#now that we're on thread number two

[crossbackpoke-check]

Fixed point (mathematics) // The History of Perspective // "Point of Disappearance", Dennis Held // How the Hughes hockey family stays grounded // Fixed Point Photography-- // "Portrait of A.", Tung-Hui Hu // Mic'd Up | Hughes NHL 25 cover shoot // "Burnt Norton", T.S. Eliot // "Circuitry", Janine Joseph // Bruce Bennett // Nick Wass // from obedience [maybe one day, during a point in time], kari edwards // Bill Rapai // "Errand Upon Which We Came", Stephanie Strickland // Benchmark (surveying)

art kid luke hughes

[oikarma]

number one girl

pairing: max verstappen x reader

summary: the story of ynmax is a very, very heated topic riddled with holes and chock full of conspiracies: a couple and split to rival brocedes. it's mostly an a f1 thing, though, until you release an album and the internet tries to deduce what ruined a decades-long friendship.

a/n: angst warning. bear with me, you're in for a long ride. we go from twitter to insta to reddit to sdfsd. this was SO FUN!

part one / part two / part three

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liked by stevienicks, georgerussell63 and 3,104,827 others

yourinstagram: "number one girl" out now.

view all 411,295 comments

user1: mother??? music???

user2: our multitalented baby <3

stevienicks: so proud of you ❤️

yourinstagram: so thankful for you 🥺 your support is immeasurable in worth

user3: max verstappen did you-

user4: george listening to this so he can justify bullying max next season

user5: please 💀 i choked on my water reading that

user6: CHARLES IN THE CREDITS FOR PIANO?? how many side quests has this girl roped people into

user7: they're still good friends lol just cause she and max stopped speaking doesn't mean she's not close w the rest of the grid user8: @/user7 right! she and alex have also posted each other quite a bit after the rhode collab

user9: is no one talking about the lyrics 😃 gut wrenching, yes, but the way it all lines up w max??

user10: no babe dw we're all talking about the lyrics user11: my roman empire...

user12: who's this max guy and what does he have to do with my queen y/n

user13: @/user12 he's a formula one driver, they ued to be best friends user12: @/user13 like nascar? omg what i only knew that she debuted in shadow n bone but WHAT IS THIS

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A PAGE FROM Y/N's JOURNAL November 15, 2021

Max is a plane right now to see Kelly. I feel like I've been punched, three times over. The nausea is getting to me.

How could you? Just say all those things, like you always do. Do you mean any of them? When you say "I love you, more than anyone in this life." When you say "You're worth it, really. "When you say "forever." Does anyone ever really mean forever? Forever is part of the foreseeable future. You cannot capture what is beyond that.

You were my life. The words, every moment. An inescapable reminder.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by charles_leclerc, brunomars and 2,819,305 others

yourinstagram: "toxic till the end (ft. lewis hamilton)" is up on youtube and all music platforms ♡

view all 309,418 comments

user1: what. the. fuck.

user2: is she dating lewis? what? y/n girl please stop being cryptic my head can't take all of this 😭

user3: if this is part of the press tour i must say i am now extremely invested in the ynmax drama and i didn't even know who max was until i saw a thread on number one girl...

lewishamilton: Best of luck with your future endeavors, Y/N 🫂 Will be by your side!

yourinstagram: you better be 🫰 user4: the friendship we didn't know we needed

user5: lewis with...pink hair...

user6: max emilian verstappen fumbled so hard

user7: imagine ghosting THE y/n l/n and then she drops this

user8: well, 4 years later but yeah user9: what even is a wdc...

user10: what does the heart mean y/n

user11: bro

user12: so i guess the harry styles dating rumors were all fake 😔 but omg lewis music!!

kellypiquet: Face and voice of an angel 😽

yourinstagram: me? please, pregnancy glow has been treating you good 💕 user13: at least they don't have any hard feelings...

user14: bruno in the likes is the most random thing ever

user15: acting career, check. singing career, check. formula one side quests??? multple checks

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liked by kellypiquet and 4,103,697 others

lewishamilton: Behind the scenes of Miss Y/N's "toxic till the end" music video

tagged: yourinstagram

yourinstagram: looking good there, lew

lewishamilton: Very kind of you to say user1: trust me we are witnessing the start of a great romance

user2: i don't want to delulu too hard but PLEASE tell me y/n's moved on with lewis it would be the ultimate baddie move

user3: imagine...you won abu dhabi but you lost the love of your life to the guy you beat 🤪 user4: we're all insane but i'm just going to keep dreaming

charles_leclerc: Why am I not in your dump?

yourinstagram: face card wasn't lethal enough user5: she's brutal 💀 user6: our charles's facecard could start wars idk what she's on

user7: daddy please give me ONE chance

user8: give me some of that maranello?? he looks so good oml

user9: focusing on music videos and not racing...no wonder he's washed

user10: @/user9 can you stfu and touch grass user11: @/user9 literally no one asked

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX November 2021

Dear Hey, Y/N.

I realized you blocked me. It hurts. I don't know what to say or what to believe anymore. I miss us. Overstepping was the wrong choice, if you must, but going back is not impossible.

We've been friends for so long. Why can't you won't you try?

I miss you.

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r/Fauxmoi · 1 day ago hamilton7xc

Max Verstappen and Y/N L/N's infamous split explained?

feralonsos: So she's been pretending he led her on when she lead him on

parking23: I don't know anymore. I know nothing. Don't even talk to me.

forzamcqueen: I want to say it's not about YNMax but 21 (as in 21, when they split?) and Y/N has been coming out with music recently. When you look at the "number one girl" lyrics from Boy's perspective it lines up with this submission. That Max wanted reassurance from Y/N and she gave it to him, but she couldn't give him everything he needed.

↳ roses_berg: @/forzamcqueen I don't know...it seems kind of unlikely. Y/N has a lyric about "chasing the prize" or something like that. What prize would she be chasing? On the other hand, you have Max who has clearly said racing is his passion and he loves winning.

↳ forzamcqueen: @/roses_berg I see where you're coming from but there are a few interpretations. Toxic Till the End suggests she thought his attachment to her was maybe unhealthy, and he kept trying to find ways to keep her by his side. Y/N has mentioned in past interviews (promo for her role in Shadow and Bone, when she was starting to do acting) that she's had bad experience with past relationships and is hesitant on starting a new one.

↳ januaryblues11: @/forzamcqueen Sorry, what interview? Could you link it?

↳ forzamcqueen: @/januaryblues11 No worries, I put it down below. The part I'm referring to is around 5:41.

↳ WolffHornerFan: @/forzamcqueen Okay, okay. I need a timeline then. She must've started filming Shadow and Bone in Oct 2019, then wrapped 4 months later in Feb 2020. This might be the "prize" she's chasing? Her own career. Before it was announced that she was in the series most news referred to her as "close friend" or "best friend" of Max Verstappen. Now a lot of people know her for S&B or Top Gun Maverick, etc.

↳ CautiousOwl: Might've not wanted her relationship to overshadow her career. It's understandable, if she wanted to be taken seriously instead of a "nepo friend."

↳ 4norrisop: She's amazing in Shadow and Bone! Definitely recommend checking that out, but I don't understand why she ghosted him.

↳ ynluv07: @/4norrisop he was dating kelly at the time. she might've thought it was a bad idea after it happened (i'm referring to the kiss, which i assume happened because she explicitly refers to it a few times in "number one girl") and distanced herself. maybe she told him it wasn't okay?

↳ ICEMAN_bwoah: Brain hurts.

↳ brooksies: Well if she did give up her happiness because she thought Kelly deserved better, that's great. No wonder they're still on good terms.

↳ DauntingParrot91: @/brooksies Yeah, sure...

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX January 2022

Y/N, I'm sorry I asked for too much; I'm sorry I pushed you. I'll take my bags and go quietly, this time. Maybe you'll open the door again someday. I love you too, my best friend always.

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liked by lewishamilton, taylorswift and 4,103,269 others

yourinstagram: Burnout.

comments on this post have been limited

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM Y/N February 2022

Wish you'd take a little longer to pack up your bags. You're moving too fast. Make me want to hate you more than I hate myself, so I don't have to miss you. Make a mistake, please. So I have someone to blame.

Please, won't you stay a little longer? I would call you babe, just to make you smile. I wouldn't mean it that way, but I still love you. You're my best friend. Why wasn't that enough?

I'll be okay, sometime. You say it's written all over my face, and I wonder, what is? I'm fragile, now. I'm speechless, now. Don't leave me in pieces. I'm sorry, let me fix it. It won't be good for us, but oh-how I want to.

I'm already having trouble breathing. Please, stay a little longer. I can't stand these four walls without you inside them.

Come back, be here.

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liked by kellypiquet and 1,249,805 others

maxverstappen: She stayed a little longer 🖤

tagged: kellypiquet

view all 91,432 comments

user1: GUYS HE DEF HEARD THE SONG

user2: do we think kelly asked him to post it

user3: tbf given on how sweet her n yns interactions are i wouldn't be surprised if she listened to burnout

user4: kelly. you are the strongest woman i know

user5: so i can convince you the minute i kiss you speak a little softer so i don't have to answer and make it okay before you can say

user6: i just know he had a little breakdown inside after he heard the album

user7: max rn: CHARLES HOW COULD YOU PLAY PIANO FOR HER

user8: max: alexa play that should be me user9: ho-olding your handdd

user10: who are we blaming today

user11: at least max is finally someone's number one girl

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX Summer 2024

Sometimes I look to the television and you're on, flying a plane or wielding magic, whatever it is you do these days. I knew you could act. I knew you'd make it far. I hear you were nominated for a Golden Globe, too.

I was mad for a long time. I was upset you kicked me out of your life so abruptly.

Kelly's expecting. I think she will be as good a mother to our child as she is to little P. A family is what I have always wanted, you know. It was not what you wanted.

I am sorry. I have said that many times, but one day I will need to say it to your face. I am truly, irrevocably sorry for all the hurt I caused you, in the name of love.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

r/PopCultureChat · 1 day ago forzamcqueen

"Burnout" by Y/N L/N

How do we feel about the release of the full album? Moreover, how do we think it fits into the YNMax narrative? I, for one, have been listening non-stop trying to figure out the story.

lec_clerc16: I think it's funny how many people have gotten into F1 because of her music. Lol.

↳ NaturalOtter5: Well Lewis & Charles were on it so I would say the F1 community is pretty interested in the tea aswell.

↳ lec_clerc16: @/NaturalOtter5 Right, but YNMax is old drama. Sure, someone's posting in r/F1 every other week about an old photo or new quote. It's still been around for a while. This is fresh meat 😋

jennyowens1342: such a player...LOL who is gameboy about atp

↳ sassybanana: TBF Y/N's dating life has been a lot more quiet than Max's. There have been rumors but she hasn't hard launched anything. Maybe the one public "relationship" was enough for her.

museapollo: the more i listen the more convinced i am that y/n did not want the relationship as max did and decided it was best for them to stop being friends. the whole album is about a codependent relationship and the two people can't deal with leaving but they know it's better for both.

↳ janitorsclosetmonster: yess!! that's what i've been saying. we can't blame y/n for everything, it must've been confusing for her as well. having to navigate everything. idt she'd dated anyone at that point. max was her only close friend.

↳ EggplantParmesan713: But did max cheat...that's the real question. When did THE kiss happen? And who started it?

↳ museapollo: @/EggplantParmesan713 idk. i can't figure if she actually loved him (romantically) bcs it's clear he did but her side is a bit more hazy. you have: 1. "i just WANT it to be you" - it's not actually him she loves but she desperately wants it to be him 2. "cause even when i said it was over / you heard baby can you pull me in closer" - she's telling him it won't work out but he's not listening. 3. "please, won't you stay, stay a little a little longer, babe?" - she pauses before babe, like it's her trying to convince him to stay. mb she thought it was best to distance herself/end the friendship for a bit but she still loves him a lot because they've been friends for so long

↳ forzamcqueen: @/museapollo The best explanation I have heard so far. You can't force someone to love you the way you do. At least they've matured and moved on.

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January 2025

Dear Max:

Congratulations. I'm sure you will be a wonderful father, as I have always guessed. 2024 was a great year for you. I watched all a few of your races; you've still got it.

I'm putting out an album soon. I thought you should know. I already had a talk with Kelly, she's listened to some snippets and she likes it a lot. Some of the writing is about you the things I never said.

It was wonderful being your best friend. We had a good run, better than most.

Missing you Wish you the best, Y/N L/N

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

February 2025

Dear Y/N:

Occasionally, I think of all that could have been.

But we had many years together, and I will always cherish those moments.

Kelly loves the album, she puts it on while she cooks or does her makeup. P sings along in the car. She says she wants to go out for a tea party with you sometime. I listen to it even when they're out of the voice, for a reminder of your voice. You've made quite a name for yourself. I'm sorry I couldn't be there by your side.

Thank you for writing it. There are some things that you have to hear once, just for yourself.

Love Always Yours, Max Verstappen

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

what did you think?? i might do a part 2 of yn & max talking for the first time in forever but i wanna know if you guys liked this one first LOL

[mariacallous]

Amy Brown was not screaming. She was not crying. She was not throwing up.

But on Bluesky she said that she was doing all three, simultaneously. Brown’s husband visited a Walgreens while he was on a business trip in Ohio in February. He told her the prices were cheaper than in California, where they live.

The price disparity led her to post that she was screaming, crying, and throwing up. Several Bluesky users responded to tell her she was exaggerating, and that nobody could possibly care that much. They were right. She didn’t. She was referencing one of the internet’s common sayings, one used so often that it’s the name of a Spotify compilation.

What Brown experienced is familiar to any former Twitter/X user gathering their bearings on the young and decidedly more earnest social network Bluesky: a distinct humor-detection issue. Some users are unable to decipher jokes, or they are deliberately trying to miss the point to make a different one. Many Bluesky users migrated over from X, where the top DOGE who did Nazi-like salutes on television is live-tweeting the destruction of American infrastructure. That’s a different and much more serious problem. Still, the seeming obliviousness-slash-self-seriousness of many Bluesky users is grating when you’re not used to it.

“They're speaking a completely different language than me,” Brown says. “We're both speaking English, but I'm speaking internet.”

Brown, a former social media manager for Wendy’s, joined Bluesky in 2023. Her X account was banned after she impersonated Elon Musk for almost two hours on November 4, 2022.

The “incident,” as she calls it, happened shortly after X announced paid verification. Brown changed her profile picture to one of a balding entrepreneur and edited her display name to “Elon Musk (real).” She convincingly emulated his voice, posting musings like “my wife left me lol” and “my penis is NOT weird.”

She didn’t know whether she’d be banned for her behavior on X, but she was OK with the possibility. “It's like, Elon's already the main character on this platform every day, and now he owns it. Do I really want to be here anymore?” she says.

While you can still find plenty of this kind of humor on Bluesky, there are a surprising number of people genuinely confused by it. There are several factors to blame here.

First is the clash between former users of X and Facebook. Anyone who logged their time on the Everything App is familiar with the language of Twitter: posts steeped in irony, in-group references, platform-specific history. When they left X, they brought all that wisecracking, insidery drollery with them. They even brought their pig-shitting-on-its-own-testicles JPEGs.

Meanwhile, former power users of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are accustomed to their own barometers of funny. While Twitter felt like an intentional way to primarily interact with mostly strangers, and a familiar face might cause the user a moment of horror, Facebook was the opposite—at least initially, before it became Click FarmVille for engagement bait and advertisements for oddly specific custom novelty tees.

Bluesky also got a big boost in users from mainstream television: MSNBC ran multiple segments about the social network, including bumps on Morning Joe, The Weekend, All In With Chris Hayes, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Regular MSNBC viewers who took the plunge might not be as familiar with the tenor and style of online conversation on the smart-ass social web.

The lack of humor detection is made worse by tech: algorithmically curated content, à la Bluesky’s Discover feed, surfaces random posts to random people. A Maddow referral on Bluesky might see an ex-Twitter user’s vivid description of what they’d do to the Hamburglar if they saw him in person and react with genuine horror and confusion. It’s also PEBKAC issue—problem exists between keyboard and chair. You cannot force a person to understand a joke. The only action more futile is to get mad about it.

If these disparate groups have anything in common, it’s disgust with gigantic tech companies led by unpalatable CEOs, paired with a yearning to post in the lingua franca of their previously beloved platforms. Everyone’s brains are broken in different ways. I empathize with those who don’t get the joke. But I empathize more with the people trying to make them.

To paraphrase an Axios story from last year, America is in the midst of a gullibility crisis. People can’t tell what’s AI, a manipulated screenshot, a joke, or a lie. Many of us have opened up our relationship with reality. And the political climate has exacerbated the issue, according to Josh Gondelman, a comedian who previously worked as a producer and writer on Desus & Mero and wrote for Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.

“Since Trump’s run for the presidency, there has been a rapidly accelerating not-getting-jokes on the internet,” Gondelman says.

By Gondelman’s recollection, Bluesky hit a point where it was populated enough with active users to be both fun and useful at some point within the past six months. “But that also means it hit the tipping point where it’s populated enough to be annoying,” he says, laughing.

Mattie Lubchansky, an Ignatz Award–winning cartoonist, author, and illustrator, describes herself as “a primarily joke-posting kind of person.” The humor-detection issue of Bluesky is part of a broader phenomenon she has observed, which she calls “riff collapse.”

The day after the 2025 Oscars, Lubchansky posted: “i haven't seen any of the oscar movies this year, nor have i seen any movie ever made. i'm afraid that the people trapped inside the screen will be angry at me for not helping them escape; and once they are out i will be punished. anyway, here's how the awards validated an opinion i already had.”

The replies that followed were earnest opinions and arguments about Oscar-nominated films. Some people asked for movie recommendations. Some unironically recommended she check out The Purple Rose of Cairo. Only a handful of people seem to have understood that she was joking. Lubchansky says she sees this type of “riff collapse” happen daily, and she thinks it’s because of the influx of new users from Meta and X.

But the frustrations around new social platforms isn’t new. Networks will continue to pop up, ideally, and longtime users will continue to be annoyed by newbies.

In the early-to-mid-1990s, people often first accessed the internet when they arrived at college. Around September of every year, a bunch of new users would log on to their university’s network and start poking around the forums and discussion groups.

“The internet old timers would be very frustrated, because the new people didn’t know the social norms,” says technologist, writer, and former WIRED contributor Anil Dash. “Exactly the phenomenon we’re seeing right now.” September, for the most online netizens, was a dreaded time of the year. AOL opened the floodgates, allowing anyone to access the internet at any time. AOL’s bloom coincided with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the telco industry and brought internet connectivity to homes and institutions across the US.

This period was called the Eternal September, with “wave after wave of newbies getting online,” Dash says.

The pattern has repeated itself with LiveJournal and even Twitter. Actor and investor Ashton Kutcher appeared on CNN in 2009 and challenged the network to see whose account could hit 1 million Twitter followers first. (Kutcher won.) The stunt led to a rush of users flooding the microblogging platform.

Lubchansky thinks this moment presents an opportunity for people to examine their reply etiquette.

“Read the whole post before you respond. Take a moment to respond. And if you're going to respond with a joke, and we're not friends already, go look and see if somebody's made it already,” Lubchansky says. “Because there's a really good chance they have.”

Meanwhile, Brown considers the block function on Bluesky to be a favor to its recipient.

“If someone comes into my comments and they just really, really don't understand, usually I just block them so we don't run into each other again,” she says. “No hard feelings.” It’s a different approach than the norm on X, where quote-tweets viciously insulting the original post are part of the platform’s noxious fabric.

“I'm not trying to repeat the part of Twitter where the internet makes me mad every day,” Brown says.

Satirical site The Onion has the fifth largest Bluesky account, with over 1.2 million followers. Onion CEO Ben Collins doesn’t mind people replying to jokes in earnest. On the contrary, he says it’s “the funniest part of the internet.”

“It means more people are seeing your jokes,” he says. “If everyone is immediately breaking out into uproarious applause at your joke, your audience is too small.”

As someone who regularly used and posted on Twitter for years, I share the frustration when one of my jokey posts is misread or taken as fact. But it also strikes me as unfair to shame someone because they haven’t been slamming their head on the same wall of the internet that I have.

Not everyone crawled here from the radioactive sewer of X dot com. As we all get settled along with our new neighbors, it might be helpful to remember that. If not, at least Bluesky has very robust blocking features.

[brookediamonds]

Just wanted to say that I love your fics! You are such an awesome writer! 👏😊

And can you maybe do a fic based on the song “my ex’s best friend” by Machine Gun Kelly and Backbear?

my ex's best friend (part one)| Axel Kovačević x Fem!Reader

Summary: Trying to put yourself out there again after a break-up, you're dragged to a party where you come across a familiar face who's been waiting for you this entire time. Your ex's best friend.

Word Count: 6.3k Warnings: Smut, p in v, fingering, wrap it before you tap it, 18+, minors dni

gif is not mine

The break-up wasn’t messy.

No screaming, no slammed doors, no betrayal. Just a slow, inevitable unraveling. Miguel walking one way, you walking another.

You told yourselves you’d stay friends. 

We’re still good, right? Miguel had asked, hopeful.

And you nodded, smiling even as something inside you cracked. Of course.

But then Sam happened.

Sam, your best friend. Sam, the one who had sworn she would never look at Miguel that way.

You didn’t cry. You didn’t yell. You just left. Blocked their numbers. Walked past them in the hall like they were strangers. Built a new version of yourself that didn’t include them.

But the loneliness crept in late at night, in the quiet moments when you couldn’t drown it out.

So, you found ways to fill the silence.

Which is exactly how you ended up at this party, red cup in hand, pretending to care about whatever Zack from Economics is saying about cryptocurrency. 

The bass thumps through the floorboards, vibrating up through your shoes. You nod at appropriate intervals while scanning the crowded living room.

"So anyway, that's why I'm telling everyone to invest now," Zack concludes, taking a swig from his cup.

"Fascinating," you say, though you haven't heard a word. Your eyes catch on Tory, waving frantically from across the room. Rescue.

"I should—" you gesture vaguely, and Zack nods, already turning to find his next victim.

Tory a grabs your arm when you reach her. 

"You looked like you were being held hostage," she laughs, pressing a fresh drink into your hand. "Having fun yet?"

"Define fun," you say, taking a sip from the cup. The liquid is sweet and strong—some concoction that tastes like fruit punch but hits like something much stronger.

Tory rolls her eyes. "Come on, it's better than sitting at home scrolling through Netflix for two hours before giving up and going to sleep at nine."

She's not wrong. But before you can admit it, a pair of arms snake around her waist from behind. 

"There you are," Robby says, nuzzling his face into Tory's neck. His cheeks are flushed, eyes bright with the particular gleam that comes after three beers. "We're starting another round of beer pong. Need a partner."

Tory gives you an apologetic look. "Want to come watch?"

But Robby is already tugging her backward. "Hurry up, Tory," he whines, pulling her deeper into the crowd.

"I'll catch up!" you call after them, knowing you won't.

You sigh, taking another sip of your drink. The sweetness barely masks the burn of cheap vodka. 

The living room has grown more packed, bodies pressed together like sardines, the air thick with perfume, sweat, and spilled beer.

You decide to find some air.

Threading your way through the crowd, you push toward what you hope is the kitchen. 

Someone's elbow catches you in the ribs, another person steps on your foot. By the time you break free into the relative calm of the hallway, half your drink has sloshed onto your hand.

"Great," you mutter, shaking droplets from your fingers.

The kitchen is mercifully emptier, just a few people gathered around the island mixing drinks. You head for the sink, setting down your cup to rinse your sticky hand. 

The cool water feels good against your skin, a momentary relief from the chaos of the party.

"I never understood the appeal of jungle juice," comes a low voice from behind you. "It's basically sugar, food coloring, and regret."

You freeze, water still running over your fingers. That voice. The slight accent that wraps around certain words, softening them at the edges.

You turn slowly, and there he is—Axel Kovačević, leaning against the doorframe. He's wearing a simple black t-shirt that makes his pale skin look even more striking. 

His light brown hair is slightly tousled, like he's been running his fingers through it.

"Hey," you say, your voice coming out softer than intended.

Axel pushes himself off the doorframe with a fluid motion and walks toward you. 

There's something predatory in the way he moves—deliberate, measured, like he's always aware of exactly how much space he occupies.

"Didn't expect to see you here," he says, reaching past you to grab a clean cup from the counter. His arm brushes yours, and you catch the faint scent of his cologne.

You turn off the faucet, suddenly self-conscious of your wet hands. "Yeah, well... Tory dragged me."

"Ah," he nods, a knowing smile playing at his lips. "And then abandoned you for beer pong with Robby."

"You saw that?"

"I see a lot of things," Axel says, his blue eyes fixed on you with an intensity that makes your skin warm. "Including how quickly you tried to escape Zack's crypto lecture."

You laugh despite yourself. "You were watching me?"

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he pours something amber-colored into his cup. "Maybe. It was quite the performance—all those interested nods while your eyes screamed for help."

"Didn't realize I was so transparent," you say, reaching for a paper towel to dry your hands.

Axel leans against the counter beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost touch. "Only to someone who's paying attention."

There's something in the way he says it—soft, almost intimate—that makes your pulse quicken. 

You've known Axel for years, of course. Miguel's best friend. Always there, always watching from the sidelines. 

But something feels different tonight. The way he's looking at you, like he's seeing you properly for the first time.

"This kitchen's getting crowded," Axel says, glancing over his shoulder as a group of laughing sophomores stumble in. "And that music is giving me a headache."

You nod, suddenly aware of how the bass is vibrating through the floor, making the glassware in the cabinets rattle slightly. 

The kitchen, once a refuge, is now filling with people looking for more drinks or snacks.

"Want to go somewhere quieter?" he asks, his voice dropping a notch lower. "I found a spot upstairs earlier—the study has actual comfortable furniture and a door that closes." 

He lifts his cup slightly. "I've got a much better bottle than whatever they're serving in those red cups."

Your eyes flick to the doorway where a couple is now making out against the refrigerator, and back to Axel. 

Something about his invitation feels significant, like stepping over an invisible line.

"Lead the way," you say, picking up your cup.

Axel smiles—not his usual smirk, but something genuine that reaches his dark blue eyes. He gestures for you to follow him, and you weave through the crowd together, his tall frame creating a path that you slip through behind him.

The staircase is less crowded, though a few people sit on the steps, deep in conversation. Axel's hand finds the small of your back as you navigate around them, his touch light but steady. Your skin tingles beneath your shirt where his fingers rest.

"Watch the step," he murmurs close to your ear as you reach a slightly uneven part of the staircase. His breath is warm against your neck, sending a small shiver down your spine.

At the top of the stairs, the noise of the party seems to recede slightly, like you're moving underwater. The hallway is dimly lit, with closed doors lining both sides.

Axel leads you to the end of the corridor, pushing open a heavy wooden door. 

"After you," he says, stepping aside.

The study is exactly as he described—bookshelves lining one wall, a plush leather couch against another, and a large desk by the window. 

A single lamp casts a warm glow over the room, creating pools of gold light that soften the shadows. The bass from downstairs is just a distant pulse here, like a heartbeat.

"How did you even find this place?" you ask, running your fingers along the spine of a leather-bound book on the shelf.

Axel closes the door behind you with a soft click. 

"I explore," he says simply, setting his cup down on a side table. "Most people at parties never venture past wherever the alcohol is being served. They're missing out."

You move to sit on the desk and Axel comes over to stand near you. Not too close, just enough that you can feel the subtle shift in the air between you. 

The polished wood is cool beneath your thighs as you perch on its edge, your feet dangling slightly above the floor.

"So," he says, pulling a small flask from his back pocket. He unscrews the cap and offers it to you first. "Better than what you were drinking, I promise."

Your fingers brush as you take the flask, and you try to ignore the little jolt that runs through you at the contact. 

The metal is warm from being pressed against his body. You take a small sip, and the liquid burns pleasantly through your throat—smoother than the jungle juice, with notes of caramel and oak that linger on your tongue.

"Whiskey?" you ask, handing the flask back.

"Bourbon," Axel corrects, his fingers lingering against yours a moment longer than necessary. 

He takes a sip himself, his throat working as he swallows. A comfortable silence settles between you, punctuated only by the muffled thump of music from downstairs.

"It's been a while," Axel says finally, his eyes finding yours in the dim light. "Since we've talked. Really talked."

You nod, suddenly aware of how true that is. After the breakup, after Sam, you'd cut everyone off—including Axel, even though he wasn't directly involved. Miguel's best friend was part of that. 

You fiddle with the edge of your shirt, suddenly finding the pattern fascinating. "Yeah, well. Life moves on, right?"

Axel takes another sip from his flask, his eyes never leaving your face. "Does it? Because Miguel seems to think you've fallen off the face of the earth."

The mention of his name makes something twist in your chest. "Miguel doesn't get to have opinions about my life anymore."

"Fair enough," Axel says, leaning against the desk beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost touch. "What about me? Do I get to have opinions?"

You glance at him sideways. "About what?"

"About how you disappeared from everyone's lives. Including mine." There's no accusation in his voice, just a quiet curiosity that makes it hard to look away.

"I didn't think you'd notice," you say honestly.

Axel laughs, but there's no humor in it. The sound is hollow, almost pained. He turns to face you fully, one hand braced on the desk beside your thigh.

"Not notice you?" His voice drops to something just above a whisper. "That's the problem. I've always noticed you."

The air between you seems to thicken. You can count his eyelashes in the dim light, see the slight flush creeping up his neck.

"What does that mean?" you ask, your own voice barely audible over the distant thrum of the party.

Axel's eyes—those dark blue eyes that always seemed to be watching from the periphery—lock onto yours with an intensity that steals your breath.

"It means," he says, measuring each word carefully, "that I noticed you the first day Miguel introduced us. I noticed how you laughed with your whole body.”

"I noticed how you lit up when talking about your passions. I noticed how you always made room for people, even when they didn't deserve it." He takes a deep breath. "And I noticed how Miguel never saw what was right in front of him."

Your heart hammers against your ribs. "What?"

Axel sets the flask down on the desk, his movements deliberate. When he looks at you again, there's something raw in his expression.

"Miguel was my best friend. Is my best friend. But he was blind to what he had." His voice drops even lower. "He never saw how beautiful you are—not just here," he gestures vaguely toward your face, "but here." His hand hovers near your heart without touching you.

The air between you feels electric, charged with something you can't name.

"Axel..." you start, not sure what you're going to say. The words catch in your throat, trapped there by his intense gaze.

"I know I shouldn't say these things," he continues, running a hand through his hair. "He's my friend. But watching him with you..." He shakes his head slightly. "It was torture."

You swallow hard, your mouth suddenly dry. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

His laugh is soft, almost sad. "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, man, I think you're taking your girlfriend for granted?' Or better yet, 'I can't stop thinking about her'?" 

The confession hangs in the air between you. His eyes search yours, looking for something—permission, perhaps. Or rejection.

"I never meant to feel this way," he says, his accent thickening with emotion. 

"But I watched him miss every single sign when you were upset. I saw him ignore what hurt you most," he continues, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "And I noticed things about you he never did."

His eyes drift down briefly before meeting yours again, a flush spreading across his cheekbones. "The way you bite your lip when you're concentrating. How your eyes catch the light when you laugh. The curve of your neck when you tilt your head to listen."

You feel heat rising to your face under his gaze, which has become more intense, more deliberate. His eyes travel down your body and back up in a way that makes your skin tingle.

"I noticed how you'd walk into a room and every head would turn," he admits, his accent becoming more pronounced with each confession. "The way that dress hugged your curves at Miguel's birthday party last year—I couldn't take my eyes off you all night."

He shifts his stance, moving with that same fluid grace that has always defined him, until he's standing directly in front of you. 

The desk puts you nearly at eye level with him, despite his towering height. 

Your knees part instinctively to accommodate him, and suddenly he's there, between your legs, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body.

"I've tried not to look," he confesses, his voice rough around the edges. His hands come to rest on the desk on either side of your hips, not quite touching you but effectively caging you in. "I've tried to be respectful. To be the good friend. But god, do you have any idea what you do to me?"

The air between you feels charged, electric. His eyes, those deep blue pools that have always seemed to see right through you, now burn with an intensity that makes your breath catch.

"Tell me to stop," he whispers, leaning in closer. "Tell me this isn't what you want, and I'll walk away right now."

The logical part of your brain knows you should say it—tell him to back off, remind him that he's Miguel's best friend, that this crosses a line you can't uncross. 

But the words won't come. Instead, your heart pounds so loudly you're certain he can hear it.

"I can't," you breathe, your voice barely audible even to your own ears.

His eyes darken. "You can't what?"

"I can't tell you to stop," you admit, the confession spilling out before you can catch it. "I've thought about this too. About you."

The revelation hangs between you for a heartbeat, and then Axel moves. One hand slides up to cup your face, thumb brushing over your cheek.

His thumb traces your bottom lip, sending shivers down your spine. 

"Say it again," he murmurs, his voice husky. "Tell me what you want."

"You," you whisper, the word hanging in the air between you. "I want you, Axel."

Something snaps in his expression, a final thread of restraint breaking. He leans in, closing the last inches between you, and then his lips are on yours.

The first touch is gentle, almost tentative, a question. But when you respond, parting your lips slightly, the kiss transforms. 

His hand slides to the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair as he deepens the kiss with a hunger that takes your breath away.

You taste bourbon on his tongue, his other hand moves to your waist, pulling you closer to the edge of the desk. 

You pull him closer to you, grinding against him. The friction sends a jolt of electricity through your body, and you feel him respond immediately, his breath catching in his throat. 

His hands move to your hips, guiding your movements as you arch against him.

"I've thought about this," he murmurs against your lips, "for so long."

His mouth trails down your neck, leaving a path of fire wherever he touches. 

You tilt your head back, giving him better access as his teeth graze your sensitive skin. Your fingers thread through his brown hair, softer than you'd imagined.

"Tell me," you breathe, barely recognizing your own voice. "Tell me what you've thought about."

Axel pulls back slightly, his dark blue eyes almost black with desire. The flush on his pale cheeks has deepened, spreading down his neck.

"Everything," he confesses, his accent thick with desire. "The way you'd look in my arms, how you'd sound saying my name, how your skin would feel against mine."

His hands move to your thighs, the heat of his palms burning through the denim of your skirt. Your breath catches as his fingers trace small circles just above your knees.

"I've imagined touching you like this," he whispers, his eyes never leaving yours. "Imagined what you'd do if I..."

He trails his hands up your thighs, softly pushing your jean skirt up. The fabric bunches around your hips as his fingers trace patterns on your bare skin. 

Each touch sends electricity coursing through you, making it hard to breathe, to think.

"Is this okay?" he asks, his voice rough with restraint.

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. His hands hesitate at the edge of your underwear, his eyes searching yours for permission.

"Yes," you whisper, your voice barely audible above the distant thump of bass from downstairs.

That single word breaks something loose in him. His fingers slide higher, tracing the edge of your underwear with a touch so light it makes you shiver. 

You feel your breath catching as his fingertips ghost over the fabric, testing, teasing.

"I've dreamed about this," he confesses, his voice rough with desire. "Touching you like this. Watching your face when I do."

And he is watching. Those eyes fixed on yours, catching every reaction, every flutter of your eyelashes, every caught breath. 

His gaze is almost as intoxicating as his touch.

You can only moan, unable to form words as his fingers finally make contact. The pressure is gentle at first, exploratory, as he strokes you through the thin cotton. 

Your hips instinctively arch into his touch, seeking more.

"You're so responsive," he murmurs, his accent thickening with desire. "So beautiful like this."

His other hand slides up your side, fingers splaying across your ribs, then higher, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through your shirt. 

The dual sensation makes you gasp, eyes fluttering close 

His fingers hover at the edge of your underwear, and your breath catches in anticipation. 

With deliberate slowness, Axel hooks his finger under the elastic and gently pulls the fabric to the side. The cool air hits your exposed skin, making you shiver.

"God," he breathes, his voice rough with desire. His eyes flick up to yours, dark and intense. "You're so wet already."

You can only whimper in response as his fingertip traces your entrance with light touches. Your hips cant forward instinctively, seeking more pressure, more friction, more of him.

"Patience," he whispers, leaning forward to press his lips against your neck. "I've waited so long for this. Let me savor you."

His finger slides through your folds, exploring with gentle curiosity. 

Every touch sends sparks shooting up your spine. 

When one finger slips inside you, your head falls back, a moan escaping your lips.

"Axel," you breathe, his name like a prayer on your tongue.

He adds a second finger, curling them slightly, and you have to bite your lip to keep from crying out. 

His thumb finds your clit, circling with just the right pressure to make your thighs tremble.

"You feel incredible," he murmurs against your neck, his voice strained with his own desire. "So perfect."

Your hands grip his shoulders, feeling the lean muscle beneath his shirt. His fingers work inside you, building a rhythm that has you panting, teetering on the edge of something magnificent.

But it's not enough. Not nearly enough.

"Axel," you say, your voice breathy but determined. You pull back just enough to look into his eyes. 

The dim light of the study makes the blue of his irises seem deeper, more intense. 

His pupils are blown wide with desire, his breath coming in short bursts that match your own.

"I need more," you whisper, your voice trembling slightly. Your fingers trail down his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath your palm. "I want to feel you. All of you."

His fingers still inside you, and for a moment, he just looks at you—really looks at you—like he's memorizing every detail of your face.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his accent thicker than you've ever heard it. There's vulnerability in his question, a hesitation that makes your chest tighten.

In answer, you reach for his belt, your fingers fumbling slightly with the buckle. "I've never been more sure in my life."

His hands tremble slightly as he works open his belt. The metallic clink of the buckle seems unnaturally loud in the quiet room. 

You help him, your fingers brushing against his as together you undo his jeans.

When you push them down his hips, he lets out a shaky breath that warms your neck. His underwear does little to hide how much he wants you.

"I've thought about this so many times," he murmurs, voice rough with desire as he steps out of his jeans. "But nothing compares to the real thing. To you."

You pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. The desk creaks beneath you as he presses forward, his hardness rubbing against your core through the thin fabric of his underwear.

"Take these off," you whisper, tugging at the waistband.

He complies, stepping back just enough to push the fabric down his hips. Your breath catches as he springs free, and for a moment, you just look at him.

The lean muscles of his torso tapering down to narrow hips, the light dusting of hair trailing below his navel, the unmistakable evidence of how much he wants you.

When you reach for him, wrapping your fingers around his length, Axel lets out a sound that's half-groan, half-gasp.

His eyes flutter closed for a moment, long lashes casting shadows on his cheekbones. His skin is hot against your palm, velvet over steel.

"God," he breathes, his accent thick with desire. "Your touch..."

You stroke him slowly, savoring the way his breath hitches, the way his muscles tense beneath your free hand. His face is a study in barely contained control. 

His lips parted, eyes half-lidded but watching you intently. When you run your thumb over the tip, collecting the moisture there, his whole body shudders.

"I need you," he whispers, his voice barely audible. "Now."

He positions himself between your thighs, one hand bracing against the desk beside your hip. The other cups your face, thumb tracing your bottom lip with a tenderness that contrasts with the hunger in his eyes.

"Wait," he says suddenly, his voice strained. He pulls back slightly, reaching for his discarded jeans. "I need to—"

"I'm on the pill," you tell him, your fingers trailing up his arm, feeling the subtle definition of muscle beneath his pale skin. "If you're okay with that..."

His eyes widen slightly, searching your face. "You sure?"

In answer, you pull him closer, wrapping your legs more firmly around his waist. 

"Yes," you breathe, pulling him closer. "I want to feel all of you, Axel. Nothing between us."

A soft groan escapes him at your words, his eyes darkening further 

The world narrows to this single point of contact as he pushes inside you with agonizing slowness. 

Your breath catches in your throat as he fills you completely, stretching you in the most delicious way possible. 

His forehead presses against yours, eyes locked on yours, watching every flicker of expression that crosses your face.

"Are you okay?" he whispers, his accent thicker than you've ever heard it, voice strained with the effort of holding still.

You can only nod, overwhelmed by the feeling of completeness, of rightness. 

Your fingers dig into his shoulders, anchoring yourself to him as your body adjusts to the intrusion.

"You feel..." He trails off, seemingly unable to find the words. His eyes close briefly, dark lashes fanning against his flushed cheeks. "Perfect. So perfect."

Then he begins to move, pulling back slowly before pushing forward again. 

Each thrust sends waves of pleasure radiating through your body. The desk creaks beneath you, the sound mixing with your breathless gasps and his low groans. 

His pace is measured, controlled, each movement deliberate and deep.

But it's not enough. The coiling tension inside you demands more.

"Axel," you breathe against his ear, your voice barely recognizable to your own ears. "Harder."

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his dark blue eyes searching yours. 

"You want me to go harder?" The concern in his voice makes something flutter in your chest, even as desire burns through your veins.

"Yes," you whisper, fingers tangling in his light brown hair. "Please. I need more of you."

Something shifts in his expression, an undeniable hunger breaking through his careful control. 

With one fluid motion, Axel sweeps away the few items on the desk's surface. His strong hands grip your waist, pushing you backward until you're lying flat against the polished wood. 

The cool surface presses against your heated skin as he towers over you, his eyes dark with desire.

"Like this?" he asks, his voice a low rumble that you feel more than hear.

Before you can answer, he takes your right leg and lifts it, positioning it over his shoulder. 

The new angle makes you gasp as he slides impossibly deeper. His fingers dig into your thigh, holding you steady as he begins to move with renewed purpose.

"Oh god," you moan, your back arching off the desk. 

The position leaves you completely exposed to him, vulnerable in the most exquisite way. Each thrust hits places inside you that make stars burst behind your eyelids. 

Your hands scramble for purchase on the smooth surface, finally gripping the edges of the desk as pleasure builds inside you.

"Axel, yes," you cry out, no longer caring if anyone downstairs might hear. The world has narrowed to just this, his body moving against yours, inside yours, claiming you completely.

His free hand slides up your body, pushing your shirt higher, exposing your stomach to the cool air. 

His fingers trace patterns on your skin, teasing higher until he's cupping your breast through your bra. 

When his thumb brushes over your nipple, even through the fabric, a shock of pleasure courses through you, making you clench around him.

"You're incredible," he breathes, his eyes never leaving your face. "So beautiful like this."

The intensity of his gaze as he watches you—really watches you—sends a thrill through your body. 

It's nothing like it was with Miguel. With Miguel, it had been comfortable, familiar, routine. 

He'd known what worked and stuck to it. But this—Axel's eyes never leave yours, studying every reaction, every gasp, adjusting his movements accordingly. 

He's learning you, memorizing you.

His movements grow more urgent, more demanding. The desk creaks beneath you as his thrusts become deeper, harder, exactly what you need. 

Each stroke hits a spot inside you that makes your toes curl, your breath catch in your throat.

"Look at me," he commands softly, his accent thickening with desire. "I want to see your face when you come."

Your eyes lock with his, and the connection is almost too much—too intimate, too raw. There's something in his gaze that Miguel never had when you were together. A hunger, yes, but also something like reverence.

One of his hands slides between your bodies, finding the bundle of nerves at your center. His fingers circle with just the right pressure, just the right rhythm, as if he's studied your body for years.

"How do you know exactly..." you gasp, words failing as pleasure builds inside you.

A small, smug smile curves his lips. 

"I told you," he whispers, his voice rough with desire. "I've been watching you for years. Noticing everything about you."

The pressure inside you builds, coiling tighter with each thrust, each circle of his fingers. Your breathing comes in short gasps now, your body trembling on the edge of release.

"Axel," you moan, his name falling from your lips. "I'm close. So close."

His movements become more intense, more deliberate. The controlled rhythm gives way to something more primal, more desperate. 

His breathing is ragged, his skin flushed and glistening in the dim light.

"That's it," he encourages, his accent thicker than you've ever heard it. "Let go for me. I want to see you come undone."

The pressure builds to an almost unbearable point, a tidal wave gathering force at the edge of your consciousness. 

Your body tenses, back arching off the cold wood as the first waves of your orgasm crash through you. 

"Axel!" His name tears from your throat, a desperate, pleading sound that echoes in the quiet room.

Your entire body pulses around him as pleasure radiates outward from your core, sending shockwaves of sensation to your fingertips, your toes, the top of your head. 

Your vision blurs at the edges, the world narrowing to just this moment, just him.

"God, you're beautiful," Axel groans, his voice strained as he watches you come apart beneath him. His movements grow erratic, his rhythm faltering as your body clenches around him. "The way you look right now—"

His words dissolve into a guttural moan as his control finally shatters. 

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, urging him on. 

"Don't stop," you pant, running your hands up his arms, feeling the muscles trembling with exertion. You pull him down towards, until your foreheads touch.

Something breaks in his expression, the last thread of control snapping. With a final, deep thrust, he buries himself inside you completely. 

His release comes with a shudder that runs through his entire body, a deep groan torn from his throat as he pulses inside you. 

The sensation of warmth spreading inside you is exquisite, intimate in a way you've never experienced before. 

You moan at the feeling of him spilling his seed inside of you, your body clenching around him, drawing out every last pulse. 

The connection feels primal, and ancient, something beyond words as your bodies communicate in the oldest language known to humanity.

"Oh my god," you breathe, your voice barely audible over the sound of your combined ragged breathing.

Axel's forehead is still pressed against yours, his eyes closed, long lashes fanned against his flushed cheeks. 

He's trembling slightly, aftershocks running through his lean frame. When he finally opens his eyes, the intensity in them makes your breath catch. 

The dark blue is almost black in the dim light, pupils still blown wide with pleasure.

"That was..." he starts, then shakes his head slightly, seemingly at a loss for words. His thumb traces your cheekbone with a tenderness that makes your heart ache. "I don't have the words."

You're lying on the desk, your body still humming with aftershocks of pleasure, feeling more alive than you have in months. 

The wood is cool against your back, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from Axel's body above you. His weight is pleasant, grounding you in this moment that feels almost dreamlike.

"I do," you whisper, a smile tugging at your lips. "That was fucking amazing."

Axel's serious expression cracks, and he laughs—a genuine laugh that transforms his face, softening the sharp edges and making his eyes crinkle at the corners. 

The sound is rich and warm, wrapping around you like a blanket.

"Always so eloquent," he teases, but his eyes are soft, tender in a way that makes your heart flutter.

With gentle hands, he helps you sit up, his movements careful as if you're made of something precious. 

The desk creaks beneath you as you shift, your body pleasantly sore in ways you haven't felt in a long time. 

The gentleness in his movements is almost more intimate than what you had just experienced. 

Axel bends down to retrieve his underwear from the floor, sliding them up his long legs in one fluid motion. 

You watch, still perched on the edge of the desk, as the fabric clings to his lean muscles. 

"You're staring," he says, a smile playing at his lips as he steps into his jeans.

"Can you blame me?" Your voice comes out huskier than intended, still raw from your earlier cries.

He fastens his belt, the metal buckle clinking softly in the quiet room. The sound brings you back to reality—to the party still raging downstairs, to the fact that you're half-dressed on a stranger's desk.

"Come here," he says, his voice soft as he extends his hand to you.

You take it, sliding off the desk. Your legs wobble slightly, and he steadies you with a hand at your waist, his touch warm through the thin fabric of your shirt.

"Easy," he murmurs, his accent making the word sound like a caress. "No rush."

"We should probably..." You gesture vaguely at your disheveled state. 

Axel nods, his eyes still dark with lingering desire. 

"Let me help you," he says softly, reaching for your shirt that's ridden up nearly to your bra.

His fingers brush against your skin as he gently tugs the fabric down, smoothing it over your stomach with careful attention. The touch is gentle but sends shivers across your skin nonetheless.

"Turn around," he murmurs, his accent caressing the words. "Your skirt is all..." He makes a twisting motion with his hand, a hint of color rising to his pale cheeks.

You spin slowly, feeling surprisingly vulnerable in this moment of tenderness after what you've just shared. 

His hands settle on your hips, warm and steady as he adjusts your skirt, making sure the fabric falls properly. His fingers linger at the small of your back, tracing small circles there.

"Your hair," he murmurs, stepping behind you. His fingers thread through the tangled strands, gently working out the knots that formed while you were writhing beneath him on the desk. 

There's something reverent in the way he touches you—like he's handling something precious, irreplaceable.

You lean into his touch, eyes fluttering closed as he carefully smooths your hair. His fingertips occasionally brush against your neck, sending pleasant shivers down your spine.

"There," he says softly, his breath warm against your ear. "Beautiful again."

You turn to face him, suddenly shy despite the intimacy you just shared. "I wasn't before?"

Axel's eyes soften, the dark blue warming like a summer sky at dawn. 

"You're always beautiful," he says, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "Even when you're a complete mess."

The teasing lilt in his voice makes you smile despite yourself. You reach up to straighten his collar, which has gone askew during your encounter.

"You're not so bad yourself," you reply, smoothing the fabric between your fingers. "When you're not being all broody and mysterious."

He catches your hand as you pull away, bringing your fingers to his lips. 

The gentle kiss he presses against your knuckles is so at odds with the passionate intensity from moments ago that it makes your heart stutter in your chest.

"I should probably find Tory," you say reluctantly, even as your body leans toward his like a flower seeking sunlight. "Let her know I'm still alive."

Axel nods, but doesn't release your hand. 

"Or," he says, voice dropping to that low register that sends warmth pooling in your belly, "we could just leave. Together."

The suggestion hangs in the air between you, full of possibility. 

You feel your pulse quicken at the thought of leaving with him, of continuing what you've started in the privacy of your own space.

"Drive me home?" you ask, your voice soft but steady.

His eyes light up, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I'd love nothing more."

You gather your things, checking your appearance one last time in a small mirror hanging on the wall. 

Your cheeks are still flushed, your lips slightly swollen from his kisses. There's a subtle glow about you that can't be explained away by the dim lighting.

Axel opens the study door, peering out to check the hallway. 

"Coast is clear," he says, holding the door for you.

The party seems to have grown even louder downstairs, the bass thumping through the floorboards as you make your way down the stairs. 

Axel's hand finds yours in the crowd, his long fingers intertwining with yours. The simple touch feels intimate, a silent claim that sends a thrill through you.

You spot Tory by the beer pong table, cheering as Robby sinks a ball. 

Her face lights up when she sees you, then her eyes widen slightly as she notices Axel beside you, your hands linked.

"Hey!" she shouts over the music, weaving through the crowd toward you. "Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere!"

"Just getting some air," you say, aware of the half-truth in your words. "It was too loud down here."

Tory's eyes flick between you and Axel, a slow smile spreading across her face as understanding dawns. 

Her gaze drops to your joined hands, then back up to your flushed cheeks.

"I'm heading out," you tell her, raising your voice to be heard over the music. "Axel's going to drive me home."

"Oh, is he now?" Tory's eyebrows shoot up, her smile turning mischievous. She leans in closer, her lips nearly brushing your ear. "What happened to 'I'm just going to make an appearance and leave'?"

You feel heat rising to your cheeks. "Plans change."

"I can see that." She pulls back, her eyes dancing with amusement as she gives Axel an appraising look. “Take care of her."

"I intend to," Axel responds, his voice low and serious despite the playful gleam in his eyes. The promise in those three simple words sends a shiver down your spine.

Tory gives you a knowing look, mouthing "details later" before Robby calls her back to the beer pong table. 

She offers a little wave as she disappears back into the crowd, leaving you and Axel standing in the pulsing heart of the party.

"Ready?" Axel asks, his thumb tracing small circles on the back of your hand.

You nod, suddenly eager to escape the crowded house with its too-loud music and too many bodies. 

"Ready," you smile up at him.

The night air feels like a promise of something new, something just for the two of you.

─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ─

part two

Masterlist

Taglist: @ggrgcribg

(a/n: thank you for your kind words! LOVED this one. gonna be working on my smut writing these next 2-3 one shots i apologize in advance)

[tobiasdrake]

Got Buffy on the brain.

Spike is an example of the magic of long-running series, which has more or less died out in the streaming era. Specifically, what happens when plans go awry. Because Spike? Spike is a plan that went very, very awry.

Spike was supposed to be a setup arc villain. That's it. That's all he was ever meant for. He's introduced in season two as the new scary Big Bad Evil Vampire. He's got a lot of charm and wit and some interesting characteristics but also he's killed two Slayers and is looking to add a third to his list.

Plan was that we have the Spike arc, then Buffy kills him in the midseason finale. Drusilla takes over as Big Bad Evil Vampire until surprise twist Angelus turns up as the true season villain. And that's it. Buffy fights Angel's entire little vampire sect and overcomes them and that's the season.

But Spike was spared his fate when he was just too likable to dispose of so quickly. He became a loose thread, kicked into the void for later seasons to figure out what to do with. Because this was back in the day when "We'll have another season to figure this out, we don't have to solve it now," was a thing you could reasonably rely on.

And then Angel got a spinoff, and they had to write him out of the show. That means we now have a void in the series. We need a new sexy vampire boy that the protagonists can have a fraught and snarky but generally positive relationship with when it really counts. And. Like. We have this loose thread over here....

And, as luck would have it, Spike had been written from the beginning to be a hopeless romantic. A vampire entirely capable of human affection, loyalty, and even selflessness for the people he loved. So it was really easy to slide him into a protagonist role and have him just pack-bond onto the protags now. All he needed was a restraining bolt to keep him from vamping it up. And hey, we're doing this arc about government labs and demon research soooooooo....

Spike is one of the show's most popular characters, and one of the things that makes him so interesting is the simple fact that he was an accident. He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't planned from the start, like Angel and Buffy were. Creative circumstances contrived to make Spike the path of least resistance.

And in-universe, he is a cosmic accident. His capacity for affection and loyalty defies conventional wisdom about vampires, which says they are just soulless husks incapable of true emotion. But the way it manifests as the series progresses is possible only because of the restraining bolt placed on him, which no other vampire has ever experienced, behaving in a way that it was not intended to function.

Spike is, both in and out of universe, an anomaly for multiple reasons. This was never the plan, and nothing about him as a character or plot point works the way it feels like it's supposed to. He is a walking contradiction of the roles he occupies and the rules of the setting. He's not supposed to be here, and moreover, he's not supposed to be.

And that is precisely what makes him so interesting, and captivates so much of the fandom. It's something that more tightly written series, with a limited number of episodes planned from the beginning, can never truly experience.

With other characters, with Angel or Buffy or Giles or Willow, there are surprises to be had. But they often fit very comfortably into their particular roles. But with Spike, you never really know what you're gonna get. Even his creators don't.

[velvetbeeez]

𝑇𝐡𝑒 𝑈𝐦𝑏𝐫𝑒𝐥𝑙𝐚 𝐀𝑐𝐚𝑑𝐞𝑚𝐲 𝐝𝑟 𝑖𝐧𝑡𝐫𝑜𝐝𝑢𝐜𝑡𝐢𝑜𝐧 !

now playing ▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 'I think we're alone now' by Tiffany.

ACT i

October 1st, 1989. In the small corner of New Jersey, where the streetlamps hummed like fireflies walked a girl, seventeen, blooming with youth and untouched sugar laced dreams, hand in hand with her boyfriend, laughing at everything and nothing. There were no warnings in the sky, no planets aligned weirdly, no caution, just the electric silence before terror slips in unnoticed, unscathed.

And then she was pregnant. Just like that.

No warning, no reason, her heart did not even skip a beat. Marigold rushed golden beneath her ribs, her veins caught fire. The world shifted, and so did the weight in her arms- a daughter, still slick and starlit, eyes already so knowing for a creature so new.

Reginald came in, with his craze driven search for power and a moustache that commanded respect. And also a bag of cash. He paid exactly 7,777 dollars for the girl he called number 7 later.

Grace named her Saadgi, not only because her mother was half Indian but also because the world loves irony, a good contradiction. Because this girl was anything but the meaning her name held (simplicity).

Furniture and chaos floated around her crib like fairies. She giggled when someone caught her. The air seemed lighter when the babe laughed. Like she controlled it all.

Grace held her gently yet firmly, as though she knew one day the child might unmake the world in her sleep.

ACT ii

Saadgi was number seven. Quiet in ranks. Overlooked. While Diego complained about being number two, Saadgi kept quiet, her heart dropping down to her stomach each time. She looked away like she did not care about the numbers, but of course she did. Of course she did, when all reginald ever fed her was her incompetence. Told her she's break under pressure. Called her weak. A burden.

But that was just fear dressed in discipline. He was terrified of her. She had not the strength but the possibility. She could lay the hands of reality bare with a blink and a thought and a sigh. Reginald understood her belief was her strength. He broke it to pieces.

She found solace within her best friends, Klaus and Ben and sometimes Five when he was not busy solving an equation. But after Five left, and Ben died, nothing remained the same. They spoke to each other less. No laughter echoed in the hallways. No spark saw the light of the day.

Years passed and cracks formed in the walls, the ceiling rotted and smelled like suffering. The family, hanging on loose threads, finally fractured. The kids left.

ACT iii

Saadgi became a name whispered through the fashion world, stitched into the lining of couture gowns, shot through film grain in editorials that worshipped her like a pagan deity. She became what Reginald never allowed her to be. Number One.

Lovers came and left through glassy doors opened just enough for them to slip by. Some were sweet, some angry, some sad and some did not matter. She treated intimacy like how Klaus treated drugs, a medicine. Nothing ever filled the void. Not after Five left. Not after Ben died. Not after Klaus began talking to empty air instead of her. Not since she escaped the academy.

She used her powers sparingly, scared of her own reflection. She knew she could do things. Things not to be spoken about. Someone looks at her wrong? they meet a car accident that breaks their neck forever. Someone calls her a bad name. They get their tongue burnt. Her fingers never twitched. Her eyes never glowed. But something always cracked behind the scenes.

And one day, the telephone rang, loud and ominous, in her apartment, she picked it up expecting it to be her manager. It was not. It was in fact, Pogo, the house monkey, more of a father to her than Reginald ever was. 7 years since she heard his voice. He informs her of Reginald's death...

And so the gates of the academy swung open again. Just as they did when she was brought in for the first time. Except, this time, she goes in on her own accounts.

The hallways smelled of rot, secrets and conspiracy. She scrunched her nose. But she could not prevent her eyes from lighting up when they lay upon her siblings. A sigh of long forbidden relief. They were finally together without the sharp eyes of Reginald looming over their heads through every corner of the mansion

We only meet at weddings and funerals.

Let the fight against the inevitable begin

[utilitycaster]

If I may, as we go into what appears to be the clear endgame for C3, I think the lessons to take from the ending of C2 within the fandom are:

Do not freak out about the possibility of the campaign ending sooner than you expected nor you personally wanted

Last minute twists are not impossible, but if your enjoyment rests on a sudden reversal in the final hour you are likely to be disappointed

Just because it happened in prior campaigns doesn't mean it will happen in this one

Don't count your chickens before they fail to hatch

There will probably be one shots if it's a serious enough plot hook that we can't get to

Disappointment and anger are fine but eventually you do need to get over it

For the record, I think the particularly unpleasant responses to the ending of Campaign 2 boil down to the fact that it wasn't nearly as clearly signaled (the formal announcement was like two weeks in advance and while in retrospect it makes sense, at the time it felt very abrupt); that despite two relationships being established and a third clearly on the way people had convinced themselves that there would be some kind of last minute twist and their anger is entirely because that didn't happen even though there was literally zero sign it would; the fact that Molly didn't come back; and the general atmosphere of the world in June 2021 - I watched the finale while on my first trip to see my family in over a year and a half. I also think the ship wars for C2 were as bitter as they were because of both the strength of the party's bonds; but also the echo chambers that developed during a lengthy hiatus; and Campaign 3 does not and never has had anywhere near that level of serious ship warring.

The structure of Campaign 3 has been different in many ways from that of Campaign 2, which was different from Campaign 1 - that's not to say you can't make comparisons across campaigns, but I would not make assumptions based on the length of prior campaigns (plus, we're already in the same ballpark of number of episodes as C1, and the same level going into the BBEG combat as C2).

If your happiness rests on any of the now three current couples in Bells Hells breaking up, you are a weirdly bitter person, and you are likely to be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're already annoyed that a plot thread will be dropped, while there's like...maybe three plot hooks I can think of and every single one is related to Chetney, who I think will only survive the finale if Travis is unable to find a satisfying way to kill him off, we've had some excellent one shots post-campaign for both Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein and I don't see why this would be any different.

And as always I will never tell you that you can't dislike something, though there are things that, if you dislike them, I will think less of your judgment. But stick to expressing disappointment and anger; if you find yourself wanting to write out violent threats on the internet, you need to back away for a good long while. But certainly wait to be disappointed by a campaign that's already ended, and not pre-mad at things that haven't happened (or failed to happen) yet.

[peachhcs]

all eyes on you

hughes!sister x will smith au (samy + will)

will and samy have to relearn how to be in a relationship together on top of will's new found fame as an nhl player

2.6k words

MAKING MY RETURN ONCE AGAIN! here's something i wrote that i didn't hate!! so sorry it's been so long i keep getting writer's block lol anyways writing hate comments is lowkey so fun hahaha but here's will and samy navigating their relationship after getting back together :)

au masterlist

will was beyond excited to finally get a weekend off. he'd been going, going, going since preseason back in august and now with it being almost november, the sharks didn't have any weekend games for once. as soon as thursday night hit, will was packing his bag for michigan to see guess who? samy.

he did feel a little bad he wasn't using the weekend to go home to boston, but his parents assured him it was okay he flew out to michigan instead. it had been months since the couple saw one another, so the blonde wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to see his girlfriend for a few days.

samy waited patiently in the arrival line of cars, eyes scanning the doors for her boyfriend. she was bouncing off the walls all week getting the place ready for him and rambling on to hannah and her other roommates about their weekend plans—surely talking their ears off about the particular blonde.

she spotted him first when the doors slid open. samy jumped up, waving her hands around to catch his attention as he scanned the line of people for her. when their gazes finally met will quite literally rushed into her arms. he scooped her up into a tight hug, her feet lifting off the concrete as the two spun around.

"i missed you so much," will mumbled into her shoulder, her hold getting even tighter.

"i missed you, too. it's so good to see you," samy beamed up at him, her hands already threading through his longer curls.

"god, it's been so long," will embraced her again, the couple melting into one another when a click caught their attention and someone tapping the boy's shoulder.

will turned, confusion on his features when two girls stood behind him with large smiles, "will smith, right? we're big fans."

the blonde flushed, eyes flicking around—he didn't quite expect running into fans at the airport, but he sported a smile nonetheless.

"yeah, hi. it's good to meet you guys."

samy watched from behind will as he signed their hats, a gentle smile on her lips. she loved watching her boyfriend interacting with fans knowing how many people looked up to him nowadays.

"thank you so much!" the girls grinned before hurrying away. will watched them run back to their own car, eyes turning back to his girlfriend.

"okay, big shot," she poked his chest, another flush spreading across his cheeks.

"sorry about that," he murmured, slightly embarrassed that their moment was interrupted.

"i gotta remember my boyfriend's a big star now," she flicked will's cap before climbing back into the car.

the embarrassment was quickly washed away hearing samy's appraisal. to will, she would always be his number one fan. they pulled out of the line and began driving back to the university. his hand slipped over her thigh, squeezing lightly while leaning back in his seat. for a moment, everything felt like before—before the nhl, before the fame, before college when they were still young.

"ryan and gabe are jealous i get to see you this weekend and they don't," samy joked.

for a second will frowned, the guilt that he didn't go home to boston still lingering in the back of his head, "i wish we could all be together."

"i know, i told them they should fly out, but they have a game tomorrow so they can't miss it. i said we could facetime or something," the brunette giggled and will chuckled.

"hopefully i'll see them in a few weeks. i'm going to boston on the next weekend off," the blonde hummed and he felt samy squeeze his hand resting on her leg.

"has it been everything you've dreamed of?" samy wondered, her gaze meeting will's briefly.

"yeah, it has. it's really great. the guys are awesome. i love san jose. it's cool doing it with macklin. really couldn't have asked for anything better except wishing you were there or that everyone was there," the nhl seemed like a dream so far away for will and it was still hard to believe he was actually living it.

"i'm really proud of you. you're really glowing there, literally and figuratively," she pinched the boy's cheeks meaning the nice tan he acquired.

"thank you. i still miss all of this though. i wish i could do both," as they got closer to umich, will couldn't help but think about boston and how fast everything went. too fast.

"well, i guess this weekend can be your three day escape back into it. eth and mark are excited to see you too," the brunette grinned and will laughed.

"figured, but i'm surprised to hear that considering last time i was around they hated my guts."

"i mean, rightfully so. don't worry, they're cool now. they might rough you up, but they're excited to see you," the couple exchanged a smile and will squeezed samy's thigh, all of the stress from the last three months finally leaving his system for the weekend—and will couldn't be more relieved.

—

with any high profile job, there was always the negatives. it couldn't be escaped no matter how hard one tried to get rid of it. will knew all the fame would bring its critics. it was kind of a given that there would be haters and negative comments here and there. his agent prepared him for it, or at least tried to. he just had to ignore them and not engage knowing anything he said online could be used against him.

it was a whole thing the blonde was still getting used to. he had to watch what he said, posted, liked, commented on—he basically couldn't really breathe on the internet anymore knowing someone was always watching.

it was easy until will was scrolling through his feed and landed on a photo of him and samy at the airport.

the boy sat up, scanning the photo closer. it was zoomed in like whoever took it was further away. he could see the two fans about to come up to them. a somewhat uneasy feeling settled into will's stomach not really liking that there was someone watching that entire interaction between him and samy.

it was the caption and all the comments that got him though. there was about 200 since the photo was posted an hour ago and the caption said: first weekend off for the san jose sharks and newest prospect will smith is spotted in michigan visiting his girlfriend. spotted talking with fans!

will was told not to read the comments on things like this because if they were bad, it'd send him into a spiral he couldn't get out of. usually, he didn't and just scrolled past but the ones showing up in the preview wouldn't let will tear his eyes away.

user1: HUH i thought he broke up with her??

user2: goddd he's back with her?? thought he was over her for good.

user3: he could do so much better than her jesus. i literally thought she cheated on him🤨

user4: ignoring fans for a worthless girl 😭😭

user5: woah these comments did not pass the vibe check why is there so much hate??

user6: i actually hate their relationship sorry. people think she's so great because she's quinn and jack's little sister. she only got into umich bc of her brothers. she actually sucks ass at soccer    | user9: uh hello?? this is crazy she's actually really talented and really smart. she got into umich all on her own    | user6: nahhh bro u crazy fans are so brainwashed into thinking that just bc she's a hughes    | user10: uh her last name has nothing to do with anything. she's good on her own wtf u on??    | user6: i'm just being real. she's been leaching off smith for YEARS and y'all don't even realize it    | user9: leaching?? wtf she was way more known than will she is not leaching. who hurt u wtf

user7: GET HER OUTTA HERE BRUHHHH

user8: samy hughes they could never make me like you

user11: he's probably only with her bc he gets to get a taste of that 🍑🍑

will shut his phone off, eyes blurry. he couldn't believe people were saying those things about samy or how they could even post those things knowing others were reading it. suddenly, the blonde worried samy would see those comments.

"okay, i'm off to practice. you gonna be okay here alone? hannah should be back around 6:30?" samy walked into the living room dressed in her practice uniform.

"yeah, yeah. i'll be good. have a good practice," will put on his best smile, leaning up to place a gentle kiss to the girl's lips.

"thanks, i will. are you okay?" samy saw her boyfriend's flushed state.

"hmm? oh, yeah. i'm good," the blonde nodded.

"okay, i'll see you later then. i love you," will grinned, waving to her as she slipped out the door.

will grabbed his phone again, going back onto the post. there were even more comments than when he just looked at it, his breath catching in his chest. he couldn't believe there was so much hate and how people were taking the context out of proportion.

it didn't help either that will and samy were still relearning how to be in a relationship with one another. they were still working out their kinks which wasn't easy being across the country from one another and now there was this.

hannah walked into the apartment an hour later, gaze on her best friend's boyfriend staring at his phone. she raised her eyebrow, "hey will?" 

her voice startled the boy as he jumped up, but calming when he saw that it was only hannah as she shut the door behind her. "oh, hey. sorry. you scared me," will mumbled, sitting back down. 

"are you okay? you looked stressed," the brunette set her keys and backpack on the counter, reaching for the cabinets for a snack. 

"oh, i'm fine," unfortunately, hannah didn't believe him. 

"you sure? you look like you've seen a ghost," the younger duke sibling laughed. 

will knew he could trust hannah, so he motioned her over to look at his phone where he hadn't stopped reading all the comments. he let her look it over, the girl slowly scrolling through all the comments under the post. 

"jesus, these people are so ruthless," hannah mumbled. 

"i can't believe they're saying that stuff. how could people be so rude?" will said in disbelief. 

"they're just jealous and petty that you're not their boyfriend. don't let it get under your skin," hannah handed him his phone back, but her words didn't ease the boy's worries. 

"how are you so cool about this?" will didn't get how hannah seemed so chill about what people were saying unlike him who was ready to punch someone in the face. the girl shrugged. 

"i don't know. i mean i hate that they're saying that shit and it's really gross, but you gotta remember samy and i are kind of used to it. samy more than me i guess. we've been in our brother's shadows our whole lives. people have always had shit to say about us," she had a point that will didn't think about. he settled back into the couch. 

"okay, fair, but i still hate it. they know nothing about my life and shouldn't be disrespecting my girlfriend like that," will stated. 

"maybe you could say something? from what i've learned, haters will stop when they hear it from the source." 

will considered hannah's words until samy got back from practice. she smiled when she saw her boyfriend in the same spot she left him in, going over to kiss him on the forehead as she shedded herself of her bags. 

"hi, get bored while i was gone?" samy chuckled. 

"no. how was praactice?" will pulled samy down to the couch with him for a bit. 

"it was good. we ran some drills and a possible new formation coach wants us to try at the next game," the girl explained. 

"sounds just like hockey practice," the blonde chuckled. 

"yeah, sometimes i feel like i'm at hockey practice," samy hummed, pulling her phone out to look at since she hadn't since practice ended. 

will quickly grew nervous again. he was scared samy would see the post knowing people were starting to mention her in the comments. even though hannah told him they were used to it, it still made him feel uneasy that all of those strangers were saying such horrid things about them. 

"you okay? you've been looking like that since we got here," samy noticed her boyfriend's expression again. 

"yeah, fine," will nodded, but samy gave him a look because she knew he was lying. 

"will, i know you're lying. you're so easy to read," she poked at him with a tiny smile, the boy flushing in embarrassment. 

"i promise it's nothing," he said. 

"it has to be something if you keep looking like you saw a ghost," samy poked some more and will knew he couldn't keep this from her. they were being honest with one another now. 

"i just..there's this post on instagram. i guess someone saw us at the airport and took a photo and now everyone's commenting on it saying some pretty mean things," will finally explained himself, studying samy's reaction as she digested his words. 

"oh." 

will pulled his phone out so he could show her, cringing as samy began scrolling through some of the comments. she read a few of them and will kept studying her expression, yet her features stayed fairly neutral. 

"i swear, some people just really like to say anything," the girl shook her head, handing will's phone back. 

"you're not upset?" he was surprised at her calm disposition. 

"i mean, it's gross and weird they're saying that stuff, but i'm not like overly hurt by it," the brunette shrugged. 

"oh." it was will's turn to be shocked now. 

"did you think i would be more hurt by it?" samy pinched the boy's cheeks and he flushed under her touch.

"i was just scared you'd see them and i didn't want you to be hurt by them because it's just nonsense and i don't agree with any of it," will admitted a bit shyly. samy's lips tipped up into a smile as she cuddled herself closer to him. 

"you're sweet, but trust me, that stuff doesn't bother me as much anymore. i'm pretty used to it. you forget i've been compared to quinn, jack, and luke all my life. it just kind of rolls off my back," samy said exactly what hannah told him earlier. hearing it from her though made will feel a bit more relieved than last time. 

"i just bothers me that people think it's okay to say that stuff. i guess i was worried you'd like..not wanna keep doing this because everyone has something to say about my life now," the blonde frowned and so did samy. 

"i'm not gonna leave you just because i can't take hate comments. i get that this is a lot now with more eyes on you, but i can take it. don't worry. i've been doing this since i was like ten," they shared a laugh. 

will leaned his head onto her shoulder, the worry in his chest much better than it was two hours ago. "how'd i get so lucky?" he pressed a kiss to her cheek. 

"i don't know, but i'm hungry. mark and eth said they'd pay for our dinner tonight," samy jumped up, arm outstretched to grab will off the couch too. 

"oh, goody. i'll take free food," the blonde grinned, following his girlfriend back out of the apartment to meet the guys. 

[pangaeaseas]

gotta love the structure of scholomance. it is in my opinion such a well structured trilogy. now i've read a lot of this author's work inc. most of temeraire (gotta read spinning silver and uprooted at some point!) and I know that often it doesn't follow the most predictable pacing--twists come when you don't necessarily expect them and the series could have gone rocketing off in any number of directions. but this isn't temeraire and it isn't a novella, it's a trilogy, which demands careful thought to what function each of the three books serves, and in my opinion does this very well. (actually reminds me somewhat of the hunger games but not going to elaborate and not a perfect comparison)

so. book one. book one must do something very crucial in any trilogy which is that it must set up the main conflict, set up the characters, and most crucially sell us on the premise. and A Deadly Education knocks the premise out of the park, even as it sows the seeds of destabilizing that same premise. It also gives us a book-length character arc that begins El and Orion's growth. It makes the rules of the world, so the rest of the trilogy can break them.

book two: we know what the scholomance is. We expect the main conflict to be El and Orion having to graduate, because we've just spent a whole book doing that. Personally I was expecting some kind of twist with the graduation, but not the scale of that twist: I expected the first twist, not the second. anyway. so book two serves the important purpose of UNDOING the premise. we know how this world normally functions. Now let's change it--and also get El and Orion to the places they need to be. This also means that their relationship has its honeymoon period, because book three needs them to have loved each other.

book three: we're changing the world. of course not the way we expect. and a good deal of the lore info needs to be dropped here because they are finally out of the initial premise, the scholomance itself, and now we need to see the rest of this society. (and then tear it down). and also resolve the plot and character threads dangling since book one, such as the prophecy. the main premise has been altered and executed, it now must be expanded. and then it has to come to some sort of resolution. happy ending, except the work isn't done, and it will be the rest of their lives (take that harry potter epilogue). there is no main villain to be defeated the villain is like their magic system. the selfish nature of humanity. everyone lives, because this whole series is about no one deserving to die.

each book/act does its job very well in making the series work.

ok so this isn't particularly groundbreaking or coherent meta but I just love this series and I love how the structure works so :/ here you go.

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 816: The buddy's back

Pag 1

1: The “buddies” are the smallest unit of “Sohoku supporting each other”!!

2: Will you run with me during this training camp?

3: Imaizumi!!

4: Then your eyes are blind

5: My eyes are blind!!

6: That's why I left the “Sohoku jersey” I got before home!!

Pag 2

2: The next time I'll wear that jersey It will be when I'll be a regular, the sixth man, and I'll run in the Inter High with you, Imaizumi!!

4: I won't give up

Pag 3

1: I felt discouraged so many times

2: yet I still got up again

3: But it was no use

4: so I thought this moment wouldn't come

6: Before the finish line....

Pag 4

1: The moment where I'd run behind you at the Inter High

Pag 5

1: before the finish line

2: This might just be my fantasy, but I thought I wanted

3: To push your back at the end and send you to the finish line

4: No no, it's alright, it's alright! It's just a fantasy!!

Pag 6

1: Imaizumi!!

2: Of course right now, just before the finish line we're going so fast it's hard just to try to keep up

I feel like my legs are about to come off!!

3: It's strange

Just the fact that you're running in front of me

4: I can keep pedaling...!!

I say “just a little more” to my legs, and move them!!

Pag 7

1: I don't even have the strength to lift my index finger... I have no strength left!!

2: When Naruko jumped ahead, and there was chaos, amidst those complicated movements

3: I pedaled in a daze, desperately, and I thought I was behind Hiroshima, but it was the wrong line

But Anyway, I had to hold on tight so I jumped behind someone else

4: Maybe it was instinctively... intuitively

But when I realized it

Pag 8

1: It was your back

This number bib....!!

2: Imaizumi!!

3: I'll say it loud and clear!! What I think!!

This

4: is Sugimoto Terufumi's lifetime's honor!!

Pag 9

2: How

This selected team guy!!

3: He should have fallen already

He should have fallen!!

4: At this speed!!

A guy of his level should have been cut off a long time ago already

5: And yet, how

How is his pressure rising this much!!

Pag 10

1: Before the finish line, in this tough situation!!

3: My senses gets sharper before the finish line, so I can feel it on my skin

4: You're here, aren't you

You're here

Pag 11

1: Right behind me!! Sugimoto Terufumi!!

2: No

Teru!!

3: That breathing

For three years and during training camp I got used to hearing it

4: Is it hard? It seems like you're having a hard time

But

5: If it's you, you can do it

Pag 12

1: You're the one who kept up with me during training camp!!

2: Sohoku number 1 got up and started dancing!!

3: His strength increased while climbing the bridge that goes over the harbor!!

Pag 13

1: The “selected team”....!!

3: I can't keep up!! It's really hard!!

4: Toji-san said we can't communicate during the race

5: So

6: I won't use words!!

Pag 14

1: Imaizumi.....

Really....

You're so mean, you really are

2: Even though you know I'm having such a hard time

3: You're unreasonable and tell me to follow you!!

Kuaaaaaa

Pag 15

1: Unreasonable!!

4: Ku-

5: Kuaaa

6: Kuaaaaaa

Pag 16

2: Again the selected team!? How!!

He's keeping up!!

3: You came!!

5: Good

Good, Sugimoto!!

Are you surprised, Hiroshima!?

Pag 17

1: This is Sugimoto Terufumi

2: (Uaaaaa, I lost)

Who failed more than most people

3: He felt regret over and over again

And yet, without giving up

4: he tried to seize a fine thread

(Digest.... digest....)

5: and clumsly kept moving forward

(I can do it in 15 minutes!!)

6: “How”, you ask. The answer is one

Pag 18

1: His hard work paid off!!

Pag 19

3: He kept up on this climb....

Was I wrong? This guy

4: He didn't get here by chance... he's here because of his strength!?

5: This selected team guy!!

Pag 20

1: Two people chasing are passing the 2500m left sign!!

Goo, Kanagawaa!!

So fast!

4: I see them, Jou-san!! Ahead!!

5: Let's switch

From now on, it's my turn!!

[felassan]

Eurogamer article: 'The big Dragon Age: The Veilguard post-release interview: "It was never going to match the Dragon Age 4 in people's minds"'

The reaction, the making of, and what comes next.

Excerpts under cut due to length and spoilers.

"So where does Dragon Age go from here, and how does BioWare feel about it? As the dust settles, I sit down with two people at the heart of the project - game director Corinne Busche, and series creative director John Epler - for a chat. We talk about the reaction to the game, the making of it, and what, if anything, comes next. [...] For added visibility: some spoilers lie ahead."

"John Epler: I've been on the project for a very long time and there were definitely times in development where, especially early on, it felt like this day would never come. So the fact that it came out felt amazing."

"Q.: How has the commercial response to the game been? I've seen stories about sales and they seem mixed - inconclusive. The game seems to be doing okay but struggling to keep pace with Inquisition before it. Has it been a success from your point of view - how do you measure that? Corinne Busche: There's three axes we can measure this by: what the team was able to do and put together - the pride that they can take in that; every game that is made, especially in the triple-A space where you're talking hundreds of developers, timelines, is a miracle. That they executed at quality: internally we consider that a success. We're very happy with the critical reception to the game. It's not common to have these challenging development cycles and have a team turn around and receive the critical reception that it did. In fact, in a lot of ways, that is the harder path to take. So yeah, we're quite proud of the critical reception. Unfortunately on the sales side, that's not something we can really discuss, but of course as we know with Inquisition, that was a long burn to get to those total sales numbers."

"Q.: I was surprised to hear there isn't going to be an expansion for the game, and for me, this ties into a feeling of uncertainty around the series' future. With Inquisition add-on Trespasser, there was a clear through-line to the future, but now, there's nothing - it's as though Dragon Age has just stopped and we don't know for sure whether it will continue. There are a couple of questions here: one, can you offer us any reassurance about Dragon Age's future - is there a team of sorts working on it now? And two, when did you decide not to do an expansion - presumably this was a while ago? Busche: Oh, yes, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We toy with those ideas of course. In fact, John has an anecdote from years ago where there was a version of this where the Siege of Wiesshaupt is the conclusion of that block of story, and then we continue on from there. The decision was ultimately made that we wanted to take the approach of making this the most complete, contained, start-to-finish story that could deliver some of those answers and present new mysteries. I love [Inquisition add-on] Trespasser, [it] really feels integral to the story of Inquisition and, indeed, the larger tale of Dragon Age. You don't want your players to miss out on that [by not playing the DLC]. Epler: The other side of it, honestly, was Inquisition did end with some fairly hefty dangling plot threads. Obviously there's the post-credits scene with Solas and Flemeth, and it felt at the time - because I was on Inquisition, I was on the Trespasser team - we looked at what we already had and decided, okay, we want to do one last chapter, one last story beat. The difference in The Veilguard is the story ends pretty conclusively. There is, obviously, a secret post-credits scene, but that's less of 'here is an immediate thing that you now need to be aware of', and more 'here's a hint as to what the future will be'. A lesson that I've learned: don't ever try to make a direct sequel to a game 10 years later, because, oh my gosh, that is a challenge. Busche: It is a challenge. Epler: But that's the great thing about Dragon Age: you can make a sequel that does not require the same level of knowledge and investment that you would have required to go from Inquisition to the Veilguard; even though, again, we worked really hard to make it an accessible jumping-in point, it still feels like - for players who've been with the franchise - a very direct sequel in a lot of ways. We wanted to make sure that this one ended in a less ambiguous way, where it's very clear that this story is done. What comes next, you will see, but it won't require the same level of 'okay let's catch you up on what's happened'. I'm still proud of the team and what they did at the beginning of this one, but there's a lot that comes from previous games that feed into this one. Busche: Isn't it interesting how a lot of the threats that have been prevalent throughout the franchise only scratch at the surface of the mysteries and possibilities in the IP? There's been a lot of exploration of the Blight, the elven gods, the elven people, and its wonderful subject matter. However, it also makes me curious about the other aspects that are less explored and equally as interesting: the nature of the qunari, what's across the seas, what's happening with the titans, the development of the dwarven people. So in many ways, I feel like answering some of these long-threaded mysteries that are specific to the Blight and specific to the elves, this gives some space to explore other ideas in the future."

"Q.: Interesting; I would agree. I feel like we've been fighting Blights and demons in almost all of the games so far, and it would be refreshing to take a step away from that, or beyond it. But you mentioned the secret post-credits ending scene there, which is something I've seen lots of reaction to - particularly from people unhappy at how abruptly it introduces a new arch villain. From their perspective, it looks like BioWare is shunting a new big-bad in because the old ones are used up. What do you say to that? How far back to these Executors - these beings - go? Epler: That is one of those things that we'll get into in more detail in the future, but I do understand some of the reaction of 'well they're seeking a new baddie because the old ones are...' But there's a lot of ambiguity in that scene and for a very good reason, in that what people think might be the next story may not actually be what it's going to be. And I get it, it's the last piece of information people are getting, so people are going to make a lot of assumptions and guesses and theories. But it's been something that we've been talking about for quite some time. You see them show up in Tevinter Nights [the anthology book], where Solas is very clear, 'You cannot trust them; they are dangerous.' Even to someone as powerful as Solas they are seen as a threat. They've shown up in DAI. They've also shown up - I can't remember... There's one other reference where a character talked about an Exec - about a rumour that the Executors assassinated an empress hundreds of years ago, but oh, that's just a rumour, everyone blames everything on them. So it's been a thread in the IP for a while. It's just a thread that we're now starting to pull on a little bit and lay some groundwork, lay some framework for where the story is going to go in the future. But again, all it's meant to do is serve as a hint, as a tease - not necessarily suggest yes, next time you're definitely doing X or definitely going to Y. But yeah, I get the reaction. Again, there's very little information but that's by design: we want people to at least start filling in the blanks themselves, and then when we actually do start filling in the blanks, I think some people will be quite surprised by the direction that takes. Busche: One of the things we say often in the franchise is that in Dragon Age, not everything is always as it seems. Interviewer: Intriguing, and I loved how you casually referred to them as "execs" there - this big new villain. [They laugh]"

"Q.: I read that after Inquisition, there was a whole "covert commandos" theme for the game, known then as Joplin, I think, in which you'd have an underwater base - at one point a submarine, at another point, an underwater mansion - and that there would be rival teams pit against you, and Solas would summon titans and we'd ride griffons. These are incredibly exciting ideas. Epler: So the great thing about the art book, but also the thing I always want to caution, is a lot of those ideas never made it past somebody in a meeting saying 'wouldn't it be cool if...?' Or, and I say this with full-love for [art director] Matt Rhodes: "Matt Rhodes, here is an idea," and then 45 minutes later, he has a concept piece ready for you to go. So it's one of those challenges where it's easy to look at the art book and say, if we combined all of these different ideas, it would be the coolest thing ever. But a lot of those ideas, for practical reasons or for other reasons, never make it past the 'I had a cool idea and we drew some concept art and then decided, no, this doesn't work'. Early on when we were discussing factions, Patrick Weekes and I, the lead writer, were talking about "what about a faction that represents the Free Marches? It could be Chantry-themed and this and that." And we started coming up with [ideas] and "oh this is going to be so cool", and then Matt Rhodes turns around and says, "Guys that sounds really boring." And we sat there like, "Oh, yeah." We just talked ourselves into a terrible idea because we got excited about it. I'm not saying Free Marches couldn't be cool, but the version we were coming up with was not cool. That's always the challenge: somebody might draw a piece of concept art about it, but it was never going to get past that stage. That said, I was on Joplin, I was on early versions of what ultimately became Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and there were a lot of ideas that we played with, we tried out, we even put some of them into the game and ultimately didn't go forward with. On a project this long, and especially a project that everyone's heard about how at one point we're experimenting with multiplayer: what works in that environment is not what's going to necessarily work in a single-player RPG, so you end up with a lot of stuff on the cutting room floor because it's just it doesn't fit the vision, it doesn't necessarily fit scope, or you tried it out and it turns out it wasn't actually that great of an idea after all."

"Q.: You mentioned the multiplayer version of Dragon Age 4 there, which was codenamed Morrison, I believe. I've seen this described as a Fantasy Anthem - is there any truth in this? Busche: I don't know that we should spend a lot of time getting into it, but what I will say is that I joined as we made the shift to single-player, and anecdotally, I'll say the multiplayer game that we had when I joined, as a Dragon Age fan, didn't look a lot like a Dragon Age game to me. That said, some fantastic work and thoughts, ideas, the outline of the narrative, some of the beats we wanted to hit, some of the ideas behind the locales, were very informative to us."

"Q.: I'm particularly interested in the moment Morrison is benched and you're told you're making a single-player Dragon Age game again. When you sit down and look at what you've got, then, and begin, what's there - what would I recognise as a player of Veilguard? Busche: What would you recognise? My goodness. There are a few mission concepts that survived. We knew we wanted to do the Siege of Weisshaupt, and though the level and execution of the mission is quite different from where it was at that time, that beat - the general structure of it, the emotion, the tension that we wanted to evoke - very much still present. Of course there was some wonderful technology to build off of. We've spoken about how at this point we feel quite comfortable with Frostbite and it finally matches our ambition in that regard. So a lot of great tech to work with, and a lot of pre-work that had gone into the art and characters, particularly the work that allowed us to unlock the range of options within the character creator. We couldn't have gotten there in the time we had without that pre-work. Epler: I'd also say, broad strokes, companions were... You would have recognised at least parts of the companions, if not necessarily who they ended up being in the final game. Q.: Oh, what, all of them? Epler: All the companions we at least knew that we wanted to build out their arcs, but their arcs were not done, their stories weren't told, and we still hadn't necessarily decided personality quirks and traits for all of them, since we hadn't had that chance to sit down with a full cast. So they existed, some of them were close to what you see in the final game, others were pretty far away from what you would eventually see. Busche: And along those lines, John, the factions were in a similar boat. The factions survived. And in fact, in switching to single-player, we were able to resurrect some of the factions that had been cut."

"Q.: When did Rook emerge as a character, and did you ever consider having the Inquisitor as the main character again? Epler: Definitely early - very early on - we talked about the Inquisitor, but even on Joplin, the Inquisitor was abandoned pretty quickly in favor of a new character at the time. Originally, we had a handful of different names for Rook. There was Shrike - it was all bird names, I don't remember specifically why. But Rook was the one who ultimately survived. In the game we talk about Rook as a chess piece; the deep lore secret is "Rook" actually, originally, comes from the bird. Rook as the main character was always kind of where we were going, but different versions of Rook. Part of the thing with building a game over the timeline that Veilguard has been built over is what worked at one time doesn't necessarily work for a character concept later on. And we found, as we went through development, Rook was feeling a little bit more like a relic of a previous time period. One of the big pushes was getting Rook to feel a little bit more competent, a little bit more like someone who is, very clearly, very good at their job and just isn't quite sure about leadership yet. But yeah, they were always going to be the protagonist, it's just different versions of them emerged throughout development. Busche: One of the big questions that came up frequently - to John's point - is why is Rook in charge? Reflecting on it, we probably put a little too much stock in the endorsement of Varric on the next in line, so a lot of work in who Rook is to, as John mentioned, create that sense of competency, of history."

"Q.: Speaking of Varric, when did you know he was going to die? Epler: That actually came in surprisingly early. It's funny because, and this is the joys of a lengthy development cycle: early on, one of the concerns we had was we need to make it clear the stakes of what Solas was trying to do, and also make it clear that Solas is not not necessarily the nicest and friendliest person in the world, because there's a concern with people being like, "Oh yeah but Solas is still my friend-" Interviewer: I romanced Solas in Inquisition so I felt this exact way. [Corinne gestures to indicate she did too.] Epler: So we talked about having Solas kill Varric. But then we ran into the other problem which is what I describe as the DA2 problem: in the first 45 minutes of that game, we kill one of your siblings, and you've had zero time with them at all. So killing Varric would have been super-impactful for people who played Inquisition and DA2, but for the new fans - especially as we get to 10 years past DAI - it becomes a bigger problem. "Why do I care about this Varric guy? He's been there for 45 minutes." We wanted to have him kill Varric but we also wanted the player to get to spend more time with Varric or, in this case, their memory of Varric, and develop that attachment before we use that beat and Solas betraying you to really hammer home who Solas is, and what the stakes are that you're dealing with in this adventure. Busche: Earlier we spoke about the idea of this being a continuous thread, a chapter of the Dragon Age saga that we've experienced through these first four games, and in many ways, Varric had become the narrator - the one who was telling the tale of this particular arc. It was a great way to continue that. Epler: The passing of the torch as well - that's the other thing. Varric had - I love Varric, I've worked on Varric's content since DA2 - and this felt like a natural point for Varric to pass the torch, pass the buck onto someone else to serve as the new storyteller in DA."

"Q.: I'm also interested in at what point the climactic - I'm going to call it the suicide mission because I think that's how people refer to it. At what point did you know you wanted to do this, and how influenced was it by Mass Effect 2? Because there's so much about the game that feels influenced by Mass Effect 2. Busche: The answer might surprise you: that it was relatively late. We hit our alpha at a time that allowed us to play through the entirety of the game, start to finish, and that's really the moment that I look for where you can take a step back and really assess what you've got. It's very difficult to assess a body of work piecemeal or out of order. So while we had time to react, we really needed that moment to see the game start to finish and assess, and have other people provide feedback as well. It was shortly after alpha we realised the intensity and the stakes - internally we call it the consequence factory - needed some strengthening. One of the unique things about Veilguard is we really viewed that as our opportunity to revisit a lot of the history and concepts of all BioWare titles. In many ways, it is a love letter to what makes a BioWare game a BioWare game, so we absolutely looked at Mass Effect 2. It was really a privilege to be able to be inspired by what we consider one of the greatest - in the case of Mass Effect - science-fiction stories ever told. Epler: The other side of it was we were building a game that was focused on companions and characters, and the best example of that in BioWare's history is Mass Effect 2. Not that we don't focus on it in other games, but Mass Effect 2 does not exist without the companions and the companion stories. And even earlier - even before we started talking about the suicide mission - we had already talked about using Mass Effect 2 as this formula, this vision, for what we wanted to achieve with Dragon Age. Again, really building in these strong companion stories, these - we don't have loyalty missions but you have these arcs that bear a lot of resemblance [to them] and borrow a lot from Mass Effect 2. Even beyond that, in the moments where you go with companions on non-combat adventures, we borrowed that - we looked at the scenes in Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC and also, honestly, Trespasser, where you get to spend these little moments with these followers that aren't focused around fighting things or killing things, and taking that and expanding on it, because they resonate so much with people when they play through those."

"Q.: My time is up so let's end with a look to the future. Firstly, I suppose, is there a future for the series, and then secondly, if there is, what might it look like? There are those who want it to go back to its CRPG roots, and there are those who know it as a more action-like game. Which way do you turn? Busche: There's so many stories left, so many mysteries left unsolved, so I'll leave that for what it is. As for what the next iteration becomes, what that looks like, what style of game that is: well as I said, it's a franchise of reinvention. In some ways there are some parallels in that regard, to say, the Final Fantasy series. Of course, very different in terms of choice and consequences, and so many other factors, but there are those RPG franchises that embrace that reinvention, that when a new one gets announced, it really piques your curiosity about where are we going to go? What kind of adventure is this going to be? So again, I will remain of the point of view that it [Dragon Age's ability to reinvent itself] remains our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity. Epler: There's lots of stories I still want to tell in this setting. There's a lot of threads that - we answered a lot of questions in Veilguard but I think we also planted a few new seeds, and new thoughts and threads. I just love the franchise. I love the storytelling and I love the characters in it, and I am just excited to, ideally, keep telling stories in this world."

[source]

[sarawritestories]

Look Up at the Stars

Cassian X Fem Reader

Summary: Your refusal to take care of yourself while Cassian is away has your friends worried that you're being too hard on yourself. And tell the General as much so he forces you to slow down and reminds you why self care is important.

Dedicated to @milswrites and @lady-of-tearshed who are always scolding me to take care of myself.

Content warning: overworking, not taking care of yourself,

Cassian landed on the balcony of your shared home where he was surprised to see your two dear friends, Milly and Eve, waiting for him. Brows furrowed as he noticed your evident absence.

"She's doing it again." Eve clipped, sipping her tea. "She won't listen." Cassian let out a sigh before pinching the bridge of his nose.

Milly rose from her chair and gripped his arm, "She's been in the library at the House of Wind for days Rhysand, even when he has given her explicit orders have not gotten her out of there." She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, and Cassian instinctively placed his hand on top of hers.

"You two are good friends, you know that, right? She is lucky to have you both."

Eve smiled, "We're lucky to have her. Now go get her, bring her home."

Before the General moved, he smiled, "Will you two do something for me before you go?" The two females smirked deviously as Cassian began to tell him his idea.

✨️✨️✨️

Guilt laced your whole body. You had yet to turn in those reports you promised Rhys a week ago. What good were you in his court if you couldn't even reach the deadlines you placed for yourself. Worst than that when you saw him last, he only looked worried for you. Was livid when you ignored his direct order to go home. One look into your pleading eyes had him back off and leave with an exasperated sigh and you knew Cassian would hear about it.

The gold thread tying you to your mate was still blocked on his end, meaning that he was still away maybe you would be able to still fin-

"Someone has been busy while I was away." The low timbre of Cassian's voice elicited tears from your eyes. It had been a few months since you saw him last. Turning around, his hazel eyes were bright, and a beard had grown in since he left, and the sight of him alone caused heat to grow in your belly. "Hello, Sweetheart."

You dropped everything and leaped into his arms. He held you close, opening the bond to let his love flood your system. "I missed you." You held him tighter, "I thought you were still away."

"Rhysand wrote to me. He had concerns. Milly and Eve expressed those same concerns when I got home." You pulled away to meet his loving gaze only to find worry there.

"Work comes fir-

"You come first. Always." Cassian's tone was clipped. "In my life, you are my number one priority. You should be making time for yourself, too."

Heat rose to your cheeks. You knew he was right. You two had argued over this multiple times before. "But I-

Cassian interrupted you once more, only this time he sealed his lips to your own. You hummed, not remotely bothered by the beard scratching against your skin. He pulled away, and you pressed your forehead to his own, taking in his scent or the fact he still held you in his arms. "I'm not listening to you being stubborn. We can argue over your work habits another day. I missed my mate. So we're going home. Understand?" You nodded as your eyes fluttered close. "Good." He turned and you watched the stack of papers become smaller as he walked out of the library.

✨️✨️✨️

You walked out of the bathroom post shower and into the shared bedroom where Cassian was out of his leathers and into a black t-shirt and lounge pants. He looked so handsome you forgot these last few months how beautiful he truly was. "Feel better?" He asked, quirking a brow as he met your gaze.

You did feel better to be clean. Cassian had set out his favorite nightgown of yours; red silk and had a bath set up with your favorite soaps and salts. "I feel like me again."

Cassian walked over and kissed your lips. "Good." His wings blocked the view of the balcony, as they were splayed wide. "I have a surprise for you." He held up a blind fold, and you raised an eyebrow. "Not that," though he got low, your noses were touches, "You and I are off for the next two weeks. That's plenty of time to make sure my mate is properly fucked." He winked and your heart sputtered.

Cassian placed the blindfold over your eyes and led you to his desired destination. Your feet hit cold concrete, and the summer breeze of the night air tickled your skin. Cassian removed the blindfold, and you gasped. Your balcony had a mountain of blankets, pillows, and your favorite snacks. Movement in the sky caught your eye as a shooting star flew across the sky. Then another. "There are supposed to be a cluster of falling stars tonight. Watch them with me?"

You turned to the male, smile wide, and your hand cupped his cheek. "Of course! I don't know what to say except." You kissed him, "I fall deeper in love with you, with every day that passes."

"Me too, Sweetheart." He kissed your forehead, "My beautiful, stubborn, hardworking mate." He kissed your nose, and you giggled and Cassian's eyes lit up at the sound.

✨️✨️✨️

You spent the whole evening looking up at the Stars, your head on Cassian's chest as he rubbed circles on your back. He chuckled as you kept pointing to ever fallen star you saw. His smile grew when you moved to your own pillow, your hand finding his, as you looked to the sky in awe.

Cassian could care less about the stars in the sky. Your smile was what lit up Cassian's world.

[milk-is-stable]

The Detective v The Xmas Tree Bandits

Sick Day rewatch requested by @radioroxx I'm sick, and I know by this that point most of you european folks are asleep but I still have a few hours to go before bedtime so I'm still rewatching long forms and providing commentary!

Pre-watch thoughts: This is never one I gravitate towards rewatching for some reason, and I'm not really sure why? So it's been awhile! Let's do this!

Liveblogging:

Sam sure loves his 1940s New York accents

"just..just push me, please." "Oh, where am I pushing you sweetie?" "Out of the scene" the saga of trike-J will forever be remembered.

Donnie and Frankie into the rooooom!

"You and your ho ho ho" "WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!" <- underrated joke right there!

Bunny rabbits hop around like that, I hear.

"Yeah, we'll keep it understand." Luke not passing up an opportunity to point out one of the others' mistakes.

"I would never betray you, Frankie!" <- feel like we were maybe setting up a potential plot thread here that ended up getting dropped? Weird thing to say otherwise.

"I have two sons called Rupert?? Confusing!"

I'M SETTING A TIME PERIOD. yeah we got that from the accent, too

Honestly half of this play feels like Sam trying to convince the other three that his character isn't a piece of shit, and honestly, yeah, everyone's weirdly hard on the guy when he's just trying to save Christmas for the whole city XD

(he has a point about the food though, idk why we don't have more distinct christmas dishes. every family's different of course, but broadly speaking, yeah it's just thanksgiving again one month later. wtf.)

Ring christmas bells, these are the bells, those aren't the words, you are absurd...

This whole scene is just AJ being confused some more and Luke roasting him for it.

Yes, they're brothers! SO much family resemblance. Can't you tell, from their fabulous coats?

"I told you so many times it was over!" "Did you??" <- see this is what I mean XD I feel like everyone is on wildly different pages about how absent Dad is in this equation, which makes each scene more confusing than the last.

"I was at this strip club this morning" "Oh, and I'M the problem!"

If we're committed to the "AJ plays a campy time-traveling character" thing from Ballet on the Battlefield then I think the times square tree lighter should be part of it. What's my justification? Pure Vibes.

Everyone say Thank You Tom for knowing all the numbers, all the spreadsheets, all the admin.....

Sam: Listen this whole play is a trainwreck but we HAVE to save it in time for Christmas. AJ: SAY NO MORE *activates detonator*

The trike coming out on its own is so good

"Let's crawl to the front of the stage so we can be seen!"

"WE CAN'T ALL BE DYING" *starts desperately playing with every single prop on the table*

"It was never about you coming home-" "REALLY???"

and of course, the iconic: "Donnie, do you wanna do your emotional speech now?" "....nah, I'm good" *dies instantly* Well done sir, no one is doing it like you.

And scene! Honestly, I don't know why Donnie and Frankie don't live in my head more rent free, by all accounts they should tick every character box for me, they've got the dynamic duo, they've got the tragic backstory, they've got the iconic look...it feels weird to say they're underrated because obviously the fandom loves them, but for ME, they're an underrated duo, so it was nice to revisit them here!

[taniahylian]

Marta and the three Fates

Spoiler warning for chapter 7! Last chance to get out of here and come back after you finish it.

Alright, so this time I want to talk about this mysterious person called Marta, who was residing on the Island of Aperion, had the same appearence and voice as Bessmert and, to top it all up, was also blind. To me, these all indicate they are the same person, so I was very intrigued, and honestly, with good reason.

First off, let's look at what Marta says just before the storm, after Vertin asks her what she'll do. Note that Marta was in the safe zone with everyone else before Vertin said anything, and only then did she ask 6 for advice.

What's even more puzzling however, is 6's answer.

At first glance one might think 6 is simply telling her to decide for herself, but honestly I think it's a lot more complicated than that and 6 knows something we don't. Why is she calling Marta "fate"? Does it have something to do with her soul number and its meaning? Does 6 have that information? But also... could these be an allegory to Greek folklore? This chapter is full of those anyways.

Then I remembered the myth of the Three Fates. Basically, in Greek Mythology, there's three women who decided the life, destiny and death of every living person, and I think each has a counterpart in the game.

The first Fate is called the "Spinner", often represented with a loom or spinning wheel, who is the one who waves the threads of ppl's lives, basically deciding who is blessed by destiny and who is doomed. This imo is Vertin. Not only does she have the spinning wheel with ppl's lives represented by threads, but she's basically deciding their fate when she invites them into the suitcase, therefore saving them from the storm.

The second Fate is the "Allotter", who measures ppl's lives and decides how long they'll live. I think, based on 6's comment, this is Marta. Also, in my interpretation at least, this seems to be the most neutral of the Fates; simply measuring the threads without actually interfering with their trials and tribulacions, or the way they'd die. This would fit in with Bessmert, if we assume she and Marta are the same person, as she is a historian that simply records past events without interfering one way or another.

The third Fate is the "Inevitable", aka death. She cuts the thread of life and choses the way ppl will die, regardless of their age, status or anything else. Imo this is Arcana, since by accelerating the storms, she's basically cutting ppl's lives short and deciding how they'll die.

Now, of course, in chapter 7 Arcana "died". I don't believe this for one second, and I also don't think Marta was disolved in the storm. The first point is obvious; Arcana wanted to die, meaning she probably had some ulterior motive/plan we're not yet aware of.

As for Marta... what 6 said is very suspicious, and given what happened, we are led to believe Marta chose to be reversed. However, if you have read my theory about Bessmert, I think she's likely immune to the Storm, much like Vertin. So... where did she go then? We saw her be reversed, didn't we? Not exactly. Let me explain.

During the prologue, Vertin finds Regulus in London and pushes her into the suitcase right before the storm. We then get a short animated scene from Regulus' POV when the storm happens, and it seems like everything around them disappears and they find themselves in Chicago, 1929.

But wait... Chicago? Weren't they in London? Yes. The storm transported them, not only through time, but also space, exactly to the epicenter of the next storm. Now, at first I thouht this was just a visual representation with some artistic license, but then when they finally get out of the suitcase, Sonetto mentions they're only two blocks away from their target and they can go there by bus, which would be impossible if they were still in London.

So yes, I think this is what happened with Marta; she got transported to the epicenter of the next storm, and we will probably see her as Bessmert/The friend from afar in the future, wether in the main story or another event.

And, just one last thing to conclude my speculations about Marta/Bessmert: I really think she's the Biographer Urd.

He adds he doesn't know much more cuz the memories of 1999 are blurred, like everyone else's. However, we know that the biographer Urd published her travel note about Aperion in 1999, and we also know "The Friend from Afar" traveled to the Balkan peninsula before the storm in 1996, which gives me yet another reason to think they're the same person, which would explain the "unique" soul number (She's vertin's mother).

However, we also know Marta hasn't been in Aperion for much longer than Vertin (probably since after the storm in 1966). I think she likely decided to go back to Aperion to reseach more about the cave, but no one remembered her because the last time she was there was in 1999.

But anyways, what do you think? Thanks for reading my crazy theory! I guess time will tell if I was correct or not XD.

[obviousflirtations]

Zero Gravity (Part 4)

In which Maisie Johnson, professional snowboarder and known force in the snowboarding world, somehow falls for a 'pretty boy hockey player'. Jack Hughes finds the one girl who makes him feel like he's on his toes because she matches his energy. Want to start from the beginning? Part One Part two Part Three

Maisie did not expect Red to fly in two days later. When he saw her, he all but wrapped her into a bear hug.

She let out a surprised noise as he spun her once for dramatic flair. “Jesus, Red,” she muttered into his shoulder, caught somewhere between laughter and exasperation.

"What?" Red questioned, seeing her vaguely amused look that was masking some confusion.

Maisie shook her head, a laugh on her lips as Red set her down, "you have separation anxiety, I swear."

"I missed you, let a boy live," he put a hand on his heart.

She folded her arms across her chest, "I literally saw you last week."

He shook his head, "that was so long ago. Feels like a lifetime has passed."

She hit his arm, a smile on her lips. They were attached at the hip between events, did interviews together, and were featured on Burton and Red Bull's pages so often they were both surprised they weren't sick of them. Then again, together they were controlled chaos in every sense of the word. So, Red saying he missed her wasn't too surprising because she had missed him too.

"So," Red stated, "Devils game?"

She hung her head back, "I haven't even decided if we're going to go yet or not."

Red raised a brow, "uh-huh," he didn't sound convinced. "I think you want me to say that we're going."

Maisie looked at him, eyes wide, "no, no, definitely not. I would never try to manipulate you into making the decision for me"

Red pointed to her phone because now was the time for him to make decisions, which was in her pocket, "just message him and say you're coming."

She huffed, reaching to get her phone out, "fine, don't twist my arm too hard." She was going to end up going anyways, she just wanted the validation.

She opened Instagram (because she still didn't have his number not that she was going to give it to Jack) and went to their message thread.

Will be at your game tmr Bringing a friend, too Don't eat the ice

And then she waited, and shoved her phone back into her pocket like it was going to fly away if she looked at it too long.

Red looked at her, tilted his head slightly, and pursed his lips. He could read her like a book, it came with having known her for years and being together at both their highest and lowest moments. "So, are you sure you aren't the one with a crush?"

Maisie shot him a glare, "I don't do crushes, or dating, you know that!"

He looked at her with the infuriatingly knowing look, the one she would either talk over or glare back at,.

"Does he?"

That made her pause. Because he didn't. Then again, it never really came up. She was travelling most of the year, competing or training. Dating was one of the last things on her mind. She was emotionally unavailable at best, and he seemed far too energetic.

It was so soft, Red thought he imagined it. "No, he doesn't."

She sighed and pulled her phone out again.

Really??? Guess I'm worth the work

She stared at the message a little longer than she meant to before typing a response.

We'll see

She let out a sigh and ran a hand threw her hair, "doesn't matter, it's not like I'd fall for him, anyways."

Red shot her a look she didn’t catch, one of those raised-eyebrow, slow-blink, you keep telling yourself that expressions.

"Yeah," Red muttered under his breath, "keep telling yourself that."

Red and Maisie are my favorite duo, trust

[crossdreamers]

A guide to chromosomal variations

Over at Instagram Melly the Science Geek has published a mind blowing video about how chromosome decide (or do not the decide) the sex of a person.

The world is a a very complicated place, indeed.

And at this point we have not even begun to talk about gender identity.

The Science Vet on XX, XY and all the other variations

Melly's video reminds us of the very popular twitter thread made by the Science Vet back in 2018.

We take the liberty of republishing that thread here:

So. Hi new people! Apparently, we're gonna talk about sex. Like physical sex! Because... there's some confusion.

First, sex defined: We're talking physical sex here, not gender. Body parts, hormones, and genetics (and more).

BLUF: BIOLOGICAL sex is a spectrum

Ok, everyone's super familiar with the XX/XY dichotomy, right? Yeah, what we all learned in like... 4th grade? And that's great, it gives you a starting point. But it's... well it's only the very starting point.

The IDEA is, XX is girl, XY is boy, right?

Welllll... that's not totally right. There are XY people, who have ovaries! And give birth! AH! And XX people who have male bodies and functional sperm! Double AH!

These are usually written off as "abnormalities" and indeed, some cases have medical issues. But many don't (like the XY woman giving birth). And this is really only the very very tip of the iceberg of "wait, that doesn't fit into our M or F box unless we make it bigger"

There's a WHOLE HOST of things that can cause all sorts of "weird" things to happen, ranging from genetic (XXY, XYY, Y, X, XX with translocation, XY with deletion) to hormonal (Androgen Insensitivity, Estradiol failure), and disruptors like dioxins

So, you're a scientist, and you want to research stuff, right? Which means you have to categorize stuff. Without categories, data is hard! So you take allll these people, including the "weird" ones and you plot them on a graph. Logical!

You use all the differences there are, different genetics, different responses to hormones, different effectiveness in signalling pathways, different sizes in Aanteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV) (yeah that's a thing) and give everything numbers, add them up.

You get what's called a bimodal distribution (mostly, we'll get to that later) Which looks like this. Those two big peaks are what we call "male" and "female" (even conveniently colored pink for boys and blue for girls - we are using victorian gender colors right?)

/8

Now, when you're trying to look at data, we often group stuff. When we do that with a plot like this, it's called a "histogram." Basically we're breaking down a curved line into discrete "bins." Like this (image stolen from the web).

/9

Traditionally, we've used REALLY BIG bins for this when talking about sex. Basically you either group everything vaguely near a peak into the peak, or you just pretend there's nothing else but the biggest peaks. This makes it super easy, because 2 is simple to do data with.

However, as we've gotten to know more and more about signaling and brains and hormones and started to pay more attention to the outliers where standard stuff just didn't seem to work, we discovered that this isn't a great model to use.

Now I'm not talking feelings here. I'm talking about data. As you start to look at anything interesting, like say the effects of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-dioxin on animals, you start to realize that a 2 bin model doesn't predict your results well.

At first you say, "Well it was just weird." So you redo it, and it still doesn't work. So you look at your model and you say, "Well ok, what if the model's wrong?"

But the model sort of... almost predicts a lot of things, and it worked for years, so...

Some enterprising soul says, "Hey, remember that histogram where we said we'll just model using the peaks?" And everyone goes, "Uh, yeah?" And they say, "What if we... USED that data?" And everyone groans, because complicated data is hard.

But someone sits down and does the work, and lo, wow the model starts to work again. Where TCDD was "randomly" turning some boys into girls but then some girls into boys, now you can see there's a subgroup of what you'd called "female" that responds like the "male"

What's important here is that you haven't MISLABELED males as females. These are functional "females" who can do all the usual "female" things like gestate babies. But they respond to this one endocrine disruptor in a "male" way.

So you add another two categories, call them "Male2" and "Female2" and go on, happy that your model works! You've got 4 sexes now, but you don't really have to tell anyone that, right?

Exceeeept then you remember you've got those XY people that gestate babies. So you add "Intersex1" And then the XX people with penes... and ovaries? Ok, "Intersex2" because all these groups respond differently with signalling and brains when you get into the weeds

And the more you look, the more we LEARN, the more we're able to separate out those fine differences. Depending on what we're doing, we may not care. If a doc is giving you aspirin, it probably isn't a big deal.

But if they're using a steroid on you? Or treating dioxin poisoning? THAT SHIT COULD BE IMPORTANT. It's like saying, "the light's off so the power must not be flowing." It really matters if the light's off because the bulb blew.

If we go back to that histogram plot, we can keep breaking down your biological sex into smaller and smaller differences in brain areas, hormone levels, signalling differences, genetic variances. There's nothing stopping us from binning EVERY INDIVIDUAL into their own bin.

Technically, this wouldn't be "infinite sexes" but 7.4 billion sexes is functionally close for our brains. Now, our medicine isn't advanced enough for THAT level of detail to make any difference. BUT IT MIGHT BE in the future. Individualized medicine!

The thing to remember is that this isn't "new." We're not 'inventing sexes' here. Sex has ALWAYS been this curve. We were just using REALLY BIG bins. And now we're realizing that that's not representative of biology, it's inhibiting understanding of medicine and biology

In case anyone's curious, this isn't ideology. This is because I had to figure out why my data didn't match the prediction. Those rats I mentioned? Yeah, my lab. And lab rats are a really pure genetic monoculture, and they STILL don't fit the two peak model well.

So, since it's come up, an addendum!

Yes, we looked at other things we could do to make our data fit the existing model, that's how science works! The ONLY way the data fit was if we let "sex" be more than just those two narrow peaks.

Models purpose in science is to predict. If they don't predict correctly, first we check if we've measured the data correctly, and repeat the experiment a couple more times. If it still doesn't fit, we have to look at the model.

Intersex! Because I didn't specifically mention this.

"Intersex" is a grouping bin used for a lot of the "middle ground" of the spectrum between the "male" and "female" peaks. Any situation where easily assigning the person to one of those two peaks is challenging.

Intersex! Because I didn't specifically mention this above.

"Intersex" is a term used to collectively speak of the "middle ground" of biology where people can't easily be binned into those two big "male" and "female" peaks. It can include a large range of biology

It is worth noting that I never talk about transgender in this thread. Intersex is not the same as transgender. You can be one without the other, or be both.

For people who think this is just "outliers"

Current estimates are that the intersex population is at least 2%. We know that's low because there are a lot of "invisibly intersex" people. That means AT LEAST 150 million people in the world.

I apologize for the failure to use the word "intersex" higher up in the discussion. Many people in the middle ground (including the XY person who can carry a child, for example) use this term. I cannot go back and edit the thread, and apologize for my overly clinical description. 

Part of the purpose of the thread, which may have failed, was to point out that "intersex" is not a condition, it is not a disease. It's natural with a bimodal distribution. Science not only supports this, it suggests that ignoring intersex people makes your conclusions wrong 

References at the end of this page.