#so it doesn't have horrendous mistakes like last part

[imeriayapping]

1 ; 2 ; 3 ; 4

That press conference leaves him raw to his bones and since then it's been feeling like the muscles can't wrap back around them just right, something is constantly off.

Pedro goes through his days trying to focus on racing and what next track will bring but somewhere in the back of his mind the knowledge of his wrongs sits, waiting for him to lower his guard and hit him in the full force again. Instead, Pedro puts the music on max to drown his thoughts and gets ready for the free practice.

.

It doesn't even take that much for the guards to fall and the hit of realisation get to him in full force.

The punch of realisation goes through Pedro after the race. After getting his first MotoGP win. After getting his hair ruffled in parc ferme by the calloused hand that he instinctively knows is Fermin's because that's the motion that has happened a million times before. It's a bit different because the hand is bigger and he has a bit more hair than then but still. Pedro has no need to turn to know who it is congratulating him.

He doesn't even register when he gets on the podium, just finds himself with a trophy in his hand and a victorious scream ripping itself out of his throat. Pedro feels like a fucking superstar, standing on top of the world hearing all of the neverending cheers from the crowd that exists just for him. He finally did it. Sharp teeth finally sank into oh so desired prey, warm blood of the first win making him drunk. Pedro has always thought that he would never want to share this feeling with anyone, hoard it in depth of his heart till the day of his death but somehow he feels a strange pull from inside to hold someone, to shake them, to make them feel the same.

As Spanish anthem start's playing pedro moves his gaze from sea of people under podium, instead choosing to look at his right only to find Fermin beaming at him already.

Just like he always did.

Always because somehow they end up together on the podium each time one has a result so important it will be forever burned into their stories. It's time to open champagne and Pedro needs to fight his initial want to turn away from Fermin. Instead he purposefully sends drink spraying his way.

It feels strange and somewhat unusual like working a muscle that you only engage in specific action and didn't do that exercise in forever. It's tight and makes you aware of its existence by how strange the sensation is but at the same time familiar because of the routine that is worked into your bones with how much you’ve repeated it throughout years.

And Pedro knows, he remembers how it is to narrow his attention to a boy shining like a star whenever Pedro layed his eyes on him and how it is to see full attention flicker to him after the first few drops of celebratory drink hits Fermin skin.

But it still feels a bit unnatural now. Which is confusing and stacked on top of too many other emotions, it makes Pedro feel a headache that builds up in the back of his head, spreading bit by bit and disorienting him further.

Thankfully he doesn't stumble on his way from the podium and even manages to find a quiet spot somewhere in the maze of motorhomes, deserted and quiet, ideal to catch a breath and fight a headache that sticks to Pedro like prosecco that his leathers are still soaked in.

Paddock continues to buzz around his hiding spot but somehow his little bubble of close metal walls doesn't let through nearly as much sounds as he knows there is outside. Small space makes him feel less taxing and Pedro can take a deep breath or two before getting back into the midst of chaos.

His head spins with too much of everything at the same time and it's hard to grasp any of it.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Bring light floods Pedro's vision when he opens his eyes, not even noticing when they shut. Buzz is still going trumping every bone in his body but the typhoon got quieter, more like white noise. Each muscle feels tight and it takes deliberate effort to make himself relax, even a bit, just enough to be able to fall back on the wall behind him and loosen the grip of his hands.

Cold touch to his back helps to reduce the buzz while a light clink of glass makes Pedro focus on where it came from. He finds that in his hurry to get away he’s taken a bottle of prosecco with him and with how tight his fists were didn't even notice. Thankfully, he was already sitting so it didn't shatter from impact but now that he looks at it all his attention is zoned in just there.

Pedro only now realises that some of that dizziness probably comes from having alcohol on the podium, not that he cares. But what it leads to is him thinking about Fermin. Again.

It's strange, he saw Fermin from afar for all this time, in the corner of his vision going through paddock or a stray post of his when Pedro was scrolling Instagram to numb his brain. Now looking back he still was there at all times, even with all Pedro's effort to block him out he truly never left. This thought makes something warm spill inside him, gratefulness for Fermin staying somewhat close by even when he knew that Pedro won't reciprocate with the same kindness.

Suddenly his shoulder and hand starts tingling, the memory of the celebratory hug he’d received after winning his moto2 title making itself apparent, it was one of many that day but it was stored in a hidden corner of his brain without him even knowing that. Pedro didn't appreciate it at the time but now it's for sure going to be one of the memories he will cherish more.

And with that his mind continues wandering in that day reminding him that podium that day was one of the reasons why he needed to put effort into not turning his back on Fermi today. Small correction: why he needed to put effort into not turning his back on Fermi again.

He wants to smash his head against the wall. This makes Pedro feel so dumb, it makes him realise that he could get so many more shiny smiles sent his way in the last few years if only he hadn't closed off completely. But in the end that's what got him the title isn't it? So looking back he's truly not sure whether he would change anything.

And now all that is left for Pedro is to hope that Fermin didn't give up on seeing the person that he was before. He hopes that Fermin also still has that little boy that Pedro spent countless days with inside himself too.

[somecheeseguy]

It seems I've forgotten to upload my opinion on the Ithaca saga, first of all, I would like to say that it is my favorite saga, second of all, all of the songs in the saga are absolute perfection, now let me list out why all of them are such perfection;

1) the challenge: it gives us all the build up we need, it truly showcases the love that Penelope has for Odysseus, she is risking her life by lying to the suitors just so that he has more time, and even when she gives up hope, she proposes one last chance.

2) hold them down: the suitors are getting angry and impatient, they understand the true meaning of the challenge and they are about to do something about it. The song builds up the tension, you know something horrendous is about to happen and you pray that someone intervenes.(Also I really like the end part with antinous singing alongside the suitors)

3) Odysseus: we finally get a ruthless, bloodthirsty Odysseus, willing to strike down anyone who stands in-between him and his family, he unleashes his pent up rage from 20 years of mistakes and losses. He will not stop until his family is safe from all source of harm. Also I would like to mention the open arms part, not only is it one of the best parts of the song because it sound good, you must also think about the thoughts ody is having while the suitors is talking, he is a living projection of polites, and having to strike him down, seeing your best friend for twice, once by your hands.

4) I can't help but wonder: Odysseus, finally done with his journey, and he is reunited with his son, finally after 20 years, he can be at peace. Also, the Athena part, just Athena truly understanding that there does exist a way to be peaceful, but for Odysseus, it is simply too late.

5) would you fall in love with me again: the climax we've all been waiting for, Odysseus and Penelope finally reunited. Odysseus who is now a monster in his own eyes, doesn't believe the love between them can be the same, note that when he explains his past actions he regrets we get to hear the melodies of Poseidon, Zues and Scylla, but in the end their love is eternal and cannot be faltered by the 20 years they have spent apart.

Thanks for listening to my long rant, and sorry I'm late with this.

[adventuringblind]

Drive With You Forever

Chapter 8.5: Play Rough

Max Verstappen x Charles Leclerc x Lando Norris x Reader x Oscar Piastri

Chapter summary: four go two a bar, two end up covered in marks

Warnings: PinV, dom/sub, rough sex, marking, possessive behavior, sub space, hair pulling, titles (daddy, sir)

Notes: gotta have some self-discovery, ya know?

Masterlist

This was not how she thought their night would be ending. Just stopping in at the after-party and then coming back to the room for some well-deserved sleep.

There was no sleep happening in this hotel room tonight.

They had gone to the after party. She was wearing a dress in a pretty blue color that she felt confident in. It wasn't revealing. The insecure part of her brain told her that she would be an embarrassment if she showed off her skin and scars anymore than she already was.

They all looked good, in her honest opinion. The other three had her feeling all sorts of things with just their clothes.

The group had split into pairs. Her and Lando went up to the bar. Nothing strong for them, neither of them quite like the feeling of alcohol.

Charles and Max have a tendency to keep putting away the alcohol and the younger two end up dragging them back to bed. So they get the privilege of going first while the olders meet up with their mates.

"You look pretty tonight. Is there a special someone you're dressing for?" He winks comically bad. He knows the answer to his question. She'd done it for herself, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try and make her blush.

The reason they travel in pairs is because places like this have a tendency to lower people's filters. They up the creepy and stupid factor by too much on most occasions.

Her first experience at a club was horrendous. She was not prepared for the amount of close proximity encounters and men touching her waist.

She didn't know why she flinched so hard. Almost as if her body was on auto pilot for something she had no clue about.

Regardless, he touched her and tried to steal her away from Max. His mistake, really. The Dutch doesn't particularly like sharing with strangers.

Max is possessive. It's not in a bad way. He's just extremely protective. She'd confided in him and had shared her fears with him. If something made her scared or uncomfortable, then he had every intention of fixing the problem.

He'd punched him, and then they left.

Max had done something similar with Lando, though much less aggressive.

The Brit struggles to make himself heard at times. His natural instinct is to keep the peace if someone gets aggressive with him. Unless it's him being a brat on purpose to get Max to be rough with him.

Again, they'd decided to go out with some friends to a club. Lando had found himself alone at the bar waiting for a drink. His loneliness lasted seconds.

A woman, who she'd found beautiful herself, had approached him. She'd started the unwanted advances on him, and he could not get the idea through to her that he wasn't interested.

She'd continued, though. She went as far as to run her fingers along his patches of skin that his t-shirt didn't cover.

He wanted to scream at her to stop, but his voice kept getting caught in his throat.

She'd seen it escalate farther. The vision hitting her like a train. She'd tapped Max's should and simply said 'Lando' and 'help'.

Max was gone in an instant, putting himself between Lando and the obnoxious woman. Then, he proceeded to tell her off. He didn't care who was looking. If someone asked, he was defending a friend.

Charles and the female ended up making a trip to the store that night. Lando had so many hickies and a good few that needed to be covered.

After those couple incidents, they travel in pairs. It didn't matter who or where. They always have a buddy, as Lando likes to call it.

But even the buddy system can't always save them.

Despite the empty seats at the bar, a couple of similar age to them sit down on either side of the two. It felt oddly like a trap, and she was already uncomfortable. She catches how Lando drops his hand down to the side and she discreetly takes it.

Her and Lando had come up with a secret language a while back. It allows them to talk during conversations with other people or about Charles and Max when they are in the room.

She threw a few rapid taps into his palm. 'Unsafe'

'Copy. Leave?'

Before she can respond, the two are striking up an incredibly forward conversation.

"Are you two together?" Smirks the male.

For publicty reasons. "No, just friends."

"What a shame, you're both just too adorable." Purrs the woman next to her. "Maybe you want to come get some advice about bedroom performance? Or just to have some fun."

She feels sick. "I have a boyfriend." She settles for. A line Hana actually told her to use. The majority of unwanted advances can be stopped with just that line. Even if they keep talking, they are less likely to try anything.

"And it’s not the fine, young man?" The man on the other side of Lando starts messing with Lando's collar. His freeze response kicking in hard.

"No, but he'll be over here shortly." She tries to smile politely, so this doesn't escalate.

"But you're both so pretty. I really don't want to let this opportunity go to waste." The girl assumes that the woman now pawing at the hem of her dress and thighs is delusional.

Her response is much different from Lando. She has a tendency to fight if people start touching her. More aggressive than she likes, but its sort of deserved on their end.

She's shoving th woman away from her. Batting her hands away from her thighs. Yet the woman still persists, and she can see that they are using it as a distraction to put something in the drinks in front of them.

Max and Charles enter the bar area and see them struggling. Charles is quick to grab Max's shoulder to stop him from doing something rash.

Both of them stride over, and it looks oddly intimidating. She man and woman halt their actions as they approach.

"I don't think they like that very much." Charles crosses his arms over his chest.

"I'm giving you a chance to get away." Seethes Max.

Then, the couple is scrambling to get away. Leaving the younger two in shock and distress.

She vaugly remembers something about 'Claiming them' being said on the ride back to the hotel.

Which is where they are now. Clothes scattered about. The sun is gone, and the only light is now a dim lamp.

"I feel like I've done something wrong." Admits the Brit. He's sitting on the bed in his boxers, waiting for anything to happen. His back is to her, and she's sitting in the exact same position on the opposite side of the bed.

"Nope, but that interaction had us wanting you both." Expresses Charles. "Might leave a few marks to show everyone that you're taken."

Charles winks at her and leaves her a blushy mess. Sometimes, she hates what they do to her. Yet she simultaneously loves it.

"You know Charles, I think we ought to remind them why it is they chose us and not people like them." He suggests.

Max basically manhandles Lando into where he wants him. Underneath and pleading with his eyes.

Max attacks his collar bone. She can her the Dutch doing his best to mark him. She can't see them since her back is turned, but she listens.

Charles eyes her up and down before doing the same. Though he is much more gentle. They are all gentle with her. Sometimes, she wishes they'd be rough with her also.

She looks away from Charles for a second and gazes over at the other two with jealousy.

"Words, amour."

"Can we- do like they're doing? I guess." She stutters out.

Charles grabs her chin and brings her gaze back to him. "You want me to be rough?"

She nods yes eagerly. The anticapation building up inside her is insane. She feels like she might spontaneously combust.

"Tell me if you don't like it and we'll stop, okay?"

"Okay."

Then Charles is doing the same to her. Tossing her limbs around to get her situated where he wants her. He trails kisses and marks a path down to the waistband of her underwear. He peels them off of her and tosses them aside.

"I think someone likes this." He winks. Once again, leaving her to blush.

He teases her with the tip of his finger. She almost whines at the feeling, but she can't as he decides to thrust his fingers inside her with an intense speed.

She looks next to her where Lando is getting more of the same treatment from Max. The Brits moans only grow from watching her and Charles.

"I think they like this, Charlie." Smirks Max. The cheeky Dutch is listening to some of his favorite sounds at the moment, and he never wants it to end.

She can hardly register what's happening. Charles has more than one finger in her, and she knows she's not going to last much longer.

Much to her dismay, he pulls out of her. She looks at him with curiosity as he starts stripping himself of his clothes.

Max turns his attention to the Monegasque and pulls him in for a sloppy kiss. He helps Charles out of his clothes and then discards his own. It's clumsy, but they could care less.

She takes a second to look at Lando. The bright red marks already blossoming around his skin. She can't help herself and reaches out to caress the biggest mark on his collarbone. She'd had a fascination with how a bruise can be pretty.

Lando throws her a smile. Her curiosity is one of his favorite things about her.

The older two finally turn their attention back to them. The look on endearingly as the female continues to study each mark. On the Brit.

"You wanna leave one?" Max asks her. She'd never left a mark on any of them. To scared she'd hurt them or do it wrong.

But seeing how Lando is enjoying it makes her want to. She nods her head yes, and the odd bit of excitement of doing something new comes back.

"Why don't you put it on the bottom of his neck. He likes it there." Max guides her, and she does as suggested.

As soon as she her lips hit the spot, Lando is a mess again. One of his hands finding the back of her head and strokes her hair.

She takes her time deliberately licking, sucking, and biting. She can feel Lando squirming and feeling the moans in his throat. It only intensifies when the older two find their way back to them. Their hands now roaming everywhere.

Max is the one that pulls her off. "See, isn't that a pretty mark?" She smiles at her work and the out of breath Lando.

Then Lando lands a kiss to her lips. It's sloppy and hungry, and she has no idea what to do next.

Max and Charles guide them. Her lips are still on Landos even as they are moved.

The fact that they've done this before and it still feels new every time makes a mess of her. Charles is taking her from behind. she and Lando are attempting to have contact, but it's difficult when he's also being taken by Max. It's rough, and it's hot, and she hasn't even finished and is still in a state of bliss.

Charles' grip on her hips and thighs is bruising, and his pace is once again relentless. She can't help but fall further into the mattress.

Charles doesn't let that slide and is pulling on her hair to bring her back up. It hurts a little, but she likes it and can stop the heavy moan that leaves her lips because of it.

"Look at Lando. Look at the mess you've helped make of him." He leans down and whispers into her skin.

She wants to think about it more. She wants to think about Lando's whines of pleasure and the sounds of Max and Charles' sloppy kisses above her.

But she can't because she's fuzzy in the head and on the verge of falling over the edge into complete bliss.

"Can I- please- need to."

Charles redirects his attention to her. His hand. Slips around the front, forcing her jaw upwards as Max mirrors the motion. She is now staring straight into Lando's eyes.

She might die here, she thinks.

"Beg for it. Need to hear how bad you want it Chéri." Charles punctuates with a deep guttural moan.

"Please, I want it so bad- please, Daddy Mm need it." The name does things to Charles, and she knows it.

The title of sorts came before Lando joined. It was originally Max's, and occasionally, it still is, but when they are both dominant like this, then Max is sir, and Charles is daddy because they have to differentiate somehow.

Regardless, she lets it slip and then Charles' hips stutter. She registers the permission she needs, and then she's gone. Lando is falling with her. She would love to see it, but her vision is going blurry as Charles gets her through the high.

It's all heavy panting for a moment. Then Lando is whining, and Max and Charles are whispering to each other.

She sometimes hates herself for getting so deep into the headspace that she can't think of anything else. And the not lack of touch is making her want to cry.

Until the familiar feeling of Max's rough hand is palming at her ass. He flips her with ease. Something she's yet to get used to. Then, he caresses her face gently. Lando is already moaning heavily once again, followed by the familiar moans of Charles.

"Gonna let sir take care of you, yeah?" And who is she to say no? She mumbles a slew of 'yes' and 'please', but it's not at all coherent.

"Want sir in me, please." She manages through small pants and whines. And Max is never one to waste time. She's already stretched, so he doesn't wait. He immediately sets an inhuman pace.

She finds her gaze drifting to other places only for it to be brought back to Max by force. "Eyes stay on me." Somehow, the eye contact only increases the pleasure.

It's like her mind has overridden itself. Wanting nothing more than to hear the praise she craves and is willing to do anything to get it.

"Don't need to ask."

The part of her mind that can't form coherent words becomes relieved. She's not sure she could ask if she wanted to.

Max's hands grip into her hip and thigh. Again, she can hear more than she sees. Lando has found his peek again, presumably, by the whiny scream he lets out. The next is Charles, who is shockingly not as vocal tonight. Yet the French swearing gives him away.

Her eyes are still firmly placed on Max. His eyes glazed over with nothing but lust. He presses his body further into hers. The skin on skin lighting every one of her nerves on fire.

Max grips onto her collar bone with his teeth. The suddenness of it causes her back to arch. Her vision goes fuzzy as she finds herself jumping off the ledge into a pool of bliss and pleasure.

It's beautiful. Her boys are beautiful. It's the only thought her mind can grab onto as Max slows.

He pulls out of her slowly, then crawls down the length of her body. Kissing every scar along the way. The feeling makes her ever more drowsy.

He takes the opportunity to bite and suck in a few different places. Leaving marks every Charles and Lando had yet to leave any. Her body was clearly marked.

"No falling asleep yet. We need to clean up and get liquids in us." Max pulls himself away from her, and she almost cries at no longer being able to feel anyone's skin on hers.

Charles splays his ringed fingers on her thigh. The new sensation makes her shiver.

The two are exchanging words and endearing looks. Charles and Max are cute like that.

"We're going to clean up and grab a few things. We'll be back in two minutes to help the two of you, okay?" She shakes her head yes, not completely understanding, but she heard him, which is the important part right now.

Charles replaces his hand with Lando's. Who ultimately just drags her body into his for more contact.

Something about post sex cuddles makes her feel fluttery. Specifically with Lando because usually he's just as out of it as her.

"Don't think I'll be walking tomorrow." He mumbles into her shoulder. "Did you like it rough? I'll beat 'em up if you didn't."

"It was... fun? I'm not sure how else to describe it." She forgets sometimes that Sex doesn't have to be serious. She can have fun and still feel good.

"Next, I'll teach you how to say 'make me'."

Max and Charles come out from wherever they and a loud 'absolutely not' can be heard from the two in unison.

~

Tags: @styles-sunflower @purplephantomwolf @boiohboii @reblog-princess-blog @jayda12 @faithm120601 @eugene-emt-roe @lpab @yaaadii @80sloverry @spongebeck3101 @eviethetheatrefreak @chanshintien @vellicora @hollie911 @pretty-little-bunny382728 @be-your-coffee-pot

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Chloe Bourgeois Part 2: Why is Chloe?

Hello everyone! In case it wasn't obvious by the title, this is a part 2 to this post right there! I'd sincerely recommend reading it since you'll need the context. Anyhow, moving right onto where I left off!

[...]

Okay...deep breath. In and out. I'm...totally fine. Anyway, considering all of the above, it's pretty clear that Chloe has a lot of problems. Mental Health problems, to be exact. And natually, this circles back to her bigget fault in this entire show. Bullying the main character. Now, bullying sucks. It's bad, don't do it. This is coming from a person who got relentlessly bullied for years on end by the way, so I'm on Marinette's side here! She's right not to trust Chloe in Vanisher, because she's fourteen and has years worth of trauma related to this girl! In her experience Chloe is never helpful, and often the antithesis of that word. Sure, Ladybug should have looked past that as part of her job, but Chat Noir doesn't either! The only reason he ever gives her the benefit of the doubt is because it's Adrien under the mask! So as far as I'm concerned, Marinette didn't do anything wrong (yet) with how she handled Chloe. And any mistakes she does make are if not justifiable then at least understadable given their history. But on the Chloe side of things, she has every reason to hate Marinette. From all the classmates we have info on, Marinette is the only one with a happy, complete and loving family in the way that Chloe has always wished her's way. Obligatory reminder that Alya wasn't in their class until Origins. We never see Alix or Sabrina's moms, I'm half convinced Nino's parents don't exist because they've never been mentioned once the whole show, Max and Juleka only have their moms and possinly daddy issies, etc. Something ain't right with any of the familial situations here. So obviously, when Chloe sees someone who she's been taught by Audrey (again, her role model in formative years) is "beneath" her, as in, fundementally inferior to their own existence, and Marinette has a loving family that adores her unconditionally, is it any fucking wonder she acts out???

Again! And this is the last time I'll say it! So sing along, everyone! ~Bullying is bad! Don't do it kids!~ What Chloe does (even without that horrendous spider-pool-thing of a retcon) is obviously wrong!!! Okay??? It's bad!!! Because hurting other to feel better is a shitty thing to do! Nevermind that it doesn't work!!! I am not going to repeat myself again! But the root of Chloe's problems is her family. She's been raised by two (barely one, but let's pretend) people who make me wonder if parenting licences should be a thing, and are prime examples of the fact while every kid deserves a parent, the opposite is very much not true! Marinette effortlessly has what Chloe craves, parental love! And at the time they first meet, they should both be like 9 or 10! Obviously Chloe takes things too far, but considering she's emotionally stunted and the people around her have to do as she says, no wonder she's royally pissed the moment she encounters something that she can't throw daddy's money at and win! That's what Audrey taught her is correct, and what Andre constantly encourages!

Understanding all of this, we circle back to Style Queen. Fucking Style Queen, man. Chloe accidentally finds the Bee Miraculous. And honestly? The argument of "Marinette shouldn't have dropped it" is fucking ridiculous. Listen, the coffee cup in Sentibubbler I can understand, but don't grasp at straws like this. For Nooroo's sake! Moving right along, dear God does this go badly. Up to this point, we've got a vague idea that Chloe is willing to help Ladybug and Chat Noir (aside from just being a self-proclaimed superfan), given that she did so in Vanisher, Despair Bear, and possibly another episode that I'm forgetting about. Doesn't matter. So now, Chloe Bourgeois is in possession of a magical macguffin that gives her heroes their superpowers. Naturally, this is a pretty big thing. Unfortunately, Chloe doesn't even get the chance to be responsible here, because Audrey immediately goes on a rant about how useless she is and how she could never be "exceptional". Aka: hits all of Chloe's trauma buttons with a Greathammer. Wonderful job, local Karen! This immediately prompts Chloe to take what she knows is exceptional (superpowers) and flaunt it in her mother's face. She transforms in a room full of people, including Gabriel Agreste, but I don't care about him in this rant, and runs out to try and find a crime to stop!

Because of course, heroes do good things! But you know, helping an old lady cross the street or rescuing a kitten isn't exactly "exceptional material" so Chloe instantly goes for the heavy hitters. And has the incredibly stupid idea of the whole train wreck bs. Yes, I know it was a subway or something, I don't care. The point stands. Naturally, stupidity attracts dumbassery, and so the local watermelon and her furry companion show up to put a stop to Chloe's shenanigans. Kudos to Ladybug by the way, for recognizing the situation for the problematic mess that it was and trying to comfort Chloe. Excellent character delevopment from Marinette here. Unironically I love that she still does this even though she doesn't have to. Nowhere in the superhero manual does it say "talk to your bully because she's having a shitty moment with her abusive mother", but Marinette does it anyway because she's cool like that. And then...a miracle happens! Praise Nooroo, because Chloe "Queen B" Bourgeois apologizes for causing a mess! I can't believe it! And then...Nadja does what reporters do best, and screws everything up. As an aside, can you tell I don't like "reporter" characters? This goes for Alya too, I hate it when they insert themselves in clearly private situations for the sake of a "scoop". My sister in Nooroo, if it's a scoop you want then go interview Andre Glacier! I do like Alya, got a whole "In Offense to..." post about her in the works. And I promise not to bash her. It's the writing's fault.

Anyway, back to Nadja being an idiot. Because naturally, a child is in emotional distress! And even more naturally, she decides the best way to handle a clearly fragile situation in a city where people get turned into violent supervillains for feeding the goddamn pigeons (lookin' at you, Xavier!) is to...live stream it on television. For the entire country of France! And even more naturally, she also gets Chloe's abusive mother on the line so the child in question can be belittled on NATIONAL TELEVISION for what she already knows is wrong, and has been handled by the proper authority. Because I don't trust a single adult in this universe, Ladybug is a thousand times more reliable! Like seriously, she's just been Akumatized!

Does Nadja want it to happen again? Anyway, this utter debacle marks the beginning of Chloe's career as Queen Bee, the superhero Ladybug brings in when she needs to and then puts back in the box until next time! Mind you, I do not blame Marinette for this, considering that she acknowledges Chloe is capable and willing to help, even says so to her at one point. Then we go through Maledictator, Heart Hunter, Miraculer, etc. And it becomes pretty clear that Hawkmoth is actively targeting Chloe. Because, you know, she's the only Miraculous Holder whose identity was public. All the while, Chloe actually seems to mellow out a little bit in her civilian life. Sure, she does that hillarious thing where interviews Queen Bee which is honestly just funny and should have been given extra points for the effort of doing it herself instead of forcing Sabrina to do it for her. I mean that instead of encouraging Chloe's bad behavior by being unreasonably permissive, miss Bustier should encourage her good behavior little by little, like doing things on her own and the compliments thing she has the class do. To her credit, Chloe does seem to be trying, and slowly finding her footing with all these new dynamics. Even with Sabrina, she seems to be treating her better now. They play "Ladybug and Chat Noir" together, and all that stuff. I won't get into it here because I want to move onto the actual conclussion of this rant, but you get my point.

Despite all this, Chloe is still very...Chloe. But she does seem to be doing a little better. I'm fairly sure Marinette or at least Adrien acknowledges that at some point, but anyway. The reason why I think Chloe's behavior improves is because she finally feels like she belongs. In Team Miraculous, I mean. Sure, Ladybug is their leader who she listens to, but that's just the thing. Ladybug leads, she doesn't boss people around. And Chloe already looked up to her, and willingly chooses to follow. It's good for her, even if we're taking baby steps here. And then...Miracle Queen happens. I'll honestly be damned as to why Marinette got butchered here, because this is a fault of the writing. Like, I'm sorry, they build up this understanding that Chloe can't be Queen Bee anymore between her and Ladybug, and then just...take it away? H-how do you take away an established dynamic??? Not like this, that's how! People are saying Marinette should have sat Chloe down and explained things better, and yeah okay that would have helped, but you guys realize Gabriel was actively praying on her worst feelings, right? Gabriel who knows Chloe's family and also has emotional manipulation powers? All he had to do was feed into all these doubts one last time and get her to agree for like, five seconds. Akuma goes in, and she's on his side now!

And hot take? I like Miracle Queen! I like the direction they tried to take this in! Because it's clearly a "battling your inner demons" storyline, which fits perfectly with the fact that Chloe needs a good support system to function properly. She's still so deeply steeped into the crap that Andre and Audrey taught her that she needs help, and that's okay! For Nooroo's sake, needing help from your friends is completely okay! You should ask for it when you can't do something on your own! And Chloe does try to! She has a fucking Batman Signal knock-off on her rooftop! It's...certainly a method. Then again she doesn't have Ladybug's phone number, so... Anyway yeah. The thing is that I think it's okay for Chloe to need a support system, and then Gabriel takes advantage of her when said network isn't there. He's actively manipulating a child here. Yes, Chloe does give into his manipulation and by extension her own darker self, but I think that's the point. Or at least I perceive it as a "healing is hard, takes time, mistakes will be made alone the way" kinda thing. Which works regarldess of a "Redemption Arc" or no! if they wanted to redeem Chloe, then here's another huge conflict to work through! Here's something that ruined the trust she had with Ladybug and left them both vulnerable! Here's a really cool plot thread that can be explored between Chloe and Adrien, because he's the only who as far as Chloe knows, doesn't hate her (which would be logical to assume for Ladybug given what she did). You want to go "Corruption Arc"? Welp, here's a tale of caution! Here's a display of Hawkmoth as a competent villain who utterly decimated Ladybug's team! Here's a reason for Chloe to defensively slip back into old patterns and emphasize that she's bitter towards her friends because nobody helped her! Again, great character conflict! Beautiful idea, a fine message even!

Surpring absolutely nobody, Thomas Astruc does neither of these. Or rather, he tries to do both, and fails at both. Let's keep the Chloe point for a bit longer before we bring Zoe into this mess, okay? The problem I have with Miracle Queen is that it fundementally half-asses the above, in quite possibly the stupidest way possible. Like I said above, it was previously established (I'm fairly sure in Miraculer) that Chloe understood she couldn't be Queen Bee anymore. And yeah okay she seemed bummed, but still got Ladybug's reasoning. Because you know, Marinette talked to her about it! And then the show just...forgets this happened??? I get that Chloe wants to be a hero, which I think is probably her only halfway healthy coping mechanism for all the crap she's dealing with, but she's clearly shown to agree with Ladybug's decision, even begrudgingly. And suddenly, with almost no fanfare or buildup, Gabriel "Mothballs" Agreste swoops in for a glory kill and manipulates Chloe into getting Akumatized. Again, I know this is a "battle with her inner demons" thing, but it genuinely doesn't matter! Because Hawkmoth is grooming her right now! Aside from the horrible connotation of the word, it also refers to general manipulation of a person's mental state. But you know what peeves me greatly? This seems to happen instantly! I would have loved it if we took two or three episodes to show Chloe being upset over losing the one place (Team Miraculous) where she felt accepted, I would have liked to see her talk to Sabrina about how she feels like shit because she can't help Ladybug anymore. Even better, an outburst where despite logically understanding that she's right, Chloe blames Ladybug for taking the easy way out of the Queen Bee problem.

Let's face it, Ladybug did take the easy solution here. Now, I don't blame Marinette at all for this. She's fourteen, has the world's weight on her shoulders, a very poor history with Chloe, and took the Bee Miraculous away because she thought that this would keep her teammate safe. Marinette did the best she could, with good intentions! Personally I think Fu should have stepped in here at least indirectly, but he's a poor mentor to Ladybug anyway (yes I have a "In Offense to..." post for him in mind) so of course paranoid Fu wouldn't involve himself. The point is that neither Marinette or Chloe are actually at fault for Queen Bee getting benched. It's a shitty situation that only delays the inevitable bomb from dropping on the heroes' heads by just a bit longer. Now, during this lull in storytelling, Hawkmoth should have tried approaching Chloe again. You know, send another Akuma maybe as she's venting to Sabrina about how she hates the situation she's been placed in. As a reminder, Chloe is the first person to reject an Akuma in this entire show. So for her to again (if more reluctantly) refuse Gabriel's offer to team up would be in character. A second interaction here could have forshadowed Miracle Queen better. Maybe Chloe pauses after Hawkmoth is done pitching his plan, and then after a second or two, she throws him out of her head. Give us another episode where's struggling, and I think her "turn to the Dark Side" in Miracle Queen would have been received much less poorly than it actually did.

This isn't to say that Chloe shouldn't have accepted Hawkmoth's offer. In my opinion, it's a good thing that she did, because it builds character. Even if I "Redemption Arc" had always been the goal, they absolutely could have still done this, so long as it got even a little bit of buildup. And...we again to the fundemental problem I have with Astruc's writing. I know there's other people in the room as well, but it's he who is the "lead writer" and who also made the most buzz about this choice online after Miracle Queen first released. Thomas just...doesn't know how to build up major events. With the sole exception of Shadowmoth's Last Attack, which I have nothing but praise for as a finale, Thomas literally never bothers showing us anything. This is also a problem I have with Gabriel's eventual spiral of insanity, because while "show don't tell" is a good policy to have, even "tell" is a much better option than nothing at all! The reason why Miracle Queen feels so bloody jarring is because for the first and last time in this show's history...they mostly managed to build up a proper Character Arc. Except Thomas and Co. fumbled at the end, and didn't devote almost any time to the entire Season's payoff!

I unironically believe this is just a targeted attack meant to drive anyone with common sense completely and utterly mad, because they spent twenty-something episodes building up to Miracle Queen...and failed to explain why it even happened. I mean yeah, "Gabriel bad, he has a plan, it actually works for once" is what we get, but this is a logical fallacy in and of itself, because if it was the plan from the beginning, then why isn't there any buildup for the final part of this character development? Thomas' failure to properly show the aftermath of Chloe's benching, and make it clear that she is falling into her bad habits again, therefore reverting to a "villain" character because she lacks the support system which helped her be a better person, is the exact reason why anyone is even arguing that there "should" have been a Redemption Arc in the first place!

Note again: Time for part 3, I promise I'm nearly done! Not like this took two weeks to write or something!

< previous post | next post >

[mimisempai]

Your mother and your loved ones would die if you don't delete that Mobius holding mjolnir shit. I am going to personally kill you. Mobius is a nobody

Hello dear anon, I thank you for your friendly advice and will delete this horrible post as soon as possible.

__________

As if I'd do that. First of all, so that everyone can see what you're talking about, here's the famous edit that you find horrendous.

I'm usually polite in my replies but I'm between my sixth and seventh night shift so forgive me if I'm a bit rude sometimes. I'll do my best.

Let's skip the death threats on my mother, my loved ones, on me. We all know it's a load of hot air. It's like Mc Cain's fries: it's those who talk the most who eat the least.

Let's get to the heart of the matter:

MOBIUS IS A NOBODY

Warning: any Mobius hater who feels obliged to react to this post will be blocked. "Blocked" yes, because dear anon, that's what you should have done. All you'd have had to do was block the tags, "MObius" "Mobius m mobius" etc… and we'd both be having a peaceful breakfast (on my part) enjoying more of what we love. Unfortunately for you, your message arrived before my first coffee.

Mobius is a nobody. Let me tell you, I'd like to meet this kind of nobody more often. Someone who sees beyond what the world sees in you. Someone who really questions your motives. Someone who sees what you're capable of and gives you the chance to do it. Someone with compassion.

But also someone who's not perfect, who's not afraid to question his own mistakes.

Because for me, that's what season 1 of Loki is all about. Mobius, who gives Loki his trust and, in so doing, enables him to find his true purpose. Loki returning that trust to Mobius and confronting him with the truth, allowing him to find his true purpose as well. They're not perfect. They're not flawless. And I'm fine with that. So I can recognize myself in them. They're both worthy of Mjolnir for that. I could add that you aren't, but that would contradict everything I've just said. So I address to you the words of Mobius, "You could be whoever you want to be, even someone good." Someone good doesn't pour out its hatred in anonymous messages. Someone good focuses on what he loves, what makes him happy, not on what fills him with hate. I'm sure you've got it in you. Look for it (and block me if it helps). In any case, thank you for once again allowing me to express my love for Mobius and Loki and their dynamic. I wish you a nice day (don't let MObius and Mjolnir spoil it) as for me, I'm going to write the fluffy fanfic I left hanging to answer you (I really need it).

PS: those who suggest I disable the Anon function, I won't do it because basically it's for shy people or those who don't dare and I want to give them the space to still express themselves here. I can bear the two or three who misuse it.

At last, much love to you all! Enjoy your Sunday!

[flowerbloom-arts]

Sorry if this is obvious but how did they retcon the moominpappa backstory? Do Hodgkins, Joxter, Muddler, and Fuzzy just straight up not exist?

Okay so like... let's start with the stuff the episodes actually tell us.

There's one episode where the Moomin family (Sniff, My and Snorkmaiden included) get invited to Aunt Jane's mansion, which is pretty cool to see tbh, we finally get to see what her living situation is (she doesn't even have a housekeeping staff, she's so goddamn lonely)

And in one scene the kids are cleaning a room and they happen upon a photo album, and the album features... a younger Moominpappa living with Aunt Jane at what appears to be a summer house....

Now, this is an odd discrepancy that goes unquestioned by the kids but it's not unreconcilable with Adventures of Moominpappa, maybe this is just one childhood summer Moominpappa deliberately left out of his story because it didn't contribute to his story and he doesn't like Jane. That's a minor enough piece of lore to make it make sense.

But then there's Return To Childhood, the episode with Wimsy.

After a mishap with the kids except Moomintroll mistaking Wimsy for an intruder, Wimsy and Moominpappa explain the history of their friendship to everyone, and what they say is uhhhh... (checks notes)

Moominpappa would constantly change schools in his childhood and then he and Wimsy were dormmates at the last school he went to.

...

Now that completely throws AoMP out the window.

We also have real tangible proof of this in the episode, Moominpappa and Wimsy try going on a little adventure together and they come across their old school, it even has the initials they carved on a tree and the same principal is still running the school (AND DOESN'T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THE FILLYJONK PRINCIPAL).

And based on the kids that currently attend the school it seems that this is a an elementary/middle school?

(they're wearing costumes for a festival here)

And that's like. Woah. Holy crap??? Moominpappa like...... actually lied to us. ATLEAST about the majority of his life. And of course the kids don't question this because of Bad Writing BUT WE KNOW NOW.

Though, with all of this I'd have to backpedal and say that Edward the Booble as he was does in fact exist, there's an episode where the characters get Edward so they can use his tears to heal a mermaid tail, although he doesn't seem... quite as big as he was in AoMP (it could just be the animator's horrendous inability to be on model but this is beside the point)

The Ghost, is also real, we all saw him in the Dame Elaine episode didn't we. It's undeniably him, it has all the references we need without a shadow of a doubt despite the very different appearance between that episode and AoMP.

Allegedly he still lived on the island the Oshun Oxtra were on (but we could also argue that it wasn't necessarily that particular island, or it could mean that Moominpappa did in fact go to That island but the events didn't transpire the way MP said they did)

The fact Moominpappa is lying about his backstory could also explain his utter lack of familiarity with Mymblemamma despite his claims of having been friends with her in his youth (allegedly in the Japanese dub MP didn't actually say she was Little My's mother and that she was just another lookalike like the rest of the parents, but also allegedly in the Finnish dub he did say she was her mom, so which is it??) and we can't chalk it up to the show's lack of continuity because based on the Dame Elaine episode the show was perfectly capable of having continuity that adheres to MP's Memoirs even before they actually adapted it. (Both Dame Elaine and Moomin Builds a House were episodes before AoMP part 1)

And the most damning thing about this whole thing is that if you actually watch the AoMP episodes, Moominmamma explicitly had no way to call Moominpappa out on this, she explicitly doesn't know what his backstory was pre-meeting him. "But surely she'd point something out if she didn't know who the Oshun Oxtra was" WE DON'T KNOW IF SHE'D KNOW, SHE WAS LITERALLY OUT OF THE ROOM WHILE MOOMINPAPPA DESCRIBED THEIR MEETING, AND SHE OBVIOUSLY WASN'T HEARING WHAT MOOMINPAPPA WAS SAYING OR WHAT THE KIDS WERE TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE SHE WAS CONFUSED ABOUT THE KIDS STARING AT HER IN DISBELIEF.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

MOOMINPAPPA IS JUST A BAD STORYTELLER AND I DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT THE UTTER LACK OF CHARACTERIZATION AS REAL

IT'S ALL A LIE

JOXTER AND MUDDLER WERE PROBABLY OLD SCHOOLMATES FROM ONE OF HIS SCHOOLS AND THE REASON WHY THEY WERE LOOKALIKES AND PARENTS WERE BECAUSE HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY KNOW THAT THEY HAD KIDS

WOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

[eldritch-spouse]

What makes you think this monster won't mutate you into something dreadful if he believes he has to?

Mutations? Tell me more mother. What would you need to do to make Patches consider that? And what would they be?

What would trigger this in Patches would most likely be repeated escape attempts. Because every time you try to get out of his grasp, more and more of his hope dies, and the dullahan slowly abandons the idea that you'll ever love him in your current state. Nothing in his life is ever easy, why would getting you to love him be any different. He always has to suffer, always has to tweak things, work on top of more work- But that's fine. He loves you. He's willing to put in that work.

Alternatively, enough humiliation will also do this. It's hard to gouge Patches' limits, given how incredibly masochistic he can be and how much delight he'll take from plenty of your abuse... But, to the undead, it starts getting dangerous the moment you use others to humiliate him. It's one thing to tell Patches he's useless and a stupid little minute man, it's another thing entirely to flirt with others in front of him, to joke about replacing him, to try fucking someone else just to spite him. That's already too far, and he will explode, it's only a matter of time.

The mutations he induces in you can be carried out in many ways, some more invasive than others. And, to be fair, it usually starts small.

He might just rid you of a mouth at first. You wake up with a smooth expanse of skin where your lips once were, unable to feel your tongue or teeth, it's all just a solid mass. But somehow, you can still breathe. You just can't scream, crying silently. Patches is admittedly a bit sad, your mouth was pretty, and it felt good- But it's better this way. You can never run your silly little mouth and make things difficult anymore.

Too many smart ass moves from your part and it doesn't take too long before Patches humors amputations. He's cocky about it, unconcerned. Because, see, while he will definitely sever your limbs (making sure to preserve them properly along the way), he'll also replace them with new ones, made of his vine magic and animated by his magic. This is a lengthy process that requires planning ahead of time, so if it seems like Patches isn't punishing you for a grave offense- Then don't make the mistake of assuming he's forgotten what you've done. That when he's snuggling up with you, he isn't already calculating how much longer it'll take until the magic limbs have grown enough and how much anesthesia he'll have to use. Aside from the horrendous adaptation period and mild breakdown you'll have at waking up with new appendages your body refuses to acknowledge as your own, you'll also find that you can be stripped of motor control whenever Patches deems it necessary. That's right, all it takes is a certain command tone, and you'll turn a swift 180 degrees back to his side.

These are just two. He can glue your fingers together to make sure you stop fucking around where you don't belong. He can make it so you're just as turned on by pain as he is, he can even kill you and bring you back as an undead, though this last one requires monumental amounts of meticulous planning.

Keep in mind that playing with magic like this often has its side-effects. Sometimes, in an effort to induce something in you, other changes might sprout up. Something in your face dislocates, one of your limbs becomes strangely flaccid, your skin gets discolored, you start growing hair in weird places and there's teeth on your legs? Your body starts to fall apart, slowly but surely caving under the magic Patches has forced into it.

But, by that time, it's already starting to become too late.

He's getting addicted to performing these procedures on you.

Addicted to breaking you apart and putting you back together. You've always been his favorite specimen, after all. Little blemishes won't stop him.

[schizosupport]

uhm, hello hello! i'm very awkward + nervous so please forgive if i make any mistakes or sound weird. i'm psychotic, (and i also have a special interest of psychology but that doesn't entirely matter), and i have a couple of questions.

i know that disorganized thoughts are symptoms, but to your knowledge is it common for psychotic people to have sort of like episodes where they just get.. really confused? i call it 'perma-confused' as a title because i don't know what else to call it. for me, it's hard to understand what anyone's saying to me, even if it's not big words or anything, and it takes me longer to form coherent sentences and thoughts. it's also relatively hard to carry out specific tasks i'm instructed to do when i'm like that, sometimes i just.. stop functioning and i go blank for a bit, it's really easy for me to experience disorganized speech+thoughts, and these episodes tend to last for an hour or two or more (i've had some last for a day or two).

second question: do you know anything about or have any advice for delusions that were really big and prominent but sort of.. faded to the background instead of going away? (cw for talk of a delusion here) i had a delusion a couple years ago where when i interacted with any media with zombies in it (of which, zombies and zombie viruses are an interest i've had since i was a kid, so it sucks, and completely came out of nowhere) i'd be filled with this overwhelming fear that a zombie apocalypse Would happen. i'd tend to get in a loop of refreshing my google feed for five minutes or more checking to see if any news about an outbreak showed up. it caused nightmares and horrendous panic attacks. after a Very long while-it took months-it sort of faded into.. background noise. as in it's still there, but it takes prompting to actually affect me and occasionally can be triggered easier when i'm more paranoid but otherwise is just something i have to be careful about.

Hey there! Thank you for the question!

Ok so the first question, about whether it's common to have episodes of confusion, I would say yeah, definitely! I certainly struggle with that, and I know that many others do. It's often part of the internal experience of disorganisation or a good old fashioned shutdown. For me, it often happens when I'm tired or pressured. My thoughts will get stuttery and my speech breaks down. Carrying out motion let alone simple tasks becomes increasingly difficult. I think the flavour can be different for different people and for the same people at different times. Sometimes it feels like a type of dissociation, other times it is more of a catatonia related thing (though being that catatonia is described at the behavioural level it can also come with several different internal experiences).. anyways my point being that states of confusion and difficulty parsing and producing language and thinking clearly, is very much a thing that can come with psychosis and psychotic disorders.

As for delusions that fade into the background without going away completely, that's a rather common pattern. For some people it's very much that they either are or are not delusional. But for lots of folks, delusions fade in and out of prominence. And it's not uncommon to have lowkey residual beliefs that still take up some space, but aren't a huge focus the way they were when they were a very active delusion. As for advice, I don't know what I can give, beyond to say that it's good to try not to dwell on it. It's allowed to be there, it's hard to purge it entirely, but since it's causing less active distress by itself, try not to be too distressed about its mere continued faded existence, either.

I have had delusions fading for years and some of them have all but disappeared. So it's not to say that it can never go away. But shooing them off never really worked for me. A lot of the time they seemed to stick around because they represented some feeling or stressor in my life or psyche, and they didn't go away until those circumstances changed.

Anyways, hope any of this was helpful. Have a good day!

[the-amber-raven]

Oohh I've always been fond of fics where Chris picks up some habits from Buck! Aside from the jackets, what other habits/headcanons you have for them that wasn't included in the fics?

This was a surprisingly difficult one to answer, since thanks to the (asides) I use in this series and the flashbacks in I once was lost, I've actually been able to include a lot of them!

(Also, I didn't say the hoodies tidbit wasn't going to be in the fic ;) Just sayin')

I've been trying to think of the ones I struggled to shoe-horn in though, so here's a selection:

Bobby had a Reputation at all of Buck's schools. After his first parent teacher interview at their school in LA, he organised a meeting with the principal. She attempted to fob him off to someone else but he insisted it had to be her. So she diligently collected information from all of his teachers and went to this meeting prepared to discuss what she was sure would be his concerns about his son potentially having ADHD. She had a list of psychologists to refer him to and everything! And then he hands over a folder and starts explaining to her very seriously that the school is barely meeting fire safety requirements and here is a list of all the things she should do to improve their adherence to code and ensure student safety. She passes this information on to Evan's next school, which has a very frantic principal running around quadruple-checking fire safety standards before the first day of school.

Related to the above - Buck is diagnosed with ADHD in this universe, although he never ends up taking medication for it. Bobby is more concerned with making sure Buck is taught in a way that works for him (see "Mr Stugley said that I need explicit instructions" in oh captain my captain) and he has no patience for teachers who just tell him to get his son medicated. The revolving door of sports is also to help Buck manage his need to keep moving and stay active.

One of the first gifts Evan ever got for Bobby was a horrendously ugly mug. Bobby did not care about how ugly it was and used it anyway. Buck got in the habit of giving increasingly tacky mugs, a part of him morbidly curious about where his dad would draw the line. Bobby is suspicious that his motivation is to test him (as is Athena when he starts doing the same thing for her) but actually he doesn't really care because he is that much of a Dad that he will happily use a #1 Dad mug no matter what it looks like. This was actually really close to being in the story, so have this little snippet I wrote: Bobby had wondered sometimes if Evan was subconsciously testing them to see if they would still be willing to use the gifts when they were so over-the-top. Ultimately, though, it didn’t really matter because he had loved every one of them purely because they were from his kid and had taken great joy in using them. 

Lily (the paramedic in Minnesota who treated Evan after the fire) holds a grudge against Bobby for counseling her to stop getting involved when he then subsequently GOT INVOLVED AND ADOPTED THE KID. She gets her revenge by teaching Evan about just how much of a pushover his new dad is and she is the main reason that baby!Evan knows exactly how to soften Bobby up.

Eddie was pretty happy with how things ended in that last chapter of the mortifying ordeal: sure, Hen and Chimney teased him relentlessly about the miscommunication but they actually seem pretty happy to hear he's dating the captain's baby. And then it's Buck's first day at the station and he is suddenly reminded that Evan is in fact the station's baby and he realises he shouldn't be so complacent just yet. There are many, many speeches involved.

Christopher has found their silken ropes in their bedroom once, after they forgot to put them away properly ("it was a long shift and we had a tiny window of alone time, okay, it was a totally normal mistake!" Eddie insisted to a cackling Hen later.) Buck spun a very elaborate story about how someone at the station had gotten a new cat and he had read about DIY cat toys you could make with rope and so he wanted to give it a try but he was just soooo tired that he'd given up and fallen asleep. Chris very kindly offers to to help instead since clearly they can't let the poor kitten not have any toys! The crew laugh when Buck bemoans the loss of the ropes. ("They were expensive!" he mourns, getting laughter from the crew. "And they were so good because they never left any visible marks!" Bobby is visibly traumatised by the conversation.)

Evan got so used to Bobby's cooking that he forgot that there are people who aren't as good at cooking. The first time the 118 have to look after Evan for an extended period of time (because Bobby is in the hospital, badly injured but not on his deathbed, which creates plenty of heightened emotions) Chimney burns their dinner, Sal makes something ridiculously bland, and Tommy uses a store-bought spaghetti sauce. Evan is very judgmental. (Hen and Karen do fine, of course.) Bobby feels very vindicated when he gets to go home and gets a cuddle from Evan alongside a speech about how much he missed his cooking.

[theshy1sout]

Six Eared Shadow

Do you remember the analysis about Mei and Red Son? That was me, and I'm doing this again, but now about Macaque and Sun Wukong

Because what the heck why do they hate each other so much

Ok, so this... This is such a messy chaotic really chaotic mix of a few headcanons and theories I made up and it SOMEHOW turned into a fanfic that I wrote so long that other people made many similar things in meanwhile and now this sounds not original at all, but I wrote it not to keep it in my deep hidden shelf so here we go

(It's based on what I know from the lmk series. I've started to read JTTW, but I'm still not so far to get to know anything about Macaque, but I won't change anything about this theory from now on)

Let's gather some basic information for the start.

-> Macaque is made with a shadow or even he is a shadow (kinda shadow demon, the demon of shadow). I mean, shadow is not only his power, he literally is made with shadow matter. We know that because he can not only manipulate shadows but also go through walls and turn yourself into a shadow.

-> I'm not sure if someone made him or he just "poof" out of nowhere just like Sun Wukong, but according to the story he told about how close he and Monkey King used to be, there's no doubt they had some master/student relationship which later turned into almost equal partnership. What is said, Macaque followed Sun Wukong for a long time, learning a lot from him, 'being his shadow'. They grew in power together, fought together, and (as it is said) Macaque started casting as Sun Wukong shadow, which (surprisingly) looks like he did willingly. Just look at the picture - the shadow is big and bright, it’s powerful and smiling, proud of his strength. He doesn’t look like someone forced to be Sun Wukong’s shadow. It shows how much Macaque admired Monkey King, that he wasn't just a friend for him, he was his idol.

-> We all know Macaque is a shadow demon, he can easily change his appearance, he does not have to look like an evil clone of Monkey King, especially if he hates him now or something, SO even if he used to look up at Sun as his ex-student or ex-partner, and now we know he is NOT, he would prefer to not look so similar any more.

He can choose any other look, but he doesn't. Why? Well, maybe he actually cannot. Maybe this isn't an appearance he has specifically chosen, maybe this is his 'basic' comfy form and any other form would just take too much energy to keep up. And looking at the really tiny probability of two very similar monkeys just "poofing" out of nowhere, I dare to say, Macaque wasn't born (I mean like Sun Wukong or any other demon), but he was specifically created. And here is a question: on someone's purpose or not? Maybe the power of great Monkey King was so strong so the part of it just jumped from him and formed into another similar creature, but let me say it's just weird and I prefer the theory of Sun Wukong being so bored and lonely after his master's (Tripitaka) death, and he created a brother for himself from his own shadow. Just to have someone, anyone.

So Wukong created Macaque and then what? He trained him, he taught him everything he knew, maybe even he shared his powers with him. Some great great bonding time. But as Macaque said, something drew them apart. It is visible that Macaque blamed Monkey King for this, for 'forgetting him'. Before speculation of what happened then between them, let's focus on what Macaque showed us what he wants now.

We have two episodes, both show different sides of him. In season 1, Macaque's main goal is to steal Monkey King's power from Mk, and then to very specifically revenge. He visibly does not want to defeat Sun Wukong, he wants to hurt him as much as possible. Look: when Monkey King showed up, Macaque totally forgot about Mk. And then, when he's so close to defeat him, instead of that he turned to Mk and tried to kill the teenager. Mk is just a tool to hurt Sun Wukong.

And we can't forget how Macaque constantly pointed out all the weak sides of Sun, he's basically just saying on and on "you're weak, you're weak, you're so weak, I'm so strong, I'm strong, you are so weak". Which really fits the feeling of being forgotten because he was weaker and Monkey King was stronger, better, glorious and famous. Macaque really feels like that, he really tried to make Sun Wukong feel his pain by dominating him.

On the other hand, we see that Sun constantly striked off him. He said almost nothing to him, just "Aren't you bored of keep being in my shadow? It's time to give back what you've stolen" and that was fricking all. For Monkey King, Macaque is a just shadow, always behind him, something you turn around and leave behind to not see it and to forget, like an unwanted past. An unnecessary problem, that irritatingly keeps returning to him. He does not want to interact to not make even a slight more bond between them, he wants to delete him from his life forever, and omg WHY. At this end of the ep, Sun Wukong did not even mention Macaque. He really doesn't care at all (or extremely tries to not care). His HATE is almost touchable, ouch.

In season 2, Sun Wukong LEFT US ALL ALONE. Macaque showed up again, he played with Mk a bit, and... Left? That's the thing, you see, he doesn't need to hurt or kill Mk. All we see is Macaque talking about his past and then letting Mk experience something the 'hero' in the story should have felt. The guilt. When Mk interpreted his story differently, seeing himself as the warrior, Macaque corrected him. Cause he doesn't care about Mk at all. He heard how Mk told him about what hurt him, and here is a funny point, because if Macaque needs to be understood, listening to Mk and talking with him (such a simple act of empathy, they both needed it then, guh) should have been enough. Mk really felt the 'warrior' character in the story, so he understood what Macaque felt. But surprisingly, that was not what the demon carved.

Macaque chose to make Mk feel like Monkey King at the moment something drew the demons apart. He wanted to force Mk to be sorry, to apologize, to regret his mistakes, cause he failed with forcing Monkey King to feel that. But! Maybe he is not as purely innocent and poorly forlorn. We see the flashback for a half of second before Mk hit him with Staff:

We see Sun Wukong attacking Macaque who's in his demon (true) form.

Let's repeat this: Macaque felt as if a friend left him in the past. He said a friend did this to have all the "hero's glory" for themselves. We know Sun Wukong could do such a thing, especially before he met Tripitaka, but 1. In my theory Macaque is created after Tripitaka's death and 2. If (as my theory said) Sun created Macaque to not feel so lonely, he would never leave him for such a thing. So Macaque hides something for sure, something he did, something so terrible that made Sun Wukong attack him and not want to know him anymore. How horrendous thing Macaque did that made Sun Wukong choose to be alone again and to forget his dear brother he created by himself?

Back to the great bonding time, repeating speculation of "oh maybe they even share the powers" and comparing it to Macaque wanting to steal Mk's power, my theory here is saying:

Sun Wukong taught Macaque the technique of the same powers as he knew, but Macaque overused it (probably wanting to see how powerful he is, probably showing off and killing so many harmless people) doing terrible terrible things. So Monkey King took all of the powers from him and left him alone, powerless, with the last painful words: "Dont you dare to show in front of my eyes ever again". Of course Macaque was hurt, of course he didn't see why he's the bad guy, because he did not care about people at all. And of course Sun Wukong was hurt too.

Maybe he came back to the village Macaque had destroyed and following a quiet crying he found a little baby with a heart so clear and he put into him all Macaque's powers, making them sleep until the time will be right... But back to the series!

Yes exactly. Why did he destroy the lantern and leave? Why did he suddenly lose interest in teasing Mk and stop forcing him to feel guilty?

First thing, he saw Mk is ready to fight for his friends seriously. He still cared so much about them, not like Monkey King about Macaque. That was hard to swallow, that was hard to watch for the demon. That was't the thing he wanted to see. And second, the flashback. Maybe the sudden realization that he actually did something bad. Cause Sun Wukong didn’t just leave him, he cast him out. It was hard to admit that he actually deserved this (or maybe much more), it’s much easier to blame others, not yourself. So Macaque felt “that’s enough” and left. Mk brought him to this uncomfortable point of admitting the truth. Which he didn’t want to. Maybe in the following eps, he will see it, but now Macaque just isn’t ready yet. But the last talk with Mk gives me a little hope. He stopped treating him like a tool or toy, he was actually talking with him like with a person, he even warned him about Lady Bone Demon.

Maybe (maybe) one day he'll see that humans aren't just useless creatures he can carelessly kill, maybe Mk will make him care and realize what he's done, but that's just speculation in speculation, he could die before he reaches that point, maybe he is already dead....

And that's it. That is all I wrote on ao3, but in the fanfic I put much more details and I build those characters up much more than here. This is only rough rough short-saying, I'm really sorry if you read it all

Oh and here is a link if you liked this above i'd love if you read the fanfic thank you

[scarasun]

I posted 581 times in 2022

That's 581 more posts than 2021!

306 posts created (53%)

275 posts reblogged (47%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/scarasun

@/ataraxyystories

@/albenyx

@/torntoblivion

@/keqism

I tagged 489 of my posts in 2022

Only 16% of my posts had no tags

#[ 🍃 :: evie reblogs stuff ] - 85 posts

#: - evie talks - 74 posts

#[ 🍉 :: evie talks ] - 59 posts

#[evie screams into the void] - 37 posts

#[moots ;; ataraxyystories] - 30 posts

#construction work - 29 posts

#[ 💞 :: favs ] - 22 posts

#genshin impact - 19 posts

#[moots ;; velvetyshu] - 18 posts

#genshin impact fanfic - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 124 characters

#i cannot tell you the last time i read a piece where he wasn't passive aggressive (or just down right toxic) towards his s/o

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤

{ pairing } scaramouche x gn!reader

{ genre } angst (no comfort)

{ genre } arguing, cursing, use of scara's real name, toxic-ish relationship

{ summary } the balladeer makes a grave mistake by chasing you from his heart.

{ a/n } i love scara so much i decided to put him on the angst train 😍 enjoy! i had so much fun writing this (although i cried for most of it). also, i used 'scaramouche' when talking about him and his outside life, while his real name is used in a more personal sense.

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417 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

#4

pinky promise (that you'll do as i say?)

{ pairing } scaramouche x gn!reader

{ a/n } from yesterday being the first day of school for me to the excitement of the 3.1 livestream today, i was inspired and decided to write a little something. p.s. this piece is part of my writing practice, but i decided to post it to see if my tags are working.

{ warnings } fluff. high school/college au. scara's real name is used.

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482 notes - Posted September 16, 2022

#3

𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬

[ pairing ] scaramouche x gn!fatui harbinger!reader

[ summary ] from the moment you were elected as signora’s replacement and sworn in as a fatui harbinger, scaramouche had been deeply besotted with you. one evening, he finally seizes the opportunity to make his advances, but finds that you might have plans of your own as well.

[ word count ] 1.8k

[ genre/warnings ] slightly suggestive? nothing more than kissing. lore is slightly twisted to suit this fic (scara didn't run away with the electro gnosis), reader is a tease, scaramouche is very flustered and down horrendous for reader, (and no, soft scara is not ooc because i said so).

[ a/n ] yes,,,this is based on the song mind games by sickick. i was listening to it a few days ago and this plot popped into my mind, so i decided to put it down on paper...enjoy ;)

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485 notes - Posted September 23, 2022

#2

it's the little things that count.

[ || how they show their love for you. || ]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ ZHONGLI

— pays lots of attention to the foods you like and dislike. makes an effort to actually budget his money so he could take you out to dinner once in a while. holds your bags for you when the both of you go shopping together and won't ever complain about if you're putting too much pressure on him (he is an ex-archon after all). scribbles stanzas of love poems he has learnt over the years on sticky notes, and leaves them all over the house for you to find.

୨୧┈┈୨୧

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ SCARAMOUCHE

— rests his head in your lap while he deals with paperwork. comfortable with you addressing him by his real name. let's you be the big spoon (doesn't tolerate your teasing though). let's you cut his hair. more open about how he feels than usual. scared of hurting your feelings (believe it or not), so he tends to sugarcoat his opinions. let's you drag him everywhere when the two of you go shopping (he secretly enjoys it).

୨୧┈┈୨୧

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ CHILDE

— lots and lots of physical touch - seriously can't go without hugging/kissing you for a few minutes. carries you in his arms bridal style around the house. sweeps you up in his arms when he gets home from a rough day at work. gives you dorky pet names. trusts you immensely with his siblings. takes more time off work to spend with you. talks about your future together.

୨୧┈┈୨୧

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ DILUC

— cooks for you. gives you his coat when you're cold. gets flustered around you pretty often (even if you've been together a while). showers you with hugs from behind. tries to spend less time on his dark knight hero duties so that he could be with you at night. gives you bouquets of flowers on random occasions. let's you braid his hair.

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505 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

sweater weather

pairings ; scaramouche, zhongli, ayato, xiao, diluc x gn!reader (separately)

summary ; winter time has once again descended upon teyvat...what happens when you playfully ask your boyfriend to warm your hands for you?

a/n ; just some short headcannons to get me back into the writing mood :D i'm so excited to post again!!! reblogs and comments are always welcome!

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1,353 notes - Posted June 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[buddha-in-disguise]

I'm not going to review the season finale in quite the same way as I've usually written something afterwards. I'm ultra tired due to distinct lack of sleep. So it is more truncated than I'd intended. Also unedited so advance apologies if something makes no sense or is misspelled etc.

The episode was facing the challenge of not only being edited after COVID-19 shut down production, but what was intended to be the penultimate episode became the finale. So I'm trying to take that into consideration.

First part in Kara's loft. It was choppy. Don't get me wrong, I had nothing against the humour, or the scenes in general. Although they missed the glaring opportunity to place a "flew here on a bus," moment! It felt pretty disappointing they didn't recognise what has become an iconic line within the SG fandom, and made it even more iconic.

Before the bus though, back at the loft, considering that Lena had literally only just arrived at Kara's, with all that entails, it felt completely out of place for that context. Did it have been overwhelming heavy at that point? Absolutely not. But it was too close to slapstick at times for me and internally I was cringing. I admit, I'm not sure where they could've put it in, but perhaps if they'd just lowered it a fraction, made it a little more subtle a couple of times, it would've helped for me.

Some of the dialogue (especially early on) was also all over the place for me. It did get better as the episode wore on, but I wonder how much was the need to redo parts of the episode because of COVID-19? Unless they think to put an episode as intended in a future season DVD (perhaps S6 DVD), or someone gives us full details via an interview we will probably never know.

Which brought me to one piece of dialogue that I wish they'd not put in at all!

In 5.18, as I've spoken about a lot on Twitter especially, the way Lex screams into Lena's face, and Lena's flinch, and how that had been me 20 odd years ago. They then had the line as Lena talks to Kara; "Go ahead. Scream at me if you have to, I know I deserve it."

I know for many, they'd just see it as a line to use, but .... for many of us who have suffered abuse, who recognised (& in some instances were triggered) by last weeks episode, to not have acknowledged why that line was so problematic is worrying. It heavily suggests they're not going to address Lena's trauma and abuse because they really don't understand it (& again, if anyone believes she didn't suffer trauma and abuse, but accept others in SG do, go away with your bias from my page), but considering they haven't addressed much of Kara's trauma, particularly watching Argo destroyed again, being stuck for months during Crisis like they were, etc - then I guess it isn't a surprise.

But it is uncomfortable as hell to watch a line like that glossed over.

Overall though, I did enjoy the episode. Once that 1st half was over, especially (baring a few moments, including watching Alex do her badass Mission Impossible meet Cirque du Soleil moment because that was awesome) it felt much more like SG of previous seasons. So that was great.

Watching Lena as she watched Alex and Kara hug behind her was so emotional. Watching siblings love unconditionally. Something she thought she had with Lex, only to realise he hadn't changed at all. Lena didn't need to say anything, as once again Katie's acting brought all the emotion Lena was feeling to the fore.

Having Lena and Alex mirror they choice of words in regards Kara was pretty iconic. Then having Alex whisper, "Jinx." really made it work.

Seeing Dreamer in her element, including some great lines again. "I can't believe you left to fight Earth, Wind & Fire without us." "Guess they didn't take the bait? Maybe you should've been meaner?" As they begin the fight with J'onn, M'gann Alex and Dreamer - Alex to Dreamer: "You ready?" Dreamer. "Nope." Alex. "Me neither." Dreamer at her best imo.

Kelly going all, damn my girlfriend is hot & I want sex right now despite the circumstances was pretty cute and funny.

The Kara and Lena monologues being in unison. Now that was pretty amazing and one of the best parts of the whole episode imo.. But again, you feel as if they're matching Lena and Kara together with those scenes as a couple.

Lena not only protecting Kara, but stopped Andrea from going down a dark path as Acrata. Was also great.

Last frame of Lillian. Does it turn out she is the head of Leviathan? Because again they laid out more than once the leader was a woman. It has been noted several times now in different episodes. I was hoping Lena's biological mother, considering she knew of the legend of Acrata, but it is now looking more likely this reincarnation of Lillian is who it is, unless it is a character we've not been introduced to, but I highly doubt that.

The 2nd half of the episode was what we missed so much this season. In fact aspects throughout the episode were missing for too much this season.

This includes the women being the focal point of it. Brainy though absolutely rightly taking a strong subplot to what else was going on. J'onn ably supported by M'gann. M'gann who managed to advise Nia on embracing her dreams and not trying to avoid part of them. Dansen actually working together and both being badass in their own way (after all, this is something I've advocated for much of the season, & while fantastic to see, it never should've taken this long. Now where have we heard that before?)

But we still have glaring unanswered questions that I can't imagine would've been answered in 5.20.

Every indication since 5.17 is Kelly knows Kara is Supergirl. Yet we don't know for certain, because they've failed to show us how or when. I've said before, considering every other person who knows Kara is Supergirl, we had them tripping over themselves to explain to the audience how it happened. I'm pretty annoyed that we as the audience don't get given the same courtesy with Kelly. This is why so many of us feel short changed on some characters this season. The really aggravating thing is would only take a few lines to clear it up!

Now onto Alex. This ties in with J'onn. Where are they getting the money to survive? Did J'onn manage to accumulate enough over all the years he was on Earth to finance everything & pay Alex a wage? No clue.

Also, are Kelly & Alex living together? Or do they have keys to each others apartments? Yes, Kelly was at Alex's in 5.17 so the answer is pretty much yes, but nothing has been said! We knew more about Brainy & Nia's living arrangements from 5a than we do Kelly & Alex.

Kara's trauma. Lena's abuse & trauma. See above.

Lastly, the one most I know want (except a few vocally against), leaning towards Supercorp becoming canon. Again for another season, we end up with the, 'Maybe they'll do it next season.' being said. Particularly as in 5a they really went all out on Supercorp parallels to Clois and at times Dansen, plus even a little on Brainia. But unless something pretty fundamental changes behind the scenes, they're going to recognise what their biggest draw is, keep baiting but never fully go into it. And that is what I fear the most. When you've got media, even non-Supergirl fans saying it, but the show refusing to acknowledge it - that could be their legacy, and it will not look good or have a lot of fans look back kindly on them for it.

The 4 seasons it took for Lena to find out Kara was Supergirl was, in the end, terribly executed. This waxing and waning as well of; is Lena good or bad? Will she follow in the Luthor footsteps?

She is flawed. She's made some pretty awful mistakes. But now they're said she is good. She isn't evil or a villain. So now that line they've drawn needs to stay there! No more ambiguity on her character being a villain.

But you know what's not good? Feeling you can't trust the show to draw a line under that aspect of the character. That doesn't mean you have to have any one of them not be flawed, or to even cross some lines (they've all done it at some point, some moreso than others, but not one character is innocent).

When the show is now generating that level of mistrust on how they could handle future events, that is a problem.

Season 5 overall (particularly 5b) was absolutely horrendously bad. It had some moments of sheer brilliance (either individual scenes, or some episodes), but the rest was just flat out awful. Irrelevant. Messy. No cohesion. 5b became too much of the Lex Luthor show. Certain character additions were vastly unpopular and definitely caused down turns in viewer numbers (& again, from far more than a section of fandom). As did keeping Lena away from everyone for so long.

To sum up. Season 5 was a disaster.

Season 6 needs to have considerably different direction to even try & pull back some viewers (if they can at all). Distrust is rife.

The worst is no-one in the cast deserved this, especially as they're so talented. Some of the performances, even with how poor much of the season was, have been magnificent. But as the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

I've never been so relieved a season is finally over. We'll watch our favourite episodes for sure, of which there aren't many, but a full rewatch of the season we normally do will not be happening. Some episodes were better off consigned to the trash.

[despisydraws]

Part 3/3

7. Neil Ward (he/him)

Neil is not a child!! That's the mistake people make a lot when they see his childlike face and his rather small figure. He's seventeen, but people treat him as if he was twelve. He can't count the times he's been asked where his mama was anymore and in fact he doesn't know where his mom is or his dad or the entire rest of his family. But he's living his best life out there.

He loves vintage things, like old planes and maps and all and he collects basically everything he finds. He lives for his rock collection and the vintage motorcycle he found himself and has made himself a home inside a rusty plane that's been abandoned at its hangar. He'd do about anything to fly something some time but since he's from a rather poor planet there is pretty much nothing around that can fly. That's why he joins the group in the first place, because he hopes he'll get to fly a spaceship. But Ace and Cassiopeia wont let him touch anything on the control boards because "this is better left to the adults" (they are scared for the safety of their ship which is basically their baby. Also, about the ship, it's called 'the Egg'. It has literally nothing in common with an egg but they call it that. The dream vision said so. Also its orange and I hate that but I won't dare change it)

Anyways most of his life he was just wandering around (he's a true nature child) collecting stuff and selling tools he found and all. Also he may not seem like it but he heavily believes in the occult and likes doing his own little rituals. And he's gay. People tell him he's too young to already know things like that about himself. He rolls their eyes at them and remembers all the flings he's had before

One last thing: this dude is a total king and no one dare say anything else. His humor is on another level. Everything about him is on another level.

8. Sigrid Eichenlaub (she/her)

Sigrid is... something. She's explosive, chatty, has a temper almost as vibrant as her fiery red hair which she mostly wears up in a ponytail. She's been in the military, but she got bored and decided she'd rather serve against the law instead of for it. She spends a horrendous amount of time in Berengers bar and became his best friend over time, gossiping with him every free second (they silently make fun of the other guests)

She likes the thrill of doing illegal stuff, and she's probably got quite a bit of experience in money laundry and theres a fair chance shes assassinated someone before. She knows how to scan people and who might have a bounty on their head. Also she's a pickpocket but that's like the least of her problems. The only one who's capable of stopping the things she initially wants to do is Berenger, who often just ends up being pulled into the situations as well. The two really do make quite the duo.

She (and Berenger) join the crew because she recognized Virgo at the bar without security around him, which made her suspicious. Berenger was able to talk her out of the most bad stuff, but got dragged along when Sigrid followed him to the ship, promising not to harm anyone, just wanting to 'take a look around for anything valuable'. The two idiots manage to get themselves locked up in some room so theres that. I'm telling you there is not one intelligent person among these OCs.

All in all a very feral aroace queen

9. Virgo Di Marcelli (he/they)

There he is. The most dramatic of the dramatic. The queen himself. Pink, flashy, extra, super rich, super idiot. Born not with a silver spoon in his mouth but with multiple platinum spoons jammed down his throat.

Where do I start.

He's... a lot to take. He's dramatic, attention seeking, easily disgusted and will for nothing in the world get his hands dirty. Theres people to do that for him. He knows people love him and he bathes in the feeling of all eyes laying on him.

His wardrobe is big enough to dance in it and 3/4 of it are pink sparkly dresses or plastic jackets in holographic style. He never goes anywhere without stockings, stockings are his life. His hair needs to be protected at any cost. He probably spends two hours in the shower and another two hours to get ready afterwards. He's a total trend chaser as well as a total trend setter, yet he remains his steady aesthetic in holo-pastels and golden jewelry, all in the star theme.

And he's so damn annoying. His cousin Cassiopeia knows that way too well and she's so done with him but deep in her heart she loves him. They are best friends as well as the worst enemies. They would do anything for each other but all they do is fight about stuff. They both love the drama. He's got kind of the love-hate relationship with the rest of the crew as well. He keeps fighting with Ace and Berenger is more... silently rolling his eyes at the shit Virgo talks. He gets along greatly with Sigrid for some reason?

Another thing about him is that he doesn't understand how the world works. He understands even less that some people aren't venal, he's used to let money get him everywhere, so this adventure he finds himself on shows him quite a few interesting facts about how people live.

He has a few issues, apart from the already mentioned ones. He has quite the... party problem. He loves parties. And he loves expensive beverages. Many of those. He has a new relationship every week, only two of his have ever lasted for longer, the one with Indigo and the one with Echo. He's been on meds ever since he was a child and not even he knows why exactly he has to take those... he will find that out later tho and it will be hella fun to write :)

Also he was born under the name Uranus (because his dad thought it was pretty) but he got bullied a lot for that because hell it has such good joke potential. He goes with Virgo as his nickname now. Theres still some joking about that but its... subtler.

I could go on for an eternity about these but I think you, whoever made it to the bottom of this post, get the picture. Thank you for reading all of this, I wanted to gush about these OCs for an eternity now!!

Part 1 (Ace, Berenger, Cassiopeia)

Part 2 (Echo, Indigo, Lorelei)

[bookloversreviewer]

https://www.forewordpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/MilkManebook-663x1024.jpg

Release Date: January 17, 2019

Cover Design: MadHat Books

Synopsis

Everything in life was going perfectly, but then my luck expired.

It all started when I got a new job, which came with a new guy. That’s when I managed to cause an unforeseeable disaster, which took down an entire company in less than a week.

The new job, the new guy and a big mouth led to another giant mistake. Then, one more for good measure.

Flash forward a couple of weeks, and ... I’ve got milk ... because I’m dating the milkman, and yes, milk did his body good.

Not only do milkmen still exist, but I’ve come to learn that some women hire a milkman to deliver more than just milk.

I’m not the sharing type, but I also don’t like to cry over spilled—you get my point. So, I can either have a cow or search for greener pastures.

Depending on my decision, though, I need to ask myself if I’m prepared to tell my future children that their father is, in fact, the milkman.

Goodreads

http://bit.ly/2Ln3Q3x

https://www.forewordpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/MilkManTeaser2.jpg

Excerpt

I make it through the front doors and hop into the elevator, thankful I escaped the madness, unscathed, even if it’s just for today. These kinds of days that feel like forty-eight hours long will eventually give me premature gray hairs, and I didn’t sign up for that deal.

With my phone in hand, I type out a quick message to Layla.

Me: Vino? Is there any in the kitchen and is there enough to cure a bad day?

Layla: Hold, please.

Cue the Jeopardy music as she stops to taste test whatever we have.

Layla: Three bottles—should be enough, but that depends on how bad your day was.

As much as I like the idea of forgetting about my day while guzzling wine, I can’t get blitzed on a work night. Unlike Layla, I can only handle a few glasses, or I’ll wake up with a horrendous hangover. Layla just stays awake all night, and the hangover never hits her. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s key to drinking responsibly.

I would respond to Layla’s text, but my phone is about to end up on the pavement as a hand grabs my elbow from behind.

Not tonight of all nights; I can’t take any more today. “Stop, asshole! I have pepper spray!” Does yelling this phrase really work? From what I can see, none of the other pedestrians bother to look over.

The problem is, I do not own pepper spray, but I’m hoping whoever has a hold of me will let go in fear of getting sprayed by my invisible weapon.

“Is the pepper spray inside your phone or your empty water bottle?” he asks. That voice—I recognize his damn voice, so I drop my arms and release my nut-kicking stance that wouldn’t have done much to the assumed perpetrator behind my back. I’m slow to turn around, feeling not-so-eager to face the idiot who thought it would be smart to grab my arm while I’m alone on a city street.

“You,” I growl.

“Me.”

“What do you want? Oh, and you’re welcome for not attacking you. Don’t grab people from behind.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was yelling your name, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

“Nope, no I didn’t.”

“Okay, well now that I have your attention, can I ask you for some help?” He has my attention for multiple reasons at the moment, and I’m not sure which one requires help.

“It’s tempting, but I’m pretty sure I can’t help you,” I tell him while scratching the skin beneath my nose.

“Look, I’m in a lot of trouble with this campaign, and if it leaks anywhere, my career is over.”

“I’m sure someone will overlook your troubles to drool at your beautiful features,” I tell him, unfazed by his plea and reason.

Wesley rolls his eyes and stares up toward the darkening sky. The silence lasts longer than a natural pause, so I consider walking away, but one stupid part of me is itching to find out what he will say next. I’d also like to tell him he looks like an idiot, but I’ll hang onto that confession for a bit longer.

“My attorney is working on a retraction, but that guy you work for seems like a real dick,” he says.

“I wouldn’t go with the word ‘real,’ but he is a dick, yeah.”

“When did you start working—” A bus speeds by, drowning his words in the rumble. “How long—” Another bus.

I check my watch, for no real reason other than to be a jerk to the jerk who was a jerk to me earlier. A stereotype might dictate that certain types of models appear like they never have time for anything, but I don’t like to assume anyone is part of a type, so I will try not to judge at this moment. Although, I imagine when Wesley Moon needs something, he probably thinks everyone should stop what they are doing and help. He had a confident strut when he walked in this morning, and then he was snippy, but I wasn’t helping much.

“I didn’t hear what you said,” I tell him.

“Can I buy you a quick drink so we can go somewhere quieter?”

I glance at my watch again. I’m a busy woman, and there are bottles of wine waiting for me at home. Pursing my lips to the side, I look back up, finding distress in his eyes and stress lines parting his forehead—that can’t be good for a pretty face. My God. Why do I become soft around needy men? It’s like I have a gift for attracting this type of man. Except, these men seem to need attention when in reality they only want to gain full control, which then causes me to feel needy. “I don’t know. I should get home.”

“Sure, yeah, I understand,” he says. “Thanks for the heads up today. I’ll be more careful when the next job comes up.” He’s giving me puppy dog eyes—he can’t be serious. Did his pupils just get bigger too, or is that my imagination?

No, I don’t need this in my life.

I am happy without drama.

I am happy with nothing but my career.

No, no, I’m not. I’m bored, and I’m lonely, and my roommate is my only friend, and she’s not the greatest.

“Wow, you’re really milking this situation for sympathy, huh? Fine, one drink, then I have to get home to my couch—the poor thing has been alone and waiting for me all day. I need to feed and warm it up.”

“First, I’m not ‘milking’ anything, but thanks for the jab. Second, I don’t want to keep you from your—ah—couch, which is why I simply said, ‘I understand.’” Wesley raises a brow as if he needs to appear confused by my statements, but I know better. I’m familiar with the game.

“Yeah, that’s all you said out loud, but it’s apparent you are well versed in talking with your expressions too. Let’s go, pretty boy.” The poor guy has no clue how much worse his day can get.

He sighs but doesn’t argue as he places his hand on the small of my back to lead the way toward wherever he has in mind.

“The place over there,” he points to the corner of the next block, “is quiet until the later hours, and it’s close by so I won’t need to keep you from your couch for too long.”

“Good. I like quiet. I can rest knowing the staff will hear you scream if I need to use my pepper spray.”

He doesn’t respond, but I’m sure he “fears” me like most men do when I use my threats.

We enter a small, modern looking bar with empty booths and plenty of free stools at the bar-top.

“Sit wherever you’d like,” the man behind the bar says.

I take the lead and sit in front of the bartender, and Wesley takes the seat beside me. “What can I get you to drink?” Wesley asks.

If he’s buying, I’ll skip the wine. “Captain and Coke,” I tell him. “Oh, and with a cherry, please.”

“Two Captain and Cokes, hers with a cherry,” Wesley tells the bartender, who stares at us curiously for a long second before walking away.

“What did you need to ask me?” I cut to the chase while helping myself to two cardboard coasters from behind the bar. I slide one over to Wesley and place the other in front of me.

“How long have you worked at Virtual Generation?” he asks.

I sigh and look up at the ceiling, using my fingers to count. “Three full days.”

“Shit,” he says. “I didn’t realize you were that new.”

“Yup, and so far it’s the most amazing job I’ve ever had.”

Wesley shakes his head runs his hand down the side of his face. “If that’s the case, you may want to consider a career change.”

“Already on it,” I tell him.

A couple minutes of silence isn’t awkward like I would have expected, and Wesley seems more down to earth than I gave him credit for earlier even if my speculation is due on his apparent interest in the game on TV.

The bartender places our drinks down and drops a cocktail straw in each of our glasses, giving Wesley a sidelong glance.

“Why wouldn’t you read the fine print on the contract?” I ask Wesley, pulling his attention away from the TV.

“The milk thing has gotten so old, I figured it was a boilerplate type of contract for another milk distributor. It never crossed my mind that someone would want to use me of all people for a breast milk ad.” I don’t know why, but I find it attractive that he’s speaking about the subject maturely after witnessing the behavior from the other men in the office.

“Do you think it’s because you have a nice set of man boobs?” I lift my glass and push the straw to the side to take a quick sip. My question might need a moment to soak in, anyway.

“Wow, you’re not quitting today, are you?”

“I’m just saying ... when you’re a model, you do things you don’t always agree with, right?”

“How does that relate to man boobs?”

“It doesn't. I was just stating a fact.”

“You’re a funny one,” he groans before downing half his glass.

“Yeah, but I’m not the one walking around with a permanent looking milk mustache.”

Wesley drops his glass and covers his mouth, realizing he never cleaned that crap off his face, which has probably dried like cement over the last few hours. I’ve been trying my best not to laugh or make a face at him for the past twenty minutes, but it was my way of paying him back for scaring the shit out of me on the street. However it occurs to me, he must be so self-centered that he probably figured people were staring at him because of his good looks, rather than the fact that he’s sporting a sweet milk mustache. That’s cute and sad. “I’ll be right back,” he says.