He's just - to put it bluntly, he's an idiot. Not a goof, not a clown, no, he's an idiot (derogatory). He doesn't have any smart plans that save the day, he doesn't provide sage counsel to people who need it, he doesn't have anything constructive to add, he's just an idiot. When Scott turns up on the lawn and calls for everyone to revolution, he just.

Growls?

I'm sorry, what? Is this the same man who has absolutely no fucking shits to give when it comes to chewing out Scott Summers or not?

Hank had no problem giving a page long monologue to past Warren about his actions and why they were necessary a page before, but the instant the target of his derision is on the lawn in front of him, he just? Growls?

Like, just admit that you don't like Beast, Bendis. Why is it that Matt Fraction, who writes a somewhat poor Beast, and Chuck fucking Austen of all people, know that even if Hank is wrong, he should still win the argument through pure rhetoric power because his most notable super power is that he's super fucking smart and he won't shut the fuck up, but you don't, Brian?

Why's Beast got nothing to say? Why isn't Beast bringing up any of the stuff that drove a wedge between them in the first place? Why isn't he bringing up X-Force? Why isn't he bringing up the multiple suicide missions Cyclops arranged for people, including his son Cable and Nighcrawler? Do you not remember those or do you just not care, like, WHAT? Even if you, the writer, do not believe that Hank is in the right, he should at least act according to character and at least try and win the argument.

But Bendis Beast is stupid, so he doesn't try.

I don't even want to talk about the Watcher issue of All-New X-Men #25, or the Uncanny X-Men #600 issue which is a lot of other characters having arcs while Hank gets his shit kicked in by a lot of people who seem to be very much tired and unhappy with him. I legitimately just don't want to cap those issues because they make me sad and I just. Don't. Like it. It doesn't feel like Beast to me.

Hey, you wanna know what the Beast-Storm relationship was like before this issue?

"Henry's voice does that funny little quavering thing. He's still worried."

These two know each other and care enough about each other that Ororo knows what his voice sounds like when he's concerned but doesn't want to push, but sure, she's just gonna fuckin' browbeat him like that. Okay. Sure.

I fucking hate Bendis Beast so much. Without Bendis Beast, we wouldn't have Percy Beast, and I hate that Beast even more, because Bendis at least knew enough that he could make Beast an idiot and not evil and the fandom would swallow it. He had to cop to mind control to justify it.

But that's all it takes, isn't it? The step from, Beast is a good guy, to, Beast disagrees with Cyclops, to, Beast is an idiot, to, Beast is a race traitor, to, Beast is a Bond villain. Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and the road to Percy was paved by Bendis. All it takes is an inching up, and suddenly you go from Beast being given maxed out scores for Wisdom and Conscience in a 2010 handbook, to using Wolverine's brain as a fucking sock puppet in 2023.

Oh yeah, and speaking of socket puppets, you want to know something infuriating? This future Beast, who is established here to be a puppet of Charles Xavier II? He gets murdered by Magneto off panel fairly violently because I'm fairly certain that Cullen Bunn just kinda forgot that this version of the Brotherhood is two actual bad people and a load of puppets.

What a hero. Thanks, Cullen, I really feel good about it???

And you know, it's that . . . it's that basic derision for the character, that basic ignorance of continuity, that plagues Hank so much these days. There's just so much that instantly flags as wrong if you know him, if you bother to read his stories, if you actually just read the comics instead of going by Wiki summaries. If editors did their fucking jobs.

Mm, no, he's not a doctor. He's 17. Doesn't have a doctorate yet. And when he did have a doctorate, it was in Biophysics, not medicine. Henry McCoy was not a medical doctor at age 17. Try harder.

The fuck you even sayin' to me, Bendis? Try harder.

A) That's fucking creepy. B) Hank was never in love with Jean. Try harder.

Like, just.

It's the basic facts of the character, Bendis. And I can go on! I can go on and on and on and on and on but I don't want to. All I can say is?

Try.

Harder.

It's just so embarrassing, watching professional comic book writers struggle to try, and fail, consistently, to write Hank McCoy. Because when he's written well, I can buy him doing morally suspect things, because the writer has established that they are trying to challenge Hank, that they are interested in poking at where he will and won't go. Because Hank will cave to peer pressure, and do what his friends think is right. Because Hank is insecure, and needy, and dependent. Because he feels like a person, with an actual psychology.

Lemme show you some things.

Warren Ellis wrote Hank getting more blood on his hands than I can conceive of, but I never call his Hank out of character (except for the occasional ableist slur that Ellis has him drop out of nowhere) because Ellis gets why this matters to Hank. Ellis understands that Hank cares. Ellis understands that Hank does know what consequences are.

Did you just feel the ambient intelligence in the room go up? You sure fucking did. Isn't it immediate, just how quickly you feel the difference when you go from braindead Bendis Beast to Ellis or Hickman Beast? Is there not just an immediate uptick in eloquence, in brilliance, in humanity, in soul?

The things that Ellis or Hickman had Beast do are more monstrous and awful than anything he did during the events of All-New X-Men. But because they had sympathy for the character, and because they bothered to write him as anything more than a sock puppet to oppose Cyclops, he comes across so very differently, doesn't he? One of these versions of Beast invites derision. The other invites sympathy.

Fuck Bendis.

[causesciencethatswhy]

https://www.tumblr.com/causesciencethatswhy/742925680934862848/nothing-more-annoying-than-supposed-neutral-fans

this might be a bit late but it’s just so perplexing and interesting to me how tkers a) have an absurd level of influence on the entire fandom and b) are legitimately much more insane than most delusional shippers even larries

as someone who was a tween when shipping really started to become a thing on the internet its fascinating (and disturbing) to see how it has gone from a casual and harmless “wow they look good together and have chemistry i want to see more of that” to “here is an entire dissertation’s worth of bogus theory about a same-sex pairing despite me being ragingly homophobic and probably mysoginistic.”

how it went from an admiration of chemistry and attraction to actual clinical delusion in a matter of years needs to be studied.

anyhow, i was thinking about all of the discourse surrounding jimin, jk, and the buddy system and am shocked by a couple of things. first, the complete undermining of their friendship despite them being ridiculously close for years. whether you like their dynamic or not it’s literally impossible to deny that jk and jimin have been thick as thieves for (at least) the past 5 or 6 years. I became an army in 2019 so it has always been obvious to me that they are extremely close. sure, you can make the argument that they didn’t “hang out” as much during 2023 but there’s still a considerable amount of interactions between them, much more than most of the other members who no army second guesses how close they are (the biggest example being jimin and taehyung who we literally only saw interact towards the end of the year).

second is how people literally pretend taennie never happened. hell, i think more people believe the blurry jk apartment video than they believe th and jn we’re in a real relationship for almost 2 years. there’s actual pictures of him on her BED with her kitty (a literal one) and you’ll still see majority of armys act like it never happened. yes, their privacy was horribly invaded but everyone knows damn well that is not the reason why most armys choose to ignore that relationship and then go and gush about him and IU.

though these two things might seem unrelated, i think both of these narratives that have always been pushed by tkers and have successfully crossed over to supposedly non-shipper armys and demonstrate just how influential tker theory is on the fandom.

this is exactly why i won’t really sweat over whatever a tkker says. if taehyung was in a long-term relationship for years that is confirmed by DOZENS of personal pictures through different dates, months, and locations but they still want to deny it… there’s simply nothing to reason with there. its just a waste of time and space. there’s a chance jikook have not been or are not more than close friends but there’s no chance th was with anyone other than jennie for the past 2 years in what is looked like the most serious relationship he’s ever had.

i feel bad for him too even if i feel he sometimes stokes the flames of shippers. imagine breaking up w your most serious partner ever, grieving that relationship AND your normal life since you’ll soon be part of the military for 2 years and all the while your “fans” are picking apart and making up insane theories about you and your friend.

I agree with most of what you say anon.

Of course we can't know for sure what the nature of jkks relationship last year was but I'm way more inclined to believe that their bond is still going as strong as it was before not just because of the buddy system news but purely because the ease and doting nature of the interactions we saw last year has remained the same.

And you're right, nothing will ever convince tkkrs to really just see the truth for what it is. There's always an alternative explanation, an alternative enemy to set your eyes on, an alternative ploy by the company to break the tkkr spirit. It's quite ridiculous. I think the worst thing with the taennie situation was that the whole 'It's an edit!! It's an impersonator!! It's a PR move by Jen/nie!!" Was that it wasn't just tkkrs buying into this. It was a majority of armys. The general fandom now looks back on taennie as 'a conspiracy to defame tae (except armys and blinks were the only ones who thought that these two adult humans possibly dating would be defamatory to either of them).

I legit had a very close irl army friend, whose not a shipper but still a pretty dedicated fan get into an argument with me because I told her that ppls reaction to tae dating was ridiculous. She word to word reiterated all the bs tkkr theories I had seen floating around and was unwilling to consider the possibility of them being made up conspiracies. I was genuinely surprised because she is generally very chill about these discourses but I guess the need to believe he wasn't dating a BP member took precedent over what the reality really was ??

Either way, it'll be interesting to see how they behave post 2025. I doubt they're going to calm down anytime soon with the jikook travel show on it's way. It's going to feed their theories as much as it's going to entertain the rest of us I'm afraid.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Yellow City, chapter sixteen - a Malevolent AU

A trial.

A choice.

Parker learns what partner really means.

Chapter sixteen of Yellow City. Warning: explicit content.

AO3

----------

It had taken seven hundred and twenty-nine years. A significant number, and one Hastur told nobody: nine times nine times nine again. It was a number of great power. 

A lot of power had gone into finding Arthur Lester.

Hastur should have done what Y’golonac was doing. That was what gods of their ilk always did: whispering in dreams, speaking through objects intentionally (and illicitly) left behind, revealing things in sacrificial fires and through the screams of the mad. Channeling power, but not presence—awful from a god’s perspective, giving and barely receiving—if quite nice for the humans involved.

Should have done it that way, by any stretch of reason. Their bet was already going, and had been for more than three decades at that point—which was nothing in their eyes, but half a lifetime for a human. Yet, Hastur did not.

He missed Earth. He missed humans he could touch and play with. He missed their creativity, their crazy emotions, their warm, red blood. So that day—the seven hundred and twenty-ninth anniversary of the first time he’d held the scales he’d made and they’d broken—he decided to try one more time.

It was not uncommon to see him there, carrying scales and attempting the impossible. He wandered through his beautiful pavilion, pleased by the white marble, the perfectly spaced shadows beneath the scrying pillars, the magnificence of desperate humans dancing in projection and begging for their help. 

To be needed… They all missed it. They all craved it. They all suffered for the lack of it. And humans had no idea how much the gods thirsted, or they would absolutely drive harder bargains than they did. 

Robe gleaming and fluttering, he walked between. Help me, cried one. My husband, cried another. Trapped, cried a third.

Hastur would never forget his first glimpse of that miserable human man called Arthur Lester.

The man was drunk. His summoning circle was ridiculously drawn, working almost as a fluke, sigils misaligned in a shape not even the most generous could call round. But maybe his force of will made it work, anyway.

The man had stood there (stood, not knelt), screaming at the sky, hands clenched like claws, demanding suffering.

Another middling god, curious, held up their scales, and then sort of sadly hooted as the scales…

Did not crash to the right, indicating they were too strong for the human. No. These scales crashed to the left.

That almost never happened. The little god (of a child’s joy when blowing dandelion fluff, if Hastur recalled right) moved on, and Hastur stepped near.

Oh, he liked this human. So fierce; eyes red and swollen, teeth (white and well-cared-for, so this rough condition was new) bared. His clothing wasn’t bad quality, but it was… not in great shape, wrinkled, sweat-stained, the shirt completely misbuttoned, the tie an awkward noose. The jacket had been thrown off to the side, forgotten. 

He wasn’t shaved. His hair looked like it might not have been washed in weeks. As required for summons, the man was barefoot, revealing that his toenails were not trimmed. And, Hastur noted, the pants were recently too large, cinched with a belt and folding slightly in on themselves—as though he hadn’t been eating.

Incredible. This man was fucking desperate. He’d make someone a delicious treat.

It was so rare for a human to overbalance a god. It was more than will, more than density of spirit; it was an amorphous quality of self, a consequence of life and luck and choice and chemistry, of the billion little things that made every human so unique (and oh, Hastur missed them so much). 

Well. Chances were, Hastur would just break another scale, but it would do no real harm to try. He’d held it up.

And the scales had balanced.

Few things gave Hastur chills. This did.

Suffering, demanded this man, and his grief was almost too sour, too full, and made Hastur salivate like some starving thing overwhelmed by food too rich. Hastur waved one tentacle, a graceful and beckoning motion, and the man came into full view.

Full view.

In this moment, the god saw everything. Of course they did; how else could they be sure they could fulfill a Contract when taking it? It was a risk to Contract, every time, but seeing everything certainly helped.

And there was quite a lot to see. Suffering! the man sobbed, and he dug his fingers into his forearms, gouging his own flesh, completely unaware he was doing it.

But he’d created his mess himself. It was an accident, and anyone could see that, except this man did not. 

It would be an easy Contract to fulfill, zero risk; the act of Harvesting itself would fulfill the Contract’s demands. Hastur couldn’t have created a better setup if he’d tried.

He studied this man. He might get a few days out of him, perhaps even a week; long enough to see what Y’golonac was up to, discover his stupid, nasty plots, unmoor them, and send them all adrift.

(He hoped for a week. A week on Earth, long enough to at least experience it, long enough to enjoy his new human. A week would be… a gift.)

“Hello, Arthur Lester,” said Hastur. The man gasped, shocked at the voice in his mind, and Hastur rumbled, pleased.

#

After a week, when Arthur had lost no body-parts, when the man hadn’t seemed drained at all, Hastur could barely believe his luck.

After a month, when Arthur was still hale and hearty, and could actually manage channeling a smidge of Hastur’s power through him, Hastur began to wonder if he was somehow being rewarded for all his hard work in the Dreamlands.

After a year, he’d just assumed Arthur would be fine until he wasn’t. Which is to say, Hastur tried very, very hard not to think about the end.

Oh, he’d teased it. He’d purred it at Arthur, used it like a terrifying flirt, because it was happening and they needed not forget that; but he no longer wanted it to.

He wanted to stay here. He wanted to play. He wanted to enjoy Arthur Lester, who constantly surprised him, who made him laugh and infuriated him sometimes in the same breath, who was never still except when he was sleeping or drunk. And sometimes, not even then.

Hastur hated it when Arthur was drunk. He lost all control of Arthur when Arthur was drunk. He couldn’t speak reason to that man at all when Arthur was drunk, and that felt just… bad.

Terrible. Unacceptable. No good.

Hastur spent the first year nagging the fuck out of Arthur until he stopped going nightly to Jack’s Bar. Of course, that meant dealing with Arthur’s bad dreams.

A little magic cured that.

Hastur wondered after why he’d done that. Arthur’s torment in sleep should have just been the tastiest fucking thing. And it was, sure, it… it was.

Hastur didn’t like it, so. Peaceful dreams for Arthur, the end.

#

By year two, he’d begun to worry that Y’golonac had actually outsmarted him.

Impossible. That absolutely could not happen. The Defiler was smart, sure, but in the way of a fungus; he chose the easiest path, and if blocked, was predictable in the way he tried to move around it. This shouldn’t be this hard.

It seemed the Defiler had found a worthy human, as well, even though it had to be through secondary means… and with Hastur’s body frozen (one enormous statue of himself in the Pavilion, glorious for all to see—he’d posed, of course), he couldn’t bug his stupid brother to find out just what that asshole had done.

This human priest was good. Really good. No aetheric waste, no sloppy clues leftover, not so much as a fucking hair left somewhere to indicate who the fuck they were.

Damn Y’golonac. Lucky son of a bitch had found some kind of genius. But why would a genius listen to the Defiler?

It was… irritating.

Hastur knew he had the better human, of course, but that wasn’t the point. Not even Arthur Lester could last forever, and Hastur was beginning to see very tiny signs.

More exhaustion at the end of the day. Slightly more will needed on Hastur’s part to do those tiny magics. And once—just once—a larger magic attempted, and it knocked Arthur out.

Arthur didn’t remember that one. He thought he’d been cold-cocked. That was good, because Hastur had panicked, and wasn’t very proud of it.

At least Asenath got a kick out of it. Though it wasn’t really fun to be laughed at, either.

#

Three times. Hastur had control of Arthur’s body three times, and he’d made use of those times. He did research, he talked to witches, and he made progress on his actual purpose here. Though one of those times he wasted half of spying on Parker Yang.

Fuck, that man got under his hide. The guy was like some honed knife, some wicked-sharp blade, gleaming and deadly and precise. Parker was always there. Always watching. Always violent. Always excellent. And damn, if he wasn’t easy on the eyes, too.

That anger was not a turn-off. Hastur wanted to eat it. If he’d had a way to do that through Arthur, he would.

He did not, so he had to put up with it. And he had, very well-behaved, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Until Parker’s casual bullying became pointed.

Parker wanted Arthur. It was obvious he wanted Arthur. (Which lots of people did, but Arthur always missed it, and Hastur was just fine with that.) Hastur absolutely could not parse what he was feeling at the thought that they might touch each other and he would have no part in it.

So he tried to make sure that didn’t happen.

For some reason, it didn’t work.

At least he got to touch with Arthur’s left hand. At least he got to see.

It wasn’t enough.

#

Arthur’s last week on Earth was absolutely weird, and Hastur could admit in hindsight he might have gone a little overboard.

He felt bad about Arthur not listening to him. He felt bad about the realization that Parker was apparently into some dangerous esoteric shit. He felt bad about Arthur crying, bad about Asenath dying, bad about the way Parker had to die at their hand—like shattering a work of art, even if he had been tainted by the Defiler. (And learning who Parker worked for made Hastur feel like he’d lost something, but he didn’t know what that meant, either.)

But Asenath had a black mirror.

Asenath had a black mirror.

Asenath had a black mirror, and that turned the whole day around.

Asenath had a black mirror, and though Arthur was dying, he didn’t have to die. 

Asenath had a black mirror, and that meant Hastur could have him.

There was only a little bit of cleverness needed to make this work. Some drama—which felt so good now that he had his body back. Some caution—the black mirror was never meant to handle someone of his power, and he had to be so careful or it would break and damn them both. And then, some manipulation to nudge Arthur toward the right end-game—or Arthur would have to die, and Hastur no longer wanted that.

It had been far too easy.

Arthur as the killer? Revealed.

Arthur mentally crashing? Achieved.

Arthur demanding death? Loophole triggered. 

“Do it!” Arthur screamed, and spit pathetically, and it was just so adorable and missed completely.

Hastur had one tentacle around Arthur’s waist, one around his ankle, one under Arthur’s chin, and was so fucking happy to be finally touching him. “Do what, Arthur Lester, murderer?” he rumbled.

It was like the initial Contract demand all over again, standing in that ruined circle, snarling. “Do it! Harvest me! Get it over with!”

“Is that what you wish?” said Hastur, and he couldn’t help his glee, couldn’t help eagerness leaking through his tone.

Arthur sobbed it. “Yes!”

Done. Perfect. He’d won. “Then I so fulfill our Contract, Arthur: I will not give you what you want.”

“Wh… what…”

“‘Make them suffer,’” Hastur hissed, repeating Arthur’s words from his Contract so long ago. “‘I don’t care who they are. Find them. Make them pay. Make it slow. Make it long. That’s what I want.’”

How Arthur stared!

“I will not give you the death you crave. In fact…I will prevent it,” said Hastur. “Thus, I fulfill our Contract.” And he’d brought Arthur through, carefully, slowly, and somehow, the mirror didn’t break.

Hastur sighed. What a wonderful moment that had been! He’d been so relieved, all around, because it could have gone so wrong. Instead, it all worked out. 

Hastur had earned his fucking pet.

Not so much a pet now, though. Was he?

#

His humans lay in his bed, asleep, fitted against each other like pieces of a strange puzzle, and he studied them. Yes; he could admit it to himself, privately, he’d gone a little nuts upon realizing he could actually touch Arthur Lester. And yes; he’d gone a little nuts over Arthur’s madness, because it distracted, because when playing with him and focusing on him, Hastur could forget that they were all doomed.

And he could admit he’d gone a little nuts the moment Parker actually came within his reach.

He would never touch a human belonging to one of his peers. Some gods had more dignity than that. All he’d been able to do for years was aggravate Parker to get his attention (delightful), and then let him walk away. Alas.

But then! Arthur had asked for him! It wasn’t even Hastur’s idea! He couldn’t be blamed… and all that idiot Y’golonac wanted in return for his beautiful and misused priest was his vote.

What a moron.

So now Hastur had them both, and he was happy for it. And Parker’s anger was every bit as delicious as he’d thought it would be. And Parker was more fun to poke than a month-old kitten.

Parker was lovely. Like some dark guardian, protective of Arthur and evidently unaware of it. Whip-smart. Graceful. Weak, of course; the Defiler had fucked up his body, and Hastur hadn’t… felt like fixing it at first.

Parker bitched about running around, so that made it funny.

But when he’d apologized…

Hastur had not expected that. Perhaps he should have; humans changed, all the time, and that was part of what made them so delightful. It still took him by surprise.

He’d given Parker’s strength back. It felt like the right thing to do.

It felt better all around, after that.

#

Just like with taking Parker away from Y’golonac, partnering was Arthur’s idea—which meant Hastur could support this as if he hadn’t wanted it all along.

At least until Arthur called him out.

“I want him as our partner,” Arthur had murmured, nude, well-used, looking up at him with a sleepy adoration Hastur suspected was addictive.

“Do you,” said Hastur, tracing the sensitive tips of his tentacles over Arthur’s skin, point-first, leaving little red lines that vanished like kisses.

“I do,” said Arthur. “And so do you.”

Hastur paused. “Why do you say that, little detective?”

And oh, how Arthur smiled, a warm smile, a knowing smile that had no place on the face of a man who was looking at his god. “Just because he thinks no god would want him doesn’t mean I'm blind.”

Incredible. Arthur was the best human. 

He’d have them both, and all of Carcosa would know. Everything was coming up Hastur!

At least until the Pavilion of Contracts was destroyed.

#

His humans slept. Without leaving the bed, Hastur reached, taking spell-paper and gryphon quill and his own magic ink, and wrote a message to the Mother herself.

He hadn’t dared to speak to her in centuries—apart from begging for his pet. Begging for his… Arthur.

Well. This was an emergency. This could not wait. If the contract system wasn’t back online within the next hundred years, there would start being deaths. Very bad ones, pulling nearby deities and powers into the void with them.

It was all going to end, anyway, in time, an unsustainable system… but it had been delayed. He wanted that delay. He wasn’t done.

He paused and looked at his humans. Their graceful spoon had devolved during the night, and they’d somehow tangled their rigid human legs and arms. Parker had slid down, jacked his chin up on Arthur’s shoulder, and was breathing directly up into his ear. Arthur leaned into this instead of away, and his mouth hung open, lips pink and wet.

To them, a hundred years probably seemed like a long time. It was not a long time.

This was really an emergency, and he had no choice.

Hastur sighed slowly. Time to see if Arthur had truly charmed “Mama Laveau” enough that she would not choose to let it all slide into oblivion, after all.

#

Probably only a few minutes, it lasted

Probably wasn’t nearly as bad as it had seemed in retrospect, couldn’t have been

Wrong place wrong time four fleeing bank robbers on their way to the docks, just bad luck for a sixteen-year-old nobody, a kid who was pretty darned strong for what he was but still only one , and

And the voice had been whispering for over a year, promising, bringing old Barnaby to mind more than once, more patient than Parker knew how to resist, said Ask me

Caught

(Watched?)

Beaten

(Fucking watched?)

And

The things they said, waiting for their getaway boat, a gun in his mouth in his throat

Laughing 

The taste of gunmetal of some rancid oil of his death, setting off his gag reflex and

He’d witnessed them he was a witness they were never going to let him go

They would hurt him so much more and they were going to kill him and he didn’t want to die and it wasn’t fair and

He didn’t expect to call for help to the god who’d been fucking bugging him for over a year

It just happened

Not that praying screaming calling had ever brought help before, ever at any time, but then

I thought you’d never ask.

A flash of putrid green stench left him blind and choking on the rotted wood of the dock, screaming and rotting and vomiting and the gun clogged with black spew and couldn’t go off and then…

A touch woke him, and he startled upright with a gasp.

Arthur buzzed on, asleep, probably magically. Hastur was the one who’d touched him.

Parker panted, shivering and sweaty, staring at him.

Hastur’s touch—gentle, in spite of such power—rested under his chin, cupping his face. “A bad dream.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Bad memory,” said Parker, wiping his face on his forearm.

“I could taste it.” Hastur stroked his cheek, ran the very tip of his tentacle along Parker’s lips. “Quite sour. Quite… foul.”

Foul. Sour. Yeah. That worked.

The memories splashed in his head like water disturbed in a tub by a brick. The slippery slope, the “gifts” from this god, the promises again and again that cleansing was his goal, the commiserating over how awful the world was because of other gods.

And the tiny, tiny compromises asked.

Leaving some food to rot in dark places.

Eventually, stealing dead animal bodies from behind the strays disposal building.

Eventually, using the bodies of people he’d had to kill—criminals, off the books, no due process—and leaving them somewhere to rot.

Eventually—

“You weep,” Hastur observed.

Parker did weep. He hadn’t done that in… a long fucking time. He used to when he’d killed for his god, at least at the beginning, even though he knew, believed, that with one death, he could save thousands. One at a time.

He’d been so sure.

“Fuck,” Parker said, wiping his face.

“I taste regret,” said Hastur, tilting Parker’s face up and wiping away tears with another fine tentacle-tip. “I taste shame.”

“You don’t know nothing,” Parker said, then stopped. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“I do,” said Hastur.

“Yeah.” Parker swallowed and looked up at him. “How would you know?”

“I see shadows,” said Hastur, his voice low and frightening and strangely sensual, as though torn between appropriate horror and simmering desire. “I see you weeping and sacrificing, then not weeping and sacrificing. I see you converting your coworkers and firing hold-outs. I see you hardening, witnessing the wicked things humans do, the desperation and misery and pain. I see you wondering if the world is even worth saving.”

Parker stared.

“I know you very well, Parker Yang,” said Hastur, rumbling, more tentacles rising, sliding around him, and still on his knees, Parker shuddered. “I know your flaws and your strengths. I know your fears and your obsessions.”

“You…” Parker bared his teeth. “Well, I know, you, too!”

“Oh?” said Hastur, amused.

“You’re a fucker,” said Parker.

Hastur laughed softly.

Parker wasn’t done. “You love fucking with me.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I find you delightful, Parker Yang,” said the god of madness and music, and Parker didn’t realize until this moment just how powerful the use of his name was.

Every time Hastur spoke it, it was like being pushed by some invisible tide, something that lifted him from his feet without effort, that made him feel for one, breathless second like he’d never find ground. “That why you… you said yes to Arthur about… partners?”

“I said yes because I wanted to,” said Hastur.

“Sure,” said Parker. “What’s your angle?”

The many, many tentacles sliding over Parker’s skin quirked, some ticklish, some constricting, and Parker’s breath caught. “I have many angles, Parker Yang,” purred the dark god.

It felt good. Parker’s voice was tight. “Quit it.”

Hastur did. Withdrew completely leaving him feeling fucking bereft. “Any other requests?”

And Parker knew he was going to say yes. Yes to partners. Yes to Arthur.

Yes to Hastur.

This was not like other gods anymore. 

Not like—

Because of Arthur. Yes. That was it. That was the difference. Parker could accept this because fucking Lester was… Lestering.

He was briefly furious at Asenath for coming up with that verb.

But he couldn’t let the asshole know all that just yet. “Trial today?”

“Yes.” Grim. All the tentacles stilled. “You will have to be there. Arthur cannot attend. It would be too much for him… and I believe my brother would use his presence in some way.”

Parker frowned. “But you want me there.”

“Yes.”

“I wanna go.”

The tentacles moved, undulating. “Why?”

“I owe that bastard, and he owes me.”

“This will not be an occasion of payback.”

“No. But it also won’t be my first trial.” And he’d been parsing something the Keeper said. “You gods… you all have a purpose, don’t you? Something you… I dunno, represent, or create, or something.”

“We do. We have our purpose, born of the Dreamer, formed by Yog-Sothoth’s will.”

He had a thought. A big one. He couldn’t word it yet. “Arthur gonna be okay here?”

“Asenath will be with him.”

“He gonna be fucking safe, Hastur?”

“I believe he will be safe.”

Fucking witches. “Guess she’s got a direct line to the Mother’s power here, huh?”

“She does. Not to mention the Mother herself.”

Parker sighed. “He just… gonna sleep?”

“That is the plan.”

So Arthur wouldn’t even be awake to worry about them.

Or… run after them. Or get into something crazy, start shouting about stolen bed linens, or whatever. Yeah, Parker could see the wisdom in this. “This trial gonna mean anything to the Defiler?”

“If it goes as expected, he will be banished to Outer Darkness.”

So, in a very real way, death.

Weird, how that was… strange. Weird, how his heart couldn’t go for that one hundred percent. Weird, how it just felt bad, even though at the same time, it was miraculous.

“You have seen many human cases,” said Hastur, maybe reading his face, maybe reading his thoughts.

“Yeah.”

“You have seen spouses grieve when their heinous partner received just deserts.”

“Wait a fucking minute. I ain’t nobody’s pincushion,” Parker snarled.

Hastur let it go, but his tentacles fucking smiled. Of course they did. The blow had landed.

Parker was still furious when Hastur dressed him for the trial in a sort of dark bodysuit, not too different from Asenath’s favorite, but he could not find a way to argue.

#

The gods of Carcosa gathered for a trial.

There hadn’t been one since he had been banished, the betrayer, sent away for his crime of giving the secret of unraveling life to every Earth in every timeline, telling them not to use it, and expecting to be obeyed.

They wouldn’t actually do it, he’d said. They’d just hand it down and corrupt the fuck out of it like they did most secrets, he’d said. It would be spy games and intrigue for generations, he’d said.

And if the Mother hadn’t proven his shock when one after another they lit their worlds on fire, when through the vagaries of chronology and fuckery all the worlds burned at once even though they were centuries apart from each other, everyone would have assumed he’d meant it to go down that way. 

But he hadn’t. While he’d laughed like a lunatic after he’d recovered from the shock, he had been in shock, and that was why he’d someday be allowed back.

Not now. Not for a long time. Outer Darkness did not alter him, so isolation and boredom were all that could be done.

Shub-Nigurrath was relieved. She wasn’t sure she could kill him, but more than that, his role was too unique in the reality the Dreamer dreamed: someone had to keep an ear out for the snoring.

In all that time since, they hadn’t needed another trial. Today, they finally did. She grieved it had come to this.

The Plateau of Trials was high above Carcosa, a tall, rune-gashed pillar with a wide, round platform on top of it. There, sourceless white light showed everything. There, accuser and accused stood, waiting to begin.

All around, gods watched, hidden in the darkness and meters above the ground. Occasional gleams revealed so many eyes, and spurts of flame flickered in the presence of deific breath. Silent, the gods waited. No matter how this went, it would be frightening.

The gods were what they were in nature, tied to the things that exist; the god of water droplets joyfully flung when whales splashed could not stop being that thing, but the personal details were up to him. Were he erased—sent back to Outer Darkness—he would still be the god of water droplets splashed by whales, even though whales were extinct.

But he might not like lemon anymore. Or knock-knock jokes anymore. All the personal development be gone.

Hastur would always be the god of artistic madness, even if he came back quiet and serene.

Y’golonac would always be a god of rot and rebirth… and might benefit from the stripping of all the patterns and proclivities he’d developed since the beginning.

She still didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t that she liked him. It’s that he was known.

They’d lost so many who were once known.

This damage couldn’t be overlooked. The hammer would fall, and the Mother of a Thousand Young lacked the power to hold it back. MY CHILDREN. MY FAMILY. MY FEW. WE ARE HERE BECAUSE AN ACCUSATION HAS BEEN LEVIED. THE CLAIM, FROM H’AAZTRE, COMES AGAINST HIS BROTHER Y’GOLONAC. THE CLAIM IS THAT Y’GOLONAC HAS CROSSED THE LINE UNBIDDEN—A LINE WE ALL KNOW AND SEE—AND SO SHORTENED THE TIME WE HAVE REMAINING. Y’GOLONAC, CHILD OF AZAZOTH, HARBINGER OF THE RECYCLING AND RENEWING OF LIFE, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?

The Defiler stepped forward.

He was huge. Had gone all out for this moment, for this possible last excursion as the self he’d honed, and he dripped putrescence, left hissing, smoking holes in the ancient stone as he walked, and spread his arms wide, mouths sneering at the world. “I do, great Mother, greatest of us all,” they spoke in unison. “You who held back the final darkness, who preserved the least worthy of life, who saved those who squander it and throw it away though it comes at cost for us all. I do have things to say.”

Her sigh was the breeze that moved oceans, that sped clouds across the sky, that puffed away the cobwebs of mortal dreams. SPEAK.

“Do we not all know what comes?” said the Defiler, turning in a slow circle, destroying the pillar on which he stood, cratering it unevenly, like rotted cheese. “We need not wait for the Idiot to wake! Our end comes. We delay it with falsehoods. Why do we wait? Is it our preference to fade slowly, to cruelly starve? To barely subsist on the pretense of presence, of pleasure, of failing to take what is our right!”

Ah, that voice; alternately gloopy and hissing-smooth. It was seductive, almost sweet. He’d always been good at speeches. Parker knew this; but tying those words with this sight still threw him for a loop.

Parker had, somewhere around his eighteenth year, began imagining that Y’golonac looked like a verdant green valley—something he’d never seen in real life, but found photos of in books. Yes, that felt right; rolling hills, wild shapes in the land, covered in rich, blooming things that fed off the death and rot of the old.

Y’golonac was not like that, and green things near him died.

“Well?” said the Defiler. “You all know I am right. H’aaztre simply wishes things to remain as there are, here, in the prison he’s designed, because he alone benefits. He enjoys our pain. He delights in our misery while he alone benefits from this arrangement. I say it is time to take that which belongs to us. What I have done in the Pavilion of Contracts is a blessing. Needed. From here, we can do what we need.”

Parker’s jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

The Mother’s tone revealed nothing. DOES ANYONE WISH TO SPEAK AGAINST HIM?

“So I shall,” said Hastur, billowing forward as expected.

Y’golonac laughed, spraying stomach acid. “Oh, of course! This one, who has what he wants—this one, who has his pet human, wishes to deny all the rest of us the chance to have our own!”

And there was one moment, just one, where that statement held sway. Arthur was too special; Arthur naturally engendered envy, hunger, a memory of what was, a need for what could never be.

Parker thought about Arthur, here, fucking crazy, but better cared for than he’d ever been.

He thought about Tabby, who’d somehow made a home here, even though she’d rejected the Mother herself.

He thought about Earth, about everyone there being poured out like holy wine. No more Charlies. No more anything. No more calm sunsets or smoky jazz clubs, no more boxing matches or eager rookies or justice over crime.

All these thoughts passed in a second, like a flash-bulb in a dark room. Before Hastur could reply, Parker stepped forward.

Breathing through his nose, he looked (sort of) at Shub-Niggurath, or as close as he could to her projection without knock himself out.

Apparently, no one had expected that. Everyone was silent.

The Mother handled it with aplomb. YOU WISH TO SPEAK? BY ALL MEANS, DO.

All eyes were on him; it had a weight, a viscousness, a disgusting and penetrating and terrible quality that made Parker’s knees shake and cast his gaze down. But even with his gaze down, he could get loud. “This guy had me.” Fucking hell. He raised his face. “This guy had me. I’d do anything for him. There or here. Any fucking thing he asked. And the way he treated me shows he don’t got nobody’s best end in mind.”

“But you failed,” said someone in the darkness around the pillar.

“Once!” Parker yelled, and it was like a hammer. “I failed fucking once. You’ve all fucking failed more than that, but you get mercy!”

“Easy,” Hastur murmured, and touched his back.

That helped. Parker refused to consider why it helped. “It’s the truth, anyway. He doesn’t want his own pet—he fucking traded me for nothing. He doesn’t want you to have one, either. He just wants to fucking wreck it all because he can’t have it like he wants, and he’s fucking pouting like a piece of shit.”

Oh, the murmuring that rose now; shocked, shocking, disagreeing, delaying.

Hastur’s tentacle very, very gently slid up Parker’s spine, and Parker suddenly knew he’d done well.

Praise? Real praise? Actual… actual praise? He’d lived a year with them. Hastur didn’t do false praise. Parker knew. Parker had seen. Real praise?

AN INTERESTING ACCUSATION, said the Mother. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY?

Parker thought fast. He had to appeal to these guys on their fucking level. “One thing.”

“Why is this slave being allowed to speak?” said Y’golonac.

AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THEM INSTEAD, COUSIN? said the Mother. HUMANS SPEAK. WE ENJOY THEIR THOUGHTS.

“Harvest them so we can enjoy their thoughts without having to deal with all of this bullshit,” said Y’golonac like it was the most logical, economical thing in the world.

Parker dared not wait. He’d never been good with children, but he knew if he waited, he’d lose their stupid, simple hearts. “I accuse you of fuckin’ failing your purpose.”

Half the gathering gasped, like at some kid’s puppet show. Hastur went still.

And for the first time, the Mother moved. It was the world shifting; it was the night sky sliding to show new and different worlds. It was a sound beyond sound beyond sense beyond reason, and—

Parker came to on his knees. Hastur had kept him from hitting the ground, from being curled up in his own sweat like he had in the Woods beside Asenath’s small table. Parker shook.

LITTLE ONE, said the Mother. DO YOU KNOW THE GRAVITY OF THE ACCUSATION YOU BRING?

All those lies. All those promises. “Yeah, I do.” He tried to stand and could not under the attention of the Mother. Hastur lifted him upright, many tentacles lightly supporting. Parker gripped them.

IF YOU MAKE THIS ACCUSATION AND YOU ARE WRONG, JUDGMENT WILL BE PASSED. THIS IS A DANGEROUS STATEMENT YOU HAVE MADE.

Hastur was so very still. Maybe this would hit him if it went wrong. Maybe it would swing the trial. Maybe it meant Parker had to take the fall. Parker didn’t know.

He just knew it mattered. It’s a courtroom, he told himself. Sway the fucking jury. “Yeah. I understand.” And finally, he looked up. He met the invisible gaze of Y’golonac, where he knew that unseen gaze was. “I meant every damn word.”

The anger from the Defiler had heat, and began to bubble the stone around him like some kind of sludge.

SPEAK.

He’d never been good with words. Funny thing though; he’d never had trouble with them in a courtroom setting.

When it wasn’t about him.

When it wasn’t about fucking politics.

When it wasn’t about whether he sounded right or said the nicer things, but just about facts. Cold, hard facts. He could do cold and hard.

He did it now. “Y’golonac is meant to be a god of rot and renewal. That’s life. Something dies, it goes down to the dirt, and feeds what grows next. It’s important. It’s good. But Y’golonac’s forgotten the second half of that equation. All he does is rot. He doesn’t renew.”

“You yourself are proof that I do,” said Y’golonac, but it didn’t sound nearly as smooth, didn’t sound anywhere as pretty as it had a moment before.

“Yeah? Where’s the renewal in the place you own in Carcosa, then? Because it’s fucked, and it has been for centuries. You’ve never renewed shit.”

“I renewed you,” Y’golonac snarled. “And I renewed your victims.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Parker, daring to guess, daring to trust, daring to state something he wasn’t a hundred percent sure of, but felt… accurate. “My victims rotted fast, but they never renewed. They didn’t sprout fucking daisies. They stayed bones. You just took the rot and left the rest. And I? I’ve been fucked since you traded me, until recently… when the King in Yellow gave me aid.”

The murmuring rose again.

“Really,” sneered Y’golonac.

“Really,” said Hastur, “I renewed his strength, which you had taken from him.”

Holy shit. Parker had been right. It had been Hastur who’d restored him.

“I notice,” someone began, and stopped.

SPEAK, LITTLE ONE.

It was a tiny god who slid forward, just a little guy: green all over, with branches growing from its head. “He no longer smells of rot.”

And it seemed everyone had noticed that. “Yeah, he doesn’t.” “That last lingering bit… what happened?” “He smells good now!”

Parker hadn’t known just how obvious it was. His face burned.

That stroking up his spine again, not at all interfering with the tentacles holding him up. Must be nice to have so many limbs.

(Nice to have a god… genuinely approve. Parker fucking knew, and he couldn’t help comparing it to praise from the Defiler, couldn’t help comparing it to that damned unstable feeling that had always come with it, that sense of warning: you’ve done well, but keep doing it, or else. That wasn’t an or else here. It wasn’t here. There wasn’t any threat coming from Hastur, and he—)

Gods seemed to be freaking out. “He still smelled that way with Hastur at first!” “You’re right. What happened?” “He was traded. He shouldn’t have smelled like that anymore. Did Y’golonac cheat?”

Simple. A very simple thing they could all agree on: the stench of rot… which they all knew because Arthur had dragged him all over Carcosa. They anew.

THIS CHARGE IS TRUE. The Mother spoke into the din. WE STATE NOW WITH THE POWER OF CREATION AND SUSTAINING BEHIND US THAT Y’GOLONAC IS GUILTY OF BOTH CHARGES. HE HAS ABANDONED HIS PURPOSE, AND HE HAS DAMAGED THE PAVILION OF CONTACTS BY HIS OWN ADMISSION.

“Because we don’t need it!” Y’golonac said, loud, maybe even a little afraid. “Earth is right there! We can just take them! They owe us! They only exist because we kept them alive! They owe us their souls!”

“And then there would be no more, you fool!” Hastur said.

“We can just take them. Make them breed. Have as many souls as you want!” Y’golonac snarled.

YOU WOULD IGNORE MY RULES, MY COUSIN?

And wow, the place got tense.

Parker didn’t know the rules. What were gods not allowed to do? There were boundaries? “What’d he do?” Parker whispered.

“Humans may not simply be brought to this place,” Hastur murmured back. “It is too out of balance. If they come in their dreams, they die—the Dreamlands rip them apart. If they are brought through most means which once worked, they die for the same reason.”

“Arthur’s okay,” murmured Parker.

“He has never and will not leave Carcosa. The Mother has left two avenues for human transport: after death, though that is difficult because of the amount of time and power we must put into a human to retrieve them. And through objects, such as black mirrors.”

Arthur had said something like that, and the Keeper had said something like that, and Asenath had said something like that.

Parker had the wild thought that Asenath would be green she missed this drama.

“I…” The Defiler had been stumped by that simple question. “I assumed you would change the rules.”

WHY?

Such silence. As if whatever he’d done to his peer, whatever he’d threatened for Earth, this right here was the true line he’d crossed.

Silence, thick and heavy. Hastur held Parker up.

IT IS OUR DECISION THAT YOU HAVE FAILED YOUR PURPOSE… AND YOU HAVE DEFIED ME. ALL IS NOT LOST; YOU WILL RETURN TO OUTER DARKNESS. THERE, YOU WILL REDISCOVER YOUR NATURE, ALL OF YOUR PURPOSE WHICH YOG-SOTHOTH CREATED YOU TO FULFILL, AND RETURN TO US AGAIN WHOLE.

“Not until the vote!” Y’golonac snarled. Decrepit power pulsed, eating into the platform. “All deserve the vote, regardless of status or position!”

YOU ARE CORRECT. THOUGH YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU ASK.

The mouths in the hands… sneered. Ice slid down Parker’s spine.

Hastur growled. “So he just goes without consequence for years?”

A beat.

WE WILL MOVE THE VOTE UP.

Oh, shit, Parker thought.

“I request he be isolated in the interim, lest he do more damage as he did to the pavilion,” Hastur said.

GRANTED.

And just like that, it was done. Gods began flying away.

“That’s it?” said Parker, who still couldn’t stand.

Hastur drew him nearer. “Far from just it.”

Just beginning was what Parker understood. “What now?”

“We go home. I miss my pet.”

That was louder.

That was the benefit of whatever the hell might be listening.

Parker understood strategy, and so did not call Hastur out on the most egregious piece of bullshit he’d heard in years.

#

Arthur was not alone.

It was a strange thing, to be asleep and yet outside of sleeping, not precisely separated from his body. He could see the thin mortal strands tying him to it, but more than that, the gleaming golden cord from his heart to somewhere out of sight, to Hastur, truer than any leash and far more important.

Arthur tried to touch it.

I wouldn’t, little one. He’ll come running, and if my timing is right, he’s quite busy right now. 

There was a voice he knew. Sometimes, anyway, in the depths of night, when fully mad, and other moments he couldn’t quite remember. “Hello, Beyond.”

It had taken them a while to find a name Arthur could use without bleeding a little. “Hello, little one.” And it had taken them a while to find a name the Beyond One could use without immediately blacking Arthur out into some deeper sleep he could only fully awake from and not return here.

Arthur looked. Asenath sat at the little table, reading a book and softly laughing at it.

In this state—whatever it was—Arthur knew that book was loaned from the Keeper, and was some weird old-timey tome about women and something called humors, which the author thought were bodily fluids responsible for both feelings and wellness, and while in a truly generic sense this was true, the specific way this idea had been applied was so bonkers that Asenath couldn’t help laughing.

And Arthur knew he wouldn’t remember this when he woke up. Here, in this between-space with the Beyond One, he remembered previous conversations. At all other times, they were gone. “That’s an interesting theory.”

Isn’t it? They tried so hard to explain everything. In every timeline, in every Earth, when technology took rein over medicine, they got very good at handling much of the human body, but were never able to fully understand it. There were always questions.

“Of course there were.” Arthur gestured at the threads tethering him to his body. “Those.”

Your soul moorings. Yes. Very long, very strong. Do you remember what I told you before?

“Most of them are about an inch long.”

Indeed. And very frail. But that isn’t why I’m here now.

“It’s all going as you’ve seen?” said Arthur politely.

Yog-Sothoth could not control anything. He could, however, see everything, all the time, and (Arthur thought) it probably made him crazy. Yes.

That, and being separated from Shub-Niggurath, whom he loved. Arthur wasn’t sure of the details there. When he asked, and was told, it had blacked him out, so. Too much, whatever that answer was. “Am I supposed to do something?”

You know that’s not how this works.

And it wasn’t. Beyond never told him to do anything. “Is Hastur at the trial?”

Yes. With Parker Yang. They will acquit themselves well. However, the trouble only increases from here. Y’golonac has a plan, and the vote is being moved closer.

Arthur sighed. “I really wish you’d tell me how this was going to go.”

I can’t do that. It’s against the rules; but I don’t have to leave you alone in it, either.

Which was nice. Even if he didn’t remember it all the time. “Why are you visiting tonight?”

Because I enjoy happy endings.

“Something’s ending?”

Something is coming to pass. You won’t know I’m here.

Creepy? Eh. Sort of? Yog-Sothoth never went out of his way to be involved in things. He just was.

That informed so much of Arthur’s understanding of these beings who called themselves gods. They just were, which made them so different from humans. He understood how they needed each other; those changed by nature and nurture, those who generally were what they were, one finding solidity through the other, the other finally learning to bend.

“I want to go to Harper’s Hill,” said Arthur.

Not yet, little one.

“I know. That isn’t the real one, anyway. You know what I mean.”

I do.

“Will I ever get to go…” Home? He wanted to say it, but it felt wrong.

Back to Cloud City? 

“Yes.”

No answer. That could mean anything. That was the Beyond One for you.

They’re coming. Have a good night, Arthur Lester. You deserve it.

“That’s very kind of you to say,” said Arthur, already falling back, already sliding into his body with a contented sigh, already forgetting the last few minutes and what he’d learned, though not what he’d felt.

Half-asleep, he waited for good things to come.

#

Hastur did not slam the doors open this time. Still carrying Parker, he flew inside, sighed as if the weight of the world were on him, and put Parker down.

Asenath looked them both up and down. “How’d it go?”

“Crazy,” said Parker a little gleefully. “Shame you weren’t there to see.”

She rolled her eyes. “I will through the Mother later.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there.”

She laughed softly. “Yes, yes, you win a point, Detective Yang.”

“We rest,” said Hastur, who sounded like he needed it.

Parker’s stomach rumbled. “Why am I fucking hungry? We ate like an hour ago.”

“Time dilation,” said Asenath. “You were in a gathering of gods. Every word spoken held the meaning of that word in all languages, in all times. There was no chance of misunderstanding, and it took twelve and a half hours.”

Parker stared.

Asenath smiled sweetly. “Good night!” and she walked out, hips sashaying as they always had, and closed the doors behind her with a wave of her hand.

“Twelve and a half fucking hours?” Parker blurted.

Hastur gathered Arthur from the bed, who made sleeping sounds. He blinked at them. “What happened?”

“The trial,” said Parker. “We won one, but more shit’s coming down the pike.”

“Food,” announced Hastur, placing them both at the table (Arthur wrapped in a blanket), and presented them with some kind of small dumplings and sauteed green vegetables.

Both men immediately knew hunger in a deep and intimate way and chowed down.

Subtly as he could, Parker watched them. Watched Arthur eat—visibly not completely sure where he was, but amenable enough for the moment. Watched Hastur watching them— the anxious little flips of his tentacles, the tiny bits of body-language that said he was concerned. 

And Parker knew he could turn this whole evening around by saying yes, or make it horrifically worse by throwing a fit. The power was completely in his hands.

Maybe that’s what partners really meant: vulnerability. Power over each other. Trust along with that power, handed over.

Charlie had given him that. Intimacy, and the power that went with it. But Parker hadn’t really… understood that, then. He’d definitely abused it more than once, said shit he shouldn’t, hurt that man’s feelings sometimes when there wasn’t a damn reason except that Charlie was safe to lash out at because he wouldn’t go away.

Parker wasn’t too proud of any of that, right now. But Charlie had forgiven him. 

Yeah. No wonder the Defiler had to get him out of the way. What was forgiveness if not renewal after rot?

Arthur leaned back. “That was good. Thank you, Hastur.”

And here was the moment. Funny, really. He could shout, accuse, storm off. Flip the table, go into a sulk, do all kinds of things. Or.

Or.

“Let’s get cleaned up,” Parker said. “Real good. Come on, Lester.”

“Sure,” said Arthur, and rose, though he kept the blanket on like some sort of pillbug.

Parker waited until they were at the bath, then slowly and gently pulled it from his shoulders and tossed it onto the table with towels.

Arthur looked at him.

“Get in the water, Arthur.” Parker held his gaze.

Arthur’s eyes widened. He went in.

Parker grabbed a soft washcloth and followed him in. “Gods don’t got to bathe, huh?”

“They have magic,” Arthur murmured, and did nothing to stop him as Parker began to wash his back, his neck. Using his fingertips to clean around his ears. Sliding them down Arthur’s chest. Arthur leaned back into Parker. “What are you doing?”

“I think you know.” Parker’s hands slid further. Cleaning and exploring. Slow, like Arthur liked it. “Hey. Hastur.”

“Yes, little traitor?” said Hastur, who was watching this scene eagerly, leaning forward as he hovered over the water. 

“Get the bed ready.”

Arthur turned to stare over his shoulder, his eyes huge. “Are you sure?”

Parker pushed his hips into him. “What’s that feel like to you, Lester?”

Arthur’s eyes somehow went wider.

“Now?” said Hastur like some eager fucking teenager.

Parker smirked and pressed against Arthur again. “You like that?”

“Now?” said Hastur again.

“Yeah,” said Parker. “Everybody’s ready.”

Hastur plucked them both out of the water so fast they barely splashed. They were dry and warm before they reached the bed, and Hastur lay them down in it gently, then hovered over them. His cloak billowed. His eagerness was absurd.

Parker laughed. He couldn’t help it. This asshole. This weirdly endearing son of a bitch—

Arthur leaned over him, leaning on his chest, and kissed him, slow and deep. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean it. Are you sure?”

Parker took Arthur’s hand and directed it down, but Arthur resisted.

“That’s not an answer, Parker,” Arthur said.

Fuck. When had anyone ever… this was…

Vulnerability. Power. Permission. It suddenly seemed like a much bigger deal than he’d thought it was a moment before. Parker swallowed. “Yeah. I’m sure. I’m really sure.”

Arthur stopped resisting. Instead, he closed his eyes, leaned in, and kissed again, touching so gently over Parker’s chest, Parker’s ribs, making him shiver.

And Hastur came down.

Hastur arrived like a weather front, like some atmospheric surprise, and added his many, many touches to what was already being done.

It was suddenly almost too much. Parker gasped for air.

“Easy,” said Arthur, who understood. “Easy.”

“It’s a lot,” said Parker, who wasn’t used to being overwhelmed in a way that wasn’t misery and rotting and pain, who was suddenly out of his depth, who was suddenly fucking afraid and he didn’t even know why.

“Parker Yang,” rumbled Hastur, and waited until Parker looked at him, wide-eyed, still breathing too fast.

“What?”

And Hastur knew he was afraid, of course he did, he dealt in mental unsteadiness, which made these words so purposeful: “Tonight, little traitor… you have power over me.” And Hastur spread, Hastur opened, Hastur lay back on the bed and bloomed like a godsdamned flower, and his power changed the air and drowned the fear and reminded Parker how fucking badly he wanted to do this and now suddenly he could.

Hastur was making himself vulnerable, and Parker understood it. Breathing fast for a different reason now, he rolled over and approached.

Hastur was rumbling, vibrating the whole bed, making incense-sticks dance in their golden urns. “Come to me.”

Oh. He was.

The hide was different here, softer, manifestly sensitive here, and Parker knew as he touched that this was never something Hastur would show to an enemy. Hastur made a pleased sound, low.

Arthur slid over from behind and stroked Parker’s back. His breath was fast, too.

“I want,” said Parker, voice rough.

“Yes,” said Hastur.

“I fucking want… now,” said Parker, which was as clear as he could get.

“Yes,” said Hastur.

There suddenly wasn’t time for fiddly fucking around and showing off and being fancy, and how far will he let me go was all it took, and he leaned in, let himself be enveloped, and pushed inside so fucking hard it would have hurt anybody else.

Not a god. Hastur groaned, low, and it was a pleased sound.

And nothing had prepared Parker for this. Nothing. No sex, no pleasure; no horror, no pain. No penetration of any kind, no power or strength or violence or bliss. Entering a god almost undid him at once, and he couldn’t fucking see anything but gold. He cried out.

“Easy,” Arthur murmured from behind, arms around him, kissing his shoulder, and that did not help, because–

The fleshy folds around Parker (damn near swallowing his whole body) suddenly had teeth, and bit in, pulling him deeper.

Parker shouted yes. He shouted yes so hard his throat hurt. And he wasn’t sure if he was thrusting or Hastur was just pulling him in or what was going on, but those sharp, shallow teeth bit and held and added an edge and it was so good, so good—

And Arthur behind was being so fucking gentle. Whisper-kisses, fairy-touches, exploring on his own, and normally that gentle shit didn’t do anything for Parker, not at all, but paired with the teeth it was peeling him apart more surely than any knife or god’s power alone. 

Parker cried out again.

“He will have you,” Hastur said, low, rumbling, pulling so deep and so sharp that Parker thought he might just be fully swallowed and rejoice the whole ride down.

He will… wha?

When Arthur entered him, Parker lost his mind. 

Completely lost it, full-on, words gone for good, names unimportant, and his last clear thought was amortization means getting fucked, and then he was gone.

Slow and gentle penetration, sweet kisses on his shoulders and throat.

Tight and forceful suction, pulling him deeper, all while tiny, shallow teeth gripped and held him in place.

Giving and taking, power changing hands (and Parker hazily understood that’s what they had been doing, those two, for months now), and he was crying, maybe, or screaming, maybe, and couldn’t get away from Arthur’s peeling tenderness and couldn’t get enough of Hastur’s cruel grace.

He saw gold. He came, and his soul fucking left his fucking body, he’d swear in a court of law.

Too much. He’d been right, it was all too much, and Arthur’s raindrop kisses and calming murmurs ripped more sobs out of him, and Hastur’s many teeth disappeared and those folds did a gentle soothing pulsing moving Parker had no word for, and he let them carry him back to the water (so much better than some instant magic spell after all that, he got it now), and relished the sting of a million little tooth-marks (and Hastur understood Parker didn’t want them healed right away and so did not), and Arthur’s intentional tenderness, and between the two of them, patiently and personally, they tore him apart.

#

He didn’t remember leaving the bath, but they were in the bed now, and he was waking up, so he must’ve been there a while.

Arthur was behind him, doing his tiny buzzy snore, a non-invasive and stupid-cute sound. Hastur was before him, unsleeping—gods just didn’t sleep—many tentacles over them both, holding them together.

Holding Parker together.

He had no idea what to say. Y’golonac had denuded him in every way, literally melted him to the bone, but this felt more exposed than he had ever been in his life. “Am I okay?” popped out of his mouth, and he wasn’t even sure what he meant.

“Yes,” rumbled Hastur.

Maybe so, then. Though trusting that feeling was terrifying. What if was a horrible question. He didn’t want to trust it. He wanted to stay safe.

Safe. Being alone had not kept him safe. 

Parker closed his eyes, memorizing the different weight of Arthur’s arm over his side versus Hastur’s thick and clever tentacles. Weird, how balanced they were.

He could sleep. That’s what his gut said. Maybe it would all go to hell; maybe everything would blow up, melt, Y’golonac would produce a secret army and they’d all die. Maybe the worst thing would happen.

Didn’t mean he had to let any of that take away from this.

He didn’t. This wasn’t part of that. He could enjoy this, rest in this, be safe in this, and whatever came later would come later, whether he indulged in this or not.

Weirdly pragmatic for such a fucked-up intimacy. Tension left him. “Not too bad,” he mumbled, falling into sleep more easily than normal. “For an amateur.”

Hastur’s dark chuckle was the last thing he heard before he drifted into dreams.

[consumeronionbulletin]

Bora! Deborah / True to Love (2023)

This show brought me alot of joy. Everytime a new episode dropped, I ended up smiling like a kid at Christmas. It also made some interesting choices when it came to romantic relationships that I was not a fan of...

What Worked

Show was funny, and comedy is hard! There were times when they made it look easy, and (ironically) that's when you know everyone probably worked their butts off behind the scenes to make it happen. I especially liked the choices they made in the way it was shot and just the overall comic timing by the actors. Just some fun performances.

The writers knew how to play well with romantic tropes. We had everything from an over the top makjang love quadrilateral, to a hate-to-love, to a workplace romance, to fake dating, and eventually a friends-to-lovers arc, all in one series. And they mostly worked well. Because the cast and the directors knew when to play it straight and when to be funny.

What Didn't Work

The writing was not the strongest part of the show. There were some funny jokes, but most of the humor was from the way it was shot and the way the actors played it. From discussion online, alot of people had a problem because they went into it expecting a rom-com and they ended up with a sitcom that had a strong romantic plotline. Knowing that going in, might have helped.

There were two big plotlines that bothered me. The first was the romantic arc between the CEO (Han Sang-jin) and the office assistant (Bang Woo-ri). The writers did what they could to make it seem less ick, but they would have been better off doing anything else. It didn't bother me tons, but it just felt like a wasted plotline.

I was also bothered by the story with the best friend (Lee Yoo-jeong) and her husband. The characters themselves were okay, and the actors were good, but it felt like a recycled B-plot from a bad American sitcom.

There were alot of other little issues (especially with the "noble idiot" thing they had Lee Soo-hyuk doing in the last two episodes—just tell her how you feel maaan!), but no show is perfect and the good far outweighed the bad for me.

The Performances

Yoo In-na as "relationship expert" Yeon Bo-ra. The smartest thing the showrunners did was casting her as the lead. I hadn't seen her onscreen before (Guardian: The Great and Lonely God is still waiting for me), and I was completely charmed. Even when the character was doing something completely ridiculous and cringey, I still enjoyed watching her going through it. And as someone who suffers from alot of second-hand embarrassment, this is no small feat.

Yoon Hyun-min as "grumpy editor" Lee Soo-hyuk. This actor spent most of the show playing the grumpy straight man to all the antics going on around him, so when he had a moment of genuine comedy (or sadness), it hit extra hard. He had great chemistry with Yoo In-na and was fun to watch as well.

Joo Sang-wook as "clueless CEO" Han Sang-jin. I really liked the dynamic between him and Yoon Hyun-min. Whenever they had a scene together it was just great. His romantic arcs were mixed. I liked what they did with his character and the ex-wife. I did not like the office romance thing they tried to do (though that was more on the writers).

Hwang Chan-sung (aka Chansung) as "dirty cheater" Noh Joo-wan. The actor did a good job making this guy seem pathetic and hate-able. Maybe they did too good a job as it was almost hard to believe that Bo-ra would be stuck on this character the way that she was. They make sense of it, mostly, but the main reason why it's believable is that (sadly) there are too many guys like that out there in real life.

Park So-jin as "the bestie" Lee Yoo-jeong. I really enjoyed her performance, in spite of the terrible story arc the writers gave her. The scenes with more than just her character and Yang Jin-woo were generally good. The writers (unfortunately) turned her into this "too clingy" wife in the background and sometimes that was funny or touching, but often it was annoying.

Kim Ye-ji as "little sis" Yeon Bo-mi. Her arc in the first half of the show was great. I loved the few scenes she had with Lee Soo-hyuk as well. I think the romantic arc she had was mostly very sweet, but not that interesting. It ended up in a decent place, but it just felt off at the start.

Koo Jun-hoe as "total himbo" Yang Jin-ho. The writers made some questionable choices with how they setup the romance between his character and Bo-mi, but his performance kept it from being too weird (at least from an audience point of view). He was a pure cinnamon roll and watching him being bounced around by all of these grumpy jaded people was funny and great to watch. I liked the middle and end-points of the romance arc, but I mostly just enjoyed watching him for his reactions to everything else going on.

Lee Sang-woon as "sitcom husband" Yang Jin-woo. I think the actor did okay with what he was given. He did great when playing off the other characters, but the entire story with his wife was just off and not that interesting to watch. There was some good comedy in there, but the writers needed to do more than recycle old sitcoms to make this caricature into a relatable person.

Song Min-ji as "girl boss" Seo Su-jin. I liked what they did with her character. Both the story with her ex-husband, and just the way she interacted with the rest of the cast was just great. I would gladly watch a spin-off show with her as the lead, though I don't know if this particular show needed more of her than we got.

Hong Hwa-yeon as "office assistant" Bang Woo-ri. There were moments when I found the character very relatable, and some of that was on the quiet performance she gave. But I don't like the story the writers gave her.

Kim Ji-an as "the clingly ex" Lim Yu-ri. I mostly liked the way this character was portrayed, I just felt like the writers didn't quite know what to do to make her seem like a real person. Mostly, she was just there to cause drama, and that's okay, but not ideal.

Everyone else. There were some good character actors in there and they didn't let the minor characters down as much as lesser shows do. I especially liked the moments with the office workers getting the best of the clueless CEO.

TL; DR:

This show was funny and charming and I will undoubtedly rewatch it at some point. The OTP was fun and tropey and the humor really worked for me. Not everyone will like the show, but those that do, will like it alot.

[hamliet]

Crows With A Side of Bone, Please

Hamliet finally wrote that review.

I'll start off by saying that everyone is a very good actor. Jessie Mei Li has essentially nothing to work with, but she does her best to sell it anyways and still makes me care about her. Ben Barnes is delightfully evil while still affording the character sympathy the narrative doesn't give him.

The Crows--oh lord, the Crows. All of them have chemistry as a group and as couples. Wylan's actor is fantastic here and feels like a natural fit with the other 5, and Nina's actress also fits perfectly with the crew. They do have a lot to work with, and they manage to fully flesh out their already 3D characters and make them alive.

Kanej, Wesper, Nina/Matthias, Genya/David

The good ships, because this season I revoke my like of Malina that season 1 introduced me to.

I wrote this about Kanej. But also more about Kanej, because OTP OTP OTP.

I loved the final scene with them in the finale, where he grabs her, and she holds his hand and tells him, bluntly, that she does not want him with armor on. The line is one of my favorites in the book, and the show did an excellent job of showing the totality of it, the wholistic nature of what Inej is asking for. Yes, she's asking for him without his cold persona, without his bravado. She's asking for his vulnerabilities.

But she's also asking for his body. For him not to see her as broken. For him not to settle for less than all of her. She is thirsty, and I honestly think this was a beautiful portrayal of someone who has been hurt and is wary, but still wants and believes in the potential for good in sex. The show made this aspect so much more forefront than I remember it being in the books, and I honestly love it.

I also liked the choice to get Wylan and Jesper together early on. The piano scene emphasizes both of their respective gifts, and Wylan's fear over what Kaz might do to Alby clearly projects Wylan's own fears about being condemned for his father. (Wylan is actually one of my favorites in the books because his disability is, imo, good representation.)

Nina and Matthias didn't get nearly as much screentime this season (together anyways), but they made the most of every moment anyways. Even when they are apart we see the potential in how they are still affecting each other. We see Nina's determination. We see Matthias's hurt. We see the pride and humility they both carry, and how both can inhibit and also free them. There's so much potential there.

The motif of prisons, of hiding, is very strong in the Crows' arcs. Matthias uses his masculinity as a prison and chooses to fight over be free because he's scared. Wylan hides his family and disability. Jesper hides his gift. But if you want to have a complete life, you have to step out into the light. Which is a perfect way to segway into Alina, but...

Let's save the salt for later.

Also, not a ship, but I quite liked Nikolai. His character is one of the standouts in the original trilogy (because complexity). His volcra issue being rearranged timewise to be a cliffhanger I don't mind either.

David's death was, just like it is in Rule of Wolves, cruel and pointless. Just like Matthias's in Crooked Kingdom. Give Genya happiness. She earned it. So did David. Love seeing a woman who's been sexually abused and maimed find hope and healing with an autistic man who is almost NEVER a love interest in stories and then he dies for The Sads. Real inspiring. Real thoughtful. There is no narrative nor character reason for it to happen at all, and so early only made it worse honestly.

Show, Don't Tell

Mal tells Alina he has so many friends in the army that he's worried about, but we saw exactly 0 of these in the previous season. In fact, we saw Mal pulling away from the army to pursue Alina.

It was ridiculous that Alina's response to Kirigan in the climax saying people would come for her was "I will save myself," and then literally ONE SECOND LATER Inej saves her. Alina has never saved herself this entire dang series. Not in either season. The Crows save her each and every time! And that's not a bad thing--it could offer something about the power of relying on others, but to blatantly lie to your audience when you've shown us something else... bad writing yo.

I also wish they'd given us a reason to care about Ravka. They keep saying it's worth saving, worth protecting, but... why? We aren't even given the easiest narrative techniques to make us care about the common people (see, Alby making us care about Pekka even though we hate him=a good way of making us care. Give us a child who needs saving, a connection to the people, something, anything. If people deserve saving just because they are people well, that demonstrably flies in the face of what happens to Kirigan, so....)

Imprinting

It still baffles me that Alina again preaches about choice and yet even fate determined Mal's finding Alina. It was literally imprinting. That's what imprinting is. And for some reason Malina is held up as... healthy? When it's clearly extremely codependent?

It's not a huge problem that it's codependent, though, on principle. It's fiction. What does bother me is the hypocrisy of trying to tear apart every bad thing "bad boys" do while portraying Malina as healthy when it's demonstrably not. Malina would be far, far more interesting, frankly compelling, if they actually delved into this. The cliffhanger hinted they might do just this, but given other aspects, I'm not sure I quite trust them to follow up and follow though.

If you're gonna condemn what some people like and hold up what you like in comparison, at least make sure you're honest about its flaws.

Abuse is Bad Except Not if a Woman Does It. Then It's Girl Power!

Again, the themes of the Crows almost, at times, contradict Shadow & Bones' purported themes. But that's not hard, because Shadow & Bones' purported themes contradict themselves.

I've said this before, but I'll say again that there is a difference between complexity and paradoxes and portrayal the oft-contradictory reality of our world and contradicting your theme. A contradiction is much more common in a simplistic story, which S&B is.

Why is it wrong and seen as a sign of evil beyond comprehension for the Darkling to hurt his mother, who is acknowledged even by the show to have abused him, but not inherently wrong for Alina or Inej or Kaz to hurt their abusers?

Literally Bhagra said "know that i loved you and it wasn't enough." We are NEVER shown her loving him; we are shown abuse, which the show does kind of acknowledge, while also trying to vindicate Bhagra while holding the Darkling to standards it doesn't hold any other character.

Yes, there's some complexity here insofar as Inej and Kaz's relationships with abuse and revenge go. They aren't black and white, and the characters waffle in the gray. But Alina and the Darkling literally are light and darkness, and the gray is explicitly rejected. And there is actually a way to make this work!

You have to frame it as a tragedy.

Kaz, Inej, Genya et al mess up and do terrible things in revenge; they even at times (especially Kaz) walk the line between utterly losing themselves to it. But they have people around them to pull them back, to reach for them. The Darkling does not. This could be portrayed as something sad, as someone trying to reach the hurting child inside him and him continuously rejecting them (for example, Adam and Blake in RWBY), with his death framed as something to mourn rather than viewed as a moment of triumph, but no. The show doesn't offer him this (to be fair. Neither did the books.)

And to people who say Alina's not obligated to do so! Yes, yes, sure, but also Alina's inherent goodness is just assumed, when she's demonstrably kind of callous at best. I talked about this more in my review of Season 1, but yeah. Nothing's changed on that front.

The point is also that... what has the Darkling actually done to Alina? There were ways to emphasize him as an abuser, which he is clearly coded as, but the show (and the books tbh) doesn't do that. Alina supposedly mourns her parents, but we're given a handful of lines and nothing to actually show us the impact of losing them. (Again, Alina's self-centered focus is actually very much a trauma response to this... or could be, but the story doesn't want to explore it.) The impact of his lies is just not really explored on a deep level like it should be if you want to go for the "abuser" angle. See again, Blake Belladonna for how you do that.

Alina's "there is no redemption" line was baffling to me. It was framed like some sort of powerful "I. Am. Iron Man" moment, except okay, if that's your power girl, I don't think it's a good one.

Power Fantasies

This is my issue with Shadow & Bone the books as well: they aim to deconstruct "Beauty and the Beast" but fail to understand the appeal of the story in the first place is not "oh i have a dangerous boyfriend" but instead a healing power fantasy the same way fight-punch-kick can be a power fantasy. Shadow & Bone also directly tries to deconstruct Jungian symbolism of the shadow, but also doesn't like, understand what Jungian symbolism stands for. Until the ending, that is, when the writers were clearly like "Bardugo doesn't get it but we do and we're keeping it."

Again, I'll contrast this with Blake in RWBY, whose portrayal I have criticized before, but which is much better than the portrayal here. Blake is herself both beauty and beast, which emphasizes the traditional fairy tale's emphasis on accepting the worst of ourselves and recognizing both the beautiful aspects of ourselves at the same time. We tend to see ourselves as either Good or Bad, but only when we see ourselves as both do we mature and truly live. Even though Adam is ultimately "put down" in RWBY, Blake still acknowledges her flaws and doesn't see Adam as inherently bad, but he leaves her absolutely no choice. Alina facing down the Darkling offers her zero introspection and growth.

Sigh. It's a 2.5/5 for me. The Crows are everything. I want their spin off. I need it. I will take Zoya and Nikolai too.

[tm-trx]

currents.07 [2024]

selections from my week in media [11-17 february 2024]

[listening]

"AOK" / Tai Verdes

"Bang!" / AJR

"Turbulence" / ATEEZ

[reading]

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree - cozy fantasy in a D&D-style fantasy setting - loved it

The Red Thread, vol 1-2 by Lazy Sheep - Loved it, although I found it surprising how closely it follows the drama, down to locations, some character looks (Sorn's bad wig looks way better drawn manga style lol), etc. The Win/Team storyline was left out, presumably because of space constraints. Or maybe another series is planned for them later? I also couldn't find any release information for more volumes, so hopefully the series will be finished eventually. I was already considering a rewatch of Until We Meet Again this year, but now I definitely will.

The Wild Geese's Tomb by TheFeelsWhale - MDZS time travel fix-it (LWJ pov)

[watching]

Argylle - Saw the movie in a theater on a date and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. It's completely ridiculous in some ways and highly relatable in others.

Destiny Seeker {finished: 3 stars} - Finished the rest of the series this week. It got off to a rough start, but overall it was much better than I expected. The last episode was a highlight. We got the angst of a separation but were rewarded by the reunion. And then an epilogue with a surprise baby! I loved it.

For Him {finished: 3 stars} - Very disappointed with the direction this show took in the last half. They started out so strong and then *poof* everything was different and too easily resolved, with two episodes left. It's ripe for canon divergence fanfic. The three stars are for: the leads' chemistry (hot like burning), positive therapy portrayal, and the twin thing.

Marry My Husband - I'm only a couple episodes in but I already love whatever is going on with this version of time travel. I'm glad it's almost done airing because I have a feeling when I get back to it I'm going to end up binging it.

previous Currents posts

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[marta-bee]

I finished watched Psych all the way through for the first time this weekend, and I have Thoughts. Conflicting ones, at that.

On the one hand, it seems to want to be a quasi-Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but takes out all the things I love about the character. He's not exceptionally clever, just ridiculously observant of details, so you don't get the aha! of Holmes laying out his reasoning for Watson. He's hella straight to the point he almost reminds you of a Seth Rogen character. No neurodivergent/autistic/etc. coding. He really is just an overly dramatic, white man who likes to chase skirts, ride his motorcycle, needs to grow up, and who takes on mysteries because they entertain him in some way.

As a Holmes retelling, it should be thoroughly uninteresting if not outright insulting. But on the other hand, the odd subcultures and situations the show lands the characters in are genuinely fun to live in for 43 minutes. It does a really good job of showing how (say) comic super-fans or historical reenactors or the like are all really human in the same basic way. It's refreshing. And the show so embraces the cringe, that's refreshing in itself. So I really enjoyed it! Not as a Holmes-y character, or even a mystery/detective story, but for its other elements. It's fun, especially if you spread it out and don't binge it. (It was never meant to be watched that way.)

And on the other other hand.... look, if you want a Holmes and Watson type pair that are truly platonic friends, whose friendships stay central to each others' lives even as they develop (semi-)serious romances, this is how you do it. They're both constantly chasing after any nearby skirt for most of the show, but their friendship stays strong, not romantic but certainly something their longer-term romances (when they develop them) have to make space for. If you're going to have Holmes and Watson be heterosexual -- as in, not asexual, actually looking for their one true lady-love -- and still be the closest of friends, the show's ending is probably the best I've ever seen that done.

(To be clear: I'm sure some people ship Shawn and Gus. I'd like to read the fanfic, I can see it being a lot of fun; I just don't personally get even a whiff of that from the show itself.)

Which is odd, because the big romance really had no specific chemistry for me; it really did seem as much based on a man and woman in prolonged proximity to each other as anything else; yet I cared about the way it had to be balanced against Shawn and Gus's relationship to find it interesting. (It didn't hurt that the show did some interesting things with Juliet as well.)

So: lots to find interesting and fun, but equally kind of offputting if you're looking at it all through Holmesian goggles. Which left me more than a bit off-kilter throughout it all, and even past the ending. What an odd experience.