#yet again i have only used one single reference for this and it is literally just a picture of his head

[lime-bloods]

I honestly didn't ever expect that I'd be in the position where I'd be using this blog not just to analyse what has come before in Homestuck, but to look toward the comic's future and do some real old-fashioned theorycrafting. but the time has come. so here goes; lime-bloods' Beyond Canon theories as of the July 6th 2024 update:

Vriska's Going to Hell

were all gonna help you! / whether you like it or not

a select few eagle-eyed readers already noticed that the sound used in last month's (Vriska: Figure shit out yourself.) is called "hell_tierwav". while it was easy to dismiss this as irrelevant composer shenanigans at the time, it's now become clear exactly what this was foreshadowing. whether it would be more apt to call this "Hell" or "Purrgatory" is probably up for debate - but whatever you call it, Vriska's been placed in a dimension seemingly tailored specifically for her personal torment.

while Vriska characteristically interprets the recreation of her childhood home as a symbol of how badass she was, the ghosts of her past - both literal, as the shades of the trolls she killed as Mindfang, and figurative, in the form of sprites wearing the faces of her dead friends - show us in no uncertain terms that Vriska's childhood home is the stage where traumas play out.

Erisolsprite puts it succinctly with his welcome to hell, but pay close attention to what exactly we're being welcomed to: this update ends on page 665. so as of this next update, we'll be starting on page 666.

Does Homestuck Have Hell?

the exact bubble of reality Vriska's currently found herself in seems to be an entirely new construction of the likes we've not yet seen in Homestuck - but that doesn't mean this kind of cosmic torment is without precedent. because while 666 is a number with Satanic connotations in the broader cultural context, it also has a very particular meaning of its own within the world of Homestuck. indeed, the latter half of the comic almost revolves around it, culminating in a climax in Act 6 Act 6 Act 6.

specifically, this repetition of a single digit is emblematic of recursive storytelling. to summarise what you can already read about in detail in my essay The World / The Wheel: when Caliborn is 'gifted' the Act 6 Act 6 supercartridge, which he is told is an "expansion" of Homestuck, it's a trick. there is no "expansion"; he's going to be trapped in a story that never ends because it keeps dividing into smaller and smaller versions of itself forever. the only way to truly beat the devil who trapped the heroes within a story is to trap him in his own story.

that's what Caliborn's "Hell" is, and that's also exactly what the Alternate Calliope achieved in Act 7 by creating the black hole which Vriska knocked Lord English into, ending Homestuck's story - something that Calliope even hints at in this very update, when she refers to the black hole as "containment"; not an accident, but a deliberately crafted prison. black holes are a symbol of recursion and regression; being sucked into one means being forced to live out your whole life over and over again, forever. so really, this is all we ever could have expected to happen when Vriska stepped into a black hole within a black hole! the presentation of the narrative even subtly hints at this; events in Beyond Canon that take place in the black hole are enclosed (in brackets), and now events that take place in a black hole-within-a-black-hole are contained within {curly brackets}, because you should always use a different kind of brackets to differentiate nested parenthesis from each other!

it is absolutely no coincidence that when Caliborn closes the curtains on his appearances in Homestuck, thinking he's won when really he's been condemned to a hell of his own making forever more, it's with a tribute to this exact same Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff strip.

IF YOU REMEMBER JUST ONE THING I SAY, OF SO MANY GREAT THINGS SAID BY ME, THEN PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. I WANTED TO PLAY A GAME.

So What Does That Mean?

one of Beyond Canon's central missions is expanding upon Homestuck's exploration of the relationships between author, text, and audience. as discussed above, a large part of Homestuck's thesis is the evil of forcing characters to live the same lives and the same stories over and over without the chance to grow or move on, and Beyond Canon picks up on this by placing Dirk in the position of trying to keep Homestuck going forever purely to appease its fans, while the Alternate Calliope continues to oppose this ideology. and while the alpha Calliope outwardly seems not to have taken a hard position on where she stands in this cosmic battle, the question posed by her device seems to be an entirely new one: can it actually be a good thing to regress, to return to ground that the story has already covered? can this path lead to something new, rather than merely stagnation?

it's so relevant that Vriska is being confronted with the crimes of her past, not only in the form of all the trolls she was personally responsible for killing but also in the form of the exact same punishment she condemned Lord English to with her heroism - complete with the herd of horses that are always present at Caliborn's demise! but where being condemned to an eternal cycle was fitting punishment for Caliborn, someone who refuses to break free of cycles of abuse and instead chooses to enact that same abuse on the world around him... if Vriska is someone who can break free of these cycles, who can change and become a better person despite what happened to her, will this punishment have the same effect? or, as Davepeta seems to believe, is forcing Vriska to reckon with her own past and traumas exactly what will allow her to break free of that cycle?

DAVE: [...] ill just be over here in the hyper gravity chamber training to beat lord english KARKAT: WE HAVE A HYPER GRAVITY CHAMBER???

it's hard not to be struck by the parallels in design and purpose between the Plot Point and Dragon Ball's Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and not just because of the Dragon Ball enthusiasts present on Beyond Canon's writing and art teams: albeit in typically Strider-bastardised form, the Time Chamber got a shoutout in Andrew Hussie's own Homestuck (see quote above), in a reference that was even picked up on by prolific theorist bladekindeyewear at the time. for the uninitiated: the Hyperbolic Time Chamber allowed its users to train for extended stretches of time, sometimes even spanning years, while a significantly smaller time period passed in the world outside - something that is actually true of real-life black holes! and with the Plot Point's own emphasis on time, represented by the hourglass included among its mechanisms, it seems to me that an essential part of making the 16-year-old Vriska ready for the trials ahead will be giving her the time to undergo the same growth her adult friends have experienced.

considering that Beyond Canon is already playing in the Ultimate Self space, where there are levels of power beyond merely the "god tiers", it also doesn't seem too farfetched to speculate that Vriska, forced to reckon with the fact that becoming a powerful Thief of Light isn't the be-all and end-all of personal growth, will take another leaf out of Dragon Ball's book here and ascend "beyond Super Saiyan". perhaps this is even the "hell tier" so cheekily alluded to in the Plot Point flash? certainly this kind of evolution would be the perfect way to challenge Dirk's belief that the Ultimate Self is the only logical final step for a character's development.

whatever the case, I believe we can take Davepeta at their word here. I don't think it's just a joke that by the end of this ordeal Vriska Serket is going to be fucking RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPED!

[carto0ncritter]

I wanted to address some of the points your previous asker made https://www.tumblr.com/carto0ncritter/766355644544696320/i-just-want-to-say-that-i-personally-disagree-with, but I kept getting bogged down in the quagmire of it all. In the end I gave up and just let it be long - apologies for the wall of text but I'm tired of seeing the fandom repeat talking points similar to IRL apologia whenever someone isn't a perfect enough victim for them.

1 A fixation on "if Blitzo could say no in this or that specific instance, that 'proves' every other yes was freely given"

This line of argumentations fixated on the idea that if Blitzo wasn't shaking with fear and unable to refuse Stolas every time, he must have felt safe and able to consent every time. But there's a wilful disregard for how the deal works - the basic arrangement is Blitzo gives Stolas the book on the full moon and then they have sex.

The times Blitzo feels able to say no either fall outside that arrangement (Ozzie's being a one-off night out where Blitzo STILL felt the need to apologize for not wanting sex which doesn't say much for how safe he feels to refuse, and dragged a hand over his face when Stolas started talking like he was dreading dealing with Stolas trying to make a move on him) or because Stolas himself gave Blitzo an out. Blitzo wasn't taking months off until Stolas gave him the option, because it's Stolas who holds all the power and what he says, goes. We don't see Blitzo demand a night off and Stolas hand it to him before then - Blitzo phrases it explicitly as Stolas giving him nights off from 'having to' (i.e. a mandatory chore he has to do when asked) sleep with him.

Likewise all the texts show this same dynamic - once s2 happens Stolas is trying to get Blitzo to want to voluntarily spend time with him but Blitzo explicitly says in one text 'It's ur night' because that's how it's worked until now and he had no reason to think otherwise; the deal hadn't ended yet so Blitzo believed the terms were still in effect.

Side note - there's a specific mention of a shot during All 2 U when Blitzo - according to OP - refuses to stay after sex, proving he can say no. First off, saying no only counts if it's before sex, not for cuddling. Again, cuddling falls outside the deal.

And more importantly, I'm wondering if this is the shot being referred to:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/306e7f801fff142d57bee633abdfa9c6/90d50e1d22f5b44b-e8/s400x600/c03e4f8a2f96de0cc9c7add6749cc1e367187d90.jpg

If so, it boggles my mind anyone would use this as 'evidence' that Blitzo could always say no.

Really look at this shot: Blitzo's eyes are narrowed to slits and he looks furious & degraded. It's hard to tell if Blitzo is angry because of the sex he was just forced to have, or he's angry because Stolas is trying to get more out of him while he's trying to leave. Either way I don't see how anyone can look at that expression and think 'there's a man who just had sex/was asked to have sex he's totally enthusiastic about!' Any other show, any other fandom, this would be universally understood as a depiction of the moment right after coerced sex i.e. rape. If there is a single instance of Blitzo not wanting to do it but feeling like he has to, then that is rape. Period. Kill shot. End of discussion. No amount of 'he said no one time/he enjoyed it one time' fixes that or 'proves' all of them were fine. Consent is a case by case basis.

2 Blitzo had other options besides the Grimoire

This feels unrelated tbh; it's edging into 'well Blitzo could have done something else so having sex extorted out of him is his fault!' But to respond quickly:

The crystals existing doesn't mean Blitzo understood 100% how they worked or if he'd be able to use one (he says 'a what now?' or something when Stolas gave him one) or if it was a succubi-only thing and he has no reason to assume Ozzie would just hand him one (especially not once he knows Fizz works with him). By comparison Stolas had a book about them in his library all along apparently, is a prince on friendly terms with Ozzie so in a way better position to ask and had more incentive not to want to risk his book. But he didn't because he knew he could use his book to get sex.

Likewise saying Blitzo could just do Hell assassinations ignores what little worldbuilding around the economy there is. It's well established assassins doing Hell-based missions are more common while offering to kill Earth targets is a USP that brings in a steady client base that helped Blitzo found a business and rent an office (both things it's repeatedly said imps don't normally do). Stolas was under no obligation to let him keep the book, of course, but no one was forcing him to make a favors for favors deal to get sex out of Blitzo (and s2 adding Asmodean Crystals makes the idea that he didn't want to hurt Blitzo's business look 100% false: his only motivation for quid-pro-quoing this is unambiguously to get sex; him framing it as 'supporting' Blitzo is self-aggrandizing narcisstic nonsense).

3 Blitzo is shown wanting sex and wanting Stolas back in Full Moon/Apology Tour

This is a thing the writers like doing - backfilling stuff that should have been shown way earlier in order to rewrite the story into anything they need it to be that second.

S1 Blitzo's attitude to Stolas alternates between repulsed, indifferent and enjoying the power he has over Stolas by being the dominant one. He straight up glares at him like he despises him after Stolas yanks on his face in Truth Seekers (not to mention the chain vision implies he feels trapped and degraded). S2 Blitzo just seems…idk, annoyed by him some of the time? They don't exactly get on better. Then Oops backfills Stolas is being a totally nice person on the phone now and Apology Tour tries to insert flashbacks to stuff we should've seen in the show - i.e. Blitzo actually enjoying his company. Inserting the good times after the two characters have a falling out is totally backwards - we need the actual care and attraction establishing beforehand, not after. Stolas laughing at some of Blitzo's jokes and Blitzo worrying Stolas can actually get hurt is such a bare minimum floor for a ship

As it is the change is so abrupt it's just as easy to argue Stolas has made Blitzo believe all he's good for is sex (and he's panicking because Stolas has cut him off twice now without attempting to talk things out or apologize for any of his demeaning, objectifying behavior, which would make anyone think they aren't even good enough to exploit anymore and that they deserve to be mistreated without explanation) or that Stolas ending the arrangement just set off his abandonment complex. That and trauma bonding is a thing that could definitely happen with a 'relationship' as toxic as this one. Putting it short, the writing is so poor that even though they obviously want us to think Blitzo actually likes Stolas it's kind of hard to tell what he even likes about him or when it started.

4 The closing point

So the original post ends on "it's pretty clear that Blitzo at no point felt coerced into having sex with Stolas, and the people that claim otherwise I have good grounds to believe aren't even watching the same show anymore."

On some level that's true, because Helluva isn't the same show anymore.

Season 1 opened with an episode where Blitzo couldn't give informed consent to Stolas' deal because his life was in danger and his business was being threatened, and Stolas knew all of that. He could see Blitzo was injured and hear the gunshots along with Blitzo whispering and telling him repeatedly to get to the point. He took a hurried 'fine, whatever!' as consent.

He ignored Blitzo telling him not to hit on him at Loo Loo Land (multiple times) - the fact Blitzo seemed legitimately worried Stolas would try to 'diddle his holes' while Stolas' daughter was there speaks volumes to just how safe he felt around Stolas. Harvest Moon has a similar arc - Blitzo takes Stolas' invite in good faith and in return gets demeaned in front of a crowd of imps. Once again he feels so disrespected by Stolas by the end of the episode he explicitly mentions the 'thirsty owl onstage' as the reason why he didn't go to the harvest moon ceremony and had Striker not hurt M&M, he probably could have persuaded Blitzo into joining him. He feels so safe around Stolas, apparently, that when Stolas asks for a reward after saving him he immediately assumes Stolas expects Blitzo to pay him with his body - something which Stolas immediately agrees to. All this culminates in the season finale where he uses Stolas to get into a club and is surprised when Stolas tries to talk to him like a person for once. He's never done that before.

But the damage is done by then. He drops Stolas off, looks desperate to be able to leave when he thinks Stolas is going to try and get sex out him (like always), then tells Stolas all he wants is for Blitzo to fuck him and he makes that really clear 'all the time'.

But what in a decent show would be a condemnation of Stolas' behavior because Blitzo did feel coerced into sex at several points (read: the whole first season, actully) was in fact the writers trying to make the viewers feel sorry for Stolas - a fact that's only come into sharper and more awful focus the more they double down on making Stolas the saddest prince to ever exist in s2 and throw everyone else under the bus to do it.

Finishing off, there's really only one thing I can say left to anyone still insisting the writers aren't trying to retcon the rape ship that they wrote. And that's this:

What Stolas has done to Blitzo is the definition of quid pro quo sexual coercion.

To quote from a source:

https://www.wmlawyers.com/oakland-sexual-harassment-attorneys/eeoc-definition/quid-pro-quo-harassment/

“Quid pro quo” literally means “this for that” in Latin. Quid pro quo sexual harassment occurs when employment, pay, benefits, title, position or other opportunities for advancement or training are conditioned on the submission to unwelcome sexual advances. Whether the harassment is explicit or implicit, it is illegal.

Read that again - when employment is on the condition of submission to unwelcome sexual advances. That's literally what the deal is - Blitzo keeps his job if he sleeps with Stolas. And as we've seen in most of s1, the advances are unwelcome. Even if Blitzo had been more enthusiastic from the start, his job would still depend on keeping Stolas sexually gratified.

A dynamic like that is always going to be prone to abuse no matter how many 'but Blitzo enjoyed it this one time!!' caveats the writers stick on it, because if he had a day where he wasn't feeling into it he would feel obliged to hide his feelings and sleep with Stolas anyway because his livelihood literally depends on it. That isn't informed consent. And this rhetoric is pernicious and should go the way of the dodo

THIS

[evilwickedme]

I said I'd never do jumblr content again and yet here I am because this keeps coming up and it's like the only thing I can think about. That said I will not hesitate to turn off reblogs if y'all are horrible in the notes again, and be warned that I will be blocking anybody who supports any of the theories I mention immediately

There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory that isn't antisemitic. There is no such animal

Antisemitic conspiracy theories go back thousands of years. The ones that still have the most hold on culture to this day are the blood libel, and the protocols of the elders of zion

The blood libel was an accusation that would be brought against Jewish populations in Europe often but especially around Passover claiming that we were killing Christian children for ritual purposes, usually to use their blood for baking matza or other nonsense (it is important to me that you know that this is nonsense. It is horrible and damaging but also to the core a ridiculous lie that never at any point made any sense. They just didn't care). Debatably this trope is present in the merchant of Venice. Undebatably Jews were killed because people did and still do sincerely believe this

The protocols of the elders of zion is a fictitious document published in Russia at the very beginning of the 20th century, supposedly detailing the meetings of the Jewish people who secretly run the world. The protocols were almost immediately proven to be a rip off of another document - ah, plagiarism - but that hasn't stopped antisemites from embracing it wholeheartedly (special thanks fuck you to Henry Ford for publishing them in his newspaper, spreading it across the USA). It built on previous antisemitic tropes, from the greedy banker trope (Jews were forced to be money lenders in medieval Europe as it was forbidden in Christianity and Jews weren't allowed to join any guilds, preventing them from making money in any other capacity - the reason why there are so many Jews in Hollywood is identical, but in the early 20th century) to the concept of dual loyalty (i.e. Jewish are loyal to ourselves above all else and cannot be trusted to be loyal to the country where we live, see: modern trope that every Jew is probably loyal to Israel and the subsequent idea that it's okay to ask every single diaspora Jew how they feel about Israel immediately upon meeting them). It's also worth noting that the word cabal, used to denote the shadowy organizations that supposedly control the world, comes from kabbala, which is Jewish mysticism

The idea of lizard people, created by a guy literally named Icke because he is a gross human being, was designed to repackage the antisemitic shadow cabal concept to be supposedly more palatable

Most qanon theories also build on all of this, such as world leaders preying on children (remember pizzagate?)

But more importantly conspiratorial thinking always positions you as the good guy standing against a mysterious "them", an other which is influencing things behind the scenes. The Jew is the ultimate other, and specifically an other that supposedly forms a shadowy world government, controlling everything and yet somehow not managing to get rid of antisemitism (see: protocols of Zion, lizard people, we control Hollywood and the government which is of course conspiring against you). There is no way to decouple the idea of an evil shadowy organization (usually also referred to as a cabal to really hammer it in) from antisemitism and antisemitic tropes

And this means that even supposedly "harmless" conspiracy theories attract antisemites and train people who aren't necessarily rabid antisemites to confirm those kinds of biases. Obviously Qanon and lizard people are antisemitic, but what does the moon landing have to do with Jews? Well, it was Hollywood and the government that faked it, obviously. Hell, even the conspiracy that Taylor Swift is secretly a lesbian and is either still secretly dating or is exes with Karlie Kloss is riddled with antisemitism -

Okay so I need to explain my position on this because I fucking hate this conspiracy theory, and the fact that most people simply won't acknowledge that that's what it is. Firstly, Taylor Swift has stated that she is not gay or considers herself an ally at least three times off the top of my head, and specifically denied that she was dating Karlie Kloss. Secondly, outing people is wrong. Thirdly, the conspiracy theory hinges on the idea that she would be risking her career by coming out, except that she's proven that basically no controversy can come in the way of her career, she's already "come out" as an ally, donated to glaad and the equality act, promoted queer musicians & artists & designers (there was a song in the reputation tour that was dedicated to a gay designer every single night of the tour). So what's stopping her from coming out at this point? Mysterious forces, clearly. The antisemitism in that I've already explained, but also the virulent antisemitism among Kaylor shippers aimed at her husband and at the fact that she converted to Judaism is fucking disgusting

Again: even a supposedly harmless conspiracy theory leads to antisemitism and attracts antisemites

A few years ago I tried to rewatch white collar cause I remembered really enjoying that show as a preteen and after around a season I just couldn't stand it anymore, because all I wanted to do was jump into the universe and yell at Mozzie to shut the fuck up because these conspiracy theories were barely presented as a joke and never challenged even once by any of the characters. When I rewatched that 70s show it also fucking sucked, but at least it wasn't showing up in every single episode. The blacklist focuses entirely on a literal Cabal, that's what they're called

This stuff is so normalized and it's fucking everywhere and it's exhausting. Jews are to this day being murdered over this. I can't change the world by myself, unfortunately, but if you don't have a specific person to blame for your troubles, shut the fuck up. Just shut up. There is no conspiracy against you. Sometimes life just sucks. Or definitely does for the Jews who get shot at over this shit

Again, I'll be blocking anybody who parrots this bullshit in the comments but especially fucking gaylors y'all are one of the main reasons that being a fan of Taylor Swift's music is fucking unbearable. Just accept you can connect to music made by somebody different than yourself it's not that difficult of a concept

[sailoryooons]

Incubus yoongi x reader

Go wild with smut maybe theres fluff and angst too! Love your writing so much

☾ Pairing: Incubus!Yoongi x archdevil!Reader

☾ Summary: 

Sunder (sun·​der) transitive verb : to break apart or in two : to separate by or as if by violence or by intervening time or space Sunder (sun·​der) intransitive verb : to become parted, disunited, or severed

☾ Word Count: 5,297

☾ Genre: Smut, Forbidden Romance, Angst, Fated Lovers

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately. 

☾ Warnings: Vague worldbuilding - this takes place in a Hell setting so.. Lots of talk of literal hell, implied violence and war, themes of classism/species racism, hint of political scheming, depiction of servants who are chained/collared, implications of sex work/incubi being bread specifically for sex work, honestly Yoongi and reader kinda give co-dependant vibes, explicit language, explicit sexual content including oral (f. receiving), unprotected sex, a little bit of overstim, cum eating if you squitn, multiple orgasms, bleeding/scratching/biting, possessive themes… um I don’t know the smut scene is more PrOsEy than straight-up smut. 

☾ Published: Sunday, April 7 2024

☾ A/N: We are using Forgotten Realms (dnd) lore because I was randomly inspired to do so. You need zero knowledge of Forgotten Realms or dnd lore to read this - there is vague world building and references to a plot on the side that I imagine Yoongi and reader are a part of but that does not happen in this little one shot. I just did it for the tension and because I’m out of control. 100% change I got some dnd lore wrong - don’t care, I kinda made it my own in parts as needed!!! Thank you!!! 

☾ A/N 2: Dear anon, I don’t have a clue what this is, but it was inspired by a very specific scene in the movie Troy when Paris (Orlando Bloom) sneaks up to Helen’s (Diane Kruger) room while the Greeks and Trojans are downstairs partying and he’s like hehe let’s bang it out. That’s it. I really hope you like this because sometimes I fill requests and I'm like ..... that probably was not what they had in mind and yet here I am, delivering whatever ??? this is ??

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Main Masterlist ☾Filled Requests ☾ Masterlist  Milestone Request Event ☾ Ask

Note: I don't use my tag list for requests!

A pair of dark eyes in the shadows around the party catches your attention as you listen to Archdevil Belial's drone about his victory in Phlegethos. The fiend’s words fall on deaf ears as your gaze narrows to a deadly point on the man lingering in the shadows across the room, keeping away from the revelry with a single chalice in his hand.

And he’s staring at you. 

You feel your muscles constrict as you flick your gaze away, your heart rate picking up speed as you try and focus on Belial again. It isn’t a story you care to hear about - he’s been droning about his defeat of the Kelemvor worshipers on the fiery planes of Phlegethos. Hardly a battle as much as a skirmish outside of the city gates that demanded his attention. 

Archdevil Belial is none the wiser that the creature he really desires to kill is lurking at the edge of the party, burning eyes on you as he cocks his head and glances toward the empty staircase that leads toward the living quarters. 

There’s a twitch of irritation in your stomach as Yoongi turns and vanishes into the shadows. He is good at being seen only when he wants to, which works in his favor when he enters the hall of his greatest enemies, all in one room because of war meetings against the very fiend who now slips upstairs to your bedroom. 

It was only a matter of time before Yoongi showed up - despite the level of stupidity it takes to show up in the hall of your sworn enemy. Yoongi likes to show off though. He likes to remind his enemies - and himself - that he is not so easily kept out of places that he wants to be. 

Especially if those places he’s being kept from have you inside of them. 

“Thank you for the conversation, Lord Belial,” you interrupt. The devil looks at you with his mouth open, eyes blazing as you interrupt him to dismiss yourself. You feel a small twist of satisfaction. “I must retire for the evening. I am returning home tomorrow before starting my campaign through the realms to ensure my father’s army are being… led properly.”

Belial’s face twitches in irritation. You’re above his station - though not too far - and decorum is everything in matters of spoken insult. “Yes,” he agrees. “It is important for our… figureheads to inspire. The Whip of Asmodeus paints a threatening picture, to be sure. It is hard to be of influence on the battlefield - we do appreciate your efforts off the field.” 

A laugh like cutting glass bubbles from your lips. “You honor me.” You feel the ice in your mouth when you dip your head politely, pretending to be unbothered by the implication that you’re nothing but an empty threat. “I will see you in a tenday, Lord Belial, when I come to inspire in Phlegethos.”

With a curt turn, you cut through the party toward the stone dias. Those in attendance part for you like water parting around a sharp boulder, hurrying to get out of your way. Figurehead or real threat doesn’t matter - you’re the daughter of their lord and by rights their lady. 

Your father sits on his throne of twisted bone and fire ahead of the party, crimson eyes drinking in all that happens from his seat of power. Yet he has missed something incredibly important that now lingers upstairs waiting for you. The thought makes your lips twitch in a smirk as you ascend the stairs to where Asmodeus sits, a giddy tingle in your belly. 

A beautiful incubus boy sits next to the throne on the floor, a gold collar around his neck with a glittering chain that leads to Asdmodeous’ hand. The incubus looks at your father with adoration, gold eyes burning. Mouth agape. Breath catching. 

You don’t know how much of it is performance. It’s always hard to tell with the lower level fiends what is real and what is an act. It’s part of the dangerous game they play, and thought you’re more accustomed to their kind - especially the one lurking in your room - you’re still unsure how to tell the difference with this one.

You catch the scent of honey and vanilla as you step nearer, though the incubus doesn’t look at you. You immediately feel the ebbing power of allure from the creature, battering your senses just being so close. Asmodeus seems unaffected by the battering power of lust radiating from the incubus, but you see the two guards behind him glance toward the creature on the floor. 

You grit your teeth and ignore the twist in your gut, trying not to be irritated. Only one man has power over you this way. It isn’t the incubus’ fault that he’s doing what he was trained to do, but the sudden pitch in your stomach and dizziness you feel around him unsettles you. 

“I am returning to my chambers, Father,” you murmur, bowing deeply. “I have grown wear of Belial’s peacocking.” 

Behind him are two massive Orthons, no less than eight feet in height and wide like a troll. Their horns are curling and battle-scarred, ugly tusks showing from thick, fat lips. The beasts are hellish weapons from wars passed, now assigned to the personal guard of your father. You note that they also did not notice the shadowy incubus slipping into their party and up the stairwell.

It almost makes you tsk. Even for a creature as skilled and powerful as Yoongi, slipping past an entire party full of the most powerful infernals in the realms is impressive. He is, of course, more than just an incubus now, but still. The sheer magnitude of doing it successfully is not lost on you - and makes you worried for his sanity. 

“Sleep well,” Admodeous voice rumbles, his voice like stones grinding together. “Tomorrow, you return to Malbolge and ready to set out on your campaign.” His fiery eyes turn to you and you feel the weight of the burning Nine Hells press against you. “They will feel the crack of the Whip of Asmodeous and know that we are mighty. 

“It will be done.”

“She is as pretty as My Lord is,” the incubus boy purrs from where he sits at the foot of the throne. You glance at him, realizing that his golden gaze has broken away from your father and turned to you. Your stomach twists in equal parts anger, guilt, and disgust as you feel the lick of his power. “The House of Asmodeus is as beautiful as they are powerful.”

Again, it’s hard to discern if the incubus is performing or if he means it. Asmodeus pulls the chain hard, yanking incubus toward him. You hear his neck pop, though it doesn’t break as the creature wimpers at the sudden show of violence. “Do not speak to her, worm. You are nothing. She is the Heir Apparent and Princess of the Nine Hells. You are fodder.” 

The incubus cowers, and ducks his head away from you, curling in on himself. The sensual allure to him lessens distinctly, the energy souring. You feel your fingers twitch as you think of Yoongi. It is not difficult to guess that Asmodeous’ newfound desire to humiliate and dissipate incubi and succubi are inspired by his hatred and inability to rid himself of Yoongi’s stain. 

Swallowing thickly, you bow once more, slipping backward off the dias and toward the stairs that lead upward. No one guards them - there are supposed to be no enemies at this party - and shadow falls over them, the torches flickering as though watching you ascend.

Music and voices follow you up the stairs, the soft click of your shoes against the carved stone louder in the growing silence as you navigate to your bedrooms. The staircase winds and the sounds drift further away from you until it’s only the crackling of occasional sconces and your steps.

Two heavy doors in the west wing of the Citadel belong to your bedroom. The crackling energy of the arcana buzzing along them acting as a lock makes your skin tingle. You mutter the password and feel the pop of magic as it vanishes, allowing you to push heavily against one of the doors to grind it open. 

The room is both yours and not. It was your room for most of your life growing up under the ruler of the Nine Hells, opulent and dark, full of old possessions and heavy, draping curtains to keep out the smoke and ruin, rich art painted by careful hands with red and purple splashed across canvas. 

Now, it feels like a room that belonged to someone else entirely. You’re no longer the vicious little thing that thought would sit on the throne in Nessus one day. You’re no longer the unthinking weapon that Asmodeous uses to maintain order and public punishment. 

A large bed stands on a lifted dais, covered in silks and piled high with pillows. They lay undisturbed as you close the door behind you and mutter the password again, feeling the static of magic seal them shut behind you. It would take a small army to batter through them, thankfully. 

Your eyes scour the room. Embers burn in a smoldering fireplace, offering little light in the dimness of the bedroom. A large sitting area stretches to the right with leather chairs and velvet chaises, tables covered in untouched books and scrolls. 

To the left is an open study, a heavy wooden desk in the middle of the room backed with bookshelf-covered walls and heavy chests locked with tombs inside. You see the cover of a journal flipped open, the only sign that Yoongi had been lingering in your study snooping. 

Your mouth twitches at the corner as you look away from it. Yoongi leaving something out of place is only ever on purpose, a confirmation to you that yes - his visit has double meaning. You might be the primary reason the incubus and favored chosen warrior of a death god has snuck into his enemy’s home, but you’re not the only reason. Of course he is looking for any extra information he can use against his enemies. 

It stings a little more than you’d like. 

Stepping further into the room, you swivel your gaze back and forth, looking for a sign of the slippery man himself. A master of shadows, Yoongi is only seen when he wants to be. Strange, for a fiend whose very nature is to be seen and devoured, to give and to receive, to lure and enjoy. Most of his life has been spent in spectacle, and now he spends it in the shadows. 

Warm breath brushes against the back of your neck, making your skin prickle. “I like this dress.” 

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Yoongi’s callused fingers brush up your arm. It’s a ghost of touch but it makes your eyelids flutter shut, warmth thrumming in your stomach immediately. Unlike the incubus downstairs, you don’t feel a magnetic pull that is arcane here. You just feel the pull to Yoongi - a desire that is your own and fueled by nothing else. 

He has no reason to use his charm here. It makes you shiver as you lean backward into him, eager to feel the solidness of his chest and smell the sweet wine on his breath. 

“You always say that,” he purrs, the words low and scratchy. His other hand comes up to brush his fingers up and down your other arm, pulling you toward him full. You melt, fading into him faster than you should. “When will you learn that I will go wherever you are?” 

“Even if it means your own demise? You’re in the Citadel of Asmodeus.” 

“He’s killed me before.” Yoongi’s touch is more solid now, hands exploring your waist and curves, squeezing your flesh, pressing you against his waist. You rest the back of your head against his neck, inhaling cedarwood and sage. “I’m not so easily destroyed.” 

“Don’t.” 

You don’t want to recall the many times Yoongi has been wrenched away from you. Each time a little closer to permanence than the last. Time and time again, he has been ripped from your hands as your father attempts to destroy the fate linking you, to burn it until there is no tether there. 

“You’ve been good,” Yoongi notes. His hand goes to the silk strings on the side of your dress, pulling them undone. “He truly thinks you no longer think of me? That he has succeeded where he has failed a dozen times before?” 

“Yes.”

“His arrogance knows no bounds. He’ll think he’s a god, soon enough.”

You turn your head to the side, brushing your mouth against Yoongi’s. His lips are warm and taste of wine, urging your tongue to swipe across his bottom lip for a taste. “Is he not?” you ask against his mouth, fighting the need to shiver as one side of your dress falls open. “He rules the Nine Hells absolutely.” 

“Oh come off it,” He laughs. “You and I both know that isn’t true, otherwise he wouldn’t be in a civil war. Plus… I have recently acquired Avernus and Dis.” 

You straighten and turn around sharply to look at him, brows furrowing. For a moment, you forget what it is he’s said to shock you. You’re hypnotized by eyes dark enough that they reflect the stars when in the mortal world, a mouth that is soft and sensuous, a gentle, round nose that is opposed to the way he can turn it up at someone in a sneer. A faded scar over one eye - one of many that he's received over the years.

Yoongi is beautiful the way the moon is, distant and cold, but with a glow of softness that is often underestimated. 

You had made that mistake before. A long time ago, incubi and the lower creatures of the Nine Hells hadn’t been a blip on your radar. They were nothing to a princess of the Nine Hells, someone whose entire purpose for existing would be to one day step into ruling over all nine of the realms crushed in your father’s fist. 

Now, you know better. You’d been a silly, arrogant girl then, head filled with dreams of ruling over the dread cities and bringing the dukes and duchesses to heel. You’d never considered that perhaps your existence was more for appearances and leverage than anything else. 

A puppet. 

Belial, was, unfortunately, quite right about that. 

“What do you mean you have Avernus and Dis?”

“The skirmish in Phlegethos was a distraction. The dukes and duchess’ have been so frenzied about making sure they don’t have any disruptions in their rule that Belial scrambled to deal with his, turning his eye away from the others. Mammon… well you know Mammon. He is not a concern, for now. He cares little who holds Avernus and Dis.” You narrow your eyes at him. “I had help with Dis.”

That sours your stomach. “Bel.” 

“He has no love for Zariel. And he’s from Dis.”

“He’s a traitor. You’d do well not to trust him. Who knows when he’ll turn on you if promised something.”

“The Nine Hells are full of traitors.” Yoongi’s deft fingers undo the other side of your dress. “Including me. You think I would not sell out every single one of my fighters for you, hmm?” Yoongi presses a wet kiss to your jaw. You lean your head back to give him access to your throat. “You think I wouldn’t throw away being Kelemvor’s chosen and carrying his mantle for a chance to have you forever?” 

“You do have me.”

“Not in the way we are designed.” His voice is a growl as he bites at your throat, teeth scraping. You feel dizzy in his arms, but he holds you steadfast. “You were designed for me by the wheels of fate, and I for you. All of this - war, death, political scheming - it stands in our way and I would betray the god who gives me my many lives to cut to the chase in an instant.” 

The rage-laced words are an anger you’re familiar with. Two creatures born to exist for one another - more than fated mates. Your very existence tied to Yoongi’s is a matter of universal balance, two threads of fabric that must remain woven together, lest the realms collapse. 

Divine Scales. Two lives bound together that must remain in balance for the rest of the world to exist. You and Yoongi are not the only Divine Scales in the realms, but you’re perhaps one of the most difficult to balance in a world set on keeping you apart. 

You, the daughter of the Archduke of the Nine Hells. Yoongi, an incubus servant whose purpose was to lure, steal, and spy on behalf of Asmodeus. It was an unfit match that your father was set on destroying - his daughter an heir would not be tied to a lowly creature of lust and servitude. 

“Careful,” you murmur as Yoongi peels the fabric from your skin. The air is warm but you feel a shiver anyway, nipples pebbling at the temperature change. “Your god might not like to hear you say such things.”

“He is not my god,” Yoongi mutters. His eyes are hungry, burning with desire as he drinks you in, his fingers gripping the flesh at your hips. “He is a convenience. I need power to take control of the Nine Hells, he gives me power. You are the only being I worship. The only goddess I recognize.” Yoongi sinks to his knees and your stomach flips. He looks up at you, lips parted and pupils blown, eyes so dark you could spill into them and never find your way. “Let me prove my devotion. Let me worship the only divinity I’ve ever known.”

Yoongi’s words are a spell on you, and not because he’s in an incubus, created and bred to be alluring and lead mortals to the Hells to give up their souls. Yoongi’s words have power because he is Yoongi, a being who he designed to be your other half. Another being you love so entirely that you intend to sacrifice the realm you call home, that you actively betray the people you’ve known since you were a child in order to be with him. 

These snatches with him are so few and far between. He fights a war against your father and his archdevils while you unravel them from the inside. Two knives carving away at the system which fights to keep you apart. 

You forget about all of the atrocities committed and to come. You push away the anxiety that Yoongi is thwarting his power by coming to the seat of his enemy’s power, just because he can and because he wants you. 

Instead, you focus on the way his mouth leaves wet kisses across your thighs. Yoongi’s fingers press into the back of your legs, holding you to him as his tongue lavs at a small scar on your hip, his teeth nipping the flesh.

Your world falls away as his tongue and mouth suck at your skin. Heat gathers between your legs, feeling the wet ache in your folds as Yoongi purposefully avoids going toward the apex of your thighs, instead showering your inner thighs, calves, and hips with soft kisses. 

Strong hands pry your legs apart. You let him slide your foot over, widening your stance easily. You cannot recall a single person you have ever been pliable for. You are the Whip of Asmodeous, a sharp weapon made to force subservience and delve out punishment. 

You are no whip in Yoongi’s hands. You are silk, sliding through his fingers as his mouth presses closer and closer to your heart. To everyone else, you are a weapon. To Yoongi, you’re just you. A mind to adore, a body to worship. 

Your knees threaten to buckle when the first, slow swipe of his tongue runs up your drenched folds. Yoongi chuckles, the sound throaty. Gently, he lifts a leg and pulls it over his shoulder, providing a counterweight as you stand but also giving him access to your aching cunt, pressing his face close as he licks you from hole to throbbing clit again. 

“Yoongi,” you whisper, a hand shooting to his hair. Your fingers slide through soft, silk strands and twist, rooting him there. He groans in appreciation, focusing his tongue on slow, up-and-down licks, avoiding your clit as he works. “Fuck.” 

He hums, the feeling buzzing through your pussy as he closes his mouth over it, sucking gently. His mouth is wet and warm, tongue soft as it circles your aching bundle of nerves. Your legs feel gummy as you waver, holding onto him to keep yourself standing as much as you are to keep him in place.

Yoongi’s hunger can rarely be sated. He devours you, mouth eager as he sucks and licks at you, lips smacking loudly as he does. You barely register the obscene noise, canting your hips up into his mouth as the pleasure begins to build slowly. 

A hand presses into your ass, pressing you harder against the flat of his tongue. Yoongi opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, looking up at you with fucked out eyes as he urges you to fuck his face at your pace, to use him like a god would use a conduit. 

Yoongi is your conduit, and you are his. You vowed centuries ago to be his whip, a weapon at his command. He vowed to be your shield, your knife in the dark. 

The powers of the Hells would keep you apart. Beyond the impropriety that someone so lowborn could be fated for one of the highest powers among the infernals, the two of you together are too much of a threat. Too much power tied to one another, a divine match that cannot be broken.

Still, they try. 

The two of you have died before. Keeping you dead isn’t easy, though. Neither can truly die while the other lives and no one has quite managed to kill you both simultaneously - a familial crutch that Asmodeus cannot seem to overcome. 

You’d die every day to have this moment with Yoongi, your breath caught in your lungs, sweat beading on the small of your back, head tilted back as your heart beats so loud it's all you can hear. You feel every part of your body coil before there is a moment of white noise as your orgasm crests over, your cunt squeezing, your hand pulling his hair. 

Yoongi drinks you in like he cannot get enough. Gluttonous, ravenous man, pressing into your heat as he sucks. Your hands tug at his hair, the stimulation going from warm and fluid to sharp and biting. He grows a little when you pull his face back by the strands of his hair, a picture of madness with the lower half of his face covered in your slick, lips red and swollen, eyes unfocused. 

You pull and he stands, knocking you back as he does. You stumble the remaining footsteps to your bed, mouths connecting in a tangle of teeth, tongue, spit and cum. You taste yourself on him, sucking his tongue greedily into his mouth as your hands claw at his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against yours. 

He complies, letting you push the shirt off his shoulders as he climbs over you, pressing a knee between your legs as he traps your lips in a searing kiss again. Your lips feel bruised where you kiss, his mouth demanding. His hands claw at your hips, pulling you down into his knee, grinding your slick cunt against his leg.

You let out a breathy sound, both from the feeling of pleasure blooming between your legs once again and the warmth of his skin, your hands rubbing across his chest, seeking to chase the inferno within. Yoongi has always been warm, but something hotter burns in him now. Something divine, vicious, and powerful lurking beneath his skin, the unlikely power of a god of death lurking just beneath the surface. 

You know that Kelemvor, the God of Death and Lord of Judgement has chosen Yoongi as a conduit of power because Yoongi seeks the balance of the world - he is a part of the balance of the world. His very existence is paramount to a deity whose very nature is to maintain the scales. 

It doesn’t stop you from wanting to eat away at the divinity under Yoongi’s skin, to drive out the influence that isn’t yours, to assert your dominance over a god and remind him that Yoongi does not belong to Kelemvor, he is not an extension of death. He belongs to you and you alone. 

It is an irrational, violent bout of jealousy that overtakes you for a moment. Your nails rake down his chest a little too hard, leaving trails of blood beneath. You bit his bottom lip a little too hard, the taste of iron and salt spilling into your mouth with his tongue. 

Yoongi smirks against your scarlet mouth, pulling back to look down at you. He knows what it is you seek. Yoongi always knows. Your minds are not connected, but your souls are and there is little you can hide from him. “You cannot rip him out of me, no matter how much you want to.” 

“I will try.” 

“Good.” He leans down and bites hard on your collarbone, making you gasp. “I will tear Asmodeous’ influence from you in kind.” 

Your hands are less harsh as you undo the laces of his pants, pulling them down powerful thighs. Your viciousness cools in the shower of the whisper of his love against your ear and the scrap of his tongue against your skin. Every single part of you burns hotter than the deepest part of the Hells, driven there by him alone. 

You love him - such a simple word could convey it accurately, anyway.

It seems too small of a word, unable to fit the fountain of want, desire, trust, and yearning that spills out of you into such a small cup. You don’t know if love can truly hold everything you feel for him, if it conveys that there is nothing god, archdevil, or fate that would stop you from being here with Yoongi, getting to touch him, to taste him, to whisper into his mouth as he presses the head of his cock into your weeping entrance. 

“You’re mine,” you gasp, rolling your hips forward to meet the slow, powerful strokes of his cock. Yoongi cradles you to him, his hands gripping you tighter as he presses your bodies together, as though you could meld. “Mine mine mine.” 

“I’m yours,” he agrees, voice throaty and strained. “Who else could I belong to?” 

You have no answer. Stars dance behind your eyelids as you move to his rhythm. Yoongi’s skin is heated and sticky as he moves against you. You feel his heartbeat in exact time with yours, twin rhythms. Your arms wind around his shoulders, fingers twisting in the hair at the nape of his neck. You feel the muscle of his back and shoulder flex as he fucks you slowly, each stroke pointed and driving you to the edge again. 

Yoongi’s mouth brushes yours. You breathe in his air, unable to put anything else into words, thoughts consumed with him. With how he tastes, with how he smells, with how he feels. Nestled in the deepest part of you, you feel home. It is such a rare feeling, only discovered here like this, connected. 

It makes your breath catch, barely audible above Yoongi’s low groaning and the loud smack of skin against skin. Your heels dig into the bed, head pressing into the mattress as you throw your head back, unable to do anything but take what Yoongi is giving you. 

His pace quickens, slamming into your cunt with enough force to break you. But you do not break - you could never break with him. You squirm in his hold, babbling and panting and trying to breathe as he drives you to the edge of madness - and then you peak. 

A wild sound escapes you as you seize into him, muscles clenching, cunt spasming. Yoongi’s thrusts turn vicious, fucking you through your orgasm as you clench down on him with a vice grip. His fingers grip the back of your neck, pulling you toward his chest as he leans backward, your legs sliding as he seats you in his lap, fucking up into you. 

“Imagine thinking they could take you away from me,” Yoongi hisses. His thrusts are sloppy and hard, spearing you and sending you hurtling right toward the edge again. You submit to him, head lolling to the side as he takes you. “Imagine thinking that you could defy a prewritten fate that you are mine, that you are anything less than what was made for me.” 

A sob slips through your lips. You cannot think of a response, only able to cling to him as though to say yes. 

“They cannot take you away from me,” he growls. “I will destroy this world again and again if they try. They cannot sunder what is here, they cannot rip you away from me any more than you can rip the stars from the sky.” 

Just as you begin to teeter on the edge, Yoongi slams his hips home, clenching as he comes. “You cannot be anything else but mine.”

It sends you hurling over the edge again, so powerful that you forget where you are for a moment. It is intoxicating, this bliss that unfurls like the flowers of a petal. Nothing exists here but calm water and the scent and taste of Yoongi. There is no war here. No fight to keep you apart. No demands, no expectations. It’s just you and him. Like it was always meant to be. 

Slowly, awareness creeps back toward you. It is a lumbering, lazy thing. You only feel somewhat aware that you’re in a bed and that you feel the heat of Yoongi next to you, the press of his mouth against your shoulder. The aftereffects of sleeping with an incubus are not lost on you, even as a powerful infernal. 

Everything feels melted, like it could fall through your fingers like grains of sand. Perhaps you could float away if you tried, but Yoongi grounds you. The feeling of his hand on your hip and his mouth on your skin is the most solid thing that exists in this world in between, keeping you tethered to something real. Something substantial. 

When you blink away the sticky high of the post-orgasm daze, Yoongi is watching you with soft, round eyes. The burning desire is still there, but at the forefront is adoration. Worship. Love. Anything stronger than words can describe. 

“Are you okay?” he kisses your jaw before drawing back to examine your face. You nod, head heavy. “Too much?”

“No. Not with you. Never with you.” 

His mouth twitches like he’s unsure. You nestle closer to him, closing your eyes as you’re cupped in the safety of his presence. “With Avernus and Dis at your command, you can take Phlegethos,” you murmur. “Mammon will give you Minauros if you can do that.” 

“Hmm.” 

Your eyes flutter open, watching as Yoongi closes his. You can tell by the twitch in his mouth that he is thinking. “I will deliver you Phlegethos.” He cracks an eye open and looks at you, seeing the hunger that burns there. “Belial needs a good whip to put him in place.” 

“The Whip of Asmodeous?” 

“No.” You grin. “The Whip of Kelemvor’s Chosen.” 

[all-you-need-is-paul-mccartney]

James (Paul McCartney x Fem!Reader)

A/N: Hello! I've decided I have to make a chapter fic for Paulie because I'm in love with him. There are gonna be at LEAST 6 chapters in this fic, so there will be plenty more coming! Stick around, like and comment, and let me know if you want to be tagged when I release more chapters of this!

I want to personally thank my editor @strawb3rri-le for helping me make these ideas come into fruition. Literally cannot do this without you <3

Summary: Paul meets a pretty girl in the library one day, and is elated to find out she is oblivious to who he actually is.

This fic is written in third person from Paul's perspective, which is kind of different to how I normally write my x readers, so it might be a little jarring to read at first, but I just wanted to try something a little different :)

WARNINGS: I'm not certain I wrote any curse words in this one, but I'll say there is just to be on the safer side. Mentions of mushrooms/ fungi; not drug-related, but I figured I'd add that because some people don't like them. I use Y/n like 4 times in here around the end it drives me nuts, but it has to happen. I don't think there's much else.

This one is pretty safe, if I could rate it lower I would, but I'll mark it at T just to be on the safe side.

Paul could have watched the heavy raindrops hit the window pane for hours and hours. the grey clouds drifting in the sky above brought nothing but heavy showers to the streets of London that dark afternoon...

But that's not what he came to the library for.

He came here for some peace and quiet.

He wanted to get some more songwriting done, but the apartment didn't seem to be the place for it that day, and everywhere else just appeared to be crawling with girls. As much as Paul liked girls, he didn't want to be noticed, because then his day would have simply consisted of him trying to escape the hoards that would have started chasing after him.

The library felt like it made the most sense. People were there to read, study, keep to themselves; not to socialize with others and be loud. As long as he found a little private area to sit, he knew he wouldn't be bothered at all. He also figured, if he couldn't come up with any song ideas, he had tens of thousands of books to refer to for inspiration.

And that was the situation Paul was in at that moment. He'd been sitting in his little study nook for a while now, just staring blankly at his notebook, or out the window next to him. Usually the words came flowing from his mind, translated by his hand and onto the paper, yet that particular day, nothing seemed to be inspiring him.

He rose to his feet after a while, notebook shoved under his arm as he wandered off into one of the aisles nearest to him. He wasn't looking for any book in particular. Sometimes he'd just pull one off the shelf, flip to a random page, and read a random sentence in the middle of the text. If it seemed to be interesting enough to inspire even a single line in a song, Paul would use it. If not, off to the next book.

He began to do just that, with older books with worn spines, and newer books with colourful covers. Unfortunately, even after the fourth or fifth book he pulled from the aisle he was in, no inspiration seemed to manifest from what he was reading. He sighed as he pushed the book he was holding back into its place on the shelf before he made his way to the next aisle over.

Paul began repeating what he was doing before, reaching for a book, and flipping through the pages. This particular book, he cut three separate times, and not one sentence seemed to draw any kind of innovation for his songwriting.

Once again, Paul shoved the book back onto the shelf. As he stared ahead at all of the different pieces of literature before him, one book in particular seemed to catch his eye. It was green, with gold accents on the bevelling as well as the raised parts of the spine. Without a second thought, he reached up for it, only for his fingers to come into contact with someone else's.

Paul drew his hand back and glanced to his right, where a young woman about his age stood. He held his breath, fully expecting an overreaction from her at his presence.

Instead, she smiled awkwardly at him, her hand also drawn back close to her.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were after that one," she explained gently, and Paul blinked, raising a confused eyebrow before looking back to that specific book. After a moment, he pulled it down off the shelf and examined the cover, the golden text embossed into the front cover reading 'Europe's Most Common Mushrooms, and Fungi: A Field Guide'.

"Do you like learning about Mycology as well?" She asked curiously, and Paul's gaze shot up to her face, eyes squinting a little at her question.

He was half confused on what she was honestly asking him, but he was also kind of surprised she wasn't pointing and shouting at the fact that she found a Beatle in public.

"... Mycology?" He asked back sheepishly, and her awkward smile warmed up a little at his question. She pointed at the book cover before responding with another question. "You know, the study of mushrooms, and fungi?"

Paul's eyes dropped back down to the book before cracking it open and flipping to a random page as he was doing with all the others. A beautifully illustrated picture of a mushroom with a porous underside presented itself to the young man, and his eyebrows furrowed at the image.

"That is a Boletus Edulis," she explained quietly to him. "It's a tasty gourmet mushroom found in Europe, as well as in North America."

Paul looked back up to her briefly before returning to the book and flipping to another page, a red capped mushroom with white spots being the next image to catch his eye.

"Ooh, and that one there is an Amanita Muscaria, also known as the Fly Agaric. It received its name back in the day because grinding it up and putting it in window sills and doorways would repel flies from entering your home."

"... You sure know your mushrooms, huh?" Paul asked carefully, rather impressed with the few bits of information provided to him by this stranger.

"It's definitely a good hobby to get into. Nothing beats going out onto the trail and foraging them for dinner." She paused briefly before adding, "I mean... the boletes are fine, but perhaps not the amanitas." 

Paul closed the book up again before taking a final glance at the front cover.

"I'm uh... sort of grabbing books at random, looking for something inspiring. There needn't be a reason to hang onto this if you need it," Paul explained, presenting it to her so she could take it, and her fingers accidentally brushed against his once again as she took it from him.

The graze was so gentle, yet Paul felt his cheeks warm up at the contact. She was awfully pretty, he decided to himself in silence as he watched the look of joy on her face appear when she flipped the book open herself. She stopped on a page containing a drawing of a white mushroom dripping black ink at its edges.

Paul couldn't help but double take the image. To think there was so much about the world he didn't know a thing about... it made him feel so small, and insignificant.

She must have noticed his gaze on the page, and figured she'd teach him about one more specimen. "These ones," she began, with a rather excited exhale, turning the book Paul's way so he could see, "are Shaggy Mane mushrooms. They are edible and good, as long as you haven't consumed alcohol for a few days prior to, and post consumption. Then they'd be quite toxic."

She smiled at the tidbit and looked up to Paul's face, nose crinkling a little. "Isn't that just the neatest thing?"

Paul couldn't believe what he was hearing. He never really thought about mushrooms before. Sure, he'd seen brown and white ones before in the grass, or growing on trees, but there was something about the way she relayed the information with such passion, that just made it so interesting to him. It was unlike anything he ever experienced before.

"... You have a very natural way of describing this sort of stuff," Paul expressed, nodding his head to her positively. "I honestly never realized there were so many different ones."

"Oh, what I've told you doesn't even scratch the surface of the world of Mycology," she explained, the smile only growing on her face, and Paul couldn't help but smile back at her.

"... I should really leave to let you continue on with what you were doing," she said after a moment. "I do appreciate you listening to my ramblings. I know I can sometimes get carried away with this sort of stuff," her smile fell away a little. "Not many really care about fungi, so it's nice to talk about my interests with someone who's willing to listen."

Paul's own smile began to falter, rather upset that such a pleasant conversation, with such a pleasant person, had to end so soon. He hadn't encountered such a normal discussion in so long. Not that a conversation about mushrooms and fungi was normal, but Paul felt it was just so refreshing talking about anything but him and his fame.

"... well, I rather enjoyed what you had to say," he admitted lightly, an undeniable blush flourishing from the woman's cheeks as she appeared to smile again, a little brighter than before.

"Well... thank you, again. You're very kind," she repeated, waving her hand kindly as she turned on her heel and wandered off to the next aisle.

Paul's eyes watched her round the corner, and he stood there in disbelief. There was so much for him to unpack in his thoughts in that very moment.

She had to have been one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen; minding her own business in a library by herself, and doing something she really enjoyed. Her intelligence on the subject showed through her excited rambling, which Paul could have listened to for much, much longer.

Her voice was so pleasant, happiness apparent in her words as she described every species effortlessly, as if she'd known it all since the day she was born. It left him wanting to hear more from her.

But the cherry on top of all of this, was that she didn't even acknowledge Paul as anything but another human being. Not some big musician with whom she obsessed over just because of his looks. For someone who remained so calm, and pleasant in conversation, Paul was certain she had no clue who he actually was.

And he loved that.

As much as fame brought excitement to his existence, Paul couldn't deny that the concept of a simple, normal life with someone who loved him for him, and not his popularity to the public, was something he seemed to yearn for more often as of late.

He loved the idea of being a nobody, especially to someone he wanted to be somebody to.

He looked over his shoulder to the empty space where that green and gold book once sat, deciding to reach for the one sitting next to it. It happened to be another book on mushrooms and fungi, but it had a lot more words in it than images. He flipped to the middle of the book and read the fist word he saw.

Symbiosis.

He felt dumb staring at the word. He knew there was only one person he could ask to inquire about what it meant. He glanced up through the bookshelves, eyes searching through the gaps of the works to find her.

She only happened to be in the next aisle over, scanning the book titles off the spines above her head carefully, too in her own world to notice Paul's obvious staring through the shelving units. She pulled a book down and read the summary on the back, Paul watching her eyelashes flit lower and lower as she absorbed the words like a sponge in water.

He noticed that as she read, her lips gently mouthed each word, and he soon found himself stuck in a trance. He observed how her tongue poked out between her teeth to mouth words with the letter L, and how her lips would press tightly together as she read words containing B, and M.

Who would have thought, Paul wondered, something so small could be so hypnotizing?

She made a small face of approval to the book before stacking it on top of the green one she was given by him, and she headed over to an empty table in the corner of the room. She faced towards the shelves, back to the wall so she could see the whole library from her spot.

Despite this, as soon as she made herself comfortable, she was solely focussed on the books, and her dominant hand wrote out her notes almost romantically, notebook pages filling effortlessly with information that brought her joy.

Paul was absolutely mesmerized by her movements. Screw the rain, he could have watched her for hours. He couldn't get over the little flick of her wrist when she ended a point, or the wonderful silent motion of her lips reading out the words.

She drove him mad in the best kind of way.

She flipped to the next page in her notebook, and Paul came back down to earth, realizing then just how creepy he must have appeared, standing close to the shelf, and peering through to the other side to watch the woman simply minding her own business from afar.

His shoes felt like they were filled with cement, but he worked up enough courage to slowly move towards her table, opting to stand by a nearby shelf and stare blankly at the spines as to not look so awkward.

What would I even say to her? was the only thought at the forefront of Paul's mind, the black mushroom book still in his hand, one of his fingers wedged between the pages to mark where that silly word was. He knew he was going to ask her about it, but he needed to smoothly segue into it, somehow.

This situation was rather a bother to Paul. He felt conflicted as to why he seemed so nervous about approaching her. He was a flirt, and he loved making girls feel giddy, why would this stranger be any different?

He was close enough that he could have called for her attention, but her focus was faithfully undivided, completely oblivious to Paul standing only fifteen feet away from her, trying to muster up the nerve to say something, anything.

After talking to her for only a minute and a half, and having parted ways for not even five more, Paul found himself deprived of her voice, longing to hear anything roll off her tongue, as long as it were to him. He was pining to have her attention so badly, but standing and admiring her from only a couple of steps away was only going to get him so far.

His palms were sweaty, and he wiped them on his pants haphazardly as he took a deep breath. He took one more second to nod his head positively for motivation, and he stepped out into the open, facing her completely. His heart pounded in his chest, but he pushed himself to take one more step forward. And that happened to be enough for her to notice.

The stranger raised her gaze up to Paul, the look of neutral concentration on her face softening into a pleasant smile.

Just that made Paul weak in the knees.

"Find anything inspiring yet?" She asked him in a friendly tone, eyeing the book in his hand as his thoughts flatlined. He didn't expect her to speak first. On the one hand, he was relieved that it indicated she was okay with talking to him, but on the other, it put him off-script, and now he had to actually use his brain to initiate discussion.

"I uh..." he struggled for a moment, glancing down at the book in his hand, as well.

"If I'm going to be quite honest... you talking about mushrooms so passionately was pretty inspiring. It's all I can think about."

The woman's eyebrows arched in surprise, a gentle dusting of pink spreading over her nose as she took in his words. She toyed her bottom lip between her teeth, and Paul couldn't help but drop his gaze for just a second to admire her mouth.

"You know, I'm really flattered that you said that," she expressed gently. "That means a great deal to me. Thank you."

Paul couldn't even feel his legs now, basking in her praise, as a flower would to the rays of sun on a warm spring day.

"... I couldn't help but grab another book like the one you're reading," he explained, lifting it up to show her, and the apples of her cheeks rounded as she smiled even wider. Paul hadn't ever recalled seeing such a beautiful face before.

"I... I saw a word I don't know. I think you're the only person who can help me." The confession made Paul feel a little self-conscious; he didn't want to seem entirely stupid in front of her, but she really didn't seem the type to make fun of him over something like this, and really damage his ego.

Without a word, she pulled the chair out next to her as a silent indication for Paul to take a seat, and he took the offer graciously. He set his notebook down onto the table, and then opened the book to where his finger marked the page cut. She leaned in a little to peer down at the text, and he pointed to the word, realizing only seconds after just how close she was to him. He could smell the faintness of her body wash, and it made his head swirl.

"... This one." He mumbled, watching her in his peripheral as she read the sentence in her head, and physically mouthing the words as her eyes tracked each letter.

"Ah, symbiosis. It basically means two different organisms are benefitting off each other in some way or another. We would be a good example of this, right now," she offered, tilting her head up to look at Paul, who's ears burned hot at the eye contact, but he kept strong and held it for as long as she wanted to look at him.

"You're keeping me pleasant company, and in return, I'm helping you learn about fungi." He thought her point was going to end there, but she quickly added on, "from a natural standpoint, fungi and trees have a symbiotic relationship. If it weren't for the millions of miles of fungal network underground, connecting all the living organisms together, plants wouldn't be able to communicate to each other, or convert their energy from one to the other to achieve optimal growth."

"So... everything would die without fungi?" Paul asked slowly.

"I believe so," she nodded her head. "They play a role in every step of a plant's life. Take a tree, for example."

She slid the green and gold book over to sit between them, and she flipped through the first few pages until she found a diagram of a tree's life cycle, pointing to the images as she rambled on.

"Fungi help them establish strong roots when they're young. Some fungi actually provide nutrients in the soil for the trees to use as energy to grow tall and strong."

She turned her gaze back to Paul. "Even at the end, if a mother tree is dying, she will begin to use the fungal networks below to disperse her energy to her kin, sacrificing herself so they can grow, instead. They use the networks underground to communicate in their own special way."

The young man appeared to be in a dream-like state, head in his palm as he looked on in favour of her words. But when he noticed she stopped speaking after a while, he blinked, finding she was smiling a little awkwardly again, as if she'd asked him a question.

"Hm?" He asked, propped hand dropping to the table. He felt rather guilty his attention diverted.

"... I'm boring you, aren't I?" There was a hint of sadness in her words, a weak smile at her lips, and Paul shook his head quickly.

"No, no! Believe me, I'm listening." He thought for a beat, face going warm again as he confessed, "I just... I really love the sound of your voice. You have a way with words, and I did get a little distracted by that." The young woman's face fell expressionless, and Paul continued.

"I may be rather daft on the subject, but there's just something in the way you talk about it that makes learning about it so much more enjoyable. Please, don't stop talking."

She opened her mouth to say something, but she shut it as she pondered what to respond to Paul with. Her face was flushed, and she was holding back a grin, which ultimately made Paul a little confident considering he was the one that made her flustered.

"... You probably say that to all of the girls you talk to," she finally replied, eyes casting down to the books to hide her blush, and he couldn't help but bite back a smile of his own.

"Well, none of the other girls I know are quite like you," he stated with poise, eyes still locked in on her, hands clasping together as he noticed her blush deepen, and a smile finally breaking through.

Paul then attempted to downplay such a strong interaction. Despite talking to her the way he wanted to, he didn't want her to be uncomfortable with how forward he felt he was being.

"What does your boyfriend think about your hobbies?" He asked. "He must be so proud, and fascinated by how passionate you are about all of this stuff, surely."

She looked back up to Paul, her smile weakening a little. "Boyfriend? Oh I uh..." she cleared her throat. "I don't... I don't have one of those."

Paul's eyebrows lowered a little. "... As in you just got out of a relationship?" He tried to clarify, to which she shook her head.

"As in I've never really... had one." She had a sheepish look on her face, cheeks now red out of embarrassment rather than flattery. Her response sent Paul's eyebrows shooting up in surprise, to say the least.

"... Never?" He repeated in disbelief. She pressed her lips together in a line tightly, shaking her head once again.

"This," she gestured to the books with her hand, "is my life. It has been my life since my early teenage years. Mushrooms and fungi are... strange, and because I like them, I guess that makes me kind of strange, as well."

Her self-dejecting statement made Paul feel bad. In his mind, someone like her not being taken, though washing the feeling of relief throughout him, didn't add up at all. Not even her fascination in mushrooms made her odd, in his eyes.

"... If it means anything to you, I think you're just absolutely lovely," he said, watching as her lip pressed into a little pout as she regarded his words.

"I'm telling you... every guy out there has no idea what they're missing out on."

Paul desperately wished he could read minds; especially hers. She didn't speak, and Paul assumed that the was simply trying to grasp for some words to say. If he were in her position, he wouldn't have known what to say, either.

"For once in my life, someone has actually made me speechless," she confessed, huffing a sigh as she rubbed one of her cheeks, as if that would have made her blush disappear.

"I want to tell you thank you, but that doesn't feel like nearly enough," she explained. "Honestly, your girlfriend is very lucky to have such a charming boyfriend. You have a way with words, yourself." Her comment made Paul laugh, but only once. Inside his chest, his heart was doing somersaults, but he was trying his hardest to keep his composure.

"What girlfriend?"

The woman gasped at his response. "You lie," she accused, yet Paul knew it was all in good nature by the smile on her face. "Even if you were, with a face like that, there's no way you don't have girls chasing after you all the time."

How the tables have turned, Paul thought; a little excited he found himself in the same spot as her only moments after he made the same mistake. Part of him wanted to respond to her with something witty, like "who says I don't?", but the other part of him didn't want that to arouse any questions that would segue into a conversation regarding his job.

He couldn't risk having her know everything, and fall for the idea of him.

"I guess I just... haven't found the right bird yet." He figured that was another truth he could hold by without entirely lying to this poor woman.

"That's fair. Well, whoever has the pleasure of ending up with you is a very lucky woman, indeed." Paul's cheeks darkened again, the compliment making his fingers feel a little numb. He noticed her eyes drifting to the window above his head before she suddenly closed her books shut.

"The rain's stopped. This has been a rather lovely conversation, but I do apologize. I must be leaving now."

Paul felt his stomach drop, and his mouth fell agape, watching worriedly as she gathered her belongings and rose to her feet.

"What-- you're leaving? Right now?"

He felt the same way he did back in the aisle when she cut the conversation short, full of disappointment that it all had to come to an end again.

"I was on my way to my parents' house before the rain started," she explained with a lopsided smile. "I'm helping my mother prepare for dinner tonight, but the rain was so bad, I figured I'd spend some time in here while I waited for it to die down. And I'm very glad I made that decision."

Paul nodded his head, realizing the last part of what she said alluded to making his acquaintance. He also found he couldn't be upset at such a wonderful gesture of kindness, her going to her parents'. "That is very sweet of you to do that for her," he said gently, standing up as well before she disappeared again.

"Before you go," he started, feeling hot beneath the collar as he tried to gather a little bit more courage to speak, her expecting eyes on him making him rather anxious.

"I would like to keep in contact with you," he paused briefly, "only if you want. I just... I've had a really pleasant time talking with you, and learning about your interests, and I would very much like to do all of this again."

Her cheeks rounded out again as her smile widened a little more-- Paul couldn't get over that damned smile of hers.

"You know... I would like that a lot," she finally answered, glancing down at her notebook before flipping to the last page and ripping it out. She folded it in half, and then tore it at the line, handing Paul one of the halves while she began writing on the other one. Paul watched with a pounding heart as she scratched out her phone number, and he began to do the same.

When they exchanged the papers, Paul examined the number she provided him, and then read the name she printed above it, a smiley face drawn next to it. he tried his best to concealing his excitement within.

"Y/n..." he mumbled thoughtfully, eyes casting back up to look at her. She laughed a little as she flipped the paper in her hand to show Paul, which only contained his phone number.

"That's me, but what am I to call you, exactly?"

This is where Paul found himself in another dilemma. He wanted her to call him Paul, but he also didn't want her putting two and two together if she recognized his name. He didn't want to entirely lie to her, either.

That's when a light bulb went off in his head. He realized the greatest loophole, and solution was staring him right in the face.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Paul reached for the paper again, scribbling his name at the top. But he wasn't using 'Paul'; he decided he was going to use his real first name.

"You can call me James," he explained, handing the paper back to her. She surveyed the name at the top of the paper before looking back up to him.

"Finally, a name to a face," she hummed in content. She then offered a hand out to Paul, to which he took so they could shake and say their farewells.

"It was an absolute pleasure meeting you, James."

It was the first time in a very long time Paul had been called that by anyone. He figured he would have hated the sound of it leaving her lips, but instead, it made his heart flutter. His face felt hot again, and it was apparent y/n could see the flush of his skin, because she smirked a little.

"The pleasure is all mine, Y/n. Please be safe." He finally let go of her hand, waving good bye as she did so as well, turning on her heel once again, and heading to the counter with her books to sign them out.

She slid Paul's phone number into her notebook as she walked away, and Paul just stood there for another moment as he watched her leave. He was was still feeling so many emotions now that he was alone, unable to help himself reaching back down to the piece of paper she gave him. He ran his fingers over her name and smiled a little to himself.

"Y/n..." her name was like a breath of fresh air to him. When he looked back up to catch one more glimpse of her, she was already gone. It made him feel a little empty, but when he noticed she left the black mushroom book for him, he felt just a little warmer inside.

Paul reached for the book, sliding her number into the pages, and deciding he was going to sign it out and try to learn a little on the subject. If they ever planned to meet in the future, he could try and impress her with some of the information he learned.

He didn't end up getting what he was looking for at the library, but he felt he was leaving with something he needed.

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

A/A/N: Okay, I hope yous enjoyed that! Part 2 will happen as long as I have people requesting it. I have ideas, I'm just missing supporters<3

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[3liza]

saw someone talking about "scary dog privilege" on here today and cant find the post again but i guess it refers to when women are bothered less in public when accompanied by a large dog, and bypassing the quibble i have with calling that a privilege, i can absolutely 100% confirm it is true.

i was approached by a 30s-40s single white man wearing the Dipshit Uniform (guy in a baseball cap who looks like he drives an f-150 and has voting opinions i would not agree with) on the street the other day and all he had to talk about was Churchgrim. that he was VERY large, looked like a good boy, obedient, what breed is he, etc. this is the only interaction i get from men in public anymore unless i do not have the dog with me, at which point it goes back to the usual bullshit. however it has to be an actual scary-looking dog and you have to visibly have control of it. this is not why i got a large dog, it's just a side benefit. it probably has a lot to do with the masculine cultural coding of any large dog breed that isnt a poodle or a sight hound more than it does the actual violence potential of the dog, but those two things are related. notably, not a SINGLE man has tried to mansplain dog care or handling to me for five years. not one. i cant explain this because its not like being visible capable at a task or skill will stop them in any other circumstance, including when you are holding a literal firearm.

i remember reading some stupid op-ed from some idiot woman who got a dog "for protection" on her jogs and was baffled when men were not intimidated by her golden fucking retriever (although they should have been; goldens bite a lot, statistically, probably explicitly because people do not take them seriously)

the fact that men's body language and tone of voice has changed so drastically from before when i had a 90lbs black shepherd mix standing next to me is pretty damning tbh. all people both intentionally and unintentionally modulate their communication styles around that type of dog to display respect, interest, or fear, experienced dog people can be identified instantly by their comfort and confidence with the dog, and people with dog phobia are the opposite. the dog instinctively puts himself between me and approaching strangers, probably not out of a defensive instinct in grim's case but because strangers are interesting and he wants to be closer to the object of interest, but the physical barrier this creates is a great benefit to me.

specifically, men talk to me much much much more like they are speaking to another man when the dog is there. part of that is men are often genuinely interested in knowing information about a large dog of grim's type and are not using the dog as an excuse to flirt with or harass me. grim has a phenotype that is familiar to certain experiences within the united states as a "porch dog" or "yard dog" or "farm dog" that everyone who has lived in rural areas has usually known or owned a few notable examples of, and thats a general class of dog that tends to be good at listening and responding to humans and has a lot of opportunities to display intelligence or good judgment, so people with rural experience tend to associate him with good memories. he's also "handsome" in the dog sense because he got to keep his balls until he was 3, on the advice of his vet, and as a result he developed nice-looking musculature and a big thick neck which you dont get on city dogs much. he gets a lot of positive attention from older ladies as well, who you'd think would be afraid of being knocked over, but who are always just besotted with him for reasons i havent quite figured out yet. maybe they like seeing a youngish woman with a dog like this, i know that i feel good and happy when i see younger women and girls in situations where they seem safe or protected to me. i think to myself, "i don't have to worry about her" and i feel relief. observing young women and girls often triggers anxiety for women who are even just a few years older than they are, out of pure empathy. its one reason it's so important to be kind to younger people than you are.

anyway it's damning to the men because of course men don't think rationally that the dog would understand and be offended or angry if they sexually harassed or disrespected me. but they are still on their best behavior because the dog is an implicit threat that i can defend myself. and perhaps not only did they have nothing real to discuss with me before now because they assumed we had nothing in common and that i was an idiot or not human, but they are watching themselves carefully to only express normal human civility. i dont get that from random men without the dog. mostly (not entirely but mostly) i get either casual disrespect/disregard, or outright sexual harassment. when i was younger and less experienced with men and had fewer cycles of these interactions, i was completely unaware of how disrespectful these approaches or comments were, which is the interpretation i can see less-experienced women making now, even if they're my age. and when i was 20, my 30 year old friends seemed pathologically misandrist and defensive to me. it was purely the difference in our actual mileage. that sucks man. wish we could just be normal around people and not have to expect the worst constantly.

anyway, good dog

[unstableforensicscientist]

Okay these are the head cannons I have so far, and yes I will always add more 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Herbert West headcanonnons:

a gay or unlabeled trans man

also aroace

AuDHD

Hates loud noises or bright lights specifically

Clenches his jaw or grates his teeth when he sleeps

Rarely ever remembers to shower but also needs everything around him to be clean

Despises coffee but if he had to drink it, he would either drink it purely black and probably like the bottom of the coffee pot or so much sugar it’s insane

He secretly has a sweet tooth (PLS HEAR ME OUT ON THIS)

Literally only wears suits and will sometimes sleep in them

Doesn’t remember to take care of himself like ever

he loves compression socks (once again just hear me out)

He wears sock garters

smells like either mold/corpses or hand sanitizer, no in between.

he has two different handwriting, one that is like a mix of cursive and his normal in pen, and really shitty writing in pencil.

Rarely would ever care for music but he would occasionally go with classical

LOVES the rain/thunderstorms

Wanted to study archeology when he was younger (I’m projecting)

will go through math equations when he gets bored or stressed

Definitely stims, but specifically hand taps, leg taps, facial movements, and scrunching his hands or opening and closing his hands into a fist shape, or swaying/pacing.

He also Stims by breaking the fuck out of No.2 pencils and sometimes even pens if he’s stressed out/agitated enough

He fidgets with his tie and watch a lot, especially when he’s nervous, it’s one of the only ways you can tell he’s on edge

Either can’t sit still for hours or will be so silent/still you won’t notice he’s there.

Has a collection of encyclopedias that are really fucking old.

Will read fiction on very, and I mean VERY rare occasions. They will most likely be science fiction too.

Gruber was 100% a father figure for him.

Genuinely couldn’t give less of a fuck about your opinion on him unless you say something about his work.

did his own top surgery with perfect performance and had guidance from Gruber

Doesn’t drink much besides water or just well nothing, but will have some tea on occasion.

I also like the idea of him liking 7 up from the cut scene because it’s silly

used to wear socks with fun yet sophisticated designs on them in high school.

He definitely dressed like your average high school nerd when he was younger, suspenders and all.

Used to have glasses that would make his eyes look 10x bigger

His vision is absolute shit without his glasses, basically a male Velma.

also I think it’s silly to say he did ballet when he was younger (reference to the bride commentary)

used to have his hair a bit more shoulder length in high school

literally sleeps with one single pillow and a sheet. Also his bed feels like a rock when you lay on it. (He never fucking sleeps)

actually really enjoys nature and not just in the experimental environment way, but you would have to water board that info out of him.

Genuinely wants some kind of reptile as a pet.

he has so many random facts on the most niche things you could possibly not want know/hear about.

Genuinely likes the color green, but more of a forest green and not bright ass neon.

has gone camping ONCE.

has a specific routine for everything and will breakdown if it doesn’t go accordingly

never ever shows his meltdowns to anyone but himself

Has gone to the psych ward during his time in Switzerland after Grubers death

Doesn’t trust psychiatrists

this one I think is just funny to me but he has tried to read fiction with magic and shit and HATES IT. Read love craft and he had called that man out for his writing and bigotry so many times to Gruber and probably Dan.

Has the most manic laugh/giggle you’ve ever heard

smiles with his teeth if he’s being an asshole, almost like the Cheshire Cat, smiles with his mouth closed in a tight line when he’s sarcastic or annoyed, only has smiled genuinely like twice.

Hates showing emotions, even negative ones. He prefers to seem entirely neutral unless provoked

never looks himself in the mirror

hates going to the barber shop and prefers to cut his own hair

Literally cannot legally drive

Speed walks, he cannot walk at a normal pace ever.

Enjoys puns and jokes but only if he’s the one making them.

Death glares that could kill a man if it were possible.

thinks he’s very clever but sometimes he really is just stupid 🙁

thinks logically but not rationally

His morals are so fucking grey, like he has his lines he won’t ever cross but besides that, he does not give a fuck at all

He sits with his legs crossed or he sits like a bird perched on a branch, no in between

He either really loves or really hates small spaces

loves curling his body into himself or have his chested puffed out really proudly once again, no in between

He has SERIOUS back problems, and has kinda bad posture

He paces so much that it freaks Dan out sometimes

Talks to himself a LOT

If he lets himself relax, he often does crossword puzzles or just reads medical textbooks and highlights the misinformation in them

does actually care for Dan, just has a really hard and shitty way of showing it

Finds the realism art movement very interesting, and did a lot of research on Eakins to understand how to draw anatomy for his subjects

[wolken-himmel]

In which (Y/n) likes to cook Deuce food as a way of showing affection.

He doesn't seem to really understand the implications of the prefect's gesture, though.

Request by anon.

"Hey, how come you only make food for Deuce? I'm also hungry!"

"Stop complaining and eat your apple, Ace."

"No, (Y/n)! I don't want an apple... I want sandwiches, like the ones you made for Deuce."

It was just another schoolday during the afternoon that the four of you spent lounging beneath a tree in the courtyard. A few other groups sat huddled amongst each other nearby, although the courtyard was only sparsely populated.

A small discussion had broken out between Ace and you as soon as he had seen you open your bag to hand a carefully wrapped lunch box to Deuce. A shy giggle escaped your lips when your fingers brushed his when you gave the box to him. Deuce had taken the box eagerly, an aloof smile on his lips.

Grim crossed his arms in dismay. "You're right, Ace." His curious eyes watched as the blue-haired boy set aside the lid and pulled out a carefully crafted sandwich. Despite the absence of tuna, the cat still felt his stomach rumble painfully. "I don't get any special treatment by my henchhuman, either... What has this world come to?"

"Maybe (Y/n) just likes me more than you," Deuce said with a grin, though the smugness of his voice soon ebbed away again. All that remained was a satisfied look in his eyes after he had gulped down his first bite. "Of course, I was just joking. Thank you for the food, (Y/n). I very much appreciate it."

"N-No issue, Deuce!" Your fingers wrestled with one another nervously while you watched for his reaction. When his eyes met yours again though, you couldn't help but avert your gaze. "I hope you like it."

"Everything you make is tasty," he said with a full mouth.

Still dissatisfied by your stubbornness when it came to anyone but your little favourite Heartslabyul boy, Ace turned to Grim and furrowed his eyebrows. "Deuce may have meant it as a joke, but I think he's really onto something there," the red-head mumbled, so that only the cat could hear him. "Do you think...?"

"Yes, it could be very possible," Grim replied without having heard the whole question.

You eyed the duo suspiciously after having recovered from your interaction with Deuce. At the large grins these two troublemakers wore, you narrowed your eyes at them. "What could be 'very possible'?"

A confident grin graced Grim's face. "Well, we have a certain theory. Would you like to continue, Detective Ace?"

"Why, thank you, my assistant," Ace replied with a posh accent. Being referred to as assistant had Grim seething, but his complaining was stopped by a single raised hand. The red-head's eyes gazed you up and down critically. "The two of us have suspicions that you might have a crush on our idiot friend."

"Shhhh—!" you cried out in desperation and waved your arms around.

Much to your horror, Deuce perked up at the sudden accusation. His food lay forgotten in his lap while he finished chewing a carrot. "Really?" he asked you with wide eyes. "You have a crush on someone? What's their name? Do you also cook for them?"

While Ace and Grim began laughing their souls out, you were left to defend what remained of your honour. With your cheeks as hot as a campfire, you managed to seethe out, "You really are an idiot, Deuce..."

"What?" He tilted his head to the side in confusion, a gesture you found awfully adorable. "Where did that suddenly come from?"

You gritted your teeth together, hating the thought that you would have to literally spell the situation out to him. Yet, you were left no other choice when he merely pressured you with another confused look. A string of curses escaping your lips, you threw your hands into the air in exasperation. "I thought it was obvious with the lunch boxes I always make for you. I don't cut the carrots into hearts just for anyone," you whispered awkwardly.

For a while, your monologue left him speechless. "I didn't know I was special." His eyes were as wide as saucers.

"Well," you breathed out shyly, "you are very special to me, Deuce."

Your little moment was interrupted by Ace's obnoxious laughter. He scooted closer to his friend and punched his shoulder. "Have you finally figured out who (Y/n) has a crush on, Deuce?" he asked while snatching the other half of the sandwich for himself.

Deuce remained silent for a while. But when realisation came to him, it came down crashing hard. In his panic, he almost threw the lunch box to the ground with how quickly he jumped to his feet. "Oh." His intense gaze made you feel small and scared. When he noticed your squirming, his eyes softened apologetically. "Oh! I never realised— I never realised you had a crush on me..."

"Finally..." Ace breathed out and took another bite of the sandwich.

"Took him an eternity..." Grim nodded along, eagerly grabbing a heart-shaped carrot piece when Ace offered it to him.

A soft sigh escaped your lips, and you only reluctantly raised your gaze to observe Deuce's expression. "I-It's alright..." you muttered awkwardly. You could at least try to salvage the situation as best as possible. "I was always too shy to say it to you outright, Deuce."

He didn't reply, though. The silence left you squirming even more in discomfort.

"I think his brain stopped working," Grim muttered between big bites.

The entire situation came crashing down upon Deuce all at once, like a large wall that had just crumbled down upon him and buried him alive. As if he had just returned from the dead, he jolted up and stared at you with wide eyes. "You like me? Me?" he cried out and buried his face in his shaking hands. "The lunch boxes make sense now..."

You put a hand on his shoulder. "Deuce? Are you alright?"

"Oh right, I'm sorry." He took a deep breath, and he finally managed to get his act together. When he removed his hands from his face, he revealed a beaming smile to you. Your heart skipped a few beats when he took his hand into yours. "Well, (Y/n)... what do you think of us cooking together sometime. Like a... date?"

"I would love to."

"You could cook stuff for us!" Ace suggested and eyed the empty lunch box in dismay.

Grim nodded along eagerly. "I mean, we brought you two together, after all."

[crepes-suzette-373]

Is this an error or on purpose?? It's driving me insane!!!

(I'm just parsing through my own theory and doubts, you don't have to read this)

Ichiji's eyebrow that's under the bangs is the subject of fans' theories, and I wrote about it too, but I really just... sometimes have very strong doubts about it. With the insane time crunch of Shounen Jump schedule, what if it's really just a mistake that nobody caught?

One of my line of thinking was "this panel is so big, surely sensei can't possibly screw it up?" But the answer is, yes, he can screw up a panel that's that big.

When Venus blocked Zoro's attack, not only is he holding the sword in the wrong hand, but the sword is also missing its iconic Kitetsu cross-shaped guard. That Venus vs Zoro panel takes up half a page. On the manuscript paper, that would've been massive, and yet there it is.

As far as I can tell, this was not edited, changed, or fixed in the final volume version. So, I dunno, maybe all the weird eyebrows is literally nothing and he just messed up.

If I may use myself as an example, I have drawn their eyebrows facing wrong directions multiple times, and sometimes I never noticed there was anything wrong until days or even weeks later.

I not only drew the lines, but also rendered the colours in detail. I didn't do it all in one sitting. I went over the image multiple times with fresh eyes, across many days, and not for a single moment did I notice the eyebrow was wrong. It's not impossible that sensei experienced the same thing.

The anime scene cannot be used as reference because I don't think the anime staff are privy to any future lore or backstories from sensei. I would assume that they often had to fill in the gaps with educated guesses on their parts.

Pre-timeskip the anime have once displayed Sanji's other eyebrow facing the wrong direction and/or simply missing its curl.

Also in Whole Cake's finale episodes, the anime included a short filler bit where all of Sanji's bros made it safely back to the Germa ships. This is proven to be wrong when the cover story revealed Niji and Yonji got caught while still on land by Big Mum and didn't manage to escape.

The only way you can reconcile these is if you imagine a scenario where Niji and Yonji initially made it out just fine, but had to jump off the ship to fight Big Mum. Otherwise there's just a flat out discrepancy between manga and anime.

I don't think the Pirate Warriors 3D model rips are also any solid confirmation that Ichiji and Reiju's eyebrows are different either, because I found what is purportedly a model from the first game, where Sanji also has the eyebrows facing wrong directions:

(left: all siblings from Pirate Warriors 4, right: Sanji from Pirates Warriors 1)

In my guess, what happened was that they just made half a face (and body), which is then mirrored to create the other half. See below for what I mean:

In my opinion what happened was that with Ichiji and Reiju they just left the brows in mirrored state because they didn't know for sure. Look at Reiju's irises. The highlights are also mirrored. It really looks like they just created one half of the face and copy + flipped it:

The eyebrows are modelled onto the polygons and not just textures, so they really could've just copy + flipped the half model and never bothered changing it afterwards.

Or, if not, maybe they saw the anime scenes, thought that Ichiji and Reiju's eyebrows are facing different directions, and then followed suit. The Pirate Warriors models are made based on the anime rather than the manga (as you can see with Reiju's eyes being blue and not purple).

Whereas with Niji, Sanji, and Yonji they might have went through the trouble to edit the eyebrows to be more accurate to the series since they know for a fact what their brows look like.

So yeah, I don't know, this thing has no answer at all until Germa shows up in the series again (or revealed in Vivre Cards).

[having-a-hyperfixate]

Don’t mind me sprinting to try and get this thought in order before the Anime Expo panel. I need it to be out in the wild Just In Case.

So, a few of the Gung Ho Guns have gotten reworked for Stampede, yes? To varying degrees.

Ninelives is apparently not a horrific flesh mech, Dark Souls boss thing, according to the end credits of episode 3.

E.G. the Mine just got a HUGE upgrade and didn’t get owned 3 seconds after he showed up.

Monev was an actual character with a fubar backstory and emotional impact instead of just Some Guy who trained in a basement for years specifically to kill Vash. (and Orange is SO EVIL for this)

Elendira is. *gestures futilely* There is so much going on there but yeah. She’s going to be terrifying once she achieves adult body and loses (drops?) the childish attitude. Also because of the whole Plant hybrid thing her nails truly are literally infinite sooooo.

So I have some thoughts about Hoppered the Gauntlet.

In Trimax, Gauntlet’s narrative weight comes from the fact that he makes Vash remember, which by extension makes US, the reader, understand what July really meant. Before that we had heard mention of it a few times as ‘a city destroyed in a single night’ and talk of there being ‘no survivors’ but we had no actual connection to it, and also no real idea if that was even true. But in Stampede, we saw July happen. We were there. So even if Vash’s memory is still shot afterwards, and he doesn’t remember Lost July, we the audience DO. So having the Dragon’s nest play out exactly the same isn’t going to have the same narrative punch in the gut that it did in Trimax. It can’t.

There’s also the fact that, given how we’ve met most of the major players in the story, or had them mentioned at least (hi Milly), it feels kind of Odd™ that we haven’t seen someone has emotionally impactful as Gauntlet yet.

Unless we have.

We saw with Rollo/Monev that Orange is willing to have the person’s regular name be one thing and then have a second Eye of Michael code name. I suspect that is going to happen with Gauntlet; either because EoM or because he has decided on his own to lie about who he was.

And yes, I do in fact have someone in mind.

I checked myself the translation there is accurate; the only change I would make is calling the gun ‘gaudy’ instead of ‘shiny’ but that’s not a huge deal. Also for the record, the original tweet is from Jan. 11, well before he makes his reappearance for the season finale. So when it talks about a ‘reappearance’, it is talking about seeing him again in July. Original tweet here, tweet containing the translation here.

I think Chuck Lee is going to be our Gauntlet. That he made it just far enough out of the city to survive, but that he was badly maimed in the process, and that his family didn’t make it. He’s the ONLY member of the military police with a unique design. He has an actual name, and the director himself tweeted about his backstory. His gun is so unusual that we would recognize it anywhere. Hell, I referred to him as ‘the gold gun guy from episode one’ when one of my friends didn’t recognize him immediately. His gun is so incredibly recognizable. Almost like we need to be able to recognize him by that alone, when everything else about him has changed.

THIS could be how narrative weight for Gauntlet is established in the Stampede universe when it can’t be done the same way as in Trimax. Taking a character who has, in a way, also been with the audience ALL ALONG, who was there with us for two pivitol moments, the beginning and the awakening, but who comes at it from such a horrifically different angle and bringing him back in such an agonizing way. Because he was very much in the wrong with his stunt at Jeneora Rock, but his rage over the loss of his family in July would be justified, even if we know it wasn’t Vash’s fault.

(Also, the IRONY of him ending up as one of Knives’s lackeys when Knives is the one that caused all of this? Damn.)

Footnote: I have Thoughts on why they can get away with adding Milly to The Squad late. That is a whole other Thought but tldr; (and also I haven’t actually written it out) Milly is the most perceptive of all of them she doesn’t NEED an extended intro to Vash to Know.

[yandere-daydreams]

Ooh, about Uraume's gender: they are very explicitly never outright gendered in any way in the Japanese version (which is like. Basically the only canon one, in my eyes at least). The thing is that gendered and neutral language is like... Vastly different between literally every single language around the world. You know how "watashi" is constantly mis-translated (80% of the time in bad faith, I have to say) as being a strictly or heavily feminine pronouns (as in, the equivalent or "she" for the english language) all the time, when in reality it's actually just a softer, completely ungedered term used by woman AND man.

Oftentimes the original Japanese text pretty openly doesn't use gendered pronouns (specifically, they are at no point directly referred to as a *woman*, or "a she") or additives for Uraume. It's just... Very heavily and completely unnecessary, if not vaguely conservative, gendered (English, in this case) mistranslation that we can often see when discussing possibly trans (including, as always, non-binary) characters.

An example that I can think of is when in chapter 200, if I remember correctly: I don't remember the context, but some guy when he sees Uraume think of them as pretty/beautiful. That's it. Nothing else. Neither "pretty" nor "beautiful" are strictly feminine adjectives that can be used for women and women alone, and in the text itself there is no mention of femininity (or masculinity, for the matter), yet the official US translation decided to translate it as "SHE is pretty/beautiful".

In other translations, Uraume is also referred to as "he" at times too! That is exactly what has happened to a myriad of other (implied/explicit) trans characters too😭 and if THAT alone doesn't make them trans, being gendered and misgendered for no reason, idk what else will

Also, sorry for the English, it's not my first language

ooohhh okay okay i think i get it - i've only watched the subbed version, which alternates pretty consistently between he, she, they, and avoiding the whole pronoun thing altogether. i think most of my confusion came from those god awful reddit threads that are all titled something like 'undeniable PROOF that uraume jujutus kaisen is a WOMAN' and exist for literally every nonbinary anime character (opera of demon school fame i will never forget what they did to you), plus people just generally veering much more feminine for them in fics and stuff. i know understand the issue and will proceed with awareness. if i ever trip up again, assume i'm doing it deliberately to be mysterious and sexy or for general plot reasons.

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Every Bionicle mask-power summarised.

Hau: Everything-proof shield

Kaukau: "Hey, wanna see how long I can hold my breath underwater?"

Miru: Somewhat balanced flight powers (can't take off from a standstill; horizontal movement at least somewhat controlled by wind)

Kakama: Wheeeeeeeee!

Pakari: Kinda like the Berserk Pack from Doom

Akaku: X-ray specs

Huna: Stealth mode

Rau: Google Translate

Mahiki: Illusions, but also just full-on shapeshifting for some reason?

Komau: Hypnotism kink

Ruru: "Night vision", which canonically manifests as a torch-like beam projected from the mask's front, and gives the wearer actual night-vision, and yet more x-ray stuff

Matatu: Gmod Physgun Telekinesis Addon 2004 No Virus

Calix: Basically X-Cell from Fallout 4 but without the intelligence boost

Elda: Thing finder, for finding things

Suletu: Telepathy and also psychic torture

Sanok: Aimbot

Kadin: Very unbalanced flight powers (literally the only downside is that the user can't hover in place)

Iden: Out of body from morning to night/Dance floor packed and I'm feeling alright

Arthron: *Whale noises*

Faxon: "Hey, wanna see my animal impressions?"

Zatth: Kinda like if going "pspsps" had an equal chance of attracting a cat, a bear or a car-sized land-octopus

Garai: Gravity-y-y-y-y-y, on me/Never let me down, gent-ly damn, two Gorillaz references in one post; I'll try to use another band next time

Volitak: Same as the Huna but worse

Tryna: Wise fwom your gwave!

Jutlin: Rust-vision

Avsa: *Vampire noises*

Felnas: Messes up your abilities, but only through touch for some reason?

Mohtrek: I have no idea how I'd condense this mask's timeline-fuckery into a single se- where did all these scars come from?

Shelek: ‍

Crast: Pushes others away

Mask of Mutation: Guess.

Mask of Scavenging/Vulture: Like the Avsa, but it only works on the recently-deceased

Pehkui: Makes you tiny

Mask of Clairvoyance: The last word of this post will be "diversity"

Kualsi: Nightcrawler powers

Mask of Emulation: "Hey, wanna see my non-animal impressions?"

Mask of Growth: Makes you big

Mask of Rahi Control: Gives you all the powers of a zookeeper

Avohkii: Let there be light!

Kraahkan: Actually I changed my mind; there should darkness

Mask of Psychometry: Ever wondered where your favourite shirt came from?

Rode: Mask of Seeing Through Your Shit

Olmak: Now you're thinking with portals

Mask of Charisma: Actually functions more like brainwashing

Olisi: Isn't it weird how Bionicle's most notable use of the "mad oracle" trope is A. unreliable and B. a giant Frankenstein-man who commits body-horror on random people?

Kiril: Basically the opposite of the Jutlin

Mask of Intangibility: *Ghost noises*

Mask of Possibilities: Essentially the Improbability Drive from Madness Combat, but on a smaller scale

Mask of Elemental Energy: who cares about this one like seriously it barely appears outside the games

Mask of Adaptation: Turns you into an environment-specific action figure

Mask of Aging: The mask that makes you old

Mask of Biomechanics: Essentially the Gmod ragdoll-mover addon

Mask of Conjuring: I'm just going to copy what Biosector says, since it's really convoluted and complex; "The Mask of Conjuring is a Kanohi that allows its user to verbally program a limited power into the mask for a brief period of time. The user must describe in detail the power desired and at least one weakness. If the phrasing is spoken wrong, it causes intense psychic backlash in the user's mind. The user can use a programmed power for fifteen minutes (with a Great version), and after the time is out, the user must wait thirty seconds to activate the mask again. The Noble version will only work for five minutes. Another weakness is because it requires time and speech, any enemies nearby can hear in detail what power to expect and what its weakness is. Because of this, the usage of the mask is more commonly done alone. It is also capable of being programmed with the powers of other masks, such as the Kanohi Hau."

Mask of Freezing: What do you think it does

Mask of Fusion: Combines things • Mask of Healing: Heals stuff

Mask of Incomprehension: 👁️🧠🫵🥫🚹🇮🇹📤

Mask of Rebounding: Something something rubber glue etc.

Mask of Reconstitution: Literally just another Mask of Mutation, but slightly worse

Mask of Sensory Aptitude: 'Cause I've got one two three four five/Senses working o-ver-ti-ime!

Mask of Undeath: I live... again!

Mask of Weather Control: /weather clear 18000

Mask of Weight Increase: Literally just a Garai that can't make things lighter

Ignika: Do-anything MacGuffin that turned into a guy once and also became God's hat for a bit

Vahi: Time isn't holding up/Time isn't after us/Same as it ever was/Same as it ever was...

Mask of Creation: Just kinda lets you make stuff, while also celebrating the Matoran Universe's cultural diversity!

[ingravinoveritas]

You know what's kind of wild to me? Anna just confirmed they've been together for 6 years. People forget she's still 29, and isn't 30 yet. So they met when she was still 23. Not hugely different from 25, but notable I think. Idk where the narrative that she was 25 came from and how that stuck.

Hi there! So I am still catching up on Asks, and I wanted to make sure I addressed these (grouped together due to similar themes). For those who might not have seen, what is being referred to are two separate incidents that occurred in the days after Anna posted the t-shirt story on Instagram. On Tuesday, she posted this story lashing out at a Swedish publication for sharing a story originally from a UK publication (The Independent) about Michael's answer to the age gap question on The Assembly. The story was originally in Swedish, but the English translation is on the right:

Then on Wednesday, she did the same thing again, this time with another Swedish paper:

Since so much of this hinges on what Michael said in his response, I will post a short clip of that here, so we have the visual:

When AL's stories were first posted, I noticed a few comments on a post from @nightgoodomens from someone who speaks Swedish, and after reading the article, their observation was that all the magazines did was literally translate what Michael said, word for word (which we can then also further confirm by watching the video above).

So Michael's words were translated directly, and on top of that, Anna was not tagged by these papers, or contacted by reporters "for comment"--she seemingly sought out these news stories and shared them on her own social media. What's strange is that most of us would never have even seen them otherwise, and yet she chose to draw attention to them. And if these articles truly are meaningless clickbait, I'm confused as to why Anna would lash out so hard at them, especially if she feels as secure in her and Michael's relationship as she has wanted us to believe.

The other thing for me is that the one voice that is (again) noticeably absent here is Michael's. Nearly every post Michael has responded to/shared in relation to The Assembly was about a moment between him and one of the interviewers, Leo. Not only has the clip of Michael's answer to the age gap question gotten much less circulation/attention than the initial clip of the girl asking him the question, he has not said a single word about it since the show aired on April 5th.

He has especially not said anything about being misquoted (either in UK magazines/newspapers or international ones). And this becomes even more glaring when you realize that Michael immediately jumped on someone Twitter the day before AL shared that first story and corrected them for misquoting him (in regard to his comments about Welsh actors and Welsh roles). So it's very clear that if Michael thought he was being misquoted, there is no reason why he wouldn't speak up about it. And yet...complete silence.

I also find it interesting that for months, Michael was being attacked on social media, first in the aftermath of his comments about the situation in the Middle East, then more recently after recording a video saying hello to Good Omens fans in Russia. In both cases, he was defamed over and over again, accused of supporting war and genocide, and in general had his comments twisted and distorted beyond recognition--in other words, he was repeatedly misquoted (to put it mildly). Not once did Anna defend him against any of this. Not once was there an Insta story or anything speaking up in support of Michael. But as soon as it was something about her/their relationship, here she was posting these stories and letting us know exactly what her priorities are.

To your comments @lookforthelight97 about AL inadvertently saying the quiet parts out loud, that was also something that caught my attention. We could be here all day talking about the narrative and who is trying to change what, but for those who don't know, the narrative of her being 25 came from every media outlet stating that Michael and AL met in May of 2019...despite the fact that she gave birth to Lyra just four months later, in September.

It was this discrepancy that gave a lot of us the feeling that something was off even back in 2019 (and I would urge folks to check out @problematicwelshman, who covered a lot more of this at the time). In actuality, Michael and AL would have had to have met in late 2018 (when Anna was actually 24, as her birthday is in August) for her to then become pregnant and have the baby in September. All of this to say that if the official PR line for the last five years has been that they met in 2019, it makes you wonder why AL is suddenly publicly contradicting it, especially to show the lack of contentment she seems to feel about the relationship even after five (pardon me, six) years.

In any case, my incredulity is and continues to be at AL so readily showing her insecurities in this way, because all these two Insta stories have done is to draw more attention to her response than to the articles that are mentioned. Articles that again, none of us would have known about if she hadn't shared them. Yet as was said above, I don't think there is anything that anyone could post or write that casts doubt on Michael and AL's relationship the way her own social media posts do.

And to what you @vaguelyomens and @angelsadvocate96 said about Michael mentioning that his greatest fear is being alone, I feel like maybe Michael has such a fear of being alone because he already knows what it's like to feel alone. To know deep down that you are not remotely on the same page as the person you're in a relationship with. To know that they don't understand you and never will, but feeling responsible for them nonetheless, and not knowing how to reconcile those two things. It's difficult to imagine anything that would make someone feel more alone than that.

So, those are my thoughts on the Insta stories AL shared earlier this week. As I have said before, I know that I could be completely wrong, and I'm happy for folks to share their perspective, whether you agree or disagree. A heck of a lot to think about, for sure...

[raayllum]

So what's the Mirrored Trio Theory?

The Mirrored Trio theory is, for lack of a better explanation, a two pronged theory regarding the way the main trio will parallel both the generation that led to / immediately received Aaravos upon his fall (himself, Leola, and a speculative human who may or may not have been a mage / helped to found Elarion) and how they may also parallel the Orphan Queen, Jailer, and Aaravos yet again. So put your tinfoil hats on and strap in because it's going to be a speculation heavy one, lads! We're going to get deep in the weeds.

Fallen Trio

So the first trio we want to talk about is what I'm going to, for lack of a better term / meta simplicity, refer to as the Fallen Trio, consisting of Aaravos, Leola, and 'Elarion' — our stand-in for a potential human Aaravos had a close dynamic with that may be intertwined with the human city of Elarion.

First, I want to talk about Aaravos and Leola. We get our first mention of Leola in S5, specifically with Leola's Last wish being a star for both Xadians and for humans, who use it to navigate and "to find their way in the endless darkness of the night." This is fitting given that what we know of unicorns from the book one novelization — that they gave primal magic and stones to humanity out of mercy and compassion — and that Tales of Xadia singles her out further as the specific unicorn to do so, although it omits primal stones from the equation:

This is, of course, a big parallel between Leola and some details we know from Aaravos as well, who also gave gifts to humanity: the relic staff that Ibis identifies as truly belonging to Aaravos ("It was a gift from one of the Great ones" / "If you seek to return that staff to its true owner...") and, as Claudia says, dark magic:

However, there's also been indications that Leola might've been a Startouch elf (tweet from Aaron Ehasz identifying her as the Startouch child + the star on the star chart map, although it's not entirely clear), that star magic can be reality altering, that Startouch elf designs had unicorn like horns protruding from their foreheads, and that history can change and shape things differently than they necessarily were.

Either way, unicorns are one of the few creatures we know to also possess the Star arcanum and, seemingly like the Startouch elves, are all but gone from Xadia (+ the Pentarchy)'s physical plain. And that she, like Aaravos, were two Star(touch) beings who both wanted to help humanity and help them develop magic, but did so in very different ways. Whether they are literally related or the same species, I think this parallel between them means they're set up to have an almost sibling-esque bond — one that existed, and one that accordingly fell apart under the brunt of dark magic and other disagreements, as TDP is prone to do.

(Put a pin in Callum and Ezran for now, cause we're going to circle back to them shortly.)

Bare minimum, Leola and Aaravos will have to be foils if not contemporaries of each other, given the closeness of their original goals in manifestation, regardless of motivation. This is particularly true given that Aaravos preys on mages in particular and that dark magic (plus a little Star magic, maybe?) allows him to literally possess people who have done dark magic, which can be no happy accident.

Given that Leola seemed dead set on giving humans primal magic, it seems unlikely she might've been too keen on a dark magic, alternative development either, which we know came after, thanks to Ripples.

It happened long ago, when humans had only just learned to hold fire in their hands without burning. They nurtured their precious primal flames secretly—in the dark of night, beneath shadows and shrouds—as cultivating its glow drew the eyes and ire of monsters. Eventually, for the audacity of their fire, they were hunted, and—though they looked to the stars for salvation—the stars, too, looked down upon them with disdain. Humanity had been given something it was never meant to have.

So again, you have two characters with very similar goals/desires, but very different ideas of how to achieve said goals. This one of the reasons why, I think, that TDP loves to have siblings disagree, as it's an effective way of having more worldviews on display with some hope for reconciliation or the tragedy of deterioration, or both. Callum and Ezran stand alone as the one sibling pair that hasn't been terribly wrenched apart by political or ideological disagreements thus far, save for Sarai and Amaya, who were torn apart by Sarai's death.

Which brings me to my next point: if Aaravos and Leola had a sibling like bond, did he lose her to their potential ideological disagreements, or did those disagreements actually cost her life?

Whether Leola just walked away and likewise abandoned him (like Soren), became too distant in disagreement to continue having some sort of bond (like Harrow and Viren, and Janai and Karim), flat out died (like Khessa, Harrow, and Sarai), or all three, that could be one of the many cogs motivating Aaravos to keep turning the wheel of the cycle, as grief has often been the primary motivator throughout history, even amongst the 'villains'. A "song of love that loss" that Aaravos has chosen handpicked "instruments" for, after all (4x03, 4x04).

And like I said, Callum and Ezran are long over due to have a disagreement, given that they haven't had a substantial one since season one, and given that Ezran has grown to only be more assertive than he was since then, not less. This could easily be over Runaan (Callum, having already sworn himself to helping Rayla free her parents, and Ezran, understandably holding onto anger and grief concerning Harrow's death). I'm sure there are also plenty of other things they could heavily disagree over in the future, like military aid or action or how to approach trying to defeat Aaravos, etc.

The point to all of this is that I think Ezran could be a very good stand in for Leola — at least in terms of being selfless, deeply compassionate, uncomplicated, and adamant about giving people their freedom even at the cost of themselves and even if that gift can be misused or discarded (3x04) — which means Aaravos could offer a potential parallel to Callum in the sibling split. Aaravos, who turned to dark magic as an option regardless of or precisely because of the potential violence, and Callum, who argues for the Nova Blade whereas his brother still always champions a non-violent route thus far.

After all, TDP loves to have their "person A is estranged from their sibling and is determined not to lose their lover" parallel, given that it's happened four times (Harrow, Viren, Sarai; Viren, Harrow, Lissa; Claudia, Soren, Terry; Janai, Karim, Amaya) already.

Now, this could be wildly off base as we know very little about Leola and even less about her potential dynamic with Aaravos, but if we follow along with the idea that Ezran could parallel her and Callum could parallel Aaravos, I think now maybe we can talk about Elarion and Rayla.

Years ago we learned that there was a place on Xadia's map (both sides) that was named after someone who had a deep connection to him, and that many of his choices are based around this relationship. Given the Midnight Star poem, people defaulted to Elarion ("Elarion, black-eyed child / her twisted roots spread deep and far / The humans’ might sparked by the light / of Aaravos, her midnight star") although I've also considered Kalik.

And while I'm still not unconvinced that Elarion isn't just a name like Elara and Laurelion, before Aaravos changed his name, combined, I do think Elarion has to be important in Aaravos' backstory, and that it's more than likely that a founder of Elarion / a human involved with Elarion for a variety of reasons.

For starters, while we can be told that Aaravos had a soft spot for humans at one point, giving us a specific person or dynamic to think of is helpful in regards to emotional investment, and in helping to explain why he may have developed said soft spot. We also know, thanks to a birthday post years ago, that a human once gave him a gift:

He thinks that if he cared for the idea [of birthdays], he’d like to remember the taste of a smooth red fruit a human had plucked from a tree for him, once. It had been so crisp, and so sweet.

While this could've been the Orphan Queen (we do know, thanks to 1x01, that there's a tree planted in the castle courtyards 300 years ago, but we don't know it was an apple tree), an apple transfer like this one feels far more "Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and knowledge isn't always a Good thing" type schtick. Not only does it seem to indicate a more intimate bond, it also might foreshadow the reason Aaravos Fell.

One of the most interesting, but perhaps more discreet, reasons I think there's a connection between 'Elarion' as a person and Aaravos is because of the nature motif running between what little we know of Elarion and to do with Aaravos' mirror and appearance motifs. The Midnight Star is riddled with flower and nature symbolism, referring to it as a "trembling seed" and "fading bloom," that "her roots took hold" and later became "twisted," and that before the gift of Aaravos, she was "wilting" with "bone-white branches". And Aaravos' mirror and the box that held his matching key have blooming flowers on it.

See the flowers along the bottom on the actual frame of the mirror, then sculpted along the sides, and the top? Yeah. We also know that flowers themselves, thanks to Tales of Xadia, are featured in a story told both in Katolis and amongst the Moonshadow elves in particular, featuring an elven thief who steals what you value most, leaving only flowers in their wake. This is the only story in all of Tales of Xadia that we see two cultures share, even if they interpret it wildly differently.

Flowers that were always gone by morning, and gifts that couldn't be accepted or understood ("I’ve got one more gift for you, Callum: I'm going to keep you safe. I have to. I love you too much not too [...] Taking on hard choices and going to dark places is an act of love. It’s a gift. So, please let me give you this gift, Callum. Stay safe, and stay in the light").

We also know that whoever Aaravos loved, he inevitably lost whether due to time or tragedy. While this form of grief is one the show has explored, it was previously largely only through Harrow, who mourned Sarai for 9 years upon losing her, and who avenged her by slaying Avizandum, and more briefly through Ethari believing Runaan was dead.

That was, until season four, where Callum grieving Rayla and dealing with the fallout of that grief and distance turned it into more of an accentuated plot point, both before and even after her return.

Before, losing your partner in this manner would've been something Callum had witnessed, but not experienced. Now, whether the show wants Callum to sympathize with Aaravos or not, it is an experience that they could both understand, particularly if it is going to be one of Aaravos' main motivators.

Thus, we have a disagreement set up between 'siblings' (Leola, Aaravos; Ezran, Callum) as well as lost love (Elarion, Aaravos; Rayla, Callum) as a big motivator for choices, grief, and what possibly led to the fall. That Aaravos, at least in practice / thematic lineups, being a Callum who lost his Rayla and his Ezran*, and then lost himself.

Therefore:

Aaravos — Callum

Leola — Ezran

Elarion — Rayla

[ * This is not to say that Callum would pull an Aaravos and go on a hellbent 1000+ year revenge scheme, because he's not like that, but I do think it could be a very poignant and apt parallel of giving him and Aaravos more in common than they currently have, which is about nothing but magical curiosity and connection. ]

However, 90% of this is all speculation of things that have been kept supremely under wraps. For something a little more tangible simply because we have slightly more information, let's talk about the

Imprisonment Trio

The Imprisonment Trio, as the name implies, refers to the two humans who seemed to directly (the Jailer) and potentially indirectly (the Orphan Queen) be involved in imprisoning Aaravos (the third in this trio). This time, however, I'm going to argue that Aaravos — in terms of his imprisonment — is going to parallel someone other than Callum, but we shall see.

To start, I want to look at the Jailer and the Orphan Queen, since their parallels to Callum and Ezran respectively are the most obvious.

We don't know for sure whether the Jailer came from Katolis, but we know that the Orphan Queen did, eventually taking on the throne from the previous royal family and starting Harrow and Ezran's royal line, first hinted at in 3x05 with "Only orphans can ascend to the throne". Ezran has been directly compared to her in both role and appearance by the show's framing and by characters like Rex Igneous in 4x08: "I should have seen it before. Long ago, it was a human who saw through the Fallen Star's schemes and helped Xadia put an end to them. You look so much like her." This plays well into Ezran's tendency to discover or unearth long lost things, most notably Zym's egg, just as the Orphan Queen became the Truthteller of Aaravos' treachery.

Callum, for his part, is a human mage, just like the Jailer. He's clever, very talented with magic, and despite being Aaravos' preferred prey as a mage will ultimately — like the Jailer — play a role in his defeat. He will also work with and for the archdragons and their wills, but has no problem being disobedient either, in the name of concern or mercy, much like how the Jailer kept Akiyu alive rather than tell the archdragons the truth. And like the Jailer, he understands the potential danger of knowledge: "The entire world would be in danger if she let him live with this knowledge" / "I need you to kill me."

Like the brothers, they were a (future) royal and mage working together, starting off what perhaps was a long tradition of Katolian monarchs having high mages. If, as often theorized due to having an Aaravos-y twin box (S2 novelization) and his love of puzzles, Kpp'Ar is indeed descended from the Jailer, that adds another layer onto Kpp'Ar being one of Callum's predecessors as High Mage. While Ezran has the job and the bloodline of the Orphan Queen, Callum would've more directly inherited the position of (high) mage from the Jailer's thematic and occupational line.

Granted, there are differences. Most notably, the Key of Aaravos was given to Callum, not to Ezran, although there could be potential future parallels between the brothers and the Sunfire siblings, with Karim unable to undo Kim'Dael's chains because his sister is still queen, and the brothers needing to work together to fully use the cube. I wouldn't be surprised if Ezran learns more about the cube and the Orphan Queen in S6 while Callum still has some unknowns to its true meaning, leading to some delicious dread and dramatic irony. But I digress.

The point is that the Jailer and the Orphan Queen both had their roles to play in imprisoning Aaravos, and that Callum and Ezran, respectively, will both have their roles to play in trying to keep Aaravos contained, only to inevitably somehow fail in a way that allows him to escape, if by another's hand. We do know the brothers will be going to weird ruins in a future season thanks to some out-of-context spoilers that have yet to pass, and the Ruins of Elarion would certainly fit:

Which, just like the out-of-context spoiler card, you might've noticed that I haven't mentioned Rayla and who she's going to be paralleling yet. Well, that's because this time / generational pass around, I think she's going to be the primary foil to Aaravos.

Now, this train of thought isn't new by any means. I've thought Rayla paralleled Aaravos reasonably well since S3 aired largely due to their status as ghosted/banished elves, a compassion for humans (at least implied for Aaravos) that other elves disapproved of, and their dynamics with Callum and Viren, respectively.

Both Rayla and Aaravos have to work to earn their high mage's trust ("And should we trust you? Have you told us the truth about everything?" / "And why should I trust you?") over the course of season one for Rayla and season two for Aaravos, ending in promises of allegiance and togetherness: "You've got to stay with me" / "I will stay with you" (2x09). Aaravos leads Viren to his doom in being tackled off the Pinnacle, and Callum throws himself off the Pinnacle after Rayla.

You can imagine my delighted surprise, then, when S4 simply cranked it up even further: Rayla was hunting Aaravos' mage ("I spent two years hunting"), and Aaravos was hunting Rayla's mage ("Yes, mages were his prey"). Rayla wants to protect Callum and kill Viren, and Aaravos had promised to save Viren and use Callum. Even for Callum himself, 4x04 and 4x07 seemed like clear set up for Rayla symbolizing agency in Callum breaking free from Aaravos' control someday, putting the two in literal opposition to each other. Two potential paths (although picking Rayla, at least at first, may not be mutually exclusive from picking Aaravos).

Rayla, who was also harshly punished by Xadia with no trial.

This isn't to say that Aaravos didn't do anything wrong and is being unjustly punished — far from it — or that Aaravos' imprisonment and subsequent freedom won't have parallels to anyone else like say, Callum, who will likely be imprisoned by Aaravos through possession in S6 and ultimately freed by Rayla. More so that imprisonment of different sorts has been a running theme throughout Rayla's arc, and that Callum — who is primed to be Aaravos' chain breaker, whether through possession or not — could also be hers (if not just her parents') the way he has routinely been in the past, whether it was from instigating the events that eventually led to her binding (chain) coming off or saving her from being emotionally stuck (3x08) or from doing anything for her freedom (5x01, 5x08). He's primarily been someone who is tethered to freedom when it comes to recognizing and breaking cycles (chains of history) or literal restraints, and it's only in season four and season five that he's shifted to being both tied to freedom and having himself restrained.

I've speculated in the past this may result in Callum (and Ezran) leading to Aaravos' release in order to save/free Rayla; however, the show may not want as much of a repeat from 5x08, and freeing the Moon fam from the coins also resulting in Aaravos' freedom through an escalation of events would also keep that ironic thread, so it could really go anywhere.

Two humans, one elf, and endless tragedy, repeating and breaking cycles all at the same time. Ezran, discovering important info about his ancestor and possibly the Key; Callum, following in the Jailer's footsteps and unravelling the final puzzles of the prison and figuring out how to undo it; and Rayla, ghosted, banished, vying against Aaravos for the control and agency of his latest pawn who also happens to be the love of her life.

So for the Imprisonment Trio:

The Orphan Queen — Ezran

The Jailer — Callum

Aaravos — Rayla

In Conclusion

Is any of this something? I don't know, honestly. I think it's plausible, at least partially. I think it'd be neat. We know TDP likes varying intergenerational parallels and looking at how history repeats, whether that's directly through family (blood or not) lines, or by having repeating plot points (the dragon quartet, or Rayla being immobilized) and trials (Rayllum facing Sol Regem, much like Ziard, etc). We know there was someone Aaravos loved and lost, we know he's not above using what people want against them, and the connections between Ezran and the Orphan Queen are just Text at this point, although how they may manifest further, we don't know.

This is just one particular stab at it, and an examination of three of the series' most interesting (potential) trios. We'll simply have to see if anything here hit the nail on the head.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

—Dragons Out

[slytherheign]

GOLD RUSH | daniel ricciardo

PART 2/4 OF BROKEN GLASS AND HONEY SERIES.

CAN ALSO BE READ AS A ONE-SHOT.

PAIRINGS: daniel ricciardo x fem!reader, ex!max verstappen x fem!reader

WORD COUNT: 4.9k

SUMMARY: you don't like a gold rush, but you're attracted to someone everyone admires. when he stares at you with eyes like sinking ships on waters so inviting, will you jump in or not?

WARNINGS: cursing/swearing, people not giving a single fuck about the 3-month rule, mention of a hand injury, and allusions to a past unhealthy relationship. as i said, this can be read as a one-shot but there are references in this about the previous part of the series. so… you might want to read that. let me know if i missed any warnings. [⚠︎︎RATING: 16+]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: inspired by taylor swift’s song with the same title. also, based on my research, driver rooms are either located in a team motorhome or a floor in the driver’s garage. i literally watched paddock tours, garage tours, driver’s room tours BUT i still cannot find where in the japanese gp are the driver rooms located. so in this fic the driver’s room is a part of the garage, i imagined it on the 2nd floor. if you are reading the series i suggest rereading the last part because i changed some important details there like the timeline and stuff. again, huge thanks to my bestie @writingstoraes for helping me with the social media parts included here.

DESTINATION: Angst Avenue | GO TO SERIES MASTERLIST or GO BACK TO THE STATION.

All you did was accept his follow request on Instagram.

Then happened the small talks, the exchanging of numbers, the constant messages, and the little secret meetups.

And now here you were, meeting with his family as he introduced you to them.

What Max couldn’t do in almost 2 years, Daniel did in 2 months.

You remembered the date you accepted his follow request, July 19th. Only a few days before he would drive for AlphaTauri after Nyck de Vries got sacked. He then spent most of his summer break getting to know you. And when he sustained a break to a metacarpal on his left hand during the free practice 2 session at the Dutch Grand Prix, you stayed with him and it brought you even closer.

Today was September 19th. Exactly 2 months after you accepted his follow request and 2 days after the race in Singapore ended—the race where he returned after his injury. You were having dinner with his family. His mother told you stories about Daniel’s childhood. He was embarrassed at some of them, but you assured him that you thought the stories were cute. You smiled all throughout the meal. This was a new experience for you, getting introduced to someone’s family and getting treated like you were already one of their own.

You were used to being hidden. Things never used to be like this. For the longest time, it was always secret glances, touching behind closed doors, and kissing behind closed curtains. It was never talking, laughing, and getting along with his family.

He joined you when you took the initiative to wash the dishes. His mother didn’t want you to, but you insisted because it was all you could do in return for their warm welcome. 

You worked as a team. You washed the plates with the dishwashing soap while Daniel rinsed them with water, silence never surrounding you for even a moment because he had so many stories to tell and you loved hearing every single one of them.

You weren’t even in a relationship yet. Sure, you went on a few dates, but there was still no label put on it. There were no kisses, no making out—just the occasional holding hands and Daniel never complained. He understood that you still weren’t prepared for another relationship and he was ready to wait.

“It’s late. We should probably rest,” he spoke up after you both washed your hands and dried them using a paper towel. You followed him into his childhood room.

“You take the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said.

“You don’t need to do that. This is your room.”

“No, please. I insist,” he smiled.

You took the bed, immediately smelling his scent on the sheets. From the paint to the posters and the pillows, everything about this room screamed Daniel Ricciardo and it gave you so much comfort.

But even with all the comfort his bed provided, you still couldn’t sleep. “Daniel?” you called his name.

“Hmm?” he replied, he couldn’t sleep as well.

“What were you thinking that day?” you asked quietly.

“What day?”

“When you requested to follow me on Instagram. You knew I was dating Max, right?”

“You already broke up that night.”

“Well, yeah. But you didn’t know that.”

“I actually did. Max told me when he was drunk and crying. I don’t think he remembers telling me, though.”

“Why did you want to follow me?”

“I was curious, I guess. I wanted to see who made Max cry. He’s one of my closest friends so I wanted to know who was this girl he was crying about. Your account was private but I was really curious about you, so I requested to follow you and…”

“And?” you urged him to continue.

“And I loved what I saw. You’re really beautiful.”

You blushed, covering your face with your hands even though he couldn’t see them anyway. You changed the topic. “You said Max was crying?” 

“Yeah. But then he also drunkenly told me the reason why. And for what it’s worth, I’m on your side. You did the right thing. You deserve someone better.”

No one spoke for a moment. Your mind suddenly lingered on Max. He would never cry in public, not even in front of a friend. You knew that if he was sober, he would’ve never cried in front of Daniel. Max always said that he was raised to not show any sign of weakness to anyone, and he thought that crying was one of them. You were the only exception. With you, he wasn’t afraid of crying. Hell, he had broken down in front of you countless times and you were always there for him. And he loved that you were always there for him.

You pushed any further thought of him away from your head. He wasn’t yours anymore. You shouldn’t think about him. He wasn’t the one lying on the floor next to the bed you laid on now, it was Daniel.

“Dan?” you softly called his name.

He smiled at the new nickname. “Yeah?”

“Can you sleep next to me?”

“Are you sure?” he asked. From the way his voice sounded, you knew he was smiling.

“Please?” you said, moving yourself to make a space for him on the bed.

He immediately stood up to lie beside you. None of you felt any awkwardness, it was almost like it was always meant to be like this—you and him, beside each other.

You stared at the ceiling, not really feeling any sleepiness. How could you? When there were about a thousand thoughts circling themselves in your head?

Thoughts about your future, about Daniel, and about Max. You were just thankful you were privileged to be born into a family that owns a successful company in Monaco. And although you stayed in Menton, you still worked for your family business. At least, if the public discovered your possible future relationship with Daniel, you knew they couldn’t call you a gold digger because you already have plenty of gold just by yourself. That was one less thing to worry about.

Daniel couldn’t sleep either, knowing that you were still awake. He looked at you, following your line of vision until he stared at the ceiling as well.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

“A lot,” you chuckled.

“Do you want to talk about them?”

“No,” you shook your head. “At least not yet.”

“That’s okay. You wanna talk about something else?”

You thought for a moment before a sudden question entered your mind. “What’s your favorite memory that happened here in your room?”

“Well, I had my first make-out session here,” he laughed. 

You playfully hit his shoulder. “Really?” you laughed. “That’s your favorite memory?”

“Why? Are you jealous because it wasn’t you?” he teased.

“I-”

“Just kidding,” he laughed again. “My favorite memory in this room was when my dad and I sat on this bed and had a deep talk about life. I still l remember every piece of advice he told me that day and I try my best to follow them.”

“Care to tell me one advice?” you said. “Who knows, maybe it’ll help me out at some point.”

“There was one he told me that really stuck to me the most,” he responded.

“What is it about?”

“About love.”

You glanced at him before looking back up again at the ceiling. “Tell me.”

“Give love time to flourish, but never time what flourishes the love.”

You let the words sink in. You turned to your side so you could face him, urging him to elaborate. 

“You can fall in love with someone years after meeting them, at the same time, you can fall in love with someone after hours of meeting them. The length doesn’t matter if the trust is strong and the love is already stronger.

“You can get engaged after being with someone for 6 years, at the same time, you can get engaged after being with someone for 6 months. 

“Time matters, yes. But the length is subjective. Love is not supposed to be a competition where time is the sole judge. Sometimes, longer doesn’t mean healthier, and shorter doesn’t make it insincere or artificial.”

He turned to his side so he could face you as well. You didn’t know what to reply and he didn’t expect you to. You just stared at each other’s eyes.

You had never paid attention to his eyes more than what you were doing now. 

They were gleaming.

Twinkling.

Those eyes…

They were like sinking ships on waters so inviting.

You almost jumped in.

You cleared your throat, pulling away from his face that was just an inch away from yours. Funny, you didn’t even notice your faces were moving closer to each other.

“W-we should-uhh n-not,” you suggested.

“Y-yeah, we should not,” he agreed, smiling sheepishly.

The next race was not far ahead. You actually thought that after the race in Singapore, he would fly straight to Japan to get ready for the next grand prix. Instead, he took 3 days off just to set up a dinner with you and his family. 

You didn’t know why he did it, because if you were him, you wouldn’t want to stress yourself this much just for you to meet his family. You weren’t demanding anything right now. If Max made you wait for almost 2 years, you could wait a couple more months for Daniel. After all, waiting was your game—and an expert at that.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Daniel introduced you to his family exactly 2 months after your first interaction. He knew about the waiting game Max made you play for almost 2 years. The number ‘2’ always being the highlight. So, he did what Max couldn’t do in just 2 months. He wanted to prove something. And from the look on your face the moment his parents hugged you, he knew his little plan worked.

It also wasn’t a coincidence that out of all the advice his father gave him, what he told you was the one about love and time being subjective. It was his sly way of saying that it didn’t matter how long you two have known each other. He was basically saying that Max may have had you longer but you should pick him. He had feelings for you, he wanted you to see that, and hopefully, return them. 

Tomorrow, he needed to travel. Reality would return again, and the track needed him. As much as he wanted to spend more time with you, his car won’t drive itself. He had a thought.

“Do you want to go with me?” he asked suddenly. “To Suzuka.”

There was something in you that screamed to go back to your Menton apartment. Were you ready to go to a Grand Prix supporting a different driver than who you were used to supporting?

This was a second chance at everything, though. A chance to move on and a chance to have something new and someone new to look forward to.

“Okay,” you finally answered. “I’ll just have to do some work online for our family business. But as soon as I’m done, I’ll be in the stands cheering for you.”

He looked at you like you said some forbidden language. “The stands?” he asked you.

“Yeah, like with the other fans,” you shrugged.

“You know you’re not like the other fans, right? You can watch in the garage. If you’re not comfortable with other people seeing you, you can stay in my driver’s room and watch there. I’m sure there’s a monitor there.”

Again, this was a new experience for you. You didn’t know what to say.

“It would make me really happy knowing you’re in my room rather than in the stands. I could also show you the car and some stuff,” he continued.

Max never even invited you to walk the pitlane with him. And now here was Daniel, all ready and prepared to tour the entire paddock with you if you asked him to.

“That would be great,” you smiled.

“We better rest then, we have to travel tomorrow.”

JAPAN. SEPTEMBER 24, 2023. 

The race was happening today.

For the last few days since you got here, you chose to stay at a hotel near where the circuit was. Daniel was staying at the same hotel just 2 floors above yours. He invited you to stay in his room but you refused because it would raise a lot of suspicion. You were still figuring out what you had with Daniel and staying in the same room as him would paint a picture that you were already in a relationship. You knew just how F1 fans could become detectives if they wanted to. They already knew your name when Daniel decided to follow you on Instagram. A lot of them tried to follow you, but you chose not to accept their follow requests.

You stayed in your hotel room on Friday and Saturday, watching the practice sessions and the qualifying in your room. You didn’t really have a choice, you had online work to do. You watched while you worked. 

But not today.

Today, you were free. Today, you’d watch the Grand Prix in person.

Daniel visited you quite often in your room. He took advantage of you being in the same hotel as him. He always tried to convince you to get out, but you always said that you were busy finishing some work in advance so you could attend the Grand Prix with no worries about work. He stayed beside you while you worked until his duties called him and he needed to get to work as well.

But not today.

Today, he didn’t have to convince you anymore because you wouldn’t stay in your room. Today, you’d join him.

The plan was to walk behind him through the paddock with an AlphaTauri staff until you reached his garage where he would tour you and get you to meet the people working there. After that, he would lead you to his driver’s room where you would stay.

If it was entirely up to him, he wanted you to walk beside him instead of behind. But you refused again, because you knew walking beside him would launch something that you weren’t sure of yet.

You didn’t understand yourself. You broke up with Max because he kept you hidden. And now that you were with someone who wanted to show you off to the world, you’d rather stay hidden. You told yourself it was just because you and Daniel did not have a label in your relationship yet. You convinced him it was just because you were still figuring everything out.

And those reasons were reasonable and true. 

But you missed one little fact.

There was something about being hidden that excited you. 

Maybe being Max’s secret for a long time had convinced you that being hidden was an exciting thrill.

A knock on your door interrupted your thoughts. You finished fixing your hair immediately to open it. On the other side was a staff from AlphaTauri you had gotten close to for the past couple of days. You followed her downstairs where you met up with Daniel.

As soon as Daniel entered the paddock, all eyes were on him. The cameras turned and snapped pictures, your white cap barely hiding your face so you looked down and focused on the road most of the time. You should’ve brought sunglasses.

You heard people calling his name. Photographers, fans, people from the other teams—everyone. He displayed a huge smile on his face that everyone returned as soon as they got a sight of him. He waved at everyone, because let’s be honest, everyone knew him.

You saw everything as you walked behind him.

You saw how everyone admired him.

How everyone glorified everything he did. 

Not everyone knew him personally, but everyone felt close to him. That was how admirable Daniel Ricciardo was. He leaves a mark on everyone. A mark so indelible and so perfect that no one could ever forget. No one would dare to forget.

It started to make you insecure.

It ached to even think of how perfect he was, of how peaceful he was. Like sunshine, he was a need for everyone. He presented a light that everyone would kill for just to have a taste of.

It started to make you jealous.

It was like he floated as he walked because everyone cheered on him. Like a rush of gold, he was a desire—a temptation.

And you didn’t like a gold rush.

You didn’t like anticipating your face in a red flush.

You didn’t like that anyone would die to feel his touch.

Everybody wanted him.

Halfway through your destination, the AlphaTauri staff you were walking with behind Daniel suddenly realized she left something important in her room. She had to go back to the hotel, leaving you no choice but to stand and walk beside Daniel.

And he loved it. He glanced at you every now and then, smiling and checking if you were alright. He brought his camera with him, he took some pictures of the surroundings while he walked. You didn’t know that most of those pictures were you looking around the place. You’ve been to multiple F1 races in your life, but this was your first time in a Grand Prix in Japan.

You entered the pitlane with him. And once again, photographers snapped pictures of him. You slowed down a bit, letting Daniel be on the front again and the only focus of the cameras. He instantly noticed the lack of your presence beside him, looking at you and smiling, telling you it was alright and that you could walk beside him again. You eyed the cameras, observing that their focus was not on Daniel anymore as another driver was walking towards your way. So, you went back beside him, smiling softly at him. He placed a hand on your back guiding you through the large amount of people coming and leaving the pitlane.

For a slight moment, you wondered how someone so perfect would want to be with someone so imperfect. How could someone as desired as gold would want to love someone who was the complete opposite?

You were nearing his garage, but before you could reach it, a pair of familiar eyes caught yours. You swore you felt your heart jump and the world stop for a second but you shook it off.

As it turned out, the other driver that was walking towards your way was none other than Max Verstappen.

He froze for a second but he looked away from you. He continued walking, pretending that nothing ever happened but you noticed that his jaw was clenched when he walked past you.

When you reached Daniel’s garage, he introduced you to his race engineer and mechanics. You exchanged greetings. Yuki Tsunoda joined the conversation as well when he took notice of the new addition that Daniel brought. 

“So, what are you two?” Yuki asked. The other people in the garage were listening intently, curious as to what the answer was.

“Umm, we’re not really sure yet,” you answered honestly. “We’re still figuring it out.”

You looked at Daniel and he grinned, agreeing with your answer. Most of them shrugged at your response but they couldn’t hide the smirks they were showing when they each looked at Daniel.

Daniel led the way to his driver’s room, making sure you were settled in there before he eventually had to leave to do some things he needed to do.

You heard the sound of your phone notifying you that someone sent you a message. You checked it.

You rolled your eyes as you stared at your phone, slightly cursing at yourself because you swore not to reply to any of his texts anymore. His last texts were from the night he tried to convince you to stay with him—the last time you talked to him in person. You didn’t even notice yourself typing a reply until you already sent it.

You knew nothing would stop Max from doing what he wanted to do. What Max Verstappen wants, Max Verstappen gets.

You just placed your phone in your pocket and hoped that whatever kind of talk they would have would not affect the race later.

The race would start at 1:00 p.m., and even at 9:17 a.m., you could already feel how busy everyone was. Daniel entered the room, immediately sitting next to you on the couch and hugging you close. He rested his head on your lap and you played with his hair, twirling his already curly hair with your fingers. You stayed like that for a while, you were sure Daniel had already fallen asleep. You chuckled, pulling your phone from your pocket and snapping a cute picture of him.

You weren’t sure how many minutes had passed. You tried taking a nap but your excitement for today was too much for even a minute of sleep to consume you. So, you just stared at Daniel and resumed playing with his hair with one hand, while the other scrolled through Twitter on your phone.

And there it was. The speculations were already starting. You had no idea how they even knew it was you from just a side view of your body.

But for the first time, you didn’t care.

You scrolled even more, reading almost every comment about the picture of you and Daniel. 

Every comment and reply you saw was positive, not even one negative comment about him. People loved him and you understood them. What’s there not to love about him?

Even you were not an exception. You cared for him. You were attracted to someone everyone admired.

Everybody wondered what it would be like to love him.

And you wondered the same.

Daniel’s phone that was atop the coffee table made a noise, informing him that someone had texted. He was still lying on the couch with his head on your lap when he got woken up by the notification and took his phone from the table. He immediately sat up when he saw who it was.

You sneaked a glance and saw that it was Max.

They were texting back and forth and since Daniel’s phone was not on silent, you heard every tap he made on his keyboard. He was typing roughly, his phone shaking just by the force of his typing. His jaw was clenched and his eyebrows were knitted. 

He was angry. 

And you knew why. You wanted the couch you were sitting on right now to eat you alive. 

Minutes later, someone knocked on the door, saying something about a meeting he needed to present for. You knew he wasn’t talking to Max anymore because he had stopped typing. But still, he stared at the phone with so much hatred. 

You had never seen Daniel this angry before. You couldn’t help but ask Max what he said.

But of course, Max told you nothing.

Daniel stood up suddenly, his stance telling you he was still pissed off. But before he could fully leave the room, he looked at you as if he was asking for your permission if he could leave. You nodded in response, smiling to assure him that you were going to be fine.

You didn’t dare to know how their conversation went anymore.

“It’s lights out and away we go!” you heard Crofty announce. And as soon as he said it, 20 sensational drivers in their cars fought for positions.

You actually left Daniel's room before the race started, deciding to watch from the back of the main garage with the other AlphaTauri guests. You didn’t need to hide anyway because people already knew you. And besides, the cameras were focused on the race. 

53 laps later, Daniel finished P9 which was astonishing given that he was driving an AlphaTauri. Because let’s be honest, the team and their cars aren't exactly built to win a championship.

You knew he had media duties to do after the race so you didn’t expect him to go back immediately. You returned to his room, watching the post-race interviews while waiting for him. You immediately focused on the screen as soon as it was his turn.

“P9, huh? What an astonishing drive,” a Sky reporter praised him. 

“Well, yeah,” he chuckled. “Thank you. I had a lot more motivation today and I made sure to project it on track.”

You blushed. 

The reporter asked him questions about the pace, what he felt about the race and the usual stuff. All of them he answered with a smile on his face. Even in his sweaty conditions, he looked gorgeous. 

What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?

His hair was falling into place like dominoes.

And once again you questioned just how on earth this man was a real person.

Back in the hotel, with your phone in your pocket, you were helping Daniel pack his suitcases in his room after you already packed yours. 

He was taking a much-needed shower while you insisted on packing his belongings for him. God knew how tired he was after the race and you had a lot of free time on your hands. Even if he didn’t want you to do it for him, you still did it.

Daniel came out of the bathroom already dressed and immediately proceeded to help you pack. “Have you seen my headphones?” he asked.

“No, and I haven’t packed it yet,” you answered. “Where did you last remember using it?”

“I think it’s in your room.”

“Okay, I’ll check it,” you got ready to leave before he stopped you. 

“You want me to come with you?” he asked.

“No, but thanks,” you smiled. “Just continue packing so we’ll finish faster.”

Moments later, you discovered that his headphones were indeed in your room. You quickly retrieved it and made your way back to his.

As you were about to open Daniel’s door, the room beside him opened and someone entered the hallway. You made the mistake of looking at the person because it was Max. You made eye contact for the second time that day and he seemed stuck on the floor. 

He frowned, eyeing you and the room you were about to enter. You saw his confusion turn into realization when he remembered who the person staying in that room was. And then, he scoffed. He walked past you again, brushing his shoulder with yours as he went straight to the elevator.

You sighed, opening the door and seeing how Daniel already finished packing most of his belongings.

“I found it,” you said, handing him the headphones. He stood up from his position, getting the item from your hand before tossing it on the bed and caging you with his arms. 

“My God, what would I do without you?” he said, rocking you back and forth as he hugged you. 

You looked up to meet his eyes. “I don’t know, probably lose half of your things,” you laughed as he released you from his arms. “Now, where were we?” you asked, looking over all the suitcases on the floor. 

“I finished most of it, I’m sure it’ll take me only 5 minutes to finish the rest.”

“Okay, you do that. I’ll check the other bags if you’ve forgotten something again.”

Daniel did in fact finish the rest in only 5 minutes. He stood up, stretching his body after the crouching he had to do while he was packing. 

You couldn’t help but look at him. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt and his back was facing you. You saw how the muscles on his arms and back flexed while he stretched.

Suddenly, everything was in slow motion.

You didn't like slow motion double vision in rose blush.

You didn’t like that falling felt like flying 'til the bone crush.

Everybody wanted him.

And you didn’t like that you didn’t wonder the same anymore.

Because unlike them, you didn’t need to wonder. You already loved him.

You didn’t like a gold rush.

But for him, you would.

You stood up, walking towards him until you were in front of him. He faced you, confused as to what you had to say.

But you didn’t say anything.

Instead, you placed your hands on his cheeks and you caressed them gently.

His eyes started doing the same thing they did back when you spent the night in his childhood room and your heart started beating faster than ever.

They were gleaming.

Twinkling.

Those eyes…

They were like sinking ships on waters so inviting.

So, you jumped in.

You pulled his face close to you, closing the distance with a passionate kiss. He was shocked at first, not because he didn’t want it but because he didn’t expect it. He was ready for you anytime, he was just waiting for the time you would tell him that you felt the same.

And instead of telling him, you showed him. 

With a kiss, you made him feel.

Daniel reciprocated the kiss and held you closer.

From that moment on, he won. 

Or at least he thought he did.

We all know Max Verstappen was a fierce competitor.

He kissed your forehead when he pulled away. Then, he placed a soft peck on both sides of your cheeks before pressing his hands softly on them. You looked at him lovingly.

Your phone in your pocket buzzed from someone messaging you but you were too busy admiring Daniel that you didn’t even pay attention to it.

Only time would tell how those two sets of three little words would affect you.

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[aroaceleovaldez]

okay outside of the retcons and continuity errors in TSATS, I think the main part that bugs me is how much the book seems to infantilize Nico, particularly relating to his relationship with Will. Especially because the book seems to remember and then forget again that Nico is autistic only when it’s convenient to infantilize him further.

Nico is randomly nerfed and basically helpless at literally everything the entire book. There is not a single fight EVER in the book that he actually fights without someone else very directly doing the work for him or actively helping him (usually LITERALLY holding his hand), save for that singular time where he sneak-attack kills the monster that just regenerated, but honestly that doesn’t really count as a fight. Or the aeternae, but they literally weren’t attacking him.

He’s in the underworld! He’s been dating Will for a year! How is he completely incapable of the simplest tasks? He tries to help Will - in the infirmary (is helpless at it), patch up his wounds (Will’s condition only worsens), put batteries in a sun lamp (he drops the batteries) - every time he manages to fuck up like he’s never done a single task in his life before. He runs away from every fight or someone else does the work for him because he’s randomly incapable of it for some random excuse. He completely loses several notable powers of his (only ever using one of his powers the entire book, and the only other reference to his powers is his shadow-travel which we don’t actually see) and acts like he’s physically incapable of them even though they logically should be the best answer for a particular situation (geokinesis! dream powers! influencing fear/nightmares! one-tap kill dissolve-you-to-bones! rip souls out of living people!) Yet Will randomly can do everything he can’t - generates two completely new powers to fight Nyx with (alongside bringing back an old power that got forgotten)! Plus a third (growing flowers/plants) that doesn’t even have anything done with it! Can pick the fruit from Persephone’s garden when Nico can’t (LITERALLY IN NICO’S OWN HOME)! Nico panicking? Soothes him without even trying. Will saves Nico in fights like five different times when he’s supposed to be the one with zero combat experience and explicitly isn’t a fighter (and doesn’t even have a weapon) and Nico’s the one who lived on his own as a rogue for three years! They’re in the Underworld, Nico’s home, and Will - WHILE ON DEATH’S DOORSTEP. LITERALLY. - is more powerful than him! For no reason! Nico is a Big 3 kid! He’s SUPPOSED to be extremely op! We don’t even see Nico speak to any true ghosts the entire book and they even acknowledge that he’s Ghost King!

And then on top of it all, the narrative keeps treating Nico as not knowing what’s best for himself and making Will always correct. Or making it so Will is the only one who is able to comfort Nico ever. And have Nico constantly refer to Will with almost exclusively babyish pet-names - “Night-light,” “Care bear” (when logically Nico shouldn’t even know anything about Care Bear lore?), even “sun therapy lamp” isn’t great. The constant “My little ball of darkness” also isn’t great? Like, if you establish that Nico’s extremely short, then it’s not as bad cause then it’s a height joke, but since the book never establishes that it just reads as more infantilizing.

I get they were trying to hype up Will for this book and let him have some action scenes so it wasn’t just Nico dragging him through the Underworld for 50 chapters while he does nothing but be emotional support. And Nico’s powers usually means he very often acts as an almost literal dues ex machina in a lot of plots. But you can still work with that without nerfing Nico so much, or completely infantilizing him! Just because Nico has trauma doesn’t mean he can’t be capable on his own, and that doesn’t have to negate him having people he leans on for support! These things can coexist!