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The A to Z of Plausible Deniability: Taylor Swift’s 2019 Vogue Interview, Decoded

https://www.vogue.com/article/taylor-swift-cover-september-2019

Hey Kids! Spelling Is Fun!

There are a few moments in Taylor Swift’s career that fans point to as definitive—words etched in stone, used to silence entire communities of listeners. Chief among them? One quote from her 2019 Vogue cover story, often held up as the nail in the coffin of Gaylorism. And yet, as with everything in Swift’s world, what seems like a clear declaration rarely is.

When she said, “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community I’m not a part of,” many saw it as a disavowal.

But those of us who’ve studied her work closely—who’ve listened deeply, read between every line, counted every beat and coded phrase—understood something different. That wasn’t a confession. It was a cover.

In this essay, I’ve taken the 2019 Vogue article apart chronologically, letter by letter—twenty-six meticulously crafted sections, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. Why? Because Taylor is nothing if not deliberate, and the only way to honor the intricacy of her storytelling is to mirror it with equal care.

From Allyship to Zooming Out, we’ll explore the breadcrumbs she’s left us, the plausible deniability she’s mastered, and the coded queerness that pulses through every paragraph of this interview.

Welcome to The A to Z of Plausible Deniability. Let’s start spelling.

A — Allyship or Authority?

In the second and third paragraphs of the Vogue article, the author describes the star-studded, rainbow-saturated set of “You Need to Calm Down.” It’s a gay wonderland: Hayley Kiyoko shooting arrows, the cast of Queer Eye sipping tea, and Todrick Hall holding court. At the center of it all? Taylor Swift—literally cast as the sheriff of this queer town.

This visual begs the question: would all of these openly queer artists sign on to uplift and center a straight woman’s vision of queerness if it were just that—straight? Would a “sheriff” character not feel weirdly self-appointed unless it was someone already accepted by the community she’s symbolically policing for?

If Taylor were purely an outsider to the LGBTQ+ community, the optics of this video might feel off—like performative allyship bordering on appropriation. But instead, these queer creatives joined her vision. That doesn’t prove anything definitive, of course, but it does challenge the idea that Swift was simply “borrowing” queerness for optics. The role she plays in that trailer-park utopia feels more like one of quiet authority.

B — Byzantine Breadcrumbs

In paragraph six, the Vogue author confesses: “I hadn’t understood how coded and byzantine her body of work had become; I hadn’t learned, as Swift fans have, to see hidden meanings everywhere.” This is a powerful observation—and one that Gaylors have long embraced as a cornerstone of Swift’s artistry.

The word Byzantine isn’t just poetic. It’s specific. It implies complexity, secrecy, and intentional obfuscation—a storytelling style that thrives on symbol and structure. It mirrors the way Swift weaves metaphors, numbers, time-stamped references, and narrative misdirection into her public-facing work.

This is where plausible deniability enters the chat. Taylor gives her audience enough—just enough to be interpreted—but never so much that anything is definitively confirmed. She can’t be “proven” one way or another. And that’s the point. This isn’t just fan projection—it’s a blueprint. The layered, coded nature of her work invites analysis because it’s crafted to sustain multiple truths at once.

When Swifties reduce this system to “easter eggs for the next album,” it undercuts the literary, poetic, and queer-coded lineage of what she’s actually doing. She’s not just teasing projects—she’s hiding a whole life in plain sight.

C — Codes, Clues, and Calculations

In paragraph eight, the author writes: “Apprehending the Taylor Swift Universe is like grasping quantum physics.” It’s a nod to the sheer complexity of her work, but more than that, it validates the way many fans—particularly Gaylors—approach Taylor’s art: through close reading, detailed timelines, and intertextual analysis.

This isn’t a stretch. Taylor loves numbers. She codes her life in them. From referencing “Track 5” songs as emotionally significant, to dropping albums and music videos on symbolically loaded dates (like Pride Month, or Lesbian Visibility Day), there is historical precedent for believing she crafts with intention.

So when Gaylors notice the consistent use of numbers like 8 and 3—Karlie Kloss’s birthday—or see mirrored timestamps and patterns emerge across albums, it isn’t “reaching.” It’s reading. It’s noticing the very kind of symbolic complexity Taylor herself says she values.

To reduce these patterns to coincidence is to ignore the deep, ongoing conversation she’s having with her audience. She knows how to whisper through art. The question is: who’s listening?

D — Dates and Declarations

In the 9th paragraph, the Vogue article notes that Lover was announced just after midnight on June 1st, the first day of Pride Month. The timing wasn’t accidental—and neither was the content. Taylor also released a letter to Senator Lamar Alexander, asking him to support the Equality Act, and posted a petition in support of LGBTQ+ civil rights. These weren’t vague gestures—they were coordinated acts of public political advocacy.

What makes this significant isn’t just that she said these things—it’s that she’d never said them this loudly before. Prior to Lover, Taylor had a documented history of quiet support: a donation to GLAAD in 2011, a pro-gay lyric in Welcome to New York, presenting Ruby Rose with an award, and even subtle visual nods like her lavender sweater in Mean. But none of that matched the scale, clarity, or political urgency of her 2019 actions.

Then there’s the author’s note that her letter was written on her personal stationery, which cheekily read: “Born in 1989. Loves cats.” If that’s the personal truth she’s putting on paper, her next sentence—“I personally reject the president’s stance”—reads differently. “Personally” doesn’t just signal belief; it signals lived experience. If she were writing from a purely ally perspective, wouldn’t it be easier to say “I support the rights of the LGBTQ+ community”? Instead, she positions the rejection as something that affects her directly.

This is part of what makes the “I recently realized I could advocate for a community I’m not a part of” statement so strange in the same interview. She’d already spent years advocating for queer people—what changed? Perhaps it’s not that she was finally advocating for LGBTQ+ people, but that she was finally speaking about trans rights, a specific subgroup she hadn’t addressed before. The specificity is important—because if she’s not part of the trans community, but is part of the LGB community, then the quote reads very differently than it’s often interpreted.

E — Enemies of Progress: Who Was YNTCD Really For?

In paragraph 10, Vogue lists the targets of You Need to Calm Down: trolls, cancel culture, homophobes, concert picketers, and those who pit successful women against each other.

But let’s pause—who was picketing Taylor’s concerts? Why were people already protesting her shows before YNTCD ever dropped?

Because her queer alignment didn’t start in 2019. For nearly a decade, she’d quietly supported queer causes, coded her music with queer subtext, and stood in solidarity behind the scenes. YNTCD wasn’t a beginning—it was a confirmation.

And it did more than call out hate. It placed her at the center of queer joy—as sheriff, no less. That imagery wasn’t subtle, and it challenged the idea that she was merely an ally.

The song also critiques how women are constantly scrutinized and compared—adding a deeper layer for someone who’s long had her personal relationships dissected under a heteronormative lens.

YNTCD made her stance unmistakable. Even if she didn’t spell it out.

F — Family Matters: “If He Was Gay, He’d Be Gay”

In paragraph 12, Swift shares a moment with close friend Todrick Hall. He asks, “What would you do if your son was gay?” Her response: “If my son was gay, he’d be gay. I don’t understand the question.”

It’s a powerful moment—especially in context.

They're sitting in a secret garden shaped like a cocoon—a space symbolizing transformation and protection. The metaphor is striking. Here’s Taylor, wrapped in this image of safety and potential change, confronted with the idea that someone close to her had doubts about where she stood.

Her realization? “I hadn’t been publicly clear enough.” But clear to whom?

Of all the marginalized communities Taylor could have highlighted, she centers the LGBTQ+ community. Not women. Not BIPOC fans. Not people with disabilities. This is who she’s focused on.

And her emotional reaction—“devastating”—isn’t just about perception. It reads as personal. If she were queer, this would be a moment of profound internal reckoning. Because being seen as an outsider to your own community is a unique kind of pain.

That’s why the answer hits different. “If he was gay, he’d be gay.” It carries the energy of someone who’s long wrestled with her own identity and doesn’t want that struggle projected onto others.

If she was gay, she'd be gay.

What’s the question?

G — Guarded in Conversation, Glowing in Song

The writer notes that Taylor’s answers on LGBTQ+ topics were “direct, not performative or scripted,” but also that she seemed tense—“like she’d enjoy [the interview] about as much as a root canal.” The exception? When the conversation turned to music. Suddenly, her “face lit up” and she began weaving melody into her speech. That’s where she’s most at home.

It begs the question: Is music the only place she feels free to speak her truth?

If her public language is burdened with risk—fear of missteps, media backlash, or violating a carefully crafted persona—then songwriting becomes her sanctuary. A protected space where she can communicate honestly, albeit in metaphor and code.

She seems guarded in speech, but in music?

She radiates.

H — Hints from the Heartland

The author of the Vogue piece acknowledges that Taylor had been sending pro-LGB signals for years—since at least 2011. And Gaylors know it goes even further back: in 2008, she was participating in anti-gay bullying PSAs and quietly supporting LGB causes long before it was deemed “safe” for someone like her to do so.

And that matters. Because she was a young country star from Nashville. We explored this in The Glass Closet post: country music has a long, fraught history with queerness. Chely Wright’s career was decimated the moment she came out in 2010. Taylor would’ve seen that play out in real time—and internalized the lesson.

So her early advocacy wasn’t just subtle. It was strategic. She laid groundwork in winks and whispers, not because she didn’t care—but because she knew the cost of being too loud, too soon.

I — In Plain Sight: A Timeline of Taylor’s Queer Advocacy

Long before Vogue 2019, Taylor Swift had already been participating in meaningful acts of queer advocacy—subtly, consistently, and often in ways that flew under the radar for casual fans. Here’s a quick timeline of what she had already done by the time this article was published:

2008 – Participated in a Seventeen magazine PSA against anti-gay bullying following the murder of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old shot for being gay.

2010 – Released Mean, widely interpreted as a song about homophobia and bullying. In the video, one character wears a lavender sweater—later referenced in the Vogue article.

2011 – Began to be more visibly supportive of queer artists and fans. Notable moments include her friendship with out lesbian musicians like Hayley Kiyoko (who later appears in her music video) and support for LGB charities behind the scenes.

2014 – Released Welcome to New York with the lyric: “You can want who you want / Boys and boys and girls and girls.” This marked one of her first overt queer-affirming lines in a song.

2016 – Publicly presented Ruby Rose (a genderfluid lesbian actress) with a GLAAD Media Award.

2017–2018 – Dedicated “Dress” on the Reputation tour to Loie Fuller, a queer icon and gender-defying performance artist.

2018 – Wrote a personal, viral Tumblr post ahead of the midterms calling out anti-LGB legislation and specifically criticizing Marsha Blackburn’s homophobic voting record. This was a major shift for a celebrity who had previously remained silent about elections.

2019 (pre-Vogue) – Donated generously to GLAAD and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative during Pride Month. She also began actively using her platform to uplift queer voices, and started the You Need to Calm Down campaign by launching a petition in support of the Equality Act. This is where the organization/policy she supported explicitly included gender identity in its mission or language and Taylor acknowledged this publicly.

These moments span more than a decade—and they are not subtle. Her engagement wasn’t a sudden pivot in 2019; it was a steady climb toward louder, more direct action.

Soon, we’ll return to the infamous “community I’m not a part of” quote that so many Swifties have latched onto. But before we get there, it’s worth recognizing: Taylor’s track record of queer advocacy was long established well before that moment.

J — Judgements and Justifications

In discussing the Tennessee Equality Act, Taylor says she “loved how smart it was to come at it from a religious perspective.” On the surface, this is a political observation—praising a tactic that reframes queer protections in a language conservative lawmakers might understand. But for a songwriter like Swift, who builds entire albums around thematic layers, this statement feels more personal. In The Tortured Poets Department, she references biblical imagery, heaven and hell, sin, redemption, punishment, and divine judgment. The emotional weight behind her lyrics—especially when dealing with shame, silence, and secrets—often echoes the internal conflict so many queer people experience growing up in religious households or communities.

Swift doesn’t just casually name-drop religious themes; she builds worlds out of them. To highlight the “smartness” of using religious justification in advocacy suggests a deeper awareness of how moral arguments are weaponized against queer people. It also implies she’s personally familiar with the pain those narratives can cause—and how powerful it can be to reclaim that language for liberation.

K — “Kicked Down by the Church” The release of “You Need to Calm Down” wasn’t just met with celebration—it triggered backlash, including from a Colorado pastor who declared Swift “a sinner in desperate need of a savior” and warned that “God will cut her down.” Beyond the absurdity of that rhetoric lies something much more serious: the reminder that queerness, or even perceived queerness, invites violent cultural policing. Some LGBTQ+ activists also questioned the suddenness of Taylor’s embrace of Pride imagery, critiquing her for corporate allyship or performative politics.

But if you’ve been paying attention—as the Vogue article subtly invites you to do—you’ll know none of this came out of nowhere. She had been quietly aligning with the queer community for years. And for a woman who had never been called a “sinner in need of saving” before, this moment was a turning point. If she received this kind of vitriol just for advocating, imagine the fallout if she openly identified as queer.

Maybe that’s why she dresses herself as the literal sheriff of a technicolor gay village in the “Calm Down” video. It’s a declaration of belonging disguised as allyship—plausible deniability in rhinestones and pastel wigs. Maybe this was her version of coming out. Or maybe it was a warning shot across the Bible Belt. Either way, the message was loud.

L — “Legacy or Liberation?”

Taylor has never been afraid to speak out—when it matters most to her. Whether pulling her music from Spotify, standing up to Apple Music, or fighting for artist ownership of her masters, she has repeatedly put her reputation on the line to challenge powerful institutions. In the Vogue interview, she explains her choice to let go of the past and focus on the future: “It was either investing in my past or other artists’ future, and I chose the future.” This quote, while referencing her business decisions, echoes another liberation she seems to be chasing—one that lives between the lines of her music and her imagery.

It’s not a stretch to read this through a queer lens. If Taylor has accepted the limits of the glass closet, she’s at least trying to leave the door cracked open for others. She’s built a career on coded confession, signaling over and over again to those who know how to listen. And still, she’s never named Gaylors as harmful or called for the conversation to stop—even while she’s called out just about everything else that’s hurt her.

People point to this article as the smoking gun of heterosexuality. But they fail to see the queerness that fills every page. If this is the definitive “she said she’s straight” moment… explain the rest of the article. Go on. We’ll wait.

M — “Met Before the Moment”

Before we even reach the infamous quote Swifties love to use as proof that Taylor is straight, we’re grounded in a moment of bravery: her decision to take a stand in her sexual assault trial. The article recounts how she testified publicly, in open court, against the DJ who assaulted her—seeking only a symbolic $1 in damages. It’s a reminder of the way she’s used her platform to speak up, even when it’s uncomfortable or risky.

This moment of strength isn’t just about justice—it’s also about identity. It’s about taking back control of her own narrative, something Taylor has fought for time and time again. And that matters in the broader context of queerness too. The fear, vulnerability, and risk of being scrutinized, disbelieved, or minimized—it’s not the same, but it echoes the kind of high-stakes exposure that often accompanies coming out.

So when we talk about what Taylor says next, let’s not forget the emotional terrain she’s already laid. She knows what it means to be disempowered and to reclaim the story. And she knows the cost.

N — “Not a Part of the Community?”

Here it is—the quote that gets endlessly tossed around to “shut down” Gaylor:

“Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she says. “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world.”

At first glance, it seems like a straightforward disavowal. But let’s slow down and really examine it.

We’ve already established that Taylor has been advocating for LGB rights since at least 2008—from anti-gay bullying PSAs, to her GLAAD partnerships, to lyrics and symbols embedded across albums. So if she had always believed you shouldn’t speak on behalf of communities you don’t belong to… why was she advocating for queer rights all along?

The math only works if we understand that this quote is referring to her first time advocating publicly for the trans community—a specific identity group within the LGBTQ+ umbrella that she may not personally share.

Her activism in 2019—especially around the Equality Act and her statements on gender identity—was the first time she explicitly centered trans rights. So when she says she “didn’t realize” she could advocate for a community she’s “not a part of,” she may be drawing a careful line: she is part of the queer community. But trans rights advocacy, in that moment, was new territory. And for someone with her level of fame, she was terrified to get it wrong.

This reading not only makes sense—it’s supported by the timing, by her language, and by the long arc of her advocacy.

So no, this quote isn’t a denial. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability about the risks of public advocacy when you belong to some parts of a community, but not all. And for a woman who’s spent her career walking the tightrope of plausible deniability, this kind of carefully crafted phrasing is not a slip—it’s intentional.

If she believed she couldn’t advocate for people she didn’t identify with, then all her previous advocacy points to one conclusion: she does identify with the queer community. Just not every part of it.

O — Omitted on Purpose: What We Choose to See

Let’s talk about timing.

On April 26, 2019, Taylor posted “ME! Out now” — the first single of the Lover era — and signed it off with hearts and rainbows. She posted it on Lesbian Visibility Day. A release date known to be significant in queer circles, posted in rainbow color palettes, launching her most colorful era yet. And that caption? “Out now.” It’s subtle. Or maybe it isn’t.

Then, she released Lover just after midnight on June 1st, the official start of Pride Month. These dates were not arbitrary. This is the same Taylor Swift whose fans currently believe she will announce Reputation (Taylor’s Version) on March 28 (3/28) because it mirrors her original Reputation announcement date of August 23 (8/23) — and that a ram mask worn upside-down in the "Karma" music video is somehow pointing to this through astrological symbolism related to Ram Day. Don’t get me wrong, I love the deep digging and cool connections just as much as anyone, but it’s the way that some things are totally acceptable to clown while others are outright rejected as nonsense.

Like… let’s pause. If that level of acrobatics is applauded and celebrated by fans, how is “Out now” on Lesbian Visibility Day somehow “a reach”?

It’s selective attention.

The fandom chooses to dismiss the simplest, most plausible clues when they point toward queerness — while simultaneously clowning for far more elaborate theories that conveniently uphold heteronormative narratives. The rainbow murals, bisexual wigs, LGBTQ+ symbolism, and carefully chosen dates from this era are too consistent to be random. And yet they're brushed off while a mirrored ram date theory spreads like wildfire.

When it comes to the Lover era, maybe the Easter eggs weren’t just hinting at a re-record or a new album drop. Maybe she was dropping something else entirely — and everyone missed it. Or worse, they chose to.

P — Perception Shift: From Girlhood to Glass Closet

In this section of the article, the interviewer shifts to a conversation about sexism, asking whether Taylor had always been aware of it. Her response is vulnerable, self-aware, and (importantly) layered. She reflects:

“When I was a teenager, I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid... The second I became a woman, in people’s perception, was when I started seeing it.”

This quote is essential not just for what it says about how women are treated in entertainment — but how it might also parallel her internal awakening, particularly as it relates to queerness.

When you're a kid — especially a girl — people write off your perspective. They infantilize you. You’re considered safe, nonthreatening, charming. And if you’re queer, but not yet perceived as someone who could pose a challenge to heteronormativity, your existence is easier for the world to digest. But the moment you step into adulthood, when your body is sexualized, your career becomes powerful, and your voice begins to matter… suddenly you’re “too much.” Suddenly, you’re dangerous. Sound familiar?

If Taylor entered the industry with any part of herself tucked away for safekeeping — a glass closet agreement, for example — then this realization about sexism might have dovetailed with a larger reckoning about her identity and autonomy. Not just who she was perceived to be, but what she was allowed to say, and who she was allowed to love.

That quote about songs like I Knew You Were Trouble and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together marks a turning point in how the industry saw her — and maybe, how she saw herself. It's not hard to imagine that her emergence into “womanhood” in the public eye also came with the devastating realization that if she was ever going to live authentically, it would be on someone else’s terms.

This is why grace matters. If we allow Taylor room to grow in her awareness of sexism, why wouldn’t we offer the same space for her to process queerness — not just in others, but within herself? This paragraph plants the seed that not everything was visible to her when she was younger — but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. It just hadn’t yet been allowed to be seen.

Q — Quiet as It’s Kept: The Art and Accusation of Her Songwriting

This paragraph may not scream “Gaylor” on first glance, but it offers one of the most quietly profound insights into Taylor’s artistry — and how it’s been misunderstood, minimized, and even weaponized against her.

She reflects:

“People would act like [songwriting] was a weapon I was using. Like a cheap dirty trick. Be careful, bro, she’ll write a song about you... First of all, that’s not how it works. Second of all, find me a time when they say that about a male artist...”

There’s something almost queer-coded in this experience: being punished for your method of expression, having your emotional honesty misread as manipulation, your perspective dismissed as dramatization. Taylor’s frustration here reveals just how deeply misunderstood she’s been — not just as a songwriter, but as a person who makes her private longings legible through art, only to have them distorted by the public eye.

What she creates is not a “cheap trick.” It’s a quiet art, a system of layered metaphors, symbols, personas, and lyricism — where truth lives just beneath the surface. Her music is often so personal it’s uncomfortable, but not because it overshares. On the contrary, it hides itself in plain sight. It’s legible to those who speak her language — and confounding to those who don’t.

The idea that her songs are “a weapon” implies that her truth, when unveiled, is dangerous. And maybe that’s exactly the point. If you are queer and closeted, your truth is dangerous — not because it’s shameful, but because it threatens the illusion that protects you.

Taylor isn’t just writing songs. She’s coding messages. She’s weaving grief into gowns and secrets into choruses, making it possible for a person to be understood without ever being exposed.

This quote might not name queerness directly. But it names the system that makes queer storytelling so difficult in the first place — and that alone makes it worth highlighting.

R — Rejection, Reputation, and the Refuge of Art

When the article shifts into the fallout from the Kimye scandal — Taylor’s cancellation, public exile, and retreat — we’re reminded just how brutal her relationship with the public has been. She describes the experience as catastrophic, a mass shaming that stripped her of her voice and agency. Her instinct? To make music. She says it was the only way to survive.

This coping mechanism is revealing. When the world misunderstands her, she writes. When she feels unsafe to speak, she sings. When she’s exiled, she creates a universe where she’s still in control.

It’s not hard to see the queer parallels here. Closeted people often use art to express what they can’t say aloud. When you’re queer and afraid — of rejection, judgment, or losing everything — your survival strategy becomes storytelling. You bury your truths in metaphor, hoping someone will notice. You write your way into safety.

Reputation was born out of trauma — but so were the following albums. Her entire discography is a roadmap of surviving silence. Her queerness, if present, lives in that pattern. It’s not just what she says — it’s what she has to say in order to keep going.

So when people demand a public declaration, they ignore the fact that Taylor has already given us something far more raw: her refusal to stop writing, even when the world tried to silence her. Her art is her resistance. Her survival. Her truth, coded and crystalline, waiting to be heard.

S — Silence, Stigma, and the 2016 Election

The article then turns to her silence during the 2016 election — a moment that defined how millions perceived her political stance. She explains that no matter what she said, she would’ve been torn apart. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. Her solution? Say nothing.

This feels like the exact bind she faces with her sexuality.

If Taylor were to come out explicitly, she risks alienating part of her fanbase, fueling media obsession, and potentially damaging the global brand she’s spent nearly two decades building. But staying silent also invites criticism — queerbaiting accusations, claims of vagueness, and doubts about her integrity.

It’s the trap many closeted people face, only magnified a million times under a global spotlight.

What’s interesting is that in the years following that election silence, she became louder about everything else — especially LGBTQ+ issues. Instead of retreating, she emerged with the Lover era: bright, bold, full of rainbows and carefully coded references. She may not have spoken in press conferences or interviews, but her art screamed louder than ever.

Taylor’s fear of saying the “wrong” thing isn’t weakness — it’s strategy. It’s survival. And it’s a strategy many closeted people know intimately. Because when your truth feels dangerous, silence becomes a kind of armor. And when you can’t say the words, sometimes a song — or an entire album — has to speak for you.

T — The Taylor Swift™ Bunker and the Burning of the Lover House

When Look What You Made Me Do dropped, much of the world misunderstood it. Critics dismissed it as petty or vengeful. But for Taylor, this was more than a clapback — it was a transformation. This was the moment she leaned into the idea of Taylor Swift™ — a constructed persona that allowed her to exist safely within the narrative, while taking control of it.

The Vogue article discusses how she built a house — a metaphorical one — to contain the many versions of herself. Each era a new room, a new reinvention. During Reputation, she built a bunker around that house. She didn’t give interviews. She retreated, but not passively — she did it with precision, choosing silence as a weapon and reinvention as her defense.

And now? We’ve watched the Lover House burn to the ground on the Eras Tour.

What does it mean to burn down the structure she’s been living inside?

Maybe the bunker — the shelter she created to weather public scrutiny, queer speculation, and personal betrayal — isn’t serving her anymore. Maybe this is a quiet rebellion, an acknowledgment that the narrative she once tried to control no longer needs protecting. She’s not hiding anymore — not in a tower, not behind metaphors, not in a rainbow-painted house. She’s setting fire to the architecture of plausible deniability, one spark at a time.

U — Underneath the Butterfly Wings

In the Vogue article, there’s a brief mention of the ME! butterfly mural in Nashville — a moment that signaled the beginning of the Lover era. But notably, the author doesn’t mention the actual date ME! was released: April 26th, aka Lesbian Visibility Day. That omission is important — because it’s exactly what plausible deniability looks like.

They do mention the intentionality behind other dates — Lover dropping at the start of Pride Month, YNTCD on Trump’s birthday — yet the most obviously coded date goes unspoken. It’s not an accident. It’s an invitation. (This makes me think about the three polaroids...)

The butterfly itself is a rich, poetic motif. A symbol of transformation, of rebirth, of self-expression emerging after a period of concealment. For Taylor, it’s a perfect metaphor — not just for the era, but for her own evolution. And painting it as wings on a wall? An invitation to stand in the middle. To imagine yourself inside the transformation.

You don’t have to decode it all. You just have to be willing to look.

V — Vanishing Act (feat. Joe Alwyn) (kinda)

For an album that many claim is all about Taylor’s great love with Joe Alwyn… it’s kind of hilarious how absent he is from the actual Vogue feature. He’s mentioned once. In parentheses. By the narrator. Not by Taylor.

No sweeping anecdotes. No “he changed everything” soliloquy. No quotes from Taylor about their relationship. Just… blink and you’ll miss it energy.

The Lover era was supposedly Taylor’s most outward celebration of straight romantic joy — and yet the guy at the center of that narrative is completely offstage in her biggest pre-release interview? Not even a carefully scripted nod to “my amazing boyfriend who inspired this album”?

Privacy is one thing. But this? This feels like a deliberate vanishing act. Wonder why.

W — Wordless, Yet Wildly Loud

When Taylor calls Lover “a love letter to love,” it’s easy to gloss over how many shades of love that encompasses. Maddening, passionate, exciting, enchanting, horrific, tragic, wonderful… That’s not the language of a blissfully simple straight romance. That’s the language of a person who’s lived through love as survival, as loss, as transformation. It’s the language of someone who has loved deeply, maybe even when forbidden.

She describes feeling at peace after the grief of the Reputation era—an era where she famously stayed silent, building a “bunker” around herself. But silence doesn’t mean absence. It means strategy. The shell of Reputation may have been hard-edged, but inside? She was hatching something delicate and deliberate.

By the time Lover bloomed, Taylor wasn’t just reemerging. She was writing in full technicolor. And yet… still not saying it outright. This is the magic of her authorship: speaking loudly through subtext, through metaphor, through music. The story was never gone. It was just written in a language only some were listening for.

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X — X-Ray Vision: Seeing Through “The Man”

When Taylor introduces The Man as a “thought experiment,” it’s easy to read it as a feminist anthem—and it is. But it’s also something more queer, more layered. The bridge is what really breaks the binary: “What’s it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models…” This isn’t just about misogyny. It’s about power, performance, perception—and maybe projection.

What if she’s not imagining herself as a man, but imagining what it would feel like to live her actual life openly, if she were afforded the protection of maleness? The success, the swagger, the dating history, the freedom to be sexual, powerful, and unapologetic. So when she flips the mirror—“They paint me out to be bad / So it’s okay that I’m mad”—you realize she’s not just mad about double standards. She’s mad about what she could never say out loud.

If she were “the man,” maybe the things she’s done—raking in dollars, chasing models, reclaiming power—wouldn’t have to live under so much scrutiny. Or metaphor. Or plausible deniability.

Y — Yearning for Recognition: Loie Fuller and the Queer Artistic Lineage

When Vogue’s writer suggests that Loie Fuller may be the “most illuminating clue” to decoding both Reputation and Lover, it’s not just an offhand observation—it’s a revelation. Fuller, a queer icon of performance and illusion, was known for using light, shadow, and fabric to transform her body into living poetry. Her dances were about metamorphosis, concealment, emergence. Sound familiar?

Taylor honored Fuller on the Reputation tour Jumbotron and carried her motifs—serpents and butterflies—through to Lover, making it crystal clear that this reference wasn’t just about artistic ownership. It was about transformation and identity. About queerness.

Loie Fuller was a master of the “hide-and-seek illusionist game.” She dazzled and disappeared in the same moment. And what has Taylor done, if not mastered that same art? She's evoked symbols, created personas, coded her stories in velvet-lined metaphors—and paid tribute to queer artists along the way, often without her fandom realizing the depth of the gesture.

So why don’t more Swifties connect the dots? Why don’t they learn from the artists she literally projects on screens during her shows? Maybe because to do so would require acknowledging a legacy they’ve never been taught to look for. But Taylor is trying. She’s leaving us a syllabus. And Loie Fuller? She’s chapter one.

Z — Zooming Out: The Dollhouse, the Lover, and the Open Ending

As the Vogue article closes, Taylor delivers one of its most chillingly vivid metaphors: superstardom, she says, is like living in a dollhouse—a glass box where anyone can "ship you with who they want," decide who your friends are, and track your every move. The phrasing is razor-sharp, almost too articulate to be off the cuff, and it perfectly encapsulates the trap of fame. But in the context of everything else this article has covered—rainbows, butterflies, secret gardens, queerness, plausible deniability—it takes on another dimension entirely.

When she calls herself a baby doll in “ME!” and promises you’ll never find another like her, we’re reminded of that same dollhouse. A curated, polished version of herself, smiling behind glass. And yet, the lyrics wink at the queerness of desire: “You can want who you want / boys and boys and girls and girls.” She sings that line in Welcome to New York, but she lives it in the margins of her work—always teasing, always performing, always keeping the truest version of herself just out of reach.

This final image—of a woman fully aware she’s being watched, packaged, and dissected—feels like a deliberate warning shot. It's not a confession. It’s a dare. And now that the Lover house has burned down, the question remains: What was she trying to escape from? And what—if anything—is she finally ready to reveal?

That’s the question the article leaves us with. And it’s the question we’re still asking.

Conclusion: The ABCs of Plausible Deniability

When I first sat down to comb through Taylor Swift’s 2019 Vogue interview, I did what Taylor has taught me to do—I grabbed a highlighter. And as I read, I found 26 moments that stood out, 26 points that deserved more attention, 26 reasons why this article is far richer than the one sentence people love to cherry-pick as their “gotcha” against queer interpretations of her work.

So I took a page out of Taylor’s book. Hey kids, spelling is fun! And suddenly, the A-Z structure felt like the perfect way to break this all down. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned from Taylor, it’s that details matter, words are chosen with precision, and if you take the time to look closely, there is always more to the story.

The 2019 Vogue interview is not a smoking gun that “shuts down” Gaylor. It is a dense, layered, and coded piece of work that mirrors the way Taylor has always built her narrative—through plausible deniability, careful omissions, and a delicate balance of what is said and unsaid. This article deserves so much more consideration than one sentence that gets wielded against queer readings while everything else—from the trans advocacy, to the Loie Fuller references, to the calculated dates, to the butterfly and cocoon metaphors—is ignored.

Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything by accident. Not in her lyrics, not in her Easter eggs, not in her carefully crafted public image. So why would she accidentally load an entire profile with queer subtext, nods to hidden figures, and a narrative about metamorphosis and liberation?

I’ll leave you with this: at the end of the Speak Now prologue, Taylor signs off with a little smirk—“P.S. To all the boys who inspired this album, you should’ve known ;)”

And after reading this article as closely as I have, all I can say is: P.S. To anyone who thinks this interview ends the conversation… you should’ve known. ;)

#gaylor #kaylor #lgbetty #taylor swift #friend of dorothea #swiftgron #friends of dorothy #vogue magazine #taylor swift lover #taylor swift lyrics #deep dive #lover #reputation #midnights #yntcd #ME!#Youtube

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curiositydoorunlocked · 7 months ago

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The Recent News

Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things 5, including photos of actors on set.

Look, something about all this (the leak + the photo situation) feels… fishy, and I can see people in various tags are getting various levels of upset by it. So as someone who has been around the block a couple of times, I want to say something.

First of all: hi, everyone! I’m glad to be here. I’ve been a fan of ST since early-mid 2020 and involved in the fandom since mid-late 2020 (on other accounts, which have since been deleted), so I feel at least marginally qualified to say what I’m going to say. That being said, I drifted away from the fandom before S5 filming began and haven't watched the show in a while; if I get anything wrong please feel free to correct me.

First I want to talk about Bridgerton S3. I closely followed that production in 2022 and 2023. Like Stranger Things, Bridgerton is a high-budget Netflix original show with a large cast, lots of public interest, an active fandom, and what I would call "special considerations" for filming. (In Bridgerton's case it's the historical element; in ST it's the sci-fi/fantasy element plus the historical element, albeit to a lesser degree.) They filmed for a shorter period of time than ST5 is expected to film for, yes, but many of the circumstances are/were similar. That brings me to my point: when Bridgerton S3 was filming, the best we got from the main cast was a handful of photos a) taken from relatively far away that b) did not spoil anything major. Luckily for us, the photos were clear, but in the end they didn't really amount to anything more than eye candy, something to get excited over.

In contrast, these photos from the ST5 set are clear, close, and most importantly reveal seemingly significant story beats/results. (Okay, the Mike and Hopper one isn't super close or clear, I'll give ya that. But it's still pretty damn close for a set that's supposedly locked down! Especially if they're filming a scene possibly related to a major character's death/disappearance!) Kinda odd, right? I'm not necessarily saying they were leaked on purpose to misdirect fans, because I'm not that confident in myself. I don’t have any insider/industry knowledge; I can only claim a healthy (perhaps too healthy?) level of skepticism. But I do want to put that possibility out there, because I think it’s an important one to consider.

“But wait,” you might say, “many parts of S4 were leaked, and leaked accurately at that. What’s to say these aren’t real too?”

That’s a fair point! Maybe production hasn’t learned their lesson from S4; maybe they’re truly terrible at preventing leaks and that’s the end of the story. Yes, they’ve spoken a little about security measures in the lead-up to S5 but that doesn’t mean those security measures were implemented well, or even at all.

Even keeping that in mind, I nonetheless implore everyone to chill the hell out. I say this again, with so much love: CHILL THE HELL OUT. This has happened before: even with the accurate leaks and clear photos we got during S4 filming, we lacked so much context. Mike and El’s “I love you” scene is a great example of this. There was quite the brouhaha over that leak in certain corners of the fandom… and yet the actual scene turned out nothing like the phrase “Mike finally says ‘I love you’ to El” implies. Another example are these photos (see above; my apologies for the poor quality!) of the Hawkins group in the parking lot of The War Zone. When those photos were leaked, I recall speculation that the scene would appear at the very end of the finale, that it related to an apocalypse situation, and so on, but not so! In the show it appeared before the final battle with Vecna: the town was in a panic, yeah, but no apocalypse.

That’s what I mean about chilling the hell out. We can’t assume the photos/leaks are genuine—and even if we did indulge that assumption (which is fair given production’s history!) we can’t assume we have the whole story.

Hang in there, folks. We survived S4 production and we’ll survive S5 production too :)

TL;DR: Hi, I’m new and also not new here. I made this account just to talk about this photo/leak situation because that’s how passionate I am about this godforsaken show. This is a little weird, but whether the leaks/photos are real or planted, stay calm. We know so little right now. Don’t waste your energy on blind panic, not when we still have another year(ish) to go.

#if you found this post helpful a reblog for wider visibility would be appreciated! new account = no followers = nobody sees my post 💔#mine #stranger things #stranger things 5 #st 5 #st 5 leaks #st 5 spoilers #stranger things 5 spoilers #stranger things leaks #byler #<- target audience #(I'm very familiar with that tag! I know how it can be! 😅)

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wistfulnightingale · 7 months ago

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The Metatron Misdirection: Nina's Magic Trick (A New Final 15 MetaTheory)

Part 1 of 8 in the Chess Moves Theory Set by @wistfulnightingale

**I believe it is new -- I haven't found it anywhere else.

Misdirection is a key element in the most skilled magic tricks. It's more than mere distraction, wiggling one hand while the other hides the ace. Misdirection in Magic means that the magician isn't "hiding" the trick; they are allowing you to think that you are looking at exactly the right moment, while convincingly focusing your attention away from the moment when 90% of the trick actually happened. Magicians Penn and Teller are quoted as saying, "The strongest lie is the lie that the audience tells itself."

This article on What Is Misdirection in Magic tells exactly how it's done. Check out the 7 Types of Misdirection in the article, or in my Chess Moves Theory Master Post. They're used easily and often in the final episodes of Season 2.

I think there might be a major misdirection in Episode 5 that set up the events of the second half of Episode 6, and makes sense of some of the crazy-weird scenes and out-of-character behaviors we see, both in that scene and later. But, it'll seem absolutely bonkers... so please, keep breathing, and hear me out, and please check out all the interconnected 8-Parts that help support my reasoning.

I include photos below, and I admit they're not clear enough to be "proof" on their own. But the idea itself would explain why Azi abruptly left Nina, and why Crowley babbled. Some of the other parts of my overall theory add some additional possibilities as well. (Interestingly, the photos are from videos that used to be available free on YouTube Prime Video, but have been removed from the Good Omens playlists in recent months.

In E5, while we were watching Crowley stammer, and listening to Nina puzzle out relationships, and when our belief in the Ineffable Marriage was shattered by Crowley's answer -- Nina was (without her knowledge) participating in the biggest Misdirection of Season 2.

I suspect The Metatron was already in the Coffee Shop. I know it sounds nuts, but I strongly suspect that Episode 6 was not his first visit. I believe that I can show you reasonable evidence (added up from here and from other parts of my Chess Moves Theory-series) that the Metatron made a "trial run" the day before, during this scene in Episode 5. Crowley and Aziraphale were each shocked to spot him through the window behind Nina. Misdirection made him almost impossible for us to see.

Almost. But I think he's there. At least, there's a guy in a long dark overcoat, who looks like he's talking to another customer. Possibly a coffee-confused celestial gentleman getting help from a good samaritan? Let me explain how I think it was done, and I'll show you what I think is the Metatron.

{Edit 11/25/24 to add: I've been made aware that the photos are not a strong case, if you have higher photo resolution than I have access to. But Azi and Crowley's odd behaviors also support my theory, as I explain if you scroll down. For more on this, and on my new idea about where I might have went wrong, check out The Metatron Misdirection New Note (Is it a Shell Game of White-Haired Men?) }

This screenshot (let's call it Photo #1) is untampered, basically what we see in the episode. Aziraphale was happily chatting with Crowley about the nonexistent pen of his nonexistent aunt's nonexistant gardener... Then Nina emerges, has "things to say" about Neighborhood Christmas lights (that's the moment in this screenshot)... and Aziraphale abruptly hurries away. Within minutes, Crowley is stammering as if he'd never had a moment's thought that he and his Angel could have a committed, romantic relationship.

How...? What...?! Crowley, really, dude, what the...??! (Please refer to An Old Married Couple for my thoughts on this!)

But when we take that same moment, come in closer, brighten and sharpen it, make it more vivid --

Photo #2. There. In the red oval. The white hair, the dark overcoat, rounded shoulders. The Metatron. We didn't expect to see him there. So we didn't.

Hold on! -- I don't expect you to be convinced yet. So I went through moment by moment. There are more photos. (I recommend that you also check the brightness of your own viewing screen -- it helps!)

Nina is used in the scene to perform a concealment and switch, a replacement (magician's call it a Change), and then a distraction -- A Magic Trick. Nina is a huge part of why we're not easily able to spot the Metatron.

Magic Trick Step 1: There's magical sleight of hand going on, even once you know what to look for. We are visually warned. When we first see Nina, as our Ineffables are talking about impossible French, she literally emerges from the shadows (see photo below). Remember, this is significantly Before talking about "Christmas lights" in Photos 1 & 2.

Magic Trick Step 2: If we do happen to look at the customers in the shop as Nina emerges, there's a white-haired man in line who is NOT the Metatron. Note his height compared to the orange-shirt guy. He's taller, and he's fairly slim. We can see his pants or denims, so he's wearing a short jacket, not an overcoat. He's also holding a lit cell phone and carrying a blue bag. I didn't brighten this photo at all. We're supposed to see this particular fellow. He's part of the magic trick, planted there for the switch, just in case we do notice a more significant white-haired man later.

Here's the same photo, brightened. You can more easily see that he's wearing a short jacket -- we see his legs as he steps forward.

(Pay attention to the man in the orange shirt. He's very visible with that bright color. In later shots, he stays near the Metatron, and helps us visually track them both, when both are blurred by distracting window reflections.)

Magic Trick Step 3: Next, Nina steps into the light. As she steps forward, she says, "Bravo! Just enjoying the show." Again, we are given cues that there's a show in play. She bends over to wipe a table, completely blocking our view of the slim white-haired man.

Magic Trick Step 4: The camara cuts to Azi, and that's the last we see of the slim man with the cell phone and bag. Presto-Change-o, Abracadabra! Like a disappearing act with a magician's silk cloth, or like Azi's trick for Nefertiti with the 3 cowry shells, the switch (in magic, called "the Change") has been made! The slim man is gone.

Magic Trick Step 5: When the camera returns to Nina, it's the first photo I showed you, with the Metatron in it. The man in orange isn't at the front of the line anymore. (Was he undecided about his order, and stepped aside?) We can see a sliver of his shirt to the left of the doorframe, just inside the oval, but he's almost entirely hidden. Nina's talking about the Christmas lights. "I have things to say."

It all happens in less than 30 seconds.

"Where, then, was the Metatron?" you may ask in disbelief. There's a big rectangular pillar in the middle of the floor behind Nina, just to the right of the line. There is a mural on it, so it's camouflaged. On the walls behind the pillar are menu boards -- we see them in the "How's your naked man friend" scene in E1. It's likely that the Metatron was behind the pillar, looking at the menu options.

"Well, how come we never see the slim cell phone guy again?" you may wonder. The tables at the far edges of the shop are never seen. If he sat down, especially at our far left, he'd be out of view.

Here's that "I have things to say" photo again --

That's when Aziraphale sees the Metatron. He's suddenly distracted. His response is brief, and odd. Just --- "Yes." We don't often see our Angel speechless. He walks away without another word. That. Is another out of character moment. He's gone from his "I'm having so much fun doing this" smile to the fake, nervous mask he puts on for the Archangels.

His eyes are wide and his expression frozen, until it fades into worry as he walks away. Azi nervously checks behind him for Crowley. Hoping he'll follow, away from danger.

Crowley hasn't spotted the Metatron yet. It's not until he starts to follow Azi, then stops for Nina, that he's at the right angle to see him. When Nina says, "You been together long?" Crowley's completely distracted. He just noticed the Metatron.

"Who?" he ridiculously asks. This made zero sense -- Azi was just here! However, on our far right, over her shoulder, we can see the Metatron, facing sideways towards our right. He and the orange-shirt man are on the far right, positioned as if talking to each other (maybe he's asking how this coffee-selection-thing works?).

Because he's facing sideways, we can tell that this man is not slender like the man with a cell phone and blue bag. The man we see now, in this photo, wears a long coat that comes straight down in the front. It's not a jacket, it's an overcoat.

The Metatron is almost the same height as the orange-shirt man. His dark coat nearly makes him invisible as the reflections in the window break up his outline and blur the orange-shirt man. The two have stepped back from the counter, closer to us. We can see his rounded back, white collar and hair.

Short height, rounded back, long overcoat, white collar. NOT the same as the first man we saw. That's why I believe we're seeing the Metatron. That, and Aziraphale and Crowley's strange behaviors.

When you look closely at Crowley, he's staring intently into the coffee shop window as Nina asks her question. His head is not at the same angle when he returns his focus to her. It's not just the cute little neck scrunch -- he literally turned his head slightly to his right to look at her and answer her question. Crowley is concentrating on what he saw inside, and is mentally scrambling.

After Crowley says, "Who?" the camera returns to Nina. "You and your partner," she clarifies. Meanwhile, the Metatron has turned and is now standing at the end of the coffee line.

You can see three men in line, facing the counter, with the orange-shirt man in the middle. He's the colorful backdrop to frame the padded shoulders of the Metatron's dark coat.

Nina does a lot of "patter" here, a classic magician's Misdirection technique. Lots of rapid, distracting questions. They keep our own minds as occupied as they do Crowley's -- we struggle to keep up, and share our demon's outrage about Azi as "a bit on the side!"

I had to do a lot of reduced videoplay speed, constant pausing the frames, and careful photo brightening and sharpening to make these images somewhat clear. There are also frames where the reflection of vehicles and passersby’s obscure our view. The distractions come and go. It's all designed to split our focus.

So I was astonished when I discovered that, in the moment where the Metatron is standing alone, not clustered with anyone else, Nina is almost looking DIRECTLY AT THE CAMARA. It's only a moment. It's the only shot I had, of Dozens(!) of micro-moments, where the Metatron is in full view, although still difficult to see. This is how it looks in the episode.

Here's the same photo, brightened and sharpened for definition.

There is almost nothing on the right side to reflect or distract in this moment. The lighting effects allowed a much clearer view.

Nina goes back inside, and has to deal with a busy line and a new customer, a posh older gentleman in an overcoat. One who doesn't know about human coffee shops or how to place an order, and who probably consulted orange-shirt guy for coffee-selection advice. He's confused, he's asking odd questions... She doesn't have time for this...! So when he comes back the next day, she warns him not to do it again -- "Order accurately and fast..." (For more thoughts on this, see The Metatron's Second Coming)

Meanwhile, Crowley stands there bewildered as worry sets in. The Metatron is dangerous. Why is he here? This could be very bad for them both, but especially for Aziraphale. Crowley's main concern in the conversation was to SAY NOTHING that gave away their relationship. "Just... an angel... I know."

(**There's interesting implications about the Final Fifteen if Crowley is concerned that the Metatron has the ability to hear him from inside the shop. Azi often gestures as if the Metatron could hear them from outside.)

Crowley leaves in the opposite direction. I wonder if he hung around near the cafe, monitoring where the Metatron was. That's why he's morose and worried when Azi returns to the cafe (see more in my post Ineffables In Check). Crowley is also now worried that Gabriel is actually NOT memory-less. Is he there to spy on them for the Metatron? Crowley aggressively tries to find out.

He'll do Whatever It Takes to protect his Angel.

Please check out the rest of my 8-part Chess Moves Theory Set at @wistfulnightingale to see how I believe all the moments fit together in this Life or Death Chess Game. The 8 Parts support each other -- I broke a massive idea into parts, and you'd need to read all 8 before you can decide for sure if I'm wrong, or totally bonkers! It's a crazy ride, and I'll be happy to have you along for it!

The 8 Chess Moves MetaTheory Set:

1 - The Metatron Misdirection

2 - The Metatron's Second Coming

3 - Ineffables in Check

4 - A Hefty Jigger of Death

5 - Nothing Lasts Forever

6 - The Circle Kiss Theory

7 - The Nightingale DID Sing

8 - Aziraphale's Jubilant Smile (Not the crazy elevator grin)

Also: The Chess Moves Theory Set, Why Chess & Magic?

And: The Metatron Misdirection New Note (Is it a Shell Game of White-Haired Men?)

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens theories #chess moves theory #the metatron #good omens meta #misdirection #ineffable husbands #to our world #wistfulnightingale #good omens nina

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sunshine-jesse · 2 years ago

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Ashley Graves Did Something Wrong

TCOAL plays a lot of fun games with the ways it makes you perceive events. From the title screen itself, to various pieces of official art, it primes you to accept certain narratives surrounding the game. Namely, the one that Ashley is very not good. She is, in fact, very bad! And it's pretty easy to see why- many of her actions fit neatly into the mold of an abuser. She's controlling, she tries to deflect blame, gaslights Andrew into making him take the blame for things she pushed him to do to begin with, and harasses other women to ruin his relationships with them.

It's all so easy, and makes so much sense. Case closed.

Right? Well, no. But actually yes! But actually, it's not that simple.

Y'see, as I said, the game establishes this framing from the get-go. It introduces us to our, uh, heroes and tells us in no uncertain terms that Ashley is bad and Andrew is a non-entity. It sets this framing intentionally so that many players will engage in a little quirk of human psychology called…

Confirmation bias!

I'm sure we all know what that is, right? Well, for those who don't, it's when we start with a bias towards something- or an idea of how things SHOULD be- and view every piece of evidence as confirmation that said bias is correct. The game, very blatantly, does this with Ashley's actions by priming us to see them as part of an abuse dynamic, with her as the primary abuser. And, indeed, it's not too hard to dig into Andrew's behavior and figure out that he, too, is fucked up and awful and come to the conclusion that their relationship was mutually fucked up and abusive. I did that in my last two essays, so I won't cover that ground again here. With this, it's easy to think that they bring out the worst in each other and that any relationship they have would be toxic, fucked up, dark, and every other word or phrase that describes the same idea, whether it makes them happy or not.

… But what if I told you that this, too, was an intentional misdirection?

So. Let us, for a moment, completely remove the framing that their relationship is toxic. Let us remove the framing that their relationship is abnormal or aberrant. Let's even remove the framing that either one of them is responsible for the harm of the other. I'm not arguing that any of this is not the case. Please, for the love of god, do not think that I am, if only so you can take the rest of what I have to say seriously. What I'm doing is trying to examine the two of them free of as many preconceptions as I can, using nothing but textual evidence and inference to figure out why Andrew and Ashley treat each other the way they do.

I will later examine why they MIStreat each other too, but first comes the reasons they treat each other well.

I'm going to start with Andrew, because, despite being the more complex of the two, it's actually pretty easy to figure out why he treats Ashley the way he does based on what he says. Let's go all the way back to the earliest known incident between the two in the story, where the two of them were at their most, uh, "pure," for lack of a better word: The cupcake scene.

Leyley was supposedly a problem child. She was neglected by her parents, disliked by her friends, and had nobody else but Andrew to rely on. She got nothing- absolutely nothing- from anyone else. And so, Andrew decided to celebrate her birthday, by buying her the cupcakes she wanted, by giving her what she lacked from others. By providing for her, and taking care of her. All he wanted was to make her happy, more than anything else. And, as Nina learned the hard way, at the expense of everyone else.

He doesn't lack empathy, per se. Andy just loves Leyley more than he loves anyone else by such a wide margin that his desire to provide for her overrides his fear of consequences… until those consequences threaten to separate the two of them.

That is a very Gender Roles thing to do. More on that later.

So. Ashley. Everyone's favorite disaster. Why does she treat Andrew the way she does? What does she provide for him? Well, isn't it obvious? She, too, wants to provide for him. Remember, she wanted the lemon cupcake because she thought it's what HE wanted. She also does most of the chores around the house. She prepares food, cleans the house, and does their laundry. She also provides for his non-sexual physical needs by offering him comfort whenever he needs it. It makes her feel useful. Wanted. Needed.

Ah, another very Gender Roles thing to do. See where I'm going with this?

The two neatly fit into a standard husband/wife relationship in a lot of ways. It's THE platonic ideal of such a relationship, actually! They make each other happy and provide WHAT THEY THINK the other really wants. It's really cute and perfect! As long as you ignore all the bad.

ignore all the bad …ignore all the bad… But we obviously shouldn't ignore all the bad. That would be ridiculous.

What I want to do is, instead, examine where the bad comes from, and why it's there. With the abuser/abused dynamic in mind, it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that a mutual desire for control and power over the other is the sole determining factor. It's arguably the Central Theme of the game, and maybe a big part of what Nemlei is trying to convey. But, like, why should it end there? Why should that be where the analysis ends? There's a reason for everything.

They don't want to control each other for its own sake. They don't want to control each other solely to cover their own insecurities.

So why?

Ashley, first. She's obviously an insecure little monster, having never received the validation that she needs to really come into her own as a person. She keeps seeking it. Keeps trying to provide for Andrew. Keeps trying to make herself useful. Now, let's look at her calls towards Julia:

"DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't?"

Ah, wait, hold on a minute.

"You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that."

Where does that wording come from?

"He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything."

She doesn't need validation just for the sake of her insecurities. She needs it because she needs Andrew to be happy, and in her mind, she's the only one who can provide it. She knows him better than anyone else. She can see how happy she seems to make him, and that nobody else can do what she does. She knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she makes Andrew more comfortable than anyone. She knows how important physical affection is to him. She can feel it. She doesn't lack empathy towards his plight or feelings; she has more of it than anyone, actually!

But Andrew, crucially, never seems to provide her any validation for this, even though she knows better. That's why she's so insecure.

"But wait," you might say, "didn't he, literally, fucking kill for her?"

Yes. But he always tries to place the blame on Ashley or use her as a scapegoat, when he was the one who pulled the trigger. He never accepts even the smallest amount of responsibility. And if a man can't even take responsibility for the violence he inflicts on others, what does that say about him? What does it say about how much he actually cares? oh. more gender roles. huh.

In Ashley's mind, that validation isn't validation because he didn't do it to prove he cared about her. He did it to shut her up. And… he never says anything to the contrary. He refuses to. All his validation is depressingly, overbearingly conditional.

His words always come with a caveat. They're always said in spite of something. They lack warmth. They lack kindness. They lack affection. She is never, ever given a key to lock the door to her insecurities…

…even though Andrew obviously has that key. He just refuses to give it to her.

But why?

Society! :D

There is something so fundamentally, obviously wrong with the way Andrew feels towards Ashley. She is a tar soul. A pariah. So horrid that her parents don't want her, so obviously bad that even demons don't want her. And yet Andrew, in spite of everything, still wants her. He wants to take care of her, when society tells him not to bother. He wants to protect her from other men, and even from herself. It manifests as jealousy because…

He, too, thinks the only one qualified to provide for Ashley is himself, because he was the only one who ever had. Violence comes so naturally to him that he takes it for granted. He kills for her, threatens to physically assault her when he thinks she's putting herself in danger.

It's so second nature to him that he thinks it should obviously be enough. But it isn't. His violence is so second nature as to be passive. It's non-committal. And what Ashley wants is committment.

But because of how society views Ashley, and how the world would view a romantic relationship between them, he can't truly commit to her. He can't give her the validation she really needs, because everything and everyone has told him that it's wrong. That she's wrong. And all his parents ever taught him is to be afraid of how others will react to that wrongness.

hey look, a man fearing the commitment a woman wants from him! more gender stereotypes!! I wonder what this game is trying to say!!!

Maybe I'm crazy or something. Maybe I'm just looking into it too deep. But I don't really care. I don't care if this is the intended reading, and neither should you. The fact of the matter is that most of the things that define them as toxic are not their fault. Most of the reasons they mistreat each other come from without, rather than within. The only reason they can't love each other is because the world tells them not to. Because it expects them to fill certain roles, to be certain people.

But Ashley can only ever be herself.

Maybe someone who's an actual expert on this subject matter could weigh in and give a true feminist reading. But me? I'm just here to point out patterns. I'm just here to point out facts. And one of those facts is that, to the world around her, Ashley did something wrong: She was born.

The Steam reviews of this game are fucking funny, but a lot of them say one thing that couldn't be further from the truth:

"I can fix her!"

No, you can't. She's only 'broken' in the context of her environment.

But in the words of another analyst:

It's madness to expect tar to behave like water.

So cut them some slack! They might finally succeed in a world that wanted nothing more than for them to fail. It's not our right to take that away from them.

#the coffin of andy and leyley #andrew graves #ashley graves #gaming #gravecest #tcoaal #tcoal #im going all in #and none of you can stop me

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drconstellation · 1 year ago

Text

Come Back When You Can Make A Whale

This is going to contain some speculation for S3, so you know what to do! Or not do!

SITIS: What did God say? JOB: Um... I'm not sure. I didn't understand much. Things too wonderful for me. Ostriches came into it. SITIS: Ostriches? JOB: And whales. God's very proud of the whale. Went into some detail about... how great whales are. SITIS: But did They explain? JOB: [shakes head] I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Whales, huh?

If you aren't well read, this could be quite the misdirection. It should be reasonably obvious, given who is doing the talking - Job - what he is actually referring to, then we can join a couple of dots to make some speculative leaps.

You still with me?

No? Then let us start with how do you make a whale?

By giving it another name.

Leviathan.

Chapter 41 of the Book of Job is all about the Leviathan, a great sinuous sea serpent with impenetrable scales and breath like fire. It sleeps beneath the sea until the end of days. Over time it came to be associated with any sea monster, then anything large, and what is the largest animal ever known to have lived? The whale.

The top of the matchbox is also worth a look. We have a skull and crossbones, which is classic Memento mori symbolism, fitting in with the resurrection theme of the Second Coming - but look at the way the address of the pub is spelt! Now, this not the same way it is spelt on the record single Maggie gives to Aziraphale; Goatgate is spelt as one word, not two. A little bit of searching reveals the meaning behind this fictional address that backs up and reinforces the quote on the side of the matchbox.

Strong's Concordance for 66 gives us "wild, savage, fierce." Goatgate is an interesting one, because it turns out to be a relatively modern term from the urban dictionary, and I'm just going to refer to the polite version of it here - it's another word for "mouth." So 66 Goatgate is a "fierce and savage mouth." Yes, that does sound about right - in more ways than one, once you know who it is. (If you want to look up the impolite version, go ahead - I'm sure you will still find the connotations very amusing.)

Our metaphorical Leviathan is Crowley. He gave the game away at the end of S1 during the appearance-swap.

This also means Aziraphale is his counterpart, Behemoth. Why - well, I made a bit of joke in my post here that he was playing at being a "river horse" while he wallowed in the bath of holy water during his part of the appearance-swap scene. Modern day scholars think the description of Behemoth in the Bible may be that of a hippopotamus in real life history. If that is so, I'd still be betting this is what the "dark horse" comment from Nina in S2E1 is foreshadowing.

Maybe none of this new to you if you've been hanging around the the fandom for a while. That's fine, I'm just trying to establish the scene. And the next bit we need to talk about is this one, where Job gets a lecture from God.

During this sequence, we hear lines that come from Job 38 and 39.

GOD: Job, if you have questions for me, I have questions for you. Do you know how I created the earth? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, Job? Were you there when all the morning stars sang together and all the Angels shouted for joy?

These lines are paraphrasing some of the beginning of Job 38.

Then we have:

GOD: Do you know the rules of the heavens? Did you set the constellations in the sky? Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you? Did you give wings to peacocks, Job, or teach the ostrich to run?

These lines are again, paraphrasing Job, half from 38 and half from 39.

So then, we need to ask, why highlight these lines in particular?

Job 38 is mainly about setting the boundaries of the universe around us. The Earth might seem impossibly huge to a human, but it started with a single stone at its foundation. Earth and the other planets obey certain laws as they move around the Sun. The patterns of the stars in the sky take so long to change that it seems like they are set and inconstant. Even the chaotic form of lightning respects its Creator and returns to its point of origin.

From the last part of Chapter 38 to the end of 39 God challenges Job with a list of animals. The theme here is about freedom and wildness. Whether it is a noble lion, a loathsome crow, a nimble mountain goat, the head-strong wild ox or the willing war horse, they all flourish upon the Earth under the sight of the Almighty. Even the mightiest and most fierce beasts of all, Behemoth and Leviathan, have a place, although only God has the means to control those two.

None of this needs a human to be involved. We are so often the center of our own universe, and try so hard to control every aspect of the world around us that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Shit happens. Some things are out of our control. That doesn't mean its your fault and you're wicked and damned to go to Hell because of it. And that was the point God was trying to make to Job. The world is a far bigger, wilder and chaotic than you can imagine, but its also incredibly beautiful, and it runs itself within the rules and limits that seem to be set by invisible forces you can't see.

So back to the script from the show.

The first set of questions from God could apply to both of the duo. They were both around when Earth was created and were more than likely there when the "morning stars" (the highest angels, such as Lucifer, Gabriel, Michael and angel!Beelzebub) sang together.

The second set of questions are the ones that seem to have got the most attention so far, with ops cross-matching them to things Crowley does in S2.

Do you know the rules of the heavens?

Did you set the constellations in the sky?

Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you?

Did you give wings to peacocks, Job...

(I make a suggestion this has something to do with Michael, but also see comments below)

...or teach the ostrich to run?

The first three of those questions are fairly straight forward, and I doubt many would dispute what they are referring to. But the reference to the peacock and the ostrich are more subtle and curious, and I would like to take a moment to look at the actual verse - because it is only one verse that is providing both questions - that is being paraphrased here.

Job 39:13 Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?

Did you realize that the King James Version of the Bible is the only one that mentions peacocks in this particular verse? All the other versions mentions the first sentence of that verse in relation to the wings of ostriches: "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly." The ostrich is considered a cruel and witless bird in the Bible, pleased with the way it looks, and seemingly careless about its young.

Why does that sound familiar...

Shax thinks this ostrich feather-clad angel in disguise isn't too smart either.

So using the peacock line is a curious choice in the script. Other than the "eyes" in the tail of the peacock having a connection to Michael's many watchful eyes on the world, it's still not clear how Crowley helped them upwards. Unless both lines are supposed to refer to Gabriel, and how the vain peacock was helped to both fly and run to a distant location in the stars.

Edit: Since I first wrote this, @beebopboom pointed me to some more peacock lore, and this helped me delve a bit deeper into them. Peacocks were associated with wealth and royalty, but they were also associated with immortality in early Christian beliefs. There was a belief that the flesh of the peacock did not decay after its death. The bright colours in its tail came from its eating venomous snakes, which reminded people of Christ becoming sin for humanity's sake (think of Crowley downing the laudanum to save Elspeth from Hell in the crypt in 1827, its a similar action.) The "eyes" on the males tail also represented the all-seeing eye of God. So we have a connection with both royalty and resurrection here.

(Oh - just as an interesting connection here - a number of the newer versions of the Bible not only don't mention the peacock in this verse, they compare the ostrich to the stork! The meaning is meant to be that the stork cares more for their young than the ostrich, but if you read the words at face value, you could take a double meaning away...)

Let us return to questions, answers, and whales.

Questions. Always questions. It's like the proverbial toddler who's always asking a never-ending string of "but, why?" for funsies and you just want them to shut up for a moment and think about the last thing you said first. They, too, are a bit like Job. They are the center of their own universe at that age, having not had much experience of the world. They have no grasp of how far it extends beyond them, and how little even we as adults know.

If at this point you're going "oh, no, no, no, no, op, please don't tell me the point of this meta is it's all ineffable," relax. I'm not.

The point was to set you up for some nice, juicy, awesomely sweet S3 speculation.

Because I believe Crowley will finally get to ask his questions of God.

(oh lordy, I made the mistake of taking a break to have a shower before trying to finish this off, because I was having trouble seeing how to finish this in a tidy way, and that caused me to have "shower thoughts" and now the nice sweet simple speculation has turned into a slightly bat-shit crazy kind-of one, although still on the same track as what I was originally thinking. Here goes...)

We have this three card spread from waaay back at the beginning of S1. We all think its something to do with the three babies.

What if its not?

Because we need something like this to happen again - Aziraphale and Crowley either side of a third protagonist. What if it's the King of Kings, Love personified, Jesus, in the middle? (Or Adam again, I wouldn't discount that option either...)

If you would look at the GIF and the screenshot together again and go, well that makes, sense, white for the angel on the right, and green for the demon on the left, I would jump up and shout at you - NO!

Look at the cards again! In the Tarot, that's the Ace of Swords on the right - it belongs to Aziraphale. It's a very powerful card, about new beginnings and change.* Lets call the one of the left Knight of Wands, which also represents the element of Fire. Knights are all about movement and journeys. Who owns the Bentley? And look what Gabriel has instinctively done with his hands - he has held his screen-left hand out to Aziraphale, the Sword, the angel who wears green, and his right hand out to Crowley, the Knight of Fire. The yin and yang qualities are actually swapped. That was what I was trying to tell you in this post. They aren't as obvious as they seem at first glance.

And love is the answer, it turns out. Did you see my comment the other day on another post? In Strong's Concordance 25 = to love.

Anyway, we should get a third parallel scene somewhat like this, and like when Aziraphale and Crowley took Adam out of time to talk to him in S1.

Only this time the three of them (with who ever is in the middle) should be having a talk with God about what is or isn't supposed to happen.

JOB: I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Crowley could be a literal serpent (though I would be very surprised if he did manifest that way) but it should be a metaphorical Leviathan that stands before the Almighty to ask his questions and get his answers. And it will be that he has earned the right to be there, because he finally understands the lessons of Job.

@makewayforbigcrossducks I hope this answers one of your questions

*The Ace of Swords speaks of new beginnings, but it is a two-edged sword that can cut both ways. It is strength in adversity, victory out of struggle, good out of evil, a change in the old order on the way.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #job minisode #book of job #leviathan #behemoth #i only ever asked questions #come back when you can make a whale #gabriel #shax #did you give wings to peacocks?#teach the ostrich to run #king of kings #king of hearts #yin to his yang

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kaiwewi · 5 days ago

Text

Against Expectations

This story belongs to a larger series featuring the same Hero and Villain characters. For a list of all parts, in chronological order, check out: [Masterlist: Fame and Flourish]

Synopsis: Hero is confronted with the reality of Villain's profession. Villain's methods, however, sure come as a surprise.

tw: queerphobic side character

Hero had been so naïve.

They’d had two mostly positive interactions with Villain. Two. – Two wasn’t even a pattern. And yet that’s all it had taken for them to start assuming … What? That Villain was their friend? No. Definitely not that. But maybe … friendly? Harmless like the mayor had suggested. Fun. Someone safe. Safe-adjacent.

That Villain was somehow on Hero’s side despite being what they were: one of the villains, small-time or no. And they hadn’t even tried to hide it. No lies, no promises, no clever misdirection. So how had Hero deluded themself into assuming Villain wouldn’t do anything … villainous?

Yeah, it really did sound stupid.

Hero of all people should have known better. Feeling betrayed now, when all the cards had been on the table all along, had got to be the pinnacle of stupidity.

And how the police were handling – or, in this case, not handling – the situation didn’t improve Hero’s mood in the slightest as they climbed over yet another trunk of yet another fallen tree and continued stomping through dense undergrowth, trying to keep the trees’ lower-hanging branches from snagging on their hair and ruining their French braid.

After almost an hour of tedious searching, Hero found the place.

The clearing stretched out before them, sunbathed and serene. A fairy tale film set. Like Hero’s meandering through the woods had accidentally led them somewhere beyond reality. An otherworldly oasis where tree stumps formed natural tables, wider on top than where they met the earth, with massive roots conveniently protruding from the surrounding mossy ground as if extending an invitation for passers-by to take a seat. Insects buzzed, birds sang, a small stream gurgled in the background. A solitary, ancient-looking, crooked willow tree sat enthroned at the centre of the clearing.

Leaning against its gnarly trunk stood Villain. So perfectly at home haloed by golden autumn light and the rustle of windswept leaves. A forest spirit. A fay creature.

As if they could sense the intrusion into their realm, Villain turned and, with a startling immediacy, their gaze fixed on Hero. Their face went through a flurry of expressions in quick succession, from stunned surprise to blank incomprehension to, ultimately, a dazzling smile.

“Oh, hey Hero!” Villain called out then, in a tone suggesting this was a casual meeting and they hadn’t just forced Hero to comb through half the park’s sizeable arboretum in order to find them. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Me? Seriously?! What do you think you’re doing? The police said you’ve got hostages.”

Villain said, “uh, yeah? But … I wasn’t expecting you. I can’t believe they called you in for that.”

(The police had not actually called them in for that. Hero just so happened to have run into the, in their opinion, too small group of officers assigned to the case earlier, and had decided to join their search. That Villain apparently hadn’t expected Hero to show up for this any more than the police officers had, irked them. As if this operation was somehow beneath Hero and no one could believe they would care to participate.)

They stopped what seemed a safe distance and then some away from Villain, just in case, and opened their mouth to tell them that—

“Whoa! Your mask!” Villain interrupted, smirking. “Heh. Looks like eyeliner.”

Hero bristled, instinctively. They barely stopped themself from taking an abrupt step backwards.

Why did every bit of scrutiny have to affect them so? Why couldn’t they just be cool, and not let themself be influenced or feel threatened by what other people might think or say?

They reminded themself of this spark of pure joy they’d felt when they’d applied the paint, the pride warming their chest as they’d checked the results in the mirror, how they’d vowed they wouldn’t get defensive or self-conscious later, that they were fine just the way they were, and that what felt right was right, and nobody would ruin it for them this time.

It was fine. They were fine.

Yes, the swipes of green on their mask resembled eyeliner. Yes, they’d deliberately drawn them directly below the eye holes to create that very effect. Yes, they did think the dual swirls of lime-green and pine-green made them look cute, thank you very much.

No, it wasn’t girly. No, it didn’t invalidate their identity.

And if they felt this stab of panic telling them otherwise whenever someone so much as glanced their way, they’d just have to keep reminding themself that this was nothing but their own internalised transphobia speaking. They were working on that and they could – would! – unlearn it.

“I told you your outfit needed some colour.” Villain’s smirk had widened to a proper grin, grown so very smug around the edges. They’d stepped a little closer still. “And now look at you.”

Immediately, Hero felt extra stupid again.

It was a compliment. Not a taunt. Not even teasing.

(Perhaps a tiny bit of teasing.)

Coming from Villain, it couldn’t be anything but a compliment. Adding highlights to Hero’s costume had been their idea after all. And Villain of all people wouldn’t mock anyone for a fleck of paint that looked like eyeliner. If anything, they’d sooner judge Hero for a lack of self-expression.

Villain, too, was out as non-binary and used they/them pronouns. And while Hero was clearly still struggling with the proud part of out and proud. Villain had no such limitations.

Weirdly, both of them seemed to aspire to androgyny. But whereas Hero had always aimed for an inconspicuous, palatable neutrality, Villain adorned themself with flashy colours and strangely intriguing campy fashion:

Today, Villain had donned a more practical outfit. Instead of their velvet coat and the figure-enhancing pants, they’d combined a long-sleeved grey cropped jean jacket with tie-dye cloth dungarees in vibrant shades ranging from sun-glow yellow to auburn orange. The dungarees’ colours paired with the fern pattern embroidered on top with thick silver thread created a certain autumn-forest camouflage effect that Hero strongly suspected was intentional. At about mid-calf, the trouser legs were tucked into lilac lace-up boots that, unlike the heeled ones from last week, actually looked like they were made for walking.

Villain’s equally lilac metallic lipstick contrasted nicely with the medium brown of their skin and complimented that bold shade of mermaid-blue Villain had dyed their hair.

They’d also replaced their golden mask with a silver one (though Hero couldn’t recall enough details to determine whether the design was the same or merely similar). Underneath the mask, Villain’s hazel eyes gleamed almost amber against the violet eyeshadow on their lower eyelids as they caught the light just right.

Which coincided with the exact instance Hero realised they’d spaced out and openly stared at Villain for an indeterminate amount of time. They quickly dropped their gaze.

After a moment, Villain’s head tilted. “No, really, I mean it: the green suits you. Brings out your eyes. I like what you did there with the darker green against the white and the lighter green layered on top to increase the contrast against the black.”

Somewhere out of sight, somebody coughed in that peculiar way of someone trying to hold in laughter and subsequently choking on it. Another person snickered in response.

Hostages. Right. They were here because of the hostages.

They crossed their arms over their chest and tried to channel their earlier disappointment and anger, with less than lukewarm success.

“I know I look nice,” they dared, feeling profoundly embarrassed and hoping it wouldn’t show on their face. “You can stop trying” – and succeeding – “to distract me with flattery. I’m here for the hostages.”

“Over here! Hi,” a voice – young, feminine, unexpectedly upbeat – called from the part of the clearing currently hidden from Hero’s view by the drooping branches of that gigantic willow tree.

They kept their gaze fixed on Villain’s shoes to avoid the possibility of accidentally making eye contact again as they circled slowly around the clearing to a better vantage point. Then, they looked up and stopped short, staring once more – this time, at the hostages.

Surprisingly, the entire situation seemed to be very much under control and unlikely to suddenly escalate.

(Just as the officer in charge had suggested when she’d briefed Hero and told them she doubted her team would need any assistance. They’d been indignant then. Now they were equal parts relieved and annoyed to find she had been correct in her irresponsible assessment.)

They felt entirely, though not altogether unpleasantly, confused. But no longer betrayed. No longer like they’d been robbed of something fresh and fragile that hadn’t had a chance to be much at all yet, but which they had – against their better judgement and in a moment of weakness – hoped might grow into something … meaningful.

Not that there could ever be a real connection between them and any of the villains. They knew that much. Even though duty, responsibility, and common sense had temporarily slipped their mind at Villain’s general lack of aggression and open hostility, Villain could not become their friend. At best, Hero could hope for one less enemy.

Either way, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.

Right. They had to pull themself together and do their job.

“I— I really don’t know what I was expecting, but this is … not it.” They sighed, resigned. Nothing about this made any sense. They made a broad gesture encompassing the whole scene. “Honestly. I have no idea what this is, but I am here and it seems you do have hostages and I’m afraid I’ll have to arrest you. I don’t suppose you’ll come peacefully?”

Villain pouted. “Do you really have to?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just, I feel like today’s not a getting-arrested kind of day, you know. Much too nice out here. Unusually warm too for early November. This is probably the last pleasantly warm weekend we’ll get until spring. Wouldn’t arresting me be such a waste of a potentially great evening? Weather forecast says temperatures are going to drop starting tomorrow.

“No, no,” Villain concluded. “I’d say, all signs point toward a bit of sunbathing and a little tittle-tattle over a nice hot cup of tea and some snacks. So, how about it? You in?”

Granted, it was a really nice day. And it was unusually mild for the season. And the weather forecast had promised a cold front. But as far as excuses went, this was simply ridiculous.

And just like that Villain had them laughing again, despite everything.

“Is that why you’re making your hostages … have a picnic?”

“Well, I need them to be here; I don’t need them to be scared and miserable, or to get dehydrated and go hungry.” They turned to a group of four teenagers lounging on a checked-patterned blanket and nibbling on sandwiches. The kids were gawking – though more at Hero than at Villain (yikes) – and whispering among each other (double yikes). Villain waved to get their attention. “Yo, Antonio and co! How are you holding up over there? Got everything you need?”

One of the picnic’s unwilling participants waved back shyly. Another held up a mug in one hand and gave a thumbs up with the other. The third kid made a rude gesture and was immediately admonished by the fourth. Each of them had something that looked like interwoven strands of thin tree roots slung around one ankle to keep them from wandering off. None of them looked particularly traumatised.

A little to the side lay four BMX bikes. A dirt path with some ramps was barely visible through the columns of trees on the other side of the clearing.

Over by another one of those odd table-shaped tree stumps, an unkempt older man sat chuckling while the equally dishevelled woman next to him chugged apple juice straight from a carton. When he noticed Hero looking their way, he raised his hand – he only had the one – in a quick greeting. The woman didn’t acknowledge them. Neither of these two was bound by root shackles. Huh.

“See,” Villain said, self-satisfied. “No harm done. My hostages are doing great. I’m taking good care of them. They almost don’t want to not be here.”

“Uh-huh. What about this guy then?”

A collective groan from the assembled onlookers.

“Ah yeah,” Villain agreed. “Except that guy.” That guy being a middle-aged man in a dark suit currently tied with a wild tangle of vines to a tree a little aside from the rest of the group. He glowered at Villain from behind square glasses and Villain glowered back. “Unfortunately, I had to put Bob over there into timeout for, among other things, throwing a sandwich at me. And don’t you glare at me, Bob, you know you started this.”

Hero took a deep breath, let it out again. “I don’t suppose you’ll let Bob down if I ask nicely?”

“Not a chance.”

“Right. Could you at least … ungag him then?”

Another collective sound of disapproval.

Villain grimaced. “I would strongly advise against that.”

One of the teenagers mumbled “same” under their breath.

(At this point Hero did kind of regret not having listened to the lazy police officers. And how come the police still hadn’t arrived at the scene?)

They forced themself to say, “please.”

Villain shrugged. “All right. Fine. But don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”

Immediately that thicker, woodier length of vine wedged between the man’s teeth loosened. He spit it out.

“My name isn’t Bob,” apparently-not-Bob complained.

Villain rolled their eyes. “Well, if you’d told me your name when I asked, maybe I—”

“Fuck you!”

Yup. All right. Should have listened. Gag should have stayed in.

Villain shot Hero their best what did I just tell you? look.

The man kept screeching, spittle flying from his mouth, “I didn’t start shit!”

“Oh, get over yourself and grow some common decency. As you are well aware, there are people on the brink of starvation in this city, Mr. Fuck You. Wasting food is disrespectful.”

The one-armed man with the scruffy beard nodded along and added a quiet “yeah, man. ’s not cool.”

Not-Bob turned his attention to Hero. “And what are you just standing there for? Will you do something already?! Do I look like I’ve got time for this crap. I have places to be. Arrest that fucking twink and free me!”

Villain calmly informed him, “that word isn’t nearly as insulting as you think it is.”

A nasty sneer spread on the man’s lips. “Cock sucking. Tranny. Fa—”

“WILL YOU,” one of the teenagers screamed back, “shut the fuck up already. ASSHOLE.”

For a moment, even the birds fell silent.

Villain turned their attention back to Hero, with a saccharine smile on their lips that only half reached their eyes. “So, anyway, in my defence – as Mil kindly pointed out, and I’m sure you’ve gathered yourself – that guy is a corporate ass-face with no moral backbone or integrity who’s got a heap of dog turd for a brain, and whenever he opens his mouth the only thing that comes out is hot air reeking of fart.”

Several someones snorted. Mil whooped.

The corporate ass-face went so red it was fair to assume he might start popping blood vessels any second now. But he didn’t say anything else because the moment he opened his mouth Hero shot him the darkest warning look they could manage. Thankfully, the man got the hint. Because otherwise Hero would have had no choice but to ask Villain to put that gag back, and they’d rather not face the awkwardness of making such a request.

“I do see your point,” Hero told Villain, wearily. “But that isn’t going to stop me from arresting you.”

“Hate to break it to you, superstar,” Villain said, mouth curving into a lopsided sneer. “In order to arrest me, you’d have to catch me first.”

Hah, sweet. Now this fell perfectly within the bounds of the usual script. This type of conversation Hero knew exactly how to handle.

“Oh? You don’t think I can?”

“I don’t think you will.”

“I’m fast.”

“Not that fast.”

“We’ll see.”

“No. We won’t.”

They both sprang into action at the same time. Hero dashed across the clearing; Villain spun around and fled into the woods.

Hero was undoubtedly the faster runner. At least out in the open. But Villain had been right: they weren’t nearly fast enough. They would have had to catch Villain during those first three seconds when they were both still in the clearing.

They understood the pointlessness of the chase as soon as they’d passed between the first row of trees. Roots immediately attempted to trip them up. Vines and brambles snatched at them, tried to ensnare their feet, slowing them down further. Low-hanging tree branches whipped down into their path to obscure their view of their surroundings to the point where they might as well have been staggering blindly through thick fog.

Less than two minutes into the pursuit, Hero had to admit defeat.

Villain had vanished.

———

For my other stories, visit my [MASTERLIST] ♥

#fame and flourish #against expectations #heroes and villains #hero x villain #villain x hero #hero #villain #enemies to friends #snippet #writing snippet #writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #hero x villain community #nonbinary characters

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magicalbats · 1 year ago

Text

Kinktober Day 21: Lingerie

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 12,750

Warnings: Afab!reader, lingerie (male wearing), rimming & anal fingering, oral sex (all male receiving), prostate massage/milking, I don't believe I used any gendered language in this one but if something slipped my radar I apologize

A/N: I know I said I was going to wait until these were all done to start posting them but as I was looking at my progress on the prompt list I decided to just say fuck it, we ball. These probably aren't going to come quite back to back (heh) but there shouldn't be too big a gap between them either. Basically your take away here should be to never trust anything I say lol

⭐

The taverns of Mondstadt are a great place to hide in plain sight as long as you’re a regular. New faces stand out even in a crowd but an old familiar face can easily be overlooked if you play your cards right. Don’t draw too much attention to yourself. Don’t talk to any other patrons beyond what was strictly necessary. Mind your business. It’s quite easy, really. Anyone can do it, even the Captain of the Cavalry who’s charming smiles and dashing good looks far precede his reputation amongst the knights.

Kaeya, for his part, is exceptionally talented when it comes to such games and that makes the sleight of hand all the easier to pull off. He knows how to keep his cards close to his chest while at the same time showing any curious onlookers exactly what they wanted to see. What they expected. It was a matter of simple misdirection when you got right down to it, but a soundly effective one. He wasn’t one to disappoint a captivated audience if he could help it, after all.

You understood this to be one of many on the gradually growing list of things you liked about him, and it was at least partially what made playing with him so damn fun. Sometimes it felt like you couldn’t get enough of this titillating subterfuge.

“Looks like I win again.”

Consideringly, you glance over the cards he’s set down on the table in a near perfect, fanning arch. It did certainly appear to be a winning play for him which meant another loss for you to tally up on your side. That was fine though. You weren’t exactly betting all your chips on the opening act when you still had the real show to look forward to later. This was just something to kill the time. The true fun would start afterwards and you were sure to come out on top, victorious as well as properly satiated in the end. That, at least, was a certainty rather than a gamble.

“So it seems,” You agree, giving him a quick smile. “You’re having awfully good luck tonight, Captain. You wouldn’t happen to be breaking any rules to stack the odds in your favor, would you?”

He laughs like it’s an absurd suggestion. Like he wasn’t known for doing just that with enough regularity to become a noticeable trend to anyone who knew him beyond a surface level acquaintance. The average citizen wouldn’t recognize it for what it was. Even the knights working directly under him in the Favonious Cavalry would only suspect it but they’d never know for sure and they probably didn’t grasp the full scope of it either. Kaeya was good at playing the role of a harmless philanderer, yes, but unfortunately for him so were you.

As one of the sole members of the specialized intelligence scouts that reported directly to Captain Eula, you were just as adept at reading people and taking on various roles as he was. In many ways you were a glorified spy, often going undercover to infiltrate enemy lines — usually that of treasure hoarders and their ranks. The only real difference between you and him was that covert sting operations were actually in your job description. Kaeya couldn’t say the same, yet that didn’t stop him from taking on many of the same kinds of tasks you would have been assigned. He could have easily given you a real run for your money if he’d wanted to.

You felt relatively certain that, sooner or later, he would have been recruited into the Reconnaissance Company just the same as you if only that unfortunate situation with his adoptive brother hadn’t happened. With a captain's seat empty and needing to be filled, the answer had been an obvious one.

But fate, as they say, weaves itself into the most curious of patterns. It wasn’t really your place to speculate any further than that, though it is hard not to let your mind wander sometimes when there were so many ‘what if’s and ‘could have been’s floating around him.

Thinking the two of you would have made quite the team in another lifetime, you lean forward to brace your elbows on the table. Deliberately casual and unassuming. That was the name of the game while the rest of the tavern went about its business, blissfully unaware and none the wiser to the subtle foreplay being exchanged right in plain sight for anyone to see if they’d just stop long enough to actually look.

Some would have called this risky but you thought it really quite tantalizing for a first course appetizer.

Kaeya does the same, mirroring the motion, except he reaches out to curl his fingers around the humble pile of mora sitting in the center to claim it for himself. As he pulls it over to his side, his open shirt shifts with the movement. You just catch a glimpse of rich red lace when it barely peeks out from behind crisp white cotton and your pulse starts to speed up. It was bold even for him but the heightened chance of discovery only further feeds into your own excitement for what was to come. What it suggested.

“I don’t need to stoop so low as to intentionally rig the game, my friend.” He tells you quietly under all the wordless din of drinking and merrymaking. It would have been easy to miss had you not been so fine tuned to the presence sitting across from you that you may as well have been the only two in the room at that moment. “I’m just lucky enough to be enjoying a nice winning streak this evening, that’s all. To be honest I’m a little hurt you’d lobby such a baseless accusation against me. You know what they say about sore losers …”

“I’m sure you’ll get over it. What’s a little friendly banter between colleagues after all, right?” He chuckles at that, and your smile quickly turns into a grin. “I’ll admit, your ability to turn things around is quite remarkable though. Wasn’t it just last week when you suffered a resounding defeat at my hands playing Eilfern? Now here you are winning at Whist as if you’ve never lost a game in your life and you don’t still owe me from last time.”

The way Kaeya looks at you over the table speaks volumes, but no one on the outside looking in could ever guess at the effect it was having on you by the way he casually shifts in his seat. He doesn’t look like someone with any real investment in the conversation, neither the game nor this ongoing exchange with you. It all appears very lackadaisical and unimportant to him but you weren’t fooled. You knew better than that.

“Oh, you’ll get what you won from me last time. No question about that. Don’t tell me you’re in such dire need that you’re getting desperate for it after only a few days?”

If you were the type, you would’ve been blushing straight up to your ears. “Need I remind you, Captain, that I wouldn’t be amicable to playing these card games with you if I didn’t expect my winnings in a timely fashion.”

“So you are chomping at the bit.” The sound of his laughter is like the soft caress of silk on your skin as he leans forward as if to share a confidential word with you. Either a secret or something important that isn’t meant for any of the other patrons to overhear, but all it does is provide you with another brief glimpse of the lingerie hidden away behind his clothes when his shirt pulls open a bit more at the subtle stretch.

It’s entirely calculated from the motion itself to the way his clothes are too tight in some places and concealingly loose in others. The fur embellishment on his capelet and the long hair that slips forward over his opposite shoulder thoroughly saw to it that no one else besides you would be able to get a good look at the delicate lace pulled taut over his chest. The people sitting nearest to your little corner table might have been able to make out a curious shock of red on the Captain’s otherwise cool toned attire but they’d never be able to tell for sure what it was. Only you were privileged with the knowledge and you subconsciously lick your lips at the tawdry show he was putting on.

This was something of a routine between the two of you at this point. A tradition of sorts. It was impossible to say when it had actually started or where it had escalated to this level of intimate favors exchanged under the guise of gambling wagers but you were immensely glad for it. You won at Eilfern the last time you’d met up and you’d told him you wanted to see him in lingerie. Before that he’d gotten to finger you for what felt like hours, until the sheets were totally soaked underneath you and you’d begged for it; babbling unendingly until he finally fucked you proper and much to your sobbing relief.

Since it looked like he’d won this round, you wondered what he would choose to do to you when next you got together for your little game nights. The thought alone is enough to almost make you squirm in your seat.

“As always you are much too full of yourself, Captain Kaeya. A single night of wins goes straight to your head and further inflates that already oversized ego of yours.”

“Really now, you wound me.” He doesn’t look at all hurt or even very put out as he pulls himself up and leans back into his chair again. Like a perfectly placed prop, his open shirt slides into place to leave only the usual keyhole showing off the coppery brown skin across his pectorals. Not so much as a hint of red in sight anymore. “It was not my intention to leave you wanting and waiting. I’ll pay up, just as we agreed. We can’t have it being said that I don’t keep up my end of a bargain, can we?”

You pin him with a pointed, deliberate look. “I would certainly think you’d care about your reputation enough to do that much.”

Inclining his chin in agreement, Kaeya makes a sweeping gesture toward the back of the tavern. “Then by all means, let’s find somewhere a bit more quiet to continue this conversation.”

Suppressing the urge to smile, you move to stand and he follows suit. The way Kaeya unfolds himself from his chair is something noteworthy, all long legs and perfect stately posture. Some men of his height manage to look gangly or uncoordinated but he is decidedly neither of those. It’s like even at rest he’s so thoroughly perfected the performance that it imbues everything he does right down to the most benign.

You can’t help but wonder how you must look standing together as he comes around the table to flank you. He’s left the pile of mora behind, more than enough to cover the tab and a generous tip on top of that. The owner and sole bartender of the establishment is likely the only person who has any real notion of something going on between the two of you but his silence on the matter was effectively guaranteed. To everyone else it likely just looked like a friendly, casual meeting between two knights. That wasn’t so strange, especially not for someone like Kaeya who enjoyed so much popularity amongst the citizenry. He was on good terms with just about everyone.

You, on the other hand, were much more of an unknown to the general populace. It came with the job description. But no one even gives you a second glance now as you make your way towards the back of the establishment where the secondary exit was located in a cramped little alcove. At a glance it would look like you were leaving to go somewhere else and the curiosity of any nosy eavesdroppers would’ve already been safely satisfied by the exchange at the table. Kaeya wouldn’t have suggested taking leave if he’d even so much as suspected someone was paying more attention to the two of you than simple passing interest, and you were likewise certain that it was safe to make your move for much the same reason.

The rear exit you make your way towards is located directly next to the rickety, well used staircase that leads up to the second floor where the rooms for rent were housed. It was both to give traveling merchants and passing tourists an easy way out so they didn’t have to go all the way to the front, and to ensure an easy traffic flow. You’re pleased to find the coast completely clear despite the late hour, and you take a sharp turn to climb the stairs with Kaeya right on your heels. The weight of his presence just behind you is as comforting as it is full of the velveteen promise of what was yet to come. On one hand you knew you could trust him at your back in the platonic colleague sense. But on the other, much more pressing hand, you also knew you could trust him to give you a night to remember. He always did.

Unfortunately for him — or fortunately, depending on how you wanted to look at it — you were much more interested in blowing his mind tonight. He’d left you feeling punchdrunk and floating in the ether last time and now it was your turn to get a little payback.

You can hardly contain your excitement as you reach the landing and make your way down the row of doors until you reach the last room sequestered in the far corner. Arrangements had been made earlier in the evening when you’d first arrived, when it was still slow and not likely to raise any eyebrows; and the heavy wooden door swings open with a quick turn of the key given to you by the owner. Kaeya lets you enter first then steps in behind you, pulling it shut and locking it again in quick succession. No one would be interrupting you any time soon, barring any unexpected emergencies cropping up at the worst possible time.

“So,” He says, unfalteringly casual about it as he leans back against the shut door. “Regarding the prize I owe you. I can take a guess, I’m sure, but what exactly did you have in mind with this?”

Quickly spinning around, you step into him and close the distance, your body pressing flush to his in one smooth motion. You, impatient? Never. “You’ve already kept me waiting long enough, don’t you think Captain? Let me see you first and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with you.”

Bringing your hand up, you reach for one side of his shirt and he tips his chin down, attentively watching as you peel it away. You’re afforded a much better look at the brassiere now, the thin lace of the cup stretched over his broad chest in a way that was not dissimilar to that of your own, although it lacked much of the same weight and fullness. His figure was far from feminine but that didn’t make it look any less appealing in your eyes. The color is especially striking against his rich skin tone which surprises you slightly when you were so used to seeing him in his signature blue. Who would’ve guessed.

You pull your attention back up to his face again, brow quirked in question. “What made you go with red?”

The smirk that tugs at his mouth tells you exactly why. “I’m afraid you never specified a color. I just assumed it was up for me to decide and you didn’t particularly care either way.” He puts his head to the side, looking oh so very smug and pleased with himself. “Why, don’t you like it? And I spent so much time picking this out too.”

Trying and failing to conceal your smile, you lower your gaze back to his chest. You can even see the darker bud of his nipple showing through the delicate lacework and it looks undeniably inviting like this, trapped behind a thin layer of fabric yet still in plain sight. Idly, you reach up to tease it with a featherlight brush of your fingertips. Was this just a small taste of what men felt when they were graced with seeing a woman in alluring lingerie? If so then you were certainly starting to understand the fascination.

“Rather than if I like it or not, I think the better question is how did you feel wearing this under your clothes out there? Did it excite you, Kaeya?”

He subtly shifts against you, reaching for your other hand. You let him take it without a fuss and he rather pointedly directs it to the front of his pants. He makes you cup him, curling your fingers around the bulge there, and your next breath comes in a quick little gasp. It was far from completely filled out but he was getting there fast.

“Is this answer enough for you?”

“Oh my,” You relent, sighing softly when he twitches and grows against your fingers. His pants were already so tight you didn’t think his placket would be able to restrain a full erection if you didn’t get them off him soon, and time was clearly ticking. You’d have to move this along but it’s impossible to resist the urge to tease him just a little bit for his eagerness. “You’re always so cool and composed, Captain. I had no idea you were this bothered. I’d have never guessed you were hiding away such an excitable prick in your trousers. How do you manage to make it look so easy?”

“Plenty of practice.”

It’s his turn to step into you now. He casually walks you back, using his greater size and weight to guide you until you’re distantly aware of the waiting bed sitting stationary just behind you. The room is not a very large one but it serves its purpose perfectly well.

Eager to see the rest of him, you bring your hands together to fumble with his belts and then the fastens on the waist cinching band around his middle. Kaeya shrugs out of his capelet with a quick flick of his hand while you work on buckles and latches, the distant rustle of it hitting the floor sending a quick shiver up your spine. Then his fingers come up to touch the underside of your chin and tip your face towards him. You gladly rock forward, going on your toes to accommodate the height difference and accept the kiss he bends to place on your mouth.

Working together, you get him undressed one layer at a time. His corset is quickly discarded, the flouncy white shirt soon joining it followed by the tighter, clinging black top underneath. He looks so good standing there naked from the waist up, in nothing but a bra that had quite clearly been tailored to fit the broad expanse of his chest's width and the fingerless gloves he chooses to leave on for the time being. So good in fact that you almost allow yourself to get distracted. Side tracked with questions and exploratory hands, eager to map out this new take on familiar territory through your sense of touch. But then he moves to kick off his boots, hands already at the waistband of his slacks to make your own excitement ratchet up another notch, and you promptly forget what you’d wanted to do.

Watching him take his pants off is always entertaining in its own right, because his legs are so long and the material so form fitted it takes a bit of shimmying on his part to get them pulled down. This time is even better than usual though, because more and more of the bottom half to the lingerie is revealed the more he peels them away. You're a little surprised when you first glimpse the top of the garter belt, the same shade of red and just as finely made as the brassiere, but you don’t quite have the presence of mind to pretend to be scandalized by it. Not when it was easily one of the most mouth watering sights you’d ever seen.

Kaeya’s waist was already small even without the corset there to keep it in check and the crimson band hugged around it just makes it look even more gracefully svelte. Decidedly grabbable. You couldn’t wait to do just that, your fingers practically itching for it while he steps out of his pants.

The matching panties were, predictably, much too thin and flimsy to properly contain his cock but they do a valiant job trying. This is the only part of him that looks in any way out of place or disheveled so you had to give credit where it was due to whoever had done the tailoring. His balls were half spilling out of one side and his swelling length was tenting the front of the material enough to pull the whole garment askew. But his confidence remains unshaken and he merely reaches down to try and adjust himself without so much as an ounce of shame to show for it, although it does very little in the way of good.

Unable to hold yourself back any longer, you step forward to touch him. Gently lay your hands along his narrow waist and give it a squeeze to bring his attention up. “Don’t worry about it. You look amazing.”

“Please, I don’t look anywhere near as good as you would in this thing.” He laughs, low and sultry, the sound so edged with silken promise it makes your loins curl in anticipation. “I admit I didn’t really understand why you wanted me to dress up like this at first. That’s usually the sort of request a man makes in this kind of arrangement, no? But it’s actually not so bad, other than …”

Rather pointedly, he tries to nudge his testes back into the underwear but of course it doesn’t work. You share another quiet laugh with him, giving Kaeya a wry grin to accompany the finger you suggestively slip into the waistband of his panties.

“Now you know how we feel when you start making unreasonable demands of us. Unfortunately for you, this kind of underwear isn’t really meant to hold anything in.” You give the material a quick tug and let it go so that it lightly smacks back into his hip. “What you need is something with a little more coverage to really hold you in place, Kaeya. Maybe a waist high pair with mesh so you can still show off that pretty cock of yours.”

“Oh,” He breathes out, evidently liking that idea. “I’ll remember to bring you along the next time I decide to go shopping for panties then.”

You can’t seem to keep the smile off your face as you lean into him, dragging your hands up his sides to palm along his ribcage. His skin is so smooth and creamy, you could get lost in just touching him like this for hours on end if only time and duty would permit it. “Promise?”

“Yes, you little pervert.” He murmurs, his tone growing hushed and thin. “I promise.”

Bending at the waist, he kisses you again. Slow and steady even when your hunger clashes with his and doubles the weighty sexual tension in the room to leave both of you all but trembling with pent up need. You have all night though, and you don’t want to rush it. Especially not when he looked so damn good like this. Tall and lean, appropriately muscular in the places one would expect a knight in his prime to be, and yet delightfully petite in others. Kaeya was not an overly large man by any stretch of the imagination but his innate masculinity was undeniable. Even like this, even wearing the sort of lingerie meant to compliment a woman’s figure, to hug curves and emphasize certain assets, there was an air about him that was all man.

Something as simple as lingerie couldn’t take that away from him and, although it perhaps wasn’t quite what the maker had intended, it was most definitely showing off his assets.

Abruptly you realize he’s reaching for the front of your slacks and you pull back from his mouth, giving his fingers a quick, playful swat. “Hey, now. This is my payout from our bet so that means I get to call the shots, right?”

A soft hum of amusement. The knowing twitch at the corner of his mouth that pulls his smirk a little wider. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing. You should have expected as much from him.

“Of course. Your wish is but my command. I just don’t think it’s very fair that I’m practically naked and you get to keep all your clothes on, that’s all.”

“Hmm, and yet I don’t think that’s dissuading you by the looks of it.” You murmur, sending his straining cock a slow, pointed glance. Was that a tiny wet stain starting to form, bleeding through the lacy material? He was practically begging for it at this point and you were so very eager to give it to him.

Trailing your sights a little lower, you reach down to tauntingly flick at the dangling garter clasp over his toned thigh. Kaeya’s twitching length eagerly flexes behind the thin barrier that tries its best to contain him at the close proximity of your hand, pushing the material further out from his pelvis. You could probably guess why he’d forgone the hose his garter belt should have hooked to but you were still a bit disappointed at their absence. His legs were so long and lean, firm from years spent atop a horse but densely packed with muscle. He would have looked stunning in them.

“Didn’t have enough time to find yourself a pair of stockings, Captain?”

He issues a low, breathy laugh even as he tries to subtly shift his weight from one foot to the other, attempting to angle his cock towards your hand. You’re quick to pull it away though, uninterested in giving him even that simple satisfaction or folding to his needy little demands just yet. Soon, but not yet.

“I thought about it,” He says, obediently stilling again now that it was clear his bid wasn’t going to work. “But I’m unfortunately not half as well versed in these matters as you seem to be giving me credit for. I wasn’t sure what you would like and, more importantly, I didn’t know what would fit properly. There were so many options to choose from and I’d already made quite enough of a spectacle of myself, don’t you think?”

“Did you go to the shop I told you about?” At his nod, you reach out again. Touch fingertips to the tight muscle running up his thigh and lightly draw your nails across it to make his breath come out in a tiny huff. “Then your secret is safe with them. I’d trust that dressmaker with my very life. I’m certain she would have helped you without any judgment or snide remarks.”

“Dully noted.”

You’re obviously distracting him quite a bit but Kaeya still manages to find the wherewithal to drag his attention slowly down your legs, like he was half remembering, half imagining how they would look without your pants in the way. He doesn’t make an attempt at wrestling control from you though, nor does he start throwing his greater weight around even though he very well could. In truth, he is perfectly compliant and malleable for you like this. Those were the parameters of the game, after all, and if there was one thing Kaeya could be trusted with it was his word.

The agreement at the offset of this arrangement was that the winner took all while the loser paid up in full, no questions asked. You’d initially been wary to agree, anticipating him to stack the odds in his favor just so he could play out whatever pigheaded fantasies that seemed to plague the minds of men, but that had not been the case. Not only was he far more inclined towards soft, drawn out encounters of a rather tender persuasion, he was also perfectly amenable to taking orders too and he never cheated. As far as you could tell he really was just the type of person who craved intimacy with another but could only feel truly comfortable with a set of rules in place to give it structure. Almost like … it was almost like he feared giving too much of himself to a lover. Of saying too much, revealing too much.

Playing it out this way would allow him to step back before things got too serious and he crossed a line he either wouldn’t or couldn’t bring himself to cross, as unwilling as he was unable to take that risk and find out what existed just beyond. It gave him the option of temporary companionship without any of the expectations that came with a traditional coupling. Perhaps it would have been sad had it not been exactly the same for you. Glorified spies weren’t exactly famous for their long life expectancies, you know.

Finally deciding to take pity on him, you slide your hand inward and brush a light touch against the darker skin of his ballsack. His chest rises with a quiet hitch, hard nipples cutting up into the material of the bra as his one visible eye takes on a heavy lidded quality. It’s clear he’d been eagerly awaiting your touch and now that he’s got it a stiff edge starts to creep into his posture.

Smiling up at him, you gently tease the weight of his testes where the skimpy underwear can’t quite seem to keep them contained. “It’s a shame I didn’t wear stockings either today, otherwise I could have given them to you. I mean it, Kaeya. You’d look so good in a nice pair of thigh highs.” Still fondling the silky flesh in your hand, you lean up to swipe a quick tongue over one tightly coiled nipple through flimsy lace. His lashes flutter for a brief moment and then he seems to regain his bearings, looking down at you like you hung the very moon and the stars in the night sky. Like he would do anything you could possibly ask of him in that moment. “Not to worry though, Captain. We’ll get you sorted out soon enough. For now though …”

You give his balls a gentle, coaxing tug and he obediently shuffles forward half a step. It’s hard not to grin, seeing the kind of power he lets you hold over him in private like this.

“Why don’t you give me a spin and let me see the back?”

An almost affronted sound bursts out of him, as much a throaty laugh as it is a question at where your thoughts were headed. To his credit he doesn’t protest or act embarrassed about it though, and you simply let your hand slip away from his testicles when he moves to turn around.

You’re not particularly surprised to find that the reverse of the garment is just as skimpy as the front. It’s hardly any wonder that such flimsy underwear can’t hold him in place, and you find yourself giggling as you slip a finger into the thin strip of fabric running between the cheeks of his tight little ass. Although hardly practical in terms of everyday wear, this was in many ways exactly what you’d been hoping for.

“I have to be honest, Kaeya. I half expected you to go for something much more modest and reserved than this. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you belonged in a brothel rather than on top of a horse leading the cavalry to victory.”

“Hah. Do I really seem the shy type to you?” His response is edged in mirth and something much thicker, something that darkens his usually flirtatious tone. A challenge, you think, and it brings yet another smile to your face.

“No, you don’t. Which is precisely why I think you deserve a reward for not disappointing me.”

He starts to draw breath, already formulating a no doubt witty remark on the tip of his silver tongue, but it audibly catches when you curl your finger inward. Find the tight pucker of his hole and just brush against it. The tension running through his body abruptly doubles and then triples, becoming some almost tangible, vibrating thing. You can feel it bleeding into you through the contact even for as brief as it is, and you lightly rub the pad of that digit over his entrance again. Just testing the waters. Seeing how amenable he was to this type of play before you pushed your luck any further.

Evidentially frozen to the spot, Kaeya just stands there for a long, harrowing beat of uncertainty. You’re sure that’s what it must be. But he manages to recover quickly enough, seems to shake off the surprise gripping his lungs. He hesitates and then gingerly pushes back, surprising you more than just a little bit. You’d teased this part of him in passing before but not like this. Not with the suggestion or the context of true penetration involved.

There’s no denying it’s presence now though and your opposite hand instinctively comes up to hook over his shoulder, both to hold him in place and to gently nudge him down on your fingers again.

“Oh, Kaeya,” You breathe out, flicking over his hole with a light back and forth gesture. Back and forth, back and forth, up and then down. “Are you sure you’re ready for this kind of reward?”

“Even if I’m not, I'm certain you’ll prep me for it, won’t you?”

Cheeky. That’s what he is.

Giving his ass one final, lingering pass of your finger, you withdraw completely to grab a pinching tight handful of one cheek and offer it a quick jostle for good measure. “You’re right about that. Why don’t you be a good boy and get on the bed for me?”

A quick, playful swat to his behind gets him in gear. He slowly turns back around to face you with a quiet, throaty laugh and you glance down as he moves to step past you. Something not unlike delight lights up within your chest at the way his cock eagerly bounces within the confines of his panties, the bleeding wet stain obvious now. It was hard to say what, exactly, he was expecting you to do next but he doesn’t question it. Doesn’t get huffy or roll out the masculine grandstanding. Just obediently steps up to the bed so he can climb on top, somehow still so poised and elegant even while wearing women’s lingerie with his balls hanging out of one side. So much so that it looks almost second nature to him, in a way. Yes, a reward was certainly due. He’d be in for a real treat here in a minute.

Thinking back on the last time you’d fooled around and the absolute dripping mess he’d made of you, you decide that payback is indeed a bitch.

“Like this?” He asks, posing like a tawdry slut on his hands and knees with his firm ass in the air. Some men may have looked ridiculous and laughable trying for sultry like that, but Kaeya somehow manages to pull it off. Between the svelte arch of his back, the way his narrow waist gradually tapers up to broad shoulders and the coquettish way he looks back at you, it’s clearer than ever that he knew how to put on a show. Even the heavy weight of his erection dragging at the paper thin garment trying to hold him in isn’t enough to make him look silly or awkward, and it probably would have made you green with envy had you not known with absolute certainty that your stake on him had already been claimed. This wasn’t a competition.

“Not quite what I had in mind but it’ll do.”

Stepping into the space between his feet where they dangle over the edge, you hook your finger into the red fabric running up his ass and tug it aside. His hole is dark and smooth, not unlike his ballsack in its silken appearance, and ever so slightly raised from your earlier minstrations that had only teased the muscle, not tested it. You’re distantly aware of him tensing up as you bend to get closer, opening your mouth to unfurl your tongue, but you don’t pause long enough to allow him a chance at protest.

The first pass over his entrance makes Kaeya jolt like you’d electrocuted him, a tiny sound of startlement escaping his mouth. The second makes him hiss a soft expletive under his breath, and a third has him huffing out the faintest whimper you’ve ever heard. He shifts on top of the bed then, twisting his upper body to look back at you with his uncovered eye. Even from where you’re busy tonguing his asshole, you can clearly make out the fluster dancing across his face and it fills you with warm, fluttering delight.

“I know you’re in charge here but … you don’t have to do that on my account.”

You come up for a fresh breath, pinning him with a saccharine sweet look. “What, you mean like how even when you don’t have to go down on me you do it anyway? Oh, I know. This is just a warm up though so let me have my fun, okay?”

With a quick wink you swoop back down to press the flat of your tongue against his hole, swirling the wrinkled muscle to lathe it in saliva and encourage it to loosen up. He lets out another huffy breath, sounding like he isn’t quite sure what to do with this yet, how to accept it, but he still makes an attempt to relax into the sensation anyway. Resigned to his fate, evidently. Not that he seemed to find it entirely disagreeable, given the way you can see his toes flexing just at the peripheral of your vision, but you strongly suspected this was a first for him.

Good. The less he expected what was coming the more explosive the final results were sure to be. Considering the mess he’d made of you last time he was going to be lucky if you didn’t turn him inside out before the night was through.

Gripping his cheeks with both hands now and holding them spread apart, you lean into your work with renewed enthusiasm. You’re intentionally sloppy with it, letting yourself freely slobber over his hole and taint to ensure he was thoroughly coated before you moved on. This wasn’t something you wanted to rush anyway, far too keen on savoring the taste of him to do that, but with your greater objective in mind you especially wanted to err on the side of caution. One could never be too wet and lubed up, and you were sure Kaeya was going to agree with that by the time you were finished with him.

And he groans so prettily when you dip your tongue into the center of his pucker, just breaching his body, that you have to do it again. And again. Fucking into him like this makes Kaeya twitch and subtly writhe, his breaths coming quicker and shorter as he weakly rolls his hips back to meet you. That he seems to struggle between thrusting out with his cock or riding your tongue with his ass is decidedly charming in its own right, and it only encourages you to keep going. To lap at him more vigorously, to drool more copiously until it feels vaguely like you’re eating out a particularly juicy cunt. It wasn’t often you managed to truly surprise him so you were happy to take advantage of this opportunity while you had it.

Burying your face as far into his ass as you can, you seal your lips around his twitching entrance and gently suckle. Kaeya pulls in a sharp, vaguely frazzled breath in response but still instinctively arches his back to better present himself to you, plainly offering his hole up to your mouth. It may have been a brand new sensation for him, one he didn’t yet know how to process or brace against, but that clearly doesn’t make it any less physically satisfying and that pleases you a great deal.

The previously tight ring of muscle quickly becomes raised and puffy under your attention but you don’t stop until his whimpering groans have turned pitchy with his growing need. That was exactly how you wanted him. Desperate for stimulation that was a bit more substantial, more meaningful, and you finally pull back with a loud, wet smack of your lips some moments later. A quick glance at the sloppy state of his puckered hole has you grinning from ear to ear, and you give Kaeya another quick swat to his raised behind as you straighten up.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Captain? Do you like when I go down on your slutty little ass?”

He quietly seethes, offering you a short lived but no less plaintive shake of his behind. The motion is stiff and halting, like he didn’t want to give in to the urge but couldn’t quite stop himself from doing so. But he immediately grows stills again, panting softly to make his shoulders rise and fall with the quickened inhale-exhales of arousal. “Don’t tell me you really plan on holding out on me if I don’t go along with the ‘slut’ routine …?”

“Of course not. You can tell me to stop at any point and we’ll decide where to go from there. That’s one of our rules, isn’t it?” Failing to keep the mischief out of your voice, you reach between his legs to tug the panties aside in the front too. The weight of his balls seems glad to slide free of their lacy prison and his cock practically springs out, so stiff and leaking sticky precum that he hisses quietly in response. You feel resoundingly victorious as you finally wrap your fingers around that straining, aching length and give it a tauntingly halfhearted tug. Even for as minuscule as the friction is, he still weakly keens like it’s the best thing he’s felt in a very long time. “Just look at you. Do you really feel like anything other than a slut right now? Dressed like this and with your ass in the air … be honest, Kaeya.”

The way his cock jumps in your hand and dribbles more beading clear fluid from the tip is answer enough. He could have kept his silence and it wouldn’t have made any difference to you.

But your words hit their intended target straight on, and he gives a wholly unintentional jolt that makes the bed quietly creak. Perhaps embarrassed by his subconscious reaction or unbearably turned on by it, Kaeya groans low in his throat and presses his face into the bedding to muffle his response. “Do you seriously need to ask? You know I do … but you just want to hear me say it, isn’t that right?”

“You got it. Remember all those filthy things you made me say the last time we were together?”

His head suddenly comes up, a disbelieving guffaw punching out of him. “Is that what this is? Revenge?”

“Something like that.” You shrug your shoulders, as innocent as can be when he twists around to look back at you again. “I just like to think that all is fair in love and war, I guess. You started it and now I’m rebalancing the playing field so to speak. That and … I do so enjoy seeing you on your hands and knees, you know.”

Kaeya’s expression turns wry at that but he doesn’t immediately snap back with some cute little remark. Instead he seems to think about it for a quick moment and then, surprising you and delighting you in equal measure, he suddenly smirks like he’s just realized he’s holding a winning hand. “Fine. I’m certainly not opposed to being on the receiving end, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. Do your worst. Let’s see if you can make me say it.”

That initial feeling of pleased bewilderment quickly vanishes, replaced by a simmering heat low in your gut as you mirror the look on his face with a sly grin of your own. “Is that how you want to play it? Gonna’ be a little brat for me?”

“Only if you think you can handle it.”

“Smart ass.” Suppressing the urge to laugh, you pull back from him and straighten up with another sound slap across his upturned cheek. “Get on your back for me. Let’s see how long you can keep up that attitude.”

“Oooh, I like where this is going.”

It takes everything you have no to roll your eyes at his obvious wheedling while he gets turned over. Clearly he thought he could out maneuver you, somehow, if he just held onto his usual mask of sauve surety for long enough but you were sure you could rip it away from him with relative ease. For better or worse, not many men could keep their wits about them when faced with what you had in mind for him.

Ignoring his pointed, haughty looks of challenge, you take a moment to disrobe down to your underwear so that the both of you were in a similar state of undress. Mainly because it was getting a bit warm in the cramped, stuffy room and also because it would make getting situated together that much smoother.

You finally join him on the bed another moment later and Kaeya keenly watches as you crawl closer, smiling like the cat that ate the canary when you move to kneel between his legs. He was so sure of himself. So confident. That wasn’t going to do him much good in the long run though, and you take a moment to get comfortable before reaching out to palm along his strong calves.

His cock had started to gradually flag in the interim, resting across his lower belly now, but you could tell it was just one caress away from springing right back to life again. All that pent up need to cum was going to be his undoing.

“I’m waiting.” He drawls, idly toying with a long strand of his hair. “After the way you were talking, I expected - -“

Hunching over his pelvis, you lean down to lick a sudden, wet stripe up the underside of his cock. Whatever he’d wanted to say lodges in his throat with a hardly dignified grunt, his uncovered eye widening in obvious surprise as satisfaction lights up within your chest like a smoldering ember. He looked a bit startled, and a lot disarmed. The fact he hadn’t expected that either, that you’d managed to catch him off guard twice now is nothing short of gratifying, and you were ready to bat for three.

Quickly, you swivel your attention back down before he has a chance to find his bearings. Open your mouth to flick at his glans with your tongue where it peeks out from behind the stretch of his foreskin. A strangled sound rises deep in his chest while his cock jumps to immediate attention, flexing up off his stomach for a brief moment before slapping back down with a meaty noise. He fitfully shifts atop the creaking bed and then tucks his chin against his chest to look down at you, his hips arching off the sheets in needy supplication.

It’s a delicious sight to behold; the usually confident and suave Captain of the Cavalry so hot with need it had him antsy under your attention. You decide to take pity on him for the moment and lean down again, catching the flushed head of him between your lips so you can suck on it while you bring a hand around to grip at the base. You make sure to do everything quick and without warning so he doesn’t have a chance to brace himself for it, and he rewards you very handsomely for your efforts.

Kaeya outright grunts like you’ve just sucker punched him, seething through tightly clenched teeth. Twists his balled up fists in the bedding and allows his head to fall back, moaning gruffly up at the ceiling while his stomach dramatically flexes at the abrupt sensation of a hot, wet mouth around his cock. You greatly enjoyed seeing him like this. Worked up enough for his sensitivity to be heightened but still so unaware of what you were building up to, what you were planning.

It makes it incredibly easy to crowd your other hand close to your face so you can coat the fingers in spit, idly pumping his length in the absence of your tongue and lips. He doesn’t question it. Doesn’t even seem to notice. You feel downright devilish as you lean down to take him a third of the way into your mouth again, just short of brushing the back of your throat, and slip your now sticky digits between his legs. At the first tentative touch to his hole Kaeya chokes on another undignified sound but quickly bites it back. Wrestles it under control. You can tell it’s a struggle for him though, and you were more certain than ever that he wasn’t accustomed to being touched like this. It really was a brand new experience for him.

“Don’t tense up,” You murmur, coming off his cock just enough to speak. “It’ll feel good, I promise. I’m not going to hurt you. Just trust me, okay?”

He tries to laugh it off but it doesn’t quite come out sounding very calm or casual. “Trust isn’t the issue. Telling me not to tense up … now that is a tall order.”

“You told me to do my worst.” You lightly remind him.

“And I stand by that.” Drawing a slow, deep breath that makes his hole subtly flex under your fingertips, he releases it with a drawn out exhale. Carefully inches his long legs a little further apart to give you more space, better access, in a clear display of submission and acceptance. “Do it. I’m not going to stop you.”

“That sounds rather fatalistic, don’t you think?” Gently, you rub your fingers over his hole again. It was still wet with saliva and puffy from before, the center puckered enough that you could feel the skin start to give way under the slow pass of your ministrations. If you’d planned on using anything much bigger than this you would have needed real lube. He was just too tight and unstretched to accommodate much else without the proper prep. But for a finger or two, this should be fine.

Perhaps sensing your train of thought, he shifts again and peers down at you. His gaze is heavy and distant, and you think he’s probably blushing right up to his ears under the dark complexion of his skin as he carefully curls one leg up to better present his entrance to you. “I’m not trying to be a martyr. If you say it will feel good then I believe you, just … take it slow, okay?”

You weren’t used to seeing him express any kind of doubt or uncertainty like this, and you offer him a warm smile in return. Curl your fingers to find the center of his hole and just prod into it, teasing the slackening muscle with the suggestion. His mouth parts as if to groan or perhaps sigh, but nothing comes out, like he can’t quite find the oxygen to do either. “I will. Just take some deep breaths and try to relax your body into it. If you don’t like it just tell me and we’ll stop.”

He nods once, clearly distracted by what you were doing with your hand. That was as good a sign as any in your eyes so you give a little push that sinks the tip of the middle digit into him. It wasn’t true penetration yet but it’s enough for you to feel the intense heat of his guts and how the muscle tries to clench at the pressure. Pausing there, you give your finger a careful wriggle to coax his hole into opening up more for you. You can feel him trying to brace against it, to hold himself in check, and his raised leg visibly falters in the air as a result.

Quickly releasing your hold on his length, you reach up to grab his ankle and guide it over your shoulder. He hesitates, almost seems to want to fight it at first and then allows his leg to slide into place with a stiff, almost whiny hiss. He wasn’t used to this, you remind yourself as you give his calf a brief squeeze of reassurance. Kaeya was typically more accustomed to being the instigator, not the one at someone else’s mercy. All of your previous wins had been cashed in with relatively tame asks. You’d sat on his face multiple times now, though you suspected that was as much a treat for him as it was for you. In truth he’d gone down on you more times than you could count and on more than one occasion had even stuffed his thumb into your ass upon request while he took you from behind. The most daring thing you’d asked of him thus far had been to ride him out on the shoreline beaches of Cider Lake in the dead of night and he’d certainly fulfilled that fantasy with star glitter results.

But the current situation saw you firmly in control and it took all the power away from him, leaving his usual cool nothing more than a distant memory. He holds himself so stiffly there on top of the bed that you can see the thick bands of muscle across his chest bulging under the skin, his lean stomach so tensed it almost looks concave from this angle. At the subtle wriggle of your finger Kaeya haltingly twists his upper body against the sheets, leaving them in a wrinkled ruin, but his lower half remains almost stock still. Like he didn’t trust himself to move just yet when he had no idea what was truly coming.

All the better, really. You could take pity on him if you’d wanted but he hadn’t shown any of that restraint the last time when he’d reduced you to a babbling, squirting mess. If you could do the same to him, you’d consider this a resounding victory.

“Relax, Kaeya,” You breathe out, and his cock eagerly flexes up off his stomach again at the cool waft of air. “I promise you’ll like this.”

A small, throaty whimper is the only answer you get but it’s as close to acquiescence as you’re likely to get.

Holding the breath in your lungs, you carefully start to push deeper into him. The resistance of his body is unmistakable but the right amount of pressure applied to the very center of his sphincter soon has you slipping in past that initial barrier. His entire frame shakes with the haggard, threadbare gasp he sucks in before going so completely still you can’t be sure if he’s still breathing or not even as the constricting heat of his guts fully envelops your digit. Gentle yet insistent, you keep going until you can feel the puffed up rim of his asshole pressing against your knuckle. It’s only then that you pause, just letting the simple penetration sink in and for him to adjust to it as you dip your face close to his pelvis again.

“Take a deep breath, good boy. For me?” You murmur, lips brushing over the curve of one testicle.

He immediately draws another quick, flustered exhale; the noise catching in his throat with a low choking sound. His cock springs up with it and strains skyward, lurching so powerfully it smacks against your cheek with a small meaty slap.

You laugh, unable to help it, and that seems to dislodge the tortured groan he’s been valiantly fighting back this entire time. It bursts out of him with a suddenness that would have startled you had you not been fully aware of how enthusiastically his inner sleeve was clenching around you in sporadic pulses. Like he was torn between tensing up or relaxing into it, and the end result all but has him milking himself on your finger.

Heady with that knowledge, you bring your head up and wrap your lips around the tip of his cock, pulling it in deep. Kaeya lets out a broken little sob, once again twisting in the bedding while his leg uselessly flexes over your shoulder. He’s usually much more in control than this, and you’re exceedingly glad that you chose to do it in this position because it allows you to glance up the length of his pulled taut body and look at his face. His pinched expression is one of ruin and desperation, his fluster as plain as day.

You’d never seen him look quite like that before and you drink it in, committing it all to memory while you flick your tongue over his satiny slit to lick up all the bitter precum leaking out of him. The deep furrow of his brows leaves a small wrinkle between them, further highlighted by the light sheen of sweat starting to form along his skin. His teeth clench tight when he swallows hard, making his jaw powerfully flex, and then his mouth warbles back open again to let loose the faintest, faltering groan you’ve ever heard. He seems to be torn between looking down at you, watching what you were doing, and fixing his hazy attention on the ceiling overhead. It has him fitfully squirming, his knee bumping your arm when it squeezes inward to accompany the deep clench of his innards.

Content to leave it at that and just watch him, you don’t think to proceed any farther. But then he manages to surprise you this time when he finally tucks his chin to his chest and peers down at you with an imploring look so unspeakably needy it makes your heart skip a beat.

“Please,” He breathes out. So hushed and quiet you almost miss it despite the close proximity and the total lack of any other noise, save the distant sounds of the tavern in full swing down below. “Need to cum ...”

Oh.

Suddenly feeling ten degrees hotter, you give his cock one last lingering suck and pull off. It twitches in the absence of your mouth and strains after you, his pelvis needily lifting, but you just pin him with a slow simmering smile to still him again. “Do you now?”

At his terse nod, you draw a deliberate breath that makes his thighs eagerly tense up in anticipation.

“Are you going to say it?”

Kaeya’s thin attempt at laughter bounces off the walls, so transparent it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out he was trying to bluff. Trying and failing. “You really want to hear me say it that badly?”

“I’d enjoy it but I have no intention of withholding from you if you don’t. It’s just part of the game, that's all. But more importantly,” You pause to give your finger another wriggle inside him, and he outright chokes on the sensation. Feeling quite pleased with yourself, you slowly curl that digit upward to feel along his inner wall in search of the tight cluster of nerves that would have him seeing stars. “Let’s find that sweet spot of yours, hm?”

A low, gravelly moan rattles inside his chest as you poke and prod at him, massaging his interior with gentle insistence until you locate the telltale mass nestled just on the other side. It’s no bigger than a walnut but he gives a full bodied shudder the second you put any amount of pressure on it, and your pussy clenches in sympathetic excitement when he stiffens up. His mouth hinging open in surprise as much as deeply felt pleasure, Kaeya issues a half strangled mewl into the statically charged room, noticeably higher in octave than usual and raspy. It sounds heavenly to your ears.

“Aaahhn - -“

“Ooh, there it is. And so sensitive too. I’ve barely even touched it yet and you’re already …”

Gaze dropping, you watch his cock wildly flex as yet more creamy discharge bubbles up out of the slit. It gathers so quickly, and in such a thick concentration, that when you idly press up on his prostate again it flings right off at the sudden jolt of his achingly stiff length. The nearly translucent fluid stands out against his complexion where it splatters on his stomach and you have to make a conscious effort to stop yourself from chasing after it with your tongue. This was somehow even better than you’d imagined it would be.

“Do you like that, Kaeya?”

He tries to speak, croaks out something unintelligible, and has to pause to clear his throat once, twice, before trying again. “Mm’not sure yet but …”

“But?”

“Please do it again.”

You grin from ear to ear, delighting in doing just that but with added pressure this time. Where your first few brushes against that tight little cluster had been soft and coaxing, you now curl the pad of your finger directly into it and massage it with steady strokes. Kaeya reacts like you’d given him a shock of electro, his entire body heaving and locking up in sudden tension that is at complete odds with the way his cock impotently jerks through the air like it’s got a mind of its own now. And he just keeps leaking a near constant stream of sticky precum that seems to bubble up quicker every time you rub against his prostate. It beads and gathers at the tip before dribbling off the next time his length flexes and you aptly watch as it falls, leaving a glistening thread trailing down to his stomach where it lands not far from the first.

It becomes increasingly more difficult for you to keep your own urges in check as you watch him wheeze through it, overwhelmed by the intense pleasure and yet unwilling — or unable? — to shy away from what you were doing to him. He certainly could have if he’d wanted to. Kaeya was not only twice your size but double your strength too. If he really deemed it to be too much for him to take anymore, he could have all too easily put a stop to it one way or another.

Instead, he gasps like his soul is actively trying to leave his body and writhes stiffly before — slowly hiking his other leg up to curl it around you. It suddenly feels like your chest is constricting too tight for you to breathe, and it’s only a subconscious reaction that has you nudging your arm down so he can hook his knee over it much the same as the first. You don’t give it any deeper thought than that. You can’t, not when it was as if your brain was flatlining and all you could think to do is accommodate him. If he wanted to do this with his legs in the air like a proper slut then that was what he would have.

And surely no one could fault you for that when it was by far one of the hottest things you’d ever been lucky enough to have a front row seat for. You felt like you were going to explode and your neglected cunt hadn’t even been touched yet.

“Nnghhn, that’s … oh, that’s good. Unexpected but — good.” He sounds incredibly winded, like he’d just returned from running all the way out to Dragonspine and back without taking a break anywhere in between. The damp quality of his skin gives the same impression where it was making some of his dark hair stick to his temple and cheeks in a few spots of gathering perspiration.

Truth be told Kaeya already looked wrecked beyond repair but you wanted to ruin him even more. How could you not when he was so devastatingly gorgeous and all yours for the taking?

“You really like it? You’re such a good boy for me, y’know that. I really wanted you to enjoy this.”

“I am,” He grits out with no shortage of effort, his narrow hips juddering slightly in their elevated position. You’re even more glad for your foresight now because it makes it all the easier for you to adjust the angle of your finger when his pelvis is up off the bed and you attack his prostate with renewed vigor now, earning yourself another tortured moan. “Ohh! Ahn … please. Need to cum!”

“Then cum for me, Kaeya. I’m not going to stop fingering your ass until you do.”

The sound that bursts out of him is downright wounded, guttural and keening. Whiny, almost. He writhes so uncontrollably you can tell he’s getting dangerously close and the excited quiver of his guts only serves to further solidly that impression. You know it’s only a matter of moments now and your pulse skyrockets as he blindly reaches up to squeeze at his own chest through the lacy cups of the bra. His dark nipples cut up into the fabric, as stiff as can be and begging for friction. It’s almost too much for you to bear but you persistently keep going even when your wrist starts to cramp from the constant flexing and the tight angle. If you’d had the time for it you probably would have tried to worm a second finger into the tight heat of his squeezing passage but it was already much too late for that.

His breaths coming in quicker, shorter bursts, Kaeya tips his face down to look at himself. The red lace stretched across his pectorals and around his waist, flimsy panties pulled aside and away from his bobbing cock while he’s got his long legs draped over your shoulders. The sight seems to surprise a faltering groan out of him, and he struggles to keep his eye open and trained on you when his expression pinches tight.

“Burn everything, I’m going to cum. I’m cumming. Yes, yes, yesssss, aghhn, keep fucking my s - slutty ass until I — I - -“

His head suddenly falls back against the bed, viciously seething up at the ceiling while his cock gives its most violent jerk yet. Ropes of thick, milky semen shoot out of the slit in an abrupt eruption that almost manages to catch you off guard. The weight of him pendulously swings with the sheer force of his ejaculation, sending it back towards you just in time for the next pulse to catch you across the chest. Your mouth drops open but nothing comes out. Not even so much as a peep.

Making the impulsive decision to put it to good work anyway, you quickly swoop down and catch the head of him between your lips with mere seconds to spare. The third jet of potent discharge shoots off at the back of your throat and your eyes roll back in fluttering bliss at the same time Kaeya cries out in deeply frazzled distress. The way he clenches, so fervent and tight he feels like a livewire on the brink of snapping, makes it apparent that he hadn’t expected to find himself cumming directly into your mouth. That pleases you a great deal too, especially when it seems to elongate his pleasure. Drags it out with yet another roiling heave that sends more bitter semen squirting down your gullet.

He doesn’t have anything else left to give after that though, and further pressure on his prostate just coaxes out a thin, watery discharge that tastes of potent salt on your tongue. You groan low in your chest at the bitter flavor even as you dutifully swallow it down where it can settle hot and heavy in your gut. Kaeya just hisses like an incensed wildcat at the overstimulation before finally making an attempt to shirk away from it, sensitively curling his lower half inward.

Letting go of him immediately, you watch his cock swing forward with an accompanying thread of glistening spittle stretched between your mouth and the glans. It stays upright for a short beat or two before swooning down towards his stomach when it quickly starts to soften in it’s thoroughly spent state. You give your lips a quick lick to rid them of any lingering spit and turn your attention up at his face, leaving your finger wedged inside for the moment but angled away from that sensitive bundle along his upper wall to give him a moments reprieve.

He’s got his head turned away and hidden behind an arm carelessly tossed over his eyes, still trying to calm his erratic breaths. You give him another minute or two, then reach up with your unoccupied hand to rub over his belly in comforting circles while actively trying to avoid the goopy mess he’s made all over himself. “Are you alright, Captain? Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Yeah.” He barks out a short, mirthless laugh as he stirs, working to unhook his long legs from you with cautiously slow movements. “You can take your panties off and get over here. I think I owe you a little payback of my own after that.”

Your pussy gives a muted throb of excitement, but you don’t immediately jump at the chance to do as he’d asked. Both because you wanted to check in on him first without getting distracted and because you were still lodged inside him up to the knuckle. Suddenly pulling out might come as a shock if he wasn’t ready for it.

“There will be time for that later,” You remind him gently. “I think we should talk about you first. How do you feel?”

Finally moving his arm, Kaeya looks down at you with a sardonically lifted brow. “You can’t be serious. You really need to ask? Just look at exhibit A.” He gestures meaningfully at the sticky discharge splattered across his front, making you take note of the goopy stains on the band of his garter belt for the first time. He certainly had cum a lot, hadn’t he? “Never mind that I just had one of the most intense orgasms of my life and it’s going to take me longer than usual to bounce back from it. Need I also remind you that you got me to say what you were fishing for earlier?”

You can’t quite stop yourself from grinning at the memory. “You sure did. I’d almost given up.”

“You know I don’t like to disappoint.” A smirk tugs at his mouth but it quickly vanishes when he tucks his knees upward, opening himself up to you and giving you a picture perfect shot of your finger crammed in his ass up to the hilt. Oh, if only you had a kamera on hand.

“Can you, uh …”

“Of course. Just relax the muscles as much as you can and try not to clench.” With that, you gently start to ease your hand back. Despite your helpful suggestion his interior still tries to cling to you on the way out and Kaeya seethes at the sensation. It doesn’t escape your notice that he actively refuses to look at you during this process but you couldn’t really hold that against him. Some men became cripplingly shy and embarrassed once the heat of the moment has worn off, others got angry at themselves for enjoying it so much.

Kaeya didn’t seem to be either embarrassed or angry though. If anything, he almost struck you as … vulnerable in that moment. Like he was confident enough in his own masculinity, his own ego, not to let something like this rattle him. Rather you’d seen another side of him tonight that you were unfamiliar with and he was — uncertain how you would react?

Could that really be it though?

Curiosity lights up the back of your mind in stunning high definition. You’re already forming the question on the tip of your tongue as your finger pops free and he groans very faintly, wincing at the loss. But youre quick to lean over him before he can turn away onto his side, getting right in his face so he has no choice but to look up at you.

“Kaeya, do you - -“

He abruptly pushes up, catching your lips and silencing you in one fell swoop. You issue a soft sound of surprise against his mouth but he just swallows the sound, kissing you so heatedly you can’t fight being coaxed into the motion. Giving in with a stilted sigh, you half melt into the exchange and kiss him back with your own hunger, your own need reflected in the hard press of your mouth against his.

When he finally pulls away a long moment later, he’s effectively stolen your breath and almost made you forget what you were going to ask. Almost, but not quite.

“You should know by now I’m not so easily distracted.” You pant, pinning him with a mock rueful look.

“Oh trust me, I do. It’s one of the many things I like about you, if I’m being honest.” He murmurs back, his tone low and hushed yet once again colored with silken promise. It almost comes as more of a surprise than the kiss had, how quickly he could rebuild his walls and put the mask back on. At your look of confusion, though, he just offers up a sly little grin. “It wasn’t actually meant to distract you. We can talk about it later. Promise. For right now though, I think the far more pressing matter is seeing if I can make you cum half as hard as I just did. That only seems like a fair exchange, doesn’t it?”

“You’re hopeless.” You sigh out, even as your nipples harden painfully fast against the interior of your bra at the simple suggestion. You wanted to feel his touch there, between your legs, everywhere and all at once. This arrangement was fun and games on the surface but deep inside there was something else brewing, taking hold of you and growing. Would he be as amenable to that as he’d been with this kind of play?

You’re not so sure when his own vulnerability was already such a touchy subject to broach but the way he leans up to press a tender kiss against your lips seems to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it was the same for him too. He was scared. You were scared. Perhaps the two of you could be scared together.

“I can see the wheels turning in that head of yours.” He teases, and the resulting warm caress of his breath against your skin makes you shudder. A pleased look crosses Kaeya’s face as he reaches a hand up to palm along your waist, your hip and finally down into the waistband of your underwear so he can possessively smooth it over the curve over your ass. “Stop thinking about it so hard. We’ll sort it out soon enough, once I’ve taken care of that sweet little pussy for you. Surely you wouldn’t rather I leave you high and dry?”

It’s a frustratingly easy question to answer. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“That’s what I thought.” Chuckling, he gives you a tight, lingering squeeze that makes your breath catch. “Let’s get these panties off then. I have a few ideas I want to try out on you now that it’s my turn. I wonder how loud I’ll be able to make you scream this time.”

⭐

Crossposted: here

#genshin impact #kaeya alberich #kaeya x reader #self insert bullshit

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perpetuallyfive · 4 months ago

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A million years ago back on livejournal, there was a yearly meme a few of us participated in where you'd look back at all your old fics and come up with a personal top ten. It was a nice way to reevaluate and look back at work you might have ignored for so long that you essentially forgot about it.

I don't write enough anymore to do this kind of thing yearly, but it's been a long time and I wanted to look back.

So here are my own top ten fics as of this minute in 2025 (in no particular order):

we never sleep, we never try RWBY, "Bar AU", Bumbleby

I'm the kind of person who loves the metaphor inherent to genre fiction, and I try to lean into that with my fanfic. I also love when I have the chance to make the end to my first chapter a bit of a surprise. This fic let me do both!

This fic is about using a trope as a means to explore identity and sense of self. It's also a total misdirect to call it "just an AU set in a bar" instead of what it actually is.

Which is wing fic, fallen angel style. This fic is about angels. There, I gave it away.

Her fingers pull at the sheets, her heels dig into the small of Yang’s back. One knee nearly collides with her jaw and they both laugh, real and raw, a little breathless and unsure. Even Blake, even she feels a loss of breath. She is not someone who should have to breathe, even now, even like this. Unless she is being made mortal, here and now. Is this what it takes to die? Is this pleasure why mortal lives are so brief? It’s too much, a heart could explode from a lifetime of such living. And still, she wants more.

Our Bruises Are Coming Fingersmith, Maud/Sue

I wanted to write a short post-canon fic that explores Maud's kinkiness and the associations she would have with those desires being so linked to her own trauma and abuse, and still hopefully make it hot.

Writing the alternating povs with their very distinctive character voices was extremely fun.

Sue doesn't know how wet her eyes can look when she's lost in her own wanting. She's like a doll at times, with eyes like glass and lips ever on the verge of parting. I watch her and think of words and clips of phrases I have seen etched thick and dark on pale pages or ones I have spoken aloud to a room of eager men. Their heavy breath would clog the air until the words all seemed slick and rounded at their edges. They nestled in the shell of my ear and there they stayed, only to return years later while my hand sits on the pulse in Sue's breast. It beats wildly and I think, eager bitch. I think wanton spreading of her thighs and incline of hips thrusting. I think blooming in purple like an angry red flower on her cheek and feel my own heart race to join hers. My head is filled with poison.

what a night to go dreaming Sleep No More

This is one of the most self-indulgent things I have ever written, and I'm so glad that I did. Inspired by am immersive theater show that the majority of humanity will never see, focused on two minor characters that the majority of the show's fans aren't that invested in, and told in a meandering and muddled style intended to replicate the experience of being lost at the show and the perpetual looping nightmare its characters are caught up in.

Sleep No More is like a half-remembered dream and the fifth floor woods and accompanying sanatorium — as well as all the women that would inhabit it over the years — were one of my very favorite things in my very favorite building for literally years of my life.

Now that it's closed little more than a month ago, I feel more fond of this selfish piece than ever. Re-reading it takes me right back there again.

There have been no wolves in these woods for many years. The last of them were hunted down and left scattered over the earth. They inspected the entrails and said it would be an early harvest. The women picked and pecked over every inch of flesh, squinting at the sky as though there might be rain. And then there was.

You Can't Become Unreal Again Pitch Perfect, Marvel AU Hurt/Comfort, Beca Stark/Chloe Barton

I think this fic gave me a reputation for being really mean to characters that lasted for some time. I love hurt/comfort, at least in theory, but it bothers me how often the slow process of clawing your way back to yourself after intense trauma gets skipped over in favor of the end game. For me, that misses the point. The pain alone isn't what appeals to me; it's the slow unsteady progress that comes after, and how impossibly human that feels.

I wanted to try to capture that in a fic. This is one of those pieces that I'm so proud of but also can't help wondering how I would write it now, older and more experienced as a writer. Sometimes I think maybe I should try something like it again.

There are a lot of reasons the fire escape is a bad idea, but Beca hasn't got a key. So she settles for the pain -- burning up through her shoulders, aching in her wrist until she has to stifle a scream -- and collapses on the floor as soon as she's through the window. She lays there for a while, half-curled on her side, and tries to pinpoint the precise location of each throbbing ache. She might have tripped an alarm, but it's hard to concern herself with something like that when her entire back feels like it's fucking on fire. Worst case scenario: whoever S.H.I.E.L.D. sends over can help her stand again.

Bulletproof Use of Bullet Points Pitch Perfect, Aubrey POV, Beca/Chloe

My second most popular Pitch Perfect fic is Aubrey pov, which just got to be fun in a way that I almost never let myself write and should probably do more often.

Not that Beca has ever needed a reason to complain. She drags her heels walking over, and it's all Aubrey can do not to shout for her to straighten her back and stop making that face like she's sucking on a lemon. Is it really so hard to be nice? To smile? Aubrey smiles all the time, even when she hates people! She smiles at Beca, after all. (Does Beca have any idea how incredibly hard that is for her? No. Of course not. No thought probably ever crosses selfish Beca Mitchell's mind that isn't about downbeats or hipster bullshit.) "Okay then," Aubrey smiles (because she cares to), and pulls her ponytail just a little bit tighter. "Why don't you show me what you can do?"

when the night falls (loneliness calls) RWBY, Winter Schnee gen fic

Winter is one of my absolute favorite characters in RWBY and I wanted to write about her childhood so badly. She nails so many aspects of my favorite archetype, but without being entirely stereotypical.

Obviously the standard warnings would apply for parental abuse from Jacques Schnee, though it's not described in detail.

Her mother’s voice is right behind her, saying, “This one is special. This one is two things, actually, though it only looks like one.” Her hand is light on Winter’s shoulder. “It’s like you, isn’t it? More than what it seems.” “Can I touch it?” Winter doesn’t know what she’ll do if her mother says no. Her throat is so dry and her palms almost itch. Even the sword itself seems to vibrate with a desire to be touched, to be held, to belong. Maybe it is like her after all.

much sweeter than it ought to be RWBY, Dishonored AU, Bumbleby

This one is a sprawling beast, currently unfinished, but I'm including it because I still intend to return. I love this fic in all its messy self-indulgent glory. Committing myself to alternating POVs in every single chapter means some of the chapters are comically long; I know I'm not doing a great job to sell it.

But this is the longest thing I've ever written (by a lot) and surely that much commitment to it says something.

Blake has never dreamed of anything like this happening before. She’s never allowed herself to really consider or want this for herself, to want much of anything just for her in a way that’s entirely selfish. The entire realm will one day be hers, but none of it is meant for her and her alone, not really. It’s all for the Empire, isn’t it, and anything she claims for herself is something she’s going to have to let go of one day. After Adam and everything that she saw, daydreaming felt selfish, like the ambitions of a child. Instead she tried to focus on the future of the Empire. It was the mature response, wasn’t it, to set her own wants and ambitions aside. All of that cold and calm resolve just slips away so fast, pulled out with the momentum that Yang carries with her, like a swelling tide. Doesn’t Blake deserve to want something, if only for a little while?

Manuscripts and Mistakes Gilmore Girls, Post Miniseries, Rory/Paris

Despite loving this ship since the show first aired, I never actually wrote it until this attempt to make something out of the Rory we end up with after A Year in the Life.

This one has a major (pregnancy related) trigger warning, noted in the end notes.

Like the first day Paris saw Rory and knew this girl was going to ruin her life. She couldn't guess at the time, of course, the kind of impact the woman would have fully grown. Even then she wondered sometimes, occasionally -- lying in bed and dreaming of Tristan's strong hands and pouty lips -- about what Rory's chapstick would feel like on her mouth. Once they kissed (once only, briefly), she'd finally known. Rory tastes like raspberry and regret. Like the most trite poem in existence. Like expectations and hopes never met. Something more.

the smell of blood on concrete Arcane, Vampire/Werewolf AU, Caitlyn/Vi

I know this one isn't finished either; but I'm currently writing it, absolutely obsessed with this version of them, and I've been keeping to a consistent enough schedule that it feels genuinely less mean than the inclusion of Dishonored AU.

In a lot of ways this fic has been a convergence of several things I've loved for years all into one work.

Her eyes lock on bright blue — river blue — eyes on the other side, the faintest hint of a smile. “Look at me, Hound.” This time the name doesn’t make Vi bristle. “You’re going to be fine.” The beast inside is glad to be seen. Vi smiles, too many teeth. Everything starts to unspool. Her jaw shatters. Fragments of bone ripple and chip — digging into her flesh at odd angles — outsides reversed with insides. Vertebrae rapidly shift and clatter, like dominoes turned upside down, as she drops to all fours. The vibrating inside her head has turned into a loud keening song. She snarls and a new voice comes out, guttural and low. The pain is like anything else. It doesn’t come all at once. It blossoms, it shifts, it moves like the tide. Her claws dig into the fabric, ripping with a loud shriek of something given way. She pants and takes a running lunge at the bars, pounding into it with her full force. On the other side, she sees Caitlyn smile. “That’s it,” she says. “You’re beautiful.”

Self-Diagnoses for the Consistently Disengaged UnREAL, Rachel Goldberg gen with hints of Rachel/Quinn

I realize that UnREAL barely counts as a fandom and I deeply regret never finishing the actual Rachel/Quinn thing I started — though I genuinely think sometimes I want to circle back to it — but I still think this piece holds up really well as its own little thing.

It had been nice while it lasted. Not to be the crazy girl, the little weirdo, except in the ways she chose to be. She'd felt happy. She thinks so, at least. Not that it matters now. Happiness is like some foreign country she's mostly read about in books. Nice to visit, but who can afford the rent? The food even tasted weird. She's a stale beer and pizza kind of girl.

#meme #my fic #other people should do this!

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corellianhounds · 1 year ago

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The Acolyte Criticisms, with Suggested Changes

Part 1

Word Count: 7.5k. whatever.

(I should mention that these mostly came from episodes 1 and 2, with minor details up to episode 4. Nothing’s been changed despite having seen episodes 5 and 6 since most of this was written)

My complaints so far with The Acolyte are as follows:

The script is weak and boring to listen to

The show tells the audience exposition, character emotions, and backstory instead of showing us characters and history through actions that develop and unfold naturally on screen as they do things to drive the plot

Characters don’t have significant character flaws or depth and are content to go with the flow without taking actions contrary to what others on their side are doing. Any disagreement is solved with a conversation. If it’s supposed to be a mystery, it’s to be expected that people are going to lie, to snoop, to evade the truth, go digging into questions where they’re not supposed to, and not get along with each other: characters (especially and including ones you’re setting up for a redemption arc) don’t have to be nice

The acting itself is boring to watch because most of the scenes are sitting and talking or standing/walking and talking without building the tension or taking action as they speak, which could also be because—

The settings feel like sets, not lived-in environments

Every obstacle is barely an inconvenience and is easily resolved

Issues with pacing in writing, direction, and editing

Missed opportunities for more interesting, dynamic choices

They’ve already answered a lot of the questions they set up. If you’re going to bill your show as a crime drama/murder mystery, you can’t immediately show all your cards in the beginning, meaning—

There’s no rising tension. Events are simply set up and then they immediately happen. There’s no connective tissue or resistance or compounding storytelling taking us from one place to the next, making it feel like a collection of individual scenes that exist just to tell us the exposition we need, instead of showing us how the characters act and interact within the environment with the other people there

There’s not always a logical cause and effect between the characters, actions, and/or actual dialogue/lines of thought

There are inconsistencies with genre and tone, often leading to failed attempts at both humor and drama

The writers attempts at misdirection are sloppy because the dialogue or actions they do or don’t give are either telegraphed too obviously, or they fall into the category of not having a sense of logical cause and effect within that scene itself regardless of if there’s supposed to be a reveal later. Scenes have to be cohesive on their own.

I’ve had similar criticisms of Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett. I went into The Acolyte in good faith! The story itself at the core of these characters had potential! I was looking forward to seeing a mystery! But if this is what half of the season is, I don’t have high expectations going forward.

Here are some specifics for episodes 1 and 2 with references to episode 3 below (spoilers abound):

They billed the show as a mystery but they’ve already answered a bunch of questions that were set up in the first two episodes, sometimes within the same scene the question is asked. The characters (and by extension the audience) have a pretty wide understanding of who both Osha and Mae are and where they come from, even if we don’t have the exact details of what happened the night of the fire. Osha and Mae both know the other is alive, we already know who the assassin is without there being another possibility or explanation for them, we know who all of the targets are and where they’re located, we have the motive, and each conflict or scenario they introduce is resolved almost immediately. There’s no rising tension in the story or significant interpersonal conflict between the characters on each side, the characters aren’t that complex, and people too readily accept the answers they’re given with little protest or reactions based on a unique perspective that would make them feel more like people.

Even if who the assassin is, what their motive is, who their targets are, and where those targets are located apparently isn’t the main mystery we’re supposed to be following with the show, all of those questions are put forth and then immediately solved, meaning there’s not really a whole lot of mystery in a storytelling sense. If the main mystery is supposed to actually be about Mae and her master, not the crime drama about the assassinations that the marketing team billed the show as, then they should either have had Mae commit all three assassinations in the first episode while Osha is having to contend with the core cast being suspicious of and finding her, or made those the inciting incidents that happen prior to the show that cause the rest of the story, cutting out most of Mae’s appearances in the episodes to keep her character a mystery and focusing on Osha figuring things out. That gets a lot of things out of the way and opens up a lot more time in the show to explore the characters and move forward with Osha discovering and driving the story herself

I have some criticisms of their choice of technical production and design, but most of them come down to uninteresting camerawork on uninteresting and ineffectual set designs and environments. It feels like they plopped cameras onto singular sets they built to represent the entirety of that location without creating the connective tissue used to show characters going from one place to the next. Characters are in one place before we see them already in the next plot relevant location they need to be in with little travel time. We don’t see them arrive or depart or enter anywhere, they’re simply there. The temple had Sol’s one classroom, and later the jail cell. We didn’t get to see Vernestra following Sol to his office where they could talk about the assassin in private, we didn’t see Sol and Jecki walking out into the halls of the Temple during their discussion of Sol’s connection to Osha, we don’t see Osha traversing the ship and climbing up to the hatch to the outer hull of the freighter, we don’t see Yord and his padawan getting to Osha’s quarters, we don’t see much of the trio on Sol’s ship, we don’t see the escaped prisoners being found or taken to Coruscant, we see Torbin’s room from the same angles every time people are there, etc. etc.

The camerawork doesn’t help either. It feels like it’s being shot by people accustomed to doing theater on a proscenium stage, mid shots for conversations and wide shots for walking and rarely any tracking cameras following movement or pulling back to show travel from one location to another or following characters as they walk away, let alone anything more complex than that. Both the sets and cameras feel stationary, not dynamic and interesting, and it doesn’t help that a lot of the script consists of conversations that take place sitting and talking, or standing and talking. People aren’t DOING anything during these scenes and it’s hard to walk and chew gum at the same time when there doesn’t seem like any action is needed to get from one location to the next, or any obstacles (physical or emotional) forcing them to double back or change trajectory or pursue objectives other than get to the location that character needs to go next for the main plot to happen. It’s just not interesting or dynamic, and while you can tell the actors did what they could with the scripts they were given, the writing is weak and there’s only so much you can do with a bad script.

Character and Plot: Mae

I don’t know what a good alternative would be but I would have liked a different means of provoking the Jedi into a fight outside of Mae intentionally causing havoc and killing/maiming a bunch of people first. It was only after she assaulted the bystanders that they started to fight her back, and she was willing to presumably kill a bunch of other bystanders first as a means of distracting or provoking the Jedi when the Jedi already had engaged her in her fight.

I think Mae’s focus needed to stay on the Jedi because otherwise Mae garnered a lot more attention from local authorities and put a price on her head for drawing the wrong kind of attention (senseless killing of innocent people, causing mayhem and collateral damage and picking fights with everybody, not just the specific person she had beef with), making her overall objective more difficult since assassinations are supposed to be done in stealth, which seems to be how the writers intended for her to be interpreted. If anything, sparing bystanders in order to have them witness a fight where the Jedi attacked first seems like it would support her case after a declaration that the Jedi do attack the unarmed. Is she intended to be seen as a ruthless killer, or are her attacks purposeful, calculated, and premeditated?

If all it took was one small blade to kill Indara, I’m not inclined to believe she’s that good of a Jedi Master. We the audience have seen hundreds of examples of Jedi being trained to combat multiple assailants while experiencing numerous distractions, and we’re supposed to believe Indara couldn’t stop two blades she had time to see and knew were both coming? One of which Mae doesn’t even throw until after Indara has already stopped the other one? What it tells me is that Indara isn’t really that aware of her surroundings and isn’t a seasoned Jedi

That moment would have played better if Mae had thrown both at once, and if we’d seen the evidence of the blade going clean through Indara’s chest to the other side. If Mae is angry and if her use of the Force gave her enough physical strength to kick the four-hundred pound table at ground level earlier, there should be enough force and emotion behind the blade that it drives through Indara’s chest into the post behind her and splinters the wood, buckling the support beam. The showrunners made a Jedi assassination show, so show us what level of ability— Force-powered or otherwise— it takes to assassinate a Jedi. Make it bloody, make it vicious, and convince me this assassin is a legitimate danger.

If they didn’t want to show enough bloodshed to warrant the right audience reaction, my alternate suggestion would have been to have Mae level the building. We could still have Mae choosing to allow the barkeep and his kid to escape, with him being able to act as witness later. If she’s been practicing the Force in secret like the opening lines say, show her using the Force more impressively, or using skills we and the people within the show haven’t seen before. I don’t know if bringing the building down would count as not using a weapon to kill the Jedi, but it would have been a better way to show how someone not formally trained by the Jedi was able to take down a master.

Even if Mae isn’t supposed to have mastery of the Force yet, we need to see her do more than small-scale telekinesis and heightened agility, acrobatics, and strength. Her master can (we assume) be withholding even more impressive dark-side Force powers from her until she completes the mission to kill a Jedi without a weapon, but I don’t quite believe she’s strong enough to evade or defeat the numerous trained Jedi in those first two episodes. It felt like the showrunners were dampening the Jedi’s capabilities in order to make her seem like she could be on their level, when what they should’ve done was elevate Mae to theirs.

I want to see proof she’s being trained by a Dark Force user, and right now she reads as a pretty good infiltrator, but not all that impressive of a killer. All of her skills right now are no different than ones the Jedi already use. Giving her some kind of Dark Force powers would make her more impressive and feel more like a threat, something like a Force lightning whip, or blades of pure energy, or puppeteering bystanders to fight her targets/act as human shields against their will, or pyrokinesis (which tbh would be very cool thematically, especially when it’ll probably later be revealed she didn’t intend to set fire to the coven’s headquarters). Redemption arcs will always be stronger when a character has done some legitimately terrible or horrific things before they change.

—

One of the criticisms I mentioned is the script. There’s frequently unnecessary dialogue; in this opening fight when Indara asks “What are you doing here,” Mae doesn’t have to say “I’m here to kill you” because it’s already obvious by Mae’s actions that’s what she’s there to do. Indara’s real question is either “How did you survive?” if she knows it’s Mae despite all odds, or it’s “Why are you trying to kill me?” if her part in Mae’s past truly is innocent and/or she believes Mae to be Osha (forehead tattoo notwithstanding; Osha left the Order and for all Indara knows there could have been other witches like their coven).

Mae could have simply gone on the offensive without saying anything. If Mae does respond, it shouldn’t be to state the obvious when both Indara and the audience can see what’s happening. Her response could simply be “Retribution,” or “Justice.” That gives the audience motive and intent and tells us more succinctly than anything that there is an established history or past connection between the two characters.

Indara extinguishing her saber in response to “A Jedi doesn’t pull her weapon unless she’s prepared to kill,” seems foolish because even if Mae’s bias is confirmed if Indara keeps her blade ignited, the logical response from a seasoned fighter and defender of the people should have been “If that proves the only way to stop you I will do what I must,” because Mae’s the instigator who made it clear she’s there to kill Indara anyway, we know the Jedi will obviously fight in the name of self defense, and Mae made it a point to hurt a bunch of other people unprovoked in the fight leading up to this line first; how is she any better than the person she’s challenged with that accusation?

If Mae does have a genuine reason to believe what she says, then covertly drawing another blade with the audience knowing her intent results in said audience NOT believing she has a genuine reason to say it and is only using it as a means of getting Indara to lower her defenses. That combined with her instigating an assault on bystanders won’t make the audience see her as a sympathetic character, even if/when her motives against the Jedi are later revealed to be justified. She’s already proven to be deceptive so there isn’t really a reason to believe anything she says regarding her justifications/motive after this 🤷‍♂️

(Unrelated: Though I’m sure it’ll probably be revealed later, I’m not exactly sure why Mae left Indara’s lightsaber if she made it a point to go after it in their fight.)

(A note on the technical side of things: If the story hadn’t immediately revealed and confirmed for the audience in the first two episodes that the assassin is an entirely separate person, part of the mystery as to who the assassin really was could have been the clue that the assassin’s hair is longer than Osha’s. That detail is irrelevant since the reveal happens in episode two though, but if they’d wanted to build the mystery for longer and have us looking for clues and wondering if Osha is the assassin or later wondering which of the two it could be, it would have been good if they gave the assassin the short hair and Osha the longer hair. The first episode already made us suspicious (Is Osha an assassin and a very good liar in the face of questioning, or is she actually innocent because everything she says on the freighter is true and it just happens to be suspicious? Or is Osha being possessed or mind-controlled against her will and without her knowledge into being an assassin for a time, blacking out entirely and waking up with her regular life and lack of memories as the perfect cover? Or is Mae’s spirit inhabiting/controlling the same body as Osha with Osha entirely unawares? If that’s the case, does Mae know that she’s also Osha in that scenario or are both twins kept in the dark?) If it was the case of two separate identical people, on rewatching the episode the audience would have been looking for the clues that would lead to the reveal; an assassin can cut her hair upon returning to her regular life in an attempt to blend back in and cast suspicions of her appearance on Ueda elsewhere, but you can’t grow eighteen inches of hair overnight.)

(But like I said, once you’ve already revealed who the assassin is in this mystery, there’s no reason to rewatch the story in an attempt to see how they set that mystery up, so those suggestions are irrelevant anyway)

—

Exposition, Character Building, and Poor Scripts: Osha and the freighter sequence

The dialogue with Fillik sounds kind of boring because it’s too generic. It could have been made more specific to those people to really show her relationships and history on the freighter, building up suspicions and lack of alibi. An example that comes to mind is Cassian’s introduction back on Ferrix as he’s going through the town, making points of contact with a dozen different people. We really get a sense of who those people are and what they want in just a few lines of dialogue, whereas Osha and Fillik sound like surface-level coworkers; “What I do with my time off is none of your business.” “No rest for the wicked, huh?” “Well the wicked rest, but when they do they usually don’t brag about it.” None of that really gives us anything besides the normal water cooler talk you could get at any office, regardless of whether your coworker may secretly be an assassin.

Since Fillik doesn’t come back in the freighter sequence after their work on the hull, it seems like he’s only there to establish that Osha doesn’t have an alibi for the previous night and Indara’s murder, but if you’re just going to reveal with pretty damning evidence that she didn’t do it in the beginning of the next episode, why set her up to be suspicious in the first place with that dialogue? Either swap it out for something more interesting, or if you want to keep the line because you do intend to keep her a suspect for longer, have Fillik come back towards the end when she’s being questioned.

In that scenario we see this: The door to her bunk is open, he hears her getting upset and goes to investigate, he can vouch for her character to Yord and the padawan, and/or Yord asks him specifically if he was with her the previous night. If Fillik is a close friend and can see Osha’s in trouble he can come up with a lie and cover for her. It can complicate things for Yord and possibly give Osha some time/evidence on her side with an alibi, considering she’s being accused of murder, or Fillik could even be angling to give Osha a chance to escape. If Fillik hesitates because he recalls their first conversation of the day, it could be enough evidence for Yord to conclude that Osha needs to be taken in for questioning.

Either way you do it, you’re using more characters who have already been established as a means of organically complicating the plot and interactions in the next few scenes, weaving these people together and opening up more opportunities for organic exposition so we don’t have to hear the same things being said twice

—

Exposition: Telling vs. Showing

I mentioned above that there doesn’t seem to be a logical cause and effect happening within the show. If they suspect someone of killing a Jedi Master, why are they sending a knight and a padawan to apprehend them? It doesn’t matter if Yord knows Osha: the fact a Jedi was killed should have told the council that 1. The assassin obviously has an issue with them, so any prior history between them is negligible and 2. The assassin is powerful enough to kill a Master, therefore two people of lower ranks with less experience and capabilities are not likely to succeed where a Master failed, and the council is putting them in danger by doing so.

Moving on to exposition: Audiences shouldn’t be hearing exposition through one character telling somebody’s entire backstory out loud, especially when the person they’re saying it to is the one they’re talking about. The entire questioning scene with Tasi and Yord is telling the audience who Osha is and how Osha came to the temple and the tragic circumstances under which she got there. It’s boring to listen to and it’s bad, lazy storytelling. It seems like the writers had a bunch of information to get out in order to move to the next plot point, and it won’t be the last time it happens. Osha’s backstory should have been revealed in relevant bits and pieces as circumstances developed.

Within the scene, Osha should have had a much stronger reaction to Yord bringing up the topic of grief (especially if they both know it’s not something she was able to reconcile). He’s the one who showed up out of the blue and brought it up and forced her to talk about something personal in front of a stranger.

In my opinion, I don’t think Yord should’ve known anything prior to Osha’s arrival at the temple. It leaves no questions to be answered for later; mysteries (and stories in general) are supposed to start with a lot of unanswered questions.

A way to change the scene on the freighter is to instead have first had a scene on Yord’s ship before he and the padawan arrive. We see Yord deep in thought, conflicted about having to arrest an old friend especially given the crime that’s been committed, and Tasi Lowa is introduced by listing the mission details on a datapad, going through it again before they dock but realizing Yord’s acting uncharacteristically quiet or somber, and asking Yord why it’s significant that he was sent to apprehend this person in the first place. Yord is reluctant to answer, Tasi presses for more information, Yord eventually reveals that the target is somebody he knows.

“… How do you know an accused murderer?” Tasi says carefully.

Yord’s expression remains conflicted as he docks the ship, not meeting his padawan’s eye. “Because we trained together at the Temple.”

This creates intrigue regarding Osha, tells the audience the council chose Yord specifically, that silence and somberness is out of character for Yord, and that Tasi is forward thinking and inexperienced, hence her need to ask questions.

I think I would have liked for Yord to at least attempt to compel Osha to tell the truth since that’s what he did to the Nemoidian officer on the bridge. Osha resists because he didn’t ask. Her being able to resist further establishes that she had training at the temple, showing rather than telling us more about her character. How she responds to that compulsion would inform Yord (by extension the audience) of her character, and regardless of her emotional response it raises suspicions around her.

On the other side, Yord could ask her if he could search her mind for the truth and if she says no -> suspicious, but if she says yes and he can’t find anything, it gives his character reason to doubt she did it, furthering the mystery, though his padawan could then point out “Unless she really is powerful enough to have killed a Jedi Master, which means she’s powerful enough to hide it from you.” Everything can be used to further the conflict and give it more complexities while still feeling like the natural progression the story would take. Yord will ultimately decide during the span of questioning, given what else they glean from her responses and Fillik’s possible interruption, that even if he could sense she was telling the truth they should still bring her in. Maybe a Jedi Master will be able to tell if she’s lying.

Having Yord be quiet, observing Osha’s responses while Tasi questions her on her whereabouts and opinions on the Order and Indara would have also built up his character as intelligent/capable of deductive reasoning and cautious/prepared in the face of danger, thus being the right choice to send on a mission to apprehend somebody who they believe capable of killing a Jedi Master. He shouldn’t have been revealing all of his cards while he was there in the first place— People will reveal themselves as they talk the longer you stay quiet.

Now the questioning scene is open to them asking specific questions regarding Osha’s recent activity without being bogged down by the past. The padawan goes in understanding why they doubly need to remain on guard, she’s able to ask questions specific to Osha’s whereabouts and see if she has an alibi with witnesses for the night before, Yord is able to ask questions specific to the Temple without having to spell everything out, and Osha can gather from their questioning that a crime has been committed and that she’s considered a suspect. Yord asks Osha questions specific to Osha’s past relationship with Master Indara, tensions rise between them as Osha starts to ask her own questions, piecing things together and asking what happened to Indara, Fillik could come in and the questioning broadens to him like above, and the four of them are interrupted by the witness being escorted in and saying “That’s her, she’s the one that killed the Jedi!”

The scene has its own building tension, we get exposition in the form of forward momentum, characters discovering things as they happen, and it would logically (like it should have in the canon scene) result in Osha having a much stronger response and protestations at being wrongfully accused of a pretty heinous crime against somebody she had no reason to kill. She should have been either verbally or physically fighting back/resisting being dragged away, the revelation as much a surprise to her as it would have been to the Jedi including Yord and Tasi when they heard it at the temple. Her protests can still be followed up with her vehement denial of such a thing, fiercely stating that she knows the council will believe her. Depending on how you want character relationships to develop, Yord can either try and fail to remain neutral as he’s cuffing Osha as she pleads and we can see that it’s a genuine struggle for him, or he manages to control his emotions to the point he can appeal to hers, telling her not to fight, that they’ll take it up with the council

—

Always Be Introducing Your Characters

I have to say I don’t really care about Jecki Lon, and indifference to a character is almost worse than active dislike. There are really no strong opinions to be had one way or another because she’s not really that interesting and there’s nothing that really ties her to the plot other than to be someone to ask Sol questions he can give exposition to. She doesn’t have any flaws, she doesn’t have her own objectives, and she’s kind of dull to listen to like the rest of the side characters.

Considering her introduction is with the “Doomed to repeat the past if we don’t learn from it” conversation with Sol, I thought Jecki, Sol’s current padawan, was going to be a mirror to Osha, Sol’s past padawan, but there hasn’t been enough significant development on her part with (or without) Sol for there to be any strong correlations or parallels.

To establish some sense of objective and character flaw it would have been good for her to go digging into Osha’s past and information the Jedi temple would have on her so that 1. The audience receives exposition in a more natural way than her and Yord just straight up asking Sol a bunch of (potentially painful) questions for the audience’s sake on the ship, and 2. So we see more of her character and she’s given a proactive goal and interest of her own in the story. Right now she still feels like she’s tacked on to be an extra set of hands and act as a mouthpiece for exposition. I don’t really get much of a sense of individuality or character from her outside of “follows rules,” which isn’t enough to interest me.

A way to improve the exposition and tell us more about both her and Yord’s characters is if Jecki started digging through Sol’s personal effects on the ship or was shown to have stolen a temple dossier or files from Sol’s office to look through and get some more background on Osha since Sol should have been more evasive about answering questions about Osha, reserving his thoughts for when he’s able to track her down. Sol has already shown resistance to her questioning his past with Osha, so it would be only natural for her to continue investigating.

Jecki could have been established with the rule-following characterization but then shown starting to bend the rules after Sol evades some (better-written) more pointed questions, going against what her own character would prefer, because she sees her master not abiding by the rules they both should already know to be true (not allowing one’s attachments to interfere with what needs to be done for the greater good). It gives her enough internal justification to satisfy her curiosity, since investigation is part and parcel to how mysteries as a genre work in the first place.

With the change of Yord only knowing about Osha’s past at the temple, he wouldn’t think to go digging into anything prior to her time there since he’d have no reason to think it had a bearing on the current investigation. When Jecki’s curiosity compels her to snoop, the scene on the ship becomes more interesting because Yord could’ve caught her and started to reprimand her (also being a stickler for the rules) before she asks him if he knew anything about Osha’s past. Osha’s homeworld, details about the coven, the fire, how it was started, or the fact Osha had a twin who didn’t survive are all possible pieces of exposition Jecki and by extension Yord could find that feel more natural under these circumstances, and it gives those two characters reason to be suspicious of any leeway Sol grants Osha when they find her. Any or all of it reveals something to Sol’s current padawan about his past one, setting up how Jecki (and Yord) will interact with Osha and Sol down the road.

As the two of them discuss what they’ve found, drawing conclusions and debating in whispers, neither realize their absences were noticed, and ultimately that’s when Sol catches them both

Sol either closes off their line of questioning (their specific questions revealing more of what either character prioritizes, Sol’s responses revealing more of his own character), or he could give a cryptic, heavy answer that tells them enough to realize something bad went down that night, shutting the both of them up. It leaves questions unanswered to come up later, it reveals more of the characters, and it sets up Yord and Jecki to have their own perspectives that develop over the course of the story. They get the same information as in canon in a more interesting way, and it keeps Sol from flat out stating something he then immediately goes back on when he meets Osha again at the end of the episode. Jecki now has to wonder what it is about the past Sol doesn’t want to repeat, and at the end of this episode when Jecki and Yord see Sol save Osha and refuse to handcuff her, the two of them could then share a look of trepidation after Sol and Osha pass, both thinking the same thing: Sol may already be too emotionally compromised to make clear calls regarding the alleged murderer in their midst, and they need to watch/listen to him carefully moving forward. That creates a source of interpersonal conflict that will keep the characters (and by extent the audience) asking the right questions as the mystery unfolds.

The Jedi rule warning against attachments is meant to be a self-imposed accountability measure against caring about any singular person or thing above doing what is best for the greater good. Because the Jedi were a specific order of people dedicated to protecting others, it wasn’t just a belief system but a lifestyle combined with a martial art and specific training in the Force. A Jedi’s relationships with other people, regardless of how good and selfless they are, cannot take precedence above doing what is necessary to save or protect the most amount of people. They knew if they allowed their emotions to cloud their judgment, they were capable of harm (either directly or through negligence) greater than that of the average person because they had been specifically trained with those abilities.

Depending on how you wanted Jecki’s character to evolve throughout the season, her curiosity could either lead to jealousy, if Sol genuinely does start to neglect her in favor of Osha (even if its not purposeful on his part, Osha just happens to be who the story/mission is centered around), or it could lead to a more mature response of seeing Sol more of a peer to be held accountable and less of a mentor to be admired and followed with few questions as she nears the end of her time as a padawan, meaning she’s concerned his own perspective will be compromised because he loves Osha too much to remain objective.

Either of those could result in a more severe fight with Sol later on when he inevitably does make a bad call, and regardless of Jecki’s progress leading to that point, even righteous anger directed towards holding him accountable can be interesting and still done in a way that audiences haven’t seen before. Holding one’s mentor accountable and saying the hard things that need to be done without involving one’s own emotional attachment to the relationship creates plenty of opportunities for drama, hard decisions/discussions, and character development, furthering Jecki’s standing as someone committed to following the rules because the rules are there for a reason. That response from somebody younger and less experienced would be harder for Sol to take as opposed to people higher than him on the council. Jecki wouldn’t even have to take issue with Osha personally for that to develop, which gives her own character inner conflict as well. Any or all of that would have been a unique perspective and character we haven’t seen yet from Star Wars, and it gives the characters actionable objectives to pursue or work around the rest of the story.

—

Humor/Tone Falling Flat, Undermining Characterizations and Tension

A lot of the humor doesn’t land for me because the jokes either feel like ones we’ve heard before that are now overdone, or they feel out of place within the progression of the scene, story, or characterizations, as though the writers came up with a bunch of jokes and tried to write the scenes around setting those jokes up. I’m not sure if it’s been done in an attempt to keep the show from being “too dark,” or if the target audience is younger than I initially thought, but to me they really just aren’t working.

The one that immediately comes to mind in these early episodes is Jecki’s attempt at conveying what kind of person Yord is (or what she thinks of him) by her tone, leading into a gratuitous shirtless scene with Yord that… doesn’t really tell us anything about his character. If you’re going to have a shirtless scene it has to mean something, but he’s just. Idk, deodorizing his robe for some reason. Leading right into a scene with him after the padawan’s complaint should convey to the audience something indicative of his character since the padawan’s delivery of “he’s just… Yord,” implies there’s no other explanation needed for whatever annoying thing he does that is supposedly consistent with his personality

I don’t care that it’s a shirtless scene, my complaint is that it’s unfunny, tonally out of sync, and doesn’t tell us anything besides that Jecki finds him annoying for some unspecified reason. Shirtless scenes have to say something about the character and/or the story or they’re just eye candy for the audience, which in this story feels cheap, confusing, and out of place.

Anakin’s shirtless scene while having/waking up after a nightmare in Revenge of the Sith tells us that not only does that character feel vulnerable, but that he’s there in Padme’s bed next to her and there’s a clear reason why he was there in the first place.

Princess Leia being forced into a slave girl outfit tells us a lot about her situation in Jabba’s Palace, and it tells us a lot about Jabba the Hutt and the denizens of the court. While she is also pretty obvious eye candy for the audience, it also highlights that the one person she loves romantically, who also loves her, is blind the entire time and never sees her at all, which is important for Han Solo’s characterization later when he makes his feelings clear to her, showing the audience it was never just a physical thing for them.

Yord’s not not showing off/flirting with anybody in say, a sparring arena where he’s justified in not wearing a shirt, so he’s not showing off either his appearance or skill in an attempt to impress people. He’s not lifting weights or preening in front of a mirror or fixing his hair, something that would tell us he’s concerned about his appearance, which means it’s not a case of vanity either, and nothing up to that point (or past that, seeing Episode 4, therefore half the season) tells us either of those things are part of his character.

That leads me to think the scene was supposed to be a way for the directors to tell the audience the padawan (and possibly by extent other people at the temple?) finds Yord insufferable or vain or shallow in some way, and that that’s supposed to suffice as the source of conflict/disagreement between those characters moving forward. However, that character attribute isn’t consistent with what we’ve seen of Yord so far, and nothing following that scene reinforces those ideas at all. If anything, Yord’s got the most objective eye and all of his suggestions and protests are reasonable. I think his plan in Episode 2 regarding Qimir in the apothecary was better as opposed to just blindly sending Osha in not knowing anything about this guy or the nature of his and Mae’s relationship or even what she’s supposed to say once she’s in there. For all they know these two covert assassins could speak with each other in an entirely different language in order to cover their tracks.

All of that ends up making that scene feel gratuitous and out of sync with the characterizations up to and at the end of the episode. It doesn’t serve any purpose other than to make Yord eye candy for the audience, which feels cheap, distracting, and a little insulting to the actor in my opinion, and if it was an attempt at humor, it falls flat because it wasn’t really anything to begin with. I don’t care if you as the writer/director think it’s a fun moment. If it detracts from or doesn’t add to the story, cut it out or make it better and have it mean something.

—

Environmental Storytelling: Technical Design and Production

Neither Osha or Fillik feel like they’re in the vacuum of space because their tethers float, but they look like they’re moving with regular gravity. If the boots are supposed to give them traction and keep them grounded, it should take more effort to lift them to walk. Their torsos and arms would move differently regardless.

I bring it up because if employed mekneks aren’t supposed to be human because it’s too dangerous of a job, prove to me that the danger is real just by virtue of the fact they ARE outside in space.

This would be a minor thing I’d be willing to overlook if technical and design flaws didn’t keep coming up and taking me out of the story. These environments are supposed to feel lived in and in doing so the action would feel more like it was happening to characters rather than actors. It’s the difference between the practical effects of Jurassic Park still holding up today because there are actual sets and tangible puppets and animatronics to move around and respond to, versus the almost exclusively CGI dinosaurs and parts of the sets used for Jurassic World (or to use a Star Wars example, the difference between the acting in the original trilogy vs the prequels). You can tell when actors don’t have a physical set to work with— Their performances are going to feel more genuine if they’re not just backdropped by blue screens, green screens, or in this case, the computer-generated Volume.

There doesn’t feel like there’s as much of a sense of danger, which keeps the story from building background tension or feeling complicated on an environmental level. Hoth looks and feels and affects the actors as if it’s freezing in Empire Strikes Back because they were shooting on a glacier. They made the Tauntaun feel like a creature because even after the puppet froze, even after the bellows to make it breathe froze, the props master had everyone grab a bunch of cigarettes and blow smoke into a bag specifically so they could get a shot of the Tauntaun’s breath fogging the air.

Conversely, the ice planet in the first episode of The Acolyte doesn’t feel dangerous because we don't see the environment affect the characters. None of the actors act like they’re in sub-zero temperatures, save for the second time we see Osha wake up (though that doesn’t carry through to her going out in the blizzard and being in the cave); even if you argue that the Jedi have some supernatural way of keeping themselves warm without wearing extra layers, that’s still a conscious choice they’d have to make and we need to see it happen or acknowledged, and Osha should still have been affected regardless. There’s never a single moment we see any of the characters’ breath fog the air.

It’s the kind of practical effect you notice because it’s missing. Osha should have had ice stuck to her hair and over her skin, her lips chapped and changing color, we should have been able to see her breath, and she should have been shivering violently at having crash landed on a snow planet and been unconscious long enough for the snow to pile up in drifts. I’d argue there’s even a pretty notable example of what it looks like for a main Star Wars character to wake up after being knocked unconscious and exposed to the ice and snow for hours on end. If you feel that’s an unfair comparison, I direct you to episode 3 of this same show when the coven is out on the mountain and you CAN see their breath in the air. If you have enough money to CGI a starship, you have enough money to add that in post.

Another example of the set not effectively telling the story is the apothecary in the second episode. It looked like a bar, nothing’s labeled or has a sense of organization or specificity the way a lab or pharmacy would have, Qimir is passed out as if he’d been drinking, and the dialogue of “sampling the merchandise” has been used before in a lot of other media to reference drugs or alcohol, so the audience isn’t going to conclude that it’s an apothecary. The scene where Qimir makes the poison feels too convenient and a little odd since they made it look and sound like he’s easily mixing up a cocktail, and he's not even hunting around the shop for specific ingredients, explaining what he’s doing when she asks him to make something on the fly, instead just grabbing a couple unmarked bottles within arm’s length.

(A side note: If Mae grew up using bunta for hunting, how does she not know how to make the poison for master Torbin herself?)

The end scene of episode two is another standout example of both the bad script and ineffective set design. The scrappers trekking through the forest are shot on a well defined path clear of brush with an obvious view of the ship they “stumble upon,” which makes the line “Hey look a ship! I bet we can scrap it for parts!” seem silly since it’s pretty openly and conveniently placed within their path and line of sight. The dialogue is pretty sparse and cliché (“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this!”) before they walk right onto the next set location we need them to get to for plot reasons all “Oh look, I wonder what that could be 🤔.” If these two are lost in the woods, give us a view of them in profile obscured by trees and actively wading through brush at chest height while they bicker, and then make them stumble out into the clearing or notice the ship through the trees and go to investigate. If the showrunners are trying to tell us the Wookiee Jedi is in a hard-to-reach remote location in the middle of nowhere, they failed to do that because it looks pretty easy to just walk right into this guy’s front yard. If he’s in self-exile or hiding on purpose, have him shoot a warning shot from inside or on top of the ship, or have the scrappers fall into some traps or something. Do something more specific to tell us about the world or characters

—

Most of the above complaints stem from a poorly written story, and what results means it’s not interesting to watch even as a layman or passive viewer. They have some really interesting ideas, but without good scripts, you can’t come up with interesting characters or actions for those characters to do because you haven’t written those characters with enough specificity or conflicting goals. Combine that with minimalist sets that don’t create enough of an environment to interact with and you can’t do any interesting camerawork. Having exposition given almost entirely through dialogue leaves no room for visual or environmental storytelling and missed opportunities for places where characters’ past and relationships could be furthered through the expressions they have and the actions we see them take. There’s no building upon the scenes we’ve already seen, there’s no layers or nuance to peel away, and the characters telling each other everything— often including those characters feelings— means the audience doesn’t have to work to piece anything together. At best the story feels like a simple junior high novel with little narrative tension or understanding of how complicated socio-political issues interconnect and the characters have little depth and aren’t strong enough to even compel me to go along for the ride.

The show has some really talented actors who I’ve seen do good work before and I wish they’d gotten the chance to have a better story. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed 🤷‍♂️

#The Acolyte #The Acolyte spoilers #The Acolyte critical #Mae Aniseya #Osha Aniseya #Jedi Master Sol #Yord Fandar #Jecki Lon #Jedi Master Indara #Fillik #Tasi Lowa #hounds speaks #my writing

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