#right so if this is odd to you take it with a grain of salt

[the-nasti-files]

Deep in the Roots

vedi x fem!reader - word count - 8,307

a/n: i am not of slavic decent and do not have a degree in anything plant related (say hi to my BFA in costume design im not using lol) so like, take the science with a grain of salt and the mythology with your own research into what true vedi would be for their people.

when he heals the broken, bleeding skin of your hands, you can feel the gentle threads of mycelium knitting your skin together. this is what you came here to study, right? mycorrhizal networks and communication? and as he leads you deeper, you can feel it, the soft pulse of the earth in your hands. he asks you if you will let him in, let him *under your skin*, let him bind you to the earth and to him.

You had been following the rot.

Not with fear or revulsion, but reverence—because rot meant movement, meant transformation, meant a quiet, thriving ecosystem hidden beneath the surface, feeding on what the world no longer wanted and spinning it into something new. It was life at its most essential, its most unsentimental.

The Eastern Carpathians weren’t your first choice of research site—too isolated, too tangled with old stories—but when the grant arrived, modest and obscure and delightfully unmonitored, you accepted it without hesitation. Studying fungal communication in an alpine old-growth forest wasn’t just a project, it was the culmination of years of quiet obsession, your dream thesis clothed in moss and shadow.

You hadn’t seen another person in three days—not since the last village, where a woman with gnarled hands and eyes like river stones pressed a charm into your hand and muttered a single word, the kind that clings to your spine long after it’s spoken:

“Vedi.”

You’d thanked her, tucked the crude amulet of bone and twine into your coat pocket, and tried not to notice how she refused to meet your gaze.

That morning, with fog curled low around your boots and your GPS flickering between constellations, you finally stop. A fallen birch half-consumed by decay, its pale body draped in a vibrant swell of Armillaria mellea—honey fungus—blooming across the bark in wet golden clusters. You knelt beside it, breath clouding in the cold, brushing away leaf litter with gloved hands, your camera already raised.

The mycelial threads were thick, root-like and knotted, a living web pulsing beneath the soil—tangled, intricate, almost electric.

That was when you saw it.

Tucked beneath a bracken veil at the base of a trunk, just a few feet off the path, something strange was blooming.

A single stalk. Violet and luminescent—not glowing exactly, but humming, vividly out of place against the forest’s earth tones. Its petals curled outward like flame, its stem pulsing faintly in a rhythm too deliberate to be wind.

You rose, heart pacing faster than your thoughts. Your pack shifted against your shoulder as you stepped off the trail, drawn forward before you had time to name the impulse.

The moment your boot touched the undergrowth, the forest shifted.

Birdsong cut out in a single, silencing sweep. The wind—what little there had been—stopped mid-sigh.

You didn’t notice right away. You were too busy trying to name it. A new variant, a misclassified parasite, maybe even an undocumented mycoheterotroph, one that had hidden itself here among the roots and fog. A secret the forest had kept long before humans knew how to look.

You reached out, fingers trembling slightly, and touched the edge.

It was warm.

And the earth beneath you exhaled—no, shuddered, once, as though something massive had stirred just below the surface.

You ran then, though you told yourself you didn’t. It was only a few paces back toward the path—just far enough to feign control.

But the trail no longer looked the same. It bent too sharply. The trees leaned at odd angles, their branches lowering not like limbs but like arms reaching out to bar your way.

You made camp in a clearing that looked less menacing than the rest, just beyond the false safety of the old trail. Told yourself it was nothing.

But the forest disagreed. It didn’t keep you awake with sound—there was none. Not a whisper of wind, no insect drone, no shifting branches. Just silence so absolute it felt pressurized.

It was the feeling that unsettled you.

As though something unseen was breathing just behind you, exhaling warm and steady across the nape of your neck.

As though hands—light and clever—were brushing up from beneath your tent, tracing the arches of your feet through the floor.

You stayed upright. Kept the zipper closed. Lit your headlamp and scribbled into your notebook by its faint yellow glow—spore clusters, fungal spread, evidence of animal life. Anything that might anchor you to the ordinary.

But just after three a.m., something passed nearby. A shape, so large it swallowed the moonlight in its wake.

You went still. Every muscle in your body tightening, every breath held.

It wasn’t a bear. It wasn’t a person. It was larger, broader. Moving with the slow, deliberate grace of a tree falling after a lifetime of groaning under its own weight.

You unzipped the flap, just enough to peer outside. There was nothing, except… 

Blooming next to your boots just outside the tent, the same, ethereal mystery that pulled you off the path in the first place. The soft fruiting body of some mysterious fungi was not there last night. 

You broke camp in the half-light of dawn, refusing to think too hard about how it got there.

Still, with hands only slightly shaking, you wrapped it in a specimen cloth and placed it into a jar. Because this was what you did. You were a biologist. You documented the strange. You moved forward.

But the path you’d come in on was gone—not reclaimed, not hidden—gone, as though it had never existed at all. The canopy thickened above you, layer by layer, until sunlight became something theoretical.

Your GPS wouldn’t boot. Your compass needle spun lazily in place, no longer interested in finding north. But you didn’t stop. Not because you knew where to go—only because stopping felt worse.

The terrain sloped downward, wet and slippery, roots tangled and ancient trying to trip you at every step.

And then your foot broke through what you thought was moss—but it wasn’t. It was empty space.

You fell, tumbling through damp leaves and the splintered bones of trees, grabbing at anything you could reach, until the ground surged up to meet you with brutal finality. Breath fled your lungs as pain bloomed in your hip, white-hot and immediate as you struggled in your now mud-slicked coat, fresh blood coating your newly abraded palms.

This whole time you had been trying to convince yourself you were dreaming, or hit your head trying to reach a specimen. But dreams don't come with the stinging of torn up palms.

When you finally pushed yourself upright, wavering, breath shallow and sharp, you realized the ravine you’d landed in wasn’t natural.

Its walls were too smooth. Its moss unfed by sunlight but almost… glowing.

And you weren’t alone.

Not anymore.

He was there.

Simply there—like he had always been.

Enormous. Barefoot. Solid as a hillside, his body shaped by the same forces that formed the mountains. His skin looked like the rock strewn bottom of a creek, antlers draped with a moss so soft it looks like velvet.

His hair fell in long, wild curls, something like a crown made of lichen circling his head while trousers of impossibly soft linen clung to the thickness of his thighs.

His eyes are the first thing you understand.

They aren’t human.

Golden-green, luminous in the dim like foxfire flickering beneath a wet log—steady, wide, and ancient. When his gaze locks with yours, something inside you contracts, something too deep for breath or muscle to reach. It feels like a string pulled taut beneath your ribs, like recognition without a name.

He tilts his head slightly, and you forget how to breathe.

He doesn’t speak at first. Just studies you, intent and unreadable, like someone trying to remember how language fits inside a mouth.

And then, at last, in a voice like roots splitting stone—low and resonant, as though the ground itself had formed the words—

“You took it.”

The sound moves through you—not merely heard, but felt. It vibrates along your bones and curls around your arches, grounding you in a way that doesn’t feel entirely safe.

Your reply comes out half-formed, mouth moving faster than your thoughts. “I—I thought it was a mutation. A fungal variant—”

His expression shifts, not with anger but with gravity, like cloud cover thickening. 

“It was a gift.”

You don’t realize you’ve retreated until your back bumps wet stone, pulse kicking hard beneath your skin, a wild thing trying to flee.

But he doesn’t move closer, doesn’t need to. He takes up the space between you with sheer presence alone, the air narrowing until there’s nothing left but him and the thrum of your own body trying to make sense of this.

Then, slowly, his gaze dips, catching on your bleeding palms. Without a word, he approaches. And then, gently, he kneels. Not like a supplicant. Not like a man. Like something elemental returning to where it belongs.

His hands—broad, callused, warm with some quiet heat of the earth—wrap gently around your wrists.

Some still functioning corner of you demands that you pull away, scream. But, you don’t.

He lifts your hands, studies the blood, and lowers his mouth to the wounds.

His lips barely touch, just the softest brush of breath, but your skin lights up like fire caught the edges of your nerves. You inhale sharply, the sound torn from you before you can think.

“It may keep hurting for a moment. As your body adjusts.”

“W-what does that mean?”

He releases you and rises in one smooth, effortless motion. “It means it’s in you now.” And then he turns, vanishing into the green without haste, without warning.

But something in the slow certainty of his pace tells you he expects to be followed.

The ravine isn’t steep, but your body protests with every step, right leg wobbling on the incline, and when you grasp the overhanging roots to pull yourself forward, a deep, twisting ache blooms across your hip, sharp and unrelenting. You grit your teeth against the sound it threatens to pull from you. You will not limp—not here, not now, not like prey under the gaze of something that feels older than the sky.

Not when his shoulders eclipse the path ahead, each slow stride of his revealing thick, powerful legs that move like the forest bends for him. Not when your thoughts have turned traitorous, clinging to the sight of how his thighs shift with every measured step.

Your palms feel as though they are tingling, but not in a way that makes sense. The bleeding has stopped and the soft pink of new skin is starting to form over the deep scrapes. But you can’t stop to think. Not now.

The path stretches on, only a few hundred feet, but every footfall feels like another test. The air changes—softer, heavier somehow—like the forest is holding its breath. Light filters through the canopy in fractured gold, and the earth beneath your boots turns springy and damp, as though anticipating rain.

He stops, head tilting as though listening to something in the distance. “You’re still hurt.”

“No,” you deflect quickly, shifting your weight as if that might sell the lie. “I’m fine. Just bruised. I fell weird, but I’m good.”

He turns slowly, and the look he gives you is not unkind—but it is old. Older than names, older than any language you’ve studied. It’s the kind of stillness that has watched civilizations rise and decay.

“Lie again,” he rumbles, voice low but not sharp, “and the forest will tighten.”

Your heart skips a beat. “Tighten?”

“It doesn’t like lies,” he says, gaze narrowing. “Even small ones.”

“So… it punishes them?”

“No. But it remembers them. So do I.”

Somewhere above, a breeze stirs the branches—brief, passing. But beneath your boots, the roots shift ever so slightly, like something waking.

Your pride flares, and your hip burns in sympathy. “Okay, cryptic,” you mutter. “Fine. I’m sore. It’s not a big deal.”

He watches you for a long moment, unreadable again. And then, without a word, he lowers into a crouch—graceful, effortless, too patient to be human. This time, he doesn’t reach out, simply waits.

Softer now, almost gentle, “Show me.”

You hesitate.

He says nothing more, and the silence stretches long enough to become unbearable.

Finally, you exhale. With fingers stiff from chill and strain, you shift your jacket aside, unclip your pack’s waistband. Carefully, you slide your hand beneath the hem of your pants to where the heat flares sharpest. Your fingers brush the edge of a bruise—deep, spreading, vicious in its anger—and even that light pressure sends a bolt of pain through your side.

You flinch despite yourself.

“You fell where the roots are thickest,” he murmurs, voice low. “They tried to catch you.”

You exhale, wry. “Yeah, well. I’m not exactly light.”

His tone sharpens—not loud, just enough to cut through your reflexive humor. “Don’t. Don’t insult what the forest already cherishes.”

You look up.

He’s still crouched before you, the green-gold light casting soft shadows across his face. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts his hand—palm open, still, waiting. “May I?”

The breath you draw shakes a little, but you nod.

His fingers brush your side, and the contact resonates—low and subtle, like a tuning fork struck against your bones. Not trembling. Not hesitant. Just... attuned.

When his palm cups your hip, you gasp—less from pain than from the way sensation rushes up to meet him.

Heat, pressure, the electric bloom of contact. A soundless hum vibrates through your nerves like sunlight reaching down into roots.

“The bruise is deep,” he murmurs, “but not torn. You shouldn’t walk far.”

“I can’t just stay here,” you whisper. “My research… my tent, my equipment—”

“You’re not going back.”

You blink at him. “What do you mean I’m not going back?”

His thumb moves gently, reverently, across the curve of your hip.

“You stepped off the path. Something in you woke the forest.” His eyes rise to meet yours. “And it chose you.”

Your mouth goes dry. “Chose me for what?”

His gaze flickers—lands on your lips.

“To belong.”

He helps you walk. Because you refused to let him carry you.

One strong arm wraps beneath yours—not to lift or force, but to steady. To anchor. Like a root rising beneath softened earth to carry something newly sprouted.

The forest shifts as you move. At first, you think it’s your own overwhelmed mind—the lingering throb in your hip, the soft ache between your thighs. But no. The trees themselves are leaning. Branches parting. The earth reshaping to make way.

Not just for him.

For you.

He moves with an easy, grounded stride, and the ground seems to rise to meet your steps. The deeper you go, the more the light softens—turning from bright day to liquid gold, filtered through an endless canopy. Mist drapes low across the ground, curling around your ankles like breath sliding between parted lips. There is no path here, no visible trail, yet your feet find every place they’re meant to be. It’s as if the forest remembers you already.

“So, ah… w–where are we going?” Your palms tingle again, that strange electric warmth spreading down into your fingers. It’s like you’ve grown a second heartbeat—slower, stronger, thrumming in your blood.

He doesn’t answer right away. “You could call it the heart of the forest,” he says at last, voice low as mossed stone. “Although that’s not quite right.”

You nod as though that definitely makes sense. “Okay… and what are… you?”

Another pause. “I am of the Vedi. Though there are few of us now.”

“Oh!” You fumble into your pocket, fingers brushing the small charm the old woman pressed into your hand back in the last village. “A woman gave me this. All she said was ‘Vedi.’ That’s you!”

He glances at the little bound bone in your palm, one brow lifting. A smile—faint, almost wistful—touches his mouth. “An old custom. When there were more of us, some would get… restless. People still had magic then. They’d imbue charms like that with a ward, sending them with travellers for protection.”

You turn the little bone between your fingers. “Why are there… less of you?” you ask softly.

He is quiet for a time. You hear only the creak of the trees, the soft sigh of moss beneath your boots.

“We were hunted,” he says finally. “By steel and greed. By those who feared what they could not own. And… by time. Magic thins when it’s not tended. It slips away.”

“That’s… sad,” you murmur.

“It is the way of things.” His gaze slips to you, steady and warm. “But some magic knows when it’s found again.”

You look down at your tingling palms, at the small charm clenched between them. “And you think I’ve found it?”

His mouth curves into something not quite a smile. “I think it’s found you.”

The air between you changes then—thicker, charged, almost expectant. You feel the weight of his gaze, the steady thrum of that second heartbeat answering in your chest.

The trees begin to part—not abruptly, but gently, like a mouth opening in slow revelation.

You step into a clearing ringed with oaks so ancient, so wide, that it would take three people linking arms to encircle just one. The hollow is domed with moss, glowing faintly in the dim. Beneath your feet, mycelial threads pulse slow and pale, as if breathing with you.

At the center lies a fallen log, wrapped in blooming things—fungus and flower both. It isn’t dead. Just resting. Dreaming. You can feel the life in it.

Every inch of the space is alive—lush with lichen, bruised-purple fungi, stems like pale fingers pushing up from the loam. The scent hangs heavy with pheromones not your own, and yet your lungs tighten like they know them. Like they’ve always known them.

He stops at the threshold.

“This is where they speak,” he says softly.

You glance toward him. “Who?”

“The ones beneath. The network. The green. The old gods. The new saplings. They all speak. The world has forgotten how to listen but you… you seek it.”

You want to argue—some flicker of scientific instinct rises—but then the ground murmurs beneath you, subtle and sure. A thrum that doesn’t wait for permission to be believed.

He steps behind you, and before his hand meets you, you feel him—heat radiating, presence curling close like steam from deep earth.

His palm finds your uninjured hip, resting there. Solid. Steady.

“You study them,” he says. “The connection. The communication.”

You nod, slowly. “We think they send signals. Through root systems—like electrical pulses. They share resources. Warn each other. A kind of… colony intelligence.”

“It’s only the surface,” he murmurs. “You read it in charts. In static. But not like this.”

The other hand rises, warm and certain, to your shoulder. He turns you toward him with quiet patience, until you’re face to face, the forest cradling you both. He leans down, pressing his brow to yours, his breath warm against your mouth.

“You feel it now,” he murmurs. “In your palms. In your blood. That second heartbeat? That is the network beneath us. The mycelium is already threading through you. Rooting into you.”

Your breath catches, your pulse—both pulses—hammering in tandem.

He smiles, slow and knowing. “It’s claiming you as its own. Changing you. You are no longer just passing through this forest. You belong to it now.”

The words rooting into you echo like a drop in a still pool, rippling through every rational part of your brain.

“No,” you whisper—too quickly. “No, that’s not how it works. Fungal hyphae can’t just—colonization doesn’t happen—there’s a symbiosis, yes, but host cells—”

The forest hums under your feet, both heartbeats thrumming in your ears. You’re talking faster now, chasing the safety of what you know.

“It’s chemical signalling. Phytohormones. Exchange of—of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus—there’s no direct—”

But the words die in your mouth because the pulse in your palms is spreading up your forearms. Not heat. Not cold. Something else. Like a living thread stitching itself through your veins, weaving you into something wider than yourself.

Your knees feel unsteady.

“You’re—this—” You laugh, short and sharp, the sound breaking. “I’m hallucinating. My brain’s oxygen-deprived from… from—”

He tilts his head, studying you like you’re a curious seedling struggling through soil. “From me?”

You want to argue. You need to. But you can’t think past the heavy press of his presence, the steady anchor of his hand on your hip, the impossible pulse syncing with your own. You feel… connected. Not metaphorically. Not romantically. Biologically.

And that should terrify you.

Instead, your throat works around a dry swallow and you manage: “That’s not possible.”

His smile deepens, and you hate that it’s not unkind. “Then perhaps your science is too small for this forest.”

Your thoughts fracture.

It’s like tripping on a loose stair—you’re in motion and then suddenly weightless, nothing under your feet.

You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t even know here. You don’t know him. You don’t even—

Oh gods.

You don’t even know his name.

The realization hits like a slap. All the tingling in your palms, the warm pulse in your blood, the way the air bends toward him—it’s all been him. And you followed. You walked straight off the trail with a creature because… what? Because your chest felt light when he smiled? Because he’s got the kind of thighs you want to sink your teeth into?

You should back up. You should say no, say stop, say—

Your hip throbs. His palm steadies it. The forest hum rises in your bones. You can’t remember what stop is supposed to feel like.

You look up at him, breathless, voice sharper than you mean it to be. “I don’t even know your name.”

He blinks slowly, like a stag scenting the air. And then his mouth curves—not into that soft, coaxing smile he’s given you before, but into something older.

“You would not have heard it before,” he says. “It belongs to no tongue you’ve spoken. But if you want—” His hand slides to the back of your neck, firm, warm. “—the people of this land had a name for me, long ago.”

The pulse in your palms kicks harder. Your whole body leans toward him without permission.

“Tell me,” you whisper, and you hate the way it comes out needy.

He bends until his lips are at your ear, his voice dropping to something deep enough to live under the forest floor.

“Thalen.”

The name rushes in your chest when he says it—slides down your spine like roots seeking earth. You swear you can feel it in the ground, in the air, in the pulse threading into your blood.

“Thalen,” you murmur. The name feels like soft sunlight in your mouth.

He hums, eyes nearly twinkling as he hears it. “It has been a very long time since someone has said that name. I did not realize I had missed it.”

Something about the closeness, the earnest light in his eyes, has that particular heat pooling low in your stomach, and, embarrassingly, across your cheeks.

His hand trails from your hip to your wrist, warm fingers brushing the center of your palm. You realize the tingling there is no longer a faint hum—it’s an active, living thread, weaving upward.

“It is already happening,” he says softly.

You blink. “What is?”

“The forest. The network. Me.” His thumb drags slowly over your pulse point, like he’s feeling the rhythm match his own. “The mycelium is inside you now—slipping into the smallest parts of you. It will not hurt. It will simply… change.”

You swallow hard. “Change how?”

His smile is almost gentle, but there’s a weight to it that makes your stomach flip. “You will learn to hear as I do. To feel as I do. To belong as I do.” His gaze drops, and so does his voice, low and steady. “It will make you mine. And me… yours.”

Your breath catches, a thousand protests clawing to the surface—but they have nowhere to land. You already know he’s telling the truth, because you can feel it. The pulse in your palms spreading through your chest, down your spine, blooming warm and heavy between your hips.

“There will be no denying what grows in you now,” he murmurs. “The forest will make you what you were meant to be. You will fit me as if carved for my hands… because you will be.”

You should feel cornered. You should feel afraid. Instead, your thighs press together against the rush of heat that floods you.

And Thalen smiles—slow, knowing—because he can feel that too.

His hand lingers, thumb brushing the center of your palm in slow, grounding circles while that strange inner thrum spreads. You swear you can feel it winding along your veins, like living filaments mapping the inside of you.

He watches you quietly, the corners of his mouth curved as though he’s reading every shift in your breath. “It will not happen all at once,” he murmurs. “The forest prefers patience. It threads itself through you slowly, so when you belong, you truly belong.”

You nod—more as a reflex than because you understand—and then take a cautious step deeper into the clearing.

The air here is thick with the feeling of life, a heady mix of damp earth and something sweetly spiced. Your eyes catch on the moss-glow underfoot, that soft pulse like breathing. When you crouch to touch it, your fingers sink into it like down, and the hum in your palms leaps.

The warmth climbs your wrists.

Then your elbows.

You exhale sharply, trying to shake it off, but it lingers.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmur, straightening again. Your voice feels too soft in the air here. “Like it’s… alive.”

“It is,” he says simply, coming to stand behind you again. “And it likes you.”

You glance over your shoulder at him, cheeks warming in a way that feels… uncomfortably pleasant. Like catching the eye of someone across a crowded room and holding it a fraction too long.

You turn away quickly, drawn toward the fallen log at the center of the clearing. Flowers bloom pale and delicate along its length, woven with clusters of deep-violet fungi. Your fingertips brush the velvety caps—and your pulse surges.

Your knees wobble, a confused, breathless laugh tripping out ouf your mouth. "Okay… that’s weird.”

“Not weird,” he corrects softly. “Recognition.”

The heat is in your chest now. Your throat. Your belly. It’s not sharp or sudden—just… insistent. You shift your stance, pressing your thighs together, but it follows you like a shadow. Every step you take, every breath you draw in this place seems to feed it.

You kneel by a patch of luminous lichen, tracing its intricate patterns—and feel the hum coil low in your stomach. Your lips part before you realize you’re holding your breath.

“The threads are weaving faster now,” he says, voice dipping low enough that you feel it in your spine. “They’ve tasted you. They know you will not fight them. You will find yourself… softer. That is how the forest works.”

You look up at him, unsure whether you want to step back or forward. The pulse thrumming beneath your skin—both of them now—say forward.

In vain, you try to keep moving, to distract yourself with the pale curl of a fungus stem or the fine lace of moss veining a root — but it’s no use. The heat is everywhere now, low and thick, threading itself through muscle and marrow until even your breath feels weighted.

Your cheeks burn, palms flexing uselessly at your sides. You hate how easily your body is giving you away — the restless shift of your hips, the way your tongue keeps darting to wet your lips.

Thalen watches you quietly from where he stands, his head tilting just enough for one antlered shadow to sweep across the moss. He doesn’t smirk, doesn’t gloat, simply knows.

When you turn away, hoping to gather yourself, you hear him move. That slow, deliberate step on moss. Then another. Then his heat is at your back again, steady as stone.

“Little bloom,” he murmurs. “You’re burning.”

“I—” The word splinters. “It’s… I don’t know what’s—”

“You know.”

The forest hum deepens under your feet, in your blood. You swallow hard, but it does nothing to ease the dry ache in your throat.

His hand — that broad, grounding weight — finds your hip again, guiding you back against him. “Come.” It’s not a command, not exactly. It’s the same tone one might use to coax a skittish animal to step closer.

He lowers himself to sit against the massive root of one of the elder oaks, legs parting just enough to make space for you. His palm slides from your hip to the small of your back, gentle but certain, and then he’s drawing you into his lap like he’s been waiting for you to fit there forever.

Your breath hitches when you settle, thighs straddling his. The hum in your blood sharpens. The threads inside you seem to lean toward him, weaving faster now, as if proximity feeds them.

Thalen exhales slowly, chest rising beneath your hands. “Better,” he rumbles, and the word is so tender it makes your throat tighten.

His hands are large enough to cradle your hips entirely, but he doesn’t rush. Just lets them rest there, thumbs stroking tiny arcs. You realize his touch is moving with the rhythm of the pulse — your pulse — the forest’s pulse.

“It’s all right,” he murmurs, leaning in so his forehead brushes yours. “Let it happen. Let me happen.”

Your eyes flutter shut, embarrassed at the sound you make when his hand slides up your spine, palm warm even through your shirt. Every point of contact burns hotter, the threads singing in your veins.

The forest seems closer now, as if the entire clearing has bent toward this moment — every leaf listening, every root aware.

His palms settle low on your back, holding you as if you might drift away on the hum in your veins. Thumbs stroke lazy arcs over your hips, pressing just enough to feel the shape of you, to remind you that you’re here, with him.

“You’re warm,” he murmurs. “Everywhere.”

“I—” The sound catches on your breath as his hands glide under the hem of your shirt. His palms are hot and broad, mapping your skin slowly, reverently. When he reaches the small of your back, his fingers curl in, pulling you closer against him until your thighs are flush with his.

The heat between your legs spikes and you shift instinctively, trying to ease it, but the motion only draws a low sound from him — approval edged in hunger.

“That’s it,” he breathes. “Don’t hide from me. Let me feel what the forest has woken in you.”

He leans in, nose brushing along the curve of your jaw, down toward your throat. His breath is warm and damp, and when he inhales, it’s deep enough to make you shiver. “You smell different now,” he says quietly. “Sweeter. The forest is in your blood… they’re making you for me.”

Your hands clutch at his shoulders, at the thick curve of muscle beneath them. “You keep saying that—”

“Because it is truth.” His mouth grazes your pulse point, slow and soft, before he sinks his teeth just enough to make you gasp. He soothes the spot with his tongue, lips brushing your skin as he continues, “You will move like me. Breathe like me. Take the forest into your body until it cannot be told from you.”

The words coil through you, dizzying. His hands travel higher under your shirt, over your ribs, the calluses catching lightly against your skin. Every touch is synced to the rhythm thrumming inside you, like he’s coaxing the network along.

When his thumbs skim the underswell of your breasts, your breath stutters — and he smiles, slow and knowing. “There you are,” he murmurs, like you’ve finally arrived.

You’re so aware of him — his solidity beneath you, the heat radiating from his body, the way the forest hum vibrates through his chest into yours. The threads feel like they’re finishing something — weaving tight, closing a circuit. You’re not sure where the magic ends and the want begins.

Thalen tilts his head back just enough to meet your eyes. “You feel it now,” he says, voice low and certain. “There’s no part of you I do not touch. Not anymore.”

And you know — with a flush that sinks deep into your bones — that he’s right.

His gaze holds you steady — calm, unshakable — while your breath comes faster. One hand stays braced warm at your lower back, keeping you pressed against him, while the other rises to cup your jaw. His thumb brushes over your lips, slow, deliberate.

“Let me in,” he murmurs. It’s not a question.

Before you can answer, his mouth finds yours.

It’s not a bruising kiss. Not yet. It’s deep, unhurried — a claim that’s been waiting since the first moment you stepped from the path. His lips are warm and sure, moving with the same rhythm as the pulse weaving through you. You can feel the magic crest with every pass of his mouth, each slide of breath between you.

Your hands, without permission, slide into the thick hair at the nape of his neck. He hums at the touch, pulling you closer still. The shift makes your hips grind against the hard line of him, and the sound that rumbles in his chest is pure approval.

“That’s it,” he breathes against your mouth. “Let the earth move you.”

The mycelial pulse is a drumbeat in your blood now, urging you to move — forward, down, against him. His hands guide your hips, slow and steady, until you’re rolling them in a rhythm that makes heat lick up your spine. Every press drags a whimper from your throat, every pull earns a low growl from him that vibrates straight through your core.

He breaks the kiss only to press his lips to your throat, your jaw, the hollow below your ear. “You feel it, little bloom. The forest wants this as much as I do.” His teeth catch on your skin — a slow, possessive scrape. “It’s making you mine. Perfect for me.”

You gasp when one broad palm slides up under your shirt again, fingers splaying wide over your ribs as if to feel the rush of heat inside you. His other hand stays firm on your hip, guiding you to move the way he wants — the way that wrings little shivers from your body.

“Thalen—” His name spills from you like a confession, and his answering sound is so deep and pleased it makes your knees weaken even where you sit astride him.

“That’s right,” he says softly. “Say it again.”

“Thalen…”

The pulse answers. The forest answers. And under his touch, you realize there is no longer any separation — not between your body and the magic, not between your want and his.

Thalen’s hands slow on your hips, steadying your restless movements. His mouth lingers at your jaw, then trails lower until his lips are at your ear.

“Little bloom,” he murmurs, the words brushing hot against your skin, “you’ll have to let me ready you. I will not hurt you.”

Your cheeks burn hotter. You know what he means, and the knowledge sends a dizzy rush straight through your belly. “I—”

“Hush.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, soft as moss. “Let me take care of you.”

One broad hand slides down from your ribs, over the flat of your stomach, his touch unhurried and unbearably sure. He watches your face the entire time, studying every flicker of breath as his palm cups the heat between your thighs through your jeans.

Even that simple contact makes your hips twitch forward. He hums low, pleased. “Already warm,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “The forest worked quickly in you.”

He shifts you just enough that his hand can slip beneath the denim, then lower still, fingers finding you easily, and the first touch makes your head tip back.

“There. That’s better.”

His middle finger drags slowly through your slick, teasing the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top before circling lower. He’s careful, deliberate, letting you feel the breadth of him even here.

“Relax for me,” he murmurs.

He slides one thick finger inside you, the stretch immediate and dizzying. The forest hums beneath you, in you, syncing perfectly with the steady curl of his finger.

“That’s it,” he coaxes, pressing a slow kiss to your temple. “Feel how you take me in. You’ll take more soon.”

Another finger joins the first, and your thighs tense instinctively — but his free hand is there, rubbing soothing arcs into your hip, grounding you. “Easy,” he whispers. “I’ll make you ready. You’ll bloom for me.”

The pace is unhurried, almost meditative. Every press, every curl feels like he’s mapping you from the inside, memorizing how you yield to him. And the mycelial threads seem to pulse in time with him, weaving deeper, rooting you down into the moment.

When his thumb finds your clit again — slow, firm, perfect — a broken sound catches in your throat. He smiles against your cheek, nipping lightly. “Yes… let me open you.”

Thalen keeps that steady rhythm, two thick fingers curling just right inside you while his thumb moves in lazy, coaxing circles over your clit. Every pass drags a little more sound from you — soft gasps, quiet whimpers you can’t bite back.

“Good,” he murmurs, voice warm and low. “Looser now. Softer for me.”

Your hips start chasing him without thought, rolling against his hand, needing more pressure, more depth. The mycelial hum in your veins has thickened into something molten, pooling heavy between your thighs until every movement feels like it feeds the heat.

He slides a third finger into you, and your breath catches around the stretch, nails digging into his shoulders. He groans softly at the feel, his thumb never leaving its steady, maddening rhythm.

“Ah… gods, you take me so well.” His tone is reverent, almost awed. “And this is only my hand.”

You whimper, embarrassed by how wet you are for him, how easily you’re giving in. But he just presses a kiss to your jaw, voice low against your skin. “No shame. The forest wants this. I want this.”

His fingers work deeper, curling until you see sparks behind your eyelids. The pressure builds and builds, heat coiling tight in your belly. You can’t stop the needy little plea that slips free.

“Thalen… please.”

That smile curves against your cheek, slow and satisfied. “Please what, little bloom?”

You swallow, hips stuttering against his hand. “Please… I want you.”

“Mmm. You’ll have me.” He withdraws his fingers slowly, dragging them over every sensitive inch until you shiver. “But you are very small,” he murmurs, his hand cupping you possessively. “And I am… not.”

You can feel him now, hard and heavy against your thigh even through his clothing. The thought of him inside you makes your breath stutter.

He shifts you in his lap, steady and sure, until you’re straddling him fully again. One big hand cups the back of your neck, the other guiding your hips. “Breathe for me,” he says, eyes locked to yours.

You feel him align with you, the thick head of him nudging against your slick entrance. Even that first press steals your breath.

“Ah—”

“Shhh.” His forehead rests against yours, grounding you in his heat. “Slow. We’ll go slow.”

And then he begins to push inside.

The stretch is devastating. Your walls strain around him, the sheer width of him forcing you open inch by inch. Your nails dig into his shoulders, a choked sound catching in your throat.

“That’s it,” he breathes, voice roughening. “Take me in. You were made for this. For me.”

The forest hums louder, in your bones, in your blood, until you can’t tell if it’s magic or lust making you dizzy. Every inch he sinks into you feels like it’s locking something into place, completing some ancient pattern.

The moment Thalen is fully seated inside you, something shifts.

It’s not just the stretch — though your body feels impossibly full, stretched around him to your limit. It’s deeper than that, a resonance you can feel through your bones.

The tingling that’s been crawling through your veins since you entered the clearing… stops.

Not because it’s gone — but because it’s finished.

In its place is a low, steady hum. Not in your ears, but inside you. Everywhere. A second life layered over your own, pulsing with the same deep rhythm as the forest under your knees… and the man inside you.

You suck in a shaking breath, your hands clutching his shoulders like you might fall without him. “I—”

His gaze holds yours, warm and sure. “Yes. You feel it.”

It’s not a question.

Your walls flutter around him, body adjusting, clutching greedily at the thick weight of him. The hum in your blood seems to sharpen there, the pulse syncing perfectly with the deep throb of his cock inside you.

Your mouth works soundlessly before you manage, “It’s like—everything’s… in place. Like I’m—”

“Complete,” he says, the word a warm exhale between your lips. “You are part of the network now. You are mine now. There is no going back.”

And gods help you, the truth of it makes you clench around him so hard he groans, his grip on your hip tightening.

“You feel it,” he says again, voice low and reverent. “The forest, the roots, the mycelium — and me — all one system. You and I… bound.” His hand cups your jaw, thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “I fill you in every way there is.”

You realize you’re not trembling from the stretch anymore — you’re trembling from want. From the unbearable knowledge that you were built for this, for him, for this union of body and magic and breath.

Thalen leans in, his mouth brushing your ear, his words sinking like roots into soft soil. “Now… let me show you what we are.”

When he finally moves, it’s just a slow, rolling shift of his hips — pulling out only a fraction before sinking back in, deeper than you thought possible.

The hum changes.

It’s not just in your body anymore. It’s around you. Under you. In the moss beneath your knees, in the breath of the trees overhead, in the slow pulse of the web just under the soil. Every time he rocks into you, it feels like the forest exhales.

Your breath comes out shaky. “Gods—”

“No gods here,” Thalen murmurs, his voice almost a purr. “Only us.”

His hands cradle you — one braced firm at your lower back to keep you pressed to him, the other splayed over your hip to guide the rhythm. It’s slow, deliberate, each thrust a claiming all its own.

The movement isn’t frantic. It’s inevitable. Like tides. Like roots pushing through stone.

And you can feel it — not just the physical slide of him, but the way the hum in your new system spikes with every deep stroke. The network is responding, welcoming. Each pulse of pleasure radiates outward through the threads inside you until it comes back doubled, tripled, impossibly magnified.

Your nails bite into his shoulders, a helpless moan slipping free. “It’s—oh fuck, it’s everywhere—”

“I told you.” His mouth brushes your ear, warm and steady. “You are part of the forest now. Every root feels what I give you. Every leaf sings it back to me.”

He rocks deeper, grinding at the bottom of the thrust, and you swear the moss under your knees blooms warmer. The world narrows to his steady breath in your hair, the slow drag of his cock inside you, the way each motion sends that humming pleasure echoing through the entire network.

Your hips start moving with him, not consciously, just following the pull. He hums in approval, tightening his grip on your hip so you can’t shy away from the depth.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, voice deepening with heat. “Take all of me. Let the forest keep us joined.”

And gods help you, you want it. You want to stay locked to him like this forever, the hum never ending, the network pulsing with every slow, perfect thrust.

The rhythm shifts.

Not a warning. Not a gradual build. Just one thrust that lands harder, deeper, and the hum in your body spikes.

You gasp against his shoulder, clutching at him as if that will keep you anchored — but he’s the one anchoring you.

The next thrust comes faster. And the next. Still slow enough to make you feel every drag and push of him, but with a force that makes your breath catch and your thighs tremble.

The hum in your blood is no longer a steady undercurrent — it’s a surge, sweeping you along. You can feel the network answering him: roots tightening in the soil, the moss blooming under your knees, the air thickening with the scent of green and want.

Thalen groans low in his chest, the sound vibrating through you. “Yes… let it carry you.” His forehead presses to yours, breath warm on your lips as his hips snap forward again. “The forest knows you now. It wants you to give me everything.”

You can’t stop the sounds spilling, soft and needy with every deep, perfect thrust. Your hips find his rhythm without thought, rolling to meet him, the impact reverberating up through your spine.

He shifts slightly, the angle changing, and the next thrust knocks a startled moan out of you — sharp and high. His eyes flare, hungry. “There,” he growls softly. “That’s where you hold me the tightest.”

The pace builds again, still not frantic, but inevitable, like he’s driving stakes into the earth. Every deep push sends the hum cresting higher, the network singing louder inside you. Your vision blurs around the edges, breathless from the force and the connection and the unbearable fullness.

His grip tightens, pulling you down to meet him harder. “You feel that? The forest pushing it back to you?”

You nod — or think you do — but your head is already tipping back, a cry breaking loose as another thrust lands, grinding deep enough to make your toes curl.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, and now there’s a sharp edge of hunger in his steady tone. “Let me take you. Let us take you.”

The hum is climbing, climbing, the pressure coiling tight in your belly until you’re right at the edge — and he knows. You can feel it in the way he holds you closer, the way his hips drive into you like he’s sealing the connection forever.

The pace is relentless now — not frantic, but unstoppable. Every deep thrust finds that place inside you, each one hitting harder, tighter, the hum in your veins climbing until it’s not a hum at all but a song.

You can’t breathe for how good it feels. Thighs are trembling around his hips, nails digging into his shoulders. Every time he sinks into you, the network answers — moss warming, roots flexing, the air around you thick with the green-sweet heat of him.

Thalen’s mouth is at your ear, voice deep and steady even as his hips drive you higher. “You’re right there, little bloom. I can feel you. Don’t hold it back. Give it to me. Give it to us.”

The next thrust knocks the air from your lungs. The one after it shatters the rest of your composure.

It’s not just your body tightening, clenching hard around the thick heat of him — it’s everything. The hum bursts into a roar in your blood, in the soil, in the trees. You swear you can feel every leaf overhead shiver, every root below pulse in time with the spasms racking your body.

Thalen groans low, his arms locking you to him as your orgasm crashes and crashes and crashes, waves breaking over each other without pause. “That’s it,” he growls softly. “Yes… yes, bloom for me. Let the forest feel you.”

You can’t stop — the pleasure is everywhere, looping back into you from the earth. Every time your body clamps around him, it’s pushed outward through the mycelium and sent rushing back stronger. Your vision whites out, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of it.

“Breathe,” Thalen murmurs against your temple, his voice the only thing tethering you to yourself. “Ride it. I have you.”

He keeps moving through it — deep, slow thrusts that push you into another crest before the first one’s even finished. His thumb finds your clit again and you scream, your whole body locking tight as another wave rips through you, pulling the heavy, hot fill of him so deep it feels as though you will choke on it.

“Good girl,” he whispers, reverent and rough at once. “So perfect like this. Made for this. Made for me.”

You don’t know how long it lasts — seconds, minutes, an eternity — but when the tremors finally start to ease, he’s still holding you, still inside you, still steady as the oak at his back. The hum is calmer now, but it’s there, deep and permanent in your blood.

And you know — with every part of you — you’ll never be without it again.

special tag just for @apuddleonthelivingroomfloor <3

[zeb-z]

The thing about Forever and Bad is that they don't know how to deescalate, and they start at 100 straight from 0 every time with each other. They will spend hours arguing about semantics that don't matter. They will go to the extreme ends of pranks (which as fun as the audio remixes were, spending hours trying to find the source was literal hell genuine psychological torment). They will go for the throat just to antagonize the other.

So no, I don't think Forever knows a thing about Dapper or the other eggs whereabouts. He just knows better about the way Bad operates, the way he lies and deflects. He's familiar with his crafty words and how he turns a conversation on its head. He knows that what Bad is being accused of is entirely likely, that he is not who he usually is when the eggs are around. And he knows that Dapper, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is who Bad cares for most of all.

This isn't something he can argue hours about, to chip away little by little like he usually does. For both the safety of the worker, because the longer they're locked up surely the worse off they'll be - and for the safety of Bad, who if he wasn't under extreme watch by the Federation, he certainly is now, after Tubbo very loudly accused him in his Federation office.

He goes for the throat, immediately playing a trump card that he knows Bad won't just brush off or ignore, because as much as Bad can be unpredictable, Forever knows that Bad cares about the eggs as much as he does. As questionable as his morals are, as slippery as he can be to pin down, Bad has always placed the eggs as the highest priority - and he needs Bad to have no choice but to be honest, or to knock him off guard enough that he'll give him something to work with.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But when has Bad ever played fair with him?

[boopshoops]

What your favorite TWST character says about you :)

As a note before I begin: I saw one of these that shamed malleus and randomly even chenya enjoyers- (claimed that they were pick mes or something? 😭) so i wanted to make one that was more positive out of spite <3 make it more about the writing and why people appreciate the characters. Take each of these with a grain of salt i spose- also a lot of them share similar themes <3

(Aka fans who have different views or even blatantly incorrect views of characters will always exist everywhere, but insulting the entirety of a group solely for enjoying a character, many for different reasons, is probably not a great idea!

I get that sometimes people suck and thats understandable, but quit generalizing ok? Ok.

From a malleus enjoyer who just thinks hes a silly little guy and im tired of feeling like i have to defend myself bc he's my blorbo 😵‍💫)

Final note: i love unapologetically taking frustration and turning it into something that can make people smile 💕 also i blindly wrote this from 11pm-midnight :))) dividers by @/cafekitsune!

Heartslabyul:

Riddle: you enjoy and/or relate to the idea of healing from the past. Working hard to improve oneself for the ones around you and yourself: creating a healthier environment where you can be happy

Trey: there is immense complexity in things that are seemingly mundane. Digging deeper and deeper to find something truly sweet and heart warming is your joy.

Cater: maybe you relate, or maybe you used to, or maybe parts of the connections made in the past/presence/future dont feel as deep as you truly want them to be. There is something beautiful about a desire for genuine human connection, but also peace in being alone. There is a safe space for you yet, just be patient. 💕

Deuce: you love drive and determination. An endless stubbornness that keeps one going against all odds. Against every person who tells someone they cant. You watch them get proven wrong, and its pure bliss.

Ace: you find the connection between people beyond words heartwarming: even the seemingly simple ones. The ability to have a connection with someone who can get up to some mischief, tease back and forth, yet be there when you need them to be one of the most valuable things.

Savanaclaw:

Leona: Adversity over a lack of belief in oneself is a very difficult thing to overcome- yet it is very possible with the right crowd, the right amount of time, healing, and effort. You think someone's worth lies more than just within their title/job/appearance, but within the fact that they are able to stand back up and keep moving onward despite the odds. The hope for that change, and the ability to get out of bed in the morning on its own is strength.

Ruggie: Despite being through so much trauma at such a young age, recovery happens anyway. Its not perfect, at times the lessons learned are even rough. The survival tactics that once helped are now hard to ditch when theyre not needed anymore, but the ability to smile and joke and keep pushing onwards is something you value in life.

Jack: Self discipline can be both extremely useful as well as harmful in different ways. You find the way people can constantly strive to better themselves at what they love and/or morally to be highly admirable.

Octavinelle:

Azul: People can be cruel. And sometimes that cruelty inspires cruelty. Sometimes its simply used as a way to move on and survive insecurities created from it. Its hard, its a fight, but those insecurities are part of what make people beautiful. They are nothing to be ashamed of, and even the many tactics and smart ways of learning to overcome cruelness can be beautiful too.

Jade: The mind is extremely powerful. Intelligence and knowledge are not the only important things, no. Using that intel to find entertainment in the surrounding world can be exhilarating. Finding and discovering new unknowns: learning their ins and outs until they're a part of you is something you can relate to.

Floyd: speaking of fun- you love what is essentially the written version of a roller coaster. Ups and downs, ins and outs. Every single twist and turn is exhilarating and new. Every different perspective provides new insight into a multitude of different things. You are along for the ride, and you are having a lovely time.

Scarabia:

Jamil: self discovery can be very difficult after purposefully suppressing parts of one's self for a long time. Yet, the healing happens anyway (once again aha <3). People discover new parts of themselves, slowly becoming more comfortable not only with their environment, but how they react to it. The discovery is freedom, and freedom is bliss to you. New traits about oneself bloom like a flower: if not in the soil, then stubbornly in the cracks of cement. You gently take that bloom from the concrete and pot it, placing it gingerly in a beam of sunlight.

Kalim: Happiness isnt only sunshine to the one smiling, but to everyone else around them. It is delightfully infectious. However, happiness isnt a constant. You think emotions all emotions should be experienced rather than suppressed, because holding back sadness for the sake of others is a disservice to one's self. Discovering your own emotions, any range of them, is what makes people uniquely human. If anyone is holding those emotions back- hell, any part of them back, they need to be let out of the cage.

Pomefiore:

Vil: "Beauty is on the inside" is a saying thats been around for a long time, but beauty comes in so many forms. It can come from the stubborn desire to improve one's self: to be kinder, to help those around you, to be good. However it is impossible to be perfect. At times, for some, this can be crushing. People are hurt unintentionally, natural frustration can brew, the wrong actions can be taken: and thats okay. You believe whats important is to pick yourself up and keep going. To err is to be human, and that is beautiful too.

Rook: Error is beautiful. Symmetry is beautiful. Asymmetry is beautiful. A crack in the side walk is beautiful. Small things are beautiful, big things are beautiful. The nurturing of something through endless care is beautiful. The undeniable traits and hobbies of every individual that make them unique are beautiful. You find the endless optimism in finding beauty to be, in itself, beautiful.

Epel: Sometimes people will view others in ways that they wish not to be perceived as. This isnt in our control, as much as we sometimes want it to be. All you can do i be unapologetically yourself. To be you to the utmost degree. To prove those who thought otherwise to be foolish. You find this strength to find value in yourself despite others opinions admirable.

Ignihyde:

Idia: you have depression /j

Ok for real-

Life can be such a cunt. It can beat a person down, down, down and leave them vulnerable enough to fear it. To fear that beating, whenever it may next come. The anxiety of never knowing what or who will come next, or what one could lose. At times it feels more comforting to find a routine in solitude. But you know that the small things that give joy will wiggle their way in with time. The broken will meet people who love and care and find comfort in the companionship of healing, even from the little things: like a new story to read or game to play.

Ortho: You value unconditional support. Support through everything: the good, the bad, the just kind of okay. Knowing that someone can have ones back for every little thing- to be there solely because they care and wish the best for others- is something you look up to and maybe even wish to be for another.

Diasomnia:

Malleus: god damn people can be so hard to read and understand. They are so complicated: they are books you have to pay attention to from start to finish. But once you reach the end, you have a deep seated appreciation for them, and for the ones who stuck around to read your book too. Even if it was just for a fleeting moment: it is a happy moment. As painful as temporary things can be, it is also what you think can make the relationships we love and have loved so valuable.

Lilia: there can be suffering everywhere. There is war. There is famine. But there are also endless new sights to see. New discoveries to be made to help those still going through famine and war. New ways to love and understand people you never thought you'd understand. The development and positive parts of humanity, even though at times it can look bleak, are ever present to you. You love the discovery: of places and of people.

Silver: you believe that there is solace in being your own individual, regardless of who you are bound by blood to. Being shaped my experiences, friends, hardships, and new places are what make a person who they are. You value finding roots in and making your own home.

Sebek: Dedication can be a hard thing to come by, but when it does it can grab someone by the reigns. Using every waking moment to cherish that thing, learn more about it, become better at something, and strive to better ones self can be very admirable to you. But, on the other hand, it also calls for the occasional rest.

OTHER (just for ones I know well enough, sorry!)

Neige: You love kindness despite hardship. One can go through horrible things and still choose to be kind. The world could begin to end, and one could still choose to be kind, because it means everything.

Chenya: Curiosity fuels exploration. It fuels art. It fuels everything. It fuels excitement. It fuels friendships. It fuels medicine. It fuels life. Curiosity is endlessly fun, and you think that is very whimsical

Meleanor: Sacrifice for others can be tragic. Knowing what another person has given up for someone else, maybe even everything, is gut wrenching but undeniably a selfless love to you.

Crewel: There can be kindness in strictness. In teachings, there can be a parental guide. There can be someone who cares for you and undeniably wants you to succeed. They know that you can, so they push you towards it. You want this support.

Trein: Love surpasses time. When the ones we love are gone, the memories of them are still held close, with the love once given to them, we can show to others through advice and guidance that comes with time. You find comfort in that.

Crowley: People are flawed. We all know this, yet despite a persons flaws... however many there may be, there is still something hopeful and human about it. About having those flaws and persisting regardless. You may even like those flaws, and the unashamed desire to press on even with them on display.

Fellow/Ernesto: Live for yourself. This is what you desire. People are often caught up in material or monetary things. After all, we live in a world that required it to survive and even be respected. To throw away those views and simply live as you see fit: regardless as to whether you earn those things or not, is something you admire.

Rollo: Sometimes the attachment we have to those we lost can be painful. Regardless, that pain is proof that there was care and love. The things done for others, whether alive or dead, are done selflessly. Grief can fuel hatred, but it can also be caused by love. To unlearn hatred and learn to love again after the fear of loss is a natural human experience. It is a process you understand and admire those who take the time and strength needed to properly love again.

Thank you for reading <3

Tags <3

@lowcallyfruity @skriblee-ksk @justm3di0cr3 @cecilebutcher @kitwasnothere

@techno-danger @thehollowwriter @distant-velleity @the-trinket-witch @scint1llat3

@beneathsakurashade @qsoap @twsted-canvas @prince-kallisto @kathxrat-01

@sillyslipperybananapeel @jadelover69 @tixdixl @twstinginthewind

[mrcrawly]

Dr. House is some of the best unintentional autistic representation I have ever seen

I think the title is a slight overstatement, but I honestly feel this way. I'm not finished with House MD by ANY means so do keep that in mind, but I'm almost finished with season 2 so this is based off what I have seen.

Also: I am aware that there is an episode where they discuss the possibility that House has Asperger's. Obviously that term has fallen out of favor because Asperger was, you know, a Nahtzee, but I am going to emphasize that House has particularly low-support needs. My source is that I'm autistic and this is a topic I'm relatively familiar with. (Also. please take this with a grain of salt because David Shore also created "The Good Doctor" which is a comparatively pretty poor representation of autism, but I'm going to talk about House MD in its own vacuum.)

Lack of knowledge or concern for social cues. I don't really think this needs explaining, but House doesn't seem to have much regard or respect for social norms. He doesn't care much for social approval or maintaining relationships. I don't necessarily characterize this as specifically being an autistic trait, because this can greatly vary, but this is something I see in myself and other autistic people.

Strong sense of justice and morals. I see a lot of people calling House a "sociopath" simply because he isn't particularly empathetic. But the word sociopath gets thrown around a lot and it really doesn't characterize him well at all. I would argue that House feels cognitive empathy rather than the more emotional sense of empathy that most people experience, but equating empathy and morality is a big no-go. House has little concern for some ethical principles, as the show points out pretty often, but House is never looking to hurt anybody. House is always pretty dry and easily annoyed, but the only time we see him openly angry and upset is when someone endangers a patient. When Chase fucks up the angiogram, potentially putting a woman's life in danger, he holds it against him for ages. And in "The Mistake," when a woman dies and it has to be determined whose fault it was, House yells at Chase in the middle of the lobby over his negligence. Also, House does actually have empathy when it's necessary. He typically softens himself around younger patients and will make an effort to be calm, and when Stacy admits that she and Mark have been fighting and becomes upset, he tries to help her calm down and doesn't try to make the situation about himself. When he thinks that his "nemesis" from school is faking the results of his migraine medicine, he goes out of his way to prove that he's right - partially because, yeah, he wants to be right and get Weber back - but also because he sees this as cheating, and knows it's ultimately harming people.

Very few, specific interests. House doesn't seem to have a lot that he's interested in. His job is one of them, because he gets joy and satisfaction out of solving medical problems. It's also established that he's deeply invested in General Hospital and monster trucks (although I wasn't sure if that was a House thing or a Wilson thing? But he seemed pretty excited about it too). Other than that, he doesn't have many obvious or noteworthy things he's interested in.

Difficulty maintaining interpersonal relationships. Wilson is House's only friend, and House seems to be (mostly) content with that. He cares about other people, in his own strange way, but he consistently struggles to create and maintain personal relationships, whether because of his disregard for social niceties or because of his fear of vulnerability. Again, this may not necessarily be in relation to autism, but it's worth noting.

Odd speech patterns. I'm sick of media making it seem like all autistic people can't comprehend sarcasm. It is common for autistic people to take things literally, but autistic people also sometimes use sarcasm and metaphors more than the average person in verbal communication. I do this all the time. House is constantly saying weird, offbeat things, or making strange, vague metaphors, especially when he's deep in thought.

Stimming. Throwing his ball at the wall. Pacing. Spinning his cane around. Tapping his cane on the floor. Spinning it like a baton when he's alone in the room and trying to think. Sometimes he also nods his head back and forth when he's thinking.

Routine. This one is a little hard to spot, because House actually does seem to thrive when things are changing or new things happen. I see this mostly in House wearing the same things all the time. He's usually wearing some button-up and a blazer/jacket over it, and typically jeans and the same pair of shoes. The shoes are most likely for his comfort, but sometimes autistic people like to wear the same things a lot because it's what's most comfortable or they don't have to worry about unpredictability. Also, it seems like he eats the same thing a lot, since everyone knows he gets a dry Reuben sandwich.

This is just what I noticed and based on my personal experiences as an autistic person. This doesn't mean I think the show discusses autism in the most graceful or meaningful way - I just really like to break down my favorite characters and analyze them.

[justaladyiguess]

A slightly more believable TADC theory

Like the last one, take everything I say with a grain of salt. I’m just a lady watching a show.

One scene that stuck out to me in the new TADC episode was when Jax seemed to genuinely think that Gangle likes it when he's mean to her.

At first glance, it seems pretty counter-intuitive. Why would he think being mean to someone will cheer them up? But I think this whole episode casts a bit of light on his perspective.

There are a lot of indicators that Jax has some concern for the others. The aforementioned exchange is one of them. Then, in the bar, Jax makes the jab at Kinger right after Ragatha talks about her history with her mom.

This one could be read in a few different ways, but I see it as him trying to distract from the somber tones in her story. Especially considering this expression moments before.

And then he apologizes to Pomni about the president thing, something even Pomni thinks is odd. Granted, he does it in a semi joking way, but there does seem to be some sincerity behind it.

If you’re a bit delusional, you could interpret later actions as this as well. When Ragatha blows up at Pomni and apologizes, he jokingly asks for an apology. But then seems surprised that he got one. It’s possible he was intentionally trying to distract from the semi-harsh thing she said before.

And finally, while the Poacher's Paradise is pretty self-indulgent, the President Pomni adventure seems like a surprisingly genuine attempt to make a fun adventure. Everyone gets a character sheet and everything. Minus Pomni, but still.

But if he does care, why does he act like… Jax?

I think it’s for the same reason Ragatha tries to keep things positive.

Some people try to solve things directly. They talk to people about issues. Pomni usually does this, but that’s a post for another day.

Ragatha and Jax try similar approaches on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Ragatha tries to lift everyone's spirits by keeping them positive and avoiding the negative. But I think Jax tries to lift everyone's spirits by trying to keep anything from being serious. After all, if none of it matters, nobody gets upset. Either way, nobody is confronting the actual issues at play.

To get a little personal here, it reminded me a bit of myself. Sometimes I find myself acting like Ragatha. Trying to find the good side so everyone else can see it too. But most of the time it's just easier to joke around. It's a band aid solution, sure. But it lightens the atmosphere. Seems to make things better. Granted, I usually don't do it by insulting the people I'm trying to cheer up, but still.

In Jax's mind, the reason everyone is so miserable is because they take it too seriously. He says it himself multiple times. Granted, he's a bit of a hypocrite in this respect. He can take insults and banter, but being humiliated in any way tends to send him off the edge. But even Ragatha seems to be acutely aware that her up beat attitude hasn't done much to keep her happy.

Their similarities are further enhanced by the scene on the bench.

Their back and forth strongly implies that their motivations and facades are similar. While both assume the other has negative intentions, I don’t think either of them do.

I do think he’s partly a jerk who gets pleasure out of making fun of others. And his philosophy of not caring is probably mostly to protect himself from negative emotions. He’s certainly not a saint.

But I think it’s possible that he’s got dual motivations. That he thinks everyone would be better off if they stopped trying to be happy and just started doing what he does.

Not taking anything seriously.

But that’s just a theory.. a Digital Circus Theory! And cut..

…

And yes, I did get the idea from that “Funny Things” fan song by RecD.

[t-chlmt-blog]

a step behind

ADHD!reader x Spencer Reid

when reader gets overstimulated at the office spencer finds her in an odd spot and helps calm her down.

word cound: 0.7k

warnings: neurodivergent reader and spencer, mentions of breakdowns, i dont think there anything else but lmk!

also pls be kind this is my first fic! and if i continue to write for adhd!reader most of what i write ab is stuff that i personally deal with while having adhd, it can be different for everyone so pls take everything with a grain of salt!

The hum of the AC in the bullpen is boring into your skull. Along with the chatter of other agents, all the sensations are getting to be too much. The stack of paperwork on your desk hasn’t gotten any smaller in the past hour and your legs started aching from sitting too long. It’s all too much. Morgan and Prentiss are chatting no more than 10 feet away and you can’t concentrate , not with everything going on.

Standing up and pushing away from the desk, you quickly slip by the duo whose conversation you couldn’t follow mumbling a quick “excuse me” with your head down.

Ducking behind the door to the stairwell, you sit down on the first few steps trying to calm yourself down. Nobody really ever comes this way unless the elevators were out of service. The stairwell is quiet but each small movement creates an echo that provokes that suffocating feeling of overstimulation. Normally in a situation like this, you’d let Spencer know and he’d sit with you, toning down his rambling as he lists grounding techniques for you to try, however, today was a bad one gone worse and the thought of anyone talking is almost enough to send you into a full blow meltdown. You feel hot and stuffy and realize the water bottle, full of ice cold water from this morning was still at your desk. Great.

You’re focused on the cool tile beneath you, laying your palms down trying to cool down, when you hear footsteps coming up the stairs. You hadn’t payed much attention to the fact Spencer had been missing from the bullpen and didn’t even realize he had been a floor down this whole time. Sometimes when he needs a bit longer to think he takes the stairs to his destination.

“What are you doing out here?” He asked with that slight smile and gentle voice. He knows all too well the struggles of neurodiversity and finds that he two of you can relate to each other more so than the rest of the team.

Your head whips up and to the right, where Spencer has suddenly appeared, why didn’t you hear his footsteps before? “Just needed a second, it got kinda stuffy out there”, a simple explanation he understood to be more than you’re making it out to be. Years of masking and trying to fit in, you could handle a lot before you would totally break down, having learned where your threshold for this sort of thing was so as to not make a fool of yourself in front of other people.

“Are you ok, do you feel well?” Spencer asks, putting down his files next to you, attempting to look for any tell tale signs of illness or injury. When he finds nothing too concerning, just your flushed skin, starting to bead with sweat, he sits next to you. He’s been looking out for you a lot more recently, both in and out of the office and field.

“I just didn’t get enough sleep and the bullpen’s too loud and those lights were starting to bug me.” As soon as you told Spencer the reason for your hiding, he understood. He’s no stranger to feeling overstimulated like this and knows you aren’t either. Conversations on the jet and in the break room detailed the feelings you both shared being neurodivergent. Although Spencers brain worked almost completely opposite of yours, you both understood each other fairly well.

“Here,” he says gently taking your hand in his, feeling the heat, placing them in a new spot on he tile. Since he’d come up the stairs, you hadn’t moved an inch, it felt refreshing against your hot palms once again. “Would leaning against the wall help at all?” You hadn’t tried it but inched backwards and turned so the your back connected with the wall.

Your eyes close in relief. You hadn’t realized it but from ay one, Spencer has started to pick up on all the details and quirks that make you , you. Of course his eidetic memory helps, but somethings he just gets.

Starting to cool down, in the comfortable silence you open your eyes and look to Spencer and his brown eyes and smile. Joining such a tight knit team was intimidating but Spencer always made you feel wanted.

[sakurapandadreams]

PLACEMENTS THAT EASILY MAKE FRIENDS

Please take all of these predictions with a grain of salt I'm not a professional astrologer.

FOR ASTRO POSTS HERE IS MY MASTERLIST

If you have any questions here are the GUIDELINES

This post consists of placements that if one has in their chart finds it easier to socialize or understand the social dynamics better in a external settings.

One also needs to take the entire chart into consideration.

🎞 Venus in the 1st house

Natives with this placement are very diplomatic, sweet kind and easy to approach. Quite helpful in nature if their close to you, and even if their not they still very amicable. They almost never break friendships from their side. These individuals have the emotional intelligence to understand how to handle people. Hence they may find it easy to form friendships.

🎞 Gemini Moon

Extremely understanding people. Sure they have their own mood swings and their ups and downs but who doesn't ?. Inspite all odds they never give up in their friendships. Most have an idea that it takes time for a friendships to build and they give that time to their close ones. [To all the people who have a Gemini Moon friend please cherish them]

🎞 Libra Moon

One of their most admirable trait is what helps them form so many friendships and even relationships which they eventually benefit from is the fact they give a very highly thoughtful advice and again know how to make people comfortable around them. They have a decent idea when you need to say what. Won't say a thing if they know it will be a waste.

🎞 Venus in the 10th house

These people are so kind like genuinely their really good at their job [provided they love what their doing] yet so humble. Most I know are very popular atleast in their own groups yet they make sure everyone around them also equally feels like the main character of their own lives [which everyone should].

🎞 Mercury At 29⁰

Such natives are quite popular due to their talkative nature. Most love to talk to people very social. If it's in a 🔥/💧sign then it's a bonus these people are easy to talk to or approach. Also these people don't think before talking lol I love it tho. But yes these people are also good at saying understanding things at the right time.

🎞 Mercury Atmakaraka

These individuals have a way with their words and also have wide variety of topics to talk about. These people always keep a smooth flow of conversations. Have a great sense of humor too. Basically their fun people to talk to so who wouldn't wanna be friends with them

🎞 Jupiter Atmakaraka

Individuals with this placement have a very bright personality and extensive knowledge. Each time you talk to them you learn something new. Brilliant at giving advices too. People may like to talk to them because of their optimistic nature, seeing how they never lose hope is admirable.

🎞 Sun Atmakaraka

The Sun shines the Brightest hence these people are quite popular and leadership comes naturally to these natives. Even if their introverted they may have such a personality which draws people to them. [If you say buddy there's no one who's drawn to me] You guys are also quite intimidating hence there are people who want to be friends with you, it's just you guys need to be a bit more open that's all.

🎞 Venus in Aquarius

These natives are the type of people who are very popular and friends with many people. If their not an extrovert their definitely an ambivert. But what's best about them is how open minded they are let's say they like something which you don't these people don't dismiss other people's opinion.

🎞 3rd house ruler in the 7th or 11th house

Again these people are talkative and their laughter is contagious. Their outgoing people who know how to take jokes. These people also love to talk information. Basically at times they can surprise people with the information they hold. [Not me I know yall 😏😌]. Can have or be a part of big groups. Or have connections with important people YES which means your equally important.

ALSO A VERY HAPPY NAVRATRI EVERYONE 🥳🙏

Credits for the images and dividers goes to the rightful owners

Copyright © 2024 sakurapandadreams | All rights reserved.

[moonastro]

peoples first impression of you

pick a picture

left to right(top)-> 1,2

left to right(bottom)-> 3,4

°DO NOT take this as literal, take everything with a grain of salt as this is purely and intendedly for entertainment purposes. °Don't be afraid to give feedback and opinions about this post (as I would entirely appreciate it). ° This is a GENERAL reading, take what resonates and leave and pass on what does not!

***IMAGES ARE NOT MINE***

────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──

pile one-

people perceive the resilience that you give out, they are aware that you are not easy to mess with and you aren't as careless as they would have though you are. People often see you as closed off, most likely because of other worries of occurrences in life. You have this courage that is very noticeable and often people see that you are fearless. They see no weakness in you, you will approach life with full confidence and power. Sometimes, you can break your cool but its not because you are needy or arrogant, its because you cant stand unfairness, people notice your ambition to fix a problem especially when it is so obvious. Yeah, you have a very fixed presence and most people can be quite scared to mess up, this can be because of your facial expressions or you could be someone that is hard to impress especially with new people as you don't show your inner self to them yet. Yet you might be seen as someone gullible too. you also can be perceived as someone with their head up high and ignoring their surroundings. This can make it harder for someone to approach you as they see that you are someone who may not be in the mood to talk to people. you may struggle to trust your intuition and you may just take the leap without thinking much of it with the mindset of whatever happens- happens.

first that people notice: your physical health (you may workout or are in great physique), your beauty, your style of clothing (may be very put together and neat), your smile, your limbs.

your vibe to other people:

chic, modest, unbothered, chill, independent, cool, grounded, intellectual, business oriented, career opinionated, vintage, fashion

────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──

pile two-

people may not necessarily notice you, this can be that you don't show yourself or you just prefer to observe from afar. Yeah, people notice how you isolate yourself so they rarely see you hence why others don't see you very much. This may also be that every time someone sees you, you may not have changed that much in terms of style, appearance or attitude which may leave them not have a new impression of you. people notice how you are stuck with old patterns. this may not be a bad thing its just what others observe about you. there is lots of loneliness and others may think you are struggling with something but they feel that they cant help you because you wont allow them. they feel useless. you may have lost someone close or these transformative occurrences keep happening so you may be in constant mourning and grief and may not have time to heal. this is not the end of the world though, they may think that you have something that others may want but you are too focused on he negative. you are very good with words. you have a poetic way of speaking and when you do people are fascinated. people notice your way of thinking and how you come up with solutions very easily and quickly. you may write a lot maybe journal and get your worries out on a piece of paper.

first thing that people notice: your walk, your head pieces (may be headband, ribbon, hair clips and whatever else you wear on your head, may even be glasses), your right hand (may wear significant jewellery on that hand, your clothing colours, odd style.

your vibe to other people:

eccentric, colourful, tired, unbothered, baggy clothing, indie, untidy style, unconventional, alternative, eyes blocked/ covered, unapproachable

────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──

pile three-

people notice your positive view of the world, you may talk or have relations to other people who like your attitude and they may give you job related opportunities. you have good news with money so people give an impression that you are financially stable. you may not like to be in big groups and may not work as well in a team. this may make you quieter that you are or this may make you feel small and useless. you also may not address problems and keep them in. people usually only hear you speak about the positives in life and they wonder what you truly go through as you don't really address those topics. you are rather serious and don't take things lightly. you can take some things too seriously and people notice that about you. you take whatever you have and make it work for you. you are very vocal about your possessions and are not afraid to show off your ideas and abilities. yet, others notice how you work with whatever you are given and you do it well. you are proud of your creations and skills and are not afraid to use them and show them off. people see you as someone who is very proud of themselves. you are quite flirty in nature, you tend to show off your financial earnings in order to get others attention. you are every good with emotions and others see your empathy and interest through your expressions- this makes you very approachable and friendly. people feel like you are someone who they can trust in the long run. on the other end, you constantly regret your actions from the past which can change your mood completely. you have matured well and others notice that.

first thing that people notice: your creativity, your potential (you seem like someone who is on the path to success), your inspirational nature, your ideas, your fighting nature, your motivation, your hair.

your vibe to other people:

classy, successful, positive, fiery, showing your legs/arms, confident, powerful, smiley, expressive, formal, sexy.

────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──

pile four-

you are very hardworking and are always keen to learn and master your skills. people notice how patient you are and very detailed. you take time to get to know something so you will be able to teach someone else. people notice your ability to teach and coach others. you are are very peaceful soul, very laid back and very reserved. you will give others the chance to shine instead of yourself and i feel like only some notice that about you. you sometimes are on the verge of giving up and you are vocal about it. yup, you always give give give. you are the most selfless person that anyone knows. you are so generous that most people can think you are putting up an act but truly you believe that what you give out comes back to you. people notice your curiosity, you may question a lot of things and ask lots of questions to other people. you may also observe and talk about the things others don't care about. you always seek the truth and it may be why you question everything as you wish it would give you answers.

first thing that people notice: your pet (may walk your dog a lot of you may spend time with an animal a lot), your leadership, your vision, your determination, your honesty, your stubbornness, your friendly nature, your structure.

your vibe to other people:

casual, simple, comfortable, easy going, in your own world, warm, natural, open, free, informal, effortless, sincere, not extra, relaxed, placid, flexible.

That is all!! thank you so much for reading, have a good day and i hope something amazing happens today.

[maopll]

Could I request Kaeya, Diluc, Childe and Zhongli's (separate) s/o laying them down on her lap and playing with the boys' hair when their exhausted?

Put your head on my heart

#genshin impact !

⌗:, a/n: its boutta feel like heaven once I scratch their heads I'm being dead serious...hopefully there's no dandruff...

⌗:, pairings: khaenri'ahn, weird grown up, snezhnaya's greatest toymaker, fossil w/ gn!reader (separately)

⌗:, note: I wanted to post smth before I went to school so pls take it with a grain of salt (low effort work)

— ୨୧ KAEYA

"Ahh...that's feels great" Kaeya mumbled drowsily against your lap.

"You're having real fun by having me at your beck and call huh?" You playfully said as you pressed one spot on his forehead a little harder.

"Ow ow ow gently I'm very feeble" He smirked while looking you with half his eyes closed. It looks like the exhaustion really creeped up to him. He's not one who easily shows through his demeanor how much overworked or even exhausted he is.

To others he may seem like how he usually does but the slight change in his personality spoke words to you. The past week he became sluggish and even fell asleep at the most odd places.

Thus you took it upon your hands to lay him down on your lap and forcibly make him achieve that deserved slumber that he really needed.

"It's not right to overwork yourself so much Kaeya..." your voice sounded like one of worry. Kaeya knew how you felt and...he can't really disagree with you. "I'll be careful next time lovely"

"Oh, you better! you're trying to shave years of my life here with how much you're overworking yourself!" You smack his head. He laughed, seeing you worry so much, and said "aww I'm sorry," all while having a shit eating grin on his face as he smothered your face with his kisses to make you stop worrying. "You have my oath as a knight, my dove" he says so while sealing the words with a kiss on the back of your hand in quite the knightly fashion.

— ୨୧ DILUC

It's way past midnight. The workers and the Maids of the Manor are enjoying the honey heavy dew of slumber while you paced back and forth in your own room's veranda as you stared far into the vineyards to even catch a glimpse of your lover. It's not unusual for Diluc to return late, but it's even more unusual when he hasn't come back after the clock struck 2 a.m.

"Where is he?" Your worries grew like a rapid fire. You tried to calm your nerves by telling yourself "it's alright..." when your ears perked up with the creak of the front door. After some time, you saw Diluc emerge from the shadows with his red hair looking particularly vibrant under the moonlight.

"Gosh, you had me worried there dear..." you strode towards him. "Yes...it looks like I kept you awake and worried for a long time? apologies..." as he sounded those words, his voice grew tired and low as his eyes nearly closed from how drowsy he was. You frowned at this sight of him. So you held his hand gently and guided him towards your bed to let him get that well deserved rest since he looked as if he would flop flat on the ground if you did not let him fall on the bed sooner.

You guided his head towards your lap and ruffled his red locks gently. "I'll help you sleep quicker, Diluc. So just close your eyes now" with a peck to his forehead, you put your hands softly over his eyes. "Thank you...love"

— ୨୧ CHILDE

"Childe...I don't think this is that right place to do this..."

And yes it wasn't. He decided to go out fishing in Dragonspine with you because he said, "I miss the way me and my family used to fish in Snezhnaya" all puppy eyed and stuff. You're always the one who says yes to anything he says but maybe...maybe this time you should've said no...

"But babe I'm tired! won't you let me rest my head on your lap?" so he said when he is literally a harbinger. Him running out of stamina and being exhausted? impossible that's something that will happen in an alternate universe. He just needed a sorry excuse to feel the warmth your thigh emitted because he just couldn't get enough of those.

"Childe I'm not saying that you can't lay on my lap but we are out in the middle of nowhere in adeserted frosty mountain!" You screamed to him while he just jumped up with excitement, "Oh look! I caught a Snowstrider! Great catch!"

"Oh my archons...are we done yet?" you said impatiently because the cold was getting to you. "Aww but I was thinking about catching a few more...alright let's go home now"

You noticed the tone drop in his voice. Looks like he really missed those eventful days of his. So with a sigh and a forgiving smile on your face you agreed to his whims, "Nevermind it's alright, you can fish as much as you want we can go after some time"

Oh what a sight it was when his eyes literally sparkled with joy and the way his ears perked up hearing your words of affirmation. "Thanks babe! Watch me catch the biggest one for you!"

Oh it's going to be a long day...

— ୨୧ ZHONGLI

The vibrant kites were visible from the small window of your house. Lantern Rite comes every year with a new surprise yet even before the preparations are completed before the event, the hustle and bustle of the people as they scurried to prepare meticulously for the biggest event was a joy that could never eb expressed in words.

So here you were. Atop a hill overseeing the entirety of Liyue Harbour with your lover resting on you lap as you played with his hair as soft as the silk flowers and as fragrant as qingxins.

"Do you like the view Zhongli?" you quietly asked, keeping the comforting silence that prevailed amidst the two of you. "As always. Mortals and their customs have never ceased to amaze me." He hummed lowly as you scratched that one spot of his head. He had those areas on his head which felt better than the other places because...he's a dragon after all.

He looked up at you through his lashes and spoke, "Once the Liyue Harbour is decorated, let us visit Mount Aocang to give those old friends a little greeting." You smiled at how much he cared for those who lived along with him. "Sure let's do that"

[hanaybuns]

karamatsu is officially... k-k-k-k-kind?!

guys i still think its pretty significant that karamatsu is now officially described as "kind" in his character description.

like, it's been this kind of odd point of contention whether karamatsu is actually considered "kind" in canon. especially since the director said in 2016 that he's kind because he likes the idea of himself being kind, rather than actually being a kind hearted person.

i feel like this characterization is interesting because 1) it was written almost a decade ago so there have likely been many many changes since then and 2) you almost can't really prove this wrong one way or another? like lets say it's true and every time he has been kind, its because he likes the idea of being a kind guy, well that would kind of dampen his stronger character moments, like when he punched osomatsu or confessed to losing the letter in the movie.

but you also have evidence to support it, seeing as there'll be some moments where he looks like he's going to do the right thing, but ends up not doing it because it's not convenient for him. so i do think even now it kind of rings true, but i can't bring myself to fully believe that that's his motive every time he does something kind.

that being said, the head writer has gone on record calling him "kind" and "a good guy" a couple times in interviews and talks (according to jp twitter lol, but please please please take with a grain of salt), so I think there might be a slight difference in the way they interpret his character. but now that the director is gone and the head writer is still there, its interesting that we finally get the k word in his character description.

now, google translate is crappy and subject to mistakes, but i think that the "doesn't listen to what others say" part might be alluding to the idea of him being kind for himself rather than for others. i mean, we have entire skits revolving around the fact that he won't listen to what other people say in favor of doing his own thing

but i still think it's crazy that we actually got the word kind in his description. this is up there with jyushimatsu's description saying that he can be calm at times

like these are character traits that are objectively true, of course jyushi can be calm at times and kara is kinder compared to his brothers. but these were more so characteristics that shined through during moments within the show, not canonized descriptions.

jyushi is defined by his high energy, so the occasional calmness is a subversion of expectations. when you add it into his character description, the calm moments that he has will no longer subvert expectations, but instead reinforce the information we've been given about the character. it lends to the depth of his character and makes him feel more well rounded rather than a gag character that can sometimes be serious.

similarly, karamatsu being a narcissist is his main thing. so those moments of kindness that he had felt like a nice little flourish that made him more likable. now, those moments of kindness are a solidified part of his character, so we expect kindness from him rather than being pleasantly surprised when we get it.

i mean, just look at karamatsu's character description from the takoyaki party movie

"Second son of the Matsuno family. NEET, virgin. A rare narcissist. He doesn't listen to others. "Hmph, I love you."(ai shiteru ze)"

like do you see what i mean now? the older descriptions are more barebones and gag-oriented. they're describing what you need to know to get the punchline. these new character descriptions give you a better look at the whole picture.

anyways, this does make me very excited to watch the new season and see where they take these characters. also, everyone had very interesting thoughts about the new season in my last post, and i really enjoyed reading them!

[balimaria]

When it comes to the Chain of Memories novel, there is no shortage of odd lines that hint towards necklace theory and Riku is the light. But today I was looking it over and recalled these two passages which always struck me as VERY odd, even as a firm believer in both these theories. Mostly because... well, these are implying something strange. Something that I've never seen questioned, which is Kairi turning Sora back after he became a Heartless. I mean, why would anyone question it? It was clearly her, right? It's one of the only tangible things she does, which sucks to say. But lets look closer.

To clarify before we begin: I'm perfectly aware the novels are not primary canon. However, they are still canon supplements, so even if I take them with a grain of salt, I still take 'em. In fact, despite what I'll be talking about, I do think it was Kairi who saved Sora in KH1. However, even if it's not something I myself believe, there are just some weird things here I can't help but notice. So lets get into it.

I'd like to focus most on the final lines in each of these passages. Beginning with the first:

"Kairi was the one who told me that. So what is the light for me…? When I turned into a Heartless, the light I saw… That light was…"

This occurs near the start of Sora's journey when Axel first confronts him. You may recall that, in the game (ReCoM, at least) this is where Axel copies Riku's hand-reach gesture. While this gesture isn't described in the novel, it's still of note.

When Axel talks about "precious memories" and "someone important" he is, in his mind, just buttering Sora up to "remember" Namine. But those familiar with necklace theory (which I am assuming you are, so I'm not going into depth) will be able to see the implications of Sora having actually forgotten Riku, rather than Namine. But what's REALLY juicy is Axel saying "you've lost sight of the light within the darkness," which has obvious ties to Riku is the light (also assuming you are familiar, so not going into depth). It's even similar phrasing to what Chirithy uses later in KH3.

All of this leads Sora to think about what Kairi told him, as well as when he was turned into a Heartless. Curiously, Sora trails off when thinking about what the light really was. A purely surface-level reading would tell you this: Sora thinks of what Kairi told him, which leads him to think about what the light that brought him back was when he turned into a Heartless. He trails off, leaving the reader to fill in the blank with what seems to be the obvious answer: Kairi. Sora was just thinking of Kairi. Axel talked about a light in the darkness. Kairi talked about a light in the darkness. The most important person to Sora is Kairi. A plus B equals C.

Now lets look at it through a necklace theory/Riku is the light lens and assume these theories are the absolute intention here. It certainly fits the bill of what we know: what Sora actually forgot was Riku's promise, and the light within the darkness is actually Riku. Here is where we get to the weird part: why in the world is it being implied that Kairi is not the person who saved Sora from being a heartless? Well, the obvious answer is Namine. But that doesn't actually change the implication when viewing it through the lens of these theories. Half the idea of necklace theory is that Namine is replacing Riku rather than Kairi.

So why bring this moment in particular into question? If the author isn't actually implying these theories, then sure, it's pretty cut and dry. But Tomoko Kanemaki has never shied away from the Soriku side of things, and I truly believe she's in on the idea here. But still, Kairi and Sora are important to each other. Not everything Kairi does or is is actually Riku. Kairi can have saved Sora here, and Riku can still be the light/have given the meteor shower promise. But if we are taking the implications into account (and especially the much more overt question posed in the second quote, more on that soon) then that seems to be what's happening here.

There's even one additional point I'd propose: if Sora trailing off is not just a question posed to the reader about who the light is, but rather (or also) Sora starting to forget who his most important person is, then why is he able to perfectly recall Kairi's name and something she told him just a moment before? Unless he was actually forgetting something about Riku? I don't particularly think this holds much water, though - Sora can be seen remembering Kairi's name later on, even though he has forgotten things about her. Just another odd tidbit.

Okay, on to the second quote.

"But…he only believed that because when he got his body back, Kairi had been holding him. What if it had really been someone else who saved him?"

This quote is just 100% putting the question out there. Again, if we're taking this at surface level, this is Sora calling his memory into question now that Namine has invaded them. He's probably wondering if this mystery girl he can't quite remember was actually the one who saved him.

A little bit more context, this is when Sora is speaking to the Cheshire Cat. Again, we have all the double meanings the necklace theory implies. In fact, just a bit earlier was this quote:

"The Queen of Hearts certainly did seem stubborn. But how could they get someone else’s memory back? It was hard enough to remember things you forgot yourself… Like the things that happened when you were very young."

Which certainly ties into the meteor shower. Now we run the same course as last time: If these things about Namine/Kairi are actually about Riku, then why is one of the few things Kairi (seemingly) definitively did being called into question?

...Well, I don't really have an answer. Sorry! I did mention at the start that I do think Kairi saved Sora here, even though her Princess of Heart powers are very vague and it's not really clear how she did so. It is, of course, possible that this was not intended to be the implication at all and Riku is not involved in this case. However, even if that is the case, I don't think that's some kind of "gotcha" against necklace theory, Riku is the light, or Soriku in general. Even in game, not everything Namine replaces is Riku. In fact, it's really just that one essential memory of the promise. These are just a few sentences in a novel that's not even primary canon. What stuck out in my mind was simply the fact that these passages line up with necklace theory/Riku is the light perfectly, and then immediately afterwards Kairi saving Sora is called into question. Is it a mistake? An oversight? Does it even matter? Who knows! But it was something weird, so I wanted to talk about it. If you got this far, sorry if you were hoping for some grand theory, and thanks for reading!

[yermes]

Slipping back into the corpse of my 13 y/o self 🗑️🔥

Music:

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Pick a meme

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Disclaimer: please take what I say with a grain of salt and not as the gospel. I just want to share some ideas of practicing and giving advice using the medium as often as I can with school, work, and my own personal studies and practice. But I am working on sharing my notes soon so that will be exciting! Liking and sharing does a lot 🥰

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Feel free to stick around for a while **⋆**

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The cards 🃏 

Dr. Falke 🦇

Its like, you know when adults say “you will understand when you are older” about the most random mundane shit. But then you actually grow up and theres much more you realize as a child? Your prefrontal is your eye to god, when you get older, the more your brain develops the more you understand. As well as your lived experience. Have you ever looked back on something you wondered 20 (more or less) years ago as a young kid and you finally found your answer? Lost secrets have been unveiled to you will the passage of time and all the adventures and brain growth along the way. Actively seek ways to grow in your life. Actively look for answers bc that is all you wanted in your younger years. Be diligent and be aware.

The Moon 🌙 

There is an odd feeling to being young again and a feeling that finds you in the middle of the day, when the sunlight hits you at just the right time, when you lay in grass and you play with dandelions and you can pretend like none of this ever fucking existed, like you don’t have to live through this historical nightmare. I think when shit gets so bad we get delusional, we start projecting backwards in time to a simpler era. The biggest scam was growing up and its shitty for people to set up adulthood like its an elite end game placing people to race through childhood. Childhood is not a race, it is not a destination it is just several small aspects of yourself that are all still there and present in your person. Let yourself get taken back to better times, let your younger self come in and give perspective, live in a way that you will be comforted in shit times.

The inferno (rev) 🤺

God your emotional breakdown takes victims that toll in the millions, its the next global epidemic. I know once you get going its hard to let up, but you gotta let it go, you had your teeth wrapped around your point, that your points neck is broken and bleeding out everywhere. Do not get too worked up in your sense of justice which is pouring out of every pore. You are a mess, and you know that is okay. We are all messes in our own right. But tbh I think you let other peoples shit dictate how you are going to feel to often. I know people are fucking annoying it will always be that way and you need to let them and their shit go bc right now its just a massive source of oxygen fueling the fire. Do not let them stroke the flames bc you are already on the edge of combustion. Have that temper tantrum do not invalidate yourself but hold your own hand as you work through feelings

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Extras: 🌾

Personal/ updates:

I just bought the godiest Norwegian sweater will send pics when I have it

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[psychicreadsgirl]

Pick a Kpop Album Cover: How Others Will Perceive You and Your Next S/O

Pick the cover that draws you the most. If you can't choose between 2, then take a look at both of the readings. This is a general reading, so it might not resonate with everyone. Take what resonates and leave what doesn't behind.

#1

They will see you two as a power couple. You two seem to have it all and everything seems to be picture perfect, even though it might not always feel like that deep down.

You do have some people supporting you two as a couple.

There'll be a lot of jealousy from others. Many will try to lure your s/o away from you or they will try to lure you away from your s/o. These situations can perhaps cause tension between you and your s/o.

#2

People will feel like there's something sketchy or odd about your relationship. Some can't really pinpoint what's off, but somehow this pairing makes people wonder why you two are together. You two might perhaps be polar opposites or just don't seem like you'd be the type to be together (i.e. maybe you're the nerd and they're the jock etc.)

I don't feel like you have a lot of people rooting for you two to have long union. It seems like most people feel like you two are destined to break up and if you do break up, there'll be people coming to you going like oh I knew that would happen etc.

#3

People don't really feel much about your relationship. You two seem sort of like wall flowers in people's lives. They don't care about you two being together, which isn't a bad thing. People won't particularly judge you two. They will just see you two as a couple and that's it.

I don't see people particularly hating, loving, or caring about you two. You two will probably have quite a bit of privacy from others and probably will not have many friend groups. It's possible that you two both have very small families too or perhaps no family (i.e. parents have passed away and no siblings etc.)

#4

All eyes are somehow on you two. You two are the "gossip" that people are constantly talking about behind your backs. Somehow the way you two get together or perhaps the fact that you two are together just makes people chit chat. It's possible that one of you is either quite well known/rich/powerful within the community, area, city, town, province, state, country or perhaps one of you just knows a lot of people. For some reason you two will become "gossip" and your relationship may perhaps land in online forums, newspapers, articles, social media, etc. If not, you two will certainly be talked about behind both of your backs like people texting/calling each other to discuss you two.

You have a mixed set of people rooting for you two, hating you two, wanting you two to break up etc. You'll definitely have some haters and some supporters. It's really a mixed bag.

My advice to you is just to not let the "Gossip" get to you or your relationship. Your friends or colleagues or family may come to you with stories or news or articles or whatever that they heard or learned about your s/o, but you should take those things with a heavy grain of salt. Much of it, if not all are false; you should trust your gut. Your s/o's circle of people might also do the same to them.

The key is to trust your s/o and trust youself. Don't let others get to you.

#5

I feel like a lot of people are expecting you to run away from this relationship. They feel like your s/o is toxic or is not good for you. They want you to leave your s/o. In some cases, these people are right, but in other cases, they are wrong about your s/o. It will be up to you to make that call.

I do sense that people don't particularly like your s/o. They feel like your s/o doesn't match you and that you should break up with them. They feel like your s/o is like a leech? At least that's what I'm getting.

I just feel like people are generally concerned that you're dating this person. Perhaps this person has a bad reputation previously (like maybe they were a player and now people feel like you're just getting played or perhaps they have a criminal record and so people don't think you are safe wtih them etc). In these situations it's really up to you to decide whether you should continue your relationship with your s/o.

#6

I see that your family or their family (more so like parents/grandparents/elders) really support this relationship. They feel like this a match in heaven. They really like your s/o and hope you two will be together for the long run.

Generally people feel like you two are quite cute together and admire your relationship with your s/o. You two give off like those cute couples on IG that make a couple's IG account.

You may, however, have someone, perhaps a friend, who wants to break you two apart. It might come from your end or theirs, or maybe it's one of their siblings that really dislikes you.

[a-host-of-dancing-daffodils]

HOKAI so I have been wanting to do a post about this for a while so in order to distract myself from The Horrors here we go!!

What's Up With the Countess??

I'd like to start by pointing out that this analysis is almost entirely based on Episode 3.7 of the show (The Double Clue) because I haven't read any of the books that she's in / mentioned in. SO. Feel free to Take All of This with a Grain of Salt. But. as far as the show is concerned. I believe I am. Onto Something Here.

While I do think that the Countess if she's even really a Russian Countess...we'll get there DEFINITELY has the hots for Poirot (I mean. Who could blame her? He is Very Sexy), I do NOT think Poirot wants her carnally at all. He does seem compelled by her. And he does seem to both Respect Her Methods and Want to Study Her Like a Bug. And he seems to relate to her as a refugee a great deal and, from this, seems to feel a bit protective of her in some ways. But let's take a look at how he actually interacts with her, and it'll become clear: the attraction seems to be VERY one-sided, and it seems to on the part of the countess, not on the part of Poirot. This is especially clear if we contrast their interactions with the way Poirot acts around Hastings (with whom. we all know that Poirot is actually in love. and I will Die on that Hill Thank You Very Much).

Anyroad! I will put most of this post under a readmore because it got superduper long. like. it is now legitly essay-length and yes there are citations LOL

Итак. Начнем. [So. Let's begin] The way Poirot acts when he first sees the Countess, I can get why Hastings thinks he was "taken" with her. But.

If you ask me, I think it's quite the opposite: she was quite taken with him right away, and I think he picked up on this...and immediately thought "Oh. Oh, I can use this".

Case in point: We see him use another person's attraction to him to probe into their involvement in a case in other episodes, too, such as in 10.3 After The Funeral:

And that's what his interactions with the Countess feel like to me especially since, as he talks to her, she seems to be bent on giving herself away to him?? at nearly every opportunity??

But his interactions with the Countess differ from the other cases of him doing this in two ways. For one, they have the added aspects of him understanding what she's gone through as a refugee and relating to her in this way. In some ways, he seems to understand why she would turn to a life of crime, and it seems like he very much respects her, but (for two) because of this, he wants to warn her away from trying to live this lifestyle in HIS territory. During their interactions, he is CONSTANTLY implying that he IS onto her and he WILL Get Her if she's not careful. Which. only seems to make her want him more? and. I mean. Fair I guess. He's So Sexy when he's Dangerous.

First, during their initial little promenade together, he tells her that he's the most famous detective in all of England - this is a bit of a downplay from his usual "greatest detective who ever lived" shtick, which I always found to be a bit odd...but when you really sit down and think about it, it almost feels like he's firing a warning shot across her bow...Like he's trying to warn her that he's on her trail, and England specifically isn't big enough for the both of them.

and don't even get me STARTED ON THE IMAGERY HERE of the stone ornament in the foreground LITERALLY SEPARATING THEM FROM EACH OTHER as they talk about this???? LIKE!!??? HELLO???

Then. After this, SHE'S the one who brings up that he's investigating the jewel thefts (plural), and he smiles as he says, "It seems a simple matter, Madame." Like. 'Oh yes. And I already know who did it.'

And when she ASKS HIM IF HE SUSPECTS HER, he turns it right back on her by asking "Should I?" And she admits "I was there". IMPLYING SHE WAS ON THE SCENE OF EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF THE JEWEL THEFTS. NOT JUST THE LATEST ONE. LIKE??? JUST CONFESS TO HIM OUTRIGHT THAT YOUDONEIT, WHY DONT'CHA???

And then, when they're at the museum, she brings up a specific one of the jewel thefts, implying that it is 'the perfect crime', and he fires another few warning shots, implying that he knows it was her:

"It is strange that you should choose to relate this to me, Countess, I also have read of it. Oh yes, the Atherton Diamonds? And it is true that the police, they were confounded, but it is because they look with the eye that is too, uh...English"

He then MENTIONS that the police failed to think of who the lowest common denominator was - who was present for all of the thefts?

and then he all but points the finger at her when he says "Because the culprit, he is not English enough".

And Look at their expressions here! She seems to be very exited by the danger he poses to her. She is leaning in. She is INTO this. But Poirot's little smile? That isn't an I'm Into This smile. That looks like his I'm Onto You smile. It doesn't even really reach his eyes.

^^^^That^^^^? is NOT the smile of a smitten man.

Now THIS? THIS is the smile of a smitten man:

Like. When Poirot meets Hastings again at Styles? When he smiles that fond little smile at Hastings in so many different episodes?? His WHOLE FACE smiles. His eyes. His nose. His cheeks. His lips. He positively Glows with it. You look at that smile and you can FEEL the fondness radiating off of him.

He smiles at the Countess? and there's nothing in his eyes but a warning. In fact, sometimes when he's smiling "at" her, he's ACTIVELY LOOKING AWAY from her.

Which leads us to some other points about Poirot's behaviour and body language when he's around the Countess: Poirot seems to be very Pointedly Keeping the Countess at Arm's Length, which. He kinda does that to everyone, sure (in some ways, he even keeps Hastings at arm's length, too). But. I feel like many of his particular behaviours towards the countess wouldn't make sense if he was actually interested in her:

Firstly. Taking Poirot's own understanding of Love as our definition, when someone is in love with someone else, they smile at them and can't take their eyes off them (see episode 11.3 The Third Girl). and if you take another look at those pictures above, you'll see: Poirot's behaviour towards HASTINGS fits this definition quite well, actually.

And sure, Poirot smiles at the Countess sometimes. But, as I mention above, HE BARELY LOOKS AT HER WHEN THEY'RE TOGETHER. And half the time, he's looking off into space and he seems to be deep in thought.

During their first little promenade scene, he glances at her all of three times, and each time, it is for less than 2 seconds. He's not gazing at her like a man infatuated.

He gazes at Hastings, though. (Oh my, does he GAZE at Hastings. And Hastings gazes right back.)

Secondly, the Countess calls Poirot 'Hercule' twice in this episode, and each time, he doesn't seem to like it very much.

When the Countess calls Poirot 'Hercule' for the first time, it's at the museum. In response, he simply says "I do not think that there is anyone of my acquaintance who calls me by that name" (I would read that as a clear reminder that, она - знакомая, а не друг, и для русскоговрящего, это - очень важное различение [she's an acquaintance not a friend, and that is a very important distinction for a Russian speaker]). And when she apologises, he doesn't reassure her that it's alright. He doesn't say something to the effect of "Oh, it is alright for you to call me Hercule, I was simply surprised". No. He says "Madame." and goes DEAD SILENT. Almost as if to say "Yeah. Don't call me that." It's like he's saying "You're not allowed to get close to me. Don't Even Try."

And here's him looking away from her right after it happens. Again, I feel like he'd at least be looking at her if he was actually happy to be called that again

The second time she calls him Hercule, it's when she's about to leave on the train:

"Oh, I won't forget you, Hercule." "Nor I you... countess."

When he answers her, HE ANSWERS WITH HER TITLE, NOT HER NAME, and he doesn't even lean into her kiss look at how far out the window she's leaning, like. c'mon.

Which brings us to my third point: he doesn't seem to want to touch her. And when she touches him, he doesn't seem to know how to Handle It.

Like. To provide contrast for this, we know he touches Hastings every chance he can get, because whenever he gets an excuse, it's clear that he wants to touch him so bad. Just for one in-episode example, in the wound-care scene, he's feeling guilty for putting Hastings in danger, so he leaves his hand on Hastings' shoulder for a good. like. 20-30 seconds. He wants Hastings to feel his remorse, and so he lets his hand linger. and watch closely the next time you watch this episode, because when it's time for him to leave, he doesn't just take his hand away, he lets it slowly slip off Hastings' back like he doesn't want to let go.

And don't even get me STARTED on Hastings' Biting little Jealous "Where are you taking her?" Comment BABY IT'S OKAY HE'S NOT ACTUALLY INTO HER YOU ARE HIS ONE AND ONLY LOVE

He does touch the countess at the Picnic, but it's only for a moment, and, the way the shot is framed so that we never see his expression as he reacts to the touch? it really seems to be more for her benefit than it is for his own.

And when the countess takes his arm at the museum, he doesn't smile, he doesn't blush or look flustered. No. He was smiling to himself right before that, and the second she takes his arm, he looks surprised and he actually STOPS SMILING. Look at the set of his eyebrows...pointing down towards the bridge of his nose instead of up. He almost looks annoyed.

^^I don't feel like this is the behaviour of a man who is happy to be receiving attention from someone he's attracted to. I feel like this is the behaviour of a man who is NOT into this at all, but he's gotta keep stringing her along if he wants to distract her from stealing more jewels^^

Which brings us to my next point: Yes, he's 'taking her out on dates' or 'letting HER take HIM out on dates' or whatever. But when you think about why he's doing this? He seems to be trying to Keep Her Occupied. No more jewel thefts? No more threats to Japp's career.

and again. DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE IMAGERY HERE. She's reclining on the blanket and he's not even reclining next to her!! He's frikken SITTING IN A CHAIR ABOVE HER. That's not "I'm into this person" behaviour!!!

Perhaps he's doing this as an experiment - if there is a robbery while they are together, he can eliminate her as a suspect, but if not...

Of Course. He Can't eliminate her as a suspect. Because He Knows She Totally Did It. But he kinda feels sorry for her. Because in some ways? He can relate to losing everything. In some ways, he respects her. And in some ways, he thinks of what she does as a necessary evil.

He tells us as much at their picnic together when he implies to her that it's criminals (like her) that give him job security. Perhaps he respects how smart she is and how well she was able to commit the crime he was brought in to investigate (even though he obviously saw right through her from the very beginning). And perhaps he also respects that, despite her chosen occupation, she chooses to be a Refined and Proper Lady who Doesn't Kill People and Only Robs Rich People. And that she's clearly someone with a method. All things Poirot can respect/appreciate.

THEN. TO KEEP HER OCCUPIED WHEN HE CAN'T DO IT HIMSELF, he gets two other private detectives to keep an eye on her, implying that they're there to make sure she leaves the country without doing any more crime: "during your time here in England, there have been four very clever robberies. I do not wish for you to be involved in a fifth."

SO. Poirot basically spends the entire episode trying to give the Countess time to run away and continue her...somewhat necessary work Somewhere Else Please And Thank You and to sneakily tell her 'England isn't big enough for the both of Us. Don't You Dare Let Me Catch You Being a Thief in My Town Ever Again Or I Will Not Be Able To Give You A Second Chance And It Will Greatly Sadden Me.'

And he says it right out loud when he says: "You must continue your work and I must continue mine. But not in the same country."

AND FINALLY, and perhaps most importantly, let's get to the whole reason I started writing this post in the first place: What's UP with the Countess??

Well. I don't think she's the Countess Vera Rossakoff at all. I don't even think she's actually Russian.

What? Yes. Listen.

So She's supposed to be this countess-turned-refugee from Petrograd (which is known today as St. Petersburg)? Okay. You know what? Fair. I would absolutely buy that she's a refugee given that she seems to understand what it's like to lose everything. And it is clear that she is familiar enough with Russia to understand something about Russian impressionist artists and to know that an educated Russian person at the time would absolutely know how to speak French.

And she does make a compelling statement when she calls the city she is supposedly from Petrograd (even though by the time when the episode is set, it would have already been renamed to Leningrad); By calling the city Petrograd and not Leningrad, she's invoking a time period during The Great War when anti-german sentiments were enough to take the german-root words Sankt and Burg out of the city's name, but of course, in her case, right up until the Bolsheviks rose to power, which would supposedly be a clue as to when she left Russia.

So Why don't I think she's Actually Russian if she does all these things """correctly"""?

Well. I'm a Linguist. So my impression is mostly based on how she speaks.

First of all, we never actually hear her speaking Russian (only French and English), and the way she speaks English doesn't follow some of the more frequent patterns of Russian phonotactics and grammatical constructions that often find their way into Russian speakers' English. For example, she uses the sound [ð] (the "th" sound in words like "this" and "the"), which is a notoriously difficult sound for Russian speakers to learn because it's not a sound that's found in Russian, and even her education in French wouldn't be able to help her master that sound, because it's not a sound Parisian French speakers typically use either. Moreover, she uses definite and indefinite articles (the words "the" and "a" respectively), which are notoriously difficult for native Russian speakers to learn because Russian does not have these articles. Her education in French should help her with these, but even if it did, she would probably use more of them than a native English-speaker would expect (kind of like Poirot does) because articles are used in more places in French -- and she doesn't.

Second of all, she doesn't use Russian intonational patterns in the places I would expect to hear it. For example: she asks 'Do you suspect me?' with a rising intonation at the end of the phrase. Based on the Russian intonational patterns most commonly used with questions, I would expect a Russian speaker to say 'Do you suspect me?', emphasising the focal word instead and ending the phrase with a falling intonation.

(Obviously, in reality, these little quirks of her speech are probably just due to writing choices and the actress not knowing much about speaking Russian / probably not having an accent coach, but. It's fun to come up with little in-universe explanations for these things!!)

SO. Let's be real, lads. A jewel thief could absolutely assume the identity of a dead Russian countess if she said all the right things & had enough money from hocking her wares to buy a really nice wardrobe and some good luggage / manage to look and act the part.

But the simplest--and, if you ask me, most damning--piece of Evidence-That-She's-Not-Russian of all?

That would be her saying that she has no use for the cigarette case Poirot tries to give her because she read the initials engraved there as the English letters 'B' and 'P'.

AND POIROT IS THE ONE WHO HAS TO EXPLAIN TO HER that those symbols also stand for the 'V' and 'R' sounds in Russian!!!!

AND WHEN HE DOES, she only looks dumbfounded and says "You've been studying!"

If she was really a Russian Speaker? She would have taken one look at the BP on that cigarette case and read it as a 'V' sound & an 'R' sound just as easily as reading it as English "B" & "P".

Source? As a bilingual English-Russian Speaker myself, what happened in my head immediately upon seeing that cigarette case at the beginning of the episode. Was that my brain unhelpfully lol supplied both the English Phrase "Blood Pressure" and the Russian Word "время" (time), which starts with those two letters.

I would argue that. If the Countess was really a Russian speaker, a similar kind of thought process should have happened in her brain, too. And given that Russian is supposedly her first language (or at least one of the ones she would have had the most exposure to), she should have read those letters as 'V' & 'R' first. But this so-called Vera Rossakoff? Reads these letters as the English 'B' & 'P'? Come ON.

Now. I guess you could argue that, since she was in England and speaking English with Poirot at the time, that she would have been ""In English Mode"" and that she could have "Not Been Thinking" that BP also makes the 'V' & 'R' sounds in Russian.

But. There is a lot of literature out there in the psycholinguistics world to suggest that multilinguals cannot suppress one of their languages to that extent (especially not a language one has supposedly known since birth) - and most recent scholarship on competition between a multilinguals' languages agrees on one thing: words and sounds in all the languages known to the multilingal are activated in the brain during linguistic processing.

There are many psycholinguistics studies which delve into these mental processes. In case you're interested in the scholarship on this particular topic, here's some links: Here's one that talks about between-language competition during reading in multilinguals who speak languages with different scripts (English vs. Korean): Moon & Jiang (2011) Here's one that talks about between-language competition between words with a similar orthography (spelling) during reading in Dutch-English Bilinguals: van Heuven, W. J. B., Dijkstra, T., & Grainger, J. (1998) And here's a couple of studies by the same people that focus on a similar kind of between-language competition in Russian-English bilinguals specifically (although it's about spoken language instead of reading, but the mechanisms in the brain are probably very similar): Marian & Spivey (1999); Marian & Spivey (2003)

All of the above scholarship basically suggests that, when someone is processing words or sounds, even if the sounds/words of one of their languages do eventually get less activation than those of another, there is always some activation of all languages known to the multilingual at any given time during processing, and that competition between languages for activation differs depending on how familiar a speaker is with a given language (in other words, the more familiar the person is with a specific language, the more likely its words/sounds/etc. are to get activated in the brain during perception or production).

ANYWAY. I'M SORRY I KNOW SOME OF THAT WAS WORD SOUP. BUT LADS?? ALL I'M REALLY FUCKEN SAYING. IS SHE DAMN WELL SHOULD HAVE RECOGNISED HER OWN FUCKING INITIALS.

THEREFORE. TLDR??? I DON'T THINK SHE'S REALLY A RUSSIAN SPEAKER. BECAUSE ANY RUSSIAN SPEAKER WOULD SEE THE LETTERS ON THAT CIGARETTE CASE AND READ 'V' & 'R' FIRST. AND IF SHE DIDN'T RECOGNISE SOMETHING SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GETTING FAMILIAR WITH FROM THE TIME SINCE SHE STARTED LEARNING HOW TO READ, I DON'T THINK THOSE ARE REALLY HER INITIALS.

AND I BROUGHT A BIBLIOGRAPHY TO PROVE IT.

ALSO. TO RECAP MY POINTS FROM EARLIER. POIROT WAS NEVER INTO HER, EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE--INCLUDING HASTINGS--THOUGHT HE WAS.

NO. HE WANTED TO STUDY HER LIKE A BUG BECAUSE SHE'S A JEWELLERY THIEF WHO IS GOOD ENOUGH AT HER 'CHOSEN OCCUPATION' TO IMPERSONATE A RUSSIAN COUNTESS AND BASICALLY GET AWAY WITH IT, DESPITE ALL THE STUPID MISTAKES SHE'S BEEN MAKING. AND, LIKE A BUG, POIROT CAN APPRECIATE HER PLACE IN THE ECOSYSTEM, AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT INCLUDE HIS HOUSE.

IN THIS EPISODE, HE BASICALLY PUTS HER IN A GLASS JAR FOR A FEW DAYS TO OBSERVE HER SO SHE WILL STOP WREAKING HAVOC AND THEN HE PUTS HER OUTSIDE AND TELLS HER NEVER TO COME BACK INTO THE HOUSE AGAIN, OR ELSE.

AND!!! LET ME REITERATE!! THAT!!! HERCULE POIROT!!! IS IN LOVE!! WITH ONE PERSON!! AND ONE PERSON ONLY!! AND THAT PERSON'S NAME IS CAPTAIN ARTHUR J.M. HASTINGS!!!

I REST MY CASE YOUR HONOUR.

Anyway!!!! TLDR-TLDR: If you ask me, Poirot's behaviour towards the countess isn't that of a Man in Love. It's the calculating behaviour of someone who knows a good adversary when he sees one (even if her attraction to him made her transparent from the start) and a man who would feel a little like he was vandalising an exquisite forgery of a Rembrandt if he had to go and get her arrested - like. Sure, she may not be the real thing, but damn, is she good at playing her part.

AANYWAAY Now that I have shouted my opinions at the subway walls. I will stop here. because this post has already gotten entIRELY too long.

If you made it this far in this post, thank you very much for reading my ramblings to completion!! I hope you enjoyed them!! Спасибо за ваше внимание!!

[hvly]

WINDBREAKER VIRGINS YOU SAY 👀👀👀

— ⋆｡˚｡⋆ ｡˚ 𓆩𖥔𓆪 ˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆ —

speaking : yep, you heard right 🙂‍↕️ every show/manga i read is gonna get hit with my virgin ray. "i love virgins, anon ! I LOVE VIRGIIINS !"

𓆩𖥔𓆪 — disclaimer ! these are just my opinions ! if you disagree, cool. let's keep it cute. tbh, they all could be virgins, but they’re the most pressing in my eyes.

Nirei Akihiko

Don't get me wrong, I like Nirei alot ! I think he's super cute and he's so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. But, until his confidence goes up, ain't nothing going down. i do think he has a separate notebook with sex tips that's he gathered from various sources. From friends he worked up the courage to ask, to Cosmo articles, to the pornos he watches on lonely nights. When he finally get brave enough to try though, best believe he'll be prepared for any possible scenario.

Sugishita Kyotaro

Again, I feel like perhaps because he's tall, quiet and handsome, y'all think he'd be laying pipe. I mean, the quiet ones are usually the nastiest in bed, right? extremely loud incorrect buzzer. It'd be a miracle to actually get a sentence out of him. And it'd be another miracle to convince him to come shake the sheets instead of playing Umemiya's shadow. The plants he takes care of have a better chance getting wet by him than you ever will.

Tsugeura Taiga

Straight up, he just scares away any possible suitors. Plus, he's a little slow on the uptake. Between being loud and a bit off putting, and his his inability to catch social cues, he is unfortunately stuck in perpetual virgindom. That's it, that's all.

Sakura Haruka

Now, put the torches and pitchforks down before y'all drag me to the town square. How do we as a collective think Sakura would react if he saw you naked? Stand there reveling in the majesty that is you, dick so hard he might pass out? No. He'd turn red and start yelling before you even get your shoes off. Get him more comfortable with being romantic/sexual, and i’m sure the yelling, stomping, flailing and cherry red blush will die down…in a couple years. Best of luck !

Saku Mizuki

Wannabe General Mizuki. The minute I saw him, I knew he was getting NO pussy. And that makes me sad for him, it truly does. He's too stiff. If, for some odd reason on your part, you decided to lay the moves on him, he'd probably lecture you on how it's inappropriate to shamelessly flirt with people. He'd kill the mood so bad. Plus that one dude called him ugly and he turned around..oof

Takiishi Chika

Take this one with a grain of salt, but from what I've gathered...he just would not be interested. I'm sure Endo has tried bringing it to his attention before. And I'm also sure he got the fire knocked out his ass as soon as it left his mouth. Now, if does decide to get his dick wet, I hope you're fully resigned to letting him do whatever he wants and possibly leaving unsatisfied. Utter anything that sounds like you're telling him what to do? Let's leave getting beat up to Endo, mkay?

Shuhei Suzuri

I think he finds fulfillment and joy in his hobbies and that's all he needs. Being able to cook for people and enjoy his games gives him the satisfaction he was missing when he was in extreme poverty. I'm sure he wouldn't really mind losing his virginity either way, but it's definitely not on the forefront of his mind. A consistently full belly and a couple video games is good enough for now.

Choji Tomiyama

He thinks everything is a game and plays entirely too much to just be fucking for real. And I think he's fine with that ! He's carefree and he's content knocking people's heads together. I do think you could probably get him to give losing his virginity a true shot if you compare him to Umemiya or make it a competition, though. But who's gonna do all that to nut? (I really just added him to make one specific person mad. Let me know if it worked <3)

Honorable Mention : Togame Jo & Umemiya Hajime

Just cuz I want to be the one to take their virginity. I have no real reason LMAOOO.

© 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 hvly 2024. 𝘋𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘧y.

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 3x10, "merry little christmas"

this is the about the time i googled "how long does the tritter arc last for?" on my first go-around.

tw for self-harm, drug overdose, & vomit.

yeesh. this one hurts way more during this watch. it's odd that the season chose to go so raw before even the halfway point imo, and i feel the potential for me to be a wee bit controversial which i genuinely don't like lol. i like to keep these things palatable for most/ideally all! by that i mean to take this recap with a grain of salt; sometimes a story/art/media strikes us at a personal level, which can heighten the experience more than we expect (*raising my hand*).

but what's ultimately relieving about 3x10 is that, for all its controversy, it ends on a unifying note: FUCKKKKK TRITTER. i'll build to that one, though.

so, let me be frank and honest at the top - wilson was not ultimately wrong in 3x10. in fact, i think he did what was best (which is quite rare for him LOL). the experience of having a friend like house is draining, despite all the love in the world that exists there, and it's damn near impossible to maintain that tough love front that wilson holds onto throughout 3x10, in spite of everyone else cracking. i have found myself in similar shoes, and while it's hard to admit that i relate to wilson in any capacity (because YIKES!), i do in this regard. that we see his decision process from 3x08-3x09, witnessing house's descent, makes his reaction all the more believable and, to me, reasonable.

let's keep adding onto the controversy lol - the exchange between wilson and cameron made me MAD, because if wilson's motivations for depriving house of vicodin were selfish...he would have already done it. he would have gone to tritter during the dozens of times he's been pestering wilson to flip on house. he wouldn't have asked for cameron's help in treating his patients; he just would have gone and flipped and ripped the bandaid off.

"i made this deal to help him." / "and to help yourself at the same time."

again, what house md is asking us to grapple with: if loving causes loving/kindness inr return, is that such a bad thing? NO.

"was it an easy choice?" / "of course not, but it's right."

cameron's frustration that wilson's choice is complicated here is literally inane to me, such that i think this conversation could have been written better so that she could have made a more compelling point. the decision is complicated BECAUSE of the patients at stake, the very person who cuddy, foreman, and chase were just advocating for in the scene prior. it's wilson and cameron who are making this about HOUSE. they both have deeply personalized the problem.

and then cameron goes on to NOT give house the pills...WHICH IS WHAT WILSON HAS BEEN GETTING AT! i'm frustrated with how cameron is portrayed here because it feels like 3x10 is using her as a mouthpiece for a pretty flimsy dissenting opinion about house rather than exploring how she would really operate in this situation. i usually like what happens when we put these 2 in a room together (wilson and cameron), but it didn't work for me here.

house makes a fleeting comment, after securing his pills in the final third of the episode, that encapsulates how wilson is portrayed/vilified by the others in this episode - he mentions a syllogism. very sherlock of him. a syllogism refers to a series of presumptions made that amount to a certain conclusion - because A is good, and B and A are of the same X, then B is good, too.

when sharing his french fries with a young girl in the hospital, they argue over whether her stuffed animal is a dog or a bear. this technique of house's is what leads to the diagnosis, so it bears investigating, and i'm gonna make a reach so bold that if you haven't clicked off this recap yet, you will now.

re: syllogism: wilson tells on house to tritter; tritter wants to hurt house; therefore, wilson wants to hurt house. look how easy it is to qualify wilson's decision as inherently selfish!

house gets caught up on the appearance of this rampant fallacy, too, when tritter first explains the deal wilson struck to keep house out of jail. without even considering the broader reasons/implications/causes (which is inherently anti-house), he says to wilson that, "you need to believe that i've got a problem so that your betrayal has the illusion of nobility."

but i don't think this is the face of someone who's being illusory ^.

it works here, too: tritter means betrayal; wilson tells tritter about house; wilson betrays house. this is literally true, but in the mind of someone who takes in every extraneous factor when considering a problem, it's incredibly shortsighted. even tritter calls him out on this: "you need to deal with the reality of your situation."

you know who sees to the ultimate heart of the issue? amidst all the bullshit being flung wilson's way? FOREMAN: "wilson told us he ratted...he betrayed you. and you should take the deal."

it's literally that simple. the solution came come out of hurt. thank you, doctor eric foreman. i can get behind him in this episode 110%.

pivoting again (sorry for the poor organization here) - 3x10 pregames one of THE most important lines that qualifies house and wilson's relationship throughout the show. when wilson is leaving PPTH in 5x01, he tells house that he can't keep up with their "games" and "the late night phone calls." this is yet another example of the silent/unseen emotional labor that we know wilson does by implication alone (apologist moment lol). that same idea rears its head here when, as house realizes his final pleas to wilson aren't working, he saus: "the nausea is bad this time."

to clarify, i totally believe house, and i think he needs/deserves assistance in this forcible detox. i don't even agree with the entire premise of what's going on here. it's not right to force someone to endure withdrawals and it's agonizing to watch house go through this. on the whole, however, this entire situation can’t be simplified like that. like wilson said, it's complicated. and i think that's why wilson is just able to keep himself from folding:

house: "they would perscribe me that [anti nausea meds] in rehab."

wilson: "then you should go to rehab." jesus christttttt.

i bring up wilson's unseen labor because, for once, it is seen in 3x10, in all its ugliness and cruelty that we hope will amount to some degree of kindness. i talked about in 3x07 how wilson is the only current character to whom house is not deified. 3x10 picks up this thread as cameron (and chase and foreman, by extension) and cuddy renege on their tough-love front and give into house. even if he hadn't grabbed vicodin on his own, cuddy was prepared to give in because they needed the god of PPTH to save the day.

wilson, meanwhile, is making an impossible choice between 2 horrible outcomes: the patient's potential death vs. house's ultimate demise (bro was not gonna survive prison). and in an echo of 3x08's dilemma - who is wilson, a doctor or house's keeper? - wilson chooses house. he chooses house because he can see the humanity in him, and he can see that house is losing grip on it.

wilson is instantly vilified for this -- but not because of the potential patient fallout! because it's hurting house! this is not altruism. they all love house. they just don't love house in the way that wilson does/can (this will change, especially regarding cuddy, in the future).

notably, the only person who dares to stand near him during the initial ddx is cuddy.

house's humanity, and wilson's access to it, is ultimately showcased in the last scene of the episode, one of the hardest to watch in the entire show. both cuddy and cameron saw house considerably stripped back, with house even revealing his dangerous tendency toward self-harm when he's in withdrawal to cameron. interestingly/tragically enough, wilson knows this, too, re: 1x11 when he smashes his hand.

in house's ultimate state of collapse, barely conscious and lucky to be alive, wilson witnesses house at his worst and weakest. this is not deific. if anything, the power dynamics have completely inverted here.

the disgust wilson feels when he realizes how house got more vicodin is frightening, cruel, and nearly unforgivable. it also looks just like house in 3x09 when he was staring down cuddy and chase with fury in his eyes. quite literally staring down a "broken" god and rejecting faith. okay.

this sure looks like the exact opposite of a certain scene that takes place on the floor of house's apartment in a later episode...perhaps one called "the c-word," where we have the same dilemma presented to us - fault vs. unconditional love...a demolition of faith...with the roles reversed...hmm...

the grand irony of this all is that house knows, at a subliminal level, that what wilson is doing isn't wrong, at least not the essence of it. after initially relating to the mother of the patient, who has dwarfism, while her daughter was mistakenly diagnosed with it, house over time grows to resent her. and he especially disagrees with the mother's initial agreement with her daughter, that she won't take the growth hormone to remain as she is.*

house, when advising that the mother instructs her daughter to take the treatment that will physically change her, says: "tell her what you have to tell her. tell her you lied. even if you didn't."

my translation: do what you have to do to make her better. make her hate you, even if it's unfounded.

house's knack for preaching to his patients exactly what his loved ones are preaching to him and never noticing it is such a maddening, thrilling plot device. in this scenario, a distant hypothetical, he knows that it's best for wilson to bring house into healing, and that he's willing to do it, no matter how much it hurts both of them.

furthermore, house also highlights his own self-hatred in this scene, and the same defeatism that will plague him throughout the series. like we see in a lot of episodes, house can't understand why anyone would willingly forgo healing/saving; he's so desperate to live as he once did, pre-infarction, and this informs a lot of his doctoring. so when he tells the patient that helping the growth hormone along is her "ticket out of the freak show," he's lamenting how he feels that he will always be labeled a freak, and how he can't change. ouch!

the ultimate conclusion we can draw, however, is a surprisingly benevolent one (for the audience, i mean): house has been right all along in that tritter really is that evil.

expecting house to detox and have the mental clarity in 3 days to make an informed decision is preposterous, and tritter certainly knew this. he completely goes back on his word at the crucial moment, where house admits fault in the greatest way he's done yet (probably motivated by wilson verifying he was alive and then bolting. that's never happened before). the rage we feel toward tritter in this moment is cathartic because we can take a break from the right/wrong debate and focus all of our ire on this piece of dogshit.

i'm burning myself out with this one, so here are 2 rapid fire notes that add to the despair of 3x10:

the scene where cuddy comes to his apartment for help is like the anti-version of house's idyllic hallucination in 5x23. in that version, he's vulnerable enough to let her in. in this version, he can't stomach it. i've talked about the warm lighting in 5x23 before, and it's even mimicked, here!

2. chase decides to wear his bruised face not unlike an emblem of catholic suffering. unlike house, chase has been taught (presumably because, again, catholic) to find meaning in suffering and, eventually, absolution and forgiveness. house's glib dismissal of it in the first chunk of the episode shows chase the futility of appealing to house as his source of faith/authority any longer.

TLDR: i think wilson did his best. i don't think he was being innately selfish, and i don't think house is blameless. i think we are meant to let our hearts bleed for house. i think we are meant to find this episode grueling and morally complex, yet, above all, it communicates the way wilson and house can cut to their rawest selves in a way nobody else can. i think we all should just go back to 2005 and listen to "how to save a life" by the fray and reflect.

*i think there is certainly a degree of internalized ableism at play here, and not as a plot-point but as an episode/show-wide critique. it's clear that the patient's growth hormone deficiency is only affecting her physicality, so she has the right to reject said treatment, and implying that she must be fixed that way has some unfortunate subliminal messaging about conformity.

** i have a LOT more qualms with how house’s detox/rehab process is handled in season 6 btw so the issues captured in this recap will def be expanded on at that point.