#which resulted of him losing control of corruption

[namelesskn1ght]

A temporary consolation pt2.

Skybound Optimus Prime x Reader Content: anguish, nightmares, mention of blood. 🔞

A/N: Lately I’ve been listening a lot to the soundtrack of the first 4 Silent Hill games, and perhaps that has influenced this writing a little. Besides, I’m sorry for all the angst there’s going to be here, unfortunately I love angst and drama haha’nt.

Resting in the limited comfort of your car’s back seats, heavy footsteps drag you from the depths of your dreams. You wake up startled by the sudden noise, with your heart hammering frantically against your chest, your blurred vision prevents you from clearly seeing the figure moving quickly towards the immense wooded area in front of you, but it is the blue and red pigments so familiar to you that they reassure you. With your hand on your chest, you wonder where he’s going on his own, feeling your heartbeat calm down.

With a slight heaviness in the body, you crawl between the seats until you reach the door handle and clumsily open it. Feeling the fresh air of the place freeze your bones. You unconsciously hug yourself, resulting in a futile attempt to evade the cold. You are guided by the trail of footprints, moving forward until you come across his figure in the distance. Shouting his name to get his attention, you don't receive any response that he has heard your call. You quicken the speed of your steps, noticing how your icy breath spreads briefly through the air.

Distraught, he wonders if his processor will torment him until he loses the little bit of sanity that still manages to keep him sane. Because guilt eats away at him for destroying what he tries to protect, delving into his deepest dreams so as not to let him rest. The frustration of his countless failures leads him to immerse himself in that anger that only accumulates inside him, succumbing and letting go. Destroying to relieve frustration, hurting those who do not allow him to destroy, hurting any sentient being without justifiable reason...

That memory remained welded into his processor so that the horrible act he committed mercilessly would remain in his memories for the rest of his days. That look of horror on your face when he reaches you with his servo, slowly crushing your fragile figure with the same servo with which he so lovingly caressed your face. That red liquid that flowed from you, staining his servos while listening to your inconsolable cries and wails. A suffocating silence that sentenced an end after a repugnant guttural sound came out of you, his servos trembling at a point and apart when calm clears its unstoppable frenzy.

He can’t keep living like this; it is an endless mental torture that is breaking him down by his actions. Even if they are dreams, there is a very real fear that what his sick processor creates through guilt may end up happening. That he loses control completely and gives in to those violent impulses that do not belong to him.

Inevitably, he remembers that version of himself he no longer wishes to be.

Perhaps, it’s that part of his body that doesn’t belong to him that’s doing this to him, corrupting his mind until he becomes a violent beast without control.

You see him stop dead in his tracks, relieved that he finally listened to you because your voice couldn’t give any more. As you get closer, you notice his posture slump as he holds his arm; that excitement in you fading as you hear him growl loudly.

A stabbing pain courses through him as he tries with all his might to tear Megatron’s arm off. Frustrated because that part that doesn’t belong to him clings to him as if it was always meant to be there, when all he wants is to end this nightmare once and for all. He freezes when he feels small hands on his leg, tilting his head just enough to find you clinging to him, completely horrified. Telling him something he can’t quite hear.

Had you been following him all this time?

Why couldn’t he hear you?

With nerves on edge, you manage to get his attention before he can continue trying to rip his arm off. You hear his little plea saying ‘Please leave. I don't want you to see this.’ but you ignore it, responding too harshly without meaning to. “I’m not going to leave you here, and much less will I let you hurt yourself,” his gaze crushes your heart, always so tired and sad. “For whatever you want, let go of your arm, please.”

He looks away from you. Reflecting on this, unsure of his decision, he loosens his grip on Megatron’s arm.

With you here, he can’t do it. Your eyes reflect an anguish and despair that touches his spark, unable to disobey your little request. Because you never ask for anything that is for your benefit, you only ask him to take care of himself when he has to leave. You’re always so sweet and kind to him, always genuinely concerned for his well-being. Such an adorable little thing.

He looks at you, arms extended toward his servo, as if you wanted to touch it. He carefully bends down towards you, extending his servo to you. He feels your soft hands hugging and caressing his servo. Your touch on him has a calming effect that considerably soothes his chaotic emotions. He almost manages to forget the anguish he was feeling just moments ago.

He curls his fingers, wanting to hold you. Hug you and feel the small beats of your heart against his chassis. To enjoy your comforting closeness, to lose himself in your soft, gentle touch.

Maybe, if you give him permission, drown in your lips like that special day.

Lifting you slightly from the surface, his vision bleeds. Your mangled form lies on his servo, wires snaking unpleasantly through your insides. That red liquid everywhere.

Frightened, he lets you fall from his grasp. He finds you alive on the floor, confused and shaken. He sits up and takes several steps back, slumping in his posture, staring at his trembling servos in horror.

You see him covering his head with both servos, muttering non-stop and almost sobbing. He falls to his knees, his helmet smashing against the ground. You quickly approach him without thinking, placing both hands on his large servo. Before you can say anything, his servo pushes you away, knocking you off your feet. You notice a lavender flash across his optics for a moment. What was that?

“Get out of here, run away,” he pleads, almost in a growl. He tries to sit up, to move away from you. He feels as if his processor is being squeezed, feeling those violent impulses manifesting to take control of his body. And by Primus, he won’t allow that, not this time, not with you so close. “I’m completely serious. Your life is in danger if you stay here with me.”

“Optimus, I can’t—” You freeze when he abruptly turns around, his lavender gaze capturing yours, going fast to where you are. You curl up into a ball, closing your eyes tightly. Because you know you’d have no chance of escaping him; it would be a wasted breath.

Waiting for the worst to pass, you only hear a loud noise above you, to your dismay. You feel a warm breath against your neck, giving you chills. You cautiously open your eyes, his much larger body caged in. But he’s closer in size to yours. You don’t know if his kind breathe, but you feel labored breathing against your neck. You turn just enough to find the glow of his optics, now a medical green pigment. With a slight tremble, you carefully move your arms until your hands rest on his helm.

You reassure yourself with the fact that he’s not going to hurt you, that he’s trying. But you’re not sure how long he can stay like this until he returns to normal. You’re scared that he could explode at any moment and you won’t know what to do.

Gentle hands gently caress his helmet. He feels a slight tremor in them, and his spirits plummet even further. Because you’re scared, and it hurts him that you are, even though it’s completely justifiable. You should be safe with him. He should be the shield and sword that protects you until the end, not a double-edged sword that endangers your life. He hates this, hates feeling this rage that’s consuming him.

He just wants to be the same as before all this.

These violent impulses gradually subside. He focuses on your scent and the feel of your body against his frame, impregnating you with his own scent the closer he presses to you. Part of him wants to pull away because of how inappropriate this is, but he can’t. He still feels nervous and can’t move; he’s tense against you.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, hating the small tremor in your voice. He doesn’t respond, he moves over you, turning his head so you can meet his blue glow and his beautiful, uncovered face. You slide your hands over his face. He leans into your touch, but seems to instantly regret it. He towers over you, moving away from your touch until he’s on his knees. A gaze so fragile it could shatter at any moment.

“Let’s go back to the ark.” he evades your question, fleeing from your gentle touch because he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t know how to respond because he doesn’t understand everything he’s feeling right now, but what he feels most is disappointment. Disappointed in himself. He reaches out with his servo to help you up, but it instantly retracts, but you catch it and hold it. Still trusting him.

He gently pulls you upright, placing your free hand on his servo. Moving him so he touches your cheek, noticing how he tenses when it touches your skin. You stroke the back of his servo with your thumb, with your free hand you slide it down below what you think is his wrist. As much as you were afraid before, he’s still him, and even if there’s something that drives him violent that neither you nor anyone else knows why, there’s always regret after his destructive acts. He’s still the same kind and gentle robot you met the first time. “Let’s get back together.”

You smile slightly, turning to move forward with him by the hand, guiding him while his processor, a confusing mess, clumsily follows you. How is it possible that, despite the fact that he almost hurt you, you still treat him the same way? Why are you always so kind and patient with him? Why?

The ride back is silent; you don’t say a word, and neither does he. He can’t. You hold his grip until the very end, looking at him with those kind eyes of yours when you turn around. Feeling his spark contract when you release his grip, wishing him a good night before walking away. He still doesn’t want to let you go.

You feel a small tug on your arm before you can reach the car door handle. Glancing back, you’re met with Optimus’s uncertain expression. Before he’ll let you speak, he first interrupts you with a question:

“Do you want to spend the night with me?”

A/N: I’ve been rewriting this so much because I didn’t like the first drafts, but I finally finished it (yippe).

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[bokettochild]

Am I allowed to ask about your Legend losing magic brainrot or do I need to just wait for more ACAC to come out?

No, I'm always happy to talk about this one!

I've actually had this headcannon for a while now, but it hasn't managed to come up in a story much (mainly because I've yet to post that BoHH chapter) but here's a brief rundown!

Legend had really strong magic as a child (it's implied heavily in the manga)

His adventures helped him temper it and learn to use it in various ways.

The manga imply that this magic is at least partially a gift of the triforce, although I believe all hylians have at least some magic, even if only latent. His royal blood would also contribute in my HC

Legend's magic was at it's peak in his Oracle adventures, where he had literal goddesses at his side most of the time and was frequently called upon to use their instruments as well as some of his own

Legend lost his magic on the way home from Labrynna when he was caught in a magical storm and struck by lightning.

Here's how it works!

A hylian, and any other magic user, has what one would call a 'magical core'. it's not something physical, but it functions as a heart of sorts where magic is involved, and despite not being present in the physical sense, can be felt and voluntarily controlled to certain extents by skilled magic users. All of their magic flows through this core much like our blood cycles through us from our heart, and, much like a heart, it can weaken or grow stronger depending on the health of the mage, the frequency of use, and what level of magic is employed.

Legend's magical core is incredibly strong, but when he was struck by lightning and woke up on Koholint, that changed.

See, in my HC, the Windfish fully intended to bring him there. What he didn't intend to do was essentially disconnect body and soul in order to do so. As far as this HC is concerned, Legend may or may not have technically been dead for the entirety of that adventure, as his 'physical' form on Koholint was created by the Windfish the same as anything else there in order to house his soul while he wandered the island, hence why it all felt so real for him.

Meanwhile, one of two things had to be happening for the Windfish. Either he was (a) trying to repair damage done to the borrowed goddess-child/servant's body, or (b) he had to essentially make a whole new physical shell for Legend's soul when he returned to the waking world because the lightning blast incinerated the original one.

Either take works with this HC, and I use them interchangeably where it suits me >:)

Whichever you use though, one thing stays true regardless; when returning Legend's soul to his body, the Windfish's magic was still incredibly weak from what he'd been through (what with the corruption and dark magic he'd been fighting) so he did a sort of slap-dash job of it (not intentionally).

This results in a sort of disconnect between Legend's actual soul as his physical form, which includes the fact that his soul and magical systems are not connected to each other as they ought to be.

I don't know how many of you have dabbled in electronics, but it's something like if you were able to build a functioning robot, but someone pulled out all the wires and you had to hurriedly reconnect them all again, only to miss one that, while not essential to basic functions, does affect one particular lesser function. The Windfish forgot that proverbial 'wire' when reattaching soul and body.

Legend is not aware of this. Legend is only aware that he had magic before Koholint, and then he didn't when he came back.

However, when he came back, I imagine he had a lot going on initially, and it's all of that which he believes caused him to lose his magic, not the dream itself. See, Legend's return to the waking world had him stranded out at sea with only a bit of driftwood and, while he had his adventurers bag, it likely didn't have any food in it. So, while, being Legend, he probably had a canteen of fresh water at hand, that would only last him so long. Which means, between sun exposure, lack of food and fresh water, and trying to find his way home, by either paddling himself around or using his mer form, he probably had some issues.

Now, I like to say he used the mer form, as it offers him the best advantages, such as not needing to actually use his fresh water supply, as Mer can absorb water from their environment and are able to withstand both salt and fresh water, as well as they have faster propulsion and he wouldn't be directly exposed to the sun.

Maybe he even ran into other mer! Who knows! Since this is my HC though, I like to say he did, but because he tried to sort of travel with them for a while, it did catch attention from above, and in perhaps the worst turn of events possible, the mer school was attacked by pirates and one little hero just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (again) resulting in our lovely vet taking a spear through the tail.

I say the other mer got scared off by the attack and our boy was sort of just stuck in survivor mode for a good while before, eventually, being picked up by Ralph, because I want it :)

Anyways, upon return to Hyrule, he's screwed over from lightning and injuries, and since swimming with a spear through your tail (and the resulting infection) isn't much of an option, yes, that dehydration and sun exposure did come into play regardless. So, in short, Legend was screwed over from the time he made it Hyrule to the start of his next adventure. I say that he had to relearn to walk in that time, and struggled with speaking, although that was likely a result of heavy depression and trauma and less a physical issue.

I don't think Legend really tried using his magic until the following adventure, which, while not canonically his, I like to say is Cadence, but it could be ALBW instead. When he can't access his magic as he used to, he assumes that, like his speech and mobility, it was just something he lost or damaged in his returning home (the mer thing is a curse and thus outside of his control, if you were wondering).

I think he took it pretty hard, naturally. But, being himself, he adapted around it by acquiring magical items of varied sorts that he could use to sort of replicate his old abilities and/or give himself access to new magic.

Now, a magical item is something that is powered by the users magic specifically, sort of latching onto the 'veins' of their magic automatically, so this is actually a great workaround for Legend! While he can't actually find/access his 'core' for himself, a magical item can, and it taps into his magic for him, thus allowing him to employ at least some of his magic.

Now, you can get angsty with this and say that, like with a heart, because Legend himself is not regularly accessing and employing is magic, it sort of causes a build up that could and might be slowly killing him, but that's only if you want the super angsty route >:)

Regardless, what Legend has is, as Wild put it, a magical disability; essentially the equivalent of being crippled (which Legend has already been, technically, although he's recovering still from that too). As far as mortals are concerned, there's no fix for it. His soul would literally have to be removed from his body, again, and then properly re-placed within, which, while possible, he would never go for, because he's an un-trusting little bunny.

This WILL come up in other stories (it'll play a major role in BoHH), but in none of them have I chosen (so far) to restore Legend's magic to the way it's supposed to be. As is, he's sort of jury-rigged himself a solution in the form of what are, in essence, the magical equivalent of adaptive technologies/mobility aides.

The one way this does benefit him, however, is that his magic is shrouded and also much less blaringly obvious to the magically sensitive/adept, which makes hiding his heritage/presence much easier, even if it does make everything esle much harder.

And that's it!

(If you're curious about fics where I've played with this idea before, then the Sicktember 2023 installments Legacies Burden, Deeper Than The Surface, and Footsteps Across History all briefly touch on the magical adaptive technology usage, and To Seek Hyrule's Star plays a little bit with the post-Koholint Legend, although less than I had originally planned when writing it.)

[copper-caster]

I have been in the mood for some dark Transformers fic, and so far, the Transformers fanfics haven't offered me much. Until I happened to stumbled upon your Failsafe coding AU, which I know for sure I want to see this AU to be developed because it's both juicy and full of whump.

First, I would love to know how Megatron was in the situation of being a Gladiator slave in the first place. I imagine Megatron, original was a miner in D-16 who worked with other miner fellows, and one of them was Terminus being his caretaker/creator. It was a tough job and tough life, but they still earned enough to get the basic necessity for their lives. Until one day, the mine that they were working at was collapsed, resulting in the mine getting shut down and the miners losing their jobs. Unfortunately for D-16, Terminus was severely injured due to the mine incident, and they basically couldn't afford any medical care to cure his injured. Then, he met some bots offering him to work as a Gladiator in this one seemingly legal arena with a hefty amount of shanix that was enough to pay for his caretaker' medical bill, so he agreed to the offer, without realizing he was trafficking himself to be the property of the arena (I'm thinking about D-16 signed a shady contract that basically tricked him to be in debt through additional fees/services provided for him when he worked at the arena, and he had to pay back those fees plus very high interests. Also, if he loses a match, he has to pay for that loss. So you can imagine the arena master did everything to sabotage him and slowly trap him and threaten him to comply with their demands, leading of current situation of him). This is my idea for this AU, but I would love to hear your ideas for Megatron's background.

Second, I can't help but wonder what would happen to Orion Pax when he got caught and became the victim of trafficking. I know his face got very damaged due to the attack from Megatron's losing control, and may be his current owner did consider to put him through empurata and reduced him to a breeding slave. However, what if the reason why Orion Pax got discovered being a mole is because the current owner of Orion had taken into liking him when Orion still pretended to be the eye candy of any random Senator at these deranged party? Probably, this mech wanted to approach Orion but got rejected by him, which was a serious misstep from Orion Pax. So this mech (either a ring leader of Outlier trafficking organization or one of the rich clients) decided to dug into Orion's personal life like a creeping stalker he was, and he finally found out about Orion's real identity... which led to Orion getting exposed and well, becoming the trafficked mech like other Outliers and activists. So after Orion got ravaged by Megatron as spectacle for the deranged and vile beings (including a bunch of corrupted senators and governors), Orion got auctioned off and get bought by the same mech that exposed him being a mole. The Orion's master at first, seeing how Orion's face got almost destroyed, decided to reduce him just a breeding slave so no need to get him a new face. However, this deranged master also missed Orion's handsome face and his beautiful optics full of fire and defiance and he enjoyed to see Orion's faceplate when he broke him down into an hopeless and defeated cage bird. So he decided to fix Orion Pax's face once he birthed his and Megatron's first child. Though, when his face was fixed, Orion was forced to have a retractable facemask to hide his identity (but mostly to tempt the clients to pay extra fees if they wanted to his face in a private setting. Plus, the owner was possessive of Orion's pretty face). This is what I come up and I would love to see your ideas of what happened to Orion Pax when he became the trafficked mech or how he got discovered.

I actually would like to come up with more details of Orion's predicaments and hellhole conditions as being a trafficked mech. I wonder if you would have him just being a breeder or him being prostituted by his owner. Also, would love to see or imagine how he interacted with Starscream and other trafficked mechs. Do you know who else was being enslaved under the owner.

Awwwwwwwww i really love this what a great first ask for this blog

I'll give a little response here while I'm figuring out some world building stuff, im not gonna be shy about my influences & thinking about Gladiators stuff is making me want to rewatch some documentaries on Rome & also this https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0GHjKMoz98-cIDeNe9pngGKR-6lseGvr animatic series

The great thing about fiction is even if you're inspired by history is you can also just make shit up still i want to scratch that nerd itch so there's going to be Gladiator schools & taking from some naval history like a lot of mechs are pressganged into stuff

First of all i like the idea of D-16 being made during the gorilla fighting that eventually drove off the Quintesson occupation, his alt form is first and foremost a gun, tho in this it's more like Black Rock Shooters massive arm canon that has to be wielded by another bot,

As for his history we could take some inspiration from Spartacus & say that he was accused of deserting & that's how he ends up in a miner's chaingang

Lots of warframes end up going through something similar since the ruling classes/casts are firm believers in religious functionalism & think that the warframes will just fight constantly if they aren't tightly leashed

The gladiatorial rings were something introduced to Cybertron during the occupation with the Quintessons using them much the way the romans did, to execute criminals & entertain/threaten the masses, shipping in animals from distant planets & such to tear the sentenced apart, then they started training/designing their own executioners after exhausting the predatory fauna of numerous worlds (fun fact rome nearly drove lions to extinction in several places), leading to the system of gladiators & there being less death in the ring if no less bloodshed because who wants to destroy their bespoke killing machines, the general populace begin to associate these mech with the Unmaker maybe some of them begin to venerate the Fallen as a cultic figure, here using the roman meaning of cult/cultic etc, patron of the ring

Maybe D-16 was originally destined for one of these Gladiator schools being a custom commission but was stolen by a gorilla resistance & that's how he ended up as part of the resistance, regardless he meets Terminus in the mines & that's a strong influence on him

He ends up in the ring having been sentenced to execution idk why yet but probably for defending another miner from an overseer, but against all odds he survives the fight, "I Still Function!" & he ends up being sold to a school despite ostensibly having won his freedom yet again. The other gladiators induct him into the cult & over time begin to venerate him, which the Managers of the school catch wind of & give him the stage name Megatronus after the Fallen which he shortens to Megatron, 'come see the gladiator blessed by the Unmaker himself' etc etc.

Orion gets found out as a mole because the Senator that Shockwave coerced into getting Orion into the private parties sold them out. Which is also how Senator Shockwave gets empurata'd because the traffickers have sponsors from the council. But i love the idea of other party goers harassing Orion. These things are always masquerades with bots wearing masks/battlemasks & holographic clothing to disguise themselves, in this verse bots can change their colours nanites at will if they have enough energon to spare which adds a layer to their disguises. Bots will often dress up as historical or mythological figures so Orion gets dressed up as a mini Prima. Which definitely caught the eye of the trafficker since he's playing up Megatron's status as a cultic figure to make him more appealing/unique to the high cast bots hiring him for the party.

I haven't worked out how exactly i want cybertronian reproduction to work yet but there's definitely multiple ways a bot can be born with pregnancy being highly risky & very rare.

At first Orion is being housed/moved with Starscream but once the sparklings are born and sent off to their new owners. The manager started bidding on the sparklings as soon as they confirmed it had taken at the party. They get separated & Orion gets subjected to training so he can put up some mock fight before he gets fucked six ways to sunday at the next party. He also gets /trained/ on how to please the party goers beforehand. I can definitely see the tracker prostituting Orion out where he wouldn't be as willing to do so with his high value Outlier stock. It's through tracking sightings of Orion that Jazz, Blaster, & Prowl are able to close in on the trafficking ring.

I haven't come up with who else has been disappeared yet tbh.

But if you like my plot bunny i can definitely recommend blogs like @yayasvalveplay , @transingthoseformers , & @brandwhorestarscream (i hope they don't mind me tagging them lol)

[bloatedandalone04]

Screaming Whispers

➪the one where anakin is a musician and you’re his muse.

Warnings: rockstar anakin, modern au, smut, fluff, swearing to the max, pda, unprotected sex, hair pulling, praise kink, small corruption kink, size sink, his bands name is 'screaming whispers' which translates to 'sw' for short...like sw for star wars??? and i didn’t even plan that, it just happened, jealousy (brief), possessive anakin, fingering, oral (f receiving), soft dom anakin, choking kink

Word Count: 6.3k

Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡

The lights were blinding and his ears were ringing, but Anakin wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

He couldn’t see much past the flashlights on the phones and the stage lights that flickered in time with the drums his bandmate, Vinny, was currently pounding on. Live shows were always so much better than being stuck in a recording studio all day, because at least out on stage Anakin could let out all his pent up frustration and no one would bat an eye.

Actually, the way he got so into his performance and really gave it his all had his fans absolutely losing their minds as they, too, fell under the control of the music and the lights and the lyrics. 

Anakin had only been in his band, Screaming Whispers, for just over a year now, but that was apparently enough time to get his and his friends’ names out there. One low budget album later and everyone knew about them, and really, Anakin had you to thank. 

You are his high school sweetheart, and have been his biggest supporter since the day he told you he wanted to do something with music and maybe try to make it his career. 

After writing countless drafts of songs that were all about you and his relationship with you, Anakin asked a couple of his friends who played instruments to rent out a recording studio to record one of the drafts he had actually finished. 

Anakin was the lead singer and guitarist, while his friend, Vinny, played the drums, and his other friend, Theo, played bass.  

It came out sounding decent and Anakin ended up editing it himself before uploading it to his burner account on Youtube, choosing some random photo he had taken of your hand holding his as the thumbnail. 

Within a few days, the video only had about thirty views, and he knew most of them were from you.

When he had first let you listen to the song with a nervous expression gracing his features, he was worried when you didn’t say anything during the whole two minutes and forty six seconds it played for. 

It ended and you turned to him, an unreadable look on your face before you were throwing yourself at him. He had never seen you so needy and desperate for him (unless he counted the very first time you and he slept together), and you spent the rest of the night loving on him because he had written you a song. 

Your boyfriend of over three years at that point had actually made a whole song about you. How could you not tear his clothes off right then and there?

A few more weeks had passed when Anakin randomly decided to see how the video was doing. He was bored and you were at class, and he had grown tired of walking around your shared apartment on campus by himself. 

When he clicked on the video, he was sure he had accidentally clicked the wrong one when he saw that it had gone from thirty views to ninety eight thousand views. It had over forty thousand likes and just under a thousand comments, all of which were praising him and the guys for how good the song is. 

You once again jumped his bones a few hours later when he showed you it, muttering something about how you knew people would like the song once it got more exposure. 

A month later, it had nearly a million views and Anakin was left to assume that the song had gone viral on a different platform that resulted in people searching the song up on Youtube. He didn’t go on TikTok or Instagram as he had no desire to, but was informed by Theo that the song actually did become super popular on TikTok and that was how so many people had found the video on his Youtube. 

Since it had gotten way more attention than he had ever expected it to, Anakin quickly changed the channel name from ‘Manakin 246’ to ‘Screaming Whispers’. It was the first thing he thought of and both Vinny and Theo agreed to call themselves that if they were to ever record another song together. 

Well, just a few days after that, the trio was contacted by a record label and a week later, they were signed onto Dynamic Studios as an official band. 

It all happened so fast. Anakin was encouraged to finish and edit his previous drafts, and that was how he found himself recording a whole album with most of the songs being about you. Vinny and Theo helped out a lot with the songs, but insisted Anakin be credited as the lead songwriter, since the whole thing was his idea. 

The album was called ‘Taking Back October’, and it had been streamed over three million times over various music sites. That, of course, resulted in a tour being booked, and that was where he is now. 

A full year after uploading that song and three months of being on tour, Anakin could safely say he was meant to do this. 

But the best part of it all? He had you watching him from your spot backstage, the biggest smile on your lips whenever he looked over at you from his place on the center of the stage. 

From where you stood, he looked to be having the time of his life. He looked so in his element, so confident and comfortable, and not to mention unbelievably attractive. 

You found yourself biting your lip as you hid away from the crowd. Part of you wondered how he did it, how he was so at home in front of thousands of strangers, but you supposed some people were just meant for the spotlight, and Anakin is definitely one of those people. 

You definitely were not, as just the mere thought of stepping out onto the stage would send you into a full blown panic attack. And Anakin knew that, so despite him wanting to show you off to the world and to his fans - he couldn’t believe he actually has fans - he knew better than to shove you into the limelight like that. 

For now, you were comfortable backstage, two lanyards around your neck that told everyone you were a guest on the tour, and that you were allowed backstage. 

As you watched your boyfriend play and sing his heart out to his song Homecoming Queen, one of the stage crew members came waltzing up to you, a kind yet flirtatious smile on his lips. “Hi,” he said over the loud live music. 

“Hi,” you called back, never taking your eyes off Anakin. 

The guy looked down at your tour and backstage passes, a smirk growing on his lips. “You a friend of the bands?”

That made you glance over at him, and you were immediately uncomfortable at the way he was looking at you. “Something like that,” you answer, and it was true - Vinny and Theo had also gone to high school with you, but they were closer to Anakin, obviously - but the crew member didn’t seem too convinced. “I’m dating the lead singer, this song is actually about me.” You try again and watch as his eyes grow wide before he’s looking on stage and at your boyfriend.

He meets Anakin’s blue orbs, and right away you could see a hint of possessiveness in them, similar to the look he’d give other guys when they looked at you for a little too long back in high school. 

The crew guy just backs away and leaves you alone, making you grin over at your boyfriend. Anakin just smirks before he is back to singing the chorus, all while never falling out of tune with the rest of the band. 

Even though you were buzzing with excitement for what’s in store for you once he’s off the stage and you’d have him all to yourself, you couldn’t deny how attractive he looks on stage. 

The show had been going on for just over an hour, and they would be wrapping up soon. Anakin’s skin was coated in a light layer of sweat, and the leather jacket he had been wearing when he had first walked out on stage had long since been discarded. His muscles flexed under the flashing lights as he effortlessly played his electric guitar and sang his heart out. 

You were sure his throat was raw, but he didn’t stop, and the fans were loving it. You also couldn’t take your eyes off the way the muscles in his neck strained as he reached the higher notes of the song, and you had to press your thighs together to feel some sort of relief for the pressure that had been steadily building up. 

After another ten minutes or so, the band wrapped up the performance and left the stage, leaving the fans still screaming in the stands. After Anakina picked up his jacket he tossed near the drum kit, he handed his guitar to the same stage crew member who had been talking to you, before he wrapped his free arm around your waist. 

Your hands were barely touching either side of his face before he was kissing you deeply, the hand that held his jacket moving to grip your waist. Anakin pulled you closer to him, his adrenaline making his body ache for yours in hopes to find some sort of relief for the energy that surged through him. 

“You were amazing out there,” you praised against his mouth, wanting nothing more than to poke your tongue out and run it up the side of his damp neck. “Like always.”

“Thank you, pretty girl,” he murmured, brushing his lips against yours before dipping his head down to kiss your neck. His hands bunched up the thin fabric of your loose sundress, the flowery print making his want for you skyrocket. “You look hot.”

You laugh, glancing down at the simple dress that seemed to turn him on as if it was the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. “You look hot,” you say back and brush his slightly wet hair away from his forehead. You had to crane your neck a bit to be able to gaze up into his blue eyes, due to the sheer size difference between the two of you. The physical evidence of just how different you two are, even down to your height, had you pressing your thighs together again. 

He wore dark clothes, most of which are adorned with chains, and his left arm was showing off a steadily growing sleeve of tattoos of random things - a lightsaber, a  couple quotes, more than a few vulgar images, and most importantly, an outline of a heart with the initial of your first name inside it on his bicep. His wardrobe consisted of jeans, muscle tees, leather and jean jackets, and vintage - though sometimes graphic - shirts. He wore black boots or converse to tie off every outfit, completed with a couple of wristbands, rings and his signature necklace chain with your initials on the small charm. 

You wore light colors, dresses and skirts that allowed you to show off the soft skin of your legs. Your body was bare of tattoos, with the exception of an ‘A’ on the side of your left wrist. Gold and silver jewelry were always on your wrist or around your neck, and you often wore flats or sneakers that went well with the rest of your look.

It was a big difference between the two of you, one that had been there since you were both seventeen, and it was what drew you into one another to begin with. 

He looked intimidating, scary, even, but you found out that he had the sweetest heart, and he had given it to you.

“I am hot,” he grinned down at you, and the double meaning had you shaking your head as he stepped away from you and placed his jacket over your shoulders. He looked you up and down, biting down harshly on his bottom lip as his hands found their home on your waist again. The black leather contrasted against your light dress in such a sinful way, Anakin almost let out a groan at the sight. “Fuck, I can’t wait to take you back to the hotel after this.”

The band was playing two shows in D.C., so their manager went out of her way to book them a hotel for the night. It saved them from sleeping on the tour bus, which was surprisingly difficult to do, and Anakin could usually fall asleep anywhere. 

He once fell asleep sitting down with his back pressed up against a washing machine in the laundry room at your apartment while he was waiting for the load to dry. He probably would’ve been sleeping for at least another half hour, had another resident not woken him up because he was sleeping against the only available washing machine. 

But, for some reason, Anakin found that sleeping on a tour bus was next to impossible, even though he was given the only double bed because he had you with him.

So, in an attempt to get himself tired, he would spend a good hour with you in bed once he and the band got back on the bus after a show. 

He could only imagine how happy Theo and Vinny are at the fact that they won’t have to listen to the two of you going at it for at least one of the two hundred and fifty nights they spent on tour. 

“Yeah? You excited to spend a night with me in an actual room instead of a bus?” You teased, wrapping your arms around his shoulders when his wrapped around your waist and pulled your body right up against his. 

“I’m so fucking excited,” he answered, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips as the stage crew walked around the two of you to begin packing up the equipment. He leaned down so his lips were brushing against your ear as he whispered, “We can be as loud as we want. I can’t wait to make you scream.”

You refrain from moaning in a public place, ignoring how dumb that sounded when you thought about how loud you got on a tour bus that had only a single, thin door that separated yours and Anakin’s room from the other guys. 

This man made you crazy in all the best possible ways. “Well,” you say back, tugging him impossibly closer by the hem of his white tee shirt. “What are you waiting for? An encore?”

Anakin groaned quietly, cursing under his breath when he felt your hand slide up the heated skin of his torso. “Fuck no,” he muttered, taking your hand in his and guiding you towards the exit door that would lead the two of you out to the parking lot. “I think if everyone in that audience could see just how good you look right now, they wouldn’t blame me for not going back out there and taking you to bed.”

You smirked a bit as he pulled you onto the bus with him and towards your room to indulge in a makeout session before he would give you the real thing once you got to the hotel. 

A short ten minute drive later, and Anakin was painfully aware of just how hard he’s gotten since your quick encounter backstage, followed by your intense making out that took place on the bus. 

Once his manager had given him the key to his room, Anakin pulled you along with him as he made his way to the elevator, pushing the button for the twelfth floor when he was in it. 

He leaned back against the wall as the numbers above the doors increased with every passing second. His lips were on yours in messy and noisy kisses, his hands sliding down to lift the bottom of your dress up as if you weren’t still in a public place, and were probably being recorded because every elevator seemed to have cameras nowadays. 

Once it stopped at the twelfth floor, Anakin easily picked you up and threw you over his shoulder, his hand placed firmly on your back to prevent your dress from slipping up and exposing you to anyone who might enter the hall while he carried you to the room.

He inserted the keycard for room 1209 with his free hand, before tossing it onto the table in the entryway. Anakin’s hands grip your waist after he sets you down and he turns your body away from him, his fingers sliding up your back and pushing your hair to the side. He unclasps the gold necklace he had bought you a few nights ago from a cute store you and he stumbled upon while you were out sightseeing. 

Anakin gently sets the chain down onto the table as well and places a few kisses to the back of your neck before he guides you forward and towards the king sized bed. “Look at that, baby,” he murmurs in your ear, wrapping his arms around you from behind. Since you had discarded his jacket back on the bus, his lips had free rein over the skin of your shoulders and neck as he sucked a few light marks onto it. “It’s bigger than our bed we have at home.”

Home. It seemed like so long ago, when in reality, Screaming Whispers had only been on tour for three months now. Anakin planned on using the money he would get from the tour and the shows to officially move in with you, in your own house, not a student apartment that was on the campus of his old college. 

You were still a student there, but had opted to get all your assignments done before the tour so you could save yourself from having to give up the school year. 

Humming, you lean back against his body. “We still need to get our bags from the bus,” 

Anakin sucked on the skin of your jaw as his hands pulled at the thin fabric of your dress. “I’ll get our stuff later,” he promised, sliding his hands up the front of your body, making chills take over you as he gripped your chest. “You look so fucking pretty, baby.” 

You hum again, closing your eyes when you feel one of his hands inch lower and lower until it disappears underneath your dress. “Just for you, Ani,” you whispered as he softly rubbed your clit through the thin lace of your panties. 

He kissed your shoulder in appreciation as his hand slipped past the lace, his ring-clad middle finger dipping into your heat. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” he nearly moaned, his free arm wrapping around your middle when he felt your body slump back against his. “So wet for me.”

“Ani,” you gasped quietly, moaning when he began to pump his finger in and out of you. The lace restricted him from going super hard, but he much rather preferred to work you up to that, anyway. “Fuck, it’s all for you. You looked so hot tonight.”

“You look hot, too, pretty girl,” he mumbled and removed his hand from your panties as he spun your body around so your chest was pressed to his. “I saw the way that crew guy was looking at you.”

You moaned quietly when his knee separated your legs, his thigh rubbing against your core through his jeans. “I said I was with you,” you weakly say, gripping his biceps tightly when his hands found your waist and began sliding your body up and down his thigh. “Said I’m yours.”

“You are mine,” he rasped, pressing a searing kiss to your lips before he gently shoved you away. The backs of your knees hit the end of the bed and you fall back onto it, your dress slipping up past your thighs and revealing the pastel pink lace that covered your core. “You’ve been mine since we were seventeen.”

You bite down harshly on your lip when he pulls the lace down your legs and drops it to the floor. “Oh, fuck,” you mumbled when he ran his tongue up your folds, eagerly collecting your wetness. 

Anakin glanced up at you, his eyes narrowing at the way you were refraining from being too loud. “No, Y/n,” he says sternly, bringing a hand up to slide his index and middle fingers into you. “We have this whole room to ourselves. I want you to be as loud as you can fucking get.”

Almost instantly a loud moan escapes you when he sucks on your clit, your back arching slightly when he began to fuck his fingers into you. Those skilled fingers, the same ones that had so effortlessly played the guitar in front of thousands of people just a half hour before. “Fuck, Ani. Fuck,” you whined.

Anakin smirked against you, curling his fingers once they are knuckle deep within you. The calloused tips brush against your walls and make you squeeze your eyes shut, finding it hard to believe that a year before all this, the skin of his fingers was smooth and gentle as he only played guitar in his free time before he made a career out of it.

Over a year of playing it non-stop had hardened his fingers and was a blessing in disguise, as they had never felt better when they were buried deep within you. 

“God, it feels so good,” you whimpered as he traced the letters of his name with his tongue onto your clit. “So fucking good, Ani.”

He hummed, sending vibrations up your core and making your mind go into a frenzy. “Louder, baby,” he softly demanded, moving back up your body and hovering over you while his hand picks up the pace a bit. “I want this whole floor to complain about us tomorrow.”

You were so turned on, you couldn’t even bring yourself to be embarrassed about the sounds your core was making as his fingers plunged into it repeatedly. Not that Anakin ever let you feel embarrassed about it, seeing as he prided himself on how wet he makes you every time he goes out on stage. 

“I know you want it, too,” he continues as he stared down at your fucked out expression. “Admit it.”

“I want it,” you managed to say as his thumb began rubbing circles on your clit in time with his fingers. The coolness from his ring contrasted against your searing heat, making the knot in your abdomen steadily form. 

Anakin smirked down at you, leaning in to run his tongue along the skin under your ear. “Want what?” 

“God,” you groaned as he pumped his fingers in and out of you at a brutal pace. “I want everyone on this floor to know who makes me feel so good, Anakin. I want them all to complain about how loud we are.”

Anakin was satisfied with your answer, “That’s my girl,” and he leaned down to begin sucking various marks onto the skin of your neck, the sounds you were emitting going straight to his dick that throbbed against his jeans. He didn’t think he could ever get tired of hearing all the sweet sounds you made just for him, and had been making for him since you were in high school. 

“Anakin,” you moaned, lifting your hips in time with the movement of his hand. “Please, please, don’t stop.” Your lips brushed against his as you begged him to keep fucking you with his skilled fingers. 

He hummed, kissing you deeply. “You gonna come for me?” He asked, already knowing the answer as he felt the way you clenched around his fingers every time your walls sucked him back in. 

“Yes,” you nearly whispered, a crease forming in your brow as the coil in your stomach was a mere few seconds away from snapping. “Please.”

“Come for me, pretty girl,” he requested, his voice deep and sultry next to your ear. “I want it all over my hand.”

You were unable to deny him his wish as you came hard, your thighs shaking slightly and your mouth opening to let out a long and loud moan. Your head dipped back into the middle of the bed, your fingers twisting tightly in the soft comforter as he slowed down the thrusts of his hand until you were whimpering quietly. 

“Just like that, baby,” he praised, kissing you once before removing his fingers from inside you. He brings his hand up to his mouth and sucks the digits clean as he moves back down your body. Anakin licked a single strip up your slick core before standing up, smirking at the way your whole body shook at the action. 

You weakly propped yourself up on your elbows, watching him pull his belt from his jean loops. He drops it to the floor, the sound of the buckle hitting the hardwood making your head swim with thoughts of what’s in store for you next.  

“Take that pretty dress off, baby,” he said under his breath, reaching behind him to pull off the white tee and leaving it to join the growing pile of clothes on the floor. You quickly lifted yourself up so you were kneeling on the bed, your hands fumbling to tug off your dress. Anakin gives you a soft smirk at how obedient you always are for him as you tossed the dress off the side of the bed, kicking his jeans down his legs and leaving him in his tight boxer briefs. 

You gave him a look that nearly had him falling to the floor as he moved forward and kneeled on the bed in front of you, making you crane your neck to be able to stare up at him. Your hands reach up and tug on the hair on the back of his neck, pulling his head down so his mouth could meet yours. 

Moaning quietly against his lips, you arch your back when you feel his hands slide up to unclasp your matching pink bra. He pulled it from your body, leaving you completely bare to his lust filled eyes. He let out a low growl as his hands slid back down to your hips. “Lay back, pretty girl,”

You oblige quickly, laying further up on the bed and resting against the soft pillows. “Please, Anakin,” you whined as he rubbed his still covered dick against your heat. “Fuck me.”

Anakin groaned as he shoved his boxers down, gripping your thighs and tugging them up until they were draped over his. “I’ll fuck you, baby,” he promised, running his tip over your wetness and coating himself in it. “I’ll fuck you so good, make sure everyone knows who made you come.”

“Fuck, yes,” you gasped just as he thrusted himself into you without warning, making you reach out to grip his forearms. Still on his knees, Anakin began fucking into you at a brutal pace, pouring all his leftover energy from the show into the way his hips hit yours. “God, yes.”

Anakin gripped your waist tightly, his eyes drifting from the way your breasts bounced with each thrust to your face as it twisted up in pleasure. “Say my name,” he demanded, burying himself to the brim and pausing there.

Your body tensed up, your stomach muscles flexing as he kept your hips pressed to his. “Anakin,”

“Louder,” he ordered, repeating the action. 

“Anakin!” You shouted, and it was followed by a string of moans as he resumed rocking his body against your own. “God, Anakin, you’re so deep. So deep in me.”

He grunted at your filthy words, the faint sound of the headboard hitting the wall making the whole scene look like it was straight out of a porno. “Fuck, you’re taking me so well,” he praised, reaching one hand up to pinch at your sensitive nipples. He felt you clench around him as he worked on hardening your peaks, his pace faltering just slightly at the tightness of your walls. “Always take me so well.”

“I love you, Anakin,” you whimpered, arching your back and pushing your chest up against his hand. 

He groaned at your sweet words, placing his hands flat against the comforter on either side of your head from where he knelt above you. “I love you so much,” he said back, speeding up his pace. “I’ve loved you for four years now, baby.”

“Nearly five,” you reminded him with a cry of pleasure. “We’ve been together for almost five years, Ani.”

“I know, princess,” he murmurs, leaning further down to press his lips to yours in a gentle kiss, a big contrast to the way his lower body was currently destroying yours. “How could I ever forget about the day you became mine?” 

“Best day of my life,” you mumbled when he leaned back again, digging his knees into the bed as he all but railed into you. “Fuck, you feel so good, Anakin.”

“You’re so tight,” he responded, making your stomach twist with a need to please him forever. You were vaguely aware of the loud smacking of the headboard now, and the way the picture that hung above the bed was tapping with each thrust of his hips. It only fueled your desire for him as your hands gripped the comforter once again. 

Your previous orgasm rendered you a bit more sensitive than normal, so you weren’t all that surprised to feel that knot begin to tighten once more. “Fuck, you’re going to make me come again,”

“Yeah? You’re going to come all over me again?” He mocked slightly, only making your head swim with dizziness at how dirty the whole event is. “I want it. Come all over me, pretty girl, nice and messy.”

Your eyes rolled back just a bit when he reached one hand up to press his fingers against the base of your neck. A strangled moan escaped you as you clenched helplessly around him.

You didn’t think you would ever get used to how he was in bed, versus how he  was out of it. He was sweet, kind and caring with you outside the bedroom, but inside it he was rough, loud and determined to get you off in any way he possibly could. The difference was almost too much to handle. 

A few more deep thrusts later and your core was flooding around him, noisily sucking him in deeper and alerting him of your second orgasm. “That’s it, baby,” he praised, watching as his dick became even more coated in your wetness. It spurred him to speed up the pace so he could reach his own release. “Good fucking girl.”

“Anakin,” you struggled to say as your body shook with overstimulation. “Ani, come, baby, please.”

It wasn’t the first time he had you begging him to come in you, but it still had his head going fuzzy for a second or two, as well as made him twitch inside you. “You want it?” He asked through a clenched jaw, his neck muscles straining as he tried to hold off for a little bit longer. 

“Yes,” you answered, powerless against his sharp thrusts as you took each one. “I want it so bad.”

“Fuck, princess,” he muttered, his pace slowing down as his own release flooded through him. With a couple slow thrusts into your greedy core, he fucked his seed deep within you. 

He falls onto the bed next to you a few seconds later, his chest heaving and a light layer of sweat adorning his skin, mirroring the way he looked on stage an hour or so prior to this. 

Anakin was a lot more drained now than he was before, and he knew that if he were to stay in bed for much longer he would probably pass out with you wrapped in his arms. 

He lifted himself up and pressed a soft kiss to your mouth, murmuring an “I’ll be right back,” against it before he dressed himself in his shirt and jeans, grabbing the keycard on his way out to retrieve both yours and his bags from the bus. 

-

The next day, after spending most of the morning wrapped up in the sheets together, you and Anakin finally decided to get up. 

Kind of.

He was currently propped against the headboard, eating a piece of toast with you on his lap. His acoustic guitar he brought with him was placed in your lap as you softly ran your fingers against the strings, leaning back against his bare chest. You were nowhere near as talented as he is with the instrument, and you knew it would sound awful if you were to try and play it without his guidance. 

“Mm,” he hummed when you plucked one of the strings at his request, tossing the crust of the toast onto the plate that was next to him on the bed. He would usually be more careful so there wouldn’t be any crumbs in the sheets, but he was checking out of the hotel before tonight’s show, so he decided to leave it to the cleaning staff as he knew they would be washing the sheets anyway. “That’s the B string, baby, not the D string.”

“And I’m supposed to know that…how?” You asked as he wrapped his arms around your middle. 

“Well, I’ve only been playing guitar for the entire length of our relationship,” he teased as he placed his right hand over yours. He guided your thumb to one of the middle strings and gently brushed it against it. Of course, it sounded a lot better because he was the one who controlled how much pressure and the pace of your thumb against the string. “That’s the D string.”

You refrained from rolling your eyes at the cockiness in his voice as you strummed along the string again, this time sounding a bit better than before. 

“There you go,” he praised, pressing a kiss to the side of your head as a reward. “That was good.”

You turn your head to give him a small glare. “You’ve never been a good liar,” you mutter. “Especially when it comes to lying to me, it’s why you could never get away with cheating.”

Anakin scoffed, “I would never,”

You shake your head with a dumb grin on your lips as he guides your fingers to strum the tune he had been going over in his head for the past few days. You let him take full control over the way he moved your fingers, noting the soft humming of an unfamiliar song leaving the back of his throat. “New song, Ani?” 

He shrugged from his spot behind you, leaning down to press a kiss to your bare shoulder, your tank top doing very little to cover your skin from him. “Maybe,” he answers as he begins to kiss up your neck, not even needing to look down at the strings to be able to play them perfectly. 

It made you a bit lightheaded, how hot and talented he truly is. “What’s it going to be about?” You ask, eyes glued to the way he effortlessly helped you play the guitar while also holding a conversation with you. His talent always surprised you, despite knowing early on how skilled he is with the instrument. 

“You, obviously,” he replied and you rolled your eyes. “What else would I write a song about?”

“You’re too much,” you say and he laughs quietly, agreeing with you as he goes back to mumbling potential lyrics in your ear. 

A few hours go by and it’s nearing the time for Anakin and the band to head onto stage. He smoothes out his graphic tee and smirks at the way you cowered behind the large speaker, eyeing him with your lip caught between your teeth. 

“God, Ani, you look good,”

“Me?” He asked and reached his hand out to you, pulling you into his arms once you took it. He played with the end of your pink and white skirt, eye fucking you a mere few minutes before he had to go perform in front of thousands of people. “I bet Vin and Theo are so jealous that it was me who got to take you to bed last night, in an actual room.”

You loosely wrap your arms around his shoulders, gazing up at him. “I bet all your fans are jealous that it’s going to be me who gets you all to herself after the show,”

Anakin hummed lowly, pressing a kiss to the skin under your ear. “I’d be jealous, too, if the hottest girl took me home,” he rasped. “Or in our case, took me back to that stupid bus.”

You laughed, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek. Since you had applied a cute pink lip to go with your skirt, a stain was left on his skin when you pulled away. “Oh, sorry,” you say and lift your hand up, but pause when his fingers wrap around your wrist. 

“Don’t you dare try to wipe that off,” he ordered with a smirk. “I think it completes my look.”

And it really did. A black snapback was placed backwards on his head, a vintage shirt covered his chest and exposed his sleeve of tattoos, dark jeans with a few chains connected to the belt loops hugged his legs, and black boots gave him the daunting appearance of someone who was born to be on stage. 

The pink lipstick mark only added to the whole thing.

“Okay,” you swallow harshly, stepping away once Vinny handed him his guitar. “Have a good show.”

“I love you,” he called out as he placed the strap over his shoulder. “I’ll see you soon.”

When he made his grand entrance, the crowd seemed even louder than normal, and you could only hope at least some of them were able to see your mark on his cheek as you hid behind the speaker and watched your boyfriend get lost in his element.

-

Series based off this fic

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We've got five books on our radar this week! Which ones are you adding to your TBR list?

The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum HarperCollins

Hollis Brown is stuck. Born to a blue-collar American Dream, Hollis lives in a rotting small town where no one can afford to leave. Hollis's only bright spots are his two best friends, cool girls Annie and Yulia, and the thrill of fighting his classmates. As if his circumstances couldn’t get worse, a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger named Walt results in a frightening trap. After unknowingly making a deal at the crossroads, Hollis finds himself losing control of his body and mind, falling victim to possession. Walt, the ghost making a home inside him, has a deep and violent history rooted in the town Hollis grew up in and he has unfinished business to take care of. As Walt and Hollis begin working together to put Walt’s spirit to rest, an unspeakable bond forms between them, and the boys begin falling for one another in unexpected ways. But it’s only a matter of time before Hollis’s best friends begin to notice that something about Hollis isn’t quite…right. With the threat of a long-overdue exorcism looming before them, will Walt and Hollis be able to protect their love and undo the curse that turned their town from a garden of possibility into a place where dreams go to die?

If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal HarperCollins Children's Books

Lights. Camera. Love? Rochelle “the Shell” Coleman is laser focused on only three things: becoming valedictorian, getting into Wharton, and, of course, taking down her annoyingly charismatic nemesis and only academic competition, Amira Rodriguez. However, despite her stellar grades, Rochelle’s college application is missing that extra special something: a job. When Rochelle gets an opportunity to work at Horizon Cinemas, the beloved Black-owned movie theater, she begrudgingly jumps at the chance to boost her chances at getting into her dream school. There’s only one problem: Amira works there… and is also her boss. Rochelle feels that working with Amira is its own kind of horror movie, but as the two begin working closely together, Rochelle starts to see Amira in a new light, one that may have her beginning to actually… like her? But Horizon’s in trouble, and when mysterious things begin happening that make Horizon’s chances of staying open slimmer, it’s up to the employees to solve the mystery before it’s too late, but will love also find its way into the spotlight?

Iron Tongue of Midnight (The Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 3) by Brittany N. Williams Amulet Books

Swashbuckling and romantic, this series delivers an unforgettable story—and a heroine unlike any other. It all ends with the Fae Queen. Seventeen-year-old Joan Sands must banish the Fae, just as her ancestor did nearly two thousand years ago. But first she’ll have to unravel the mystery behind the original pact that allows the Fae to openly terrorize London while King James hides in the countryside, protected by the children of the Orisha. Armed with a magical sword and the power to manipulate and create metal, Joan gathers allies and enemies in unlikely places as the world she knew slips further away. But the children of the Orisha struggle to wield their magic for war, and Joan clashes with the elders who refuse to trust the fate of the world to a child, regardless of her Orisha blessings. All while her two loves, Nick and Rose, grow closer to each other, a prospect more momentous and alluring than Joan ever could have imagined. When a spirit bent on annihilating all who worship the Orisha is unleashed, Joan discovers the unsettling truth behind the original pact. Faced with the lies of the past, the frightening power of the Fae, and a mortal king whose dangerous whims hold her community hostage, Joan must decide: Is the old world worth saving or is it time to forge something frighteningly new?

The Summer I Ate the Rich by Maritza Moulite & Maika Moulite Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Just add garlic, lemon, and a dash of the one percent. This smart, biting novel explores what happens when a Haitian American girl uses her previously hidden zombie abilities to exact revenge on the wealthy elites who’ve caused her family pain. Brielle Petitfour loves to cook. But with a chronically sick mother and bills to pay, becoming a chef isn’t exactly a realistic career path. When Brielle’s mom suddenly loses her job, Brielle steps in and uses her culinary skills to earn some extra money. The rich families who love her cooking praise her use of unique flavors and textures, which keep everyone guessing what’s in Brielle’s dishes. The secret ingredient? Human flesh. Written by the storytelling duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, The Summer I Ate the Rich is a modern-day fable inspired by Haitian zombie lore that scrutinizes the socioeconomic and racial inequity that is the foundation of our society. Just like Brielle’s clients, it will have you asking: What’s for dinner?

Under the Fading Sky by Cynthia Kadahata Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

A teen boy thinks his vaping habit is harmless until it becomes a crippling addiction of nightmarish dimensions in this searing young adult novel from Newbery and National Book Award winner Cynthia Kadohata. So, stuff has, like, a beginning and an end. And you don’t really realize that until the end, or right before. Before that, you’re just thinking that you and your homies are chillin’ and getting high, and it’s all gonna work out. You know? Truth is, the way life works is that you were born in the eye of a hurricane, and you think that’s just the way life is, calm-like. Until…it isn’t. So, yeah, Elijah is only sixteen, and already he would change a lot of stuff if he could go back in time. But you can’t ever do that. And when you can’t, that’s when you find out who you really are.

[greafest]

Here is part two to the previous post I made about references within Squid Game. I’m including another part and chose to add some more references to connect to the series and its characters, of course just before season 3 comes out. Enjoy :)

Brutalist architecture & lost ideals. The architecture shown in a clip of a new game (the one featuring the gumball machine) struck me as a deliberate nod to brutalist design, particularly the passage Gihun walks through, shaped like a knife. That image carries weight, and to me signals a major turn with Gihun’s character ahead. The choice to frame Gihun walking through it, paired with brutalist elements placed in an environment driven by the complete opposite of brutalism’s ideals, is intentional. For one unfamiliar, brutalism is defined by stark concrete, function over form, and its ties to ideals of honesty, social purpose, and utopian accessibility. But here, those ideas are corrupted — their inspirations erased. This immediately reminded me of Gihun and Inho’s dynamic. Inho seems compulsively driven to assert his own form of righteousness, spending extensive time and effort trying to bring Gihun to the same philosophical conclusion he was forced to, even outside his Youngil persona. Gihun, in contrast, keeps eroding at Inho’s self-assurance — the very ideals Inho built his new life as the Frontman on (ideals now surrounded by their opposites). They chip away at each other, and in doing so, both are losing the very things that once motivated them. The raw, unadorned brutalist style reinforces this belief, and how noble intentions can become tools of oppression and control to be wielded. This aligns with another core theme of the series: corruption by attempting to reduce people solely to a philosophy. In the games, no good intention survives because of this. The desire to win distorts everything. The juxtaposition of brutalism (grounded in physical reality) and surrealism (anchored in the subconscious) creates a push and pull. The clashing styles reflect the central tension between Gihun and Inho — enemies whose masks will eventually fall away. They will both be stripped of belief, standing on equal footing (one rooted in the liberation of humanity’s goodness, the other entrenched in its opposite) once the push and pull erupts.

The illusion of choice. I’m sure this is a theme many have already picked up on — the red and blue motifs — appearing again with the assigned teams for one of the new games. These colors repeatedly symbolize key events that always lead to the same inevitable outcome. From Ddakji to the voting system, every "choice" results in a prewritten path. Sangwoo (in Season 1) embodies this perfectly. By the time the games began, he was already in a broken-down state with no real option but suicide. Yet he didn’t go through with it, deciding instead to commit to winning. Ironically, he ends up taking his life just before victory, a clear parallel to his attempt in the tub beforehand. His fate was sealed the moment he reentered the games, just as it was for everyone else. A while ago I read a comment comparing this to the Japanese-Korean urban legend Aka Manto, where choosing either the red or blue paper both lead to death. This interestingly also parallels into Inho’s dissonance. His belief in a predecided fate feeds into his nihilism and shapes how he operates the games. He thinks he’s doing the players a favor — 455 people all in dire situations dying so that one may win. An “ends justify the means” logic. Which reinforces one of the recurring themes of the series: the illusion of choice fed to the masses. I believe this idea will lead Inho to an important crossroads for the end of his arc — one of philosophy vs connection, nature vs nurture — and force him to confront his actions. Hopefully, this will also tie into his storylines with both Gihun and Junho (two brothers whose choices are also predestined by familial love). Using the illusion of choice as a metaphor for a system that treats people as commodities is sure to surface again through other character arcs. Yeongsik, for instance, who seemingly abandoned his mother in pursuit of survival and voted to return to the games even knowing what that meant. This corruption by the lure of money mirrors a competitive market where betrayal becomes currency, and repeats to me the claim: nothing can remain ethical under corrosive conditions.

Lautréamont and umbrellas (an interesting yet important object in the show). In the Dalgona game (which I admittedly didn’t initially think much of until seeing creator yogavampowerment’s take), Gihun’s umbrella shape and the use of a needle (a sewing tool) directly allude to Lautréamont’s quote: “As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.” This line became iconic for its celebration of absurdity, bringing together two unrelated objects in a space they don’t belong to in order to break logic and expectation. Surrealists also loved this sort of imagery, mainly because it challenged the conventional and embraced the randomness of the subconscious. The Dalgona scene similarly does just that. Gihun’s selection of the umbrella and the absurdity of his licking strategy heighten the randomness of survival. What would’ve been a straightforward test becomes a surreal act of desperation. It’s both absurd (his method) and random (his success), and ironically, he wins again through instinct and not skill. Telling us that yes, Gihun is a very lucky person. Another great concept, because he probably believes he’s anything but. He likely sees himself as the most unlucky, the most undeserving of still being here. That contrast — between feeling lucky and unlucky at once — feeds into the guilt shown to us in the exclusive clip (where he also attempted to shoot himself), though luckily the clip was out of bullets. In this instance it must be horrible for Gihun, to feel as if he’s both chosen and condemned. A failed martyr in ways.

[shadowqnights]

can we have some shadow knight rewrite lore?

I LOVE SHADOW KNIGHTS RAGHHHHH ok so all of my sk lore is vague BUT here is some stuff i've been pondering so far (shyly)

sks to me function like a violent hive. their armour, which functions like an arachnid's exoskeleton, is inspired by the greater scorpions that were introduced to ru'aun to control rat infestations and became an invasive species. as cogs in a bloodied machine, sks are all interconnected and work and kill and swarm to serve their metaphorical queen - which isn't just shad (though it is also him), but the nether itself. that's because the nether was quite literally created by shad's corruptive magick, and the nether and its now-thriving ecosystems are, essentially, his body. sks are violations by arilean standards, but in the nether they have become core servants of that ecosystem.

leaning into the body horror / gore capabilities of shadow knights -for a creature that IS a cog in a machine and a soldier in a hive/anthill + the violation of body and mind in transformation, they SHOULD be fucked up. i mentioned the arachnid exoskeleton & its something i've explored with gene before and plan to keep up in the updated rewrite, but immortality and body being at war with each other resulting in some gross injuries and in extreme cases some good ol' rotting. the degradation of the body until it is Not Yours. the loss of a sense of self comes both physically And emotionally and the kill tips the transformation into the Next stage. and if it doesn't it functions as an addiction, eating away at the body until it can succumb. hence why so many succumb just to be able to lose themselves inside the hive. sks are connected to the nether, and the both of them are born from shad's grief. its all they can long for. its all they want to eat. the wither as a magick (which you'll probably have noticed is connected to canon minecraft things like wither effect/wither skeletons) eats away at the body too - and in a way that is what helped to birth shadow knights, which in turn feed from violence, grief and, in short, Death. sks endure slow, painful non-lives just as the wither takes hold slowly and cruelly. there is Something Wrong with them, and hiding in mortal-like meat does not Always hide it well, depending on the person.

the nether and/or abyss, depending on where you hail from, incorporates minecraft updates - like the biome variants, creatures, atmosphere, etc etc.! i like the idea of the nether being a vibrant, lush and even thriving ecosystem formed quite literally from shad's body and now growing around it. the same way that the garden of irene (the irene dimension) has grown around her!

[npd-characters-tournament]

Propaganda

Pyrrhon

ouhghhhh oughhhh ouh ouhh. Ok disclaimer this is a character who's called generically "crazy" by others with no real specifics, the narrative doesn't seem to want to justify or respect him but there's a lot of room for interpretation on what he has going on and if he has good intentions or not, but generally he's a guy who can be very relatable to neurodivergence and mental illness or offensive depending on who you are. Anyways Kid Icarus Uprising is rooted in Greek mythology and parallels the way those gods were originally characterized, often being flawed and self-centered. The selfishness and ego of the gods is brought up a lot, but I think Pyrrhon has a really complex relationship with that. He's bombastic, talks about heroism and justice constantly, and is described as massively egotistical. However, up until a certain point in the story, he seems to be acting selflessly and doesn't really do anything wrong, but the other characters are really vocally critical of him, considering him useless, detrimental, an idiot, and the Sun god according to himself and no one else. I kinda see him as no more egotistical than the other gods and even more selfless than a lot of them, he's just vocal about the things they pretend they're not. They insult him in front of him, vocally and consistently, but he doesn't respond to it. However, he betrays the other characters in the story arc's climax, which many people interpret as a result of pent-up frustration at the other gods making him feel inferior and not having the power for his constant attempts to do good to work. I think the most damning thing is that he's mentioned as only seeing Pit, the main character, as his equal. Pit is also constantly mocked for being a flightless angel who always follows his goddess's orders and doesn't have much independence or free will that he can call his own, and it says a lot about Pyrrhon that he respects this guy more than the gods. It shows he does care about people weaker than the gods, where most of the gods see angels and humans as tools and afterthoughts.

I really think Pyrrhon was trying his best to do good, its just that no one was willing to see him that way because of his perceived exceptional ego, when really it just has a different nature from the one everyone else has, and he's seen as incapable of doing good despite trying to be a hero to others (he doesn't stop the heroic demeanor post-betrayal, which I also think is damning and shows that acting like a hero wasn't just a tool for him). Anyways he did that betrayal and gained power by taking control of a robotic alien hivemind because director Masahiro Sakurai does whatever he wants and eventually Pyrrhon loses control to them and becomes corrupted/possessed/assimilated/Something by them. That loss of control makes me think of ego death both in the "losing sense of self" way and "suddenly plummeting in self image and worth" way, and the way his emotions are restricted to something soulless and robotic in contrast to his previous personality feels really stark and tragic. to me. it's also kinda funny because he's saying his funny catchphrases in monotone now. Him taking away the hivemind after his defeat, his survival being ambiguous, really shows to me that he wanted to do good and be good and help the world, and while everyone else is likeable too I can kinda understand him for putting himself above them considering their selfish wars caused the alien invasion in the first place. Everyone just saw him as worthless, and he couldn't handle it (in my headcanons. unless I'm relaying something that happened in the game this is all just me being autistic about him so we're clear). gawd. pyrrhon kid icarus uprising. also sidenote he's funny as fuck he's like if a ditzy anime girl was 7'4" and he canonically says "oops my bad" and "you're so over" at different points and he's a wiki addict. pyrrhon kid icarus uprising. ALSOOO i don't have npd and was encouraged to submit so I hope none of these were like really bad judgements or anything I just think he in general is ripe for neurodivergent readings and that includes paralleling some of what I know about npd. you might relate to him on some level or want to execute him via firing squad either is fine

---

Dimentio

I don't really have the intelligence rn to explain why he's so NPD coded, if this gets posted if anyone could add to this that'd be great!! He's a charming magician that thinks highly of himself and his abilities. He's deceptive and ends up being the big bad of the game, because he wants to create a new universe where he can become king of all worlds.

[itz-pandora]

i hope u know that i am so so fascinated with ur android shadow in the misc au, i love him dearly and i need literally every morsel of lore about him please infodump about him as much as you want 😭💖

-🤖

AW IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE HIM, THAT MAKES ME FEEL SO JOYOUS!!

In his debut, he's mostly following directives, trying to be the soldier he was coded to be, until Amy helps him remember his original directive, to help others. It activates his failsafe, MARIA, and he's flooded with false memories of her. This causes him to help the rest save the day!

Shadow doesn't learn he's an android until Heroes, (which he might learn through Neo), and it's a TOTAL mindfuck. It really makes him feel awful, and that negative feeling gets multiplied exponentially after Prime, where Shadow gets reprogrammed by Nine (which causes him to be deathly afraid of Tails). Shadow, who had grown very close to Amy at this point, decided to separate himself from her as to not hurt her, since he feels like he can't truly ever feel love like she can love him, because of how heavy the weight of being an android isn't him.

SHTH rolls around, and him and Hazard are the protags! This is where Shadow learns he's partially organic, with Black Arms dna. They both end up getting briefly mind controlled by Black Doom, which is TERRIFYING!!!! Shadow literally can't remember anything while being controlled because it doesn't register in his system! Just results in corrupted files. This cements to Shadow that he's never truly free, that the most autonomous part about him is still something that's controlled, just another drone.

He projects his insecurities onto Emerl when Sonic Battle happens. I think I might make this the part where Shadow gets really broken down, to a point the self-repair of the black arms in his circuits just takes too long, so despite protesting, Sonic brings Shadow to Tails for repairs, and Shadow has a PANIC ATTACK. He's actually so terrified of Tails tampering with him that his system overheats and he crashes. After Shadow is repaired, he's less afraid of Tails, because he realized he'd been too harsh, but he's angry at Sonic, and he feels so violated from getting repaired without his consent when Sonic KNOWS what happened with Nine!

Mephiles in 06 doesn't help the feeling of being artificial LMAO, but I don't have specific ideas yet! Shadow gets MAULED in Unleashed by Sonic btw lmao. Also, I don't have ideas for forces yet!

I dunno when this happens, but Shadow does Sonic's top surgery! Shadow wants to go into the medical field so doing this didn't take too much convincing.

After Forces, Metal is freed from the Eggman Empire, and Amy finds her. Amy gets Tails to repair Metal, and she ends up getting cosmetic upgrades to look like Neo! Shadow feels conflicted about Neo, but takes solace in the shared artificialness. Neo dates Amy, and Shadow feels conflicted, since he wants them to be happy, but a part of him never quite got over Amy. Neo and Shadow become close, and Neo is the one who suggests the polycule! They're all nice together 💕

Shadow, Amy and Metal move to Earth when Sonic retires as a hero! (Mobius is different from Earth). Shadow takes college classes to be in the medical field. Even though technically he could download information directly into his memory, he prefers learning in an organic way to feel more real.

When Eclipse comes to Mobius, Eclipse wants to be social with Shadow and Hazard, but struggles. When Eclipse loses his temper he accidentally mind controls Shadow and Hazard in the same way Black Doom did. After a while, he stopped, and Shadow and Hazard were terrified of him. Shadow spent so many years trying to convince himself if autonomy just to be stripped of it again and needing to start back at square one. He has to take a few days off college because it leaves him barely functional due to the sheer stress and trauma he relives at once.

And that's most of what I have planned!!!

[eugenedebs1920]

In a speech given after winning his fourth term as prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orban would tell a crowd, “We must state that we do not want to be diverse and do not want to be mixed: we do not want our own colour, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others. We do not want this. We do not want that at all. We do not want to be a diverse country."

Orban reassumed power in 2010 after having lost his bid for reelection in 2002. To date Orban has held the prime minister position fourteen consecutive years, eighteen total. Over this time he has consolidated power to himself, with much suspicion regarding the legitimacy of the Hungarian election system, the European Union going so far as to say Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy.

After losing his run in 2002 Orban and other conservatives in the Fidesz party would baselessly claim the election was rigged, despite lacking any evidence of it’s existence.

The period from 2002-2010 gave Orban time to formulate a plan if he were to return to power. The 2010 results would allow him the chance to implement them.

His rise to the top was fueled with anti-immigrant sentiment, capped with the tone of unbridled nationalism. Hungary would embrace a Eurosceptic style of government, which Orban would call “illiberal Christian Democracy”.

His claim of democracy is disputed though. Upon recapturing prime minister Orban would put into play a series of measures to covertly undermine the pillars of a democratic state.

In 2013 Orban would amend the constitution giving unchecked power to the head of state to the point where he can dissolve parliament. The changes to the constitution also allowed for an extended state of emergency [crisis] to be declared, pausing elections if needed.

By removing investigators and heads of law enforcement, replacing them with loyalists, his corruption would go unchecked. Today Hungary is considered a kleptocracy or mofia state, with Transparency International declaring it the most corrupt country in the EU.

Over the years, with the help of extreme gerrymandering, Orban has all but tightened his grip over government, with 2/3rds of parliament under his right wing Fidesz party. This would allow for the passing of judiciary reform putting the executive branch in charge of appointing, installing, and funding justices of his choosing.

With judiciary and parliament stacked in his favor there would be no opposition. This gave way to the passing of legislation to create a state of emergency unconditionally. In this it provided Orban the right, by decree, to prosecute and jail people spreading “fake news, including the press.

Through litigation, intimidation, buyouts and pressure campaigns nearly 80% of news media is either controlled by the state, or simply right wing propaganda broadcasting conservative Fidesz talking points.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Peter Magyar, leader of a new opposition party in Hungary would say when speaking of available news content and current events “This parallel reality is like the Truman Show. People believe that it’s reality.”

Peter Kreko, an analyst for Budapest think tank would echo these themes saying, “Orbán has created ‘an almost Orwellian environment’ where the government weaponizes control of a majority of news outlets to limit Hungarians’ decisions.” He would go on to say, “Hungary has become a quite successful informational autocracy, or spin dictatorship,”

Right wing personalities, and autocratic leaders use the victim card as a way to distract and manipulate their followers. They find reasons, and make up stories about how oppressed they are, how the opposition is stifling their speech, or not allowing their religion, or that some group of people are threatening their rights and way of life. This leads to villainizing minority sects of the population.

Orban ran on an anti-immigrant hate platform, trashing the EU for their position on immigration. This came as Hungary’s affiliation with Russia was growing ever closer. Putin and Orban’s relationship goes back to around the 2010’s. Much of the controversial legislation Orban passed reflects legislation pushed through in Putin’s Russia. Orban and Putin meet regularly, in fact prior to the U.S. presidential election they met right before Orban would visit Trump at Mar -a-largo.

Despite the majority of the population being agnostic, Orban would claim Hungary was a “Christian Democracy.” He would vehemently pursue the cause to “re-Christianize” Hungary. This would lead to the privatization of public schools, urging that youth education be done by the churches. These school curriculums would teach, "national identity, Christian cultural values, patriotism, attachment to homeland and family”, not providing room for other religious beliefs, or accurate depictions of the past.

Much like what the Christian right does in America this would lead to a string of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and persecution, with Orban saying that homosexuality is “Not compatible with Christian values”. In 2020 Orban had government end the legal recognition of transgender people. He would also put up legislation to censor any “LGBTQ positive content” from movies, books, TV, and other media.

Orbán passed laws, amended the constitution and "patiently debilitated, delegitimatized, hollowed out" civic institutions such as courts, universities, and the apparatus necessary for free elections that are now controlled by Orbán loyalists. Domination of the public media by Orbán prevents the public from hearing critics' point of view.

If any of this sounds familiar it should. Orban is hailed as a hero in American conservatism. He has spoken many times at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the pinnacle of conservative gatherings in the U.S., Steve Bannon. Would call Orban, “Trump, before Trump”, Tucker Carlson, and other right wing media personalities would interview Orban, with Tucker exclaiming that he was the only Eastern European leader "on the face of the earth, ... who publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative".

All of Trump 2.0 is following the path in which Orban destroyed the democratic system in Hungary. It’s uncanny. I urge Americans and American leaders to look into Orban’s takeover of Hungary and the precise similarities in Trumps approach currently. This is the white Christian nationalist agenda in action. It happened in Europe on a smaller scale, it’s on the macro level in the United States now.

[mariacallous]

The widely predicted breakup of Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump has finally and inevitably come to pass. Having recently departed his role as de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the tech billionaire began to criticize Trump’s subsidy-filled budget bill, kicking off a war of words on social media and a resulting political firestorm.

What follows is likely to be a messy and vengeful separation that will do damage to the reputations of both men and the United States as a whole. But ultimately, this will be a lopsided fight in which the billionaire and his business empire, not Trump’s administration, will suffer most.

Musk is about to learn a broader lesson that extends far beyond U.S. politics. Corporate interests often wield unhealthy and outsized influence in global autocracies. Yet from China under President Xi Jinping, to Russia under President Vladimir Putin, to India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a common pattern emerges: When business titans and political leaders fall out, it is the former who lose. Put another way, Musk has just picked a fight that he almost certainly cannot win.

At the start of the year, I argued in Foreign Policy that speculation about a likely split between Trump and Musk missed a wider point about what they might achieve by working together. In the end, their partnership lasted longer and had greater influence than many detractors predicted.

The vandalism that DOGE meted out to the U.S. Agency for International Development alone would have been enough to cement Musk’s dubious legacy in the annals of government reform. More troubling—even in his relatively brief tenure—was the alarming precedent that he set by undermining the basic functions of many U.S. institutions, sending teams into government departments, almost certainly illegally, without appropriate oversight.

Musk’s actions during his time in government reflected a brand of tech-bro Maoism, in which existing institutions are viewed as so fundamentally inefficient and corrupted that regular reform is impossible; only purging and rebuilding can work, echoing Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s concept of “continuous revolution.” Much like the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, the Musk upheaval was often led by youthful zealots, delivering reforms that were designed largely to remove ideological resistance to Trump rather than anything resembling actual government efficiency.

In the long run, though, a messy divorce seemed inevitable between two men afflicted by near-megalomania—a state characterized by fantasies of power and omnipotence. Such delusions are not uncommon among the global billionaire class, of course. But it is at least worth pondering how this unedifying spectacle will appear when viewed from Beijing, Moscow, or Riyadh.

Most likely, the Trump-Musk split will reinforce the conviction among global authoritarians that business elites must be kept tightly under state control. Seen this way, Trump’s error was not bickering with Musk but rather handing him a prominent and powerful role as a “special government employee” in the first place.

Trump has long expressed admiration for Xi, but in allowing Musk to get so close to power, the U.S. president certainly failed to learn from the Chinese leader’s handling of tech mogul Jack Ma. In 2020, Xi moved brutally and swiftly against the Alibaba founder after he dared to criticize Chinese financial regulators, canceling his Ant Group’s $37 billion initial public offering and effectively ending Ma’s public influence.

Other global autocrats follow similar anti-tycoon patterns. In Putin’s Russia, the birthplace of modern oligarchic capitalism, moguls are deeply deferential to state power—and understandably so, given the fate of those who dare to challenge the Kremlin. Jailed or exiled billionaires, such as Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, serve as permanent reminders of the costs of defiance.

In India, the so-called Bollygarch class has grown enormously in power in recent years, embodied by figures such as Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani—now the two richest people in Asia. Yet both remain meekly supportive of Modi and his government, careful never to go anywhere close to the lines that might invite state retribution.

Perhaps no leader has been more brutal in establishing this hierarchy than Trump’s new best friend in the Middle East, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Rather than invite Saudi Arabia’s commercial titans into the government, Mohammed bin Salman detained hundreds of princes and businessmen in 2017 at Riyadh’s luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel, releasing them months later, after they handed over billions in cash in exchange for their freedom.

None of this is to imply that modern billionaires lack influence. In the United States, wealthy individuals and corporations find many avenues to power. Financial clout can be used to support political candidates, shape legislation, and fund pet causes. But in general, wiser magnates play a longer, quieter, and more deferential game than Musk showed in his grab for direct governmental power.

There is a sliver of an upside to this egoistic and bad-tempered spat brewing between Trump and Musk. After all, countries like the United States that remain nominally democratic should be run by elected political leaders, not out-of-control corporate titans. But the truth is that Musk’s downfall will now most likely produce a host of more troubling consequences.

A vindictive president has many tools at their disposal, including regulation and targeted tax investigations, the removal of government subsidies, and the cancellation of government contracts. From Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase to Tim Cook of Apple, U.S. chief executives will draw stark conclusions from Musk’s treatment. Corporate leaders generally prefer stable institutions and the rule of law. But in the absence of that, the message is clear: show deference to Trump, keep your head down, and kiss the ring.

In that sense, the split with Musk will likely suit Trump just fine. The ratings will be spectacular, and he has most of the best cards to play. The outcome also helps to “encourage the others,” as writer and philosopher Voltaire might have put it, underlining the costs of challenging presidential authority with the most prominent scalp of all. Just as Xi humbled Ma, Trump’s coming assault on Musk’s business empire will show that concentrated, unaccountable political power ultimately triumphs over concentrated, unaccountable economic power.

The U.S. left often warns about corporate capture of the government, in which politicians serve as puppets to shadowy oligarchs. But the lesson from global autocracies shows the true danger flows in the opposite direction. When democratic institutions weaken, political leaders don’t become subordinate to business elites—they subordinate businesses to themselves.

Musk is about to discover what his peers in Beijing, Moscow, and New Delhi learned long ago: When oligarchs and political power come to blows, political power trumps economic might every time.

[solarsquid]

Back into my Kirby era, so here my Kirby Right Back at Ya OC!! Meet.. Ginga!

(Bonus: Humanized version)

Lore:

During eNeMeE’s rise to power from King DDD's orders, existed a secret project deep within the vaults of NightMare Enterprises. Concerned that his endless armies were predictable and vulnerable to Star Warriors especially Kirby, eNeMeE (also known as Nightmare) attempted something radical; creating a monster that could match Kirby’s power, but be entirely under his control.

He didn’t want a brute. He wanted a weapon looking like hope but actually born to bring despair. That weapon was Ginga. She was creating using ancient, unstable energies pulled from dying stars and forgotten dreams, raw remnants of desires that were never fulfilled, especially those of creatures who prayed for help that never came. Her body was round and small, like Kirby’s, but her purpose was entirely different: to be a counterbalance, a dark reflection. Unlike the mindless and ruthless monsters commonly created, Ginga was made to learn, adapt, and blend in to gain the trust of others and bring about their downfall when commanded.

But the process backfired.

The wishes that created Ginga weren’t just full of sorrow, they also held hope, and love as well as innocent wishes. These mixed feelings gave Ginga not only a heart, but a conscience.

She woke up confused, thoughtful but also extremely lonely.

eNeMeE, furious at the failed result, began testing her by throwing her into brutal fights against other monsters. Ginga held back, refused to kill, and showed hesitation.

Seeing her as defective, eNeMeE prepared to inject her with pure corruption to overwrite her free will and finish her design and her way of thinking.

That’s when Lunar Knight, a long-exiled warrior originally from eNeMeE’s ranks once betrayed by eNeMeE but turned Star Warrior, broke in to save her. He recognized something familiar in her, a soul not yet lost. He caused chaos in the base to help Ginga escape with her Wishing Star while the monsters were busy focusing on dealing with him.

But Ginga couldn’t handle the unstable Wishing Star. She crashed near Cappy Town, weak and confused, her power barely holding together. She was mistaken for a monster sent by King DeDeDe until Kirby stepped in, not to fight her, but to befriend her, not seeing her as his enemy. That moment changed everything.

Ginga becomes Kirby's equal not his follower. Though her form and powers resemble Kirby’s, they function differently:

× She can inhale and copy abilities, but her versions are distorted by her unstable origin. Her copies are based of her interpretations of the power and not complete copies like Kirby.

× Her abilities are modified according to her state of mind. If she feels anger, fear, or doubt, her powers may warp unpredictably.

× Her Warp Star, called the Wishing Star, is broken. It allows her to fly and warp, but can misfire, teleport her short distances randomly, or overheat.

Unlike Kirby, Ginga is very much aware of her origins, and that knowledge weighs heavily on her. She often wonders if she was made to destroy, not protect.

Over time, she builds her own identity, slowly stepping out of Kirby’s shadow. While Kirby acts on instinct, Ginga thinks, reflects, and questions. She’s strategic, emotionally intelligent, and becomes an important anchor in the group, especially when others lose hope. She is not Star Warrior. She is a "Wished One", a being who draw its power from the last flickers of light in the darkest corners of the universe.

And eNeMeE still wants her back.

PERSONALITY

Gentle and wary => Ginga is naturally soft-spoken and kind, showing an instinct to help others rather than harm. However, she’s cautious and emotionally guarded, especially around strangers or beings tied to NightMare Enterprises.

Emotionally sensitive => Since she was created from incomplete negative feelings, Ginga feels deeply. She picks up on emotional shifts in others, which can either strengthen or destabilize her powers. She's deeply affected by sadness, loneliness, or guilt both hers and others'.

Innocent yet haunted => Much like Kirby, she’s innocent in many ways, curious, easily fascinated by small wonders, and has a childlike honesty. But unlike Kirby, she’s haunted by the possibility of losing control or being 'finished' by eNeMeE, so she constantly questions her place in the world.

Protective => Ginga is fiercely protective of those she cares about, especially those who offer her kindness without fear. Her powers becomes more formidable when she believes someone is in danger.

Reflective and dreamy => She spends time staring at stars, water, or distant lights, lost in thought. She doesn’t talk much unless asked, and sometimes seems 'out of it' but she's always listening.

Afraid of herself => Deep inside, Ginga is terrified that the corruption within her might one day take over. She doesn't fully understand it, but she knows it's there. This fear makes her reluctant to use certain abilities or push herself too far.

Infos Time

1. If she had to have a human-like age, she would be around 3 despite being already able to talk from being created an intelligent monster

2. She’s terrified of thunderstorms, and during one, she’ll try to calm herself down by hiding in tight spaces

3. She often asks big questions like “Do stars get lonely too?”

4. She often trails off mid-sentence, forgetting what she was going to say because her mind moves too fast.

5. Kindness confuses her, she’s still learning how to accept it without suspecting the person may want something back.

6. She tends to watch people from afar before approaching, unsure if she’s welcome.

7. Ginga wakes up really early, often seen watching the sunrise from a hilltop.

8. Tiff gave her a journal, and she writes about 'things that don’t feel like nightmares.' (Things she likes)

9. She gets nervous around fire that isn't her own.

10. The Cappies occasionally leave star-shaped pastries outside her home, her favorite is blueberry.

11. She was once gifted a tiny plush of herself by a Cappy child. She treasures it dearly.

12. Ginga names every wild animal she meets. All of them are named “Blorp” by accident.

13. Ginga thinks money is just sparkly paper used for origami.

14. She imitates Meta Knight's dramatic cape gestures with a towel.

15. She once got stuck in a vending machine trying to get a candy.

16. She thinks TVs are portals and yells at cooking shows to 'share the feast.'

17. She already gave King DeDeDe a rock and said 'This is your soul. Protect it.' He was confused.

18. Ginga threw a tea party for her plushies and invited Meta Knight. He showed up.

19. Ginga once decorated Tiff’s notebook with alien doodles and glitter hearts.

20. Ginga talks to mirrors and pretends they’re from a parallel dimension.

21. She keeps track of the days she’s gone without losing control.

22. She doesn’t understand why some villagers are kind to her, and it makes her anxious.

23. Ginga doesn’t sleep much, worried that nightmares will drag her back to the darkness.

24. Ginga once tried to leave Cappy Town, believing they would be safer without her, but couldn’t bring herself to go.

25. Despite some villagers liking her, some villagers still avoid her, and she doesn’t blame them.

26. She’s once cried silently next to Kirby while he slept, wishing she could be as simple and pure as him.

27. She can’t help but think about Lunar Knight. As she didn't have any news of him since he helped her to escape, she thinks he may be dead from fighting against the monsters.

28. She flinches when someone raises their voice, even if it’s not directed at her.

29. The first time someone hugged her, she cried without understanding why.

30. She feels like a child who was forced to mature way too early despite the children of Cappy Town trying to make her experience the joys of childhood.

31. She doesn’t understand why she wants love when she wasn’t made to feel it.

32. She panics when restrained, even lightly, remnants of the times she was trapped as an experiment.

33. On the anniversary of her escape from eNeMeE’s lab, she spends the day quietly alone, unsure if she should celebrate or mourn.

34. Sometimes, when Kirby is sleeping peacefully, she’ll sit beside him and whisper, 'How do you do it?'

35.Ginga’s laughter often sounds too rehearsed, like she's imitating how she thinks others laugh.

Relationships

× Kirby: Siblings-like

Ginga sees Kirby as a reflection of what she could have been; pure, innocent, and joyful. She's fiercely protective of him, though she often feels unworthy of his effortless kindness. They often play together and she's picked up some of his quirks.

× Tiff: Protective big sister figure

Tiff was the first (not including Kirby) to believe in Ginga's goodness despite her origins in Cappy Town. She often helps Ginga navigate her emotions and identity, and they have long talks under the stars. Ginga greatly admires Tiff's leadership and wishes she had her confidence.

× Tuff: Annoying big brother vibes

Tuff teases Ginga often but defends her fiercely when anyone says something mean. Ginga enjoys his pranks more than she lets on, and he's one of the few who can make her laugh without trying too hard.

× Meta Knight: Mysterious ally

Ginga is both in awe of and slightly intimidated by Meta Knight. He recognizes her power and potential but keeps his distance. Ginga often seeks his approval, though he's reluctant to express emotion. He sees her as a mirror of the warriors who fell to darkness.

× King DeDeDe: Comical rivalry

DeDeDe sees her as a threat and a weirdo, constantly sending monsters after her. Ginga. Meanwhile, she sees him as a ridiculous villain who probably needs a nap and a hug. Sometimes she outsmarts him without even trying.

× Escargoon: Grudgingly polite acquaintances

Escargoon is suspicious of her but not openly hostile. Ginga is amused by his drama and theatrical insults. She occasionally offers him some peebles, confusing him greatly.

× Mayor Len Blustergas: Formal politeness

The mayor is unsure how to treat Ginga due to her strange identity. He tries to stay on her good side just in case she snaps like King DeDeDe warns. Ginga, in return always greets him politely and sometimes brings him random pretty things she finds.

× Chef Kawasaki: Chaotic friendship

Kawasaki often tries to cook for her, which she accepts out of politeness, then inhale the food to not have to taste it. She occasionally helps him improve his recipes with random herbs and gets worried when he sets things on fire... again.

× Tokkori: Mildly antagonistic but funny

Tokkori constantly suspects her of being a threat and spreads rumors about her, but he's too much of a coward to confront her directly. Ginga finds him amusing and once spooked him during the night as a revenge.

× Hana and Gus: Warm neighbours

Ginga sometimes helps Hana with flowers or brings herbs when someone in town is sick. Gus occasionally help her fix her StarWarp (aka Wishing Star) issue. They see her as a quiet but sweet little girl who's trying her best.

× Iro, Spikehead and Honey: Friendly classmate-like peers

These kids are both intrigued and slightly intimidated by Ginga. She occasionally plays games with them but sometimes she gets too intense or confused by the rules.

× Mabel: Deep spiritual intrigue

Mabel feels something 'cosmically off' about Ginga and often stares at her while mumbling about 'interstellar fate.' Ginga is unsure whether to be scared or flattered. Still, she visits her for guidance when her corrupted side feels too heavy.

× Tuggle: Neutral vendor-customer relationship

Ginga is both his weirdest and politest young customer. She always pays with peebles she finds, which he accepts even though they're not currency

× Melman: Sympathetic old listener

Melman is one of the few adults who treats Ginga like a normal child. She talks to him during long walks and sometimes helps him deliver mail from time to time.

× Sir Ebrum: Gentle parental figure

He treats Ginga with soft-spoken kindness, often offering advice she pretends not to need. She's not used to fatherly figures, but finds his gentle voice calming when she's overwhelmed.

× Lady Like: Overbearing but warm mother figure

She constantly fusses over Ginga's health, eating habits, and sleep. Ginga pretends to be annoyed but secretly craves the affection. She once called her "Mom" by accident and turned dark purple from embarrassment.

× Kabu: Ancient spiritual mentor

Ginga feels drawn to Kabu, often sitting silently in his presence. He speaks in cryptic riddles that somehow make sense to her. He reminds her of her connection to both darkness and light and that only her can decide who she wants to be.

Fololo and Falala: Playful younger siblings

Ginga treats them like little siblings even if they were technically around longer. She plays with them often, and they help her laugh when her corruption gets too heavy. She's very protective of them.

× Dyna Blade: Guard-like maternal protector

Dyna Blade is both a friend and protector to Ginga. She carries Ginga through the skies when her strength fails. Ginga sees her as the embodiment of power without cruelty.

x Dyna Chick: Chaotic toddler energy

Ginga struggles to keep up with the hyper little bird, who sees her as a playmate and rival. Dyna Chick once sat on Ginga's head and declared victory. Ginga lets it win every time.

x Whispy Wood: Comforting natural guardian

Ginga often naps under his branches. She finds peace in his quietness and immobility. He senses her inner turmoil and offers quiet shelter, never judging her origins.

× Blade Knight: Strict sparring mentor

He acts like a stoic older brother who teaches her swordplay. Rarely gives praise, but clearly cares. Ginga wants to impress him and trains harder whenever he's watching.

× Sword Knight: Goofy big brother figure

The more relaxed of the two knights. He jokes around with her during training and tries to get her to smile despite his not really understandable way of speaking. Ginga appreciates his levity, especially when her mind is heavy with self-doubt.

x eNeMeE (aka Nightmare): Terrifying creator

Ginga fears him deeply due to what he made her to be, how he was to her and what he wanted to do to her after discovering she wasn't the way he wanted. But she knows he must be stopped, not only to free herself from danger but the whole galaxy.

--------- Quick explanation

× Who's Lunar Knight? An OC of mine

× What's the Wishing Star? Ginga's version of the Warp Star

× What's a Wished One? Category I made up and you’re free to use.

☆ ORIGINS => There are creatures in the stars that do not belong anywhere. They are not born from living beings' love nor code nor experiments. Not summoned or forged in battle. They are the universe's answer to a cry, a wish, no one else could hear.

When a soul breaks, and its final breath is a plea.

When a hero dies remembering the people they protected.

When someone, somewhere, begs the cosmos to let the light stay just a little longer.

When a child wishes for the peace in times of crisis...

The universe sometimes replies. But it does not speak in words. When it happens, it is told that this night, the stars shines brighter than they ever did before.

It creates a Wished One. They are alive, they think, they feel.

Neverthless, no Wished Ones are the same. They are all born from wishes from different people and different wishes and created by the universe itself.. most of the time. Though, exceptions happens, it then causes special cases.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 1: Monster-Born Wished Ones

-> A creature forged in darkness, by a tyrant like eNeMeE, by science, war, or cruelty. Yet at the moment of its birth… A flicker. A wish, however small, slips into the finalization of the creature. It can be a stray wish left unanswered finally receiving an answer... the monster's own wish to not just be a ruthless mindless monster... or an external intervention.. like Nova.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 2: Twins Wished Ones

-> One wish, two souls, opposing in essence, united in fate. Though light and shadow may clash within them, they are driven by the same goal: to fulfill the will of the wish, whether for salvation or ruin. Together, they walk the same path… even if it burns.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 3: Dual-willed Wished One

-> Forged from two powerful wishes intertwined, this Wished One carries a storm within. Two wills, two purposes, sometimes aligned, often at odds. Their soul is a battlefield, their power unstable, and their path unpredictable. Whether they bring hope or ruin depends on which wish rises... and which one falls.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 4: Unknowing Wished Ones

-> Sometimes, a Wished One without ever realizing a wish was made by themselves or someone else. They grow with no knowledge of what they are, their destiny unfolding only when the truth is revealed.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 5: Corrupted Wished Ones

-> A Wished One born from a wish made with selfishness or malice. Their pure origin is warped by greed or anger, turning them into a force of destruction. They may have once been kind but now seek to exploit the wish that formed them for their own gain.

♡ SPECIAL CASE 6: Mortal-Born Wished Ones

-> A mortal on its death bed can find themselves revived as a Wished One by the wish of another Wished One. Their wish was to bring them back to life or something along these lines so the mortal find themselves dragged away from the death bed.

☆ How to recognize a Wished One?

-> Recognizing them can be a real struggle, they can be anything from Puffballs to even human-like creatures (such as Adeleine for example) but they all have a common point; An aster shaped mark anywhere on their body that cannot be removed no matter what, unlike makeup or a non-permanent tattoo.

☆ How powerful are they?

-> Wished Ones are powerful, but not in the traditional sense. Their strength is from desperation, hope, or longing, forces that defy logic. They don’t overpower enemies through brute force, but through uncanny timing, strange abilities, or sheer refusal to fall when they should. Each one is different. One might move faster than thought, another might channel great forces, while another still might simply endure where no one else can. But they aren’t limitless. Their power is often unstable, conditional, or tied to the emotion behind the wish. They’re not champions because they’re perfect. They’re champions because they were willed into being and that alone makes them something to be feared.

☆ Their overall 'reputation'?

Wished Ones are rare, whispered myths in the corners of galaxies, neither born nor made, but called. They don’t belong to any one side, yet their presence ripples through history like a thrown stone across still water. To some, they are saviors, signs that the universe still listens. To others, they are walking paradoxes, unpredictable and untamed. Even the bold hesitate in their presence, unsure whether to kneel or raise their weapons. They are seen as forces of fate more than individuals. A Wished One is never just there, they arrive when something is meant to begin… or end.

[mysweetobsessions]

Let me tell you the small details that absolutely floored me in The Penguin, season 1, episode 4 before the next one comes out.

Spoilers ahead.

Sofia’s hand gestures. Before Arkham, Sofia’s gestures are so femenine and scream spoiled rich girl, they even feel performative at times, except when she’s smoking - a habit she keeps after Arkham. Afterwards, polar opposites. Need I mention the eating? Eating and beyond, after Arkham her hands are no longer playing the part of her previous life which is why they feel more free while also more intentional. (Where’s her acting nomination?)

From normal uncontrolled behavior to unhinged controlled behavior. Let me explain. Before Arkham, Sofía can barely hold her emotions in. She loses her temper talking to the reporter both times and she’s on the verge of crying when talking to her dad. It’s all very normal how much she can’t control her emotions. After Arkham, she’s much more controlled. Her actions are more deliberate and thought out despite the fact that they are absolutely mad (honestly, justifiably so). - she only loses it (so far) when she’s confronting Oz over her brother’s murder, but after what we know, it’s hard to blame her.

Family is so important. Until we all betray each other to protect a horrific man. The references from previous episodes now make absolute sense, like why she hated the name “hangman”. Her mention of “young girls not doing so well in the family” (something like this). The mention of not letting men control her. How much she can’t stand her family and the visible urge to kill them every time they spoke to her. Why she loved her brother so much. And the list goes on.

From Oz to Penguin. In a couple short scenes, they showed us how Oz always felt belittled and his ego hurt (when Sofía asks him what’s he doing *inside* the party, because he doesn’t belong there really). How she tells him he’s “just a driver”. We didn’t need to see this a million scenes to get that small things like these were some stones (of many) that created The Penguin character. I’m sure more is coming in this regard.

Clinically sane? It is an impossible situation to try to convince people you are sane when you’ve been deemed clinically insane. Yet what behavior is sane when you are framed and put in a deplorable place like Arkham? What do you do when the truth is more complicated and sounds less plausible than the lie? Our minds are made to accept what sounds simpler and makes a more coherent story. Proving her competence becomes an impossible task, especially when she is slowly actually losing her mind from the conditions that would make anyone unhinged. I felt her frustration. (I could not personally figure out how I’d manage this if it were real. Anyone got ideas? Share ‘em with me.)

Arkham “rehabilitation”. I know it’s an asylum but it’s also a prison. We been knew that these places probably make more criminals than they “rehabilitate” but damn if that entering sequence wasn’t as dehumanizing as intended. The corruption inside it to top it all off… Even just the noises and screams that would drive anyone mad. (A point for abolishing the prison system here).

Trust is a bitch. Sofía’s downfall is her ability to trust, that’s how I see it. She wants to trust the people around her despite what she’s been through. This shows that a side of her is desperate to find someone to either give her the trust she seeks or to prove her wrong that people can’t be trustworthy. From another angle, this could be seen as her reliving her trauma, by trusting people (or the penguin) over and over as if to try and change the end result (the betrayal). Either way, it kills me.

I’m sure there are other things many people loved but this episode was absolutely fantastic and these are my favorite things about it.

[readingtillmidnight]

The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum

Release date: 22 April 2025

Genre: young adult romance thriller

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Hollis Brown is stuck. Born to a Blue-Collar American Dream, Hollis lives in a rotting small town where no one can afford to leave. Hollis's only bright spots are his two best friends, cool girls Annie and Yulia, and the thrill of fighting his classmates.

As if his circumstances couldn’t get worse, a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger named Walt results in a frightening trap. After unknowingly making a deal at the crossroads, Hollis finds himself losing control of his body and mind, falling victim to possession. Walt, the ghost making a home inside him, has a deep and violent history rooted in the town Hollis grew up in and he has unfinished business to take care of.

As Walt and Hollis begin working together to put Walt’s spirit to rest, an unspeakable bond forms between them, and the boys begin falling for one another in unexpected ways. But, it’s only a matter of time before Hollis’s best friends begin to notice that something about Hollis isn’t quite…right.

Content warnings

Death, violence, body horror, injury

Suicidal thoughts, self harm

Smoking

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!

I am obsessed with the relationship between Hollis and Walt. I went into this wondering how the romance would be pulled off; I mean, how does a relationship develop between you and the guy possessing you? But I should never have doubted for a second, because WOW!

Of course Hollis and Walt have their initial animosity, but having to live with each other forces them to be beyond vulnerable in a way that was SO GOOD. I love when characters are forced to expose their deepest, darkest selves to each other, like get unconditionally loved bitch!!! The physical aspects of their relationship differ from the norm, given, y'know. Not to give too much away, but the tension and dynamic that stems from this is so intense I was losing my mind reading it.

I also love how Hollis' friendship with Annie and Yulia are portrayed. I was worried that the friendships would get sidelined in favour of the romance, and while the romance is the focal point, Hollis' friendships integral to his character.

I have to note, however, that at times it was a little confusing to differentiate when it is Hollis or Walt talking. Italics are used to indicate when one of them is speaking mentally in Hollis' head. When they have conversations together, they transition in and out of speaking verbally and mentally, and there are only paragraph breaks to indicate when the speaker switches, if that makes sense? There were also instances where some of the dialogue was not italicised at all, but my copy is an eARC, so maybe that's just a formatting error that will (hopefully!) be fixed in the published version. Otherwise, it's pretty easy to tell which one of them is speaking, when speaking verbally.

[itzzaira]

Withering Butterflies || future Michelangelo story

TW: Spirits, main character is dying and is aware of this. Mention of passed loved ones (who are also confirmed to be just fine and here)

When a mystic warrior is close to death, no matter the cause or reason of their passing- there are signs.

Signs their mystic magic sends out because it can sense that death is near, that it won't be long before it's time to leave the mortal realm, that their clock is almost done ticking. Such signs could be exhaustion, illness, a following sense of doom, weakened mystic magic, losing control of said magic, mystic aging, increase in visions-

Seeing spirits.

Not like his ancestors whom he tried to talk with on purpose. No, in his everyday life.

This is what they would call Mystic Sickness.

It didn't matter what you died off- it could be because of mystic magic, an attack, it didn't matter. Your mystic energies would sense it. It will let you know. It will make sure you know.

Michelangelo had ignored the signs for as much as he could- the mystic aging was because of the overuse of his ninpo, the exhaustion and loss of appetite was because of said aging, the sense of doom that followed him everywhere was normal they lived in the apocolypse-

He really had ignored it, for as long as he could.

Until the first butterfly had landed on his snout.

The white, glowing butterfly.

Butterflies had gone instinct years ago.

As soon as Michelangelo had seen that first butterfly... he knew he couldn't ignore it anymore.

He was dying.

Hamato Michelangelo was not afraid of death.

He knew he would die much younger than everyone else- he had always known. He was the only mystic warrior the resistance had, the only one who could cure those corrupted by Krang, the only one who could heal, the strongest out of them- which resulted in the overuse of his ninpo. He had assumed it would be his mystic powers that killed him.

He was right.

But no one needed to know that.

Instead of going to Leonardo, like he probably should, Mikey had ignored it. He had ignored how sick he felt, he ignored his hair that fell off in chunks, he ignored the sense of doom that seemed to get worse, he ignored the butterflies that only he could see that followed him everywhere.

...Butterflies that seemed to get more each and each day. The amount of spirits that seemed to be more, much more, following him around-

Until he had sensed the first spirit in Donnie's lab.

"...It is sad to see you sensing me so soon, Michelangelo."

Mikey had just smiled, gently closed the door behind him, and opened his eyes. "Good to see you again, Bary."

"Is it?" The sheep yokai crossed his arms, that same annoyed yet worried scowl on his face that Mikey had missed so much. His body was glowing cyan and his pupils were gone, just like every other spirit he had met until now- did that mean he was Hamato? He wasn't sure, the man didn't have the Hamato symbol- "-because I had hoped to see you hit your forties before you joined us."

Mikey smiled. "Heh... h-hah... hic..."

His smile fell.

He covered his mouth and allowed himself this moment of weakness- letting the orange-glowing tears drip down his cheeks as he slid onto the floor- his legs were too weak to hold him up. Part of the reason he had started floating everywhere. His legs were too weak to stand on.

The butterflies that had been surrounding him went down with him, landing all over his shoulders and head, trying to drink his tears. Michelangelo didn't know what was worse- the fact he was crying like a child... or the fact that the spirits seemed to think they were on the same plane of existence.

"...Oh, child." Draxum bent down next to him- he didn't have any of the old scars he had gotten, Mikey noted. The spirit winced at the orange tears, knowing full well they shouldn't be that color, but didn't comment on it. "You look so tired, Michelangelo."

"I am." The turtle wept, wincing when his tears burned his fingers. He shivered at the sensation of ghostly fingers touching his cheek- it felt cold. So cold.

As cold as he had been feeling, for the past couple of weeks.

Hamato Michelangelo was not afraid of death.

He knew his passing would be painful- probably by his magic ripping him into a thousand tiny pieces, or maybe he would get stabbed or something by Krang- he didn't know. He didn't care.

He foresaw all possible futures, all the possible outcomes, all the possible ways he would wither away. Made sure to be prepared, made sure to fight alone so no one would see him perish. Yet, he was worried.

Worried because until now, he hadn't been able to communicate with any of his family. "Where are my-"

"With your brother." Draxum pulled away, sat down properly, and folded his hands in his lap. "They didn't want to leave, but Leonardo seemed to be having a hard time."

...

"...They're... here?" Mikey could have cried with that knowledge if he hadn't been crying already, but didn't know if that was because of relief or hurt. They had been here? Here? All this time? When he had been searching for his brother's spirits... they had been he here? He... they never left?

They never left them alone.

They hadn't been resting like he'd hoped.

"...Cassandra is here as well," Draxum muttered, recognizing that his adoptive son was getting stuck in his own head again. "She wanted to make sure that Leonardo didn't raise her son to be a, and I quote, 'whimp'."

Mikey snorted. He couldn't help the giggles, covering his mouth with both hands. That sounded like Cassandra alright. She had seen him grow up after all? It... wasn't the best way, but- it was something.

"...Would you like to speak with your father?"

His head snapped up. Mikey looked at the spirit with disbelief, bloodshot eyes blown wide. "...Dad is here too?"

"He never left."

"..." The turtle curled up and winced once his legs ached at the movement. With a flick of his hand, his mystic magic lifted his legs and curled them to his chest. Mikey thought, for a moment... and then shook his head.

"...I doubt I could see him anyway." He mumbled. A butterfly got close to his cheek when a single tear slipped down.

"...I know." Draxum sighed. "I assume I'm the first spirit you're seeing?"

He nodded.

Selfishly, Michelangelo had hoped to find Donatello today, once he sensed the spirit in the lab. But thats okay. He would see him soon enough.

"I'm dying."

Not a question. A statement.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Instead of answering, Michelangelo held out his hand. Another butterfly landed on his finger. Draxum sighed, muttered under his breath, and shook his head. "If you had stopped using mystic magic when I told you to you wouldn't be."

"I was needed." He watched the tiny creature's wings- so fragile, so small- so beautiful. No wonder it hadn't survived this world. "I didn't have a choice, Barry."

"Your magic is destroying you as we speak." Another grumble. "Your future visions are getting out of hand."

The turtle couldn't help it- he cracked a smile. "...You know about those?"

"You wake up floating in the air surrounded by mystic particles and many spirits all around you." The man crossed his arms. "I'm surprised Leonardo hasn't noticed yet."

"I don't want him to know." Mikey cringed when he felt some hair slip down his cloak when he shifted his position to sit more comfortably, then winced when his legs ached. He sighed, defeated. And with the flick of his hand, mystic magic lifted up his legs and crossed them.

Another butterfly settled on his knee.

"...Do you know how you're going to..."

"No." He didn't know if that was good or bad. Michelangelo knew it was important to stay prepared... but he didn’t exactly want to predict his own death. That was just how his visions worked. They were set in stone.

...Which brought up another issue.

"...I can't die yet, Draxum." A single tear slipped down his cheek, which immediately caused a swarm of butterflies to get closer to his face. "I'm needed here."

"You've destroyed yourself doing too much." Blunt, without sugar-coating it- yep, that was Draxum alright. "Your body can't hang on anymore. I'm sorry, Michelangelo."

If he had the energy, the turtle would fight it.

He would get up, say something about how you needed to do more to take this turtle down, then either get S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. to scan him or attempt to heal himself, fail, find some books, a cure- something.

But he was just so tired.

Hamato Michelangelo was not afraid of death.

He knew what death was. He knew what it felt like. Cold, lonely, dark. At least. That was what death used to be. These days, death seemed warm. Peaceful. Lovely. And even though he couldn't sense their spirits yet, knowing the rest of his family was near and waiting, made it look so so much better. Heck, even the spirits with him right now- they felt cool, sure. But not freezing. This was a nice cool he used to feel when there used to be Summer breezes, offering relief amongst all the heat and allowing him to breathe.

But just as death had changed... so had life.

Life, which used to be joyful and warm and happy and bright, had turned dark and cold and full of grief. Never full, never well rested, always on the move, always dirty, always cold. Being cold bothered him the most, for some reason. Probably because instinct kept screaming at him to brumate but the turtle couldn't let himself.

Life had changed. So had death. And the other, brighter side didn't seem as bad anymore.

But...

"What about Leo?"

Draxum turned his head back so quickly, looking shocked and... something else. "...You are the one dying. Let me repeat that. Dying. And you worry about your brother?"

"I can't leave him, Barry..."

"He has April and Casey."

"It's not the same."

When their father had been... lost. The four had been together. They had grieved, they buried him somewhere worthy, they prayed.

When Raph had... left. The three had been there. They had been there the moment the building collapsed on top of him, had been with him as he moved from one plane of existence to the other, unwilling to let go and holding onto each other instead.

When Donnie...

...

"What will happen to them when I'm gone, Barry?" His breath hitched in ways it hadn't done for what felt like eons. His shoulders started shaking as he tried to curl up- but the pain that shot up his legs made him freeze instead, which just. Did it.

He couldn't move his legs. He knew damn well why.

Draxum's expression softened as he watched the turtle fall apart, watched the butterflies land all over his face to try and lap up his tears- it was fine. He could be weak. Just this once.

Hamato Michelangelo was not afraid of death.

Heck, he even longed for the warmth and love on the other side.

But...

Magic lifted his legs so he could curl up as he wanted to, and pulled up his cloak so his head was hidden, ignoring the hair that fell at the action alone. He buried his head in his knees, hugged himself, and- apologized.

How selfish.

To leave this cold, horrible world... when he was still needed here.

Needed by April, who needed her little brother to try and light up others- the only positive thing left.

Needed by Casey, who had lost his mother at such a young age, lost half his uncles, and shouldn't be losing another...

Needed by Leo.

Leo, who still blamed himself for something that wasn't his fault every single day. Leo, who started leading the resistance at such a young age to make up for said thing. Leo, who kept trying to give his portions of food because the younger brother just looked so sickly.

How selfish would he be to leave?

He couldn't do that to Leo. Not to Leo.

"They'll find ways to go on." The yokai mumbled, getting closer and letting a ghostly hand rest on Mikey's shell. It felt cold. A nice cold. But still, the mutant flinched away. No. "They've got each other."

"Leo won't survive, Barry." Mikey cried, looking up- okay the tears were starting to burn. It hurt. But at least that meant he was alive. "He barely did after Donnie. He can't. He won't... Barry. I can't leave yet."

"..." Draxum let a butterfly land on his finger. Looked at the insect, lost in thoughts. "...I'm afraid you do not have a choice."

He knew that. He had known for quite a while, even when the turtle tried to lie to himself and make up excuses for all of his symptoms.

But this...

He couldn't lie to himself anymore. Not for this. There was no other explanation as to why he was seeing spirits.

Hamato Michelangelo was not afraid of death.

He was afraid of what would happen to Leonardo after.

[adriansvetozaroff]

The truth is here: I don't like Team Flare. But I like the potential that was put into them. I based my AU mostly on elements from the anime and manga, but I rethought and consciously rewrote a lot about them.

I always understood Lysandre's worldview, but its origins were not described convincingly enough, and he himself was presented as an arrogant maniac obsessed with the idea of ​​genocide, although, I am sure, according to the idea, deep human suffering should have been noticeable in him. He lacked sophistication. In my story, Lysandre [de Fleur] is impulsive and dramatic, the grandeur of his ambitions and the fragility of his inner world are in constant contradiction. He is very temperamental, exalted. That means outbursts of emotions, breakdowns that he immediately regrets, a tendency to self-destruction, self-punishment. With all this, he knows how to behave in public. This is the result of a strict upbringing, the requirements for what a royal heir should be. Lysandre has been taught not to lose his dignity, even when he is going through an internal catastrophe. But when he is alone or with someone he can confide in, this facade inevitably falls. He is a man with a hypersensitive nervous system, who received an inadequate upbringing: he was pressured to meet many standards, responsibility to his family, expectations of perfection, comparisons, albeit implicit, with great ancestors who made history. In part, this strictness made him highly functional: in public, he is hyper-organized, collected, purposeful. But his will is always on edge, tense to the point of pain. At times, he acts impulsively, at times, he falls out of touch with reality.

Lysandre is experiencing unbearable mental sufferings. The world does not correspond to his ideal, but neither does he. Corrupted by this world, in which he was forced to act imperfectly, he wants to radically correct everything, and only in this way become worthy of his ancestors. At the same time, he sincerely does not want to bring pain, but does not see any other way out. And he sincerely considers the moment of truth to be beautiful, for him there is no other hope. He does not live in fantasies: he has seen the world, in humanitarian missions and in other places that he was not prepared to face. And this has always confronted him with impotence. Now the idea he holds on to, having caught Zygarde is to give free rein to nature, but under his control, to bring humanity to unity in the face of a great catastrophe. There is also his faith in the activation of progress after it since worthy people will be at the head of humanity.

For contrast and drama, I decided to pair him with a character who is easy to idealize, someone who embodies a certain classic beauty, and that is Diantha. With his obsession with saving all that is beautiful, the object of his love easily becomes a fetish. It is a relationship filled with thirst and anxiety, doomed to disappointment, and yet ambiguous. Lysandre is driven into the relationship not by a desire for love and intimacy - he denied himself this as a selfish happiness - but by an inner need for an ideal. At the same time, what he loves seems fragile to him, because of his own sensitivity.

I found her image to be the most suitable for this - a noble champion, active and decisive when it comes to protecting the region. My version emphasizes that Diantha [Cornette] is stronger than Lysandre, she is stable. Despite everything, she is able to see a human in him, to try to stay on the path of love and compassion until the very end, but at the same time resolutely oppose what she does not agree with. I added that they have the same ideals. They are also united by the desire to be an example for others, the desire for self-improvement, a deeply respectful and attentive attitude towards Pokémon, a desire to change the world for the better, admiration for art. Diantha is not only ready to enter into battles, but is also a goodwill ambassador for an international aid fund. She has an opposite view of changes in the world, but she understands Lysandre's despair, when he talks about fading beauty, to some extent. She is reserved, and she was made this way by working on herself, self-discipline, willingness to learn, the wisdom of mentors. She has gained self-control and deep self-understanding through trials. Her actions are gentle but measured, sincere but tactful. She is close to the harmony of mind and heart, and feeling this in her, Lysandre reached for what was unattainable for him. Diantha remains alive to the end, even seeing how the one she began to love comes to the decision to kill everything human in himself. Her ability is to stay close, not to retreat, not to turn away, not to close her eyes to what is important. Her personal grief does not obscure her moral choice, her path is a refusal to give in, a refusal to participate in destruction, even if she shares some of Lysandre's ideals. Her internal conflict is personal, but also ethical. She has to take care of saving the world, but also her inner world after that, too.

What I had to work on most thoroughly was Team Flare, the ideology and structure of this organization and to answer the question of who Lysandre would consider "the chosen ones". The possibility of buying a place among the survivors does not fit at all with his worldview, with his hatred of egoism and greed. In addition, the administrators and grunts find themselves not under his protection, but in the thick of the battle and destruction. I justified it this way: in addition to the Team Flare, there is the Society of Patrons, which includes people loyal to Lysandre, who have already achieved success, share his values ​​and have the abilities and resources that are useful in the new world. These are the very chosen ones whom he plans to protect, and who were at least aware of their leader's plans and took advantage of his offer to ensure their safety during the catastrophe. It is assumed that a shelter was built for them, perhaps quite reliable. And membership in the Patrons' Society requires a serious monetary contribution as proof of one's readiness to give, not just take. Team Flare itself is also outstanding people, but those whose lives can be sacrificed so that the plan is carried out, despite their usefulness. These are mainly young people, not stupid, but actively wanting to change the world, dreamers and maximalists, as is typical of the young. Administrators are more experienced people, ready for self-sacrifice, or have not achieved enough to enter the Patrons' Society. The main scientists, who develop the plan directly with Lysandre, stand apart, those whom he trusts most and whom, of course, he values, but who must carry out what was conceived. But they know what and why they are doing, and do not ask for protection. All members of Team Flare are public figures. Until the plan is directly implemented, they are employees of Lysandre Labs. So, in accordance with his high principles, Lysandre does not play a double game: his team logo and their uniform, his slogans, his research - all this was always in sight, just not all the details were voiced at specific moments. Making him an idealist in everything, I added that he does not like duplicity and lies.

Working on Xerosic's character was also important to me. I absolutely did not want to make him stereotypical; I was closer to the vision in which he has his own moral compass. [Sergiusz] Xerosic is not a mad scientist, not a function. He is a recognized figure in science, famous and respected, a hard worker inspired by Lysandre. He is dependent on his fire, but also plays a unique role as an ideological squire. He becomes not just a follower of Lysandre, but a person with a living past, pain and dreams. His loyalty is not an obligation, but a choice. He was suitable for this role, since even after the death of the leader, he alone continued to try to move forward and bring his work to the end.

Of course, there was also Malva, with whom, it seems to me, the creators themselves did not know what to do. Her appearances are so contradictory. I took this as a basis to make her two-faced, a person who almost always hides behind a mask, and even when she ultimately wants to be sincere, she does not succeed. [Patricia] Malva never believed in Lysandre's ideas, but she did not pay much attention to them either, as long as it was profitable for her to be a media person next to him, an ambassador for his brand. She definitely did not believe that he and his scientists would actually do something like this, until a certain point. She also experienced envy towards many who surrounded her, but I do not want to go into details here. Acting for herself, she did not calculate that she would only push Lysandre to a desperate step. And, having found herself involved in one of the largest terrorist attacks in history, she does everything to save her reputation.

In conclusion, I have portrayed Team Flare as I wanted them to be: eco-terrorists and well-intentioned extremists. And Lysandre is an outstanding, infectious leader who remains so to the end. But he is also a deeply suffering man, maladapted to reality. He goes against Zygarde, not trusting the natural order, but relying on his own will. He goes from an outwardly noble dreamer and reformer to a radical ideologist whose actions lead to disaster. Lysandre is an incorrigible idealist who tried to take the development of the world into his own hands, for the good, as he saw it. His hatred of change, decline, decay and death opposes nature itself. Like his love, he idealizes the world - and cannot bear disappointment. It is as if he is fighting a god in the figure of Zygarde, not out of pride, but because he cannot do otherwise.

A few words about Zygarde. In choosing this legend, Lysandre found the perfect solution for himself. In slightly different circumstances, despair could easily push him towards Yveltal – towards the decision to strike a mercy blow, depriving the dying world of torment. I see the second option as a fit of despair, a last resort, in which the chosen ones receive a quick death at the epicenter and the opportunity not to see the agony of the world, and this in the current situation would seem to him the only good. He could have inclined his choice towards Xerneas in more encouraging circumstances, if he had managed to see that the world was “recovering” – this would have been a manic attempt to stop it forever at a favorable moment, since all glimmers of good seem to him inevitably vulnerable, short and fragile.

If you find my vision interesting or share it, I invite you to read the full story I wrote (https://archiveofourown.org/works/54486067 or https://www.deviantart.com/adriansvetozaroff/gallery/86782495/les-feuilles-mortes). I would appreciate your feedback! And your attention.