#looking back to see where i stand evolution evolution

[mooonjin]

Reminiscing

Notes: BLESS THE SECOND SEASDON OF ARCANE OH MY DAYS HES SO GOIREGOSUSSSSSS can u tell viktor is my fav :3

Pairing: Viktor x f!reader

Summary: Years ago you and Viktor had parted ways, and for good reason. It was no longer about science to him but evolution. But evolution is the future? So why was Viktor dwelling so much on the past?

Warnings/Tags: 16+ because its bit suggestive so shooooo - tin/machine viktor, SLIGHT submissive viktor, SLIGHT submissive reader (hopefully its pg enough), swtiching, exes, trying to get back together (oof dont do that), suggestive innuendoes, touchy feely mentions, f!reader implied but no use of feminine pronouns — tell me if I've missed anything!

Part Two >

It had been years since you last saw Viktor, yet the memory of your parting remained etched into your mind like a wound that refused to heal. You remembered the way his gaze had shifted, once warm and full of curiosity, now cold and unyielding. His obsession with the Glorious Evolution consumed him entirely, leaving little room for anything—or anyone—else in his life. 

He spoke in absolutes, his words more like calculations than sentiments. You watched helplessly as the person you once knew vanished piece by piece, replaced by a man driven by a vision far beyond your grasp.

The day you walked away was devastating. You hoped, perhaps foolishly, that he might pause, might see the toll his ambition was taking on everything he once held dear. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Viktor had chosen his path and you had no choice but to choose yours.

In the years that followed, his name became a distant echo, carried to you only by the occasional whisper of rumours. Tales of the Machine Herald, a figure deemed a God, filtered through the shadows of the world. You heard of his relentless march toward perfection, but not once did he cross your path. Not once did you imagine he would.

Until tonight.

The moment you flicked on the light in your living room, your heart stopped, the air leaving your lungs in a rush.

Someone was there.

Seated in your armchair like they owned the place, their silhouette sharp against the glow of the lamp. You froze, instincts screaming at you to run, to fight, to do anything but stand there rooted in place. For a moment, they said nothing and neither did you. The stillness stretched thin.

Then, their voice cut through the tension like a blade, calm and deliberate.

“We need to talk.”

Your chest rises and falls erratically, the sound of your ragged breathing filling the heavy silence around you. He stays where he is, his presence is unnervingly calm. The dim light catches the gleam of his golden eyes. It feels alive, almost predatory, as it fixes on you. 

“Are you done gasping for air?” he asks after a long moment, his voice gripped with impatience. The words slice through the room as if your panic were little more than an inconvenience.

“What the hell—who are you? Get out!” you exclaim, your voice raw and trembling with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Your fists clench at your sides, your body tense and coiled, ready for a fight or flight you haven't yet decided on. Your eyes dart around the room, searching for something—an escape, a weapon, an explanation—anything that could make sense of the stranger sitting so calmly in your home.

The figure doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react to your outburst. Instead, he remained perfectly still.

“You know who I am,” he replies, his voice distorted by the rough mechanical overlay of the mask he wears. The silence stretches taut, heavy with tension, his lack of movement somehow more menacing than any action could be.

Then, with a faint whir and the soft ‘shing’ of metal, he shifts slightly. The purple artificial muscles in his left arm flex beneath the layers of metal, “And there’s no way I’m leaving until we’ve spoken."

He leans forward in the chair. You take a step back, your foot catching slightly on the edge of the rug, but you don’t dare look away from him. Another step, then another, the distance between them never feeling like enough. 

You stumble slightly as your heel brushes against the wall, your retreat halted. You were trapped between the hard surface behind you and the immovable figure in front. 

Yet he doesn’t rise. He doesn’t chase. He simply watches.

With a deliberate motion, he takes a step forward, and another, closing the space between you with ease. Panic rises in your chest, but before you can react, he’s there, leaning over you. His body is so close, trapping you between himself and the walls of your home.

“You’ve changed,” he remarks after a long pause as he regards you like an old friend. His eyes narrow slightly, taking in every detail of your appearance. 

“You look… softer,” he adds, his tone flat and dismissive, as if this change in you is something that doesn’t sit right with him. You don't miss how mechanical his voice sounds.

“Who... are you?!” The words escape in a rush. Your voice shakes, betraying the fear that is starting to creep up your spine. Who is he? Why does he feel so familiar, and yet so... wrong?

There’s no trace of recognition, no warmth in the air, just cold steel and the distant hum of something supernatural beneath his skin.

His fingers graze your skin lightly before gently grasping your chin, the coldness of his touch like ice. His grip is firm but there’s an unsettling gentleness to it. He tilts your face upward, forcing you to look into his eyes. 

You can feel the weight of his touch and yet, it feels like it’s not just physical. It’s invasive, as though he’s reaching inside, probing for something. Your neck feels exposed, your breath catching slightly as your body instinctively tenses. 

There’s nothing soft, nothing human about his stare. It’s all too alienated, too distant. The faint hum of his prosthetic arm seems to vibrate through the air, a constant reminder that whatever—whoever—this is, it isn’t entirely human anymore.

He leans in slightly, his head tilting to one side, as if pondering the absence of recognition in your expression.

His mask doesn’t convey anything, “You really don’t recognise me?” His tone carries an edge of disbelief, as though it’s almost unthinkable that you wouldn’t. He shifts his weight slightly, but his grip doesn’t loosen, his fingers still lightly holding your chin.

“Take your mask off!” your voice firmer now, though it trembles with the intensity of your frustration. The metallic distortion of his voice only makes it worse, the mechanical overlay making everything feel distant. He’s not any person you could remember, not even close.

He raises an eyebrow at your demand, "Very well," he mutters, his voice still tinged with that mechanical rasp but there's an odd calmness in it now. He pulls it free and it’s as if a veil is lifted from the air. 

What lies beneath the mask is a face you know all too well, yet so different from the last time you saw it. His features are gaunt, sharper than you remember, as if the years have carved something out of him.

His skin is pale, almost ghostly under the light. There’s no mistaking it. His eyes, though shinier, still carry a familiarity that hits you like a wave. It’s him. The man you once knew—his face, his expression, the very essence of the person he was, buried beneath the mask and the years.

For a moment, you just stare at him, speechless. He’s right in front of you now.

Real. Yet he feels like a ghost, like a shadow of the man you once knew.

"… What happened to you?" 

It’s the first thing that comes to your mind and it seems to carry the weight of everything that’s changed, everything that has shifted between the two of you over the years. 

You stare at him, your gaze traveling over the sharp angles of his face, the hardness in his eyes. This isn’t the person you once knew, the person you once trusted and once loved.

The question seems to amuse him, “What happened?” He echoes back to you, his voice ringing with that familiar accent of his. A humorless smile twists at the corner of his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. The smile is dull, "Piltover happened," he adds, as if the mere name of the city is enough to explain everything.

"What happened," he says again as a growl now, “is that Zaun was cast aside—ignored, neglected, abandoned.”

His words hit you. Zaun. That forgotten, broken city that had always been on the edges of Piltover’s gilded perfection. The place that had been swallowed up by the ambitions and the indifference of those who held power.

The place where everything was left to rot, "So I made the city better, myself." His voice is steady, but there’s a dangerous edge to it now.

“And now Piltover is afraid.” 

Before you can even react, he reaches up with a swift, practiced motion, placing one hand on the wall beside your head. His fingers splayed wide, as though he owns the very space you’re standing in. 

“And you?” he asks, his voice dropping even lower, laced with taunting amusement. The question hangs in the air, thick with challenge, daring you to respond. “Are you afraid of me?”

It’s a question loaded with intent, the kind of question that isn’t meant to be answered, but to make you feel small. However there’s something else in his voice, something... hungry. His words aren’t just a challenge, they’re a test, a way for him to gauge whether or not you see the change in him. 

There’s a part of you that wants to deny it, to pretend he’s still the person you once knew, but the truth is right in front of you. This is not the same Viktor.

“You’re not a person,” you’re not sure if he can hear the quiet desperation in your voice as you speak. But as his gaze locks with yours, the chilling look in his eyes seems to confirm what you fear most. Whatever humanity once existed in him is long gone, replaced by something far more dangerous.

He’s not a person. Not anymore.

“That’s the first thing you’ve said that isn’t obvious,” he sneers, his voice dripping with disdain, “I’m as human as you, if not more so,” he rasps, his words cutting through the space between you with confidence.

There’s a hum in his voice, a certain finality in his tone. “I still have a soul—a heart. One that beats just for you.”

His claim is so absurd, so twisted. A heart that beats just for you? He sounds like he believes it, like he truly believes that his obsession, his transformation, was somehow a sacrifice made for you. 

His hand on your chin tightens and you can’t help but flinch. Here he is, speaking of love and devotion as if those words still carry any meaning. As if you’re supposed to believe him. 

“No, we parted years ago.” The statement feels heavier than you expected. His expression flickers, ever so slightly, the faintest crack in his demeanor. The bitter smirk that had curled his lips falters for just a second before settling back into place.

“We did,” he says, a blend of mockery and intimacy. He pulls back just enough to look you in the eyes. The corner of his lips quirks into a sly, humorless smirk. “I always parted you… in bed, that is.”

Your lips pressed into a thin line as if holding back the sharp retort you wanted to hurl at him.

He laughs again, this time his chuckle is dark and deep, “You remember that, don’t you?” he murmurs, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. “You remember how I used to make you scream,” he says, the statement suggestive as it sounded. 

His smile widened, the curve of his lips taking on an unsettling mix of nostalgia, “I’d drop to my knees for you,” he murmured, his voice low and smooth. “Anytime, anywhere… begging you to touch me, just where I needed you most.” His eyes burned into yours. 

His hand finally released your chin, the absence of his grip almost startling. But he didn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers trailed down your neck in a slow motion, the touch lingering just enough to make your skin prickle. When his hand slid around your waist, the shift in contact was seamless.

“You didn’t just take my heart when you left me,” he continued, his voice softening into a purr that sent a shiver down your spine. “You broke it.” Viktor whispered. His lips quirked upward again, but this time, the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“You know why we split,” you say, your eyes narrowing as you force yourself to meet his gaze, despite the suffocating proximity.

"Always in the lab,” he murmurs, his voice softening slightly, but the growl lingers beneath the surface, ready to rise again. “Late into the night, always trying to find a new way to reach the Glorious Evolution.” His lips curl into a faint, humorless smirk, as though mocking himself as much as the memory of his relentless drive. “Always chasing perfection… and always losing sight of everything else.”

His fingers continue their slow, deliberate path down your body. His hand finally reaches the edge of your shirt, pausing there for the briefest of moments before grabbing it and lifting it slowly.

The fabric drags against your skin, exposing your chest inch by inch. His gaze flickers down, and a faint smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. 

“You really are soft now,” he murmurs, "so soft."

You grimaced, "Stop it."

“Why?” He asks, his fingers moving even further down, sliding over the top of your thighs. “You don’t like it when I touch you?”

You instinctively swat his metal hand away but the moment your hand meets the hard, surface of his prosthetic, a sharp jolt of pain runs up your arm. You winced in result. 

He grabs your wrist in a sudden, forceful motion, his fingers tightening with a painful grip, “Don’t do that.” He says, a warning tone in his voice. “Don’t swat at me like I’m some filthy little pest, when you used to kiss my hands like I was your god.”

"You're no God." You try to pull your wrist free, but his grip doesn’t budge.

“I’ve never stopped wanting you.” He says, leaning down to bury his face in the side of your neck. Viktor lets go of your wrists and instead pushes himself between your legs, pinning you to the wall with his body.

“I thought of you when I was supposed to sleep.” He purrs, his voice soft and rough in your ear. “I thought of you when I woke up.”

Then, with a deliberate movement, his body shifts closer, and you can feel the undeniable pressure of him grinding against you, pushing you harder into the wall. “I thought of you when I was desperate.” 

Viktor's lips are close to your ear, his breath warm and unsteady as he speaks again, this time with a cruel twist. "You don’t even know, do you? How much I’ve ached for you." His words hang in the air. 

“I thought of the way you looked back then.” He says, one of his hands trailing back down, grabbing your thigh and wrapping it around his waist. “When I still had you…”

He presses close to you, his hips pushed firmly against yours and his body close enough that you can feel the heat from his body against your skin. “How your skin used to taste…..”

“...You need to leave, Viktor.” You murmur. He leans in just a fraction closer, his lips curling into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s no amusement there. 

“Oh, I’ll go.” He says, his lips tracing a path over your neck, leaving a trail of soft kisses over your skin.

“But not until we’ve caught up.” He lets go of your hair, one hand grabbing your thigh to keep your leg wrapped around his hip, while the other goes to your shirt, grabbing hold of the material once more.

“Maybe we should start with a little… reminiscing.”

Post Notes: lol i want to make another part but wioth smut oopsise!!!!!!!!!!!! viktor is eating my brain rn

~ ~ ~

my taglist form!

[hiiikiko]

𝕒𝕔𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕔 𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝!𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖

rival!ellie x reader | tlou m.list

────୨ৎ────

rival!ellie met you on the first day of the winter quarter, she didn’t think much of you but bit back a chuckle at your dorky scarf and beanie

rival!ellie who gradually realizes what a nuisance you’ll be to her spotless academic record.. she’s never actually had to study before but now she’s hitting the books to make sure that you don’t surpass her

rival!ellie who kinda hates your guts.. she can’t stand the way you effortlessly answer the professors questions, especially since you’re the reason she’s been missing out on parties by being in the library so much

rival!ellie who has to admit, she admires your hard work and dedication… even if it makes her lose her mind that you know how to perfectly sketch an HR diagram for a typical global cluster and identify the various observed populations and interpret them on the basis of stellar evolution theory

rival!ellie who grows closer with you… not because she likes you, of course! more so because the professor keeps grouping you together, saying stupid bullshit like “it must be lonely at the top and now you have a friend, ellie!” or “great minds think alike, therefore, you’ll be great friends”

rival!ellie who declines all your offers to hangout

rival!ellie who refuses to acknowledge the shared interests the two of you have… like there’s no way in hell that you’re as big of a Savage Starlight fan as she is, fuckin poser lol

rival!ellie who rants about you to anyone that listens… it’s getting to be a big problem in her circle, so much so that Jesse and Dina are beginning to think that she actually has a crush on you….. hmm

rival!ellie who’s a little more than hurt when you deny over and over that you two have potential as a couple

rival!ellie who decides to take ‘revenge’ out on you by making out with random girls in the hallway, all the while making eye contact with you and smirking when you mouth the words ‘you’re such a pig’ to her

rival!ellie who smirks when she realizes that you’ve heard about how amazing she is in bed, the way you avoid making eye contact with her in the middle of a heated argument is enough to let on that you know

rival!ellie who loves loves loves seeing you sad about the fact that she exceeds you in every subject that is until…

rival!ellie who’s wold comes crashing down around her when you get one point above her on a test.. she literally crashes out like think bella in new moon type crashing out.. she finally picks herself back up, trudges to the library to hit the books and get back into it.. she will not be second to you again.

rival!ellie who kinda becomes a stalker… she can’t help it, she needs to know how you got that one point above her score! like, it’s never been heard of in Blackwell…. she must know

rival!ellie who when you finally confront her about her stalking, scoffs and shakes her head n says “you wish, dumbass” you roll your eyes and invite her to study with you, since she’s so curious… which she takes up.. not because she wants to spend time with you! it’s just keep your enemies close, right??

rival!ellie who can hardly focus on your study date hangout (??), like you’re so close… how can someone be this smart and pretty, i mean annoying.. you also smell really good… what is that? vanilla?

rival!ellie who makes these study ‘hangouts’ a regular thing… whether you know it or not, she hangs around the table where you study and acts like it’s a coincidence and says ‘i was here first, stupid’

rival!ellie who tucks a strand of hair behind you on one of these ‘hangouts’ and when you look up at her with those pretty doe eyes she smacks the side of your head and mutters something about a fly being on you and that you should probably take a shower or something

rival!ellie who kinda starts to grow fond of you… you’re the only person who actually gets her witty astrophysics puns and jokes, it feels nice not having to explain herself all the time

rival!ellie who’s jaw drops like a 42lb block of tungsten when she finds out that you of all people have a girlfriend… like come on! who would date you?! you’re stupid, annoying… okay, so you’re also kinda smart, pretty, hot… ahem! not that she’s noticed!

rival!ellie who then trash talks your girlfriend to her friends: ‘she obviously had shit taste in girls like come on, that nerd is the best she could do? ha!”

rival!ellie who overhears your girlfriend talking rather grossly about you in the locker room and shoves her into the locker but it’s not like she’s defending your honour or whatever. she’s a feminist! talking that way about any woman makes her blood boil!

rival!ellie who grumbles when you lecture her about how she’s taken your little rivalry too far by giving your now ex girlfriend a bloody nose… as you press a bag of peas against ellie’s black eye

rival!ellie who now likes frozen peas

rival!ellie who kinda likes the way you take care of her after the fight, smiling slightly and wearing her blackened eye like a badge of honour, like she’s your white knight.. or whatever, she doesn’t care

rival!ellie who scares off any guy/girl that looks at you because she feels weirdly possessive of you, like… you’re her rival, not theirs!

rival!ellie who FINALLY accepts her crush on you after countless lectures from Dina and Jesse…

rival!ellie who trash talks any romantic interest of yours “oh come on, they’re not even that hot… i’m way hotter than them, right Dina?” “whaaaat the totally flunked last semesters exam, pfft”

rival!ellie who’s still very, very competitive with you but now finds it kinda cute and sexy when you gloat about how you bested her in another quiz

rival!ellie who begins to make advances on you… starting off with a simple bet like loser buys the other a soda then working up to loser does whatever the other wants and you being the overly confident academic that you are agree

rival!ellie who pours herself into studying, even putting down her comics in preparation for the next quiz… she’d rather be damned than lose to you, she needs to win this

rival!ellie who wins! but that means… you have to do whatever she wants….

“i want a kiss,” ellie sneers, her finger under your chin

“excuse me?”

“you heard me” she leans back against the desk, “i want a kiss”

you cross your arms, what the hell was she thinking? is she high? has she gone mad? i mean, you often hear about geniuses going mad— but before you can finish that thought, ellie is pulling you in for a kiss, in the middle of the classroom… it’s sweet and her kiss is almost hungry, like she’s been waiting for this

she finally pulls away and with a chuckle says “huh, guess you come in second for kissing too”

what an asshole but you’re not one too pass up a challenge…. so… you invite her back to your dorm room

[defectiveporcelaindoll]

Chapter III: So High School

“Bittersweet sixteen suddenly”

series masterlist previous chapter

pairing: post-prison/ cm: evolution Spencer Reid x BAU AFAB!Reader (I like to think this is where Spencer is during the current seasons.)

series synopsis: an unsub with a taste for couples and power imbalances leads Doctor Spencer Reid not only back into the classroom but down the hypothetical aisle with the BAU's newest Probie for an undercover assignment that may change his life.

cw: age gap (Spencer is 42, reader is 24 in chapter 1), Use of y/n's (I'm sorry, I know l'm sick of it too.), fake marriage, romance romancing, kisses and touches but no smut (yet…maybe) ; Reader is feisty and flirty; Spencer is anxious and has an aggressive outburst; female reader she/her pronouns, and mentions of typical CM violence.

wc: 2.7k (they just keep getting longer and longer)

“Okay. Classes are canceled, if anyone asks, you’re sick. I called Emily, let her know we won't be working tonight. Uh, what else- oh! I got us a reservation at the Glass Garden. I think that might be fun, and I got us a table at a restaurant that has really great reviews,” he called from his place on the sofa. Hearing the bathroom door open, he turned, his breath catching in his lungs. In the backlight of the bathroom, Spencer Reid almost believed he’d seen an angel standing in his living room in a sundress.

“Oh- um, you look really pretty- not that you aren’t always pretty, obviously you must know that you’re beautiful but I just—in comparison to when you were crying… you’re…” Any attempt to save himself from the awkward hole he’d dug himself into died on his tongue as Y/N giggled. Her laugh was like a ray of sunlight, melting parts of Spencer’s heart he’d long forgotten.

“Okay, so I’m sick,” she gives him her best fake little kid cough, causing him to roll his eyes. “We’re off duty and you made us plans…oh, and I guess I clean up pretty good for a girl who just had a meltdown against our front door.”

“Very well… for a girl who had a meltdown against our front door,” Spencer nods, his cheeks beginning to ache from the smile that’s been plastered on his lips since she entered the room.

Once they were off campus, the couple let out an exhale neither were aware they'd been holding, away from prying eyes allowed to simply exist as individuals for the first time in weeks.

“You said we’re going to a glass garden?” Y/N asks, fiddling with the sleeve of the cardigan Spencer insisted she bring as they make their way down the highway.

“Yes! The Chihuly Garden,” she smiled, loving the way his features lit up with such excitement. “It’s supposed to be this insanely beautiful collection of really intricate and colorful glass sculptures. I’ve always wanted to see it but we never have time when we’re in the city for a case. Actually, I saw one of the artist's pieces in London—god, it had to be almost twenty-five… years ago.”

Spencer’s heart dropped to his stomach, the excitement in his voice dying with the last words, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. His age was showing, and this feeling was something he’d never experienced before. For nearly twenty years, Spencer had been the youngest person on the team. Even at forty-two years old, he still was the baby until Y/N joined. Was this how everyone else felt, talking to him about ‘the good ole days’ for all those years?

Y/N glanced over at him, a soft sympathetic smile taking her lips. In the three weeks she’d spent in such close proximity to Spencer, she’d picked up on a few of his tells. Right now, she could see the wheels turning in his mind, convincing him he’d ruined things and debating addressing the difference in their ages.

“Spence—”

He didn't respond, his mind still running rampant until he felt the pressure of a hand on his thigh, pulling him back to reality and causing him to inhale sharply, his eyes frantically shifting between the hand, the road, and the woman in his passenger seat.

“There we go…” Y/N mumbled, giving his thigh a little squeeze before pulling her hand away and back into her lap. “You know it doesn’t bother me, right? You don’t need to freak yourself out because you’ve got a couple of years on me, Spencer,” she said with a little more confidence than Spencer was used to hearing from her.

“And besides, I’ve always had a taste for older men,” she shrugged, leaning across the center console to press a kiss to his now flushing cheeks. Spencer couldn't even bear to look at her, his heart racing as he tried to remain focused on the road. Was Y/N actually flirting with him or was she teasing him? Surely it had to be a joke.

The remainder of the drive was uneventfully quiet, with the couple only really speaking to point out the landmarks they’d passed until they pulled into the tiny parking lot beside the Space Needle. As soon as he’d killed the engine, Spencer was out of the car, running around the back to grab Y/N’s door. She smirked, eyeing the older man up and down as he playfully caught his breath from the minimal jog.

“Shall we, M’lady,” he mumbled awkwardly, offering her a hand as she slipped out of the car.

“get my car door isn’t that sweet. then pull me to the back seat”

“Who said chivalry was dead… Keep it up, we won't be making it out of this parking lot,” her brow wiggled rather suggestively as she watched Spencer gulp, his palm beginning to sweat against hers. “Come on, lover boy. I need that big brain to tell me all about the pretty glass.”

Their afternoon was spent hand in hand or arm in arm, the two only separating long enough for one of them to take a photo of the other. Spencer claimed he ‘needed a good photo for his office’. Y/N thought it was cheesy, but she’d giggle and pose wherever he directed her, and he’d try to do the same for her; though, his poses were far more stiff and awkward, but somehow, that made them all the more endearing.

They spent hours observing the installations, with Spencer rattling on about the different techniques used for each detail and Y/N occasionally offering her own commentary about how the art made her feel. To any passersby, they looked like a happy couple that had known each other for years, not two FBI agents playing make-believe for a while.

The restaurant Spencer had picked for dinner was across the park from the gardens, so there was no sense in moving the car. The once bright late summer sun had fallen victim to the Seattle clouds that were beginning to roll in as the couple meandered through the park. Spencer’s eyes trailed the younger woman’s face; he could tell she was contemplating something.

“What is it?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Y/N glanced up at him, her hand falling from his grasp as she twisted her fingers anxiously, waiting for Spencer’s nod of approval. When it came, she paused, taking a deep breath.

“Doctor Spencer Reid, do you know that you completely changed my life?”

Spencer froze a few paces in front of her, brows knit together as he tried to decipher whether or not this was part of her act as the loving wife or if he actually, unbeknownst to him, had an effect on this young woman’s life.

“You taught a seminar in Nevada five years ago, breaking down the relationships between psychology and philosophy in human behavior.” Y/N’s gaze dropped, the summer breeze exposing the blush creeping up her ears. “I wasn’t even supposed to be in the class; I was an English major, but my roommate dragged me along… and maybe it was the way you taught, your excitement I guess? Or the way that it felt like you actually cared. I could’ve listened to you talk for hours.” She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “After that seminar, I marched myself down to the counseling office and became a psych major… added a year and a half to my college experience, but given that I’m about to walk into a very expensive restaurant, married to the professor who changed my life? I think it just might’ve been worth it.” She let out a breathy chuckle, her eyes searching Spencer’s for any indication of discomfort before dropping her gaze back to her hands, mindlessly fiddling with her wedding band. “Sorry, I just really needed to get that off my chest.”

“tell bout the first time you saw me”

For a moment, Spencer sat awestruck. He rarely found himself at a loss for words, but the newfound warmth in his chest made it nearly impossible to speak. So instead, he took her hand, his thumb brushing over her knuckles as he nodded, guiding her down the path to the restaurant in silence until they reached the door. He hesitated just outside, bringing her knuckles to his lips.

“Thank you… just… thank you.”

Dinner went smoothly, with the only minor hiccup being Spencer’s tangent about the bread basket and his qualms with group food. But other than that, the two simply enjoyed each other’s company, the sound of rain echoing against the roof as they ate.

As the couple exited the restaurant, they were met with the heavy downpour of a summer night storm. Y/N sighed, pulling her cardigan around her a little tighter, her lips pursed as she looked up at Spencer, his hands stuffed anxiously in his pockets. There was no way they were getting to the car dry, he knew that as a fact. So, with a little sigh and a nod to Y/N, he stepped out from the covered awning, arms outstretched as he let the rain soak him.

“Oh, so you’re crazy!” Y/N called, her voice hardly audible over the downpour, making no attempt to move. After a minute, Spencer jogged back to her, his arms wrapping around her middle as he lifted her, kicking and laughing, carting her out into the rain. She wiggled free of him, a smile plastered on her face as her hair began to drip.

 She spun around, embracing the fact she was now thoroughly soaked, a girlish giggle passing her lips as she tucked wet hair behind her ears “Ya now, even soaking wet, this may just may be the most successful date I’ve ever been on.”

Spencer quirked a brow, his head falling to the side like a puppy’s. “Your dating pool is really that bad?” he mused, remembering what it was like to be in his twenties awkwardly trying to make meaningful connections with people

“I don’t even really date; the men—no, they were boys—that have come into my life only ever want to waste my time, so… It’s like a twisted game of kiss,marry, kill? Except everyone sucks and there is a good chance someone is going to actually be crazy enough to kill you?” She shrugged, taking a moment to stare up at the sky her lashes heavy with raindrops

“So what’s it gonna be?” she called, her head turning to glance up at Spencer, the challenge in her eyes illuminated by the gas lamps lining the pavement. “You gonna marry, kiss, or kill me, Dr. Reid?”

Spencer’s eyes darkened, accepting her challenge with a mix of desire and determination as he stepped closer. Wordlessly, closing the space between them, his hand gently cradling her jaw, his touch an even balance between tender and possessive. He leaned in, devouring her lips, capturing her in a kiss that was anything but tentative. The kiss was electric, a rush of sensation that made the world around them disappear. His other hand found its way to her waist, pulling her closer, his fingers digging into the damp fabric.

Y/N responded eagerly, her fingers gripping the damp fabric that clung to his chest, pulling him closer still. She melted into him, the feel of his lips moving against hers sending shivers down her spine despite the warmth that blossomed in her chest. The rain pounded around them, soaking their clothes and plastering her hair to her face, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was the way Spencer held her, the way his mouth moved over hers with a hunger that left her breathless.

“I’m betting on all three,” she whispered against his lips, her voice dripping with desire.

         “All three…” he repeated, pulling away just enough to press a kiss to her forehead, his hands still cradling her face. “I am way too old for you…” he muttered breathlessly, his head shaking as he brought it down to rest against hers.

“The bureau seems to disagree,” her retort was quick, her lips ghosting over his. “And like I said earlier, it doesn’t bother me. I’m a big girl. I know what I want.” She kissed him one more time, hard and quick, before bolting through the park towards the car, leaving Spencer standing in the rain like a lovesick kid.

Spencer watched her go, his heart pounding hard and heavy against his ribs while his mind raced a million miles a minute as he tried to make sense of the fact that his ‘wife’ just might actually like him.

“Are you coming or what?” The rain had died down enough for Y/N’s voice to travel with ease. Spencer ran his hand through his wet curls, pushing them off his face before breaking into a jog up to the car. When she was within arm's reach, Spencer pulled her close, just taking a moment to hold her, fantasize that this life they were leading could be his reality.

Y/N wasted no time, her lips finding the curve of his jaw with ease, her hands tugging at the collar of his shirt. Spencer let out a groan, his head turning just enough to grant her better access to the sensitive skin at his neck, carefully guiding her back against the car door before returning his hand to her jaw, drawing her lips up to his.

There was a moment of bliss, where this was the only world that mattered, just a couple of lovestruck kids, then the shrill tone of Spencer’s phone cut through the air.

“Let it ring,” she all but whined.

“That’s Emily’s ringtone—” he groaned, fishing the all too loud phone out of his pocket and sighing loudly before putting the phone to his ear. “It’s not really a good ti-” he stopped, his gaze flicking down to Y/N, her frame pressed against the car door, another sigh leaving his now slightly kiss-bruised lips as he untangled himself from her. “No, I understand, I hear you. We’re heading back to the house… we’ll be there to meet the officer.” She took that as her cue, silently slipping into the passenger seat. Spencer stayed outside, pacing the length of the car, nodding to himself as Emily continued to talk.

“I’ll let her know.” His voice was muffled from behind the window. “Yup. Okay. We’ll call you if there’s any update. Good night.” Y/N watched as he hung up the phone, his head hanging low for a moment before he turned, striking the back door in a heated flash of anger, before he stalked around the car, climbing into the driver's seat.

It’s silent for a moment, the car tense with now long-forgotten lust as Spencer tossed his phone into the center console.

“There’s another couple. Same MO, same calling card.” She could see the frustration bubbling to the surface again as Spencer’s knuckles started to turn white against the steering wheel. “Local field agent is going to bring the updated file and the crime scene photos to the house…”

“Spence, this isn’t your fault—”

“I never said it was,” he bites back, sending Y/N shrinking into her seat. “I’m sorry… I just— I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I didn’t mean to snap at you… I know there was nothing we could’ve done. But it's still frustrating.”

She nods, now her turn to comfort him, her hand hesitantly reaching out across the center console to pry his from the wheel, gently squeezing. “I know, Spence. I know. We’ll figure this out, build our profile, but unfortunately, we just need a little more time. Hopefully soon enough, this unsub will take the bait and it’ll be us against them…” She chuckles softly, shaking her head in an attempt to lighten the mood. “God, that’s morbid… thinking it’ll be a relief to have a murderer place a target on your head…”

“You get used to it…” he said, any warmth in his voice evaporated as the engine roared to life.

the brink of a wrinkle in time

taglist : @olives-and-sunshine @iniyalovesall @suzysface @guiltyyassin @spencereidbasis @tatilolz @cherrycemeterry @hiireadstuff @r-3dlips @sweetpeterparker @catertotshitposts

I hope i got everyone! if you’d like to be added to the taglist don’t hesitate to lemme know and as always i’d love to know the thoughts and feelings! xo

[ch3rriiii-bunn]

Muzan with a demon that constantly changes to suit their needs (like if evolution was simple and easy to do). if they needed to get away very fast, they'll sprout wings and fly home. If they need to get something in the water they'll become scaley & fishy and breath water.

Seeing as Muzan hates change and has stated so... What if their s/o was like that?

Shape shifter

Paring: Muzan x Demon!Gender neutral reader

Synopsis: Muzan hates your shape-shifting (to a certain extent because I wanna make it cute)

Content: reader is a shape-shifting demon, mean Muzan, some wholesome moments, soft muzan (a little), reader taking on/turning into animal like forms, my stupid humor, Muzan being a cat person.

Word count: 0.6♡

A/n: AHHH THIS IS SUCH A CUTE IDEA OMG. I'm gonna write it in headcanons :3

Muzan. Who hates your shape-shifting at random times. Muzan, you and gyokko heard there was a magic lake that healed humans without any medicated water. You heard the rumors, so it was your job to take Muzan and Gokko there. Muzan was about to order Gyokko to do a search drive in the lake but you, decided to take it upon yourself to dive in with the appearance of a half fish half woman, almost like a mermaid to start the search. "They're good!" Gyokko said and looked at Muzan, who's now shaking his head in filtration.

They watched you emerge from out of the water and swim back to Muzan. "I didn't find anything- AHHH!!" You screamed as Muzan began to throw salt on you, knowing full well how sea creatures react to salt. "Change back! Now!" Muzan said, and gyokko tried to stop Muzan, but he also got hit with salt as well.

Muzan. Who will take advantage of your useful blood demon when nessacary. Nakime fell ill, and Muzan needed to get somewhere quickly due to his busy schedule. When you heard your boyfriend master Muzan, needed to get somewhere quickly, the frist thing you decided to do was shape-shift yourself into a harpy. You flew, holding Muzan's arms with your claws and you looked down to see his grumpy/annoyed expression.

"That bird version of hantengu taught you how to do this, didn't he?" Muzan asked, and you nodded happy. "Yes, his name is Urogi," you said to Muzan, but he scoffed. "Yeah. You smell like him, too. Fucking disgusting" he said. You weren't paying attention and ended up crashing into the tree.

Muzan. Who needed you to catch a really fast slayer with yellow hair. The reason? Muzan couldn't stand the bright color, and so you got down on all fours, shape shifting to have the appearance of a cheetah. "When I said get him, I didn't mean like that!" Muzan shouted as you ran off and already stressed out with how stupid you look.

You stopped running and sat down exactly like a big cat. "So... should I turn into a car? I don't think I can do that," you said, bringing your paw to your chin to think meanwhile the yellow haired slayer had run away further. "GO FUCKING GET HIM" Muzan screamed.

Muzan. Who arrived at the main spot in the infinitely castle where upper moon meetings are held. "Oh wow! You really did it! Look at that Akaza-dono," Douma said. They hadn't noticed Muzan's arrival yet, and he raised his brow, moving a bit closer to see what Douma and Akaza were so invested in. Muzan noticed you used your blood demon art to shape shifts into a small cat.

He didn't even know you could ever do that, especially at this tiny size. "Mm. I didn't think you could do it. Good job, I love cats." Akaza was about to pet you when he realized his own hand had fallen to the ground next to you after being severed. "Huh?" Akaza and Douma said, relaxing that you were also gone. They look behind them and froze in fear.

"How dare you touch my significant other," Muzan said, his voice rough as he glares at Akaza and Douma. Before they could explain themselves, they heared loud purring sounds. "...Master. I think you've taken alike to one of your significant other appearances" Kokushibo leaned down to Muzan's height, snapping him out of it to realize his thumb was rubbing your cheek. When muzan realized what he was doing, he just dropped you.

"Idiotic is what it is.." he said angrily and walked away with you still as a cat following him. However, the upper 3 could see Muzan actually found this form cute since they got a glimpse of the blush on his cheeks.

[starxanemone]

꩜ⴰ ࣪˖ FROM DUST TO DUST

michael kaiser x gender neutral!reader

you liked to see him crumble—from dust to dust.

warnings ! mdni ! sexual content — sub! brat!kaiser, dom!reader, praise kink, cock sucking, handjob, teasing and denial. also slight character exploration based on his backstory.

note — as a femdom, i am a firm and avid fan of the idea of submissive kaiser. oliver aiku is my next target. also, sorry this took a while : ( i'm busy with uni.

From dust to dust; there is nothing more beautiful than to view the evolution of things. A being grows—all supple skin and flesh and fragile bones—from a mere zygote, born from the fusion of sperm and egg.

And you think that man goes through the same cycle again and again throughout their life. From learning how to stand on one’s feet to no longer being able to do so. From seeking to finding, then to seeking again. From exalted kings to abdicated ones. All from different facets of the humans of society; they go back to their roots, ultimately. From dust to dust.

Michael Kaiser is nothing more than a mere cog born to inevitably contribute and connect with society that is just like him. Yes, by the gods, he was birthed, chosen to be an emperor, and how ethereal he truly is as he devours and rules lowly humans that grovel underneath him. No mercy was shown to anyone that attempted to overthrow his position, and not a simple glimpse was spared for those who raved on about the ‘impossible.’

He was arrogant and his mouth never knew when to stop running. But he would get what he deserves. Just like all the kings and queens, and emperors and empresses that stood before his rule.

They all fall down.

From dust to dust.

“Now, now… quiet down, liebling.” You hum, pressing your right hand tightly over his swollen pink lips. You know he loves it when you call him that, especially with the way his hard-on presses against your knee. He thrashes a little underneath you with his cheeks, ears, and exposed neck all tinted in pinkish and red hues.

You like to think that he looks like a work of art when he is like this. Not when he is in his most glorious state, but when he looks human in their rawest form. All supple skin and flesh ( you’d like to paint with your lips ) and fragile bones ( you’d like to caress ).

You pull downwards, cat-like eyes gazing intently into his half-lidded ones as you hover your face over his sweatpants. You press your cheek right against it teasingly, smiling a little in amusement when he glares down at you.

“Kitty’s got bite, hm?” You chuckle, rubbing your cheek against his crotch, feeling his cock twitch underneath the fabric as you massage his hips with your fingers.

“S-Shut up, a-ah—”

He spits out his words, though you get the feeling that it’s not as angry as he would have liked it to sound, especially with the way he holds back his moan and breathes heavily towards the end.

“Oh,” You pout mockingly. “But you wouldn’t be in this position if you weren’t being such a slut earlier. Like, seriously, making out with me in front of everyone and leaving a hickey on my neck where everyone could see? All because you were jealous of sweet little Yoichi?”

“S-Stop,” He rasps out, bringing his hands down to cup your cheeks to lift it up from his clothed cock.

You can tell that he’s irked with the way you call his rival ‘sweet.’ Your smile softens and you pull yourself up to plant your chin against his chest.

“Why are you so envious, mein schatz?” You bring your hand up, thumbing against his pink bottom lip. You watch in fascination as you press on the soft skin, nail biting onto the flesh, leaving a small crescent in its wake.

His lips part and you grin lazily, slipping your finger into his mouth to touch the wet muscle. Your eyes don’t miss the way his tongue runs over the tip of your finger, brushing over your nail before his mouth closes around it entirely.

You bring your other palm up to cup the side of his cheek as you sit up on his abdomen again. His electro-blue irises and sharp ebony pupils swallow you entirely as he sucks and licks on your finger willingly.

Oh how you loved seeing him crumble like this. All of his wits and pride dispersed with a flick of your fingers. You who have given him the feeling of something new—something so incredibly yet not supposed to be foreign for any living human. An emotion that he could only utter as a wistful wish underneath the eyes of the constellations.

Love. So this is love.

You pull your finger back, chuckling a little as he lifts his head up to chase for the sensation between his lips again before dropping his head back down upon realizing his actions. His cheeks are flushed cherry red and his brows are furrowed as if his senses had come back, and you know that he is beating himself up over the constant lapses of weakness before the gaze of someone else. But you don’t care about that.

It was never a weakness to choose to open up oneself to somebody.

You cup his cheek, firmly this time.

“Why are you always so envious? Tell me.”

But he was a stubborn one.

He keeps his lips pressed firmly, glaring up at you in a disobeying manner. It doesn’t look very intimidating with his black cotton shirt half-way lifted up on his upper body, his hair scattered around his head like a makeshift blue pearlescent crown, and the cute little wet patch marking his grey sweatpants.

“Not talking, hm? Okay, then. Fine. We’ll do it your way.” You hum in amusement before you’re snaking back down onto his hips.

In a split second, you grasp the garter of his sweatpants and pull it down, wordlessly gazing at the way his curved cock slaps at the skin below his belly button.

He hisses, “W-What are you—”

“Shut up. Don’t talk.” You murmur before dipping your head down to lick at the pinkish tip. It was already oozing with precum, bubbling and dripping down against the length of his cock, tracing a vein.

“F-Fuck—” He groans, throwing his head back against the pillows.

You pull your lips away from his cock and strike your palm against his inner thigh, leaving a red mark though not enough to cause any significant pain.

Nevertheless, he hisses, eyes widening in shock. “Why did you—”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” Your hands smooth over the spot you had just hit before traveling north once more. When your hands reach its destination, you blink when you hear a silent whine leave his mouth.

“Please…” You hear him mumble and your gaze flickers upwards, seeing his disheveled state. Eyes half lidded with his soft lashes pointing southwards, cheeks turning a shade darker than it was previously.

His hips twitch upwards and your gaze softens.

“Okay,” You breathe out. “Okay.”

You have to admit. You cave in way too fast.

You place your hands on the sides of his bare hips, squeezing as you lick your tongue flat across the length of his cock, stopping near the tip. You keep your eyes trained on him and his gaze on yours, brows furrowed over.

You brush your tongue repeatedly against the underside of his pink tip—now all shiny underneath the fluorescent lights of your shared apartment from the mixture of precum and your saliva. His hips twitch and you immediately hold it down, digging your fingers against his skin, leaving marks on the flesh.

“P-Please,” He groans quietly, eyes closing. “Give me more, liebling. Please.”

“Hm?” You hum, tongue toying with his tip. The little crevice is soft and smooth against your touch, now all sensitive. You press your tongue against the underside of it harder before taking just the tip inside your mouth. Your fingers trace against the veins protruding the length of his cock teasingly. “But you haven’t— haven’t answered my question yet.”

You suck on his tip lightly, just enough to have his stomach and shoulders twitching, and hips buck between your hold.

“I-I want you to look at me!” He groans, body twitching when you trace your tongue with more pressure against his length repeatedly, humming a little as you listen to him speak. “I w-want you to look at me only and not that worthless, pathetic man. H-He won’t serve you half as good as I do. He can’t. I want you to love me, and me only.”

You pull away momentarily, chuckling at his uncharacteristic honesty. He whines at the sudden loss of your touch.

“Oh but I already do.” You smile, pressing your lips against the side of his stomach. “I love you, and only you.”

He doesn’t respond, simply staring down at you with pink cheeks and furrowed brows.

He never says ‘I love you' back.

But you already knew how he was. He was never used to the straightforward affection and loving words directed at him, but that never bothered you. Being with him entailed having the ability to read between the lines—it entailed being able to appreciate the little crevices and permanent folds that marred his shirt and was never able to learn how to iron. You appreciated the marks left behind by the past and the past that brought about this present—this gift—him, and only him.

And that was alright with you.

You loved him. You had the ability to build him up, make him crumble, and build him up again.

From dust to dust.

But mere dusts of cement clumped together could form a stable foundation, the same way a cluster of atoms can make up a single cell, and how multiple similar cells can form tissue.

You loved him from dust to dust.

You lick a stripe up from the base of your palm up to your fingers, keeping your eyes trained on his and his to yours and what you were doing, before encircling your fingers around the length of his cock, pumping him up and down slowly. He jolts and heaves out a breathy moan each time your hand squeezes at the right areas, up towards his shiny pink tip leaking with his fluids and down once again. Your other hand plays with his balls and you grin at the way he throws his head back, eyes rolling up.

“You must be so tired, mein schatz, but it’s okay, you can come to me. I will always be here to make you feel better.” You mewl, smiling up at him with half-lidded eyes.

“A-Ah, fuck, don’t speak like that to me, I-I’m gonna cum—” He bucks his hips helplessly, whining.

“But why?” You giggle, tilting your head innocently, “Can’t I speak like that to the person I love?”

“S-Stop, haah—” He brings his hands up to cover half of his red face, blue eyes glaring down at yours, but you don’t falter.

“My poor baby,” You pout, pumping your hand against his cock upwards and brushing your thumb against his tip. You hear him choke a little. “You’re so beautiful and you work so hard! I’m so proud of you, hm?”

“H-Haah— I-I’m gonna, gonna cum!”

"Give it to me, my love."

His hips buck against your hand a few more times before he’s shooting spurts of his cum onto your face. He moans, eyes squeezing shut.

You shut your eyes, feeling the liquid spill all over your face for a few seconds.

After a while, you open your eyes to him breathing in and out deeply, his body laying limply on the bed with sweat thinly coating every inch of his skin.

You chuckle, wiping the cum off your face and bringing your hand up to taste it.

He raises his brow as you do so and scowls. “Don’t— don’t do that. That’s dirty.”

“And I happen to be a dirty person. I don't mind." You grin, licking your hand.

He’s silent for a while before he speaks up.

“But is it true?”

“What?” You question curiously, laying right beside him flat on your back. You turn your head to look into his eyes levelly.

“That you,” He purses his lips, voice growing more silent. “Love me?”

You smile, genuinely this time.

“Of course.”

From dust to dust.

[rosenclaws]

Superstars || Pro Wrestler!Logan x Pro Wrestler!reader

Summary: It's your first day on XMN television since being called up to Evolution. With new friends and possible new rivals your career is filled with the unknown. Especially when it seems like one of the veteran superstars has his eyes on you.

Warnings: some description of wrestling violence.

a/n: OKAY SO. I decided to treat this universe as like sort of series? But it's not like a cohesive story just a lot of short stories in the same universe that can be read separately kind of. This is like the introduction thing though so I will be following up but it can still be read solo. ALSO, I'm gonna add some like wrestling terminology at the end of the fic in case you aren't familiar with certain slang but if that's annoying plz let me know. plz feel free to ask me any clarifying questions too! This is just me combining my two interests lmao.

This was it. Your debut on Evolution since being moved from Origins. You paced back and forth backstage as you rehearsed your lines over and over again. You were supposed to go and interrupt the current Woman's champion Storm. She's the babyface of the Woman's division and you're the egotistical heel.

She has been undefeated for a year now and you were her next challenger. You feel someone tap your shoulder and you turn to see Storm and Rogue.

"You ready?" Storm asks, the belt resting on her shoulder.

"I guess," You were already dressed up with hair and makeup but it didn't feel real yet. Evolution was XMN's main show. That's where the superstars were, the ones they saw as true star power.

"You're going to do great, promise I'll go easy on you." Storm teases. Despite her goddess character, she's nothing but sweet and down to earth.

"First promo on a new show, don't forget your lines sugar." Rogue jokes.

"I'll try." You say nervously. She notices the deep anxiety written all over your face and gently places her arms on your shoulders.

"You got this, take a deep breath and when you get out there take it all in because you're never going to forget it." Rogue says warmly.

The two of them are called by a production manager leaving you alone once again. The clock was ticking ever closer to your call time. As you head closer to where you need to be you're stopped once again but this time by two men you've never met but heard a lot about.

The Wolverine and Deadpool were XMN's top tag team. Somehow the two of them work. Logan or Wolverine was always going to be a star.

Founded on the indie circuit going by just Logan at the time he was big, brooding, and strong. But his mic work was lacking as he wasn't a big talker. Still his raw talent and clear wrestler figure made it a no brainer to sign the man. That's where he met Wade Wilson. Or Deadpool.

He was a comedy character with a big mouth and the ability to get the crowd wrapped around his finger. He was vulgar and unserious as hell but people loved him. So imagine the shock when the two of them became a tag team. It was strange at first, I mean the two were nothing alike but for some reason the fans gravitated to them. The buddy cop duo charmed their way into viewers hearts.

It made sense, Wade was funny but he never quite reached the status to win any gold. Logan had the chance to win gold but fans hadn't really seemed to connect with him as a possible champion. Put them together and you had an odd couple tag team that people just wanted to root for. Wade did the talking while Logan was the muscle. But the banter the two of them electric.

Not to mention the chemistry in their wrestling, pulling off tag team moves flawlessly. Now they're the world tag team champions. And they're standing right in front of you. You were a massive fan of them and had been before you even joined XMN.

"Logan look! A new ducky has joined the pond." Wade pulled you into a hug immediately.

"Oh, uh hi!" You say as you hug him back.

"Get off her idiot." Logan says with a roll of his eyes.

Man Logan was even hotter in person. They had a match tonight and you just thank whoever decided he should wear those low rise trunks. Everything is on display for sure.

"Hi, I'm a huge fan of both of you." You say excitedly.

"Of course you are, who isn't a fan of us." Wade says jokingly.

"Shut up." Logan says before turning to you.

"Thanks sweetheart. Glad to see you here." You notice his eyes scanning you up and down and you silently thank yourself for wearing your good shorts.

"I've seen you on Origins, you're amazing!" Wade compliments and you thank him.

"You really think so? I'm really nervous about tonight." You say shyly. You've done this before but for some reason tonight just felt different.

"Look, you've got no reason to be nervous sweetheart. You got the look, the talent, the athleticism. Everything. Plus a pretty face never hurts." Logan says with a smirk.

You feel your stomach erupt with butterflies at his compliment. Logan isn't the guy to say something he doesn't mean. In fact it's a shock he's even talking to you. You were warned before about how little he talks and to not take it personally. But here he is smiling and giving you advice.

"Thank you, it means a lot coming from you." You say with a smile.

"Good luck tonight by the way, I'm kind of surprised you aren't main eventing. I mean everyone loves you guys." Logan just shrugs and throws the belt over his shoulder.

"I don't mind too much, we'll get the crowd going for you." He says with a wink. Wade eyes the two of you suspiciously, head turning back and forth.

"Oh my god you are so-" Logan slaps his hand over Wade's mouth before he can say anything else.

"We have to go, see you around real soon sweetheart." Logan drags Wade away towards the main stage.

"So rude!" Wade huffs as he shoves Logan's hand off his mouth. Your eyes drift down as they walk away, shamelessly watching Logan's ass.

Despite only talking to him for a couple minutes he's managed to calm all your nerves.

You watch Logan and Wade's match from gorilla. You can't tear your eyes from the screen as Logan clotheslines . He lets out a roar and the crowd cheers. The intensity in his eyes send shivers down your spine. But fuck does he look good.

His massive arms are on full display as he lifts Beast over his head and slams him onto his knee. He turns his back to the camera and you get to see those muscles in all their fucking glory.

"Careful, you might catch flies." You turn to see Jean standing next to you. She's smiling but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Oh I wasn't...I was just watching-"

"It's okay, he's a handsome man. Trust me I know." She hums.

You laugh nervously but there's a strange air between the two of you. Jean was the top star. She may not hold a belt but she was a massive draw and everyone knew it.

"If I can offer you a word of advice, I'd stay away from him if I were you. A lot of history there." She flashes a smile and leaves.

You start to fiddle with your sleeve as you let Jeans words sink in. Looking at Logan doesn't mean anything. He's handsome anyone could see that. That's all it is. You don't think about him that way, at least you don't think you do. You barely know the guy. Storm notices your mini spiral and comes over to snap you out of it.

"Don't let her get to you," Storm says.

"Whatever she said, just block it out." You nod and try and push that away. This is your moment and you got this. This is no different than being on Origins. You know how to do this, you're good at this. The bell rings and Logan and Wade stand victorious.

As they walk back into gorilla you clap along with everyone else. Logan runs his fingers through his hair, his once perfectly styled tuffs are now flattened from sweat. His whole body is sweaty and fuck is it hot.

"Nice match Logan," Storm hums.

"Thanks 'Ro. By the way, be nice tonight alright, It's her first day." He says gesturing towards you. Storm raises an eyebrow at his request.

"She's not brand new Logan, just new to this show."

"I know. Just saying she might be nervous is all." Storm smirks. Logan has never cared this much about a new superstar before.

Interesting.

"Logan! That match was amazing." You praise. You move to hug him but stop yourself. Feeling a pair of eyes drilling themselves in the back of your head.

"Thanks sweetheart, I had hoped you were watching." Storms music hits and you watch her walk out to the crowd. The nerves coming back in full force as you realize it was almost time to go out there.

"Hey, stop that." Logan nudges your shoulder and you sigh.

"I don't know why I'm so nervous. I've been doing this for years but this just feels so much bigger." You say.

"Look Chuck wouldn't have brought you here if he didn't think you were ready. I've followed your career since you joined this place. Like I said earlier you have everything it takes. So don't let some nerves get in your way got it?" Your eyes widen at his words.

He's really watched you all this time? Logan is a star and you've just got called up from developmental. It's like a surge of confidence. He's right. You can do this.

"Thank you Logan." You take a few deep breaths and wait by the curtain. In and out.

You focus on what you have to say and wait. A calmness washes over your mind and body as your music hits. Like a switch is flipped inside of you. You grab the mic and walk out that curtain, ready to show the world what you had.

The whole segment went flawlessly. You interrupt Storm, pushing yourself as the soon to be new woman's champion. You feel right at home as exchanged a war of words with her. Everything ending in a brawl that leaves Storm on the mat with you standing above her. Holding the belt and pointing right at the camera.

The fans fell right into your hand. Booing your shameless attack on their champ. You try and hide your smile as you walk out. The fans love you, they want this match and you couldn't be happier. The moment you step back through the curtain you let yourself breathe. Jumping in happiness.

"You did great sugar! It was electrifyin'" Rogue says while pulling you into a hug.

A few other people congratulate and welcome you to the show. After a small debrief about next week you're free to go. Walking through the halls of the arena you can barely contain your excitement for next week. As you change back into normal clothes you find a familiar face waiting outside of the locker room.

"Logan, I thought you would have gone back to the hotel by now." You say, slightly shocked he's still her. He's leaning against the wall with his backpack. Dressed in a very cozy looking gray sweater.

"Decided to stick around to watch. I told you you'd kill it." He joins you as you walk to the exit.

"Well I had to make sure we were worth following your match." You tease. The conversation flows easy as he walks you to the car waiting to take you both back. Luckily the lobby is practically empty by the time you're dropped off with no one joining you in the elevator.

"Hey, I'm going to train tomorrow if you want to join me. I could show you a few things. See what you've got too." Logan offers.

"Yes!" You blurt out. The chance to train with Logan, you'd be a fool to pass that up.

"I mean, yes that would be great." You try and cover any embarrassment by staring at the ground, wishing it would swallow you up. Logan chuckles leans against his hotel door.

"Okay, it's a date then. See you tomorrow sweetheart." He scans his keycard and goes into his room, leaving you standing there in shock.

A warm fuzzy feeling growing in your stomach as you repeat his words in your head. Date. You hear someone clear their throat and you turn to see Jean watching with an unimpressed look on her face.

You duck your head and hurry to your room. Getting in as fast as you can. You throw your bag on the table and fall onto the hotel bed. Today was not like anything you were expecting. Debuting on a new show, meeting Logan, Jean, setting up a championship feud. It's a lot in one day but you couldn't be happier. This was everything you had dreamed of since you decided to become a wrestler and now it was coming true.

Who knows what's going to happen next.

Gorilla - backstage area where the show is run and the area right before the entrance curtain

Promo -  promotional interview, a dialogue or monologue used to advance a storyline.

Babyface/Face - The "Good guy", "Hero" character. Wants to be cheered by fans

Heel - "The bad guy" or "Villian" that is meant to be boo'd by fans

[lexiecon-mp4]

Jayvik and Butterflies || Arcane Meta

The butterfly motif has put everyone into a chokehold (myself included) and has had me brainrotting so hard for the last few days that I felt compelled to make my first Arcane post.

With how repetitive the butterfly motif is within Viktor and Jayce's lives throughout Arcane, I thought it would be fitting to do a meta looking into what that symbol might mean.

So first things first; where do we see this symbol pop up? In presumed chronological order of in-universe events, here are some of the following;

1. Viktor when following his toy boat (S1E6)

2. Jayce after being saved by the mage (S1E2)

3. Mechanical butterflies shown during Progress Day (S1E4)

4. Butterfly at the Fissures when Jayce and Viktor talk about failing to "do good" (S1E9)

5. A flash frame of a butterfly appears when Jayce hits the Arcane with his hammer (S2E3)

6. The hammer itself is shaped like a butterfly after Jayce emerges from the Arcane (S2E5)

7. Viktor and Jayce vaguely form a butterfly-type shape when they sacrifice themselves (S2E9)

(If I'm missing any I apologize, but these are the memorable examples that I think embody the themes I'm going to discuss. Feel free to comment more!)

I'm not including Jinx's mechanical butterflies here since they are more reminiscent of Firelights, but it is fitting that she has taken a symbol associated with progress from Progress Day and retrofitted it to her own design, just like she does with Hextech itself. That already serves as a manifestation of how Jayce and Viktor's shared creation can lead toward a dangerous path.

Ultimately, I think there are three main themes that I believe fit both characters respectively along with their arcs.

1. METAMORPHOSIS

Viktor goes through a literal metamorphosis of his own as a result of the glorious evolution, both physically and emotionally. Like the change of a caterpillar to a butterfly, his evolution is one that he perceives to be an "improvement" on his prior form. Simultaneously, his obsession with perfection (due to his own insecurities, struggles and oppression) shifts his focus. His original ambitions to help the people of Zaun and beyond are lost as he prioritizes using the Arcane to "improve lives", even against their own will. For the final step of his evolution, he sacrifices his humanity and breaks out of his "chrysalis" as a changed man. Viktor become utterly unrecognizable to everyone, even to his own partner; until the last scene between the two.

Jayce has seen that he has become something completely different than the Viktor he knew before. But regardless, he sees him as beautiful in the context of his current "perfect" AND prior "imperfect" state. The caterpillar and butterfly are one and the same, just like the man he knew and the "Machine Herald" that stands before him. He sees under the facade (a literal mask) that Viktor wears, knowing that his partner is still there.

What distinguishes Viktor from the butterfly is that his metamorphosis doesn't end with the "glorious evolution." While the evolution was intended to be a point of no return, it was eventually shown to be another step in his ever-changing arc. Viktor doesn't revert back to his original state, but makes his sacrifice alongside Jayce because of the growth of his character. The final, glorious evolution he always wanted was in liberating everyone from the Arcane, not enslaving them.

The metamorphosis theme also applies to Jayce, as he has obviously "evolved" after touching the Arcane. Yet despite his own evolution, he never loses that humanity that allows him to keep hope for Viktor still being in there. Both of them become something more in the end. I especially love that this happens by each accepting their flaws and acknowledging one another as beautiful. Jayce would still love Vik if he was a worm the caterpillar, since that was the first and original iteration of the man he admires.

2. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The butterfly effect is one of my favorite thought experiments related to chaos theory; the underlying patterns/laws of the universe's systems that seem random but are actually dependent on initial conditions. The effect argues that a simple flutter of a butterflies wings could lead to a chain of events that cause something completely different and significant. Arcane has several of these "butterflies" (e.g. the note Vander wrote for Silco) but the most prominent one yet again connects Viktor and Jayce.

Old Viktor explains that in every universe, he gave young Jayce a different rune in order to invent Hextech, presumably with the hopes of preventing the apocalypse as well. He knew that Jayce was the only one who could show him the truth about perfection, but without the right rune, he couldn't get there. It was the specific choice of an acceleration rune that allowed for the events of season two to occur. This small change gives Ekko a chance to fight back and Jayce the chance to talk it out with his partner.

(My personal theory is that the acceleration rune allowed for Ekko and Jayce to travel to a different dimension through the Arcane. This led Ekko to create the Z-Drive and gave Jayce the knowledge of his and Viktor's fates. The rune in his wrist was likely what brought him to Old Viktor in the first place. Otherwise, it's likely that Ekko, Heimer and Jayce would have been absorbed/disintegrated in the process.)

At the beginning of S2E6 Viktor describes Jayce as having "a singularity simultaneously self-replicating and self-annihilating." While the singularity seems to be driving Jayce insane and irate, it contains the chaos needed to stop the influence of the Hexcore over Viktor, Piltover, and Zaun.

In the end, both are able to intersect the "chaos and order" of the Arcane, connecting the rune embedded in Jayce's wrist with Viktor's Hexcore-ified body. The disorder of the Arcane in Jayce seemed random at first, just as the rune given to him did. Yet it was these initial conditions that determined the fates of everyone involved, including the closure that he and Viktor were able to have in the end.

The way that these two are able to break the terrible fate determined for them if they ever met, while still being able to resolve their conflicts at the end, is some extremely beautiful storytelling.

3. MIGRATION/THE JOURNEY

Finally, the act of migrating is one that I feel applies most to Jayce in season two, but also is present in Viktor's backstory and struggle against his disabilities.

There's a specific species of butterfly that migrates every fall, which are the Monarch butterflies that are native to North America. These creatures must brave difficult conditions as they travel down south to more temperate climates. It is a physically demanding trip that tests the resolve of the butterflies, which in Jayce's case, also shakes him to his core.

He has to endure many perils and pains when the Arcane transports him to the "bad ending" universe. He travels through Zaun, gets stuck in the Fissures for a while, then finally climbs the Hexgates to learn the truth about his dream. While the sufferings of the journey itself feel unnecessary, it's a path Jayce must take in the end no matter how painful. Like the monarchs, he perseveres and makes it out of there alive.

But unlike them, this difficult pilgrimage is necessary to shape Jayce's character. He essentially speed-runs Viktor's personal journey as a Zaunite; born in Zaun, being poisoned by the Fissures, and "pulling himself up by his bootstraps" all the way up to the gilded heights of Piltover. It's a perilous and painful trip, made more difficult by his injured leg. Yet when Jayce reaches the top, none of the achievements matter to Viktor in this universe. After everything he had done, there was only the empty husk of his loved one and the truth it carried that remained. His illness and "imperfections" were cured, but at what cost?

This puts everything into perspective for Jayce. At the end of his travels, he realizes what he really wants to save isn't Hextech, or his dream, but his partner. In turn, it saves the lives of everyone including that of Viktor's, who comes out of the other side of this journey loved rather than alone. Perhaps their presumed deaths aren't the most happy ending for both of them, but they certainly made it to clearer skies together.

(One last additional note: I love that the alternate universe only has dragonflies instead of butterflies; the connecting symbol between the two is missing in this universe because they couldn't save it in the end.)

So ultimately, the motif of butterflies for Jayce and Viktor represent the change, resilience and interconnectedness of the pair. Throughout the entire two seasons, this symbol follows them on their respective arcs like a red string of fate. As Viktor calls it, they are "two sides of the same coin, inextricably bound." The final two variables needed to solve the Arcane, and they could only do so together.

(i hate these guys they have irrevocably rewritten my brain chem)

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

42. "I can't do this anymore." + Carmem (The Bear) + Smut :)

Denial.

42. "I can't do this anymore."

Author's Note - this is a drabble written as part of my 500 Followers Celebration!! find that post here. always happy to write a carmen request. man, those biceps. i've been a jeremy girl since shameless and it's so wonderful to see his evolution <3

Pairing - Carmen Berzatto x Female Reader

Age Rating - 18+

Warnings - smut!! + cursing

Word Count - 775

Masterlist. 500 Follower Celebration Masterlist.

It isn't unusual for the two of you to be the only ones left in the restaurant.

Carmen's cleaning the kitchen, while you're mopping front of house. Between you, you'll be done in record time.

He emerges from the back to stand in the doorway. You can feel him staring at you from where he's leaning against the frame, eyes burning into the back of your body. You try not to turn around for as long as possible, but it's becoming unbearable.

"Quit staring, creep."

He chuckles, and the sound makes you smile.

"I'm not."

"So now you're a creep and a gaslighter?"

He laughs, and you can picture it perfectly, even with your back to him. Head thrown back, gorgeous neck exposed, chest vibrating.

You continue your mopping, very aware of the eyes on you. You finally turn around, and he's closer than you thought. He's silently moved to perch against a booth table, still looking at you intently. You meet his gaze, and shudder instinctively. There's a look in his eyes you've never seen before. He looks hungry.

His eyes are dark and reflective, boring into you intensely. His eyelids are hooded, body weirdly relaxed. He's borderline feral.

"So, I figured something out a minute ago."

"Oh yeah?" you question, propping your mop against a table. "And what's that, Carmen?"

"I can't do this anymore."

He stalks towards you, all cleaning abandoned.

"... Can't do what?" you whisper.

Carmen twirls a strand of your hair around his finger, moving so he's almost pressed to your front.

"I can't keep pretending that I don't wanna rip your clothes off everytime I look at you."

You're rendered speechless. You've had the most ridiculous crush on Carmen since you started waitressing at the restaurant, almost 2 years ago. You've had one too many dreams about him saying these exact words to you.

"So why don't you?"

With that, he lunges at you, ripping open your blouse and tearing his shirt over his head. He scrambles to unbutton your pants, slipping his hand into your underwear.

"Oh, fuck. Are you this wet from me just looking at you?"

If you weren't so turned on, you'd probably be embarrassed. You can't bring yourself to care.

Carmy grabs your thighs, and hoists you onto the table. You become suddenly aware of how wrong this is.

"Carmen, you can't fuck me on this table. Customers eat here."

"Watch me, honey. It's my restaurant. My fucking table."

He shoves his trousers down and pulls himself out his underwear. You take one look at him, and your mouth waters. He must see it on your face, because he chuckles.

"Not now, baby. Another time, okay?"

"Okay," you whine, breathy and impatient.

"You ready?" he asks, lining himself up between your legs.

You nod frantically, hands clawing at his shoulders.

"I need to hear you say it. Use your words, sweetheart."

"I'm ready, Carmy," you whinge. "Please, please. Fuck me. Now."

That was all the confirmation he needed. He slides home in one careful thrust, and both of you groan in unison.

"Oh, fuck. Better than I ever dreamed."

"You've dreamt about this?" you ask breathlessly.

"All. The. Damn. Time."

He punctuates each word with a thrust of his hips, knocking you backwards on the table. He places one hand at the base of your throat as an anchor point, the other grabbing at your thigh to hitch it up.

He doesn't break eye contact once, his gaze full of lust and hunger. You've never seen this side of Carmy. Usually, he's a little avoidant, sometimes shy, always conscious of taking up too much space. But now, he's possessive. He's open, he's commanding, he's confident. He's so sexy.

"You're close, aren't you?" he teases.

You can only whine in response, grabbing at his forearms for leverage.

"It's okay, baby. Let go. Come for me. I want it. Give it to me, that's it. Atta girl. You got it."

He's rambling, babbling nonsense as you squeeze and clench around him. Your whole body tightens, back arching off the table, and it sends him over the edge. Both of your climaxes are white hot and electric, mixed groans reverberating around the restaurant.

You're panting, his chest heaving, breathing into each others mouths. After a minute, you speak.

"Carmy?" you ask.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Will you kiss me?"

"Of course I will," he grins. "I can't believe I waited this long."

He presses his lips to yours, tongue moving to tangle with your own. You've never been kissed like this. It's electric, it's instinctive, it's so right.

There's no point denying it any longer. Everything's fallen into place.

[pukanavis]

Kanna Idol Story 3

⏱︎ 2 years since the establishment of ES. ⚲ Season Avenue, a shopping district on the outskirts of the ES building.

Raika: ♪~♪~♪

Kanna: …

Raika: ~...♪

Kanna: …

Raika: …’Scuse me, did ya need somethin’ from me?

Kanna: …

Raika: Can ya hear me? Hellooo?

Kanna: Ah, pardon me. I was lost in my thoughts for a moment there.

Though, what I should really say is that outwardly expressing my emotions is not a strong suit of mine.

Oftentimes, interviewers will get worried and halt our conversation just to ask if I’m still alive.

Raika: Ehihi~♪

Kanna: Is there something amusing about that?

Raika: Uh, ya mean that wasn’t supposed to be a joke?

Kanna: Humour is a skill that I lack, as much as it pains me to admit.

Raika: Hey, ya seem plenty funny to me… yer a bit of an odd one, Mr, uh…Kanna, was it?

Kanna: Yes, that’s correct. I’m glad you remembered my name.

To my dismay, it seemed that you had forgotten all about me.

Raika: I’m real, real sorry! With this bird-brain of mine, my memories go out the window after just a few steps, ya see!

Actually, I get the feelin’ that we’ve spoken about this already…Kanna-sama, do ya really swear that I’ve saved ya before?

Kanna: You remembered our conversation perfectly then? I wouldn’t describe that as ‘bird-brained’. It seems rather contradictory—No, that’s not it. This is just a simple mistake, isn’t it?

Raika: Well ya see, it was quite the shock to have ya approach me out of the blue like that. It’s really quite hard to forget somethin’ so jaw-droppin’, even if I wanted to.

Kanna: I agree.

That’s precisely why it’s simply impossible for me to ever forget you, the one who saved me. 

Though to be fair, I possess the sort of brain that makes it a challenge to delete memory data, so the past isn’t something that I have the option to forget.

Raika: Deary me…it’s much nicer bein’ able to forget about all the bad stuff.

Kanna: Without learning from the mistakes and humiliation of the past, a human being cannot hope to grow.

Granted, what comes after growth is a mystery all of its own. Is there a limit? Why pursue it? What benefit comes from it?

This act of exhausting my life to ultimately contribute to the evolution of the human race is something I’ve always found myself questioning the purpose of.

Raika: ♪~♪~♪

Kanna: Are you listening?

Raika: Oh, I didn’t think your story had anythin’ to do with me…somethin’ about the human race, was it?

Deary me, I truly think there must be some kind of mix up goin’ on here, Kanna-sama. There just isn’t a world where a bum like myself could’ve been the one to save you.

Might ya be mistaking me fer a different fellow?

Kanna: No. I’m certain it was you, Raika Hojo-san.

The day it happened, you were standing by the roadside, singing like a bird, just as you are now.

Raika: Ehihi~. I’m useless and barely have a penny to my name, ya see, so puttin’ on little street shows like this is how I’ve been earnin’ my keep fer a while now.

Kanna: Actually, there’s something I’ve been wondering ever since I first saw you.

Do you have a permit for putting on these shows? It’s possible that you’re breaking some sort of law by not carrying one.

Raika: Law!? Like what!? Are they goin’ to arrest me fer being a wrong ‘un!?

Kanna: It’s possible that you’ll receive a warning or be put under police surveillance.

Raika: No no no, I’m doomed! I’ll be sent straight back to the institution if I misbehave again!

Kanna: This ‘institution’ you speak of…about your confinement—

—Oh, just a moment. According to the research I just did on my phone, street performers and unauthorised advertisers are in fact prohibited in this area.

Raika: Y-Ya mean those kinds of laws really do exist?

Kanna: Yes, but please don’t fret.

As an endorser of the idol industry, and thereby musicians, I find it odd that ES would look at artistic works such as street shows involving singing and dancing and prohibit them from an area under their influence.

It’s contradictory of them, yes?

There’s a high probability that you could utilise this argument to defend your activities, whether by staging a protest or by taking it to court.

Raika: C-Court!? Ya mean this could escalate to that?

Kanna: Don’t worry about that yet. In order to protect you, I intend to utilise every possible means that I must. No matter what, I will save you.

That’s all.

Raika: Whyever would ya trouble yourself so much…?

Kanna: As I’ve already said, you saved me a long time ago. It is a deed that I must repay.

Causing trouble for others or indebting myself to them are both acts that I want to avoid.

And yet, I’ve found myself saved by you. You used your body as a shield to ‘erase’ the mistake that my immaturity and stupidity led me to make.

Even if you don’t remember it, even if this isn’t what you want…

It is an act that I will not forget, and nothing could be of more importance to me than repaying what you did.

That’s all.

Raika: Oh gee… I-I think I’ve wound up with some sorts of a problem child attached to me.

Kanna: No one’s ever evaluated me in such a way before. Thank you.

Raika: Uhm…uh, this all feels a bit complex fer my ol’ brain, but I think ya were tryin’ to say that I can keep singin’ by the roadside, weren’t ya?

Bein’ able to sing is enough to make my day, so I’d appreciate it if you could confirm just that one wee thing fer me.

Kanna: You really are quite simple, aren’t you?

Admittedly, I feel as though I admire that aspect of your personality. No, that’s not quite right…perhaps ‘envy’ would be a better word.

Raika: Ehihi, envy, ya say? Let’s sing together then ♪ You’re an idol just like me, aren’t ya?

To tell ya the truth, I’m still a little lost on what an idol actually is.

But if it means being something that sings, then we’re one in the same! The two of us are goin’ to be pals, I just know it ♪

Kanna: Your logic is sound, oddly enough.

However, that doesn’t negate the fact that an idol's voice is a product. To freely distribute it would be an affront to capitalism.

Though, on the other hand, we shouldn’t cause any problems as long as we don’t seek out donations and take care not to disrupt the rest of the public.

After all, the regulations in place prohibit specifically street performances—meaning a show of skill intended to raise money.

Raika: Right! No god or authority has the power to stop a bird from singin’!

Kanna: Is that so? Everytime we meet, I find that you’ve taught me something new.

Raika: Ya truly think so? I don’t think I’ve come up with anythin’ that hasn’t already been said before though?

Raika: Ehihi, fer as smart as ya look, ya know surprisingly little, Kanna-sama♪

Kanna: That’s true. Though the world hails me for being some sort of kid genius, I’m still just an ignorant, immature child.

That was the first vital truth that you taught me.

[witchtwig]

Costuming, Connections, and Constructing Meaning Agatha All Along Thoughts

This isn’t an essay. This is just rambling and plucking at the threads of thoughts I’ve had since the end of Agatha. Also apologies for the fact this is all over the place. I just really wanted to start sorting out some of the visual signifiers I was fixated on when looking at the Agatha All Along designs.

The costuming design, art, and choices made on Agatha All Along are phenomenal. And it is clear from just reading through Daniel Selon’s instagram how much thought and effort went into the work of making those looks stand out as strong as they did. In particular, I have been fascinated by two looks of Agatha’s—her witch’s look (first introduced in Wandavision) and her spirit’s look. In particular, I want to consider them through the lens of what they say about Agatha and potentially where she is going, but also, hypothetically, her relationship to the original Green Witch, Death, Rio Vidal. 

Agatha Harkness, Wandavision

As noted above, Agatha’s witch look was first seen in Wandavision. This is important in the context of Rio, because as a character she had not been introduced or even conceptualized yet. Despite that, I do think there are some interesting design choices on the costume that with the introduction of Rio, can be reanalyzed through that relationship (and to Nicholas, Agatha’s (and likely Rio’s) son). Specifically if we look at the neckline/chest design of the piece—there is a fascinating embroidery work. Tendrils of vines or roots mask off her chest, reminiscent of a scar. This is where her locket with Nicholas’s hair centrally sits (which, in episode 8, has fallen off and not worn during her battle with Rio). 

During episode 9, we see Agatha create a cairn over the burial of her son Nicholas. In this moment, she sings through tears that she “buried my own heart here with you, my child.” A central point of Agatha Harkness’ character throughout her journey in Agatha All Along, is that she is closed off to the point of using deceit to manipulate and obscure attempts to know or truly see her. And to turn back to the costume—this design work indicates the hidden nature of her heart. 

We can look too, beyond her witch’s costume, to her costuming within the fourth episode during the fire trial. Agatha’s heart is momentarily exposed, but she closes it off and hides it, specifically when her ex-lover, Rio, attempts to create a floor with her. It is interesting then to note that Rio has her heart on full display that entire conversation. 

Rio Vidal and Agatha Harkness, Agatha All Along episode 4

And to go further, we can also note that Rio’s costuming as Death in episode 8, quite literally exposes her obsidian heart. Where Agatha’s heart is hidden (scarred over, perhaps), Rio’s heart is on full display. Looking back at Rio’s episode 1 appearance near the end, she declares that her heart is black and beats for (you) Agatha.

Rio Vidal as Death, Agatha All Along episode 8

This is the fundamental crux of the struggle between these two characters in full display in the design choices of their costuming. Agatha’s heart is no longer on display or truly reachable (it has been buried, by Nicholas’ death, by Rio’s existence as death), versus Rio’s heart on constant display (open and yearning). To me, this is what makes the costuming and design choices of Agatha’s outfit as a spirit in episode 9 very interesting, because it suggests a shift, an evolution of her character (that may not have come into view fully yet, but can be explored moving forward).

Agatha Harkness, ghost costume behind the scenes

Agatha’s costume as a spirit has shifted from the closed, vine-covered design, to a more open space. Through death, through Death, accepting her lover, Agatha has found herself at a new point within her existence. One that allows light in, one where her closed off heart is no longer hidden under the weight, vines, and scarring of the loss of her son (and I would argue the trauma of her struggle to accept and feel comfortable in her love of Rio). 

The costuming change between her witch’s outfit and her ghost outfit also has a shift in the overall patterning of the upper portion of the design. As a spirit, the bodice now has an intricate line pattern, which could be argued to be reminiscent of Rio’s branching patterns.

Agatha and Rio's looks side by side

Daniel Selon noted on his Instagram the ghost design for Agatha that the costume’s letting in of light was her letting go of the weight of those she had taken the lives of over the years, I think too it more importantly could indicate the potential for her to begin to actually emotionally connect again with her heart no longer hidden. And if we look to the fact she both pointed out that she did not kiss Rio for Billy’s sake (further pushed by Jac Schaffer in an interview), and the fact she noted it was not Billy who released her from the hex (he merely loosened the lid), on top of her understanding that “sometimes… boys die”—this all could allow for her and Rio to reunite in the future on better footing. 

This of course hinges on the fact Agatha does begin to do some of the emotional work on herself that she has been avoiding, by helping Billy and giving herself the thing she felt she lost when she lost Nicholas. But the possibility for her to do that work is now there. She took a step in no longer denying her own emotions through her kiss with Rio, and has the possibility to work through her grief more fully through Billy. 

It should also be noted again that by and large, Agatha is not a very communicative person when it comes to her emotions. This is even more so true when acknowledging her feelings around Nicholas and Rio. She only calls Rio by her name once throughout the show, and not even to her face. She never divulges the truth of what happened to Nicholas to Billy, despite the youth seeking that knowledge. So, it is important then for her to wear visual markers of both on her, even where she will not voice their story—she is wrapped up in them all the same, still. 

It will be interesting to see where these characters go from here, because it is doubtful this is the last of any of them. And either way, symbolically, I think there is a lot of positive potential, tucked away into the costuming and design choices. Thanks for reading my weird little ramble!  

[rs-hawk]

Are you willing to write about anthropomorphic gorillas?

Sure, like a Missing Link type thing? I think this piece is my longest so far. I actually had a lot of fun with it so let me know if y'all want more of it :)

You were studying evolution by going backwards, starting with modern day Homo Sapiens until you ended up on an island off the coast of South America, in the middle of no where. While you always had been a huge believer in the floating vegetation theory, the idea of something as large as a primate, hominin or hominid travelling via floating clumps of vegetation seemed far fetched, even to you. Yet here you were, standing on one island of a long island chain that had previously never been studied.

"Are you sure this is even worth the time?" your assistant asked as he looked around the area, a frown creasing his face. "I know that we're searching for a link, but come on Doc. This seems like a stretch."

"I know, but this is where those trees originated, and if they ended up in Brazil, maybe that could explain how New World Monkeys ended up in South America," you say, mirroring his frown.

The two of you, and a small crew, spread out to find a suitable place to camp. Once it's found, you settle in. In the morning, you've planned to try to find any primates who might still reside here. Much to your surprise, when you wake up in the morning, you see a large humanoid footprint right outside the campsite. A knot forms in your stomach as you imagine how big that creature must have been.

Your crew is also stunned, especially your assistant. He insists on following you around like a lost pup, toting a gun. You have to tell him to stop and calm down. Human presence here already is disruptive to the ecosystem. He doesn't need to make it worse. With a grumble and a grunt, he slings it over his shoulder, taking care not to let it catch on any flora in the area.

"Look at this," you breathe, gesturing to the large footprints that you found in a clearing.

You're so excited that you feel like you're basically vibrating. Yes, this isn't even close to what you're looking for, but a primate of that size would be the scientific discovery of the century! Who knows what something like that could mean for the state of evolution. Surely you could get another grant to come back and study it.

"Be careful," your assistant mutters as you approach the footprints, measuring the size and diameter. The depth of the footprint stuns you. "Whatever left that could be dangerous."

"You think everything could be dangerous," you roll your eyes, recording your notes. "Besides, I know more about primates than you. I know that they have the potential to be dangerous. We would see this creature if it was anywhere in the area."

"Yeah," he mutters, looking around.

After a bit of back and forth, you send him back to camp to get more supplies for you to study the footprints. Once he's out of sight, you pause before following the footprints. He would be on you about following this creature, but you can't help yourself. Something is pulling you closer to it. Like a primal need to be closer to this creature. This piece of your own history.

A voice that you don't recognize came from somewhere in the distance in front of you. After a moment, a huge, towering figure comes out of the trees. The trees themselves bend to his will. Your stomach drops. You steps falter. This creature could have easily crushed you if it so chose.

The creature, a towering hulk of a something that is a perfect blend of man and gorilla. Your throat feels like it's closing up as it stops a few paces away from you. Opening its mouth, the creature speaks to you again, but you still don't understand what the words mean.

"I'm sorry," you say after a moment, the stunned buzzing in your brain starting to dissipate. This creature can speak. There's no way that your grant won't be extended. "I don't understand what you're saying."

He, you think he based on the physique this close, frowns at you. He speaks again. You shake your head. Once more. Again, you shake. This time when he speaks, you don't understand what he's saying, but you do recognize it as Latin. "I don't speak Latin but it's the root language for mine."

The creature looks at you, now shaking his head. The both of you try to communicate with each other, and it works to an extent. You're fairly certain that he comes from a small village at the base of the mountain near the center of the island. They mostly eat fruits and vegetables, and he makes gestures that leads you to believe that clothes are sometimes worn, but not the norm.

Before you realize it, you and the creature are sitting beside each other, his towering form nearly obscuring you when your assistant finally makes his way back to you.

"What is that thing?" he yells, making a grab for his gun.

"Don't! He's friendly. He was telling me about his home," you jump up, putting yourself between them.

Your assistant eyes him wearily. The creature looks at you, then back at your assistant. He says something you don't understand in Latin, then waves at your assistant. He frowns slightly. It feels like there's going to be a stand off, but instead, your assistant folds his arms over his chest, a frown steeped into his features.

"Go back to the camp. Thank you for the supplies. I will be back before nightfall," you promise, slightly shooing him away.

After a bit of back and forth, you convince him to leave. You and the creature stay together for a long time, until dusk. Every day for weeks, the entire expedition, you meet up with the creature, getting closer to him. Getting to know him and his people. You even get to see the outskirts of the village. A true testament to how amazing evolution and innovation are.

When the night before you are set to leave comes, you come to him, standing outside his village, a basket of his favorite fruits and vegetables clutched in your shaking hands. He sees you, encouraging you to come into the village. Into his home. You follow, shrinking away from the gazes of his people, who seem to know you don't belong here. And how could they not? You're so small compared to them. So fragile.

In his hut, you feel even smaller. Everything in there is so large compared to you. You haven't been able to figure out a name from your new friend, but you've taken to calling him Link in your head. Link hands you a fruit that you've never seen before he sits in what is essentially a chair across from you.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," you say quietly, looking down at your fruit. He doesn't respond. You look up at him, and you can tell even under the fur that he's frowning. "In the morning, the boat is leaving. I have to go with them."

He says something you don't understand, to which you shrug. He points at the hole that functions as a door in his hut, then at you, and waves. You nod. He looks down at his hands, his shoulders slumped forward. Neither of you say anything for a moment, then he gets up. His massive form nearly encompassing you as he stands in front of you.

He opens his mouth, then closes it. In broken English, he says, "S-stay." Your eyes well with tears as you shake your head, staring at the way his hands cover yours when he grabs them. "Me. Stay me."

You shake your head again, wishing that you could remember any Latin outside of names. Why didn't you pay more attention in class? "I can't."

He lets go of your hands before pacing around the hut. You look at the now crushed fruit in your hands. "Go me."

"What?" you look up at him, your heart soaring. Was he saying what you thought he was? Then again, your mind races. What would happen to him when you got back home? He would be seen as a specimen, wouldn't he?

"Go me," he comes back to you, grabbing your hands, the juice squishing between your fingers as he tightens his grip. "Go me. Go you. Go me."

"You can't come with me," you whisper, caressing his furry face. He looks at you like his heart his breaking. "I wish I could explain better." You slide your hands out of his, trying not to cry. You point toward yourself, "people like me," then you touch his chest, "would kill someone like you." You drag your thumb across your throat.

He seems to understand what you're saying, though he looks more hurt than scared. "Go me," he whispers cupping your face with his large hands. "Stay you?"

You shake your head, leaning into his touch. What had you been thinking? If you come back here, if you study them, they'll be destroyed. Their entire culture will be gone, consumed by capitalism and greed. Isn't that what's happened a thousand times over?

Suddenly, you're snapped out of your thoughts by the feeling of his lips pressed against yours. His fur tickling your skin. You blink a couple of times before kissing him back, surprised but happily so by the sudden show of affection. His tongue demands an entry to your mouth. You shiver, giving in to the lust and overwhelming affection for him that has sprung up on you all at once, but unsurprisingly.

His large hands trail down your body, pausing at the end of your shirt. He mutters something against your lips that you understand the gist of. He wants you as bare as him. You hesitate, your face flushing, but it only takes another tug at your shirt for you to relent. In seconds you've stripped yourself, probably the fastest you've ever done such. His huge hands cup your breasts, covering them completely. When he picks you up to settle you in his lap, you feel how big his cock is hard. Sure, you've seen it as he doesn't wear clothes, but this was different.

Maybe he's more human than you thought, because unlike other primate species, but like humans, size did seem to matter. You realize that when he breaks the kiss to look at you, then at himself. He looks... embarrassed.

You don't know what compels you, maybe just the look on his face, but you start stroking him, having to use both hands to wrap about him. His eyes fall to half lidded. His breathing hitches. Slowly, he grinds his hips against you, letting you stroke him at your leisure. You dip your head down, struggling, but managing, to take the tip of his cock in your mouth. He grunts, digging his nails into your back. You know there will be, at best, crescent shaped bruises on your back come morning.

You bob your head as much as you can manage, his grunts and soft whines spurring you on. While you can't understand the things that slip from his mouth, you can tell by the way he says them that he's enjoying it.

You do your best to get him further down your throat, bracing yourself against his furry hips, but that just makes him grunt, snorting out of flared nostrils. For a second you still, every hair on the back of your neck standing up. Every nerve screaming danger. Even in this moment, you are aware that a primate doing that can spell death. It's a common sign of anger or aggression.

You're surprised when he lifts your head off of him, shaking his head. You frown, raising your eyebrows to ask why. He pauses before adjusting you, easily picking you up and settling you back in his lap, this time with your back against his chest. You're a bit ashamed of yourself to see the mess your wetness made of his fur, but that thought abandons you as he grinds his cock against your core, but his fingers dip down in front of you, teasing your clit.

You whine, grinding back against him. With his other hand, he's back to playing with your breast, softly pinching your nipples. Rolling his thumb over your senstive center over and over again. He brings you to a surprisingly quick orgasm. He makes a sound you think sounds like a laugh before his fingers dip lower. You still, even your breathing, as he slids one finger into your dripping hole.

He starts off slowly as he fingers you, before adding another. You press yourself more against his chest, whimpering and babbling about how good it feels. This time, you're sure it's a chuckle. He spreads his fingers out inside of you, trying to stretch you out. Your head lulls to the side, leaning against his arm. You feel so full. So good. Through your haze, it takes you a moment to realize that he's settling you onto his cock.

A quiet yip escapes your lips as his huge tip fills you more than anything you've ever taken. He pauses, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. You try to press yourself down on him. You don't even realize you're chanting. Begging.

"More. More. Please! More."

He understands the premise enough to push you down lower and lower on him, slowly impaling you. He gives you time to adjust, and by the time he bottoms out inside of you, you're a drooling, babbling mess. He drops you up and down on his cock slowly, then faster and faster. You're crying out for him, grabbing onto his arms as he bounces you on his cock, the huge member even extending your stomach. You know you're soaking his fur, but you can't help yourself. You lose track of how many times him pounding and sliding against your g-spot makes you cum.

By the time he does, you're sobbing from over stimulation, and he's whispering to you in a soothing voice, stroking your hair with one hand as the other guides you to roll your hips on him. He finally cums, so much that it overflows from you. You whimper and press your head back harder against him, feeling the best you ever have in your life. How are you possibly supposed to leave him?

[yuri-is-online]

Weird Yutu thingy but what if Yuu came from the Pokemon world

I believe the support system in the Pokemon world is much better than Earth so-

Single parent with a raging teen-

Add some emotional support Pokemon

And when Yutu comes to his parent's timeline Yuu gets so excited to see new Pokemon (that love them for some reason. Almost as though they were their first trainer-)

Oh Yuu and Yutu would be in such a better place if they came from the pokemon world. Yuu gets a house with a bunch of neighbors and nearby a lab and no one really cares about not knowing who Yutu's dad is.

The pokemon part is a bit trickey though... would they remember Twisted Wonderland? Probably, I couldn't see the magic marshal's keeping the pokemon? But I could also see one of Yuu's team staying with Yutu's dad by accident. Maybe it helps keep the boys who remain alive that much more sane, maybe it stands reluctant guard nearby where the phantom resides, unable to think of anything else to do until it sees Yutu and gets some of its old energy back. This whole ayuu is based off of Fire Emblem Awakening so I have to mention Cherche and her wyvern Minerva... her son Gerome takes up his mother's mount and brings her back in time with him, it's how she recognizes him even before he shows her the wedding ring... perhaps something similar happened with Yutu where he has one of your pokemon and you just know that he's lying to you even before you know he's your son (Gerome's supports with his dad made me so mad because I always S ranked Cherche and Libra because Libra actually learns to speak wyvern in their support chain but that's not reflected in his support with Gerome because it's generic and i wanted to scream every time i read iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I sort of based Jade! Yutu's attitude towards his dad on those supports though)

But back to nicer thoughts, I always struggle with pokemon aus because half of it is just assigning the pokemon, and then I get super caught up in what region everyone is from and just bleh

Riddle! Yutu has to have a Roselia right? It just makes sense, maybe he has the shiny stone for the evolution all ready to go but it was the last present Yuu ever gave him so he's reluctant to use it. Maybe, if you want some extra angst, when he comes to Twisted Wonderland he still just has a budew because he's not super into pokemon battles but he struggles to raise the friendship level enough for budew to evolve once he's there. He's so upset about losing his parent and budew is trying their best tm but it's not enough until they see Overblot Riddle and finally get on the same wavelength.

The triplets... one of them has to have a Fidough that's just a given. I was tempted to say they all have one? But I like the idea of Yushi having a Swirlix since she's more into candymaking. That's 2/3 fairy types so I was scrolling looking for another one when I saw Sinistea and went "oh that would be cute and the perfect fit for a cafe themed se-" and then I realized I could give that to Yutres. Could. For funsies. But it makes much more sense and is less cruel to give her a Milcery. So Yutu gets Fidough, Yutres gets Milcery, and Yushi gets Swirlix for a cute little fairy cafe set.

Cater! Yutu is trickey, he's big on mindfulness and I was really tempted to give him my favorite pokemon because of that, but he also really likes music... I feel like psychic pokemon sort of fits his vibe? And I am torn between Chimecho and Espurr. Espurr is supposed to have difficulty controlling its power, so maybe Chimecho and Yutu could have been focused on helping one out. Cater is super underrated so why shouldn't I give his Yutu two pokemon, it'd be very cute.

Ace! Yutu is pikachu coded to me <3 They would fight so much because both pikachu and Yutu are little brats but once they get in sync watch out they're super scary. Easily the pokemon most excited to see Yuu again... perhaps all that ego clashing is just something that happened in Yuu's world because pika and Yutu bonded while grieving Yuu. Maybe Yutu never evolves his pikachu because that's how Yuu gave it to him. Maybe Pikachu doesn't want to evolve because that's how Yuu left it.

Deuce! Yutu... there aren't any explicitly chicken pokemon outside of maybe Moltres but there is Togepi who is an egg. Baby Yutu loves his bestest friend in the whole wide world, Delinquent Yutu is sort of embarrassed by them. After he catches a houndoor he stops actively using them in battle... he doesn't hate Togi, he just doesn't let anyone in his gang see them and gets really violent with anyone who might try to hurt them. Probably defends fairy types any chance he gets before stammering out some sort of excuse trying to play it off as someone else's opinions. Maybe his boys catch on and one of them gets the idea that maybe they could like... start using impidimps. Make Grimmsnarl the icon of the gang instead of Houndoom, just cause you know maybe fairies are kinda neat maybe. they all want it to be togi instead please boss we made them a little biker jacket isn't it so cu- i mean badass?

Leona! Yutu is loved by cats and he loves naps. Litleo feels like the most thematic pokemon for him, maybe they were napping under a tree one day and a Munchlax decided to follow him home because sleeping on Leona! Yutu was actually pretty warm and Yuu makes the best snacks. His dad probably didn't appreciate the correlation between him and his son's pokemon but as I have said before, he's very much that dad who doesn't want the cat but ends up asleep on the couch with it in his lap two days later. Except this time it's him feeding all his vegetables to Munchlax.

Ruggie! Yutu is my little dandelion prince so he gets a Hoppip. I like the idea of him coming home with one stuck in his hair and they've been best friends ever since. He feels like the one most likely to take over training Yuu's team, if he had continued living in your world I don't think he would have become a trainer. He would have been happy to have a normal job and maybe never evolve his pokemon, but he doesn't regret taking on the role of trainer in the bad future. It gives him a lot of self confidence.

Jack! Yutu... I will bestow him the honor of giving him one of my favorite pokemon. He gets Cacnea because Yuu remembers that Jack liked succulents. Yutu is very serious about taking care of him and making sure he has the best possible habitat at home. Cacnea is under the impression it is doing the same for Yutu and Yuu, but the stubby little hands it has make helping with chores difficult.

It's really tempting to give all of the Octatrio kids water type pokemon, maybe left over memories from Twisted Wonderland make Yuu think that would be a good idea. But I want to give Azul! Yutu a Clobbopus sosososososo bad. It's such a cute pokemon and I think Yutu would agree that his pokemon is super cute. So does everyone in Savanaclaw much to his annoyance, it's like his pokemon is the dorm leader and not him.

Jade! Yutu feels like a Mareanie guy. Water type since he's a merfolk, poison type because that's pretty punk rock, and it looks just enough like a mushroom to be thematic. I could see one of Yuu's pokemon staying in Twisted Wonderland with Jade... a Shiinotic who helps him at the bar and is the best cared for mushroom out there that Yutu is envious. Why does his parent's pokemon love his dad so much? Why won't it agree to come with him into the past where you are still alive because it insists on staying with Jade, saying that's what you would want?

Floyd! Yutu's favorite pokemon ever since he was a little boy was Sharpedo. He asked, suspiciously politely, to be given one when he was old enough to get his trainer's license. He even made a power point, how cute! The answer was still no, instead Yuu convinces the lab near by their house to take Yutu on as one of those trainers with a pokedex who goes on a journey to collect all the gym badges. He really likes being a trainer, probably would have been the annoying rival to his next door neighbor, definitely picked whatever pokemon was strongest against whatever they picked. He still catches his Carvanha and doesn't hold it against Yuu for not giving it to him, he thinks that was probably for the best.

Kalim! Yutu deserves a Whooper. It's cute, the little face is always smiling and Whooper and Quagsire are such joyful little guys I think Kalim would love them. Oricorio feels like a good choice too because of how much it likes dancing... but I feel like Yutu would have a hard time choosing what form to train because they are all so cool. His dad would be such an enabler, sure son lets have all four! And throw a themed party for each one lol

Jamil! Yutu also feels like a good candidate for a pokemon rival. Sure, Ekans and Arbok feel like good pokemon for him thematically, but I just know he would have a well balanced and thought out team of pokemon he deeply loves and takes great care of. Keeping with the snake theme, lets say he started out with Snivy. Serperior fits Jamil's overall vibe pretty well, it's a beautiful pokemon and very regal. Other pokemon I could see him having are Gastrodon, Clefable, and Scizor.

Vil! Yutu loves to draw but I do not like Smeargle in the slightest and will be pretending it does not exist. I feel like anyone attached to Vil should get a Buneary, it's a cute pokemon with a friendship evolution who has real hate in its heart. It is more like Vil than any poison type pokemon fr fr. I could see Vil! Yutu doing well as coordinator, but being a bit uncertain of who else he wants to add to his team, but catching an evee with the intent of evolving them into... something he just doesn't know what.

I hit the text block limit lol, I should just. Stop being distracted by cassette beasts and get back to writing. Or replay a pokemon game.

[waitingandwishing]

(Cross posted on Wattpad)

Prev - Next Chapter

Viktor gasped. He never knew how sweet something could taste after he felt the rush of air in his lungs.

He outstretched his hand, pulling through the thin veil as he pushed through and landed on the ground, bits of the arcane still sticking to his ragged body. Mostly machinery and… Other things.

“Jayce?” He called out. His partner snapped open, breathing heavily at the voice he never thought he’d hear as he turned around to see his friend. He looked at Viktor up and down.

“Viktor? My god…”

“What… Am I?” He asked, looking at his sudden change.

“You’re… You’re alive.” Jayce realized before smiling, “You’re alive!” He hugged Viktor tightly, missing his friend's warm embrace. “Oh! Oh, uh… You must be cold!” Jayce realized leaving Viktor as he went to get something to cover him up.

“Cold.” Viktor repeated, his eyes squinting in response. “No, I don’t think so.” He said, though Jayce wrapped a blanket around Viktor anyways. “I sense a charge. A potential. A recursive impulse. Unpleasant, but… ‘cold’ isn’t its name.”

Viktor’s gaze fell upon the arcane cocoon where Y/N was trapped. The glow from its surface illuminated his face, casting flickering shadows across his sunken cheeks and weary eyes.

 He stepped closer, the sound of his cane tapping against the floor echoing in the quiet room. His chest tightened at the sight of her suspended within the magic’s embrace, her expression serene yet fragile, as if frozen in a dream she couldn’t escape.

“Oh, what has happened to you, Y/N?” He whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of sorrow and tenderness. 

Jayce, standing nearby, cleared his throat softly. “We found her next to your body, Viktor. She… she appeared to have stabbed herself with her own knife.” His voice was heavy with guilt, each word weighted with the memory of that night. “We’ve been studying the arcane that surrounds you both. Y/N’s a mage, she possesses magic. We think she cast a spell in her final moments, one that bonded the two of you together.”

A faint, bittersweet smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “After all these years of being apart,” He murmured, “She casts a spell to ensure we can never be separated again...”

He hesitated, his hand hovering just inches from the arcane barrier as if he could already feel her presence through it. “I must say…” He began, his voice barely above a whisper. “After all these years of fondness, affection, love… I am upset that I never had the courage to tell her.” His hand clenched into a fist. “That she never knew the depth of it.”

Jayce shifted uneasily. “Viktor…”

But Viktor didn’t look at him. His gaze was locked onto Y/N’s peaceful face, his eyes filled with a yearning that was almost unbearable to witness. Slowly, he outstretched his hand, trembling as it moved closer to the arcane’s surface.

“Don’t,” Jayce said sharply. Viktor turned to him, his expression a mix of irritation and confusion. “It… It might hurt you again,” Jayce continued, his tone pleading. “You might not wake up this time.”

Viktor’s frown deepened, but there was no hesitation in his voice. “Y/N is still in there,” He said firmly. “I can feel it, I can feel her” His gaze softened as he turned back to her, his resolve unwavering. “How can I live knowing she’s lost within this? Alone?”

Jayce opened his mouth to protest but stopped. There was no arguing with Viktor, not when it came to her.

Viktor’s fingers brushed the arcane’s surface, and a surge of warmth flowed through him, as if her very essence was reaching out to meet him. A faint, genuine smile graced his lips as he leaned closer, pressing his palm gently against her head.

“Glorious evolution,” He murmured, his voice a quiet prayer. “I must say, mojí drahoušek, your mind is as sharp as ever, and you’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.” He closed his eyes, his voice filled with an aching tenderness. “Wake up… For me, for yourself. There is so much left for you to do and without you, I have nothing ahead of me.”

For a moment, the arcane pulsed, light radiating outward in rhythmic waves. Viktor’s words hung in the air, a quiet plea suspended between them. As the light intensified, Y/N’s fingers twitched ever so slightly, as if she was responding to his call.

“Violet…” Y/N’s voice broke the silence, soft and tremulous, her lips barely moving. Then, with a sudden gasp, her eyes widened. "Jinx!” she rasped, the name escaping her like a fragile bird taking flight. Her throat was raw, her voice hoarse as she tore herself free from the arcane, her body trembling with the effort. 

“V-Viktor!” she managed to choke out before collapsing to the floor. A fit of violent coughing overtook her, shaking her frame as she struggled to catch her breath. Through blurred vision, she looked up, and her heart stopped at the sight before her.

There he was, the man she had longed to see for what felt like an eternity. Yet… he was different now. Not just in his body, purple with flickers of gold, or his hair, streaked with silver as though time had left its mark. 

It was his eyes that struck her the most. They were like hers, a swirling kaleidoscope of colors, alive with the brilliance of the arcane. The sight consumed her thoughts, making her forget the ache in her chest, the confusion in her mind.

A robe flowed around Y/N like water, the soft, natural folds of the fabric wrapping her in an ethereal elegance. The garment fell gracefully to her ankles, draping across her arms and shoulders. A decorative clasp secured the drape, its intricate design marked with an unusual symbol that seemed to pulse faintly with energy. 

Her hair was shimmering white, the strands catching the light like spun silver. A single black streak ran through her hair, stark against the color.

“You’re alive,” she whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief and relief. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Viktor, pulling him into a tight embrace as though afraid he might vanish if she let go. “I… I’m alive.”

“It’s good to see you again… My love,” Viktor whispered, his voice soft yet heavy with emotion. The words sent a warmth flooding through her, thawing the icy fear that had gripped her heart for so long. 

Y/N pulled back just enough to look at him, her hands rising to cradle his face. Her touch was tender, her fingers brushing over the lines and contours of his features as though memorizing them anew.

She turned her gaze to Jayce, standing nearby. “You saved us,” she said, realization dawning in her wide eyes.

“No… it… The Hexcore saved you.,” Jayce replied, shaking his head. “Somehow, it-it adapted to both your injuries, changing and evolving. It was as if it was… Connected to you two.”

Y/N and Viktor exchanged a glance, confusion mirrored in their eyes. She studied her hands, the faint glow of purple emanating from the runes. Her fingers bore the remnants of her three rings that had once symbolized her strength and her weapon, now absorbed into her skin.

“I did my best using notes from your leg. Recorded everything.” Jayce continued, his words tumbling over each other. “There are still so many questions, but—”

“I was supposed to die. Y/N was supposed to die,” Viktor interrupted, his hand clenched into a fist, the veins glowing faintly with the same unsettling purple. “You promised to destroy the Hexcore.”

“No. Don’t you see?” Jayce argued, his voice rising. “Heimerdinger was wrong. We were wrong. It’s not as bad as we—”

“It carved itself into Y/N’s brain,” Viktor said bitterly. “It killed Sky, Jayce. She had such dreams… As did we, once.” His voice faltered, his gaze dropping to the floor. 

Stumbling slightly, he moved to the desk, his steps unsteady yet purposeful. He reached for his notebook, the symbol of his work, and clutched it tightly.

Jayce stepped forward, desperation etched into his face. “I’m going to resign from the council. I understand now,” He said quickly, as though the words might fix everything. “My place was always here in the lab with you. We’ll make this right. Together.”

Viktor turned, his eyes finding Y/N’s. Her gaze was fixed on her glowing hands, her expression unreadable. She felt Viktor’s eyes on her and looked up, her uncertainty meeting his resolve. His features softened, his focus shifting from the weight of his regrets to the person before him.

“I must say goodbye to this place now. To you,” Viktor said quietly, addressing Jayce. He clutched his book tighter, his voice steady despite the finality of his words.

“Goodbye? Viktor, you’re my partner,” Jayce pleaded, stepping closer.

“Our paths diverged long ago,” Viktor replied, his tone calm but firm. “It was affection that held us together.”

He turned to Y/N, his gaze softening further. Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. Was this really happening? For once, she wasn’t an afterthought, a secondary choice. She was someone’s choice. His choice. 

But even as her heart swelled with selfish hope, guilt tugged at her. How could she be happy when Jayce was losing the only friend he had left? How could she be so horrible?

“You think it’s so easy?” Jayce demanded, his voice breaking. “To turn your back while your whole city looks to you for salvation? To cling to principles while your best friend bleeds out in your arms? I never asked for this!”

Viktor paused, his face clouded with thought. He reached for Y/N’s hand, his fingers lacing through hers. Without another word, he turned and began walking away, guiding her with him.

“Where are you going?” Jayce called after them, his voice tinged with disbelief and sorrow.

“Goodbye, Jayce,” Viktor said, his voice low. “I have been away from my love for far too long, avoiding it as it chased after me… Perhaps it is time to let it catch up with me.”

taglist: @night-fall-moon @cyberwears @g0ul666 (If you'd like to be added tell me in the comments!!!

[st-whalefall]

I’m taking a big ol’ swing with this one so everyone please keep your limbs inside the vehicle until we reach our destination (let me cook)

So, what happened here? For this to go from-

Goofy ass grin <3

Summer: “Trust me..”

To this-

Raven: “The creatures of Grimm have a master named Salem. She can’t be stopped, she can’t be reasoned with, and she will not rest until humanity crumbles at her feet.”

Raven: To Ruby with disdain, “You sound just like your mother.”

Let me lay some of my cards on the table. I’m in the “Summer is still alive” camp and I got thoughts on: if Summer is still alive, why has she not been in Yang and Ruby’s life?

Not even a peep? For 14 years?

Something BIG had to have happened to her to keep her away from them.

Now, a lot of folks will go straight to where Ruby jumped to: Summer got Grimm hound-ed by Salem

But I think that’s takes a lot of agency away from Summer and the building revelation of her character and the purpose she serves in the narrative.

If Summer has been grimmified, I posit it was by her own doing, by choice. And her choice alone.

Qrow: “You’re special the same way your mom was…The creatures of Grimm were afraid of those silver eyed warriors.”

Salem: “Do you feel it? Don’t fight it girl. It can sense your trepidation. You must make it dread you.”

How does Salem illustrate the melding of Cinders flesh with the Grimm arm and mastery over it?

In the few instances we get, how are silver eyes described in their effect on Grimm? Obliteration, yes. Resistance to their influence? Possibly (see Ruby & the apathy). But command over them? Let’s explore that.

We are working with a pretty small dataset here, so you’ll forgive me for mostly drawing from Cinder for this (separate post I think the hound is a reanimated corpse and so different from true living hybrids like Cinder (& hypothetically Summer)).

Grimm evolve and Grimm hybrids, like Cinder, adapt.

From vol4 to vol8, Cinder’s Grimm arm grows. It spreads. And she becomes more comfortable with it as time progresses.

Cinders Grimm arm has become an integral part of her and, side note, I dislike theories that revolve her hypothetical redemption around her being purified of evil (Grimm) by silver eyes.

[But that’s just me, I want the monstrous to stay monstrous rather than erased or watered down for easy digestion. Let the monster stay a monster in its appearance and still be worthy of love, and so on and so forth.]

So, we come back to Summer Rose.

Summer confronted Salem, learned something earth shattering, destroyed Raven’s faith and trust in her, and did something that prevented her from returning to her daughters for more than a decade.

What did Summer do? Agency, we’re thinking strong choices here.

Choices that are radical but in line for a character with strong convictions, an alluded to pedestal she stands upon and all the complexes that comes with, perhaps a little self destructive, and a big heart. Big enough to sympathize with the devil and do something about it.

The thing that could be preventing Summer from returning home could be as simple as:

After she learned the truth about Oz’s shadow war, she joined Salem’s side, and won’t return until she’s seen it through to the end.

But I want to put some spice on there because what if:

After learning whatever it was Salem told Summer, that turned her world upside down, Summer looked down into the pools of black and took the plunge

To understand Salem on a molecular level

To be Grimm as Salem is Grimm

To be a world changer

In the world of Remnant, that’s what the Grimm are. A force of destructive change, like hurricanes and wildfires, they shape the world through calamity. Disaster doesn’t feel any one way about you, it just is. It is devastating, but it doesn’t hate you. And it doesn’t love you either.

So, what would that make Summer?

How do you think that’s changed her, fundamentally?

Bloody evolution indeed.

And that’s why she stayed away. Summer changed, and now she looks a little more on the outside how she feels on the inside. But to the rest of the world, she is something horrifying. Unspeakable.

She didn’t want to give her girls nightmares.

Yeah, Summer was the inspiration for the Hound, and Cinder’s Grimm arm. But not in the way Ruby thinks.

[vidavalor]

Hi! Hope you’re having a great day! When Crowley said that both he and Aziraphale speak every language in the world, how do you think that would work? Like, do they have the potential to? Or do they just switch to a language by default? Do they kinda have to spend some time around a certain region to speak those languages? Thank you for your answer!

Hello there! Hope you're having a great day yourself. *all the chocolate cake for you* 💕 What a cool question! Sorry it took me awhile to get back to you. I'm flattered to have a bit of a backlog happening here 😳 & I also was taking some time to mull this one over as it's a really fun topic.

What might it mean for Crowley and Aziraphale to "speak every language in the world?" and how might that work?

I've got a couple of ideas that also involve a look at Aziraphale's halo and the "one big avocado" joke while we're at it...

I think that this question contains a bit of chicken-and-the-egg. To show you what I mean by that, I want you to look again at the scene in the gif below but, instead of looking at Muriel, Crowley, and Saraqael in the foreground of it, look at Michael and Uriel in the background:

If you look at the scenes of Crowley and Muriel watching the footage of Gabriel's trial, you'll notice that Heaven's Zoom things-- that are somewhere between a skyscraper and a computer tower in appearance-- are marking information in what are known as ideographs.

An ideograph is a symbol or a picture that stands for a word or a concept. The foundations of every language on Earth are all rooted in different forms of ideographs that, along with some basic sounds, are believed to have evolved towards letters and words and into the modern spoken and written languages we use today. Some of the most well-known ideographs that we know of include things like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Phoenician alphabet, and the runic alphabets.

[I did a post on Crowley's use of "ngk" that talks about its origins relating to the Greek alphabet and touches on ideographs a little, if you're interested in more on this topic.]

These same symbols in the "Heavenly Zoom" screens alongside Michael and Uriel in the Gabriel trial video are also being shown as the timestamp/data markers on the video Crowley and Muriel see of Gabriel riding the lift/elevator down to Earth when he ran. Runes are also part of the markings of the magic circle in the bookshop floor that Aziraphale uses to connect to Heaven.

He and Crowley cover up that foundational circle with a rug decorated with lotus flowers, symbolic of Eastern spiritual influences and trauma recovery, and appear to more commonly use the spot that can be used to contact Heaven as a meditative spot. It's also where they do the Gabriel miracle, seemingly as a way of calming and focusing themselves to be able to perform it.

Visually, the series is using ideographs in the floor & the rug to reflect evolution in Crowley and Aziraphale's life from the runes in the floor evoking Heaven to the lotus flower rug which, while also symbolic in ancient religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, also have more relevant and modern symbolism reflecting the journey towards enlightenment and the persistence and ability to transcend obstacles born from trauma.

It's symbolic of the idea that, in their World of Carpets that they've made together, Crowley and Aziraphale are very much like a lot of people with Christianity-based religious trauma and other issues whose spirituality has gone a bit Buddhist, if at least in using tools like mindfulness in a secular way (see also: the breathing in the sushi and the magic shop scenes, etc..).

The Angel of The Eastern Gate, ya know?

Anyway, the point is that the foundations of all Earthly languages are ideographs and we've seen a few scenes show that Heaven uses those in internal documentation. This, as The Voice of God would say, proves two things:

All of the characters on our show share the same foundation of languages. It all comes from Heaven and the language of the angels. The demons were angels so this is their foundational language, too, and it's the same as many early human languages, which means that, just as the angels and demons pre-dated the humans, the foundations of what we think of as our human languages actually, in the Good Omens universe, come from the angels and demons, and...

Heaven is still sending internal emails and documenting files using this picture stuff from over six thousand fucking years ago. 😂

It's symbolic of how slow evolution in Heaven is and how they do not view evolution as actually a good thing.

Relevant to this is that, in the Ineffable Bureaucracy flashback, Beez and Gabriel sum up one of the big themes of the story really succinctly when they talk about how both the angels and the demons are both living for Armageddon-- "if you can call that living," as Beez puts it.

You can't. Gabriel and Beez agree that it's not.

Like Crowley and Aziraphale, they have seen the truth of things, which is that the ones who are really living are the humans. The angels and demons are socialized to believe that they're superior to the humans-- magical, quasi-immortal, not in need of any of the revolting trappings of humanity, like food and love. Our main four characters, though, have figured out that this isn't true and that the ones who are really living are the humans. Not coincidentally, then...

...Crowley, Aziraphale, Beez, and Gabriel-- the four characters who have made an effort to spend time on Earth during its evolution-- are also the four most linguistically adept supernatural characters on the show.

What we're saying is that, since the angels created Earth, it means that the beginnings of language on Earth in Good Omens actually comes from the angels, which means that all humans, angels and demons share in common the same foundations of languages. This is where human evolution of language comes into play and we can see more then what it might mean to speak all the languages of the world.

Language is not a passive thing. It is constantly evolving. The evolution of language is a collective effort by all of those participating in it by speaking that language. It carries the weight of the past in the history of its words but it also is sometimes how people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to evolve from that past.

We first learn to talk by mirroring the vocabulary and speech patterns of those around us and we keep doing that, in different ways, throughout our lives. Slang becomes popular by people picking it up from one another and spreading it. Words take on new meanings and evolve or fall out of fashion in accordance to the times. Why we say what it is we say and how we came to say it and what these words mean now and used to mean and their relationship to other words is known as the study of etymology and Terry Pratchett's novels, including both Good Omens and the Discworld novels, are love letters to this field of study.

The figurative language of both is developed off of a love of word history-- Aziraphale's discus halo, for example, is the same etymological joke that is why Pratchett's novel series is called Discworld. The word halo was originally not a religious term but a scientific one and described the disk of light visible around objects in the sky. As a result, halo, in its earliest origins, was also a word used to describe many disk-shaped things on Earth-- the discus and the sport named for it chief among them.

Also, disk-shaped platters (the "go on" temptation trays of food in Good Omens and dinner plates). Halo was an early word for some gardens and the original term for what evolved to be knowing as a threshing floor-- a space into which oxen were penned to process grain.

The original halo, as we mentioned, was light *around* an object in the sky, which is different from how it evolved to be light *above* a religious figure in art work when the word was basically stolen from scientific circles by religious people. A visual reference to this is the contrast between Aziraphale's halo in S2 versus the human performance artist dressed as a human-like angel with a halo above her head when Gabriel is jogging in the park in S1.

In Good Omens, the definition evolution is also there in Aziraphale, a religious figure (an angel) with perfectionist issues having the halo around his head and not floating above it. He's a deity in the way that the humans would draw it in art but his halo doesn't reflect perfect, pure, godliness-- it reflects his humanity and the pressures of trying to live up to what others say reflects God but which he doesn't truly believe does. Aziraphale's halo is symbolic of his mental health struggles and the pressures we put on ourselves-- it's crushing his head in and causing the anxiety attack we're seeing him fighting as he takes it off.

Good Omens is a Discworld-adjacent novel and The Discworld?

It is about us and our own halos.

We're all the objects in the sky and we've got a complicated ring of light around us. We're amazing, celestial beings but we're also so very human.

The story is in the etymology: Halo = Discus. Discus = Disc. Us.

Discus is also the root word of what we can do to help us manage our halos-- discuss stuff. Get out of our same daily rounds and talk about our frozen peas. Put on some round records or some compact discs and dance on the heads of our pins. Maybe to some disco, so we won't discorporate.

The other word related to halo and that comes from discus is desca, the origin of the word desk.

It originally just meant any table. If you've got a table or a desk, you've got a mind, you've got a life you're trying to lead. Doesn't matter if you're borrowing it or sharing it or if it's yours or if you've got one or more than one. Doesn't matter if it's clean or cluttered or what's on or in it-- if you're using a table of any kind, you're writing something, making something, eating something, doing something, thinking about something.

You're living life in the Discworld.

In Good Omens, one of Heaven's few material objects are desks because the supernatural characters are members of the Discworld, too-- they just mostly like to pretend that they're not.

Aziraphale's discus halo is both an etymology joke and etymology-based figurative language in one. It's what the Discworld is, in a visual pun. So, what does this all have to do with speaking a language?

Well, for one thing, it shows how language-history-driven a story Good Omens is. It also helps to show that the characters who are the deepest into understanding what it is to be a part of the Discworld are the ones who are letting themselves live.

*cues up the Queen* Ooh, you're making me live...

And what is a big effect of letting yourself live in Good Omens? What is one of the most notable by-products of these characters who do, namely Crowley and Aziraphale?

Their more adept language skills.

It's the humans, by and large, who are living so it's the humans who have evolved language from its Heavenly foundations. Heaven still using the ideographs symbolizes how they have struggled to evolve because evolution isn't seen as positive there. They think themselves superior with nothing to learn and have no curiosity about how their relatives on Earth are living. They think they know everything and should be inflicting their lunacy onto the humans, who are the ones really doing the work of figuring out the Discworld.

Crowley and Aziraphale have been living on Earth since its beginning and so they are basically walking, talking etymological dictionaries. They came into it knowing the foundations of all languages and then they have become a part of its evolution alongside the humans.

Several historically anachronistic scenes also indicate that Crowley and Aziraphale themselves are responsible for contributing various words and phrases throughout history. That alone would be its own meta but part of the enjoyment of language in the series is seeing our main characters use words that were definitely not otherwise in use in the eras in which they are in during any particular scene-- like Aziraphale using "America" in 3400 BC and "restaurant" in ancient Rome and Crowley being "down with" something in 1827 on the same night he's originating the "you say potato" at the heart of a song that wouldn't be written for another century to come. Crowley's first lines in the series in 1.01-- "well, that went down like a lead balloon"-- are historical anachronisms and absolutely hilarious, as here's the first human beings, basically naked and shoeless, just leaving the Garden of Eden, and thousands of years away from understanding concepts like lead and inventing balloons, let alone inventing an idiom connecting them.

When you think about it, Crowley and Aziraphale would be contributors to human language just by living on Earth for so long because that is how language evolves. We pick it up from one another. The popular fan theory that humans began using "angel" as a romantic pet name after hearing Crowley call Aziraphale that is this same sort of thing-- and the show suggested that it's true in S2 by having Nina adopt it for Maggie after hearing Crowley use it to describe Aziraphale. Also seems like an opportunity for my favorite linguistic historical anachronism in the series:

Crowley and Aziraphale's ability to know human language better than the other supernatural characters reflects that they have been living human lives, which the show has argued is what living is.

Basically all of the humor with regards to language in Good Omens comes from where the angels and demons seem to have not been on Earth that much or have not been updating their internal language computers and are therefore confused by ways in which language has evolved.

Everything from Shax's toast/toste to Hastur's ciao/chow confusion... from Gabriel's "keep the status quo static and, uh, quo-y" to Michael's humorless inability to understand Crowley's shuhite/shoes homophonic joke... from "surrender the angle" to "transferred from another human settlement"... are all jokes that reflect that the angels and demons are missing information regarding where humans have taken language.

There's even a joke that is about the supernatural characters struggling to understand language evolution and that's the "one big avocado" joke from both the book and the show. It's a joke about the inability to understand wordplay enough to tell a joke that is actually funny. Part of the humor of this joke is that it is just fucking terrible the way that the characters tell it 😂-- not terrible in a so-bad-it's-good way but just terrible-- but what also makes it funny is that it could have been very funny if only they were able to piece together the elements sitting right there that make it amusing. They are so close to having a decent joke here but they just can't quite get there. Making matters funnier? They lack both the knowledge and the self-awareness to actually see the puns sitting right there in their own conversation.

The humor is that Famine (in the book) and Eric (in the show) are essentially trying to make a pun but they don't quite get wordplay. They can see some potential in the fact that the end of the world is apparently going to happen in a place that also grows avocados. They sense something of note or meaning in that but they don't know what to do with it. They can see that it's all weirdly absurd and they can feel something there but they don't know enough about words to make something out of it. It reflects that they don't know enough about Earth to see that Armageddon is not a foregone conclusion and that it is really about all of them and their own personal Armageddons. The best they can do is just say it with verbal italics-- that Armageddon? It's gonna be one big avocado-- but they're mainly just mimicking a humorous tone here without having the words there to justify the tone and make it actually funny.

They've basically understood the human need to go at life with some dry, absurdist, gallows humor but they aren't sure how to replicate that themselves beyond tone. In the novel, the "one big avocado" joke is a conversation between The Four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse who have gathered to ride but are talking about how they are surprised that Armageddon is taking place in this village called Tadfield. The joke is in none of them actually knowing the etymology of one of the most well-known etymologies of any word on Earth in history-- Armageddon, which is derived from the name of the ancient city of Megiddo. They are The Four Horsepeople of The Apocalypse and they don't know the origins of Armageddon, which is their entire purpose for existence. 😂

Famine gets closest to the etymology by saying that he thinks that Armageddon is "somewhere in Israel" from what he understands but also admits that he "always meant to look it up" and isn't totally sure. Pollution thinks Armageddon is in "Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or one of those places", apparently equating it to places associated with the beginnings of the American Revolution.

[There is, believe it or not considering some of the city names in the United States, not a single town or single city in America named Armageddon. Not just in Massachusetts or Pennsylvania but in the entire country. I know because, unlike Famine, I looked it up when I first read the book.]

Thematically, Pollution is close but no cigar and doesn't have a clue how close they are to getting the themes of freedom and autonomy that are associated with the positive aspects of the complicated old duck that is America running throughout the story, which are reflected in the tv series through things like Gabriel, The Them's "39 flavors of ice cream in America" scene in S1 and, of course, Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. Pollution ain't smart, though-- and for A Character Who Is Actually A Concept, they're amusingly terrible at, well, getting concepts... which is so to help us better see that by seeing what it is that they aren't understanding.

Both of them are showing that they have no idea what Armageddon means because they don't understand how the word came to be. The joke both suggests that it's important to the story to consider that Armageddon has different meanings in it and that the word choice in the story is very specific and looking at word origin, in general, is key to story comprehension. All of this is obviously true in life outside of Good Omens as well and one of the messages of this story and, I've found, running throughout the novels of Discworld that I've read.

Eventually, Megiddo is brought up and Famine is surprised that Armageddon would be what it was known for (despite Armageddon as a word being literally derived from the city of Megiddo 😂) because he "thought that was where they grew avocados."

Death-- the only one who kinda knows what's up with the words here-- finally chimes in to answer Famine by saying, in response to the avocado-growing place, that that's "MOUNT CARMEL."

Death means Mount Carmel, California, which is known for growing avocados, and which also shares a place name with the mountain range that encompasses Megiddo, the place whose name formed the origin of the word Armageddon. They do grow avocados in Megiddo but if you lined up everyone on Earth and asked them to describe The Velvet Underground tell you a place famous for growing avocados no one-- no one-- would say the fields of Megiddo. One of the top three answers, though, would be the mentioned region of California.

Famine replies to this as Eric does in the show-- that Armageddon then is going to be "one big avocado"-- and the humor, on one level, is in his inability to make a decent joke because he can't understand words enough to pun. On another, though?

If we're a little more word-savvy here and applying these guidelines the story is suggesting to the story as we go? If we get that the story is Armageddon but that Armageddon is really about a person's own mental health crisis and struggles in the Discworld and the whole destruction-of-planet-Earth thing is plot but more metaphorical than anything else? Then, our next question might be what the deal is with involving avocados in the joke about Armageddon's word origins and the inability to play with words being what humorlessness is.

Is there additional humor in that, beyond the actually funny Mount Carmel part of the joke that the characters don't get but that the reader/viewers can? Is there a level of this that is funny in a way where the characters making this terrible joke ironically don't realize that they have, on some level, actually said something funny? There are in a couple of ways...

One is that avocados are sometimes euphemistic in English for balls (in the testicular sense, obviously). It also originally had the alternate names of the alligator pear or the avocado pear, which is homophonic for pair... which can be used to refer to balls, as in look at the pair on him, etc.. Word-wise, avocados are actually, ironically-- pardon the fruit pun-- perfectly ripe for punning.

Knowing literally any of this would have meant that Famine or Eric could have actually made a very funny, punny, dirty joke out of the avocados simply by referring to two of them instead of the "one big avocado." This is all without even adding in the element of Armageddon and destruction as sexually euphemistic and the innuendo potential there...

If you were talking with Crowley about avocados being grown where Armageddon was scheduled to take place, he could instantly come up with about twelve dirty puns off the top of his head and be grinning within seconds, having fun with Aziraphale being faux-scandalized (and then the angel being just as filthy in response 😂). It's because Crowley canonically loves word history and has a special fondness for homophony, which would be a big part of avocado-related humor ("So I am. Bildad the Shuhite... need any shoes?"). He loves to play with words. So does Aziraphale. They would be flirting about avocados and Armageddon effortlessly whereas characters like The Four Horsepeople, Hastur, and even Eric (who at least appears to be trying) are lacking in living enough on Earth to really be able to develop a sense of humor through understanding language.

The avocados are also obviously tied to the use of pair/pear/pare in Crowley and Aziraphale's private language, too. (And the related appear/disappear being used euphemistically for an orgasm.)

Finally, there's another little joke in there with the avocados-- one that's more for us than anything else. Avocados bringing up pears and pear being homophonic for pair means that Armageddon-- which is the story of Good Omens-- going to be "one big avocado" means that the novel was predicting that Good Omens was likely going to produce "one big pair."

It did and still does: Crowley and Aziraphale.

Those two fruits have spent the last couple of decades being one big avocado, have they not?

So, the story is saying that fluently speaking a language is best reflected by a person's ability to play in it. Crowley and Aziraphale, we have learned, know how to play with words using every language in the world not just because they knew the foundations of those languages but because they have been participating in the evolution of those languages as humans of Earth for the last six thousand years.

To be fair to these supernatural characters who aren't so hip to words, though? Plenty of humans are missing this stuff, too. That's a big part of the joke, as well.

A lot of us don't know what it is we're saying when we choosing the words we're choosing to say or how it came to be that those words exist in the first place. The discovery is part of the process of living. No one's going to know everything, all of the time. The point is to be curious and ask questions. Those who do at least have that going for them because their mind is open to new information.

And, even if you've spent six thousand years steeped in the evolution of human languages with your equally word-horny partner, you're not going to get everything. The two of you could have written some of the most analyzed passages of Shakespeare and poetry and influenced some of the most popular music ever made but you're still never going to know everything. Things are going to slip by you unnoticed, like your hellcat of an old pal, Jane Austen, having written books, or the fact that some English-speaking women have developed this linguistic habit of insisting that they are not crying when they are, in fact, obviously sobbing.

So, how does a supernatural person like those in Good Omens keep up with all the evolution of language? If they originated it back in the days of written language being pictures-meaning-stuff and we're now in the year 2023 in the series? Can you imagine barely being on Earth for thousands of years and just getting like magical equivalent to bad software updates on language and then coming to the planet from time to time and trying to navigate it? You'd be completely and utterly fucked. They're all actually impressive to be able to speak as well as they do.

I kind of don't blame Shax for confusing toste with toast or Hastur for not being able to tell the difference between an Italian greeting and slang for food. They're not doing half-bad with this, in my book, especially when you consider that they have to understand every language on the planet while most of us know far fewer. Most humans struggle to keep up with language evolutions within their own lifetimes just within their primary language or languages, let alone be able to deftly play in every language of the world.

Hastur raising his hand during Crowley's presentation and asking what a computer is? It's one of the funniest punchlines in the series because it emphasizes how clever Crowley is with words to a point that he's absolutely running circles around the other demons, especially with this word-nerdy Odegra presentation... but it's more than that.

It's also showing that Hastur actually has a quality that many of the others do not: he's curious. He is willing to ask questions. It matters more to him to understand what a computer is than it does for him to admit that he doesn't know. That might well be the most (and maybe only? lol) admirable thing about Hastur but he isn't the only one with that promising interest in learning more.

Books are books and they are also, symbolically, people, as Muriel pointed out-- "like people, only portable." We learn language from both reading it and speaking it-- from both literal and figurative books. Not only does Muriel pick up pleasure reading in S2 and all the language (and countless other) benefits that can have but they are one of the examples of how we mirror the language of others around us and are collectively evolving language together.

Music is language, too, as Beez shows by evolving their and Gabriel's private language to include a song written by a human that they then use to discuss how they feel about one another and which becomes a part of not just their own world but those of the people around them when others later hear them singing it.

Muriel adopting Aziraphale's "jolly good"; Nina taking Crowley's "angel"; Crowley and Aziraphale so mirroring one another's language that the show is incorporating our biological tendency to do so and how that informs language into its storytelling.

Living beings will mirror the languages of those around them, as it's actually how we learn to speak in the first place. You speak to babies so much in order to teach them vocabulary through repetitive connections being made between the physical and the linguistic. As older kids and adults, we still can and do still pick up the words and speech patterns spoken by those around us-- for better or worse-- and some word evolution can happen from hearing them incorrectly or misunderstanding what was said.

One of the funniest jokes in the series is an example of a human doing just that, in a way that shows what a dirtbag he is:

The humor here is coming from both the fact that Glozier hears the name of a company or a product-- Betamax-- as the name of a person-- Peter Max-- because he sees people as something you can buy... but also from the fact that he has been spending so much time with German-born Nazis like Greta and Harmony that he's begun to process all language as if it's coming to him spoken by someone with that accent-- even though both he and Aziraphale are English, so there should not have been an issue. Glozier's gross and also, in his case, treasonous, affiliation with the Nazis in this moment is humorously shown through his de-evolving language skills.

The idea, then, is that while you can have knowledge of the basic tools to speak a language and get through enough to be understood by knowing those tools, it's through engaging with the world around you that you really and truly speak a language.

The angels and demons are so isolated that they might have originated language but they now have huge gaps in their linguistic knowledge because of humans being the ones who are really living. Their repression is shown in their inability to fully and effectively communicate.

What the show does with Crowley and Aziraphale, then, is take two beings who have been on Earth since the beginning and who also happen to both be very into words and show their ability to understand and navigate life on Earth as reflected by their much, much deeper understanding of language by comparison to others around them-- those from Heaven and Hell and, often, from some of the humans of Earth as well. The story also shows how imperfect they are with it, though... reflective of how human these supernatural people are and how imperfect we all are here in the Discworld.

So, the point is that language evolution is reflective of human evolution. We create and evolve words to express ourselves in the current moment and, often, to contrast with what came before, or to be aspirational for the future.

Some words are stubbornly impervious to time; others are almost instantly dated. It's messy and it's organic. It can reflect the worst of humanity and the best of it-- sometimes, in the same damn word. Some words will disappear into other words, forever obsolete. Some words will disappear and then return, riding waves of social change. Words will be warred over between different groups; they can be derided and then reclaimed. They can have intense, divisive histories, or they can have completely batty and silly ones. We're all changing languages every day with the words we are choosing to say. It's humanity's collective project so it's a great choice for reflecting what living is in a story that is really, fundamentally, about the business of living.

The extra-funny part about the mention of Crowley and Aziraphale speaking every language in the world is that they are so adept at language that they are able to play in it and have, as a result, invented a private, hidden language of their own.

One of the founding principles of that hidden language is that the words being spoken are not just the ones on the surface but the words that are hidden within those very intentionally chosen words. Crowley is actually using that language when he says that he and Aziraphale "speak every language in the world." The word he's saying that is not heard on the surface but that is heard as Nightingale Speak to Aziraphale is the word peak.

Peak, as in to excel and reach the top of a field and, also, peak, as in a top, a summit, or a climax.

"You speak every language of the world. We both do." is a statement of fact on the surface. It's also an example of them excelling at language and being word nerds because, in the hidden language they developed not just to mask their speech for safety from outsiders but to romance one another, it's also saying:

"You get off on words. We both do."

[nekohime19]

Macaque study # S3

Sooo Macaque in s2 showed us potential for redemption but again, potential remains wasted without action!

For now I like to think as Macaque evolution in LMK like this :

Macaque S1 : Full fledged villain with some obscured lore. 😈

Macaque S2 : villain but a bit nuanced and maybe a potential for more. 😡

We'll see how S3 handles this evolution and where Macaque is after it.

LMK season 3 is really the payoff of the two previous seasons. While still appearing episodic we actually delve into the main plot that has been brewing since LBD first appeared. Macaque, my main focus here, is also more present in the continuity of the season than in the previous ones. He appears more frequently and I think what is important is that each of his appearances gives us a new layer for his character.

S3 ep1

Macaque appears in the middle of the episode to attack the team while they're fleeing on the airship. He's actually the first person to attack them after the whole LBD fiasco and it's probably why the team, at first, thinks it's LBD that is attacking them. The colors are also very bluish and turn from dawn-like yellow colors to cold-night blue very quickly the second Macaque starts to attack. I think the predominance of the blue at the start of the attack can be a reminder of LBD and her overwhelming presence on both the team and Macaque himself.

The colors change to purple (Macaque's own colors) when Macaque leaves his airship and jumps on the team's airship. Perhaps because Macaque feels more in control at this very moment.

I think what is important in this scene is the banter between Wukong and Macaque which reveals exactly what makes the two monkeys tick and where they stand exactly. We know the two monkeys know how to hurt the other, so we have to see everything they say as a form of personal spite tailored to annoy the other. It's also very interesting how Macaque reacts and how he tries to be in control of the situation.

Also it's just funny how the whole team think LBD is attacking and then they hear :

Macaque : OOOOOH WUKONG!

And they're like : Oh nvm it's Macaque.

The first exchange goes like this :

Wukong : Oh that's a relief, I thought it was someone important.

Macaque : ah, always the comedian, huh. Hey, kiddo, you miss me?

We know Macaque struggles a lot with self-worth and abandonment, especially after analyzing the shadow play. Macaque felt like he was cast away by Wukong, left in the shadows. Wukong knows it, perhaps that's why his immediate answer to hurt Macaque (while still adopting a very laid-back attitude, Wukong tends to use jokes to diffuse and control the situation) is to joke about how Macaque is unimportant.

In response, Macaque calls Wukong a “comedian”, which I think is an insult of Wukong's jokester attitude and how he never takes anything seriously. It's highly probable that Macaque knows Wukong's coping mechanism considering they were very close in their youth, so the fact he still calls out Wukong on his not-so-healthy way of handling any stressful situations might be even more hurtful for Wukong. But Macaque changes the subject afterwards to MK. Perhaps because he doesn't want Wukong to elaborate on Macaque being unimportant or simply because he's focusing on the two targets set by LBD.

The second exchange :

Macaque : ooooh, looking a lil bit banged there Monkey King. The kid too. Looks like our old friend the Lady Bone Demon really did a number on you guys.

Wukong : So what, you're her puppet now? I mean, makes sense you did always have a sidekick kinda vibe.

Again, Macaque uses Wukong's title as some form of insult, the fact he's insisting on the title specifically while also calling out Wukong's injuries might just be a way to hurt Wukong pride as the Monkey King and rile him up. Qualifying LBD as “our old friend” is also very sarcastic. In a way he's calling out how LBD is Wukong's old enemy and so, in a sense, trying to hurt Wukong by guilting him.

In response, Wukong keeps tapping into Macaque's insecurity of being a “shadow” but this time he goes as far as to call him a “puppet” and even a “sidekick”. Macaque is visibly upset by this, he leaps out of his airship and crashes into Wukong to shut him up. But the second he had Wukong pinned on the airship he smiles again, as if trying to regain control of the situation, and resume the banter.

Macaque : eh, You know me. There is a new player in town just feeling out which one is the winning side.

This line will be very important in the later episodes of s3. While it might not seem like much right now, it's important to notice that Macaque doesn't include himself on LBD’s team. Instead he qualifies her as a “player” and justify his actions (him doing her bidding) by saying he's “feeling out the winning side”. This means Macaque hadn't decided which is the winning side yet and this is an important factor to take note of to understand what happens in the later episodes of the season.

Of course, Macaque strategy after jumping on the airship is to separate both MK and Wukong and put some distance between them. But it's interesting to notice that instead of taking them both directly in his airship, he takes the time to address his mission and to belittle them. Of course, I do think this line serves as exposition for the audience as for why Macaque is attacking the team, but I do think it's also a way for Macaque to assert his dominance and try to be in control.

Macaque : the two of you are such a mess, can't imagine why the LBD wants me to bring you back. Look at you, you're all used up.

In the previous seasons Macaque was rarely frowning, he did at some points but, at least when he was fighting, he always put on a fanged smile. But in the beginning of this season Macaque slips up a lot more, his face switches between frowns and smiles. It can be an indicator about how the stress he's put under by LBD is affecting him and makes him more nervous, making his mask of nonchalance crack a lot more. Someone did point out in the comment of my last study that Macaque in general smile to be more threatening and I wholeheartedly agree with this. Macaque “smile” is a way for him to mask how he truly feels and appear more intimidating. We can link this to monkey's behavior (macaques’ in particular) who hiss/smile each time they feel threatened to intimidate their opponents.

If we take this into account, him trying to belittle MK and Wukong and put them down might be a form of reassurance for him, it would explain why he's stalling here instead of directly bringing them to his airship and be done with it.

The last bit of the scene is also very interesting because it really shows Macaque's habit of using quips and belittlement as a way to be in control of the situation and to hide his discomfort.

When Mei attacks Macaque we can clearly see his nervousness despite his smile because of the sweat on his face :

And what does he do after this attack? Immediate sarcastic insults :

Macaque : ah you must be the dragon girl I hear so little about. Lil girl you can shoot me all you want it won't do you any good.

Macaque sarcastic quips and comments are a response to any threats around him. This will be shown many times in this particular season and I think it's very important to notice it. Because he will stop being so sarcastic and smiling so much in later seasons.

S3 ep2

Macaque's appearance in the second episode of the season is very brief and he only attacks Ao Guang. His only purpose here is to be the threat the team had to flee from, he doesn't show much. I was kinda surprised to see him use his shadow staff, one of the rare occasions he does, and I might think it's because he sees Ao Guang as a real threat.

Of course this apparition is meant to establish Macaque as a recurrent villain. He was not defeated after ep1. It put an expectation in the viewer mind that Macaque will reappear a lot afterward and he's not just a one episode villain.

[This is an apparté but Macaque doens't attack Ao Guang because he feel like it. I've seen this misconception of this scene a number of times and I would like to clarify that Macaque is under LBD order here. LBD issued her order before s3 ep1 and gave Macaque the compass to track down MK and Wukong. Here, Macaque objective is to bring back MK and Wukong to LBD. Ao Guang knows Macaque is on the enemy side, and MK and Wukong are leaving. So of course Macaque is not going to pretend and try to befriend Ao Guang. He has to act fast to catch the escaping team. He doesn't have the time to be buddy-buddy with Ao Guang. My guys, Macaque doesn't attack random city in his free time bc he feels like it 😅. Also, I think people greatly exagerate the scene, blowing it out of proportions. Macaque is attacking Ao Guang specifically, he's not doing a full blown genocide inside of the city. Come on, respectfully but also with a grain of salt, did we watch the same show? Or did a more bloody version of LMK exists somewhere and I wasn't aware of it?]

What I think is an interesting detail and something we see a lot in this particular season is the way Macaque's eyes gleams :

He never truly did this in the previous seasons while it happens a lot in this particular one. The only difference between Macaque this season and the previous seasons is the stress he's put under because of LBD. Makes you wonder if Macaque mental stability influences his powers (either it emphasizes them or takes a hold over him). It could also be simply a way for Macaque to appear more threatening and hide the pressures he's putting under.

In any case, LMK doesn't really have a defined magic system so the intricacies of how spells and magic work are a bit lost on us. Macaque's powers however are the most mysterious out of all the cast's because it does not stem from JTTW. I'll come back to that in season 5 because a bit more is revealed about Macaque's powers in it.

S3 ep4

In this episode Macaque appears two times, once at the very beginning and another just after the first half. The episode immediately focuses on Macaque, with the first minutes being of him alone in the desert with the wreckage of his airship, so we can easily assume this takes place right after he was ejected from the team's airship in the first episode of the season.

We can also already tell this episode will focus a lot on Macaque based on the title, “winning side”, which is a call back to Macaque words in episode 1. So we know this episode will be pivotal in our view of Macaque in this season.

It's actually the first time that we see Macaque when he's alone and with no one watching him, all his previous appearances were of him interacting with different people or simply fighting those people. And the first thing we notice in those few minutes of Macaque being alone and how he acts when alone is that he's not smiling, quite the contrary in fact he looks weary and very angry. When he looks at his reflection in the compass (which we don't even know what is yet at this point) it's the angriest expression we ever saw on his face, with his eyebrows twitching and his screams echoing in the background as he's reminded of a memory.

These brief minutes really prove everything we already established at the beginning of this study : Macaque nonchalant, almost sadistic attitude at times, is a show he puts on to appear more intimidating. Same can be said with his fanged smile. It's a way for him to regain control of stressful situations. Proof is, none of them appear when he's alone and thus not feeling threatened.

Sorry to disappoint but if you thought Macaque was a sadist who enjoyed hurting people, you were fooled by his act.

So just after this scene we dive into a memory of Macaque. Presumably the memory takes place just after LBD took over the city and the team escaped on their airship. Since Macaque appears on top of LBD's mech, which was created in season 2 ep 10, and the staff is within her grasp, I think it's a fair assumption.

Macaque's immediate reaction is to : first try to attack the not-mayor (the one who pushed him at LBD's feet via a portal, but the portal closes) then to notice the staff and immediately put on his usual smile :

Macaque : the staff, the city… You've been busy.

The fact the not-mayor had to bring Macaque already tells you Macaque is not very loyal to LBD to begin with, which is the continuation of what we saw in season 2 ep7 where the not-mayor strangled Macaque, a physical act of violence who tells you everything about the relationship beforehand.

The confrontation that follows between LBD and Macaque is the confirmation of all the assumptions we gathered. We even have a neat lil exposition about where Macaque stands in all this when LBD reminds him of his story and why he should be loyal to her.

It's interesting to see that Macaque tries his usual method of controlling the situation (quips, nonchalant attitude, fanged smiles) the way he does with MK and Wukong, but contrary to them LBD is not falling for it and doesn't let him take one breather.

LBD is also floating above him, which is already a physical representation of their relationship, they're not equals.

LBD : Tell me, what madness overcomes you that you would forsake your oath? When did you decide to betray me?

Macaque (trying to be nonchalant) : Listen Lady Bone De-

LBD : Have you forgotten who I am? What I am? I, who returned you to the mortal plane all in exchange for such a little favor that when the time came you would free me, aid in my pursuit, but no, with the first breath of a new life you rebelled against your claims.

The second Macaque tried to hide behind his mask of nonchalance LBD cuts him and reminds him of : 1 a very traumatic experience for him, 2 what she's capable of, 3 the fact he betrayed her and thus she has the right (in her mind) to punish him. I think the sentence “What I am” is probably the most threatening thing she could have said at this moment because it paints her in a very dehumanizing, almost monstrous, way, the use of “what” generally reserved for objects or creatures in this specific context. She doesn't even let him speak nor let him diffuse the situation, she cuts right to the facts to make Macaque uncomfortable, to make him submit to her. It's interesting to see how LBD talks and shifts the blame entirely on Macaque without any speck of empathy for his situation at the time. She uses the adjective “little” to qualify her favor as if to say what she demanded of Macaque wasn't much to begin with and that it was the least he could do after what she did for him. And then she uses the phrasing “rebelling against your claims” to put the blame entirely on Macaque, and how he's disloyal (even if I don't think their deal was fair to begin with. Macaque was in hell, dead, we don't know his mental state when LBD approached him but I warrant it wasn't good and he could have agreed to anything at this point). LBD makes herself the savior and victim in this scenario, the imagery when she evokes how she returned Macaque to the mortal plane paints her as a savior, she basks in white and floats above him while he kneels before her, his chains fading away, I think it's very telling of how she view her relationship with Macaque.

Macaque : You want something?

LBD : I have one more chance for redemption. Bring me the Monkey King and his protégée and perhaps you will be worthy of my mercy.

Macaque : Convenient, alrighty then, seems like they've got a bit of headway so-

The use of “redemption” in LBD speech is once again a way to justify her actions and puts the blame on Macaque, she also paints herself as merciful by letting him go. I think it's very ironic to talk about redemption at this moment with Macaque considering what will happen after and what Macaque true redemption will be like. For LBD, Macaque's redemption is for him to obey her orders and not fail, whereas for MK, Macaque's redemption is to give him the choice by reaching out to him and giving his hand. “Being worthy of mercy” is also such a weird phrasing, normally speaking mercy is something you grant to people you have the power to harm, it's a form of leniency, there is no concept of “worthiness” in it. What LBD offers is not mercy, really.

And then the moments Macaque tried to put on his mask of nonchalance again with the use of funny terms like “alrighty” LBD cut him, again, chains him and threatens him :

Macaque : What is this!?

LBD : a reminder. It seems you cannot be trusted to willingly follow the path of destiny. But know this, if you betray me again, one misstep, one mistake, and I'll erase the very memory of you. Now bring them to me, my champion.

The threat at this point is even more menacing than a simple death threat, especially for Macaque which had already been “forgotten”once by Wukong and, likely, is afraid of being again. LBD ends her speech with a mark of ownership on Macaque with the phrasing “my champion” which really tells you everything about how she treats Macaque, he's an object to her, a possession.

It's, I think, very ironical that in LBD first speech she paints herself as the savior that wiped away Macaque's chains (the image is literally of her breaking those chains) BUT she still puts different chains on Macaque, she didn't free him at all, she broke his chains to recreate them afterwards. And we can see that Macaque is not at all fooled by her hypocritical view of herself and that's perhaps why he casted away the skeleton key when LBD gave it to him.

There is an impossibility of speech between LBD and Macaque, she doesn't let him speak and keeps cutting him over and over again. It's very interesting to notice it because it is a perfect reflection of how LBD controls Macaque : she controls him through violence. Cutting someone so hard each time they try to speak is, in a sense, a form of verbal violence. And LBD is constantly trying to dominate Macaque through violence : When the not-mayor comes to Macaque in season 2 he strangles him, here LBD cuts him everytime he tries to speak, he's put in chains at the end of the scene and the not-mayor pushes his head on the ground while LBD floats above. She forces his loyalty through fear and violence, and that's why it'll never be genuine.

Their relationship is defined by violence. LBD does not view herself as Macaque boss, she view herself as his master. If you want to understand Macaque as a character, you have to talk about this violence. Because, while yes, Macaque will be violent in this season, the most he ever was, and we DO NOT brush his actions aside and coddle him (he's older than all of us I think he doens't need coddling), we have to understand why he's doing it. Now, if the reason why he's doing all this doesn't sway you, and you still think he's irredeemable, then I guess that's your opinion and we have very different views. But, in my case, I think context matters. Because the context tells us about Macaque's character. If you take this violence out when you try to talk about Macaque and specifically what he did in season 3 (I'm not talking about the other seasons) then you're leaving key elements out of your analysis, thus painting Macaque in a wrong sadistic light. Leaving the matter of redemption aside, to understand what drive Macaque this season and the reason behind his actions, we need to take his relationship with LBD seriously, it's the core of everything in S3. You can't talk about Macaque in S3 without talking about LBD. So is Macaque just a sadist who likes to hurt people, or is he trying to survive?

After this scene Macaque reappears in the other half of the episode. He creates a copy of the van to isolate one half of the team and thus have more chances of success in capturing MK. One thing which I think is a cool detail is that Macaque modus operandi is always about tricking and putting on a performance, a show. In season 1, Macaque staged the whole attack on the city with his shadow monster. In season 2, he makes himself appear as a human storyteller and here he's staging yet another performance by tricking half of the team with a perfect copy of their own van.

It shows how Macaque is a highly cautious individual who rarely if ever rush into situations, especially into fights. Maybe that's one of the reasons why he's feeling even more pressured by LBD, he's on a time race because of her and thus has less and less time to put on performances.

Another detail which I think is important to notice is MK's frustration just before the “copied van” scene. MK tries hard to get his powers back but nothing seems to work and he's frustrated about it. He even qualified the only power he got back, gold vision, as a “baby power”. Macaque, once he appears, will directly challenge MK about this struggle.

Of course, the first thing that Macaque does is to seperates Mei and Sandy from MK, once again Macaque is cautious enough to not fight the three of them at the same time if he has the choice to not to. It's also incredibly funny that he imitates Mo's moews to lure Sandy away, it does show he has been observing the team very closely to know their behaviors. For Sandy Macaque's uses Mo, but for Mei he knows she'll never leave MK's side so he uses a more direct approach by separating her physically without even trying to lure her like he did with Sandy.

Once MK is alone Macaque traps him and ties him up with his shadows. I think the dialogue here is very important, especially between MK and Macaque because it does reveal a lot about Macaque himself and where he stands now.

Macaque : You really think you're gonna get away from me, bud? Aw, forget you lost your powers? Careful, you might hurt yourself!

On top of appearing particularly threatening he dug right into MK's insecurities that were exposed the scene before which is his lack of powers. It does make you wonder if he listened to MK raging about the loss of his power. In any case, he's clearly trying to provoke MK here.

MK : What do you-

Macaque : want? What are you doing? Come on kiddo, do I have to explain everything? I'm handing you over, to the lady Bone Demon.

Once again, Macaque is taunting and mocking MK, going as far as to have one of his shadows take MK appearances and imitate his voice with a very ridiculous high-pitch. Contrary to Wukong, MK doesn't answer any jabs with one of his own and remains level headed. Macaque in this episode is really laying on thick with the mocking and the taunting. While he was like that in previous episodes, it was more directed at Wukong specifically, but even then Macaque jabs were more subtle. Here, he's purposefully riling up MK as much as he can.

Macaque : Come on! Fight back. Maybe I'm not giving you the right motivation. Should I bring your big blue friend in here and smack him around? What about the girl? Gold vision? Really? Enough of these baby powers.

MK : stop talking!

Macaque : That's more like it!

In this sequence Macaque is at his zenith in terms of threatening. His eyes glows violet, he's smiling as he fight, appearing almost like a sadist. It creates very daunting shots. He also directly makes threats to MK about the one thing Macaque knows MK values more than himself : his friends. We also have the confirmation that Macaque had indeed been listening to MK at the beginning of the episode because he uses the exact same phrasing MK used to describe gold vision which is “baby powers”. But this doesn't make sense. Macaque's goal here is to bring back MK to LBD so why is he trying so hard to rile up MK and make him fight back? Why is he making himself so threatening compared to his other appearances? While it's true that Macaque had always been one to rile up people, especially Wukong, we already established most of his sarcastic quips are a response to any perceived threats around him and a way for him to regain control of the situation. But here Macaque is already in control, he doesn't have to use those quips and insults. Moreover, we established that Macaque is a highly cautious individual by analyzing his modus operandi when it came to fighting, so why is he taking the risk to anger MK?

Macaque clearly has a hidden agenda here.

I also think it's really cool how there is a parallel between MK and Wukong with this shot :

Yet MK is so different from Wukong in the way he responds to Macaque taunts, he never insults back.

MK : Why are you helping her? LBD? Look I get you're a bad guy but you know she wants to destroy everything, right?

Macaque : yeah see I had a taste of dying and you know what not a big fan so I'm choosing to be on the winning side.

MK : She's using you. We have a plan, you could help, we could stop her together.

Macaque : You can't even stop me. Now first I deliver you, then I come back for your hazbin master and finally I'll repay my debt and be free of this nightmare. Anyway I assume you won't’ be coming quietly sooo-

Okay, a lot to unpack here.

First, MK, while still acknowledging that Macaque is a villain, tries to reason with him. And while it's in character for MK to do that, I do also think MK does it because he knows Macaque can be reasoned with and that he's a more confusing individual than a mere one-dimensional villain (as he learned in season 2).

Second, the fact Macaque talks about his death to justify him “being on the winning side” is a clear indication of the drive that pushes Macaque this season : survival. It's not about powers, it's not about tormenting, Macaque this season is about survival. It was established in the scene with LBD and it's confirmed here by Macaque himself through his words. It's important for the audience to know this because it changes everything about how we perceive Macaque from now on in this season. Macaque wants to live, especially after knowing what death feels like, which means that on top of not following LBD willingly, he's also running along to assure his survival. The use of “being free of this nightmare” really drives the point about how Macaque views the situation he's in. It's a nightmare, he doesn't enjoy it one bit which we cannot really fault him for after what we saw at the beginning of the episode and how LBD treats him. It's important for the redemption processus, while it's true you cannot erase your actions, the motives behind the actions are still very important, it's not for nothing that extenuating circumstances exist in court.

Third, Macaque responding to MK by saying “You can't even stop me” is a great indicator about how Macaque currently feels. Right now, with MK powers being gone, LBD is unfortunately the “winning side” for Macaque.

Macaque : What a hero ! Two friends about to be crushed and you do nothing?

MK : Let them go, you can take me I don't care. Just let them go.

Macaque : Or what? You aren't the monkie kid anymore. Your powers are gone, your staff are gone, you're nothing.

MK : No, I'm the monkie kid.

Macaque : What was that now? I couldn't quite hear you!

This exchange right now really is the last push you need to understand Macaque's agenda better. In this moment Macaque could have everything he wanted, MK was literally serving himself on a silver plate yet Macaque still refused and instead kept taunting him with the one thing he knows MK will get angry about (as he learned in season 2) : his friends. Furthermore, the “I couldn't quite hear you!” is clearly a lie for someone called the Six-eared Macaque, we also learn later in the same season that Macaque has sensitive hearing, clearly Macaque could hear MK perfectly.

Macaque : he still has powers. Good. Things got a lot more interesting.

And that's Macaque's hidden agenda. He wants MK to have his powers, he wants the scale between LBD and MK to be more balanced. Because Macaque's agenda all along was choosing the “winning side”, Macaque goal for this season is survival. Since the beginning of the season, in episode 1, Macaque was already talking about the winning side, moreover the very title of this episode is “winning side”. Macaque is playing a two-faced game here. What I think might confuse the audience in this episode is the dichotomy between imagery and dialogue. Macaque is extra threatening here, every shot of him is taken out of a horror movie, he looks like a full-blown sadist and even goes as far as to hurt MK's friends physically. So when you see a Macaque being this menacing you do think he's in full-blown villain mode. Yet when you take a closer look at his actions and at his words you realize that he's playing a far more subtle game in this war. And after seeing how he's treated by LBD you understand why he's playing this two-faced game. LBD is not a stable ally. Her sense of justice is skewed by her perspective and even her definition of mercy is wrong. She thinks she's in the right and that makes her dangerous, because that makes her impossible to be reasoned with. Macaque knows this, he saw it first hand, so he needs to widen his options without expressly angering LBD.

Also, with the first scene of the episode, I think it's fair to assume that Macaque is pushed by a sense of desperation. He doesn't have the time to sugarcoat what he's doing, he needs MK to step up and regain his powers, and if for this he has to go an extra mile he will.

Because he wants to survive this.

Also, MK going for Macaque blinded eye to defeat him was a nice detail, especially since we can heavily speculate that Wukong was the one responsible for this injury. Everytime MK fights with Macaque, the way MK's moves and throws his punches is very reminiscent of Wukong, which is very natural considering MK is Wukong's mentee, so of course he'll pick up Wukong's habits when it comes to fighting . Yet you know MK is different, especially in this episode where instead of responding to Macaque's insults the way Wukong did in the first episode, he instead tries to reach out to him. MK could have been salty about what happened in season 1 (we know the betrayal hurts greatly based on what he says in season 4, about how everyone betrays him and he feels like a fool) yet unlike Wukong he doesn't respond to the quips.

This episode is really important in the redemption processus, it shows that Macaque agenda is different from LBD's and as such he's not really on her side, the only side Macaque is on is the “winning side”. It also shows the very unbalanced, almost slave/master relationship that LBD and Macaque has which will greatly help to understand Macaque's decision at the end of the season.

Macaque this season is running a survival game and he's trying to get all the chances on his side.

S3 ep8

Macaque doesn't reappear after this until the end of the season. The middle of the season is more focused on the samadhi fire and the different rings. Story-wise, it's necessary to involve Macaque with the rings one way or another for the progression of the plot, if the team managed to get all the rings without any difficulty on Macaque's parts it would have been quite odd. If we take into account the locations of the other two rings (DBK forteresse and the moon) which were two very difficult locations for Macaque to even enter, having him appear at Lantern City was really inevitable.

So Macaque first appears when the team are discussing the rings and what to do about the talent show. This serve as an exposition for Macaque to learn about the samadhi fire and the team's plan but it also highlights a few interesting thing :

Macaque is really tailing the team. In this particular scene he's hiding in the ceiling and eavesdropps on them and it's not the first time he does this (we established he eavesdropped on MK when he repeated MK exact phrasing “baby power” in ep4). On one hand it shows his cautiousness, but on another hand it means Macaque doesn't attack the team at every chance he gets. He could have attacked when Wukong was still meditating or when the team was sleeping, yet he never did. Once again because his goals does not align fully with LBD.

Macaque : the samadhi fire, huh. So that's how you're gonna beat the Lady Bone Demon.

Just after this line Macaque hears LBD threats echoing in his ears : “one misstep, one failure and I'll erase the very memory of you.” and mumbles “We'll see about that” with a very threatening shot. I'll like to point out that this shot is the very similar to the one used in ep 2 when Macaque is attacking Ao Guang :

So clearly it's a face that means he's going to take action. The fact he says “we'll see about that” just after being reminded of LBD threats is a way to indicate he's challenging LBD right now. He knows LBD can be destroyed by the samadhi fire and that gives him an outlet, a hope he didn't have before.

So, yes, right now Macaque decides to betray LBD. For the rest of the episode he will act for his own agenda and not on LBD's orders. Which is I think very important to point out, because if Macaque already betrays LBD this early on in the shows it means that, if given the chance, he would be willing to go against her.

He's willing to go against her.

So Macaque follows Tang until they arrive inside of the giant lantern where the ring resides.

And once again Macaque will first try to belittle Tang to assert his dominance but also perhaps to make him agree with his viewpoint and makes this easier for him :

Macaque : have more guts than I thought. It's… Tang, right? You know it's funny, I thought you're smart, I mean look at the guy he got glasses. If anyone knows where the legendary samadhi fire is, it's the guy sitting in the wing while his friends are busy having fun without him.

So first Macaque tries to adopt a more friendly approach. He's not following LBD's orders right now and he doesn't necessarily want to fight with Tang either. He tries to appear friendly by first praising Tang about his guts (which I think is very well-though considering Tang could be seen as the more cowardly of the bunch, thus by acknowledging his “guts” Macaque gives Tang a sense of validation he doesn't often hear). Then he validates and acknowledges him by saying his name and after this he praises another trait of Tang which is his intelligence. Macaque insists on the legendary nature of the samadhi fire to give a sense of pride to Tang (as if the samadhi fire was an incredibly difficult artifact to find) and he ends his lil speech by trying to create a wedge between Tang and the team.

When he sees that his speech didn't have any effect on Tang and, on the contrary, Tang pushes Macaque away, Macaque immediately adopts a more drastic method by kicking Tang away from the ring.

I think it's telling how Macaque approaches situations such as those. His first and foremost method is always tricking. It's not violence but manipulation, trying to make the other agree to his views and resolve the situation efficiently without having to fight, because fighting can be way more unpredictable than manipulation.

After Macaque kicks Tang away, we got this exchange :

Tang : Stop, the samadhi fire is humanity's last chance.

Macaque : Well humanity is gonna have to find something else. The samadhi fire is my best chance to get as far away from her as possible.

Tang : Surely even you can see that unless we stand together..

Macaque : together? Remind me again exactly what it is you contribute to the team? They seem to get along just fine without you. Don't take it personally Tang, you're buddy Wukong values people by how useful they are to him. Take it from me as an expert in what happens when you get too close to the King. Look out for number one, cause if you don't, no one will.

Here, Macaque is not even hiding what he's trying to do anymore. Like I said beforehand his goal in this season is his own survival. He doesn't even want to use the samadhi fire to fight LBD but to escape her. Which I think speaks volumes of Macaque's character, despite hating LBD he doesn't think of hurting her, he's thinking of escaping her, because escaping is less dangerous than fighting and Macaque is a very cautious individual when it comes to those matters.

With that being said, I think Macaque's behavior concerning Wukong spoke volumes of how much Wukong really means to Macaque. The only time Macaque is not as cautious as usual is when he's faced with something related to Wukong. In season 1, he goes above and beyond to angers Wukong and fights with him, going as far as using his mentee. For an individual as cautious as Macaque, angering someone like Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, is not very in character. Except that Macaque cautiousness goes out of the window when it concerns Wukong, his logical side is being flooded by his own feelings and he loses sight of anything else. In season 2, MK showcasing the same behavior as Wukong is enough for Macaque to take a very impulsive decision and improvise his whole lesson.

Macaque is logical in everything he does, cautious with every plan, every attack, except when it concerns Wukong. Because in this case, his feelings take over.

Macaque's last line : “together? Remind me again exactly what it is you contribute to the team? They seem to get along just fine without you. Don't take it personally Tang, your buddy Wukong values people by how useful they are to him. Take it from me as an expert in what happens when you get too close to the King. Look out for number one, cause if you don't, no one will.” is very telling about his feelings. First, reminding Tang of his place in the team (or lack thereof) can be seen as him unconsciously relating to Tang, or at least relating to the image of Tang he got in this episode. Tang is benched, “benched” being the title of the episode, and that can remind Macaque of how Wukong also “benched” him in their youth. Then, because of course he did, Macaque keeps going back to Wukong even if Wukong didn't have anything to do with Tang being benched in this episode, it's MK who benched Tang. So not only does it tell that Macaque is not really talking about Tang at this moment but himself, it also shows that at least 70% of Macaque's brain is plagued by thoughts of Wukong (and again 70 is a generous number). Macaque is obviously feeling salty about what happened with Wukong. But beyond that he seems to have a very skewed image of Wukong he created after what happened between them.

We can say that this scene is one of the rare moments of Macaque being genuine, he doesn't smile nor try to be sarcastic, he's genuinely speaking how he feels. He paints Wukong as this cruel person that puts value on people and doesn't care about companionship. He takes his experience with Wukong and tries to justify Wukong’s behavior by saying that Wukong never cared about him. The use of “King” is at the same time meant as an insult but also paints Wukong as this power-driven person who only cared about his position. Macaque constructs an image of Wukong based on everything he lived through and fuels his own hatred with this fake image. Macaque knows Wukong is not like that, he lived with the guy, he knows him, yet he tries to lie to himself, to justify his own hurting and shift the blame entirely on Wukong.

Of course, Tang doesn't agree with this and goes on about the importance of friendship. I think it's a nice detail that Tang defeats Macaque with the help of Pigsy’s singing because it truly does illustrate Tang's speech about standing together with his friends, and winning together.

Moreover, the fact that Macaque was affected by Pigsy's singing is a great callback to his JTTW counterpart. The Six-eared Macaque is canonically described in JTTW as a being with a “sensitive ear”. Having Macaque share the same sensitivity is a nice character trait.

So after this, Tang manages to get a grip on the ring and flee while Macaque is electrocuted by the lantern lighting.

And then, LBD arrives.

Immediately, all lights within the city goes out and everything is plunged in an eerie dark blue.

She knows how to make her entrance.

What is interesting is that contrary to the other interaction between Macaque and LBD, this time Macaque is not even trying to appear intimidating or control the situation. There are no quips, no smiles, no attempts of diffusing the situation, because based on their last interactions he knows it's useless. Macaque is scared and he knows his attempts at being intimidating leads to nothing, so when she chains him, ready to quite literally erase his existence, the only thing he can do is reveal the existence of the samadhi fire.

The situation is even more terrifying because LBD is not even in the frame when she chains Macaque, she gives the illusion of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Then LBD gives a fraction of her power to Macaque (which literally makes him scream in pain) and we are left with this last daunting shot (image 2), with Macaque mask passing purple to blue. I like to think that the last shot is a parallel to the third image, where Macaque decided to betray LBD and work for his own goal. The fact that we get more or less the same close up with Macaque’s mask really emphasizes on how Macaque now doesn't have any choices anymore.

The third image is Macaque being determined to follow his own agenda and betray LBD, and the second image is Macaque being caught up by LBD with no choices anymore.

He's at the end of this two-faced game he has tried to play since the beginning.

S3 ep9

First with the title of the episode being the “King, the prince, the shadow” you know it's going to be about Wukong, MK and Macaque.

After the end of the previous episode Macaque is desperate and it shows. For the first time, he doesn't answer Wukong quips even when they're still tailored to pick at his insecurities.

Wukong : So you got bone demon powers now, huh ? Well it is on brand for you to have a worst version of everyone else’s powers.

This quip is made to pick at the same insecurity :Macaque feeling like he's just a shadow, that he's just following Wukong's leads and that he will never be enough. But Macaque doesn't answer, he doesn't even look at Wukong. Instead he takes the rings from Nezha and turns around. Wukong tries again to rile him up but it doesn't work. The fact that Macaque who until now always took the time to answer Wukong's quips doesn't even take the time here speaks volumes of his desperation.

Then Macaque easily sees through Wukong trick and destroys the rings, who turn out to be just hair. The fact Nezha wasn't able to tell the difference and rushed after Wukong but Macaque recognized Wukong's trick at first glance testify how much Macaque knows Wukong and how his mind works.

Macaque : I couldn't care less about what the Lady Bone Demon wants.

This line is important, because after the end of the previous episode you'll think that Macaque will never rebel against LBD, yet again he's not following her orders, he's still on the mindset of taking the samadhi fire and freeing himself from LBD hold. But now more than ever he's out of time, he's driven by despair.

And then we get this shot as Macaque slowly walks towards the mountain (after realizing the rings are with MK) :

I love this shot because despite Wukong being the one physically trapped in the ice, Macaque is also shown to be trapped in it. His reflection is like enclosed in the ice, showing how even if he's free of movements, in reality he's also trapped by the ice, by LBD, enchained by her.

Macaque's next actions are all driven by despair, he's violent, decisive, he wants the samadhi fire and will not take no as an answer. Yet still he tries to talk, still he tries to convince the others. This shows he doesn't like to hurt people, he doesn't want to hurt them, but he doesn't have the luxury to sugarcoat what he's doing. He needs the fire.

Here are some example of Macaque trying to avoid confrontations :

Macaque : Don't get in my way, kid. I don't have time for you. I'm just here for the samadhi fire then I'm done with you all.

And then when MK does get in his way he grabs him and tries to make him understand how much Wukong doesn't have a plan, how much of a mistake it is to trust him.

Macaque : This was the Monkey King's great plan? How do you still not see that he has no idea what he's doing. How about this for a plan? Stay down MK or I will put you down.

The scene is violent, and Macaque is probably upset that those people trust Wukong so much and are willing to follow his lead without questions (perhaps he sees himself in them, how much he followed Wukong without never denying him anything, how he never questioned his lead).

[This is an apparté but people always put a lot of pressure on Wukong for being the one to fix things, for being the one to lead. And I don't think it's fair.]

After this Macaque catches Mei by the throat and poses an ultimatum to Tang (who is the only one able to move and activate the fire) : give the samadhi fire or Macaque will hurt his friends. Macaque knows Tang values his friends a lot after the previous episode and that's probably why he goes with this particular method.

S3 ep10

So the samadhi fire is freed and Macaque finally achieves his goal. We can see how the ice that was slowly crawling over Macaque arms and consuming more and more of him (a symbol of how much LBD was slowly possessing Macaque) is burnt away along with blue chains, the symbols of LBD hold on Macaque.

Macaque is free!

And Macaque first reaction when Wukong rushes towards him in anger is to flee, even if he hates Wukong, he doesn't want to fight right now, his goal is to flee far away from here. I like the detail that Macaque already prepares himself from Wukong's punch and turns his head the moment Wukong raises his fist. It could be an instinctual response to Wukong's fighting stance considering Macaque was at the receiving end of it quite a number of times.

Then, after Mei is consumed by the fire, we got a particularly meaningful exchange between MK and Macaque, while Wukong tries to protect MK from the fire by placing himself at the front.

Macaque : she's completely out of control. If there is a time to go it's now!

MK : No! Mei is my best friend, I'd never abandon her when she needs me.

The fact that the camera focuses on Wukong when MK says those words and that Wukong himself looks back at Macaque with what could only be described as a pained look (most likely of regret)... It's the first time in the whole series that Wukong shows Macaque something other than spite and annoyance, and in turns Macaque looks shocked and doesn't even know what to think of those words.

They both are thinking of what happened to them at this moment. Of how, somehow, they both failed each other and abandoned the other at their time of needs. And there is a lingering regret between them of what could have been, but also of what is right now. It's important to show us this as an audience, to understand the depth of their relationship and how, despite the apparent hatred, there is still something underneath.

MK : We're heroes, it's what we do.

That, I think, is the nail in the coffin. Macaque spends a whole episode in season 2 telling MK how much heroes leave their friends behind, how much heroes chose the world over their own loved ones, how light inevitably brings darkness and that it is impossible for heroes to save both the world and their friends. And MK, here, is proving Macaque wrong. He's redefining everything that Macaque believed about heroes, everything he thought was true because of his own experience with Wukong.

But Macaque still chose to flee at the end of this, and we really cannot blame him, because from the start his goal was surviving, it was to flee far away from this mess.

Yet he comes back later on in the specials and that's something. For the guy who said “Look out for number one, cause if you don't, no one will” to come back even after being freed, even after achieving his goals, that says something about Macaque as a person and how much he really cares.

So, this post is already quite long and I reached the Tumblr limits on how many images I can put in one post (and I do want to show you guys particular frames and shots in the specials) so I will do a separate post for the season 3 specials!

Thanks for reading this very long rant of mine really, like always you can disagree with me it's really all about interpretations.

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