#which is a whole nother fun thing to explore

[babyleostuff1]

── LN4 as your boyfriend

𝜗𝜚 first of all, this man screams physical touch - there’s nothing that could stop lando from holding your hand or wrapping his arms around you 

𝜗𝜚 when you’re out in public he tries to keep the PDA to a minimum, but you can be damn sure he’s going to have your hand in his (lando swears something dies in him whenever you drop his hand) 

𝜗𝜚 especially if you’re walking through a big crowd, he always makes sure to have you as close to him as possible 

𝜗𝜚 BUT lando behind closed doors is a whole nother story 

𝜗𝜚 i'm a firm believer in boob lover and small spoon lando , and i know his favourite cuddle position is him laying on your boobs (he’s a cuddle bug in general, as i said - physical touch) 

one thing that can ALWAYS calm him down and make him less stressed is you playing with his hair, running your fingers gently through his curls 

𝜗𝜚 man is just down bad and a simp, and he can deny as much as he wants but you have him wrapped around your little finger 

𝜗𝜚 lando is not only your boyfriend, but he’s also your best friend. there’s no person that knows you better than him (i swear he keeps a hidden notebook with random fun facts about you). he knows exactly what makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what you like eating for breakfast, and which type of jewellery you prefer 

𝜗𝜚 people often say that lando is mean to you because of his sarcasm and sassiness, but what they don’t know is that you’re equally, if not more, as sassy as him. you can say bullying is your love language. 

𝜗𝜚 he’s your number one supporter in whatever you do. there’s nothing better than see you doing what you love, and whatever your hobby may be - lando is there right by your side to tell you how good of a job you’re doing 

𝜗𝜚 he’s the best travel buddy you could’ve ever asked for, exploring the world with lando is like a blessing. each of your trips is an adventure, and you never really know where you might end up - whether it’s by the italian coast or in the scandinavian mountains, every second is worth the wait 

𝜗𝜚 it’s also when you can just be you and lando, not lando norris the f1 driver. of course people still recognise him from time to time, but it’s less stressful and overwhelming than on a daily basis. he really tries to be as low- key as possible, because it’s the only time when he can be with you without a horde of other people breathing down his neck 

𝜗𝜚 his favourite kisses have to be post- race kisses. it doesn’t matter if the race went well or bad, each kiss means so much to him, because well - you’re there. you’re there with him, travelling the world to cheer on him, and lando is so so  grateful for that 

𝜗𝜚 he loves how you always whine and scrunch your nose  when he embraces you in a big hug, wet from all the sweat and champagne (just to mess with you even more, he nuzzles his head into your neck) 

𝜗𝜚 lando is the epitome of a playful love bug

[devotion-disorder]

UR ART IS SO PRETTY 😍😍🙏🙏 lT MAKES ME WANNA GOBBLE IT UP

Have any tips? I've been tryna get into drawing but i'm rlly strugglimg 😭

First off THANMKYOU FOR YOUR NICE WORDS....🥺🫶🫶

i'm gonna assume you're asking about advice for people that are just getting started with drawing! Now im not a ~seasoned~ artist or anything, i've only been drawing on-and-off for about 7 ish years? so this is all coming from someone who only approaches art as more of a casual hobby... also if you're asking about more technical/ practical advice then feel free to send another ask because I don't really go into that here lol :p

Honestly, i recall that being a beginner artist was tough, because the gap in my skill level and my expectations seemed so daunting. The hardest part was probably having to motivate myself to keep going even when it's hard to see actual progress and, again, the disappointment in "what I draw does not match what I envision in my head". It's hard and sometimes I question what am I even doing all this for. As of right now I can say that this feeling doesn't ever really go away, just that now I've managed to build a bit more confidence in my stuff.

So how I see it is that it's important to find a way to keep yourself motivated no matter what, so that you have it in you to keep practicing, improving, or at least, to just keep drawing. This is something that is gonna look different for everyone so I think it'd be a good idea to explore yourself what can keep you motivated. I was very lucky in that the people around me were also into drawing and were always really nice and supportive, so they played a huge role in building up my confidence - such that I wasn't afraid to experiment and take risks, which is necessary for learning and getting better.

Another major thing for me is to remember to have fun with art, and understand that as long as I managed to enjoy some parts of the process then I've "succeeded" so to speak, even if I don't like the end results. This still applies now...it's frustrating when something I spent time on doesn't turn out the way I wanted, but at least rendering it was fun and relaxing, so it was still a good use of my time. Its about striking a balance i guess; its important to practice and do fundamentals etc etc but imo its equally important to draw things that will make you want to keep drawing. for some this could be doing fanart, for others it could be original art. Social media and fandom-ry is a whole 'nother can of worms, but I will say that they were helpful to me in keeping me motivated and inspired. so basically its this *taps sign*

anyhow i hope that was helpful,,,,, i hope I didn't come off as preachy because im the last person with any authority to be telling other people about art so it was mostly just my own experience with art...but i think its really just about finding your own rhythm and if you keep at it you will get better...either way GOOD LUCK I BELIVBE IN YOU AND I HOPE YOU HAVE FUN🫶🫶🫶🫶

[suhmingo]

I, uh, don’t know how to actually preface this. It’s really just a mini rant/pseudo-analysis of chapter 167. Which was pretty crazy. But, I loved this chapter, and yes I’m typing this with two hands.

But first let me try and do some housekeeping.

It’s perfectly fine to have an emotional, even visceral reaction to 167. That’s the point

If you feel grossed out, betrayed, unnerved, dumbstruck, or any form of bamboozled by today’s chapter then good! That means the emotional weight of the scene is working, and that you are a proper, feeling human. The

The whole point of fiction is to explore themes that would be difficult, even dangerous to experience from a place of safety. To me that’s, like the entire reason I ever wanted to become a writer, one of the most unsung broke boy jobs in the history of the world. My desire for Denji to get better in a world that is dead set on making him fail is the entire reason I have an emotional investment in the first place. Stories are inherently about conflict and the struggle with resolving conflict, that should make you uncomfortable.

Say what you want about Chainsaw Man. I can take it, I’m a big boy. But one thing that it has always had since Chapter one is a well-defined through line about the complexity of our innate desire to find some type of love fighting against the pain-wrought pathway that it leads us down. In a good story, every chapter should have some way of showing the highs and lows of that theme, and I’m pretty confident when I say that 167 perfectly shows us that.

It’s bad. Don’t let people who brag about their trauma tolerance tell you otherwise. You are well within your right to feel. But I think it would behoove people to 1. Realize that this is fiction, and its effects, though evocatory, are ultimately abstract, and 2. Realize that exploring dark themes allows people, especially a 16-25 (Or whatever the target audience for CSM is) to grapple with and think on human concepts as all encompassing as love.

From a writing standpoint, one chapter has escalated the tension of the entire story more than anything that has happened in Part 2 so far. It’s admittedly a bit early to call it peak. But looking at it as a simple story beat, that’s a fantastic chapter as far as the medium goes.

Listen, the whole point of stories since, like, Mesopotamian times was the tension between wanting a character to achieve happiness vs the hardships and trauma that life happens in life. They’re supposed to put you in a sensitive state emulative of a tense environment. I’d argue that the prevalence of escapist fiction and fandom has changed how we emotionally digest fiction. But that’s a whole nother essay.

The events of 167 aren’t some horny non-sequitur. Everything that happened is entirely a logical, if graven, extension of how we know characters.

Denji is at the lowest point we have ever seen him at. He was literally dismembered and put back together less than 10 chapters ago. The last chapter literally had him groveling on his knees at a cauldron’s brew of his own weakness, immaturity, stupidity, and horniness. I think we can all understand why he would not be in a good mental state to just lose himself in the moment. You can’t even blame Denji in this situation. He was in an entirely vulnerable state that was exploited entirely by

Yoru. Who is the literal embodiment of war. If you think that someone who represents the human fear of war is going to play fair. Turn on the news for five minutes. Yoru is a character we are not supposed to like. She’s fun, because she’s a work of fiction, but she’s arguably less trustworthy than Fami. She’s a violent, exploitative being who possesses a dead teenager. There is no “too far” for her if it’s the fastest way on the road to conquest. Reminder that before she caught feelings, her plan was literally just to castrate Denji because she thought that would further her goals. The fact that it turned into kissing was actually sparing a worse fate. IMO that savior was all in the actions of Asa.

Asa. I genuinely believe that, subconsciously, Asa wanted to kiss Chainsaw Man. Not like how it happened. Never like how it happened, but her desire for Denji/Chainsaw Man's affection has always been evident. She gets irreparably upset when she’s stood up, she makes cringe poetry for Chainsaw Man, and her entire goal as of now is in some misguided desire to make him happy. I also don’t think Asa is actually demisexual, or averse to sex. She is afraid of intimacy, which stops her from ever acting on her urges. Notice that both times Yoru has kissed Denji, it was after the idea of sex and intimacy was explicitly brought to the conversation. To me that screams that Yoru is spurred on by her host’s innate desires. Hell, it’s been shown that in the same way that Yoru has made Asa more proactive of a human being, Asa has made her feel emotions. I don’t think it's a coincidence that Yoru is blushing while kissing Denji. None of that was part of her plan. That’s Asa’s emotional influence getting the better of her in what I predict to be a fantastic role reversal of their initial contract.

This is thematically in line with how Chainsaw Man presents love and sets up deeper themes.



Remember way back in Part One when Denji was just an initial horndog and everybody kinda hated him? I hated Denji back then! When I first heard of Chainsaw Man I genuinely thought it was going to be a mommy-kink fuelled power fantasy. But I was wrong. Wonderfully wrong. Fujimoto used the allure of that idea in Makima to present a story about how dangerous and manipulative the very idea of grooming is, and how damaging that can be to a person. The same way Denji’s desire to get the approval of Makima was poisonous to him is mirrored in his desire for vapid, instantly gratifying sex is being portrayed here. I genuinely think this chapter is going to age like fine wine, and I am absolutely willing to take egg on my face if I’m wrong.

[yohohonabottle]

"Whoops! Wrong universe!" -Draft/'spitball'

Like with the previous post, this is more of a quickpost where I throw in my thoughts! May most likely flesh it out later into an actual oneshot fic. However I may need more info on Lavi so I can do her proper justice! Comments are welcomed and encouraged both on this + that future post! (As always) |> Prompt: Temporarily swaps universes with.... Lavinia @windmaedchen The wheel has spoketh once more, which is a funny turn of events since yesterday it said that Pirin adopted Lavi... And now they swap universes. ----------------------------------------------------

I'm going to outline two routes this could occur: 1) Literally. Pirin's universe is now Lavi's (temporarily) and vice versa. 2) 'Seats' - Pirin finds himself in Lavi's universe, in her place & vice versa.

In case A,

then Lavi will suddenly find herself as...basically the technical administrator/overseer of that universe. With Pirin's powers (see my Paragon lore post) but without the negatives because she's not an Esperia 'Actor*' (*Actor = Character)...or isn't somehow clocked in as one, more like a Moon* (*Moon = Character that holds little to no significant influence on the world and its functions compared to the Sun* of it.) so she can do whatever she wants, really. Explore? Yup. Observe from the sidelines? Mhm. Monitor and oversee it? Absolutely. Or go back home.

Dame Lavinia will also, most likely encounter my lore in the form of Valen noting she's not from around here. And that would lead him to filling her in on the Meta premise that's intrinsically interwoven into this universe...if not practically laden at its very core. Which would inevitably lead to the knight mentioning his Dove (Pirin) and the whole-- —"So we have this race...more like had, it's a really long history, trust me and it's a whole 'nother beast-- That are immortal wandering spirits. Also endlessly go through death-rebirth. Again, very heavily simplifying here, but this is preetty much the gist of it."

Aand that's how Lavi comes to know of my bat boye + his role within this universe outside of being Merlin & how he became 'Merlin'. Poor gal will also discover that this Valen... isn't her Valen. Her (future hubby, I'm guessing?) man, nor has feelings for her outside of platonic strictly and empty teasing flirting...which really is just him being playful and means nothing. But definitely makes sure she's okay!/Looks out for her, as he looks out for his friends and teammates! Also helps her understand things better and most likely 99% of the time uses analogies/explanations that Pirin has given....otherwise he'd just end up muddling the waters and confused poor dame soo much more. (His explaining really is like his writing- haphazard in the sense of rushed and jumbled all over the place with little to no structure, plus terms/phrases only he understands for himself. And the bat sort of dumbs it down in a way the other party can understand plus on a 'language' the other person gets. Like how when he was explaining things to Soren, a Mauler who doesn't understand subtle and flowery stuff + nerdy academic 'bs', Pirin basically leveled it to 'caveman unga-bunga' layman's words without being condescending/patronizing.) On top of that Val will make sure to find a way to help Lavi return back home and wish her the best for her, her Valen, and their kiddo. —"Oh and, can you tell that version of me to not put off tasks? Tell him: "It's really not fun having to deal with staggering mountains of paperwork on short-notice crunch. It won't become less boring two days later. Sit down and get it done right away, tidy your desk- And don't procrastinate! Pearl of wisdom from yours truly, smarter self." Thanks, Lavi!" And the rest of that time, however much Lavinia has left being in Pirin's universe, is likely spent just casually hanging out.

You bet Valen would introduce her to his squad-mates of the main team (Soren, Sinbad, Ludovic ....and Berial, unfortunately.), and to DnD! Ludovic or Soren will be the DM of that session/reall short & simple campaign, and the team having fun with Lavi. Plus a way to help integrate into their merry, chaotic lot and relax. Berial is still a brat here, but actually minds his manners, pranks and actions on account of Pirin (his Batman, frenemy). And definitely, awkwardly makes amends for his other self's terribly godawful misconduct to Lavi as best he can...or at least tries to anyways. Ironically Lavinia's story/past/experiences* remind him sooo much of his Batman, that he accidentally gets wee protective over her.

*(In this universe both Celestials and Hypogeans can sense a person's + other Cel/Hypo's inner stuff, without even prying. Thoughts, feelings, intents, hopes, fears, pains, desires from most superficial and trivial to deepest and most secretly coveted, dreams and fears, vague snippets of memories, etc. Plus hear and see those things, again, without delving deliberately in others' heads and hearts. It's just how they naturally are. However if Berial -since he's in here, I'll use him as example- actively focuses on her memories like zooming in on a gif thumbnail, or any of the other things, THEN he'd be actually prying and invading.) Which he doesn't, but just those glimpses are enough for the Jester.

At some point Berial might actually level with Lavi, serious talk without clown nonsense, and remark that. Sounds offhanded, but is more.. reminiscing, pensive. No malice in any form, which I can see shocking Lavi a lot. This version of the disgusting terrible and sadistic evil menace of clown. (Likely after their group round(s) of DnD and other games like Century Quest, card duels, Genius Invocation TCG -no you can't escape it here either. Someone happened to sneak that card game into AFKJ- Non hazard Black-Jack, and others including Never have I ever.) It's like a whiplash-- this civil, amicable Berial who is still a nuisance most of the time but knows when to get serious; and does, ditching the bravado even if for just a brief moment. The Hypogean isn't a saint nor hero, obviously, and isn't trying or pretending and claiming to be either. But he's got his moments of... helpfulness. Not evil bastard 10000% of the time. —"....You know, I'll be truthful and level with you for a moment. You remind me of Vanyusha, a lot, actually." Pause of contemplation, lost in his own thoughts, mutters ''I wonder what trouble he's gotten dragged into this time.. ....hm. Put a pin on this. I'll dig into it later." And then turn back her with his signature wide grin.. except it has an air of fondness, amusement to it. His tone is oddly serene almost as he notes to her-

—"You two will get along just fine by the way. Don't be surprised if he takes one glance at you and get like a mother hen, heheh.

We actually have an inside joke in the team, running gag, that Pirin is the Mather all across the board. From cradling the world itself, its people-- To his mish-mash of teammates." Maybe sensed/senses Lavi's confusion or other inner things that prompt him to share some of his own memories of this bat. How he came to Favor/Respect him (Clown's reminiscing moment, where he pranked Merlin), how that man shoved him right into his place (without being graphic or long-winded), all stories kept simple and brief. Plus sort of very quickly note this tid-bit about the nature of Celestials, gods and Hypogeans, with the reassurance that no, he will not delve in her inner working unless strictly given the green-light. A way of letting Lavi know she's got control and agency by calling the shots.

Plus, after that somber talk, throw in a bit humor/silly jokes to lighten the mood. --Meanwhile on the other end of scenario A--

And Pirin, in Lavi's universe, is just an Actor. Or heck! Just...Pirin, nothing more, nothing less.

Doesn't have his Moon status as it's not his to oversee. And likely this Esperia doesn't have a Sun and Moon, nor the concepts of it. No Meta-knowledge, 4th wall breaks, not a whiff of Multiverse antics (this could very easily be played off/explained as Reinier being at his symmetry tomfoolery again like he was with Talene and Dura's + Misarte's statues. Or hell! Even Merlin being a petty lil shaite again or spell goes wrong--Anything, go wild!), just....This world, it's established structures and lore, inhabitants, and Merlin. Like being in-game, closely follows cannon. Lavinia and her being a knight, plus her relations in this world is just standard stuff.

Like how we Players don't bat an eye much to the NPC's lives./ The lives of NPC's aren't so often pulled to the very fore front and center like with playable characters, even if they're involved in the quest. For example, in the questline -- Brineville had its moments of shining more than the rest of the world...But the focus and emphasis was still very obviously on the main cast of the season plotline and their antics, Merlin doesn't need mentioning as it's a given. -> (Finch's assumptions here! Very heavy speculations! I could be wrong!) <-

But everything's so alien to him, even if it technically is the same. (Like how twins look strikingly similar, possibly even sound so- But aren't the same person. The subtleties or apparent signs are there.) So I see him be wary and thread cautiously, trying to avoid running into anyone in fear of causing damage as an anomaly -something that's not supposed to be there. Doesn't belong here.

(Vanya can still, however, call upon his Sun.)

For once, Pirin can just... exist and be whatever. No history outside the established Immortal and Divine wars. He's just an eccentrically dressed, odd Wilder/Mauler guy who could be half-Lightbearer for all people care. And Pirin inevitably runs into Lavinia's Valen, who's just worried-sick and frantic in searching high and low for her.

And because this 'tiny' man is a sweetheart (His quote from Bear's sin sums him up best: 'I don't want anyone to suffer in the ways I have.'), he'll cave in and break his own 'rules' for this ''trip''. The 'don't interfere, affect this universe.' rule. Goes up to Valen, and after a very short-simple introduction of himself, tells the man of what happened.

"I'm not sure if Reinier is behind this, or whose spell went haywire...or if Merlin, my Boss in that realm, messed up something.. But I'm sure that your maiden is safe and well." (A little hurt that Valen doesn't seem to know, recognize, him at first nor sees that twinkle in his lilac eyes he knows... but notes to himself that this is a different Esperia, and this Valen is not his Noble Knight.) Cue a very quick lightning round of explaining some parts of time and space nonsense, plus how things are back in his universe.

"With this in mind, I'm starting to suspect either Merlin or my Sun are responsible for the mix-up. My team has likely already gotten on the case and are looking for a way to bring dame Lavinia back home."

...And then Berial of this universe maybe pops up to cause mayhem, spots the new face and instantly tries to torture him in every single way. (Interrupting their swapping of stories of adventures and memories, since Valen got curious about this new other universe parallel to his and Lavi's, and his other self. Plus how that other version of him got together/fell in love with Pirin. Telling him his own sweet tales with Lavi and history.)

Ohoo, how that lil menace got hard shoved right into his place the millisecond Pirin felt that clown dip into his mind & body. Berial just gets to experience a reallly hard Uno reverse card, suddenly faced with utter hell beyond anything he ever thought...and not in a fun way. Nope. (Lavi's Valen is simultaneously terrified, impressed and fascinated by this display.)

Witnessing how the Hypogean flings himself right out asap faster than a lightning, and books it for gods know where so fast that he doesn't even see where he's going. Smacks into a tree or building or something face-first like in a cartoon, and cowers. It's like that scene from Alecchino's boss fight with the Traveler where she stalks toward him, crimson moon behind her, and he's just done for.

"Try this again, or any of your bullshit again. And I will make you wish you were nothing. Разбра ли?" (Got it?) That clown couldn't speak, only pathetically whimper something vaguely like yes. "Изчезвай." (Scram/Get lost.)-- and Berial Bolts.

..Right as a portal opens revealing that other universe with the squad, and Lavinia with them. Perfectly safe, healthy, and unharmed. The Berial of that other universe sees his other self hauling ass and laughs heartily, knowing exactly what happened. "Yup. There he goes, heh. What a retard Ink-stain." Turning back to the two, he does a dramatic salute by taking off his head and a playful wink at the stunned knight. "I'm still myself after all~." And so the two are swapped, returned home in their rightful respective universes with Pirin formally letting Valen and Lavinia know they're welcome to visit his iteration of Esperia anytime they wish. Berial interjecting with "Don't be a shy stranger~! ..Also, if you get troubles from other worlds- Holler us, will ya? We're the-" "That's enough, you Midget." (Berial was about to make a cringe Ghost-busters joke.) One of Pirin's familiars, a firebird rosella, lands on his head. "You can call upon Zhar if needed to deliver a message. He beaks pretty hard as affection, but other than that, the little hooligan shouldn't be causing you headaches." "Too-daloo~!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now! In case B, where the two only swap roles:

-Pirin ends being a Solitaire, since that's Lavi's post. He still retains all his abilities like magical prowess and all the combat experience + knowledge in general he has. Or his 'kit' as I like to refer to them. -Lavinia ends up being Merlin..technically. (In short: Merlin summoned Pirin to Esperia and contracted him to be his stand-in. But this deal is kept secret from everyone else, very few finding out the truth on their own, the rest willfully ignorant/unaware of it.) And has Pirin's 'kit' as if a stage 4 Paragon but without the negative side-effects like I noted earlier.

Ultimately the result in this route of the scenario is the same in case A. The two eventually return/get returned to their own respective universe with a chance mild cross-over and the opportunity to meet again in the future.

[diabeticgirl4]

(Silly gender musings under the cut, feel free to ignore)

So I was never a tomboy, never a girly-girl (I could probably count on both hands the number of times I voluntarily wore makeup outside of a required event- and nearly everyone case was a friend/family member excitedly asking if they could do my makeup and I said sure why not lol. Turns out I love wearing makeup, but only for special occasions and no way in heck am I gonna do it myself lmao), I just felt. Neutral. Average. Casual. Nothing outside the 'norm' (LOL).

( For the record I'm afab and have been comfortable id'ing as cis female my entire life. Just for context ig )

Honestly it's amazing I never connected my lifelong (mild) chest dysphoria to my gender before. I barely have any chest (A size) and I still dislike it. Not enough to Do Anything about it, but enough that wearing anything akin to a normal bra (and not my usual sports bras) makes me feel Uncomfy.

(I distinctly remember overhearing a conversation in 10th grade where a girl in my class was talking about getting breast reduction and while I wasn't necessarily 'jealous', there was definitely a "huh" feeling about that, like I didn't know that could even be an option. And I never re-explored that feeling until basically this month LOL.)

Another fun time was discovering voidpunk (while not a requirement, most members self identified as AAA- aro/ace/agender), and I remember thinking how cool it was and how much I related to most of the content "except I'm not agender like them, bummer" (lol)

And weirdly the humanity introspection came up way before the gender introspection?? Again for the record I'm autistic (self-realized shortly after college, which fricked me up a bit- but that's a whole nother thing LOL), so I never rly clicked w other ppl. Never fit in, never felt like "one of the girls" but I was 10000% not even remotely close to feeling like a guy so I never questioned it. It wasn't till the last couple years or so where I was like "huh I REALLY don't feel like I fit in anywhere. Like in society in general. Like at all." Part autism, part social anxiety, part only child/introvert/etc, but I just never clicked w ppl in general. Therefore my conclusion was "I must not be human, got it" (/hj). Exploring theriantypes and fursonas (#deer self), stuff like that, and I think I eventually realized the connection that "wait a minute. Could these feelings of not relating to other ppl of my gender..... mean something??" (Cue laugh track)

I've mentioned it before, but likening this whole Self Discovery to my aroace awakening?? It was such a struggle bc how do you examine the absence of something.

Same thing w my gender I'm realizing. Thought I was just an average female who didn't connect to traditional femininity but in a weird way it felt fine and normal? (Tbf I kinda grew up in the rise of feminism where girls were finally getting comfortable w the idea of not having to be 100% feminine and wear dresses and makeup and dress/live to impress boys etc etc etc meanwhile I was like "yeah so what I never cared about that stuff anyways lol."

Which got me looking into labels, and kinda resonated w demigirl a bit? Like I'm not Not a girl (points to username), but the lack of connection to any femininity in general felt too much to not be nothing. Started digging deep into "well what gender Do I feel?" And..... I realized I don't? I've lived life as a cis female and have always been fine w that (ngl would love a flat chest tho;;;;), but idk the Gender Feelings? What even are those? Again. Back to the "how do you examine the lack of something".

I started looking into agender memes and content and?? It kinda clicks?? It's weird to me that of all the times I thought about my gender in the past I never came to this conclusion. Like huh maybe the fact that I don't connect w the gender binary. Means I could quite possibly be. NonBinary. What a thought lmao.

Anyways circling back for the millionth time, I'm still figuring out labels and how I want to identify and if I even want to change anything or whatnot, and wow it's a lot.

I like demigirl and agender all while still kinda being cis female? Sure? I guess? Lol?

Not giving up she/her pronouns, considering they/them (apparently one of my mom's friends- whom I've known for a good number of years- once referred to me as a "they" (quoting my mom lmao) and I've always kinda felt 👀 since), and contemplating it/its pronouns. Like heck yeah I am not a human and I don't want to be referred to as one lol.

She/they/it???? 🤔

Anyways wow what a wild ride lol

[wayfayrr]

Same person as the one with reader with high tolerance to alcohol (gonna go by 🍀 anon so it’s easier, if you don’t mind ofc <3)

But at least if reader has one thing, even if it’s not the ability to fight, it’s the ability to chug down a hard seltzer and continue on as if they just drank water. I can just imagine the panic the Chain feels when reader grabs a higher proof spirit, pour a few shots and just drinks them all no issue lol.

BUT AYOOOO SKY BEING HUMAN??? I ACTUALLY LOVE THAT SO MUCH <3333 !!! I’ve never thought about that, and suddenly, I must play Skyward Sword again, my favorite lil human <3 but also, got me thinking since SS was made around the time, iirc, that parkour games were pretty big, and while Sky can’t run for long, boy can run up walls a bit. Which, makes me think that Hylians are just, incapable of doing parkour lol, only Sky and reader are capable of it, which I think is a pretty interesting thought

🍀 anon!! it's nice to have you <33

the chain are genuinely terrified when they see it, it's like their equivalent of watching someone down straight lighter fluid<3 rulie is most certainly going to be making them take a potion just for safety (before they realise potions outside of sky's very limited specialised supply don't work on humans)

human sky is just beloved baby boy!!! he's just so sweet and it gives him a whole nother opportunity to bond over reader, there's a few things I've been planning to explore with it - mostly how he just breaks down over your ears and gets incredibly defensive over them on your behalf but hylians being unable to do parkour? 👀 that's a really fun headcanon, and it makes a lot of sense - the only other link with similar abilities is wild/tears and that's after the shrine. Two ways to terrify the chain now then!!!! parkour and a very high tolerance to them, they're going to be watching over you both like hawks at this rate :3

[kingkaisen]

no, cuz i'm not even kidding atp, can we talk abt how phenomenal 5H is?? like utterly mind-fucking-blowing phenomenal?? it puts you into a whole 'nother dimension and it feels SO GOOD. like i'm so immersed in everything, in the story, experience, thrill, how fast another guy steps into our life... it literally gives me whiplash.

but not even that... like, i feel like before this fic, i've been hella ignorant to how hollywood operates, y'know? but this shit has given me so much PERSPECTIVE. how not everything is how it is on camera, how easy it is to fake your persona on stage and not have anyone find out/care (our poor bby eren), how most celebrities are not as rich as they appear, how some of them are binded to horrifying contracts like connie's, how some of them are fucked up as a byproduct of being in the industry.

like i'm not gonna mention the name, but i was looking through the history of this one celebrity. their art is beautiful, amazing, phenomenal, but they have this FAT history of being a homewrecker. when i recently listened to their new album, it was so visceral and true and raw and just relatable, y'know? but it also reminds me of the duality of man. how 5H y/n is messy but you kinda just go with it. you don't really feel like calling her out or criticizing her cuz it's like, ohh well, whatever. but if someone else in the fic did homie-hopped that quick, we would've been up on their asses because human beings are just hypocrites sometimes, in the least generalizing way possible.

you had to have had some intel on hollywood to write this because in the best way, i feel like you know stuff we don't. your writing illustrates how messy hollywood can be and that's not an easy feat, y'know? you even get it down to y/n taking classes for posture and mannerisms in interviews, like hello?! and the whole "the industry is a small world" thing... you've done your research!! it's commendable. i'll just never look at celebrities the same way again. even with all these words, i feel like i haven't even come close to encapsulating how amazing 5H is. i know you made this for fun but it's seriously been beautifying method of escapism, and i love you for it. 😭💖

ISJDJDDKDKDN 😭😭😭😄😄😄💛💛💛

MY BBY

You are so SWEET, I had to show this message to my moot bc you had me kicking my feet and GIGGLING ISTG

Thank you for taking the time to send this to me! You have no idea how much I needed to hear this right now 😭💛

Writing this fic, I think I observed how real life celebrities and their fans behave! Like there are so many celebrities who people don’t appreciate for their talent but only for their looks, which is what Eren goes through, or they show signs and hints about what the industry is really like but no one pays attention!

and I’ve heard about a record label or two that have done things similar to what Connie does in terms of threats, violence, and control!

Then there are companies (Disney, for example) that are really controlling about what their stars do or say, which is something I’ve always found interesting, and so I guess I wanted to explore that mindset!

As far as the romance part goes, it’s slightly inspired by this book called “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” 😄💛

Sweet comments like yours always makes me feel better about how much time I put into this story because I sometimes feel silly about putting effort into fanfic, but you let me know that it’s appreciated and I LOVE you for that!

Thank you thank you thank youuuu, and I hope you enjoy the finale!

[johnbierce]

I once knew a guy who got adulthood and growing up confused with Marx's Alienation of the Worker.

The guy I knew was, without a doubt, brilliant in many ways. Brilliant musician, widely read, an in-depth student of Heidegger. (Which should have been a red flag, fuck Heidegger.) But he was persistently convinced that a fundamental part of adulthood was "setting aside the things of childhood, cartoons and Star Wars and all of that." That a grown man simply couldn't have the time for these things, or he wasn't a grown man. (And his assertion was, of course, about manhood, not adulthood.)

This was patently absurd to me. "Lack of free time" and "lack of fun media in your life" as diagnostic criteria for adulthood would have some very silly logical consequences, like an overworked AP high schooler being more "adult" than a retiree. But, even taking his argument in better faith than that, it mistakes chronic overwork, insufficient community support for families, and exhaustion for adulthood.

For me, adulthood has always been about maintaining emotionally mature relationships with your family, friends, and community; being a person others can rely on; and doing your best to positively impact the world around you on whatever scales you have the power to impact (even if that's just your own mental health sometimes). The idea that it's "giving up cartoons" was and is patently absurd to me. As I said above, it's just... mistaking the fundamentally isolating and hostile elements of our society that need changing for the human default; stigmatizing joy and silliness as "childlike" and "immature" instead of simply being HUMAN.

I don't know if I convinced him of this, though he at least listened. (Whatever else I will cast shade on that former friend for, and there is much, I will not accuse him of being close-minded nor unwilling to consider ideas counter to his own. Dude was thoughtful, if nothing else.) I hope it stayed with him, because setting "lack of silliness" as an aspiration is hardly a worthy goal for anyone, and that dude tortured himself more than enough already.

It doesn't matter if you watch cartoons, if you're doing your best to take care of yourself. It doesn't matter if you engage in nostalgia for stuff from your childhood, if you do your best to offer support to your friends, family, and community- and accept support in return. (Only helping while rejecting help is NOT maturity, it's just a way of walling yourself off and hiding vulnerability.) It doesn't matter if you play- games, free play, whatever- so long as you're following a worthy ethical and moral code to the best of your abilities. (What counts as worthy is a WHOLE 'nother conversation.) It doesn't matter if you crab walk around the house trying to pinch your loved ones while claiming that you're being possessed by a crab ghost if you treat yourself and others with respect.

You can be silly and still a proper adult.

As a coda to this- I knew the guy's dad, and he was a goofy, fun dude who loved puns and bad jokes, and is having a blast with life post-retirement. A very silly person who was absolutely a mature adult.

(This line of reminiscence was brought up by reading Ursula Le Guin's essay collection Language of the Night, which was just reissued- I wish I'd read it before now, it's fantastic so far, and I'm just starting. In the first essay in the book, Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons, Le Guin dives into an exploration of why so many Americans- particularly grown men- reject fantasy, even imagination. )

[vyladromeave]

26 and 28?

26. you're tasked with writing an official side story/spin-off roleplay (void paradox, mermaid tale, upside-down story), what would that look like?

Every day I am haunted by the fact that the original mcd spin-off stuff just became mystreet and i know I could do a modern au of MCD better than jess. I know it. but i cant pick that as my answer because mystreet already exists and is bad.

I kinda struggled with this for a while ngl, i have a lot of reject answers that will not be seeing the light of day. I'm an MCD guy, so my instinct is to do something more MCD-based, potentially still set in MCD's world. But keeping it within the same world but different characters usually makes series that are boring and hard for people to get attached to (for an Aphmau-specific example, see Phoenix Drop Days). But series with characters that are AU-ified and altered are often very hit or miss for me... I really didn't like how series like mermaid tale and royal tale treated returning characters, and mystreet is a whole separate train wreck entirely.. It's very hard to make things different but also respectful to the original source.

BUT. THAT BEING SAID. In the middle of this i was reminded of the au behind this post, the role swap of The Jury and Shadowknights, and I feel like that would be fun to cover!!! I need to make a whole nother post about the au as a whole just to solidify my ideas about it tbh. i have ideas.

But i think overall just covering like a short retelling (its just a spinoff, unfortunately I cannot cover all of MCD) of a time where we get a bunch of people involved on both sides on screen would be fun. I'm specifically thinking of the arc at the end of S1 with Katelyn and Lillian in town. I think a lot of the shadowknights and jury share a lot of parallels with each other already, which would be fun to explore, but also fun to look into how these people being a part of different organizations would change who they are and how they act massively.

28. if you could ask jess one question about the series and recieve a direct answer, what would it be? 

now here is where i get to cheat. because

i was asked this question TWO ADDITIONAL TIMES. so I get 3 questions total now. thats how this works. yes this is just straight up cheating. thank you.

QUESTION 1: i gotta give it to stellisketches. this is exactly where my mind went first too. i wish i could just say "Give me all your planning notes and script documents because I know you have them you mentioned them on stream years ago please let me see them." But that is unfortunately a demand, not a question. So asking about the intended direction and ending of S3/MCD as a whole will have to do.

^this is the main one that i would most want an answer to. The rest of these definitely aren't as important, but they do haunt me personally:

QUESTION 2: WHO THE FUCK ARE THE OTHER JURY MEMBERS AND WHAT ARE ALL THEIR TITLES. Its called the fucking Jury Of Nine, we're still very notably missing a whole third of their members. No, Garroth doesn't count, he was a temporary sub-in. We have 6 official members. We almost have more people on the official "could have been a jury member if we needed one replaced" list than there are actual jury members. Well ok not really, but it's closer than it should be. We didn't even know Ivan was supposed to be a jury member until Rebirth. Have we seen the others in og mcd (or other series?) and Jess just forgot to mention they were Jury like Ivan, or was Ivan a last-minute promotion plotwise? Is Zane supposed to be a member? To me it seemed like he was supposed to be leading them, but not strictly a part of them. They just answered to him. But was that me misreading things? Is Zane the secret 9th member? (I know a lot of people consider him one because of the S1 finale, since he powers up like Garroth does and Garroth seems to have Katelyn's like weird jury-relic thing. but ONE: the jury-relic things are stupid and never brought up again and TWO: Zane has Esmund's relic at this point, that's what's powering him up, not a jury-relic-thing. So?????) ARE there even other plans for the Jury members we haven't seen? Do they exist to Jess? Does she have any others in mind at all? I need to know these things. Also why do so many of them use scythes or have scythe in their titles. That's stupid. Stop that.

QUESTION 3: WHO THE FUCK IS VYLAD'S BIOLOGICAL FATHER, WERE THERE ANY PLANS FOR HIS (biological) PATERNAL SIDE OF THE FAMILY. Is this a bad question? Yes. Does Jess likely actually have any plans here? Probably not. Was obscuring Vylad's bio dad's name done so that Jess didn't have to invent a whole new character, and not because she had someone in mind and wanted to obscure who it was? Yeah probably. Are there better things to ask? Yeah. But this haunts me every single day. We don't even know if he's alive. We don't even know his fucking name. Is there an actual reason he looks like every other brown haired character in the series, or did Jess just want those sweet sweet Jeffory parallels? I need to know if there was at least some plan here, even if it was stupid. I need to know if Jess was just pulling shit directly out of her ass or not. It's important. I'm the Vylad guy you have to let me have this.

(ask prompts from here!)

[fluffybunnybadass]

When the story finally gets to the point where Chikori sees/meets Xeno Trunks, she spends a lot of time just watching/looking at him, a strange interest in him that she doesn't normally display

Everyone [except Kian] thinks it's a crush, but no, she's just really confounded by meeting another purple-haired Saiyan, and how different he is from not having grown up under the same culture. Also noted is the lack of tail, but she sees that among enough the Saiyan Time Patrollers that it doesn't bother her as much as everything else, though the tail is a point of pride. Cutting it off or having it removed would be shameful, and even though she dislikes much of Saiyan culture, that was one of the things that is so deeply ingrained to her, well before the tuffle-saiyan war. So why there is a saiyan in a leadership position that has no tail is of utmost concern for her.

But because she rarely voices her thoughts, everyone else just thinks it's a crush.

[headfullofpresley]

I was wondering how would you describe Elvis and his personality and differences, romantically/sexually, across his different eras? it's an interesting topic and I'd like to understand more about him from a fact-based perspective. thank you!

hi nonnieeee! i love this question and i love talking about elvis, so thank you sm for this. 💕

this got wayyy longer than expected, so check under the cut!

soooo, let's start off with elvis in the 1950s.

we all know elvis loved women and in my opinion, he was a cheeky bastard (lovingly). when elvis had his sights set on someone, he got them- simple as that. except for brigitte bardot, sorry el 👀. anyways, he was flirtyyyy as hell. the part in good rockin' tonight where he goes "why don't you come to my house and i'll give it to you?" actually came out of his own mouth irl (and i will never get over it). also, when he told june he was crazy about her ass and was shamelessly looking at her ass. and remember the letters he sent to anita when he was in germany?

"every time i lay in my bunk and i see your little eyes and your little nose and it's almost like you're here, like you're pressed up close to me. i can feel your little hair on the side of my face and sometimes i get so excited and want you so bad, i start sweating"

i think he definitely had his fun in germany. this shouldn't be a surprise.

i mean, he was a young male in his twenties and got the attention from girls left and right- and he liked it. he definitely was not shy and when it comes to sex, i don't think he was either. he told larry that he screwed pretty much anything in sight a week before he had to report in 1958 and i believe it. he later learned that there was more to it than only the physical act, but i mean... if i was a male in my 20s and looked like elvis, i would've done the same. 👀

if you want to use the term sub or dom, i think he was a dom but not in the way we know it today??? i was obv not there, but i can't be convinced he was a big sub or sub at all (even though i love subby men🥴). i just think he was in that standard "man role" if you know what i mean- and i believe this goes for all era's, tbh. he was also pretty jealous at times which honestly makes me giggle sometimes but also makes me want to slap his face a lil bit. anyways, in my opinion; he was at that age where you're exploring things in your sex life and finding out what you do and don't like and just like any other human being, he did just that. with... a lot.. of different.. girls. good for him. 💁🏼‍♀️

anyways, elvis in the 50s was a menace. and that's a hill i will die on.

nowwww elvis in the 1960s? on a whole 'nother level. i feel like he was still at that stage of exploring at the beginning of the 60s, but he certainly knew what he liked. he had girls who'd make videos of themselves and watch them on the tv/video set ups he brought into hotel rooms. i believe he even had a girl fly over when he stopped at a motel once? and i mean... work. priscilla and him used to roleplay a lil, so i think he enjoyed that along with taking videos and pictures.

i don't think he had any extreme kinks. feet? white underwear? liking girls to be virgins? hardly extreme. he wasn't too fond of women who gave birth though and did not have sex with them if they did, which honestly... sucks for the women that had children and for cilla (i would simply fight his ass, anywaaaayyyy). i also read that he didn't believe in mixed race marriage/couples in the early 60s, but his view on that changed in the 70s. i can't tell you how true this is, so take this as you will. considering how different times were back then, i don't think it's entirely impossible.

emphasizing here that i do not think elvis was racist in any way possible, but life and the way people thought about certain things were very different back then!!

anyways, i don't think elvis was a selfish lover, he strikes me as the kind of person who likes giving as much as receiving and again, i don't see him being submissive at all though also not extremely dominant. elvis was a dominant person in general, but i feel like he was a gentle lover and wouldn't force anyone to do something they don't want. he'd kind of ease the girls into what he likes, but he would also make himself very clear on things he doesn't like.

i think he was big on the touchy touchy and foreplay, but i do believe him and cilla had, or were close to having, sex. as in penetration, not feeling each other up only- which imo is normal, but for a lot of people it's a touchy subject bc of their age difference. despite sleeping with others also, he considered cilla to be the steady woman in his life and love and sex go hand in hand for most people, doesn't it?

also him and ann-margret? freaky deaky in the sheets, i can't be convinced otherwise. but i also believed they genuinely loved each other and had a connection and that's what elvis preferred over simple one night stands. he wanted someone to both talk to and make love with and i think because ann was closer to him in age and so free spirited, he was drawn to that. also the fact that she got married a week after he did in the same city breaks my HEART- but that's a whole different conversation.

AND i do think him and nancy had a thing going on. even though nancy always said it was platonic between them... one can dream, right? they looked cute together.

the 1970s, baby! who doesn't love the 70s? we all do. when it comes to elvis, a lot of people see him as the "daddy" and "big daddy elvis" persona but in my opinion, that's nothing but fictional.

elvis was big on the baby talk and used the term "mommy" for linda, but i highly doubt it was in a sexual manner. sure, none of us were actually there, but here we have a man that craved for deep human connections and love in several different girls, rather than just having a quick fuck and leave it at that. he liked to take care of his girls, but he also liked to be taken care of. i don't think elvis ever lost his interest in sex and liked sex throughout his entire life, but i do feel like things slowed down a little in the mid 70s. don't get me wrong- he was still definitely having sex, just not in the same way as when he was in his 20s, ya know? keep in mind he was not 100% healthy, as sad as that is.

elvis liked his girls petite and still, virgins. he gained a lot of experience through the years and i feel like he liked showing that experience to the younger females he dated. he liked to be The Man in relationships. the story about linda losing her virginity to him was honestly really sweet, he was extremely gentle with her, as it should be. and sure, elvis could be shy sometimes but imo not to an extreme- he was more so gentle and let's be honest, he knew just what the ladies liked. he knew how to sweep 'em off their feet. i think he was confident in his love making skills, but would elvis liked to have been called daddy? no. i don't think so. despite being a dominant man, he liked to be babied.

mirrors, man. mirrors. we've all seen his room. i think he liked seeing himself and his partner get it on, and i also think he liked watching other people (i don't believe he never had 2 girls in his bed at the same time and i definitely don't believe he never watched them).

above i stated about elvis possibly being prejudiced, but also that his views changed in the 70s. sexually, i do think he experimented with women from different races etc in these times.

jealousy. j e a l o u s y. he cares deeply, and it makes his jealous streak come out to play along the way. this was the man that had red west call "a guy" so he could get rid off mike stone, but eventually chickened out. i believe elvis to be a person with a lot of layers- and yes, maybe some of it has to do with the medicine abuse etc, but it was also who he was as a person. he could be unreasonable at times, in both friendships and relationships, but it doesn't take away that his heart was in the right place. elvis loved deeply, so he also hurt deeply.

writing about elvis and his life from a fan's perspective, especially one that was not alive at the same time as he was, is an extremely difficult thing to do. i don't agree with some of the things he did and said, but who am i to judge? elvis presley was a human made out of flesh, blood and bones. one that was on a forever search to find himself, to be comfortable in the vessel god gifted him. he made mistakes, did some shitty things, but he was also very kind and did very good things that changed people's lives for the better. it's said he could bring you to tears, but he also was a gentle, generous soul who could make you feel good about yourself, like you belonged. but doesn't that count for all of us? maybe not in the exact same way, but we're all just trying to find our path in this strange and sometimes cruel world. we sometimes say mean things that we regret and then we learn from it. we're all looking for that big, fat "why?" in life- we might never find the answer, but that doesn't mean we'll give up trying to find it.

i didn't mean to end in on a note like this, but i guess what i'm trying to say is that we should start treating elvis as a human being and not as the man we create in our heads and fanfictions. he wasn't perfect- but if he was, where would the fun be in that?

(i'm obsessed with ginger's coat in this pic lol.)

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

jk jk. no but seriously- these are my opinions on the topic. if yours are different, that's okay too and i would love to hear your take on it. 💗

[justanotherstarlightmonger]

Piece of peace ch 10

Homophobia is where you draw the line?

Summary: Park Jimin and Min Yoongi had forgone the city life months ago, opting to settle into their dream cottage in the woods born of dreams and furnished with love. And it was always going to be them. Until the biggest thunderstorm of the year carried an unexpected guest to their door smack dab in the middle of them living their isolated dream

Pairing: Yoongi x Jimin, Yoongi x Jimin x reader

Word count: 2.2 k words

Warnings: Mentions of drugging, Jiminie might have caused someone to trip, Well deserved sexy, angry yoonmin, homophobic slur.

POP Navigation

Taglist: @themochiverse and my yoonmin anon.

Consider buying me a coffee to keep my motivation flowing ^_^

A/n: How absolutely gorgeous is the mood strip for this chapter? 😚

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner concluded happily. By the time you finished the last spoonful of the tres leches cake slice you had ordered, your tummy was happily full and the men in front of you were also looking exceptionally more handsome than they had when the night had started. 

Impossible, I know. But there was something about loose ties and open collars, and especially sleeves rolled up that was ridiculously attractive to you. And Min Yoongi sitting right across from you, sported all three of those right now. 

Jimin finished his third glass of wine and leaned back in his chair, smiling fondly at you before he cleared his throat, "The poor guy's been waiting long enough, y/n. Wanna go say hi now?" 

You thought about it, and then nodded slowly. "But will one of you walk with me?" You asked, almost embarrassed about asking that of them. Almost, because Yoongi's warm reassuring gaze wouldn't let you actually be embarrassed of anything for too long. 

"Of course!" And so, with Park Jimin's reassuring arm under your hand, you slowly walked to the man who had sent you that note. 

He sat relaxed in his booth, his beige waistcoat and matching trousers sitting snug on his cream colored dress shirt, the sleeves of which he had folded back. His hair, curly and slicked back were neat and his eyes were bright and attentive as he looked up at you and offered you a lopsided smile. 

He was gorgeous, all things considered.

How did this town have so many beautiful men? 

"Hi!" You smiled back at him. "I'm y/n.”

“Hello y/n,” he rose just as you extended his hand out to him to shake. What you weren’t expecting was for him to simply take it and place a chaste kiss on the back. Your eyes widened, mirroring Jimin’s as he stared at the new man, shocked.

You cleared your throat, snapping Jimin’s attention back to you. 

“I’m Taehyung.” the handsome man supplied.

“Hello, Taehyung.” you nodded, then looked to Jimin. “I think I’ll be okay…”

Jimin was swift to understand the gentle dismissal and nodded. “We’ll be nearby if you need anything.”

“Actually,” Taehyung said, “I wanted to take her to the bar nearby.”

Jimin looked at you to gauge your reaction to this new news. “Do you feel like drinking some more?” 

You shrugged, a little thrum of excitement at the aspect of exploring more parts of the town on your own, “I wouldn’t mind.” you nodded.

In a swift flick of his hand, Jimin took out his cellphone, fixed something and handed it to you. “I’ve removed the password. Keep it and call Yoongi when you want us to pick you up then. Have fun.”

There was nothing but sweet reassurance and calm in his crinkled eye smile and you felt yourself melt a bit more for him even as Taehyung took your hand and signaled the waiter to bring him his bill.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drinking was fine. Dancing was a whole nother thing. You had no rhythm and you knew that. But when soft jazz played through the speakers as the patrons thinned out, and Taehyung’s eyes glazed over in a sweet melancholy sort of way, you convinced yourself that it wouldn’t be that hard. 

It was hard.

To say the least. But with Taehyung leading, it wasn’t the worst thing.

And a few moves that you found easy, he made sure he repeated them so you’d feel more comfortable.

And when the song concluded, Taehyung cupped your face and told you that you looked flushed. You touched your cheeks, that were definitely a bit too warm. Fanning yourself, you looked around just as the door opened and Yoongi and Jimin walked in. 

—------

Outside, 10 minutes earlier,

"Oh for fuck's sake Yoongi, I was so cool when I told her to call us when she wanted to be picked up. Now you wanna stalk her?! "

"Hush! I'm not stalking her, be quiet! I'm just concerned for her. What if something bad happens?"

"He seemed like a decent enough guy," Jimin whined, still letting his husband drag him to the jazz bar where you had gone with the other guy.

"He might be but would it hurt to check baby?" Yoongi whirled around to face the love of his life and blinked.

Jimin sighed. He couldn't say no to Yoongi. That was just one thing he couldn't do. 

And so Jimin loosened his top button and let his arm be dragged closer. That was until he pulled Yoongi back, the older's eyes wide in question.

"Can we atleast walk in looking cool? Or we'll embarass her." Jimin ran his fingers through his hair.

"Oh okay… fair point" Yoongi thought about something then reached up and ruffled his own hair, the length of them falling messily around his forehead, his curls shining through. He then undid his top button to let the shining chain around his neck be visible. In the process he let his tie unwrap on either sides of his collar and when he was satisfied with his handiwork, he looked at his husband to see the younger's eyes lidded in that seductive stare of his. 

"You're so hot." Jimin mumbled, half to himself. Yoongi's pale cheeks flushed with color as he took it upon himself to do almost the same to Jimin. 

—------

Your steps faltered. 

Had these two made out before coming in here? Yoongi's longer curly hair was rumpled and messy in the sexiest way possible and Jimin's goddamn chest was on display. 

If you had felt your cheeks were warm before, they were practically radiating heat at this point. The rush of blood was something you felt right down to your tippy toes and you shivered. At the same time there was a welcome contentment in your heart as both their gazes fell on you for the smallest moments, softening and then flitting away, as they made their way to the bar. 

They were here to check up on you. And instead of the usual disgusting nausea you felt at the idea of being kept tabs on, there was nothing but gratitude in your heart.

Gratitude for them, simply existing. For the mere fact that there was kindness so profound somewhere in the murk of fate that had been written for you.

That was when you realized that beyond the lump of emotions in your throat, the world still moved on and Taehyung had handed you your glass again and was saying something. 

The butterflies didn't let you think clearly as you simply said, "I'm going to use the restroom. I'll be back okay?" to Taehyung and made your way past the bar to the restroom. 

When you realized you still had your drink in hand, you were more than halfway there and turning back would make you seem drunk. And you still felt Yoongi and Jimin's eyes on you occasionally. 

Plus, the bar was relatively empty, so if you left your drink here on the bar, it'd be fine for a few minutes right?

Right. 

What you missed was the fact that Yoongi was softly whispering something into Jimin's ear and the latter was blushing aggressively. And that the two of them weren't watching you as thoroughly as you thought. 

In fact, they'd settled into being regular patrons, enjoying their own time in your vicinity just in case. 

There was, although still, a gaze on you. From right next to the door of the bar, from a booth close to the entrance. 

And the gaze was lingering way too long on the way your dress hugged your waist and your neckline showed a bit of cleavage. 

As you left your drink unattended, there was a shady figure that slid from the corner's darkness and casually made his way over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a split second in Yoongi’s peripheral vision. A split second where he looked just an inch to the left and noticed that a glass sat unattended on the countertop and someone was standing at a suspicious distance to it. It didn’t take him long to connect that you had been there moments ago, and as his casual searching gaze ran over the bar and saw you weren’t to be seen. And just in time, as Jimin tilted his head to look into his eyes again, ears still red from the naughty things he had been whispering in the younger’s ears just now, he saw the same stranger tip something into the drink.

Your drink.

Yoongi shot up, blind rage seizing his body, all other thoughts shrinking away into the background. It took Jimin too long to realize his husband was striding over to someone, fists clenched.

The next thing both Jimin and Taehyung knew, Yoongi had grabbed the spiked drink and poured it all over the intruding man’s head.

“What the fuck?!” the man bellowed.

But there was ice in Yoongi’s eyes. 

Jimin’s heart thudded. It had been ages since he’d seen Yoongi this cold, this angry at someone. 

“I should have forced it down your throat and left you out in the streets instead, you disgusting sewer rat.” Yoongi’s face was a mask of granite, and his words were sulfurous flames. 

Just then, you stepped out of the washroom, not registering what was happening a few feet away and eyes looking for Taehyung. Recognizing your searching gaze, Taehyung made a move to come to your side, clearly very disturbed by what he’d only just realized had happened.

But Jimin was having none of that. 

Jimin had also had the nauseating realization that someone had spiked your drink right under his nose. There were three men inside this tiny bar that were supposed to be looking out for you. And all it had taken was a moment of looking away and something disastrous could have happened. So he stood in front of Taehyung. This night was over, he decided. 

“And if Yoongi hadn’t spotted it? You would’ve let her get drugged.” Jimin summoned a tone to match his lover’s and they both stood, facing the other two men, eyes identical burning chasms of anger and warning, effective enough to render the other full grown man to stand still in compliance. 

Cold, heavy dread settled into your stomach. 

Someone wanted to… drug you? 

To do what, you could only imagine. 

A shiver went through you just as the initial breathlessness gave way to burning in your eyes as your vision blurred with tears. You clenched your hands at your sides, willing them to not tremble and your voice to not break. Not here.

“Jimin, I want to go home.” you said softly, unfortunately noting the way your voice came out shaky. It couldn’t be helped, you were hanging on by a thread just now. 

Your pleading eyes met Jimin’s obsidian rage, and you swore there was still warmth and safety in them. Enough to have you stepping to his side.

His arm came around your waist as second nature. And you took the welcome respite of his shielded side when you looked at Taehyung. “Thank you for the evening, I had fun.” 

Taehyung tried a weak smile and was about to say something when the man behind pushed Yoongi to the side in an attempt to get away from that stare made of glacial ice that still held him in place. 

You felt Jimin shift and next thing, the man was on the floor and Jimin was tucking his leg back in line after tripping the perpetrator. Yoongi smirked.

“Honestly, you’re doing all the worst things tonight. Drugging my sunflower’s drink and shoving my husband.” Jimin leaned down to pinch the other man’s cheek, clearly painfully if the grimace was anything to go by. “Don’t piss me off anymore and apologize to both of them.”

“Fuck off you narcissistic faggot.” the man spat. 

Taehyung was there in the next moment, a resounding slap echoing around the place. 

“What?” Yoongi came forward to ease open and hold your still clenched hand, “Homophobia is where you draw the line?” he asked Taehyung, a teasing tilt to his voice. 

Taehyung’s eyes widened as he recognized what was said and a shaky laugh came forth. “I’m genuinely sorry y/n. I’ll take this bastard to the police station. Go home. I’m really sorry.”

You nodded mutely. 

“I’m sure she had fun.” Jimin patted the taller guy’s shoulder sympathetically, and you nodded again.

“Let’s go?” Yoongi asked you, squeezing your hand tightly to keep it from shaking.

A third nod from you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The tears finally came when you leaned against their car and let the realization hit you full force. 

And as you silently sobbed, simply out of fear of what could have happened, for the first time ever, you had not one but two shoulders to cry on, not one, but two chests to shrink into and not one, but two pairs of hands to rub your back and let you let it all out. 

“He didn’t even stand a chance y/n, you were safe. You still are. Let’s get you home hm?” Yoongi reassured you again, your eyes were still red and puffy. 

“I don’t even have a home.” you mumbled, despair settled into your bones. If that was a taste of what waited for you outside the cottage’s forest sanctuary, you weren’t sure you would make it very far. 

“Don’t be silly. Home is where Chimmy is.” Yoongi smiled at you. 

The silly statement made you laugh a watery laugh. Until you realized Chimmy was what he called his lover too. 

[house-of-laminations]

Ok in one lesson (i dont remember which one sorry) its said that mc isn't really a human.

I think it was where Lucifer and the brothers turned into angels? Idk, but from what i remember, when lucifer asked what were we, we could reply "human". Nothing strange right? The problem is, Lucifer denied it.

He just replied smth like "whatever you are". Now idk if its for lore or just funsies, but considering we were lilith's descendant, it could be that we aren't completely human. Or maybe a whole nother species. Lucifer flat out denied us being human at that lesson and it got me thinking, what are we exactly?

Lilith turned into a human right? So her angel powers would obviously be gone. But angels, unlike humans, aren't created through procreation. They are made by god. Lilith was originally an angel, and even if she is human now, it begs the question where her powers had gone? You can't just erase her powers, its practically engraved into her soul (do angels have souls? Idk)

It has to go somewhere right? I'm not saying that mc could be this eldritch horror, but its clear that they aint fully human. Mc has an abnormal amount of magic that even solomon was shocked, and thats saying a lot since hes the most powerful sorcerer. For now I'll just stick to it being some leftover magic from lilith but damn that magic must be strong to be able to casually command 7 demon lords willy nilly.

Sorry for rambling, i just like to explore the lore in obey me and i don't rlly have anyone to talk to about this :')

ANON!!! Don't apologize - I'll talk about this with you for hours if you'll let me!!!!

One of the first things we teach in Worldbuilding 101 (an actual subject I get to teach at uni - though the name and unit code are different) is if you’re going to include magic (or ultra high tech) in your world, you need to define your laws clearly. This is so that your writers (or your game designers or your GMs) can have a solid structure to play within. But more importantly it gives you something to break when you want shit to get scary. Nothing says ‘this villain is out of your league’ like their flaunting of some magic or ability that goes against everything the main characters know to be possible. It works in the inverse too - if you want to give your protagonist a moment of ‘ascension’, you need to provide expectations for them to break.

Obey Me just…. Doesn’t have that. We don’t have a baseline of what’s possible by ‘typical’ magic beings or sorcerers. Part of this could be a ‘power creep’ problem - we’re immediately allied with some of the strongest beings in all creation. We’ve seen nothing that poses a legitimate threat or challenge to these demons outside of themselves. But honestly it’s mostly just the lack of clarity about how magic works in the first place. How do normal people channel it? What are ‘regular’ sorcerers and witches capable of? Solomon isn’t a very good baseline because he’s old as balls and I’m assuming very powerful (though the cause and effect for those two statements is up in the air). I’m not going to complain though - it’s what makes this world fun for people like you and me to play in and write about!

We know MC can resist some of the effects the brothers have on humans but then again we also haven’t really seen what they can do to normal humans anyway, so it’s not a good indication of power. Solomon’s birthday event helps here slightly - we learned that MC’s magic potential is ‘infinite’, a rainbow rather than one color, though what those colors mean is still super vague. There's also the central conflict of S2, with MC's power spinning out of control... I choose to believe it’s something to do with their soul, but to do that we have to talk about Lilith.

I want to expand on your idea about Lilith and her power and that power’s relationship with MC because that’s so interesting and full of potential!! Especially with the knowledge that Angel!Lucifer immediately saw through MC’s human guise (I’m only mid S2 and any Angel lore I do get is from the wiki or @demonfamilytherapist as she plays through S3 and very kindly sends me the spicy screenshots).

What we do know:

MC can resist Asmo's charm right from the very beginning, which means they either have an extremely good bullshit detector, or they've got some other type of natural protection.

MC isn't related to the brothers - meaning that their tie to Lilith is either purely genetic or spiritual.

Lilith became a powerless human, when before she was an angel. We don't know where she ranked (was she an archangel or higher?), but we can probably assume she was quite strong if she was an 'equivalent' to Belphie and Beel.

Lucifer is the Oldest Brother. Regardless of his status of demon or angel, he’s likely very familiar with human souls. He was probably around when they were first created.

When Lilith dies her human death, her memories linger in Devildom, watching over the brothers. She then 'lends' MC her 'power.'

That last point is confusing to me because 'lend' implies a return date and I don't think MC can return it at this point. I'm gonna just apply the law that 'power cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed' to the unknowable, cosmic entities that don't function within the human understanding of physics bc I Get To Do That And So Do You.

Lilith’s power had to go somewhere. It wasn’t just destroyed.

So we have three options:

Lilith's power is broken up and scattered. Some of it ends up gobbled up by other angels or demons. Some of it lands in the earth and becomes little miracles. And some of it becomes fragments of souls, or maybe even a whole 'human' soul. MC was lucky enough to get one of these souls. With it comes a fraction of resistance to the brothers, only because they are 'familiar' at such a deep level. And vice versa - the brothers are more likely to listen to/obey pacts with someone they remember loving, and have come to love. I do like this option, but I do think it could be spookier. Which leads me to...

Lilith's power is transformed into something living or inanimate for safe-keeping. This is probably what the writers intended with the Grimoire. She can't be perceived as a soul, and it's not until MC messes with the grimoire that she starts having an actual, real effect on the world around them. You could almost say that MC becomes 'possessed' by Lilith's power - it takes over them mind, body, and soul (explaining how they unlock Belphie's door without realizing).

-and this one's my favorite, but very niche so...- Souls-as-Cosmic. This is a spicy sub-trope within Eldritch mystery/horror, and basically it's the idea that all that a person is, their memories, their loves, their values and their beliefs is not their entirety. Entire souls are unknowable, infinite, and in human flesh we only scratch the surface. MC was always a vessel for Lilith's full power, but it's not until they come into contact with her memories that their human-shaped body gains the ability to be able to use that power.

Whichever is the case, I like to believe that MC's less-or-more-than-human status isn't something physical, but rather, at the soul level - which is why Lucifer recognized it but MC could still grow up as a ‘normal’ human. I personally headcanon that magic is also at the soul level, though it can also be transactional - something that I want to write about in another post. I definitely agree with you in that getting the brothers to submit so forcefully is a big thing - but some of that could also be their ability to make everyone fall in love with them and become wrapped around their finger, which... well. That's a whole other avenue for discussion re: is that just being human and kind or is that Actually Powerful (or both! Love-as-magic-or-divine!).

There was a paragraph in here about Solomon and his 72 pacts but that's just overcomplicating things so I'll stop here (for now)

But really all this is in my head and I’m just throwing spaghetti at walls and seeing what sticks. I’d love to hear your own ideas on this anon!!

[appleciders]

Rachel + Leah + Water, the Director’s Cut!

Okay, so I made this gifset exploring Rachel and Leah and the ocean, but because there’s a ten gif limit and a major point of gifsets is for them to look nice, I had to sacrifice a lot of the behind the scenes thoughts and initial versions that came along the way. I still wanted to talk about them though, because I found a lot of them really cool, so I figured I’d stick all that in this post. It’s gonna get long, so you can find the rest under the cut!

So first up, we have Leah as we first see her in the water. (I’m using shitty screenshots because tumblr has a 2mb limit for gifs on text posts and I don’t feel like compressing these down lmao.) Here, she’s face-down, unconscious, floating on a fragment of the plane. This is the first time we see any of the girls in the water.

As Leah gives her dramatic speech talks to the detectives, we see flashbacks to the girl’s lives pre-island. There we see that one of them already has a very strong relationship with the water already, in her before-life: Rachel.

Rachel, as we know, is a diver. We see her take a magnificent tumble into the pool, but when she surfaces, her coach is sternly head-shaking. She corrects Rachel’s form, and after she walks away, Rachel echoes the correction, clearly frustrated with herself. 

Back to Leah. We next see Leah waking up on her lil chunk of flotsam. When she realizes what the hell’s going on, she does what we all would do and starts screaming in terror.

Her panic gets interrupted by Jeannette’s classic Raise Your Glass ringtone. (This was my alarm for two years in high school, and when I watched this for the first time I did have an out-of-body experience). She swims her way over to the Hello Kitty suitcase and—irrationally—unzips it, but we’ll cut her some slack because she’s in some serious shock. As she tries to get the phone, it slips through her fingers and starts spiraling down to the bottom of the ocean. She dives after it.

Unfortunately, she quickly runs out of air and has to give up. She then spots Jeannette floating nearby, checks her out, judges her to be “just a little roughed up,” and then sees land and has a big oh-thank-fuck moment. Because we saw Gretchen’s team placing all of the girls, we know that Linh and Leah were the only two that were put out in the open water. The other girls were put in the beach, or, in Martha’s case, near the shore. This was probably done to quell some of Leah’s suspicions about the crash, but it does give me a couple questions about how they got the other girls wet—did they hose them all down? Pour a couple buckets over their heads? Bob each of them up and down a couple times in a big net like fries in a fryer?? 

Anyway, not important. 

Next that we see, Leah has pulled Jeannette/Linh in from the water. (My Australian parents, who can never pass up an opportunity to give ocean safety tips, chimed in at this point in our first watch to say “See how she’s doing it! You always want to hold someone from behind and pull them in that way. Good job, well done.” So there’s some approval for you, Leah.) As Leah nears the shore, Dot and Toni come tearing in and they help pull the two of them out. 

The rest of the episode after that really only concerns fresh water—Toni and Shelby set out in search of it, to no avail, and Nora helpfully plugs Diet Coke reminds us multiple times that sugar’s heavier than water, so “sugar sinks.” We do set up a goal for the next couple episodes, though: Rachel says, “I'm gonna swim out to the plane tomorrow. See if I can find anything,” and Leah volunteers to come with. Rachel gives her a nod of respect.

Moving on to episode two, we have Rachel and Leah’s (iconic) first real conversation. Rachel says she’s still going out to the wreckage. Leah looks out and looks back at her, incredulous, and says, “Rachel, the water’s insane.” Here’s a big recurring association—the water and “insanity.” (I use insanity here because that’s the language they use, along with psycho/crazy. In no way does that reflect my actual beliefs about their behavior nor am I condoning the way they use those words.) Leah points out the rip current (“well done,” said my mum), and explains her very brief stint as a norcal surfer. Rachel still looks set on going, but then Leah says:

Turns out, Leah can be as ripe with foreshadowing as Fatin. This marks the appearance of their second main association with the ocean—death. After she says this, Leah turns Rachel’s attention inland, and the two agree to climb a big hill to scope out their situation.

Episode two is also obviously Rachel’s episode, so we see a lot of her relationship with diving. 

We see her plunge over and over and over again, drilling technique and form, but despite all her hard work, we learn her coach advised her to quit the team. Instead, Rachel throws herself in twice as hard, and ends up with an eating disorder. By the time the nationals come around, she’s too physically weak to dive safely, and she ends up hitting her head as she goes down. She surfaces in the pool with blood flowing around her.

She refuses to see that as the end of her diving career. She says she’s gonna “get back out there” and “be fucking great again” and she tells Nora at the end of the episode that she needs her to let her believe that.

In episode three, we finally see Leah and Rachel’s trip out to the plane! Nora comes along with them, her relationship with Rachel smoothed over after the events of ep two. “Nora’s a good swimmer,” Rachel explains as she invites her, “We were both water babies.” Water’s clearly been central to Nora and Rachel’s identities since they were really young. 

The three of them make their escape from the rest of the girls as the topic of building a shelter comes up. “Not interested in putting down roots!” Rachel calls. In keeping with the elements theme, Rachel isn’t looking to be grounded. She climbs super high into the air and she dives deep into the water, but earth isn’t her thing. (See: the quicksand scene. Whoops.)

Anyway, the three of them paddle out into the water. Rachel dives down, scopes out the plane, tells Nora she doesn’t expect her to “fucking free dive in open water,” and then looks to Leah and asks if she’s ready. Leah reluctantly agrees. 

We get our first shot Rachel swimming down into the ocean and our second shot of Leah (first the phone, second the plane). In the wreckage of the plane, they discover the black box, affixed to the wall. They keep trying to wrench it free, but it’s stuck, and Leah—who’s primary activity is, like, reading—keeps having to surface for air. Rachel gets frustrated and grabs her leg, holding her down. 

Leah screams and fights, but Rachel doesn’t let go. We cut away, and when we see them again, they’ve emerged victorious (Rachel) and drowned as dogs after a bath (Leah and Nora) with the black box in hand. Later, Leah mutters the above line to Fatin, calling Rachel a “psychopath.” For those keeping score at home, here’s where we refer back to the association between water and “insanity.”

In episode four, the ocean benevolently bestows a bag of takis upon Nora, and we have our whole shelter-building shebang. It’s all very land-based until Leah and Fatin go head to head, which ends with Fatin smearing her blood all over Leah’s face. Leah, with her usual flair, strips off her clothes as she walks into the ocean. She stays down there, passively letting the water wash the blood from her face.

This shot parallels a couple things. First, the drifting blood visually parallels Rachel in the pool after her diving injury. Second, we have Rachel staring out at the water where Leah’s disappeared and going, “Man, that is some real Virginia Woolf-type shit.” Dot has no fucking clue what she means, so Fatin interprets: “It means that bitch is crazy. She said you were the psychopath of the group.” Now it’s Leah who’s done something in the water that’s been deemed insane. The water and “insanity;” the water and accusations of insanity within their relationship. 

Those accusations pop up in episode five, but the episode is pretty focused on the inland search for Fatin, and revolves around fresh water, not salt water. (That could be a whole nother post lol.) It’s in episode six where we again see these two return to the ocean. 

Rachel is diving in the ocean! For fun! She’s picking up pretty shells (which granted isn’t the safest thing to do in the pacific, cone snails are not our friends), and she’s grinning, and she’s generally enjoying herself. With the, uh, finale situation, we’re probably not gonna get to see her smile for a bit, which is sad, because she should get to do this more often! This shot visually echoes her diving for the plane and Leah diving for the phone, except she can be in a better mood because there is no end goal. 

So she goes diving, ends up finding a bunch of mussels, gathers ‘em up, and brings ‘em back to camp. They all chow down, but wind up with serious food poisoning. Martha and Toni ring death’s doorbell a couple of times. Rachel blames herself—she’s the one that went swimming out there, she brought the mussels back. Again, we see that connection between the ocean and death.

And that association comes back bright an early in ep seven! The tide surges higher than they’ve ever seen, taking down their shelter and leaving them all scrambling. 

While Leah convinces Fatin that her life is more important than her suitcase, Rachel is left with a decision: help Nora, screaming to her from where she’s clinging to a rock for dear life, or grab the black box. In a move that contrasts Toni’s immediate and unquestioning aid of Martha, Rachel picks the black box. 

After, when they’re debriefing, Nora’s quick to bring it up. She doesn’t hide her hurt. “It happened so fast,” she says, “we all acted irrationally. Like Fatin, who jumped into a rip current to save her toothbrush. Or Rachel, who left me for fucking dead.” I think this counts as a double whammy for the “insanity” and death count—I think “acted irrationally” is as close as Nora gets to calling anyone crazy, and is honestly a better descriptor of all the other instances of “insanity” that we’ve seen, and the ocean was the source of the very real risk to Nora’s life. 

(Honestly, I think Rachel thought she was making a rational choice here—just with some grim fucking calculus. Still, given that nobody’d responded to the black box by then, I think it was a decision fueled by the need to keep hold of hope more than actual rationality.) In a fun contrast to the rest of the episode, it’s Leah that keeps a level head in this situation. 

The rest of the episode is low on water scenes, though Leah’s paranoia about Shelby is fueled by her sneaking off to the water, which could fall under the “insanity” category. It also marks where Nora begins to take an active role in breaking apart Rachel’s fantasy about diving again. 

Ep eight has one of the best montages in a series of great montages, with the playing in the water scene! A plane has seen them, they’re gonna be saved, and they all get to get high and act like kids. 

I have this lingering and probably irrational concern that the entire water play scene is choreographed and that it’s chock-full of foreshadowing. Like I know to some extent they likely were just like “yeah guys go goof off in the water,” but like...the wave pulling Rachel and Nora apart here...I mean.... (Rachel is probably gonna get more blood on Dot in the near future, too. ) That aside, their horseplay gets interrupted when Leah notices some blood on Dot, which Rachel realizes is her own period blood.  

Fatin then chimes in with her ever-gleeful foreshadowing: “Shark week for Rachel.” So while this whole encounter with the water actually seems mostly good for a change, it’s colored by the tie-in to what we know is coming.

In ep nine, reality has set in that rescue isn’t imminent. Everyone’s starving, Leah has started to spiral, and Rachel’s unusually skittish. By the tide’s edge, Nora asks for her help fishing, but Rachel refuses, saying that she’s weak. Nora flicks water at her, and Rachel flinches, clearly scared.

Starvation seems to have triggered Rachel’s trauma around the water leftover from her diving accident. In response, Nora reaches out a hand and says, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Meanwhile, Leah’s spiral has reached critical. She starts ranting about the ocean and the water and pushes past Dot, sprinting into the waves:

And so she’s taken to heart the way they think Jeannette’s body “escaped” the island—the tide—and it’s been spun like cotton candy in her head. She’s right, technically—Jeanette/Linh’s body was moved off the island by boat, and there’s definitely an argument that if they really did all swim out Gretchen’s team would save them, or at least try to. This is also a very real suicide attempt. So it’s kind of a culmination of the threats of death and mental health issues that’ve been wrapped up in the ocean since the start.

On Rachel’s end, Nora has taken her up to a cliff. Rachel calls the whole thing “borderline insane,” walking up when they’re so low on energy, but Nora tells her she needs to make a truce between herself and the water. 

“You’re afraid of it now,” she says, and Rachel replies that, “All it ever did was make me sick.” Nora immediately surges forward to say “That’s not true!” Rachel, incredulous, says, “Isn't this what you want? For me to hang it up? For me to forget the whole fucking diving game?” Nora says, “No. I don't know. I don't want you to forget you.” She then tells Rachel she should dive off the end of the cliff, that she marked it to make sure it’s safe. Rachel says she can’t.

There’s a lot here. First, there’s the first time we’ve seen of Rachel explicitly call herself sick. In episode two, even in a treatment center, she still denies it, says she’s just an athlete who knows what it takes. But now she’s reached a place where she acknowledges her eating disorder—and also probably her recent illness with the mussels—and ties it directly to the water. It’s the reason she’s sick.

Nora’s fear that Rachel will forget herself also just hammers home how central the water has always been to Rachel’s identity. Cutting herself off from the water would be cutting off a core part of herself. (...whoops) And we’ve seen that it does bring her actual joy, when she’s allowed to relax with it, but she’s had such traumatic associations rolled up into it now. Nora doesn’t want Rachel to do diving as a sport anymore, because of how badly it’s hurt her, but she does want Rachel to keep diving and swimming as like, a form of unevaluated personal expression.

At the moment that Rachel’s refusing to jump, she and Nora hear shouts from the mainland. They see Fatin and Dot screaming after Leah. Confused, Nora asks, “Where is she going?” but Rachel understands immediately, with absolute certainty, without needing to be told—“To fucking drown to death.” Seven episodes after Leah called heading into the water a death wish, she’s finally proving it true. Rachel squares her shoulders, takes a few deep breaths, and sprints into a dive. 

Unlike all her other dives high altitude dives we’ve seen her do, this dive isn’t qualified based on aesthetics. This dive matters because of what it will do, not on how it looks. And what it does do is bring her into the ocean, where she needs to be for her friend. So with strong strokes, she swims out towards Leah.

When she reaches her, she takes hold of her, pulls her into her chest from behind. She begins to swim with her back to shore. This rescue directly parallels Leah’s rescue of Linh that we talked about above. It also, as the Out in the Wilds podcast insightfully pointed out, really calls Rachel and Leah’s relationship back to the beginning. Whereas Rachel had initially held Leah down in the water, putting her in danger of drowning, Rachel here pulls her out of the water, saving her from drowning. Together, they make it all the way back to the shore.

Finally (and, like, if you’ve made it all the way down here? bless you. thank you), we have episode ten. The ocean doesn’t really figure into episode ten until the very end. Rachel has had a long episode of healing—she’s happy to be full and she’s in a good place with her sister and things seem to be going pretty okay. She decides to heal her relationship with the water, too. She heads out, telling Nora that she’s “Just gonna float, Nor. Just float.”

Just floating. After all the times we saw her plunging into the water, purposefully, with frustration, with drive, with so much to prove and with so much sacrifice and self-abuse to prove it with, Rachel finally just wants to float. She wants to let herself relax. She wants to let the water carry her.

Of course, that means there has to be, like, a massive marine carnivore waiting to mistake her for a seal.

Visually, this shot really parallels the opening shot of Leah on the fragment of plane. Instead of being face-down, though, she’s face-up, and she’s conscious, just not of the threat from below. 

The shark bites.

In a horrible parallel to Leah’s Virginia Woolf moment and Rachel’s diving accident, we see blood pool in the water. Rachel is pulled under. The girls on the land start screaming and running toward her. We know Rachel doesn’t die, but this is still a near-death experience, one that probably cost her her arm. Leah, covered in dirt and her own blood after crawling out of the pit Nora led her into, can only stand and watch, shocked and horrified.

So that got! Way longer than I meant it to! And honestly most of this was condensed into very concise tags in a post I made a few days ago! But if you made it all the way down here, you’ve now seen everything I wanted to fit into that gifset but couldn’t. Thanks for sticking with me, friend <3

[atlantis-scribe]

Okay I really do love Atlantis, but the amount that some people woobify Rodney actually drives me crazy. And I actually love Rodney as a character but like my boy's an asshole sometimes!! like he's not a perpetual victim, let him be wrong about stuff and grow and improve as a person!! (also the recurring theme of having random women in his life be abusive for... no textual reason?? is a little sus) like I'm getting to the point where I can hardly (1/2)

(2/2) enjoy hurt/comfort with Rodney bc I'm so wary of this... which just makes me sad 😭 Really sorry for ranting in your inbox you are my fave Atlantis blog and I like your take on Rondey

hello there!

please don’t apologize for ranting. my inbox is always open to rants. they’re encouraged, even! (long as I get to rant back lol)

and my oh my is this one of the topics that also get me going, particularly because 1) Rodney is also my favorite character, 2) I, too, see this woobification tendency, and 3) it’s complicated af & touches on several running themes not just in Stargate but in almost all fandoms.

• the Rodney Woobification is ancient practice. the SGA (specifically McShep) fan community has been around for a while now, and the Stargate fandom as a whole is even the birthplace of many established tropes that people still use to this day (Daniel Whump, anyone?). I understand the appeal. hell, I love angst and hurt & comfort for reasons almost exactly the same as other people who woobify characters love to do their thing. I don’t always comment on it (I don’t wanna be That Dick raining on other people’s parades) because it’s a slippery slope that so often leads to outright gatekeeping. there’s really just a fine line between being critical of fic characterization — being ‘true’ to the source material — and having fun with fannish works (specifically, using art as an outlet to do the most bizarre things polite society would ostracize you for)

• that being said, I am also not a big fan of woobie!Rodney. there’s a reason why I had such a visceral reaction to the Post-Trinity Phenomenon & the Lemon Chicken trope.

you have to understand, I came into the fandom a little over two years ago. about a decade too late, really. all the stories have been written, the takes taken, and the discourse over & done with. it’s pretty lonely, but the fun is in trying to sift thru what the OG fans left behind. so to stumble upon such a treasure trove of fics with the same running theme and have such a fierce ‘Nope!’ reaction was pretty memorable. I love Trinity because the Rodney in that episode was allowed to be his most obnoxious, his most arrogant, his most unlikable, but still remain layered & nuanced & complex, and that’s pretty damn good writing there. I saw the ‘asshole’ label when I bought it, after all. I certainly don’t want it erased or buried under a rug. I want it explored.

• canon writing is a-whole-nother problem altogether. it’s hard to justify exactly what makes Rodney (& Sheppard & Weir & everyone else) genuine or true to form, because —  let’s be honest — SGA is not a prime example of stellar TV writing and/or storytelling. it’s addictive as all hell, but it’s severely flawed, and that includes how it handled consistency in characterization. this brings us back to the dangers of gatekeeping and yelling at other people for how they write (however beloved) ‘public domain’ fictional characters.

• what I want to advocate now in terms of woobie!Rodney is for other fans to maybe examine why they like Rodney. is it because we are all just weak for white, asshole geniuses who are shippable with other white (often same gender, often male) assholes? if that’s the case, and you want to continue making your content, go ahead. it’s frankly a pretty boring reason, but we’re all boring nerds here. some more than others. just, you know, tag properly & don’t be rude to other fans who may have different reasons.

me? I love Rodney because yes, he’s a white asshole genius (that archetype is like crack for real) but portrayed so wonderfully by a very talented actor that it left me with a nuanced character whose gaps I can fill with attributes I want to analyze as a lifelong fan of the human condition who occasionally writes fics for popular media. woobifying him would be a disservice to how I see him & the things I love about him, which would then render me unable to enjoy the Rodney I ‘stan’. that would defeat the entire purpose of why I engage with the fandom, because at the end of the day, I’m here to have fun.

• so no matter how much I (and you as well, I suspect, my dear anon) would want to police this practice, it just isn’t our place. the best (and the right) thing for us to do is curate our fandom experience and create the content we actually want to consume. who knows, we may just convince / inspire enough people so there’d be more of the same kind of things we enjoy out there :)

- kit

[peachykindalovesyou]

We've Made It

Hello everyone! I can't believe we've made it this far. One thousand followers. Honestly, I am at a loss for words. Thank you so much for helping me all this way, it means a lot to me, it really does. \

And as majority rules go, the most voted option as a celebration was 'History Of My blog'. So without further ado, let's take a trip down memory lane...

April 16th, 2020

This was the start of my blog, when I first created this account. Originally, I started writing for Haikyuu, Sally Face, Soul Eater, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. By biggest fixation at that time was Haikyuu, but sadly, I didn't even have one follower at that time so I quickly fell out of all of those fandoms.

May 2020

Since I wasn't in any fandoms at the time, I turned into a mainly reblog account, with occasional rants and posts. That didn't last too long though, since I quickly discovered a game called; 'Obey Me! Shall We Date?' I fell in love with that game, any chance I had to play it, I would.

June 2020

Now that I had gotten back into writing, I started to experiment with what types of genres I was comfortable with. Shortly after, I found out that my profession was smut, but that wasn't stopping me from writing other things!

July 2020

This was when I started to post fics about Obey Me. I didn't realize how big the fandom was growing until I looked at one of my favorite blog's (at the time) follower count! I gained followers quicker and quicker by the day, this is when I peaked in my follower count. By the end of that month, I reached 200+ followers.

August 2020

I was still going strong in the Obey Me fandom, posting fics and random opinions/posts every day. The same thing happened to me, I peaked once more and gained a bigger audience! By now, my smut fics were the most popular, which wasn't surprising. But also, I had discovered another fandom that caught my eye, Twisted Wonderland.

September 2020

Now that I was exploring other fandoms, I was introduced to a whole 'nother world! I quickly took an interest in Twisted Wonderland as well, but I never posted about it. My main interest at the time was still Obey Me, so I was still active there.

October 2020

I officially stopped writing for Obey Me, and I had completely lost interest in it. Other than that, I was still figuring out how to write for certain Twisted Wonderland characters, which was fun to do.

November 2020

I created a thirst blog that month, and I peaked right away, which was honestly pretty expected. Along with that, the people on my thirst blog came over here! I managed to gain hundreds more followers here on my main.

December 2020

I tried to write for Obey Me again, it didn't work. Not much happened this month, but I did do a blog makeover!

January 2021

I didn't have much time to post/be online here because of family news and issues, but I did manage to hold a few birthday events and post some fics that I fixed up real quick! This is my birthday month.

February 2021

I gained more followers once more! I didn't know where they came from, though, I didn't post much that month either.'

March 2021

Not much happened this month either, I did hold a birthday event on my side blog, again though! I also posted another fic.

April 2021

I wasn't able to be online as much this month, but I gained more followers out of no where, which caught me off guard! This is the month of the anniversary of my blog.

May 2021

This is the month where I had officially hit 1000 followers here, on my main. Thank you so much everyone. I couldn't have done all of this without you, literally. You all make me so happy. I really can't thank you all enough, and I'm being serious. I love you guys, and again, thank you.