#maybe it goes without saying but its also totally cool when people are just here for the visual art

[m0r1bund]

hello! I was catching up on reading NAKAQUOI! and the essay from the most recent entry was such an inspiring method of storytelling. enough so to make me reach out and ask about your website in general (if you're comfortable answering!). what is it like running a lore/gallery site for your work? how and why did you get started? and lastly, what about it keeps you going?

thank you, cheers! -Winn

😭 Thank you so much for the kind words, this means a lot to me. I really enjoyed writing that little essay.

This is going to be a weird and vulnerable sidebar, but I promise I’m going somewhere with it. Honestly, it blows my mind that anyone reads them. I think it’s because I’m still operating on the assumption that this form of storytelling is for n=1 (yours truly) and other people are merely tolerating it, LOL. I used to be way more sensitive about sharing my characters / stories / worlds, because the forms of storytelling that came naturally to me were often received as incomprehensible, dense, and unintuitive by other people. At a certain point I decided that I just had to accept this and become my own hype man. People could enjoy the pretty pictures out of context, and they could be a vehicle for me to journal about the pretend people who live in my head. Good compromise 👍

for someone who talks big about making weird art and finding the 6 people in the audience who truly get it, I don’t think I realized that this could include my deranged essays about things that aren’t real. And yet. AND YET!!!! I think this desire to present my work in a way that’s “more” than just pretty pictures with text attached to them has been simmering for a long time, even though I dismissed it and was kind of embarrassed about it. Which is wild. Because I grew up on bestiaries and warrior cats lore compendiums and video game wikis and morrowind. There was clearly a precedent. And Yet.

Anyway, this desire started rubbing shoulders with the technical limitations of blogs and gallery websites, and also a general disillusionment with social media during the enshittification of the internet. Like, yeah it sucked that my whole body of work could vanish overnight. But mostly I had worldbuilding neuroses that made me want to scratch at the walls, and I knew just enough html + css to be dangerous. In 2018, I had also finished some longer works that made me more confident in my ability to deliver a cohesive Moribund, and these works weren’t intuitive to share on social media… So… I guess that gave me the impetus to stop flirting with the idea of getting my own website and start actually working on it.

M0R1BUND.com used to be a pure html + css + js website hosted on Neocities. It was ideal and I miss it in a lot of ways, because yeah, that IS the most unadulterated control you can have over your webspace. Had a blast with it, experimented a lot, learned a lot, hosted galleries and twines and webfiction and digital collages and ARPG stuff and interactive maps and a webcomic. And it was mine as much as it was the work of kind people sharing sample code on stackexchange, LOL.

Eventually, I felt the growing pains of managing this by hand. Updating ate hours out of my day. There are definitely more intuitive ways to build and maintain a pure html + css + js website, but I was working with what I knew. I started learning wordpress for basedt.net with the hopes of automating certain operations, like posting art to a gallery or pages to a webcomic. It felt intuitive enough that I later rebuilt M0R1BUND.com in wordpress.

It took a long time and a lot of work, like almost a year? And I still haven’t mirrored everything. Wordpress has made things easier to maintain, but I learned the hard way that it doesn't avoid the pitfalls of simpler website-builders… which is to say… whatever it does to make life easier will also make life incredibly difficult if you decide you want to do something manually. And it’s never the stuff you expect.

These days there’s also the baggage of Automattic’s nonsense. Wordpress is open source, so I don’t think it will go anywhere, but it’s still the corporate clownery that I wanted to escape by making my own website. Blech.

Really though, I love running M0R1BUND and it’s the closest thing I have to an ideal “home” for my work. Going to a dedicated website is unintuitive and out of the way for a lot of people, but (indicates generally) what have we just learned about me. This one’s for n=1 and the, like, 6 people who pop in and say hello. You are my people...

Looking forward, things cook at the rate of 2937728839 irons in the fire, and they are all getting done, but they are all getting done sooooo slowly… I’m having fun. Besides having a general compulsion to make art and tell stories and be Understood, I think that’s what carries me thru this. I want to have fun. and I want to trick people into caring about my characters and also the Sonoran Desert. And as Bjork says, I have to get the wiggles out or else the dark times will come.

It’s getting late and I don’t have a denouement for this. Thank you for your kind words! Thank you for asking! hope this answers? hope this helps (???) take the best and leave the rest.

[minmin-vs-physics]

Hey! I’m gonna be a physics major next year, and I was wondering if the Mac and iPad combo have worked well for you, or if there’s something else you recommend tech wise?

short answer: yes.

but, im gonna use this has an opportunity to yap about my current study set up. this goes without saying, but what worked for me may not work for you, and my set up evolved over the years as i found what was best for me.

i use an iPad for lecture notes and homework. i think its the most organized you can get them to be without straight up LaTeXing the shit out of them (and i know people who do exactly that, more power to them)

i just write faster than i type, and an ipad allows me to copy paste equations and add photos and stuff which is helpful for diagrams. i use goodnotes 5, and i will sing its praises till the end of time.

i think it pays to develop a clear style for your homework and lecture notes, bc your work will be easier to navigate. here's an example of my lecture notes and my homework.

[hehe general relativity moment]

HOWEVER, you will mostly be having paper exams as a physics student so i recommend you don't get too reliant on your iPad. i tend to do all my studying in notebooks, or loose sheets that i can refer to. practice problems are always on paper.

[stat mech studying i did last week]

i started using legal pads for this from the end of junior year bc they're so convenient! im also incentivized by the stock our dept keeps in the mail room.

i have to do a lot of calculations for research and i prefer to do them on paper or a blackboard if it's something im reasoning out. idk it's so much easier to be stupid on paper than on goodnotes. ofc my research log is kept digitally, but i keep a binder with all my old calculations (both correct, and incorrect) along with my main reference papers.

[i was flipping through this just now and realised how much bs is in it.]

LaTeX is a good skill to have which i didn't realise until too late. if you have to write any paper that's remotely scientific, LaTeX is the way to go. none of that google docs bs.

i use both vscode and Overleaf for editing. i mainly just LaTeX my finalized research calculations into one big doc. it's much easier to show my advisor. also it looks cool.

i got a monitor when my laptop screen broke sophomore spring (something inside me broke as well that semester it was so fun). and if you have the option, i would totally recommend getting one. it's useful having a second/bigger screen.

i use mine for a bunch of things: coding, reading textbooks, genshin impact, Netflix, grading.

on the topic of textbooks, i use digital bc im cheap. but i do buy secondhand physical copies that i rarely reference, but keep around bc it doesn't hurt to start your hypothetical professor office bookshelf early. i only buy the ones i actually respect, like Peskin's Intro to QFT. but the digital copies are usually much handier. i keep an extensive digital collection of books and papers i might never need.

don't be like me keep your digital library more organized!

and yeah circling back to electronics! i use a Macbook Pro rn which has served me well. i guess things are different if you need to run solidworks or other specialized software, but you can always use the lab computers, so that was never a problem. i have an apple ecosystem bc im a slut for capitalism.. i mean i was already halfway there and now im just really used to it, so i like all my devices being friends with each other. my tip is always get more RAM than you thought you needed, and double the storage. but maybe that's bc im mean to my laptop and love hoarding files.

i also keep all my previous notes and printouts so may be i have an academic hoarding problem in general.

in the end, a mix of old school and new age technology bs works best for me!

thank you for your question! i hope this helps :)

[mister-e-muss]

Time for another back log report. Here’s the games I beat in Spooky Month 2024!

Bayonetta-

Platinum games is known for making high-quality action games with both style and challenge. And if there’s anything Bayonetta has, it’s style. The combat is fun and smooth, and the soundtrack is amazing. I will say though that some of the plot could have been expanded a bit. While the Cereza/Bayonetta twist is easy enough to spot, the ramifications of it in the final act come almost out of nowhere: not because it doesn’t make a certain amount of sense, but because there really isn’t enough clear explanation of how it works. That said, I need the rest of this series injected into my veins posthaste.

Shin Megami Tensei V (Chaos Route)-

I wonder if you can spot a pattern yet. :P.

I hate for Vanilla SMT5 to become the Xenoblade X of its series, but a lot of the same sentiments do apply. Namely, that I give this game credit for everything except the story. It’s not that the story is bad, it’s that it’s absent almost entirely. For the first area, you’re given just enough to grasp the premise, which works because of how mysterious and isolated the game makes you feel. The second major arc even works well because it quickly establishes that you cannot return to normalcy. It wasn’t until I reached the end of the third area that I thought ‘Huh, I’m three quarters of the way through this game. I feel like maybe more should have happened by now.” And then the finale just kicks off with little to no fanfare or frills. A lot of people will say that side content provides a more full picture, and as a Xenoblade X fan, I’d be okay with that, but even that mostly just tells you about the demons’ personalities, which you already see plenty of. The Khonsu quest line is engaging, but why was it a side quest? Why was Miyazu’s entire character just to be motivation for Atsuta (that isn’t even mentioned past area 2 mind you) and then motivation for Khonsu in a side quest?

On a different criticism, I’m not wild about how strict the level-scaling is. I get that it incentivizes doing the side quests and exploring for more experience, but it also brings the pacing to a screeching halt, especially when you’ve already found the end-of-area bosses. The Ueno area in particular is guilty of this because while it’s cool to have three bosses you can tackle in any order, it’s less cool when you have to grind to take on even one of them, when previous games could let you just respec and still have a fighting chance.

The music, however, is something I can praise without reservation. Special mention goes to Ueno and the End Credits theme. It’s not as overall foreboding and atmospheric as IV’s, but I’d rate them pretty similarly. V’s soundtrack has a lot of fun dissonance and mismatch, which creates this feeling of chaos in its world and gameplay.

The exploration is also excellent, with plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, and rewards that more often than not, felt worthwhile. I’d like to highlight the Miman as an example of a checklist done right. Sure you could scour the map for each and every one, but your not required to. Even finding all 200 Miman wouldn’t give you enough points to max out your character. For that matter, you are only told the total amount overall. On a first run through, you would have no idea how many areas and MPSM (Miman Per Square Millimeter) there are. There’s an NPC you can pay to make their locations known on the map but, and this is crucial, you only run across them near the end of an area, after you’ve probably already collected a fair amount.

In summary, I enjoyed this game. I am glad, however, that Vengeance exists, and will probably be using that for any subsequent runs.

Final Fantasy VIII-

This is one of the more divisive entries in the series. The narrative that surrounded this game for a while was that they followed up the best game of all time with the worst game ever. Thankfully, as with X and XIII, people have long since reevaluated that stance. As for myself, I enjoyed my time with it, but I can’t say it ever stole my heart.

Final Fantasy VIII truly is its own worst enemy at times. I like a fair amount of the ideas in this game. It has good ideas. It has too many good ideas. It has too many good ideas that work against each other. For example: The enemies level up alongside of you, forcing you to look more seriously at the junction system. Fair enough, but why then is the character who gets the last hit in rewarded with more experience? It created this frustrating state for me where my party physically couldn’t be over-leveled, but every character not named Squall Leonheart was under-leveled.

The story, I won’t lie, is messy. Part of it is because not much is really explained at first. I appreciate the fact that the characters don’t talk about stuff they already know, but a place to read just what the Sorceress War was would have been appreciated. Hell, they have a library, and they already had a console to learn about the GF’s, why not expand one or the other? I will give credit for the use of amnesia: mainly that all of the characters who have amnesia don’t remember that they have amnesia. There’s also a particular brand of crazy stamped on this game; one where gun-swords can be standard issue, space ships are built to look like dragons, and the enemy army board ships by making Evel Knievel motorcycle jumps.

I’m not entirely sure where I would rank 8 among the final fantasy games I’ve finished. Maybe I should play it again, just to be sure. :)

Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney (As part of the trilogy)-

The more I play the Ace Attorney games, the more I understand how much people love them. As one post put it, being able to dramatically call out people on their BS in such a way that they break down appeals to people.

The only criticism I can truly level at this game is how they handle the new ‘Perceive’ mechanic. I don’t know if it was easier in the DS version, but the extreme close ups make it very difficult to see what your meant to spot unless you already know where to look.

[fights4users]

The quorra problem | Programs, isos and the real world

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with Quorra as a character! It’s more of a story element critique if anything, please read and don’t jump on me for the title. Quorra is adorable and I enjoy legacy- even if it doesn’t look like it from how I keep tearing it apart.

It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. On one hand you can’t leave her inside the grid when Flynn decides to literally go nuclear but you can’t leave her in the real world either. They have to because they wanted Flynn’s self sacrificing ending or wrote themselves into a corner (this isn’t about reintegration but I will still complain) and this was there way out. But they didn’t consider the implications of it at all.

Cosmic horror-

I’ve made several posts about it and still want to write something with this idea but to a program— the real world wouldn’t be so miraculous like how we see theirs. The minute you’re outside you’re Imediately bombarded with sensory overload and just too much information to process. The grid, which is much more human in its design than the ENCOM system, is still infinitely more minimalist than our world. One of the best scenes is Clu and his team raiding the hideout and not knowing what a single thing is and freaking out, she seems too well adjusted for someone who’s spent a few hours max here— look I know it’s the end of a movie and they can’t do that whole arc, but I digress.

Also don’t get me started on the rumored Ares plot and how they totally forgot quorra is already a program(technically iso) in our world- also it’s not really a “tron” movie plot— where’s the allegory?! The metaphor?! The symbolism?!

Another thing is that…Sam can’t tell anyone about her. Maybe Alan but her mere existence in our world is brain shattering. Trying to explain a advanced humanoid being that’s not here to harm us and is totally cool guys almost never goes well. It also leaves people a LOT to grapple with…like everything we know being forever altered.

This whole situation should be terrifying from both perspectives, however I love the theory that the only reason she was able to get out into the real world at all was because of Flynn’s data stored in the beam. That’s a great thought that almost makes me like her being in the real world just from how much impact that is.

Infectious-

What happens now? She can’t be revealed to the world (yet) and to put her back in the remains of the grid would be cruel. Putting her in another system would be wildly irresponsible because- do we even know what ISOs do? Across all media its “they’re special” but absolutely squat on their actual function or what they’re capable of. We see they have some kind of digital dna that’s literally a miraculous occurrence but that’s about it. Did Flynn even know? Are they just there- existing but not effecting/having a real world computer impact? Or worse - what if clu was right and they did contribute to the crumbling state of the grid? (I think it was a combination of his own fear and scapegoating—I’m just tossing the idea out there).

Sam transferring her over to another system without knowing what she does or how she could effect it would be disastrous. Am I saying she’s dangerous or would have any intent to harm? No not at all that’s now who she is, but it’s sort of a “releasing a domestic cat into the woods a state over” you don’t do that.

Does she get a regular job now, does Sam hire her at ENCOM? She’d likely be some sort of computer smart…in that she come from one. Or does he like —- set her up at a McDonald’s? How’s she get energy does she get plugged in- being in the real world isn’t going to magically give her a stomach. Sam just takes her to a power grid and she causes SoCal to blackout lmao.

Open portal-

I’m aware most of this post is just me overthinking the implications of everything they didn’t intend us to think to hard about. It’s supposed to be “yippee they’re safe” and I’m worried about digital ecosystems and what the human brain can handle. I think my problem mainly strives from this trope where the character brings home their friend from the other world/ is the reverse situation and no one bats an eye at all. It’s because they want the characters to still be friends no matter how many rules it breaks or sense it makes. It happens most commonly in cartoons. (There’s at least 3 in recent memory)

I’m not saying I want quorra to have been caught in the blast but that there’s a way they could’ve kept communication without world breaking. Open portal situation where he goes back to visit, he chats with her on the screen, both stay in their own worlds its sad but logical etc (I’m not writing a new ending but you get the point).

I guess it annoys me so much because it’s left so open ended, ride off into the sunrise while ignoring the implications™️. “I guess, We’re going to change the world” ok how 🧍‍♂️. The movie did not nearly give me enough information about ISO’s to see what changes they exactly do besides taking over ENCOM. “They[Iso’s] changed everything” ok how🧍‍♂️. Yeah it’s immaculate conception but what do they do I am shaking your shoulders Disney what do they do!

It’s not quorra I’m mad about or even the concept of ISO’s but it’s how the writing just falls short in these HUGE areas that require a lot of lore and information to be given that they just do not. And consistently don’t In the other media forms like betrayal (I haven’t seen uprising maybe they explain something). If you’re going to have beings that shatter your ideas of reality you sort of have to explain that!

[therubyreader]

My Review of Powerless by Lauren Roberts

See a full list of my book reviews here

*Disclaimer: there will be spoilers later on in the review*

Review Word Count, non-spoiler: 875 Review Word Count Total: 1,553

Hello everyone! It’s my first review of 2024! I have once again fallen victim to the influence of BookTok and read Powerless by Lauren Roberts, after not being able to escape it being recommended to me by essentially everyone and their mother. And this time they’re onto something, they have not disappointed me with this one. 

Powerless follows Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary, someone without any powers in a society where being Ordinary is a crime punishable by death, surviving the slums of Ilya by pretending to be a Psychic and stealing to stay alive. One day she unknowingly saves one of the princes and is forced to participate in the Purging Trials, a brutal competition to showcase the powers of the Elite, powers she doesn’t have, while managing to not get caught lest she be killed when they find out what she really is.  

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way, first this book is marketed as an enemies to lovers story, which it isn’t. Paedyn and her love interest, Kai (because of course his name is Kai) are rivals in the Trails by circumstance, but like they both take a liking to each other immediately. I saw someone call it insta-love which, sure, but I wouldn’t go that far per se, but there isn’t really an “enemies” thing, Paedyn just dances around the fact she likes Kai for most of the book and this dude is smitten almost immediately. So, sorry to disappoint you all with that one. There is romantic chemistry pretty immediately, but they do have some fist fights and hold knives to each other’s throats also so if you’re into that, wink wonk.  

Second, this book is marketed as a mixture of Red Queen and The Hunger Games, which like, I guess. The comparison to The Hunger Games isn’t completely accurate, I mean there are games that can result in death but people dying isn’t a requirement, there are people who participate in the Trials and lose but also stay alive. The comparison to Red Queen though, is very on the nose, if you liked Red Queen and wanted to read a world with a near identical magic system and a very similar plot progression, this is the book for you. I’m saying this as a fan of Red Queen, it is one of my favorite series of all time, but there were a lot of mirrors between it and Powerless, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is something you should be aware of.  

I think my biggest complaint with this book was how the magic system wasn’t really explained in depth, there were different classifications between the different types of powers, each had its own cute little name like they do in Red Queen. People with super strength are called Brawnies, or teleporters are called Blinks, or those who can control plants are Blooms (just off the top of my head). While we are told that the plague is what gave certain people cool abilities and fancy hair colors, we don’t really know much else. At least in Red Queen we know that people inherit their father’s power, but in Powerless they don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason. For example, Kitt has a dual ability, cool, why? He’s the only person we know of that has two abilities and everyone is very chill about this though it is out of the norm and never explained. Kai is a Wielder, meaning he can use anyone’s ability if they’re in range, which is mildly related to Kitt’s ability if you think really hard about it and it makes sense since they’re brothers, but their dad is Brawny? You’ve lost me there. Also, what made certain people have abilities and others be Ordinary, why are Ordinaries still being born, like how does that work genetically if both their parents have abilities. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a me thing where I’m thinking too hard about it, but I do honestly hope that the rest of the series goes into this a bit more since I crave answers. This was probably done on purpose, and we’ll get Ordinary lore further down the line and lore about abilities as a whole, which is a selling point to get you to keep reading, but I would’ve appreciated a small bit of lore as I read. I shouldn’t have had this many questions about the magic system while reading since it did pull me away from the story a bit.  

I did enjoy the book despite my mild complaints, the story was entertaining enough for me to keep me reading even though I could essentially predict what was going to happen next since it follows a very basic YA plot progression and the characters were, mostly, fun to read about. Honestly, for a debut book, it was fairly well written, and I don’t have very many complaints on the writing style outside of the typical cliches, but I’m reading a YA book so I cannot complain. Overall, it was very enjoyable, though nothing groundbreaking, and I plan on reading the sequel when it comes out later this year, I give it an honestly pretty decent entertainment out of ten.  

Spoilers!!  

Normally I start the spoiler part of my review talking about something negative, but I have decided, new year new me, for now, and I’ll talk about something that I liked. I did enjoy the emphasis on the eye colors, which at first is super annoying because you’re like “omg can they stop talking about each other’s eyes we get it” but as the book goes on the eye color becomes super important. When Kai first meets Paedyn, he’s fascinated by how blue her eyes are and she always talks in detail about his gray eyes, while when she meets Kitt she can’t look him in the eyes since he has his father’s green eyes and Paedyn’s father was killed by the king so she sees the eyes of a killer whenever she looks at Kitt. As the story goes on, Paedyn is able to look Kitt in the eyes and starts to see them as his eyes, not his father’s cruel eyes and slowly starts to associate the green eyes with Kitt and not her father’s killer. But then right at the end we learn that it wasn’t actually the king who killed Paedyn’s dad, but Kai, and Paedyn’s dad was the first person he ever killed. So then the whole thing is flipped on its head! Paedyn realizes she had been hallucinating the king killing her dad (which like I get the trauma, but she was too weird about the green eye thing for me to just pretend she had never seen the king before but I’m not going to worry about it) when it was actually Kai. She had spent the whole book lovingly staring into the eyes of her father’s killer, and we find out in Kai’s bonus chapter that he took note of Paedyn’s dad’s blue eyes as he killed him and then was practically writing poems about Paedyn’s eyes. And then Kitt is for sure there.  

Speaking of Kitt, I’m excited to see him enter his villain era, though poor guy just doesn’t know what’s going on which is honestly a type of villain that is underrated. Unlike Red Queen where you could tell pretty immediately that the goal the entire time was to get rid of the monarchy, it’s a bit more ambiguous in Powerless because Kitt is genuinely a nice guy who wants to do better but unfortunately his dad was assassinated and he’s a little confused. There is honestly a lot of room for his character to develop and I think that’s what I’m most looking forward to in the next one. 

I do have to complain though, because this is who I am as a person. The thing that annoyed me the most was the love triangle (which if this isn’t your first time here you know about my hatred for love triangles) but this one specifically since it’s between two brothers, which is just icky. To paraphrase myself in one of my Goodreads updates (shameless plug) if I had a nickel for every time I read a book where a love triangle involves a pair of half-brothers, I’d have three nickels which isn’t a lot but I’m a little annoyed it’s happened three times. I honestly cannot put my finger on as to why I hate it so much, maybe because it has an incest-y vibe about it, but I just do not like it Sam I am.  

Not to keep word vomiting, I will stop there, but I am honestly willing to talk more about Powerless if you jump into my asks, I did very much enjoy the book despite all my complaining. I could also go into a whole thing where I compare it to Red Queen if anyone asks me nicely because I do have thoughts about that, but this is not the space for it. I cannot wait for Reckless and am very excited to see where the story takes us next! 

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

its 2 am, its me, its a new truckdump of songs for just about everybody

Lucio

got a little weekend project planned, gonna kill my parents and deal a worm for unthinkable power and then it all goes downhill from there shwoopsie

Muriel flexing his deal after he got it xdd sidenote do you think asra was immune or did they have a brief period there where muriel totally accepted his only real friend forgot him because he wished for it but at some point asra was chillin in the shop huffing some myhr and went "nice. anyway wow i wonder how my best friend muriel is doing these days"

nah they probly arranged the myhrr thing together ig god how tf do you spell merr fuKIN MYRHMHGR MYRRH also why the hell does morga get to remember him too like what does she care how does this freaking thing work. what cuz she saw him once when he was 3? whats up with that cause i was like hm ok maybe cause she knew him before the deal but then i realised yoU DUMBASS EVERYONE KNEW HIM BEFORE THE DEAL N THEY FORGOT THATS THE POINT so idk whats the metric by which the forgetability is assigned or whatwver those two got some weird thing goin on that i never received an explanation for. it might just be me being a dumbass again tho hkchvndt

this one kinda gave me a asra+ilya vibe specifically their lil colloseum performance i say jolly good show. god that ginger bastard would love ol' chicago.

ok this one is barely anything but going strictly off of the absolute girlboss vibes its putting out its giving me nadia. "is your mother worried. would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother" goes hard

i think i had more but i forgor anyway the actual point of this message is i hope youre doing okay and not regretting putting yourself on a schedule too much dgjyhkvd youre a cool dude n you can do whatever you want forever i hope everything is going exactly your way and if its not then thats absolutely fucking ridiculous but i know youll nail it

@tetsuooooooooooo those are all such good suggestions! I've put them on the playlist and now I'm putting them on the tag ^.^

And may I say that you've just opened a whole new can of worms in my head about Muriel's curse and the myrrh thing?! I mean, let's say there wasn't space or time for Muriel to plan things out with Asra ahead of time, what if Muriel spend several weeks wondering if he wanted Asra to remember him? Finding relief in a place his trauma couldn't reach him for the first time in years, and having to decide between having a completely fresh start without his oldest friend, and keeping this oldest friend around, even if that means keeping the memories of his past life around too -

Or what if he had to figure out the myrrh issue himself, and there was a time when he wanted Asra to remember him but needed to figure out how? Did he do that with Asra's help, showing up at the shop door like "you don't recognize me right now, but I'm your oldest friend and I need your help to figure out how to let select people remember me. Oh and as proof that I'm not lying, here's a list of all your most embarrassing moments since you were seven that I was there for."

Well there goes the next few hours of my day XD

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

I'm still not allowing myself to be excited for the One Piece live action but after having seen the trailer a few more times I'll say that as long as the pacing is good (bad pacing trips me up so hard) and the show captures the essence and spirit of the story, I won't hate it.

I just hope the rest of the writing is better than that "Not a crew" scene, I'm still not very happy with that. Sure, a lot of the comedy from the manga and the anime doesn't translate very well into live action but they can still bring out the silly parts without relying on the same kind of 0815 quips that are used by every action adventure movie since the beginning of the MCU.

Something I didn't learn until today is that Oda himself was heavily involved in the adaptation, including greenlighting the cast, which I guess gives me a little more confidence that the show won't be a trashfire.

I really like the cast (and now that I know Oda gave his okay for Nami's and Sanji's actors I'm putting my earlier reservations to the side), I like their energy, I highly appreciate their love for the One Piece universe, so I have a feeling they may be my favorite part of the adaptation.

Something that's also been pointed out is that the characters are wearing a lot of outfits from color spreads from the manga, which is really cool, I like that a lot, it gives them realistic costume changes while still staying true to their designs.

As for some of the criticism I've seen float around the tag:

"WHY ISN'T LUFFY WEARING FLIP FLOPS????" I was a little put off by that at first, too, but I honestly doubt that we'll pay a whole lot of attention to his feet when we watch the actual show (and who knows, maybe they'll show up at some point)

"WHERE IS SANJI'S CURLY BROW??????" This is probably completely a Me thing but when I watched the trailer for the first time I didn't even notice that because I was honestly much more worried about his hair before the trailer was released; I totally get that him not having the curly brow is a little disappointing and leaves out some of the greatest bickering between him and Zoro, but it's still possible that they'll bring it into the show some other way, even if he doesn't have it all the time; same goes for the smoking (which, given that it's an American production that is aimed at kids, isn't really surprising, since smoking/tobacco is its own content warning on American TV), we might see him light a cigarette here and there but we were never gonna see him chainsmoke the way he does in the manga/anime

"WHAT ABOUT USOPP'S NOSE????" Okay, let's be real here, had they given Usopp his Pinocchio nose through either CGI or VFX make-up, everyone probably would have complained how stupid and cringe it looks translated into live action; Jacob has a very expressive face that more than makes up for the lack of the Pinocchio nose in my opinion, but maybe that's just me (Jacob was also the first cast member I was fully on board with from the start, so maybe I'm biased, but that's how I feel)

"BUGGY LOOKS TOO SCARY" Guys, we only got one shot of him and we don't know the context for it; maybe this is his introductory shot, maybe this is a special dramatic shot, maybe this is how other people describe him, we just don't know; just wait until the show is out

"THE FOOTAGE IS TOO YELLOW" While it is likely that this is the final color grading, it's also possible that the final color grading wasn't done by the time they put the trailer together (like, some of the shots look like the yellow isn't as strong), they still have more than two months until release, they could still be doing final tweaks until then; and maybe they wanted to emphasize Luffy's sunny personality, who knows, the cinematography probably looks different in emotional scenes

Also, and this is only of interest to my fellow Germans, the German anime voice cast is dubbing the show, so I might actually watch it both in the original version and with the German voices because the nostalgia is reaaaaaaaallll

Be still, my heart, so you won't be disappointed, but be hopeful, be so so hopeful 🥲

[sbggarakungfood]

Permission to save your tags, please, thank you and YES. I really hope the writers notice these traits, thus making Villain Jay without him being OOC or having another side/personality.

Also you're right. How can I forget about your skybound points (it's literally shoved into my face several times) and his little deal with Nadakhan. Of course he thought nothing bad going to happen but STILL. He did it. He made a deal with the villain for personal gain.

Still I'm not sure if Agent Walker will have an affiliate with the wolf clan. He's a manager playing video game, I think his wants already fulfilled. I don't find the reason for him to join them but well.. we've just seen 30 seconds of him so I can't say much either. I don't even know what's his motive to against the ninja. But who I can picture him having a grudge with would be Sora. Since she's the master of tech, and potentially can hijack the administration's entire system OR WORSE, Jay's inventions. When she does that Jay would freak out. so bad. Yeah, I can see his panicked face where I laugh at it while writing this *ahem can see him against the ninja for that. (Still trying to keep low expectations)

..he won't even threaten sometimes he just attacks.. if he will hurt them as his friends he will totally go all in as his enemies.

Agreed. "Tackling Cole 2x + kicked Kai across the room" It's either got threatened or get attacked. It's just.. It's always have something to do with Nya that made him jump up and goes berserk like that. Too bad. I wish I knew what else that could make him goes mad like that. That's less likely to happen in the Administration I think.

The worst case scenario maybe when he threatens someone who.. I don't know? Annoy him? Threatened or rather get shot. No, I don't think he'll shoot his own subordinates (as you said, he'd go all in his enemies). I like to think that he has a soft spot for them. Even though that agent who reported Arin seems to don't want to upset Jay neither he want to protest- It's just nice to see Jay's duality again. He's the smart AND dumb, sometimes cool sometimes pathetic, freaks a lot but hard to break, can be pessimist or optimist, as in often whine/complains/sarcasm while haha-laugh-at-least-to-see-what's-good, keep getting karma'd and couldn't die, expressive yet can you say masking is being expressive though?? That duality that Jay has.. like positive and negative charges to make a lightning (I don't know the right word to put this & Yes, I'm just trying to relate stuff here).

He might care about his subordinates, that's what makes them loyal to him I suppose. We already had a story about "People Fighting Against the System" with Empress Beatrix, I don't need this concept to be told TWICE. (It's just me wanting different approach for Jay's villain arc). I can picture him being the manager who shouts and could threaten anyone who also helps his underlings to escape in case there's emergency. He's the type who can change his face from anger to a smile in a second, still you're not sure what's on his mind.

I should be talking about his villain traits, not speculating on how Agent Walker would act. Sorry.

Getting possessive with Nya (Fandom theorize this as his insecurities (of being poor?)) and still want her to fall for him after she says "no". Both him & Nadakhan never accepts "No" as an answer. (Spotted another villain traits. Hooray!). The difference is one of them who "tried" to reason at least. ("Why don't you TAKE THE FLYER!!" or that one with Wu and video game. Though that was useless).

Jay's self-centeredness. Maybe that's part of his duality.. That's part of Cg's "charm".. I think I follow the idea too. Cg's charm that I know is whenever he pretends to not be himself. Cg is an actor after all. It has its good and bad. I mean, I enjoy watching the way Jay shot those nindroids in space with *style* (that was so cool). But In another occasions.. well.. you know.

This DR era and head writers change gives me much hope with his characterization. There was time when I wish they rewatch the pilots for characterization at least. Even if the jokes won't be that funny, as long his character is what he's supposed to be (salty at inventor side removal), I don't mind. I didn't even know his freaks out is supposed to be funny before. What hooked me in is his character. Like. He's.. interesting. Bastard n relatable. And can be also really cool. That's why I had a soft spot for Zane too. Interesting-- gestures and not trying to be cool but he is. (like c'mon his senses, the way his shuriken twirling in his hands, his calmness and voice! his voice was just soothing. His role was the one who has more wisdom among the ninja, and also can be so innocent too) Too bad, unlike you, my hopes are already high. I don't want to expect much but I don't want to be disappointed and I've prepared to be disappointed. But there's still hope.

*Forgot to add Jay stole Zane father's boxer in "against morals for personal gain" section. Thank you for your time.

Why Jay Deserves the Villain Arc (why it suits him)

His name is Jay Walker

He has Cliff Gordon's DNA. Cliff Gordon. The one who has the book of "wooing women", who of course targeted the master of lightning, and oh right! He's an actor, I'm sure it's easy for him to pretend to be someone else, being perceived as "cute" by Libber, to be able to get her, though I'm still wondering why's she suddenly being chased when Jay was still a baby, making her run away alone with baby Jay, who potentially has the elemental power of lightning, and putting him in the junkyard so that her baby can be safe, so then the former master of lightning FINALLY can DISAPPEAR. Jay isn't like Cg. because Ed n Edna raised him. But let's make a big deal out of it anyway. (he still has his charm though).

Jay planned to destroy the top floor of a building TWICE. And SUCCEEDED. He wasn't even a villain that time. Can’t wait to see how many buildings he'll destroy when he unlocks his villain true potential.

There's a possibility where Jay would throw away the moral values for a mission. This has been proven in s5 when he suggested thievery when he took the lead.

This post. (Not just about the biting thing) I know it's a tease but listen at how easy for him to threaten somebody. He threatens to zap Kai, next season, he threatens to bite Cole. Even though he didn't do it, threatening the main characters is supposed to be a villain thing.

There's a chance he'll laugh after he electrocutes somebody. Then electrocutes them again.

Experienced in having a cult.

[talenlee]

CoX: Bubblegum Crush

This is an explanatory writeup of one of my Original Characters (OCs). Nothing here is necessarily related to a meaningful fiction you should recognise and is shared because I think my OCs are cool and it’s cool to talk about OCs you make.

In a city like Paragon there are weird patterns life can take that can become familiar. Like, yeah yeah yeah, superscience symbiote child of a former villain who looks maybe five years younger than her parent. Purple skin, yeah yeah. And oh, superpowers came with it!

Gum doesn’t like feeling like a stereotype. When she got to grips with her cold and ice powers, she resolved to not be yet another aloof, chilly, coldhearted type, and spent a month working out a totally new way to use those powers.

And everyone loves ice cream, right?

Bubblegum Crush goes by BC to most people, her friends and cohort. She’s one of the many ice themed superheroes in Paragon City, but where most of those heroes tend to style themselves with winter, or icebergs, or maybe some kind of snow giants? But the point is that generally, if you have ice hero powers in Paragon, you’re an ice hero, you’re part of a club that almost always shares a small number of specific traits and weaknesses. For example, most ice heroes are vulnerable to fire (which BC is) and are resistant to cold (which BC is).

And that means that BC is good at locking people in places, making areas inhospitiable, resisting most attacks from blunt objects by creating snow and ice to protect herself and others, and she can huck chunks of ice and snow at people at range. But also, in addition to that, she uses snow and ice to give people places to hide, and most shockingly, she can make ice cream.

She just coalesces it out of the air, mind you. It’s a hell of a trick. It’s nutritious, too, you can eat it and be sustained. She can control the flavour and colour of it, too, which is why when she hucks snowballs at people they’re often a range of colours.

build

BC is an ice/ice/ice brute, with a science origin, which doesn’t mean anything but because ‘ice ice ice’ looks so small I needed to pad the sentence out a little to keep it from just being a little weird dangle over a bulleted list. Her build has:

45% defense to Smashing, Lethal, Energy and Negative damage

90% cold resistance

100% global recharge without hasten

And that’s… just numbers. That’s not a particularly special or exciting build! It’s just merely amazing and able to do its job really well. Which is also weird because it’s a reasonably cheap build to make.

History

BC started her life as something else entirely. Once upon a time she was a character made for a special gaming event with a friend which was meant to be the kickoff of a new story arc for a new range of things for the community to do. That community then didn’t do anything, and so this thing I’d made for an event sat around fallow for years. What’s really notable though is if this sounds like me being bummed out about it, understand the thing that I’m truly sad about here is the friend who made an entire supergroup base for this project that a bunch of people looked at and treated like a backdrop for a single moment.

Which sucks.

Bases are way harder to make than characters.

Anyway, I had a character lying around that wasn’t useful for anything and the thing the character had that was locked in was that they were an ice/ice brute. That is, to say, someone who was really melee capable, but who had a mechanical powerset with a very limited range of expression. There were only so many things you can make a ice character do. There are some options — I’ve used ice armour to represent wireframes from a sort of hacker/synthetic reality kind of character — but broadly speaking if you’re using ice, you have to use ice.

And that question became the heart of Bubblegum.

I already remarked, last time, on how Polysynthesis owns her identity in part to taking an idea from the character of Momo Yaoyozuru from My Hero Academia. BC is similar, in that part of what got her kicked off was considering the character of Mina Ashido from the same series. As a girl from My Hero Academia, this is a character who gets exactly enough effort to present a cool aesthetic and thereafter not really used for anything.

Mina is a pink skinned, brightly coloured character who’s kind of a mix of alien looks and a gyaru aesthetic. As a character, I think she rules, she’s got this fun vibe. I spent six seasons of the show going: And when does the cool alien girl get to do things? Turns out, at the very last arc, she gets to be instrumental to someone else, and that’s pretty much it. Otherwise, she’s part of the merchandising space, a background figure that gets to make group shots look a little more colourful.

Anyway, inspired by Mina, I got thinking about a character who got handed a mismatched set of aesthetics and what they’d do with them. I had the term ‘bubblegum crush’ in my mind for a while as a cool sounding name, kind of aggressive, kind of fun, very pink but also with a bit of cyan swirl to it, and I wound up googling it to wonder if I got it from somewhere like a brand of something, like Gunpowder Milkshake. Turns out it’s an anime OAV title, but also a brand of fizzy soda, and from there I got the notion of her as a character with an association with that kind of bubbling, fun vibes, and from there the ice cream idea followed.

Now, you might be a super smart person and point out that ice cream isn’t actually ice, it’s actually about fats being frozen into crystals. And to those people I would argue, sure, yeah, but I guess BC is so smart and so good that she has made some kind of synthesis with mega-complex super-ice that works like ice cream without her body producing some kind of preposterous quantity of liquid creams. That would be weird. I don’t know how she’s doing it!

Anyway, characters are dolls and sometimes when you don’t like how a doll looks, you should remake it!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[rqlaji2]

Hey I know ive been dead but I went to 2 more they might be giants shows

15th i went to first avenue the first time. I havent even seen purple rain. I went on a walk every other day for the past month but it was surprisingly (sarcasm) not enough to prepare me for standing up for two hours straight. I saw the first first ave show was apollo 18 and while narrow your eyes is the best song ever and the guitar wouldve been astronomically fun i thought about it and if I actually got to choose which two i saw it wouldve been these. Now that I write that though my flood show was about a quarter mink car. But did your flood show have wicked little critta. No.

And so im up on the balcony i am directly outside the owners box, I have to get out of the way a fair amount which maybe helped a little with the pain that comes from standing in one place for two hours. But im wondering which one will be the comfortable show and they come out and i don’t even cry or anything like the first time im just like hey its those guys i know. Im a little far away and i need an eye exam yesterday though so maybe thats why. Anyway they come out and they play subliminal and im like AHHH cause its the best song ever. Actually im with a guy I do like a lot and I havent gone to too many shows, but I am so shy at the beginning a lot of the time..so maybe not AHHH but okayyy!!! And inside im like AHHH yknow? I wish snail shell was later in the set/i was less really fucking shy because I dont remember going crazy for it and I shouldve. SNAIL SHEEELLLLL. I listened to the venue song like two days before, it is so funny and great. More like mid james ensor. Its ok though cause it segues into the famous polka which is the best song ever. HEY! Im legitimately getting chills thinking about the famous polka, its so good. I always love slightly country tmbg and i have all of one single out of jail scrobble i didnt even recognize it 😭 in my fake fan era. Ah this was my first mesopotamians, so classic. More else pleaseee. Oh god spider was so good, so much more cacophonous than the recorded one. First flans doing a silly voice moment i can remember seeing, i love it when they do silly voices. Dirt bike might be my favorite tmbg song ever. You may have already noticed a theme with this post where i call every song the best song ever but I am not joking here, it might just be my favorite ever. I clap for all but I never cheer for the horns, and I wonder if that makes me a bad person, especially when dirt bike without horns would be shit. That intro is sooo perfect . A self called nowhere kicks total ass. Spy literally gets better every time I see it oml, I could not stop laughing at the back in black bit. SPY x16. The end of the tour is the best song ever, just so so lovely.

Man its so loud in here is really another contender for genuine serious most favorite tmbg song, I love it so so so so so much. Theyve played it at all my shows except the bowl, it wouldve been too powerful. I am so grateful for all the actual shows having it though, actual best song ever even if they play it a little different! Please compare my all time top played song man its so loud in here with all time 1 scrobble out of jail. (I really do not dislike out of jail, I dont know why I havent listened to it. I dont remember how it goes. John henry is my second favorite tmbg album. I dont know whats wrong with me.) When will you die just makes me think about how nothing will ever top the hollywood bowl when will you die, what a surprise and also great song. Doing the working undercover for the man sha la las in a crowd is so fucking cool!!! OH IVE HEARD ALL OF FINGERTIPS LIVE TWICE NOW, HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHOVE HEARD FINGERTIPS LIVE NOT ONCE BUT TWICE. I have to mention cloisonne, idk what to say about it but I heard cloisonne live, lmfao <3. Where your eyes dont go is so spooky and awesome. Brontosaurus is so great. Doctor worm is the best song ever. Letterbox is the best song ever. Last song of the night was no one knows my plan and they did not even make us conga. You may be thinking, no particle man? No istanbul? Well this ran long so im making a part 2 LOL

Also during the course of this show I sweated fucking tons, I was like legally an ocean. Anyways

[sansaorgana]

Hi, this is my first time sending a request in so I hope this is okay. Please can you write a Buck fic where he goes to find the reader as soon as its announced the war is over and he tells her that he's bringing her home and then when they're in the plane on the way home she's finally seeing him fly a plane? Just really cute Buck and reader having their happily ever after (sorry if it doesn't make any sense!!)

hello, darling! thank you for your request, it totally makes sense 😘 I included some of Buck being jealous of Rosie and suddenly realised what a good plot it would be if his girl got close to Rosie when he was away...? 🤭😳 anyway, in this fic Rosie and the Reader are just friends, so no worries & Buck gets a happy ending with his girl 💍

my inbox is open for blurb/short fic requests for major cleven 🤗

When the end of the war was announced through the radio, everyone around the base screamed and cheered so loudly that it was almost terrifying in a way. You smiled to yourself watching some of the boys going absolutely crazy. And as much as the end of this whole mess was making you happy – you didn’t want anyone else to die – you felt a stinging pain in your heart, too. You would miss lots of people you had met on the base. Especially one.

You were a local girl who signed up to help the Americans with paperwork. At first you didn’t expect to befriend so many people. For you it was just a job and a duty. Feelings came later.

Everyone knew you on the base. You were their (Y/N) now. For most of them you had been there from the beginning – especially the new ones since you had started your work all the way back in 1943. It was no longer only your work but also your second home where your friends lived. And now they would all go home and you’d be left with nothing but memories.

You were the most scared about your relationship with Major Buck Cleven. You two had been some sort of a couple before he went down and ended up in a German camp. He had come back recently and seemed to be courting you like before but you weren’t so sure about how a long-distance relationship like this would work. After all, it was not a distance between London and Birmingham. It was the whole ocean between you. And plenty of pretty girls at home who would do anything to marry a war hero.

It was making you sad because you treated him seriously – how could you not? He was so handsome and brave but also calm and always being able to make you feel safe. At the same time he could be funny and he was very smart as well. He was a walking dream-come-true and a man that every girl wanted to marry. You were already lucky to have his attention for this short while but the truth was that the time was that one thing you two were simply running out of.

You were walking through the base with a smile on your face as you greeted cheering people on the way but you just wanted to get out and take a deep breath of the fresh air.

You stood behind the building and leaned on the wall as you watched the blue sky with white clouds. The summer was coming and you’d spend it all alone here – for the first time in a long while without all this mess happening around you but also so bloody alone.

“There you are,” Buck’s voice made you look down again and you smiled at the sight of him. He wasn’t wearing his cap and the cool breeze was ruffling his hair in an adorable way. He looked cheerful at the news of the war being over as he approached you closer to kiss your lips softly.

“There I am,” you whispered but your voice broke a little and he furrowed his brows.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He asked and caressed your cheek, worryingly.

“Nothing… Nothing’s wrong,” you shook your head, trying your best to smile widely. You didn’t want him to worry. He should be celebrating. “I am just wondering… Will you write to me? Letters, I mean. Will you? I don’t think you will. Maybe for a while,” you tried to stop yourself from saying these things but they were pouring out of your mouth either way as your lower lip trembled.

“What are you talking about?” Buck asked, confused. He put his other hand on your face to cup your face with both of his hands as he made you look deep into your eyes. “What letters?”

“I want to keep being friends,” you explained to him with tears streaming down your face. “When you go home to the US, I still want to be friends with you…” You sniffed.

Buck kept looking at your face for a while. He looked worried and saddened and you hated yourself for making him feel this way when he should be celebrating with the rest. His fingers wiped your cheeks dry.

“That’s a shame…” He spoke up softly again and you furrowed your brows at him. “That’s a shame you want to be friends because I hoped you would marry me, baby,” he smiled at you and you gasped.

Was he… serious?

“Buck… I… Are you sure?” You started and his smile disappeared in an instant as he blushed.

“I’m sorry,” he took a step back and let go of your face.

“No!” You protested as you pulled him back to be close with you. “I just… We don’t know each other well, Buck. We weren’t given lots of time together and… Are you sure…? I would love to marry you, Gale. But I don’t want you to make such an important decision in the heat of the moment just because you’re happy that the war has ended,” you tried to explain nervously.

“All I heard was that you would love to marry me,” he smiled and you rolled your eyes before he picked you up and spinned you around in his arms. You giggled as you felt a huge burden of anxiety leave your heart.

“I’m being serious, Buck!” You chuckled as he put you back on the ground. You fixed his ruffled hair and looked at him lovingly. “I don’t want you to regret this later and spend the rest of your life hating me.”

“How could I ever hate you?” He shook his head and gently cupped your chin to make you look up. “You’ve been waiting for me all these months when I was away. And I know about this certain Lieutenant who has been bothering you all the time,” he told you and your cheeks heated up at the mention.

“Rosie’s a Captain now and he wasn’t bothering me,” you explained. “He was being very respectful.”

“Respectful, huh? He wanted to steal my girl,” Buck teased you but your face went serious and it made him confused for a while. “Wait, he didn’t steal you, am I right?” He wanted to make sure. “Not even for a second?”

“I guess you deserve the truth if you want to marry me,” you started carefully and watched his beautiful eyes fill with fear. “It’s not what you think, Gale, baby, no,” you shook your head and grabbed his wrists to hold them close to your heart. “But you were there, far away, I couldn’t be in touch with you. And he was here. Every day he was here,” you explained. “We became friends and I spent more time with him than I was ever given to spend with you so far,” you added.

“Did you kiss him?” Buck asked. His jaw was clenched but he was more sad than angry. “Just tell me. It won’t change anything if you kissed him.”

It would change a lot of things, though. But you didn’t have to worry about that.

“Of course not!” You denied, truthfully. “I only mean that in some way he did steal me. He stole the time we could have spent together. I made memories with him, more memories than I have with you. More inside jokes than I have with you,” you explained and Buck sighed with relief.

“That is something we can easily catch up with,” he told you. “In two years you will already have more memories with me than with him,” he pointed out with a smile.

“Wow, you’re so good at maths,” you teased him and chuckled as he rolled his eyes at you.

You got married to Buck two days before he and Bucky were supposed to go back home. You needed to be married to him for all the formalities in the US to go smoother and more easily. The wedding took place in your town with your family and friends from the base attending. Your parents also invited some of the neighbours who wanted to watch you getting married to an American pilot. You promised to send postcards to all of them.

Your mother helped you to pack most of the things you wanted with yourself in the USA and Buck shipped them to his family there. You were excited for your new life but also still couldn’t believe that it was all happening.

And now you were standing in front of the plane and waited for Bucky and your husband. How sweet it sounded… You looked down and played with your wedding ring with a smile.

You had already said goodbye to everyone else but knowing that you were going to live in the same country as them made it a little easier. Of course you were aware how huge the United States were but it would still be easier to visit Rosie or Crosby from there than from the UK.

“Have you ever been on a plane before?” Bucky patted your shoulder and you turned around to smile at him.

“No,” you admitted.

“Hey, Buck, you haven’t told me it’s gonna be her first time,” he teased your husband who gave him a deadly look. “I didn’t mean it like that, man.”

“Now you made it worse,” you chuckled. “Anyway, I’m more excited about watching Buck flying than about flying itself,” you added.

“Shit, then I guess I have to take the right seat,” Bucky grinned at you.

“You thought you would get the left?” Buck laughed at him cheerfully as he put his arm around you and placed a kiss on your temple. “No way I’d let you. I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to show off in front of my wife.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and swiftly jumped inside the plane. You swallowed thickly at the sight because there was no way you’d do the same thing, especially in your skirt.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, we got you,” Buck stood behind you and lifted you up as Bucky grabbed you from the inside of the plane and helped you to get inside. You ended up crawling inside as you laughed of embarrassment.

“So graceful,” you chuckled, ashamed of yourself.

“I haven’t seen anything,” Buck winked at you and jumped inside, too.

When you were in a cockpit, you gasped at the sight of all the buttons and handles.

“How do you boys manage that?” You asked, looking at them both in awe as they sat behind the steers.

“Don’t want to brag but, you know, it’s not like we had to train for months to do it properly. We were just born with this talent,” Bucky laughed and you pushed him playfully.

“Make yourself comfortable there, sweetheart, it’s a long way and we’re not making stops,” Buck turned around to look at you and you leaned in to kiss him all over his cheeks as Bucky sighed.

“What if I need to use a bathroom?” You asked.

“No bathroom,” Buck shook his head and you giggled.

“I was teasing. No bathroom, got it,” you saluted and he winked at you.

However, you didn’t leave the cockpit for the whole trip as you watched; mesmerised by both the sky and the views but also the way Buck and Bucky were handling this whole tin can of a plane. You knew it was probably the only time you’d ever be in a pilot’s cockpit and watch your husband fly and you had to admit it was a bloody shame because he looked extremely attractive doing that and looking so focused and responsible.

“There, baby,” Buck pointed at the thin line in the horizon after hours of the neverending blue ocean and the sky surrounding you.

“What is it?” You asked, already exhausted but bravely watching everything with your head rested on his arm.

“It’s the land,” he answered. “America.”

“Your new home,” Bucky grinned at you and you smiled back at him.

“Do you think I’m going to like it there?” You asked. You hadn’t even thought of that before. You hadn’t thought of anything, really. You only cared about being with Buck. But now, seeing the land ahead, you suddenly realised all the consequences of your decision.

“It’s too late to have second thoughts, don’t you think, sweetheart?” Buck teased you but you could hear nervousness in his voice.

“I’m not having second thoughts,” you assured him. “It was a stupid thing to ask. Of course I’m going to like it there because I’m going to be with you,” you squeezed his arm lovingly.

“And I’m gonna make sure of that,” Bucky winked at you. “I’m serious. Whenever he’s acting up and making you sad or angry, you just call me and I’ll come and fix him just right.”

You chuckled at that. You sincerely doubted that a man like Buck would ever make you sad or angry but it was very nice of Bucky to give you such a promise and look after you.

“Yeah, I’m definitely gonna like it there,” you hummed to yourself and Buck leaned in to kiss the top of your head.

MASTERLIST || BUCK MASTERLIST

[sj0228]

astro notes for fun lol

HEY! this is my first astro observations post so don't be too hard on me lol unless u wanna then sure maybe i can improve them somehow BUTANYWAYZ this is for entertainment purposes only!! obviously these are just my own observations so if they don't resonate with you don't get offended or you're a big ol' 🅱️uss so here they are!! also SHOUTOUT TO MY AMAZING FRIENDS fyi i got sum help from them by asking them billions of questions to confirm my suspicions so uh hope that makes the observations more accurate LOL ANYWAYS HERE THEY ARE!! i'll probably make more in the future cuz i think they're super fun to make :D also if u couldnt tell uhm this isnt very professional im not professional BUT I TRIED TO MAKE IT PRETTY so pls dont be bothered lol im just doing this for fun i didnt even wanna make an astro page so yea </3pretty unreliable LMAOOO

👩🏻‍🦲 the house your mars is in is what pisses you off the most!! (eg. 1st - people assuming things about you, 5th - people beating around the bush, 7th - things that disrupt the harmony of your environment, 9th - the need to hold back your opinions because others get bothered by them being "offensive")

👩🏻‍🦲 cancers are true ambiverts and i've truly never ever seen a cancer who wouldn't be both introverted and extroverted at times. they are always either social introverts or quiet extroverts lol. or both!! (somehow 0_0) they enjoy people's attention, whether it's wanting to be noticed or appreciated or generally cared for, and they need their alone time. they tend to be very productive at those times, too.

👩🏻‍🦲 ok i have a lot of notes for cancers so it's gonna be a lot lmao sorry anyways!! i've also noticed they LOVEEE breaking loose every once in a while, if not every time they're given the opportunity! thing is, it's usually only if someone else is there to convince them or do it with them. they don't like taking risks alone! they are very impressed and fond of the 'wild child' persona people because they bring out the cancer's wild side!

👩🏻‍🦲 libra moons are absolutely loved by people, it's so crazy! like, no matter what they do they always have attention on them. this can manifest badly if the moon person is actually pretty horrible, things they do tend to be overlooked and others move on pretty quickly from their mistakes, letting them do whatever they want. i wanted to give an example but uh,,,,, i shall.. refrain😳

👩🏻‍🦲 libra suns with water moons are so scary when they're angry..

👩🏻‍🦲 cancer moon is what i deem as the zodiac sign cute-ifyer lol. literally any "tough" sign like capricorn, scorpio or aquarius becomes a super cute goofball with this moon. WEIRDEST THING EVER THOUGH is that it doesn't work for cancer suns?! like if a cancer sun has a cancer moon this just makes the person very confusing but very funny. they can brighten anybody's day without trying!

👩🏻‍🦲 okay uh this isn't an astro note as much as it is me being a phucken simp but uh..... I HAVE AN UNDYING LOVE FOR ARIES SUNS I WILL MARRY EVERY EACHAND ONE OF YOU ISTG. ARIES SUNS ARE THE NICEST AND FUNNIEST PEOPEL I'VE EVER SEEN YOU HAVE THE BEST HUMOR EVER AND YOU'RE SO KIND TO EVERYBODY YOU'RE SO KIND I LOVE YOU YOU'RE TOO GOOD FOR THIS PLANET I WANT TO HUG YOU FOREVER okay jbshxhjn but fr aries are the best people ever?!?!?!?!?!?! pls

👩🏻‍🦲 okay JUST SO THIS WHOLE ARIES MENTION ISN'T JUST A POINTLESS LOVE CONFESSION - i've noticed a lot of ♥aries♥ people use the laughing crying face emojis (😂,🤣) unironically and it's honestly.....the best thing ever

👩🏻‍🦲 taurus suns do this sometimes as well

👩🏻‍🦲 THE MOST UNHEALTHY PERCEPTIONS OF ZODIAC SIGNS ARE PUT ON FIRE SIGNS, NOT THE WATER SIGNS AND THIS IS COMING FROM A PISCES!!!!!!1 every stereotype is always showing fire signs as those sunshine of the group people, the baddies, and the ones with the biggest 'idgaf' attitude. and while this can totally be true sometimes, most of the time it's super different! sad fire signs break my heart pls i just wanna hug you guys T-T they have it the hardest because unlike water signs who are already expected to be emotional, they often repress their emotions for the sake of others and because of the fear of betrayal or judgement, or just generally the idea of "it's better to have fake friends than to have zero friends". YOU GUYS PLEASE. cut these people off from your life you deserve soo much better i know it can be super hard to open up for you u just need a hug omg EVERYONE PLEASE CHECK UP ON YOUR FIRE SIGN FRIENDS ASK THEM ABOUT THEIR DAY N STUFF THEY WILL APPRECIATE YOU CARING FOR THEM! pls stay best and take care sweethearts ily!!!

👩🏻‍🦲 i've also noticed that some of the signs tend to show their sadness through anger - this is not just astrology though so if your friend has been jumpy lately please just check on them they are probably going thru sth😳 anyways the signs i mostly saw this in are pisces, aries and libra.

👩🏻‍🦲 cancers with feminine moons (earth and water) tend to be pretty introspective. they often think they're the ones being mistreated, and while this of course might be true, in reality it usually goes a lonnng way back lol. they often pay very little attention to others!! (masculine moon sign cancers (fire and air) can often be too focused on others more than themselves) this can be good because they don't snoop in other people's business but oh my god, guys, please pay attention to your friends, too! this WILL lead to lost friendships because, let's be real, nobody wants a one-sided friendship with someone who only cares about themselves! i don't want to target anybody here but this is just a pattern i've noticed wayyyy too often, so you might want to look into it and if you think this is you all you need is just to enlargen your perspective and it will all be okay. but please, PLEASE. think about your friends

👩🏻‍🦲 i needed to get this^ out because people often put this on leo placements but tbh i notice that leo placements are THE MOST generous of the entire zodiac and they always think of others first and that's what really makes them so popular. they very rarely are as egocentric as everybody says, they're just really loving and that makes them very lovable!

👩🏻‍🦲 scorpio risings are the prettiest people i've ever seen. not even kidding bruh i could stare at them for EVER their eyes are absolutely gorgeous and their mannerisms are just perfect pls marry me

👩🏻‍🦲 gemini and taurus placements make an individual soooo chill to the point where it often makes them lazy and a biig procrastinator lol. tho i love how they make light of it by using their amazing humor!

👩🏻‍🦲 you most definitely have your IC be one of your family members' sun sign or one of their personal planets. i have a taurus ic and my sister is a taurus sun!

👩🏻‍🦲 sagittarius suns are the best huggers cause THEY REALLY NEED A HUG SO GO HUG THEM RIGHT NOW. pls guys why r u so sad..

👩🏻‍🦲 scorpio mars aren't even as sexual as everybody says tbh. but they definitely do have some interesting.....interests ;)

👩🏻‍🦲 pluto aspects to personal planets are very prominent, but very hidden. if you have them, most likely you will be the only person to know about this side of you and it can be pretty dark..

👩🏻‍🦲 planets conjunct your sun will be the people you attract most in your life (venus conjunct sun - taurus and libra, jupiter - sagittarius and pisces, mars - aries and scorpio EVERYWHERE)

👩🏻‍🦲 your moon sign will be the sun sign of most of your friends

👩🏻‍🦲 if you don't quite relate to your ascendant, look at the sign you have in your 3rd house and at your mercury sign. this is how you communicate, convey your ideas etc. and will often be a major factor in people's first impressions of you :)

👩🏻‍🦲 lilith aspecting your sun may mean there's a side of you nobody knows.. 👁👁 you're also probably very convincing and people can be very drawn to you and they can't explain why. this also goes for lilith in 7th, especially in girls!

👩🏻‍🦲 you and your friends probably have each other's sun signs as your personal planets!!

👩🏻‍🦲 the kindest person you know is probably either a virgo or an aries.. and the meanest person you know is also probably a virgo or aries LOL

👩🏻‍🦲 capricorn suns & risings are THE hardest to read!! if they don't say what they mean people will just assume and they're never going to be right it's wild 👩🏻‍🦲 also capricorns definitely have the most dad energy, while sagittariuses are more like actual dads jdbshxcvb

OKAY THAT'S ALL!!!! im sure i have more but its 2 am i have school tomorrow or actually its today now so bye uh anyways there will most likely be more so if u liked these stay tuned!! oh and let me know if they were true witchu :o thats it love u stay awesome and super cool i love u byebye!!

[yondzone]

Bungou stray dogs relationship headcanons

sfw very sligth nsfw

those under 16 please do only read the sfw part

↰             𓂃              ⌲                   ⌂.

⋆ ☄.⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠂* ; ☔

𝕱𝖎𝖔𝖉𝖔𝖗 𝕯𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖔ï𝖊𝖛𝖘𝖐𝖎

▚ 𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ If you managed to have your way to his heat, then you are definitely one special fellow to him, so only to you and around you he will show is soft persona that he never let anyone see in decade.

⌗ If you end up living together, the little time he his at home he will he bring your breakfast at bed to make up for the fact that he his basically never here.

⌗ He prefer kissing you on the cheek rather than on the lips. And in the morning (if by miracle he didn’t already leave) he’ll automatically kiss you cheek to wake you up. And if he his here before going to sleep he’ll ask for a kiss on the cheek.

⌗ He also like night cuddles (of course he won’t admit it.) he never touched anybody so you give hi this feeling of constant novelty.

⌗ He loves when you are jealous and he is gonna tease you with those word : "you seems jealous, is everything fine ? :)" in fact he hates people but if it means seeing your jealous face he don’t mind playing the womanizer for some minute to just tease you.

▚ 𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗Fyodor is definitely a top this bitch will rather die than being a bottom.

⌗ He know the effect it have on you when he tie his hair up so you can be sure that evrrytime you do the deed he while have is hair up ✨.

⌗ Low key have a master servant kink that get him going for hours.

⌗ Hes not someone very vocal when you both do it.

⌗ He doesn’t look like this but he his really touchy in the bed.

⌗ Bed is his favorite place he is quite traditional in fact he does not want it in other place rather than the bedroom.

⌗ But he lost his traditionalism the day you introduced to him ‘sex toys’ oh so a new way to torture you without killing you? he’ll take this opportunity gladly.

⌗ One day you tried to be on top and your ‘master’ did not like that so he destroyed you for the whole night.

𝕮𝖍𝖚𝖚𝖞𝖆 𝕹𝖆𝖐𝖆𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖆

▚ 𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ Chuuya is very romantic, like very romantic.

⌗ He likes kisses, giving and receiving, he does not have a favorite place to kiss or to be kissed because he loves hems all.

⌗ When he is stressed or tired (or both), he likes to cuddle you, wine and cuddle are his comfort things.

⌗ Speaking of cuddling, he likes to cuddle you while taking a shower (hot water and rose petals) after all he his very comfortable with you and love your presence

⌗ He feels more confident when you compliment him, and he will shamelessly admit it ‘please compliment me more’

⌗ Chuuya is quite jealous and possessive. If someone tries to hit on you or make a move, he will go feral on this person and make sure everyone in the future who you belong too

⌗ A whore for PDA in public, he will always hold your hand or put his arm around you, so that everyone will see that you are taken.

⌗ He won't tell you that he loves you often, because he prefer action out of words. He's the type of person willing to do anything to drown you in gifts and make you happy.

⌗ If you find something nice or cool, he will buy it for you, just to see you smile. Needy Chuuya want to see you smile

▚ 𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ He his totally a switch, one day he can feel like a total top and the day after will feel the need to be dominated.

⌗ He like being on top yes, but he prefer it when you are riding him he really love seeing you body from below, its exquisite.

⌗ He is an hips man, he love them. So you being on top of him gives him the opportunity to admire and explore your body.

⌗ Chuuya likes your moans very much, he finds them adorable and it shows that you feel good, which makes him happy.

⌗ Chuuya is vocal, way too much vocal in the bed.

⌗ He his considered as the king of aftercare trust me, its heaven.

𝕯𝖆𝖟𝖆𝖎 𝕺𝖘𝖆𝖒𝖚

▚ 𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ Do not lie to yourself, a relationship with Dazai have high chance of ending not well because of some toxicity he may develop as time goes on.

⌗ He his really possesive, once he got you he wont let you go,never ever.

⌗ He love to kiss you. He loves the taste of your lips and the feeling of kissing you makes him feel something he never had.

⌗ In public, dazai will be the dork he his but… in worse. (yes its possible) he will be playful to death with you.

⌗ While when you are alone, he is much more sentimental but he will continue to remain slightly playful.

⌗ He loves teasing you, if he manage to make you blush, it will makes him continue even more because he finds you oh so adorable when you are embarrassed.

⌗ At night, he will cuddle you while holding you tightly, so that you can feel safe and loved.

▚ 𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ Dazai doesn't really feel the need to have sex he have better thing to do and never really tough about commitment wit anybody.

⌗ But when it's with you, he will have sex with you after-all all opportunity to your body, he’ll take it.

⌗ Slow and passionate sex over here! He his rarely pn the fast and rough side but if you ask he’ll comply to any of your desire.

⌗ He don't really have favorite position, nor kink except maybe some bondage

⌗ Did I forget that he have a praise kink? Of course receiving and giving,

⌗ Dazai is very vocal, im not talking about moan they are relatively low, but about praise, when you both are doing the deed, praise are overflowing (🦋🦋🦋)

𝕾𝖎𝖌𝖒𝖆

▚ 𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ Sigma never had anything except his casino which his his whole life so at first when he get implied in a relationship he will be clumsy not knowing how human relation work

⌗ He will need guidance from you, he wont make first move simply because he does not know how it work.

⌗ He his kind, really really kind to you. He view you as something very fragile and it will take time for him to comprehend that you are not weak.

⌗ Because he his always in his casino the only moment you can see him his when he his in his office, he barely goes to sleep too occupied maintaining the casino.

⌗ You finally gave him what he desired : reasons to live, you are very much cherished by him.

⌗ And you also need to cherish him and make him gain confidence in himself.

▚ 𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ He his a bottom he have no social skill and does not know anything about how the society or relationship work as I already said.

⌗ You basically need to do everything and engage everything.

⌗ Your kink are his kink, you’re favorite position is also his favorite.

⌗ The man cry a lot out of pleasure in the bedroom, he his utterly beautiful when he cries.

⌗ As time goes by he will gain in assurance and try to be on top but out of habit he just revert back to being bellow. But please praise him, he tried.

𝕹𝖎𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖘 𝕲𝖔𝖌𝖔𝖑

▚ 𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ … how did you get yourself into this relationship again?

⌗ do not go out with him I repeat to not go out with him,  at home its okay but when in public he start to theatrically declare his love to you, I promise dying would be better than having to support this embarrassment anymore.

⌗ you know that he love asking rhetorical question right? Just let him be, read a book or play on your phone while he monologue

⌗ the number of nickname you have can’t be counted on two hands

⌗ he forces you to call him by nickname and pet name he himself thought of ‘from now on call me the pineapple of your ocean eyes’ …. the fuck is wrong with his brain, where your first tough

⌗ He always kept on repeating that he wanted to be free and first say to you that you should not hope for him to be sweet or be present but every time you come home he his here patiently waiting on the couch.

⌗ his change of persona really surprise you every time they happen, even after years of dating it’s sill hard for you to grasp his true self, a playful sadistic idiot, or a serious full of guilt person aware of his cruel crime.

▚ 𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖜 :

⌗ he his so sadistic, he love to see you cry

⌗ definitely into cosplay and role play in the bedroom ‘today I am the pirate and you my parrot look at those beautiful costume’

⌗ you have an enormous box with all of your disguises

⌗ he have every sex toy possible, may or may not have already bought every sex toy from a store

⌗ usually rough, very rough, and sometime he break the mood with his goofy attitude, he does not mind the mood being broke because he’ll restore it in no time

⌗ they are time he his acting like a narrator as he fuck you ‘then gogol slowly slap her pink ass-’ this is really disturbing

⌗ you can have a little of respite when he decide to have sex with his serious personality respite.

when it happen it’s fast but passionate and stop the joke and the room become silent only filled with both of your moans

[bubblyhoney]

can i request a fic where sapnap takes the reader to his hometown? like the classic going to places he went to when he was younger. maybe playgrounds and ice cream shops idk

places i used to go

warnings: language of course, an allusion to virginap, my uneducated guess of what sapnap was like in highschool, tiny detail of long haired!sapnap, singular canon detail of underage drinking, jokish about marriage

tags: sapnap x gn!reader

words: 2191

A/N: you are a god, anon. i love comfy and nostalgic fics like these and it was so fun to write. if you hate it dont tell me but if you like it lemme know akskdjd

inbox/requests: open

-

The wind whips fast on your bare fingers, cool and quick and raising goosebumps in its wake. You blink in the haze of the early sunset, head lolled to the side of the headrest. It feels good.

“That’s where I went to high school.” Sapnap interrupts your thoughts and points a finger at a collection of tall brick buildings down a side street. The silver of the lettering is dull, but you can still feel the nostalgia.

“And you’re about to see the park that me and my friends used to hang out at after work and—actually, nevermind.” His arm drops to the middle console and he looks straight ahead with slightly pinker cheeks.

“Do what?” You ask, voice all sweet, and a grin grows on your face. You turn towards him and wiggle your eyebrows.

“Nothing. Homework.” He avoids your eye contact and hikes his hand up higher on the steering wheel. “Anyways— Do you want to get some food before we head out? I know a great place.”

You two were just coming to a close on your little trip to visit his family; it was his step-mom’s birthday and you decided to make a week of it. It was your first long-term trip with Sapnap, and also your first time meeting his dad’s side of the family. You were proud to say she loved you. His little sister took a little more effort to talk to you of her own volition, but soon enough she was on your side.

You have a couple hours to kill before making your flight back home, so Sapnap has taken it upon himself to give you a quick tour of his hometown.

“Yeah,” you decide, bottom lip popped out. “Can we get ice cream after?”

“Uh, duh.” The Neighbourhood’s Stargazing starts through the speakers and he reaches to turn it down. “I’m so ready to get home and sleep.” He stretches his neck in his seat, letting out an uncharacteristically inappropriate grunt when his bones pop. You make a disgusted face, nose wrinkling, but stretch your own back, slumping down in the seat. The day had been full of packing up and this horrible hike his dad liked to do early in the mornings, so you two were pretty beat.

“Okay, we’re here,” he announces three sleepy minutes later in his best attempt at a whisper. Lifting your head off of the corner of your seat, you blink in the setting sunlight as a yawn splits your face. “You’re so cute.”

“Shut up,” you mumble, and struggle to get your seatbelt off in that post-nap haze. You’d barely been asleep for thirty seconds, damn it. The air is a swampy heat when you step out of the car onto rocky gravel and nearly twist your ankle climbing over the curb. Sapnap catches you by the lower back, trying to hide his laugh but failing miserably. You slide him a dirty look, smacking his shoulder as hard as you can manage while limping towards the front entrance.

The door jingles when you two breach the doorway, alerting a bored-looking hostess that the circus has arrived. She looks at Sapnap a second longer than she should, eyebrows screwed together in silent confusion. But she leads the two of you to a booth near a large window, handing you sticky menus and promptly fucking right off to the host station. She nearly runs.

“Do you know her?” You ask, inconspicuously hiding your face in the search for their 24/7 breakfast menu. You feel his eyes on you.

“Don’t think so.” He leans on one elbow and slides his phone out of his jeans’ pocket. In the 25 seconds it takes for you to find their french toast and sides menu, he has browsed and closed his phone with an animatedly shocked look on his face.

“What?” You give him a weird look and put down the menu.

“I totally went to homecoming with that girl.” He eyes the hostess. You glance over at her again, meeting her gaze, and offer a polite smile. She turns away quickly, eyes wide.

“She’s cute,” you say, voice high and fake, and he drums his fingers on the tabletop as an amused look makes its way onto his face.

“Are you—?”

“What?” You reply right back.

“Nothing.”

Thank God the server comes up to your table then and starts asking for drink orders, or else you’d have to admit (sheepishly) you were a tiny eensy-weensy bit annoyed. Only a tad. But after requesting a Dr. Pepper and a water the conversation surrounding the nervous-looking hostess dies.

“I’m so hungry I think I feel my stomach shrinking.” You flop your head onto your arm on the table top and make a whiny noise into the stack of napkins your server left at the table. Sapnap rubs his thumb into the side of your forearm, touch warm and nearly dissolving the pangs of hunger and jealousy.

“You weren’t hungry an hour ago.” He lifts your hand to his face and plants a kiss on the back of it. Oh, pulling out the big guns, huh? “I would have made you something.”

You tilt onto your chin, pouting, and stare up at his cute face. His cute, scruffy, perfectly-kissable face.

“I think I got hungry staring at you for half an hour.” A mischievous grin grows on your previously-petulant face and he just shakes his head.

“I do have that effect,” he admits with cockiness in his tone, lifting his eyebrows and leaning back into the booth with his lips pursed.

The server returns with two glasses and takes your food orders onto their little yellow notepad. You chug the water down when they leave for the kitchen, getting your lap and chin thoroughly wet in the process. Sapnap just snorts at you and shoves the napkins your way.

“So,” you start, patting dry your jeans. “tell me what you were like in high school.” You cross your arms and settle into the booth, smirk on your lips.

“What I was like?” He parrots, sipping at his soda, looking thoughtful. “Firstly, a virgin.” You make a noise. Duh. Dude had a buzz cut his junior year. (You’ve seen the pictures. His step-mom particularly likes them.) “Secondly, I was actually— well, I wasn’t popular, but I had a lot of friends. We were all semi-athletic lonely band kids but we had fun. Had one girlfriend senior year but she went to Cal Tech in the fall and I didn’t. I, um, worked at a Dairy Queen in the summers and gained so much weight I had to lose all over again for Unified Track.”

“Relatable,” you comment, drinking noisily at your water. He fiddles with the paper straw wrapper and crunches it up into a ball. It goes soaring into your drink with a quiet “Kobe” and you just give him a look. He smiles toothily right back at you. “Stop being cute, I’m trying to listen to your story.”

“Oh, my bad,” he mocks. “Anyways. That’s what I was like in highschool.” You fish the paper ball out of your water and flick it wetly at his arm. It sticks and you choke on a laugh, cheeks puffed.

Two plates of warm food are set down loudly onto the table and you thank the server with a surprised smile, Sapnap mirroring you.

Two minutes of wordless chewing passes, minds occupied just by “food, me eat” instead of anything related to your previous conversation. You realize that Sapnap is one of the loudest chewers ever, and he realizes that you fail to notice the streak of maple syrup in your hair.

“C’mere,” he mumbles through a mouthful of omelet and hash browns and beckons you with his hand. You lean closer, chewing slowly, as he pats a napkin at the strands of hair trapped in syrup.

“Thanks, baby.” You take the napkin from him and pause your assault of the warm french toast before you to clean the sticky sugar out of your hair. He just watches you, half of a smile on his lips.

You two finish your food in record time. It’s borderline vacuum-like. There’s a short grace period where you just sit like two lazy cats, slumped down in the booth and holding your full stomachs. But the check comes soon after, and you both pay your way and are out of the restaurant without any mad dashes for the bathroom. A miracle, really, because of the American-like amount of butter you both consume.

“I’m a much more functional person now,” you mutter into the cotton of his shoulder, swinging your hand in his. He just hums in agreement.

“I guess we’re not getting ice cream, then,” he teases, and you just groan in response.

“I don’t feel like having diarrhea on a plane, unfortunately.” You sigh heavily when you have to split and get into your respective sides of the rental car.

The entire trip (somewhat roundabout because of the amount of side quests to show you things from his childhood) to the airport Sapnap is a chatterbox. He’s like this when he has sugar: either bouncing off the walls with energy or talking your ear off.

“That’s where my dad proposed to my step-mom. I was kinda young but I remember being surprised at how big the ring was— dude broke the bank for her.” It’s a little gazebo you catch a glimpse of through the trees in a park. It probably was an incredibly picturesque moment, and you can sense how much she must have loved it. With just meeting them this weekend, you can already see how much love those two have for each other.

You hope people can see how much you love Sapnap.

“Oh my God, it’s still there.” He points out the side of your window to what looks like a Dairy Queen that has been through World War 3. “My buddy Eric and I once spilled a gallon of that liquid ice-cream-shit all over the men’s bathroom.”

You shoot him a horrified look. “Why was it in the bathroom?”

He just smirks.

“—And that’s my Uncle Ron’s house. Had my first beer there.”

“And last, hopefully,” you add, pulling a disgusted face. The two story bungalow is cute, and one of your favorite colors: olive green. “That shit is nasty.”

He just shrugs and continues down the side street.

“Is this the park you were talking about?”

He pulls into the gravelly parking lot of a small clearing of tall trees, a picnic table and campfire sat squat in the middle. But he doesn’t respond, just turning the car off and climbing out. He reaches the passenger door without speaking, and opens it for you. You climb carefully out, confused.

“Come on.” He takes your hand and starts for a small path to the left of the picnic table. The mid-sunset shade envelopes the both of you.

“I hope this isn’t where you kill me.”

“No,” he snorts. “I just wanted to show you something.”

It’s just a few moments of stumbling through the damp underbrush before you’re coming face to face with a small, mossy pond that sits right underneath an incredibly old willow tree. He stops right on the edge of the rocky path and turns toward you.

“This your make out spot?” You ask between a grin as he snakes an arm around your waist and tugs you flush to him. Your innocent smile fades when you feel the press of his lips to the side of your neck, light and ticklish. Oh.

“No,” he murmurs, and just breathes you in. “I came here once—the night before I graduated highschool. And I told myself when I really really loved someone I’d take them here with me.” He sways with you in his grasp, a gentle and song-less dance.

You grip his shoulder tighter in your hand and lean into him.

“That’s— awfully romantic, huh?” Your voice is quiet. Almost nervous. He just makes a noise of agreement.

“So here we are.” His voice is the opposite of yours, all strong and confident.

You two just move together for a moment. The sun breaks through the tree canopy, shining bright orange down onto the glassy surface of the pond. Crickets and frogs chirp back and forth as the willow vines swing in a cool evening breeze. You watch nature come alive around you, suddenly grateful for the man in your arms.

“Don’t propose,” you whisper, breaking the gentle tension. A laugh breaks the silence and he’s pulling away to look at you. Maybe in disbelief. A strand of hair falls into his eyes and you brush it away, fingers stilling on his temple and sliding down onto his cheek. Stubble scrapes against the skin of your palm and he stares at you through those meadow eyes.

You realize in that moment that he is exactly himself. Of course he is. He’s Sapnap, and everything that encompasses that. Dark and light and fiery and cool. He always has been, and always will be.

You realize you wouldn’t mind if he proposed.

-

A/N: ask or send me some stuff!! requests, rants, anything. let me know what you think

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt~ hoping you'll like it ♥️

Things between the Nie brothers are not always nice and happy, they fight, just like any other pair of brothers, and sometimes things are said, sometimes these things are heavy and painful. Sometimes they're said in the wrong moment (maybe at the eve of a battle? Sunshot campaign?) and huaisang doesn't know what to do with the broken look his brother gives him before leaving the unclean realm. Because what if he doesn't return? What if the last thing he said to him was how much he hated the man he became?

Labyrinth - ao3

“But I didn’t mean to wish him away!” Nie Huaisang cried out.

“That’s really too bad,” the goblin king said, looking pleasant and humble and charming the way he always did, even in his cape of glittering gold and high-browed hat. “I wish there was something I could do for you, but the rules are the rules. You wished him away, and I took him.”

“Aren’t you supposed to only take babies?” Nie Huaisang demanded.

“Your brother’s enough of a crybaby to count, it’s close enough.”

“It is not!” Nie Huaisang wrung his hands. “You don’t understand, the last thing I said to him was that I hated him! Meng Yao, please!”

“It’s Jin Guangyao,” the goblin king corrected. His smile looked a bit strained. “Listen, do you think I’m happy about this? He’s my sworn brother! I’m only doing what I have to –”

“Oh, save it for Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang growled. “Show me the labyrinth already.”

“You’re going to face the labyrinth,” the goblin king said. His voice was very polite, and yet still expressed significant doubt. “You.”

“Yeah, me!”

“You remember that it goes ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered’, right? Not ‘through a nice teacher and a forgiving grading system’?”

“Yeah, well, your father is a fragging aardvark. Let me at the labyrinth already!”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The life-sized animated puppet blinked at him. “You – don’t want my help?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

“You haven’t even gotten into the labyrinth yet!”

“It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t have a chance to get in,” Nie Huaisang said, patting around his sleeve and pulling out a fan. “So I’m just going to walk over and beat at the wall till something happens.”

The puppet followed him, staring blankly. Quite a change from his original apologetic ‘I’m sorry, I’m busy with my own things, I really can’t help you, also it’s too dangerous and you shouldn’t go’ response.

“You were blackmailing me to help you just a moment ago,” the puppet said after a little. “Don’t you need a guide?”

“Listen, I’m bad at memorizing things and I’m a little useless, but I’m not actually dumb,” Nie Huaisang said, fanning himself. “Jin Guangyao is a demon of the mind above all else, and the labyrinth is supposed to be ‘fair’ – which means, more than likely, that the labyrinth is a reflection of the subconscious, specially tailored to each person’s strengths and weaknesses. And that means that you, who sound exactly like Lan Xichen, are almost certainly a set-up sent by Jin Guangyao to ‘reluctantly’ aid me and then betray me.”

“Uh,” Lan Xichen-the-puppet said. “My name’s Hoggle, actually.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, er-ge…A-ha!” Nie Huaisang beamed at the gates that automatically opened. “Perfect!”

-

“Oh, don’t go that way,” the worm said. “Never go that way. And are you sure you don’t want to come in for a cup of tea?”

“No time,” Nie Huaisang said. “Thanks a lot – wait.”

The worm blinked at him.

“You’re a pretty attractive worm, in a slimy sort of way,” Nie Huaisang said, frowning at him.

The worm blinked again. “Why, thanks!”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Is your name Su She, by chance?”

“Definitely not!”

“Mm. Oddly vehement of you. Never mind. Just, quick, could you tell me exactly why do I not want to go that way?”

-

“I don’t suppose straight ahead is an option?”

The hands-faces stared at him.

“I’m just saying, I feel like most of my problems so far have come from the fact that I decided to accept the whole concept of turns. It seems like a mistake.”

“…it’s a labyrinth,” another set of the hands said. “You have to make turns!”

Nie Huaisang shook his head mournfully. “I should’ve brought Baxia or something and just – ZIP. Gone straight through. You know what I mean?”

“I’m dropping you in the oubliette regardless of your decision,” the first set of the hands said. It sounded a bit like Sect Leader Yao. “Just so you know.”

“My life is so hard,” Nie Huaisang sighed. “So hard! Do you know what it’s like to be overlooked by everyone? Do you know how hard I have to work at being this useless?”

“Drop him,” the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Ouyang said, and the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Yao said, “Yes. Now!”

Down Nie Huaisang went.

-

“I can take you back to the beginning of the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen offered.

“What, and waste all that time? I have a time limit, er-ge!”

“It’s better than being stuck in an oubliette. That’s where they put people to forget about them, you know.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes filled with tears. “You want to forget me, er-ge? You think I’m useless, don’t you? A good-for-nothing, who’ll never amount to anything –”

“Please don’t cry.”

“ER-GE! WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME!”

“Please stop crying!”

-

“So what’s the point of you?” Nie Huaisang asked the Wise Man with the Talking Hat.

“Not everyone exists to contribute to your storyline,” the Talking Hat snapped at him. “Some of us’ve got our own problems. Now hand over the candy!”

“Don’t be mean,” the Wise Man said. He had a white cloth over his eyes, and was smiling like he found the hat funny.

“Awww, but daozhang…!”

“Different plotline entirely, I guess,” Nie Huaisang decided. “Probably just here as a foil. Shall we keep going, er-ge?”

“I can’t believe you scammed me to get out of the oubliette,” Lan Xichen mumbled. “I can’t believe…”

-

“Oh, leave him alone, he’s just sensitive!” Nie Huaisang snapped.

“Am not!” the upside-down creature snarled, curled up on itself and trying to hide from all those that had been hitting him. Its fur was a vivid sort of purple. “Go away!”

“Don’t you have some sort of special power to help you here,” Nie Huaisang asked him as he tried to get him down before the goblins came back with weapons. “Rocks, maybe?”

“…lightning?”

“Well then get to it, will you?” Nie Huaisang frowned. “Wait. Lightning, constantly being tormented, terrible at communication, and purple? You’re Jiang Cheng, aren’t you?”

“…maybe.”

“Well then get down faster! I need to copy someone’s notes here!”

-

“Leave me aloooooooone!” Nie Huaisang howled, running away from the measuring snake.

-

“Wow,” Lan Xichen said, holding his cheek. “You kissed me.”

“You saved me from the snakes,” Nie Huaisang said. “Can we focus on how we’re in this awful stinking bog?”

“It’s not that bad!” a voice piped up. “I don’t smell anything!”

Nie Huaisang turned to stare, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course you don’t,” he said. “I bet the total absence of a sense of smell helps when you eat spicy food, Wei-xiong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with spicy food!”

“You’re short,” Nie Huaisang informed the small goblin-like creature with the big grin and the red ribbon in its hair. It looked vaguely fox-like, or possibly like certain large breeds of rabbit.

“Why you..!” Wei Wuxian crossed his furry little paws over his chest. “Just for that, I’m not going to help you.”

“Uh-huh,” Nie Huaisang said. “Really. That’s awful…oh no! A dog!”

Wei Wuxian jumped high into the air. “A dog?! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Save me!”

Much to Nie Huaisang’s surprise, a furry dog immediately darted out of nowhere – only Wei Wuxian didn’t seem afraid of it, but rather hid behind it, teeth chattering.

Truly, Nie Huaisang reflected, the eyes of love are blind.

“I think the ‘dog’ is gone now,” he said. “Your brave and noble Lan Wangji must’ve scared him away.”

Wei Wuxian’s head popped out from behind dog-Wangji. “Well, Lan Zhan is really cool…hey. Are you trying to manipulate me?”

“Is it working?”

“No!”

“So you won’t help me?”

“No!”

“Not even if it means you get to figure out a really tricky puzzle?”

“No – wait. A puzzle?”

“I can’t believe this is going to work,” Lan Xichen muttered from behind Nie Huaisang. “I mean, I can. But also…Wangji…I love you, but you could do so much better than this.”

-

“Ugh,” Nie Huaisang said. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Have some Emperor’s Smile,” Lan Xichen said, offering a jar.

“Amazing,” Nie Huaisang said, accepting it and taking a swing. “I had my doubts, you know, but you’re actually good for something after all, er-ge –”

-

The golden bird was Nie Huaisang’s favorite.

He’d worked so hard to bring it back to his aviary – it couldn’t be forced, he knew; it would play along at first but in the end it would turn on you and bite you. It had to be coaxed with gentleness and kindness, approached indirectly so as not to spook it, convince it that you really did mean well – that you were harmless, that it had no reason to fear you. It was arrogant, too, proud of its shining feathers and ashamed of the brown plumage of its chick days, which still remained visible on its tender underbelly. Ironically, that was Nie Huaisang’s favorite part of it, the soft and gentle part; it might not be as pretty as the gold, but it felt more genuine.

Nie Huaisang smiled as he brushed the beautiful feathers, and the golden bird allowed him. He felt cherished, treasured. So what if he had to hide all the sharp parts of himself to get this close?

It was fine. He didn’t like to be sharp.

He wanted to be soft. Soft and gentle, careless and free, relaxed and without effort, good for nothing –

Wait.

No!

-

“It’s all junk,” Nie Huaisang hissed at the pile of burning fans, tears in his eyes. “I want my da-ge!”

-

“You’re all right!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, helping pulled Nie Huaisang up.

“Huaisang-xiong,” Jiang Cheng said, looking relieved. “You’re back.”

“We have to go to the temple beyond the Goblin City,” Nie Huaisang said, teeth gritted together. “We have to. I won’t let that bastard…we’re going to go there and throw all his damned tricks right in his face!”

“Just us?” Wei Wuxian asked. “I mean, I’m awesome, Lan Zhan is fantastic, and of course Jiang Cheng is great, too, but…uh…there’s a lot of goblins in the city.”

“We’ll sneak in,” Nie Huaisang said. “He thinks he’s sidelined me entirely – he thinks I’m useless. He won’t be expecting me to get this far.”

“I can get help,” Jiang Cheng said. “I have friends.”

“…not to be rude, Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said. “But – really?”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said, eyeing the pile of rocks following Jiang Cheng around, each one painted with a name. One of the names was yellow. Two were in white, with forehead ribbons. “This is fine. I feel like it says something really rude about my empathy for and interest in our junior generation, or lack thereof, but you know what? I don’t care. It’s fine.”

-

“You saved me,” Nie Huaisang said blankly, looking at Lan Xichen, who shrugged, abashed. The remains of the mechanical temple guard were scattered all over. “Over – him?”

“Huaisang –”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said, holding up his hands. “Don’t. Don’t…I don’t want to hear you talk.”

Lan Xichen’s head dropped down and he looked at the ground. “You knew from the beginning what I was like,” he murmured. “I never tried to hide it –”

“I forgive you for being what you are,” Nie Huaisang told him, and Lan Xichen looked up at him, startled and pleased. “I forgive you for not having the backbone to stand up against Jin Guangyao for me – or for da-ge. For being willfully blind for so long, for needing someone else’s proof of his ill-intentions, for always picking him first, for never trusting me…I forgive you, even if you’d never forgive me for the same.”

He dashed away the angry tears in his eyes.

“I just wish this wasn’t a fucking metaphor.”

-

Nie Huaisang left the fighting to the people who knew what to do – Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, even the rock-juniors – and went to the temple at the center of the city alone.

Some things, he knew, needed to be done alone, even if it was the type of alone when you were surrounded by other people. Even when those other people stood by his side and made him promise that if he needed them, he would only need to call. Some things…

“I want my da-ge back,” he said to the maze of stairs.

“Then go and find him,” Jin Guangyao replied, looking smug, and Nie Huaisang had to go up and down all those fucking stairs, because Jin Guangyao was nothing if not predictable with his trauma, looking all over, looking for –

Looking for pieces.

“It’s just a metaphor,” he whispered to himself, ignoring how tears were streaming down his face. “It’s just – I need to put him back together, it’s fine. I’m not too late – I’m not too late –”

-

Jin Guangyao held Nie Mingjue’s head in his hands, blinded and gagged and bound with talismans, pulled out of whatever oubliette he'd shoved it into to forget about what he'd done. “Beware, Huaisang,” he said, still smiling. Always smiling. “I’ve been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.”

Nie Huaisang laughed, scoffing. “Generous? What have you done for me that’s generous?”

“Everything! Everything you’ve wanted, I’ve done – I cared for you, I gave you attention, I got you out of work, doing your schoolwork for you and coming up with excuses to get you out of saber training. I gave you presents, fans and pretty clothing, and when that brute of a brother of yours tried to take them from you, I rescued you. And then I even managed your sect for you, answered all of your questions, any time you had – Huaisang, I’m exhausted trying to live up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

Nie Huaisang bared his teeth. “Half of those are burdens that only fell on me because of you. Why should it matter to me that cleaning up your own mess and satisfying your own guilt is hard? Why should I pay such a price when all I wanted was to be your friend? When all da-ge wanted was to be your friend? How dare you, Meng Yao!”

“Huaisang…” Jin Guangyao shook his head mournfully. “Huaisang, the last step here is to say the words to break the spell. But you were never good at memorization, were you?”

Nie Huaisang bit his lip until he drew blood.

“Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered,” he said. “I have fought my way here to the temple beyond the goblin city –”

“Huaisang, stop! Look at what you’re risking here. You know how everyone loves me – do you think anyone will forgive you for taking me down, for tricking them all? You’ll be all alone!”

I already am, Nie Huaisang thought.

“My will is as strong as yours,” he said. “And my kingdom is as great…”

His voice trailed off.

“I ask for so little,” Jin Guangyao said beseechingly, convincingly, looking just like he always did, like the man who'd been their friend. “Just let me fool you, and you can have anything you want. No responsibilities, no stress, a life of your own. You can even have Lan Xichen, if that’s what you want…”

What’s the last line, Nie Huaisang thought, hating himself for being such a poor student, for cramming things into his mind without any order, for never being able to retain a single drop of it no matter how hard he tried. What is it? Why can’t I ever remember?

“It’d be so easy,” Jin Guangyao crooned. “Much easier than this. Just fear me, love me, believe me, and I’ll be your slave.”

Sharp teeth in a false smile.

Nie Huaisang shook in terror. He couldn’t – his da-ge needed him – he couldn’t be afraid, couldn’t be a coward, couldn’t be good-for-nothing – couldn’t let Jin Guangyao win – couldn’t let him –

That was it.

Nie Huaisang raised his head until his eyes met his enemy’s.

Sensing something wrong, Jin Guangyao’s eternal smile dimmed, and he began to step forward, reaching out, but it was too late.

“You have no power over me,” Nie Huaisang declared, and the world within a world collapsed.

-

Nie Huaisang opened his eyes.

-

Nie Huaisang sat in his desk in the Unclean Realm, trying to amuse himself by trying to figure out what exactly he’d eaten the night before that had given him such bizarre dreams. It was not successful, on account of him being alone.

Alone, just as he had been every night, and every day as well, since the success of his scheme at the Guanyin Temple.

Just as the dream-Jin Guangyao had threatened.

It wasn’t that Nie Huaisang regretted what he had done – the dream was clear enough about that; he’d do it all again in a heartbeat if he had to. But in the dream he’d been working alongside his former friends, with Lan Xichen betraying but then returning to him, with Wei Wuxian dragging Lan Wangji around, with stone-faced Jiang Cheng and the rather interchangeable junior squad behind him…and in his dream, in the end, they’d let him go to take his revenge, telling him that if he needed them for any reason, he could just call.

Just call, and they’d come back to him. Instead of turning from him in disgust, they’d stand by his side…

“Stupid subconscious,” Nie Huaisang mumbled to himself. “What do you expect? That I'd write to them and say ‘for no real reason at all, I find that I rather need you’?”

Silence answered him.

“Well, I do,” he said with a sigh, putting his chin on his hands. “Does that make you happy? I do need you.”

“You do?” Wei Wuxian’s voice rang out, and Nie Huaisang jumped nearly out of his skin. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

Nie Huaisang turned, staring: it was Wei Wuxian at the door, the human version of him, and of course there was Lan Wangji right before him, and Jiang Cheng, and the (still mostly interchangeable) juniors, and – and even Lan Xichen, who Nie Huaisang was sure had gone into seclusion with no intent to leave.

“What are you doing here?” Nie Huaisang squeaked. And why hadn’t any of his sect disciples warned him?

“We just bullied our way though the door before anyone could stop us,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully, answering the unspoken question first. “As for the rest – it turns out that I had the strangest dream the other night, really, truly bizarre, and obviously I had to tell Lan Zhan all about it, except it turned out he had a strange dream too.”

Nie Huaisang’s jaw dropped. “But –”

“I felt da-ge’s qi woven into the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen said quietly. “I thought it’d have long ago dissipated or been locked away, but – it was there, in every stone, in every turn. Every obstacle that didn’t really hurt you, every goblin that was more silly than scary…he was there. It was unmistakable.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed. The story of the labyrinth, baby-stealing wish-granting goblin king and all, had been one that Nie Mingjue had told him as a bedtime story, when he'd been a child in need of comfort; he hadn’t thought of it in years before last night. “But…why…?”

“Because Chifeng-zun has a demented sense of humor?” Jiang Cheng suggested, looking irritated.

“Jiujiu means that he hasn’t had that much fun in years, and also that you should throw a party,” Jin Ling said. “You are hosting all three of the sect leaders of all the other Great Sects. Also, why were we rocks?”

“Uh, no idea,” Nie Huaisang said. “Da-ge’s weird sense of humor, no doubt! Anyway, did you say party? I can do a party!”

He rushed out of the room, calling for his servants, calling for them to bring food and wine and tea, and as he did, he looked out of the window – a golden bird was flying away, looking hunted as if something was chasing it, and even as he watched, it crossed the borders of the Unclean Realm and suddenly dissolved into a fizzle of golden dust.

Nie Huaisang put his hand on the stone wall, and felt a familiar echo.

A very familiar echo.

“Oh,” he said, to his servants, feeling somehow simultaneously sheepish and filled with joy. “And while you’re at it, can you bring me my saber? I seem to have – misplaced it…”

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

The unplanned fourth part to my apparently-a-series on Essek Thelyss in the context of real-world espionage (parts 1, 2, and 3), today we look at an aspect of his story that doesn’t always apply in a D&D world: how do you prosecute espionage? 

Psych! That’s not the real question. The real question is: do you prosecute espionage? The answer is a) not as obvious as it might seem; and b) going to differ between D&D and the real world, because D&D governments are storytelling tools and IRL governments are...not.

The benefits of prosecuting espionage are obvious: the interests of justice are served, the person responsible can be punished appropriately and in accordance with the law, the full extent of their crimes are revealed (including potentially exonerating other suspects), counterintelligence gets to chalk up a win, and other people thinking about committing espionage themselves are hopefully discouraged. But there are a surprising number of arguments in the “against” column.

Some agencies that identify enemy assets want to leave them in place for their own purposes. For about 20 years during the Cold War CIA reserved the right to just plain not tell the Department of Justice if they had proof someone was engaged in espionage because they wanted the opportunity to turn them as double agents, feed them misinformation, etc. rather than outing and punishing them (President Gerald Ford ended this arrangement by executive order in 1976). This isn’t necessarily a good idea IRL, but it forms the bread and butter of RPG espionage storylines and is definitely something to think about in a D&D context.

In the real world, ideally someone can only be found guilty of a crime and punished accordingly after a trial, and an agency often finds itself with sufficient evidence to doubt a person’s trustworthiness but not enough hard proof to take to court. In those cases agencies may decide to leave that person in place but cut off their access to classified info. Ironically, sometimes this means promoting them - moving the person into a higher-ranking job in a different area that just so happens not to deal in secrets. Sometimes the asset realizes they’re close to being rumbled and goes along with the effort, maybe taking retirement early or changing jobs before they can be pushed, and the whole matter will quietly lapse without anything so formal as a trial. Sometimes someone makes a mistake and sidelines a loyal, competent employee. That’s a judgement call.

In the real world, ideally someone can only be found guilty of a crime and punished accordingly after an open trial. Given how severe the punishments are for espionage, civilized countries do try to stick to that even though holding such a trial carries risks. Providing proof that someone stole secrets generally requires talking about said secrets, which means revealing classified info in court, which may negate trying to keep the information secret in the first place. They may also not want to reveal in court how they figured out that person was a spy, especially if it was a double agent or cryptographic source that fingered them. In D&D-land where monarchs are common and still wield judicial power, fantasy rulers may hand down whatever punishment they please based on whatever evidence they (or the DM) will accept, so this isn’t as much of a concern.

Even a D&D monarchy that doesn’t have to worry about revealing secrets in court might think twice before publicly punishing a high-ranking spy, though, because the only thing more embarrassing than failing to convict a major spy is succeeding. A government having to admit that its people were compromised, especially high-ranking people, is a body-blow to its standing both at home and abroad. It damages trust in the government, makes the public feel unsafe, and makes allies hesitant to share information lest their secrets be leaked as well. Lower-ranking government employees may think, “My boss is selling secrets, why not me too?” or “Why bother to follow security protocol when some mole will give it all away?” Every decision and contribution made by the asset becomes retroactively suspect, even those that had nothing to do with whatever secrets they leaked. The foreign nation to whom they passed information inevitably gets drawn in as well, negatively affecting those relations. And of course everyone involved looks very, very bad.

All of which leads me to say I think there’s a chance - maybe not a good chance, but a chance - that Essek could privately confess the affair to the Bright Queen without major public repercussions. Leylas Kryn could simply declare him a traitor and order his public execution without justifying herself, but it would raise a lot of questions and none of the answers would help her or the ruling dens; Den Thelyss allowing Den Kryn to unilaterally execute a high-profile member - a child of the umavi - without explanation would stoke ferocious rumors about what Essek might have done and cast a major shadow over the entire den. But publicly declaring what Essek had done also doesn’t do the Dynasty any favors. It makes everyone involved look very bad - how could they miss a spy at the highest level? so close to the Bright Queen herself?? who can be trusted??? - especially Den Thelyss, which might lose its place among the ruling three as a result. Publicly outing such a high-ranking Kryn official as compromised might set off the Dynasty equivalent of a Red Scare, too, since the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount mentions the constant and well-justified Dynasty fear of agents sent by Lolth to destabilize the Kryn out of sheer spite that they got away from her.

By the time Campaign 2 ended the latest clash between Empire and Dynasty had been settled and neither side seemed to want to stir it up again right away. The fact that both stolen beacons have been returned also bolsters the case for letting the matter lie. A confession from Essek clears up remaining doubt on the Bright Queen’s end - while he doesn’t know every Empire agent in the Dynasty, he can tell her exactly how the beacons were stolen and who else was involved, probably clearing the names of many currently under suspicion. Essek would have to resign as Shadowhand, of course, and leave the Dynasty (at least for a couple centuries), but he never seemed interested in being Shadowhand and he wants to go exploring anyway. Den Thelyss definitely wants the whole affair swept under the rug and would go along with whatever story made that happen. Other than Verin I don’t get the impression many people would miss Essek except as a lost opportunity. I hope they’d give him long enough before leaving Rosohna to pack up his cool leyline-weathervane though. He could totally mount that on Yussa’s tower. Or Allura’s!

And that concludes this particular train of thought re: Essek Thelyss in the context of IRL spies and espionage. Again, all of this is only as relevant to the campaign as the players decide it is, so don’t go giving people crap for being “unrealistic” about their versions of how the beacon trade went down. Frankly the last thing you should want here is realism, because “realistic” espionage is a callous world of deception, manipulation, and general human pettiness with no sense of narrative flow.

None of what I’ve talked about is an excuse for Essek’s actions. But it is a reason. It’s why and how a person entrusted with precious national assets could get into a headspace where it seems reasonable, even necessary, to trade them away to foreign enemies. It’s how a person of otherwise decent character & beliefs can end up committing terrible crimes. It’s why that person might sincerely regret what they’ve done, and not just because they fear punishment. The Warmind Rasputin paraphrases Octavia E. Butler saying, “Misdirected by accident or intent, intelligence can foster its own ecstasies of growth and decay.” In other words: sometimes you get too far into your own head. Without an anchor to reality, without perspective, your own mind gets twisted up. Sometimes you just need a friend (or seven) to grab your arm and say, “Breathe.”

(This accidentally turned into a series on Essek & IRL espionage: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)