#it's just that the last sequence SLAPS

[itsrapsodia]

I HAVE FINISHED TOTK AAAAAA

[zosanbrainrot]

part 05!!

01 02 03 04 05 06

It's been a while since I last worked on this comic, I've been busy

☘️🦋☀️ experiencing summer ☀️🦋☘️

which was and still is a lot of fun!

ANYHOW, I feel like when I stop drawing for a while it usually does me good, like, I'm very happy with my art quality in these panels and I didn't change much since the first draft (I still overthink some of the decisions but not as much as with the last part lmao).

It's like when in games you have a separate bar for running/stamina and it can only fill back up fully once you go slow and just walk for a while, but if you insist on running all the time it's never really at full capacity. Can't think of a better analogy, but lmk if you feel the same!

One of the things I maybe would have done differently is to have Yonji take the spear out of Zoro's shoulder, maybe?? It was so good when I first saw people draw a parallel between Zoro and Yonji because of their hair color and that maybe Sanji subconsciously has thought about this too ever since he and Zoro met. Not a meaningful thing for their relationship but more of an offhand thought that would surface from time to time. Him carrying the memories of his childhood all the time with him.

But! The upside of me not picking Yonji is that both Ichiji and Niji have the goggles so without their eyes visible they feel kinda distant emotionally and that works both bcs of who they are and also bcs the comic is not about them, in that panel where Niji has Sanji in a headlock the emotional focus is solely on Sanji.

And also Yonji just turned out so good there that I didn't wanna go back and change him lmao

I admit, when I was coming up with the plot of this comic in a frenzy right after watching these eps I kinda forgot about Nami slapping Sanji lmao I only recently remembered :' ) Don't wanna dwell on it too much though.

This part feels maybe more distant overall - I don't have any closeup shots (except the spear!) and the last moment you see Sanji's face fully is when he looks at Zoro. Zoro who got hurt. Again. Because of him.

I can't remember what I'd been thinking while boarding these, it'd been mostly vibes based, but I think the function of this part ended up being about showing a sequence of events rather than focusing on the emotions. It's pushing the plot forward and I think if I added closeups to the Vinsmokes then it'd be derailing a bit, again, it's not about them.

On the other hand it also works for Sanji shutting his emotions off, once his brothers and Judge enter the scene he has no leeway, he can't let his true feelings show. He's already shown too much. And what did it lead to? Everyone getting even more hurt. He let himself slip up during his fight with Zoro and Judge quickly put him back in his place. As long as the Strawhats were on the island they weren't truly safe. So he turns on his heel and walks back to the carriage, not looking back, he can only hope that Zoro's gonna pull through. He always does, he's been through worse, right? Right? They've never fought like this before though... The burn marks will take long to heal... And Luffy, has he woken up yet? No, no, no, he can't look back. And Nami...

So that's that! I got part 06 half finished already, so that should be out soon <333

as a bonus thing - some of the refs I've used for this part

3D models posed in Magicposer!

[hyperballart]

I’m begging you on my hands and knees to make a fully fledged fic with the dirtiest filthiest sex with ex Patrick or frat boy Patrick because those sex posts you’ve made I actually die over.

here’s a lil blurb :3 FRAT BOY EX PATRICK !!! (previous)

you told him it couldn’t happen again — it took you nearly getting caught by your boyfriend to realize the gravity of your fuck-up. and you keep through with your promise of not letting the cheating repeat — for a good few months at least. your boyfriend, sweet as he is, can be overbearing at times; recently offering to fly you out to his hometown to meet his family already and talking way too far into the future. you need a breath of fresh air, which is how you end up taking a stroll around campus.

and of course with your luck, or misfortune, you see the last person you need to at the moment. a part of you knew taking the route near the tennis courts was a bad idea but you still headed towards it; probably out of habit from the past is what you try to tell yourself, but the real answer stands in front of you quite literally—sweaty and panting like a dog. he’s smirking at you while he gathers his belongings to head back to his room, “you’re a little late if you wanted to stand by and cheer me along,” and it riles you up enough to start bickering back and forth in the middle of the sidewalk.

as all arguments with you both tend to end, in a confusing sequence of events you’re spread out on his bed with both legs obscenely wide apart while patrick teases his tongue on your thighs. he comes up and spreads your pussy lips with his pointer and middle fingers forming an upside down ‘v’ and whistling, “look at that. i knew your little boyfriend wasn’t packing but it looks like he’s not even fucking you at all,” you gasp when his other hand joins to gently rub your clit, “tight fucking pussy, he doesn’t deserve this shit — left it all for me to play with — fuck.”

this goes on for far too long but you somehow get him under you. this is to release your anger and frustration — patrick is a fucking dick so you’ll use him for the only thing he’s good for. slapping him around and spitting in his face, “you wish you could be half the good of a man he is. he takes me on dates , shit, you never had time for that did you?“ he shakes his head with his mouth hung open.

“m’sorry baby — fuck — you know how busy i get,” you place your palms on his chest to ride him harder , “i spoiled you with this cock, that’s all you need,” he starts getting cocky, “it’s still yours. it’s always gonna be here waiting for you to get your fix, fuck me.”

it goes back and forth, you insult patrick and it gets him closer. you reach behind to squeeze his balls and drain his cum in you and he listens. you both know your boyfriend doesn’t get to fuck you without a condom, and patrick knows how much you love to be filled up — he’s just doing an act of kindness.

after you’re both laying in the quiet of his room reflecting, he breaks the silence: don’t make me wait three months for you again.

[luc1-anna]

"Promise not to put my face in it?" You asked as you plumped up the pillows making sure they were just right for you. "Promise" a cheeky smile coming onto his face as he got the camera app on his phone. Both naked as he stood up and you sat on the bed, slick folds causing the towel underneath you to become wet, just the sight of his cock standing straight up was doing so much for you.

"Go on then" giving him consent to record you, only if your voice and face wasn't in it, incase the unthinkable happened, plus you two were only friends with benefits, having no proper ties other than college classmates and hookup buddies.

Positioning the camera as it leaned against your metal water bottle, only showing the middle of your room, grabbing your legs and dragging you so that you rested on the pillows, legs propped up, dripping hole on full display for him. The only thing that showed in the camera was your legs and his hands as they held them down by your feet.

"You ready?" He asked, pouring the last contents of the lube onto his 3 fingers. Nodding in response. "I need words darling" gosh, anything he said could cause you to cum, Especially the way he called you darling.

"Yes then" responding as you shuffled around, trying to brace yourself for the 3 fingers he was about to fuck you with, but you wished that it was his dick he would fuck you with. A smile coming onto his face as he stretched out the lube on his fingers before slowly climbing onto the bed, your eyes kept on focusing on the way his dick moved. "Ready?" "Yeah.." bracing yourself as his fingers got closer to your aching hole. Glancing at the camera to start recording.

His fingers teasing the entrance of your slicked pussy, biting your lip as you felt his slowly enter you, it was easy access for you as you were soaking wet along with the help of the lube. "Shit.." laboured breathing started as you felt him, walls trying to close as he pushed further inside.

A smirk coming on his face. "You like that?" He teased you, nodding in response, gripping the pillows you rested on. Quicking his pace as he held your knee the steady himself, pumping in and out of your slick hole, your juices coating his hands with each thrust. He wished you would squirt right now, that was probably one of his main goals in life.

Completely forgetting that he was recording despite it only being a few minutes, letting out a lewd moan, resting your head back onto the headboard.

After a few more minutes, he retook his fingers from your dripping hole, the way your juices clung to his fingers, leaving a little trail along the bed, sticking them in his mouth to get the best taste of you. Smiling as he saw you trying to catch your breath, his tongue swirling around his fingers, showing you what he could do to that perfect pussy of yours.

Dragging your ankles as he made you lay down on the bed, bringing you close to his body as he sat on his knees. "You sure you're ready?" Grabbing the phone and pushing your lower half up onto his thighs, slapping his already soaked hand on your cunt, resulting in a moan from you, holding your hand over your mouth. Grabbing his cock and rubbing his swollen tip along your folds, he didn't even waste time as he pushed it in, gummy walls gripping his tip as he pushed it further in, his thickness catching every crevice and detail inside.

Throwing his phone beside your head as he grabbed your hips, he waited weeks for this feeling to come back, no hand or sex toy could solve his desire for you. Tracing every curve of your hips as he gripped them harder, he didn't dare to start off slow when it came to you.

Moaning out his name as you felt him glide inside of you. "You look so pretty babe" he called you all sorts of petnames despite not being in a serious relationship, though you did contemplate if he did like you properly with the way he acted around you. "Shu-" another sequence of moans escaping. "Shut up" you didn't dare try to kick or hit him as you knew he'd enjoy it.

"Yeah yeah" smirking at you as he saw you retaliating to his comment. Balls hitting your skin, the way the room filled with the sound of it, along with your moans. You'd surely be bruised after an evening like this. Fingers gracing your skin as they made their way down to your clit, gently teasing it with a few rubs. Fortunately he would try and stuff his fingers in there too, since his cock was already stretching you out to the max. Lips leeching off his cock, forcing him to stay inside.

Fingers swirling around your lower lips, the way they purposely stayed along your clit, making sure to dig in. Moaning each time he did that, you just wanted to squirm away but his hand still on your hip stopped you. "P-Please" you cried out, the way his fingers touched your most sensitive spot and to add to the pleasure he had his full cock inside of you, stretching you out with each thrust, at this rate he was practically up in your cervix. Leaning over and grabbing a pillow, you'd wake up the whole floor if you kept it up at this rate. Holding a pillow against your mouth, wishing you could scream out his name and let the whole apartment know how good he made you feel.

Seeing the pillow cover your face, only made him wanted to fuck you harder, receding how dick from your hole, leaving trails of his precum as he got off the bed. Much to your dismay as you asked, "Why'd you stop?" You wanted him inside you for a lifetime, even if you didn't move, just cockwarming him was enough for you. No response. But the feeling of your ankles being dragged to the end of the bed gave you some hope.

He was so strong that it was scary that he could just flip you over onto your stomach, his hands repositioning your lower body, ass up, face down. Pushing your torso further down till it was touching the mattress. Picking the phone up as he lined himself back up, the surreal feeling of his tip touching your lips once again as he tried it find your hole brought you back to reality, stuffing the pillow in your face, as you felt his tip entering, followed by the rest of his thickness. You could feel him getting further down, the way he could probably reach your g spot in this position.

His calloused hand gripping your ass, making sure that he was steady before moving. Positioning the camera so that it could get the best angle of you. "Tell me if it's too much" nodding in response as you felt him, he didn't start off slow like you would've hoped, getting straight to the main point as he pounded into you, the bed already creeking under the pressure.

The way he grabbed your waist, to hold you still incase it was too much for you. "Shit" harsh breaths already starting up again. He had completely forgotten about the camera as he threw it right near your head, trying to record some of your muffled moans. Both hands groping your hips as he pushed further into you. The feeling of his balls swiftly emptying into your womb, he didn't even mean to but he was so worked up that he forgot the feeling of it.

Moans filling up the room as, You could feel the warm liquid pour into you. "Sorry?" He wasn't even sure if he should be apologising because of the way you reacted.

[uncouth-the-fifth]

i'd like to report a crime - Leon Kennedy/Reader

read it on Ao3.

Pairing: Agent!Leon/Detective!Wife!Reader Tags: anxious work stress + leon comfort!!, leon being a fucking goober Notes: when i'm at work I'm always picturing him swooping in to save me...... leon kennedy if you can hear me please protect me from 9-5 hell... and like I said before, I would LOVE requests or prompts for this fic, I have so many ideas but I can't commit to any of them lol.

Standing in the bullpen at work today, you had a thought. Maybe they called it “medieval torture” because that was a whole lot catchier than “a shitty day at the busiest police precinct in Washington DC.”

It certainly felt like medieval torture to you. Before you’d even stepped into your big girl pants this morning, you knew that today was going to suck. Plain and simple. Suck. Yet another presidential event was bringing the Secret Service’s jurisdiction into your already hectic station, meaning that big square dudes in suits were going to be breathing down your neck until quitting time. You had three huge active cases that needed your attention. One of those cases came pre-packaged with a deeply annoying lawyer, who, in your professional opinion, has his head shoved a foot up his ass. He will absolutely be showing up to bother you today.

And worst of all: in your haste to get to work (Leon had put some serious effort into making you late), you’d accidentally worn a pair of super uncomfortable shoes! So now every waking moment of your existence was bonafide torture.

Clamping your jaw, you glance up from the paperwork in front of you and check your watch. Three o’clock. Right, okay, you can work with that.

You slap your hands down on your desk as you push out of your seat, and it gets a satisfying yelp out of the man sitting cross-legged beside it. He bristles up like a porcupine and nasally complains, “Where are you going, Detective Kennedy? You said we could—”

“Coffee, Douglas,” you bite back to said lawyer.

The last thing you want right now is some of the lousy, watered-down coffee from the station’s breakroom, but taking mini-breaks at your desk is just not an option anymore. Douglas has been camped out there from the moment you clocked in, and since you both refuse to budge, he’s going to stay there. Breakroom it is. You wince the whole way there, cursing your shoes from hell.

Someone forgot to start another pot of joe, so you have the absolute pleasure of doing it yourself. A small blessing in disguise, really. You give the glass pot your best thousand-yard-stare the whole time it heats the water, and just when the outline of it is starting to burn behind your eyelids, you’re jolted out of your glazed reverie by a cheerful, “Detective Kennedy!”

The officer appears at your side like she was there the entire time, and you wouldn’t put it past her—Giana is the latest in a long line of rookies who have imprinted on you over the years. Good kid, but a little on the overeager side.

She gives you a sympathetic frown and launches into way too much bubbly talking for your aching head to handle. “Heyo! Man, it’s crazy today, huh? You look beat, detective. Hey, think of it this way—just a few more hours and we’ll be home free! Any fun plans tonight?”

The question triggers a movie-style flashback sequence in your mind, complete with black-and-white visuals and some tasteful dream fog. Leon, your husband, boredly poking around the aisles of a new Target by your place. Leon discovering the boys' toy section. Leon, your beautiful, amazing husband, going starry-eyed at the massive NERF Elite Titan CS-50 Toy Blaster, which you’re pretty sure you need a license to operate.

He’d tapped the Nerf box like a boy on Christmas morning. “150 foam bullets, baby.”

But it would take a lot of energy to relay all of that to Giana. So instead of explaining that you’re having an epic Nerf duel with Leon when you get home (no headshots, loser makes dinner), you cooly answer: “...Spending time with my husband.”

Giana hums. “It’s so weird to me that you’re married…” (Thanks.) “I can’t even picture you not grinding away at some case.”

The coffee machine burbles out its last sad spit of coffee. You pour a good amount into your mug, smiling, “Oh, Leon’s just as bad. We’re both married to our work. He’s just my favorite mistress, s’all.”

Giana opens her mouth to launch into another cheery tirade you can’t catch up with. You like the girl, but on top of being way too eager, she’s also painfully see-through. For example, you don’t even have to turn around to know that a gloriously hot guy has just walked into the bullpen behind you. It’s written all over Giana’s owlish look over your shoulder. Hell, you can even clock that he’s heading straight this way—not only does Giana cross herself to bid away impure thoughts of the stranger, but she evaporates into smoke out of pure shyness.

“Look out!” She stage-whispers.

Aw. Poor girl, you think as she waddles away. Considering who’s going to be unloading a clip of foam bullets into you later this evening, (what a strange double entendre), you’re basically immune to hot guys. You can handle this.

“Excuse me, detective, I’d like to report a crime?”

All sense of professionalism poofs off your face at that familiar voice. You whirl to face your husband, and in one swift slash, the ten ton weight of your stress is slapped clean off your back.

Leon’s resting stare has slowly been absorbed by his Serious Agent Face. But today, he’s smoldering less in the business way and more in the off-duty model way. In a white tee, jeans, and racing-striped leather jacket, he certainly looks the part, clean-shaven and dewy-skinned. Fuck him and his unblemished skin. What Umbrella moisturizer was he using back in the day, dammit?

You’re capable of joking again and fall flawlessly into the bit. “Of course. What kind of crime, beautiful?”

He isn’t really able to look flustered, but you think you get close to the impossible with the way his head tilts at that line. You notice that he’s hiding something behind his back.

“A theft,” he answers. The tiniest smirk twitches on his mouth. “My heart’s been stolen.”

…What a fucking cornball. The tragic part is that you find the joke pretty funny, and not completely in the ironic way. He waits for you to giggle and twirl your hair or what-the-fuck-ever, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction, ducking into his quick hug to grin into his shoulder.

You groan at his awful joke. “Jesus. You need a fork for all that corn, Leon?”

“I take mine off the cob,” he drawls in your ear. With that voice, he could make anything sound suggestive.

You’re about to pout at him for failing to return your hug, when you draw back and see that his hands are full. It’s then that Leon presents his bounty to you, bowing his head and holding his trophies aloft like a knight giving respect to his princess: in one hand, one of the stupid expensive coffees you like, and in the other… your comfiest work flats.

“How?” is the first thing your fish brain manages to say. Because, truly, how does he always know? The coffee, the shoes— “Did you put a tracker in me? One that tells you everything I’ve been complaining about all day?”

You go slumping down into the nearest seat, mystified by him. Leon sets the still-steaming coffee down in front of you and kneels, stooping to help you out of your shoes-from-hell. The strap around your ankle has rubbed the bone raw even through your tights. He gets the clasp loose on the first shoe with little fussing, then soothes the skin with tender brushes of his thumb.

“Mhm,” he hums. All you can see of him from this angle is the layers of color in his hair, deep browns and ash blondes blending into one another. The smug pride in his voice is obvious—he loves knowing he’s read you well. “Tells me when you’re hungry, too. Have lunch with me?”

Please god, your body begs. Just picturing it loosens some of the tension in your neck. Like last time, the two of you would play-fight over where to eat, and your cute little delivery boy would go pick up the winner. That way, you wouldn’t have to waste a single moment of your allotted thirty-minute lunch. Leon would pull up a seat at your desk (maybe scare Douglas off with a flash of his badge), and you’d get a blissful, uninterrupted dose of him. Enough to get you through the rest of your shift.

He’d be too deep in Professional Agent Mode to babble like he does at home, but Leon’s raspy chuckles and his hand on your knee would tide you over til’ five.

…But no, the universe is never that kind to you. You wince at Leon’s offer and drop an apologetic hand to his shoulder, still knelt at your feet and working on your other shoe. He’s too good to you. “M’ sorry, baby, but I think I’m gonna have to work through lunch if I wanna get home on time. Rain check?”

He doesn’t mind. He throws a squinty warning stare your way, not happy that you’re getting dangerously close to overworking yourself, but he understands.

A sly smile creeps onto Leon’s face as he helps you slip on a flat. “I could talk to your Captain. What if you were pulled away for a ‘federal emergency?’”

“Then I think me and my Captain would implode from stress,” you laugh. “He’d think I’d been drawn into some national crisis or something.”

Leon scoffs. “That’s only happened, like, once.”

The other flat welcomes your poor, aching foot like a jacuzzi hot tub, and you take a deep magical sip of the overpriced coffee he got special for you. It trumps the watery breakroom joe any day.

For a minute you’re so stupidly happy that you could easily punch a boulder clean off a cliff. Hell, you might even twirl your hair.

“One too many times!” You groan. Since he’s being all cute and kneeling at your feet, you can’t resist poking him a couple of times to be silly. In the chest. In the cheek. In the heart. Stage-whispering, you accuse, “I think you just like having excuses to work with me.”

Leon finishes helping you into your shoes, but he’s in no hurry to leave his spot. One of his rough hands finds yours in your lap and toys with your wedding band, twisting it, testing the groove where it’s been sitting for a few years now. Those big blue eyes fix on your face. You’re married to the guy, but something about being the subject of all his naked attention makes you feel like shrieking into a damn pillow. He’s the best. Judging by that mean little smile on his face, he knows it’s true.

He gives your hand a little squeeze and points out, “I was your partner before anyone else. We never got our buddy cop beat—so yes, I will shove myself into your world since I can’t pull you into mine.”

You’re grateful he still thinks that way. Getting him to talk about Raccoon is harder than pulling teeth, but this—your partnership, whether that be as cops in an imaginary second life, or as husband and wife—never fails to pry him right open.

You’d been asked before if it was frustrating, how your paths had split after the city had blown. The two of you had come from the same spot and endured the same things, but where Leon had soared up, you’d kept to what you knew. No part of you envied him for it. In his mind, the two of you were still the same unit you’d been then, endlessly loyal to one another. You watched Leon’s back and—clearly, he watched yours.

“You’re my favorite,” you tell him, sweetly petting his chin. “I’m gonna fucking destroy you at our Nerf duel when I get home.”

All the buttery tenderness wipes from his face, and in an instant he’s on his feet, clapping a scarred hand down onto your shoulder and bending to whisper fiercely in your ear. “I’d like to see you try.”

He smushes a kiss to your cheek, waves a friendly, “See ya,” and melts back into the current of the rowdy bullpen. You hate to see him leave, but by god, you love to watch him go.

A few seconds after Leon says his goodbye, Giana, your rookie, peers around the open door of the break room. Her patchy blush goes all the way down to her uniform collar. “...Nevermind. I can definitely picture you married, Detective Kennedy…”

-

Ask to be added to my Leon taglist!

[m4rs-ex3]

the visuals for the last like 20 minutes of atsv are my favorite things ever

specifically: the color theory

earth-42 is obviously striking on a whole nother level

we tend to automatically think of red as the color of danger, but that's loud and passionate and angry. this haunting, sickening green feels more conniving and threatening and apocalyptic.

(if you think of color in disney movies, all the scariest, most cunning villains--maleficent, scar, ursula, evil queen, facilier, gothel--have either palettes or grand moments or motifs heavily utilizing green)

and something i always notice is that rio 42 looks just a little off, and it's because they reflect so much green in her eyes they look almost entirely green

and, if this is your first time watching, you have no idea why the environment is made to be so deeply unsettling. let's look at gwen's dimension for a sec

being home is a really bad thing to gwen. while miles was doing everything he could to get home, gwen was literally dragged there--because gwen views her dimension as unsafe (ignore the trans parallels ignore the trans parallels ingore the tra

it's dark. it has the same ominous rain. but you can tell it's 65. that bisexual lighting is unmistakable

i can't even go into the colors of gwen and george's argument because there is an image limit and i am lazy. but we know it's insane. the emotional peak of the scene is also where we see the colors most vibrant and changing the most abruptly

and when they have their beautiful lil moment, this is what happens

not only is it blindingly bright and trans colored all of a sudden, but the characters don their "true" coloring

and even after gwen leaves, the scene is still bright, and familiar

miles should be safe in his dimension. but we know he's not.

back to earth-42. well i mean we have these absolute visual bangers what do i need to say u get it

and then there's this absolutely incredible moment where i would say miles is at his emotional peak (manic peak as well; i mean spot's hands and the infamous revenge line...yoikes.) and just like with gwen, the emotional high is where we see the most dynamic colors so coincidence i think not

this next sequence is just one of the coolest fuckin chase-esq scenes i've ever seen. like the mumbattan one slapped but the pacing and direction and elements and epicness together here are just immaculate

another thing--miguel/ben's post is heavily shrouded in red. he's supposed to be ominously looming over exactly where miles is headed. buttttttttt~ when miles first crash lands, there is quite a bit of red, and as he gets closer to home, the city gets bluer and bluer with less and less red, bc yk he's not actually headed towards miguel/ben. woah. i make sense guys. i am a fart smella. i mean smart smella. i mean fart fella. i mean fart smella. i mea

[adverbally]

I’m Never Gonna Dance Again

Written for the @steddieangstyaugust prompt “Careless Whisper - George Michael” | wc: 795 | rated: T | cw: description of knee injury, brief discussion of surgery and recovery | tags: career-ending injury, ballet dancer steve, eddie is also a ballet dancer but that’s less relevant to the story, I am not a ballet expert but I did my best

———

Steve built his reputation as a danseur on his ability to jump: height, hang time, graceful landings, the complete package. So maybe it’s only fitting that the last step of his professional ballet career would be a jump as well.

A double cabriole derrière.

He’d done it hundreds of times in his career, on stage and in the studio. Throwing a leg into the air, twisting his body while his other leg comes up to beat against it twice, pushing it even higher, before landing on the bottom leg again. So simple he could float through it on autopilot, already thinking ahead to nailing the triple tour en l’air later in the variation.

Muscle memory takes over as he launches upward, raising one arm above his head with the other extended to the side, feeling the perfect point of his feet as his legs meet in the air, once, twice before gravity takes over again…

Steve hears the pop before he feels anything.

Then comes the pain in the front of his knee as it buckles beneath him. He can’t get up, he can’t even extend his leg, and he knows immediately that his days as a principal dancer are over.

It isn’t the injury itself that’s the problem. A fully ruptured patellar tendon, like his own, can be repaired. With surgery and physical therapy, he could be healed in a year, tops. Strength and range of motion almost fully restored, just a little stiffness in the joint.

But it would happen again. Repetitive motion, jumping and leaping and landing, had weakened the tendon in the first place, and resuming his work would put him at risk of another tear. He could strain other parts of his leg as he compensated for his weakened knee, and the potential cascade of more surgeries and less mobility… he needs to think beyond his ballet career and consider the rest of his life.

Eddie helps him with that, as he always does. Ballet had brought them together, from roommates at the conservatory to partners dancing for the same company. As much as he cherished sharing the stage with the love of his life, there is so much more Steve wants to share with him– walks along Lakeshore Drive, the stairs to the front door of their future home, maybe even a couple of toddlers to chase around.

Losing ballet would be okay as long as he still has Eddie, Steve thinks.

And for the most part, it is. His surgery is successful and he storms through his rehabilitation with a focus he never used outside of ballet. He keeps his spirits up, even once the cold weather sets in and the ballet season begins without him. He can walk without a limp, moving through the daily activities of his new life as if nothing had ever happened. He even tries a few simple footwork sequences under the close supervision of his physical therapist.

(When asked to jump, he refuses to try, not even a simple assemblé. It would be too painful to see how his technique had suffered in the months without practice, how the leaps that once came to him as easily as breathing are now far out of his reach.)

Everything is fine until eight months post-injury. That’s when the dreams start.

It’s usually Steve, alone on the stage, performing a solo to an empty auditorium. No music, only the slap of his slippers against the floor with every step. It’s often something he’s performed before, like Siegfried’s solo in the third act of Swan Lake or Albrecht in Act 2 of Giselle. Other nights, it’s his original choreography, made up while staring out the window on the El as he heads home from the studio. One memorable time, it’s a pas de deux of his own creation, with Eddie as his partner as they trade leaps and lifts and pirouettes as equals.

The dreams always feel so peaceful. There are no distractions, just him and his body and his breath, moving through variations, feeling the emotion behind each dance, doing what he does best. He hits every step perfectly. It’s like the endorphin rush of his best performance, every time.

And then he wakes up.

He has a moment, a fleeting thought of his rehearsal schedule for the day, wondering if his favorite practice tights are clean, before reality sets in. Then it hits him, and it hits him hard. He stumbles out of bed with his knee stiff from sleep, hoping he doesn’t wake Eddie.

Steve slips into the bathroom and turns on the shower. Then he braces himself on the vanity counter and cries as long and as loud as he wants, knowing the running water will cover up the sound of his grief.

[alwritey-aphrodite]

its ur fav anon pookie!!

i’ve been thinking a lot about an arranged marriage/relationship with either sejanus or coryo. i feel like both of their guardians would want them to get to a higher ranking in the capital, so naturally, marrying their kid off to the capital sweetheart (reader) is the best option.

you don’t even have to write anything on this if you don’t want to, just a silly idea i had 🤭 i feel like they would both react so differently to being forced into something like that omg

Ok I love this idea so I’m writing one for Sejanus too, and I’ll link it here when it’s finished!

For as long as you can remember, there had been talks and jokes and quips about you marrying Coriolanus Snow, the grandson of your own grandmother’s childhood best friend. At first, the comments went well over your head, but the older you got, the more serious it seemed. And now, with Coriolanus at your elbow and your mother across from you at the dinner table, it seemed more serious than ever.

“In the springtime, of course, after you’ve both finished your studies,” your mother is saying, the two older women at the end of the table nodding along and whispering together, clearly planning their own sequence of events. All this marriage talk has made you lose your appetite, so you push yourself away from the table and make your way to the gardens, ignoring the shouts of your parents.

There are footsteps behind you, the heavy footfall of your betrothed, and you slow to a stop, despite the urges to turn and slap him across the face. He’s obviously pleased with this arrangement, gaining access to all that money he surely believes has long been his right, growing up with all the trappings of Capital luxury and none of the wealth.

The boy is as cold and emotionless as the statues that surround you, his eyes a pale blue that give the impression of a motionless pond. You wonder if your mother would let you choose the Snow cousin you’d want to marry, certain that Tigris would be much more enjoyable to spend the rest of your life with.

“Well, this must be wonderful news for you,” you sneer after a few minutes of silent walking, desperate for a fight.

“It is, I’m going to marry the most desired girl in Panem,” he says, his voice infused with pride, as if he’s done anything at all to win you over.

“The most desired fortune in Panem,” you correct, knowing exactly why all the boys at the academy fell over themselves trying to get close to you.

“Are you going to attend university?” He asks, changing topics as if he has any interest in what you want, any interest in you beyond the fortune tied to your last name.

“Yes, I am,” you try to be polite, but part of you is waiting for a fight, waiting for Coriolanus to finally snap and show you that he’s not an emotionless machine, “and I’m sure my parents would be more than happy to pay for you to attend as well, I can’t be having a deadbeat for a husband.”

You’re successful in riling him up, if the way Coriolanus crowds you up against one of the stone pillars near your house is any tell. You knew money would be a sore spot, and seeing his chest heaving with rage, his eyes an electric sort of blue you’ve never seen before, has a smile tugging at your face. He’s standing so close that you need to look up to look into his eyes, but you’ve never been one to back down from a fight.

“You have no right to speak to me like that,” he grits out, and you can’t help but scoff, the pride of this boy unbelievable.

“I was only trying to help,” you ply him with a sickly sweet smile, ready to complete the rest of your little experiment.

It’s difficult, with the way he has you crowded against the pillar, but you press your lips to his, cutting off any snide remarks he was waiting to use and resisting the urge to bite off his tongue. He’s motionless, hands by his side but his mouth is much more responsive, and when his hands start to catch up with his brain and he makes to grab your waist, you slip out from where he’d had you effectively trapped, sauntering back into the house.

When you look back at him over your shoulder, his chest is heaving for an entirely different reason, and you can’t help the grin that splits your face. He thinks he’s in control, but you’re the one who holds all the cards, and maybe this marriage won’t be as awful as you think.

I’m in love with this dynamic if anyone has any more asks for these two :)

[lokisgoodgirl]

Hail, Commander [Asgard!Loki x Fem.Reader]

A link to my Masterlist is HERE Summary: Loki returns from war, and certain traditions must be upheld. Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Smut. Language. Salirophilia (dirty Loki) Exhibitionism. Descriptions of violence/blood. (w/c 1.6k)

The clang of armoured spears vibrated the stone beneath your feet. Once. Twice. Three times.

You drew your gaze away from the twinkling lights of Asgard stretched below the balustrade, turning in a hurried curtsey as the returning commander approached. Nerves twisted in your stomach, though you had no idea why.

It was always thus when Loki returned from war.

He strode majestically through the towering columns, removing his horned helmet as he went. The clanking sound of the guards standing to attention in sequence as he moved past them broke the evening stillness, metal on metal clanging. It made your thighs squeeze together beneath the long skirts covering them.

His leather cape billowed theatrically behind his towering form, the fine silk lining catching the transient flicker of a hundred torches lighting his path. He shook his hair, heavy with the weight of battle fought. And won. It had been weeks since the younger prince had stalked the halls, and tonight he was on the hunt.

Reverently, you lowered your gaze, each purposeful stride of his muscled legs moving in your direction with predatory singularity. His usual flawless fairness was marred with ash and dark stains, visible on the gold of his armour even in the moonlight.

He hasn’t even bathed, you thought, a thrill racing in waves through your blood. The slap of his boots against the ground echoed in the silent night, becoming louder before stopping abruptly. You could smell the heat emanating from him; lustful intentions oozing from beneath war-ravaged leathers. The lingering smell of stale copper and sweat crawled up your nostrils.

Loki's cape swirled around his ankles in your line of vision, settling in shredded folds.

“Look at me.” he growled, lifting your chin with one curled finger. His thumb danced across your bottom lip, dragging the plump down.

For the first time in weeks, you saw his face; menacingly beautiful under starlight. His eyes were bright, the whites contrasting ethereally against layers of blood and soot smeared across his brow, his cheekbones, his throat.

“My Prince.” you greeted huskily. Loki gave a small nod in response. “You have been victorious, then?” you coyed, feeling your heart beat faster as a smile curled at his dry lips. “Could you ever doubt me, precious one?” he murmured, cupping your cheekbone. “I will always arrive victorious to you. Victorious for you.”

He flipped the edges of the cape backwards, before pressing you against the stone balustrade in a crushing kiss. His lips tasted like smoke and metal; the sharp tang of old copper springing to life on your searching tongue.

Loki groaned as your fingers caught on the lengths of his hair, dragging through the residue of crusted blood and sweat. His head fell back as you pressed closer to his chest, a mischievous palm rubbing over his stirring manhood.

"My filthy soldier..." you muttered darkly, observing the telling bob of his Adam’s apple cast in murky shadow.

The veins in his neck pulsed, thick ropes of muscle standing proud against the cake of grime which coated them. "Filthy Prince, if you please..." he goaded through shallow breaths. “You may be my betrothed, but I am still your superior.”

You stifled a giggle, feeling his cock inflate rapidly beneath layers of heavy leather as you grasped shamelessly at his hips, tugging at buckles and straps that hung sluttishly from every angle. Gods, how you had missed him. You gyrated firmly against his centre. Just once.

Loki's shoulders flexed beneath the heavy armour, head tilting with a hard glint to his features. With a stomach dropping pulse, you realised that look would have been the last thing his enemies ever saw.

"Tread carefully love..." he whispered menacingly, a tingle of anticipation rolling up your spine as a knowing smirk cracked the dried dirt by his dimples. His eyebrow cocked, a hand you knew would leave a soiled trail down the fine silk of your dress sliding to rest on your lower back. "I am not in a merciful mood."

You bit your lip, watching Loki break into a mischievous smile. His teeth were blindingly bright against the stains streaked on his skin, layered effects of deadly strikes and blows and carnage mapped in each square inch of his face. “Do you see them?” he purred, tilting his head. You shivered, casting a glance to the dozens of Asgardian palace guards lined up along the promenade to the great hall; their stares fixed ahead. “They have orders to stay at their post all night.” he murmured.

“Your father has organised a feast for your glorious return…” you hummed, as Loki hoisted you to sit atop the balustrade with a soft thump. Loki pursed his lips knowingly, a playful twang in his voice. “And I have still yet to bathe...as you may have noticed.”

He placed a lingering kiss in the curve of your neck, the resulting groan of desperation from your parted lips making him chuckle against the skin.

“Do you wish me to stop?” he murmured, kissing messily up your heated neck as he spread your legs. You squirmed on the wide stone balcony, tightening your knees against his hips. His mud-roughed cheek grazed yours, warm breath making you shiver against the evening chill. “Do you have the strength to wait, love?”

“No…” you whispered shakily, letting your fingers unclasp the buckle slung over his chest. It loosened the front panel of his leather armour, falling open. Your hands dove inside, kissing him like he had returned from the dead. Perhaps he had.

“Good.” he growled, whipping the sides of his leather battle garb around your widened thighs. Concealed fingers skimmed ribbons of silk up your legs, the fabric falling beneath his touch like enemies beneath his sword. Pushing it around your hips, he inhaled the musk of hot, feminine arousal rising between your bodies; sweet against the copper tang of his filth.

“You know not what I have done for this moment, love.” he muttered, combing a dirt laden hand through your hair. “The chaos I have wrought.”

Your back arched, feeling his wetted cock press against your slit; desperate and fierce. The stone of the balustrade grated against your ass as you shifted towards him, urging him to fill you with the closeness you missed. To complete you again.

“Loki…” you mewled pleadingly as a smirk tugged his cracked lips. It was tradition, that he would tell you his tales. Loki’s return wouldn’t be the same without them.

“I slaughtered legions, each demon falling to my feet with a final wail of hopeless anguish…” he whispered, nudging the leaking tip against your entrance. Your hips bucked upwards, urging him on.

“Their blood ran in rivers, darling. You should have seen it, the pathetic fear in their eyes before they felt the quick of my blade slice across their throat. F-fuck...” he groaned, breaching you with a low, guttural sigh.

Loki’s fingers grasped around your thighs, tugging you down his cock. The scrape of the balustrade stone stung the curves of your flesh, any discomfort obliterated by the exquisite sensation of his manhood setting every nerve of pleasure alight. His metal wrist-guards pressed against the flat of your thighs as he rocked your hips, lost in the theatrics of his arousal.

“We tore t-through their defences…” he gasped, delivering small thrusts with aching precision. “It was brutal. Messy. We...g-gods...o-obliter-rated...their...uhhh...h-hope-”

“-More, Loki…” you keened in his ear, fingernails scraping down his shoulders beneath the overcoat as your head fell back. The god chuckled as he enveloped you, the cape like wings covering your modesty as he fucked you like a common whore, perched upon the balustrade.

The angle of his hips was perfect, each roll of them edging you closer to inevitable orgasm as a steady beat of drums began to pepper the air. The Procession, you realised; each beat of percussion seeming to tremble the very breath from your body.

“Their army p-parted like leaves...scattered, sand in the wind before our mighty f-force.” he panted, edging deeper into your wet heat. Every drag of his heavy cock was tortuously slow, melting you from the inside out as he tried to maintain some element of subtlety. Your knees rose against his ribs, letting him lean you back over the balustrade.

“So much destruction, love.” he murmured, as firelight from the wall torches flickered tepid warmth behind his head. “So much power your god held in his hands. All for you.” The streets were full tonight, candles held by citizens setting the winding path to the palace alight in grateful homage. A booming, solitary voice heralded from below, soaring to the heavens. "Hail, the victorious dead." The familiar mantra vibrated around Asgard's high towers, washing over the muted hiss of the slow moving crowd walking the cobbled streets. Hail, the ghostly refrain of a thousand souls echoed in response. "Hail, our glorious commander." the voice sang solemnly; the ceremonial vindication making Loki delve further into your cunt with a shuddering sigh. Hail, Commander. Hail. Your voice joined the reverent murmurs of gratitude crashing against the walls of the palace like a wave, hundreds of feet below. Each syllable from your lips was a lullaby, whispered wetly against your commander's skin.

You clenched, hearing him hiss beneath the veil of tangled, filthy hair. He muttered ancient curses, pelvis grinding against your clit as he rocked you towards the precipice.

“How many, Loki…?” you groaned, feeling his balls tighten against your slick sex. He let out a growl, scraping his teeth down your cheek with a feral moan. “Thousands, my love." he purred darkly. "Dead at my feet.”

With a strangled gasp, you came around him; leaning into his war-soaked leathers to stifle the scream clawing in your throat. You had no idea how clandestine your fucking truly was, but whatever the guards thought they were seeing out the corner of their eye - you did not intend to confirm it.

“They cried for m-mercy at the end.” Loki gasped, tacky curls falling against his brow as he watched himself sink inside your leaking pussy, still quivering with aftershock. “Their cries...uhh..that’s it, f-fuck, d-darling...their cries went unanswered.”

Loki’s breath hitched at his own words, a wavering moan snaking past his lips as a low hiss. The god's carved jaw pointed to the stars, clenching as he approached climax with a dirty growl rolling in his chest.

“No mercy.” you whispered against his cheek, concealing another moan in his shoulder as he fucked you to the slow beat of drums in the distance.

“No mercy.” he echoed quietly, before fastening his mouth to yours.

Continued in The Feast

A/N: @mischief2sarawr I hope this somewhat satisfied your mighty balustrade related need. Tags @gigglingtigger @meowmeow-motherfucker @muddyorbsblr @imalovernotahater @avengersalways @littledark11 @lokikissesmyforehead @simplyholl @fictive-sl0th @loopsisloops @loveroflokiforpoeticjustice @123forgottherest @joyful-enchantress @sititran @jaidenhawke @silverfire475 @michelleleewise @vbecker10 @imalovernotahater @thomase1 @morriggannlostinfandoms @marygoddessofmischief @xorpsbane @filthyhiddles @peacefulpianist @maple-seed @yelkmelk @wheredafandomat @mistress-ofmagic @five-miles-over @goblingirlsarah @ozymdias @peaches1958 @your-taste-on-my-lips @lokidokieokie @kikster606 @peachyjinx @tbhiddlestan83 @trickster-maiden @smolvenger @liminalpebble @psychospore @littlespaceyelf @lokischambermaid @praq123 @lokisgoodboy

[drconstellation]

Once and Future Royalty

Just, stay with me on this one. I know its going to look crazy at the start, but trust me, I know where I'm going.

It all started with the 537AD scene in Wessex in the opening montage of "Hard Times," S1E3. Yeah, the one where Aziraphale is supposed to be a knight of the Round Table and Crowley is role-playing the Black Knight, and they are both so super-squeaky shiny clean - not a speck of dirt or mud on them. wtf! It looks out of place, unrealistic, and was bugging the crap out of me, like a stone in your shoe. It just didn't fit. I mean, why put a myth, a legend, into that sequence? Oh, OK, yeah, the preceding stories from the Bible, like the Garden of Eden and the Flood, aren't "myths" as well, you say? Hmm. In the context of the Good Omens AU, being a biblical based story, they belong there far more than the legend of King Arthur.

King Arthur, who supposedly united Britain under his rule during the late 5th century and early 6th century, was shown to have the divine right to rule by wielding the mighty sword Excalibur. Some stories tell of Arthur pulling Excalibur from a stone. Some tell of him receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Either way, it was bestowed upon him by divine grace. Despite his triumph in battle, he left no heirs, as his queen, the fair Guinevere, was barren. She had a long-running love affair with the greatest knight of the court, Sir Lancelot, but despite this being an open secret in court Arthur would not put her aside. The knights of the Round Table in the court of Camelot were near-paragons of Christian virtue, and there are many tales of their search for the Holy Grail, the cup from the Last Supper of Jesus Christ.

In the end, mortally wounded in battle, Arthur was taken away for healing, and never seen again. It was said he would return when Britain was at it most direst hour to save the day once more. A "messianic" return.

The Once and Future King.

Now, I'm no Arthurian novice; I drank up all of T. H. White as a teenager, read the Dark is Rising multiple times, Marion Zimmer Bradley's interpretation and what ever else I could lay my hands on for a good couple of decades. And there is LOTS of King Arthur stuff around. You are not left wanting for anything new to read or consume. And I'll bet there are a fair few of you also out there who know a quite bit about the legend as well. Oh, and I can't tell you how many times I have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I still walk around quoting it day-to-day, like the good little Gen-Xer I am, having grown up on that stuff. So I really should have listened to my intuition when bits of Monty Python kept popping up in my brain in response to other parts of GO I was thinking about. (Staaay, I said, stay with me here....)

I kept chewing away furiously on the Wessex problem, growling in feral frustration at it, but also kept reading and sorting out some other ideas and metas at the same time. Eventually I found the key in a tiny little post, about a small detail in the 1941 Blitz episode S2E4, of all places. I wanted to slap myself with how much was staring me in the face so obviously once the door opened. And the damn beauty of it is, that I already written about some it, out of context, without knowing the why.

OK. Where to start this journey...hmmm, back to Monty Python, because, guess what - the Wessex scene is actually riffing off one the more famous skits out the the Holy Grail. The scene is a masterpiece of political satire, from start to finish, but the relevant part here is this sequence:

In case you missed the salient points: Arthur claims he is king by divine providence, because he was given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake. Dennis the peasant protests this waterlogged method of determination, mentioning ponds, watery tarts and a moistened... well, I hope you get the idea about where this is going.

Meanwhile, in 537AD, Wessex, as the mist swirls around them:

"It is a bit damp," complains a shiny silver Aziraphale.

Yes, Excalibur would be a bit damp after it emerged from the Lake. (vidavalor! Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm trying to have a serious discussion here! Please! And I wasn't even going to go anywhere near what the sword in the stone is really meant to be referring to...it's not even relevant to the discussion at hand, I swear! Well, there is going to be sexual relations mentioned but - oh, never mind...)

Right. Where were we. Lets leave those super-clean elite pretendy knights to swim off through the swirling mist back to their dry homes to write and file reports to head office, along with Patsy and the hired Igors, and Dennis can keep playing in his lovely muddy filth after he finishes protesting being repressed by the divinely-deluded Arthur. I've got a bit more to say about what Aziraphale and Crowley might represent here later but you need some more context first, so lets move on. I just needed to show you the first bit so you can see the Arthurian theme stretches across both S1 and S2, and will likely appear in S3 as well. More about that towards the end.

Ah, before I forget...another ref from the Holy Grail we need to cover:

This GIF, unfortunately, doesn't have the full exchange between the peasants, which is this:

P1: "Who's that then?" P2: "I don't know. Must be a king." P1: "How can you tell?" P2: "Because he doesn't have any shit on him."

Ah. Er. OH!

Have you made the connection?

Who have I been emphasizing as being unusually clean in their Arthurian setting? That's right, Aziraphale and Crowley.

What's this implying? That they are royalty. Celestial royalty. Maybe not kings, but how about princes? You know how we've been discussing whether Crowley was a once at least an Archangel, and there is even a hint that he was a fallen prince of Heaven given during the replay of Gabriel's trial? (Not the prince, but a prince - a seraphim) And that Aziraphale may have once been Raphael, and may be again in the future? Once and future royalty. To me it adds weight to the past discussion, and helps to explain the assumed authority expressed in these two scenes here: On the left, Aziraphale takes control inside the book shop as the angels and demons argue who is going to punish Gabriel and Beelzebub (finally found it after several months!) and on the right, Crowley is shouting at the assembling demons in the street that they are "out of order."

Onward, Patsy. (I hope you're still with me.)

1941, the Blitz part 2, minisode.

We've found Excalibur! On to Camelot!

[Edit note: I've added a few GIFs and screen shots into the sequence of parallels above because I was thinking over a few things since I posted and felt this actually sat better. To try and explain, as they don't exactly match as I would like, in the Holy Grail movie, King Arthur and the knights he has gathered rock up at the foot of Camelot and gaze up in awe at it. "Camelot!" Arthur declares to the party. "Camelot!" Galahad echoes in excitement. And a third "Camelot!" comes from Lancelot. What do we get in GO? Aziraphale leaps out of the Bentley (Crowley's black horse) and declares "The theater! Sophocles! Shakespeare!" I swear, if you put the two side by side, they would match. It's not just a reminder of how much time Aziraphale has seen pass by, or that we are seeing a tragedy play out. But damn it, I could so just see Aziraphale attending a Sophocles performance in Athens back in the day...]

Camelot was King Arthur's castle and home of his court. In S2 of GO the Windmill Theater is established as our court of Camelot where our 1941 Blitz-era Arthurian drama is to play out, involving Furfur and the zombies.

Yes, poor old Furfur. Two's company, three's a crowd, as they say. Now we know we're in Camelot, we need to be reminded of the central tragedy of the Arthurian story, that ultimately led to the golden kingdom's fall. Lady Guinevere, Arthur's queen, famously loved Sir Lancelot, and the two were passionate lovers. It was essentially a love-triangle at the top, with Arthur being jilted, but he wouldn't/couldn't discard his queen. Where do we see this playing out in 1941?

Furfur, pleased with himself for catching an angel and a demon in the act of consorting together (with the help of the zombies,) barges into the backstage dressing room, and confronts the lovers with their crime. But who is playing who in the Arthurian love triangle? I would say Furfur is clearly caught in the role of Arthur here. Consider the following exchange:

FURFUR: Hmm, well, well, well… What have we here? AZIRAPHALE: Sorry, have we met? FURFUR: Oh, no, you never had the pleasure, but… we have, haven't we? CROWLEY: Have we? FURFUR: What do you mean "have we?" You know we have. We were in the same legion. Just before the Fall. Doing dubious battle on the plains of Heaven. Remember? CROWLEY: I remember going into battle, I don't remember being there with you. Sorry. FURFUR: I was right next to you. We did loads together. You use to jump on me back, little monkey in the waistcoat. Anyway, whether you do or whether you don't, it doesn't matter. I'm here to inform you, as a representative of the Higher Powers of Hell, that you, Crowley, are in breach of the Infernal Code. Consulting and collaborating with an angel, Fell the Marvelous, aka… [opens book] Azirapalala. Azirapapap. Aziphapalala. AZIRAPHALE: [annoyed] Aziraphale

Furfur claims a past intimate relationship with Crowley, which Crowley spurns offhandedly. Crowley is playing Guinevere here, jilting Furfur/Arthur, which leaves the demon-smiting Aziraphale standing in for the handsome hero Lancelot (with his French connections, no less), and doesn't he make us weak at the knees when he drops his voice an octave in dominating disgust. (Is it suddenly getting hot in here...? Phew!)

Interestingly, looking back in S1 at 537AD Wessex, though, I would say that Crowley was Lancelot as the Black Knight, a role that Lancelot sometimes played in the legends, and Aziraphale would then be the fair maiden Guinevere. It certainly plays into Crowley's long term role of playing the knight who comes to the rescue of Aziraphale's princess in distress. Excalibur was no where in sight, perhaps still beneath the waters of the lake. Nor Arthur. Perhaps it was still too early in the story then...

I had originally suggested in my very first post that Furfur was given a stag as his demon avatar because he was wearing horns for being cuckolded by Crowley. But I wasn't quite thinking about it in context with the Arthurian legend! The stag is also often associated with royalty, plus while wandering around the medieval bestiary website that someone linked to, it interestingly notes that the enemy of the snake is the stag and the stork (Shax's avatar.) Ah ha!

So how can we extrapolate this knowledge into a possible appearance of the Arthurian theme in S3?

Will we see the love triangle of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot come back into play and cause more chaos? I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the Fall.

Or will our lovers bring down a divinely-appointed ruler via their committed behind-the-back defiance of expected propriety?

Will Excalibur appear from beneath the waters, perhaps in another form, to declare a new king?

Could it even be a combination Jesus/Arthur, King of the World, returned? And they turn out to be a very naughty boy, disappearing into the night clubs of Times Square, New York, and that's how they lose him? (Social media viral sensation, anyone?)

I wouldn't be half-surprised if Greasy Johnson's name turns out to be Arthur, actually.

And no, I haven't forgotten that Adam's dad was named Arthur as well.

Bring on S3!

**Bonus**

If you've made it this far and you're thinking:

Let me leave you with this last connection.

In the back stage change room, remember Furfur delivers these lines:

FURFUR: What do you mean "have we?" You know we have. We were in the same legion. Just before the Fall. Doing dubious battle on the plains of Heaven. Remember?

On the first level, he is referring the Great War in the Good Omens AU.

On the second level, Furfur is paraphrasing Milton's Paradise Lost.

On a third level, I can (and will in a future meta) connect this back to the training initiative paintball fight at Tadfield Manor in S1.

And even deeper on a fourth level, if you do know the Holy Grail movie well, you'll remember there is an odd little subplot in it, that infers that the whole King Arthur and his knights thing is merely a full-on violent cosplay that is murderously rampaging across the countryside in the present day with the police in hot pursuit. It's a strange juxtaposition between reality and dream, and you aren't quite sure what it is real or not. The ending is bizarrely and abruptly surreal as the two story lines collide in the heat of battle, as the police turn up and arrest the combatants. A bit like this:

[3minsover]

Steddie Dancing With the Stars AU (posted on twitter a little while ago)

Eddie Munson used to be in a band.

They were successful, hit the mainstream at just 19 years old, and had almost 4 years of success. But it’s been 8 years since the band fell apart, and when Eddie’s manager suggests he do something like Dancing With the Stars, he’s initially appalled. He’s a Serious Musician. He’s not about to make a fool of himself fucking about in spandex on live television. But management feed him the Exposure line; it’ll make him a household name again, remind people he exists. So he has his people say yes. Though, he’d left it late to agree to the offer, so he’s only a back up in case someone else drops out. He’ll most probably not have to even do it. Sweet. Except, a week before filming starts, someone does drop out. bumping eddie up to main cast.

Shit.

He’s paired with a guy, Steve. Has no issues with dancing with a man; they’re not the only same sex couple this season and it’s cool to see even a little progress. What he very much does have an issue with, however, is Steve Harrington. Who made no effort to hide how disappointed he was that the man Eddie’d been replacing - some ex-football player - had dropped out last minute, and how he ‘guesses Eddie’ll do.’ Steve’s pushy and demanding, and frankly a bit of a bitch. But he’s a fucking great dancer. Even Eddie can see that. they get through the first couple weeks of live shows easily enough, but it’s tough faking a smile and agreeing that, ‘Oh, i’m just so lucky to have Steve as my partner.’

The night after the third live show, when Eddie had missed a step and nearly tripped Steve, when muscles are sore and nerves are frayed, they get into it in the parking lot out back of the studio.

Eddie confronts Steve about his attitude, and Steve bites back about Eddie’s own. It takes one of the other dancers to break them apart, all up in each other’s faces as they were. They’re told to cool the fuck off, start again on Monday. Only, when monday rolls around, Steve announces their dance this week is the Argentine Tango.

Eddie’s heard of it, another couple danced it last week. lots of twisting and stepping and flicking of legs. Fucking nonsense, honestly. Steve sits Eddie down and shows him the choreo he’ll be doing, gliding over the studio floor, arms raised at the elbow, hands floating in the air in front of his chest, and Eddie finds himself itching to be clasped within those hands. He almost slaps himself at the thought. They work through the first few sequences, Eddie giving lacklustre leg-raises between Steve’s calves. after a particularly half-hearted flick, Steve tightens his grip on Eddie’s biceps and jolts him, forcing Eddie to look at him. They’re chest to chest, nose to nose, heartbeats already elevated from the movement.

"You don’t get to fuck this up for me," Steve growls, eyes boring into eddie’s with a darkness he’s not seen in the month they’ve known each other.

"You think I’m doing this on purpose? I can’t do it, it looks stupid."

"It only looks stupid if you don’t try," Steve snarls in response. "Let’s keep going." He swings the pair around to their next position. And then Steve does something that has Eddie’s jaw dropping open.

Steve drops into a crouch, sliding one leg swiftly out to the side. the angle seems impossible, and it has Eddie thinking all sorts of things about how flexible Steve is. Steve’s hands have slid down Eddie’s arms and are circling his wrists, pulling on them just enough for Steve to keep his balance.

"Okay, and then you’re going to spin me round from left to right. Can you do that?" Steve asks. But Eddie’s unable to focus on the question, because all he can see is Steve, face-height with his junk, looking up at him through those long lashes.

"Uh. Can I- gimme a second." Eddie tears himself away from Steve’s grasp, rushes out of the studio and into the foyer. He’s lightheaded with lust and his cheeks are burning.

This isn’t happening. He doesn’t like Steve. He’d been secretly planning to sabotage their performance so they’d get voted off, but now. Now he’s already craving the featherlight touch of Steve’s fingertips as he repositions Eddie’s head, as he guides his hands to the correct place. He eventually returns to the rehearsal room, having splashed some cold water over his flushed face.

Steve does the move again, and Eddie spins him, staying silent but for confirmation of Steve’s instructions. And then Steve slowly raises himself up until he’s pressed back against Eddie’s chest, leaning ever so slightly to his left to look back at Eddie’s face.

"The Argentine is about desire. Want. Lust. It’s about craving. You have to look at me like you crave me," Steve almost whispers, and Eddie’s legs feel weak. Eddie swallows, blinks hard, can’t help the way his gaze dips down to trace over Steve’s plush pink lips. When he looks back up, Steve’s eyes are wide and searching. "Yeah, like that," Steve breathes, though Eddie had been making no conscious effort to look at Steve in any way other than the way Steve makes him feel.

And if Eddie realizes now that that feeling is desire, then that’s just gonna make this whole thing a fuckton more interesting.

[derelictlovefool]

❝​🇪​​🇲​​🇪​​🇷​​🇬​​🇪​​🇳​​🇨​​🇪​🇪​​🇽​​🇮​​🇹​​🇮​​🇺​​🇲​-⦂❝

— 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧.

Notes: Miniseries my ass—Don't forget to read Part One, Two and Three! Are you ready for Wade POV :) Typical Meta and fourth wall breaking ahead. Wade gets his action sequence and reader gets some mild trauma but they're cool about it.

Warning/s: Canon Typical violence, kidnapping, graphic depictions of violence, decapitation, blood and gore, unhealthy relationships, angst, explicit language, hospital mention

Words: 4k

Wade was like a gargoyle, the personal gargoyle of your shitty little apartment elevator. Stone still in the back with his arms crossed and head down—no one else daring to step into the cramped space with him anytime the doors opened. He'd been in there for the better half of the afternoon, going up and down the floors at the will of others button presses but not working up the guts to step onto your floor. Part of him hoped the doors would open and you'd be standing there, make the decision for him and pull him out of it or step in with him so you could both ride the hellevator of your relationship problems together.

The problems that he wasn't stupid enough to ignore were all his fault.

He was pissed, pissed at himself, pissed at the fuckers who got him into this mess and most of all pissed at the author for putting you two together and giving him a chance to fall so fuckin' badly in love with you. These guys never gave him a break in the love department and if he ever got his hands on them he'd shove their keyboards and pens right up their asses—It was the plot's fault that it hinged on the breakup trope, he and you the unwilling puppets strung along to amuse and entice whoever clicked on the title in their fanfic scroll.

The doors to the elevator opened and your building's security guard, Rich, stared back at him, nervous and tired as all hell. Any other day Wade would have been happy to see him. But right now he wanted to decapitate anyone who didn't have your simmering eyes, he just wanted to see you.

"Heya Wade, uh, people have been callin' the office about a thug in the elevator. Think you could uh," He gestured to the front door of the building and Wade would have tossed him out of it himself had he not soon followed up. with the fact you weren't even home. He froze, hand slapping on the closing doors and shoving them open as he barged out of the elevator.

"Where the fuck are they then?" He snapped, a sudden fear and fury overtaking him as he gripped the guard's uniform tightly. The one time he offered you some privacy and didn't follow you home of course something fucking happened, it was just his damn rotten luck. Rich trembled under his masked gaze and tried to lean back as far as humanly possible.

"I-I have no idea! Didn't come home last night, just assumed they were with you!" He yelped as Wade tossed him to the side, storming out of the building with homicidal intent rolling off of him in waves. A kidnap plot—his favourite. Note the sarcasm. He fumed as he hopped into the car he'd parked on the curb, not his, he didn't own one—he was borrowing this one. Indefinitely. He sped off, at first he was too blindsided by his anger to know where he was going but as it began to simmer realisation bit into the back of his skull like a sneaky bullet.

The fuckwads from the gig. The ones that said if he didn't behave like a good doggy they'd pop a cap in your pretty skull—He should have taken the risk and taken 'em all out Keanu style when he had the chance. But he got preoccupied by, well, you, and trying to get you as far away from him as possible. He was scared, plain and simple. Out of everyone he couldn't watch you get hurt because of him—ironic as he hurt you all the same. Maybe even worse.

After a hasty u-turn and aggressive tapping of coordinates into the shitty GPS Wade put his foot on the gas; his grip on the wheel tight enough to bend the metal beneath the silicone protection. All of this, all of the pain, the nights alone and the nights watching you cry while watching your comfort movies—all of it for nothing! The same song and dance he'd been avoiding was playing out all the same. He scowled, cursed the hostage-for macguffin-trope and promised himself he would not sit through any monologues or negotiations. He was getting you out of whatever crusty basement they had you in and taking you home and then when he had you back; he wasn't letting go.

You could hate him, throw things at him, the whole lot; but he wasn't leaving your side ever again.

He couldn't handle it even when it was self inflicted, fuck whatever your therapist said about it. Fuck whatever anyone else said about it. He needed you, more than he needed oxygen—and back in the day people called that romantic, not unhealthy or concerning.

A wire fence gave way as Wade swerved into the shady, abandoned apartment complex lot. The car sputtered in defiance as he drifted to a stop in front of the building. They knew he was coming, if they didn't they were idiots. He jumped out, heading to the front door, he wasn't going to give them a dime or a batted eyelash but he didn't have time to sneak in the back. He needed to see you were okay and if there was even a hair out of place every mother fucker in this building was going lights out for good.

The doors creaked open, his heavy steps reverberated off the walls and the prior chatter died into bated breaths. When he rounded the corner into a large open room his sights zeroed in on you immediately, tied to a chair and eyes burning with fury and panic. Blood dripped from your lips and anger flared within him before he noticed the guy beside you on the floor clutching the bloody place where his ear used to be. Oh shit. Said ear stared back at him from the puddle on the floor by your feet and he had to admit, he was impressed and dare he say, a little hard.

He wished he could've seen that.

Fuck you were awesome.

"Are you waiting for something?" You asked him, voice strained as you ignored everyone else in the room; eyes solely on Wade. You had no doubts he was getting you out of here and that made his chest swell with some emotion he couldn't quite place. Pride? Love? All of the above?

He titled his head up, noting the faded tune of 'Hit the Road Jack' coming from another room. Oh good, a backing track. He tapped his foot and nodded along for a moment as he lifted his hands, guns were on him—and you, and he chuckled. A low and dark rumble that left the room feeling colder than when he walked in. These chucklefucks had no idea how bad of an idea that was. But they would find out.

"Alrighty sluggers, you ready to dance like monkeys while I take you down in nasty ways for the author's lil action sequence?" Confused looks were shot his way and quickly dismissed as he grabbed his guns in a smooth motion. Shooting two of the guys closest to you, the bullets whizzing through the air and nailing them both in the same eye. Blood and viscera smattered the wall as their bodies went down and you winced as some of it got on you. Whoops.

"Sorry babe." He sang, receiving an unimpressed and somewhat disturbed glare from you. Yeah okay, not funny, he got it.

Wade moved on to the guys nearest to him, neither fast enough to dodge and one got a nice fat bullet to the lower jaw; ripping through skin and cracking through bone as it cut through him like a hot knife. His body fell into the guy behind him who shrugged him off with terror in his eyes. Wade loved it when they got all squirmy, made him all tingly and warm inside. It was fun—for him, anyway. The other guy got a lovely little bullet to the nose, the cartilage shattered and the middle of his face bloomed like a red rose, his body flying back until he landed on the floor looking like a Francisco Goya painting.

What was Wade if not an artist and his weapon's his tools?

Shots began to fire, none from his gun and Wade got started on the left side of the room, swerving past a baseball bat before kicking it into the air and smacking the butt of his gun into the guy's nose. Blood squirted all over the front of Wade and he didn't flinch, sheathing one gun to catch the bat and toss it across the room at one of the guys taking shots at him. It hit him square in the face, breaking his shades and it knocked him back far enough that he tripped over a chair. Wade turned back in time to knock away a punch from the guy now bleeding profusely from his bruising nose.

"You look like you just watched a naughty anime buddy, you should really be careful because the guys upstairs can see everything in your search history," He grinned at the utter despair and confusion on the other man's face, taking even greater pleasure in headbutting him and kicking him back into three of his buddies.

Two other guys ran at his side and he dodged and weaved, shooting one in the kneecap and pulling out one of his swords; decapitating the other guy in a swift motion. As his head rolled off of his body, blood and bone and muscle spilled over the floor and Wade shot the screaming man in front of him in the head. Brain matter coating his boots much to his chagrin, he pulled a face no one could see and tried to shake the shit off of him.

"Nameless bad guy number five got his brain goo all over my boot, gross."

"Wade!" Your voice cut through the pandemonium, followed by a cacophony of gunshots and Wade felt his body ripped open at multiple points. It hurt, it always did, feeling the shrapnel dig into his muscles and the bullet skid past his bones. The ones that hit his fun zone were always the worst and he made a show of bending over and groaning unhappily. His one good feature just got turned into swiss cheese. Again.

He looked up at you, making sure the fire show was reserved solely for him and there was something about the worry in your eyes that stirred something within him. You still cared, even if he wouldn't die you cared that he was getting hurt. That was something. More than enough.

He pushed himself back into action, sword swinging and cutting a guys arm off, gun lifting and blowing a guy's junk into oblivion—the howl of agony a nice backing track to the slowly fading in 'If I could Turn Back Time' by queen Cher herself. Maybe this was it, the big show that he was willing to go through hell to get back to you. Once he'd finished off these guys and untied you, you'd throw your arms around him and he'd get to whisk you off into the sunset. He smiled as he kebabified mister one arm and mister no junk in one go, their bodies tossed to the ground by inertia as he slid his sword back. He spun across the bloody pool of a floor, right into the path of a knife that twisted into his abdomen painfully—but he was too lost to his daydream to give a fuck.

He tucked his gun under the guys chin and blasted his brains out with a boyish glee, sheathing that gun as well to rip the knife out of his gut and toss it into the head of the guy who had the gall to leave the fight and start running toward you. It landed in his temple, slotting in like a perfect tetris piece and his body fell by your feet. You flinched and closed your eyes, rearing Wade back into reality somewhat. Now wasn't time to be playing, you absolutely weren't having fun so neither could he. Double time.

The last two guys went down with fierce efficiency and Wade cleaned off his sword in the crook of his elbow, sliding it back into its place as he rounded the back of your chair.

"Are you—"

"Just get me the fuck out of here Wade." Your words were sharp even though they were quiet—shaky. Wade shut his mouth with a clack of teeth. His jaw tensed as he cut the ropes on your wrists with his tactical knife and freed you from the chair. You didn't jump into his arms, more like fell limply against his chest in exhaustion as he picked you up. He could see scuffs on your skin, dried blood and scratches that made his blood boil. He'd come back and do some unspeakable performance art with these bozos corpses later, if only to make himself feel better for not being there to stop them getting you in the first place.

Having you back in his arms cemented a few things to him, cradling you to his chest and feeling the rise and fall of your own reminded him of so many nights where you were fast asleep next to him trusting your life in his hands. Something not one other person ever did, which was wise, really. But having your arm over his shoulder and knowing how you'd been so sure of him saving you; he needed that. In the world of people that saw him as a failure of a human being who was only good at killing and nothing else he needed you, who had always seen him as something more. Something that could be good, even when he did everything to prove you wrong.

He took you to the hospital despite your protests and stayed by you as they checked you over and patched you up, he threatened each and every one and you scowled and told him to shut it each and every time. It was almost like old times except you looked fatigued and sad and he was rougher and angry. When you were good to go Wade tossed around a few bills and walked out the front door hot on your heels, it was only when you started walking in the opposite direction of his car did he reach out to stop you.

"Wade—" You let him turn you around but you kept your feet planted in place and his heart twisted as your usual facade of anger had melted away into utter sadness and confusion.

"You just got kidnapped and you wanna take the bus?" He asked and you shook your head, but still didn't move. A beat of tense silence filled the space between you before you shrugged and laughed roughly, his hands hovered; wanting nothing more than to hold you again and ward off that blanket of hurt covering you.

"Were those the guys that shot you into a black hole?"

You didn't look at him as you asked and he slowly nodded.

"Yeah. I skimped on my end of the bargain and they thought they could get back at me, I'll take care of it, you'll be okay." He tried to sound reassuring, but his whole being was the opposite of that word. He would be making them all go away, that wasn't a question and he knew you wouldn't doubt that. As soon as someone went after the people he cared about, the list being very short and easy to find, they weren't destined to be in this plane of reality for much longer. They all joined the pile of the dead nameless characters only put in place to show off his wicked skills and mad devotion.

Of which he had entirely too much, he felt like he could burst at the seems from all the feelings inside him specifically labelled with your name. How could one person consume him so wholly? He had never figured it out and he doubted he ever would; despite the obvious inclination to wonder if it was the puppeteer playing him the feelings he felt were far too real and too deep to just be shrugged off as some shallow dialogue. You and him, right here and now, you were real and what you made him feel was real.

And right now he had a whole lot of fear.

You shook your head and turned away from him again, a humourless smile on your face that was hard to look at. Wade watched on carefully as you wrapped your arms around yourself and felt his arms fall to his side.

"I don't think I will be," you looked back at him, "I don't think we will be." That was the opposite of what Wade wanted to hear. He played through the scenario where he threw you over his shoulder and put you in the car, driving you home and ignoring everything you had to say about it. He tried to figure out if being with you and having you actively hate him and trying to get away from him was better than letting you go and getting the small moments of less than stellar small talk or worse; total silence.

Both sounded like garbage.

"I want to go home Wade."

"Then get in the car." He gestured back to the lacklustre scrap of metal and you shook your head, a small action that felt worse than the bullets that had ripped through him earlier. He felt his frustration boiling over, he wanted to rewind time and take back all of his stupid mistakes and all the angry words you'd thrown at each other the last few weeks. He just wanted you. He swore you still wanted him too.

"I can't."

For a moment Wade just stared at you, long and hard as you stepped away from him. He really felt like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and definitely not in a good way. The worst way possible actually. He racked his brain for what to do and grovelling and being honest seemed the only way to move forward that didn't end in you running away from him for the rest of your life. As much as being stupid or aggressive would have been so much easier, he had enough brain left to realise that's how he ended up here in the first place.

"I can't lose you." He hated the way the words sounded so fragile in his mouth, he wanted to bite his tongue off as soon as he said it. You looked just as surprised as he was by him saying it and your mouth fell open as you failed to put together a reply. He watched as you pulled yourself together, the small physical cues he'd mesmerised showing him you were trying desperately to keep up the wall that had been slowly building up. But he wasn't gonna let you hide from him, not now.

"You already let me go, Wade."

He knew that, the reminder stung and he shook his head to rid himself of the flashes of your pained face, the tears he'd seen you shed when you thought you were alone.

"I fucked up, I'll wear that. I fuck up all the time and I'll keep fucking up but I," He sucked in a deep breath, holding his hands out to the side as he stepped forward, "I love you. You are the only good fuckin' thing in my life and I thought as long as you were okay and happy I could live without you, but I can't." He gritted out the words one after the other. God he hated this genre, he always ended up sounding like a wimp. But he wasn't lying, the only time he'd ever lied to you was when he told you to get lost on what had slowly become one of the worst days in his entire damn life.

He wished he had just told you the truth, he'd been getting pretty good at doing it before but something about seeing a reticle trained on you with a little red dot shook him hard to his core. He could disarm a guy in under a second but a drone with more than one controller was another matter and it had just wrecked him, his progress, his resolve; all of it. For that one second he'd lost you and then in the next he really did lose you. But it was in a far worse way as you were still walking around and breathing; just without him being able to be there breathing in that same air.

God this fucking sucked. Relationships always sucked, people were too complicated and he hated feeling how he felt right now. Utterly hopeless—the one guy in the world who could survive a nuclear bomb head-on couldn't handle a simple fucking relationship and like hell he knew how to salvage it in the wreckage he made. But he had no choice but to try and you weren't walking away. So he had to try, even when you didn't want him to.

"I'm always going to love you Wade," that was never a good start to a longer sentence, "I need time. I think we both do. Our relationship was never gonna be normal but there's a little unconventional and then there's our personal, hellish little train wreck that we got stuck in." You gestured between the both of you and Wade sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"Please don't make me keep going with the pathetic grovelling babe please, the author sucks at writing it," He whispered, a half assed attempt to skirt around the heaviness of the conversation. He wasn't good at this, he never had been. Class clown extraordinaire whose way of dealing with conflict was stabbing pencils into eye sockets struggled with relationship talk, go figure.

"Wade can you be fucking serious please, no bullshit." You stressed, stepping forward and he nodded quickly, matching your step with his own so you were only a foot apart.

"I'm sorry, you know I ramble when I get nervous."

"Fucking hell," You groaned and covered your face with your hands, inhaling deeply before dropping your hands and seemingly giving up the fight for now. He was grateful because he wasn't really sure how much fight he had left in him. Well, for you he couldn't fight for eternity, fight with you even. But man it would wear him out.

"Okay just. You have a raw fucking moment with me here and I'll let you take me home, are you actually gonna do anything different or are you gonna sweep everything under the rug and hit me with the same shit in another two years?" Your question is valid and Wade mulled it over as he thought about what you might be looking for in terms of a change. His behaviour was never gonna get any better, neither was his potty mouth—but yours was no better so it wasn't that. He lifted a hand to hold the back of his neck, to think but also to pluck out the bullet that was starting to itch like hell.

"You want couples counselling or whatever I'll do it, I'm gonna be me about it but I'll sit the full hour. The quack might not make it but—" He waved his other hand in the air as he rattled off the one possibility he could think you'd like to hear and you were quick to follow up, a light full of hope flickering behind your tired eyes.

"And you'll talk to me? The next time shit hits the fan in a scary way you'll trust me enough to tell me instead of calling off our two year relationship with gross ass insults—which fucking hurt, by the way." You crossed your arms over your chest and Wade had never nodded so fast or so hard in his life. He jumped toward you like a man running from fire into the arms of a sexy fireman; except he was holding onto your arms and no one's feet were being whisked into the air—but still.

"I will—and i'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it, if that helps," The author didn't even write it so good luck getting him to remember what he even said. All he knew is that it was bad and left a terrible taste in his mouth, a mouldy taste that lingered and clogged up his throat. You didn't lurch away as his hands rested on your forearms but you didn't lean into him like you always used to, it was some uncomfortable thing in the middle that made his skin prickle uncomfortably.

"It doesn't…" You roll your lips into a thin line before sighing and moving your feet, slipping your arms out of his hands and each step lead you back to the shit box Wade drove you here in. A small win, one he'd gladly fucking take right now.

End notes: Some movie!Wade seeped through here, I cannot deny a good backing track for a fight sequence, writing it while listening to those songs was an absolute blast—let me know if it was as fun to read as it was to write! As always, see you in the next one!

[hurpdurpburps]

A Casual Comparison Between The English vs Japanese (and a bit of Chinese) Versions Of Otherside Picnic

Just a ramble on my thoughts as someone who buys and reads both the English and Japanese versions of all the novel and the manga volumes.

Some of my commentary might come across as a bit too pedantic but it's coming from my thoughts as a current formal translator and former manga scanlator.

Spoiler Warning: events up to Vol 8 are mentioned.

Overall thoughts

Generally, I quite like Sean McCann's translations of the novels. I think his style strikes a nice balance between the need for needle-sharp accuracy and smoothness that localisation brings. He seems to have quite a mind-boggling amount of experience under his belt according to Kindle, and also translated Side-By-Side Dreamers (another fantastic read that I will fangirl here about one day!!!), which is a standalone novel by Miyazawa.

On the other hand, the English version of the manga feels rather clunky from time-to-time. Kindle doesn't credit anyone for the English translation of the manga and I don't think it's McCann. Redrawing is also pretty lazy, with English words often simply slapped on next to the original Japanese SFX, which is kinda terrible for an official publication.

Another aspect of the English manga I don't understand is why they chose to flip the reading sequence of the Kozakura POV short stories at the end. After reading through dozens of pages of the manga right-to-left I don't think it's any more difficult to read the story in the same direction. Having to skip to the very last page then resume reading left-to-right in reverse page order is so mindbogglingly tedious and unintuitive.

Dialogue, Nuances and Characterisation

A big issue with translation is the difference in how many words it takes to convey the same sentence in different languages. Extreme cases can call for bolder deviations from the original to maintain some semblance of narrative flow.

Here's a minor example - the following lines are from Vol 3 (File 9 - Yamanoke Presence), when Toriko is slapping the shit out of Sorawo's back:

“Ow! That hurts! [1]” “Suck it up. [2]”

「いった！　痛いって！ [1]」 「我慢して [2]」 　

The more literal translation of [1] would be "I said that hurts!" but I guess the translator opted for something that's shorter and more natural-sounding.

There's also the issue of characterisation stemming from dialogue style. Sometimes I feel like Toriko comes across as slightly more aggressive in English than the original Japanese version.

[2] in Japanese is simply and most accurately translated as "bear with it."

There's a similar scene in Vol 6 (File 20 - T is for Templeborn), when Toriko sticks her fingers inside Sorawo's right eye:

“Whoa! Hold up! That’s my eye!” “Suck it up.” “You’re kidding me, right?!”

「ちょ、ま、そこ目！」 「我慢して」 「噓でしょ!?」

Personally, I feel that "suck it up" should've only been used if the original text said "我慢しろ", which implies a more callous or harsher, commanding tone. To me at least, "我慢して" is pretty neutral.

Here's another example from Vol 6, when Sorawo begrudgingly compliments Toriko for having a pretty smart idea:

“Why do you always sound so frustrated when you compliment me on that, Sorawo? [1]” “Urgh.” I hadn’t expected her to call me out on that, so I didn’t know how to respond. “Well, I’m nice [2], so I won’t get mad at you for thinking I’m an idiot.”

「その褒め方するとき、いつもなんか悔しそうだよね空魚 [1]」 「うっ」 　思わぬ指摘をされて言葉に詰まる。 「鳥子さんは優しいから [2]、バカだと思われてても怒りませんけど」

[1] is more of an observation and not a question in Japanese. "You always look kind of frustrated when you compliment me like that, Sorawo" feels perfectly serviceable and fits with the line that comes next, so I'm not quite sure about the reason behind this translation decision.

As for [2], Toriko actually referred to herself in third-person ("Toriko-san is kind") in the Japanese version, which is supposed to a convey a sense of satirical self-grandiosity. Without that part, I think Toriko comes off as more direct and less playful in the English translation.

That said, there are also positive examples of localisation in the series. Take a look at this conversation from Vol 5 (File 16 - Pontianak Hotel):

“Why would they go to all the trouble of decking the place out in Balinese style, then go and push honey toast, of all things?” I asked, but Toriko had a simple answer. “It’s honey in Bali [1], right?” “Wait… That’s it?! Because they rhyme?! [2]”

「なんでこんなにバリ島モチーフなのに、フードはハニートースト推しなんだろ」 　 私が何の気なしに疑問を口にすると、鳥子がさらっと言った。 「バリ島でハニトー [1]ってことなんじゃない？」 「……えっ、そういうこと!?　駄洒落!? [2]」

[1] actually says "Honey toast in Bali", which can be romanised as "bari-tou de hani-tou". Sorta catchy in Japanese but doesn't swing in English, so the rationale for the change is fairly obvious.

[2] literally means "pun", or I guess it's supposed to be slightly more loosely interpreted as "wordplay" in this context, but that too has to be altered so that the earlier changes to [1] make sense.

We opened all the bottles and had another toast of the not-bread variety [1]; there was a loud clinking of bottles [2].

ビール組の小瓶の栓が全部抜かれて、改めて乾杯した [1]。グラスと瓶の触れ合う音が高らかに鳴り響く [2]。

[1] can be read as "we made a toast for a change", which without alteration can be fairly confusing so the translator seized the opportunity to add a little funny spin to it.

A more literal translation of [2] would be "The sound of glasses and bottles touching rang loudly". I suppose the localisation here could be considered as a minor but factual mistranslation, as cocktail glasses were actually present in this scene, in addition to beer bottles.

For our final example of missing nuance, here's a quick glance at Vol 6 (File 20 - T is for Templeborn), where Sorawo and Toriko went for a quick builder's lunch after a morning of breaking concrete:

Settling on a place that served Western-style dishes, we joined the salarymen and construction workers for a hearty meal.

あんまり気取らない感じの洋食屋を選んで、スーツ姿のサラリーマンや工事の作業員に交ざって、がっつりボリュームのある定食を食べた。

The bolded part roughly translates to "We chose a rather unpretentious Western restaurant...", with "unpretentious" in this context referring to a place that doesn't feel very conscious/fussy about attire/appearances.

I don't think it's a big deal per se, but it's the inclusion of small details like that which adds flourish to Miyazawa's writing, and it's kind of a pity for them to be missing when they don't have to be.

Prose and Structure

Japanese is a high-context language, so writers often take it for granted that their readers can intuitively grasp who's saying what, which is not very helpful for English readers. There are certain parts of the Japanese version that is just a whole dozen lines of uninterrupted dialogue. The text below from Vol 5 (File 16 - Pontianak Hotel) is a very good example:

“Phew… Toriko, did you eat your share?” I asked. “Yeah, I sure did. It was delicious.” “Is that really true…?” “She does seem to be putting on an awfully calm face,” Akari agreed. “I feel like she was just eating the ice cream on top,” Kozakura interjected. “See, I knew it!” “Hey, hey, don’t worry about it,” Toriko tried to mollify us. “You’ve all finished your drinks, right? Let’s have another toast.” “Whose is this one, with the orange and… blackcurrant?” Akari asked. “That’s mine,” said Natsumi. “Pass it here.” “Everyone else ordered beer, huh?” Kozakura noted. “Which’s yours, Toriko?” “The Bintang.” “I had one of those too,” Kozakura said. “Well, I guess these must be for Senpai and me. Bali-hai?” “Yeah, I’ll pass around the bottle-opener,” I said.

Note all the speaker names bolded above... and how they completely don't exist in the Japanese version below:

「ふー……鳥子、ちゃんと食べた？ [1]」 「食べた食べた [2]。おいしかったね」 「本当かな」 「それにしては涼しい顔してますよね [3]」 「そいつ [4]、上に乗ってるアイスばっかり食ってた気がするな [4]」 「ほらやっぱり！」 「まあまあ [2]、いいじゃん。みんなお酒なくなったでしょ。もっかい乾杯しよ [2]」 「このオレンジ入ってるやつ、カシスかな？誰のですかー？[3]」 「それウチ [5] の。ちょうだい」 「ほかみんなビール頼んだんだね」 「鳥子のどれ？ [1]」 「ビンタンとかいうやつ」 「あたし [4] のもそれだ」 「じゃあ、センパイと私がこっちですね [3]。バリハイ？」 「うん、栓抜き回すね」

You might be wondering how the hell Japanese readers tell apart who's who? Thanks to the Japanese language's rich vocabulary of personal pronouns, 'tiers of politeness' and three different writing systems, personalities are easily demonstrated via dialogue.

For example, the most common personal pronoun, "watashi" (meaning "I" or "me"), can be expressed in kanji (私), hiragana (わたし) or less commonly katakana (ワタシ). The kanji form is considered "true neutral" and also used in formal contexts such as emails, while the hiragana is more cutesy.

In the case of this specific conversation, we can roughly tell the speakers apart using the process of elimination via each person's relationship with the others:

[1] This is clearly Sorawo, as she's the only one apart from Kozakura who addresses Toriko without any honourifics, and her tone soft and casual.

[2] Toriko says "食べた食べた" and "まあまあ", which translates to "I ate it, I ate it" and "Oh well, oh well" respectively. A common speech pattern of Toriko's is to say things twice, representing her casual and chirpy demeanor. Toriko also likes to contract her words. The line "Let’s have another toast" is written in Japanese as "もっかい乾杯しよ" (romaji: mokkai), which is a shortened version of "もう一回" (romaji: mou ikkai).

[3] Akari is the only one who uses polite language (the -masu form) in this group of misfits, and also the only one who addresses Sorawo as "senpai", notably in katakana (センパイ).

[4] Interestingly, Kozakura uses "atashi" (あたし), which is considered less neutral/softer/more feminine than the standard "watashi", but the rest of her speech style is consistently rude and masculine, such as addressing the rest as "お前ら" or Toriko with "そいつ", which has a "top-down" tone.

[5] Natsumi uses the personal pronoun "uchi" (ウチ), which is sorta a gangsta/delinquent stereotype.

Mistranslation

Translation errors are for the most part very rare, minor and always come across as a case of careless misreading rather than a lack of fluency.

Apart from the ones already mentioned in passing above, I'll list two more such examples below (taken from my OP Pilgrimage List Pt. 1):

Example 1: Vol 7 (File 22 - Toilet Paper Moon)

“I hear there’s a lounge on the fourth floor here.” “A lounge…?” “It’s got a night view and you can drink there.”

「ここ、四十五階にラウンジがあるんだって」 「……ラウンジ？」 「夜景が見えて、お酒が飲めるとこ」

Here, the Japanese text says 45th floor, instead of the 4th floor.

Example 2: Vol 6 (File 20 - T is for Templeborn)

I ordered tonkatsu curry with a black roux and lots of cheese, while Toriko had roasted flounder with ginger.

私は真っ黒なルーにチーズのたっぷりかかったカツカレー、鳥子はヒラメのカツと生姜焼き。

The bolded part states "flounder katsu and shougayaki", which actually means a piece of breaded, deep fried flounder, with pork stir-fried in ginger sauce on the side.

Chinese Censorship

As most would know, censorship is heavy-handed in China, so how does a certified Yuri series get processed over there?

The Gay™ parts get re-written or entirely scrubbed and replaced with something more 'innocuous'.

I don't read OP in Chinese, but I stumbled upon this tweet by a professional Chinese translator complaining about the censorship in the Chinese version of the novels.

In Vol 5 (File 19 - Hasshaku-sama Revival), Toriko gives Sorawo a surprise kiss after they escape Hasshaku-sama:

“With no time for me to close my eyes, our lips touched… then parted again [1]. Freed from her hands [2], I stumbled backwards. As I covered my mouth and stared at her [3], Toriko said, “Let’s call it even with that.”

This is the original Japanese:

目を閉じる間もなく、唇と唇が触れて……離れた [1]。 しつこい両手から解放されて [2]、私はよろよろと後ずさった。 口を押さえる私と目を合わせたまま [3]、鳥子が言った。 「これでチャラにしてあげる」

Translation: "With no time for me to close my eyes, our lips touched... then parted again [1]. Freed from her stubborn arms [2], I stumbled backwards. As I covered my mouth, Toriko's eyes met mine [3], and she said, "Let’s call it even with that.""

Here's the Chinese text:

我甚至来不及闭上眼，只见鸟子弹了下我的额头。 [1] 好痛！[1] 抓紧不放的那双手放开了我 [2]，我趔趄着后退了几步，捂住嘴巴。 鸟子依然注视着我的眼睛 [3]，说道：“这样就一笔勾销了。”

Translation: "With no time for to close my eyes, Toriko flicked me on the forehead. That hurt! [1] Her arms that were gripping strongly released me [2], and I staggered back a few steps, covering my mouth. Still looking into my eyes [3], Toriko said, "Let's call it even with that.""

As you can tell from [1], the Chinese version replaces the kiss with a flick on the forehead, but keeps the part where Sorawo covers her mouth. You can think of it as the translator screaming "it's NOT her forehead and it's NOT a flick" with their mouth taped and their hands tied behind their back.

Honestly... I can't wait for the Chinese translation of Vol 8 to come out, if it ever does. I'd buy a copy just to see how they deal with censoring the entire book LOL.

I also bolded [2] and [3] so you can compare/contrast how the same scene is written across three languages. Apart from the censored kiss, the Chinese translation actually follows the Japanese text more closely than the English version.

Classification

A pet-peeve of mine is people calling the books light novels. OP is not LN!!! It's a bona fide novel series under the banner of a respected major publishing house which is also the largest sci-fi publisher in Japan. Don't let the illustrations on the cover fool you.

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

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Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

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Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

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Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

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Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

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Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

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Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

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Reference images

[writingshushf1]

First Burn - part 1

Summary:  Don't think I don't see how they fall for your charms, all of your charms! - the one where your relationship with leclerc ends (and it's his fault).

Rating: +14

Warnings: cheating !!!!!

Word count: 2k

Note: the hamilton songs' idea is happening !!!!! yep, so this first part isn't about mick much, only the last quote lol, but the second part will be about their romance etc. now it's only angsty sh*t. btw, it's cool to listen to their fight while listening the song ! shshsh, like, comment, tell if you liked it, part 2 is coming soon

masterlist

Heaven forbid someone whisper "He's part of some scheme" Your enemy whispers So you have to scream

The mobile phone fell out of your hands just after seeing those photos, it wasn't possible. You were not innocent, but they were never more than rumours. You took a deep breath, running your hands over your face wet from the tears you couldn't hold back. He said it was nothing, that they were old childhood friends - just like you were his. A traitor.

You wished he'd thought that straight. Leclerc had always been a great boyfriend, romantic, fun, good in bed. The worst? You were public. You often appeared in the paddock, chatted to the other girlfriends and now? How would you approach them and say: well I'm going to be single.

That wasn't even the worst of it, it was reaching out to Charles in person, not wanting to slap him in the face. You weren't perfect, but you couldn't imagine how he could have acted like that wasn't something terrible. 

Your face was hot, cheeks pink and a little swollen, but that wouldn't stop you from going to him. He was going to have a "boys' afternoon" with some drivers from the grid - and because Monaco was tiny, you knew very well where he would be.

"I can come with you." Carmen said, reaching for a handkerchief to dry her tears.

"I can too." Lily murmured, running her hands over her shoulders. " Best not go alone."

"Thanks, girls. Shall we go then? I have a relationship that will break up."

They laughed softly, giving each other a group hug before you guys got into the Spanish girl's car.

The drive was filled with soothing music in the background. Upon arriving at the piér, Max's yacht was there and with that, so were they. Leclerc, Gasly, Russell, Albon, Ricciardo, Sainz and Verstappen were laughing, drinks in hand, with a table full of snacks. Tu looked at the girls again, letting them take the lead. Their respective boyfriends saw them both walking with not-so-happy features, they both looked at each other before passing between their friends and heading to the entrance of the yacht.

"It's not about you guys, relax." Lily commented.

You thanked them and walked inside, crossing your eyes with the Monegasque, holding back the tears that were threatening to fall on your face. He made a confused expression at you, not expecting you to appear there. You just nodded for them to go to a more private part of the boat. Charles took your hand and walked quietly away, his lack of sobriety not helping. Your mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out, it seemed that all the words fell apart when you needed them most.

You unlocked the cell phone screen, showing him the sequence of pictures of him with a woman who was not you. His facial expression changed at the same moment, it seemed that his sobriety returned to his body as he realised the trouble he was in.

"Love..."

"Don't call me love." You took a step back. "You brought this girl into our bed and ruined everything."

"Hey, that's not what you're thinking..."

"I know about rumours... I see the way you look at women..."

"What? I don't..." He reached for your hand.

"Don’t!" You raised your arm. "I'm not naive! I see women all around you. You think I don't see them falling for your charms? All your charms." Your voice was shallow, trembling as you spoke.

Don't take another step in my direction I can't be trusted around you Don't think you can talk your way Into my arms, into my arms

"It's serious... It was only once."

"Now you admit that you cheated me?" Your face was wet again, a trembling voice, but it wasn't going to let that stop you from finishing speaking. "Honestly, Charles... Just admit that it was more than once. I always thought they were rumours, because there was no proof and people wanted to ruin what we had, some might even be out to hurt, but now I honestly suspect all these sudden trips with your friends, going for hours and hours without even sending a 'hello'..."

"Had?"

"Honestly? Is that what worries you?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. It's hard to live like this with someone, I really tried but..."

"Haven't you ever heard of an open relationship? Honestly, I wouldn't have been offended or insecure. You walked to the exit. "Honestly... The world has no place in our bed, they don't have to know what I say! You have lost all rights to be disappointed, of my heart, of your space in bed. Find somewhere to sleep tonight with only the memories of what you caused, because I don't want to see you in our apartment. I'll be long gone by tomorrow." 

You walked down the stairs of the yacht, looking at the girls, who obviously heard everything - along with everyone else who was there. One last time, you looked into his deep blue eyes, sniffling low and pointing your finger at him.

"I hope you burn."

Before your friends could even follow, you walked quickly out of there, back to the car. You both said goodbye to your boyfriends, looking the Monegasque up and down with the biggest look of disgust on their faces.

"Honestly, Leclerc? You did a damage-you-can-never-undo kind of stupid. Truly, you didn't think this through." Carmen said looking deeply at him, soon leaving together with the Asian woman to go after you.

The three of you were at the beach, sat down on the sand, watching the sunset. The city noise was filling the background while you were in silence, mourning the end of the relationship. You felt betrayed on so many levels. And the worst hadn’t even come out yet: the media knowing the end of your relationship. As you were a somewhat relevant songwriter in Europe and he’s a worldly known driver, people would talk. A lot.

“At least… I can still hang out with you girls, for a second I was worried that if I wasn’t his girlfriend, our friendship would end.”

“Never! Friends before partners!” Mundt replied, holding your hand.

“Or you could say… Bros before hoes.” Lily joked, making you two laugh. “But really… We’re here.”

“I’m not going to lie… I always thought you were too good for him.” The Spanish raised her hands, causing a burst of laughter to escape your lips.

“You were dating an Icarus. Who has flown too close to the sun.” Lilly commented.

I'm burning the letters you wrote me You can stand over there if you want I don't know who you are I have so much to learn I'm re-reading your letters And watching them burn (burn)I'm watching them burn (burn)

Getting over someone wasn’t easy and going through this being in the public eye? Even worse. You recluded yourself the last few days, no social media at all. After coming back to your old city in Switzerland, the goal was to restart your life from scratch. Well, kind off. 

The first days were the hardest, waking up in bed without his warmth, without a good morning and a ready cup of coffee. The loneliness that plagued, because besides a boyfriend, you lost a friend, someone important in your life journey. And that doesn't happen every day and it is very difficult to overcome.

"4am, another lost night, no sleep. You couldn't take it anymore, not getting much more than two hours a night, hence working for almost 10 hours straight because it was the only thing that calmed your spirit.

The smell of his perfume still permeated some of your clothes, it was too painful.

Suddenly the doorbell of the house rang and clearly you were not expecting a visitor. You went downstairs and opened a small crack, seeing the person who should have been there the least. The Monegasque was holding a box, full of your belongings - things left over from your quick exit from the place you once called home.

Without saying anything, you gave him a space to enter, going up to the bedroom and pulling a box from the bottom of the wardrobe. His belongings seemed to weigh a ton, it was as if that weight didn't want to let you move, yet you went downstairs and placed the cardboard box on the table, waiting for him to hand yours over.

"Hey..."

"Don’t. Don’t take another step in my direction." You ran your hands through your strands of hair, sighing loudly. "It's not enough that you came here, please. Just go away and live your life, okay?"

He didn't answer, just shrugged and picked up his box, walking away gloomily.

As soon as you closed the door and saw his Ferrari drive away, you let the most anguished cry come from your lips. After one, a few more cries escaped your lips and you were sitting on the living room floor, hugging the box, letting all your sadness out through your cries and pleading that none of this should have happened.”

I'm erasing myself from the narrative Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted When you broke her heart You have thrown it all away Stand back, watch it burn Just watch it all burn

Meanwhile you are a songwriter, so being undercover wasn’t hard at all - since it was mostly a remote job with a few meetings here and there. Your record label was good, they had multiple contacts through various singers around Europe, so nothing to worry about. Your mourning state was fueling creativity, and you poured your heart and soul into her music. You wrote about your pain, but also about the hope and resilience that you were trying to find within yourself. The songs became a source of comfort and inspiration, more than already was before.

Carmen and Lily came to visit you whenever they could, appreciating how you were trying to get out of this stagnating moment, building yourself up again.

Often, when you left the house to go cycling, you met a blond man who was already familiar with your life with Leclerc. Mick Schumacher lived a few streets down from you and meeting him was a bit strange at first because of the closeness he had to the drivers. However, as time went by and you slowly tried to rebuild yourself, he became a good company for hikes, walks with dogs and late night chats.

After months of heartache and pain, while also testing new waters, you finally found the strength to move on from Charles. As a songwriter, you poured all of those negative - and positive - emotions into your music and used it as a tool to heal and grow from the experience. It wasn’t an easy journey, much less a lonely one, and probably had a hidden lesson from life in it, but honestly? That didn’t care right now, it was you getting out of your spiral. It was all those cliche end of the movie tropes: self-love, resilience, and the healing power of music. Though the road was long and difficult, you emerged stronger and more determined than ever before.

Until you were helpless again. Those fucking blue eyes and blonde hair.

Boy, you got me helpless Look into your eyes, and the sky's the limit I'm helpless Down for the count, and I'm drownin' in 'em

[deliciouskeys]

Hot takes, roughly in order of how much I care…

Homelander and Ryan

I liked the what felt like 2 minutes of Ryan and Homelander that we got in this episode. I know where they’re going with this, but I expected so much worse from the slapping scene that was mentioned in spoilers. Is the Boys writers’ room going on record that corporal punishment may not be justified in the face of sexual harassment? Because I think that’s a controversial stance, especially if there’s a clear work power dynamic at play lol. Anyway, I’m glad they chose this gray scenario, because it’s really hard to be sympathetic with a guy like Adam.

When Homelander says “that’s… amazing”, I think that’s being interpreted as incredulous and dismissive in online circles. I think he’s genuinely surprised that’s what first comes to mind to his son, but I don’t think he’s disdainful per se. In Homelander’s mind “saving people” is very much synonymous with “putting wrongdoers in their place”. And since he sees society (‘in America’) as wrong, his grand plan of supes becoming more of a despotic pantheon over the normies isn’t necessarily in contradiction with Ryan’s desire to ‘save people.’ TL;DR I don’t think HL is dismissing Ryan’s aspirations out of hand.

(Hearkening back to “You people should be thanking christ that I am who I am, because you need me. You need me to save you, you do. I am the only one who possibly can.”)

ETA: ok I need to clarify this part since what I wrote here sounds like HL and Ryan are going to get along great and that’s not what I meant to convey. I cannot field all the DMs! This is a hot take! I just meant that I didn’t expect HL to realize he might not know what Ryan wants because he’s been fucked by Vought. My expectations bar is perpetually low, please keep this in mind. I also despise the oversaturation of portrayals of bratty kids in media so please know that’s just my personal aesthetic bias.

Other Vought peeps

I wish Sage got more screen time. I appreciated ATrain’s taking initiative to escape notice. I do wonder what Ashley would have done if Cameron Coleman hadn’t just broken up with her.

I’m glad Stan Edgar gets to say Homelander is a “Freudian cesspool of random impulse and deep insecurity” right on the heels of e4. “Glad” lol.

Virus farm section

I’m getting a little tired of characters saying “we’re at an impasse” when… they’re clearly not at any real impasse. Victoria could have exploded the Boys’ heads and brought in other redshirts to help find Sameer if she really wanted to. And she paid the price for not doing that. Is the implication that she is afraid of Annie and Kimiko?

As for the virus… well. I’m strangely fine with what Billy is doing. If this virus isn’t even that contagious supe-to-supe, then his plan to keep trying to kill HL with it makes a lot of sense. As for Sameer? Well, if they hadn’t wasted the “last dose” (see below for why that’s stupid) of the virus on sheep, and Victoria didn’t just shrug and say ‘guess that’s that’, and also let the Boys live in the first place, Sameer would still have his leg.

I did cringe when the sheep was vomiting its guts out and Victoria, Kimiko, and Annie were all within Ebola-body-fluid-droplet range of it. Because this thing does sound more contagious than HIV, at least.

If Billy Butcher really needed some more virus I hope he grabbed the carnivorous sheep carcasses. Presumably there’s a gallon of replicated virus right there. Not only does it kill supes, it’s also a virus that replicates orders of magnitude faster than any living thing on earth lol. There are many things that are funny about how they’re researching this virus. Not a single biohazard tissue culture hood in sight. No cell based assays. AAAAANYWAY, it really doesn’t matter. Big fast compound V targeting(?) virus doesn’t need logic.

Overall just not a fan of big loud sequences with ultimately low stakes, so the flying sheep were a lot less fun to me than the e2 fight scene action.

What I think isn’t working

This is minor but after Gen V, I cringe at Sam’s acting. Just that one line they gave him sounded bad to me, and I know it’s probably just PTSD from how much I disliked the end of Gen V but there it is. I’m sorry to those of you who like him, this is clearly personal opinion. Cate is fine, she can stay.

Hughie’s storyline… I don’t even know what to say. Nothing about his parents’ shitty behavior was resolved. And then Hughie was forced to say his dad is his hero to save his mom’s life. And also be the one to euthanize him. What a weird, weird arc.

I’m saying absolutely nothing about Frenchie’s storyline because it is even more inexplicable. @kosmochlor covered it all.