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holyblonded · 2 days ago

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negotiations | always sunny in australia

pairings: arsenal wfc x teen!reader

summary: your contract is under negotiation, causing unrest on the team

notes: i feel like i am slacking in the chickie fics 💔

Leah Williamson couldn’t sleep. Her sheets were tangled like the mess in her head, the clock taunting her with every passing minute that nothing was changing.

How could she possibly sleep when her entire world was in shambles?

Some might call her dramatic. Leah would call them wrong.

Your one-year contract with Arsenal was coming to an end, and negotiations were happening behind closed doors— closed, locked, and apparently soundproofed doors that Leah had no access to. Every time your agent was asked about your future, she gave the same vague response,

“I’m doing what’s best for Chickie.”

Which was sweet. Noble. Responsible. And also not nearly enough information for someone who had basically appointed herself your co-parent, moral compass, part-time chauffeur, and emotional support footballer.

So yeah, Leah was stressed. But she wasn’t alone. Across London, your actual legal guardian was also losing it. Leah’s phone buzzed next to her pillow. 2:47 AM. She picked it up faster than she had in her life. “Finally,” she whispered.

“Are you alone?” Sam’s voice came through, dead serious.

“Yes. Are you?”

“I’m in the laundry room with the dog. No one suspects anything.”

Leah sat up. “Is your team ready?”

Sam let out a low chuckle. “Everything is set in place. Vic’s on standby. Kyra’s been bribed.”

Leah smirked, already proud. “Good. My team’s been briefed. Beth’s got the snacks, Lotte’s baking passive-aggressive pies. We’re ready.”

There was a pause. A dramatic silence only two women plotting to emotionally manipulate a child into signing a football contract could share.

“I’ll be dropping off the package at approximately 8 AM,” Sam said finally, solemn. “Make sure everything’s in position.”

“Roger that.” Leah saluted into the phone.

That’s when the bedroom door creaked open.

Leah whipped around and yelped, fumbling the phone and almost knocking over her bedside lamp.

Elle stood in the doorway, arms crossed, one perfectly sculpted brow raised in judgment. “What. Are. You. Doing.”

Leah blinked. “Uh. Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Elle’s voice was suspiciously calm. “Because that nothing sounded like you were coordinating a covert operation with a woman in a laundry room.”

“I don’t—there’s no covert—” Leah was stammering now, panic painted all over her face.

Elle raised a hand. “Leah Cathrine Williamson, if you are plotting behind Chickie’s back—”

“I’m not!” Leah shouted, then immediately winced and lowered her voice. “I’m not. I swear.”

Elle walked in, graceful and terrifying in her silk pajama set. “She’s a kid. And yes, she might joke and act chaotic and get away with everything because she’s adorable, but you have to respect her decisions.”

Leah opened her mouth.

“I’m not done.”

Leah closed her mouth.

“Her contract is her choice. You can’t bribe her or manipulate her or—”

“Sam already gave her a custom pair of cleats with ‘London’s Little Terror’ printed on the side,” Leah mumbled.

Elle stopped mid-rant. “You what?”

“I didn’t do it! Sam did! And Mario offered to do her Spanish homework for a month, and Kyra promised to make TikToks with her every day, and—”

“Leah.”

“What?!”

“She’s fifteen.”

“I know. That’s why we’re doing this!”

Elle opened her mouth to reply, but Leah was already up, throwing on a hoodie. “I’ve gotta go.”

“To where?!”

“To the Emirates. The cakes need frosting. I gotta be there when she walks in.”

“You are deranged.”

Leah, already halfway out the door, just grinned and shouted back, “We all are, babe. She’s ours.”

Elle stood there in the doorway, blinking at the chaos her girlfriend had become.

Somewhere in the darkness, the real MVP of Arsenal, Chickie, slept peacefully, unaware that the next morning was about to be full of suspicious pies, emotional bribery, and thirty very dramatic people pretending they weren’t all completely obsessed with her.

Vic, Kyra, and Beth stood pressed against the wall in the hallway like they were part of a low-budget spy movie. Arms crossed. Expressions intense. Suspiciously casual. Beth had even shoved a protein bar halfway in her mouth like she was definitely not trying to cover for something.

Renee walked by, clipboard in hand, eyes squinting at them as she slowed her steps.

“Alright. What are you three planning?”

Immediately, all three said, “Nothing,” in perfect harmony like it had been rehearsed. Beth even smiled with all her teeth… too many teeth.

Renee narrowed her eyes. Vic stared ahead like she’d never committed a crime in her life. Kyra fiddled with her sleeve like she wasn’t plotting emotional warfare. Beth blinked, possibly trying to look innocent but instead looking like someone hiding a raccoon in her bag.

Renee took one step forward, and they all visibly tensed. “I’m going to ask one more time—” she began, but a voice called from the end of the hallway.

“Coach! We need you in the physio room!”

Renee gave them one last squint and reluctantly turned on her heel. “This isn’t over.”

As soon as she disappeared, the three of them exhaled dramatically like they’d just evaded a SWAT team.

Then there you were. Just walking down the hall, blissfully unaware, humming a Laufey song under your breath.

They all exchanged a look.

“Now,” Beth said.

Vic reached out like a ninja and yanked you by the sleeve into the nearest door, Kyra shutting it behind you with suspicious speed and determination.

You stumbled into the physio room, blinking at the snacks scattered around, chips, cookies, juice boxes, a suspicious number of croissants.

“Um,” you said.

Beth locked the door.

Vic grabbed your shoulders gently but with great purpose. “We won’t let you out until you spill.”

Kyra pointed at you with a banana. “Where are you going next season?”

You blinked at them. “This is dramatic.”

“You’re dramatic,” Beth mumbled through a mouthful of gummy bears.

You giggled, plopping onto the padded physio table like you were being held hostage by puppies instead of professionals. “You guys are actually crazy.”

“Crazy in love with our baby Chickie!” Vic wailed, flopping down beside you and cradling your arm. “Just tell us. We can’t take the suspense.”

“I can’t tell you,” you said, still laughing.

“Okay, fine,” Kyra muttered. “Time for temptation.”

Vic leaned in, deadly serious. “I will do your homework. A full week. Even the maths.”

Beth gasped. “Not the maths.”

You tilted your head. “All of it? Even history?”

Vic flinched. “…Even history.”

You giggled but shook your head. “Can’t. Sorry.”

Kyra crossed her arms. “Then I’m calling Sam.”

You looked her dead in the eye and said, “Do it. She’ll probably join your little rebellion and bring snacks.”

Kyra blinked. “True.”

Beth, meanwhile, said nothing. She simply reached into her bag and pulled out a sparkly, glitter-covered sign that said in bold bubble letters: STAY.

With three glitter hearts and your name spelled out in rhinestones.

You burst out laughing, sliding off the table. “You guys are unwell.”

“We love you,” Beth said. “Let us have this.”

You opened the door, still giggling, and as you walked out, you threw them a grin over your shoulder.

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough… if your muffins are good enough.”

The door shut behind you, and all three girls stared at each other in stunned silence.

“She’s messing with us,” Vic whispered.

“I knew she was a menace,” Kyra said.

Beth sighed, hugging her sparkly sign. “I respect it.”

Leah had been patient. Painfully, torturously patient. She’d watched the others try. Watched Vic bribe, Kyra threaten, and Beth basically create an arts-and-crafts-based emotional hostage situation. But now… it was her turn. And she wasn’t going in with snacks or sparkles. She was going in with emotion.

“Hey Chick,” Leah said casually, hands in her jacket pockets, head poking into the rec room where you were minding your own business, watching a video of a squirrel on a skateboard.

You turned, suspicious. “Hi…”

“Fancy a walk?” she asked, voice light, but with a slightly manic glint in her eyes.

You narrowed yours. “A walk.”

“Just a casual one. Around the facility.” Her smile was too nice.

You sighed. “You’re gonna guilt-trip me, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

You considered that, then stood up. “Alright. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The tour began at the entrance of the training complex. Leah made sure to slow her pace as you passed the front wall, where a massive photo of your mid-goal-celebration was printed on the side of the building.

She stopped dramatically and gestured toward it like she was Vanna White.

“Wow,” she said, her voice dripping with reverence. “Would you look at that. Who’s that? Is that Chickie? Huh. Wild.”

You squinted up at the photo. “That’s from the Brighton match, you told me I celebrated like a gremlin.”

“A powerful gremlin,” she corrected, before continuing on.

She led you through the hallway lined with photos and memorabilia, kits, trophies, all the stuff that said “This is Arsenal and We’re Kinda a Big Deal.” And every few feet, she’d stop and point something out.

“Remember this?” she asked, tapping a picture of you and Leah laughing after your first match. “You were so nervous you nearly put your shin pads on backwards.”

You groaned. “Leah—”

“And this one,” she continued, pointing to a shot of you hugging Beth after a last-minute assist. “Everyone cried. Even me. And I’m so emotionally stable.”

You snorted. “Lies.”

They passed the physio room. She paused at the door.

“Just the other day I saw Vic, Kyra, and Beth dragging you in here like it was a hostage situation,” Leah said. “And what did I do? I let it happen. Because this is your home. A loving home. Where kidnapping is done respectfully.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You think this is subtle?”

“Nope,” she said brightly. “But is it working?”

You rolled your eyes, but your smile gave you away.

Then Leah upped the stakes. You two walked outside now, onto the training pitch, where everything was calm. The sun was just setting, casting a warm light over the grass. Leah pulled her hands out of her pockets and looked at you, suddenly soft.

“You know,” she began, voice quieter now. “When you showed up, I didn’t know what to expect. You were all wide eyes and nervous energy and this massive heart that you tried to hide under your hoodie.”

You looked down at your feet, kicking at the grass.

“But you got under my skin so fast. In a good way. You made me laugh again, made the team lighter. You talk too fast and steal everyone’s drinks and I caught you naming the training cones once.”

“Stanley and Patricia,” you muttered.

“Exactly,” Leah grinned. “And when you’re not around, it feels weird. Quiet. Too grown-up. Like something’s missing.”

You tried to hide your face in your sleeve. “This isn’t fair.”

Leah stepped closer, gently bumping your shoulder. “My mum asks about you every time we talk. You’ve got everyone wrapped around your finger. The crowd chants your name. You’ve got your face on three walls. You’re not just part of the team, Chickie. You are the team. You’re Arsenal.”

You looked up at her with a soft little frown. “Why are you saying all this?”

Leah smiled, so earnest it made your chest ache. “Because I love you, kid. And I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you. But I know I have to respect whatever you choose. Still, if there’s any part of you that wonders where you belong… just know, it’s here.”

You blinked hard, tears threatening. “So… manipulation. But make it heartfelt.”

Leah shrugged. “Pretty much.”

You sniffled, laughing through it. “You’re such a loser.”

“But am I a convincing loser?”

You threw your arms around her waist and buried your face in her hoodie. “I can’t say. I’m emotionally compromised.”

Leah smiled, hugging you back tightly. “Good. My job here is done.”

She walked you back in, a little skip in her step, muttering under her breath, “Sam owes me five bucks.”

It was a perfectly normal afternoon. Or at least it should have been.

You were hungry, minding your own business, just trying to make your way into the cafeteria for some pasta and possibly a suspiciously dry brownie. You pushed open the door, walked in and the entire room fell silent.

Not quiet. Silent. Like, “a pin could drop and echo” silent.

You froze in the doorway, tray in hand, eyes scanning the sea of teammates who suddenly couldn’t meet your gaze.

Steph stood up first. “I, uh, just remembered I left my… shampoo on the pitch.”

You blinked. “Your shampoo?”

“Yeah. Real slippery stuff. Can’t risk it.” She bolted.

Kyra followed, gripping Vic by the elbow like they were hostages escaping a war zone. “We have… stretching to do.”

“In the broom closet?” you asked flatly.

“Dynamic stretching.”

Beth pretended to get a phone call. “Oh look, it’s… the Prime Minister. Gotta go.”

You watched her sprint out with the phone screen clearly off.

One by one, they all trickled out, Caitlin muttering about an “urgent email,” Laia claiming she had “a soup emergency,” and Katie just yelling “NOPE” and walking away at full speed.

Within seconds, the packed cafeteria was empty. All except one person.

Lotte. Sweet, chaos-immune Lotte Wubben-Moy, who sat at the very center table with a suspiciously large pie sitting in front of her. She looked up at you with those innocent, hopeful eyes, and gestured to the seat across from her.

You sighed.

You made your way over slowly, already regretting every choice that led to this moment. You sat down, slid your tray aside, and looked at the pie.

It had “DON’T LEAVE” spelled out in carefully crimped crust letters. It was a lattice-crust plea for emotional commitment.

You stared at it. “You baked your feelings.”

Lotte smiled like this was normal behavior. “It’s blueberry. Your favorite.”

“I thought my favorite was peach.”

“I found that out after this one was already in the oven,” she replied, without missing a beat.

You kept staring at the pie, then at her, then back at the pie. You reached for the fork and the whipped cream. Lotte leaned in, eyes wide, waiting for the emotional moment and you just dug in.

With no hesitation, no comment. Just a bite. Then another. Like the words weren’t even there.

Lotte looked personally offended.

“You’re just… eating over the message?” she said, horrified.

“Yup,” you mumbled around a mouthful of flaky, guilt-ridden crust. “It’s good pie.”

“The message, Chickie,” she said, poking at the edge of the tin. “Are we ignoring the part where it says not to leave us in baked lettering?!”

You shrugged and took another bite. “Seems dramatic.”

Lotte gaped. “You are suddenly emotionally unavailable in the worst way.”

“Yup,” you said again, voice cheerful.

“Do you even care how much we’ll miss you?”

You paused, looked at her for a second, really looked, and then reached out and picked up the whole pie tin.

“Thanks for the snack,” you said with a wink, and walked away, pie in hand.

Behind you, Lotte dramatically collapsed onto the table like a tragic Shakespearean hero. “I BAKED MY SOUL INTO THAT CRUST!”

From down the hallway, you yelled back, “AND I’M TAKING IT TO MY ROOM!”

It started out as a simple mission. Well. As simple as anything gets when the team has collectively decided to break every ethical guideline in the “Contract Negotiation Interference Handbook” to figure out whether you were staying at Arsenal or leaving for another club.

Alessia had been quiet at first. Watching. Waiting. Letting the others attempt their wild schemes, Vic’s emotional monologues, Kyra’s threats, Beth’s glitter posters, Lotte’s pie-shaped manipulation. All good efforts. All massive failures.

So Alessia decided to take a different route. A calculated one. A bribery one.

You were sitting on one of the benches outside the training ground, minding your business, trying not to crack under the collective weight of a team who had turned into a desperate cult of affection.

Alessia approached with a calm, neutral expression. A shoebox in her hands.

You blinked. “What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said casually. “Just something I thought you’d like. No pressure. No questions. Just a gift.”

You looked suspicious. “This isn’t a trap?”

Alessia gave you a beatific smile. “I’m not Kyra.”

Fair point. You opened the box. And then you saw them. Bright. Yellow. Boots. Custom-made. Kangaroos embroidered on the sides. “CHICKIE #1 GUNNER” printed across the heel in bold white lettering. Your eyes widened like dinner plates.

You didn’t speak. Not immediately. You just stared at them. Then sniffled. Then blinked. Then let out a soft, high-pitched squeak as your bottom lip trembled.

“Oh—oh no,” Alessia panicked. “Are you crying?”

You nodded, aggressively. “Th-these are the most b-beautiful boots I’ve ever seen!”

Alessia winced. “Oh my god. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I thought this would make you—oh, Chickie—”

You were already hugging the box to your chest like it was a newborn child. “You know yellow’s my favorite color and kangaroos are my favorite animal and that slogan—you remembered my slogan—”

Alessia awkwardly sat down beside you, patting your back as you fully sobbed into the cardboard. “Okay, alright, breathe. It’s okay. They’re just boots. Special boots. Very cute boots. But boots.”

“I love them so much,” you wailed.

“I know, honey, I know.”

That’s when Leah stormed into view like a general on a battlefield. “Less! I told you to get the info out of her, not her tears!”

“She cried when she saw the boots!” Alessia defended, hands raised.

“They have kangaroos on them!” you sobbed, holding them up like Simba in The Lion King. “And my slogan, Leah!”

“Oh my god,” Leah muttered, rubbing her temples.

Alessia leaned into you again and whispered, “You sure you don’t wanna just hint at your decision? Maybe one boot tap for yes?”

You shook your head violently, tears still streaming. “This is such a sweet gesture. I—I—” You hiccupped. “I want to wear them forever.”

Leah sat down with a thud. “I hate it here.”

Alessia shrugged, gently pulling you into a side hug as you sniffled into her shoulder. “Honestly? I think I won.”

“You got her snot on your hoodie,” Leah said, unhelpfully.

You clutched the boots tighter. “I love you guys so much.”

“Still not telling us anything, though,” Leah said.

You shook your head with a tiny smile, eyes wet, nose stuffy, heart full. “Nope.”

Alessia sighed. “I gave her kangaroo boots and all I got was this emotional breakdown.”

Leah muttered, “Add that to the shirt.”

Kristie knew before you did. Of course she did. That’s the curse and blessing of being loved by someone like Kristie Mewis. She just knows.

She doesn’t ask, not right away. She doesn’t push or poke like the rest of the squad. She watches you stumble around with your hair a mess and your brain even messier. She brings you snacks. Ruffles your hair. Says things like “wherever you go, we’re gonna love you anyway” which is so annoying.

You try not to think about the decision when you’re with her. You talk about everything else. You help her decorate the nursery. You watch her wobble dramatically around the house, hand pressed to her lower back, dramatically asking, “Will you still love me when I’m just a human beach ball?”

You tell her she’ve always been a beach ball, but like… a really hot one.

You both giggle. She throws a pillow at you. But then one night, it gets quiet. Too quiet.

It’s late. The house is dark. Sam’s already passed out on the couch with a cookie halfway in her mouth.

You crawl into bed next to Kristie. You’re still wearing your oversized hoodie, the one with the red Arsenal crest faded from too many washes. You burrow yourself under the covers, half trying to disappear.

She doesn’t say anything. Just waits. And eventually, with your cheek pressed against her shoulder, you whisper, “I have so many options, Kris.”

“I know, baby.”

“Like, real ones. Barça. Lyon. City. A team in the NWSL even called.”

“I know.”

“They all say the same things, like it’s going to be the perfect step, or a new chapter, or a great financial move. But…” Your voice cracks a little. “It all just feels wrong.”

Kristie hums, rubbing your back slowly. “Because it’s not home.”

You nod, hoodie pulled up so she can’t see your teary face.

She keeps stroking your back, soft and patient.

“Sometimes I wonder,” you mumble, “if I’m just scared of change. Or if I’m making the easy choice. But then I see the girls at training, or hear Leah yelling at me from three rooms away, or I remember how Beth brings me strawberry milk when I’m sad, and I think… this isn’t the easy choice. It’s the right one.”

Kristie tilts her head and kisses the top of your hair.

You take a shaky breath. “I said yes.” A pause. “I’m staying.”

There’s no dramatic gasp. No over-the-top celebration. Kristie just holds you tighter and murmurs against your forehead, “Good. You’re home.”

You smile into her shirt.

“I mean,” she adds after a beat, “you still owe me like two months of foot rubs for the emotional toll of this whole saga, but yeah—home’s a good start.”

You groan. “Can’t believe you emotionally supported me just to invoice me.”

Kristie laughs. “Kid, this is the Mewis Package™. Love, emotional stability, and accountability. You signed up the second you crawled into my lap that day after your first press conference and cried about Sam feeding you spoiled Vegemite.”

You roll your eyes. “You still bring that up.”

“You said it tasted like regret and burnt rubber. I’ll never forget that.”

She leans down and kisses your forehead again. “We’re so proud of you, Chickie. No matter what. But I’m really glad you’re staying.”

You grin. “So… can I stay in your bed forever too?”

“Okay, no,” Kristie says, laughing. “One child at a time. The baby hasn’t even arrived yet and I already have one Chickie curled up like a feral hoodie goblin.”

You stick your tongue out and nuzzle closer. “Too late. I live here now.”

Kristie sighs. “I’m gonna have to get a bigger bed.”

And you both fall asleep like that, hoodie goblin and soccer mom, curled up safe, home, and finally, finally at peace.

The locker room was silent. Like the kind of silence that pressed in around your chest and made it hard to breathe. The kind of silence that came after goodbyes, after endings, after heartbreak.

No one said it out loud, but they all felt it. The tension was thicker than a milkshake on a summer day. It hung in the air like fog, heavy and impossible to see through. They were all waiting.

Lotte sat with her elbows on her knees, staring at the floor. Kyra had her head against the wall, arms crossed tight across her chest. Vic was half-hunched in a corner, pulling at the strings on her hoodie like they’d unravel her anxiety. Alessia scrolled aimlessly on her phone, not even looking at the screen. Even Beth wasn’t smiling.

Leah paced. She’d been pacing for ten minutes straight, muttering to herself under her breath like she was delivering a dramatic monologue in a Shakespearean tragedy. Lia had given up on getting her to sit down.

“Do you remember when she first arrived?” Alessia asked suddenly, voice soft.

A murmur of agreement went through the room.

“She walked in with the biggest hoodie I’ve ever seen,” Kyra added. “And said, ‘Is it always this cold in England, or is this a punishment?’”

They all laughed, even if it was a little watery.

“She used to get so nervous before games,” Lotte said, a smile tugging at her lips. “But then she’d go out there and nutmeg someone twice her size.”

“And that one time she tackled Leah during training and then offered her a gummy bear as an apology,” Vic said through a sniffle.

Leah paused her pacing just long enough to scowl. “She launched herself at me like a cannonball.”

“But you ate the gummy bear,” Kyra pointed out.

Everyone chuckled.

“She changed this team,” Beth murmured, voice cracking just slightly. “Made it warmer. Lighter. Louder. Better.”

A hush settled again.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do without her,” Alessia said. “It’s not just about football. It’s—” she swallowed, “—not seeing her every day. Not hearing her giggle when she sneaks biscuits into the physio room. Not having her throw herself across the locker room just to give you a hug after a bad game.”

“I miss her already,” Vic mumbled.

“She’s not even gone yet,” Leah said, almost defensively. But even her voice was trembling. “She’s just… deciding.”

The door creaked open.

Renee walked in with a grin so wide it was practically criminal. She had something tucked under her arm. A laptop. And a gleam in her eye.

“Right,” she said, “everyone pay attention.”

They all straightened, alert. Hope sparked, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Not yet. Not until they were sure.

Renee opened the laptop, turned it toward them, and pressed play.

The screen flickered. And there you were. Wearing your kit, hair pulled back, standing in the middle of the training pitch with a nervous, excited smile.

Your voice was soft but clear.

“Hi. Uh, surprise? I guess. I’ve been thinking a lot, and it hasn’t been easy. But the truth is…” You looked into the camera, eyes bright. “I’m not done here.”

The room exploded. Beth screamed. Kyra started yelling. Vic burst into tears so aggressively she dropped her water bottle. Lotte stood up and immediately sat back down like her knees gave out. Alessia looked like she was going to faint.

And Leah? Leah fell straight to the floor like a Victorian woman being struck by a scandal. Lia didn’t even try to catch her this time. She just sighed and rubbed her temples.

“Oh my GOD,” Leah gasped, clutching her chest dramatically. “I thought I was going to have to start watching Barça matches.”

Beth was crying so hard she couldn’t speak, just waving her arms around like she was conducting an emotional orchestra.

And then the door opened again. And there you were. Smiling. Calm. Hoodie up, but your Arsenal crest proudly peeking out from underneath.

“Told you I was good at keeping secrets,” you said with a cheeky grin.

You didn’t even get the chance to take another step before they swarmed you. Like a pack of overexcited puppies, they tackled you in a group hug that nearly took you down. Arms wrapped around your waist, your shoulders, your legs. Someone kissed your cheek. You were pretty sure it was Beth. Vic buried her face into your side, sobbing. Alessia just held your hand like you were going to disappear again.

“Don’t do that again!” Lotte said between tears.

“You scared us!” Kyra added.

“You’re not allowed to go anywhere without written permission from the group chat,” Vic sniffled.

“Yeah,” Leah added, pulling back just long enough to point a very stern finger at you. “We’re implementing another buddy system.”

You laughed. Overwhelmed, flushed, happy beyond belief.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said, hugging them tighter. “This is home.”

They all squeezed you even harder. And in that cramped, chaotic locker room, full of laughter and happy sobs and glittery signs and people who loved you. It really, truly was home.

361 notes · View notes

iamred-iamyellow · 12 hours ago

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⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ Silk Chiffon

♥ masterlist | request rules | part one

♥ pairing: ex!lando norris x fem!reader x fem!oc x platonic!oscar piastri

♥ synopsis: the messy friendship breakup with lando was everywhere. it was assumed by the public that you’re now dating his teammate and there was truly no pr team strong enough to save mclaren. you were friends with lando’s girlfriend though. maybe too friendly.

♥ smau - fc: women on pinterest - as always none of the pictures are mine

♥ warnings: swearing, suggestive jokes, and hate comments !!!

♥ a/n: yn and imogen have so much chemistry I thought why not make this for my lesbian heart <3 ps lando is kind of the bad guy of this story but I'm actually an insane lando girl he's my og don't hate me its all for the plot lol

-landonorris ig story-

view story replies

user1 my girlfriend and i*

user2 this boy doesn't even know the difference between their there and they are

user3 oh baby we aren't hating on Imogen we're hating on you ❤️

user20 not y'all hating on him for speculations

user21 yn is the real villain here

user13 the lando hate is getting OUT of hand

user10 oh lando... the grammar in this post baby

user5 @/user10 HAHAHA

user9 LANDO'S GUILTY IDC #girlssupportinggirls

user6 @/user9 I support women's rights and women's wrongs

user17 all of a sudden he's posting Imogen... seems guilty to me he clearly did something

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, alexandrasaintmleux, and 103,048 more

iamimogen the friendship is official

view comments

user1 and they were... roomates? 😐

user3 yn in the first picture... she's got that oscar heart eyes piastri look

user2 not the friendzone 😔

user4 always an angel never a god

user9 is imogen actually comfortable with yn and lando not getting along?

user6 i mean yeah 🤷‍♀️ she’s clearly fine hanging out with the both of them

user7 i could never date a man my bsf hated

user18 @/user7 I could never be friends with a girl who makes up lies about my man...

user8 help I love wag friendships 🥹

user9 they’re so alex and rebecca

user10 AHHHHHH

user11 this is so girlhood

user12 i actually love that they can put their feelings towards lando aside and still be friends 🫂

alexandrasaintmleux we need to have a girls night !!

yourusername I'd love to 💋💋

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r/f1wags

what's y'all's opinion on the whole y/n x Imogen x lando thing??? it honestly breaks my heart to know that something happened with y/n and lando since they were best friends for so long. I remember her talking about what they were going to do when he got his first win on Quadrant a few years back and obviously that didn't happen when he finally accomplished it in Miami. I'm still a fan of both but damn what could've happened between the two for it to end like this??

user1 probably not a hot take but I think he's still so hung up on yn even if they weren't dating. he doesn't post about Imogen at all and never mentions her the way he used to mention Y/n.

user2 yeah honestly I think he might be using Imogen to fill the Y/n shaped hole in his heart

user3 I think Y/n's being superrr petty

user4 ...we don't even know what happened bro what are you on about

user3 that post about Oscar and Imogen be so ffr

user4 clearly Imogen was okay with it otherwise it would've been taken down

user5 if I'm being so honest... I don't give a fuck about what happened with lando because there appears to be a sapphic renaissance happening in f1 right now

user6 LMAOO

user7 wag yuri forever

user8 why has NO one mentioned Oscar in this??

user9 OH MY GOSH RIGHT LOL I thought they were a couple for so long but I heard that they never confirmed it?? and it doesn't look like he's interacted with lando on his socials recently but that might be normal idk

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liked by oscarpiastri, francisca.cgomes, iamimogen, and 130,529 more

yourusername I feel like its my duty to feed the oscarinas during the off season

tagged; @/iamimogen @/oscarpiastri

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user1 it is !

iamimogen the trio goes hard

user2 it could be a foursome but noooo

user3 leaving out your own bf is crazyyyy

user4 I'd leave out my bf for y/n too

user5 IMOGEN AND LANDO DONT EVEN LIKE EACH OTHER ATP 😭😭😭

user6 I'm just tryna ignore the drama

user7 real

user8 if Imogen and yn are cool than I'm cool

user9 Imogen and yn spotted again!!!

user10 my favorite grid couple 🥹

user11 ...sorry??

user12 I SHIP YN AND OSCAR IDC

user11 @/user12 oh girl

user13 why the fuck is lando's girlfriend hanging out with her?? shes spreading rumors about him

user14 right?? clout hungry much...

user15 shes GOTTA be deleting comments

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liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren, francolapinto, and 230,592 more

yourusername didn't see a kangaroo, but I found a koala

tagged; @/oscarpiastri

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alexandrasaintmleux cuties xx

♡ by yourusername

user17 alex what do you know that we don't

user18 okay caption queen

user19 they're so bestie core

user10 bad race day but we're so proud of you osc 🫶

user3 sooooo how are we feeling about lando's win yn nation

user6 ...

user5 lets not talk about it

user4 and during Oscars home race 😭

user8 @/user4 he hired an Etsy witch for this shii I swear

user9 did you see Robert Irwin

yourusername GOD I WISH

yourusername literally shape shifting into a snake as we speak

-Japanese GP Weekend-

liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren, logansargeant, and 340,952 more

yourusername happy birthday baby 🥹🫶

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mclaren thanks for bringing enough birthday cupcakes for the class

yourusername ofc pookies anything for the garage

landonorris I didn't get any

yourusername @/landonorris well... yeah

iamimogen I got one 🥰

yourusername @/iamimogen there's always extra for you <3

user1 holy shit this is the first time I've seen her and lando interact publiclly in like a year

user2 this is like the first time I've seen her Imogen AND lando interact too???

user3 lando's still lurkingggg

oscarpiastri ❤️❤️❤️

♡ by yourusername

user5 oh you guys are so cute

user7 THE CALICO CRITTER 🫶

user8 the makeup testing on the hand

yourusername he's a real man

user8 @/yourusername I don't doubt it

liked by user1, user2, user3, and 16,492 more

f1gossip Y/n & Oscar and Lando & Imogen were each seen separately wandering around Tokyo the day of Oscar's birthday. We all know why the first couple is out, but we think there's something deeper on Lando's side.

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user16 I think he's trying to clear his mind. I mean Oscar and Y/n were his BEST FRIENDS and now its Oscars birthday and can't hang out with them?? makes sense that he's out

user7 you're psychoanalyzing them like crazy

user16 @/user7 yes and I love it

user2 "the first couple" be sooooo for real...

user5 Oscar and Y/n aren't dating!!!

user21 oh my god can people not go outside these days without drama?? 🙄

user22 right??? lando and imogen were literally just walking and people hate on them

-Miami GP Weekend-

liked by yourusername, iamimogen, pierregasly, and 105,482 more

lando.jpg florida with this cool girl

tagged; @/iamimogen

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francisca.cgomes and my stolen dog??

pierregasly @/lando.jpg you gotta get @/iamimogen her own puppy

iamimogen better win this one for me

lando.jpg ❤️

user1 yn is lurking

user2 as she should

user3 Imogen is beautiful can you fucking blame her??

user4 she finally made it onto the feed

liked by user1, user2, user3, and 67,492 more

f1gossip Y/n and Imogen were seen together in Miami after the Grand Prix! It seems they ditched the driver party to go off on their own and explore the city. Groups of fans caught them all over town at bars, Top Golf, arcades, and more.

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liked by yourusername, landonorris, alexandrasaintmleux, and 1,845,205 more

iamimogen 🐚🪸🌊

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yourusername holyyy 👅👅

♡ by iamimogen

user1 you're SOO real

user2 shes me guys

yourusername 😍😍😍

♡ by iamimogen

landonorris stunning 😘

alexandrasaintmleux are you single

iamimogen I am for you

landonorris ???

liked by iamimogen, oscarpiastri, alex_albon, and 140,482 more

yourusername miami mami

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francolapinto 😉

yourusername come join me xx

user1 if I were her I'd flirt with Franco too

iamimogen ur so hot

yourusername all you pretty

user5 just fucking kiss already bruh

user2 are yn and Imogen at the same beach??

user3 YNIMOGEN CONFIRMED

user4 they're so couple goals oh my god

user7 is the last picture a call me by your name reference ☝️

yourusername LMAOOO

oscarpiastri shark

yourusername shark 🗣️🔥

user6 shark 🔥 🔥 🔥

user8 SHARK 😱

-Emilia Romagna GP-

You wandered over to the McLaren garage, spotting Imogen from across the paddock. You sprinted over to her as quick as you could in your heels.

"Hi," you giggled, throwing your arms over her.

She immediately hugged you back, pausing her conversation with one of Lando's mechanics.

You pulled away, "How are you?"

"Could be better," she said, running a hand through her hair. "Uhm... Oscar told me about you and Lando."

You blinked at her, completely stunned. No no no no no this can't be happening.

"I wanted to tell you I really really did, but I figured it wasn't worth it. I wasn't trying to be your friend just to get back at him or anything-"

She grabbed your shoulders and cut you off, "It's okay, I swear. I don't..." She sighed, "Blame you."

You hugged her again, this time tighter, "I'm so sorry."

"I'm breaking up with him tonight," she mumbled into your shoulder.

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, yourusername, francisca.cgomes, and 493,048 more

iamimogen healing

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user1 just two divas crossed by a man

user2 heartbreaking really

user3 it was bound to happen

user4 YNIMOGEN NATION HOW WE FEELING 👹

user5 they’re 100% in love

user28 let’s not speculate about someone’s sexuality

user5 @/user28 says someone who has no problem when people started rumors about yn and oscar…

user7 @/user5 CLOCK IT

user8 i love women

user9 wag yuri wag yuri

liked by yourusername, alexandrasaintmleux, oscarpiastri, and 302,859 more

iamimogen loving these girls nights

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alexandrasaintmleux 😍😍😍

♡ by iamimogen

user1 the girls nights in question: ✂️

user2 gay gay homosexual gay

user3 @/landonorris generational fumble

user4 i could take them both (not in a fight)

francisca.cgomes real

user5 KIKA?!

liked by francisca.cgomes, lilymhe, yourusername, and 1,947,843 more

f1gossip looks like these two girls have a closer relationship than what meets the eye. yn and imogen have been spotted on what look like numerous dates throughout this f1 season. is it possible that the two former wags have formed their own romantic bond?

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yourusername not a gossip page hard launching for me 💔

iamimogen 💋💋

oscarpiastri this is how i find out???

yourusername @/oscarpiastri surprise 🥰

lilymhe cuties

♡ by yourusername

user5 HELLO???

user6 what the hellyante

user7 not yn confirming their relationship this is so tea 😭

iamimogen all the rumors are true 🤭

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taglist; @zoomzoomdino @imboredway2much @va1entinaa @libraryrana030 @widow-cevans @1800-love-me

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colorlessjay · 2 days ago

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Epic the musical and Supernatural mesh together so well, it's ridiculous -

Personally I've always imagined it as Cas trying to escape the empty to get back home to Dean, and he has to face a bunch of trials along the way, like confronting Circe (Rowena), finding the blind prophet (Pamela or Kevin), so on and so forth, meanwhile Dean and Jack are back on earth holding out hope he'll come back-

There's more but I don't wanna dump all this on ya' lol, I just saw you mention it in a post and saw an opportunity to give my 2 cents :p

-Jukebox 📼

Jukebox, look at me

I have a vision. I need to communicate telepathically

Remember the Demon Dean arc? Mark of Cain? All that carnage?

You know the Itheca Saga?

Imagine this:

Dean's been having his summer love with Crowley, when he hears word about demons going after Sam. Instead of being apathetic and dismissive, Dean looks into it only to find out that someone within Crowley's circle has somehow found an entrance to the bunker. A way to slip in.

And I want this to be at least two years since Dean disappeared.

He hears about what's happened to Sam, and his instincts to kill kick in. Like how he went after the Frankenstein family after they killed Charlie? Yeah, that energy, but with Sam, because that makes just as much sense. And honestly, if the show wanted more carnage, they should've started here, BUT ANYWAYS

Blah blah plot, that's too many details for me. Cut to the bunker, the demons are out hunting Sam, destroying the bunker room by room in the process

Cue the song "Hold Them Down" as the demons mock Crowley's fondness for the Winchesters and talk about how they will be the ones to take them down.

And just as it hits the last lyrics, the demons are in the library, absolutely desecrating ancient knowledge, an angel blade fucking launches into the back of one Demon's head and kills it

Cue the song "Odysseus" as Dean stands at the archway of the library, gun in one hand. The line "I have had enough" is said before Dean shoots at the ceiling, and the whole bunker goes dark for a second, the lights of the lamps flickering before it all goes out

Carnage

A full massacre happens as Dean hunts down every demon, closing off the bunker so no one can get in or out. Meanwhile, Sam tries to deal with the ones who were still after him. Even with a broken arm, he's holding his own, but they outnumber him

And I need Sam to watch as Dean lets the demon in his take over and protect his brother

After the chaos, we cue in "I Can't Help but Wonder" as Sam and Dean reunite. Fuck you, power of love and brotherhood WINS. I need Sam to just tell Dean how he never stopped trying to find him again, that he's not making the same mistake like when Dean got sent to purgatory. How he always hoped Dean would come home again.

Dean saying he's proud of Sam, that Sam grew into his own hunter, that he's been doing good, and that he did miss him, he just didn't want to come home a monster. But he's back now, and they hug, and it's sweet

And Sam says he has to go tell Cas

And then we cue to "Would You Fall in Love with Me Again"

Cas gets the call that Dean is back, as Cas was already driving back to the bunker when he got the SOS

The bunker door opens

Dean says Cas' name

And Cas can't help but stare as he walks down the stairs hesitantly. Cause he sees Dean's demon form, but he can still see remnants of his soul in there too

"Is it you? Have my prayers been answered?"

Cas is looking Dean over, trying to see past the demon while Dean gets a look at Cas' true form for the first time

Dean says he's not the righteous man Cas knew. That he's not the same man. That his sins run so much deeper now than ever before, and he's beyond who Cas can even consider a friend

Cas asks what he's done, and Dean just tells Cas about every regret and pain he's had. How he feels irredemable before he doesn't feel bad about everything he's done. How a part of him left and did it for his family's safety. And he asks Cas if he'd still take Dean back

words words that someone smarter and more literate than me will figure out

Cas tells (confesses) to Dean that he'll love him over and over again, no matter what. That he's still the same person. He'll always be Dean, and that Cas has been waiting for him to come home

Cinematic rotating shot of their POVs with Cas' true form and Dean's demon form wrapping around each other as their physical bodies hug, forehead to forehead

Dean "How long has it been?"

Cas "Too long"

And then Sam is waiting in the kitchen, waiting for them to finish

fuck this was badly written. No one read this

#castiel #destiel #dean winchester #supernatural #deancas #spn

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akula-blue · 2 days ago

Text

You know, people keep saying the same two words:

"Bulkier. Slower."

And it's true. They are. Because they are NOT a mech, at all.

Sure, it's got arms and legs. But no neural interface to speak of, no fancy controls. Let's remove all the onboard AI and Stimulant talk here for a second, a combat mech cockpit has as much going on as a fighter jet, if not more. Dozens of readouts, hundreds of switches, the seat containing numerous buttons and controllers.

A civvy? Sure it's got some of the ol' switches for the reactor and what not. But it's a car, it's a vehicle. Everything is minimalist, the whole thing works on basically two joysticks, some even have pedals for leg movement.

They are a sham, by and large. A tank or a jet can perform most of what a mech can, with enough modifications. But we, as a species, chose for mechs to be our instruments of war. Not cause they were an 'ideal all terrain vehicle', come on. It's cause we liked to pilot our own idols, having our war chariot double time as our own god damn statue. And of course the homuncular adaptive response made it easier for a pilot to directly interface with the systems of a large body than a large hunk of metal on wheels.

Civvy mechs are the same. They could just as easily be replaced by drones, or forklifts, or cranes, or any other tech. But they are kept around anyway, to continue this great god damn narrative, that fake superiority of the mechs.

Wanna know what it feels like to pilot one of these clunkers? After being in the real deal? It's a quiet hell is what it is. It thrusts two things at you, day by day. First, that you're not a real pilot, not anymore. This is a machine pretending to be a mech, nothing more. And you're no better, a washed up has-been playing pretend like the rest.

And second, how little it all mattered. You scold your brain with chems, day after day, flood your synapses with data till it fills like your head will explode, barely dodging incoming fire. Watching your comrades' signals flick off, one after another, only to come back to base and realise you have hangers with metric tons of ammunition, but not one shovel to give them a proper burial with.

Every time I rev the engine on this thing, it asks me the same question. "And for what?" Those machines out there are pretending too. Pretending to be the optimal weapon of war, simply trying to fill the role that we humans forced upon it. Perhaps if we all just woke up a fair bit ago to this fact, we could've changed what happened. Maybe then we wouldn't keep getting truckloads of these broken bastards from the frontlines, among whom the mad are the lucky ones.

No, here's what I learned over the years. Plotting a mech is torture either way. The ones out there shootin', that's a loud kind of hell. Some may even like it. But this thing? It's a quiet kind, it fills your head with doubt and weighs your consciousness down until you drown.

But piloting all I know. What's left for me to do?

Alright mechposters, what've you got for civilian mecha? I'm talking mecha in construction, agriculture, transportation, wilderness navigation, mining & salvage, emergency services, disaster response, etc. What exactly are they used for, what's it like to pilot one, how is it different from a combat mech?

If you want a more substantial prompt: a former combat pilot adjusting to a new job as a civilian pilot.

(This was written by a transfem, TERFs fix your hearts or die.)

#mechposting

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degloved · 2 days ago

Text

i've threatened to post yet another sotr opinion, so here i go: lenore dove is a great and valuable character, but her romantic entanglement with haymitch felt completely unnecessary and tacked on. there was something about the two of them that kept bothering me as i read, but i think i was Feeling Everything Too Much to stop and pick things apart. having sat down and dissected my thoughts with bestie though, i've identified my four biggest gripes; their relationship is (a) repetitive, (b) useless, (c) clashes with the core themes of the story, and (d) undercooked.

(a) the main trilogy does "dystopia with a sprinkle of romance" perfectly (though i've certainly debated the inclusion of romance before, i'll pretend i don't hold those stances for the purposes of this post.) romance here is both useful in the sense of giving us a feel for who each character is wrt their view of it and, in general, is as good a vehicle for character development as any (especially given that we're dealing with teenagers here.) in tbosas, the romance takes a much darker and more twisted turn, though it plays a similar role—it illustrates the rottenness-to-the-core of president snow. neither the trilogy nor tbosas would be the same if the focal relationships were to be taken out, they're absolutely integral to both arcs. and yet... it gets to a point. is there not another means of accomplishing everything above? is there not another way to explore the characters' personalities, motives, values, etc.? can't they have a different driving force? wouldn't it have been perhaps smarter and, arguably, more fun to go beyond what's expected of a book within the ya genre?

(b) tying into what i've hinted at in the above paragraph—the four books that came before sotr all depended upon their focal romances to drive the story forward & hammer the point in. sure, we could've gotten a glimpse of snow's cycle path mind by other means—there was sejanus, there was dean highbottom, there were others who snow has fucked over in pursuit of his own ends. but nothing could've quite captured his rancidness, i think, that the way his obsession and attempted possession of lucy grey did. we're all familiar with villains who miraculously change around that one person, who dote on their specialest little boy/girl, yet that wasn't the case here. snow's [redacted] for lucy grey did not absolve him, did not change him, did not halt him in becoming who we know him to be at a rapid pace. as for the romance in thg, i don't think i can say anything that hasn't already been said before & much better besides. the girl on fire and the boy with the bread, we all know how that went. we all know what their love for one another made happen. & with that in mind, what did lenore dove and haymitch's romance accomplish? what did it do? did it alter the trajectory of either of their lives? ...no. did it change anything? ...no. would the story have been 100% the same if they'd only been friends? ...yes. would the story have been 100% the same if lenore dove had, god forbid, not even existed? ...yes. "oh but nico, why must a relationship be useful? why must it serve a purpose? can't we simply be in love?" why, yes! in real life! unfortunately, this is a story, and at that one where every single detail matters. every detail must serve a larger purpose, or else its value is automatically diminished (prime example.) and at times, i'd argue the value of the entire work may be diminished by the inclusion of an extraneous, frivolous plot point (though i wouldn't go that far here.)

(c) perhaps the most offensive aspect of the whole thing—its existence alone completely clashes with, in my view, one of the core themes of the book: friendship. sotr speaks of the biggest in-game alliance between the tributes thus far (and ever since.) again and again it emphasizes the "kad se male ruke slože" of it all (roughly, "many hands make light work.") unlike the tributes in katniss' time, they all approach each other. they talk. they make promises. haymitch isn't afraid to ally with louella on the train, and it doesn't take much at all for him to see loulou—a girl who is no one to him, nothing—as something precious to protect. not to mention ampert (no really, i won't, i'll get upset.) his and maysilee's entire arc is so, so beautiful and touching—his perception changing, the admission he had been wrong about her, the journey from refusing to ally, to doing so begrudgingly, to calling her a friend and a sister. even wyatt found his place in haymitch's heart. friends, friends, friends, it's all about friends. haymitch in the present timeline could've been that sad lonely drunk wreck just as believably after losing them. just as believably if lenore dove had been his friend (i hesitate to say only a friend—a friend can't ever be only.) haymitch has really lost so much, so many, and there is something about the pedestal lenore dove is put on—when it comes to these losses—that i can't get behind. would he have been any different, really, if she'd been spared? would all that misfortune not find him if she had been spared? no. no, i don't think so. therefore... two plus two.

(d) and finally, the total nail in the coffin—it wasn't even that good. we're thrown in medias res of their romance & we're meant to take suzanne's word for it. we're meant to do this from the get-go and throughout, because—in a book that can be summed up as So Much, All The Time—there was really not a moment to spare for haymitch and lenore dove. their romance was given no time to develop—and how could it have? how could it have, when the characters were hardly in physical proximity of each other for more than a page and a half total? he fed her the gumdrops and i felt nothing but a passing sadness, because all i could think about was ampert, was maysilee, was wyatt, was loulou, was anyone and everyone whose haymitch gave his all for & still couldn't save. we didn't need this romance subplot to begin with, and it wasn't even good.

#sotr #sunrise on the reaping #haymitch abernathy #lenore dove #thg #the hunger games #the hunger games meta #katniss everdeen #tbosas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow #peeta mellark #maysilee donner #thinkpieces #n

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midnight1nk · 2 days ago

Text

So, this week's episode...

[spoilers below cut]

Well, it looks like I got it right. It was a silly episode, though nothing related to the teaser we got. That's a shame. I suppose it's just to hype us up for the future. Either way, let's see what this is about!

(the following is my live reaction:)

shoes, huh? ......spaghetwhat now?

oof, yeah man you're gonna need a new pair

ooh damn. well, it is Bob after all. ofc he would say that 😌↕️

nah it's still bullshit, idc what anyone says

why, this doesn't look suspicious at all. a mirror shop conviently placed here on an alleyway

"🤨?" what? I gotta be on high alert every episode! Last time, the Team dropped a callback to IGBP out of nowhere, who knows what they drop on us next

uh, wha? how did.....? I shouldn't be questioning the logic of the SMG4 universe, this isn't what's surprising. It's a fact that mirrors were also used in WOTFI 2025 hmmmm

(you guys are gonna have to drag me away from this scene or I'll start thinking too hard on this)

c'mon dude, there's no need to prove yourself of anything

oh hey Swag! how's Chris— *record scratch* ......i'm sorry wha?

😦

RADIATION?

oh i did not like the realistic mouth ADKL;JK

wait hold up! enhance... ENHANCE....

....is that who I think it is? there's no way, right?

IS THAT STEVE? omg HI it's been so long

FM?! it's really you? omg ^^ it's been.... oh wow, it has been years, hasn't it? anyway damn, it's been SO long

like I know FM and X aren't gonna come back but it is heartwarming to see them again after a few years. We mostly seen Cube walking around

she was a fairy 🧚✨

see? I told yall Mario would totally be a disney princess (that crowd's just being a much of haters)

I ain't trusting that, hell no

AY back to the clubhouse!

Oh, Depresso, I didn't expect you to come back from Karen's arc

....😶 "what?" well, I was gonna say that I hated that heavy breathing like. Mario, what the hell did you do? But for some reason, this starting to remind me of something. I'll talk about it later if this is going where I think is going

ofc the meme guardians would be the ones who enjoy this lol

well, 4 would be the one doing the redesigns. this tho.....

and now Swag's glowing green smh, told yall I don't trust it

Well, it was mostly 3 that made fun of you, Mario, but that's bc it's 3 we're talking about. I suppose from how you feel, you might remember it things differently

MORE?!

Mario, telling you rn, it ain't worth it

yeah, I knew Swag was gonna say "CHUG"

😨 oh i don't like that..... I think my hunch may be correct

(also don't

what is up with his hand? he destroyed a nokia, and yall know those are practically indestructible

guys, i don't like this

😨😨😨

MIYAMOTO NOOO

the cutaway from that fight scene tho LMAO

JAMES?!

why did I have a feeling 3 would like this new look? lol (it actually makes me think)

killer fish from san diego.... (FISH MENTION?!)

well, 4, what else did you expect? This seems like a normal SMG4 plot honesty, it just feels.... a bit strange if that's how I would describe it

*points at 3* Can we talk about the fit tho? the puzzles hoodie and the silly pants..... that's a Fit (with a capital F) if I ever seen one 😎

perhaps one day we get James to do a 3 cosplay like Luke did? maybe???

and that's a fire bound to happen

....omg, Bob? Was this from the explosion?

it'll never be enough, right? but also this is Bob, he's got a whole set of standards

oh yea, this is VERY similar to the thing I'm going to talk about

Mario: "I WILL be pretty" :( aw but you were

EXACTLY, you really did have a point from the start

TIME TO SHUT THIS DOWN

Do the thing, Mario! YEAH

It's bad enough as it is that people were already mad about the switch 2 (and by extension the new mario kart) would be expensive

Well, at least Miyamoto listened

Wow, 3 was really happy with this new form until he was changed back. huh.

Look, I know it's supposed to be funny and all, but something's telling me it goes deeper than that. And I'm gonna talk about it OBVIOUSLY. You are talking to a theorist here, ofc I would overanalyze stuff

At least, things are back to normal

and THERE! Right there is all I need, thanks Team!

Such a tease to have the cafe right there and Swag coming out of it, but we don't get to be in it (*head in hands* /lh) one day tho....

*explodes* <- that is probably the second episode in a row that ended with an explosion

Congrats to Michelle940607 for your art being featured in the end credits! 🎉 seriously some of the art I've seen from you guy look like they belong in a museum omg

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

This certainly was an episode and I'm not quite sure what to think of it /gen. It did start off and very similar to a classic SMG4 plot, I noticed we got a lot more of Mario's 64 version in this one. But for some reason I can't point my finger on it, hmm.

I'll be real, it did feel a bit uncomfortable of the whole "true beauty" thing and all that jazz, but it was a nice message at the end with Mario accepting himself. As someone who has dealt with self-image issues before, it hits closer to home more than anything. The good thing is that we got our silly goofball back.

"So, what's the big deal about your hunch?" Well, I'm glad you asked, chat. For most of the episode, I couldn't shake this feeling of familiarity until I remembered what it was when Mario transformed the second time.

You see, there is a body-horror film called "The Substance". I do wanna warn that there is a bunch of gore and things that make want to look away, I know not all of you have the stomach to look it up so I might as well warn you now. It's also the whole point of the film to make you feel uncomfortable and unsettled, perhaps even grossed out. Basically, the film brings up the topic of perfection and societal beauty standards, more specifically in Hollywood. Truly, the victim of the film is an older actress desperately wanting to bring her perfect self while at the same time hating herself for how she looks now, despite being beautiful anyway. She took a serum (that was a radioactive-green color) and it worked, only later to abuse it bc of the perfection mindset Hollywood put on her.

Perfectionism, it really leads someone to their downfall....

There's a reason I brought this film up. Throughout the whole episode, it felt off. Sure, I was uncomfortable about "fixing" one's self image, but there was another thing. The close-up to Swag's realistic mouth, the mirror. The radiation given to Mario, the heavy breathing and distortion of his body. Hell, even the way Mario feel against the table and knocked the book off from it. This is practically a PG-13 version of the film, except y'know with Mario and in the SMG4 universe. Heh, and wouldn't you know it, pink being used in the two medias to represent perfection. (you're gonna have to trust me on this for those who don't know)

Now, can we talk about 3? We GOTTA talk about 3.

On hindsight, it's part of the joke that someone would like their new look and get sad when everything turns back to normal, which in this case was 3. And it indeed caught me so off-guard to see James just there, it did get a laugh out of me. BUT if you put this context of the film in mind, this bit adds on to the topic of 3's insecurities. He already feels like the "worst version of 4" and still getting used to having friends. Then, to have this radioactive solution that supposedly makes you look perfect and become "true beauty" on him, 3 looks really happy about it. Sure, he goes on to say how he's handsome and is "The Rizzler", but that might be him trying to put up a front of his own self-image to others. And maybe to himself. Ofc everything reverts back to the way it was and 3 is upset about it. Back to being the "worst version of 4". Not to mention 3 wearing a Puzzles hoodie, y'know the one always in pursuit for perfection.

The more you think about, it really is sad.

Speaking of 4, he was the completely opposite. 4 was the first one to ask Mario what the hell did he do to them and was dumbfounded to know the reason why, for shoes. Until the very end, you can see 4 being unhappy until he's back to his old silly self. He didn't want this "perfection". Now, this is not me trying to connect it to goop!4, really I'm not. But it is just interesting that 4 didn't accept the unexpected "perfection" and rejected it.

Maybe I'm looking too much into thing and likely that the Team didn't plan all this, but these are my thoughts. Personally, it was an ok episode, all things considered, but I know some people aren't happy about it which that's fair. I just hope some people *cough cough* reddit *cough* don't take things too far and start blaming our new writer. We're just getting started and I did get a catch on some of their work, so I can put in a good word. Please do give them a chance, looking at you reddit. Not all episodes are going to be heavy-hitters and that's okay. There's always another week.

It's valid if you don't like the episode or you're unsure what to feel, just don't go looking for someone/something to blame on. Perhaps it's me being too optimistic, who can say? Besides, I know the Team's cooking, I got a hunch

I still can't believe Evan from the Team actually followed me omg

Anyway, it is an interesting direction the Team went with this episode and I do hope we get more of 3's inner turmoil of being "4's worst copy" like the "Trash Friends" episode. Oh, and they follow-up on the Puzzles and WPNZ teaser somehow, a prison escape perhaps?? Who knows!

As for all of you, if you are dealing with self-image/body issues, just know that you're a wonderful person inside and out. It might not feel like it bc we're talking behind a screen, but seriously you don't have to change to be loved. You already are, and very much friend-shaped to give you a virtual hug 🫂💙 If you want, talk to somebody about it and try to handle it in a healthy and respectful way to yourself. For example, instead of the usual black hoodies I wore in high school, I dress and doll myself up with some nice and comfy clothes. Even if I'm not going out, I still do it and that helped me rebuild some confidence in myself. You can always do what you can for yourself, however you can :)

Well, that's all from me folks! I do apologize taking a while to post this out there. Just putting out fires in my production job, y'know the usual. I'll see yall in the next one, and remember: numbers always go first!

...wow, I can't believe we got to see FM after so long. That's wild. I do wonder how Chris is doing tho

#smg4 #smg4 spoilers #ink reviews #even so-called perfection is never enough #that's why chat there's nothing wrong with staying as wonderful as you are now 💙#(also that rat and cheese bit was really funny lol)

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blueberrybirdsworld · 3 days ago

Text

Collision 2/20

Summary:

Lando always had a type : blonde, models, not ready to settle down. Yet once he met her, all his world is changed and he slowly start to realises maybe he was wrong all this time.

It's a prequel story of The Cat Distribution System, on how Lando Norris fall in love with Ariana. Could be read seperatly.

Pairing : lando norris x original female character

Genre : Fluff, slow burn, enventual smut and angst

Warning : none

Serie Masterlist

CHAPTER 2 : SMAU

@landonorris accidentally became the DJ again

📍London

@pietrapilao: you pressed two buttons and acted like you closed Coachella 💀 @maxfewtrell: never seen a man take credit for autoplay this confidently @carlos55: we left you alone for 5 minutes and this happens @oscarpiastri: how much to make this stop @maxverstappen1: your dj era again?? help. @chaoticgp: every off-season has its villain arc and this one’s giving ✨dj lando✨ @landozoned: this man cannot stay away from a soundboard @mclarenwitch: i just KNOW he said “trust me, I got this” before messing everything up @gridgirliez: lando the club menace is back and we’re not surviving

@arianariverria slow mornings, long rehearsals, quiet evenings 🤍

📍London

@maya.ross: the “main character in a French film” energy is overwhelming @juliettedlcrx: this post just cured my anxiety @claireballetco: i gasped at slide 2. actual sculpture. @balletwithluna: you live in an aesthetic moodboard and i’m just passing through @ellieharperballet: how do you make pink look like a power color @sylviaballet: the definition of stillness in strength @softshoesandsatin: every slide is a different kind of calm

@gridwatchgossip Spotted 👀 #LandoNorris seen behind the DJ booth and chatting closely with a mystery brunette at a London club a few nights ago during winter break. Sources say she wasn’t part of his usual crew, and the two were seen talking more than once throughout the night. No clear photos of the girl — but fans are already buzzing. 👀

@landozoned: NOT ANOTHER DJ ERA LMAOOO @softlandoz: "mystery brunette" is PR-speak for heartbreak incoming @tifosibae: girl if you see this, blink twice for a soft launch @chaoticgp: she better be able to handle his freak @gridtea: lando deep in convo = man is hooked @mclarencurls: plot twist: she’s the reason he didn’t break anything at the DJ booth @numberonechaos: new WAG watch? it's always the winter break

Texts messages :

Group Chat — "🌟 Chaos Trio 🌟"

Pietra: Gentle reminder that you both owe me for putting up with your entire existence last weekend So this Saturday: ballet night. Royal Opera House. We’re going.

Max Fewtrell: wait are we seriously doing this ?

Lando: is this revenge for making you walk through Mayfair with us for 3 hours

Pietra: No. This is me adding culture to your lives because I love one of you and tolerate the other

Max Fewtrell: I’m assuming I’m the one you love but I can’t be completely sure right now

Lando: I’m honored to be tolerated. truly.

Pietra: Dress code is smart. No trainers. No caps.

Max Fewtrell: Define “smart.” Because last time you said that I ended up in a turtleneck at a BBQ

Pietra: Blazer. Nice shirt. Clean shoes. Try not to look like you rolled out of a Twitch stream

Lando: so basically dress like Max but without the part where he’s trying to impress you

Max Fewtrell: rude but not inaccurate

Lando: ok but what if I fall asleep hypothetically

Pietra: Then I will elbow you in the ribs gently. and Max will pretend not to know you

Max Fewtrell: I’m bringing espresso and a respectful attitude also please hold my hand if it gets dramatic

Pietra: obviously it’s Tchaikovsky. we will feel things.

Lando: so we clap when? during? after? I don’t want to be the guy clapping in a tragic death scene

Pietra: clap when everyone else claps don’t start anything, don’t shout "bravo" in random moments

Max Fewtrell: ok but if the intermission has macarons I’ll call it a success

Lando: deal. I’m only coming for the macarons

Pietra: See? We’re growing. 6pm sharp. Don’t be late or I’m giving your ticket to someone cultured.

Taglist : @angelluv16, @httpsxnox, @anunstablefangirl, @chocolatemagazinecupcake, @mayax2o07, @freyathehuntress, @verogonewild

Let me know if you wanted to be added to the taglist !

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azaharinflames · 12 hours ago

Note

I’m a screenwriter with little trust in this show at times, but I’m too fully on the BuckTommy train to stop. So here are my thoughts about the scoff. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this for weeks and I don’t think it’s going to get more clear, so stick with me.

I think the way the scoff was delivered was meant to point towards Eddie not being straight. BUT!

If that were true then this would’ve been the clear line of thought for the rest of the scene, then in the next episode you’d see the direct repercussions of this line come up. You’d have seen it come up in Buck’s talk with Maddie. There would be even a small moment with Eddie in Texas. There would need to have been reference to Eddie being not straight at any point from 8x12 to 8x15, and (more importantly) prior to 8x11. Something there has never been in the history of 911. I’d say the closest moment was with Ana, and the panic attack. that turned into a PTSD storyline. And then the talk about dating being performative, which happened two girls (Marisol, Kim) ago. So the only canon anything that leans towards Eddie not being straight is Tommy’s scoff, that had no repercussions when it needed it in order to keep the line of plot. By now, it’s dropped. On TV, you basically need to keep the ball in the air for something like that. Once it falls, picking it up looks ridiculous because you’re banking on an audience to remember one thing from over a month earlier. Buck and Eddie went right back to their normal friendship directly after that moment with Tommy — the line was dropped.

“What about Eddie telling the priest he’s straight?” Same deal. If we saw any sort of reaction telling us otherwise, it could’ve been used to say that Eddie’s lying/repressed/whatever people are saying. But it wasn’t. So it isn’t. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Especially when I think the priest asked if he comes there often, which is a known pickup line. So Eddie’s response is a joking response to it. So this comes down to if Tim’s trying to force the audience into thinking Eddie isn’t, just by these two lines alone, but it’s not enough by far. Would be sloppy and genuinely bad writing. It could be a clear shut down just as easy as proof of anything else — and that’s not good writing. I’d lean towards shut down if I had any frame of reference for the rest of the season, but narratively it’s a shut down due to nothing to back it up.

Back to the kitchen. If someone randomly accused your best friend of not being straight, you would probably have more of a reaction. For Buck, confusion being the main one if he thought Tommy was serious. See the beginning of the scene. But Buck doesn’t question him, he doesn’t think he’s serious. Buck hesitates, reorients himself, to throw out the line about sleeping with someone he has feelings for. He sees Tommy saying that Eddie isn’t straight, not as a reveal about Eddie, but as a slight to Buck for thinking that anyone he’s around he’s going to sleep with. See the backlash from the breakup.

I’ve said it a million times, but the writers build a scene towards a joke or a moment and don’t actually care about anything else. The big hit of the scene was what Buck said about sleeping with people — which Tim said was about Buck 1.0. And probably some ass covering from the biphobia backlash. The point of the scene was that Tommy is worried about how close Buck and Eddie are, that having a guy that close means bad stuff for Tommy — the scene said that’s not true. The point of the scene with Maddie is Buck making it clear he isn’t interested in Eddie. Which either is terrible writing to set up Buddie because it would be shockingly sudden and terrible, or proof that Maddie doesn’t really know Buck all that well.

I can’t tell if the show is leaning towards Buddie, BuckTommy, or a love triangle. Because narratively it’s should be BT, it makes way more narrative sense at this point, but lack of trust says Buddie because of TM wanting shock factor and claiming these were all dropped hints. But if they were dropped anything, they were dropped ploy lines.

This probably made no freaking sense at all, but yeah.

TLDR: If the scoff was supposed to mean gay Eddie then they wrote the entire season wrong. Much more likely the scoff was used solely to get to Buck’s line about not sleeping with everyone. Which was the hit of the scene. The writers play hopscotch in their scenes, as long as they hit what they want to they fill it all in with other stuff. They wanted competition and they wanted the end, the middle stuff didn’t matter, because if it did, we would’ve seen it. Which we didn’t. So Buck and Tommy should be safe and back together soon if the show follows their own narrative, but wtf knows anymore

I’m a firm believer that the scoff was not meant to be anything that indicated Gay Eddie. Even Oliver said in an interview he didn’t think Tommy scoffed because he didn’t think Eddie was straight.

I’ve said it before - Tommy reacts that way because Buck is not answering that question. I’ll use the same example I used back then. If I were to be asked if I wanted pasta a la carbonara for lunch, but my answer was that I am a vegetarian… would I be answering the question? not really, right? Because even when I don’t eat meat, I could want pasta a la carbonara. The only thing stopping me is my dietary preferences.

I think Tommy saw it this way, too. Buck is not telling him he doesn’t have feelings directly; instead, he denies it by using something out of his control. Only later he also confirms he doesn’t have feelings, but it’s not exactly effective in this case. However, 811 makes a clear show of Buck not having any feelings for Eddie whilst having them for Tommy.

And it would’ve been easy to show Buck hesitating in his negative. Or not fully denying it, even. But he denies it multiple times, and makes a point to remind the audience Tommy is the man he has feelings for.

Furthermore, they could’ve done something to keep putting Eddie into their narrative, yet they purposefully didn’t. Even RG said that storyline is completely separated from his.

They are not doing a love triangle. That is something that bobs are now clinging to, but honestly? Tommy mentioning Eddie was a cheap way the show had to narrow his insecurities down and make them easier to work through, not something they did to show there is something brewing there.

Eddie has had his moments in the show, but he’s not queer, and they’ve made that abundantly clear on more than one occasion. And RG has made clear plenty of times he’s not interested in Buddie.

So. I understand being in fandom can be confusing, but this once? Yeah it’s clear the show is not going for Buddie.

But they’ve sent plenty of signs that they’re still rooting for Bucktommy.

#anti buddie #bucktommy #anon ❣️

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sokkastyles · 57 minutes ago

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Lol this is a nice essay but totally ignores that Zuko renounced belief in colonization and imperialism and became Katara's ally and friend, and that she did forgive him. That's what my original post is about, the fact that the show had Zuko go to great lengths to atone onscreen and had Katara forgive him onscreen. We actually see Zuko learn to respect Katara. We do NOT see Aang learn to respect Katara. You say the kiss was "a bit much" while downplaying Zuko's redemption, and then say that Aang "needed to grow," except that he did not grow. The kiss happened in late season three and is never brought up in the show outside of the episode in which it happens.

I'm sorry, but I wholly reject the idea that Zuko is not a romantic option if he can be Katara's friend, and he canonically is. Also, you missed the point of my post, which is that Zuko grew to respect Katara and Aang did not. If my choices are between a man who had to learn to respect me and my boundaries and was forced to grovel before me in order to earn my trust (a literal romance trope) and an immature child who disrespected my boundaries and sexually assaulted me but he'll never be held accountable and is extremely likely to do it again, I'm picking the first guy every time.

It's also giving the writers too much credit to say that they got the affects of adultification right. Katara experiencing trauma over being parentified is somewhat addressed, but she's still expected to take care of the group's needs and ultimately the show concludes that this is a good thing at the same time that the show uses those traits in Katara as sources of comedy. Also all the kids are more "adult" than real kids because they are cartoon characters in an adventure story. ATLA is not a realistic story about child psychology, nor can it be.

It's also clear that the romance didn't happen because "Viacom needed a romance plot," Bryke have spoken often about their intentions for the romance plot and how it was meant to portray Aang growing into earning Katara's affections and proving he's grown up enough for her. Thus the problems with the kataang romance stem from the inherent fact that it was always driven by being a male fantasy, and the problems that exist aren't accidental, they were done intentionally because the writers don't actually care about how Katara feels. Disregarding what Katara wants and having Aang win her anyway despite being immature and never having to respect her is an essential part of that fantasy. Aang kissed Katara without her consent because the writers want us to identify with his frustration that she hasn't become his girlfriend yet. Aang never apologized for it because the writers don't care about that, people like you downplay the fact that he kissed her without consent because the romance was written from the perspective that Katara's feelings need to change to accommodate what Aang wants. The misogyny is an intentional feature, not a bug. Even if Zuko wasn't the better option (and he is) I think Katara should pick him because fuck that entire narrative.

Edit: I also want to address your tags because you use the word intersectionality but don't seem to understand what it means. It does not mean you "pick the lesser of two evils" (and I am EXTREMELY judging you for insisting that sexual assault is a lesser evil, wtf), it does not mean we should constantly judge people by identity alone. It means that arcs like Zuko and Katara's are actually necessary and should happen more often in shows, where they both have to learn to respect each other, because it's also intersectionality that Katara had to learn how to treat Zuko as someone with a facial disfigurement. Katara learning how Zuko has been victimized by his own family and how that parallels the loss of her mother is also a facet of intersectionality. Being like "oh these two characters can never have a relationship because of identity politics" is NOT intersectionality.

Just saw a post where someone took someone else's post and said that they were "projecting" onto Katara because the OP said that if they were in Katara's position when they were kissed by Aang in EIP after making it clear that she didn't want to be kissed, they wouldn't forgive Aang.

And the thing is, that first of all, projecting isn't a dirty word, it's a normal way to relate to fictional narratives. Second, we actually don't see Katara forgive Aang or even address the kiss in any way other than after she looks upset and angry and then runs out of the room. Audiences can ONLY project onto Katara because we don't actually get to see the resolution to that event from Katara's perspective. We assume she forgave him because she gets together with him in the end, but we aren't actually shown it and we know that they would be endgame whether or not the kiss had happened. Katara's forgiveness of Aang doesn't feel organic because she doesn't actually get the chance to forgive him, so of course audiences are going to question it.

Third, it's actually quite common now for writers and producers to consult audience members, especially those who fit the demographic of a character, on whether that character's actions seem plausible. This is especially true if the writers themselves aren't representatives of that demographic. Katara's actions were written by male writers, so it's not up to them to give the final word on what a teenage girl would do upon being kissed without consent, it is up to female fans to decide whether that rings true. The fact that the writers didn't even bother to show us Katara's perspective further highlights the lack of a female perspective being considered here.

The post in question also said that what Aang did didn't actually hurt Katara, and that she was just "annoyed and angry," but not hurt. And I feel like people who argue this in favor of Katara and Aang's relationship are actually downplaying the relationship quite a bit. Because if Katara loves Aang, she'd feel a whole lot more than annoyed upon being kissed by him after expressing that she was confused and felt that it wasn't the right time. She'd feel incredibly betrayed, she'd feel like he didn't listen to her. She might even question her relationship with him further and start to back away from the feelings of love that she was already hesitant to express, because what Aang is showing her is that he doesn't actually care about how she feels and isn't going to be careful with her feelings if she were to truly give her heart to him. The EIP kiss actually does A LOT of damage to Katara and Aang's relationship, and the fact that it's never actually addressed does even more damage.

I mean, if Katara didn't really care about Aang kissing her without her consent, I'm not sure why I should care about their relationship at all.

The post also brought up that Zuko has done worse to Katara but she forgave him. The thing is that we actually SAW Zuko earn Katara's forgiveness. This is a relationship I can get behind because the show cares about it. The show cares that Zuko hurt Katara and cares about whether or not he gets her forgiveness. Zuko and Katara would not have had a relationship at all without that conflict and its resolution. The show tells me that these two characters care about each other, and it does it without any sort of romantic drama AND without having the guy sexually assault her.

#zutara #antikataang #the discourse #sa cw

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cellarspider · 2 days ago

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Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Return of the Weirdest Guy

I've done a couple of tounge-in-cheek analyses of SWTOR backstory recently, and frankly, it was mostly an exercise in nostalgia: finding old drawers in my brain full of dusty old factoids, and dumping them out into essay-shaped monstrosities. Bioware released SWTOR on the 20th of December, 2011. There are kids who were born that day who'll be entering 8th grade this year. There was only one version of Skyrim when it came out, and it was only just over a month old!

SWTOR's development team has since been rehomed at Broadsword Online Games, which has meant a reduced budget while allowing the lights to stay on, and story updates to slowly continue. I've been content to keep splashing around in the base game, vaguely planning on getting a character or two through to the current storylines, but never actually getting there.

And then Star Wars: Celebration happened last week, and I am now forced to consider the unthinkable: getting my ass in gear and playing the new stuff, because I saw this.

This appears to be Darth Jadus. It's been thirteen real, actual years since he was last seen. Follow me below the fold, and find out why I'm obsessed with this man who once faked his death to get out of attending work meetings, and because his coworkers weren't reading his manifesto.

Content warnings before we begin: much as I love Jadus as a villain, he is a villain. He's a cult leader and he's in the running for Worst Dad of SWTOR, which is saying something when his competition includes a guy who had 1,300 years of practice to perfect being a really terrible dad.

Note that there will be additional jokes and analyses in the image alt text, which is where wild tangents build their nests.

Spoilers for the entirely of the Agent plotline, Act 3 of the Jedi Knight plotline, and various moments throughout the expansions. Assume Wookieepedia links contain unmarked spoilers for literally everything. I'll be covering the context of Jadus among the Sith, his plotline, some of my own speculations as to his motivation, and how things may go, now that this SWTOR cryptid is crawling out of the ductwork to be spooky in person once again.

Just to give you the flavor of this guy, I'll sum up his plot as succinctly as I can, right at the top: Jadus anonymously funds and arms a terrorist group and sends them to attack himself, seemingly dying in an extremely extra fashion. He's also outfitted them with undetectable biomechanical death satellites, and while those are finishing up their unholy maturation, he's taking a vacation to drive two hundred of his followers face-meltingly insane. His daughter will keep anyone from noticing this by being such a galaxy-class disaster that Jadus can just hang out for a few months.

He plans to return from the dead on the day the superweapon satellites are unleashed, taking control of then to wipe out the terrorists and simultaneously destroy his rivals' power bases, forcing them to acknowledge him and his horrible invisible space-laser children. He will then lead the Empire in whatever weird direction he feels like, while making sure not to piss off the immortal, eldritch Sith Emperor too much.

If he's allowed to win, he'll give the Sith Empire a light dusting of eldritch cult vibes before he realizes the game has entered Act 3: as an ambitious secondary villain, he's a prime target for the role of "gets killed by the end boss to show how serious the situation is". He evades this fate by simply leaving the game entirely. He then proceeds to lurk for thirteen real life years, and twenty-three Star Wars ones, before showing up to jumpscare the galaxy again. If that's actually him, we don't have it totally 100% confirmed yet. It could just be someone with a similar taste for being gigantic and wearing that one mask.

I intend to describe the hows, whys, and WHY?!?s of Jadus in a tasteful yet unhinged essay below.

So.

Let's take a moment and step back, to look at what made the Sith into compelling villains in the first place: Darth Vader. Growing up with the original movies, there was barely any detail about him, just electrifying little glimpses of a deeply scarred body and mind beneath the mask.

Really, when you set aside everything else that's come after, what do the originals tell you? I mean, in the original movie, "Darth" was clearly intended to be Vader's first name, and by the end of the trilogy nobody actually knew what a Sith was, or why Vader was Dark Lord of them. There was almost a timeline where the Sith ended up as little lizard assassin commando guys that thought Vader was a really cool dude.

What made Vader special was the experience of witnessing him on screen, brought to life by the physical performance of David Prowse, and the vocals of James Earl Jones.

The two of them combined created a performance with a gravitas that has yet to be matched by anyone else who's put on the suit or done the voice. There's a subtlety to the body language of Prowse and the restraint Jones employs in creating the image of Vader.

And let's be clear, Vader is still the untouchable standard, and attempts to recreate him are doomed to fail. But what about making something new and transfixing in other ways? Well, SWTOR has been quite good at that.

The core of SWTOR, anyway.

The voices and designwork do, anyway.

SWTOR is a Bioware game, and back in this era, that meant one thing: characters moving and gesturing in ways no human would ever attempt, unless they were imitating a malfunctioning animatronic.

These are stock animations that they'd used for years, and they're a cost-saving measure. Each game, storyline, and scene has an animation budget. That's because building a moving piece of art is hard, and doing so inside a computer means you either have to build literally everything from scratch, or you reuse assets that are already available. SWTOR is a game with literal thousands of voiced characters, in a new setting they couldn't reuse art assets for. Writing for the game began in 2006, while the first Mass Effect and Dragon Age games were also in development. There was no way you were getting custom animations outside of key scenes.

And so that leaves you with a good old Bioware tradition: what's your favorite stock animation? The ones I'm most fond of are "person exits a conversation by calmly taking two steps backwards before turning around, like they're a car pulling out of a parking spot", or "person kind of spins both their hands around in front of them, like they're at a loss for words on how to describe watching their buddy walk like an automobile".

So, those are the ground rules for experiencing a Bioware game of this era: everybody looks like a dork in the in-game cutscenes, but the voices and writing carry the day, so eventually you tune out the wiggles. If a character's really lucky, they'd get actual cinematics. If they're Darth Malgus, this is so he can get repeatedly kicked in the face and still look cool doing it.

youtube

[Video Description: The Disorder cinematic trailer, in which Malgus forces a Jedi padawan to confront how her master made the choice to abandon her brother, leaving him to an unknown fate. I've shown this before in other essays, and damn it, I'll show it again. This shit is fantastic. Malgus is in fine form, in terms of combat, manipulative villain behavior, and getting smacked into walls. You have no idea how often that happens to him. It appears to be one of his hobbies at this point.]

Malgus is the closest SWTOR strays to Vader, and the main point of comparison for all other Sith in the game. Voiced by Jamie Glover, he's a seething menace who's maintained a strong presence throughout much of the game's thirteen year run. He rebels against the Sith orthodoxy, making a play to rule them, and eventually rejects them entirely. He's even taken on more of the Vader cybernetics over time, as his life of conflict has broken more and more of his body, while leaving his mind intact. His vocal performance is very distinct, but in tone is probably closest to Vader's early portrayal in A New Hope: more open malice and contempt.

And if you're lured into the supplementary material like tie-in novels and such, you get his whole backstory, and it really doesn't improve things. You don't need to know who he was, or hear his inner monologue. His outer monologue gives you what you want without ruining the mystique.

Then there's the Sith Emperor himself, whose transcendent evil is brought to life by the voice of Doug Bradley, an actor best known for his lead antagonist role in the Hellraiser series. I'll admit I've only ever personally heard the Emperor in full form once, due to my meandering path through the game. But when I did? Every ridiculous thing about the game fell away, because his restrained performance carried the moment so well.

And when expansions and books start explaining more of what his deal is, it's often subtractive to his menace. Thanks in no small part to how much of that is tied up in Revan, a figure beloved by fans in Ye Olden Times, whose SWTOR-era canon is more of a "we don't talk about him" kind of affair. If you want the blow-by-blow, just check out the fifty-thousand word Wookieepedia page for Revan and feel your soul slowly shrivel up over the course of an hour or so.

But when you meet the Emperor again after Revan's dead, now manifesting in another body and with a different voice, you might hear him refer to Darth Jadus as "the finest Sith my empire ever produced."

And when you encounter Jadus, should you make the very good decision to try the Imperial Agent plotline, you might see why the Emperor thought that.

Darth Jadus is voiced by Stephen Rashbrook, who's mostly done narration and voiceover for documentaries. I'd guess that the most popular things he's been in have been this game, and the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, where he also does narration for something. The only credit that made me sit up and say "Oh shit! He was in that?" was the PBS/Channel 4 documentary series Secrets of the Dead, which careens between sensational goofiness and actually some of the best damn portrayals of archaeology on TV.

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[Video Description: Season 2, Episode 2 of Secrets of the Dead, featuring Stephen Rashbrook's narration about a skeleton found near Stonehenge. For those who haven't heard his voice before, this is your baseline that will make things even weirder in a minute. If you do know Jadus already, this itself feels weird as hell. I keep waiting for him to wander off into a sermon on the spiritual benefits of existential terror. It's quite good at digging into the details and techniques used in archaeology, circa 2000. There's a few bits eyebrow-raising bits in the narration, But this particular skeleton has not been reexamined since this same analysis, fitting with theories still accepted today. Also, fun bonus fact in these papers: the previous carbon dating they mention in the documentary was paid for by a dentist who thought the skeleton was King Arthur's. /Description]

I've no idea if Rashbrook will be returning to the role for this surprise return, but he contributes a lot to making Jadus a transfixingly strange figure among the Sith. As with Doug Bradley, restraint is the key element, which wanders between menace and ardent, trance-like conviction.

And sometimes he says just the strangest, most unhinged things you've ever heard.

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[Video Description: From YT user Armored Productions. The second time you encounter Jadus, wherein he basically opens with a Dark Side tone poem, reveals the outline of his entire secret plan in such a cheeky way that it just sounds like the worst salvia trip in the universe, mentions his flagship is named the Dominator, and then cranks up the BDSM vibes to maximum by ordering you to kneel for some sort of ritual purposes. And no, that last bit is never explained. We don't know why he wants you to kneel, or if it was supposed to change something in you. What I do know is that if you refuse to kneel, he gives you a chance to change your mind. If you remain defiant, he hits you with so much Force lightning that the game kicks you out to the menu that asks "you got your ass kicked, do you want to revive here or slink back to the nearest med center?". As far as I can recall, this is the only cutscene that can do this. Jadus hits you so hard you stop being cinematics and start being game mechanics. /Description]

And here's where I let up on the (slightly) serious tone. Because I love this performance dearly, but wow. Wow. He really just says all those things, doesn't he.

"I believe in the democratization of fear," the giant space-gimp tells you, and you believe he believes that, whatever the ass that means.

Because at that point, you really don't know. He's not slowing down to explain this to you, because you are, as far as he's concerned, unimportant. He's not yet aware that you're the main character of the plot line. No, really, I'm only barely joking. He figures it out eventually, but at the moment he's got something else on his mind: screwing over his coworkers.

As I previously described, the Sith Empire largely runs under the control of twelve unhinged cybergoths known as the Dark Council: turnover is often quick and violent, as rival lords vie for Council seats. Those that survive longer than a few years are uniformly the most powerful and canny among the Sith. They are the most competent at foiling their rivals, maintaining their influence, and administering their respective spheres of influence that underpin an interstellar Empire.

And most of them hate at least one part of that job description, and are constantly scheming on how to undermine the others so they can be left alone to do the parts they actually want to do. How dare everyone else make this difficult for them. How dare Darth Vowrawn be having a good time doing all of this.

Darth Jadus, when the story begins, is one of these Dark Councilors, and he doesn't hate it as much as the rest. He hates it more. He hates it weirder. And despite never engaging in the weekly backstabbery of the Council, the rest all know he's got something long-term cooking. It's just that nobody's been able to figure out what it is. They are correct, but nobody seemed to realize how seriously he was committed to sparkle motion.

I already previewed his invisible biomechanical laser satellites at the top, but withheld any of his reasons for doing that. So... why is he doing that?

Jadus has gotten fed up with the Dark Council, and with Sith in general. For years, he's been something of an outcast among them for radical ideas like "aliens and slaves are also people" and "Sith aren't the specialest little critters in the universe" and "we should stop fighting each other all the time", and the actual radical ideas like "everyone regardless of circumstance or ability should experience the benefits of the Dark Side, such as its limitless abyss of hatred and terror".

Yes, this man is a socialist, but specifically for the redistribution of bad vibes.

So far, his attempts to convince other Sith have been a failure, but he's done surprisingly well among certain parts of the general public. He runs Imperial Intelligence, which is the only part of the government where aliens can find employment, and Force-blind people can rise to the top ranks.

In fact, all of Jadus' personal advisors are Force-blind. He's completely purged both Intelligence and his retinue of Sith. He's known to select slaves and aliens for special roles, specifically because everyone else has overlooked their potential for their entire lives—their loyalty will be uncompromised. He's deeply involved in the affairs of Imperial Intelligence, on a level that other Sith don't usually engage.

And so nobody really notices when he has the Imperial Science Bureau try and implement a funky new technoorganic design, especially when it was quietly shut down because they wouldn't be efficient for the war effort. Did Jadus make any copies of their data? Don't worry about it! Worry about what else Jadus might be doing.

Because over the years, his philosophy and absolutely awful personal vibes have created a literal cult following for him. While that's not unheard of for Sith, Jadus takes it to a higher level. He probably has several manifestos published by this point.

And so nobody really thinks twice when Jadus declares he's going to take a thousand of his followers away on his flagship, spreading his philosophy across the Empire. That's normal Jadus stuff.

If you're me, you'll be sitting there hung up on the fact that his flagship is named the Dominator, because the BDSM vibes are hilariously unsubtle.

What none of them know at this point is that Jadus has packed the Dominator full of explosives, which the player character's starter missions actually were responsible for securing. But we're talking about destroying a massive ship here, surely someone suspected help from the inside?

Well, with how utterly awful Jadus was to be around, nobody who knew him really found it odd that a well-connected, traditionalist, isolationist terrorist group would try to blow him up. Jadus himself says they have aid from within the government. Hilariously, I'm not sure if anyone asked him who, because the answer is him.

But in their defense, everyone in Intelligence was kept distracted because Jadus made the utterly unhinged demand that placed the defense of the capital city's power grid in the hands of the player character, a newbie who hasn't even gotten a cool codename yet.

So when the Dominator blows up with Jadus on board, that's surprising, it means the terrorists are an imminent threat to the Empire, but really, what's so bad about getting rid of Jadus?

Enter Darth Zhorrid, his daughter, sole apprentice and heir, and oh boy she's already electrocuting people

We don't know who's to blame for Zhorrid's zhorrible name—it could be Jadus, it could be one she chose for herself. But we know Jadus is the one responsible for why she's Like This. Or rather, we learn, during what's frankly one of the most distressing scenes in the Agent plotline, which is saying something.

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[Video Description: A video I took of Zhorrid's last scene before you enter Act 1's endgame, and content warning. Content warning. She's not in a good way, mostly because of a lifetime of mental health problems brought on by Jadus. Skip it if you need to, it's summarized below. /Description]

Jadus used some literally operatic cruelty to break Zhorrid's mind, but the results evidently weren't what he wanted—when she became irrationally destructive and impulsive as a result, he essentially abandoned her. She mentions that he was always ruthless with himself, identifying and attempting to eliminate his own faults whenever he failed at something. That included Zhorrid herself.

When she takes over her father's Dark Council seat, she's an unprepared mess, and she knows it. She can't keep a hold of Jadus' resources, which the rest of the Council are quick to start stealing from her. To Imperial Intelligence, her top priority is to find out who killed her father, because she wanted to do it first.

Jadus, meanwhile, used his own monstrous strength in the Force to not be incinerated in the destruction of the Dominator. In fact, he held together a large enough portion of the ship that two hundred people were saved with him, covertly transported to another capital ship running silent in deep space.

And because breaking people isn't just something you do with family, Jadus spends the next couple of months driving them all insane.

It's no wonder that years later, when an ancient, eldritch Sith collective encounters the Agent player character, they attempt to recruit the agent on the sole basis of "you were once in the vicinity of Darth Jadus, and we like his vibes."

With Zhorrid's flameout keeping the Council and Intelligence distracted, Jadus's terrorist underlings—who are still pretty sure they actually did kill him—can continue production of these cool technoorganic death satellites he gave them the plans for ages ago. Pay no attention to the fact that this sort of merging of machine and unnatural flesh is usually an ancient Dark Side thing! Everything seems to be going great, and hey what's that player character-shaped person doing over there

The agent, now sporting the very cool codename Cipher Nine, manages to take out a big chunk of the terrorist group's organizational structure, and steal half of the control codes for the death satellites. Jadus didn't see this coming, but he has a solution: bring them to his horrorfest vacation spot and offer them a promotion.

And here's where he starts to start getting uncomfortably close to the fourth wall: Jadus basically states that he didn't realize Cipher Nine was important before, but he won't make that mistake again. Come be his herald. The Hand of Jadus, which is a very cool title for Star Wars folks of a particular age, because it makes you feel like Mara Jade. Give him the command codes, and he'll functionally take over the Empire, and overturn the old Blood Purity laws that kept aliens and slaves from becoming citizens, and also he'll improve their spiritual lives by beginning an 'Epoch of Terror'—

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[Video Description: A Cthulhu Mythos parody Christmas carol, "Joy To The World" replaced with "Death To The World, Cthulhu's come. Let Earth! Abhor! This thiiiing!". I don't get to pull these out very often, so here's my excuse. Let me tell you, there are carols that I cannot get through without accidentally falling into singing these instead. "God rest ye merry gentlemen, let everything dismay, remember Great Cthulhu shall rise up from R'lyeh—" /Description]

One of the most delightfully maddening things about Jadus as a character is that he mixes perfectly reasonable and even laudable ideas with pure eldritch nonsense. If Cthulhu were about to rise from the depths of R'lyeh, to awaken the Great Old Ones and drive the world mad under the crushing weight of their very existence, Jadus would be messing with labor laws so everyone could take time off work for the holiday.

At this point, the player has a choice. One of the most impactful in the entire game, actually: Do you let him win? Because you can actually take this deal. Maybe your character believes the Empire is so moribund that it needs to be pushed into collapse. May they've been pushed to madness themself by what they've experienced to get there. Maybe they earnestly believe Jadus's mix of structural reform and transcendental religion is good and necessary. You can give him the control codes, and allow him to ascend to even greater power, upon a tide of destruction that shall henceforth be known as Eradication Day.

Or you could not do that. I'll get back around to the above option in a second, but, y'know, most people who aren't me probably don't say "I like your vibe, let's see where this goes." This is a madman. Even if your character believes the Empire needs change, does it need him? Probably not! You've seen what he did to his daughter, and to the survivors of the two hundred he brought with him for his Deluxe Event Horizon Experience. They're not doing so great.

But how to deal with him? Jadus is generally acknowledged as the second most powerful Sith in the Empire, after the Emperor himself. The Emperor is, essentially, a god. Your character is a covert operative with a cool spaceship and some James Bond gadgets.

And because the game's power balance has been altered so completely over its long life, allowing players to just focus on the story if they so choose, you can pretty easily win his boss fight. Welp.

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[Video Description: From YT user FemaleKay IsBest, beginning at the decision point and skips over the boss fight because really it's perfunctory anyway. I always find it somewhere between funny and unnerving, how quickly Jadus goes from audibly pissed off to calmly biding his time while he waits for his chance to escape. He's still angry enough to bite someone if he had the mask off, but he's devastatingly practical for a mandman. /Description]

In story though, you don't kill him. A fleet's on the way to back you up, you just distract him long enough to trap him in a place where he can't escape their bombardment. If it actually happened. Because at that point, Jadus surrenders.

Huh. So he's still alive. Headed for execution at the hands of the other Sith, but that's the last you hear. They never actually confirm if they killed him or not.

Or, alternatively, you can give him the command codes to distract him, then sabotage the ship, rigging it to explode. Jadus escapes, but without the command codes—he can't maintain control of his superweapon deterrent against his foes. Again, that's the last you hear of him.

Or or, extra-alternatively, you can simply convince Jadus that he's lost. No really! You can give him a full tactical assessment of his situation, how you've got all the angles covered, and shoot down his counter-arguments. He'll push you hard. He'll actually start to sound angry, the first and last strong emotion he'll ever show you.

And then he just calms down and declares that you've won, and he's leaving now. He hates you, but respects you.

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[Video description: From YT user Invisible Shadow, talking Jadus into giving up. You can skip a few bossfights in the game by talking your way around them, but this ends an entire third of the game. I've never done this route, but I won't deny, it is extremely satisfying to watch. /Description]

Everyone is left wondering what in the fine flying fuck just happened.

No matter what you do, Jadus survives, something that many players actually missed—if they chose the most bog-standard, videogame-y path, they assumed he died off-screen. I've seen some of them actually misremember killing him personally. Nope! His survival was implied from day one, it was teased a bit in the expansions, but now it's been (pretty much) confirmed: Jadus is alive, like the biggest, most unkillable cockroach in the galaxy. Good for him! And gooder for him, if you let him win.

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[Video Description: From YT user xLetalis, featuring their Agent joining Darth Jadus. Content warning again, because you do get a boss fight in this version: it's Zhorrid. Other decisions end with her dead offscreen, but in this one, Jadus orders you to go kill her. Again, worst dad of the game. /Description]

Because this isn't an empty choice. SWTOR is limited in how much it can show differences visually, because unlike later titles such as Elder Scrolls Online, it can't do visual alterations to game maps shared with other characters. What it can do is alter dialog, and quite a lot of characters have something to say about the new regime, and your place in it.

And off in special little instanced corners of the game, you can actually get special scenes that nobody else does. This is where Jadus lurks. What's he doing? Stuff.

No really, we don't actually hear much about his overarching plans. There's cult rituals going on in the streets, he's successfully traumatized an entire Empire, but he's not derailing the overarching plot of the game, because he's made a strategic decision: he can't fight the Emperor. That would be suicide. And the Emperor wants a war with the Republic and the Jedi for some reason, so Jadus won't stop that. If it was up to him? Doesn't seem like it would happen! Jadus never actually mentions the Jedi. He only makes passing mention of the Republic.

Let's note that at this point in Star Wars as a piece of fiction, the one thing the Sith had always been so down for was destroying the Jedi and toppling the Republic. The fact that Jadus manifestly did not give a shit about either is part of what made him so strange.

What he does care about is why the Emperor is doing this. While most of the Agent plot proceeds as normal through its second act, you do receive an order partway through: steal encrypted data from the Emperor's guards. Help Jadus determine the Emperor's plans.

And at the start of Act Three, Jadus declares that he's discovered what the Emperor's doing. He also declares that he's leaving the game.

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[Video Description: from YT user The Youtube Acolyte, playing as an Agent named Thrauw'n because everyone who plays Chiss, including myself, has a crush on Thrawn. Anyway--Man just fuckin! Leaves! Absolute skeleton meme behavior. Also, Jadus can mention here "I see the shape of the galaxy as only five others can", which is a line that is NEVER explained. His closest philosophical match is found in the Dread Masters, but there's six of them. Candidates I've seen include the Emperor, Lord Scourge, Revan, Kreia, the Exile, the Jedi Knight and Consular player characters, Darth Malgus, Darth Acina, the Shroud, the First Son, and the list goes on because nobody is even sure what Jadus MEANS here about 'the shape of the galaxy'. Do I think this line will be followed up on? Absolutely not! I firmly believe it will continue to stand as a goddamn mystery. Tune back in after his storyline updates to find out if Jadus decided to mess with me specifically. /Description]

No, really. Jadus just abandons the Empire and leaves. Sure, he leaves you with enhanced authority, though he cautions you that it does paint a massive target on your back, and gives you his blessing to continue trying to unravel a massive conspiracy—possibly because he's realized the conspirators could accidentally help trigger the end of all life in the galaxy. Whoops.

Because what Jadus doesn't actually tell you is what the Emperor is up to. The Emperor is working on a ritual that makes use of death on a massive scale to trigger a chain reaction that will kill everything and feed its life force into himself, becoming a truly transcendent and eternal being. In fact, if you're playing the Agent plot, you never get explicitly told about this. You just show up to work one day and the rest of the Sith have collectively declared Fuck That and no longer acknowledge the Emperor's authority.

Why didn't Jadus reveal this? Well, he's not exactly popular among the Sith, given how he's a weird nerd who has orbital death lasers pointed at their house. They probably wouldn't believe him. His dialog also gives off the hilarious vibe that he knows this is the start of Act Three and that he's a second-tier villain, this is the point at which the plot would traditionally kill him off to show how serious the situation is. He's not a fan of that, so he elects to go find somewhere sufficiently off-screen that the plot can't touch him. This maniac is somehow the most genre-savvy villain in the game.

Also, he does make the very concerning comment that "whether [the Emperor] succeeds or fails, I grow stronger." I have no idea if he's lying or not, but most of his dialog is at least his truth to some extent or another. Does he believe he could hijack the ritual as a last resort? Maybe! Who knows! No matter what you as the player have done up until this point, Jadus has reacted in whatever way he thinks will ensure maximum success and his own survival. He obviously wasn't planning on just dying in the Emperor's ritual, so he had something he was working on to avoid that.

We never find out what that might be. Frankly, I'm not sure the writers truly knew what that was, because they didn't need to. His arc was done, and he could leave just as strangely as he'd done everything in the first place.

And that was the end of Jadus for a very long time. In the first few expansions, you could continue to invoke your title as the Hand of Jadus, if that was the path you chose. After that, the plot folded together in a way that smoothed out the differences between player characters in many ways. Oh, sure, people with history with you will react differently. If you're playing an Agent, you alone can continue to hang out with one of your former companions: a nice young man who's packed full of ants, who's possibly your lover and is good friends with a secret agent doctor were-zombie.

I really will have to ramble about the Agent companions at some point.

But one thing that was consistent for everybody: when an extremely weird crisis strikes the galaxy, one of the people considered as a culprit is Darth Jadus.

For those who haven't played the Agent plot, this is a "Who?" moment. He never appears in any other plotline. He is only the sleep paralysis demon of folks at Imperial Intelligence, in part because his potential plot ramifications are too large to account for. Canon probably defaults to him failing in his takeover, but most Dark Side-aligned player plots make all the Dark Side choices canon, and it's hard to get Dark Side-ier than allowing tens of thousands to die so that "all people will revel in fear and degradation. These prizes will no longer be hoarded by Sith."

I cannot stress enough how unhinged this man's goals are.

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[Video Description: The new trailer, which gives us the one glimpse we have of New and Improved Jadus so far. Fun fact, Malgus is 77 and Jadus is 65 here, because the Sith are just inherently incapable of retiring from their shenanigans, ever. Vowrawn is 93 at this point and entirely powered by shenanigans alone. I was mixed on Jadus's new look, until a friend pointed out he looks like some sort of emerging plant, and I realized the collar reminded me a bit of a Rafflesia. Parasitic, grows to titanic proportions, and smells like rotting meat. So I've come around on it, obviously. Malgus' voiceover is cut to be vaguing about "corrupt doctrines" in regards to Jadus, which I find hilarious. He did technically embezzle Imperial funds to research his superweapons, but the rest of that was all outsourced. Unless we're talking about "corruption" in terms of "messing with people's brains", in which case, yes. He do be out there, corrupting the minds of the youth. And everybody who isn't youth. Possibly even some rocks, if they're smart enough. /Description]

So, that's where we are at this point. I have no idea how things will go from here. My hope is that Jadus will return as the highly strategic, transcendental weirdo he always was before. It's actually been fun having him just out there somewhere, because it's meant the mystique couldn't be messed with. I'd actually accept it if they brought him back to kill him, but ideally if it happened in such a baffling fashion that you're left uncertain if he intended for that to happen.

But before the game potentially expands on him and his motivations, I want to get out a couple of my own interpretation of what we've seen: Jadus is unique among the Sith. Among the Empire. And he is not yet perfect. And he wants both to change.

Something happened in his past that pushed him deep into the Dark Side, something that broke his world apart and reformed it into something new. Since then, he's tried and failed to explain it to others. He doesn't have a perfect understanding of what happened to him, how to lead others to the same state, or how to push himself further. As a result, he tried to raise his daughter in such a way to induce the same revelations he experienced, and failed. That failure took years, and he couldn't afford such a costly loss again.

So instead of the personal, controlled approach, he would mass-produce the shattering of minds. The whole point of the drama and wanton destruction of his plan was to traumatize billions, trading precision for sheer quantity. The vast majority would fail, becoming fuel for his continued growth in power. But surely, someone would react as he had.

This obviously isn't a selfless enterprise on his part. He is a ruthlessly practical lunatic, and when he reaches the limits of his capability, he abandons the project. We don't know if he succeeded in what he wanted from his takeover. We don't actually know if he took anyone with him when he left. He made it clear that his Hand would not follow him where he was going, though we know some in Intelligence kept sending him reports that received no reply, and we have some potential indication that he was still actively monitoring his Hand's activities. Which at that point mostly involved getting the stuffing knocked out of them by the entire galaxy all at once, which Jadus probably considered character-building.

Do I have any idea whether these are intended reads on the character? No. I'm not privy to the authorial decisions made during the writing of Mr. Darth "Under my rule, all people will revel in fear and degradation" Jadus. I don't know if the original intent will be preserved either, thirteen years down the road.

But man. Man. What a transfixingly weird guy they've created here. Jadus is memorable because he twists so much of what we've come to expect from Sith into something different, with enough left unexplained to keep you wondering. Or at least, keep me wondering. Let's be real, Jadus as a villain probably appeals most to a very specific subset of people with goth tendencies and spicy brains, who look at HP Lovecraft and think "what if these cosmic horrors were more inclusive in the worst way possible?"

I'm glad to see him back. I'm afraid of what might happen with him. He's poised to drive me insane, no matter what happens. And that's precisely how he'd prefer it.

#star wars #star wars: the old republic #swtor #swtor meta #legacy of the sith #darth jadus #everybody's got at least one Weird Critter they get attached to in star wars and Jadus is one of mine #he's not as PHYSICALLY weird a critter as some of the Weird Critters out there but he makes up for it in spirit #absolute cryptid mindset from this man #Youtube

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alexanderlightweight · 9 hours ago

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Wednesday, my favourite day^^ I really, really love the Cider verse. Does your writing muse feel willing to give us another entry? (sfw/nsfw, whatever fits the plot best) (love you and have the nicest day, week, month, year^^)

here is a little glimpse of Alec and Mirai trying to figure out how to salvage everything that's going down! Mirai has been working very hard to mitigate the disaster.

ty, I have gotten a lot of cleaning done and two prompts written in the two breaks i've taken so I feel accomplished ^_^

<3 hope you enjoy

lumine

the choice of hope

Meeting with Mirai is the most important goal of Alec’s day..

Everything else will come together, as long as Alec can get a full view of just how badly everything has been fucked up.

Which means he and Mirai sitting in the hidden tunnel of the greenhouse, a pot of tea between them and a plate of hard, spicy candies.

“The Clave tried to say it was our fault—” Mirai’s face twists with annoyance as she hands Alec her tablet. “Imogen was doing her best to interfere. She didn’t realize how close we were to our main goal of consolidating power and raising you as Head officially. It messed up her plans. She’s now in an equally bad light with Lydia’s actions and we seem blameless.” Mirai is smug about that and it’s telling that she’s thrown herself and Alec’s fates together so quickly.

It’s a relief to be told everything he needs to succinctly and he takes the heavily spiced tea she offers him and swallows a hot, steaming mouthful.

It wakes him up in a way coffee — magical or mundane — never quite manages to.

“Your parents were called back to Idris. Their presence was considered a deterrent, especially as Lydia claims a part of her issues was their continued interference.”

Alec snorts, it doesn’t matter to him whether or not that's true. Anything that gets his parents out of his territory is a good thing. Passing a bit of blame on his parents when they’ve escaped more than their fair share only seems karmic.

“We’ll need to send Jace back to Idris. Izzy and that girl too.”

It hurts to say it, but Mirai won’t say it first. She’s amazing to work with but they’re still too new. She won’t press him so soon on something like this, which is why Alec will press himself.

For the good of his Institute and the future he’s building here, with Magnus.

Mirai inclines her head to him and Alec accepts it with a grateful sigh and a long sip of his tea.

“We’ve grown stagnant. It happened before the Uprising and it’s happening again now. Once was bad enough, but again? Just because the Clave wants to ignore the monster it made.” Alec offers Mirai the folder he’d compiled while at Magnus’, hours and hours of time spent over old books with Magnus’ enthusiastic voice distracting him when the research got too boring.

“New patrols. More rigid training, meeting with local downworld leaders more often. Being seen to stand strong in the light, not just as a blade in the night.”

Mirai seems stunned but Alec knows that this is the moment this will crumble or rise, her knuckles tighten and a wide grin parts her face like a sun rising after a storm.

“Then we have a lot of work to do.”

—-

Alec’s wedding ring is protected by glamour, but he still keeps his fingerless gloves on. The leather presses against the metal and the cool band of it is a constant reminder that he is no longer alone.

His siblings are gone.

Sent to Idris without even knowing Alec is married and Alec can’t even tell them because there is no telling how they would react to the news. There’s too many risks involved and Alec isn’t willing to bet his and Magnus’ happiness on a whim.

Another war is coming, no matter how hard he and Magnus work from the shadows to try and mitigate the damages that could be caused.

When Valentine is finally dead and the shadowworld purged of his ilk, Alec is going to insist they get an actual honeymoon.

He never really understood the appeal of such mundane tradition but now that he’d had time to think about it, it sounds amazing.

If he’s with Magnus of course.

AN:

Alec is feeling a little salty about everything. he hasn't even processed jace's punishment for runing Clary which means that Jace has to have that taken over by the clave and Alec is just feeling very 'why did I even bother trying so hard'

#lumine writes #writing wednesday #writing wednesdays #the choice of hope #cider vs #alec lightwood #malec #Mirai Lakecastle

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zorostitties · 3 days ago

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heyyyy so i recently gotten into castlevania and i adore alucard so much but idk i felt pretty mixed about his arc in the third season :( idk if it’s just me that feels that way, if you don’t mind me asking, what are your thoughts on it?

long story short, i don’t like it either 💀

not because “ohhh my fav character is suffering noo :(“ but because his entire arc in season 3 doesn’t make much sense with the rest other the story.

it feels that the writers didn’t really know what to do with alucard after season 2 since, yk, in the original material he fucking sleeps for 300 years after killing dracula for the first time. and obviously i’m not mad that they wanted to give him a more interesting plot than just erasing him from the story like that.

but the whole thing with the twins felt… out of place. alucard was lonely, mourning his parents and overly trusting of anybody who showed him a drop of attention. ok, that’s pretty understandable. but the writers wanted to show him that the world is cruel and untrustworthy (as if the guy who had his mom burned at the stake and forced to kill his dad to stop him from committing literal genocide didn’t already know it, oh well).

his entire arc was super constricted. it truly felt that nothing substantial happened to him the entire season until that happened at the very end, throwing alucard to rock bottom. and, you know, i don’t think it would’ve bothered me that much if season 4 wasn’t so incredibly rushed.

he got over everything overnight. at the end of s4, it’s as if the thing with the twins didn’t even happen. and honestly, if you glue s2 to s4, his arc still makes sense… so it left me with the feeling that his SA scene was just shock value (“oh but he was enjoying it at first” i don’t caaare. something can start with consent and become SA the moment the victim stops consenting, that’s how it works). it really feels that the writers were like, let’s make the beloved character go through something horrible just so the fans can feel bad about him!!

we can’t even compare with happened to hector and lenore, because that had a purpose. lenore spent season 3 grooming hector, tricked him into submission, and he managed to break free from her control in s4. it payed off. but alucard and the twins?? did it have any impact on the plot or in alucard himself other than seeing him dirty and drunk for 5 minutes at the start of s4??

do you see how out of place that felt??

again, i don’t mind to watch characters suffer; a character that doesn’t go through anything bad and doesn’t overcome anything is not fun to watch. BUT it should make SENSE, and alucard’s arc in s3 doesn’t. it didn’t serve him much more than just jokingly talking about it with greta, and if it weren’t there, it wouldn’t make a difference. so, yeah, i really don’t like it.

#anon #ask #alucard castlevania #alucard #castlevania #castlevania nocturne #adrian tepes #long story short >> proceeds to write an essay

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 2 days ago

Note

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole contract between Gabriel and Tomoe that demands that Adrien and Kagami be together wasn't established earlier or it was only established in S5? Because that'd explain why Gabriel and Tomoe are obsessed about Adrigami while Tom and Sabine don't bat an eye to Lukanette.

(Post that spawned this ask)

We're never actually told why Tomoe and Gabriel are obsessed with Adrigami. The best we get are the following two bits of dialogue from Protection:

Dialogue 1

Kagami: Looks like your doubts are finally gone. Adrien: Yes, Kagami. I'm ready. Tomoe: (to Gabriel) Made for each other. Just as planned. Gabriel: Perfection calls for perfection. Kagami: (to Adrien) What are you doing? Adrien: (typing on his phone) I'm going to prepare a special picnic, for just the two of us, no friends around, no outside pressure. And I'm inviting Marinette right now. Hopefully she can be herself, (Tomoe and Gabriel gasp in shock in the unexpected turn of events.) and finally open her heart and soul to me, free of her fears.

Dialogue 2

Tomoe: All of our plans are falling apart! You were supposed to control your son, Gabriel! Gabriel: And you, your daughter! Tomoe: My daughter's so perfect she doesn't need me to control her! (points her bokken at Gabriel) Gabriel: (pushes away Tomoe's bokken with his finger) Well, it appears she does. Tomoe: It's not my child who's falling for someone completely wrong for her! Gabriel: But she seems to be the one encouraging him!

As you can see, these don't mention a contract. They just imply that Gabriel and Tomoe want Adrigami to be a thing because... reasons?

The contract thing you're referring to comes from the season three episode Animaestro which briefly showed Gabriel and Tomoe signing a contract:

[Image description: a contract with Gabriel's signature and Tomoe's stamp of approval]

As of season six, we still don't know what exactly this contract was about. We just know that it exists and even that is only true if you remember this brief moment from Animaestro. It's totally fair if you forgot about this five-second scene because I don't think that the contract was ever discussed in a later episode. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about that!)

The writers have claimed that this contract scene was here to hint at Gabriel and Tomoe having some sort of master plan, but that's incredibly lackluster writing. A scene of two business people signing a contract is not foreshadowing mutual villainy because signing a contract is not weird behavior. It obviously is here to mean something since the writers chose to include it, but nothing about this scene screams "villainy!" At least, it doesn't on Tomoe's side. Gabriel's a known villain so anything he does may be villainous.

Business contracts happen all the time, this contract was signed in an incredibly public setting, and we later see Gabriel using Tsurugi tech in his house, a thing that's introduced long before Tomoe is revealed to be evil! Because of Animaestro's spot in the timeline and because the contract is signed so publicly, it's perfectly logical to see this brief contract moment and read it as the writers setting up Gabriel having the Tsurugi robots in later episodes. You could also see this and assume it's setting up for Tomoe to be akumatized later the way Audrey Bourgeois was purposely set up for all of her akumatizations.

This contract being about the mansion's robots thing is still the only solution that makes any sense because - as far as we know - the only evil collaborations between Gabriel and Tomoe were the sentikids and the alliance rings. The sentikids obviously happened pre-canon so the contract can't be about that and the alliance plan only existed after Gabriel got the miraculous so the contract clearly wasn't related to that either. It also probably wasn't related to Gabriel and Tomoe being the world's most obsessive Adrigami shippers. The contract was never mentioned during that arc, the arranged-marriage plot didn't show up until season five (two season post contract), and there are some subtle implications that Adrigami may have always been the plan in which case any related contracts would have been signed when these two were kids unless the arranged marriage is a new thing in which case why was this suddenly a thing? What benefit did it give Tomoe? She's already rich and Gabriel was a fashion designer! That's not very useful to a tech guru nor is it an elite skill set she couldn't find without selling out her daughter.

If this contract was supposed to be related to the Adrigagmi stuff, then the writers needed to start the arranged marriage plot in season three or four so that a viewer could logically tie the two events together because there was no reason for Tomoe and Gabriel to delay on the arranged marriage plot once the contract was signed.

That's not what the writers did, though. Gabriel and Tomoe had nothing to do with Adrigami getting together in season three and season four wrote Adrigami like some sort of secret relationship. Lies has Kagami straight up state that she had to lie to be with Adrien which makes no sense if Gabriel and Tomoe wanted this relationship to happen:

Kagami: You know, I lied too. I lied to my mother so that we could see each other. I even lied to her when I said you came here with me tonight. I lied at every fencing lesson so we could spend more time together. You see, we're both a couple of liars. Except I lie because I want to be with you. (points at him accusingly) You lie… because you don't want to be with me.

I was genuinely shocked when season five revealed that Tomoe and Gabriel knew about Adrigami. I thought they were either totally oblivious or actively against it because they clearly did nothing to support it. They didn't even know that their kids broke up!

In other words - like many things in this show - the arranged marriage plot was either a last minute addition or terribly written.

#anon ask #ml writing critical #ml writing salt

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flowersforthemachines · 2 days ago

Text

Some thoughts on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 9 hours in [no spoilers]

I pre-ordered the game bc I was So Very Excited about it, and since I'm enjoying it a lot I thought I could maybe sway someone into buying it by promoting it a little <3

Steam page

I'm not a video game critic or anything, so it's just a bunch of Personal Thoughts, very much rooted in my past gaming experiences. Please beware.

Graphics

(all screenshots are mine taken with DLSS DLAA and Medium-High settings)

The game is SO pretty it's unreal. I admittedly don't have very high standards in that regard [it's kind of easy to impress me. sorry], but all locations I've seen so far have a distinct visual style and are just a constant joy to look at. The character models are also very beautiful. Sometimes I open the inventory menu just to look at the close-ups of Lune or Maelle <3 (Gustave is there too ig)

Combat

It plays like a mix of a turn-based JRPG with soulslike elements. What it means is that all characters have a variety of skills with elemental affinities that can play off very differently depending on your party composition and which elements an enemy is weak to (so you get your usual JRPG bullshit), but you can also shoot, parry and dodge in real-time (so you also get your usual soulslike bullshit). Oh, and there are some short QTEs that allow you to increase your skill damage.

If you'd like a visual on what that actually looks like, here's a short video taken by me:

I'm enjoying the combat a LOT. I 💙 parrying. And mixing up skills to create efficient set-ups. What if we all held hands so hard we oneshotted enemies. What then!

I also may be addicted to the fire element. Maybe that will change in the future.

Exploration

The game doesn't really have an open world - it plays more like a bunch of locations that unlock in the hub-like main world as you progress the story (the locations feel more like DAVG than DAI, if we were to start comparing things).

Exploration is actually the only area of the game I have complaints about because the game could really use some navigational trackers. The game doesn't have a map, and there's literally no way to tell where you are supposed to go to advance the plot. When you enter a new location, you just kind of go forward and hope for the best.

It's a problem for me bc I Don't want to advance the plot a lot of the time, actually, and explore the optional paths instead. But you literally can't know what path is the optional one except for Hunches.

But if I, an aphantasiac with severe navigational difficulties, can handle the locations fine most of the time, then normal, well-adjusted people also can, probably. I think?

Story

It's just Nice. It's intriguing enough that I'm always excited whenever I know I'm about to see a cutscene, but so far I still don't feel like I've seen enough to actually have an opinion on it. The intrigue keeps me going, but it's more of a "I wonder what's going to happen next" than "Ohh I LOVE what's happening now" kind of feeling.

None of the characters are annoying, and there is a certain charm to everyone you meet, so that's a big plus.

OST

I LOVE THE OST SO MUCH. Hands down my favourite thing about the game. It's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, it's NEVER missed so far for me. There were so many times I ran into enemies specifically because I wanted to catch more of that combat music. It reminds me of Nier: Automata, sort of!

If you want some representative of what's out there, I really liked these songs: Goblu, Lumière

Something like that! Should anyone have any questions lmk.

#you ever love a game so much you decide to write a review for something for the first time in your life. that's what happened here #flowers.txt #clair obscur #clair obscur: expedition 33

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flymetothexmoon · 12 hours ago

Text

Flowers + Band T's

Warnings: Smut. Implied Breeding Kink. Swearing. Mention of Cigarettes.

Pairing: 2000's Emo Boi Seunghyun xF!Reader.

Authors Note: request from the lovely @ttt-1987s. Want to give her a personal shoutout for being my 100th follower where I let her pick any plot she wanted, and she requested a couple great ideas, one of them to be a Seunghyun xF!Reader inspired by the song Emo Boy by Ayesha Erotica.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Friday nights were for the girls. You did not have a very large friend group, but every Friday the four of you would all gather to destress about the week you'd endured.

Some of you had work, some of you had college courses, and some of you even had both: work and college courses. You were one of the unlucky ones who had to endure tackling all three– college courses in the morning, work until sometimes the sky turned dark, all while maintaining a social life. Thankfully tonight was one of the nights all of your schedules aligned and you were able to all gather at the place any almost 20-some year old girl in the early mid 2000's loved– the mall.

The night was still young, and you were in the middle of listening to the eldest member of your group talking about an upcoming show that peaked your interest. Warped Tour. It was a large outdoor festival that specialized in catering to the punk rock scene that you and your group were definitely members of. The idea of a community where you could confidently mingle with people who understood your music taste was enough to feel like electricity shooting through your veins.

You did not need to be twice about who would be there, you'd already started to play what bands you would be seeing on what stage and what brand of hairspray would be the best to hold your hair together in the heat.

Honestly you could not remeber the exact moment you laid eyes on the darker haired man across the way from you. It all happened so fast.

A soft gasp fled your vocal cords as you could feel your lips parting, like you were surprised he was real. His look alone was to make you freak. His dark colored locks were tousled and styled in a way that made it seem effortless and like he had all the time in the world. You wet your lips, tasting blood, as your eyes locked to his jeans– tight, a wash of Indigo Blue that you hadn't seen before. It did not take you long to also take note of the band shirt he was wearing... one of your favorites, My Chemical Romance.

Your friends around you were talking but you were unable to comprehend what was actually being discussed. He was definitey different and you loved that. You did not even know his name, but you already knew how handsome he was, and how you would most definitely fuck him right then and there if he'd asked; nicely or not.

"Hello, are you even listening? We said we were going to Apple and take some photos on the new computers. Did you want to join?"

Tempting. The offer was real tempting, and honestly, you could probably use a new MySpace photo, especially with its newest competitor Facebook increasing in popularity. You were about to nod your head when in the corner of your dark makeup covered eye, you saw him. He was walking into the Hot Topic closest to where you and your friends were currently sitting. For a brief second, you swore he was being coy and the two of you made eye contact as he slipped into the darker part of the store, disappearing and out of sight, but with the way the two of you made eye contact, it was like he was waiting to be found– by you.

A small smile spread across your lips as you stood from the uncomfortable food court chair, your Converse squeaking slightly against the polished floors.

"I'll meet up. I need to head into Hot Topic real quick and find a new outfit. I'll meet you guys in the Apple Store?"

Thankfully most of your friends were already grabbing their shoulder bags as they all nodded in agreement to your statement as if they'd actually paid attention. But, as life would have it, just as you finished adjusting your studded belt so it fit better on your hip instead of the center of your own tight jeans, you were met with someone in your friend group putting their hand on your shoulder, the chipped black nail polish catching your attention as she tried to read your body language.

"He was definitely looking back. If you do not get his number then I will be so upset at you," a small hint of red began to sting at your cheeks as you placed your hand on top of your friends, squeezing it slightly as the brightly colored beads on your bracelet clashed against hers, a smile forming across your lips.

"I plan to."

All your friend had to do was nod approvingly for the cue to be made to start making your way to your favorite store. You had not seen mystery emo boy walk out of the store yet so it was easy to say with confidence that he was still lurking around somewhere in the darkness of the store, probably bobbing his head to loud music playing through the speakers and checking price tags on what band shirt was worth the money and his time. Boy was he ever.

Choi Seunghyun, or what you would later find out was his name, was doing just that– his head moving to the beat of the current song playing, his hands delicately picking up different dark pieces of fabric and admiring the design on each one, delicately folding each shirt as he'd put it back on the designated shelving.

Seunghyun was definitely a wild card, and he was not your typical almost 20-some male. He liked loved weird things. He felt a little silly coming into Hot Topic, despite his appearance, but he was definitely in his eliment as his Vans glid across the flooring of the store, lurking, waiting, and his dark brown eyes searching as they subtly checked out each girl that came in who remotely looked like you. Unfourante for him, that was a lot.

Thankfully for him, the store was tiny, and while it had much inventory, along with much people coming in and out, the store was also tight and small in space so it easy for him to know when the girl standing next to him with teased hair and black jeans was in fact not you.

Not yet.

Eventually, you'd had enough courage to actually walk inside the store. You had stood in front of the entry way for what felt like too long as the neon red light of the sign began to sting at your eyes and the curve from tunnel-esque entry way swallowing you whole as your feet stepped inside.

Immediately, you were met with a heightened sense of sound as you heard a familiar song playing through the speakers. You could've swore the sound of your heart thumping out of your chest was part of the song as you looked for him, your emo boy. The harder you looked, the more you squinted through the dimly lit store. You knew the store like back of your hand, even once working here for a brief moment in time, still to this day, your old manager allowing you to have physical key access to the back of the store.

Finally, there he was.

He was close, but not close enough that he could see you yet, but you could see him. Currently he was holding up a shirt that had Happy Bunny plastered over the front and a signature funny, crude, early 2000's kind of joke beneath it.

You smiled to yourself as you heard him chuckle, the feeling of knowning you had a shared sense of humor was nice– it was warm. Seunghyun neatly folded the shirt back to its original form and placed the shirt down as he moved only slightly, just enough though that in his movement, the scent of his cologne and cigarette brand of choice was now traveling through your nose. He smelt like Marlboro Red and Hermès Terre d'Hermes.

If you did not want to miss him, you had to be equally as quick on your feet as you found your way standing closer to him now. Sure, you could start conversation by complimenting his shirt, or you could gently bump into him and make the new shirt he was holding drop from his hands, but you of course had to make things so much more complicated in your head as you suddenly began to lack the confidence you were recently feeling when your friend encouraged you to ask for his number.

Seunghyun still had not noticed you, and your anxiety was growing more by the second as your own negative thoughts began to take control. By now, you had stepped a few meters away from him as you began to awkwardly look at your own style of different graphic t's and band t's. You were actually getting a little lost in the idea of actually finding an outfit idea for Warped Tour that when you and emo boy's hands briefly touched and went for the same shirt, electricity shot through you like a damn surge of lightning.

The two of you both stopped, and in extreme slow motion, the two of you made eye contact again. His eyes were darker than you remember, and lightness of your pale blue eyes were a contrast to the darker makeup around them as you two stood like that for a moment just staring into each other's eyes.

Finally, he spoke, his English slightly broken as you realized it was probably not his native tongue.

"Fuck. You look like Hanna Beth. You know, that girl all over the Internet with blue eyes and big hair?" and just like, you giggled– you giggled just like one of the girls at your college, the same kind of girl who had bleach blonde hair and skirts much shorter than any dress code you'd ever read.

Honestly, the compliment was not new to you, but coming from him, it made you almost lose your breath.

"I've been told that from time to time,"

Seunghyun smiled. Like really smiled. As if he was meeting the real Hanna Beth herself as his posture straightened, the both of you long forgetting about the band t you'd both grabbed as the eye contact remained the same; strong, present, and almost... sensual like you two were playing a game of cat and mouse to see who would chase the other first.

Forgetting the two of you were in public, conversations flew, more compliments given, and a whole lot of vibrations coming from both of your respected phones as the parties you were with were wondering where two of you had gone off to.

Little to both of your knowledge, they were in similar areas with squinted eyes and extended ears as both parties were watching and attempting to listen to the hushed but animated conversations you two were sharing. During this time you had learned his name, that was he was visiting from South Korea, and he was actually considering the same Warped Tour date as you.

During the time you two had spent talking, shoppers had came and gone, employees had clocked in and clocked out, and the two of you had gotten closer in proximity, even at one point the two of you brushing shoulders as you went to reach for a certain band t, struggling a little, and even with the slight platform on your Converse, it was not enough to give you the added height you needed to get the proper sizing.

As the universe would have it, you found yourself falling in more ways than one. You were falling for a man who was not a local, and you were also quite literally falling from trying to grab something that was out of your reach. Before you could attempt to hold onto something, your waist was quickly grabbed and held in place by a pair of hands, and not just any hands, but Seunghyun's. You stumbled slightly once your feet were mobilized, but his hands stayed around your waist, almost like he was trying to savor the idea of being so close to you. Were you suppose to return the hug? Where was this going to lead? Why was he doing it? When was he planning to release you?

Involuntarily, you closed your eyes. Not because you did not want to look at him, but because you couldn't. Seunghyun's grip around your waist only tightened, answering one out of the four questions that were buzzing around in your head. Slowly, your eyes began to flutter open like you were trying to make sure what was happening was really happening.

You were not amateur when it came to be in the presence of an attractive guy before. Hell, even last week it was you who initiated the last time you did anything with a guy. But this time? This it all felt different, and although all that was going through your head was you two were in the middle of the band t's aisle at Hot Topic on a random Friday night.

"You smell like cigarettes."

He laughed. You smiled.

"You smell like berries and crushed apples. And also like cigarettes."

You blushed, like it was a secret that he mentioned the last thing. Silence washed over you two again like high tide, loud enough to hear that it was coming but silent enough that you both knew it had a force strong enough to knock you both to your feet.

"I want to kiss you. Is that okay?"

"Right here?"

"Yeah."

Seunghyun liked to think he was a very patient man, but there was something about you that made the impulse control part of his brain go fuzzy as he leaned into you, his nose gently yours in the process and bumping against your nose ring.

Before you could react, his lips were on yours, his fingernails already carving his initials to your skin like he fucking owned you. And you loved that. You loved the way his lips felt against yours, the way his tongue danced against your bottom lip like it was a dance only you two knew.

You were the first to pull away, your lips curving into a tight ended smirk as you listened carefully to his uneven breathing.

"Did you want to fuck in the back?"

Seunghyun's brows knitted with confusion and curiosity.

"The back?"

"Yes... The back of the store. The back of the Hot Topic."

•┈┈┈••✦♡✦••┈┈┈•

Before tonight, Seunghyun had sworn the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was the moon– he would never openly admit that, maybe he would one day, but right now it still felt like a vulnerable secret that he'd hope to one day be able to represent his home country and visit the moon.

Now, Seunghyun still wanted to visit the moon, but the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was replaced with you. Maybe he was a little biased, but the way you looked with your back against the cold, poorly painted wall in the back of the building was somehow all he had been searching for the entirety of his trip. Seunghyun's hands were still at your hips with your legs now wrapped around his waist and your arms tightly around his neck as his body pressed into yours. It was almost painful at how much friction was happening between both of your skinny jeans right now.

Your nails were digging into the sensitive parts of the back of his neck as you pulled away briefly, his swollen lips almost forming a small pout when he felt your mouth no longer on his.

His lips parted to speak, but his brain failed to comprehend words as the taller man slowly closed his lips once again, feeling the more tender parts where you'd nipped at the skin.

There was no doubt you two would be fucking, but neither of you really knew when or if the two of you were comfortable in the situation you got yourselves into. You knew no one would walk in where you were, but the thought still lingered both of your minds before it dawned on you how little you'd care if someone did and how much you'd actually think it was the hottest thing.

You could feel yourself getting more antsy by the minute as one of your hands moved from his neck and slowly down his collarbones, down his clothed My Chemical Romance shirt, your almond shaped nails delicately teasing at the bare skin underneath as you finally stopped at the front of his jeans, causing the man against you to shiver in response, his cock practically begging to held in your palm.

Your thumb began to gently glide across the fabric to get a feel what you were up against, and you could definitely feel it. He was big. And honestly felt a little curved in all the best ways.

Maybe it was the way the charm on your nail design felt pressed against him, but Seunghyun was unable to keep his patience up for much longer as he leaned into you, his teeth grazing at the part where your collarbone meets your neck, the more sensitive area bulging out slightly like he was made to mark your skin. The canine part of his teeth felt like little tiny daggers in your skin as you moaned quietly, the vibration of your vocal cords shooting through him in the process.

"Seunghyun, please. Need to feel you in more ways than just through my hand palming you in your stupid jeans..."

Your words came out a lot needier than you'd planned, but the way you could feel him twitch inside your palm proved that he was thinking the same thing you were.

Soft murmurs were exchanged and bodies were moving and eventually you were completely exposed. You were shivering, but the air was warm as you watched Seunghyun watch you. His eyes were so dark that you were certain if not for the fluorescent lights flickering above you two, you would have not been able to tell he was still there.

His My Chemical Romance shirt still clung to his body as you titled your head only rightly. It was almost like he was afraid to fully commit to what was about to happen. You stepped forward, your back stinging slightly when it was no longer supported from the wall behind you. You'd made your way in front of him now, the height difference fully settling as you'd look up at him with innocence, the fake eyelashes you'd chose to wear that day were slowly fluttering. Before long, your almond nails were tracing down his chest once again, the feeling of his shirt gliding through your manicured nails with ease.

"Did you want to keep this on, emo boy, or do you just really loving teasing me?"

Seunghyun tensed at your touch. It was like he was fighting an inner battle of what he knew you both wanted vs what he could give.

"I, I- I can take it off..." you nodded. You did not want to pressure him, but you definitely felt more underdressed than him as you latched a few of your fingers into the fabric. It was a little comical to see him bare from the waist down but yet this silly little band t of his clung to his body like armor.

With your free hand, your palm wrapped around him like it was made to fit in your hand. He was definitely bigger than your hand could hold, but that did not stop you from grabbing what you could as you slowly moved your hand up and down, your thumb gently tracing the tip, the feeling of his precum coating your finger.

You moaned softly at the feeling on your fingers. You'd pumped him in your hand a few more times, his hips involuntarily bucking in response as you'd removed your hand entirely from him, hearing a low hiss escape his local cords. Without warning, you brought your fingers to your lips, parting them only slightly so he watch your every move as you'd licked your fingers clean of him as if it you'd just had the best meal of your life.

Before your brain had time to catch up, you were being lifted up off the ground, and once again, your back was being met with the wall once again. It did not take long for you to audibly gasp, your eyes widening at the sight of realizing Seunghyun had removed his shirt for you.

One of his hands was carefully holding you against the wall while the other was planted firmly close to your head, his nails desperately acting like they could tear the paint alone. His i lips attacked your neck again as the softer nibbles from earlier were now replaced with one thing– hunger, like he'd never had anything quite as good as you.

"Are you always this needy? I have not even started fucking you yet and you already acting like you need it bad. Been that long for you?"

What started off as a simple game of cat and mouse has turned into something much more serious. You'd opened your mouth to respond, maybe even say something equally as sassy, but before your thoughts could leave your mouth, his lips were already back on the sweet spot of your neck and his cock already lining up with you.

You whimpered at the contact.

It really had not been that long for you but it was a mixture of the way his lips curved against your neck and the way he was only lining up the tip and it already felt like a few inches were in you. Maybe because there was. He might not look like he was packing, or that he got bitches, but boy did it feel like 11 inches.

"Are you always this bratty right before someone gives you something?"

And you were.

Before you'd had time to think of something to say, he was already buried inside of you.

His movements were fast and sloppy, almost like he was afraid if he went too slow, you might not really be there. Maybe it was the way he'd curved inside of you, or maybe it was the way every time his hips jerked against yours, you could feel every goddamn inch.

At one point, Seunghyun had to go to the place dark inside of his mind where he thought about certain things so that he could control himself better. The canine part of his teeth that were once nipping at your neck were now chewing on the inside of his own cheek, thinking to anything to hold back the inevitable.

One of your free hands had made their way to the taller man's hair, the tip on the almond shape of your nail gracefully scratching at his scalp as your fingers latched into the top parts of his styled hair.

The room was filled with low, murmured moans escaping your vocal cords and the sound of his hips slamming into yours. Seunghyun opened his mouth to speak at one point, but his lips quickly closed as he already forgot the proper English words to speak.

You could feel yourself clenching around him, like his cock was made to be pleasuring you in this moment.

There was no doubt in your mind at how big he was, how big he felt, and it was almost pornographic how well he knew what to do. Your eyes began to flutter with both excitement and anticipation as the hand you had tangled in his roots now slid down both of your bodies, your own hand resting on the bottom part of your stomach as he thrust into you, feeling him from the outside.

"Seunghyun, please..."

"Please what? Communicate. Tell me what you need and I'll do it."

He was close, and he was sure he could tell you were too.

The sounds in the room began to vibrate off the walls, closing you both into what felt like an invisible bubble that only you two could feel and hear everything.

His cock began to twitch inside of you, and with a final snap of both your hips, he was done for and released himself inside of you.

Seunghyun rode his own high until he felt you release shortly after him, coating him almost completely, the rest slowly dripping down your right thigh as he was quick to remove himself from inside of you. The lack of contact made you audibly gasp at first, but you shortly after began to watch as the taller man sunk to his knees so he was at eye level with you, thumb gently gracing the side of your thigh that there was slight leakage.

"Can't have you making a mess now, can we, princess? Eyes on me."

You watched as his thumb rubbed circles into your skin like he was finding a way to imprint his fingerprints into you forever. Eventually, he'd pushed the remaining white liquid inside of you.

Once back to his feet, the two of you found each other smiling into the others eyes as you respectfully both assisted the other in putting clothes back on, giggling in the process at how tight the clothing felt after being off for so long. The walk out of the room you were just in was quiet, but not in the uncomfortable sense.

By the time you'd both walked out of the dimly lit store, the mall was still loud and lively like you two had never left. People still walked past, bags in hands, people were still laughing and talking like they had heard all the gossip in the world. Different scents still lingered in your nose like you could not tell if you wanted a piece of pizza or a perfume sample.

It had still felt like you two were in your own bubble that no on could hear or see you as the two of you walked outside together. Not holding hands, not even linking arms, but close enough to know you were present with each other.

You two were quiet, and not because the two of you felt shame, but because you were comfortable. You'd watched Seunghyun's body move in a different way now, leaning over, and picking a single flower from a nearby planted bush.

"I'll buy us tickets. Come to Warped Tour with me."

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚♡ɞ˚

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