#haven't posted in a while decided it was time

[vainvenus]

code red. | charles leclerc + alexandra saint mleux | pt.1

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x reader x Alexandra Saint Mleux

Synopsis: You and Charles meet up for lunch to get to know each other and shake off any awkwardness before the season starts.

Includings: Charles centered chapter, pretty fluffy, gentle teasing, subtle comforting + flirting, anxious behavior, themes of self doubt, charlie and alex being obsessed

An: Don't worry guys well get some Alex and reader love soon, trust

@samantha-chicago

Monaco was unusually calm for a weekend. The sun warm, breeze light, the quiet hum of city life drifting through the air like background music.

Charles sat at a corner table of a small, tucked-away café just above the harbor. The kind of place tourists rarely found. The kind of place with iron chairs that creaked a little and tomato plants growing in clay pots against the wall.

He had suggested, said that it wouldn't be too packed since it wasn't a local spot. He knew that you would like the sound of that.

He got there early. Water glass half-empty, thumb tapping nervously against the table.

And then you arrived.

Not loud. Not even dressed to impress. Just… there.

You were wearing a soft cream sweater tucked into dark jeans, your styled simply yet unintentionally graceful. You looked like you were trying not to draw attention, though Charles had a hard time looking away.

He stood as you approached, offering a small, warm smile.

“Hi." You said softly.

“Bonsoir. You found it okay?”

You nodded, fingers brushing against the sleeve of your sweater.

He gestured to the seat across from him. “I figured somewhere off-grid would be better than a packed touristy cafe.”

You sat carefully glancing away from him, as if you were afraid the chair might not be meant for you.

“Thank you. It’s…nice. Quiet.”

Charles smiled. “I thought that might be your style.”

You blinked at him. “You did?”

He gave a sheepish shrug. “I may have…looked through your page a little. I'm also good at reading people.”

Your eyes dropped to the table. “My page PR stuff mostly.”

“It still tells you something." He said gently. “The photos you keep versus the ones you post. I wonder what photos you keep for just your eyes.”

"Maybe one day you'll see." You murmured and he smiled at that.

He let you study the menu without pushing. When the waiter came, you asked for a specific kind of pasta, asking for light cilantro. Your voice just above a whisper. Charles ordered for himself then folded his hands loosely on the table.

“How're you liking Monaco so far?” He asked, leaning in a little.

“Oh it's gorgeous. I haven't been back for a while but I'm here visiting a friend.” You replied. "Trying to decide if I should get a home here."

“You should." He said. "Most of the drivers live here and it'd make it easier for you to connect with them. Plus, no taxes." He joked with a small chuckle.

And although he mentioned you connecting with the other drivers he hated the thought of that. You didn't need to socialize with anyone else on the grid besides him.

“I just don’t want to be recorded all the time." You sighed. "I know Monaco has no paparazzi but...it's like a gold mine to find a driver.”

Charles tilted his head. “You should get used to it.”

Your lips pressed into a tight line. He backtracked, voice softening.

“I just mean…it’s not something you can stop now. You’re with Ferrari. That alone makes people watch, living in Monaco wouldn't change much."

You looked up at him slowly. “I didn’t expect them to pick me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not…loud or flashy like the other rookies this year. It kind of makes me feel like I'm falling behind or something." You sighed.

Charles leaned forward, his voice low. “You don’t have to be loud to be great. You're a F2 champion, that says enough."

You blinked at him. For a moment, you looked like you didn’t believe him. But your shoulders relaxed just a little.

When lunch arrived the conversation stayed light. He asked about your favorite circuits, your earliest memories of karting, what your helmet colors meant.

You didn’t offer stories unless asked, but when you did, they were quietly poetic. Little glimpses of long nights in cold paddocks. Mornings where your dad made you coffee before races. The moment you got the call from Ferrari and didn’t speak for ten seconds because you thought it was a mistake.

Charles listened like every word mattered. Because to him, it most certainly did.

At one point, you paused mid-bite, eyes flicking toward the sidewalk.

There were two people with phones out, casually pretending not to take pictures.

You shrank slightly into your chair, keeping your gaze down on your plate as you spun your fork around your food.

Charles noticed instantly.

“Hey.” He said softly. “You okay?”

You nodded, lips pressed together in a thin line before you glanced back over at the window.

He followed your gaze, then turned back to you.

“You’ll get used to it.” He said gently.

You were used to the fame from F2 from F1 was other worldly. The fans were so much more intense and unapologetically themselves in the worst ways sometimes. “The cameras. The looks. The attention. It’s annoying, but it’s part of it now.”

You looked down. “I don’t want people making things up. I've seen so many gossip pages and I don't want to cause a problem for my PR team already."

“They will anyway." He said with a shrug. Charles had had his fair share of tabloids that spewed rumors that were far from the truth. “Let them. You just stay exactly like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you." He said simply. “You don’t need to worry about rumors when you know the truth and when you know who you are."

You raised a brow. "Which is?"

He paused, giving you a once-over that lingered just a second too long before his eyes found yours again.

Warm, full of something soft and kind. Like he was looking at the girl who didn’t just hang the moon and stars, but made the whole sky spin just for him "Perfect. Ferrari wouldn't have signed you if they thought otherwise.”

You stared at him for a moment, something unreadable flickering in your eyes.

Then you smiled.

Small, real, and almost private.

“Thank you.”

The silence after was warm.

When the check came, Charles didn't even allow you to look at it before he snatched it up and pulled out one of his cards from his wallet. And when you tried to offer your card, Charles just shook his head with that teasing glint in his eye.

"Charles! I can pay for my own meal." You shook your head as he had a tight hold on the check, waving his hand as you tried to give him your card.

“I'm paying and that's final.” He said, leaning back. “You can pay me back by not outqualifying me at Australia.”

You laughed like really laughed. For the first time that day.

And Charles? He could've recorded it and listened to it every single day.

★

The door hadn’t even clicked shut before Alexandra called from the kitchen, “Well?”

Charles let out a soft laugh, tossing his keys into the dish by the entry. “You didn’t even give me time to take off my shoes.”

“Because I know you.” She said, poking her head around the corner, a grin already forming. “You’re smiling.”

“I always smile.”

“Not like that,” She teased, setting down her glass and leaning against the counter. “That’s a she’s so pretty and I’m a little obsessed smile.”

Charles didn’t deny it. He walked into the kitchen, still in his jacket, hair a little windblown. His face had that softness it always carried when something— or someone got under his skin in the best way.

“She’s…” He paused, looking for the right word. “Quiet. Really quiet. But in a way that makes you want to wait for what she’ll say next.”

Alex's brow lifted. “So a little mysterious?"

“She barely talked unless I asked, but when she did—” He shook his head with a smile, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge. “It’s like she’s scared to take up space. But she should.”

Alex’s grin grew. “You’re whipped.”

"How could I not be? She's...perfect."

Alexandra couldn't help the smile continued to grow on her lips. “What’d you talk about?”

“Karting. Her helmet design. Her reaction to being told the news. How she doesn’t like people looking at her.”

“Rotten luck.” Alex said, hopping up to sit on the counter. “She’s with Ferrari. They’re going to look.”

“I told her that." Charles said, smiling like he still hadn’t quite come down from it. “Told her she didn’t need to change. That she already belongs.”

There was a small beat of silence before Alex said, “You’re already so protective.”

He gave a quiet laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “She just makes you want to be.”

Alexandra huffed. “I want to meet her.”

Charles hummed. "You will, mon amour. You will."

There was a beat of silence before Alex spoke again.

“Do you think she knows how cute she is?”

Charles looked away with a soft chuckle, then back to Alex. “I don’t think she knows anything good about herself. From how talented she is to how cute she is."

And that sat between them for a moment. A quiet truth neither of them liked.

Alexandra slid off the counter and touched his arm. “Then lucky for her, she has us.”

"Lucky indeed."

[liedownquisition]

Ah I see, so you just... don't actually understand that the way you phrase things imply things. Cool. Got it. That explains your own difficulty understanding the text, got it.

Also, no you're not really explaining it, and even if you were no one was asking for that "explanation" in the first place. Read the first post again, you'll notice the operative phrase "a lot of people" and this is specifically directed at things like people who complain/hate on Jason Todd, while adoring other characters who share a lot of significant themes, personality characteristics, and concepts with him.

It also, most 100% definitely says that that dislike is valid? But this is about people and things that complain about Jason for things that are DEFINITELY prevalent also in the characters that they do "stan." Such as Batman, or Huntress, and so on and so forth. It's kind of like this:

Where people prop up their character for doing the same things, which funny thing is usually more common with female characters on the negative end of it so this is a somewhat interesting, if still exhausting, subversion of a very boring and repetitive issue.

Anyways you also missed the part where we both agreed that Jason was an extension of the same philosophy - yes, that even includes the fascist portions. (Bitter even Literally Also Called Jason Fascist). A vast majority of the superhero fantasy at its core cannot exist without some degrees of it, particularly once it starts expanding into the kind of universe DC currently has. Come on, the watchtower? Brother Eye? Are these not sparking red flags in your mind? And who, exactly, is responsible for them?

Batman.

Also, Batman has been called fascist multiple times even in-canon and spin-off properties. Usually by Green Arrow, or in that Blue Beetle movie. They're not wrong, but no one takes Green Arrow seriously about it and the Blue Beetle line was framed as a joke for the audience to laugh at.

-He asked Bruce why he wouldn't, and when Bruce gave his answer he... "accepted" it and asked him to stand by and let him do it himself. If you wanted to illustrate the point of Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker, maybe you should have picked the pages right before this where he was going on, at length, about the reasons WHY Bruce should have? Instead of the one where he literally said "Fine, I'll do it"? The page that literally says, twice, "You won't kill him, I will." And even then, that speech was less asking him to do it and more condemning him for his choices.

He didn't say "Don't" he said "Won't" the time is long since past for Bruce to be the one to pull that trigger. If he was trying to get Bruce to kill Joker, he didn't try very hard.

-That's fine not to reread, but you're clearly not remembering a lot of it or went into it with such a biased perspective you weren't paying attention (which, you know, it's a bad comic I can't entirely blame people from missing things. But again, at least hate things accurately?). Kori had more character and development than Roy did, actually. At least in the parts Lobdell wrote. I still haven't decided how to classify Tynion's portion of that mess. It gives me a headache.

-I never said Jason was a better Batman, I said that his ideals of "wanting to be a better Batman" means that his ultimate motivation is just an extremist version of Bruce's own. Once again: that means that if Batman is a fascist, then so is Jason. Albeit one that operates outside the overarching fascist system Bruce aligns with and attempts to build his own, equally flawed system

-Do you realize how many poor people literally kill themselves to get out of medical debt because they cannot find work and see themselves as just burdens to themselves and sometimes their families? Do you know how common it is for people to realize they need expensive medical care and ask their families to let them die instead for the same reason and how that's not really that far off from killing yourself for it? Do you even understand how much poor people who can't afford insurance just don't go to the hospital and die of preventable/fixable things because they're afraid of medical bills? Have you been paying no attention whatsoever to how even with insurance it's a huge issue to not get medical care because it gets denied and would be too expensive without it which is a RELEVANT and RECENT topic of concern?

It's still a death, it's just one that you can pretend didn't spiral from the initial incident. Slow, and agonizing, and you're going to suffer and know what caused it the whole way while Batman remains blissfully ignorant of his responsibility in your suffering.

And, with regards to your tags: Hi! Not only Have I been affected by organized crime, My family was part of, and torn apart by it. Speaking of putting words in our mouths, when did we say it was okay for him to kill "bad poor people"? We didn't. And Bruce Beating and Throwing "bad poor people" in jail doesn't help their families either! I've said it before but if Bruce was paying attention to the families of the criminals he & the system he supports put in jail and doing anything about it, chances are Jason wouldn't have ended up homeless in the first place!

"It's okay to prey on addicts as long as they're not kids" we ALSO didn't say that but do you know what happens when you cut addicts off cold turkey? I've known people who were in so much pain from the cravings that they were tearing out their hair and chunks of their scalp and digging their nails into their arms so hard they bled. I have known people who had seizures during withdrawals and hit their head going down and died because no one knew it was happening. I have known people who got arrested and thrown in jail and died in their cells because they were left to go through the withdrawals with no assistance.

Cutting the drug lines entirely isn't the answer, either. Preventing them from getting more kids hooked on drugs is the bare minimum. It's not an endpoint, it's a beginning.

To be honest I think that a lot of people who share the anti Jason Todd sentiment don't even actually hate Jason. I think a lot of them hate what he forces the narrative to do.

Jason forces the subversion of the hero genre -- he's the single, most extreme proof that Batman's hero fantasy wouldn't be effective in real life, and therefore Jason showing up can take you out of the universe really fast really hard. A lot of people are here for what comics are meant to offer, the one man hero fantasy that makes you Feel Good, and Jason showing up doesn't Allow you to enjoy it! And if that's the case, you're completely justified in not liking Jason, he takes you out of the thing you enjoy.

I think a lot of you don't actually find his personality or acts annoying in of themselves, you just hate what those actions do to the genre itself. And I think once you realize that and start looking at comics like actual pieces of literature, Jason and shitty comics both will become a lot less rage inducing to you.

[siriusly-yoongi]

She wants to be saved chapter 20

Main Masterlist Series Masterlist

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Pairing: alpha BTS × omega reader

Chapter Warnings: I don't really know what to put for warnings, likely inaccurate medical information, self-harm, sexual assault,

Word count: 4004

Posting everyday has been way too hard on me and I just cannot keep up with it. I'm aiming for every other day now instead.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

JIMIN

It was nice waking up in a nest. I haven't slept that well in a long time. It was perfect. Well, almost. She didn't join us.

I noticed it first during breakfast, I thought she was just hungover. She wouldn't touch her food and she kept staring off into space.

After breakfast she went into her room for a while, then out of the blue she came to me and crawled into my lap. It looked like it took a lot of effort to do. Something is wrong. I can see it on her face something is very wrong.

I don't even have time to call for Namjoon before she's gone. Her body goes stiff at first, her pupils shrinking into tiny pinpricks. Then she goes limp in my arms, falling against my chest. I think she knew it was about to happen, that's why she came to me.

"NAMJOON!" I call for Namjoon, my tone panicked.

She dropped, and i don't know why.

Namjoon runs into the living room and rushes over to the two of us. He takes one look at her and pulls her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She's complete limp in his arms, he has to rest her head on his shoulder cause she isn't even supporting it herself. This is bad.

This is what we expected to happen that first night. When Hoseok destroyed her nest. But that was a week and a half ago. Nothing bad enough to cause a drop has happened since then, that has to be the trigger. It has to be. But why now.

As if reading my mind, Namjoon looks back at me. "Delayed drops can happen. Its rare, but it does happen. They're usually way worse than normal drops."

As if on cue, she starts choking, struggling to take in a proper breath. "Breathe babygirl, just breathe." She doesn't respond at all. Not that we expected her to.

After a few minutes of trying to get her to breathe properly with no luck, Namjoon hands her to me. "I'm gonna go grab Yoongi and pack a little bag for overnight. I'm taking her to the hospital. She's getting worse and I'll feel better if she's being watched properly" he speaks calmly but I can tell he's panicking inside

After a few minutes Namjoon comes back with Yoongi and a bag and I hand her to Yoongi. "I'm coming" I state firmly, no one argues.

Once we get to the hospital, Namjoon carries her inside and she's taken back into a room pretty much immediately. She's hooked up to an IV and they put a tube of oxygen in her nose to help her breathe better.

They check her over and they decide they want to keep her here to monitor her, just like Namjoon had expected.

I was asleep on Yoongi's lap when a bunch of beeping woke me up. I sit up, and look over at Namjoon as a doctor rushes into the room.

"She isn't breathing on her own, I need t-...." the doctor said something else after that but I stopped listening.

Yoongi pulls me closer to him, pulling my head into his neck like he usually does with her. Yoongi has been a lot more open to touch and affection since she showed up, and I'm really grateful for that.

I close my eyes, trying to block out the noise. I'm a paramedic, I shouldn't have trouble hearing this kind of thing. But this is my mate. This isn't some random person I'll never see again. This is our omega. And I cant listen to it, I just can't.

She had a tube down her throat for the next 5 days. She'd had her eyes closed this whole time but in day 5 they opened again. They took the tube out of her throat and she was able to breathe on her own. The whole pack is here. They had to move us to a bigger room just so we could all fit comfortably. Her pupils are still tiny pinpricks and she's still completely unresponsive.

They decided to keep her for one more night before sending her home Friday afternoon, telling us to come back if she gets worse.

We get her home and bring her into the den. Yoongi lays with her in the middle of the nest while I lay behind Yoongi. Having alphas that the omega doesn't trust super close to them can make the drop worse and I don't wanna risk making her get worse. So I mold myself around Yoongi's back and try and sleep.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Yoongi and I decide to give her a bath before everyone else gets home. We get her clothes off and my heart sinks. She has deep slashes all over her stomach. These had to have been from the night we slept in the nest, she was in the pool and we could see her stomach the day prior to it and she dropped the day after.

She finally tenses up for the first time instead of being completely limp as Yoongi lowers her into the water. "Its okay kitten, you're okay." We've been talking to her, its unclear whether or not she understands us.

Yoongi ends up pulling his clothes off and getting into the bath with her because she went limp again once she adjusted to the water and its not safe for her to be limp in the water like that.

He sits behind her with her body tucked between his legs, her weight resting against his chest.

We make quick work of washing her body and her hair then rinse her off.

Yoongi wraps her in a towel then hands her to me, wrapping a towel around himself. "Lay her on her bed to get her dressed, it'll be easier." He suggests before leaving the bathroom to go get dressed.

I carry her to her room and lay her on her bed like Yoongi suggested. Its like having a baby. She doesn't even hold her own head up.

As soon as I'm no longer touching her she cries out, her breathing turning erratic and tears rolling down her cheeks.

I rush back over to her and sit down on her bed, pulling her into my lap. "Okay, okay. I'm right here babydoll, I didn't leave you." I try and soothe her with my voice. I still don't know if she can hear me, I don't think she can see me, at least not very well, but I know she can feel me. She could feel when I stopped touching her. She felt the water touch her body. She can still feel.

I wait for Yoongi to come back up and get her clothes since I cant really leave her long enough to grab them.

Once she's dressed, Yoongi takes her back downstairs to the den and we curl back up in the nest.

Jungkook is the first to join us. Then Hobi and Tae, then Jin, and lastly Namjoon.

No one made dinner tonight, we ended up ordering pizza again, even though it hasn't even been a week since last time.

She's propped up against Namjoon's chest while Yoongi tries to feed her some of the pizza, it doesn't go very well and she ends up choking. Namjoon has to tip her forward and pat her back like you would to a child.

This drop is bad. She's completely helpless.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

NAMJOON

Mindlessly I run my fingers along her face. Stroking her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She seems to like it, her eyes close at least. That's the only reaction I'm getting from her. It's been 2 weeks since she first dropped, its now July. Any weight shed gained since being here she's lost again from not eating. We've managed to feed her a few spoonfuls of applesauce and yogurt, things of that nature. But not much. We've been using a medicine syringe to get her to drink water but its likely she's pretty dehydrated.

As I'm stroking her face she makes a soft noise and I look down at her. She's looking up at me, her eyes actually clear instead of glassy. Her pupils are still tiny, she's still gone. But she's looking at me. This is the first sign if improvement we've seen.

"Can you hear me baby?" I ask softly, looking down at her where she's laid on her back, head on my thigh.

She doesn't respond, continuing to just look up at me.

Another few days pass and they're uneventful.

Its late, everyone just had dinner and I'm sitting there holding her when she reaches over and grabs onto Yoongi's shirt. The movement is slow and choppy, like she's struggling to move her own body, but she manages. Yoongi smiles at her, swiping his finger down her nose a couple times. We've discovered she likes that.

It takes few days for her to be able to sit up on her own. Then another few days for anything else to happen. By now its been just under 3 weeks since she first dropped.

I was asleep with her in my arms when I felt a sharp pain over my cheek and on my shoulder. My eyes snap open and the first thing I see is her hissing at me. She bit me and scratched my cheek. She must be disoriented from being out of it for so long.

"Hey, hey its okay. Its me baby. Its Namjoon. Its alpha, its okay." I try and approach her, she hisses again but let's me approach her.

"There, see. It's alright." I pull her head into my neck to she can smell me better but she's still tense.

I call for Yoongi and he comes into the den. I hand her over to him and she relaxes almost immediately. I think she'll always have the strongest bond with Yoongi. He was the first sense of safety she ever had in her life. That bond will always be strong and I cant wait to see what they're like once their properly mated and marked.

"You've been gone for 3 weeks kitten. You scared us." Yoongi kisses her forehead.

The rest of the pack comes into the room, presumably overhearing us talking.

I can see how badly each of them are itching to hug her. Our instincts have been worse than they've ever been since she's been in a drop for so long

Taehyung rushes forward and grabs he face, but he doesn't kiss her yet. She was drunk, she might not be okay with it sober and he knows better than to force it. She leans forward and kisses him though. Id be lying is i said I wasn't a little bit jealous. Why is he the first one to kiss her, he didn't even like her at first.

Jimin, Jin, and Hoseok look on in shock. If forgot they weren't there to witness them kiss the last time.

"When did this become a thing!?" Jimin is jealous. Very jealous.

She pulls away from Tae, not before biting his bottom lip like the little brat she is, making him yelp and pull back.

"When she was drunk. She got upset that I kissed Yoongi but not her, I said I didn't want our first kiss to be while she was drunk. Tae apparently didn't care and ran over and kissed her" I shake my head.

"Then Tae tried to fuck her in the pool!" Jungkook adds, earning a slap to his chest from Taehyung.

She giggles softly and i hear her stomach growl.

"Okay okay, let's get you some food" I pick her up and carry her to the kitchen, its about the time we usually go to bed but she's hungry, so first we get a snack.

Jin comes in and makes her a smoothie which she finishes rather quickly. Poor girl must he starving. I hand her a bottle of water and she gulps down half of that as well.

She rubs her eyes and heads back into the nest, whining once she sees everyone's positions. She's very fussy about her nests and how people lay in them. Yoongi and I found that out the hard way when we tried to move one night.

She rearranges everyone and leaves herself out again. Yoongi quickly gets up and pulls her into his arms, nuzzling into her neck. "Namjoon has been hogging you for 3 weeks kitten. THREE WEEKS! I'm getting some omega snuggles whether you like it or not"

She giggles as Yoongi presses a few kisses to the side of her neck.

We all cuddle up together and we all start to drift off to sleep.

Everything is okay now.

But it wasn't.

She's not there when Yoongi wakes up around 4. He shakes me awake and I open my eyes, a low growl falling from my lips, annoyed.

"What? It's the weekend, let me sleep."

"Where'd Y/n go?" He whispers

That gets my attention and I quickly get up. We search for her and eventually we find her sitting on the back porch. I relax a little until I catch her distressed scent, then I'm right back to being worried.

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

YOU

It stings. Really bad. You don't know what possessed you to make you cut and burn your face but once that urge was there it was too strong to ignore.

You had cuts on your cheeks and along your jaw, just deep enough to bleed but not deep enough to leave permanent scars. Youve gotten good at that, knowing how deep you can go before you'll scar. You probably shouldn't be as proud of that as you are though.

You cut up your arms and your chest too. You took one of those magic eraser sponges and rubbed it over the same spot repeatedly until the area was bloody and oozing, leaving you with second degree friction burns. And they sting. Very badly. You'd discovered you could do this accidentally one day. You were trying to get hair dye off your skin and accidentally gave yourself a burn on the side of your face.

You'd done it on the back of your neck, the middle of your upper chest, the backseat of your hands, and the entire top half of your face. You knew you'd regret it as soon as you did it. The boys would see it and you'd be screwed. But at the time you couldn't bring yourself to care.

You hear movement behind you and you catch both Namjoon's and Yoongi's scents. You panic and bolt before they can see. You don't want them to see.

You run through the woods in the dark until your legs feel like jelly and they give out underneath you, sending you tumbling to the ground. You just close your eyes. You know its not gonna be long before they find you, they always find you when you run.

So you close your eyes and just lay there. You're tired and breathing heavily. You don't want to see the looks of disappointment on their faces when they see what you've done.

When you open your eyes again, its light out. That means its been at least a couple hours since you first got out here. You realize why shortly after you sit up. Your scent is very faint. You didn't mean to, but you must've been subconsciously masking your scent since you didn't want to be found. They must be worried sick. Now all you felt was guilt.

You pull yourself to your feet and look around, you have no idea where you are. All you can see are trees. Its pretty, the woods are. Green as far as you can see in all directions. Youve never been this deep into the woods before, you didn't even know they went this deep. You don't have your phone either. You're lost.

You walked aimlessly for hours. Hours. And you eventually made it out of the woods! Only, you didn't come out where you started. You look around and you're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There's a few benches but other than that there's nothing.

So you start walking, there is a road a little ways down do you decide to follow it. It'll take you back to the city, at least you hope it will.

You do make it back into the city, and you guess by now it's around 5 or 6 considering where the sun is at in the sky. You don't know the address of the house, you'd never taken the time to look, so you cant exactly ask for directions.

You do know the name of that beach though, and you know how to get home from there.

You ask a woman with a young child, your voice comes out small and quiet. You're still not used to using it but you're gonna start trying to talk more. If you can do it when you're drunk you can do it while you're sober.

The lady gives you directions and you thank her, setting off in the direction she pointed you in.

Its dark by the time you get to the beach and you're thoroughly exhausted.

You sit down to rest, just for a while.

You need to take a break and catch your breath. You know you have an hour walk back home and you wont make it very far without collapsing if you don't stop and rest now.

Not long after you sit down on the sand, a man approaches you. He seems to be in his late 20's and he starts trying to talk to you.

You smile to be polite but you have a bad feeling in your gut so you quickly get up and try to leave. The man quickly gets up and grabs you by your waist, lifting you off the ground. He doesn't say a word as he carries you off somewhere down the beach.

You kick and scream but it makes no difference. No one else is on the beach. No one can hear you.

"Stay still." Your body listens immediately, you stop kicking and you fall silent. Fear swirls in your stomach and there's nothing you can do. He used his alpha voice on you, you can't fight back.

The last time you were on this beach you found that baby. Now this time, well whatever is about to happen you know it isn't gonna be good.

He carries you to a group of guys who all turn and look at you as you're put down on the sand.

Hands are on your body before you can even register the guys moving and all you can do is stand there.

It starts off innocent enough. Hands running along your waist and your neck. Caressing your hair and your face. Then they move to slapping your ass and grabbing your chest, their hands slowly slipping underneath your clothes.

After a while they get tired of your clothes and they pull them off, discarding them on the sand. All the while they're taunting you and teasing you. Calling you degrading names.

Your laid back on the sand and they started exploring your body. Kissing your chest, sucking on your nipples. It starts with heir mouths, kissing and nipping at your skin. Then their hands, one of then slips their fingers inside of you and you scream, still unable to move because of that command that one of them keeps saying every few minutes. Alpha commands don't last forever, they'll wear off after a certain amount of time. So they have to keep restating them.

One of them command you to keep quiet and its like you're choking on your own voice. It feels like you're suffocating. You want to scream, cry out, but you cant. No matter how hard you try you just cant.

They all take a turn with you, taking off their belts and forcing themselves inside of you. You dissociated through the majority of it, most of them had pretty small dicks so it wasn't extremely painful. It hurt still, but it wasn't unbearable pain wise at least. Then the last guy took a turn and you quickly found you weren't able to zone out for this one. He was big, and you could feel the veins inside of you. This man could probably pull girls just with his dick if he wasn't such a shitty person. You'd be lying if you said they weren't conventionally attractive men. Sure they weren't your boys, they weren't tens. But they were at least average or slightly above. And that bothered you. It upset you that you didn't find these men ugly.

You could smell the blood as the last guy pulled out, you could feel it running down your thighs. It was too thin to be anything other than blood. You don't think any of them came inside of you, though a few of them did over your chest or your stomach. You felt disgusting. Dirty.

They went back to kissing and touching you for a while, a few of them taking another turn while the others played with your boobs or sucked on your skin.

Once they were done with their dicks, one of them swiped his wet fingers into the sand and put them back inside of you. Every movement burned and scratched, the sand irritating your skin and your insides. He kept adding more and more sand and they took turns doing this for quite some time. They hit you with their belts and poured sand in your nose and mouth.

Their violations continued until the sun started to come up, only then did they leave. Leaving you there bleeding and in pain.

It took a little while but the alpha commands eventually wore off the first thing you did was pull yourself to the water and rinse off the best you could. You can barley walk but you manage to take a few steps at a time.

You get back to your clothes and shake the sand off, you're grateful they didn't rip your clothes. You dress yourself and sit back down on the sand.

And you cry. You don't know what else to do other than cry. You cant walk an hour home like this. You barely made it to the water and back.

You're there crying for at least a few hours before you feel someone wrap their arms around you from behind.

You hiss and scream, but you have no energy to put up a fight. "It's okay, shh it's okay Y/n. It's just me. I know I'm probably the worst person that could've found you and I'm sorry that it wasn't one of the others but I'm not gonna hurt you." Its Hoseok.

You relax a little bit against him, sobs bubbling up in your throat then making your whole body shake as they come out.

Hoseok turns you around and gasps as he sees your face but he doesn't comment on it. He pulls you into his chest and just holds you while you cry.

"You smell like other alphas... like.." he doesn't finish his sentence, a deep, deep growl coming from deep within his chest. His scent turns into a suffocatingly strong charcoal.

Cum is the strongest way to scent someone else, it has a distinct smell to it. You know he smells it on you. That must be why he's angry. He's angry at you for this. For betraying his pack. He said he wouldn't hurt you but that was before he knew what happened. You start to panic, frantically apologizing, telling him you didn't mean to. You didn't want to.

"You.. you think I'm mad at you..." he whispers, his voice shaking "No. No, no petal, no. I'm not mad at you. Never would I be mad at you for this. No sweetheart. Not at you." He holds you closer.

[adaonline]

A Different Take on Mai Akasaki's Secret Quotes

Hello! It's time for me to hop back on my regularly scheduled bullshit! Enjoy!

Since Chapter 3 is currently in development, I decided it was a good time to rewatch DRDT and refresh myself on the content and mysteries we have so far. Obviously, the mother of all Despair Time mysteries surrounds the one and only Mai Akasaki, the seventeenth student.

What do you actually know about Mai? Well, we have a canon design, we have some vague messages hidden in the code, we have a very vague music video starring both her and Teruko, and... that's about it...

There's a lot of assumptions going around about Mai that a lot of people have taken as canon, not realizing how much is complete speculation. It's inferred, but not confirmed, that she's the unnamed student in Min and Xander's bonus episodes, it's inferred but not confirmed that she was a part of some revolution regarding Hope's Peak, etc...

Point being, we have a lot of clues pointing to Mai being involved in the killing game, or at least being a catalyst of sorts for what went wrong with the class, but until the DRDT Dev reveals their master plan, nothing can be taken as 100% fact.

Take the hidden messages, for example.

When you find Mai Akasaki's bio on the tumblr, her "quote" changes every time you refresh the page. Each "quote" corresponds to one of the cast, and if you dig through the source code, the quotes are actually labeled with which student they belong to.

["Some years ago, she was searching for someone named 'Teruko Tawaki.'",

["run script(teruko)"

(forgive my bad copy/paste skills, but this is what I'm talking about, for those unaware, this format is the same for every student.)

While the quote above is obviously connected to Teruko, even without the clarification, there are definitely several that are a bit more... subjective... This has lead to multiple different interpretations of what these quotes could mean, such as each statement is Mai's personal thoughts on the cast, or some sort of mockery of the cast's worst attributes or fears. My interpretation is somewhat different, and while someone has likely posted something similar to this before, I haven't run across it.

To me, I think the best explanation for the quotes is that they are what the cast most admire about Mai, or remember her for. You'll see what I mean.

First, Teruko. This is one self explanatory. Some years ago, Mai went looking for Teruko Tawaki. We don't know WHY she was looking for Teruko, and I imagine it wasn't an easy task, given how under the radar Teruko likes to stay. So when thinking about it, it was likely a memorable moment for Teruko, especially if their first meeting is indeed the cross walk scene from chapter 1.

"A girl who loves her family" This is Charles's quote. Charles doesn't say anything negative about his family, but his main plot revolves around him forgetting the existence of an older brother who died under unknown circumstances. We know nothing about Mai's family, but from the LGI music video, where her portrait is referred to as "somebody dearly loved" I imagine that she was adored by friends and family alike, and she returned that kindness in turn. Charles (speculation incoming) might have admired that about her, and thus this is why this quote is connected to him. It was the thing he admired most about her.

"She remembers everything that is important to others." This is Rose's quote. Rose has a photographic memory, so it's easy to equate this quote to be about her, but from the actions we see of Rose in game, while she has an amazing memory, she's pretty nonchalant to what goes on around her. Don't get me wrong, she's still a sweet girl, but "remember's everything important to others" yeah... no... but Mai, see "dearly loved" was as compassionate and thoughtful as she's made out to be, it's an easy connection to make that she'd be attentive to her friends, likely being a soundboard and a confidant. Rose, with her financial troubles and insecurity over her artwork, would likely remember a girl who took the time to listen and check up on her quite fondly.

"A girl who sees beauty in everyone." This is Arturo's quote. Arturo does NOT see beauty in everyone, this is one of the first things we learn about him. Dude's standards for beauty are in the stratosphere. This causes him to be dismissed and disregarded by the cast due to his annoying personality and weird behavior, especially towards J. However, one thing that most everyone agrees about when it comes to Mai is that she would have been friends with the entire class, and that'd include Arturo. It's hard being an outcast, even when it's of your own making. Sometimes, having a stubborn person repeatedly take a sledgehammer to your walls, refusing to leave you behind even if you want to be, means more than anything. If this WAS their relationship, then Arturo would naturally recall Mai as someone who saw beauty in even the harshest personalities, don't you think?

"A girl with a floral tattoo on her arm" This is Levi's quote. Okay, this through me through a loop when trying to equate this to my theory. This is always the odd man out of secret quotes, as there's no way to relate it to Levi. The floral tattoo is intrinsically linked to MAI. Even the popular theory that the cast all have hidden tattoos on their arms falls flat seeing as we can see the arms of several students and there's no tattoo to be seen.

Then, it hit me. This is literally the only theory that perfectly explains this quote. Because Levi doesn't experience emotion. He has no love for his classmates. He does care in his own way, but he's apathetic towards the majority of his classmates' plights, only engaging because he should, not because he wants to. So, if asked to name the thing he most remembers about a beloved classmate, of course this is the kind of thing Levi would say. It's something physical that he can see, admire, and associate with the person with it and them alone. This is the quote that cemented this theory as being likely in my eyes.

"A girl with many friends" This is Whit's quote. Not as specific as many of the others, but still, personality wise, Whit tries to get along with everyone, even breaking down Charles's walls in less that three days. Imagine the power of friendship that'd form in Whit "extrovert" Young and Mai "dearly beloved" Akasaki joined forces. IDK it fits.

"She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up" this is Eden's quote. (Speculation ahead, you know the drill) This is another confusing one. Some people think Eden is the one calling the number, other's think it's Mai. I, personally, think it's Mai.

Eden's secret quote is about kissing a friend and then becoming worried that it'd ruin her friendship. In storytelling, you don't want to introduce too many plotlines that have no barring on the plot, and this is one that I feel, based on vibes, might come back. If Mai was Eden's classmate, it's likely they were friends, and if they, say, kissed, and Eden freaked out because she was afraid of losing Mai if she wasn't interested, and maybe.... avoided answering the phone even though Mai kept calling to tell her it was alright, maybe because she feared Mai was angry at her, then this would be the first thing Eden would think of when Mai is brought up. The friend she was terrified to lose, and unintentionally drove away. But Mai kept calling the number, because she didn't want to lose Eden either. This interpretation is one of the more "fanon" ones that I'll list here though, so feel free to disregard it.

"She kept it a secret, and told no one." This is J's secret, obviously relating to her being Mariabella's daughter. We see in chapter 2 how betraying J feels when her secret is revealed, she values her independence and privacy greatly, for her to willingly share that tidbit about herself, she'd have to trust Mai greatly. It'd mean the world for Mai to listen, and keep her promise that she wouldn't tell. This one feels as straightforward as Teruko's to me.

"A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe" This is Hu's quote. Hu is a character that needs to be needed. We know this from how she treats Nico and others in game. But who's taking care of Hu? We know Mai is a sort of "therapist friend" from context clues, so I can see her genuinely caring for Hu and showing her healthier outlets for her to express herself than smothering those around her. This was likely the healthiest friendship is Hu's life, by my estimation.

"Everyone confided in her" This is Nico's quote. We know Nico's secret is that they’re non-binary, and that they weren’t ready to come out yet. Nobody in game "confides" in Nico, so the best way I can connect the quote to them is that they potentially became comfortable enough around Mai to come out to her, similar to J and her secret, because Mai would keep a secret.

"A girl who had a bright future" This is Ace's quote. Ace is a character who believes he doomed. His only talent is something that causes him great distress, he has an eating disorder due to the strict weight regulations on jockeys. His body is falling apart and his nerves are in shambles, and he takes it out on everyone around him. For Ace, he's got no escape from the live he's living. But here comes Mai, this girl who has it all together, people love her, and she loves them. She's kind to everyone and is an successful ultimate. She's everything Ace isn't, but she still cares for him anyways. Of course when thinking of her, he'd think of all the things she could do with her live, and the good she could bring to the world.

"She doesn't like it when her friends fight." This is Arei's quote. Arei's entire arc in Chapter 2 is about her wrestling with her childhood and the dog eat dog mentality she adopted in order to survive. She's abrasive and mean because to be soft is a death sentence. Then she gets to Hope's Peak and she meets Mai, a girl who, like Eden in game, shatters that ideology with a sledgehammer and shows Arei a different path. She hates seeing her friends fight, and shows Arei why. Remember, the cast have lost time. Arei could have had a similiar arc when she was at Hope's Peak that she did in game, except with Mai as the catalyst instead of Eden.

"An average girl with nothing special about her at all." This is Min's quote. This, at first, feels way more Min-coded than Mai-coded, but I'd disagree. We don't know what talent Mai had, she's literally the ultimate ???. It's possible that her talent wasn't anything extraordinary seeming like Ultimate Rebel or Ultimate Plastic Surgeon. She could have had a talent similar to Min's, for all we know. Her talent likely didn't have anything to do with why people loved her, and that might've been an inspirating to Min, who was drilled to believe her worth was directly related to her talent. So, while speculative, I believe this can still work.

"She couldn't stand to do nothing." This is Xander's quote. Xander fights injustice on the regular, overthrowing corrupt officials and advocating for those who can't advocate for themselves. He values those qualities immensely, and for Mai to feel the same, that would put her on David levels of worship in his eyes.

"A girl who didn't foresee the consequences." This is Veronika's quote. Similar to Min's, this feels like something someone would say about Veronika over Mai, but I don't agree. On Veronika's page, her secret quote is "Once something is broken, it can never be pieced together in quite the same way again. The same goes for people" and she monologues to Teruko about how she likes horror because of fictional consequences, but that she often worries about real world consequences to actions. That doesn't stop her from being, well, Veronika, but consequences is a theme heavily tied to her. We already established that Mai "couldn't stand to do nothing" but, in conjunction with a quote we'll talk about shortly, I can see all the good Mai did becoming void in Veronika's eyes because on one misjudged action that led to a domino effect, one that I speculate landed the gang in a killing game (more on that later)

"She forgives everyone" This is David's quote. Oh David, my guy. Dude did a heel-face turn in chapter 2, losing the trust of the entire group and ruining in career in one fell swoop. Regardless of whether or not you believe that his breakdown was just another persona, or that this is the one true David, it's likely that he either had a similar episode in Hope's Peak or confided in the Secret Keeper TM about his true feelings about the world. David, who sees the worst in everyone, and believes that he won't be excepted if he reveals his true colors, being excepted by Mai and forgiven in the event that he takes things too far would be an world-shifting event for him in the event that this actually happened. It would naturally be the first thing he'd think of when remembering Mai.

"It's all your fault" This is MonoTV's quote. Oh boy. I highly doubt MonoTV was a student (that'd be weird even for Danganronpa) but for them to have a quote linked to Mai, directly blaming her for something, and we already know Mai couldn't stand to do nothing and didn't foresee the consequences of it, it's likely that the killing game was her fault.

The quote itself reminds me of the secret David got in Chapter 2, the one he claims was Xander's but many believe is Teruko's. I mostly believe the Teruko explanation, but I also have a crack theory I plan to make at a later date that is absolutely insane but might lend credence to David telling "the truth" about who's secret it was.

Remember, that secret was "How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for. This killing game is all your fault."

There's not a ton left I can say about this without delving into pure headcannon territory.

That's all the hidden quotes related to Mai. Sorry I don't have a TLDR or a summation of all this for ya'll to read here. Your just going to have to parse through yourselves. I'm tired of typing.

Let me know if you think this is a good theory or lambast my reasoning in the comments, I don't care, I like debates. I'm just a girl excited for Chapter 3, at the end of the day : )

Thanks for reading!!!

[olrinarts]

your animatic has given me severe brainrot. the idea of narilamb having murder-dates where they decide who gets custody of the crown for a while is driving me insane. It's precisely the brand of absolutely nuts thing that no normal creature would do but two immortals who have really odd relations with death, both literal and figural, absolutely would

RIGHT THOUGH

okay so. lazy fic under the cut but i have SO MANY THOUGHTS

(for the record, 'lazy fic' is just what i call it when a ramble accidentally ends up containing a scene or two and the entire time the tone continues to be 'me rambling through an ask/DM with a friend', and if the thoughts get too long, i will separate it into its own post i prommy)

(the lazy fic has, in fact, required a new post. and probably some others, and this has opened the floodgates of letting y'all see my other lazy fics, but still have this part)

new AU is hide/seek AU this is a thing now R.I.P. (animatic, 1 / 2 / 3 / 4)

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

so first of all, can i just. scream about the intimacy of it? like yes, it sure is murdering, but the TRUST aspect makes me feral

like the first time they agreed to do this, it wasn't a game yet, and it would've been at least two or three decades on from his defeat - it was an offer Esriaal made freely, and they couldn't know for sure yet that it would work, or that the same immortal trait would be Esriaal's as a mortal, or how to make a vessel work without directly wearing a crown, since Esriaal DID still have a job to do

to say nothing of the work that it would require to adjust the cult to the idea of their gods swapping back and forth, or even Narinder being a god properly half the time if it worked

but Esriaal had spent long enough as a god to know that not only would his help help, it was what they wanted to do and they felt like it would genuinely do a lot of good for the concept and administration of Death itself - like they put a LOT of thought into it beforehand, and Narinder probably had no idea that they intended to offer, let alone that they sincerely wanted to share power

but when they offered, there were still a lot of unknowns, and it required Narinder to be willing to resurrect them after, and considering they were still kinda navigating the aftermath (narinder works on a different timescale, happens when you're several millennia old), there was a genuine chance that he might just. choose not to resurrect them, and take over

but they offered anyway

and narinder, who hadn't expected the offer in the first place and was honestly still struggling with the idea that it might not be HIS cult anymore but that both Esriaal and the cult itself still very much wanted him around (Esriaal having betrayed him in the hope that maybe, maybe, they could resurrect him after, and not having expected him to just pop out already alive), just has to have that surreal moment of realising that they mean it

that they're offering because they sincerely believe there's a chance that not only will he accept but will keep his promise, and they think that chance is worth the risk of him betraying them or declining outright (i mean. there's 0 chance he would decline. but still)

so he accepts, and the first time is kinda unceremonious - the two of them meet one night in the temple, Narinder stabs them with the Crown and down they go, but they don't pop out mortal the way he did

he has to resurrect them intentionally, and boy howdy did he panic a little until they were alive again a few minutes later, admittedly pretty shaken but like. not distrusting, just because they haven't been used to being that kind of dead in thirty-ish years

but he brought them back, the way he promised he would, and he's definitely the god of death, and things worked

they agreed on a month, and the next time was still not particularly ceremonious, but they both tacitly knew it was kinda a whole THING now

shit i'm gonna need a new post for this (i'll edit in a link to the new post when it's up)

[fairsweetlonging]

would there be any mentions of binghe or the overarching pidw plot in the horror au?

for a large part, yes!

i'm still working on the exact timeline and order of events, since i haven't quite figured out yet which direction i want to take this in, so bear with me!

the game is set before luo binghe is born, focusing on the last generation of cang qiong peak lords while they're still head disciples. because horror doesn't quite work well with large time jumps, since the genre hinges on slow paced tension, game-binghe doesn't make an appearance, though shen yuan does think about him and tries to make the sect a more welcoming place. i haven't decided yet whether tianlang jun is already sealed under the mountain. he and zhuzhi-lang could be a fun romanceable option.

that said, a lot of people thought the "creature" of my original post was actually luo bingge who was looking for his "nice shizun", and i fell in love with that idea.

this luo bingge of course already has his harem and merged the realms in his own world, but is now looking for another version of the nice shizun that he can have to himself. he stumbles into this world, which is set in a past before he is born, which is fantastic because that means this "nice shizun" won't have any binghe of his own! at first, bingge seeks out shen qingqiu, who is still a disciple at this point, and quickly finds that, no, this one is the exact same as his former shizun, and so is not what he's looking for.

something happens, though, that causes bingge to not immediately leave for the next world. maybe it's a glitch in the system, maybe it's fate, maybe he saw shen yuan trip over his shoe laces, i don't know yet, but bingge stays and starts stalking shen yuan, because he recognizes something of the nice shizun in him.

the overarching plot is very much mentioned throughout the story and shen yuan does his best to keep to it with the limited information he has, but game-binghe probably won't be making an appearance.

thank you for the ask!!

[futchbookslut]

I promised a part 2 a while back, so here it is! It was a gigantic pain in the ass because canva is sucking more and more by the day. I included a bunch of different genres, both YA and Adult, as well as some on the more erotic side. Something for everyone, I hope.

Disclaimers:

I haven't read all these and can't personally recommend them. You can decide for yourself what sounds interesting.

All authors are people of color and, if there are two mcs, at least one is a person of color.

All MCs are sapphic of some nature. That does not mean all of these center a sapphic romance. Queer stories can focus on more than just romance.

I threw in an essay collection and a poetry collection. I WILL get at least one person into Yrsa Daley-Ward, even if it kills me.

I don't have the time to research every author in this post. Do your own research when deciding whether you want to support a particular author.

If I messed up and accidentally included an author who doesn't fit the criteria, please let me know! (I did mess up at least one - The Seep - on account of my own misremembering of details. I'll see if I can edit the image)

Books included:

Image 1:

Hammajang Luck - Makana Yamamoto

Songs of Irie - Asha Ashanti Bromfield

The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri

Can't Let Her Go - Kianna Alexander

Heat and Run - Adriana Herrera

House of Frank - Kay Synclaire

Nothing Burns as Bright as You - Ashley Woodfolk

Honey Girl - Morgan Rogers

Image 2:

A Wolf Steps in Blood - Tamara Jerée

The Duchess's Bodyguard - Drea C

The Balance of Fates - Raquel Raelynn

Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo

Cinderella is Dead - Kalynn Bayron

We Came to Welcome You - Vincent Tirado

The Seep - Chana Porter (EDIT: Nope! Fucked up here, sorry!)

Consecrated Ground - Virginia Black

Lez Talk: a Collection of Black Lesbian Short Fiction - Edited by Stephanie Andrea Allen

Image 3:

House of Hunger - Alexis Henderson

Black Water Sister - Zen Cho

The Wicked and the Willing - Lianyu Tan

Unwieldy Creatures - Addie Tsoi

Burn Down, Rise Up - Vincent Tirado

The Relationship Mechanic - Karmen Lee

Flirting Lessons - Jasmine Guillory

Bone - Yrsa Daley-Ward

An Island Princess Starts a Scandel - Adriana Herrera

[shourtcer]

Smosh Reads Reddit Stories Statistics (June 2025 Edition)

hi everyone! i made a similar post to this about 2 months ago so i decided to make an updated one! first, general episode appearances:

then number of appearances for each member:

now, my favorite part, sides of the couch! ian still seems to heavily prefer the left side compared to everyone else while courtommy keep switching sides

and now, duo appearances! courtgela is leading for the time being, bumping up one place since last time and bringing changela to #2. courtommy, spourtney, arangela, and spengela are the only duos to have +1 appearances due to the liveshows!

and finally, duos that haven't appeared on reddit stories yet! (we're probably never gonna get some of these anyway lol)

and that's it! i update the sheet every time a new episode comes out, so if you wanna check it out when it does, here it is! see you again in like 2 months or so

april 2025 post

[lucky-penne]

Haven't touched this story since the last time I posted about the WIP 💀 Just wrote this section up today. Still can't make any promises I'll ever actually finish this or not. Also surprisingly difficult to write in a shorter, straightforward way while not making it boring and awkward.

Don't like, don't read. Please read the tags 🙏

Her grief was cut short as the sound of footsteps approached. She quickly braces herself. Preparing for any possibility, even to her last breath. The door creaks open. The first thing that hit her was the scent (a mixture of pine with the putrid stench of him) before his voice. Both she was all too familiar with now.

“Did our cherry blossom have a nice nap?”

The voice was smug and reeked of condescension. The figure across the room from her was shrouded in shadow with only his eyes noticeable–emitting a green glow.

The anger within her was brewing. She growls at the demon as a warning. She did not want him near her.

He simply laughs. Not taking her attempt at intimidation seriously.

“Well, it seems like someone isn't all too happy to see me. Rather rude don't you think?” He steps closer to her while she tries to recoil away against the wall, glaring and growling all the while. “We could've simply ripped you apart, staked your pieces all over the place, and let the sun take care of the rest.”

He stops and bends down on one knee to her level. His form is no longer hidden by complete shadow. His eyes pierced into hers–the kanji etched in them prominent. Hers stabs right back.

“A little traitor like you would've deserved it.” The grin on his face slowly fades. “Not to mention how much you burned us with that nasty fire of yours…” He hisses lightly.

“But—” He pauses dramatically. The grin returns.

“We decided to be merciful and let you live. Let you serve a more…useful purpose to us. To make up for all the trouble you caused us. Only fair isn't it, little blossom?” He sweetly mocks as he pats her head.

She stiffens. Body tensing with rage. Snarls muffled by the muzzle.

Only her brother–

Her family–

–Is allowed to touch her like that.

She lunges forward. Tries to claw and kick him away, but the cuffs and chains held her back with a snap.

Not a single flinch from him. He just wickedly smiles and giggles at her plight. She continues to struggle against the restraints. Her wrists and ankles start to ache in pain. Her breath being choked out by the collar.

“Ah there's that fiery temper I like~” He jeers.

“Would’ve been a shame to have you broken in so soon.”

She pushes herself one last time. Determined to hurt him in any way. Hands shaking and straining against the cuffs.

Then she stops.

Her form slacks to the ground, reluctantly giving up. She doesn't look away from her lap. Not wanting to see any more of his smug grins.

A hand reaches out before she could move away. Fingers harshly grip her face, forcibly tilting her chin up to meet his gaze once more.

“Have to say you're pretty cute in this form too~” he teases. She jolts when she feels another hand upon her–this time on her hip. It slowly and delicately caresses the curve. Despite the gentleness, she feels on edge.

He takes a moment to look at her. Really look at her. The way he scans her face and body makes her feel…uncomfortable. She doesn't understand why.

_____________________________________________

Really rough, wonky sketch I did way back in April. Did it rather quickly too with no refs which is why anatomy and proportions are wack. Don't know if I'll actually do a full piece or not.

[nobodysdaydreams]

I have a theory about why Petey’s reintegration failed, what it will take for someone to properly reintegrate, and how this could complicate the endings they choose to give to Helly, Mark, and Gemma.

Haven't severance posted in a while, but I had to get this off my chest, because it fascinates me. Sorry in advance for a ridiculously long post/ramble.

I've been thinking a lot about Petey's reintegration and why it failed, and honestly I think the heart of it is the answer to the question: are the innies and outties two separate people, or the same person? Because I've seen arguments for both perspectives on Tumblr as well as third positions that say it's "kind of both/complicated", and all of them make compelling cases, but there's other aspects of the innie and outtie relationship that I don't think are talked about enough, and they could have very strong implications for how reintegration is going to affect our characters.

Let's start by using Petey as an example. Part of his reintegration problem was the timeline in his mind. Severance felt as far away as his fifth birthday, which makes sense if you take the perspective that the innies and outties are two people. This way of thinking certainly helps Lumon dehumanize innies as the “other” and pits the innies and outties against each other and appears to be what's happening from the viewers perspectives, as innies and outties disagree with each other and sometimes take steps to undermine each other.

But there's interesting implications when you reexamine the show's stated science behind it. While it seems like the innies are their "own separate people" that happen to share a body, it's notable that the innies aren’t created as a duplicate or other consciousness, not exactly. If that was the case, then the independent consciousnesses could theoretically be active in the same body at the same time, each with their own thoughts and unable to access each other's memories and experiences (though once aware at the same time, they would make memories and experiences together, much like a split brain patient). But thus far, as the science has been explained to us in the show, what severance does has nothing to do with duplicating or dividing consciousness in the brain, but memories, and that's an aspect of the procedure that could easily haunt many characters later and has interesting implications for what a successful reintegration could eventually look like if they decided to become "one person".

Let's take Mark, for example. Think of the moment he wakes up on the table. To Mark S, that's when "his life" begins, but "his life" is really just Mark Scout + amnesia at that point. His memories are there, but something is blocking his access to them, and when he goes up the elevator, his memories return, but now with something blocking access to other memories. So while an unsuccessfully reintegrated timeline might look the way Petey's did, with waking up on table = fifth birthday and he sees them as two separate lives he lived, a successfully reintegrated timeline for a character might look something like this:

"I was depressed so I took a job at Lumon, agreed to severance, and went down the elevator. Once down the elevator, I forgot everything, so I started working, and I hated my job. Then I went up the elevator. Once up the elevator, I forgot the whole work day, but remembered everything else, so I when home I made these decisions, which lead me back down the elevator. Once there, I forgot everything again, but remembered the day before. However, since I forgot, (for example) that I was married, I started falling in love with this person, or since I forgot that I have these values/fears/ideals, I did this action when I normally wouldn't. Then I went up the elevator and forgot the whole work day again, but remembered everything else...."

And it just continues like that. One perfectly integrated timeline for one person because the only thing separated was their memories. Sure, characters made different choices with access to different memories, but people make different decisions with different amounts of information, like stories where a character gets amnesia and acts different as a result because for better or worse, key memories are gone, but that doesn't make them "not them". The amnesia is part of their story arc, and the changes in the character are obvious, but I’m in multiple fandoms with that storyline, and we don't look at them and necessarily think "boom! It's a new person now, the old one died" and when/if the memories come back, it's not like there's suddenly two people now, even if the character might feel conflicted due to their new experiences when they couldn’t remember their previous life. It's just that unlike most amnesia stories where it happens in one big accident and characters forget one set of information they knew, the characters in severance are in a constant back and forth of "I forget this but I remember that, I forgot these memories, but I have these ones back now" and both innies/outties are selective amnesiacs.

This leads back to a debate that lies at the heart of severance the show: are these two different people or the same person? And while the "two people" answer is to Lumon's benefit (a house divided can't stand against them) and "one person" seems to be suggested if my theory about the science/process involved in a successful reintegration is correct, I think the answer is actually way more complicated and going to depend on the individuals themselves. Theoretically speaking, yes, all severance does is isolate and compartmentalize one person's memories (which we know because it's not like Helena and Helly R. can be awake and aware at the same time in the same body while simultaneously not accessing each other's memories or reintegrating into one person, at least that we know so far), thus implying that all the severed are really just one person with "spatially isolated memories" as the show says. But if a successful reintegration, as I'm theorizing, depends on accepting that reality, then some characters might not be able to do that and choose to continue living their lives as if they are two separate people who happen to take turns using the same body.

I think this will be hard for the outties and innies for a variety of reasons, and one general reason is that from the way Mark Scout and Helena speak to their innies, it's clear they don't really see them as people or a part of themselves at all. Their bodies aren't "Mark S. and Helly R.'s bodies" they are Mark Scout and Helena Eagan's bodies, and while Mark Scout and Helena Eagan's decisions lead to partial occupation of their bodies (and by extension, lives) by Mark S. and Helly R., from their perspective, they still have every right to evict them. From the outtie’s perspective, innies are just using/being loaned bodies and lives that don’t belong to them. Once the outties decide they don’t want their innie anymore, then it’s goodbye. Unpleasant for the innies of course, but what are they going to do? This isn’t their body or their life? Even if the outties do see the innies as people, they still don't see them as equal people with an equal right to the body they inhabit, and they certainly don't see the innies as part of themselves rather than separate people/parasites, and since I hypothesize accepting themselves as one might be what is needed for a successful reintegration, that’s gonna be a problem. And of course, the more hostile the outties are to their innies, the more the innies don't want to accept the outties are part of themselves either, because "hey, I get this is your body and your life and all, but uh...you did create me and put me in here, okay? So pardon me for wanting to live and be a person. You see me as an enemy, but I'm a enemy you made! Remember that? Remember you putting me in "your body"? Maybe you could be a little nicer?"

Of course as I said before, all this innie/outtie hostility only serves Lumon. The more they fight, the more divided they are, the most powerful Lumon becomes. Less memories per person at any time means less knowledge per person at any time. But even if an outtie and innie were to reach an understanding, that alone does not a successfully reintegration make. They wouldn't just need to get along as two separate people, if my theory is right, they need to accept (or decide if you'd prefer to think of it like that) that they're one person. For some characters, I think this will be easy, and a stitched together timeline where you accept yourselves as one person seems like the perfect solution. Take Dylan G. for example. He gets new friends, his wife, his kids and memories of being awesome and falling back in love. Who wouldn't want that? He better get reintegrated and live his best life.

But then of course, we have Helly R./Helena, Mark S./Mark Scout, and Gemma/Ms. Casey, which is a way more complicated situation. Personally, I do not care who "ends up" with who, though I do humbly think that the situation is far less simplistic than it often gets made out to be in terms of "oh but these two HAVE to end up together if reintegrated/severed", and will be talking about it, as this does factor into the decisions the characters might end up making.

For example, and this might be the world's most unpopular opinion, but I do not think reintegration = Mark automatically choosing either woman over the other, Gemma or Mark hating Helly, or even either woman insisting Mark should obviously be with them. Let's start with Mark. What would reintegration mean for him? What would his "stitched together timeline" look like? Well, it's the story about him getting severed because of the pain of losing his wife, and spending two years getting over her, then going to work, forgetting about that, falling in love with someone new, then going back up, forgetting that again, but mourning his wife some more and trying to maybe date someone else but it goes nowhere, then he goes back down, forgets all that, and continues the romance with his coworker, goes back up, finally learns his wife is alive after two years and feels that hope, then goes back down, forgets that, and continues the romance again, etc. Overall, when put together, it's the story of a guy who sometimes forgot he had a wife, so he fell in love with a coworker after she died, only to discover his wife is alive again. None of that necessarily means he will choose one woman over the other. He and Gemma have history and they clearly care about each other, but they were also separated for a long time and it’s gonna take a while to see if they can fall back in their rhythm or if that’s even possible. Mark and Helly have a more recent relationship, but her outtie also knew his wife was being tortured at Lumon and didn’t tell him. Didn’t even act sorry about an innocent woman being tortured and killed. She also slept with Mark’s innie under false pretenses. Even if she was raised that way it still might be (understandably) hard for Mark to see past that. But none of these points might even matter at all because we have no idea how Gemma and Helly being reintegrated or not reintegrated will impact Mark's decision even if he himself is successfully reintegrated.

Take Gemma for example. You might think "Well, she's Mark's wife. She believed he would come for her, she waited years for him, she never lost hope in him, and Helly is literally Helena Eagan, who knew she was down there and did nothing. Of course Gemma is not gonna understand or care about their relationship and insist that Mark is her husband and should be with her!" And maybe that's true for Gemma. But consider what a reintegrated timeline would look like for her. Ms. Casey said the best part of her existence was "watching Helly". Seeing Mark, who was kind to her and concerned for her, fall in love. It's like when you have two friends that you ship really hard and are so happy when they end up together but in this case, uh-oh! Now you suddenly remember that actually one of them is your husband, which you periodically kept forgetting ever time you went up that dang elevator, which introduces complicated feelings, but I don't think a reintegrated Gemma would look at Mark and Helly together and be like "ew. now where did this come from?" she knows where it came from, she was there,m. Her story is a back and forth between "My husband is going to save me. He loves me and would never give up on me.” and "the best part of my existence is seeing these two together".

Then we have Helly. And her story is more difficult to stich together because we don't have all of Helena's backstory. But we know that Helena, despite having feelings for Mark, did make some pretty big missteps. Look, maybe she has secretly been working against her father and family this whole time. We don't know. But what we do know is that even if that is the case, she still slept with Mark under false pretenses and made insensitive comments about his wife knowing that she was being tortured daily, and probably has done some other shady stuff. I'm sure she did it under pressure/the influence of her father and suffered too, and I don't want to discount that, but she still did it. And Helly is not going to be happy about that, and even less happy to remember "oh yeah, when I went up the elevator and temporarily forgot my life down here, but suddenly remembered my whole crazy upbringing, that was me that did those things to the man I love and got weirdly jealous of myself like a crazy person." I could see her stepping aside so Mark and Gemma can be together because she realizes/remembers her actions and is horrified by them, but I can also see her really wanting to make their relationship work since Mark is the one thing both her and Helena seem to agree on and this is the one thing they both seem to really want. Her story is a weird back and forth between "I'm going to destroy this company" to "forget all that, we're back to either running the company or destroying it from the inside depending on what the writers do here" and back to forgetting all that again and going back to destroying Lumon with Mark. So, yeah, until we know a little more about Helena, it's hard to say what a reintegration with her would look like, but I think that "she'd realize the error of her wicked ways and stand aside so Mark and Gemma could be together, what happened between Helly and Mark doesn’t matter at all" and "no, she deserves happiness, and her and Mark belong together just forget about the complications" are not guarantees.

So in summary, where does that leave our trio? The way I see it, we have two options main options here. Option 1, which I've discussed above is everybody reintegrates. Their timelines are stitched together, and Gemma/Casey, Helena/Helly, and Mark/uh...Mark, remember everything, and all the complicated feelings, pains, self-hatred, and betrayal that comes with it, and then...they work it out. They talk through their feelings like adults. They can't change what happened, but it is what it is, and now the three of them remember everything. Their whole story. Hopefully a very qualified therapist is involved, and yes, the most likely scenario is multiple people getting their feelings hurt if not all of them, but life is messy and complicated, and sometimes this is what happens. Is it fair to everyone? No. Is this a bittersweet ending? For sure. But on the bright side, now they can talk it out. Now they have their lives back, their full, complete lives. Now they're all working on the same side as their whole selves, no separated or compartmentalized memories. That at least is something, something that could be a good place of common ground.

Then there's option 2: one or both of the innies/outties can't or won’t accept or decide that they're the same people, so they can't reintegrate. As much as the severance show tells us "hey we just separated and isolated your memories, not your consciousness" and "It's hard to tell which "person" you are (or rather, which set of memories you have access to at a given time)", that's not what we see or what the characters see. And let's face it. If someone told you that you had another life where you fell in love with someone other than your current partner, or watched, heck, even rooted for them, to fall for someone else, or tortured and hurt your current partner and someone else who you consider a friend, would you want to remember that? And even if one character can reintegrate, a lot of their ability to move forward and make decisions about their future depends if the other two are also reintegrating or not because of how entangled their lives are now. Living as separate people might be what's easiest, whether that's what's "actually happening" during severance or not. It's giving up half a life, but if the characters decide the stitched together life isn't the one they want to remember, but also won’t kill each other to take over their life, then what else are they to do? Ironically, I see this ending just as bittersweet as the other one. I imagine at a certain time every year, Helena drives to that cabin in the woods. Mark and Gemma Scout arrive too, separate car. They just sort of look at each other, acknowledge each other. Helena knows outtie Mark is the person who chose Gemma over her, that her innie gets a version Mark and she doesn't, but at least she has control of the company now. At least she's free from her father. And of course, to Outtie Mark and Gemma, Helena is the person who knowingly let them be tortured and tried to make a move on Mark knowing what her father's company was doing to his supposedly dead wife. Sure, she turned it around and helped them, but that still happened. And all of them know what's going to happen when they walk into the cabin. Mark and Helly are going to be together, and Mark is disgusted by the fact that a version of him fell in love with the woman who tortured his wife even though he supposes "technically" it's not her, and Helena hates that it's Helly getting that romance, and not her, and Gemma is unhappy, because how would you feel if your partner was in this situation, and you were about to be turned into someone who thought that your husband and the lady who knew you were being tortured in her dad’s basement looked cute together?

But what can they do? Refuse to return to the cabin? Selectively delete their bundles of severed memories, removing them like a brain tumor? They could. But deep down, they know they can't. Even Gemma, whose innie was made through zero fault or consent of her own, can't bring herself to condemn an innocent and kind person to just "stop existing", even if she knows that "person" is just "memories she forgot + forgetting her current memories". So they go inside. And just like that, Helly R., Mark S., and Ms. Casey are back. They can't leave the cabin, though they might want to. Their world and existence are small. But it's there's, and they don't have to share it with their outties. They don't have to work for Lumon. They can be happy. And if they need to know about anyone else or anything else going on outside, they can gather on the balcony and have someone step out to activate their outtie to talk to the other two. But I feel like they might try to avoid that, if they can. Perhaps a conversation between Outtie Mark and Helly so he can see and understand how a version of himself could fall in love with her and verify that Ms. Casey is happy with her situation. But that might be it. And then, when the time is up, they leave. They don't know if they'll be back, but they hope so. Mark and Helly hug one last time, before exiting through separate doors as Mark leaves with Ms. Casey. Then they all go outside, get back in their cars, and drive away, as if the time just disappeared. They don't remember what happened in the cabin. They don't want to remember. Maybe that was them, maybe it was always them. But it's easier to act like they aren't the same person, for them and their innies. So that's how they act. Forever.

Anywayyyy... I'm not saying that this is necessarily where the show is going, but it's my theory about what makes for a successful reintegration, and you don't have to agree with it or like it, but I hope someone finds in narratively compelling. And if you're reading this and hate both these options because it ruins your beautiful ship, please know that I hope your ship works out, and you are happy. I have no control over that, and obviously that hope can't work for everyone since what everyone wants seems to contradict each other (an ironically perfect metaphor for our characters), but either way, at least we'll have fanfic.

[partyartyart]

Eiri Yuki

It's Gravitation~

[somegrumpynerd]

Truce is going well

[nattikay]

OC lineup! All the characters that currently exist in this "story"

[onesnoopyaday]

I AM AT MY LIMIT

Snoopy #90

30/12/2024

description under the cut

[description: a cartoon-style drawing of Snoopy's head. Snoopy is a white dog with black ears. His eyes are shut and his mouth is a horizontal line. There are two large blue teardrops, one under each eye. The text "I am at my limit" is handwritten across the top of the image.]

[whose-line-requests]

Sound Effects: Tarzan and Jane hunting for food - Season 3 | Episode 19

[stardestroyer81]

Inspired by this post by @artpro86, I wanted an excuse to draw my latest blorbo, Cindy Bear, in a similar fashion... it didn't take me too long to be struck with an iconic reaction image to redraw with her instead.