#I still don't get why so many people put so much stock in what is said in these interviews (for this type of publication) they do the exact

[l-in-the-light]

The most embarrassing series of posts about Lawlu you will ever read: edition Whole Cake Island (part 12)

Lawlu in Whole Cake Island? There is none! Actually... do we really need Law to be present to analyze it, come to think of it? Luffy is really all we need; to watch his behaviour, things he says, his determination, to guess how Law's influence would show and how partying ways with him (even if temporarily) would impact Luffy.

This is the Alice in Wonderland Arc of One Piece, which means Luffy's main struggle will be to face himself, his own weakness, fears, and maybe even his own self-hatred. Which is why this time it won't be the usual scrutinizing analysis of frame by frame, but instead I will take a deep-dive into Luffy's mind. Are you ready? :D

Luffy starts Whole Cake Island arc in a rush. Because why wouldn't he feel in a rush? There's a wedding to stop! There's a chance they won't make it in time, after all. But... seeing how Zou ended, there's probably one more reason why Luffy is so irritated and wants to get things done as fast as possible... there will be someone waiting for him in Wano, alongside the rest of Luffy's own crew. Luffy could tolerate being seperated from his own crew for two years, but this two weeks trip to Whole Cake Island seems like a torture to him. What changed exactly between timeskip and now? Oh, right, Law got added into the picture ;)

"See? She didn't have any problem with my yeeting!" and I wish he could add "Law also had no trouble after I yeeted us in Dressrosa, you should be more hardboiled like him!", because I swear, this feels like the thing he actually means. And he is right, Law hated being yeeted, but he dealed with it just fine in the end, keeping his clear mind and sense of direction intact.

And then, out of nowhere, Luffy gains an interest in cooking. Luffy, of all people! The very same Luffy who thought a musician is more essential on the crew than a cook!

He even compares Nami's nutritional knowledge to a doctor instead of a cook. For Luffy, a cook is just someone who makes your food look and taste extra great, but it's not neccessary for a kid who grew up in a jungle eating everything the way it comes or simply by roasting it over a fire. So why is he suddenly so interested in cooking?? Is he missing Sanji that much? Is he trying to make his crew miss Sanji so the reunion is more emotional? Good guesses, but they have one flaw: they don't take Luffy's personality enough into account.

Back in East Blue, Luffy agreed to recruit a cook before a musician only because his crew wanted one and also because he's a freaking glutton.

"You guys are really rude, I made this food for you!" now that doesn't fit with Luffy's personality of "I want to eat all the meat". Suddenly, it's for them, hm?

Then he tries his own "kitchen sink curry", spits it out, shouts that's it's inedible and flips the table! Why so mad? Oh yeah, because as we learn soon after, he tried cooking multiple times and it's still something that can't be eaten. He tried so many times that he wasted a stock of food they had that was supposed to last them for a week, for all of them! And it's all gone in one day.

Luffy's frustration is understandable then, because this is what he considers to be "his best attempt". As we learn from SBS, Luffy's best dish is just a bowl of meat (in other words: pieces of meat put in a bowl lol), which means he would not prepare "curry" or any sort of exquisite dish for himself. He indeed did this dish with others in mind. He would be more likely to just roast whatever he caught and shove it towards them, asking "you want some?", if it was only about him.

Despite his constant failures, he's still not getting discouraged and wants to learn how to cook edible things for people to enjoy. Nami though stops him and tells him "to never go into the kitchen again", ouch. They have been starving for days as the result of Luffy's "cooking attempts" and Luffy almost lost his life as the result (eating poisonous skin of a fish they finally caught), so her reaction is understandable. But this should make us realize that Luffy, thanks to this whole (mis)adventure, understands Sanji better without even realizing it. After all, Sanji was also told to "never cook again" by his father.

But I think this adventure has one more meaning. Whole Cake Island is basically a tale about the good and bad sides of food industry, but also how food creates connections between people. And I think XxXholic covered the latter part better than I could ever put in words, so forgive me for the unexpected crossover here. You don't need to know XxXholic, its plot or characters to be able to follow the quotes, they also don't spoil anything from the plot, so don't worry. We're just following one of the many, many side characters there.

First of all, if you want to repay a debt or show your gratitude, the best way is to offer food and good drink. And the best way to do it, is to offer stuff you cooked yourself, because they require your own time and effort, and include your feelings (of gratitude and love) for the person you cooked it for. If someone does you a favour, it's a good idea to say "thanks" by preparing a dish they like, for example.

"I would like to cook with you and then eat it together. And then I would really like to know more about you. And for you to learn about me, as well" says the protagonist to one of his clients. Cooking together is a big thing because it creates an equal, mutual bond: you get to know me, I get to know you, and we can both try to become better at cooking together, but also better people for each other as well. Because by cooking we learn more about what the other person likes and dislikes, but also about their personality: their usual way of problem solving, about their patience, flexibility, stubborness, ability to learn etc. Your prefered way of cooking can also reflect your personality this way and you try to offer your best through a dish you put a lot of effort to make, for someone to enjoy.

You can learn a lot about yourself as well through cooking. If you compare your own cooking to someone else's, you can realize your own personality traits you wished you would have never noticed (for example impatience, like Luffy flipping the table in anger: even Nami called him out on it, Sanji would not approve of that action!). You might also realize that someone preparing food for you did it with lots of feelings, of kindness and love, and that's why that food tastes good. And if in comparison your own food is terrible, bland, without flavour or personality, it just shows you don't really share your own love with the world through the act of cooking. In Luffy's case up there, his food was so terrible (though definitely full of his personality lol) despite him putting in his best effort and feelings. How did it make him feel about himself? Perhaps like he has nothing good to offer to people he loves? But his final reaction is always this: try to be better and do better!

Luffy offering his failed attempts to his crew serves the same purpose: he's offering them what he has, even if the result is disgusting. But this is the kind of person Luffy is at the moment and he has nothing better to offer!

The sidestory in XxXholic has a happy ending, the struggle continues on and the woman's significant other supports her efforts and says they will wait for as long as it takes. Now, what does that have to do with One Piece? The reason this woman couldn't cook something that would taste good wasn't because she's clumsy, or didn't put any effort in or lacked knowledge (she actually studied cooking like it's an university subject, it clearly mattered a lot to her!).

What she lacked in the end was love, not for others, but for herself. She hated herself so much that she believed anything she would do would turn out bad (which is exactly what happened over and over), almost like she was subconsciously self-sabotaging her own efforts. And since she didn't have love for herself she had nothing to give to others either, despite caring for them and being so grateful to people who loved her the way she is, imperfect, disbelieving in her own worth, broken. She just didn't feel like she has anything to offer to all the great people around her.

Sounds familiar?

"What can you do?" Arlong asks Luffy. "You can't do anything, you're a disgrace as a captain". And Luffy proceeds to say he has great people who support him (which means he does not think of himself as great, he knows he lacks in so many ways), but there is one, just one thing he can do for them back: it's to beat up people like Arlong.

And yet despite that, in Whole Cake Island, Luffy attempts to do what he literally can't do: to cook. He knows he can't do it, but he tries it anyway, knowing very well what the end result will be. It's not that he lost his mind. We mustn't forget why he's doing a stealthy mission on WCI. It's exactly because he can't do what he usually does: beat up Big Mom. He promised he won't do it. But what *can* he do then? It's his struggle to become better and get out of his comfort zone, and he starts that from attempting cooking. It won't be the first or last time that he will fight against himself in this arc, even denying things he had the most confidence in. This is the arc in which Luffy loses the sight of what he can and can't do, and needs to come up with a new answer or rediscover the one he already had all along. This is Luffy in a crisis.

Now is that related to Luffy being seperated from Law and dealing badly with it? Or Luffy realizing how much he knows Law has faith in him and he wants to live up to it? Because like we established before, Luffy is doing this stealthy attempt only for the sake of his alliance with Law, he would not bother usually and would just destroy Big Mom because she's in his way. I can only imagine Luffy's inner struggle when he tries to come up with a new solution here but can't get any, nothing works out if he just can't beat up the bad guy and move on. Luffy's later refusal to eat anything that isn't Sanji's cooking, not even the syrup rain, must reflect how Luffy feels about himself in this moment: he feels pathetic and useless and he must hate himself for it.

There's one more angle to it. Luffy suspiciously wants to cook as fast as they're seperated from Law. He thinks nutritional knowledge is something a doctor does and he's impressed with it. Law is a doctor. It's not a stretch to think that Luffy wants to learn something new to impress his favourite person upon return. It's highly likely he wants to cook for Law as well (and he's using his crew for taste-testing for now), because he has feelings of love and gratitude he wants to convey to him, but he doesn't know how to do it. But Luffy always had Sanji who used his cooking exactly for that: to show his feelings of love for people (and was very vocal about it!). Luffy is just trying to do the same, but he realized he can't do it no matter what. By the end of the arc he comes back to terms with himself and finds the old truth again: he will leave the cooking to Sanji and rely on his crew. He can try to be a better person in other ways, but he will keep on searching for a way to show love and gratitude to them.

And we will not talk about Luffy suddenly remembering people smooch each other and talking about it in context of Sanji's wedding, uhum. If that's on his mind all of a sudden when it wasn't even once for last 80 volumes, then you can guess why it suddenly would be. People who love and care for each other smooch, so maybe he was considering... things...

Another odd thing Luffy does, which is to check on the map and comments, frowning "it's weird". He has a point, because we learn later it was a deliberate trap. But he's paying attention here because he tries to be useful and does things he usually wouldn't be doing. Just like with cooking.

Same here. It's probably the first moment in which Luffy realizes that having a longterm plan would be actually a good thing. Yeah, Luffy of all people. That's because he must be thinking "if it was Law, he would definitely have one". I feel like other people were pointing it out to Luffy before, but it's the first time he actually shows that he kinda cares and isn't answering with "I'm just here for the adventure. And become a king of the pirates, no plans included!".

Look here. This is Luffy in a crisis. "I have to get back and I'll destroy everything in my way if I have to!" Not only he's not supposed to destroy everything or beat up Big Mom, which he points out a moment later, but Luffy is clear here, he made his decision: if he can't go back, he will simply get rid of everything on his way. Getting back is the most important thing, everything else be damned.

Except... are we really talking about Sanji here? Get back where, Luffy? To Wano perhaps, where your crew and Law will be waiting?

"I'm not going to die in a place like this!!", "I made him a promise, but it's not here!!". I'm just saying, this applies both to Sanji and the promise Luffy made "to meet up in Wano". And if he wants to get back no matter what, it's because he knows he can't die here, he can't force a certain someone to go through a big loss again. He would rather tear off his arms than not return at all and break his promise.

And we get Sanji with his "I didn't tell you to wait..." and Luffy just laughs in reply. This particular laugh he used only once before, btw, and I don't recall anywhere else:

When he was telling Zoro how much he's worrying about Sanji. Because why wouldn't Luffy know that Zoro and Sanji are the most important people for each other? Zoro is his best friend and his first crewmate, Luffy just knows what's in his heart, the same way that Zoro probably knows who is so important for Luffy as well.

Do you still think Luffy-Sanji scene was *only* about Luffy and Sanji? That the whole promise talk was only about Sanji? And not two particular people waiting for both of them in Wano? It was always about both reasons.

Luffy says he can't be the king of the pirates without Sanji. And demands that Sanji says how he really feels (which is "to go back on Sunny" ❤). Imagine if Luffy said both of those lines to Usopp in Water 7. Maybe a lot of the conflict could have been avoided. Especially if Luffy would also follow his very own advice, because he was not saying his true feelings in the quarrel with Usopp. What changed since Water 7 in Luffy? A lot, actually. Ace, timeskip, Dressrosa, Law... All those things are huge milestones in Luffy's development. But there's also the promise he made. He promised Zoro his crew to bring Sanji back. And that promise also changed everything.

WCI is also the first arc in which Luffy says he is ready to drop everything, even his own dream, and go save whoever needs to be saved for his crew's sake. It's very ironic how in this scene he also needs to struggle against himself, this time with his enormous hunger, that seems to sabotage his ironclad determination. For once Luffy doesn't do things for food and that despite the whole arc being exactly about food. That's how serious he is.

Now we have to talk about the alliance with Bege. Here is Luffy's initial reaction: "what an awful person", "Bege is gonna get it!". He does not like Bege at all, he also wants to punch him for what Bege did to Pekoms. In other words, Luffy doesn't think Bege is a good person, at all.

But just a moment later, when Jimbei tells him "you should work together with Bege", Luffy changes his mind immediately. He's all up for this alliance. His crew, that has been with Luffy the longest (Nami and Sanji) can't believe their ears. What an interesting change, isn't it? Like I argued at the beginning of this post, Luffy has to do things differently this time instead of doing what he usually does. The problem is, he's not good at anything else than "beating the main bad guy". That's why in this case he's determined to do something he would usually never do. And forgive me for the callback again to XxXholic, because I can't resist:

Luffy has the same idea as the protagonist here. "This is all I can do", and "if this person was with me, they would be able to find a better way". In other words, Luffy agreed to this alliance because he thinks this is something Law would do as well. Luffy is constantly wondering in Whole Cake Island how Law would handle the situation and he knows he can't come even close to his level, but at least he will try to follow in his footsteps.

Of course Luffy wants at first to punch Bege for Pekoms. He's still trying to make this alliance a friendship, and if he hits Bege then they will be even, so they can try becoming friends. That's basically the idea.

But he doesn't get to do that and in the end, Luffy agrees to alliance based on "common goal" or "allignment of interest". He did not become friends with Bege in the process and didn't make things even between them. This proves Luffy knows what an alliance is and it's not friendship. I wouldn't say this means Luffy finally learned what an actual alliance is (though it's tempting, ngl). I would rather say he always knew that, but he chose to make it a point that whatever he has with Law, is friendship firstmost, alliance second.

And here is Luffy listening to Bege's plan. He's trying, okay. Not his fault he's constantly getting distracted, sidetracked and overfocused on making a silly entrance party trick (jumping out of the wedding cake). Bege is just not Law, and Luffy's tiktok's level span of attention is struggling here, heh. Also please notice Luffy's unusual focus on the smooching lol.

Oh, so that's Luffy's idea for the wedding surprise. He just wanted to do ninja's shadow clonining trick, definitely inspired by Raizou's show in Zou.

Coincidentally, that's the technique that was Law's request and made Law so damn impressed. Yeah, this is for sure a coincidence, that Luffy chose to do it like that, even though he didn't really have to have multiple copies of himself here to make it work. I bet he just thought "if Law would be here, that would impress him, I'm sure!" and I bet he's looking forward to telling him all about this adventure later on and seeing his face.

But it was essenstial for his plan to create chaos! He didn't do it just for fun! Are you sure? Because it was Brook who hid himself in the midst and did the deed with Mother Carmel's photo frame, and Luffy did not tell him to do this. Luffy simply wanted to be cool, okay, he didn't think that far ahead. He was supposed to cause chaos, he delivered.

And in his fight with Katakuri, Luffy is the one who has to have faith. Law had his faith moment in Dressrosa, now it's Luffy's turn.

Luffy found his answer about what he can do and how to become a better person for someone. It's to master his observation haki. Which, coincidentally, is Law's forte.

Luffy's curious, very strict words to Jimbei. "Don't let even death stop you, we'll be waiting in Wano!" It's basically Luffy's own promise he made before leaving Zou, just said in more deadly serious manner. That's because his experience in Whole Cake Island made him realize it himself: he will go back to Wano and not even death can stop him from achieving that. Because he promised that to Law people.

I'm sure for Law this would be indeed the most important thing, not to lose anyone ever again, especially Luffy who he (miraculously) managed to save all the way back in Marineford. I don't know how Luffy knows this or if he knows at all about Law's deepest fear, but he's determined not to die on him, that's for sure.

This is also the first big seperation for Luffy and Law. Luffy deals with it, treating everything like an adventure to tell Law later so it feels like Law is there with him even though he's not. But also treats it like a challenge, to become a better and stronger person so he won't disappoint him.

Still convinced there was no Lawlu in WCI? Oh well, if that's the case then all I can say is: I tried my best :D

If anyone wants to read all the parts of this series without going to my masterpost, then just click "love is a hurricane" tag :3

[stagefoureddiediaz]

What do you think about Ryan’s interview?

Hey Kel

I don't have any issues with it to be honest - Eddie currently has a girlfriend on the show, so why would Ryan start talking about Eddie being queer in some way or confirm Buddie??

At this point in time in canon Eddie has only dated and married women - the subtext is there and ready for them to work with for his queer journey - and I firmly believe they are doing so we just won't see that arc fully begin until the end of the season at the earliest (ready for exploration in 8a!).

At this point the interviewers constantly asking about Buddie is a pointless endeavour and it is purely about click bait not because they actually want to ask interesting or good questions about Buck and Eddies dynamic.

I always take interviews with the biggest pinch of salt - this is a massive show with a PR team who will have final say on what media outlets can publish and they will also be telling anyone being interviewed what they can and can't say and at this point in time. Buddie is the big slow burn romance that they do not want spoiled under any circumstances so the actors or writers or show runners or crew who get interviewed are going to lean into subterfuge or say very little on the subject - because why would you spoil something that is going to be central to future plans as well as being a defining moment in television history.

To be honest we've got far more out of the interviews this season than I was expecting to get - things that hint far more heavily that Buddie canon is coming - and those have been from better journalists who ask the right, more interesting questions. That article is nothing more than a click bait puff piece - a necessary evil in todays world!

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Jamil Viper - Room Relaxation Voice Lines

When Summoned: Well, of course I would go all out on taking care of my appearance. Particularly on my birthday, when I'm to be the man of the hour.

Summon Line: I should take time to relax, at least on my birthday of all days, huh... True, I guess it might not be terrible to have a breather in my room sometimes.

Groooovy!!: I think I could afford to switch up my makeup application every once in a while. ...Maybe just for my birthday, at least.

Home: I'll just rest a bit.

Swap Looks: I should tend to my hair.

Home Idle 1: Won't I ever cut my hair short? Well, this length may require extra care, but I think I'll keep it this way for a while. I actually rather like it.

Home Idle 2: I received a birthday card from Jade. He could have just handed it to me directly, so why did he bother posting it in the mail...?

Home Idle 3: This stays between us, but... Whenever my birthday draws near, I get a little excited. Pretty childish of me, isn't it?

Home Idle - Login: In my private time, I have many things I both want to do and should do. I'd like to make the most of that time.

Home Idle - Groovy: Ortho mentioned he noticed that my makeup was different from usual. I'm not saying he's wrong, but... It's a little embarrassing to have it pointed out right to my face.

Home Tap 1: I like to wear oversized and comfortable clothes. Not only is it perfectly loose-fitting, but it's also easy to move around in.

Home Tap 2: Rook-senpai really does just call anything beautiful, doesn't he? He said as much when I ran into him by chance while wearing this outfit, how absurd.

Home Tap 3: What's my roommate like? Well, he's not a pain, or anything. He's the kind of guy that doesn't care at all if I start doing stretches in the middle of the night.

Home Tap 4: I felt a quick shiver when Malleus-senpai suddenly hailed me. There's no way I would have ever expected that he'd just want to wish me a happy birthday.

Home Tap 5: Whenever I pick out new outfits, I always make sure to try them on first. Of course I make sure to look at the design and material type, but I also like to put an emphasis on comfortability.

Home Tap - Groovy: You want to know what hair care products I'd recommend? ...I don't mind, but don't go telling other people. I'd hate for it to be even harder to find in stock.

Duo: [JAMIL]: I'm expecting a good gift from you, Ortho. [ORTHO]: I think you'll definitely like it, Jamil-san!

Birthday Login Message: So, you remembered my birthday, huh. Thanks. ...Hm? There's something on my head? Oh, it must be some of the confetti from the party poppers. Just a moment ago, Ace and Floyd set some off. I already had my suspicions about what was to come when I saw them trying to lurk in the shadows, but I pretended to be surprised for them. Why...? Well, if I don't give them the right reaction, who knows what'll happen next, right? Even so, they still griped about my lack of reaction. Geez, what do they want from me?

Requested by @farfalla049.

[xoxoemynn]

For OFMD Tumblr friends who want a S3 and are scared of Twitter

First, no judgment from me. I very much get it. I resisted Twitter for a long time, and even though I'm now a bit more comfortable on it, it's still not my Fandom Home. There are a TON of valid reasons not to be on Twitter, but if you REALLY want to keep OFMD visible right now and help its chances of returning for a third season, Twitter is the best place to do it. Like it or not, Twitter is still the best social media platform for raising awareness and for instant news updates.

Tumblr posts don't make headlines. Topics that have been trending on Twitter do. And if we want this show to come back, we need to make OFMD impossible to ignore.

By now you've probably seen just how close we came to a S3, and if you're like me, you are RAGING and donning your battle jacket. But I get it can be intimidating to get on Twitter for the first time, so I thought I'd address some common anxieties I see. I'll put below a cut because this got a bit long, but I promise it's a quick read.

I don't know what to say! Where do I even start? That's okay! You don't have to create your own tweets (although it's great if you do). Amplifying other people's posts is also important. Go ahead and like/retweet/reply to other people's posts. This may also help you get an idea of what you may like to say in your own tweets.

Hashtags...yes? Yes! Although don't use too many or you may get flagged as a bot. The biggest one that seems to be emerging is #SaveOFMD. Other popular ones are #RenewAsACrew, #RenewOurFlagMeansDeath, and of course, #OFMD and #OurFlagMeansDeath.

Should I just be tagging all the streaming services? Per @renewasacrew, no. It's counterproductive. You'll want to tag one streamer at a time and be specific. Below is an example of a tweet I made the other day -- use specific reasons why that that particular streamer may benefit from picking up OFMD.

I'm scared. People are mean. Yeah, people are mean. But I will say the vibes over at OFMD Twitter are currently the best I've ever seen them. People seem to have united for the greater good and are being overwhelmingly positive and just trying to do whatever we can to save the show. (That said, again, I already had a pretty curated feed, and was very liberal with blocking users/terms I didn't want to see, but I've been able to spend so much more time in the For You tab than I ever have without being jump scared by something.)

But I don't know anyone there! Wouldn't I just be shouting into the void? Not if you use the hashtags! Fans are being really good about following those and engaging with the tweets. Plus, [Stede voice], I'm your friend. I'm xoxoemynn over there as well, I'll follow you back and engage with any of your posts that I see. Plus, what's been REALLY lovely to see is that SO many lurkers have come out of lurkerdom to support the efforts, and they are being welcomed with open arms, so you will not be alone. Again, I am telling you, vibes? Best I've ever seen them.

I can't get sucked into another social media platform, I don't have the time. The beauty here is you don't need to spend a lot of time. I've been on Twitter more in the past week than I have in the entire year I've had an account, and I'm still only on for maybe an hour total the entire day? I open the app, I check a couple accounts, I engage with a handful of posts, and I close the app. It takes all of five minutes. It's an extremely small lift that can have a very big impact.

My bet is on Zaslav expecting us to be upset, and that there may be a day or two of outrage, but then we'd move on. I'm sure right now he's trying to convince everyone that this is a fluke, and that it'll blow over soon. Don't let him win. Keep OFMD in the news. Be loud (but polite) and make Max and other streamers take note of what a passionate, loyal fan base this show has. Make their stocks continue to drop. Make it clear this is NOT just a fluke, it is NOT business as usual. It's a BIG fuck up with lasting consequences.

Twitter, for all its sins, is the best place to do this.

Now let's get our damned show back.

[txttletale]

My question about growth/the venture capitalist mindset is like … how have venture capitalists and the like not figured this out already? It’s been a decade, give or take a few years, since the internet started being monetized to hell and back, and if we all know they’re not really making a profit (bc no one clicks on ads, obviously) then why are the structures still in place?im looking at all this and I feel like a dunce bc I just don’t get how ppl can keep ofunelling money into something that we all know doesn’t work lol ! :0

there's a couple reasons for this, but the tldr of it is that if you're wile e. coyote and you're running in the air over the edge of a cliff, it's in your material interests not to look down

let's say you're a venture capitalist and you've put $10 million into hypnospace, the hot new social media site. when you invest into a company, you invest at a certain price--the company has an idea of how much it's worth, and that determines what price they'll sell their shares at. let's say you buy at $10 a share, so you have a million shares in hypnospace. that $10-a-share-valuation was based on hypnospace telling you (in, say, 2012, when this was still believable and even seemed self-evident) that becuse they were seeing huge growth in daily active users, they'd eventually become insanely profitable.

now usually even you, a venture capitalist, a lifeform mostly resembling a parasitic flatworm, might be a little cautious about this investment. will they really become profitable? it seems risky. however because it's 2012, the US federal reserve has been giving out loans at their ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) for four years in a response to the 2008 financial crisis. what that means is that it's incredibly cheap for banks to borrow money, which in turn means it's incredibly cheap for you, a venture capitalist, to borrow that money from banks. when money is cheap, risky investments make a lot of sense--when you can get an extremely low-interest-rate loan, throwing that money down the toilet is unfortunate but no longer catastrophic. so you put your $10 million into hypnospace because the risk is artificially lowered by the ZIRP, making it well worth the reward.

now it's five years later and it's 2017 and it's becoming increasingly clear that hypnospace.horse is probably not going to became the new facebook and that perhaps there will in fact only be one facebook. bummer. but you've still got a million shares in it. this means that you're directly invested--not in the company becoming profitable, but in the valuation of that company going up. if people can be convinced to buy hypnospace shares at $12-a-share, you can make off with a cool $2 million even though the website never did anything useful or made any money. on the other hand, if people start thinking 'hey, this website has never made any money and it's obviously never going to, why would we buy shares in it'--shares plummet to $1 a share, and you're out $9 million! worst case scenario!

so even if you, the venture capitalist, realize that the website's a boondoggle, it's in your best interest to convince everyone around you that no, it really will become profitable, and its shares (that you hold some of!) are really valuable and you should want to buy them. and this doesn't just mean lying to other venture capitalists (although they love doing this)--capitalists pay close attention to sales of stocks. if you realize that hypnospace is never going to make money and decide to cut your losses and abruptly offload all million shares, other capitalists will interpret that for what it means--that you've totally lost confidence in seeing return on your investment--and many of them will panic and also start selling their shares, while capitalists with no hypnospace shares will think 'boy, this hypnospace thing seems like a real wash, i don't want to buy shares in that'.

so what do you do? you keep putting money in. if the company's increasing in valuation the more it grows, then even if you're crystal-clear aware that growth has no path to profitability, you still gain wealth for every month that the business stays afloat by burning money, because the valuation goes up and your shares are worth more. the ideal outcome for a venture capitalist investing into a tech company is to make a big investment, let the company bleed money while it grows for several years, then sell--not all at once, not abruptly, and not while the price is in stagnation or decline. it's one big game of hot potato for when the gig is finally up. not every venture capitalist has to be a totally credulous dipshit--just the last one in the line.

[theblogwithoutfear]

karen page is so annoying in the show...is she better in the comics somehow or is she just like that

So I've actually wanted to talk about this forever, but I kept forgetting to make a post about it. Your ask is a perfect opportunity to write down all my thoughts. Brace yourself, because I have a lot to say. Sorry in advance lmao

I actually prefer Karen in the show. To be fair, I have not finished all the comics, but so far I think her TV counterpart is a lot better (I still like her a lot in the comics tho, don't get me wrong). The NMCU version of Karen Page also has a lot of Kirsten McDuffie (another comic book girlfriend) in her, which is great in my opinion.

A lot of people find her annoying, but to me it's her flaws that make her such a fantastic character. She isn't a caricature, stock-girlfriend character pulled from a box of tropes; she's a well-rounded individual, extremely realistic, a mirror of Matt Murdock, and a woman with real agency. Her actions have major consequences on the plot. In my opinion, a lot of superhero girlfriends (in comics, movies, TV, whatever) are written more like props than characters, and they don't have any agency or actual plot relevance. Which is why, when a lot of them die, their deaths feel so cheap and inconsequential. That's where fridging comes from. It's been a problem with superheroes since their very inception; and a problem in storytelling at large. So often in fiction, women are flat and unrealistic.

So to me, Karen's heavily-flawed character is refreshing. She is extremely impulsive; she's deeply intelligent, but makes such stupid decisions; she can be hypocritical, self-destructive, and petty. Sometimes she manipulates people, even unintentionally. She's very well-meaning, but constantly makes mistakes. And it's these mistakes that move the plot forward, and reveal important things about both her and Matt. Her actions have real consequences for the story, and she undertakes her own journey throughout the narrative. She is almost as much a protagonist as Matt is, in terms of her character development and growth.

For that matter, every one of the flaws that I listed are things that Matt does too. They are almost perfect mirrors of each other; people who are immensely concerned with justice and compassion, people who care for the truth, and people who want to make their city a better place. However, as they go about it, they stumble and make mistakes and endanger other people. They're hypocritical and contradictory and impulsive. They constantly have to call their own moralities into question, because they almost never live up to their high ideals.

(Also, as a side note, I think many of Karen's flaws—as with Matt's—come as a direct result of all the trauma she's been through: her mother's death, her brother's death, her alcoholism and drug addiction, her dad cutting her off, being framed for murder, almost getting murdered in prison, etc. So I think it's fair to give her some grace.)

But what makes both Karen and Matt so lovable, imo, is that they keep trying. No matter what mistakes they make, they get back up and try again. They do everything they can to atone for the blood on their hands.

I think also (and I'm not accusing you of this, just a certain subset of people in the fandom) that people are more willing to accept Matt's flaws than Karen's—because there's a lot of misogyny built into our society, and there's this ingrained idea that women have to be paragons of virtue. Women, both in fiction and in reality, tend to be put under a microscope and dissected, while men can get away with a lot more. So Matt and Karen have identical flaws, but only Karen gets hate for it, which makes me very sad.

It may be the writer in me, but imo flaws are what make a character—and a story—meaningful. A well-flawed character can take a ridiculous, implausible story and make it feel grounded and real and impactful. A well-flawed woman even more so. I love Karen for the same reason I love Jessica Jones and Wanda Maximoff; or, to go beyond Marvel, for the same reason I love Jo March and Katniss Everdeen and Miss Haversham and Katherina Molina. They all elevate their respective stories beyond the initial premise and plot. Flawed female characters are realistic and impactful, and therefore empowering.

Obviously, to each their own. Some people just find her annoying and don't like her personality, and that's fine. But for me, that's what makes her feel real, and that's why I love her.

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 7

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Discussion of Murder, Arranged Marriage

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

The fact that Oriana had taken off her necklace after nearly a century and then promptly left the mountain again after breakfast that next morning…well that probably would leave plenty of Tartera foaming at the mouth. 

Enya promised to write to her about all the gossip and theories that would swirl around the mountain after her departure…her grandmother gave her a secret smile, and her mother hugged her…

And then Cyrus and her made their way out of the mountain. 

“How are you feeling now that it’s gone?” he asked her. She thought about it for just a moment, swallowing against the feeling of a free throat…nothing, absolutely nothing holding her to Wynstan anymore…

“Free,” she answered. “I feel free.”

“So putting yourself through that was worth it?” Cyrus asked her, no judgment in his voice. “You could have died. I do not have enough sisters that I could afford to lose you.” He said it lightly but she could read between the lines. 

She tucked herself under her brother's arms in response. 

“You aren’t going to lose me,” she promised him. “But I wanted nothing to tie me to him anymore. Not after what he did.”

“You didn’t tell Grandma or Mama about it,” Cyrus said softly. 

“Would it result in anything but to hurt them?” she asked him. “It has been nearly a century.”

She was over it. Or at least she liked to pretend she was. Could somebody really get over something like that? Oriana wasn’t sure. 

But she could try.

“Will you tell Azriel?” he wondered as they reached the entrance. 

She hummed. “I think I owe him the truth.”

She owed him an explanation…and…well. She didn’t want there to be secrets like that. There was no need for that. Not about this. 

He was her mate. Created by the Mother to be her second half. 

And she did trust him. So why not trust him with this as well? 

She was thinking about it when they finally reached the Rainbow. The hike down the mountain had been enough for her, especially with her magic still being weak after she had expelled so much of it, just two days ago. 

The tell-tale cramp that nearly made her double over as soon as she walked up the stairs made her groan. 

Were six months over already? 

It clearly seemed like that. 

There wasn’t much she could do against it. High Fae cycles were notoriously bad. Tartera were more lucky about it, less painful but seemed to take an awfully long time…well, Oriana already hated the 3 or 4 days that she needed to spend in bed twice a year. 

It sucked. 

Especially right now. 

She just about managed a shower, before the worst of them hit, and she crawled into her bed, downing the first of many pain relief potions she kept stocked in her apartment just for that. 

Enya made them especially for her, different for day and night, though right now Oriana really considered just knocking herself out cold to get some relief. 

The shadows were swirling around her like they were being worried, but they didn’t ask. 

Still, crawling into bed under a mountain of blanket and closing her eyes for just a moment seemed…nice. 

She woke up to the sound of steps in her living room. She had enough trust in the wards she set that there really was just one person that it could be. 

“Bedroom, Azriel!” she called her voice hoarse, forcing herself to sit up. 

She heard him hesitate for just a moment. “If you want a conversation, you’ll need to come to me,” she mumbled, sure that his shadows were going to tell him what she just said as she let herself fall back into her pillows. 

She had really hoped that the first time she got him into her bedroom would be under different circumstances. 

Like this, she saw his nostrils flaring as he entered her room, freezing in place. 

“I smell blood,” were his first words to her, eyebrows furrowing.

She sighed. “Yeah, that’s me,” she quipped with some amusement. “Azriel. You are 500 years old. You can surely figure out why I smell like blood and don’t have an injury.”

He swallowed and she watched dark hazel eyes widen. “It’s your cycle?” he asked her, his voice quiet. 

“Congrats. You aren’t an idiot,” she gave back drolly. “Are you gonna come here, or will I need to continue to crane my head?” she asked him with a sigh. 

She hoped he wasn’t going to be too angry with her. 

That was all the permission he needed to carefully sit down on the edge of her bed. 

He reached out with a shaking hand, a broad palm curling against her cheek and she leaned into his touch. She met his eyes, seeing the softening nearly imperceptively. 

Not that angry after all.  

“You are looking horrible ,” Azriel said quietly. 

Her lips pulled into a smile. “You really know how to treat a lady,” Oriana responded, her voice hoarse. “You know, this really sucks. I took off that stupid necklace and I was in a celebratory mood, even if my magic was around as weak as a kitten. And now this .”

“What happened?” Azriel asked her softly. “The shadows said something about a fire chamber?” he prodded her and she sighed. 

“Are you sure you want to know the whole story?” she asked him. 

He nodded. “Yes,” Azriel said. “Everything. I can’t demand your secrets, I know that. But whatever you want to share with me…” he trailed off. 

“Alright. But can you do something for me first?” she asked him. If she was already going to recount everything that happened, then…well the least she could do was to make sure that she was comfortable. And he was as well. 

She knew it was going to take a little while. 

“Anything,” Azriel said softly, picking up her hand and pressing a kiss against it. 

“Lay down next to me?” she requested softly. 

He nodded at that, standing up and walking around the bed, kicking off his shoes, and then crawling on the bed next to her. 

He held out his hand questioningly and she turned to her side so that it was the two of them facing each other, her head tucked under his. Oriana heard his wings rustle behind him, probably stretching out so that he was comfortable. 

Feeling him so close to her, a warm, broad hand settling on her back, the other still holding hers…it made her forget her pain for just a moment. 

“I’ll start at the beginning,” she said softly. “I was born as the third daughter of the first daughter of Cyra, the Custodian of the Mountain. Do you know what that means?” she asked him. 

If he didn’t, now was the time to explain it to him. 

“It means that you are the closest thing your kind has to a princess ,” Azriel said drily. “You never mentioned that before though,” he pointed out and she shrugged, closing her eyes. 

“It doesn’t really matter,” Oriana said softly. “I don’t claim the title, I don’t even live in the mountain anymore. The shadows told you?” she wondered. 

He hummed his agreement. 

“That also told me that you took your knives with you,” he told her, his voice sounding proud. “Thank you for that. And they said that you are called Oriana Fireborn.”

The corner of her mouth pulled up at that. 

“Well, I was. Fireborn that is,” she said with a shrug. “I use Belmonde as a surname…but Oriana Fireborn is who I am in the mountain.” 

“200 years ago…None of us was married when I reached the age of majority. Not Titania, my oldest sister…nor Enya, the middle sister,“ she explained softly. “There had been talk about a marriage alliance of our family to Wynstan’s family for decades, but it was coming to a point where... It was going to happen. One way or another,” she started her story quietly. 

“Let other creatures make war, let Tartera marry,” Oriana recounted. “That has always been our unofficial family motto.” 

They had taken their pacifist leanings as far as they could. They didn’t want to make war. They wanted to make art. 

But that only worked if people knew that it was very stupid to fight with them for the mining rights in the Mountains. 

Azriel made a soft noise and she curled nearer to him. Right here in her bedroom, surrounded by him and his calming scent, it only seemed half as bad. 

“My mother made multiple marriage alliances throughout her life. Titania and Kiran are from one male, Enya and Samson from another. And then me and Cyrus,” Oriana continued. “From a political standpoint, I was worth less than Titania and Enya. I was only a third daughter, after all.”

Azriel nearly growled at that. She held his hand a bit tighter. 

“I am only half Tartera. But my magic made me attractive. A more powerful female promises more powerful offspring,” she recounted, not letting bitterness bleed into her tone. “Titania was in love with Toron. But Toron was not coming from any kind of prominent family…and for the heiress to Cyra, that was…well….” she trailed off, searching for the right word. 

“Not good?” Azriel offered and she just nodded in agreement. 

“Grandmother wouldn’t have cared, but my mother was displeased ,” she said quietly. “Which is ridiculous because she herself picked my father. But in her mind, she had already given birth to two heiresses that could take on the mantle of my grandmother and now she was really allowed to have some fun. Or something like that…But she wanted Titania to marry Wynstan’s brother, Titus. And if not Titania should marry him…then Enya,” she explained. 

“Titania was in love with Toron. And Enya…Enya has never wanted any kind of romantic companionship. She’s stonehearted. That’s what we call it. She never outright stated it…but…It’s obvious,” Oriana continued. Neither of her sisters had been options. 

She couldn’t watch one sister lose the male she loved…or see the other being absolutely miserable by playing at being a wife when all Enya had ever been was a healer. 

Enya wasn’t interested in anything but friendship from anybody. 

And it wouldn’t have been fair to put her into a position where she was expected to…

“It was either going to be my sisters, both of which would be absolutely miserable in an arranged marriage… Or it could be me.”

Azriel was silent, and then scarred fingers reached out to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, stroking the lightly pointed tip of it. “And you wouldn’t be miserable?” he said softly. 

Oriana grimaced. “I would have been if I married Titus. But I didn’t. I set my sights on his younger brother. Wynstan. He was my age. Not as magically gifted or strong as me, but he was a gifted silversmith. Not the best but far from the worst. And if I married him, his father would get the alliance he wanted…” she trailed off pointedly, opening her eyes and looking at him, begging him to understand. 

“And your sisters would be free,” Azriel ended her sentence. She just nodded. 

Her voice shook as she continued, as she thought about these days, so long ago…and still so fresh in her mind. “I thought I could be happy with Wynstan. If not that, then at least content,” Oriana recounted. “He was a friend. I thought…I could grow to love him.”

And by the cauldron, she had tried. 

“And did you?” Azriel wondered, nearly sounding curious. 

“As a friend, yes. As anything else? No,” she whispered. She couldn’t even look at him as she admitted that.  “I never loved him like a wife should.”

It was a harsh truth that she didn’t like to dwell on.

Maybe it was her fault.  

“Wynstan was more similar to his father and brother than I thought he was,” Oriana finally said. “He couldn’t deal with the fact that I was only a half-breed, but I still had all the inborn abilities of a full-blooded Tartera. I was better silversmith than him, even when that was never my passion…I was the foremost enchantress of the mountain after my father’s death. I took over his place, without a moment of hesitation. I made money hand over fist.  I was good , Azriel. I was the best ,” Oriana whispered as he cradled her face. It wasn’t even arrogant that she said that. 

It was the simple truth. 

“What happened then?” Azriel asked softly. 

She took a deep breath before she let it escape again. 

“A few decades into our marriage… Wynstan wanted children, but by then I was…hesitant because our marriage was not going smoothly at all,” Oriana recounted, grimacing. “We fought. Constantly. About that, about my work, about my place at my grandmother’s council table…And then..well. It all came to a head.”

She closed her eyes again, her hands tightening against his hand, a warm broad hand on her back keeping her anchored in the present, as she fought her way through memories. 

“I still don’t know what it was that finally made him decide… that… that getting rid of me was the way to go,” she forced out. “Maybe…I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to kill me. Maybe he just wanted to hurt me badly enough that I was going to be…crippled in some way.”

She was in a way. 

“Everybody thinks it was an accident,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t. I know that.”

“Maybe he just figured that if I didn’t have children with him, I should have never had them with anyone. Maybe…” she trailed off, pressing her eyes closed, because she couldn’t look at Azriel when she recounted the worst of it. 

She felt his hands tighten against her. 

“Wynstan…said he was experimenting,” she whispered. “It’s…different metals can carry different amounts of magic. You can get around it with a few tricks, but…if you aren’t careful…then you overload them. And they each react differently to that. You need to be really careful with silver,“ she explained to him, her voice shaky. “If you pour too much magic into it and you don’t have the control you need... it doesn’t end well. Wynstan used to have that control. He was a good silversmith and he knew what he was doing.”

“He made a silver sword that day,” Oriana said softly. “I remember that…He didn’t do weapons. Neither of us did. Not really. He forged it and he dunked it in this pool of magic-infused…potion and…It… One moment it was all fine,” Oriana whispered. 

“ One moment he was showing me the sword…and then…then he dunked it in the potion…and…then the sword was in… me .” Every word came out haltingly. 

She felt more than heard Azriel pulling in a sharp breath. 

She remembered everything. The pain. She remembered. She remembered looking down and being impaled and…

“And…I didn’t do it on purpose…but…the magic…my magic…it…it lashed out.” She begged him to understand. 

“You killed him,” Azriel said, his voice quiet in realisation. “Your magic defended you.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I…I burned him. I burned everything . I don’t know how. There was nothing but…a corpse, burned to a crisp. I must have made a magical fire, but I was…unscathed. Just that…sword. Buried in me…” She could feel the tears bite in her eyes, felt them drip over her face…

and then Azriel was enveloping her in his arms, pulling her even closer to a broad chest, until they were intertwined. 

“It was self-defence, Oriana,” he whispered. “He tried to kill you.”

“I took his life without a thought,” she whispered, her fingers weakly curling against him. “It wasn’t even on purpose. I just…I burned him. I burned everything.”

He shushed her, broad hands spanning her body. 

“The sword…” he finally asked…”

“I melted that,” she whispered. “While it was still stuck in me. I…Enya doesn’t think I’ll be able to have…” She didn’t need to end the sentence. 

Wynstan hadn’t taken her life. But he had probably taken her ability to have children. “I should have told you before,” she whispered. “You deserved to know that.”

It wasn’t something she liked to think about, to dwell on. And she hadn’t needed to. For decades. Until now. 

“No,” Azriel disagreed. “That’s alright. That’s wasn’t…I don’t care,” he promised her, fiercely. 

“You don’t want children?” she wondered and he pressed a kiss against her forehead. 

“I never even thought about it,” he admitted quietly. “I never even thought I would get to have a mate, to have you. So no. It doesn’t matter. I can have you and that’s all I need.”

That was everything she wished to hear, she tipped up her head and he brushed a kiss against her lips before he leaned his forehead against hers. 

“You are the only one who thought that the experiment going wrong was on purpose?” Azriel asked, puzzled and she just nodded. 

“Wynstan knew better than that,” she said quietly. “I…it was nothing that he hadn’t done dozens of times. There was no reason to repeat it. There was no reason to even make the sword. He was a silversmith, not a blacksmith,” she recounted. “He was upset with me, from a fight the evening before,” she explained. “I think he acted out of anger. Maybe he realised that I was never going to love him.”

Azriel said nothing, still holding her tightly. 

“Enya saved my life. But even she could do nothing against the scar. Not with the magic that was still pooling there,” Oriana continued softly. “And then…I overheard my mother talking later…And I made the necklace into what it eventually became. I protected myself. I couldn’t let any male do this to me again.”

“She was talking about marrying you off again after you just nearly died and your husband was dead,” Azriel said flatly and she sighed. 

“The alliance of our families was on very thin ice. Their youngest son dead,” she agreed. “I understand where she was coming from. But I couldn’t let them do that again…So I…played the grieving widow,” Oriana whispered, the words tasting like ash in her mouth.  “And then I moved out of the mountain…and for 80 years, I was completely fine with just being myself and never worrying about any male ever again. And then you came, Azriel.”

And suddenly…she had been in love again. 

“What happened two days ago?” Azriel finally asked her. “You wanted to remove the necklace?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I figured out that the safest way to break the enchantment I placed and get rid of the necklace…well, that was to cancel out the anti-melting charm and let the fire have at it,” she admitted. “Fire has never hurt me. I had trust in my abilities.”

“The necklace burned you last week.” 

“Yeah…It wasn’t the best idea I ever had,” she admitted drily, making him snort in dark amusement. “We have a…There is a chamber. Deep in the mountain. We call it the fire chamber. It’s home to the Eternal Flame. It’s our…religious focus,” she said softly. “If the mountain has a beating heart, this flame is it. As long as it burns and burns and burns…the world is alright. If it ever goes out…the world as we know it will be ending,” she said softly. 

“If we are old…and ready to depart from this world, Tartera walk into the flames. We bless children when they are born by passing them through it…and if the eternal flame gifts you a piece of herself…you are blessed.”

Like it had given her.  

“It…purifies,” she explained softly. “But to come to the flame in the middle…you need to walk through the rings of fire. We only ever use the outermost rings for our ceremonies. That was the one I was planning to use…Use the containment in the fire chamber, burn off the necklace, and return it to the flame and the mother. I was…going to walk through the first ring…and that was it.” 

“But it wasn’t,” Azriel said quietly. She nodded. 

“It wasn’t,” she agreed. 

“How many rings are there? 

“Three.”

“Through how many did you walk?” 

“Three…then I reached the Eternal Flame.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand and he reached out for her neck, for the dark skin that lay there, unblemished, free. 

“The necklace was still there. I was desperate,” she continued. “So I walked into the Flame…I knew the risks. I knew that if I…if the Flame didn’t think that my purpose was pure…It would judge me. But I…I couldn’t live like this. I wanted no part of him anywhere near me anymore. I didn’t want this reminder of a marriage I never really wanted in the first place around my neck like a noose,” she whispered, desperately.  

“You could have died,” Azriel said, his voice hoarse. “I thought you died. For just one moment, I thought...”

“I am sorry,” she apologised. She had never wanted to hurt him. Not like this. Not…ever. 

“I would have rather never kissed you again than have you die because of it,” Azriel finally said. “I need you to know that.”

“I was selfish. I did this for me.”

“If you ever do anything like this ever again, I am going to be so angry with you,” he whispered, and then kissed her again, desperation bleeding into it. 

And she curled her hands against his chest and held on. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Her whole life was there, laid out for him to see. 

Every bit of trauma, everything she had gone through…her reasoning of why she had done what she had done. 

And he looked at her. 

He wondered if she had worried that his view of her was going to change. 

Maybe it had. 

Azriel had seen Oriana as pure light and sunshine. But now he realised that he had been wrong. 

She was the fire. Beautiful and deadly all the same. 

She hadn’t killed on purpose. He didn’t think that she would be able to live with it if she had. 

But she had killed nonetheless. for her own protection. Her magic and her fire had protected her. 

Good. 

That was what it needed to do. 

Still, as she fell asleep against his chest and he ran his fingers through her hair, for once urged down her back into one long braid, not pinned up, he suddenly realised how long it was.

The smell of her blood and pain was still lingering, even with the potions she had taken and he knew that there was absolutely nothing he could do to make it any better. 

But he could be there. 

And that was all he wanted to do. 

So he waited, looking at her, committing everything to memory, the way her brows furrowed, her hand stayed curled into his shirt. 

She had told him everything. And he…he still hadn’t.

She had told him about her family…about her husband who had tried to kill her (And he agreed with her assessment that it had been on purpose. Otherwise the pieces just wouldn’t have fit together.)...she told him that she never would be able to have children. 

He had never really thought that he would ever be in a place to have children in the first place. Didn’t think that a mate was waiting for him that thought that he would be worth the trouble. 

He hadn’t thought any of that. 

But he had Oriana now. And the idea of having children with her…that would have been…nice. And still…if it never worked out, then that was fine. He would never love her less for that. 

And he did love her. 

She moved in his arms lightly. “You should have kept me awake,” she murmured and he just pressed another kiss to her brow, delicately tracing his fingertips over her soft skin. so different to his own. 

“You need to rest,” Azriel disagreed softly. “What do you think, I’ll make dinner?” he suggested. 

“You can cook?” Oriana wondered with a yawn and with a grimace he thought back to rabbits over open fire in the Illyrian Steppes. If you could call that cooking…

“I can make a mean spit-roasted rabbit,” he finally answered drily and she stared at him. 

“If I am like that, all I can keep down is Porridge,” she warned him. Ah. Well, he could manage that at least. 

“I can do that,” he agreed. 

“My kitchen is yours then,” Oriana said, giving him one of these soft smiles of hers. “If you want to make yourself something else, be my guest too.”

He did manage to make porridge without burning down her kitchen. He even managed to scrounge up a handful of blueberries to put on top of it, mostly thanks to some curious shadows that slithered through Oriana’s cabinets.

“Here,” he finally said as he handed her the bowl. She had made her way to her couch, pulled that ugly blanket over her and he sat down next to her.  “Your kitchen has not burned down.”

“I wasn’t aware that that was an option,” she gave back with some amusement. “Thank you. This is good,” she told him with a smile. It was. 

It was so domestic and he loved every minute of it. 

“Will you stay the night?” Oriana asked him suddenly and he stared at her. What?

He hadn’t expected that invitation. It had been their unspoken truce that he never stayed the night. He would go home. 

“I…If you do, I can…take a stronger potion. I don’t do it if I am alone,” she said softly. “And…I missed you, Azriel.” 

These words from her…there were…

His salvation. 

“I’ll stay,” he whispered. “I’ll stay. I missed you too.” She smiled at him, a secret lovely thing. 

“Good,” she agreed like she hadn’t just offered him…This. 

They were both quiet as they ate their porridge, though he couldn’t help but stare at her, take in the flawless column of her neck, the necklace that had never really seen to fit her no longer there…just her uninterrupted dark skin. 

“Come to bed, Sweetling,” Oriana said, holding out her hand, as they were both finished with dinner and he stood to take it, letting her lead him to her bedroom. 

The room was somehow so her, with dark red bedding stretched over a metal wrought frame bed, that he half wondered if she had made it herself. 

It was a canopy bed, the metal wrought to be tree branches and there were even tiny leaves and flowers all over it, dotted with precious stones. He took it in for the first time, wondering where one even found something like that. 

It was such a…distinct piece. 

“I made it,” she answered his unspoken question, sitting down on the edge of her bed, and pulling out a corked bottle from her bedside table.

“I need to warn you, there is mirthroot in this. I am mostly just going to fall asleep, but I can’t be held accountable for anything I say while under the influence,” Oriana said drily and he couldn’t help but chuckle at that. 

“All good,” he promised her, thanking a shadow as it dropped a pair of simple linen pants on the other side of the bed. He slipped out of his shirt and put them on, while Oriana stepped into the bathroom. 

She curled up under the blankets as soon as she was back and he joined her there on his side, wings tucked in. 

“Is that comfortable with your wings?” she asked him curiously, pupils already blown wide, probably thanks to whatever concoction she had just taken. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Azril said. He had slept in worse places than a comfortable bed with his mate. Even if he needed to keep his wings tucked in. 

“But I do. Is that how you normally sleep?” she asked him and he sighed. 

No, not really. 

“If it’s just me… I normally sleep on my stomach and stretch them out,” he explained. “But I don’t need to do that to be comfortable,” he hurried to assure her. 

“Do it,” Oriana told him, eyes already closing. “I can sleep through anything.” 

He hesitated for just a moment before he turned and stretched them out, carefully so that he wasn’t accidentally going to hit her with them. Still, one wing came to rest on top of her and Oriana just hummed softly. “Like a leathery blanket,” she mumbled and he couldn’t hold back the quiet laugh as she burrowed herself under his wing and promptly fell asleep. 

If that was the worst thing she said while high on pain potion, that was more than harmless. 

He slept better that night than he had in what felt like centuries. 

All thanks to her. 

The next morning, he woke up before her, once again watching her sleeping face. 

“What are you thinking about?” Oriana said quietly, not even opening her eyes and he pressed a kiss against her forehead. 

“I know all the worst parts of your life. You don’t know mine,”  he admitted honestly. That opened her eyes, the fire in them burning once again. He loved her eyes. 

He had never thought that he would love fire, not after what was done to him. But…her fire…he loved that. 

“Sweetling,” Oriana said quietly. “You don’t owe me this. This is not a transaction,” she told him fiercely, a hand reaching out to curl against his neck, fingernails scratching his scalp. 

He knew that. 

But it still didn’t seem fair. 

He lifted his hands, staring at the scarred flesh, where once skin had melted away, giving free sight of the muscles and tendons and bones underneath. 

“My half-brothers did this to me,” he finally said, the words not sounding like his own voice to himself. “The results of an experiment. How does oil and fire mix?” he continued. 

“Azriel,” Oriana whispered, her voice shaky. But he continued. If he didn’t…he would never get the words out. 

“I was…the result of an affair my father had. My mother spent years working off that particular punishment.  He took me from her and he put me in a cell in the bottom of his keep…and then he kept me there,” Azriel said, his voice even, near without emotions. If he didn’t, then… 

“I think he hoped that I disappear. That I die and just…My stepmother…she wasn’t very pleased with me being the obvious evidence of his infidelity. And her sons, well, they…hated me,” he continued. “I… was…5 years old? Maybe? I don’t even know. Young. A child. My father’s guards came to rescue me when they heard that my screams didn’t stop.” 

Not that that had stopped the pain. It had stopped them from killing him though. 

He had used to wonder if dying in that keep wouldn’t have been a blessing. 

“Azriel,” Oriana whispered, warm hands cupping his cheek and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. 

“The shadows…they came to me just days later,” he admitted. 

We did, Master.

“They did?” Oriana asked softly. “Did they keep you safe?” she wondered. 

“They tried,” Azriel whispered. They had tried. Not always succeeded, but they had always, always, been on his side. Unapologetically. 

We are, Master, they agreed quietly. We’ll protect Master and Mistress.

It was like they seemed to want to prove it as they wrapped themselves around Oriana’s wrist once again. 

Oriana caught one of his hands in hers, lifting it to her lips. She pressed a kiss against the scarred skin. 

It was such a sharp contrast to him. Her beauty against the ugliness of his scars. How she even could stand to touch them…he didn’t understand it. 

“I tried everything to get rid of the scars. Nothing worked,” he recounted. “But then…they match. Maybe that’s what I deserve.” 

“What do they match?” Oriana asked him, her brows furrowing. 

He couldn’t help the grimace, the pain that spilt over his face. “They are as ugly as everything these hands have done,” he finally whispered, the self-loathing apparent in his voice. 

For a moment Oriana was quiet. Then she grasped him at the scruff of his neck like a mother cat would do to an unruly kitten. 

“You know for somebody as smart as you are, you are being ridiculous,” she spat out and he was so shocked by her outburst that he just stared at her. “For cauldron’s sake, Azriel! Nobody deserves scars like that! They aren’t some kind of cosmic revenge for whatever bad deeds you may or may not have done in your life.”

“You don’t know what I have done,” he disagreed quietly. “If you did, you wouldn’t…”

“I wouldn’t what? Love you?” she questioned him sharply. “Newsflash, sweetling, there aren’t that many things that you could do that would make me hate you. Unless you murder somebody in cold blood that I love, you are stuck with me,” she told him tightly. 

He was still stuck on her loving him. 

Oriana just barrelled on.  

“So what? You killed in a war. You work for the High Lord. You told me once that you thought you were being righteous. Do you doubt that?” she asked him. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted in a whisper. 

“I think I would worry more if you never doubted it,” Oriana gave back fiercely. “But you do. And there isn’t really enough room in this bond for you, me and your guilt complex, Azriel. You are beautiful. Inside and Out and I am going to tell you that every damn day for the rest of our immortal existence. And don’t you ever think again that you deserved any of the pain somebody else decided to inflict on you again. Because you don’t.” 

[ark-fork]

💌Love letters; 👨‍🌾content farm

Recently, a situation happened to my blogger friend that really pissed me off. It took me some time to put my thoughts in order and think about what I wanted to convey in this "podcast".

(Yes, this column is back because you, beloved and dear anons and not only, are constantly doing something crazy)

To begin with, let's start with something less complicated and scary but just unpleasant.

🔴Declarations of love to bloggers \ flirting with them.

Okay, I think this already sounds crazy, for the simple reason that you confess your love to a media personality in their inbox.

To begin with, this is not just strange - but also rude to some extent because a blogger does not always want such attention to themself. Many of them already have their soulmate in life, which is why most declarations of love or flirting are considered ignorance and an unpleasant event.

But still, the prevailing part of them may simply not be looking for a relationship here. Therefore, the best solution would be NOT to TRY to impose your feelings on them and not talk about it.

(Considering that some of you actually write something like: "Haha, I'm obviously going to regret this decision later, but I'll do it anyway because I want to").

If you like this blogger and personality, keep your flirting and declarations of love to yourself. You will spoil your relationship with them in this way. It's stupid and embarrassing for both of you if you still admit your feelings to him. Damn it, there may be a hundred, a hundred, or more of you who want to confess to them!

Ahem, I hope the general point can be grasped because I'm not so good at talking about anything and simply expressing my feelings about the situation as a whole and, for the most part, being hot on the head.

🟠Accusing someone of making low-grade content.

This particular situation infuriated me the most.

Now, I want to talk about what "content farm" is and what they are eaten with.

To begin with, the content farms are YouTube channels that strive for more views on this site and get to the recommendation pages for your kids. These are common unflattering animated videos with questionable context contained in them.

Their distinctive feature is repeated stock images of characters, stolen pictures, and designs, interweaving characters from completely unrelated works with the one based on which they make their videos.

Well, I hope this brief description of what content farms are is enough.

I don't understand people who see the obvious, admiration for the author of any show and create their content with care and soul, investing ideas and efforts, and accuse them of being one of these pathetic bastards from YouTube who absolutely don't give a fuck what they release on the platform, caring only about views and clickbait.

Before you write insults to the author in the anonymous mode in their inbox, think a little, damn it. Just think how much you insult a person who is burning with their art and ideas by saying such words to them while under the guise of anonymity, a fucking coward.

[lostbetweenvampiresandmusic]

The vampires before Christmas

______________________________________________________

Christmas was, in many ways, just like any other day. Nothing special about it, nothing to celebrate even - in fact, if you'd ask Marko, Christmas sucked a lot because it was so much harder to hunt during the holiday. It wasn't until Laddie had joined them that the thought of celebrating Christmas even crossed their minds.

None of them had fond memories of the day, whether that was because there were none or because they'd all forgotten over time was something they didn't question. But Laddie - he loved the day. He loved the lights and the treats, the songs and the fact that if he had been good - and he tried very hard to be good - he might get a gift from Santa Claus himself.

It was the twentieth of December, the warmth of the day still lingering in the cave, when Laddie woke up with a bright smile. "Do you think Santa will know I live in a cave now, and not a house?"

David looked at the kid, not ready to deal with questions like these in the early morning. He just shrugged. "I don't know."

"You never got something from Santa?"

"We're not very good, are we?"

Laddie thought about that before nodding slowly. Being banned from the boardwalk, banned from several stores, and killing people in order to survive didn't exactly meet the requirements for being on the nice list.

"Do you think I might be on the nice list?"

"Why wouldn't you be?" Dwayne had entered the cave, carrying some boxes with takeout.

"Well, David said he didn't know if Santa would know I lived here, and yeah..."

"You don't have to worry about that. You've been good. There's no need to stress about christmas."

With that, Laddie visibly relaxed. The rest of the night went as usual, with them going to the boardwalk, tormenting Max for a bit, and just having fun. It was only later that night, when Laddie had been brought to bed, that the boys brought it up again.

"You do realise we need to do something, right? Laddie would be heartbroken if he found out Santa isn't real because we forgot to get him some gifts." Paul noted, as he turned the sound of the radio up.

"What do you want us to do then? We got no tree, no fireplace, no nothing where the kid can even hang a stocking or something."

"Well, we've already got the Grinch, so that parts covered."

David shot a deadly look at Paul, who just grinned. "Seriously, I don't care what you think, I'm making sure we got a proper tree in here on Christmas eve. Laddie doesn't need to hate Christmas, just because we don't like it."

"Fine."

"Careful there," Marko grinned, "or your heart might grow three sizes."

Dwayne had already decided that he would take care of the gifts, realising not only that Laddie would want some toys and possibly some new clothes, but that Laddie would very much like the boys to have some gifts as well.

It was the 24th, and Laddie hadn't been able to shut up about Christmas. "Don't you have Christmas music?" He'd asked Paul one evening, only to be disappointed when the closest thing to Christmas music was a song called Holly Jolly Slaughter - something that Paul decided wasn't appropriate for a young child's ears.

Later that evening, after Dwayne had taken Laddie to the boardwalk, the other three boys spent their time getting the cave ready for Christmas. As promised, Paul had acquainted a nice tree - although you shouldn't ask where he got it from, he would deny everything - and after he put it on top of the fountain, the whole cave was basking in the golden glow of the Christmas lights. David had, after some grumbling, agreed to atleast wrap the gifts and put them under the tree. That left Marko, who absolutely hated what ha was about to do. He despised it. He would rather take a walk in the sun, than to do this - especially with the other boys present - but Laddie had in a way asked for it.

One night, Laddie had told him that he'd always hoped to see Santa one evening so he could thank him for bringing him to the boys. Marko absolutely despised Christmas and Santa even more, but he didn't want to deny Laddie his Christmas wish. So, whenever everyone else was asleep, he took some red velvet, his sewing kit, and some patterns, and he worked away at creating a realistic Santa costume. It was practically done, and he decided to wear it tonight, when everyone was asleep. He'd make some noise, making sure Laddie would wake up, and play the part of Santa.

When Laddie and Dwayne got back to the cave, Laddie was jumping around the Christmas tree the second he saw it. Singing Christmas songs, dancing with Paul, and enjoying some Christmas cookies, Laddie was already certain that it was the best Christmas eh had ever had. "Thank you," he hugged David, knowing that even though the others organised it, that David had allowed it to happen.

That morning, when the sun was still low on the horizon, and everyone was asleep, Marko got up. He got dressed in his Santa suit, padding it with some pillows. He'd put on a fake beard, borrowed Paul's boots and was certain that Laddie would be delighted.

Quietly, he walked to the main part of the cave before loudly putting down the gifts beneath the tree. He was quiet for a moment and heard the soft noise of someone walking on their toes. He continued putting down the last gifts when Laddie stood next to him.

"Santa?!"

Marko grinned. "Hi, kid."

Laddie held a slight frown, but said nothing. "I thought you always came at night?"

"I come when children are sleeping, which you should be young man."

Laddie giggled. "Santa? Do you think you can give some gifts to David, Dwayne, Marko and Paul? I know they've been naughty, but they've been really good to me."

Marko smiled. "Don't worry kid."

"Santa?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you sound like Marko?"

Crap. Marko didn't know what to say.

"Did Santa ask you to help because the reindeer didn't know how to find the cave?"

Marko sighed with relieve, thank god for Laddies imagination.

"Yeah. He did."

"I like your costume."

"The elves made it for me."

Laddie smiled. "Marko?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks for doing this. I love Christmas."

[heian-era-housewife]

Synopsis | You just want to be "normal". Is that too much to ask? A trip to Walmart with Sukuna may be just what you need to remind you that being normal is overrated.

Content | g/n!reader x true form sukuna, fluff, crack, agoraphobia, social phobia, mention of self loathing, mental health *or lack thereof*

A/N | If you're new here, Hi! I'm Yuri and I live with agoraphobia. Fittingly, the roots of this word are "market place" and "fear", but really it is a social phobia based around leaving one's house or being in public/crowded places. As with any mental health issue, it takes many forms.

Anyway, this is an oddly specific and very much self indulgent drabble based on pretty much every experience I've ever had with Walmart. Including today.

Hope you enjoy!

"I still don't understand why you're making me do this." Sukuna said, head leaning on the glass of the passenger-side window of your car where he sat, all four arms crossed in visible annoyance.

"We need groceries 'Kuna." You remind him. "And please put your seatbelt back on."

He rolled his eyes with a scowl. Pulling enough slack from the belt to stretch across his broad chest, he struggled for several seconds to find the buckle hiding under his beefy thigh. 

"This is stupid. I told you Uraume can go to the market for us."

"And I told you that I wanted to try being a normal human being for once." You retort.

"Hmph." He pouted. "I fail to see how a- what did you call it?"

"A 'Walmart Run'?"

"I fail to see how a run to 'Walmart' makes one a 'normal human'." 

"'Kuna, you know how bad my anxiety is. I love that Uraume does so much for us, but I'm afraid if I never step out of my box again, I'll regress and turn into some sort of shut-in. I just want to be normal. I want to be like everyone else. Y'know?"

In place of an answer, he gestured sarcastically to his own mutated form. His four eyes blinking in stone-cold irony.

"Okay, okay." You conceded. "You know what I mean."

It had been a while since you'd gone anywhere. Your needs were always provided for in Sukuna's estate, and whatever he didn't have, he sent Uraume to get. As an agoraphobe, this life suited you perfectly. But there was still a piece of you that craved that social ingredient that made you feel less broken, even if it did fill you with dread. 

The trip started out okay. You grabbed a cart and skirted the outer aisles, avoiding the ones where employees were stocking shelves or people bustled about for more popular items. 

As time went on, however, your chest grew tighter, the sounds grew louder, and your personal bubble was at risk of popping.

Suddenly, the simple act of reaching for milk became a tunnel-vision inducing nightmare of shifting carts and bumping elbows all to the backdrop of a small child wailing somewhere nearby. 

You were frozen. Caught in the mayhem. Were you holding your breath or hyperventilating? You didn't even know. Why were you so bad at this? How did this come so easy to other people? And what were you even trying to grab? Was it milk? It must have been milk? Or maybe it was something else and if it was milk was it 2% or maybe whole and why was that child still screaming can't someone do something about that? wasn't anyone else feeling nauseated? and when did it get so hot were the aisles always this narrow?OhGodWhyDidIComeHereAtAll? thiswasaterribleidea?¿?¿? jfhjfs#$&*

Sukuna reached over you, grabbing the milk and throwing it in the cart before swooping his arms around your shoulders and waist, guiding you toward the front of the store.

"Come on, kid." He said in a low grumble. "I think you've had enough. Let's get out of here."

Numb legs carry you forward as you trudge your way toward the self-checkout. You stare blankly in a dissociative state while Sukuna scans the groceries by himself, large hands and fingers fumbling through the prompts on the small touch screen.

Useless. You're so useless. You think to yourself. Can't you do anything? Why are you so weird? So...broken?

"I'm so...weak..." You mumble feebly.

"Come again?" Sukuna grunts with his broad back to you, shoving crumpled bills unsuccessfully into the beeping machine.

"I said you must think I'm so weak." You say, louder this time, bitter tears forming on the rim of your lashes.

"Don't be foolish!" He says. "Of course I think you're weak! You're the weakest human I know!"

You look at him wide-eyed, momentarily pulled from your self-loathing by the shock of his admission. 

"Look at you!" He says, turning around to face you. "You can't even go to the grocery store without having a problem for, God's sake. This is exactly why you need me!"

His words fell heavy on your shoulders. Weighing you down. Making you small. Sure, nothing he said was untrue. But to hear it out loud-

"But you're also the kindest human I know." He continued softly. "You feel more deeply. You never stop trying. You're strong where it counts. You taught me love. You take me to ridiculous places. So yeah. Sure. You're scared of things that don't bother 'normal people'. But where the rest of the world looks upon the King of Curses with nothing but fear and loathing, you look upon me with love and compassion, never once bothered that I wasn't a 'normal person'." 

The tears began to flow. Sukuna took your face in his hands, calloused thumbs gently rubbing them from your cheeks. "And that- that is why I need you." 

A chorus of soft "awwws" came from the other nearby shoppers who had gathered to hear the disfigured man's booming monologue. Cottontop grandmas dabbed at their eyes, while the balding clerk overseeing self-checkout stood from his three-legged stool with a slow, appreciative clap. 

Sukuna's face fell flat with an unamused sigh. "Now can we get out of Walmart before I feel the need to burn the place down?"

That got you to smile. "Sure thing, King."

Bonus Track

On the way back to the car, Sukuna had some Thoughts™️ to share about his first ever trip to Walmart:

-So that was it, huh? I can see why you wouldn't like going there.

-I'd never want to leave my house either if I had to acquire sustenance from a place like that.

-And did you see some of the freaks??

-No, really! You think I'm bad? You could fill the entire internet with the amount of WEIRDOS I saw in there.

-Trust me, there was not one "normal human" in there.

-And why do we call it a "Walmart Run"? The only running I wanted to do was to get out of there.

-Oh! Is that why?

-Heck, you know what, Imma burn it down.

[yes-i-write-fanfiction]

Do the TFA Cons and their Human Daemons celebrate Christmas? What do they like best about it?

-Megatron's daemon have endured many Christmases since they crashed on Earth all those years ago and so she's more familiar with the holiday compared to other daemons and cybertronians. She used to hate the holiday since it reminded her that she was so far from home, surrounded by aliens that might look like her but could never understand her. So she avoided the holiday, shut herself away and ignored any and all attempts from professor Sumdac to get her into the holiday spirit. That was until Sari and her daemon were born. For the first time in YEARS, Megatron's daemon finally had something familiar. While yes, Sari and her daemon had no clue about their true heritage, something professor Sumdac had requested, they were still her people.

That's why, when Christmas comes around again, she starts to celebrate it. She still does not particularly care about the holiday but it makes Sari and her daemon so happy to just have her there, for her to share this moment with them. So she'll hang the stockings, go shopping for gifts, put on a Santa hat and even sing some silly Christmas songs. She'll do it all, just so she can feel a little bit normal, like she's not alone.

After Megatron returned to life, his daemon pretended to think nothing of the holiday when that time of the year arrived. If asked about it she'd snarl and make some comment about how she "don't have time for such idiotic nonsense". But Megatron knew, he could feel the soft pang of pain and longing. While Christmas itself didn't matter to his daemon, the time spent with the children she had come to see as her own did. She missed them. Not that he would point that out or even mention it, he knew better than anyone that she would never admit it. They were both too proud and stubborn for that.

-Starscream and his daemon... kinda likes Christmas? At least parts of it. Namely, the gifts. Though in their minds, all the gifts should be given to them. They might indulge and celebrate by exchanging gifts with one another and by having some fancy oil/wine but other than that they don't really celebrate. Unless, of course, celebrating also involves ruining Christmas for everyone else by burning all the Christmas trees they can find.

-Blitzwing and his daemon both claim to not care about the holiday but they are lying. Random and the daemon are both wearing Santa hats and Random is screaming the lyrics of different Christmas songs (mostly All I Want For Christmas Is You) at full volume. Similarly, Icy can be found humming some Christmas songs when they are both alone. Hothead watches the Disney version of A Christmas Carol, the one with Scrooge McDuck, and ends up having a whole Christmas adventure. He takes a picture with Santa, creates a snow army with the local children in the park ands ends up working for the soup kitchen.

-Lugnut and his daemon loudly proclaim that they won't celebrate such an inferior holiday! That is until they learn about the whole thing about Christmas presents. Now they are on a wild goose chase to find and acquire the ultimate gift for Megatron and his daemon! In an effort to excuse this behavior, they both proclaim that they have invited a new holiday for the decepticon empire; Con-mas!

-Shockwave and his daemon might as well be the Grinch. Except the Grinch actually ends up liking Christmas. They don't. They think the whole holiday is pointless and a disgusting display of human inferiority and vain. But then they learn that Lugnut and his daemon are going to get a gift for Megatron and his daemon and now they HAVE TO find an even better, way superior gift. Not in Christmas spirit, they just don't want those two buffoons to think they are more loyal than they are.

-Blackarachnia and her daemon, much to their shame, actually likes the holiday. The festive cheer is infectious and the Christmas songs refuses to get out of their heads. They try to act like they don't care but they both end up getting a gift for the other. Eventually they find a secluded rooftop where they share a nice meal and just allow themselves to enjoy the atmosphere.

[thenixkat]

Mundane AU!Laios thoughts

Note:

Probably contains spoilers

Mundane au= no magic and no fantasy 'races' (like... little people are a thing, they exist in reality, some people just have dwarfism. The elves are just skinny racist and xenophobic Europeans like? And there's already parralells made with the demi humans so if I do anything the orcs are Afro Native and Kobolds are somewhere African or Arab. And for the ogres... gigantism is a thing that exists in real like and totally a teen girl would just wear some horns.)

Thoughts:

The Toudens are European-born. From somewhere cold as hell, really isolated and conservative, that's close to some mountains, that's racist towards the local indigenous people.

(The sibs, but especially Laios got chewed out about some shit and has been trying to be better, slips up every now and then but takes criticism well so long as folks tell him what he did/said wrong).

Local weird kids put off vibes that the rest of the village didn't like, Laios and Falin grew up bullied and ostracized. Falin got sent off to schooling in the big city and later to a university in Italy where she met Marcille.

Laios dropped out of high school and joined the military as soon as he was able to b/c he wanted to get the hell out of dodge. Served for a few shitty years b4 just... deserting and backpacking across Europe just straight up homeless and working whatever odd jobs he could find. Man was going through it. Wound up in the same city where Falin was studying at a university in and decided to visit her. She took one look at him and refused to let him just go back to what he was doing, so Laios started couch surfing with her (very much against dorm rules but he looked terrible and Falin wasn't about to let anyone stop her from making sure her brother has a roof over his head and food).

Eventually, she takes him with her when she does a work-study in the USA for her ecology degree and they ended up staying/Falin kinda maybe sorta dropped out and got a job with a vet near where she was doing her work-study.

Laios and Falin are technically illegal immigrants but they're white so no one really questions their citizenship (their working on getting citizenship/papers)

Laios gets a GED. Does some self-study from Falin's textbooks and online stuff but that's about it for his schooling.

Laios definitely, like, lives in Falin's basement. Falin is the primary breadwinner in this household, Laios is aware of this and has learned to accept it even tho he would like to take care of his baby sister and sometimes feels bad about not being able to. They used to share a room in a cheap apartment but after building up enough savings they managed to buy a suspiciously cheap house in a rural town bordering a reservation and not far from a national park.

Laios still works odd jobs, mostly physical labor and stuff where they won't ask for a degree. Has worked retail, where his customer service was trash but he's darn good at just stocking and shelving shit.

Met Chilchuck while working retail, Chilchuck introduced him to the concept of a union which Laios thinks is really neat.

The town where the Touden's moved has a sizable population of people with dwarfism, Chilchuck is a notable member of the little person community in the area. The Touden's go to Chilchuck for help with paperwork (they pay him a small fee) and he doesn't ask too many questions about why they don't have this or that piece of documentation.

Laios enjoys doing citizen science and bird watching. During the tourist season, he runs a small wilderness guide giving campers and hikers tours in the local national park.

There's a hermit that lives in the national park illegally (Senshi) that Laios and Falin made friends with. They love his cooking.

Laios is active in the online furry community. He does commissions, mostly of digital and physical art or people's fursonas and vore stuff. He does great ferals, and decent anthros, but his human art is not good (he's working on it).

Laios is decidedly chubby in this, his weight goes up and down depending on the season and how much physical activity he's doing. But ever since he reunited with Falin, she's been making sure he doesn't skip meals if they can afford to eat. And ever since he met Senshi he's gotten heftier since he loves that man's cooking.

[silverview]

alright i’m shifting back into tlw mode. i'm finally writing a fic from chas's POV and it's sticking a little bit. i know i can never actually do justice to him but the attempt is being made and i have a lot of thoughts, i'm just going to throw them all down in one place

chas might be my all-time favourite in9 character. reece has described the performance as being basically the same as he gives in sardines, which is a fair comparison honestly – the difference isn’t really in the performance or the character as much as in the circumstances. as in, stuart doesn’t do much relatively speaking and he never really has to shift gears onscreen. whereas chas is what you’d get if that character went through literally the full spectrum of human emotion onscreen in the space of half an hour, including an extended closeup on him experiencing the most extreme betrayal and mortal terror it’s possible to imagine, while covered in gunk and immobilised from the neck down. it's an extreme exercise in humanising/complicating a stock character, and it's an extraordinary performance. chas’s vulnerability and humour and courage carry the entire episode. and his little dancey dance. i love him for his defence mechanisms and the pain and heart that's underneath when he lets them drop. i love him for losing his dream, and coping with it terribly, and being forced to rebuild his life and his sense of self. i love him for being a bad person and a good person

and YES i love him for being camp!!!! i watched the original boys in the band recently and recognised so much of chas in some of those characters, especially emory, both as written + performed. crucially the humanising/complicating of a comedy stock character for pathos. tlw is only two seasons out from how do you plead and i think that contributed to some negative reactions about reece's camp performances being too exaggerated and/or too frequent. i don't think many people really noticed that urban explicitly, intentionally speaks & acts that way as part of his job. he is a man who is explicitly playing a character for most of his screentime. why exactly he does it in that particular way is not clear to me. i am desperate to understand that episode & character better, partly because i feel like unlocking it would also provide a key to better understanding their overall handling of gay characters & themes

i've talked before about chas and simon being linked by the experience of death by parasocial rejection. lately i've been thinking about how this strand of rejection (in a less fatal but still tragic form) also runs through reece's characters in merrily merrily and plodding on. "i never responded in kind" = *suffocates you with a pillow* = "move on" = "i don't even know if we are friends anymore." why is he always the one who loves too much, discovering that his feelings are not reciprocated? and why is this tendency punished so much more violently in episodes where it's figured as explicitly gay, hmm? if you read the end of plodding on as resolving the rift in that episode, then it's also resolving this long-running meta arc; if you read it as unresolved then it is also leaving the meta arc unresolved

anyway here's my tlw timeline. i have joe & chas being born in 1965 + 1975 respectively. that puts chas in his early 20s in the late 90s when atlantic 5 was active, 30 when olivia attempted suicide, 39 when he met joe, and 48 when he died. if you listen to the audio described version it literally does differentiate them as being "the younger one" / "the older one," even though that's not explicit in the episode. they do need a bit of an age gap to make the backstory work. idk, i know they have a small age gap irl – it's just funny to me that they managed to turn that into a more noticeable/significant age gap through sheer looks and vibes

and here is my tlw playlist and here is my dedicated chas playlist, which has some overlap and is still evolving and is a mix of songs about him + pure vibes. i get really emo thinking about him listening to eternal flame as a sad teenager and dreaming of finding love someday :/

[comphetkoncass]

oohoho finally writing again... first snippet of a fic. hoping to finish this but if i dont i still think this scene is cute :)

“...I’m your first choice for a plus-one?”

Kon looks embarrassed for asking her now, and Cass knows it was probably rude to say it like that, if it’s making him radiate embarrassment in such a high dose. Embarrassment, and about a dozen other things that Cass is trying to filter out, but the embarrassment is the one at the forefront. (Shame registers a little lower, a little deeper – and there’s guilt, too. What has he been up to, for the guilt? What is he trying to avoid, with the shame?) 

“Why so surprised?” Kon asks, and pulls Cass from squinting and looking deeper. “We’ve been each other’s plus-one before. Couple times, even. And it's for a hero event, it's not like it'd be weird for you to be there.”

“But why me and not-” 

“Cassie and I broke up.” 

“I know,” Cass says. “Ravager.” 

Kon flushes, and radiates embarrassment, guilt, shame, in higher and higher volumes. He crosses his arms over his chest, makes himself a little smaller. Cass is causing that. But she doesn't want to. “You know about that?”

She’s fought Ravager recently. And the hero community is small. And teenagers are the biggest gossips on the planet. 

“It’s not really working out with Rose,” Kon says. "And I... don't want to go alone."

Kon crosses his arms tighter; smaller, uncomfortably tight. Self-punishment? …For not figuring out how to make things work? For not wanting to go alone?

Cass tilts her head to the side. Thinks about the conversation they had, a lifetime ago. Before much of her family life got tilted upside down and turned inside out. Before Hong Kong. Before Kon died and came back and started going by Conner. 

(Should she be referring to him as that in her head, now? He’s never told her to call him Conner.)

Kon avoids looking at her, even now. 

It’s not her fault that he’s feeling this way. The shame and guilt and embarrassment were there before they started talking. But… She is making it come to the surface the more she asks. So she does something very stupid, and says, “Okay.” 

Kon’s eyes widen a little. 

Why so surprised, she wonders, when he was the one to ask?

“Really?”

“Yes,” Cass says, shrugging. “As friends,” she reminds him. “Not a date.”

“Oh. Yeah, obviously.” Kon looks relieved. 

A theory forms. Cass scrutinizes him a little further. “I only like girls,” she reminds him.

Kon looks more relieved. “I know, Cass.”

Weird. 

“And if Stephanie asks,” Kon starts, “I can tell her we’re just friends, too.”

“I’ll tell her myself,” Cass says, because Kon and Stephanie are… Not rivals, but not friends. Not the way Tim and Stephanie are friends or Cass and Kon are friends. She thinks they could get along, but they’ve gotten off on the wrong foot too many times. 

It’s stupid how much stock people put into first impressions. How they hold grudges. But Cass knows most people can’t see intention or predict movement the way she can. So they think grudges keep them safe. It must be exhausting. 

"I'll pick you up at eight," Kon says, still looking relieved. He goes in for a hug, and there's a safety he sees in her that always surprises her.

She hugs him back, giving him a few perfunctory pats on the back. And when they part ways, he looks better. But, she thinks that while the embarrassment has faded, and the guilt is no longer on the surface... shame isn't so easy to get rid of. It's burrowed deep down, and hard to shake. She wonders what it is. What caused it. And why it would come to the surface when asking Cass on a friend date.

[intoloopin-archive]

JJ knows his strengths and how to highlight them so even if he isn't that musically gifted he can still keep up! His upbringing didn't allow him to be anything but a little diva and I love that for him but I wonder how his personality fits into the group.

But your little character breakdown/plot posts are always good!

GIO.

I've been treating this ask like a very fancy bottle of wine, really waiting for the perfect moment to answer it in the most interesting way possible, and now that LOOPiN is FINALLY (!!!) free from New Wave Music and they officially have a new home, I believe a post dissecting how they used to work under Seo CEO's awful control is a must. And here I have the perfect little moment to ramble about it! Which I love!

So, the short answer to your questions is: J.J fits in very badly on a personal level, and most of the other guys consider him unmanageable to say the least, but! LOOPiN as a whole has been so desensitized to Jiahang's (annoying!) personality because, as long as they were under New Wave, they all knew that he was an untouchable constant; both because of his father's grip on the company stock, and because in mid 2021 J.J made the very strategic decision to take active part on backing LOOPiN financially, and he did so by paying for their dorm room accomodations and making that his sole responsability - which is why in some pieces set on their 'flop era' you can notice that their home is just waaaaay too fucking nice.

But yeah, with anyone who's not Minwoo (from late 2020 up until literally a week before he publicly retired from making music), Haegon (often enough) or Hanjae, Jiahang has had very big professional and personal feuds that still linger. It gets ugly sometimes guys, it really does.

Now! To the longer answer!

NEW WAVE MUSIC's LOOPiN & ITS HIDDEN HIERARCHY:

[❗] TWs: corporate abuse, medical neglect.

If in universe iNSYNCs or just people aware of them were to be consulted, they would say that the chain of command and order of company favoritism while LOOPiN were under New Wave Music (2017 - 2023) ended up as:

01. Minwoo; 02. Seungsoo; 03. Haruki; 04. O.z; 05. J.J; 06. Hanjae; 07. Gyujin; 08. Dylan; 09. Taesong; 10. Haegon.

*Former member Lee Beomseok is not included, but just so you know, he wouldn't crack the Top5.

Which, by looking at the graphic you can see it's pretty off! Let's dissect it!

(NOTE: The two white boxes around the Top4 symbolize leadership roles, and they obviously entail the Produce Line, but less obviously, in a ground right above it, stands Minwoo and J.J in a duo that we can informally call as 'LOOPiN's Crisis Management'.)

At the very top of the food chain, we have J.J: As mentioned above, and also said in posts in the past here and there, Jiahang's spot in LOOPiN was 100% bought by his father, but his privilege goes way beyond just sharing surnames with a major sponsor: J.J has an entire personal team of lawyers, a private stylist and his own manager/financial consultant, Han Qiong (39), which puts him miles ahead of everyone else who depended on New Wave's shady and unprepared staff team. Jiahang's influence is also very present in everything on LOOPiN's two last years under New Wave (which came as consequence of him being Minwoo's "apprentice"), but it's all very subtle, as he always hid behind Minwoo to not spoil his incompetent brat persona to CEO Seo Chanhyuk - many marketing stunts, a good parts of their visual identity and even some promoted songs were handpicked by him but signed off as Minwoo's decisions, and even the members don't know that. As of now, speaking of 2023-0T9-Rare-Rhythm-LOOPiN, only Taesong and Haruki are aware of their past almost co-leadership deal and know how frail J.J actually is with this start over on the career department. He has pretty much no idea how and what he should do next now that he doesn't have a clear advantage! A giant really fell!

Minwoo: Even before he took over the official leader position from Taesong in 2021, everyone working with LOOPiN behind the scenes knew Minwoo was the guy in charge: not only was he the frontman of the Produce Line, but not a single decision even outside the group's sound was made without consulting him, mostly because people felt like they should - his... passionate involvement, let's say, about every aspect of the group was very clear. He also kept riding the wave of his Boy Of The Week days as "the golden trainee", and the respect he build in the industry after butting heads with Chanhyuk and his brigade of shareholders to make LOOPiN creative independent, even though it did give everyone consequences - Seo CEO came to HATE his guts right after they debuted, and was a bitch about them just because Minwoo was always just as much of a bitch back. Him making Taesong the leader during their group debut despite Minwoo's obvious crave for that title was just as much of a move made to try to control them as it was petty, childish shit.

O.z: Wu Zhiming is not someone you can restrain, and New Wave Music came to learn that a beat too late; they also didn't know how to fully support him as a music producer, which O.z took no time to notice and start quietly networking his way into opportunities. Now, his music career outside of LOOPiN is the most stable - he's been the major producer and collaborator with Nico, an independent (and faceless!) singer that in universe has internet fame reaching the likes of Pinkpantheress, and he's definely the first member to reach stable international fame, even if it's a tad controversial. And that's something he did despite New Wave Music, and Zhiming has talked about it publicly with no fear, so everyone knows he's truly independent! You go, O.z!

Seungsoo: Seungsoo always has a hard time seeing the bigger picture, and with his career it was no different: he always assumed the Produce Line was an equal triad and even that he was Minwoo's second hand man (which, LMAO. NO!), and he constantly failed to see everyone always respected him the less. But he was and is a group producer, he did have a voice and some control of LOOPiN as a brand, and that automatically puts him above a lot of the members. Seungsoo is also very popular with the public, known as a sweet talker and charming guy, and his music is very sought after for girl groups and female soloists. He was not doing the worst.

Gyujin: Gyujin, the newest loop dude of them all, stands right in the middle. He joined LOOPiN at a crazy time, but he is flexible by nature and he worked himself into the public's good graces very quickly, all on his own; it barely took him 7 months to be iNSYNC's new darling dearest, which did give some brownie points with Seo CEO at the time. Gyujin is also very familiar with the entertainment industry, which barely changed in the years he spend retired from child acting, so he knew from the get go what to watch out for. His contract signing took 3 weeks because he kept going for legal tweaks, something that immediately set off warning sirens inside Seo CEO's head, but at that point, Gyujin was all he had to try to set off the fire of Beomseok's departure - and many other accusations! If he had more time inside the company, Gyujin could definely pull a J.J and find something to use to his advantage against Chanhyuk, because if there's one thing he'll always do, is find an angle.

Hanjae: As soon as Sangwon got out of the picture as LOOPiN's manager in early 2022, Hanjae found himself in a very interesting position, that being his elevation from someone that was literally hidden for two years inside their own group to a hotshot debutee actor - fully backed by Chanhyuk, who was so fucking tired of LOOPiN having collective fame at this point. As we know, Hanjae's crush on Haruki was old and a well known fact inside New Wave, and it ended up causing his professional downfall; Sangwon mismanaged him on porpouse in LOOPiN's early years to not only punish him for his feelings, but also just to torment Haruki. Recently, Seo CEO has committed the big mistake of trying to convince Hanjae to sell his exclusive contract to an acting agency on New Wave's last days, and despite Hanjae double crossing him and immediately telling everyone about the company's hidden fate back in January so they could prepare for it, Chanhyuk still planted a lot of doubt on Hanjae's mind about his Idol future, and that will be at play very soon, thanks to 'Kick It' winning the comeback poll! So stay tunned!;

Taesong: As said on the Minwoo section, Taesong's role as LOOPiN's leader was given to him because Seo CEO needed someone in charge to be under his thumb, and Taesong filled that role okay enough for as long as he could - Minwoo's very harsh criticism of his every move plus everyone's lack of respect of the sentimental way he used to run things eventually got to him mentally. He had many hiatuses in his career, and with each new one came more of a lack of interest from New Wave Music in him as a way of income. If it wasn't for his own volution and need to get better, Taesong wouldn't be the vocal powerhouse he is now - he payed for his own vocal coaches, all non affiliate with the company! By the time he returned from his most serious and longest hiatus in early 2021, making the (not so willing) decision to give out the leader position to Minwoo, all without notifying Seo CEO first, made him public enemy number #2, and it definitely showed on his sudden erasure of schedules.

Haegon: From pretty much day one, Haegon was not taken seriously by anyone inside New Wave Music as an Idol or person, specially in Seo Chanhyuk's eyes: his very unsettling attachment to former member Beomseok paired with his short temper painted him as a kid unwilling to grow up, and when Beomseok left and Haegon put up a whole dissapearing stunt for a week (he had to be fake announced to be put on hiatus!), any slight interest or patience Seo Chanhyuk had for him died. Dare I say, Seo CEO saw Haegon as his biggest signing mistakes, when you take into consideration that "he wasn't even good enough to make the main vocalist stay" - his own words! So Haegon was not encouraged to train beyond his habilities or given any sort of solo schedules. Haegon himself felt the company's disbelief in him in his bones, too, and found it hard to try.

Haruki: Despite being made the public face of LOOPiN from 2021 and onwards, and eventually starting as a model with a lot of company apparent support (big highlight on apparent), Haruki was not the target of favoritism in the slightest; it was the very opposite. None of the investment made by New Wave towards Haruki was genuine, made to be long term or took what he wanted to do as an artist into consideration. It was just Seo CEO buying his silence about his horrible involvement with Sangwon without explicitly saying to Haruki that he was buying his silence. Haruki also never had freedom of movement from the moment he became a Week Boy, and even small decisions he had the impression of being made without Sangwon's involvement over the years always ended up with his involvement despite his demands for the contrary, because Seo CEO did not care or respect him, ever. (Which is in my humble opinion one of his worst crimes: knowing and doing nothing for a share price. Fuck that man, honestly, fuck him.)

And in the lowest of lows, Dylan: In the old blog I had a piece that was fully narrated by Chihoon, and in it we caught a glimpse of the situation with his private contract under New Wave Music and by extension, Blockberry Creative; how his trainee dept was thrice everyone's size because he lost a private defamation lawsuit against both companies back when he was on Boy Of The Week, plus one claiming neglect from Seo CEO directly. Dylan's contract as a whole was barely legal and made by a lawyer that was at the time Seo CEO's wife-to-be (🥴), and the disparity definely showed as LOOPiN went on. Mind you: his first ever solo project (given how he did not promote his debut track 'Monster' or 'Teenager' with LOOPiN Look(a)Like due to an hospitalization), was his rebellion album released in 2022, and that obviously had no company support. Dylan also was on the down low obligated to see a 'company psychiatrist', something that is exclusive to him and was as shady as it fucking sounds - a lot of his growing paranoia as his career goes on it's not only caused by the things he becomes a witness to, but also the bad intentioned changes made in his medication.

[kit-williams]

Barn Anon. Thank you but I think I'm more comfortable being Anon. Just how I am I suppose? Either ways, I tried again to make something happier.

It's been a few days now since you left your parent's house. This is easily the longest sleepover you've ever had! Best day ever! or maybe best week ever would be more appropriate? You had never seen so many Salamanders before. You had seen other Space Marines before when your Salamander brought you along with him to what looked like a Space Marine hangout?

That place was so interesting, their armours all so different and colourful. You told your Salamander that they remind you of power rangers, getting a loud laugh in return. He had told you of the various legions and chapters, though you can't remember them all. Though it seems like they're all nice people! Or maybe it's because that particular hangout was frequented by those with fondness for humans.

Now however you find yourself following one of the other Salamanders through the large building. You had left your jacket in your room, you wouldn't need it here. the Salamanders keep their building nice and warm. He reaches down and picks you up, setting you on a tabletop that would give you a good view of a training pit.

There you see your Salamander out of armour fighting with another unarmoured Salamander. He and his opponent move so fast, it was almost a blur at some points. A large hand is carefully wrapped around your waist to make sure you don't fall. Your Salamander had told you how they train with each other and you were quick to ask if you could watch.

You swing your feet as you sit at the table's edge, you watch and cheer your Salamander on. Best sleepover ever.

You know what Barn Anon I can respect that and if you're more comfortable doing this then I wont stop you

this is gonna kinda long

Yes Sunny is a Terran born Night Lord you wanna fight about it?

Officer Riley looked over the missing child case though it looked like it was turning into a case of Astarte's linked abduction but all their parents knew was the Astartes in question was green. That didn't help... if it was a Dark Angel the kid could still be alive unless the feral astartes got a case of paranoia then that kid was as good as dead... if it was a death guard another case of they would have to find a body.

He sighs putting his head on the desk hearing the door open up and his space marine sits in his reinforced chair. Officer Riley was very aware of the Irony that was Suul... or as he called him Sunny to piss him off. He looked at the Night Lord sitting in the chair. Though he was what was called an "Old Breed" or "Old Stock" or even as Sunny said "Terran born". But still the Irony wasn't lost on him... a cop getting a Night Lord... but Sunny was stubborn to let the officer know that he was his charge and he was there to keep him safe.

"Something feels wrong Sunny. Did you learn anything from the Space Marines in the area?" He looked up at the Space Marine.

What left the Night Lord wasn't the typical Slavic accent that most others had but some weird what Officer Riley would call a Metropolitian accent, "Salamanda'" He said looking at his servos like he was looking at nails.

"A Salamander took them?"

"Ye' Left during the wolf's midnight patrol." Sunny had managed to get one Space Marine to at least talk with him. "Ya know there's a compound of them a bit of a trek away."

"Why would a Salamander take a child? They normally don't."

Sunny hums and nods before looking at him, "Why don't we go ask him."

----------

You were having so much fun! Only time that was boring was when your Salamander went and did his forge time but you would play on a tablet that the tech marine of the group gave you. You were starting to learn more and more.

BLARE

You jump at the alarm blare as suddenly you were picked up by a Salamander before you were given to your Salamander and then he and a few others moved you to a safe location. "What's happening?" You ask as your Salamander looks down at you.

"A feral space marine is in the area. The alarm wouldn't normally go off but since you are here... precaution." He says with a smile.

You lean against his arm just worried.

-------

"Sunny stop following me." Officer Riley said looking back at the Night Lord

"Fat chance. Ya might get yerself killed." Suul said he had little to fear from the Salamander's hurting his charge but he didn't know what else was around and that made the Night Lord paranoid because who knew what they knew.

"You just want to come along to translate for me don't you." Officer Riley says just looking at his large shadow just shrug.

"I've got big ears and Salamanders are big boys with big mouths... always useful to-" Suul started before he put himself in front of the officer as suddenly they were surrounded.

He holds his breath wondering how he didn't hear them approach but then again the snow did wonders to hide the noise but... he looks over their disrupted outlines of the large green giants. He looks over his shoulder at their massive weapons and on either side he sees two with flamethrowers aimed right at Sunny. Sunny was slowly putting his arms up and his hands behind his head getting to a knee to try and minimize the chance of his human getting hurt.

"My- my name is Officer Riley," He shows his badge out towards the most decorated looking Salamander, "We're looking for a kid. Their parents said they were grabbed by a feral Astartes and we were wondering if you knew of anything? Perhaps you found them?"

Sunny starts to translate before a gauntleted hand is held up, "I understand and speak their language."

"Well fuck me I guess." Sunny mumbles.

"Why don't you two come with us." The Salamander says as Riley hears the snow crunch behind him as they close in. "It is cold out."

"Alright thank you. Come on Sunny." Officer Riley says swallowing the sinking feeling in his gut. This was always the danger of dealing with "feral" Astartes they tended to group up into warbands or companies.

"We will not hesitate to kill the Night Lord." The Salamander speaks with finality in his voice.

"I will be on my best behavior on the Emperor's word." Suul promises causing the Salamander to hum.