#they were contextual to the apartment i lived in

[imaginarylungfish]

trying to find that post i made about how stimming helps when i feel weird. like just stim, l! you will feel better!

[easy-there-leftovers]

Magnum Opus Ch. 2

When an MIT prodigy on their gap year is contacted by the FBI regarding potential involvement in a series of murders in Washington D.C., she must now cooperate to uncover how paintings are mysteriously appearing at the crime scenes.(Written with Season 1-4 Spencer in mind, but the timeline could be anywhere pre-season 12. No mentions of past cases)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Artist! reader|cw: Canon-typical violence|word count: 2.6k words

Notes: I made up a bunch of chemicals and their chemical properties up so shhhh!! Also, I'm not American, I have no contextual understanding of the distance of one place to another. The US is large enough.

Also on Ao3!!

Series Masterlist

“Anything new?” Rossi asked as he and Prentiss returned from the crime scene, making his way into the space the MPDC made for the BAU. Surveying the area as he does before stopping abruptly.

“Forensics are running tests on her stuff. She brought everything in. Apparently she didn’t know anything about the murders before we interrogated her.” Morgan shifts his weight from leaning against a desk to approaching  JJ who motions for his help across and out of the room.

“And she’s here with us in the room, why?”

 Hotch feels the scrutiny of his friend’s eyes, so he turns his sight away from where you and Reid stood. 

“Reid doesn’t think she fits the profile and wants her insight on the case. I trust his judgment, so I allowed it.”

“You said that?” Emily asks with furrowed brows. 

“Well, non-verbatim, I said that her knowledge on–”

“And you allowed our prime suspect to help with a case?” The unit chief sighs when Dave interrupts Reid but stays firm.

“I don’t enjoy the idea of it either, but she’s the only lead we have.” 

Rossi shrugs, but keeps a watchful eye on the young pair. Only turning away when Emily starts to debrief the earlier crime scene.

She recounts that they had found Jonathan Edwards’ body, aged 28, seated on the previous apartment owner’s couch. One hand across his chest, and the other placed on his lap. A pose that they assume was the closest their unsub could get to mirroring the man in the painting. 

Same M.O. Cleaned wounds, no IDs, sharply dressed. 

The dark haired woman adds the pictures of the crime scene to the growing collage on the board.

 Seeing all of this was like a backstage view, which excited you! But knowing that your work might have inspired someone to kill? Not so much. 

“When you look at the victimolgy, there are no obvious links. Their occupation, race, and gender are all different. Our unsub here seems mission oriented, only targeting people that bear a striking resemblance to Dr. L/n’s subjects and murdering them in their own homes…”

 You sigh as Spencer continues, eyes searching though the unsettling images.

“They’re someone that the victims might’ve been interested in. Someone that could contact them or schedule to meet in a formal setting. The victims weren’t reported missing until they didn’t show up for work, suggesting that they had met in private on their off hours. They’re also highly educated, likely with a background in chemical engineering or a related field with permission to operate in a lab. Or at least a private space like one. This level of intelligence is evident in the precision the bodies were handled with and the synthesized 5-durastelene in the paint.”

“So we’re looking for someone who is charismatic, well connected, and had access to a lab at some point.” Emily simplifies. 

“Their area of activity is concentrated in the east.” You mention, looking at the map and noticing the pattern of the bodies’ location as it crosses three states. “That’s probably their comfort zone. They either live there or are stationed there for their job.”

You assess the distance. “Assuming the place those three were killed and the place they were found are different, he must be comfortable traveling with a body.” 

He shifts his focus from the board to you, but you keep your vision stationary. “Do you know anyone like that? Someone from there that you’d be on unfriendly terms with? A colleague, a mentor?” 

Well that caught your attention.

“...You think they’re trying to incriminate me?” You feel the space between your brows twitch when you ask. Still staring at the map.

He frowns a little at that and responds. “Do you think they’re not?”

“Well–” You start, but then feel nervous feeling all the attention on you. You’re a little overwhelmed, but press on anyway. “I’m not saying that, it just��seems like a few ‘why’s’ are missing.” 

Why bother adding a painting? Why bother even making them? Why bother mixing durastelene, a compound that would definitely alter the paint’s integrity given its properties, to replicate something the public wouldn’t even know you made? All questions you asked with a more steady tone.

“Let’s not get carried away, kid. We’re trying to see the big picture first.” The senior in the room says.

Picking at the skin of your lips, you acquiesce and turn to finally look at Spencer. 

Spencer feels his eyes flick to your fingers first then to your eyes. “I think they’re trying to send you a message.” 

He looks back to the pictures of your paintings on the scene. Trying to see if he’s missed something.

 “They might believe that by recreating your work, they’re challenging you– establishing a level of superiority. You said that no one should have access to your paintings, so this must have been someone that once knew you intimately and is now mocking you to make a point. It’s not just about incrimination—they’re trying to reach out to you.”

You feel the space between your brows twitch again.

You can think of a few people who might dislike you; competition is expected in the academic world. But the obvious signs of fixation on you suggests two possibilities: you're either being seen as a rival or as an idol.

It’s unlikely that anyone sees an unemployed PhD student with burn-out syndrome as a worthy rival. 

And something tells you that if they really wanted to place the blame on you, they wouldn’t go this far, in this way. 

They might as well have left a note with your name on it and that would’ve been more believable.

Then again, you could just be wrong 

You’re in a room full of professionals. You’re speculating based off of a theory that might not be applicable to your situation due to a variety of factors. There’s a reason this is their job and not yours. 

You take this thought in stride with a deep intake of breath and now slackened shoulders before responding with a careful nod.

“If that’s the case, then I think it’ll be a little hard to find someone that meets the criteria. I didn’t really have friends when I graduated from MIT, and even if I did, they wouldn’t know about my art—not because I kept it hidden–! It’s only because I started painting when I left.”

The team looked a bit sad at the revelation of your almost non-existent social circle, but quickly acted like what you said was normal.

“Let’s focus on anyone that you had worked closely with then.” You nod at that and start discussing possibilities.

—-------------

Spencer is thankful for Hotch’s suggestion as it diverts the earlier attention away from him. He wouldn’t have minded it at any other time if he wasn’t too preoccupied with thoughts of you.

Thoughts of you with regards to the case, he finds himself justifying to no one in particular.

Everyone has tells. A gesture, a change in posture, nonverbal cues that give someone away. They’re hard to hide because it's in human nature to have them. Trying to keep them hidden is essentially like holding your breath. Suspending the inevitable will only make the tells much more noticeable.

And you don’t seem to be doing that. 

On the contrary, it’s the presence of your micro reactions that are throwing him off. He has noticed five pauses, four instances of rapid eye movement, three tonal deviations, two quirks in your glabella, and now your previously leveled shoulders have dropped. 

Maybe it’s because he’s spent a lot of time with people who try to hide them, but seeing an overwhelming amount of tells manifest in you has him scrambling to figure out what each one means.

Within the two hours and 33 minutes that have passed since he was allowed into your home, the only thing he’s found out about you through your interactions is that you’re disorganized, you’re insecure about your intelligence, and that you don’t like being called doctor. 

All superficial quirks. Two hours is too long a time for him to have only figured three things out. 

He’s missing something. Or maybe he’s not looking at it from the right angle.

Before he can think more on the matter, his mind refocuses on the team. 

Penelope had called them to say that she had gone through lists of attendees from all the conferences you’ve spoken at, both private and open-house events, at Aaron Hotchner’s request. 

“I was able to pick out a few names that are poking around here and there, but I’m going to need a little more than that, my dear comrades! Sifting through names of geeks isn't really my favorite pastime.”

“Pen, narrow down the list to names from MIT. We’re looking for a student from the Chemistry programs or a lecturer that might have access to a lab.” Emily supplied, leaning onto the table where the blonde was on screen. 

“Doing just that and—oh! Would you look at that! Looks like the tools aren’t as diligent as they claim to be.” The mocking tone in her voice causes a small smile to creep on your face.

“Caltech?” The bubbly woman snorts at that.

“Anyone in their right mind knows it’s the superior choice! Tech geeks hate MIT.”

“Don’t let our tools hear you then, we have a history of going nuclear.” That certainly earned you a giggle from the woman on the other end. 

“There’s a sense of humor I can get behind! We–”

“Garica, focus.” Hotch said with urgency.

“Yes–I will! I am! So focused in fact that I’ve got a few names, but only one is super consistent—Lecturer Dr. Annaliese Andrews! Looking up this nerd as we speak and—!” 

You all heard the hitch in her breath.

“Oh no….”

“Garcia, what did you find?”

The BAU and you were silent for a moment before Penelope composed herself. “Dr. Andrews owned a lab near the Charles’ river.” 

She shows its location on screen and a picture of your mentor, Dr. Andrews with a notebook in hand, posed in front of it. The picture was from her social media update, and it couldn’t have been taken more than a year or two ago.

“She built it herself in the 80’s and maybe she wasn’t keeping up with safety protocols but eventually a fire broke out, and she–” Then you see a news headline of the same lab on fire.

“How long ago was this?” Hotch demanded. This got the attention of everyone in the room. 

“Uh,” Penelope sat in her office, frantically typing until an article showed up. “This happened around nine months ago, but it says here that her next of kin decided to keep the property.”

They’ve found a stressor.

“That’s impossible.” You countered. “Dr. Andrews had no family. No husband, no kids.”

“Who is the property under now?” Rossi pressed. 

Muttering under her breath, she continues to search. 

“Says here a month later, a workshop was built right where the lab was– Aha! It’s under 35 year old Liam Turner, freelance photographer. He’s got a studio on Bay State Road.” 

Penelope pulls up an image of an almost unremarkable looking man on screen along with a scan of his BA in Visual Studies from Harvard.

“What the hell…” You don’t recognize this guy at all. 

“Do you know him?” Hotch asks and you say no with a shake of your head and upturned brows.

“Right now, I’m not seeing a connection between these two either—anything you guys can give me?”

You want to interject. Something about him seems familiar, but you don’t recognize him from anywhere. 

You want to ask— no–it wouldn’t be your right. They can figure this out themselves and you're still a suspect! Besides, you’re not even sure if– 

“Do you want to say something, Y/n?”

Your head shoots to the voice and you see Spencer staring back at you. Mouth slightly open which lets you know the question probably came from.

 Maybe it’s because he used your given name, maybe it’s the heavy feeling in your stomach. But regardless, his question certainly makes space for you to voice your thoughts as the room awaits your reply.

You feel your shoulders tense as you speak. “Was his name in the list of attendees?”

Garcia checks quickly but she shakes her head to say no. You thought so.

You ask a different question. “Then uh, can you pull up surveillance footage at any of the conferences?”

She does just that and presents a split-screen video from a month before you graduated. One camera was stationed at the back of the room, and the other overhead from where you stood. She speeds it up as the team watches not much movement until Spencer points something out with a start.

 He gestures to the upper right corner where a lone camera man stands on the side, and asks their tech analyst to zoom in.

There lied the face of the man from earlier search with a camera in hand. The thing that makes him special though, Spencer says, is that based on the angle he was holding the lens at, he was focusing only on you and not on your projection.

“He was in the room, but not in the list.” He furrowed his brows.

You shook your head. “He probably wasn’t an official attendee, someone that a lecturer could’ve requested the assistance of last minute— anyways, can we see where the pictures he took were used? Like articles, tabloids?”

“Absolutely, just give me a second…” You all watch a bunch of sites pop up as Garcia combs through anything that may be related. 

In no time however, she comes across a website. 

There on the screen, for all of the team to see, was a blog, or maybe a portfolio, that had snippets from interviews, headlines, and pictures that featured you. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it looks like any image of you that would show up if you were googled were credited under him. 

Conferences. Campus surveys. Even candid conversation with school representatives.

Penelope digs deeper until she finds the first upload. A picture of a sunset taken somewhere on a bridge with a notebook and pen on its ledge. Though it might not have been enough for most people to recognize, Spencer notices it immediately. 

“Garcia, can you pull up the picture of Dr. Andrews with her lab?”

She does just that and he only needs one look before he turns to address his colleagues. “The notebook is the same! His initials, ‘L.T.’ are on her notebook cover, and this picture!”

And as much as you wished you could sympathize with Spencer’s excitement, you were feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. 

Case and point; first you find out your mentor is dead, then you find out you have a stalker that possibly hates your guts. Find out that said stalker may or may not be related to said mentor, who may or may not hate you, and now you have to digest the possibility of him being a murderer as some sort of vengeance arc?

You shake the thought away.

The tie between him and the victims is still something you don’t get. Clean wounds,  no IDs, sharply dressed.

 So you ask.

“Any chance the victims visited Turner’s studio before they disappeared?”

Analog photo developers have no problem working with a lot of chemicals, and IDs are commonly taken for legal confirmation, you share with the team. The only reason they’d be dressed like that was if–

“They—-all booked an appointment with him.”

You almost regret asking.

--------

taglist: @littlewolfieposts, @hiireadstuff, @bibissparkles, @honestlyatotalloser, @r-3dlips, @suzysface , @pinkpantheris , @resistanythingbuttemptation , @pastafairyy , @lynnar-moon , @andromeda-kay , @darling006 , @mambolaxa , @potatovoyager , @whenmypartysover , @oi-oikawa-tooru , @kniselle , @astreaaries , @fullsuns-stuff

[aettuddae]

business matter — chapter 42.

↳ synopsis: two of the most important kpop companies covet a partnership with a huge global brand, only to be surprised when the deal is extended to both labels. fearing potential sabotage and cynical strategies to secure exclusivity for just one of them, both CEOs resort to desperate measures. in a bid to maintain trust and prevent betrayal before the signing, they come up with a pact: forcing a fake relationship between the leaders of their star girlgroups. if one side attempted to fail the other, they threaten to expose it all to the conservative south korea.

masterlist | prev | next

[written chapter]

a blonde-haired girl wakes up after hearing commotion in her apartment. voices, disguised in whispers, but still loud enough to cause a disturbance. it sounded like two people fighting in the distance. she got up from the bed disoriented, her heart beating rapidly at the thought that something bad was happening to one of her members. with her vision blurred by not having yet gotten used to the tangible world, she roamed around her room. visualizing her acoustic guitar, she wobbled to it and reached out to grab it, trying to shake the sleep from her body along the way.

she opened the door to her room with a rough yank on the handle and hurriedly ran down the hallway, raising the instrument over her shoulder, ready to throw it or use it as a hammer at whoever had barged into her home.

"come in!"

"i don't want to!"

“i told you to take off your shoes and come in!”

“i'm not going to let you see my socks… WHY DOES SHE HAVE A GUITAR!?”

“MINJEONG, PUT THAT DOWN!”

"what's going on!?"

winter dropped the guitar and admired the situation anxiously, swaying from side to side as if at any moment she would have to run away. in front of her was her leader, with her elaborate makeup and elegant wardrobe, barefoot and stressed, pulling on the arm of jang serim, who was in the hallway, clinging to the door frame, refusing to enter, objectively more disheveled than her member. there was a strong aroma of alcohol in the air, and after assimilating what was happening, she understood that it was coming from the guest.

“serim is drunk and she doesn't want to go in.” karina explained with annoyance in her voice, lifting her leg and resting her foot against the wall so she could increase the force with which she was pulling serim into the apartment.

"why?" the youngest took a few steps until she was next to her member, stopping to look at the oldest of the three in confusion.

“it's just,” karina let go of the other party, causing her to fall sitting on the floor. “she says it's not respectful to come in drunk when other people are sleeping here.”

“i am a well-mannered baby.” serim spoke, forming a pout with her lips, but her words were barely understood since they came out in a blur. after that, she lost her balance and fell on her back.

“oh, she's gone.” winter judged.

“she didn't eat anything before drinking." her roommate explained, walking over to the girl who was on the ground.

"she didn't?" the vocalist followed her.

“she didn't, because she wanted to make me upset!” karina complained as she put her hands under serim's arms to lift her up.

"that's true." jang admitted and then began to laugh frantically.

"be quiet." karina ordered, using all of her strength to move her inside while minjeong pulled her legs.

“we had to leave early because the idiot got drunk, so our manager brought us here.” she continued contextualizing as she carried the eldest. “when we were in the car i managed to get her to unlock her phone and i notified her staff, but they will come in an hour, so she has to stay here until then.”

once in the living room, she let go of serim, instructing winter to do the same, letting her fall. the blow and roar woke up the member of heaven, who clumsily stood up, leaving her standing statically with her back to both aespa.

"where am i?" she questioned, lost as she analyzed the place and realized that she didn't know it.

she abruptly turned around, trying to discover the entire room, only to find the girls who had their eyes glued to her. winter couldn't contain her laughter and karina was rubbing her temple with a burdened grimace.

"oh, it's you." serim left the alert position in which she was and her face showed disappointment when she met the dark haired woman. “and giselle!” she regained her energy upon seeing the other person and pointed at winter excitedly.

“i'm winter.” she said simply and laughed covering her mouth.

"please don't rob us!” ningning exclaimed, appearing from behind her friends in her pajamas, throwing various stuffed toys into the air, trying to hurt the criminal who was in her house, but not hitting anyone because she had her eyes closed in fear.

“giselle!” the drunk girl repeated before the arrival of a new individual.

"where?" the youngest opened her eyes to look for the japanese one, finding the disastrous situation. “jimin!” she squealed with displeasure.

“no, i'm serim from heaven.” she introduced herself politely.

“i am jimin." karina corrected her coldly.

“no, you are karina.” she shook her head. “i know because i had to repeat it many times to learn it.”

“why didn't you tell me that serim was here?” the maknae protested, fixing her hair.

“because i shouldn't be here,” the oldest remembered.

"oh no…" vocalized minjeong.

"stay still!" the leader of aespa shouted, going to catch the girl who began to run towards the door.

“she's so funny.” ningning said as she bit her lip and undid the last button on her pajama shirt.

"what is she doing?" jang murmured to karina, who had successfully caught her, staring at the chinese woman, while being held firmly by her waist by yu so that she wouldn't run away again, but this one only looked at her out of the corner of her eye angrily.

"what's going on?" giselle joined the meeting, appearing down the hallway with hiro in her arms.

“giselle!” the guest threw her hands in the air happily. “and the dog i definitely don't hate." she pointed at the animal.

“serim is drunk and she has to wait here for a moment until her manager comes to pick her up." karina repeated. “sorry for waking you up, go back to sleep, i'll take her to my room,” she noticed.

“can she come to my room?” ningning intervened.

“ning!” aeri reproached her.

"alright." serim accepted, trying to walk in her direction.

"get away from my baby." jimin nagged at her, hitting her arm.

"then can i sleep with giselle?" she wondered with a strange hint of innocence.

"serim!" the main rapper amended her.

"cheater..." ning muttered in disbelief.

"stop." karina pretended to start crying while she tried to keep the eldest still.

"why not me?" asked winter offended, as her leader started to drag the guest to her room.

the puppy had decided to change his sleeping partner and entered karina's room following her and serim. once the animal was inside, the resident closed the door. the vocalist stood in the center, looking vacantly around her, her body moving beyond her control due to the alcohol in her system.

hiro walked past her, heading to her bed. with a single jump, he went up and lay down comfortably. he looked warm and happy, so serim was tempted to try it on her behalf, walking there and then plopping down on the mattress.

"sleep and i'll let you know when your manager comes." karina advised seriously, leaning her back against the door.

“i shouldn't fall asleep in your bed." said the oldest, but ironically her eyes closed on their own and her words came out in whispers.

"i'd rather you fall asleep than keep talking."

"you are so mean." she took a big breath of air trying to regain clarity, raising her head a little and resting her weight on her elbows so as not to fall asleep. “it's your own room, are you going to stand there?”

“do you want me to lay with you?” she crossed her arms.

“it's your bed." she made obvious. “and i think we are already committed enough to each other to share it.” she let her head fall against the pillow.

karina looked at her from where she was, taking a moment to think. she began to wander removing all the accessories and makeup that she had on her, finally leaving her earrings on the nightstand and sitting next to her workmate. serim had her eyes closed, but she lifted her eyelids when she felt the weight next to her. she looked at the younger from below, who was focused on watching what her dog was doing. since he was asleep, serim, still intoxicated, realized that she was just trying to avoid eye contact.

“see that we can coexist?” she tried to break the ice.

“didn't i tell you to go to sleep?” she contradicted bitterly.

“you're more irritable than usual." she observed, doing her best to speak properly.

“i have to live with you,” she answered, still not looking at her. “and then when we have an event you get drunk.”

"i don't think is that." she dismissed without getting affected. “you are like this because of your boyfriend.”

“can you not mention it?” she blurted abruptly, quickly turning her head so that she couldn't see her expression, and fixing the position of her body.

“see how is that?” knowing that she was right she laughed, and because of her drunkenness, she couldn't stop it.

“no, i'm sorry, but you're not always right.” she frowned and finally turned to her. "can you stop?" she asked seeing that she wouldn't.

“serim, it's crazy how happy it makes to be right.” she criticized her angrily. “serim!” she held her shoulders with her hands as if she was about to shake her to make her reason, but she only exerted pressure to hoard her attention, intending to make her shut up. the named one connected her eyes with hers and little by little she stopped her fit of laughter. she raised one of her hands and placed it on karina's, which was on her shoulder. keeping the smile on her face, she explored the features of the blackhaired woman with her gaze, who would keep her grip until serim's joy was erased from her face. serim gently squeezed the hand she was touching and accompanied it with an unconscious lip bite.

“i can't believe you, you're horny already.” she quickly pulled away from the older one. "gross."

“you were very close!” she noted merrily. “and i'm not horny, i just have a lot of love to give.”

she let her arms fall spread all over the bed, accidentally resting her right one on the other's lap, making them both look at it expectantly. they remained silent, still. the atmosphere was peculiar, there was a different tension than the one that usually created between them, and it seemed as if one of them made an abrupt movement, it would dissipate. in the dancer's gaze, it was clear that she wanted jang to stop touching her, but nothing in her body language matched that, she did not move to push her away. the vocalist slowly raised her limb, gently bringing it up to the girl's face, to touch her cheek and caress it, gaining her attention, getting her to observe her without any emotion.

“karina,” she called and received a hum. “you know that if you kissed me now i wouldn't remember it tomorrow, right?” with her knuckles she tenderly drew her traits.

“i don't want to kiss you." she stated, still in the same position.

“stop thinking about that guy.” she ran the tip of her thumb over her bottom lip.

“while you ask me to kiss you?” she took the focus off of her. “he is my boyfriend, i can't cheat on him.”

"cheat? but if you're not together and he hasn't spoken to you for two weeks." she let out a giggle full of irony. “and i'm not asking you to kiss me, i'm just saying that if you wanted to i wouldn't stop you.” she leaned on her forearm, slightly separating herself from the mattress.

“we are taking a break." she lowered her head.

“whatever that means.” she took her chin between her fingers and made karina face her.

“serim.”

“if you don't want to, why don't you get away?”

the girl hadn't noticed how she leaned into serim's touch, and how it had drawn her into her personal space. they were at the perfect distance so that they could touch each other just by lowering her head a little, and so that the smell of alcohol the oldest one emanated made her a little dizzy.

serim was right, wasn't she? jongin had disappeared. at first, she didn't believe that he would be so brutal, but who had been her boyfriend for over a year simply asked her for some time and erased himself from her life from one day to the next. and now she didn't know what he was doing, or where their relationship stood.

what does taking a break mean? if he had already cheated on his ex, what could assure her that while they were apart he would not be with other girls? is it okay to want to make him feel bad for leaving her?

if they weren't together as of now, it wouldn't be infidelity, right? serim was probably right. as usual.

karina leaned in, reaching the older girl's lips with hers and trapping them in a kiss. serim moved her grip, sliding her hand down her cheek to her nape, and from there she pulled her closer. the dark haired woman moved closer to the center of the bed, held her opponent's face from both sides and gently pushed her, making her lie down completely again, remaining on top of her.

they were kissing slowly, but intensely. in the end, it was not a loving kiss, but one motivated purely by desire, attraction, and resentment, they did not have to be sweet with each other when they could continue battling as they always did. they pressed against each other and held themselves as close as they could, karina's nails were digging into serim's cheeks, who could only concentrate on maintaining resistance so as not to completely lose control.

until the screen of her phone turned on, and more than it concerned her, it was yu who moved far from her to see where the light was coming from.

“your manager is calling you, he must be downstairs.” she straightened up, sitting properly on the bed and stretching her arm out to reach the device.

“no, he's not.” the senior refused and lifted herself, trapping her face in her touch again to connect their pupils, running her lips from her shoulder to her neck, causing her to close her eyes enjoying the attention, a sign that told her to continue on karina's jaw and cheek, until it reached her mouth another time and they kept going as if the phone wasn't still vibrating.

leaning on the embrace that serim had on her waist, biting her lips while she got lost between them and met her tongue, she convinced herself that she could vent her anger towards jang in this way more often. although she would surely change her mind as soon as it was over. and suddenly she forgot how jongin had treated her. although she would surely remember after serim left.

they were completely immersed in each other, until hiro's growl replaced the silence of the room, forcing them to put an end to it to check what was happening to the dog, who was standing firmly ready to throw a tantrum.

“it seems like someone is jealous..." the drunken one pointed out in a flirtatious tone, making jimin laugh.

perhaps the first time she made her laugh.

“it's okay, don't worry.” the puppy's owner spoke softly to calm him down.

when she made sure that hiro was already appeased, serim took advantage of her grip on karina's torso and hugged her carefully, but also surely, to which she responded by reconnecting their lips, but not for a long time.

serim's scream was possibly heard on the upper and lower floors of the dormitory and woke up all the members again. the girl jumped on her feet over the bed due to the pain and since she was still completely numb she lost her balance and fell to the floor, which made her yell again.

all as a result of the fact that hiro had not really chilled out and as soon as he saw that his guardian was still kissing someone else he couldn't stand the wrath and bit hard the hand that the stranger had on jimin's waist.

“i can't believe i just made out with this loser.” karina talked to herself, covering her face in shame. “i'll cure you and you'll leave, your manager has already waited too long for you.”

(!)

— taglist [CLOSED]: @yoontoonwhs @cwpiqwon @aliceiwk @xen248 @gtfoiydlyj @rinapomu @aeriuchinarga @multiliker @somedaydream @impossiblesharkcashrebel @yjiminswallet @haerinsloverr @yerimbrit @73vyn @dni-unavailable @lovemariana @sewiouslyz @yeetaberry127 @masuowo @yallatalla @aerithykly @chaenniefirst @minfolio @xszn @starrynini05 @hotluvlet @wmnrhot @mineige @lisaswifey @brocoliisscared @fae-the-wanderer

[thewritetofreespeech]

Gale x Tav

WORDS: 1994

RATING: E

PAIRING: Gale x Tav (post game pairing)

SUMMARY: Gale's perspective on how his lovely little ring went while he was all alone, watching Tav through his projection's eyes (part i part ii)

TAGS: magic sex (literally. but also metaphorically), f/m, voyeurism, Gale using magic for naughty reasons, masturbation

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Some of the most gifted, magically academic minds were in this hall right now. And all they could do was argue about table settings.

Gale sighed and stood up from his chair with his drink. Already tuning out the lively debate about Faerûn midcentury design and how one professor could tell that its wood was clearly Zazesspur from the pre-capital era, while another professor stated she was clearly being absurd as the lines in the wood were obviously from a wood in a much more norther region like Neverwinter.

He left his wife home alone for this?

Gale left the company of his fellow academics for his quarters. No one seemed to notice. There was a time when Gale himself would have been immersed in the lively debate along with his other book beaters. Sparing wits and parring with obscure contextual footnotes for no other reason than to prove they were the smartest in the room. It all seemed so trivial now.

Once you’ve brushed against death, not once but twice, and fought the destruction of the world with your bare hands, academic strife seemed…pointless. Absolutely pointless. Like the rest of this week had been.

When he originally received the invitation for the summit, Gale had been overjoyed. Honored, more like. To be recognized as a man of distinction at the school he held so dear, in education in general, for only just starting was a great achievement for him, he felt. Now he wonders if it was just that no one wanted to go, because it was so boring.

He wished that he could have just projected his consciousness here, like Tav suggested, so he could be home with her now. With his much better wine and much less blow-harded company.

The door to his quarters clicked into place behind him and Gale sighed at the quiet. Enjoying it for just a moment, until he opened his eyes and saw just the small desk, by his small bed, in his small room, with his small window. Oh to be home…..

Gale took a seat at the desk as he wasn’t quite ready for bed. He sat his wine down. His magic lighting the few lamps in the room for him to see as he debated about reading or reviewing the agenda plan for tomorrow in want of something to do.

Then his eyes caught a glint of the ring resting on the oak (or was it Neverwinter ashe?) and picked it up. A gift from his wife. One of those spontaneous, no reason, ‘I was down by the market & I thought you would like it’ kind of gifts. Gale smiled wistfully at the memory of her giving it to him. And he thought he was the romantic out of the two of them.

His thumb brushed against the smooth silver. Admiring it, like he wished he could be admiring her right now. This was the longest he and his beloved had been apart since they got married. A few days here and there, but nothing this consecutive nor extensive. Gale doesn’t like it.

He tries not to be obsessive with his love, but when Gale loves he loves passionately. And Tav has been a big part of his life ever since she pulled him out of that misbehaving portal. They’ve built a life together. She’s the first person he wants to tell everything about his day, and eager to hear what she’s been up to when they were apart. And at night...well, let’s just say that it was a good thing this place had the option for bracing cold baths in the morning.

Gale examines the ring further as his teeth pull in his bottom lip. ‘I wonder if it will work’ He mused to himself as he pondered on a spell he had created a few months back but never put into practice.

It started out purely from an academic standpoint. He wanted to make that very clear! Just a simple…trans configuration experiment on magically linking two objects together and see what the effects would be. He hadn’t intended for it to turn into a sort of randy parlor trick, but he had impulse control issues.

Setting the ring down, Gale recalled the simple incantation and gesture needed for the spell. Focusing his magic and the Weave to press not just into the ring but also link to his beloved. He hoped Mystra had her back turned for a moment while he cast this one.

Spell incantation done, Gale picked up the ring and gave it a small nudge. Nothing happened. He supposed that should be obvious. The effects would be on the other side of the link and not here with him. Gale tried it again, hoping to feel some kind of magical sense of confirmation, but still nothing.

Humming to himself in befuddlement, Gale looked over at the clock in his room and did some quick math. It was almost 2:30 in Waterdeep. Which meant that it was almost time for his normal office hours at the academy. Perfect. If Tav was there, which he was certain she would be as she was dutiful to a fault, then Gale knew exactly where they were, and he could see if his ‘gift’ was working out well for her.

Calling on the Weave again, Gale focused his consciousness and perception to separate from him and fly back home to Waterdeep. Silently wishing it was that easy for him. When his projection landed, and the mental link between them righted into a clear picture, Gale’s mouth went slack as he saw Tav. "Gods above...." Her cheeks were flushed. Her breath panting. Her body in clear stages of pleasure as her hands braced herself on his desk. Gods! What he wouldn’t give to be there right now to make love to her on that definitely Sword Coast mahogany.

“Hello there!”

Tav’s head jerked up at his projections greeting, and Gale groaned at the wild look in her eyes. Surprise first, but then bridled arousal. Just waiting to be unbridled and throw her into loss, but his dutiful love was well aware she was still in public and in a school.

When she spat an accusatory remark about him doing this to her and Gale touched the stone of the ring now on his hand. He watched Tav’s knees quake in response. It worked. Oh....goody.

He moaned in tandem with her image but then told his specter to tell her what was going on. Gale didn’t want to leave her in the dark. Tav seemed to accept this, but then asked about all the practicalities of him doing this at work and getting caught. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

He tells his image to tell her about his office hours and the locked down, then moaned along with her as her hold finally became unbridled and she fell into his chair. Limbs asunder as she just accepted what was happening to her and gave into the pleasure.

Gale continued to touch the stone with one hand, while the other went to his belt and quickly undid it. He’s been hard since he first saw her against his desk. Now seeing her give loose to the pleasure, Gale might cum in his pants like he was a novice back in school and Gods could you imagine if he had someone like Tav for a teacher?? He’d still be in his Active Principles of Elements & Arcane lectures.

His hand stroked his erection with the same speed as his massaged the stone. “Tell her I’m happy she likes my present.” He orders his projection. Watching her through their eyes. It did as it was told and Tav opened her eyes to stare right back into them. Gale moaned. The heat in her eyes, the desire, that cheeky grin coiling on her lips almost make him double over against his own desk.

“My present, eh?” Tav answered back, and Gale bit his lip so hard he nearly tasted blood.

“Yes. Of course. I did this for you.”

The projection relayed his response, but that doesn’t seem to convenience Tav. “Just for me?” Gale watched, transfixed, as his beloved began to open her blouse ‘in front of him’.

He whimpered at the sight as his thumb brushed over the aching red tip of his cock. He had to swallow the drool collecting in his mouth before he could respond with, “yes” for his projection to repeat. But the damn thing went rouge and blurted out his secret, so he pressed his thumb harder against this stone to distract Tav from its honesty.

Soon, Tav was begging him to fuck her. Desperate and needy. Mewling like a wanton kitten; or maybe that was just him. She asked if his projection was anatomically correct like last time and before it could fully answer, Gale ordered, “no!” He didn’t want to watch an illusion of himself make love to his wife. It was silly to be jealous of a projection of himself, that he created, but Gale wouldn’t have it.

If he couldn't have her, no one could. Not even his illusions.

Tav whined and looked ready to just do it herself. Gale gulped as he watched her hand move to the front of her pants, prepared to slide down and--Gale gripped the base of his cock to stop himself from cumming. He wants them to cum together, but it seemed rude to have Tav finish herself off.

Conjuring all the magic he could, Gale used the mind’s eye of his projection to summon Mage Hands. They touch her everywhere he wanted to, all at once. Tav seemed delighted, although overstimulated. He would have to remember that for later. Her delicate sweet hands gripping the armrests of his chair as her body arched and bucked against the hands. Gale watching it all as he jerked himself closer and closer to the edge. “Tav…!” He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he had to say it. Almost a reflex at this point as he came.

His hand was a mess. Portions of his desk splattered with it too. Cold baths only negated the symptoms, not the cause. So he was quite backed up since coming here.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

Gale and Tav look up at the projections ask. Taking it upon itself to check in on her. What a good little ghost.

She told it yes, and Gale felt his cock twitch at the look in her eyes. Perfectly sated and happy, but still that glimmer of ‘more’. He tells the projection to let Tav know that the door would be opening soon, and she should get righted with herself; lest they be discovered. She made a very clever retort about him deciding to do this here if he was so concerned, which made him smile and love her all the more.

Gods how he missed her.

“Ask her if she would like to do this again tonight. When we're at home, and a little more private.”

The projection did as it was told, and Gale groaned as Tav bit her lip before giving an enthusiastic yes. Then, Gale severed the link, and he was alone again. Alone with only his hand and his memories.

He cleaned himself off and thought about going back downstairs for a final nightcap, as he was too riled up still to sleep. But when he opened the door, and heard the architecture debate still going on, only now they had switched to stone, Gale closed the door and rested his head on whatever cheap wood this terrible door was made out of.

He had to get out of here. He had to go home.

So he spent the rest of the evening coming up with a clever plan and semi-lie about how his wife needed him. “Emergency. Unavoidable. Must get home before my wife spontaneously combusts…without me. Should probably leave that last part out.”

[stuckwthem]

in the world of boys, he's a gentleman. | enzo v. (eng version)

summary: after watching you waste your time with other dudes, your best friend has some things to confess to you. pure fluff. a bit of angst.

you never thought riding in a dress on a bike would be such an exciting experience, but there you were, clinging to enzo's body and trying to keep your balance on the back of his bike while laughing like crazy. 

to contextualize it, enzo had been your best friend for some time, ever since enzo had rented a room in your apartment two years, so living together inevitably turned into a genuine friendship. from time to time, your best friend and roommate was also your superhero. whether it was reading your mind when you were starving and didn't want to cook, or always coming home with your favorite sweets, or saving you from ambushes.

when your messages came on enzo's cell phone earlier, complaining about a date that was going from bad to worse with a slightly arrogant guy, he didn't hesitate to get up and hop on his bike to pick you up. the very idea of imagining you on a date with a horrible guy, and worse, a guy who wasn't him, made him nervous, so now you were in this highly unlikely but completely comical situation. he hadn't given you a choice.

"i can't believe i did that," you said, bursting out laughing, which enzo reciprocated by shaking his head. "imagine his face when he comes back to the table!".

"i'm so sorry for him", replies enzo with irony and a smile that indicates that no, he doesn't regret that he stole you from that douchebag.

"i bet you do" leaning your head on the brunet's back, you replied in the same tone. his body is warm and a little sweaty, but his scent is good and familiar.

enzo was riding the bike down the street, while you held on by wrapping your arms around his waist, the night breeze enveloping you. silence fell for a moment before you decided to break it.

"enzo, seriously, you didn't have to do that. it was going to be fine. it was going to last a few more minutes."

he chuckled, shooting you a corner glance. "well, judging by your desperation in the messages, i'd say 'fine' is a pretty generous word."

you snorted, feigning indignation. "i was dramatizing it a bit, you see."

"i know, i know. but honestly, i couldn't let my friend spend a horrible night with some idiot guy. after all, who else is going to put up with my stupid jokes?"

"oh, is that what i'm here for, a mate who'll put up with your jokes?"

enzo smiled, amused. "among other things, sure. but seriously, i wasn't going to let a guy get away with it one more time."

she rolled her eyes as if offended, but couldn't hold back a smile.

"where do you want to go?" she asked suddenly, leaving you a little confused.

"i thought we were going home," you shrugged.

"i can't let you go home so dressed up without having had a decent date!" enzo exclaims, turning his head slightly, allowing you to see his indignant expression.

you process what he just said and feel your heart skip a beat. he was either guessing things or....

"so we're going on a date?" is your automatic retort, and then, trying to disguise, you clear your throat, worried that you're reading the wrong lines.

maybe, in addition to roommate, best friend and occasional superhero, enzo was also a little crush of yours. one that you had tried to forget through terrible dates that always sent you back to square one: enzo. enzo, who bought you your favorite ice cream when you got your ass kicked when you first met, even though you never talked to him directly about your favorite flavor. enzo, who always waited for you at home with a movie session and a warm blanket. enzo, who always listened to everything you said. enzo, who was your weak point.

"if you want to call it that, we'll have a date, yes," he says, and involuntarily your hands tighten around his waist. 

after a few minutes pedaling through the quiet streets, you realize the familiar, everyday route. maybe enzo has changed his mind. you really were on your way home and all your expectations had fallen apart. until, slowly, he stops, and the next thing you know, you're in front of a corner pizzeria. the same new pizzeria that had opened a few days ago near your house and the one you kept telling enzo about.

"pizza?" he asks as if waiting for your approval."

enzo holds out his hand for you to get off the bike and he follows you right away. it's funny how you contrast, while the older guy is wearing casual and simple clothes, you're dressed up in that stupid dress. inside your head, you curse the moment you agreed to go out with that idiot from before. he really didn't deserve all your prep, but enzo, wow. he really seemed to study every part of you and admire every aspect of you. from the most innocent way that some loose strands of your messy bun framed your face to the most indecent way he noticed how beautiful your legs looked in that tight dress. 

the two of you had to sit outside, as it was crowded inside, and when you sat down at the small sidewalk table across from enzo, your best friend let out a long sigh as he stared at you. a sigh that said: finally. 

"but to be honest with you now, you don't know what a relief it was to see you out of that restaurant," you confessed, with a light, hearty laugh.

"was the mood that bad?" the boy asked with an incredulous expression.

"there was just no mood! the guy went on and on about the life lessons he learned when his dad stopped giving him money for a month, or how i shouldn't feel special if he took me to his apartment after dinner. and we had just arrived!" you exclaimed in amazement at enzo, who suddenly looked serious. too serious. "he hasn't asked me a single question in 45 minutes!".

"what an asshole!" the brunet muttered, rolling his eyes. enzo's gaze turned away from you for a moment, following his own hand as he fiddled with the sauces and plucked pieces of napkin off the table. "why do you keep hanging out with guys like that?"

he asked, still not looking at you, and suddenly your blood boiled, rushing to your head. you took a deep breath, feeling a pang of disappointment hit your chest, not believing what enzo had just said. 

"are you implying that it's my fault? i'm responsible for men being totally selfish and..." you close your eyes, involuntarily placing your hand against your own chest. indignantly.

"no! that's not what i meant, my love." enzo lifted his head quickly, meeting your gaze, hurt and betrayed. 

he felt like a complete idiot, desperate at the way you were looking at him, not quite sure how to back down. he stood up straight in his chair, leaning over the table to reach for your hand, ready to defend himself when a waiter stopped right next to him.

"good evening, lovebirds! what can i get you?" the man asked, his tone friendly and cheerful, in contrast to the flaring tempers at the table.

you laughed wryly at the waiter's confusion, a regular occurrence whenever you went out together, and folded your arms, turning away from enzo.

"ahm, hello," he scratched the back of his head in bewilderment, and then realized he hadn't even looked at the menu. he fumbled over the pages, didn't know what to order, and suddenly looked lost.

"two pieces of marguerita, vegan option, please," you said, straightening up. "and a coke, with lemon, for him."

enzo looks at you anxiously as the man takes your order, his leg dangling under the table, brushing against yours unaware. the contact makes your whole body shudder, but you still don't look at him. the waiter leaves the table and announces that he'll serve you shortly.

"look, i'm not saying it's your fault. not at all, chiquita," he says, his voice low and his tone worried. you look at your nails, pretending to be indifferent. a little dramatic. 

enzo sighs and brings his knee to yours. you squint, indifferent, while he moistens his lips as if trying to find the words on the tip of his tongue. 

"i'm trying to tell you that you deserve better than these guys. you know it, i know it." the way he conducts what he says is slow and careful, he continues. "you deserve someone who really appreciates you, who sees all the amazing things i see in you. these dudes you go out with clearly don't see the amazing person in front of them and completely miss the opportunity to meet the best person they could ever have in life."

your eyes automatically rise as you hear what he says, and your lungs don't seem to perform their routine action. your lip trembles nervously. tears gather at the corners of your eyes, because you have to tell yourself that you're only saying that because you want his good, because that's what a best friend would say. and you have to wrestle with all those words before you go to sleep, swallowing all your feelings.

"you know, you're kind, incredibly smart, even if you still think you can beat me playing mortal kombat by pushing all the buttons at once." enzo continues, softening his lecture, making her laugh under her breath. "you're funny, talented, real. cute."

unable to resist any longer, you meet the brunette's gaze again, who gives you a small smile as he notices you slowly give in.

"not to mention your patience, especially when i decide to cook and leave the kitchen as a battlefield." 

this time you can't contain the smile that spreads across your face, remembering the last time enzo had tried to prepare food. really, a denial for cooking. 

"as a cook, you're a great actor," you mutter, which makes enzo chuckle and take advantage of the space you're leaving him.

"and when you have those creative bursts, writing or creating your own recipes. it's fascinating to see your mind in action, and i always wonder how someone can be so.... unique. how you light up wherever you go, how you make things seem so much easier when you're around and...".  

enzo seems to be in the middle of a great discovery. he laughs to himself, shaking his head, as if he regrets having said all that and his eyebrows rise, almost in a gesture of desperation.

"got it," you say, a little sheepishly. your cheeks heat up and you suddenly feel like a teenager.

"anyway, i guess what i'm trying to say is that you're an extremely lovely person." enzo seems to relent, and his body softens in the chair. "and anyone who doesn't see that doesn't deserve to be with you."

his breath comes out as if someone has just punched him in the stomach. your hands run across the table, seeking his, which grasp your fingers gently. you say nothing for a long moment, during which the waiter returns and serves you in complete silence. 

his confession gives the atmosphere another kind of tension. before you could respond, enzo averted his gaze, as if trying to escape the intensity of the situation.

"you know what? forget what i said. let's enjoy dinner and forget i said all that. what am i? shakespeare? don juan?" he joked, trying to lighten the situation by gesticulating exaggeratedly. he takes a sip of his coke, disguising his desperation.

"enzo," his name on your lips comes out as a plea. everything hits you at once. the awareness of his feelings, the awareness of yours. he shakes his head negatively and lets go of your hand.

"it's okay, you don't have to try to comfort me and tell me we're friends, i know. i've accepted it." enzo rushes over, running his hands through his hair, nervous.

"enzo," you tell him, firmer now. "why didn't you tell me before? why didn't you take me on a date before?".

he seems to be choking on his own breath, his nostrils flaring and his chest rising and falling rapidly. enzo looks at you with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. his eyes search yours, as if trying to read your expression and understand if those words were real. how can someone know you so well and not have a fucking clue?

"because i... i didn't know how. it was always easier to be your friend. to stay in the comfort of not risking too much. not to feel the rejection. taking you on a date seemed to cross some invisible line, and i was afraid of messing it all up". 

he hid his face in his hands, laughing to himself. enzo looked on the verge of collapse, frightened. you had never seen him like this. you quickly got up, sitting down in the chair next to him, quietly touching his wrists.

"how stupid you are," you state, laughing. he looks at you with an offended and confused expression. "you really haven't noticed all this time?".

your best friend's face fills with something akin to expectation and dread. expecting the fatal blow at any moment.

"wait, you mean... that you..." he starts to stammer, but you interrupt him with a smile.

"yes, enzo. me too" your confession makes his face light up and then he blushes. was he really 30 years old? because you were making him feel like a kid.

"i never thought..." he murmurs, and you complete the sentence.

"that i could feel the same way? well, now you know. it was obvious." you laugh, moving a little closer to him. "how could i not fall in love with you?".

enzo feels your whisper on his lips, sending shivers down his spine. your warm breath mingles with his, uncertainty hovering between the two of you, unfamiliar territory to traverse. enzo's gaze examines your face, searching for any trace of indecision, but he doesn't find it, and then his eyes drop to your mouth.

"if only you'd let me show you all this sooner," he whispers too, as one of his hands, large and warm, rests on her thigh, under the thin fabric of her dress, and the other rests behind the back of her chair.

"you still have time" 

and with your confession, it's as if he loses control. his pupils, darker and dilated now, are the last thing you see before you feel soft lips against yours. your breath is suddenly cut off and a shock runs through your body, shutting down your entire nervous system for milliseconds. he kisses you eagerly, as if making up for all the other opportunities he'd missed. the hand behind your shoulder moves quickly to the back of your neck and a gasp escapes you. his mouth tastes sweet, like cola and lemon mixed with his own flavor.

enzo can barely contain himself, the rest of the world ceases to exist when your tongue passes over his lips, as if asking for permission, and he almost rolls his eyes at the sensation. god, how he had dreamed of that. he had replayed it in his mind a million times and then blamed himself for it. he shook off the thoughts when he felt your fingers run over his scalp, while your other hand gently stroked his cheek. as if a tornado of emotions wasn't going on inside him at that moment. everything that had happened so far made this moment worth it. 

after almost five minutes, the real world seems to return, as does the need for oxygen, useless, in enzo's perception. the sounds of the street echo in his ears again, everything slowly makes sense again. the world stops spinning as you look at each other with wide, goofy smiles on your faces. you bring your finger to the corner of enzo's lips, carefully wiping away the traces of lipstick. it makes him want to ruin the rest that remains on your beautifully delineated lips.

"so, what do we do now?" you ask, still a little limp, trying not to laugh. the feeling of kissing your best friend, something that had crossed your mind a million times before, seemed far away. in fact, it was something much better than you could have dreamed of.

"i suppose we could start with a first date," enzo suggests, feigning some nonchalance, shaking his shoulders. his fingers wander over your face, brushing aside a few strands of hair over your eyes. it's so sweet and peaceful that you want to treasure just that moment among all the others.

for the rest of the night, you eat that cold pizza like it's the best you've ever eaten. the rest of the dinner goes naturally, lightly, with kisses and sighs, conversations and confessions, like everything you needed. like everything was finally in place. a millennial alignment. it was so easy to be there, next to him, no need for masks or disguises, to be in front of him was to be able to see yourself from the inside out. without hiding anything, without any desire to run away. completely immersed in each other. it was like dreaming half awake. it was just perfect.

there were uncertainties, saved for the distant future, it was terrifying to lose that connection you had. but maybe it wasn't the right way, maybe it was unforeseen and completely chaotic, but it was the best and last first date of your life.

for my girlies who asked me to translate it, i hope you enjoyed <3

[aphroditelovesu]

Yandere Mikaelson Family Headcanons (Platonic)

❝ 🧛 — lady l: I finally finished the hcs of our beloved vampires as platonic yandere! It was fun writing this and I hope you enjoy it too! Forgive me any mistakes and good reading!! ❤️🖤

❝tw: yandere, obsessive and possessive behavior, mention of death and murder, transformation into a vampire, jealousy and unhealthy platonic relationships.

❝🧛pairing: yandere platonic!mikaelson family x gender neutral!reader.

The stories about your appearance in the lives of the originals vampires are much discussed and contextualized. Some said you were a human who was kidnapped by them and forced to become part of their family. Others say they went mad and brought you into the vampire life as a way of redeeming the human lives taken. None of this is true, however. The true story is dated back to when they were still human and you were a close friend of the family and witnessed all the tragedies over a thousand years ago.

You, like them, were human. It was Rebekah, your closest friend at the time, who introduced you to the family and it didn't take long for you to become very close to her brothers, especially Henrik and Klaus. They have come to love you and treat you like part of the family. It didn't matter if you already had a family or not, you became part of theirs and they will not allow that to be changed.

You were very close to everyone, but you still didn't know their parents and that was on purpose. Klaus and Elijah in particular didn't want you to get close to his parents at all. They tried at all costs to keep you all to themselves, to the sibilings, but they couldn't hide you forever. In one night, you met Mikael and Esther Mikaelson.

It was a cold and restless night, you couldn't sleep and you left the ''room'' you shared with them. Since you didn't want to wake any of them, you got up carefully and left the small family hut. When you thought about it, you could still feel the freezing cold on your skin and the jump you gave when you heard the voice of a man very similar to your friends approaching you. It took a few seconds, but you recognized him as the Mikaelson patriarch.

Your heart leapt knowing who the man was and you didn't know what to do. You had already heard stories about him, how strict he was with his children, especially Niklaus. To your surprise, the man, Mikael, had been kind to you. A kindness you had never expected from someone like him and, feeling more at ease, you let your guard down and started talking to him. It didn't take long for him to introduce you to his wife, Esther, and they started to consider you their child and love you as their children loved you.

Everything was going well until tragedy struck the family and changed everything. When Klaus arrived with Henrik, dead, in his arms all chaos ensued. Your heart ached to see your friend, your brother, lifeless and Klaus in tears screaming for help. Everything changed the moment Mikael forced Esther to turn all of they children, including you, into something that couldn't be killed. And that's when everything fell apart, you were turned into an original vampire, unable to be killed in the traditional way. All of this was when the first vampires in history were created. Your family of overly overprotective, murderous vampires.

Mikael and Esther were the most dangerous and murderous about you. The family patriarchs are protective and demanding. Mikael is calculating and strict, but is shown to be caring and kind to you even after the transformation. There is no doubt who his favorite child is. Although he is proud, Mikael is devoted to you and is quite close, even if he can act aloof and mean. Esther is very loving to you and has come to adore you like her child, although she is a bad woman at times and a powerful witch, Esther used to be a present mother to you.

Niklaus is considered the worst of the sibilings, although there is some doubt about this. He is cruel, insensitive to the pain of others and considered a sociopath. And maybe all of that is true, but you never knew him that way. You've always known Klaus as a protective and caring brother, and even after Henrik's death, his discovery of being a hybrid, and everything that followed for centuries, he remained the same for you. Others saw the change in him and how possessive he became about you, but it didn't matter to you. He is cruel to everyone else but you. You are the only one besides him who has never had a dagger stuck in your chest and confined in a coffin for decades. Klaus enjoys your company immensely and is the most possessive of them all.

Elijah is the quietest of his siblings in his obsession with you, usually being portrayed as calm and methodical. He is very polite and formal and he usually expects the same from his family. Elijah is very soft for you and a true gentleman, he has made a promise to himself to care for and protect you since he met you and he does his best to honor that promise after centuries of existence. Being very overprotective, Elijah is almost always seen in your company accompanying you somewhere and throwing distinct looks at anyone who approaches you more than they should. Although he is very calm, Elijah is dangerous to anyone who threatens his family and ripping out hearts will be an act of mercy.

Kol is the most spoiled of the family and the most troubled of all. He likes to drag you into his messes and carnage, even if you don't like it, he'll make sure you learn to like it. Kol is unpredictable and a bombshell, ready to unleash his murderous fury on anyone who crosses him, who crosses you. He loves to spoil you and take you with him, if he can and has the chance, he will convince you to run away with him.

Rebekah is your best friend, your favorite sister, well, that's her delusion and what she likes to believe. Rebekah is problematic but not as much as her brother, she is romantic and is always by your side at parties or family gatherings. She loves to take you shopping with her and take you out for drinks. Rebekah is very needy for your attention, for your love, and will sulk if you don't give what she wants from you. She is kind and loving, always looking out for you and doing her best to please you, but she has an unbridled rage and jealousy inside her that will become easily visible if you don't spend time with her.

Freya is the most reliable of the entire family and the most selfless of all. She always puts you above all her petty and selfish desires, genuinely caring and loving you as she feels she should. She is very responsible and a great listener, and has a habit of scolding her siblings when they get too annoying. Her obsession is strong but controlled and Freya never shows her possessiveness, usually she handles these kind of feelings as calmly as possible. She doesn't want to scare you and secretly wants to be her favorite.

Finn is the least close to you, though not by choice. He's never had much of a chance to stay by his side, not with the other brothers doing their best to get him as far away from you as possible. Finn is subtle in his obsession and prefers to watch from afar and protect you like that, but given the chance, he will physically approach you.

The Mikaelson family has its many problems and divisions, which have only been made worse after meeting you, but one thing they all agree on is that you are their top priority and that you must be protected at all costs. Any love interests will be quickly and effectively killed, and friends who are not approved by them will be far from your life. You don't need anyone but your loving family, don't you agree?

They would hate to put you to sleep for a while, but they will if they feel it necessary. They all can disagree and fight, especially Klaus and Kol, but once you enter the story is when they unite and will do their best to keep you just theirs. You took a vow, remember? Always and forever. And they will make sure you fulfill the vow you made.

[mortalityplays]

wrt my recent posts about learning to steal, withholding rent, loudly telling politicians you won't vote for them etc. there is one common thread that is really worth internalising: in any situation where you're being coerced to accept terms that are detrimental to you, it's worth asking "okay, what if I didn't". coercive forces tend to rely on overwhelming you before you ask that question, because often the answer is that the other party will have to do a lot more legwork at their own expense. and they really really don't want to have to do that.

unfair rent terms: okay, what if I said no? I would have to move in about six months. you would have to fully refit and refurbish this apartment I've been living in without incident for six years, and either fix the problems I'm complaining about anyway or find a new tenant who doesn't mind paying more for them.

extortionate prices: what if I just took it? okay, so I might get caught. that would suck in a contextually variable range of ways. but it relies on the underpaid staff at this retail outlet caring enough to pursue me and then going through with pressing charges. it's case by case, but sometimes it's worth the gamble.

awful political policies: what if I refused to vote? a party I don't like might take power, but tbh I don't like any of them and there's very little daylight between their manifestos. meanwhile, your poll numbers are dropping. you're no longer assured of victory. you're losing footholds you thought were safe. you're not the winning horse any more, so fewer financial interests are betting on you. better start looking electable again fast, dickhead.

obviously these are all highly situational examples but my point is it's worth assessing for yourself what the risk/reward of not caving is. what will it cost the person exerting pressure on you? often, more than you're led to believe.

[betweengenesisfrogs]

A HOMESTUCK MANIFESTO

I want to think about what comes next after Homestuck.

That’s a challenge to the world as much as a personal mission statement.

I want to see writers and artists and creators making the next Homestuck, taking its themes and binding them into new fabrics, giving life to new creatures even more beautiful and uncanny than the original species.

I hunger to see new forms of story and image evolving with Homestuck in their DNA.

This process is already underway. Homestuck is a massive boulder dropped into the waters of culture, and the full wake of its ripples is still to be felt. But let’s call attention to this process and ask: what would happen if we engaged in it more consciously? If we sifted through our feelings about Homestuck to create something new, deliberately, with great and wonderful purpose?

The tools we need are within our grasp. Homestuck presents itself as magic, but it’s a work constructed in time out of specific storytelling choices. So let’s understand those choices. Let’s understand how Homestuck did what it did, and use Homestuck’s tools to build art that grips the soul of future generations as strongly as Homestuck did ours.

What follows is not a traditional literary analysis. It does not cite its sources; it does not seek to give us a comprehensive understanding of Homestuck. If it does, it does so only to the extent it suits its larger purpose.

Our goal here, our quest, if you will, is not to understand the Homestuck that exists, but the Homestuck that comes next.

Let's begin.

0. THE WILD GARDEN

Let’s lay the absolute groundwork here.

Homestuck is constructed as a re-appropriation of itself. Or to put it another way, it’s a big improvisational move, a process of “yes and”-ing so hard it develops a sprawling continuity.

Tiny details are constantly re-contextualized to become part of something else. A joke might turn tragic. A silly aside might turn into something profound.

But it didn’t have to be that way.

It’s crucial to understand that what we experience as continuities were in fact choices made at specific times. Homestuck is a garden where seeds were scattered in every direction, grown en masse, then weeded down to create patterns and forms.

The shape of the garden is designed to conceal the gardener’s hand. But the gardener’s choices are there, every step of the way.

If we are to follow in its footsteps, what choices should we make?

Let’s talk about themes.

1. THE MEANING CRISIS

Nobody in Homestuck knows what they’re doing.

And neither do we.

All the old idols have broken down. The values we were taught in our childhood fail to measure up to the problems of the world we live in. We grasp after careers and lives we were told would make us happy and wonder why we’re left empty. The selves that we were told were us now fit us about as well as clothing we’ve outgrown. Crises loom, political, economic and environmental, and everywhere it feels like the people who are supposed to guide and lead us aren’t doing enough.

It's widening gyres and slouching beasts all the way from here to Bethlehem, is what I’m saying.

The reason people go absolutely insane for Homestuck is that it depicts this crisis of meaning. It shows the questions we might want to ask, and attempts to provide some kind of answer.

The protagonists of Homestuck struggle with what I’ve called “received narrative.” That is, they’ve inherited stories from their families, from the world, that they try to use to define their lives, and it doesn’t work. But these stories are so familiar that it’s hard to think outside them. They have to develop new stories by which to live. Sometimes they succeed, but other times they can’t escape the gravity of the ones they were given.

With me so far?

Great. Now understand that all this was improvised and discovered largely accidentally over the course of ten years.

Here’s a seed that became quite an impressive tree:

The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

It’s a joke. But it was never just a joke. There’s an idea here of dissatisfaction with the stereotypical idea of American suburban life. Egbert here is looking for something more, dissatisfied for reasons they can’t fully articulate. This is typical fantasy protagonist stuff, but there’s something more here, too.

Eventually it’s redirected towards the idea that there really is an unseen riddler. But let’s put that aside for now.

This page, in its moment, says: your life is not the full picture. There’s something else out there, waiting, that’s going to change everything.

That's a potential set-up for a very powerful payoff. It gives us the sense that Egbert and all their friends are going to have to rethink what they know. That this suburban life is not going to be enough for them, that somehow or other they’re going to encounter something they aren’t prepared for, and they’ll have to find a new way of acting and being. That, try as they might to avoid it, they’re going to change over the course of this journey.

But to understand how they change, we need to talk about SBURB.

2. THE PORTAL FANTASY OF IT ALL

A lot of people like to joke that Homestuck is an isekai. I think it might clarify things to use the term portal fantasy instead.

Portal fantasy is simply the fantasy subgenre of characters, usually kids, going to a magical other world. Maybe they make friends, maybe they learn lessons and stuff. You know the drill. I don’t have to to tell you more because the story structure is already so familiar. That’s what gives it power.

Portal fantasy differs from the related Japanese genre of isekai in that isekai in its current form is much more heavily based on video games such as MMORPGs. In the most pervasive isekai narratives, protagonists are rewarded not so much for achieving personal growth as being able to exploit the game mechanics of a game-like system. That’s pretty different from your typical Narnia scenario.

The influence of portal fantasy is everywhere in Homestuck, especially in the beginning. We have nods to the fantasy films of the 1980s that gave us our contemporary idea of this story structure, such as The Neverending Story (itself, in its original book incarnation, a phenomenal commentary on the genre). Our protagonists are genre savvy; they recognize what’s happening here.

But it doesn’t fit quite right. The odd note is first sounded when Egbert asks Nanasprite if what they’re doing is going to save the world. They’re bit unsettled to learn the answer’s no, that something else is going on here. Next we have the fantasy worlds: the planetary lands each present a veneer of exciting adventure. But their inhabitants, the consorts, aren’t fully-realized people, they’re largely cute animals going through the motions, not really understanding the story they’re telling. The carapacians are a little better, but they’re still trapped in a fatalism that feels uncomfortable.

As things rev up in Act 4, we learn about doomed timelines from alt-timeline Dave and Rose, how your entire existence in this setting may be fodder for something other than you. When we learn the true purpose of SBURB and its froggy details in Act 5, we see that SBURB is more like a biological creature, mainly interested in its own reproductive desires. It was never really about the portal fantasy at all. The kids are just along for the ride.

So when we see that Rose wants to tear through SBURB, find out a way to escape fate, and snatch meaning from the jaws of futility, it makes sense. We’ve been given hints already that this is the conflict at hand: the characters vs the story that’s telling them. 

(Note: it’s certainly possible to have a reading that SBURB is not evil so much as empty, that it reflects what you bring into it, that its will for you is your will for you. But that’s also a difficult thing, right? If you lack self-understanding, it’s a struggle to bring about your ideal reality.)

What we haven’t mentioned yet is that this is all mediated through the lens of video games. Which makes perfect sense. Because where do we seek meaning, especially as kids? In imaginary worlds that make more sense to us than real life, that give us achievements to take pride in and clear objectives to pursue.

SBURB evokes mechanics from games like Final Fantasy. We see its players complete objectives, cast magic spells, gain power-ups with colorful costume changes. But unlike the narratives implied by traditional video game progressions, leveling up doesn’t mean you grow as a person or process your trauma. Later, in Act 6, when we meet a player who has made his life about winning the game (Caliborn), it’s horrific to behold. 

Homestuck is a portal fantasy, but it’s fundamentally a portal fantasy about games. It’s a portal fantasy that shows us how characters seek meaning in being the best at arbitrary game mechanics, but ultimately fail to find it.

So I guess…it actually is an isekai? Huh. Wild.

(But seriously, Homestuck is actually fairly prescient in predicting the ideas that come out of isekai and LitRPG. It’s engaging consciously and deconstructively with the weird ideas of self-fulfillment these genres are drowning in.)

So what might a Homestuckian work look like? It will almost certainly critique a false narrative we live by. It may comment on portal fantasy, or our personal satisfaction that comes as easily as playing a video game. But it doesn’t have to be limited to these things. It might talk about our popular TV shows and movies. It may take apart what’s flawed in Marvel, the latest triple-A game, or the modern dark fantasy novel. 

Among its tools will be discomfort. Showing a disconnect early on between our character’s expectations and their happiness can serve as foundation to build on, so that when the flaws of the genre narrative are revealed, it feels like the truth. We may see characters who accept their narratives passively, or rebels like Rose Lalonde, who chose to rip everything apart in search of something better.

These are only some of the possibilities.

When I tell you the stories we live by mislead us, what is your relationship to that? If you were to tear these received narratives apart, what would you focus on, what would you try to say? The art that comes out of this question will be deeply personal to the soul who makes it.

But here’s another question:

Just who is giving us all these narratives, anyway?

3. THE PARENT FLIP

The world we live in was not made by us. It was shaped by forces that predate us, over which we have no control and are born into the grasp of without the knowledge of how to escape.

For instance, our parents.

The guardians who raise us provide our template for how to interpret life. We spend a large part of our lives immersed in the world they built, believing as they believe, living by the values that they instruct us in, so that we might carry their goals forward to the future.

This is an effort that is certain to fail.

Because the problems of today aren’t the problems of twenty or thirty years ago.  At best, their messages can only to help in a limited way with the crises we go through as we live our lives. At worst, they actively hinder us from dealing with them productively.

If we are to escape the broken patterns of our world, then we need break out of the stories an earlier generation gave us.

How are parents discussed in Homestuck?

Initially? As jokes.

If we take our “future knowledge” goggles off for a moment, we can see that the early depictions of the kids’ parents are a goofy parody of standard parental tropes. Mom and Dad are nameless, faceless, exaggerated cartoon stereotypes, and conflict between them and their children is initially expressed through a silly video game fight.

There’s a seed of something real here, though. What we’re parodying is a familiar trope of tension between parents and children in kids’ fiction and YA fiction. But that trope exists for a reason. This conflict is rich with potential for any story about growing up. And Homestuck has smuggled the idea of it in as a silly RPG parody.

So we can extrapolate, for instance, that there’s tension between Egbert and their father in part because Egbert doesn’t know yet who they want to be, and that Rose and Mom’s relationship is awkward and contentious, with alcohol involved. We see that there’s something profoundly uncomfortable going on between Dave and his Bro, and Jade’s life in the shadow of a dead Grandpa suggests a psychology that’s not entirely a healthy one.

Understand that I’m not saying that all this was there from the start. Rather, a choice was made to develop these interesting possibilities out of the jokes, to tell a story about how parents that act like these ones might have affected their children.

A major turning point in this regard is when Egbert learns their father’s seeming clown obsession was the result of a failed attempt to connect with them. It’s quite silly, but it plays around with the idea of a gap in perception between parent and child. It’s also a sign the story’s starting to take more of an interest in character psychology, suggesting that what Egbert processes consciously is not the same as their deeper unconscious feelings. This in turn can become a setup for a portrait of Egbert as someone who represses things they don’t want to think about. From this moment, in the long term, comes June Egbert.

When the psychology machine revs up for all the characters in Act 4 and Act 5, it’s able to do so because this foundation was laid.

We also, as early as Act 3, get hints that the parents have intentions and personalities outside of how the kids perceive them. The original purpose is to hint at a larger conspiracy around SBURB, with Mom building a secret lab, Dad trying to investigate the mystery, and Grandpa jumping in and out of time. But what this suggests is that the psychology of the parents might at some point come into play.

But the most exciting development in the relationship between parents and children is Act 6.

The great role reversal. The parent and child flip.

How do you make your faceless parent figures into characters?

By making them kids.

We’re so used to this concept now t that it’s hard to remember how wild it is that Roxy is a teen version of a main character's mom. But the concept is genius. Meeting these characters on the same level forces our protagonists to understand them as people and reflect on their fallibility.

For us as readers, it adds detail and nuance to the cartoonish portraits we got in the beginning. Conversely, we also see what our protagonists might have been like as parents themselves—and turns it from a story of “parents just don’t understand” to a story of how people, despite their best intentions, can wound each other.

(The Homestuck Epilogues are a difficult text to evaluate, but one of the best things within them is Egbert’s arc in Candy, where we see how Egbert might have done as a parent, how their struggles with finding purpose in the world might lead them to embrace a narrative of parenthood yet struggle to have a good relationship their kid. It’s brilliant, and the culmination of everything we’ve talked about here.)

Thus the Homestuckian work of art will be concerned with themes of parents and children. It will play with the boundary between what children understand about their parents and what they don’t. It will show parents as people—fallible people, who make mistakes with severe costs, whose stories fail their children and themselves. It may build from a simple base of what children understand, or it may weave parent and child perspectives together. It may even show us how children fail when they become parents themselves.  It will show us the cycles we are trapped in, how we wound and are wounded by our context.

And it will force us to look for a way out.

4. CLASSPECTS AS SIGNPOSTS

Hey. You want to know a secret?

Come closer, and I’ll whisper it to you.

Classpects aren’t actually all that complicated. Ultimately, they boil down to one thing:

Symbols we can use to construct a self.

If Homestuck is about a crisis of meaning, then classpects are part of its answer.

What do we do, when the world gives us no story we can live by?

We make one. We make one out of whatever symbols and messages we can find and put together from the stories we’ve read, from the people who teach and inspire us. Such collages are powerful things. They give us a way out of the dark, they give us a sense of something we are and can be, where there was nothing before.

They give us, in short, a personal mythology.

Classes and Aspects have often been read as codes to be unpacked and solved. It might be more productive to see them as creative tools, signposts designed not to narrow down meaning, but to allow us to explore it.

For instance, the portrayal of Light in Homestuck is unique. As a symbol, it combines notions of brightness, knowledge, future, luck, wealth, and narrative focus. These things aren’t inherently linked out in the world, but they are here, and that’s a choice, and an interesting one. It encourages us to imagine connections between these concepts, and to see if they have any relevance to ourselves. Identifying with the concept of Light, in other words choosing to value clarity, luck, and importance, might be a powerful tool for finding one’s way in the world.

Classes play with signposts at an even more basic level. Sure, we can talk about what a Knight does in the context of the story.

But a knight is already a powerful symbol. We bring so much cultural context to it. The word conjures up images and narratives of devotion, duty, violence, the slaying of dragons, armoring oneself against the world, and the rescuing of princesses. If we put that together with a concept like Time, we get a distinct character. If we put that together with our own experience of the world, we can create powerful concepts for who we want to be.

Interestingly, this complicates what we said about SBURB. As much as our protagonists struggle to find meaning within it, there’s still something there that they can latch onto. Classes, aspects, denizens, even consorts and lands—these things don’t have to be devoid of meaning. We can choose to affirm them; we can build something out of them, and say, yes, this is me, this is myself.

But it’s a double-edged sword.

We are responsible for the narratives we choose to live by. And we may find ourselves falling into a narrative that hinders us more than helps us, that creates a self-destructive self.

What does it mean to believe deeply that you are a thief, that taking from others to benefit yourself is the best way or comes to you the most naturally? What does it mean to tell yourself over and over that you’re a prince, with all the attendant baggage of power and grim responsibility that comes with that concept? Or, to follow the path further, what does it mean to tell yourself over and over that you are a destroyer or must be destroyed?

If we are to escape the story we’re trapped in, we must take care, lest we trap ourselves in a story of our own making.

Homestuck never quite resolves the ambiguity around these symbols of self, around whether SBURB hurts or helps, whether classpects are things you create or things that create you. But this ambiguity is a productive one. It gives us symbolic tools we can use in the creation of meaning, and it shows us the side of them that should make us wary.

The work that is to come after Homestuck will be about symbols. It may show us how we seek them in popular culture, or the people around us. It may use some of the clusters of meaning that that we see in Homestuck, but it will not be limited to them. It will write its own language of symbols, joining Light and Time to notions like Memory, Need, Rupture, and War, and be filled not just with knights and princes but brigadiers, lancers, healers, druids, taxidermists, sentries and waifs.  It will build with tarot cards, enneagram types, and Babylonian gods. It will place all the signposts we’ve created in millennia of existence into new contexts and meanings.  

By such means will it show us a way forward.

There’s one kind of symbol we haven’t talked about yet, however.

The kind that holds a mirror up to the world.

5. THE POWER OF ALTERNIA

There’s a reason dystopias have been so popular in young adult fiction. Sure, they’re cliché now, but they speak to something raw and visceral.

When you’re growing up into a world that doesn’t make sense, it’s natural to find refuge in emotional extremes. Stories of blood and violence, fates worse than death, and governments that demand horrific things of their citizens speak to the anxieties of the adolescent mind. They validate the feeling that something is wrong—that the world we’ve inherited is broken and unfair and has no place for us. And they’re right.

Alternia taps into these dystopian feelings perfectly. What makes it so fun is that it’s an inversion of a teenage fantasy. It’s a world where there are no parents, where kids can have access to power and violence, where you can sit around and play video games and design your own house. It almost feels like a response to the “parents don’t understand” themes of the early acts.

But the dystopia’s there, and it’s sneaky. A land of lost boys and girls isn’t actually all that great to live in. It’s lawless, survival of the fittest, with children killing each other left and right. And the future adult roles most of the troll kids aspire to are a glamorous veneer over competition for slots in a fascist military hierarchy. Which is to say nothing of the blood caste system as a way in which the kids are taught by their world to abuse and exploit each other. Crushes, personal slights, competition for status, group dynamics, attempts to define identity – all these familiar teenage dynamics play out on a backdrop of maiming and murder.

Which is perfect. Because when you’re young, all those social interactions genuinely do feel like life or death, and adulthood a regime of exploitation and horror bearing down on you. Alternia is a heightened, exaggerated version of reality. It expresses an emotional truth, not a literal one, validating our most intense feelings and giving us a road map to understanding them.

No wonder so many people wanted to skip to Act 5 and get to the trolls.

(See also Hiveswap Friendsim and Pesterquest, which explore these themes really really well.)

And Alternia, for a world where parents aren’t really a thing, tells us a surprising amount about the parental generation. In mid Act 5-2, Ancestors are added to Alternia’s wordbuilding, and we learn that as much as the trolls skipped having traditional parental figures, they were never devoid of role models. The deeds and exploits of notable figures throughout ancient Alternia gave them models to think about each other and themselves—even when those models were toxic ones. In a way, this isn’t so far from the human kids at all.

Furthermore, as time goes on, we acquire an origin for Alternia’s fascist worldview. Doc Scratch, manipulator of society, stands in for all those aspects of the world that work to create the false narratives we are born into, a true evil father figure – or uncle, if you prefer. And he's an extension of the ultimate evil father figure, Lord English, who controls not just Alternia but the timelines of the human children as well, whose belligerence and apathy give us aeons of toxic narratives and abuse. We see that story played out in Alternia in every interaction, in every moment, the beliefs its architects live by.

This is the power of dystopia—it can hold a broken mirror up to the world we live in.

Therefore the Homestuck that will come after Homestuck will worldbuild gardens of horror. It will not pull its punches but show us insidious societal systems and the effect they have on the people who live under them. It may depict fascism, authoritarianism, feudalistic tyranny, or all three. It will be unafraid to evoke blood and guts but use them to paint a picture of what we want, what we fear, and how we break under our false horizons.

As it depicts the path out, so, too, will it have its reverse side—it will show us all the hells and purgatories we’re trapped in.

6. SAILS TO THE WIND

Much has been written (including by this very author) about Homestuck’s metafictional aspects – the way it comes to foreground a more direct clash between character and narrative.

But the point I want to make here is that the metafictional angle wouldn’t work without these earlier choices. They allow the comic to talk about these concerns long before any notion of canon rears its head.

There are many ways of approaching these themes, and we don’t have to be limited to notions of Ultimate Selves and Beyond Canon to explore them. Such things are valuable, but they are only one retelling of the myth. If we are to make the next Homestuck, we must make our own.

I want to illustrate the space of possibility by offering some examples of works that explore similar themes. Note that I’m not saying these works were influenced by Homestuck in any way, but rather that they use some of the same tools to speak to the same questions, anxieties and concerns.

In trying to make what comes after Homestuck, we might consider:

Revolutionary Girl Utena, which foregrounds the archetype of the Prince as duelist, tyrant, and hero and dares its characters to break free from the false reality that shapes even these aspirations and dreams.

The Familiar by Mark Z. Danielewski, author of Houseof Leaves, whose core narrative concerns an twelve-year-old girl in thrall to an entity whose intentions are unclear but may be shaping the fabric of reality itself; which depicts the inner lives and uncertainties of her parents with just as much detail as they struggle, and sometimes fail, to make the right choices to help her; a story which, even in its incomplete form, explores a notion of a greater S.E.L.F that is not just you but also those who share something with you, where characters from other realities blur into transcendent archetypes in this one.

Digimon, perhaps the quintessential work of portal fantasy, not only Digimon Tamers, which steers the genre into a place of trauma, cosmic horror, and adults horrified by children saving the world, but also Digimon Adventure, which creates strong character arcs for eight very different children as they try to navigate a strange alien world, and shows us their struggle to reconcile with their parents as part of the process of understanding themselves.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende,foundational text for Homestuck, which tells us not only about the rich possibilities inherent in reading oneself into fantasy worlds, but also the terrible potential for harm in making oneself an emperor over them.

Pale, by Wildbow, author of Worm, an urban fantasy story about three teenagers thrust into a world of magic and murder, a world where symbols literally create reality, where concepts like Carmine and Aurum have a powerful pull, where the Self is something that can be nourished or taken apart and put back together, a story where the parents are not just supporting cast but fully realized people forced to reckon with the ways in which they have deeply failed their children, and which contains perhaps the most thorough investigation of the question of “is it good for children to go on magical adventures?” ever committed to the page.

Heaven Will Be Mine, by Aevee Bee,in which the giant robots we pilot through space become the symbolic manifestation of our inner selves and our way of bringing about our ideal reality, and, relatedly, We Know the Devil, in which the repression of those selves causes them to burst out from us in terrifying and glorious new forms.

Crow Cillers, by Cate Wurtz, an often trauma-filled horror comic in which a group of kids and, eventually, adults, tries to fight back against an ever-present death cult that has its grips on every corner, all the while encountering Psyforms, beings made of pure mind, while characters from television and cartoons dance in the margins and all the while the line blurs between audience and art until it becomes difficult to tell who created who—a story that asks what it means to find meaning in stories when the corporate entities that own them are trying to devour us.

It's a tragically short list, I know. But perhaps it conveys some of the angles we might take.

We can also look at works that are known to have inspired by Homestuck. There aren’t many yet, but there are a few.

Undertale is famous for its Homestuck influences, with parallel timelines, an idea of agency that persists across them, and a contentious relationship between player and character, but for my part, I’m just as interested if not more so in Deltarune, which seems to be slowly building a grand thesis about portal fantasy, where the kids' adventures in the Dark Worlds seems to be offering them an escape and helping them become their best selves—but hints at a coming challenge to that simple worldview in the question of who’s really experiencing that escape.

The Locked Tomb, by Tamsin Muir – This is the big one, that really shows what building on Homestuckian themes can achieve. It turns out there really is an audience for weird aggro formalism in scifi publishing if you make it sufficiently gay. But smartly, like Homestuck, the Locked Tomb builds its weird mysteries gradually, adding on layer after layer on the solid foundation of characters we can follow and get invested in. There’s so much to notice – there’s the highly categorized teenagers involved in a murder feud, there’s the constant whiplash of humor and tragedy, there’s the endlessly open spaces in the story to interpret and project on to.

But to me, what stands out the most is the portrait of God and his court as every bit as emotionally chaotic as the sniping teenagers. You go to heaven, and God’s making out in the corner with his friend group, and you look for the adult in the room but the adults in the room don’t know what they’re doing and they never really did. It’s a portrait of the parents, it’s a portrait of the Ancestors, it’s a portrait of the gods of the new world, and it’s exquisite.

The Locked Tomb gives us a world at war with its own mythological narrative, rich with angst and irony. It’s a worthy successor to everything Homestuck was doing. It shows us how much these themes can say to us, and it gives us a hint at how powerful Homestuck's legacy might be.

7. THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMESTUCK

There’s a lot of discussion about how to continue Homestuck. How to do it justice. What post-canon might look like, and what it might not. What fan comics, what fan fics, what semi-official works truly live up to the spirit of its characters and its multiverse.

To be clear, those discussions are awesome. I’m so glad those things exist, and it’s wonderful to see them unfolding.

But I don’t want the process to stop there. I'd be disappointed if it was only about adding to and re-articulating Homestuck itself.

I want this—

—This multifaceted, complicated, emotionally laden thing that is the experience of engaging with and creating with and interpreting Homestuck—

To go out into the world and to be infused into the world, to become waves spreading further and further. I want to experience the Homestuck artistic movement, the Homestuck school of thought. I want it to be an influence on the fiction of the coming generation of authors, and the next, and the next.

I want Homestuck to be one of those albums that's too obscure to be known by the general public, but everyone who listened to it went on to start an enormously successful band.

Homestuck can appear like a thing that was conjured out of the ether, but it isn’t. It’s a product of a particular time.

But that in itself is profound. When you create art, you reach back to all the things that have shaped you, and you listen to what the world around you needs, and you try to say what needs to be said. Which means you're a part of a history and culture that needs to say those things, which will be different from the things that needed to be told yesterday, and different from the stories that will be needed tomorrow.

There’s no otherworldliness to it, no platonic other reality. But for all I've talked about art being made of choices, there's still something transcendent here.

To make Homestuck—and to make art inspired by Homestuck—means being a node in a web formed of millions of people, where a light passes down the chain to you, and for the briefest of moments, you get to be filled with its presence, before it moves on to the next person in the chain.

That light isn't yours. Not really.

But at the same time, you do get to choose how that light manifests.

And to engage with that process consciously—to think deliberately about what we want to create—that gives us power and agency over that process, our sense of the world, and ourselves.

So let’s do this. Let’s make the thing that Homestuck is telling us can exist, the thing it’s paving the way for, the thing we know in our soul can come to be.

Let’s make the next Homestuck happen.

—Ari

POSTSCRIPT

“To put out a manifesto you must want: ABC

to fulminate against 1, 2, 3

to fly into a rage and sharpen your wings to conquer and disseminate little abcs and big abcs, to sign, shout, swear, to organize prose into a form of absolute and irrefutable evidence, to prove your non plus ultra and maintain that novelty resembles life… I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestoes, as I am also against principles… I write this manifesto to show that people can perform contrary actions together while taking one fresh gulp of air…”

— Tristan Tzara, “Dada Manifesto 1918”

"The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocence....the cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of re-turning to dust...This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories...I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess."

— Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"

“What we need is works that are strong straight precise and forever beyond understanding... let each man proclaim: there is a great negative work of destruction to be accomplished. We must sweep and clean…to divest one's church of every useless cumbersome accessory; to spit out disagreeable or amorous ideas like a luminous waterfall, or coddle them—with the extreme satisfaction that it doesn't matter in the least…freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE.”

— Tristan Tzara, “Dada Manifesto 1918”

“These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,

If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,

If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,

If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.”

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

𖤓

[dekusleftsock]

I JUST HAD THIS REALIZATION IN THE SHOWER WHY HAVE I NEVER. THOUGHT ABOUT KATSUKI LIKE THIS.

So this is going to kind of go into Izuku’s bullying from Katsuki but it’s mainly if not entirely about why Katsuki has always stood out as a person, regardless of quirk or even leadership.

What got me thinking about this was actually those “American meets K-Drama bullies” on tiktok, which I often feel has a hint of xenophobia, but I digress.

One of the main points as to WHY the American in those examples would “win” is because of the cultural differences between fighting back vs shutting up and taking the beating. The main reason most Americans believed they would win is because culturally, a K drama bully would never think that their victim would retaliate, much less try to beat their ass in the first place.

Japan and China have similar cultural standards, especially to bullying (which is why bullying is so so bad statistically in Japan, with a whopping 57% bullying rate), and this “sit down and take the beating” cultural standard often permits bullies to continue to retaliate within the school. (Fun fact I was actually researching divorce in Japan for this due to some misinformation I’d read a while ago, but apparently Japan doesn’t have joint custody?? Like period?? It comes from the idea that a family is a set unit, and that were a parent to want to leave that unit, they are fundamentally no longer apart of it. No marriage, no custody, no child. You simply don’t see your kid very often, or ever. Sometimes this is even a decision on the father’s part, thinking that it’s “too painful to see the child after separation”, and that parents don’t see the benefit in children having both parties in their lives)

So, thinking of this in mind, I first went to why Izuku wouldn’t necessarily speak out or try to fight back. He wants to, he definitely almost does, but ends up standing silently shaking instead. Yes, fighting back may feel good, but even to people who would sympathize with said struggles may still blame the victim in this situation for “causing trouble”, it’s why Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship is even more interesting; it’s not just Izuku gaining confidence as he goes into high school, but that after he was given a space TO fight back (the first hero training), he actually started his arc on “defying society” and “not pushing things under the rug”. Tearing that rug to shreds doesn’t just mean looking out for those who haven’t been looked for, but also for destroying the standards that fighting back is a fault of yourself.

Tbh we also have this in the west as well, even those Americans who like to make those TikTok’s shaming people in countries they have no contextual idea to understand, much less solve. Because it’s not that fighting back itself would be hard, but that the social backlash would cause you to be even more of a target. It’s a lose-lose situation, so yes, a student will choose the wisdom of their parents and their elders that tells them to pretend it isn’t there.

But, besides that, in America (and I honestly wouldn’t doubt that this is in Europe too) the subtlety of that shame IS STILL THERE. I can even account for this in my middle school, for lightly pushing my bullies who ganged up on me, I was the one blamed and threatened punishment. The idea of a fight at all in high school would cause immediate suspension on both parties records, regardless of why or who started it. My brother in middle school was expelled for threatening kids who were both physically and vocally harassing him, and instead of any sort of help from the school, they REFUSED footage that might have defended him and my brother was then ostracized by my neighborhood/school district and thought to be some kid about to shoot up a school, he wasn’t.

Violence isn’t always the answer, obviously, but this is mainly to point out the hypocrisy of putting the west on this pedestal for fighting injustice.

I wanted to put this in somewhere but didn’t know where so it’s going here, but I find this take even funnier given the fact that North America has a 1% higher bullying rate than Asia which is so fucking funny and ironic

BUT BACK TO THE MAIN POINT ON KATSUKI, IM GETTING THERE I PROMISE🙏🙏

I think there’s this perception online of Katsuki that he is considered so unbelievably cool and normal given the context of his middle and elementary school, but putting it into perspective? Fighting your bullies, especially ones a year older than you, is REALLY WEIRD. Like, he’s an odd ball. It actually makes so much more sense as to why Izuku admires Katsuki in the first place. Katsuki has NEVER simply sat down and took the beating IN HIS LIFE.

And when you really think about it? All of that direct language, how rude he talks in Japanese (as in what pronouns he even uses for people, to the point that even the “softer” or “more intimate” pronouns he uses are… also kind of rude), and yk, suddenly, it’s almost like all the people at the beginning of their first year making fun of him… makes sense. And not just in a “lets humble this guy” way, they have no reasons to think of him in any kind of way really, they’re simply reacting to Katsuki and his odd way of speech and forwardness. He IS weird here, not just an asshole.

But EVEN GIVEN the fact that people know and think Katsuki is weird, he still strides along anyway. In fact, the only person who has ever gotten under his skin has been Izuku, who never even implied that he thought any malice of him in the first place.

Even now Katsuki continues to be himself to such a visceral, outward degree. I saw this post recently that was saying Izuku was actually quite mature for his age, but I’d argue that it’s less maturity, and more that he has just abided by a certain cultural standard of being thankful for the opportunities he’s been given.

It’s almost like Horikoshi has used Katsuki as this… idk, societal commentary? He certainly stays a societal commentary here in the west and our standards, often portraying more nuanced ideas of forgiveness and change and humility, but it’s different now that I think about it.

Katsuki isn’t just a character made to be rude for the sake of being funny, he’s an honest to god, walking, talking, culmination of what Japanese culture stands to change. It’s why Katsuki keeping his “hardened” traits is so so SO important. And it’s even more interesting given that he’s popular, he’s powerful, and he’s still bold while he does so.

Katsuki didn’t try to be popular, he just happened to do so. Explaining why he’s so bizarrely different from everyone else suddenly makes everything about his character make sense to me. Like, ofc Izuku would admire him to an almost worshipping degree, ofc he would stay in his life regardless of his flaws, Katsuki is himself in the most unapologetic way possible and THATS what’s truly admirable about him. His quirk, his determination, they’re both beautiful, but he’s the hero in his life because heroes inherently juxtapose the society around them. And that is exactly what Katsuki is.

And Katsuki, for all his flaws, never changed himself for society. He was always, long before he went to UA, before he even had his quirk, before he’d probably even met Izuku—been a hero.

[another-italian-crazy-fangirl]

I have to admit, I'm a little confused by the lore of LADS. I've played through pretty much the entire main story, which focuses on MC's present, and I've (just to unlock it) started Sylus' chapter. I've found memories, and aside from Zayne and Sylus who interest me, I haven't delved into Xavier and Rafayel yet. I'd like some info from veterans of the game. I don't care if there are spoilers, as long as it helps me better contextualize the lore.

I understand that there are the present events that we play, and then a branch of the story that talks about MC's past lives. From what I can understand, at least for Xavier, is that he is actually very old and has adapted to modern life to be able to search for our MC, who is probably reborn or is a descendant of the MC he met on his planet.

(I haven't delved into anything specific, I'm starting to get some clues from the main plot of the game and from what I read here)

I would think that it is more or less the same for Rafayel, but with everything that revolves around Lemuria.

Very little is known about Sylus, but he too seems to have had some reincarnation, but given the little information it is difficult to put things into context.

Now Zayne: he's the only one whose parents are actually talked about, he has a family after all and MC knows them. He also seems to have a very painful past with an MC.

This brings me to the question: apart from Xavier who seems confirmed to be VERY old, were the other love interests reborn along with MC and retain their past memories (unlike MC) or are they all the same characters from those past times (ex: Rafayel as God of the Tides and Sylus as maybe a wanderer? Mabye as some cursed space-thief? I have read his anecdotes and didn't really understand the context)

I can't get how things are connected, or where I can read or see things to understand it better. Anecdotes of Sylus didn't help at the moment.

Sorry if it seems like a very stupid question, hope you'll understand! Ty to everyone who will patiently answer!

[penncilkid]

Can't remember what started it, but I've been on a bit of an Alexis kick recently and started thinking about my headcanons/version of here. So now I'm subjecting y'all to it /lh

Note: Yes, I am partially ignoring some elements of canon. I don't love the way she's written for several reasons— and also because I can play with these dolls however I'd like to. In addition, I will be re-contextualizing Sam's turning as well as discussing it to a certain degree. If that doesn't seem like your kind of thing, this post isn't for you.

Alexis turning Sam against his consent was wrong. I think it would be interesting if there were additional layers behind this decision. Both statements can co-exist. Don't act a fool on my post. /srs /lh

Anyways, thoughts under the cut (CW for mentions of violence/vampiric attacks + Sam's Turning's CWs):

The basics:

Her name before turning was Alexis Guevara. (I'm not a fan of "Getty", sue me /lh). Her family is/was of Cuban descent, and her being Latina/non-white is vital to my vision.

Alexis was empowered but humanborn prior to her turning. She was specifically a telepath, which caused a lot of strife with her family.

With this as context: She was kicked out of her home originally because of too many outbursts/incidents involving her hearing things that "weren't there" or "knowing things she shouldn't". The final straw was when she freaked out in the middle of a church service, screaming as tried to warn everyone that someone planned to attack them soon. When they went outside to check, there was no one there (Translation: Person obviously left after hearing Alexis give away their plan somehow).

After being kicked out of her home, she ends near Dahlia/some sort of city. Part of my inspiration for her stems from the version of Selina Kyle in Batman: Year One. After migrating, she quickly became a part of a small, tight-knit community of fellow black and brown otherwise isolated empowered people. In my mind, there was about 4 others she looked out for with her being one of the older ones.

In alignment w/ the timeline, Alexis is turned after a rogue vampire attack. But there's layers to it. The rogue vampire in question attacks more than just her. Everyone in this small community she considered her apart of is hurt in some way. She is one of maybe two survivors, if that. As she laid there waiting to die she could hear the thoughts of those around her as they died, calling out for one another— for her— before they passed.

Now that that's out of the way, you may be wondering: "Okay, what's so special about all of that?" Everything because I think it colors everything she does moving forward.

Part of the "turbulent progeny" reputation attributed to Alexis earlier in her turning stemmed from her throwing resources at struggling empowered (and/or unempowered) people seemingly willy nilly until William stepped in and was like "I need you to slow it down."

I imagine that discussion went something like: "You can't just do this, Alexis—" "Why not! It's not like DUMP is doing shit, William—" "There are procedures to this—" "FUCK THOSE! People need money to live, I should be allowed to fucking give it!"

This leads into how she gets roped into the vampiric espionage (like Porter). In exchange for her services to William's goals/initiatives/etc., she gets almost completely unrestricted spending for whatever she'd like. The vast majority goes back to the communities she wants/wanted to help.

The other angle to this is Alexis wanting to get back at vampires. She's gotten comfortable enough with her new lifestyle to not resent being a vampire, but she wants to hurt some of these bastards like they hurt her and her family all those years ago.

"Okay PK, but you mentioned Sam's turning. What does that have to do with anything?" I was laying out parameters and background, we can get into it now.

As it's explained in canon, I've always interpreted Alexis and Sam's relationship prior to everything as a friends with benefits/situationship type dynamic. Physically intimate above all but still close in other ways. Alexis hoped for more/a deeper connection with Sam, but it was painfully clear that the chances of that happening were dwindling with every night they spent with each other.

Night of the turning comes about. As it's described in canon, Sam is impaled, likely bleeding out, he's in rough shape. In my mind? With all the prior context? Alexis started experiencing a trauma response (which wasn't helped by the exposure to blood as well). As Sam assured her that he would be fine/he could heal himself (which, imo, was still debatable), Alexis was in full-on flashback mode. She was blinded by her panic and fear response, locked into a "this time, I can save them" mindset that had marinated over decades since she was first turned. She couldn't bear to watch someone she cared about die in front of her. Not again.

This wasn't the first time something similar happened. When Vincent was first brought to the Solaire estate, turned but unconscious, Alexis instinctively panicked because he was still covered in blood clothes and such (+ missing his prosthetic). Her mind went into that same "something's wrong, help him" mode, just this time William was there to stop her/assure her that he was already safe.

Alexis fully accepted her scolding from William after it got explained/revealed what happened. To say she regretted it would be a lie. Would she have wanted it to play out differently? Yes. Does she wish Sam had asked her to be turned— that the accident never happened— that she had never reached out that night? Yes. But she doesn't regret turning Sam. In her mind and heart, she was able to save someone this time. She can't fault herself for that, no matter how many complex emotions she feels about it.

Though he took her ability to invoke Sam (rightfully so), I imagine that (in a tweaked version of canon) Vincent, William, and Porter know the context of her turning and acknowledge that what happened was, in some parts, because she was triggered. At the first mention from Sam to leave her alone, she did. She tries to make herself scarce, avoid him as much as possible, keeps her distance if they have to be in the same space— She respects the fact he doesn't want her around and hasn't tried to press those since he was turned. They can forgive her for that much.

I've yet to firmly settle on a vision for Alexis and Sam's dynamic in the present day. But I think the crux of it, at least closer to when Sam was first turned, is: Alexis "We didn't talk like that, that wasn't what our time was supposed to be because that's not what he wants" Solaire (In reference to how she was turned) x Sam "Save the sob story for someone who gives a damn, Alexis" Collins.

That's pretty much the sweeping overview on my thoughts on/vision for Alexis. I'll likely design her at some point (my current height headcanon for her is 5'4", for those who would want to know). What can I say, she compels me /lh /pos

[cowboylikedean]

Inside the (a)Romance

For those of you who don't know, I have been in the first really like... real feelings... romantic relationship of my life for the past 10 months. Being romance replused sex indifferent aroace has really shaped my experience of this relationship. This relationship is romantic, but it is not allo and I think it would be helpful for me, other aros, and also allos to pick it apart and discuss how my romance repulsed aromanticism has affected my experience of this relationship (and also how my partner's patience has been paramount in making it work) in a new series inside the (a)romance.

I'm going to post about different stages and conversations of our relationship. This first post is kinda gonna be an overview of things that are contextual and important including my identity words and conception and also outside things that are not romance related like our history.

My identity

I identify my romantic orientation with the following words and phrases: aromantic, romance repulsed, sensuromantic. None of this has changed. My definition of sensuromantic changed and my romance repulsed label got a *exception... but all three of those are still my labels. I'm going to break down in parts to explain their meaning before and after.

Aromantic

This is the easiest label because it's barely changed. I am aromantic and my definition of that is that I am not oriented to feel romantic attraction. That has not changed. I am still not oriented to feel romantic attraction. I just happen to feel it towards him. I don't expect that to ever happen again. This hasn't changed much because I already had an exception. I had an almost-someone I had romantic feelings for in high school. We never dated because he wanted to keep it secret from his friends and I thought I was worth more than that. I've regretted not going for it anyway and hoping that after we were really good, he would want to tell his friends because I thought that was my only shot at understanding romance. Now I have another shot! So that barely changed.

Romance Repulsed

This one has changed a tiny bit, but not much. I am romance repulsed and I define that as I am turned off and made uncomfortable by displays of affection defined romantically. For example, when I was just out of high school, we went to visit my dad's family out of state at the end of July. We were there during my sister's birthday. My sister's boyfriend asked my dad privately and got my grandma's address and had flowers delivered to my sister at my grandma's house on her birthday. The whole family thought this was soooo sweet and I thought it was sooo uncomfortable and creepy. It felt overbearing and gross. I said that if a partner did that to me, I'd be creeped out and that would be a possible reason to end a relationship. When I thought about a friend doing this for me, however, it sounded SOOO sweet! It was the definition of the romance that made it feel gross and overbearing. However, if my partner did that for me, I'd be really so endeared. So this remains true for everyone except my partner. Just like with "aromantic," how I already had an exception and I just added one, my partner became my only exception here.

Sensuromantic

This is a term I coined like 10 years ago when everyone was coining microlabels before the terf-lead aphoboia ruined the aspec communities of tumblr (which btw by the WAYYYY the 2013-2015 period of time where the queer communities were made on tumblr is hitting the mainstream now and I just feel so much grief). The definition I went with was that sensual attraction "takes the place of" romantic attraction for me. The role that romance plays in other people's lives, sensuality plays in mine. I knew that I had squishes where I desperately wanted to hug and cuddle, but I also knew I had no intention for those squishes to be defined romantically. So this definition where sensuality was in the place of romance made sense. I can pinpoint the moment romantic feelings began for me in my current relationship... that's a whole post in and of itself, but it was after a very soft and sweet cuddle session. I have changed my definition that a sensual relationship is required for romantic feelings to begin. This makes sense with my high school almost someone too because we had some touching and hugging there that lead to those feelings being romantic.

Some outside things and context

I'm just going to list some stuff that's important to note before we fully get into it:

At the beginning of my current relationship, I had another partner... a qpp life partner. We were engaged and had covid not happened, we'd be filing for divorce right now. This relationship was deeply devastating for me and soooo much about myself is being redefined right now

Another reason a lot of me is in flux is my mother died in April of this year. It's the worst thing that will ever happen to me and I still can't believe it happened.

I have had one other committed relationship defined romantically. I thought I had romantic feelings for her, but I didn't. There are many things about that relationship I regret, and even moreso now that I know what an actual reciprocal romantic relationship feels like.

I am SAM aroace and my sexual orientation is absolutely a part of this story, but it isn't the point of this series. I will likely be doing a long post about it as a part of this series, but it's not the focal point. Because I'm SAM, I can focus a lot on my romantic orientation without discussing my sexual orientation.

So that's my intro post to this series! Look out for more! The next post will talk about that moment I mentioned in the sensuromantic section for when my romantic feelings started!

[mariacallous]

Jonathan’s actions were irrefutable: Over the course of nearly a decade, while working at a video game developer, he sexually assaulted industry colleagues. One victim came forward, posting their story to social media; others followed with stories of their own. The consequences were swift. Colleagues, friends, and peers disavowed him. He stepped away from his job and retreated from the public eye.

Jonathan, who asked that WIRED not reveal his identity, no longer works in the video game industry. His decision to remain apart from the community, he says, is the direct result of his actions. ”I made the choices I did, and I needed to hold the burden of those consequences,” he says. Had he remained in games, he felt he would be placing an unfair burden on his colleagues, as well as making the lives of those he abused more difficult.

“I didn't feel like it was right to stay involved and continue my journey in gaming when the harm I caused prevented them from doing the same,” he says.

In video game development, actions like Jonathan’s are alarmingly familiar. What's less common are solutions for how to repair the damage done. For decades, the industry has faced calls to weed out people accused of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, abuse of power, harassment, assault, and much more. At companies like Activision Blizzard, which paid out millions to victims who alleged a widespread sexual harassment scandal, bad actors have lost their jobs or faced discipline following harassment investigations, but what then? It’s taken the video game industry so long to even respond to the problems in its ranks, little work has been done to figure out what can and should happen next.

ReSpec wants to be part of the solution. Founded in 2022 as an offshoot of a hotline for people experiencing harassment and abuse in the gaming industry, the nonprofit works with people who want to change. For Jonathan, that meant facing his actions and taking accountability. In other cases, it means recognizing misuses of power, harassment, or manipulation. ReSpec's work pushes the conversation further, but also raises new questions about whether abusers can be reformed—or if they should ever be allowed to return to the places they made unsafe.

In 2020, Jae Lin was working at the Games and Online Harassment Hotline. It was a text-based service that allowed anyone who reached out to talk anonymously about issues from crunch to depression. Launched by Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian, herself the target of a Gamergate harassment campaign, the idea was to create the survivor-centered, trauma-informed assistance the game industry so desperately needed.

When confessions coming from industry abusers began rolling in, Lin was surprised. They were working for a hotline that was created to support victims. Unwittingly, it was also becoming a lifeline for people who’d done the harm in the first place. “Really from the beginning, we had folks texting us about harm and harassment that they had caused or been a part of,” Lin says. “It just kept happening.”

Eventually, Lin says, they realized this was “not a one-off thing,” but something the industry wasn’t addressing. There were not many resources, even outside of the games space, for people who “were feeling remorseful and regretful for what they had done and wanted to change,” Lin says. No one knew who to ask for help.

In reporting on this piece, WIRED reached out to survivor-focused groups like the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network to better contextualize ReSpec's work. A representative for RAINN declined to comment, saying that the organization doesn't have an expert who could speak on the subject.

Lin would officially found ReSpec—a nod to rebuilding attributes in role-playing games—with the goal of providing virtual meetings that could be attended by anyone in the world. Because counseling offenders is different from working with survivors, they consulted with therapists who had experience working with incarcerated people and people on the sex offender registry. They also spoke with facilitators of batterer's intervention groups, members and leaders of men's support groups, and many more experts with experience in sexual violence prevention.

At ReSpec, facilitators have backgrounds that span hotline counseling and trauma-informed care to sexual violence prevention and “men's roles in interrupting cycles of gender-based violence,” Lin says.

Part of ReSpec’s work is about acknowledging that harassing behavior in the video game development world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The industry is still overwhelmingly male—69 percent of devs identify as cis men—and at times hostile to anyone who doesn’t fit that mold. People drug developers at industry parties; conversations about alcohol's presence and the culture it communicates in professional spaces are a constant. Whisper networks, more powerful than they’ve ever been thanks to online forums, work overtime. It does not matter what size a company is, or even the industry it serves. The MeToo movement existed for over a decade before the allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein published in The New Yorker and The New York Times in 2017 catalyzed a global reckoning.

“So much of what we heard about from folks was rarely about a single, egregious instance of harassment or abuse or violence,” Lin says. “This is something that they're facing every time they play a game, every job they work at—it was everywhere.”

Harassment rarely impacts only those directly involved. It is a pernicious act, one that can ripple out and inform work culture. It can drive people out of industries they work in, or discourage others from joining at all.

In the last few years alone, games industry powerhouses such as Riot, Activision Blizzard, and Ubisoft have been the subject of allegations of workplace harassment and abuse. However it’s labeled—as a callout, a cancellation—bringing attention to abusive individuals is part of a greater push for justice and accountability. Victims have used social media spaces like X to tell their stories in their own words. It is an imperfect system, one that opens survivors up to widespread abuse online and off, that many turn to when they feel they have no other options.

“If you think about some of the other mechanisms that the legal system provides, they don't necessarily provide the kind of remedies that people might want,” says Jennifer Robbennolt, a University of Illinois law professor whose research focuses on integrating psychology into the study of law. Criminal cases deal with fines or prison; the civil system is about monetary damages. “In certain kinds of cases, those outcomes might be appropriate,“ Robbennolt says. “But a lot of times what people who are harmed or people in those communities will want is changed behavior.”

In the criminal system, advocates for restorative justice work with offenders and victims together in an attempt to reconcile. The goal is to move forward, and sometimes reintegrate the perpetrator back into a community or workplace, albeit often in a different role. “In some ways, that's both a benefit and the challenge of restorative justice,” Robbennolt says. “It's a collaborative process that creates room for there to be nuance to the consequences to the harm, and to tailor the solution to that particular circumstance.” However, she adds, it’s important to not minimize “the more severe end of the spectrum.”

Aside from the nature of the harm done, there’s also the matter of how remorseful a perpetrator is—a difference between someone who either cannot or will not admit to wrongdoing and someone who can potentially learn. Not all offenders should be treated the same, even when their behaviors are similar, Robbennolt says.

While other programs may align with restorative justice, Lin says ReSpec’s focus is on a different model known as transformative justice. “Our focus is really working to address the roots of how harm happens,” Lin says. That means examining behavior, history, and practicing new ways to build relationships.

A key element of a program like ReSpec, says Lin, is time. They’re betting on long-term change. “Change that happens overnight can be undone overnight,” they say. “We really believe that this change towards accountability takes years—years of commitment and unlearning and active engagement.”

Getting those outcomes starts with wanting to change, which means showing up.

[empressofthewind]

Hi! So, not a question but I saw your recent post asking why some people see Mello and Near as sibling coded, and wanted to reply but ran out of space within the character limits in the comments area so thought I would just send this message.

Zero pressure or expectation on you to reply to this or do anything else, but I just wanted to share my thoughts. I can’t say I’m new to Tumblr but I -am- still bad at it, so sorry if this isn’t the ‘right’ way to reply.

The development of sibling-like feelings isn’t necessarily tied to genetics alone. Unrelated kids raised in the same household can and often do nonetheless see each other as siblings, and Mello and Near were essentially raised like foster-brothers. They have the same prolonged exposure to each other in their formative years, have shared history and childhood experience (including trauma, loss, grief over L), were raised in the same environment, and molded by the same “parental”-like authority figures using the same childrearing practices and philosophy. Typically this type of intensely intimate shared history is more exclusive to sibling relationships cuz, well, most kids are raised in their family household, not in an orphanage that never intends to let them be adopted out. In many ways how Mello and Near interact in canon is similar to a complicated sibling relationship – they both show to varying extents feelings of competitiveness and resentment but also understanding, care and protectiveness for each other. The same principles would apply to any of the kids at the Wammy’s House, but it could be even more intense for Near and Mello because as the potential successors they likely had a whole other level of expectations and pressure that was unique to their situation and that the other kids who are not in the immediate running for the title wouldn’t necessarily experience or relate to.

So although it's not the primary way I personally contextualize their relationship, I think it’s not altogether misguided to think of them as sibling coded or that on some level they might relate to each other in that way, whether consciously or not.

But most importantly at the end of the day they’re not genetically related so they definitely can and should still fuck.

Hi!! Thanks for sending this through (this is a perfectly fine way to message me, for the record)! I debated whether or not to reply since I don't want too much discourse on my blog, but it felt rude to leave it unanswered, so this will be a limited edition response from me :-) also placing it under a cut because this is already a long post as is hgsjhgsd

I DO feel the need to say that I'm very familiar with the idea that non-genetically related people can see each other as siblings!! This is the case with foster siblings, adopted siblings, step-siblings, so on and so forth, and I know found family is very much a real concept as well. The thing that's always confused me, as I mentioned in my post, is that there seems to be a very strong insistence from a large (or at least, vocal) group that Mello and Near specifically are like siblings, which very often comes from people who ship other combinations of the Wammy's boys or broadly do not insist the same about others also raised in that same environment. For example, to me, Matt and Mello exhibit a lot of the same traits you mentioned that could be viewed as sibling-like - they were both raised in the same orphanage under the same principles and authority; Mello often gets annoyed with Matt but still seems to care about him to some extent; they lived apart for about five years, but when Mello recruited Matt as a last-resort ally, Matt was still willing to help him. I suppose the distinction relies on how you define the essence of a sibling relationship, with regards to what criteria would need to be present in a relationship to skirt into that territory. Matt and Mello definitely have more of a friendship-like foundation that makes them seem quite comfortable with each other, but Mello and Near have more of a reading each other's minds/always on the same wavelength kind of thing going on, which could also be taken as a familial trait.

Your point about them being the potential successors is interesting to me as well! I suppose it really just depends on how one chooses to interpret Wammy's House as an institution. I've always imagined that most people in the program are quite competitive about it, and that Mello and Near were chosen fairly soon before L's death, but this isn't strictly canon either, so if you assume they were quite young when they were both picked, then this interpretation could work! It does absolutely make sense to me that, if you don't see their relationship as romantic, viewing it as familial in nature would be another way of interpreting the vague sort of fondness they have for each other despite Mello's entire life revolving around his hatred of Near.

On the whole, while it's not my personal interpretation, i find it very insightful reading some of the varying perspectives on it!! I was mostly just curious to know where the idea comes from, as I very commonly see people insist that there's no other valid way to read it/that their dynamic was specifically "coded" to be sibling-like. I don't mind it as a headcanon at all as long as people don't use it as an excuse to bash the ship :-)

[jedi-enthusiast]

Debunking the "The Jedi are Evil" Theory Made by The Film Theorists PT 9

Point 9 - The Final Part of That Godforsaken Video

Matthew quote:

"We all grew up watching these movies thinking the Jedi were the heroes, the movies outright frame them to be the heroes, but if you look at how the Jedi become Jedi in the first place--their legacy isn't one of freedom and doing the right thing. It's about putting toddlers into slavery, deceiving their parents, and then brainwashing those little kids so they become unquestioning members of their little cult."

I'm not going to go into detail all over again because I've already responded to all of this in the other parts, but let's do a quick recap:

1. The Jedi are free to leave at any time, nothing about the Jedi Order matches up with the actual definition of slavery.

2. Shmi is the one who wanted Anakin to go to the Order and the Order only inducts children into the Order with the permission of their parents, except in very select situations where they don't have parents and/or their lives are in danger.

3. The Jedi Order isn't a cult, it doesn't even come close to fitting the definition of a cult.

and 4. We're literally shown time and time again that Jedi leave, disagree with each other, have different opinions and ideas on their philosophies, they're encouraged to ask questions, etc--"unquestioning" my ass.

And, believe it or not, the Jedi's legacy is one of freedom and doing the right thing.

They stretch themselves thin and literally lay down their lives to fight for democracy, to protect the people of the galaxy from people like the Separatists and the Empire (who are literally meant to be allegories for Nazis btw), and to just plain help people. Throughout all of Star Wars, that is what we're shown the Jedi do. We're shown and told consistently that they're empathetic and care about others and, at their very core, just want to help people. That the best way to hurt the Jedi is to harm the innocent.

So forgive me if I'm not willing to buy into the bullshit take that "actually the empaths that care so much about the people of the galaxy that they're willing to fight and die, while receiving nothing in return and even being ridiculed for doing so, just to protect them are the evil bad guys."

---

Matthew finishes off his theory by saying that the people of the galaxy, and us as the audience, should be glad that the Jedi got genocided and are all but extinct by the end of the Sequels. And then he talks about how the Jedi are to blame for their own genocide and the fall of the Republic.

Which, again, sounds like fascist rhetoric.

He says that "the Jedi are the heroes if you turn off your brains," but to me it seems like you have to ignore 90% of SW media and refuse to contextualize the other 10% and read it in bad-faith in order to think that the Jedi are the bad guys.

Which is what he did to prove himself right, because his video wasn't about looking at the Jedi "objectively" at all.

---

Now, obvious disclaimer: don't go being jackasses and doxxing this guy or anything. That's not what any of this was about. This was just about me defending my comfort characters and going back to the thing that had me feeding into the anti-Jedi bullshit to take it apart and, in doing so, make myself feel better.

For everyone that made it all the way to this part, thanks for reading!

I hope this was as therapeutic for you as it was for me.

[the-gayest-show]

Through the Looking Back Glass Thoughts/Analysis

I LOVED this episode. It was very endearing and honestly heartwarming (near the end that is) and overall one of my top episodes in the series!

First off, Sofia leaning on Cedric for help with homework is so fucking CUTE. Their dynamic makes me jump up for joy, and Sofia really trusts HIM to get the job done 🥺 Even when Cordelia appears and offers to help, Sofia is still adamant to only have Cedric do it 🥺🥺🥺🥺

It's a small detail, but I think Cedric's pose changes slightly when his sister is around? Like, he's got that hunch back pose that he had in earlier seasons when she's there, it's crazy. There's probably more screenshots I could gather on this but yeah.

The song that comes up in this scene.... mmmm art. Here's me ranting about it.

I think the saddest part of the episode is really seeing Cedric and Cordelia's past dynamic because I genuinely loved it? Like. When they hugged here it was so heartwarming. The nicknames (Cordy, Ceddy) were so cute as well, I guess when they don't use the nicknames in the beginning it's to show the deterioration of their relationship over time, and somewhere in the end of this episode, Cedric starts using the nickname Cordy again which really cements the mending of the relationship. (I did get taken off guard when Cordelia called him Ceddy in the flashback bc I've always associated it with Calista. Maybe Cordelia said it around Calista and she picked it up? IDK)

Cedric is also shown to be really good at magic here. Bro did a spell that was apparently "too advanced" or something? And let's not even begin to discuss the lore implication for WANDLESS MAGIC. BRO TRIED TO REVERSE A SPELL WITH HIS BARE HANDS. THIS MAKES ALREADY INTERESTING STF LORE MUCH MORE INTERESTING.

I find it so interesting that the incident (despite having no known cause at the time) was quite literally blamed on Cedric almost immediately and everyone went with it? Like Cordelia shouts "he ruined it" and no one questions this??? Not even Cedric fending for himself worked? Whoever said in a Tumblr post that this implies that Cedric was treated like some kind of bungler/looked down upon even before this is probably right. Because why else is it just normal for everyone to jump to this conclusion? His parents don't do SHIT about it, and I'm assuming that Goodwyn holds this grudge too (if eps like Mystic Meadows mean anything). Why are they holding onto this for so long? Literally I get holding a bit of resentment but everyone makes mistakes....

Idk this went off, but basically, oof living in your father's shadow was hard AF especially with one mistake people reference in your presence.

Despite this event happening over 30 years ago, it's still somehow the ONE thing people defined him for for years. This episode really further contextualizes his motivations for wanting to become king before season 4. Imagine being rejected from society for YEARS, being belittled and made fun of, people tearing you apart for a mistake you made when you were 9-10 YEARS OLD, it's crazy. 100% that took a toll on him, something you can see in this episode and literally most episodes. It's just really sad.

I'm glad that Sofia and Calista were able to help the both of them realize that it wasn't actually Cedric's fault (something Cordelia should've realized years ago, but seeing the event happen as it did was more a confirmation for Cedric than anything). Cordelia and Cedric forgiving each other was a bit too fast considering everything but I'm glad their relationship is mending.

Credit where credit is due, she sticks up for him after this and lets Cedric do his thing and lets him help Sofia without any ifs and buts, it's sweet.

Personally, I feel that Cedric and Cordelia probably still have a semi-strained relationship after this ep (your sister being the reason you were made fun of for years, and that reason wasn't even valid to begin with defo is not smth you can recover fast from in a 22 min episode)

Also, it's not hard to believe the circumstances wouldn't have changed if the incident were truly Cedric's fault, but Cordelia needed a wakeup call I guess, that works.

Want to mention King Roland for a second because dude. Why is your first reaction to blame Cedric (again), instead of the 2 other magic users in the room (ESPECIALLY THE CHILD. Look I'm a Calista fan thru and thru but logically the blame would be shifted there to an extent??)

King Roland I thought we were over with this since Day of the Sorcerers?? What happened to being NICER to Cedric and maybe NOT blaming him for every little thing? Idk that kinda pissed me off. The fact that Cordelia was the only thing stopping Roland from interrogating the guy... THIS BEHAVIOUR IS WHY CEDRIC TRIED TO TAKE OVER YOUR KINGDOM!!! ROLAND THE 2ND YOU IDIOT!!!

In conclusion, love me a character focused episode that develops a backstory as well as a slight resolution. 1000/10 would re-experience this again.