#literally was crashing out but it works and i just ordered a controller so come tomorrow...gaming girl...

[bastardbvby]

spent like 30 minutes trying to figure out why steam link wasnt showing my game on the tv only to realize i hadn't given steam permission to screen record . fuck ass life fr

[thehighladywrites]

ACOTAR MEN X READER, USING DOE EYES ON THEM

summary: you give them doe eyes in order to persuade them into whatever you want

warnings: nsfw, suggestiveness

amara’s note: i love them holy shit but my fav one this time is eris🥹🥹

Rhysand:

Looks down at you with amusement

He knows what you’re trying to do

“ come on rhyssssss, just one tiny mission. I promise I’ll be super careful, baby”

Unbeknownst to you he agreed the second you asked since he can’t really say no to you

But he loves to see just how desperate you’ll get, how much you’ll beg him.

And paired with those docile eyes? Yeah he’s a goner.

He might seem composed and calm on the outside, but trust me that man is panicking

Rhysand knows he’ll say yes to anything, obey you in every way when you flash him those eyes.

“Okay, but please be careful. If you feel your shoulder hurt again, come home. Abandon the mission and prioritize yourself, do you hear me?”

The moment the words leave his mouth, it hits him like a brick that he agreed to give you a mission when you've barely recovered from an injury.

He never fails to be surprised by your ability to controll him

You words and eyes are powerful indeed…

Azriel:

You’d think he’d have some sort of resistance or something but no

If anything, he folds the quickest of them all

“ Az, could i please-”

“ Yes ”

He doesn’t even let you finish talking, he just looked into your begging eyes and said yes to whatever it is you wanted

There isn’t a thing on this planet that he wouldn’t do for you

But when you pair it with those doe eyes, standing shorter than him as you look up through your lashes with a slight tilt in your head, lips pouting, he gets hard

You look so submissive and innocent, it sparks something primal in him.

“You don’t have to ask me for things, my love, just tell me whatever it is you want and need.”

He’s grabbing you by your waist, pullling you in closer as he kisses you with need.

I’m so serious, this man is down bad

Cassian

He's been working late every day for two weeks, and you've had enough. You miss your mate, and you want him close.

Clad in a slutty little nightgown that screamed ‘give me attention’ , you sauntered into his office

At first, irritation crashes over you like a rogue wave because he isn’t even bothering to lift his head when he greets you. So, you declare it's time for a hands-on approach to spice up the scene.

Rounding his chair, you stand behind him, and with expert hands, you start giving his stiff shoulders a massage. His groans reverberate through the room.

"That feels so good, sweets," his voice is raspy and laced with exhaustion.

Smiling to yourself, your hands travel further down to his chest, where you attempt to unbutton his shirt.

He grabs your wrist, smirking, and drags you so you’re in front of him, raising an eyebrow at your bold move.

Cassian's brain short-circuits as you stand there with big eyes, begging for attention, and then lower yourself to your knees, looking up at him.

“ baby, i missed you so much. Please let me take care of you…”

Stunned, he's left speechless, resorting to a simple nod in response.

Safe to say, you were both pleased and relieved by the end of it all

Lucien:

He isn’t stupid, he KNOWS you use your eyes to get your way

But he literally doesn’t care, he’ll give in to you

He likes watching you work for it though

Standing before him, hands innocently behind your back, you arch your back, pushing your chest out, your eyes widening with a mix of need and desire. Your lips form a seductive pout, silently pleading for him to sweep you away to The Continent.

“is that how you ask for something, my love?”

He's feral, a teasing smile playing on his lips as he watches you, curious to see how far you'll go for a yes.

Little do you know, he's already packed your bags, setting the stage for a surprise journey.

“Please, Luc, I really wanna come with you. Let me convince you.”

You got him WHIPPED, like he’s panicking inside, fucking sweating

“Yeah? How will you convince me?”

Stepping closer to him, you whisper your deprived thoughts, reveling in the way he shudders

Yeah…

You were limping on your trip

Eris:

Eris had never felt so… conflicted in his life

He had never bent over backwards for someone or even let anyone occupy his mind the way you do

The first time you used your eyes to persuade him, he nearly stumbled backward, then attempted to ignore you because he felt weak.

Eris had no idea eyes could be so powerful, and he had a feeling he’d say yes to absolutely everything and anything you wanted

After a few times, he stopped feeling so conflicted and started looking forward to your little manipulation sessions

You had attempted to seduce him all day, but he insisted on working, especially since he had recently ascended to the position of High Lord and had a mountain of paperwork to tackle.

Walking into his office, you strutted around, touching his belongings and casually perusing through the documents on his desk.

Eventually, you got closer to his table and bent over, acting like you needed something.

Eris looked up only to be met with a sight full of your tits. Sighing, he looked up at you with a secret smile,

“I know what you’re doing, sweet thing.”

“ What? Is it a crime to help my mate with his work?”

You look at him with round eyes, your head slightly lowered as your eyes do the talking

His eyes, simmering with desire, traced every curve of your form as a sultry smile played on his lips, creating tension that sizzled with heat.

“Do you remember the last time you gave me those eyes, love?”

Fuck yeah, you do. He had fucked you stupid for hours, in every part of the Forrest House, showing you new levels of pleasure you hadn’t even considered, eyes rolling into the back of your head everytime he pumped into you

Your body shuddered at the memory, body aching for more. Giving him your most desperate, doe-eyed expression, you ask your mate for more

“What if I want it to happen again?”

Giving you a once over with raised brows, his handsome face breaks into a foxy smile as he signals you to come closer

Biting your lips to hide your smile, you oblige, helping him relieve his tension and stress

[thearcaneuniversity]

I keep thinking about Gi-hun and In-ho’s situation(ship), as well as their respective characters and the overall message of Squid Game.

In-ho clearly got emotionally attached, which is why he didn’t kill Gi-hun at the end of Season 2. Logically, that would’ve made more sense - especially if he wanted to punish him. He could have eliminated Jung-bae and then Gi-hun, or not allowed Gi-hun to come back into the games in the first place. He had years to get rid of him during the gap between seasons. But he didn’t.

If we were to try and unpack In-ho’s mindset, based on LBH’s interpretation of his character, In-ho used to be like Gi-hun: righteous, idealistic, deeply committed to justice – a good-at-heart kind of cop. Someone who always deeply believed in fairness. I imagine he was a bit naive too, despite his line of work. Then it all came crashing down when his wife got sick, he lost his job – very possibly unfairly (I believe he either wasn’t involved in bribery at all, or there is simply more to that story) - and then ended up in the games. All of these factors made him go from one extreme to another - from idealism to cynicism. The world wasn’t fair, so he’d control this cruel, twisted system and at least make it fair, on his terms. He needed to believe in some kind of order to justify the terrible things he was now a part of. It’s a coping mechanism that doesn’t absolve him of his crimes, but gives us an understanding for his future actions and choices.

He takes on the role of the Frontman, overseeing the games for years - unchallenged and alone - both a perpetrator and a victim of the brutal system he’s both upholding as well as merely trying to survive within.

Enter Seong Gi-hun. An unrelenting force of goodness. A man that yells about how unfair and inhumane the games are. A man that refuses to fully conform, even when doing so would benefit him. He isn’t especially smart or skilled, definitely not perfect, but he’s brave, kind, and resilient. Strong-willed. Even after being betrayed, humiliated, and traumatized, he never loses his heart. His moral compass stays intact even in the final fight with Sang-woo - Gi-hun holds out his hand to his childhood friend and rival offering mercy, unity, and a way to break the cycle of bloodshed.

That must have wrecked In-ho emotionally.

Here is someone that is so similar to his old self, his younger brother, possibly his late wife – still believing, still fighting, still loving, still refusing to give in to the bitterness. It pulls at something deep within him. Once again quoting LBH – Gi-hun literally pulls at his heart - and it's beautiful, frustrating, hopeful, painful and confusing.

In-ho watches Gi-hun rebel against the system just like he once (possibly) did, but Gi-hun doesn’t break the way In-ho did. And instead of stopping him, In-ho lets him go – again and again. He has every opportunity to kill him, silence him, remove him from the equation. But he doesn’t. Part of it is the "fairness" he still believes the games uphold - Gi-hun won, and that should mean something. I truly believe that In-ho genuinely hoped for Gi-hun to find peace and happiness after winning the games. However, the other underlying reason for In-ho not putting an end to Gi-hun’s interference is the fact that In-ho has grown attached - long before Gi-hun made his comeback.

So when Gi-hun comes back with a request to be put back into the games, In-ho allows it. Why? Because he needs to show him the truth of the world, the reality of humanity - he thinks he's teaching him a lesson by exposing the system for what it is. But there were so many chances to just... shut the door in Gi-hun’s face, and he didn’t take any of them... because some part of him wants Gi-hun to reach him.

He’s ashamed to face Jun-ho, who remembers who he was. But Gi-hun only knows him as the Frontman. There’s no past to be disappointed in, no expectations to fall short of. He can show his worst self to Gi-hun without fearing rejection that hits as deeply. And yet… he still yearns to be understood. Maybe even accepted. Because, let’s face it, In-ho is a deeply lonely character. He doesn’t have friends. He doesn’t relate to the guards. He keeps people at arm’s length. And suddenly, here’s this one man who might get it - because they’re alike, they’ve been through the same hell and have both been affected by it. With the small difference of Gi-hun choosing to fight for light.

There’s a chance, for the first time in years, that In-ho won’t be alone, which also makes him confused. He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He doesn’t believe in what Gi-hun believes, but he wants to believe it, in his heart of hearts. He finds excuses not to kill him - when doing so would have been beyond easy. He tells himself that it’s about teaching this foolish man a lesson or drawing out the pain to punish him, but the truth is, he can’t bring himself to snuff out that last flicker of hope.

I wouldn’t be surprised if In-ho started helping Gi-hun - subtly, inconsistently. Defending him to the VIPs under a ruse of punishment. Not even sure if he’s trying to break Gi-hun or save him. Maybe a bit of both. Maybe he also wants Gi-hun to redeem him. Maybe he wants to be proven wrong. To be punished...

They’re both deeply broken, partially self-destructive and suicidal. In-ho is pulling Gi-hun toward the dark just as Gi-hun is trying to pull In-ho toward the light.

Ultimately, I believe this story will lean itself toward hope, because even in a cruel and unjust world, people can choose to be good and they do try to be better. Maybe that’s the message we need now more than ever: that redemption isn’t just some abstract ideal, but a necessity.

[moon-ttokki-x]

haii! I <3 ur work sm omigosh------- can you do a college/university au with jisung where the reader has really bad testing anxiety and she literally can't focus even though this is a huge final grade and she needs to do well or she'll have to repeat the class, and she's just like internally freaking out? +comfort and fluff at the end+ <33 idk, this has just been sitting in my head all day..

hihi !! this came at such a relatable time tbh . . . i've been preparing for exams and this was such a relaxing request to write . wish i had a jisung tho hehe :>

pressure - (bsf!han jisung x fem!reader)

pairing: bsf!han jisung x fem!reader

summary: when your testing anxiety gets the better of you, jisung is right there to help you back up .

genre: college!au, mentions of vomiting, mentions of eating or drinking, reader has a panic attack, jisung is so sweet and helpful, seungmin is an absolute little shit, changbin and felix cameo

a/n: somehow my jisung fics always end with soup or hugs . . . if someone could figure out why, that'd be great . . .

skz masterlist

"I don't get it," you groan, letting your head crash onto the textbook laid out in front of you. "This makes no sense whatsoever."

"Fair," Jisung admits from next to you. He adjusts his glasses, which are slipping off the bridge of his nose. "But still. It just takes a little bit of time to understand-"

"I don't have time!" You cry out. Changbin and Felix hurriedly shush you from the other side of the table, and Seungmin looks up from his book with an annoyed glare. You shoot it right back.

"Don't glare at me," you mutter venomously. "Lucky fucker, you finished your exams early. But some of us still have work to do."

"No shit," Seungmin replies coolly.

You almost flip the table.

Jisung sympathetically pats your shoulder as you sink down into his shoulder, sighing in defeat. Seungmin preens himself, pettily victorious. You feel pathetic, moping into your friend's shoulder while the rest of your exam materials scatter the table like a paper bomb.

"Do you want me to explain it to you?" Jisung says softly. "You still have a couple hours until you go in. Don't worry, okay?"

You just shake your head and close your eyes. He puts an arm around you and motions pointedly to the three boys scattered around the table.

Changbin takes Felix's hand and Seungmin sighs before taking his feet off the table. Felix mouths a sweet 'good luck' over his shoulder before the three of them exit the library.

You lift your head slightly, head feeling like a ball of lead stuck on your shoulders. Your body feels so stiff from the long hours of sitting and revising, but you straighten up and try to focus again.

Pressing your hands to the sides of your head, you zoom in on the paragraph you've been trying to understand for the past hour. Ten minutes ago, you could actually read what the words said, but now it all blurs together in a fog of letters. Before you know it, your thoughts are racing.

This exam is really important.

You've been studying for it for such a long time, doing a little bit of content every single day in order to keep up with the pace you'd set for yourself. You'd heard it repeated day after day, by everyone from other students in your course, your lecturers, your professors, and everyone in between. This exam really matters. It determines most of your grade for this year, and if you don't pass it and receive a good score, you'll have to repeat the class.

You can no longer feel Jisung's hand on your back, rubbing its familiar soothing circles. You can't hear his voice, whispering soothing phrases and attempting to reassure you. Your palms are clammy and you feel so hot, so cold...

You want to rip your skin off and you shake your head in frantic, erratic motions, as if you can rid yourself of the thoughts seizing control from you.

All you can hear is yourself in your head, racing, panicky thoughts flooding your mind like a constant stream of freezing, icy water. Every time you come up for air, you're shoved back down by another current, drowning. The weight of expectations and the importance of the exam and the stress and the burnout and the potential consequences of not doing well, not doing enough, all pounces on you at the same time.

Bile rises in your throat like an acidic wave.

Jisung calls your name as you rush out of your seat and bolt from the library, pushing his hand off yourself as you flee. You turn round corridors and push past people, your vision blackening at the edges. A dull buzz rings in your head and you only just make it to a bathroom, throwing yourself against the door and bolting into the cubicle. The smell of disinfectant and the faint scent of perfume fills your senses and you retch over the toilet bowl.

Tears spill down your cheeks and your knees throb from the impact when you dropped to the ground. You feel so dizzy, so sick, and you fight not to throw up your entire system, you're so overwhelmed. A sob escapes your throat.

There's a skid and thud and suddenly Jisung is next to you, breathless. He locks the cubicle door, the space enough for both of you to sit, and pushes his dark hair out of his face, kneeling down next to your trembling figure.

He places a hand on your back, peeling strands of sweaty hair off your face. Rubbing those familiar circles again, he coos into your ear, gentle and not judging as you look up at him with teary, red-rimmed eyes. You can barely gasp his name.

He studies you with a look of worried concern. "You done?"

You nod weakly.

He slings an arm under you and around your back, helping you to stand up. Unlocking the cubicle door, he helps you to the sink and you rinse your mouth with shaking hands, fatigued and dizzy. Jisung remains a steady presence beside you, gently encouraging and whispering praise as you dry your hands.

"Let's go back to the dorm," he says softly.

You shake your head anxiously, black dots swimming in your vision. Your knees buckle and Jisung moves you so you're leaning against the wall.

"Please," he says quietly. "I'll ask Changbin to pack up your exam stuff. You already have your exam materials prepared. Just, please take a while to rest. You look terrible."

You shake your head but Jisung doesn't give you much choice. Not that you had one to begin with; you can barely walk without his help. It takes around half an hour for him to help you through countless hallways corridors, and stairways.

He unlocks the door to his dorm; he's pretty much dragging you next to him at this point. You're too dizzy, tired, and nauseous to know where you are, but you trust Jisung enough to care for you.

He helps you brush your teeth; you started to keep some spare personal items at his place because of how often you came over. He did the same for your dorm, and you sigh as he helps you change clothes into a looser outfit. You collapse on his bed while he heads to the kitchen.

You hear the domestic noises of dishes clattering, the kettle flicking on while the noises of Jisung shuffling around reach your ears in a muted haze.

You're about to fall asleep, your weak frame sinking into the mattress when he reenters the room. The smell of broth fills the air.

You sit up as he places a tray with a bowl of broth, a banana, and a bottle of water on the bedside table.

He sits down next to you, holding a spoon. "Changbin's got your stuff and he says he'll wait near your exam room til you have to go in. You have two hours to rest up and eat."

You sigh on a long, shaky exhale, face pale. "Thank you, Sung."

"Here," he says with a grin, pressing the spoon into your hand. "You need some fuel after throwing your guts up."

.

You come out of the exam room in a daze; you turn the corner and find Jisung waiting there, leaning against the wall, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in a comical, hopeful expression.

He pushes off the wall and takes the clear plastic bag of pencils and pens out of your hand, swiping it and shoving it in his hoodie pocket.

"So?" He says. "How'd it go?"

You pause, blinking. Letters dance in front of your eyes. "I- Well. I didn't throw up again, at least."

He whoops, almost smacking you in the face as he throws his hands up. "Let's go. Good job, Y/n." He pats your head. His wide eyes fix themselves on your own, clearly still able to see the anxiety behind your gaze.

You both pause in the middle of the hallway. Jisung straightens up soberly as you exhale deeply.

You still feel a little bit dizzy, definitely tired and fatigued from not only the exam but the mental exhaustion you've been fighting for the past few months. You worked so hard, and your anxieties haven't dissolved completely; you still have to get your grade back. But the main part is over, at least. Now, you can relax, take some medicine to settle your stomach from earlier, and maybe eat something good to celebrate.

Once you feel better, of course.

You look at Jisung; he's staring off into the distance, clearly not minding the silence at all. His hair flops into his face, glasses slipping off the bridge of his nose, humming something to himself. You recognise the melody, just about making out the pitches of his current favourite song.

You step forward and fall into him, arms finding that familiar place around his waist. He doesn't blink, and his vision stays unfocused in that dazed look, but his arms circle around you like a protective blanket, hands rubbing soft, warm circles on your lower back.

"Sung," you say softly, voice slightly croaky.

His chin comes to rest lightly on the top of your head. "Mmm?"

"Thank you for taking care of me."

He chuckles, pulling you back gently with one hand on your shoulder. "You're okay. I get exam anxiety too. I know it can be a lot, but you should be proud no matter what your result is. You worked so hard, Y/n."

You nod, gazing at him. He pats your back and then tickles your side, making you giggle. You push his hands away mock-disapprovingly.

"Come on," he chuckles. "Let's go get something to eat. You must be starving after all that."

a/n: div by @cafekitsune

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[sturniololuvz]

May i request one with the prompt of younger sister figure skating when she slips and falls and even though shes completely fine the boys hear the thud from the other side of the stadium while on practice and immediately rush to make sure shes okay (prob thinking the worst) and she has to be like "oh... no im fine" THANKU

“Just a Scratch”

It was a normal Thursday evening at the local rink, the kind of place where winter felt like it never ended — cold air, the sound of skates slicing the ice, and the occasional echo of coaches barking orders. On one side of the rink, the Sturniolo triplets were deep into hockey practice, running drills and smacking pucks across the ice. On the other side, their younger sister, Y/N, was in her own world — gliding gracefully across the smooth surface in her figure skates.

To anyone watching, she looked completely in control, twirling and leaping with practiced precision. She had been working on a particularly tricky combination jump all week, determined to land it before her next competition. The triplets were always teasing her about how “dramatic” skating looked, but secretly, they were her biggest fans — watching from afar whenever they got a chance.

“Let’s go again!” her coach called, and Y/N took a deep breath, skating backwards into her setup.

She leapt.

And then — crack.

It wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t even a loud crash. But the thud her body made as it hit the ice echoed through the arena.

Across the rink, Chris stopped mid-drill, his head snapping toward the sound. Matt, skating toward the net, whipped around so fast he nearly lost his balance. Nick dropped his stick without even realizing it, eyes wide.

None of them had seen her fall — but they knew that sound.

“That was her,” Chris muttered, already skating toward the rink’s edge.

They ditched practice like it was nothing. Helmets half-off, skates still on, they bolted through the corridor separating the two rinks. Coaches yelled after them, but they didn’t care — all they knew was their little sister had just hit the ice hard.

Y/N sat up groggily, shaking her head. Her elbow ached a little, but she was mostly just annoyed that she hadn’t landed the jump. She looked up just in time to see all three of her brothers bursting through the rink doors like they were expecting to find her in pieces.

“Y/N!” Matt’s voice boomed.

She blinked, stunned. “Wait—why are you guys—?”

Chris climbed into the rink without hesitation, skating toward her like he might scoop her up and carry her out.

“Are you okay? Did you hit your head?” Nick asked, already crouching next to her, checking her face for any sign of injury.

“I’m fine—guys!” she laughed nervously. “I just wiped out. It’s skating, that happens.”

“You sounded like a damn bowling ball hitting the ice,” Chris muttered, eyes still scanning her for injuries. “You scared the crap out of us.”

Matt leaned on the boards, his face pale. “We thought you—like—shattered something.”

Y/N sat there, surrounded by her overly panicked brothers, cheeks flushed pink from both embarrassment and warmth. “I swear. I’m literally fine. Bruised ego, maybe.”

They didn’t move for a few seconds. Then Matt sighed, Nick shook his head, and Chris ruffled her hair roughly.

“Don’t do that again,” Chris grumbled. “If you’re gonna fall, do it quietly next time.”

Y/N smiled. “Love you guys too.”

They started back toward their practice, muttering about “heart attacks” and “drama queen skaters,” but she could hear it in their tone — they were just relieved.

And as Y/N stood up and shook the ice from her skates, she glanced back and smiled softly.

Even if it was just a slip… she kind of liked knowing they’d always come running.

⸻

[bromcommie]

(Look, I can’t even do the whole “list of sources” thing anymore. I’ve been livid for 10 hours now. I just need to vent.)

In addition to inciting fear and hiking up tensions in the past few weeks, organizing various paid goons to play at a counter-protest and to threaten students, blocking intercity and city public transport and rolling out special police forces and armored vehicles, last night in Belgrade the absolute cowards constituting the Serbian leadership apparently ordered the use of what seems to be a sound cannon on hundreds of thousands of people, in order to interrupt and break up an ENTIRELY SILENT, PEACEFUL 15-minute vigil. A vigil for victims of an “accident” that same leadership is still refusing to take any accountability for, systemically or individually, 4+ months later.

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No incidents preceded this, by the way. This wasn’t a riot. Not that it should matter, since these tactics are never implemented to protect anyone anyway, but I feel compelled to say that. There was zero “justifiable cause”. There weren’t even any uniformed police in that area that anyone could see.

People were rightfully terrified because a) this has never happened before so they legitimately didn’t know if there’s something crashing down on their heads (which is how we got here in the first fucking place, isn’t it) or a bomb going off or what, and b) there was absolutely ZERO reason to expect it to happen then, other than the government getting pissy and taking issue with 300,000+ (at the most rigid estimate) people coming to protest peacefully.

And to be perfectly clear, I don’t think using an LRAD in this way is EVER justifiable, considering it’s almost guaranteed to cause mass injury as a result of stampedes as well as hearing damage—but the sheer pathetic spinelessness of using it out of nowhere on a bunch of people, including the elderly and babies in fucking strollers, who are literally just standing still and silent for fifteen minutes to honor and grieve a deeply traumatic national tragedy is just…heinous.

As of right now I’m not sure how many people got hurt (in this incident as well as the subsequent physical attacks on the students from “random” hooligans and clashes with the cops) but I know it’s one too many, and there’s civil rights orgs offering free legal support to those who did.

And here’s the punchline: after all that, the fucking police had the gall to issue a statement saying “this wasn’t us, the use of sound cannons is illegal in Serbia.”

Oh, really? Who or what was it then, do you think? Maybe a particularly loud bicycle horn sent all those people ducking for cover? Somebody’s kid brother pulling out a portable speaker for shits and giggles? Or are you implying that somehow, some 19-yearold who’s studying film and works at the local coffeeshop or whatever is ordering American-grade sonic weapons off of Temu to use for the students’ nefarious government-toppling schemes?

“It wasn’t us, that’d be illegal 🥺” Give me a fucking break.

And maybe the question we should be asking is, “how in the world did we get to a point where the regime can afford to be so transparent? As if it’s normal for the police to even deny something like this. As if the alternative—which would be that we simply have rogue off-label weapons floating around, I guess, which are being used illegally on thousands of members of the public by some unknown force that the cops can supposedly neither predict nor control—even if it were true, is somehow fine and doesn’t make the govt look even more inept and culpable?”

I mean. I know how we got here. It’s painfully goddamn obvious how, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but Jesus Christ. Clown fucking state.

[biteitwhenitssoft]

gravity falls tma fears?

Mabel - Forsaken She's so impossible to give a fear to imo but just going by what she's afraid of it'd certainly be the lonely, given her love of her family and want to make friends and find romance the second she sets foot in Gravity Falls, and her subsequent fear of losing all of that at the end of summer. Also I call it forsaken for her specifically because her fear is of being forsaken specifically, you feel? A fear of abandonment. I also think there's a good argument for her imprisonment in Mabel land to have been very lonely-coded too. (Something about being trapped in a dream-like bubble that does all it can to keep you there, away from your actual loved ones, content with just your imaginations projection of them for company. They can't hurt you if they're not really there.)

Stan - The Stranger Stan is actually a perfect avatar of the stranger it makes me insane. He literally scared the main characters when they found out he wasn't Stanford Pines by finding all of his fake IDs, like come ON. A con man with an ever changing identity showing up in your town and fucking you over, whats not to love? The stranger loves him, he gives up his entire self MULTIPLE TIMES in his life/the show! Not just when he's on the run, all of his fake IDs and different names, the different men he's been, but him becoming Stanford. He killed himself to become a weird, off-putting, not-quite-right version of his brother instead, and then at the end he's more than happy to give up his entire mind and sense of self to kill Bill. This man has no attachments to his identity as Stanley, and frankly the symbolic death he went through with the whole car crash thing works really well as an actual avatar change death. Now, certainly, Stan is much more afraid of the lonely, that's what kicked off his whole... everything. Same as Mabel, he didn't want his brother to leave him, didn't want to be left alone. But that's just the thing, in order to escape being preyed upon by the lonely, he ran to the stranger.

Stanford - The Eye Obviously. Lol. But not like, ONLY because of his connection to the literal eye of providence symbol, he IS a knowledge seeker and always has been. He's not just naturally smart, he actively loves learning and meticulously preserves all of that new information in his research journals. He's a perfect example of "needing to know, even if the information might kill you." Example: Chasing dangerous anomalies. Example: Reading the sketchy inscription on the cave wall that told you NOT to read it because it would bring about your doom. I do specify The Eye for Ford because of Bill though, seeing as (despite arguments for Bills story and personality being able to point him to other fears) Ford is connected to a very literal and obvious representation of The Eye- one who easily manipulates him because for all that Ford can see, for all that he seeks knowledge and understanding, he can never truly see past his own perception. Ford likes to See, and Ford ends up being VERY seen, both by his muse and by his nephew, obsessively consuming his journals and everything they reveal about Ford's life.

Fiddleford - The Spiral He was a man driven to madness by his own fear. He goes after Ford in the list because Ford does brush up against the spiral during his paranoia era, but McGucket lives and embodies it much more. Fidd quite literally seemed to have a problem with spiraling during his anxiety attacks, it can be assumed that he struggled with controlling his own thoughts and was easily swept up into his fears and taken away by them. And of course, his solution to this spiraling, the memory gun, only serves to damage his mind more, leading him even farther into his own paranoia era, until it goes too far and he loses himself entirely. He's pretty different from the canon TMA representations of the spiral as far as I can see, but I personally think he's a fitting portrayal despite that? I'm not sure he genuinely fears not being able to trust his own mind? But there's an argument that just like Stan, he runs into the arms of the spiral to escape the eye.

Dipper - Beholding Where Ford is a peak knowledge seeker in terms of his own learning, Dipper is a perfect audience. Dipper is a knowledge seeker, just like Ford, but more than being bookish, it makes him a big fan of mysteries and stories. Dipper is obsessive about Ford's journals, hooked by all of the hidden information not only about Gravity Falls, but about the elusive author himself. And like his uncle, Dipper is more than willing to get himself into danger to learn and reveal the truth. From being convinced using a real monster as a mystery shack attraction would be better, to making a deal with Bill so he can access the laptop, Dippers thirst for understanding is what gets him and his sister into all of the shenanigans that make up the series. And in true beholding fashion, he sees everything, gets every piece of information he can, but can never truly connect it all. Can see but can't understand. He's certainly not afraid of knowledge, he's compelled by it, and if he's not careful he could very easily slip into serving the eye and becoming a real beholder for it.

Soos - The Lonely Blendins Game really did a lot for our understanding of Soos and his whole deal. A boy with a deadbeat absent father who he wants nothing more than to get to know, a man who maybe doesn't really have any friends? Can't seem to connect with people his age, Soos is a lonely guy, straight up. Stan hiring him at the mystery shack was one of the greatest things that could have happened for him, I am a big enjoyer of Soos seeing Stan as a sort of father figure, and I am always touched by his love for Dipper and Mabel, specifically in Not What He Seems when he prioritizes the kids OVER Stan! He has a lot of heart, but seems to be chronically alone, the only guy his age around the main characters, just reaching out desperately for connection. God bless Melody comes into the picture eventually, probably eliminating his prey status for the lonely. Again, like Mabel, he is moreso afraid of the lonely than a representation or avatar of it. And I chose the Lonely title for him because where Mabel is afraid of abandonment via specific circumstances, I think Soos is more just generally lonely in his life and in the show. He's one of a kind, and that sorta isolates him.

Anyway thank you for reading <3

[alloutofgoddesses]

S08E15 - Lab Rats

- Took a three hour nap the moment I got home from work bc I have a ~migraine~

- Which is why I am getting to this late

- Anyway

- Hey Moira

- Imagine being evil in a marshmallow suit

- Maddie sweetpea I am so sorry

- Hey FBI

- Buck lmao

- Why is Buck’s impulse control in El Paso when he is NEEDED here

- We all know how things get when things get personal for these two people

- Frankly I would rather them be here fighting with the literal military and FBI than Out And About

- Saw this coming

- I think in this scenario there are actually three crazy bitches

- OFFICER WILLIAMS

- LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO I love Officer Williams

- I wanna cry :)

- “Chemistry set” um. It’s a lab.

- Jesus Christ Athena

- Hello again Ravi ily

- Ravi NOOOOOOOOO

- Hi Karen

- She’s rocking back and forth Augh

- She looks so pretty though

- Well. About that.

- God has no power here

- Ravi is just taking a little nap

- Just vibes man

- Bobert Nash.

- Moira is such a fucking bitch

- I appreciate that they aren’t using Karen as an expert in all science

- Her knowing all the scientists makes so much sense too

- Not yet

- Don’t get Written up Chim

- Oh sweetie

- :(

- Nah you’re fine Chim

- See like I get that this would be more impactful if I didn’t know everything was going to be fine

- However, I can rarely handle actual angst, and angst with with a happy ending is my fav

- And I am Not in a position for actual angst right now

- Awwwww a FaceTime

- Madney !!!!!!

- Blood, blood, buckets of the stuff

- Oh boy

- Buck following Athena’s orders halscgisdlah he has grown so much

- Poor Hen she knows Exactly what’s happening to her bffl

- Not very well

- Girl

- Hey Buck my guy

- Up!

- Also just like. Let the FBI take it from here, you are making it worse for yourself

- Are you for real right now

- No shit Tommy

- As someone who also bleeds from the left the most when I get nosebleeds I feel Chim rn

- Hey look he’s fine

- Buck now is not the time

- Uh huh sure

- Hey other helicopter

- You see how you made this worse for yourselves

- Good Lord

- However. Imagine being so down bad for a guy you will Not end up with that you’re willing to do this shit

- Lmao

- Sorry this is Serious I am Serious

- It’s not maybe one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed

- Oh there’s no way she’s in there. She never even got in

- Wouldn’t you like to know

- KAREN TO THE RESCUE

- Athena is going in? Not Roz? I love this ridiculous show

- Only Angela Basset.

- That’s it that’s the sentence

- There’s clearly one person actually handcuffed here

- You would have already cuffed them if they were actually under arrest

- That’s great lady I’m sure you’ll get a plea deal and be out in less than a decade

- Now when does Bobby dramatically pass out

- I hope Ravi has someone to hug when he gets home

- Hey Buck

- Bobby why ain’t ya moving

- Rat!

- I don’t think you’re gonna be allowed to keep the lab rat as a pet unfortunately

- Bobby you and I both know he’s not gonna be okay

- AN I LOVE YOU !!!!! AND HE CALLED HIM KID!!!!!!!!

- If this wasn’t some weird ass fakeout I would be devastated right now (<- denial)

- The moment Bobby is alive again Athena is going to kill him (<- denial)

- Awwwwwww

- Time for Buck to Crash The Fuck Out

- And if anyone is gonna defy all logic, physics, and reality it’s gonna be Athena Grant-Nash

- Theyyyyyyyyy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- GOD they’re SO

- Soul! Mates!

- HOZIER AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- AND IT’S WORK SONG

- OUCH OWIE OW

- Ravi and Karen?! Gifts I didn’t know I needed

- I shan’t be crying everything is gonna be Fine (<- denial)

- But Work Song

- I need all of these people in a cuddle pile right now

- Buck looks so little he literally looks eight years old

- That’s just a kid losing his dad

- :(

- OW that last shot

- 10/10 acting Peter Krause

- 10/10 acting Oliver Stark

- 10/10 acting Angela Basset

- 10/10 acting Anirudh Pisharody

- 10/10 acting Aisha Hinds

- 10/10 acting Kenneth Choi

- 10/10 acting Jennifer Love Hewitt

- 10/10 acting Tracie Thoms

- And even though they weren’t in this episode (unfortunately) I know Ryan Guzman and Gavin McHugh would have ATE

[sonnburntskies]

Oh no, the more I think about Fadel & Bison being born upper class, the more I'm questioning why they were basically kidnapped so easily.

Even if they had no other family members to look for them, when anything happens to rich people, law enforcement and the media act like it's a national emergency (anyone remember OceanGate???). But Lilly snatched up those nepo-babies as though they'd never even existed!

You know who would have been way easier to steal with basically nobody noticing? Lower class kids with no one to look for them.

Reverse Hitman AU where Lilly takes Kant, Style and Babe instead of Fadel, Bison and Keen.

Kant and Babe would be so easy to kidnap. Their parents are already dead and kids get lost in the foster system all the time.

Or, if one wanted to keep the element of Lilly killing the parents, she could have either orchestrated the plane crash or used it to pass the hit off as a tragic accident when in reality she poisoned them before they even got on the plane.

Kant has already been shown in canon to submit to the wills of authority figures and he was willing to break the law to support Babe financially. A young and impressionable Kant could be manipulated into killing if it was for his brother’s safety.

Babe wouldn't be as useful to Lilly right away since he'd literally be a toddler, but she could look at him as an investment. The future, perfect hitman that she could mold from infancy who would be loyal only to her. In the meantime, he'd make for excellent insurance to hold over Kant's head to force him into compliance.

Style's mother has already died of cancer, and the loss causes his father to ‘shut down’ for a time. His dad is deeply grieving and works in a hazardous profession. Lilly could make it look like an industrial accident or even suicide over the loss of his wife to get him out of the way.

Style does have a list of relatives who would notice him missing, but from the outside it would just look like the death of both his parents drove Style to run away from home. It's unlikely any extended family members would have the resources to look for him, let alone take care of him. The police would just label him as a runaway who'd come back on his own eventually, so they could quickly write him off rather than waste resources looking for him.

Style might be harder for Lilly to control, since he's an unpredictable loose cannon and a pacifist at heart. But in the show, Style goes along with Kant's scheme even after he learns the truth because his greatest weakness is his fierce loyalty. All Lilly would have to do is encourage the family angle and get him attached to Kant and Babe for him to fall in line, following her orders as long as it's for their sake.

Style is such a good actor and a smooth talker, he would be great at schmoozing the marks and getting their guards down. And well, we’ve already seen how weirdly comfortable he is holding a gun.

Her perfect hit-men candidates. Children who fell through the cracks of society. Children who no one would miss.

[bokusaka]

On Thin Ice by kylar

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Relationship: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou

Rating: E

Chapter count: Prologue + 1/13(?)

Tags: ice skating au, professional figure skater!akaashi, professional hockey player!bokuto, sporting injury, surgery and rehabilitation, parental abuse, physical/psychological/financial/emotional abuse, isolation tactics, manipulation, ultimatums, stockholm syndrome/defending abusers, anxiety, autism, homophobia, panic attacks, dissociation, eventual sexual content, found family, escaping an abusive relationship

Fic summary: After suffering a devastating injury at the height of his figure skating career, Akaashi manages to claw his way back onto the ice, determined to make a comeback into the only world he's ever known. Desperate to please his parents-turned-coaches and meet their exacting standards, he unquestioningly obeys their every rule, as he has since childhood. When a kind-hearted hockey player comes quite literally crashing into his life, breaking the bubble of isolation he had been living in wide open, it threatens to crumble the absolute control Akaashi's parents maintain over every aspect of his life. Suddenly questioning everything he's ever been taught, Akaashi struggles to reconcile his desperation to follow the rules set upon him in order to return to professional competition, with his desire to follow his heart and experience love and friendship for the first time in his life. His entire life he's been told that the two were incompatible, but with outside help, he starts to realize that may not be true. With the delicate relationship he holds with his coaches at risk, and thus his return to the world of professional figure skating threatened, will he find a way to have both? Or will he be forced to make a choice?

Notes: well here it is! the new fic as promised. and it wouldn't be one of my fics without a shitton of angst in the tags lmao. i am incapable of writing fluff fics without a ungenerous heaping of pain and suffering apparently. i'm sure y'all saw the update post i was spamming, but i'll reiterate that although i already have almost 93k words written for this fic, it's not completed yet, and my life just got super crazy, so there's no guarantee it'll be finished any time soon. updates will be regular until i get caught up to what i have, but i absolutely will finish this fic one day. it's my favorite thing ive ever written and i've been working on it literally since like 2017. so even if the last few chapters are very slow to come out a la bimv they will come out eventually. anyway, enough rambling. enjoy!

[quitealotofsodapop]

Hmm...if Mac absorbs the egg - does that mean he would have a rock in his gut? How would that even work? Would the egg be draining Mac's magic as a form of sustenance to replace the umbilical cord? Imagine the panic those monkeys would have - "Didn't your rock blow up when you were born?!" "Calm down, I doubt it's gonna go all chestburster on you! I hope." "Chest-what?!" "Oh, right, you haven't seen the movies..." "WUKONG!" - or does the *baby* go to Mac and leaves an empty rock for SWK to use?

OK Im calling a Long Post warning; cus its a long answer, and gives a pretty good idea Why the plot happens.

Basically the stone "Egg" MK comes from was a comet containing Something. The Jade Emperor and a bunch of other Celestials noticed it coming right for earth and started panicing. To anyone not in the know, it just looked like an unseasonable meteor shower over Megapolis.

SWK is summoned cus the Jade Emperor had Visions of what was in the "Egg"; an infant Stone Monkey that could transform into an Eldritch Abomination. Jade Emperor gives the order of scrambled stone egg.

SWK and a bunch of other characters are Not Down For It; so they teleport to SWK's Shame Temple (seen in "Imposssible Delivery") to hopefully catch the Egg before it lands.

Coincidentally; The Shame Temple happens to be where Macaque was put to rest hundreds of years ago, and he's just Woken Up (more details on Why later) to his ex-best-friend/possible soulmate standing there.

Moskha and Nezha have to keep the monkeys apart long enough to form a plan.

The comet that contains the Egg finally crashes down, and begins leaking a horrific chaotic energy thats ripping apart the reality around it. It takes the power of SWK, Nezha, Mohska, and Guanyin herself to perform a ritual to contain the energy within a confined space.

Problem was that when The Egg hit the earth, it had cracked open. But unlike SWK and Mac, it had not developed a body for its soul to survive in just yet.

Wukong has a rare lightbulb moment.

Wukong: "Hey, if *our* eggs held us - then could we use our old shells to patch it up and let it finish cooking?"

Macaque: "Thats the stupidiest idea you've ever had. Lets do it."

Guanyin gives the thumbs up, and Macaque takes SWK's place in the ritual, summoning all his shadow powers to keep the Soul within the temple. SWK causes some chaos zipping around to Flower Fruit Mountain and the Moon for the remains of his and Mac's stone eggs.

SWK patches the broken Cosmic Egg with the remaining shells, successfully trapping the energy.

Then Macaque's control on the shadows faulter, causing the Cosmic Egg to zoom towards him (Samadhi Fire flashbacks anyone?) and hit just before Wukong can jump in for a save; the Soul contained within the Egg absorbing into Macaque's body and leaving behind a seemingly normal egg-shaped rock in Wukong's hands.

Everyone starts panicking.

Guanyin explains: since the Soul existed outside of the natural order, it couldnt just simply jump into the nearest body like a reincarnation. It needed similarly un-natural progenitors.

In essense; the undercooked MK soul was like: "Where am I?! What am I!? Why am i so cold!? Where's my parents!?" *sees SWK and Macaque fixing his egg* "Oh, there they are, my bad."

Which means that Shadowpeach just metaphorically and *literally* concieved a future mystic Monkey.

Macaque is NOT HAPPY and immediately jumps to beat the crap out of SWK.

Moksha has to stop herself from laughing cus; "Bro you just magically knocked up your ex.", while Nezha looks horrified cus he thinks he just saw what Stone Monkey baby-making looks like.

Guanyin advises the two monkeys that if they keep things civil, the Soul will likely incarnate into a physical body and get born as an infant Monkey demon do. But there's a catch:

On a gross physical scale; its not an issue. Mystic Monkeys exist outside the natural category of creatures, and are shapeshifters to boot, meaning that Macaque already had built-in "equipment" to carry a kid. Its just him and SWK never "tried" making more of themselves - a war and a bad break-up put a damper on any family planning they had.

On a magical + spirtual scale though? : Its Dangerous.

The mystical pregnancy takes so much energy from Macaque that he needs to in-turn "steal" energy from other life sources in order to keep both of them healthy/alive. SWK thankfully cannot die and can replenish his energy on his own via food and rest, but the HP donation in turn drains his powers.

Basically by deciding to spare the Egg, Sun Wukong and Macaque have become functionally Mortal until MK is able to provide for himself.

As for the leftover shell; SWK presents it to the Jade Emperor as evidence that he "scrambled" whatever was inside. The celestials present can tell that whatever was in there, isnt anymore, so they accept that SWK did as he was told.

Except for Erlang Shen who's like; "SWK would never do what he's told! This is sus. Imma keep my eye on you if anything new enters the celestial realm."

SWK: "Fine by me, imma go back to being retired and having my main antagonists sealed away."

Once its confirmed that the Celestial Realm considers the Egg destroyed; SWK and Macaque agree to hide in plain sight among the mortal world for the time being. There's a *few* hiccups along the way ofc, but by the time MK is born, they're settled into the apartment above Pigsy's, and faking being a "Completely Normal (Demon) Couple With Baby", and are getting forcibly adopted by the reincarnations of the old JTTW gang.

Cue the rest of the story, and Shadowpeach forgetting where the Fake Relationship ends and where the "Whoops, you're still my soulmate!" begins.

And the three Realms collectively crapping themselves when MK picks up the staff.

And yes; Wukong would worry about the possibly of MK being born chestburter-style. Macaque would then yell at him and banish him to his cloud for the night.

I'm close to finishing the first chapter, so please continue sending asks for more details you'd like to know, and I'll answer without giving away too many spoilers.

Tldr: No rock in Macaque's gut, just baby. Leftover cosmic eggshell used to juke the god. MK is the result of a Covalent Bond. Guanyin is an amazing Fairy Godmother

[olderthannetfic]

Honestly, instead of (only) blaming the author… I'd rather like to ask: What the fuck was the publisher thinking? And where the fucking was the sensitivity reader? I constantly see talks about sensitivity readers for books with controversial and historical and cultural content, especially it features front and center. So where was one?

Let's pivot for just a moment here.

The publisher is Random house, which does have a catalogue of queer and poc writing. With how much shit these two groups experience in publishing, you'd expect there to maybe be extra support or something, at least when it comes to putting the metaphorical foot in your mouth after stepping on a figurative controversy landmine.

Why the fuck did they let any of that slide, and only NOW doing damage control? Did they think that Oh the author's Chinese, why bother? There are several parts that hit you during reading, and this should have been caught, and either been removed or edited to not turn into a complete pitfall. Don't make me mention the advertising.

I've literally never met a person who knew everything of their own ancestral history, or was completely accurate in what they knew. Even people who've lived through history don't know everything. Why do people believe that immigrants do? Speaking from personal experience as well.

I personally don't even think it's bad she wanted to write about that, and did it for her family.

But wasn't there a moment they went: Ok... wait. We respect you wanna write this, but... this could really end badly because of the actual historical weight. How about we have a few history and sensitivity readers check it over? Maybe the act of human experimentation of your own people shouldn't be put in a scenario where the FMC immediately after thinks about wanting to kiss the lips of the green eyed guy ordering said experimentation. Maybe it isn't going to work that well if you already told people that this is based on the real historical slaughter of humans in the 1930-40's?

Where was the editor in this? The sensitivity reader? Was there no one who said, ok wait stop. Is this written in a way that doesn't completely crash the car?

I just wanna take the publisher and shake them. I want to shake them and tell them that nobody's infallible, and that yes, even writing about your own history, culture and ancestry can end up with a lot of bullshit when you don't know better. What's the point of a publisher if they help you when it's too late to fix it? Ancestral history also doesn't mean you have free reign, and everyone else, your people included, shouldn't get an opinion. This isn't someone writing a name wrong by a letter, or accidentally writing the wrong dish as the national dish of a country. Where the fuck was the publisher in all this? Especially for a debut author!!!

God, fuck publishers for real.

--

I'm not really up on what's going on behind the scenes at big publishers these days, but I have the impression that one of their tactics in recent decades is just to find a lot of very youthful debut authors who will feel aspirational for the target audience (while also inciting a lot of jealousy, naturally), do very minimal editing of their manuscripts, and let anybody who doesn't hit it out of the park on the first try disappear into obscurity.

[andi-dromeda]

I’m obsessed with Jaygrant so ofc I had to ship them here too. In this au they start off as kind of colleagues. Grant sees this as a gig where he just has to humour whatever mediation, magic stuff Jason’s got going on and collect a pay check. Jason sees Grant as an assassin he can turn into a monk. I’d say Jason probably starts out training Grant and Tara the way he’s used to being trained, brutally and bossily. He gives orders but quickly realises it isn’t working because Tara and Grant both aren’t listening to him, Tara keeps threatening to go home and Grant keeps saying he needs a pay raise every time Jason tells him to do something. Luckily, Jason’s adaptable and begins to treat them more like equals who just need the right approach to become all caste members. He realises Tara likes to learn more about the culture and practices of the all caste instead of the fighting (not that she’s not interested in the combat, it’s just that all the experiments and clubs have left her with a bad opinion of most types of training). Grant is far more interested in the fighting, loves hearing about the All Castes victories over the untitled and after hearing about Jason killing the devourer of young souls Grant can’t help but gain some respect for the guy. Grant and Tara still like to provoke each other so Jason tries to mostly train them one on one giving both of them a lot of free time. Jason and Tara begin to bond over random recipes their mothers taught them and stories about living on the streets. Jason and Grant start to bond over weapons and fighting.

Then they discover they’re all gods and their souls weren’t just similar in that they all died. From here the group dynamic starts to shift. They see each other as more interconnected now. Before this they all chose to be here. Sure Jason would bite his tongue more than he normally would because he couldn’t find anyone else with a soul similar to his but he still felt like he was mostly in control of the situation. Now they knew this was all some grand destiny. Everything that had come before was simply preparing them for ascension. Jason and Tara are both bothered by the idea of losing their humanity but Grant isn’t. For Jason and Tara they want to right the wrongs that were done to them but now that means they’d lose their humanity and become gods. Grant on the other hand doesn’t care about his humanity and the wrongs he has to right are with his parents who he has literally been in hiding for a year at this point because of. This causes a fracture in the group. Tara decides to visit the Wilson’s for a bit and think about her options but Grant is eagerly pursuing godhood. Grant sees figuring out how to kill Slade as his only obstacle and is frankly ecstatic. Jason decides to keep an eye on Grant and they go on Grant’s very own murder world tour.

During their trip, Jason starts to see a lot of himself in Grant. Especially because he’s been where Grant is now. I mean they’re literally travelling across the world trying to find the best way to kill Grant’s mysterious dad who he won’t even say the name of. One night they have to crash in a random motel (which Grant forces him to pay for) and oh no, only one bed! Jason doesn’t care that much after having to share a bed with Kyle and Donna for ages when Kyle actively wanted him dead. Grant maybe flirts a little (not in a romance way though) but Jason shuts him down. Unfortunately, neither of them can sleep so end up talking about their dads. Jason mentions B and his birth dad Willis (I’m team Willis was a good screw the retcons so at least Jason had one good dad). Grant mentions how his dad was always going on mysterious trips and when he was around he was abandoning his son in the woods or taking the sink or swim teaching style to literally everything. It’s the most vulnerable either of them have been in a long time but since they can barely see each other in the dark and since they don’t even know each other’s last names or aliases there’s an almost anonymity. They feel safer to open up to each other than anyone else. This is when I imagine they’d start tentatively considering each other friends.

Then during their globe trotting adventure Jason comes across some scientists developing a weapon to kill Deathstroke. He decides to try steal the weapon and stop the research in case it gets used against Rose so he tells Grant about his plan to steal it. Then Grant is suddenly very interested. He asks a lot of questions like: “who’s Rose?” “How many kids does he even have!?” “Rose is Ravager!?” “He gave you his approval? Like for free?” “He sent you a postcard for Christmas!?” Grant has a million thoughts swirling through his head so when they go on the mission, Jason tries to get Grant to hang back. Grant doesn’t listen, rushes in and to save Grant from his own idiocy, Jason takes a bullet for Grant. Everything’s on fire, explosions are going off and Grant then has to choose in the heat of the moment to either stop the weapon from getting crushed (Jason already destroyed all the research so it can’t be replicated) or save Jason from getting crushed. Jason would normally be able to push through the blood loss but everything’s feeling a tad bit too familiar so he’s a bit occupied at the moment. And Grant makes his choice before he even has the time to consider it. As soon as he heard Jason’s cries he forgot all about the weapon. Grant saves Jason from the collapsing lab (that for thematic purposes was hidden in a warehouse) and without even thinking about it chose Jason over ascension and revenge two of the most important things to him.

When Jason manages to cool down after everything, he states more than asks Grant is Slade’s son. Grant says “biologically, yes unfortunately. But from what you’ve described he sounds like he’s much more fatherly to you than he ever was to me.”

“Then why did you chose me? You could’ve saved the weapon, killed Slade and become a god. Why… me?” A long uncomfortable silence hung between them. Jason’s barely dried eyes shimmered in the dim hotel room. He looked confused. Why? If he could get even a heartless bastard like Slade to like him how could he ever be surprised that someone cared about him?

“I didn’t chose you. I didn’t chose at all. I just did it. You know?”

And that was the moment Jason fell for Grant. Because he’d replayed the night with Joker and Bruce in his head a thousand times. He’d purposefully put Bruce through hell before the confrontation. Then bludhaven blew up. Then the rest was a blur and the only thing that felt solid was the sharp pain against his neck. The slow trickle dropping down his throat as he lay under the rubble. He went over the night again and again and tried to excuse the batarang. Bruce was stressed, he wasn’t thinking and of course he was never going to choose Jason. Bruce always thinks he can find a better option. Of course he’d try to have his cake and eat it too. Bruce was simply too used to getting what he wanted. (Maybe that’s why Jason didn’t tell Bruce he’d killed him. Because if Bruce knew that Jason would just keep coming back, then he wouldn’t even have to pretend he saw a Jason as anything more than canon fodder. Anything more than a good soldier.)

But Grant picked him. Grant didn’t even think about it. Grant owed him nothing. At most Jason was a convenient pay check and occasional confidant. Yet Grant chose Jason over the thing he valued most. When Jason started to choke up again, Grant didn’t say anything. He just opened his arms and held Jason until the morning. They didn’t speak about it but actions always speak louder. Grant for the first time since they’d met payed for their breakfast. He surprises Jason with tickets to some play Jason had mentioned liking during a sparring match a while back. He takes Jason out for a night on the town with Jade and only slightly makes fun of him for never going to a club unless he owned it.

Where Jason fell all at once and then decided to not do anything about it (he’s not shy he just can’t risk losing such a promising new member!), Grant fell slower. Granted, he didn’t notice. Due to internalised homophobia and a healthy does of Slade’s special home made brand of toxic masculinity, Grant has a weird perception of relationships. He kind of sees having a wife and kids as just boxes you have to tick off at some point distantly in the future and that romance didn’t last long. He hoped it did when he was younger. As a kid he’d dream about finding a partner and both being so devoutly in love he’d never have to guess if he was good enough. But none of his girlfriends could ever fix him (not for a lack of trying), he couldn’t force things to be better and so he came to the conclusion that love was just a fleeting infatuation. When he heard Jade’s troubles with Roy, his perspective was only further cemented.

So when he starts falling for Jason he doesn’t realise what he’s feeling. He thinks Jason’s hot and makes no attempt to hide that doesn’t think much of it. Grant was okay with being attracted to guys so long as it was purely physical. If it was just lust than it was just about pleasure. No need to further inspect anything he might be feeling. He’s just a completely hetero guy with functioning eyes. I mean come on, can you blame him for noticing Jason’s thighs? But then one random day Grant was eating something Jason had cooked (because Grant would burn the house down if he so much as glanced at a blender) and realised he wanted to do this everyday. He wanted to wake up to Jason in one of his safe houses that only had one bed so he didn’t have to think about it. He wanted Jason to make breakfast and it’d be delicious as always. Then they’d clean their weapons and talk about random cape drama and fight over whatever thing Grant chose that morning (because there was nothing more entertaining than giving Jason such stupid arguments that Jason couldn’t even respond and then saying the silence was just proof he was right). He wanted to be by Jason’s side on the field, on the matts, on that one cruise that was secretly smuggling rare beanie babies, on the dance floor when they were both too drunk to care about making absolute fools of themselves, on the roof of the van they stole from Penguin’s Metropolis branch and even on the bathroom floor heaving his guts into the toilet whist Jason smugly said “I told you so” and Grant was in too much pain from the vomiting and hangover to come up with a witty retort. The revelation shocked him and he called Jade for an emergency evacuation. She “saved” him, punched him for worrying her, took him out for coffee and told him to get himself together.

So now they both like each other so what could possibly go wrong now? :D

Tara comes back and invites them to meet her family. They do and suddenly Grant and Tara hate each other even more than usual and now they have to deal with the Wilson family issues. :0

Also imagine Rose’s perspective. Your ex boyfriend comes to your family dinner with you dead brother (who you never met and took the legacy title of) hates you and your other sister who apparently has been having philosophical debates with these guys says they’re all gods and your brother has to kill your dad to ascend so now you have to just try to eat your food whilst everyone flips out and you see your ex making heart eyes at the dead brother.

[klausinamarink]

One Kid Gone, Another Up and Vanished (part 6)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 next: Part 7

Hey I’m back! starting to change the POVs around a bit - plot is kicking ^-^

After she strings the last line of Christmas lights on the wall, Joyce starts painting the alphabet letters underneath each bulb with determination.

This might not work, but she knows her son can do it. He’s already brilliant to use the lights and this will be much easier for him. For her.

Satisfied with her work, Joyce steps back down on the floor. The lights are off, but she knows they’ll turn bright anyways.

“Okay, Will, sweetie?” She calls out. She imagines that Will is pressed against her leg just like he does when he’s shy and alone. Her heart aches at the thought. “I’ve done something that it’ll be- well, I hope it’ll be better than the ‘yes’ or ‘no’s. But, uh, if you can see this, you can actually spell out what you need to say.”

She waits for a few seconds. Then, the light for Y flickers.

“We can practice if you want!” Oh, she hopes it works. But Will can do it. “Can you- ah, what to do.. Oh! Your name! Can you spell your name on this?”

Will’s response takes another few seconds, almost too long. But lights flicker individually before Joyce’s eyes.

W-I-L-L

Joyce can’t stop herself from clapping excitedly. “Oh my god, Will! You did it! I knew you can do it!”

One of the lamps next to the couch flicker repeatedly. Is this Will’s way of clapping and cheering with her? Her heart fills up, almost as painful as the past few days had been. Then the lights on the wall start spelling again.

A-N-D-E-D-D-I-E

“And.. Eddie?” Joyce frowns. Is her son not alone? Wherever he is that she can’t reach? Shit, is he safe? “I’m sorry, sweetie, are you- tell me you are safe. Are you alone?”

S-A-F-E-N-O-T-A-L-O-N-E

”I-I’m sorry, Will.” Joyce shakes her head, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. “I don’t really understand right now, but can we stick to short answers for now? Can you tell me where exactly are you?”

H-E-R-E

“Here? Here, where? Will, where is here? I- I can’t see you!”

Several lightbulbs seems to combat with each other one in blues and reds. Then they stop. And then-

R-U-N

Every light in the house flickers maniacally and Joyce runs outside as something in the wall starts tearing out again.

—

Eddie slams his back against one of the largest trees, clenching Will and their spears close to his chest. His lungs are collapsing in themselves so hard that he won’t be surprised if they turn into a new galaxy system or whatever.

The demogorgon roars, the sound echoing closer by the second.

His breathing is sharp as needles as he tries to get it under control. It only sends him into a coughing fit. Will kicks him in the ankle, hissing, “It’ll hear us!”

Eddie tells him, “Do you think I’m doing this on purpose?” Or at least he tries to when he starts coughing again. He slides down to his ass, feeling the prickle of tears in his eyes. It almost overlaps with the even louder branches snapping from behind.

Will’s hands fly to Eddie’s mouth and clamp down hard on his cloth mask. He forces to swallow down the coughs despite his throat tickling uncomfortably.

He hears the demogorgon stomping around, roaring in frustration. Eddie’s chest constricts from lack of air and he’s seeing black spots again.

Please go away, you Venus Fly-Trap face fuck.

It does not go away. Instead, the demogorgon comes out right next to them.

Eddie would’ve screamed.

So by the laws of natural order, it’s Will who screams at the demogorgon and makes it worse by thrusting one of the fucking spears at it.

What happens next is a literal blur.

Eddie does still remember the demogorgon screeching before it grabs Will and throws him across the forest floor. He remembers somehow standing up and somehow getting the demogorgon’s attention on Eddie. He remembers darting to the side at the last second so the monster crashes right into the tree.

He remembers running, Will’s hand gripped tightly in his.

They crash into another block of houses that Eddie doesn’t really recognize at first glance. He only laser-focuses on running into one of the open garages where the doors to the occupant’s living are wide open for him to drop into without a risk of messing with the vines.

Well, he still steps over the vines and barely checks for a wide enough space to collapse onto, but not really the point.

Eddie wheezes, his back on the floor and gaze to the dark-stained ceiling. His lungs rattle uncontrollably as he coughs and coughs until he feels a glass bottle in his hand. He’s careful not to drink it down fast, but it soothes his throat enough to subside the coughing.

He hears Will give out a whoosh of air, “I think the demogorgon won’t find us for a while.”

Eddie doesn’t stop snapping his head towards the boy’s direction. Or the newborn wrath in his voice as he questions, “You think?”

Will immediately shrinks down, his body retracting into his vest like a baby turtle.

“You think the demogorgon can’t get us because you think it was great to stab it?”

Anger shimmers off Eddie as he stands up, albeit with shaking legs. “What the fuck were you thinking?! Whatever happen to hiding so it doesn’t, oh god I don’t know, kill us?”

“I-I know it wasn’t a good idea…” Will’s voice is small. Eddie’s brain is telling himself to shut the hell up, but Eddie doesn’t listen to his brain most of his time so he continues the triad.

“What was supposed to be your plan, Little Byers? Huh? Stab the demogorgon? Just like that? Without a goddamn second thought of ‘hey, maybe this will get me and my new best friend killed and I would never go home at all!’ Jesus Christ… you’re a goddamn lucky charm not to lose that spear. And it had to be right after you finally talked to your mom who was so fucking happy to even hear-”

A gut wrenching sob breaks through his words.

Eddie stops himself and looks down at Will, curled up to himself as his body violently shudder with every sob.

Munson, you fucking idiot.

“Oh shit,” Eddie is already on his knees, facing Will. His hands hover uselessly over the boy. “Will, hey, hey. I’m sorry. I’m really so sorry. I never meant-”

Will flinches away from him, burying his face deeper into his arms.

And if that didn’t already break Eddie’s heart, he doesn’t know what else would. And he knows firsthand what yelling and incessantly blaming a child for a mistake does wonders. He knows what it’s like to live constantly on eggshells because the person you love can hurt you at a moment’s notice.

Even for something life threatening as being chased by man-eating monsters in an alternate dimension, Will Byers doesn’t deserve that. And Eddie just ruined it.

“Will-” He reaches out again. This time, Will kicks and hits him, snot and tears pouring out of him. This time, Eddie keeps his arms around Will and holds him tight as close as he can.

“Let me go!” Will cries. “I just wanna go home! Let me see my mom by myself! I want to go home!”

“I know, I know.” Eddie shushes him, gently rocking him back and forth. A far cry mimic from what his mom and Wayne used to do, but he hopes it’s good enough. Please let it be good enough. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m sorry I made you feel more hurt. I’m sorry I made you cry. I’m sorry-”

Will eventually goes limp but moves his arms around Eddie’s neck. Eddie keeps rocking him even when his apologies are done. Will’s tears stain his shirt even when the kid starts singing The Clash song with broken breaths. Eddie keeps holding him as he joins in.

They’re the only ones in hell after all.

—

There’s a knocking on the front door and it makes Wayne dash faster than he ever did in ‘Nam. He already sees Eddie on the steps, dirty and tired but safe-

But it’s only Jim Hopper, holding a small brown bag.

“Hey, Wayne.” The chief smiles thinly in exhaustion. Wayne doesn’t smile back. “Thought I would bring a bit of breakfast.”

“Why are you here, Jim?” He cuts through the pleasantries, hoping, hoping that it’s not any bad news.

Hopper says nothing. Just gestures to the picnic table near the trailer. Wayne thinks about shutting the door instead, about assuming the worst and let the grief come in.

But he only goes inside to grab his cup of coffee and cigarettes. Then he follows Hopper outside.

They sit down, neither of them reaching for the bag. Wayne doesn’t have much of an appetite recently and he doesn’t take good cop food. Though he allows Hopper to take one of his cigarettes.

Finally, just as the morning air continues to weigh on them, Hopper sighs heavily and says, “Will Byers was found last night.”

“Where?”

“The quarry.”

Christ.

Wayne closes his eyes. He doesn’t ask about how the boy was found because he and his brother grew up next to a wetland back home and when too many boys went there to swim, it was guaranteed that one of them would be as still as the water’s surface by sunset. And he could count on both hands how many boys met that fate.

He hopes that Joyce Byers and her eldest weren’t there to find him.

“We haven’t found any leads on Eddie so far.”

“Thought the hit and run theory was the only one.” Wayne doesn’t hide the disdain in his voice. He takes a drag, hearing Hopper’s frustrated huff.

“If it makes you feel better, I fired Powell’s ass.”

Wayne takes another drag of his cigarette. He clicks his tongue before saying, “I appreciate the act of kindness. But I’ll feel better when Eddie comes home.”

“I know you want your nephew back safe but…” He shoots Hopper a look, watching the chief fumble the words before he continues, “I’m not gonna sugarcoat this, Wayne, but there’s a couple new cases that popped up. The state is getting involved too.”

“The state.” Wayne feels a dry twinge in his mouth.

“Yeah.” Hopper shakes his head. “It’s a little fishy, if you ask. But if they are going to at least help out-”

Wayne doesn’t hear what he says next because he’s standing up and walking back to the trailer. He’s only inside for a second just to swipe his leather-bound notebook off the kitchen counter. He comes back and throws it on the wooden table in front of Hopper with a thick slam.

The chief gets startled by that, looks up at Wayne, and back to the notebook when Wayne gives him nothing else. He watches Hopper flip through the pages and then read one. “What-”

“This-” Wayne points at the book he’d filled in the past few hours when sleeping was hopeless, “is everything I’ve done so far about Eddie’s whereabouts. I’ve asked everyone in town. I’ve checked every godforsaken place both in and out of Hawkins, even the ones that are dangerous lookin’. Nobody even has a clue he’s missing. Some of ‘em even said I worried too much for a boy who ran off to a silly city concert. As if worrying for my boy has been my livelihood since he first came to my front door.”

He stares hard at Hopper. The chief just looks down at the book, his face unreadable.

“Even if you were busy with the Byers boy, you should’ve gone looking for Eddie too. But none of ya did so I did. Now I’m running out of leads, chief. I don’t know where to find him next.”

Wayne is always a calm person. But anger always finds a way to crawl out like a maggot.

He takes a deep breath, blinking his eyes hard. “How long it’ll take for you to even care out what happened to my nephew before his body turns up next?”

It feels horribly wrong to assume Eddie’s already dead. It breaks his heart to say it aloud. But Wayne knows from the bottom of his soul and his great-aunt’s crockpot that Eddie’s alive. Missing but somehow here in the world and breathing.

Hopper closes his eyes. After taking a breath, he stands up, leaving the notebook on the table.

“Take it.” Wayne orders. Hopper looks at him uncertainly. “Might as well share it with the state if they’re that cooperative.”

Hopper sighs again and takes the notebook in hand, walking back to his car. He leaves the brown bag on the table though. Before he gets in, Hopper turns and calls out, “Some lab results came back. The stain on the van’s front is just animal blood.”

Wayne just crosses his arms and says nothing back.

As he watches him leave, he realizes his cigarette is still burning. He drops it on bench where Hopper had sat and crushes it under his boot.

—

“You said that Will was alive and we could find him! But now he’s dead!” Mike scrubs his hands over his wet face again as he paces fiercely in the basement. El’s sitting in the tent, watching him with sad eyes. She’s been doing this since-

Another bottle of tears well up in him. Mike shuts his eyes, hoping not to burst. He’s already been a crying mess since he got home last night and had to tell his mom about Will-

“Why did you lie to us? Why did you lie to me? Why?” He doesn’t look at El because if he does, her eyes will still be sad and he’s going to cry again. “Friends don’t lie! Why did you have to hide he was dead? Why couldn’t-”

His walkie turns on with static. He whirls around, almost ready to throw it at the wall if it was from Dustin or Lucas asking if he’s okay. But he sees it on El’s hands. Her eyes are closed, concentrating.

“Hey, don’t-!” He starts forward but freezes when a familiar voice comes through.

“-I stay or should I go? Darling, you got to let me know?”

It’s Will. Clear as day. Alive.

“C’mon, you have to know the next lines by now. Can you sing them?”

Mike’s wide eyes are on the radio. Tears are prickling but for a different reason.

There’s an aggravated sigh and then, “Little Byers, I have to admit that your song is giving me a massive ear worm. I’m sorry but I will not sing The Clash from my own tongue.”

That’s… not Will.

“This can be the last time, I swear! Then you can sing Bowie-”

“I thought I told you I don’t listen to David Bowie!?” The second person squawks.

“You said not to tell anyone you listen to Bowie. And there’s nobody here… so-”

Mike grabs his walkie from El’s hands and yells, “Will! I’m here! I can hear you! Can you read me?! Over!”

“God, this.. how… crafted image dies...”

“What’s… -ur deal… Bowie… -t ba-…”

The static comes back and soon takes away Will’s sound. Mike tries to radio again but nothing happens. He whirls back to El with an open mouth. “Was that…?”

El smiles softly, her nose bleeding. “Will. Eddie.”

Many questions run through Mike’s head. The first one out of his mouth is, “Who the heck is Eddie?”

— —

Taglist: @unclewaynemunson @steves-strapcollection @hellion-child @sidekick-hero @mmmmwaffles94 @demolitionjetstar @hbyrde36@princessstevemunson @sirsnacksalot @tartarusknight @lyriclight @kodaik97 @plsdontdrinkmylavalamp @wuttttttttttt @bookbinderbitch@gutterflower77 @tentativeghost @soaringornithopter @angeldreamsoffanfic @panicatthediaz @renaissan-vvitch @manda-panda-monium @newtstabber

[batsplat]

everybody is rightfully excited about the upcoming season but whilst i think if he adapts well and keeps his head on straight marc will win the title, i do think people on this platform (and reddit) are highly underestimating pecco and honestly if marc does any marcism like last season where he just crashed and crashed and kept on crashing, the title could just as easily go to pecco. also pecco’s racecraft is very good and the victor of their wheel to wheel battles will not be a given. the cutbacks alone!! plus on his « specialty » tracks he is very very fast. and he’s younger. i also get the feeling ducati will not let marc try any mind games or whatever and he’ll try to be cordial as he’s the one going into an established team and he won’t get preferential treatment which would kind of be a first. not to meantion pecco will be his toughest teammate to date (except maybe pedrosa but a lot went right for marc when he was racing pedrosa before he literally started sabotaging bike development slow him down). i kind of want pecco to show how good he is and if marc has to win then like i beg it’s at least not a walkover haha

welllllllll idk I was kindaaaaaa there mid-season, I'm not sure if I'm still there. it's not even as much the wins that I find a bit spooky as I did the sepang/catalunya ii performances, admittedly with the proviso you only get limited prop points for going fast and then crashing. idk, I do think at a basic level the case for the prosecution is pretty compelling. the gp23 was a lot slower than the gp24, marc was still adapting to the ducati and was that fast anyway, marc's crashes were often explainable by having to push the package too hard.... does all sound reasonable yeah

that being said, it's not an open and shut case for me. I think it's a bit tricky because my sense is the commentariat is basically united in thinking it's a slam dunk situation next this year, and I am more inclined to defer to their expertise than I would be in a sport where I know what I'm talking about. idk, I don't think it's quite as cut and dried (to continue to mix metaphors) as they do that marc's going to wipe the floor with pecco - I think that's a completely plausible scenario, but not a foregone conclusion. my open questions are based more on like,, logic than they are on understanding motorcycle racing. but this is what I would make the case for the defence:

while marc's speed of adaptation is undoubtedly impressive, that doesn't mean there's any reason there's more adaptation to come - this is probably roughly as good as it gets. this is low-hanging fruit and I don't feel like many people are arguing that marc will dominate because he'll get even better with the ducati, but I thought I'd get it out of the way

this is a bit trickier to articulate but... let's see what we can do. so we know that the gp23 was slower than the gp24. but we also know that a marc-level talent could ride the bike close to its theoretical performance ceiling, which is closer to the gp24 than other gp23's made it look. 'outperforming the bike' is one of those stock phrases that are useful but obviously not true, like you can't LITERALLY outperform your machinery, that's not how physics works. what you're basically denoting is that a rider is outperforming what we believe to be its 'natural' place in the pecking order, often by riding very close to the limit. given the michelin rear tyre, the peaks of the gp23 were very hard to access this year, which is of course where marc's immense natural talent comes in. but that does mean that... I kinda feel like,, logically, surely there's a problem with the idea that you can just rub off another three tenths or whatever to estimate how fast marc theoretically would've been on the gp24? like surely it is at least possible that pecco and jorge and occasionally that other guy were riding very close to the ceiling of the gp24 - it's just that this ceiling is a lot easier to access in a controllable way. so in that sense, a better bike might just... take that last extra bit of talent out of the equation a little bit. I guess the comparison I'd make is... so I think we can probably safely assume that nobody, including any of casey's rivals at the time, could have done with the ducati anything like what casey did. but when casey moved to the honda, at the time a more rideable package, casey wasn't completely brutalising dani on the rare occasion where they both had all their limbs intact. so in a way, a 'better' bike does at least somewhat neutralise that particular strength. pecco readily admits he needs a well-sorted package to be good - but crucially, when he does have such a package, he does seem to be very fast. idk, I just don't feel like it works to pretend like we can talk about a uniform swing here, like surely it's more complicated than that

yes, I do broadly agree that people underestimate pecco. I also think, and I know this probably isn't a great time to voice this opinion, that it's still possible for pecco to become better as a rider. idk man, I really would struggle to say that I felt his 2024 campaign was worse than his two title-winning seasons. if anything, his edge in raw pace felt more pronounced, and not just because of the bike factor. now, look, I do think he was an idiot at times and there are some forms of idiocy that are incurable but... I'm not sure pecco's malaise falls into this category. first off, I think he's clocked that he needs to take sprints more seriously - which, okay, yes, does feel a bit belated but fine. secondly, the racing incidents thing... idk, I live in hope. if he has another clash with marc then this time round it's fine as long as you're taking both of you out, because now he's your title rival so whatever. if it's another rider... I mean maybe this is just in his dna as a rider but it doesn't HAVE to be. valentino please, I know you think sports psychology is fake but I could fix him. and thirdly, the other crashes... y'know, some of that is inevitable, but something like the misano ii crash where it's not a riding thing as much as it is a decision-making thing, I do again kinda feel like you could probably tackle that. idk, one thing about pecco is that he does have the capacity to Get Better, which is rarer than you'd think really and maybe he'll do it again

the marc crash thing. yeah, idk! it's super feasible to me that this was just a function of marc over-riding a poor package and that he goes back to posting prime!marc numbers of crashes - which with the exception of 2015 were mostly like... okay in races, less okay in practise but idk clearly his body must be built different. but also, maybe not! maybe you just crash this generation of bikes more when you're pushing hard! maybe there's just a lot of races and inevitably you're going to crash a few times when you're constantly riding that fast! marc assembled a decent number of dnf's for himself this year - and while a few had Something Odd attached to them, some of them were just ... crashes. again, it's plausible marc gets it completely under control and pecco doesn't but... yeah. foregone conclusion? idk man

*wiggles hand* nebulous age-based/worn-down-by-injuries factor plus the qualifying question. idk I just won't entirely believe the marc raw qualifying pace is back until I actually see it. just feels like the thing that goes with age so you're kinda primed to be on the look out for it anyway. and also say what you will about pecco as a complete package, but that man is fast over one lap. personally I do kindaaaaaa suspect pecco will win the qualifying h2h this year - doesn't mean it'll matter as long as marc can regularly qualify in the same general bit of the grid. which feels likely. but still. idk, in general there's still a few unanswered questions about how this marc compares to 2019!marc, and obviously you'll never get definitive answers to that but this year will make some things clearer on that front

anyway, I still think marc will win the title, and if you put a gun to my head I'd probably say with a pretty comfortable margin without getting to a ridiculous territory. I actually think you're completely right about pecco's strengths - I think he's going to be dominant some weekends and I even think that pecco might come out and win most of their extended wheel-to-wheel encounters. but the thing about marc is that neither of those things necessarily matter. if you look through prime!marc's title winning seasons, he generally either wasn't posting a) all that many wins OR b) a great h2h in direct w2w duels. exception is 2014 I suppose. wins titles despite losing silverstone 2013, catalunya and mugello 2016, austria and motegi 2017, qatar and austria 2018, qatar, austria and silverstone 2019 - ofc he also wins a few but it tends not to be a positive h2h... big exception really is 2014. and with the ducati margin over the field I would be expecting him to post more wins than in a 2016-type chaotic season

where marc really gets you is relentless pace and a degree of consistency in that pace. so you get a 2018-type season where marc can afford to have an argentina *gestures* whatever that was - but all his rivals are so busy tripping over their own feet that you get to half season and turn around and his only 'title rival' is five hundred year old valentino, who is in pee two in the standings on the sheer power of not binning it every other race. or, okay, vinales also wasn't crashing but he did that trick where he just doodled around in the shadow realm for a whole stretch of races. and this is where pecco's problem is - he just lost a title in a season where he won eleven races. I'm not saying I think that'll happen this year, but like,,,,, this is the issue right, there's a world in which pecco's raw pace is extremely respectable in comparison to marc's but the title winning margin is still comfortable,, because marc's bad days are mostly pee two and pecco's bad days are... remember that aragon sprint where you blinked and he was suddenly fighting with fabio? that. idk, I basically think that if pecco rides a perfect season, he has a fair shot, but there's just more plausible paths to the title for marc. which doesn't mean it's a done deal but does just make marc very much the likely winner to me

about the ducati box dynamics, idk man, who knows. I don't actually have much faith in ducati's skills at rider management, not least since I did watch them get bullied by marc like half a year ago in a completely avoidable situation. I mean ideally they just completely lose control and it becomes a bloodbath, but seeing as that's fairly unlikely... you are right in that idt it'll be as easy for marc to steer ducati's development direction because there also just won't be the same dependency relationship (unless some stuff changes a lot in the near future). does ducati's tolerance for mind games really matter? ducati seems good at figuring out how bikes work in recent times, less good with human beings since basically forever. I do like the idea of another portimao situation, preferably with them 1-2 this time, just to see the ashen faces in the ducati box. but also, some stuff can't be reigned in!! yamaha TRIED with valentino and jorge, they also would've loved to tell both of them 'no mind games', but you'd have to say it didn't really work. pecco and marc aren't valentino and jorge, but they will inevitably play mind games. you play mind games with your competitors, it's part of the game to some degree or other. worst case scenario is that marc doesn't really bother since he's winning so clearly, so. hopefully we can avoid that

(also as a fan of Narratives I do kind of want to see marc pushed. like the whole charm of 2008-09 is that valentino is having to operate from a place where in at least one of those years, he probably wasn't the 'faster' rider compared to his title rival but managed to win anyway. poured his heart and soul into the psychological warfare front because that's how he had to win. and he almost pulled off something far more drastic in 2015 with quite a radical pace deficit, where at best he was the third fastest rider that year and by a comfortable margin. idk, that's fun! I like that kind of arc where ideally the older rider doesn't have this massive raw pace margin anymore, or has SOME kind of limiting factor - even if it's that marc can't afford to crash a million times (though going by the 2024 season apparently he's not too worried about that) - so they have to use other skills to win the title. ideally your wits and nerve. but obviously that only works if you don't have a massive pace advantage over your opponent, which is objectively very nice for you but also is kinda.... idk, it's more satisfying if marc actually has to draw on something new and interesting to win the title, something he's learned since the last time he won the title. if marc dominates the title, my response will be 'wow, marc sure is a very good rider', which I think we all already knew. if marc slips pecco poison to win the title decider, THEN we're talking)

in conclusion. I too would like the margins to be kept respectable. the way I usually operate in title fights is I kinda automatically at least casually root for whoever's currently in second, because there's something wrong with my brain and I don't like winning. I mean, mainly I am hoping for a) a competitive title fight, and b) good racing. since (b) seems like a bust at least for another year, we do kinda need (a). idk I think a lot of fans can just kinda enjoy winning for winning's sake and I envy them but... the thing about 2019 is that it was just about watchable because the quality of racing was consistently very high. qatar, mugello, austria, silverstone, misano, thailand, phillip island... even ones that aren't 'classics' like cota or argentina or catalunya generally had interesting stuff going on. this stuff matters!! it mattered that valentino back in the honda days had a principled aversion to being in the top five at the end of a first lap, just to spice things up a bit. this year we had a competitive title fight and a lot of godawful races. the action is almost always concentrated in the first half of the race or even the first few laps, after which it becomes exceedingly processional. and, look, none of this is the fault of the riders except insofar as they're not testing michelin tyres, but it's still bad! next this year could become a real slog if the title winning margin is massive and the races are dull as shit. but also, what can you do. hopefully pecco will try not to roll over and die

[mandysimo13]

i'm gonna be frank

it's been hard y'all. i am a woman, i am queer, i have chronic pain, i am empathetic and compassionate, i study and teach history, and my friend and family circle is incredibly diverse. the last couple of years has been watching a train crash in slow motion, begging people to get off the train, jump out of the way, stop the conductor, literally anything to avoid what is happening and we got people who are too in their own little bubble, too much in their own biases, too much in their own anger and stew pit to look at the larger picture and to remember their history lessons

i've seen this coming since 2015. i knew this was where we were heading if we let him into office. i knew this would happen if he didn't die before reelection. i knew that the consequences of having in him in office would mean untangling everything he did, is doing, will do until long after i'm gone. because that's how evil works, it entrenches itself so deeply that you have to completely rewrite things in order to keep it at bay.

my luck here is that i pass. i am female presenting, i am white, i can play the christian game (was raised in it even if i'm not practicing), my pain is controllable for now, i am married to a man, i work in a liberal af city and live in a very purple city. i have friends who are working to keep this shit off as long as possible and i will do what i can to help. but we can only do so much as one person. i can't attend every protest, i can't give all my money, i cannot physically fight or build.

so i am working on being more self sufficient, i am hoarding books, i am tracking down and sharing resources where i find them, i am working on making a space where anyone who needs to can find a place with me, i am supportive of those who are targeted publicly but making sure my real preparations are more secret so i can't be targeted as easily. when i was a kid, i wondered how i would behave if i lived during WWII and saw my friends and neighbors persecuted by an unjust regime...i know what i would have done. it's what i'm doing now. working quietly and playing chess while our government descends rapidly into fascism.

i hope i live to see the day when things are not this way. i hope we come out of this stronger than before and we finally learn the lessons previous generations learn and that they stick.

i'm tired. i'm scared. i'm angry. i will burnout eventually because i can't stop myself from knowing what's going on. i just hope everyone i love makes it out of this alive.