#because now he has plausible suspicion for the others

[grimalkinmessor]

@nebulamist (Long answer so I couldn't reply directly so POST DUMP TIME)

Matsuda doesn't send the tapes! He's not quiiite as bold as Misa, plus he's also not quite as impatient, so the thought doesn't really occur to him.

Instead, since he's closer to Gelus than Misa was to Rem, and L's already narrowed down the region for him, he sends Gelus off house to house to find the other Shinigami. From there Matsuda moves in to meet Light :D ...And subsequently subtly threaten him into a relationship. Ah, Love!

As for if he gets confined,,,,ehh yes and no.

They don't have reason to suspect a second Kira until later; specifically when L discovers Matsuda and Light are dating. Or, the fact that they're not dating in secret. L gets suspicious of Light suddenly not giving a shit about other people's opinions enough to come out of the closet, much less with an older, famous boyfriend that he now spends a LOT of time with at said boyfriend's very unmonitored house. Then he takes another look at the killing patterns and susses out the scent of another Kira. He narrows down the date of when Matsuda started killing, along with the fact that a lot more criminals with misspelled names have been dying, and then reveals his suspicions to the Task Force under the guise that Matsuda is just another Kira suspect.

They bring Matsuda in and put him in a cell, but it's nothing so bad as Misa's, and they don't torture him because L has far less evidence to lean on with Matsuda and he can't justify it. BUT that also means that Matsuda doesn't give up his Death Note—and, as a consequence, neither does Light. Though he does still (eventually) also submit himself to confinement to free Matsuda at Gelus's uuhh behest.

[daisybvck]

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 : Bucky Barnes x reader

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 : Your superior agent Bucky Barnes just wants the best for you, right ?

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 : 18+, smut, Bucky Barnes as a fucking whole, dubcon/noncon, cockwarming, manipulation, praise

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Bucky had invented a way to manipulate you into fucking him. And honestly; he was pretty proud of himself. When he approached you last week and offered some one-on-one training, you jumped at the chance. No one else is able to perform domain expansions like him, who were you to turn down additional support? You'd do anything to get ahead in your training, and the better you were, the better help you'd be in the field

You were grateful, albeit a little confused when he didn't invite you out to go into the compound gym Instead, he drove you to his apartment.

But that's okay... Right?

He probably has tools and things here he needs to get before he heads out. Although you've never actually seen him use anything besides that blunt butterfly knife. That's okay too, just because he doesn't use any other weapon isn't to say he doesn't have others. It's the only logical explanation as to why you were in his apartment right now. He was finding a spare tool just for you!

Alas, that suspicion was dashed as you watched Bucky remove his tie, calmly. Before you could ask what he was doing, he tied the silk accessory around your neck. You would have objected; but you were just totally lost for words at what was happening. When there was a secure knot around your neck, he tugged you closer to him.

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Please remove your clothes... Slowly." he demanded. He backed away to form a gap between you both. He wanted to see you do as you were instructed and enjoy the display. He began unbuttoning the top button his dress shirt.

"I don't_"

"Speak up if you have something to say he interjected, insulting your whispering tone. You couldn't help it. Your throat practically closed all on its own.

"I don't- why are you- how is this going to help?" you stuttered. His vision sharpened in on you. The stuttering displeased him, immensely. “I'm just not sure how removing our clothes is going to make me a better sorcerer.”

"Are you questioning me?"

"No! I just-" you choked as you found yourself being dragged closer to the blonde man before you once again.

He looked down sternly into your eyes, his lips in a tight line as he planned his next words. You knew he was preparing to chew you out. But what he was actually doing was attempting to come up with a plausible lie to manipulate you into thinking this is acceptable conduct from a superior.

"The avengers are all about endurance. Whoever has the weakest will to go on, less energy to fight, will lose. This is to help you. But if you're too selfish-” he trailed off, knowing the idle threat of removing the opportunity from you would have you at his beck and call.

“I’m not selfish! 'm sorry Bucky, just didn't understand!”

“Please... Please help me. I'm so grateful, promise." you whimpered pathetically. You even began to remove your clothing for him, just as he'd asked. Better late than never, he supposes.

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He joins you in continuing to take off more articles of clothing. He's satisfied with the speed you find yourself naked. While shirtless, he pauses to inspect your body.

He has waited an awfully long time to see you like this. In this vulnerable, intimate state. And you're too dense to realise it's all a rouse. But he'll never tell, and he's sure you'll keep it secret too. God forbid any of the others discover his sick little plan. If you're both careful, both smart about this, you could probably do this forever. You feel a little embarrassed under his harsh gaze, using your arms to cover whatever intimate areas as best you can.

He tuts once and shakes his head.

"Don't do that. You have a fine body, beautiful in fact." he admits. You don't really want to uncover yourself, but you do as he asks regardless. He raises his index finger, whistling as he spins it through the air. You obey his speechless command and spin around. You're unsure if he wants you to do a 360° or 180°.

"Stop." he speaks while your back is facing him.

He comes up behind you, palming his hands over the flesh of your right cheek. He knows you're only doing it because you're uncomfortable, but he's revelling in the way you're squirming around under his touch.

Has it been a while for you, perhaps? Just as it had been quite some time for him? You yip as you feel his palm collide with your soft flesh.

"I want you to remove my trousers and underwear for me.” he informs you. You're spun around to be facing him, and soon he's pressing down on your shoulders, indicating that he wants you on your knees. He doesn't mind that you are fumbling and taking too long. He knows this is a lot for you to handle out of the blue. He can see in the way your whole body shakes that you're terrified, but he'll be gentle with you - mostly.

Finally his member springs free and thumps against his chiselled body. Even he cracks a little smile on that serious expression when he notices your eyes bulge in fascination. The little patches of drool forming in the corner of your mouth don't go unnoticed either.

It's so pretty. The prettiest you've ever seen. If Nanami didn't know any better, he'd thinking you were falling in love. He couldn't believe you were genuinely salivating over his dick like this. What else were you meant to do?

The tip was pink and pretty, the type of pink that makes you feel giddy. The head wasn't particularly large, but the slit was delectable, too. A gorgeous hole that you wanted nothing more than to tease with your tongue. And it was already leaking for you. So pearly and drippy. The length was admirable, too. It was a just perfect girth; and not too veiny. Two distinct veins ran along the underside his his length.

You couldn't take it anymore. You had to have it, to taste it. But before you could swallow him up, he yanked on your makeshift leash and tugged you away from his erection.

"Not today.

"But-"

"This is business, not pleasure, remember?" he reminded you. You nodded, dumbly. How could you be so stupid? It was so amusing to him. His sweet, naïve girl. “When I sit down, you're going to sink yourself down onto me." he instructed. You squinted at him in confusion, it seemed like an over explanatory way of saying he wanted to have sex with you.

"You want me to ride you." It's a statement, not a question. Because that is what it sounds like he wants, but he shakes his head. What a silly girl you are. There's more to life than fucking.

"I just want your cunt wrapped around me."

Your knees were either side of his thighs as your pussy enveloped his desperate, wanting cock. It shocked you that Bucky was such a gentle kisser, very sweet and tender. Even as he moved from your lips to other parts of your body, he was never rough with you. Featherlight kisses worked down to your neck, your shoulders, and eventually the soft flesh of your breasts.

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This is the extent of your encounter, this is all you'd been doing with him for the last half an hour. His lips and wet tongue felt perfect around your protruding nipples; but now it was nowhere near close to enough. You were so full, full of him, and yet there was no relief. His cock head was nuzzled snuggly in your cunt. It would be so easy for him to fuck up into you, granting both the release you desperately craved. But he had forbade it. He stilled your attempt at riding him by digging his fingers into your hips and slamming you back down in place.

"Sit still for me sweetheart.?

"'s too hard! Too hard Bucky!"

It was embarrassing. Wriggling around in his lap like a desperate virgin. It was out of your control now. Your cunt was soaking wet because of him and he could feel the way your sopping walls clenched around him. Even he has to admit that he can barely hold himself back anymore.

"You're never going to reach my level if you can't endure.

A little pathetic aren't you, hm?" he taunts. It's mean an unnecessary, but it's all part of a larger scheme. If you feel like you've failed, you'll be desperate to do it again and prove him wrong. And he can keep up this charade for as long as he can get away with.

"I- I can't! James please, I can't wait any longer. Fuck me! I need it, need it s'bad!" you are nearly screaming as you beg and plead with him to make your dreams a reality. He hushes you as he repositions himself ever so slightly. He needs to get a more comfortable angle if he wants you to see what he's truly capable of. Bucky kisses the shell of your ear a few times and coos. He's going to make it better, he's going to make you feel better.

"So obedient for me angel, aren't you?" he whispers to you, bouncing you lightly on the length of his cock. It's not enough, you know it and he knows it. He's just getting started. He picks up the pace as he aligns his mouth to whisper into your ear once again. "You're such a good girl when you're begging for cock. the vibrations of his voice traverse directly into your ear and make you shudder. He grunts harshly as his whispering results in your cunt clamping him in a vice grip once again.

"Wanna be a good girl... Wanna be a good agent!" you explain. He shushes you again and praises you for your determination. His thumbs are put to use when tears spill from your eyes; the pleasure of his cock finally pleasing you feeling so heavenly and so intense all in one.

"Good girls... Good agents can endure their training”

“Good girls aren't desperate to get fucked by their superiors." he hums. He does feel a little guilty. He's chastising you for no good reason, after all. He wanted

this just as much as you did - if not more so, in fact. But the way you sniffle at his words dashes any guilt he felt.

You really are a good girl.

“sorry B-Bucky. I'II do- I'II do better n-next time!”

“Promise!" you stutter, hoping to get your point across.

You know you're understood when his index finger and thumb find your chin, tilting your face to his. His lips meet yours in another sweet, delicate kiss.

"Ah, yes." he begins, "Clever girl. Next time."

[yan-lorkai]

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: Mutual request for this hc with Lilia and Riddle. Babytrap, Malleus + Leona being infertile. @yasminzys hope you like it!

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Warnings: Yandere content, Infertility and talk about pregnancy/children, killing, kidnapping and cheating.

Lilia has lived a long time, seen a lot, so when you try again and again to conceive a baby and nothing works, he knows. He knows that there is a possibility that you or he, or both, are infertile, so Lilia shares his suspicions with you and together you go to the doctor to have these suspicions confirmed.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He raised Malleus and Silver, he had the full experience of being a father twice in a row and he wanted you to have the same experience, he wanted your love to be able to conceive a child, but this it is not possible because he is infertile. He is infertile and even for someone as old as he is, this news is still a surprise and not a good one.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Depending on the underlying cause of the problem, his infertility can be treated, so Lilia prefers to undergo treatment. For you and the thought of having a little bat with you. But… No matter how much time passes, your relationship begins to deteriorate with nothing being able to restore that beautiful feeling. And he knows that it doesn't matter if he brings you flowers or if he brings you chocolates, you won't feel what you felt before. A dream was stolen from you and all he can do is be sorry.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Which doesn't mean he can understand how you had the courage to send letters to another man while all this time you've been dodging his kisses and hugs. He has seen a lot of betrayal in his long life, especially allies betraying each other in war, perhaps even he was betrayed once, but without a doubt your betrayal is the only one that was able to pierce his heart so deeply.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Your poor lover? Dead. Your destiny? A cabin in an enchanted forest to never let you get away. And his heart? Trying to patch himself up as he hugs your struggling figure. Adultery once was punishable with death so you're very lucky that he loves you very much.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Honestly, I believe that Riddle doesn't really want to be a father, not while his mother's words and actions are still so present in his mind and haunt him often. If he tried to get you pregnant before it was only because, once again, he decided to listen to her and because he realized that you wanted it too so he didn't want to deny you the experience.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ 'Eventually,' he tells himself after all the times you have sex. 'it will eventually work out.'

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ But no matter how hard you try, it doesn't work. The child you want so much is never conceived, so the only plausible explanation is the one most terrible for you; one of you is infertile. Riddle is quick to assuage your fears and offer comfort as you go to the doctor to share your concerns. Tests are done, the results announced as an omen of death.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Riddle is the infertile one, the cause of your deep sadness and the destroyer of your dreams of having a family. He can see it all in your eyes as tears fall from them and you force yourself to tell him it's okay. He knows what a lie looks like, he knows because living with his mother taught him to lie. And you're doing it now and he can't blame you.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ If a treatment option is viable, he wants to try it. If there is nothing that can be done then he will discuss with you the option of adopting a child. Riddle closes his eyes to every letter you write, to every correspondence exchanged, he hopes that his words and actions reach your heart and that you don't love him less for it since it's something he has no control over, nonetheless, your love waned. And there's another man on your mind now. Another man he chases away.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He's not someone who gets his own hands dirty, but you force him to. You forces him to kill the other man and he forces you to watch every single thing he does. And then he takes you back home because you're a happy family and family stays together whether you want it or not.

[avelera]

So this is a bit random but:

Dream as the hero in a Greek tragedy and Hob as an Arthurian knight.

Thoughts?

(You obviously don’t have to answer if this is stupid or you don't want to)

If I may riff a bit on this, since I don't exactly have a pre-made answer (it's not a line of inquiry I've really considered), I'd say this:

Dream is absolutely a Greek tragedy protagonist. He thinks of himself that way, he's written that way. A major, indeed central, characteristic of Greek tragic heroes is that their virtues in some situations become their ultimate downfall. No one is dying in a Greek tragedy because they're inherently bad or failed people. It is the essence of that Picard line, "It's possible to do everything right and still lose. That's not failure, that's life."

Dream's dedication to his duty is an incredibly familiar virtue for a Greek tragic figure. It is also the virtue that will lead to his eventual end (in this incarnation). At least, in the comic. We'll see in the show if that's the case, and I have my suspicions based on the story's structure that we'll be seeing some deviation or, at the very least, a more optimistic spin on Dream's end.

Neil certainly wrote Dream to be a figure from a Greek Tragedy too, ironic considering he's also the "deus ex machina" in other situations, being literally a creature of godlike (or superior) power.

As for Hob as an Arthurian figure.... I'm less convinced. And I have a lot of reasons why because I think a lot about Hob's relationship, or lack thereof, with the tropes of knighthood as explored in both canon and fanon.

Let me quickly say that for fanon, sure, absolutely. I've seen incredible, complex, lovely takes on Hob as a Questing Knight or suffering the throes of textbook courtly love (more on that in a second, because I do find that part at least plausible) or otherwise being a gallant and heroic figure.

However, this is fanon. Canon Hob is certainly made more romantic, and I mean much more romantic by the show with the whole missed 1989 meeting and Ferdie's inherent and overwhelming charm. But comic Hob is... hmm, let's say he also has his charm but he's deliberately quite rough, quite crass, more than a bit dim at times, and the furthest thing from protagonist let alone romantic hero material. I think comic Hob would laugh, perhaps a bit wistfully, at the very idea of being an Arthurian figure. Certainly the Hob of "Sunday Mournings" (the Ren Faire comic issue) would be outright derisive of the notion of himself as a romantic figure or a questing knight.

Hob bought his knighthood. I think it's something that bears remembering: he bought it.

(Let me very briefly aside say, as a grubby Yankee myself, I actually find his audacity and sort of "Ha! I got away with it!" humor in that moment incredibly charming. Fuck yeah, stick it to the nobility! Fuck aristocracy, fuck nobility, and fuck aristocratic mythology like Arthuriana that reinforces those power structures. Good for Hob being a peasant who bought his knighthood, something that would be all but unthinkable in the grand sweep of Arthuriana, which for all its romanticism is still pretty definitive about everyone belonging in their social place.)

Anyway, Hob bought his knighthood with money he made getting into early English shipping and with money made from being on the right side of Henry VIII dissolving the monasteries (which were corrupt but were also one of the only forms of social services available to common people at the time, it's an incredibly complex issue) and Hob is as unbothered by the moral quandaries of this as he was the moral quandaries of being a soldier or a bandit. Hob is the furthest thing from being a Galahad. I'm not sure he could even aspire to Lancelot at his lowest on Hob's very best of days. He's just not built like that that we see.

At least, until 1989.

Now, as I've noted elsewhere, Hob's story is fundamentally altered by this ever so minor change in the show of making him still in England in 2022, still presumably waiting for Dream about a block away from the White Horse! Now, this is some courtly love shit right there! My jaw dropped when I began to map out the implications, not just of his waiting but of his becoming a history teacher.

Comic Hob never became a history teacher. Comic Hob seems all but allergic to romanticism and nostalgia. Comic Hob's highest moment of romanticism is wondering what exists in the depths of the ocean and thinking that maybe reincarnation possibly exists.

1989 changes everything. Actually, we even have evidence that in the comic timeline, Hob wasn't even in England by, what, 1992 when Dream passes away? He's in America with Gwen and they've been dating for a bit when she takes him to the Ren Faire, which is the day after Dream died. This implies that Hob doesn't usually stick around England like he does in the show timeline. If that wasn't already clear from the fact that most of his professions throughout the glimpses we see seem to involve maritime trade (sometimes of the very worst sort). The guy is constantly on the move but he stayed in England for Dream for over 30 years.

So there, at least, I think we have the first tendrils of something for fandom to grip onto that Hob does have the potential within him to go on a 30 year quest for his lost love, which is very Arthurian. I think even Hob would be perhaps shocked at himself for this, perhaps alongside becoming a history professor, finally coming to grips perhaps with the history he's seen, learning to care about it, learning that there's more to himself than he thought.

Because Hob is a weird immortal. He doesn't do the things we expect immortals to do, like learn from his mistakes and become some sort of avenging superhero, or even accumulate enough money to not need to have a day job any more, to just utterly detached from normal human life. Instead, he seems to stay grounded in a normal middle class life for whatever era he's in (barring disaster or windfall) and just happen to stick at it longer than anyone else by virtue of his immortality. It's so bizarre in the most fascinating way, it's why I'm obsessed with him, because he stays so grounded in his time period and not in any sort of special superhero way.

But 1989 really brings into sharp relief that there is an element of courtly love to how he interacts with Dream, the Beatrice to his Dante, this figure who inspires him, whom he waits for, whom he changes for (even when Dream himself perhaps doesn't believe himself capable of change?).

There I think there's something to the notion of Hob as, perhaps, a budding figure of courtly love, if not full Arthuriana knighthood.

But more intriguing and, if I may presume, what I think you're perhaps getting at with all of this is: could Hob's Questing Knight perhaps in some way disrupt Dream's Greek Tragic fate?

Well, it's not really possible in either of those genres played straight but, in the original canon, Hob didn't wait 33 years for Dream to come home to him.

So really, in the most optimistic way I'd say, anything is possible.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I have the smallest crumb of a theory. But what if howdy is mean to Latter because he’s self-conscious of being the only caterpillar (and repressed) and takes it out on his brother as a consequence. Because social expectations at the time gave him an excuse to do so?

no. ok. hoo boy. Allow Me To Be Insane Over The Most Prominent Thought I've Had Since Seeing The Update (about howdy)

i will try to be as eloquent and articulate as possible. ahem:

THAT FRUITY ASS CATERPILLAR IS REPRESSED AS FUCK, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT?? MY GOD. HOMEBOY HAS ISSUES STACKED ON ISSUES. GET HIM SOME THERAPY.

ok. ok ok ok. Now allow me to be articulate and eloquent

so obviously Howdy is almost certainly queer in the men-loving flavor. if i'm wrong about this my confidence will never recover. But I'm Willing To Take That Chance. so he's definitely queer, right? his.. well his everything points to it, but the final nail in the coffin are his rainbow suspenders from the group Homewarming artwork from Eddie's prolonged breakdown.

but this update i think showed us deeper into that part of him. and i take the shipping goggles off for genuine analysis, so when i say this i believe that there is Serious Evidence and seems Genuinely Plausible - if Howdy doesn't have feelings for Barnaby, i'll eat my cat.

the above is important to say because it Directly ties in to how Howdy treats Latter AND Eddie.

so. Howdy is likely gay or bi, what have you. i'm guessing gay. he obviously has feelings for Barnaby. SO WHAT I'M SAYING IS that i don't think Howdy treats Latter the way he does because of the caterpillar thing, I think Howdy treats Latter the way he does because Latter is genuine and Howdy is not.

what does this have to do with Eddie? well. look at Latter and Eddie in relation to each other. they're both... how do i say... Open. and not - not effeminate, but yes, for lack of of a better word, effeminate. just enough to make one go "huh." and Howdy treats them the same way - dismissive, apathetic, one could even say avoidant.

i wouldn't be shocked if Howdy picked up on their queerness (and if Latter isn't queer, his comfort with himself / his behavior & interests) and is on the defensive about it - likely subconsciously.

and with Latter specifically. Howdy could have also picked up on the way his other family members treat him if they're all also dismissive - as Seeya seems to be as well. i mean, it fits right in line with the time period! homophobia - internalized in Howdy's case (again, most likely). the blatant favoritism, the dismissive nature, it all adds up. even if no one outright knows, that subconscious recognition (or outright suspicion!) will do this

i mean, Latter makes me think of two things. 1) being the only queer kid in a family (especially large). 2) being a middle child. there was a third but i forgor. it felt important! it's gone now! anyway it's also Super telling comparing how Howdy treats Latter (emotional, earnest, open) to how he treats Beeya (oozing stereotypical masculinity)

tl;dr so i don't think it's really "expectations giving Howdy an excuse" as it is "subconscious / internalized homophobia causes Howdy to act the way he does"

as always, take all this with a Hefty grain of salt!

[jovialmoonprincess]

Death By a Thousand Cuts - Part II

First Part. / The Winter Ball / Champagne Problems / Frost and Thorns / The Storm Within / In Silence, We Crumble / Loving him was Red / Paired Again / During the Storm / Death By a Thousand Cuts - Part I / Death By a Thousand Cuts - Part II

Coriolanus Snow x Fem!reader

Summary: Clemensia's plan

Warning(s): None, enemy to lovers, back in time, destiny, Snow being in love, Snow being Snow, possible grammar and spelling mistakes

The tension intensifies in the principal's office as the students anxiously await the unfolding events. Dr. Gaul's gaze is icy, emanating authority and suspicion, while Clemensia maintains an angelic posture.

"Well, let's get to it, the main suspects are Sejanus and Y/N," begins the principal with a serious voice. "We understand that Coriolanus has an alibi in the library and Clemensia has an alibi which is Dr. Gaul. They were together at the time of the graffiti. Now, you two…" he points to Sejanus and Y/N, a questioning look over his glasses. "Have complicated histories, Y/N not so much but Sejanus… We've already talked about this pro-district behavior, haven't we?" The boy was calm, it was usual for him to get into trouble and his parents got him out in the blink of an eye. He wasn't afraid of many things. This behavior made him look even more suspicious.

"We were together, Y/N and I, in the gym during the incident," Coriolanus was confused about why the two would skip class together. He had a strange feeling about the situation. "We both received identical notes, supposedly from each other, but neither of us wrote them. Someone is trying to frame us!"

"Okay, so someone here has a false alibi. Because someone did that. And everyone here seems like they weren't there. Would Dr. Gaul or the librarian lie to me? Or are you students lying?" The principal carried a comical tone. "I think the second option is the most plausible, right? Because in all these decades of work here at this school, this has never happened." Y/N feels a knot forming in her throat, the words of accusation echoing in her mind like an echo of despair. Sejanus remains by her side, an anchor of support amid the storm of uncertainties that unfolds around them.

Coriolanus knew he was in the library and also knew that Dr. Gaul and Clemensia would not graffiti the lockers with such a phrase; they were, above all, supporters of the games. His serious expression betrayed the concern consuming him inside. His eyes met Y/N's, a tumultuous mix of emotions reflecting in the depths of her blue irises. He wondered if Clemensia would set up something like this against Y/N to harm her but found no reason for it to happen. And also, Dr. Gaul tried to kill her, the two being accomplices was out of the question. Y/N was anxious, her fingers moving unconsciously. She knew she was innocent but didn't like situations like this.

"Please, sir, I have nothing to do with this! I would never do something like that!" The principal casts a skeptical look at her, his expression hard and unyielding.

"Right, everything happened very quickly. About 30 minutes at most, the culprit must still have something that compromises him with him. Dr. Gaul, can you help me search their bags?"

The doctor nodded quietly. A few minutes passed and Clemensia said she was feeling ill. Everyone looked at her and noticed that she did not look well at all. Sejanus helped her sit down and the principal offered her a glass of water.

"I'm not used to situations like this, I'm sorry."

With the mood calmed, the search resumed. Everyone in the room was tense until they heard a jingle of metal that Dr. Gaul took from Y/N's bag. It was a bunch of keys, with a keychain bearing the school's crest.

"It's the bunch with the key to the teachers' room," the principal said, surprised.

"This is absurd! Y/N would have no reason to do something like this!" Sejanus exclaims in defense of the girl. Coriolanus watches the scene with a mix of incredulity and confusion, his mind struggling to reconcile the image of Y/N he knew with the accusations hanging over her.

"Principal Highbottom, I swear I'm innocent! You have to believe me!" Y/N was about to faint, it was as if the ground opened up beneath her feet. "I didn't write any note and I didn't even know about the existence of that key, I'm sure it was a setup!" The revelation of the key is like a devastating blow to Y/N, her heart sinking in despair as she realizes the gravity of the situation she finds herself in. Tears threaten to flood her eyes, but she swallows them, determined to face injustice with dignity. Sejanus remains steadfast by Y/N's side, his comforting presence a source of strength amid the storm that envelops them. Principal Highbottom frowns, considering the students' words seriously.

"A trap, you say? And how can we be sure of that?"

"And I never had that key in my possession. Someone put it in my bag to make me look guilty!"

The tension in the room increases as the students' words echo through the space, challenging the accusations that hang over them. Coriolanus was no longer in the room when the principal spoke about what he would do about the matter:

"After careful analysis of the facts presented, it is concluded that the evidence points to your involvement, Sejanus and Y/N, in the graffiti of the teachers' lockers. Although I understand that you may disagree with this assessment, it is my duty as director to apply appropriate disciplinary measures."

He emphasizes his decision firmly, standing firm in his conviction, despite the possibility of error. The students listen to the principal's words with a sense of helplessness and injustice, aware that they are being punished for something they did not do. The feeling of powerlessness is overwhelming, but they silently accept the consequences, resigned to the authority of the principal.

"Therefore, as a disciplinary measure, you will be required to perform 50 hours of community service each, in addition to bearing the full costs of repairing the damage caused by the acts of vandalism. These measures aim not only to punish but also to encourage reflection on the consequences of your actions and promote personal growth."

The principal's words echo in the room, leaving a weight on the shoulders of Sejanus and Y/N. They feel wronged and frustrated, but know they must face the imposed consequences, even if they do not agree with them.

The silence that followed was deafening, each gaze seeking answers amid the growing chaos.

-----------

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[alexandia03]

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - Theories, Spoilers and Headcannons

This post will serve as my way of making order in my own mind, in a way. I finished Fourth Wing three days ago and I feel like my mind is exploding. I have read lots of theories and I have my own to add to the list, so... maybe if I put them in one place and start a discussion with you all, we might find some answers - considering November does not seem to come any soon.

Before I forget -

This post will be like an analogy of theories, spoilers, headcannons. If you did not finish the book yet, I suggest scrolling over it. See you when you join our little club of desperate broken hearts post-reading.

And now... let`s begin.

1. Returning to Basgiath

Who will return to Basgiath is the most important question I have. You can read the synopsis for Iron Flame here.

From the synopsis for the second book, we know that Violet will return to the war college and I can think of a few reasons for her to return: she wants to keep her promise to Liam (ouch, my aching heart) to keep an eye on his younger sister (Sloane?), but at the same time I have the feeling that Violet will act as a spy for the rebellion throughout Iron Flame.

And it is not a bad idea. I mean, Violet did not raise any suspicions in the first book. Sure, her connection with Xaden was frowned upon, but most of the people in command (her mother, the king, Dain`s father and some teachers) saw her as a victim in the situation.

“Their dragons are mated,” Mom offers, her smile chilling. “So she’s grown quite close to him out of necessity.” “That’s excellent.” King Tauri beams. “It’s good to have a Sorrengail on lookout for us. You’ll let us know if he decides to, oh, I don’t know.” He laughs. “Start another war?” (Chapter 31)

Bonus - Violet is a Sorrengail. There are few others with better access to information and our little Violence has a talent to stumble over secrets.

The problem is... who will return with her?

I have seen people saying Xaden might remain behind in Aretia, considering the attack was a plan to kill him and the others. Perhaps a plan orchestrated by Violet`s mom - and because Violet was added to Xaden`s squad afterwards and considering Dain`s objections, it seems that her presence was not part of the initial plan. But can Xaden remain behind? I will highlight the main reasons I don`t think so:

The most obvious reason - Tairn and Sgaeyl. They can not be separated for a long period of time and Xaden cant just come by (even in secret) every few days without being noticed. From the synopsis, we know that Violet will be directly watched by that new vice commandant - he will not turn a blind eye to a certain blue dragon (from a rare breed) coming and going as she pleases.

I read a fanfic where Violet choses to leave Tairn behind and return with Andarna, which might be a possibility in theory - let me explain it briefly: this theory suggests that Violet will pretend Tairn died in the attack along with his mate and the other riders and dragons and her bond with Andarna saved her from a fate similar to Liam`s. It is a plausible lie, but... have we met Tairn? He is the ultimate protective dad figure, he would rather die than let Violet on her own where he can not be. He had a saddle and a baby carrier made for Violet and Andarna, so I doubt he will be okay with it. And before someone comes to suggest he can hide somewhere nearby - he is freaking huge, guys.

Another reason I think Violet will not come alone is the threat Dain poses. Sure, she will not let him get near her again, but it might be beyond her control. What if he is ordered to interrogate her by someone higher in the food chain? That is why I think Imogen must be returning with her, but I will get into a deeper discussion about Imogen later (I absolutely adore her). Her signet might be the only way to avoid Dain`s prying hands.

Besides, Xaden will die of longing and worry if Violet leaves without him.

What I think will happen?

They will all return. Or at least Xaden and Imogen will return with her. Xaden will be appointed to a position somewhere far away or somewhere he can be closely watched by someone the command trusts - maybe with Mira?

It might be a good occasion to gain Mira`s trust and get her to join the rebellion (let`s be honest, she will join it at some point).

OR!

Only Imogen will return with Violet. Considering her signet lets her wipe recent memories, she can facilitate meetings with Xaden and Sgaeyl.

However, I am fairly certain that Xaden will return. There would be no reason for the new vice commander to pressure Violet to spill out our shadow boy`s secrets if they would think him dead.

2. Professor Carr

The second matter on the list... I don`t know if anyone else noticed, but there is a paragraph in the book, during Violet`s training sessions with him, when he says something like this:

“And the fact that you bonded Tairn makes you and Riorson the most coveted pair of riders this kingdom has seen in far too long. If I could offer a piece of advice?” His eyes narrow. “Please do.” At least he’s brutally honest, so I know where I stand with him. “Keep your loyalties clear. You and Riorson both have exceptional, lethal power that any rider would be envious of. But together?” His bushy brows furrow. “You would be a formidable enemy who command could simply not afford to let exist. Do you understand what I’m saying?” His voice softens.

Why am I interested in this passage? Because it sounds like a warning and not the make-sure-you-are-loyal-to-Navarre sort of warning. I fail to see any kind of loyalty or admiration for the command on Carr`s part - the opposite, really. I would go so far as to say he might be in on the rebellion.

Why does he train Violet privately? Why not on school grounds? I have the feeling he knows that her ability might be the only weapon against wyverns and venins.

Am I crazy?

3. Imogen

By far the most interesting theory I have come across. Here is a link to a Reddit theory about it, which I absolutely agree with. If the person who wrote it comes across this post - I fucking love you, mate.

To sum it all up...

Imogen has the power to wipe memories and there are some moments that seem suspicious.

How does Violet know about Imogen`s signet? I doubt the pink haired raider would just tell her during training. And how come Violent doesn`t go into detail about it? Perhaps because Imogen wiped out this memory.

The author of this theory also goes into detail about how it is possible for Imogen to wipe out memories, but not knowledge, about how it is probably a secret few are in on. They also give a plausible explanation as to why Imogen seems to be absent during the Montserrat trip and as to why Xaden has a lighter backpack when they leave. Absolutely brilliant.

But I can`t help but notice... did Xaden come to Montserrat only for that weapon transport, thus lying about Sgaeyl not resisting to be far from Tairn for more than 3 days? Because this changes... a hell of a lot of things.

We can all agree that Imogen will have a central role in the next books - you can probably tell by now that I am excited.

Seriously, take a look at that post.

4. Brennan Sorregail

The piece of resistance!

He is alive and part of the rebellion. Okay, we all get that. But... how? And how much of what has been happening is he in on?

Did he correspond with Xaden? Did he know about Violet and made Xaden protect her? Shadow boy here was clearly in on the secret of Brennan being alive. I want answers, Yarros!

Is Brennan in a leading position in the rebellion?

Where will he stand on Violet returning to Basgiath?

I feel like he will be the wild card of the series. It will be like a bomb when he starts spilling all the information he has, I can tell. And I love it already.

I feel like Violet`s dad knew about it all - about the real reason behind the rebellion, about the wyverns and venins and about his son faking his death. I want to know more about the Sorrengail men, please and thank you.

Anyhow, this is all for today. I will probably continue to collect theories and post them separately. Please feel free to comment your own thoughts - I am open to discussions as long as we keep it civil, guys!

And as a side note - does anyone know a group chat or something for Fourth Wing? I desperately need people to talk to about this amazing book. Or role-playing groups? Message me if you are on the same boat.

Kisses!

[writingquestionsanswered]

Anonymous asked: I'm writing a story where the villain grows close to the main character/his current target. All the other characters are between trusting and finding something off about him cause they trust the main character who sees nothing wrong. Do you have any advice about how I can make the villain come off as subtly creepy without tipping off the main character and about how I can reveal how horrifying he's supposed to be later? When I think of his true intentions reveal it's not really scary or momentous and I want to create a sense of dread but I'm not sure how to do that.

[Ask edited for content and length]

As far as subtlety in making the villain come off creepy, I think it's all about finding things that appear creepy outside of a particular context. For example, imagine one of the friends pulls up to the MC's house and sees the villain standing in front of her window, peering in. Super creepy! Of course the friend will tell the MC about this, and the MC will probably say, "I'm sure there was a good reason..." and when they mention it to the villain later, the villain says, "Oh! I was walking by and I saw an unusual caterpillar crawling up the inside of the window frame." Now the thing that looked so creepy has a believable explanation. However, it's not so reasonable that it couldn't still be an excuse... It provides just enough wiggle room for it to go either way. And you can have some fun playing with the reader's expectations, too, because maybe a few days later, the villain pulls out their phone and shows the MC and the friends pictures of the unusual caterpillar. Now anyone who doubted the villain feels silly, but it doesn't mean they weren't peeping through the character's window. You could even have a time when the same friend (or maybe a different one who knows about the "caterpillar incident") shows up and sees the villain peeping through the window again. They say, "Another unusual caterpillar?" (their tone laced with suspicion), and the villain chuckles nervously and says, "No, ants this time. I need to let MC know they've got a little infestation." For anyone with a healthy skepticism, that's going to be too much... the caterpillar you can begrudgingly dismiss, but now... ants??? But, you can see how easy it would be for the MC to dismiss it because they trust this person. They will see no reason not to believe they were looking at ants this time. Especially if the villain elaborates... "I noticed a trail of ants when I was looking at the caterpillar last week, so walking by today, I thought I'd see if they were still there and let you know if they were." Sounds plausible enough to the MC, but the friend won't be so sure.

And, obviously I'm not suggesting you use this particular scenario, but hopefully you can see how you can use plausible deniability to make the trusting MC believe the villain where the friends (and potentially the reader) see that there's more going on.

As far as revealing the extent of the horror later, I think you'll want to use the rising suspicions and fears of the friends to create that build-up of dread, and then when the MC realizes (if that's part of the reveal), it's sort of like a domino effect where every single red flag their friends warned them about suddenly pop into their head as the red flag it always was rather than whatever plausible excuse they believed at the time.

Have fun with your story!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[tiny-planet-13]

you know what's absolutely fucked (besides my inability to say a single sentence without cursing) is that I think that somehow, however improbable or disgusting this truth is, riko's abuse is at least half the reason why jean is still alive right now. (please bear with me) and I mean still alive as in the reason why he hasn't killed himself yet rather than someone else doing it.

idk quite how to explain but like, we can acknowledge that the nest and the ravens was a cult, right? and it's quite obvious that the ravens have been essentially brainwashed in their own ways into believing that the whole situation is normal and that's just how life has to be for them to achieve their goals and dreams in the future. but they don't know about the extent of the abuse that riko was inflicting on Kevin and jean and also Neil for his brief stay. (whether they had suspicions is besides the point because I suppose if it didn't affect their futures then there was no reason to care)

so the fact that a lot of the ravens end up killing themselves after the nest has been dismantled in tsc is almost entirely because of the brainwashing and the reliance they had on that awful structure.

however

as we see in tsc jean is also battling with trying to adjust to normality again, but the fact that he is actively trying says everything. sure, he's angry at everyone and makes empty threats and all the rest of it, but the fact remains that he is still willing to embrace change and learn and reluctantly heal. especially once he's with the Trojans, we don't really see jean deliberately working against what is being offered to him. sure, he makes mistakes and he gets angry and he struggles to cope BUT!! I don't think he's doing any of that intentionally because of course he's going to slip up on occasion. you don't just live in a hideous abusive situation for 5 years and then magically escape from it unscathed.

(I promise I'm actually getting to my point soon I'm sorry)

the reason he can go on and try and understand that killing himself isn't an option is because he knew that what happened to him in the nest was wrong and bad and evil. and whilst he still says things like he deserved it, I don't think that overshadows his understanding that it was still wrong. so whilst the other ravens had all accepted that this cult was the correct way for them to get what they wanted, horrifically enough I think riko's abuse is what kept jean aware that it wasn't normal.

so in some backhanded absolutely twisted and sick way I think the difference between jean and the rest of the ravens (particularly those who killed themselves) is that the abuse was so real and tangible to jean that it shattered any reliance he could ever truly have on the nest and is at least in part the reason why him killing himself on the phone to Kevin would never be as plausible as him finally clinging to an opportunity and trying to heal..

[doodlegirl1998]

I never liked the Traitor twist. If I were given a chance to rewrite it, here's how I would've done it.

Instead of a traitor, it would instead be a person with a quirk to travel as a shadow, that would explain how they would be able to get the information for the USJ and the Training Camp. and Izuku could even have a bit of a meetup with them who blackmails him into keeping quiet about who they are or else they'll reveal he's the reason All Might retired.

They're a spy for hire, charging a hefty price to spill/keep secrets to villains. As being in the shadows can help with learning various things about people, no matter how big or small.

And to top it all off... they were previously a student of Aizawa's class that was expelled for "not having enough potential" Thus they couldn't face their family and ran away from home, becoming a villain.

This would show the effects of Aizawa's expulsion and how it's not as clear cut as he thinks it is, that it actually has negative consequences and where his students might end up. This would make Aizawa think twice and realize that his expulsions did more harm than good and now it's come back to hit him with the cold reality.

Hi @theloganator101 👋,

That is an excellent rewrite of the Traitor twist because how Hori wrote it in canon it just doesn't make sense.

1) Yuuga should have been caught way before now. He doesn't have invisibility to conceivably sneak around the way that Toru does. And UA should have security cameras.

2) He is one of the bottom students of the class. An argument could be made that he was hiding some of his skill set but Hori doesn't set that up (unlike that moment in the sports festival when he did for Kaminari) beyond occaisional fourth wall breaks.

3) What even is Aoyama doing as traitor? I've seen @justatalkingface talk about how they would have utilised the traitor plot and it is so scary and narrative breaking how AFO could have used this effectively yet he just didn't... For some reason. (A DFO argument could be made here, yet even if this theory turns out being true, AFO has no reason not to go after All Might, the rest of the staff and students properly.)

4) How is he getting Info to AFO directly without the staff / students with hearing quirks finding out? This just is a plot hole. Perhaps Yuuga didn't call, perhaps he passed on coded messages to his parents, perhaps... Nothing. This is giving Hori too much credit. You can't tell me Nedzu didn't monitor communications of everyone when they were in the dorms via the schools wifi / network. Nedzu should think something is suss especially if a student is talking with their parents in code.

5) The parallels with Izu are perhaps the only positive thing about this. But even that is utilised poorly. Izuku isn't allowed to reflect on his own past once when this Aoyama situation should have opened a lot of old wounds for him. Izuku wasn't allowed to think of the grey area of this situation once he brushed off Mic's concerns that they were all victims here along with Toru and Ojiro's hurt to tell Aoyama "you can still be a hero." While this is nice for Yuuga (since he was a traitor by force) it brushes off everyone elses feelings on the matter. Izuku has become more and more black and white as a character (and in his views) and this starkly highlights it.

Furthermore, your version where a villainous ex-student of Aizawa's with a shadow quirk is the cause of the traitor suspicions is much more interesting and plausible.

It would make more sense for them to be able to sneak around undetected.

It confronts Aizawa with the devastating impact of his teaching without any narrative cushioning.

It encourage Aizawa to grow as a teacher or quit after getting 1A through their first year.

This would tie the class closer together rather than tearing them apart and pitting members against each other (which is why I dislike the Izuku vs 1A fight along with how this Traitor arc was handled.)

It makes Nedzu look like less of a moron in general for the disbelief of Mic suggesting there is a traitor because he wouldn't be able to see any evidence of one in the cameras or student communications.

[astxrwar]

ties that bind [4/8]

SUMMARY: Quentin Beck– your old college biology professor– is still a bastard. Apparently, you’re kind of in to that.

RATING: Explicit

WORD COUNT: 8k+

CONTENT WARNINGS: extremely under-negotiated kink, character-typical behavior, more sex albeit less gratuitous, established-dynamic-typical Everything. Some plot in this one, finally!

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | [PART 4] | PART 5

The thing about lab work is–

There’s generally always going to be something that could use doing after-hours.

Dr. Banner presumably interprets your sudden apparent willingness to be the one to sacrifice your evenings once or twice a week or so as an attempt to suck up; or maybe just a deep, avowed interest in microbiology.

Neither are true.

You’re not sure how Beck even knows; who he must be talking to– interrogating, more likely– to figure out when you’ll be there, at night, with everyone else gone. You don’t care. On those days you wind yourself so tight with anticipation that you can hardly think straight, never more grateful for your deep familiarity with the lab procedures, given you’re so fucking distracted. It’s hard not to be– after that second time, Beck goes right back to showing up everywhere, like he’d only been waiting, the week before, biding his time until you inevitably came back within reach of him again, and once you were and once he knew beyond suspicion that you still– that you wanted– that you would let him –

It’s like after that, all bets are off. Before, he’d always been careful, words measured and insinuations meticulous, pre-planned, balancing so expertly on the knife’s-edge boundary of appropriate and acceptable that half the time you felt like you must have been imagining it, the way he tormented you. You don’t really even have to imagine anymore; he crosses the line with impunity, now, with an unrepentant and unapologetic enjoyment. All he ever has to do is look at you the way that he does, for too long, the sum of it too familiar, the way his eyes swallow up every inch of you, or press his palm to your lower back to move past you through a doorway, just for a dizzying fraction of a second, or call you honey in that voice– sly and deliberate and fucking patronizing, that twitching half-smile hidden behind a cup of dining hall coffee at seven in the morning, so early that you’re unable to remember to even try to hide the reflexive, immediate shiver that trembles straight through you, every nerve in your body already humming and alive.

Most times Beck’s waiting for you when you leave, lingering at the other end of the building, engaged in some plausibly-deniable excuse of an activity like grading exams or stocking lab supplies or writing up. Once, though, you run into him before you’re even finished, when you step out to grab something for the lab, and that’s both better and worse– he fucks you in the closed-off third-floor bathroom, the one that’s been disconnected from the water main and essentially abandoned for the last six months, and then you just have to go back to work like nothing happened, your muscles twitching, your body liquid and sated and sore–

He gets off on that, probably. 

So do you, though, is the thing.

It’s worse this time around, too, because of that– because this time you can identify attraction and desire and wanting and name them for what they are, something you couldn’t have done before. It was so much easier when those feelings were distant and incomprehensible, when the worst thing he could ever elicit in you was anger, when you could say that you hated him and still wholeheartedly believe that it wasn’t more complicated.

Needless to say, it’s actually extremely complicated.

You do this for the entire rest of the semester– you actively make time for it, even towards the end with finals on the horizon for you and the undergrads that you TA for, glad for the fact that there’s actually no possible way for him to know that you’re, technically, prioritizing this over review for your structural biochemistry final. 

It’s six-thirty in the evening and you’re in his office when you should be anywhere else, in the library or in the commuter lounge or just fucking home, the exam is tomorrow, and instead of studying or preparing or even really thinking about it at all you’re letting him stick his tongue in your mouth and his hands under your skirt, letting him bend you flat over his desk until your hands can reach all the way across to the other side of it, until your fingers can curl around the edges so tight that your knuckles go pale and bloodless when he fists a hand in your hair and pulls it until it hurts and aligns himself with an ease that is, by now, practiced and familiar, bottoms out inside of you with a groan that reverbates through your whole body like some kind of horrible electric fucking shock–

He fucks you hard, and it wipes from your brain anything about your exam or your fucked priorities or the abysmally fucking long to-do list of your responsibilities that apparently all came second to this, a terrible and grating truth that he would never let you live down– but he doesn’t know, and you don’t tell him, and the stress of the entire fucking week thus far and the tension that had built in you trying to manage all the end-of-semester bullshit stops mattering for all of a horribly gratifying fifteen minutes.

When you let go of the edge of his desk to touch yourself, turning to the crook of your arm to muffle the traitorous and immediate gasp that breaks out of you, he chuckles, the tenor of his voice ragged and rough and split in pieces by the absolutely fucking ruthless rhythm of his thrusts– like he’s trying to break you, shatter your resolve, like that’s what he wants most out of all of this. “You gonna come for me, honey?”

“Fuck you,” you bite back at him, the words dissolving into a choked-off moan, and then you do.

And then you go home and you study for your structural biochemistry exam and you still do pretty decently on it, somehow, and you resolve to take to your grave the fact that your ability to weigh the relative importance of immediate gratification versus the entirely less gratifying things that you should be doing is broken beyond all repair. That he broke it. Or maybe you both did; combined effort. Irrelevant, really. You’re not anything, you and him, you’re not friends, or acquaintances, and you don’t, strictly speaking, even actually like each other, which means that you never have to tell him any of that.

And so you don’t. 

You do, though, see him on the last day before break, coat already on and stupid little expensive leather laptop bag slung over one shoulder, and you do walk a little faster to catch up to him before he reaches the door, glancing at him sidelong and saying with far less nonchalance than you’d intended, far more want– “Leaving?”

Beck turns to you and stares and his eyes are dark and amused and the sight of that alone sends some merciless heat searing right through your stomach. “Yeah,” he says, the silence after just as pointed and intentional as the fact that he hasn’t moved.

He wants you to ask for it, and you know that, and maybe the fact that you don’t care can be blamed on the abject fucking lack of adequate sleep you’ve gotten all week or the burning bright pulse of want that thunders dangerously through your nervous system or maybe just on– whatever. Who cares.

“Do you have to be somewhere right now?” you say, so blunt that it almost surprises you, “Or in the next, what, ten to fifteen minutes?” 

The smile that spreads slow across his face is arrogant and vicious and deeply self-satisfied and if it inspires any sort of anger in you at all, you can’t even begin to separate it from the frenetic surge of desire and the dizzying rush of anticipation that ramps up even higher at the sight, and later you can be upset about it or pissed off or whatever, but right now you can’t even really summon the barest fucking remnants of any of that. Can’t do anything but want.

“No,” he says, grinning like a wolf, “No, I don’t.”

Whatever complete absence of ability for rational thought or logic or reasoning you’re experiencing then – it doesn’t magically abate after the door to that same stupid small supply closet is closed, certainly doesn’t when his hands are on you again, his mouth , not even when he breaks from kissing you to to whisper against your jaw you want it that bad you’re gonna have to do something for me, honey, and still not even when he says, lower, rougher, the words dripping with implication and so clearly a power play that you should, rationally, tell him to go fuck himself, but–

“On your knees,” he tells you, and–

And you let him, god, you let him tell you to kneel and you let him wind his fingers through your hair and pull, tip your head back to force you to look up at him, to witness whatever wild and vicious thing is swirling in the dark of his irises; you let him reach for you and press the pad of his thumb past your lips and against your tongue and you let him squeeze the hinge of your jaw to force it open and you let him work the head of his cock into the heat of your mouth and urge you to take it, take more, all of it, just like that, fuck, honey, there you go, his hand steady and firm and warm at the base of your skull–

Something absolutely fucking treacherous inside of you vibrates when he doesn’t even really try to cage back an immediate groan this time, lazy and dark and satisfied.

Yeah. Okay. This–

You don’t actually think about it then, not when he’s fucking your mouth and not when you’re letting him and not when he’s rucking up the hem of the little t-shirt dress you’d worn because you couldn’t be bothered with pants on the fucking last day of class. Definitely not when he’s dragging your panties to the side or when his cock is pressing hot and solid between your legs and slipping and sliding up and nudging your clit and missing the mark more than once with the way you’re fucking dripping for him, god, and not when he grits out fuck all breathless and disbelieving and still somehow fucking smug, not when he has to actually use a hand around the base of his dick to guide it into you and not when he fills you up, again, the second time in two days–

You don’t, in that moment, really think about how your reaction to any of this– all of it, really, to all of it, or maybe just to him in general, whatever’s worse– may, technically, potentially, be approaching territory that is getting dangerously close to an actual fucking problem.

In your defense, it’s really fucking easy to not think about it, with the dull plastic edge of the shelf digging into the small of your back and one of your legs hitched over the crook of his arm and your entire center of balance so dependent on him like this that you don’t even have to actually move at all, your bodies so close together that the warmth of him bleeds right through his clothes. His stupid coat and that satchel-thing- whatever are discarded and forgotten somewhere on the dusty, cobwebbed floor, and him even doing that conflicts with fucking everything you know about him, but that, too, is conveniently not something you think about. He bites at your bottom lip and plies your mouth open with his tongue and licks into it like he can take this and anything else he wants from you and you’d just– let him. You’d like it. He barely even has to touch you this time and you’re already just– gone, and maybe the immediacy of it is what drags him over the edge too, because he doesn’t last much longer after that, either.

“Wait,” you say, breathless, when he moves to pull back, your head dropping onto his shoulder and your thoughts spinning, directionless, bouncing around inside your skull like it’s fucking empty in there, like your brain is the size of a fucking ping-pong ball, god, embarrassing, terrible – “Hold on, give me a second, or I really am going to fall this time.”

Beck just laughs, only vaguely mocking, breathing ragged but steadying, and holds you until your perception of things like gravity and your own center of balance and the otherwise generally simple concept of, like, standing upright, realign themselves in the disarray that must be your motor cortex. And he laughs, too, when you make a whiny and petulant noise at the fucking mess that’s between your legs, fumbles around in the dark of the supply closet until he finds one of those rolls of scratchy recycled paper towels that the bathrooms are all stocked with, and then you laugh when he grumbles under his breath at the dust clinging stubbornly to the heavy wool outer lining of his coat when he picks it up off the floor again. 

You do not think about any of that, either, at least not until you’re home, and then you do think about it– all of it, the weird parts and the concerning parts and the fact that there’s still, even now, that tiny little flicker of warmth somewhere inside of you.

Bad, you think, lying in your room in the dark, very bad.

But by then the semester is over, and it’s winter break for four weeks, and there’s the holidays to think about; Christmas, and all the logistical details that need to be worked out for that, and then New Years, which you’re pretty sure nobody even counts as a real holiday anyways, and then you realize you forgot to work out a second lab rotation and spend the rest of the break frantically sending emails– life happens, basically, and everything with Beck ends up on the back-burner, at least while he’s not within your immediate line of sight.

Maybe, you think, sometime in early January, the upcoming semester looming in the distance, maybe in the span of time between now and when you see him again, you’ll manage to get your head screwed back on straight.

---------------------

Perhaps predictably, that is not what happens at all.

Beck corners you in the east stairwell your second day back. This is despite his office being on the west side and despite the fact that there’s absolutely no fucking reason for him to even be there– he still is, of course, smiling, smirking, pressing his palm flat to the dusty brick wall near your head, his arm between you and the ascending stair. None of this is new, anymore, technically, and you’d spent the last month promising yourself that you’d fucking get over this, but for whatever reason it’s like that little base and instinctive part of your hindbrain– or maybe just your body, your entire nervous system, the way it reacts to him– hasn’t realized any of that, yet. Or just doesn’t care.

“Hey, honey,” he says, grinning wide,  “Miss me?”

“No,” you reply, dry and emphatic and somehow mostly steady, rolling your eyes if only to avoid looking at him and wishing it was more than only half-true.

Later– when you’re done for the day at one-thirty, stupidly and unusually early, and when you’re walking the long way out to the parking lot through the length of the still-mostly-empty biology building for absolutely no justifiable reason at all, you pass the cracked-open door to his office, and–

You just cannot seem to fucking help yourself. 

Beck is at his desk, posture relaxed and attention directed at something important, ostensibly; the door creaks even though you don’t so much as touch it, drifting further ajar behind you by a matter of what must have only been millimeters. The sound draws his attention and it’s like the second his eyes are on you or the second it registers he’s standing and across the room in an impossibly small number of strides, so fast that you don’t really have time to move or breathe or think . And maybe if you had time to do any of those things you would have thought to taunt him for it, how quick he is to just abandon everything else, the single-minded ferocity of his focus and how much it undercuts him when he says “You need it that bad, honey?” all arrogant and mocking like you’re alone in that, like the total sum of his own actions when laid out side by side doesn’t absolutely fucking betray him too—

“Fuck you,” is what you say instead, because it doesn’t register, not with him slamming the door shut with his hand above your head and forcing you right back against it, not with the immediate, precarious, dizzying lurch of adrenaline that vibrates right through you, brighter and warmer and sharper than anything you’ve felt in the month since you last saw him.

And, god, you will think, still later and still not then, not when it’s happening, because you never do– isn’t that just the fucking worst.

---------------------

You don’t actually come back from break early to get railed by your undergraduate biology professor. No, the actual reason is to help out in Dr. Banner’s lab, assisting in setup for his introduction to microbiology class both as part of the terms of your scholarship as well as in exchange for his advice on your nebulous future plans— you needed to at least tentatively have picked out a lab to do your thesis in and an actual official faculty advisor to pursue by the end of the semester, and you still hadn’t seriously started on either, yet.

“I was thinking about immunology, actually,” you tell him, sifting through a dusty, crumpled cardboard box full of micropipettes that you’ve been tasked with sorting by size, “I took intro in undergrad, and I did really well and I thought it was interesting, so I’m taking advanced immunology this semester with Dr. Stark– I was going to ask if he has space in his lab for me to do my third rotation.”

Dr. Banner doesn’t look up from where he’s painstakingly filling rows of those annoying too-small centrifuge tubes with pre-mixed DNA primer; yet another of an endless array of menial, boring tasks that need to be done to get everything set up for the class. 

“I think that’s a great idea.The only thing, though,” he says, reaching the end of the row, snapping closed all of the tiny plastic caps, and then starting on the next one, “Tony’s the Dean, and everybody’s always falling over themselves trying to get into his lab, so I would keep your options open. Just in case. I can talk to him for you, put a good word in, and if you do well in the class I don’t see why he wouldn’t be up for it, because your grades are otherwise great, but– still, y’know?”

You make a noncommittal sound, catching your bottom lip between your teeth and worrying at it; with the micropipettes now sorted, you work your way methodically around the room to set one of each size at every seat. “Yeah, I know– I just don’t know what I would want to do otherwise.”

“Who do you have for your second rotation?”

“Dr. Cho.”

“And, what– you’re not thinking about asking her?”

You shrug, emptying the box at the last bench. “I’m less interested in structural biochemistry,” you reply, and the degree to which you’re actually incredibly not interested in structural biochemistry must be evident in your expression, because Dr. Banner chuckles under his breath.

“Don’t let her hear that, it’ll break her heart,” he says, smiling. 

There’s a brief, not-uncomfortable silence, filled only with the sounds of the plastic casing of the micropipettes set down on the epoxy surface of the lab benches, the quiet, rhythmic click-click of the syringe depressing as he fills and then empties it over and over.

Finally, he makes this noise, a hum, kind of, like he’s considering the merits of whatever he’s about to say. “Tony’s not the only one who does immunology research. If that’s what you really want to pursue, I mean.”

You’re halfway into the adjacent storage room when he says it, off to fill the empty box with pipette tips that you’d have to similarly deposit at each lab station– god, you don’t know how he does this, year after year, it’s so fucking boring– but something about the tone of his voice makes you pause in the doorway. “He’s the only one listed on the department research page,” you reply, nonplussed, “I’ve checked.”

“Yeah, I know.” The prickle of annoyance underlying his voice– one that you recognize– betrays who he must be talking about before he even says it. “Beck’s lab isn’t listed, because he doesn’t want to have to deal with taking on undergrads for research experience. And Tony, he just– lets him, for whatever reason.”

Your mouth goes a little dry and that stupid traitorous thing inside of you trembles, the response so embarrassingly pavlovian that you should honestly be multiple times more ashamed than you are. You ignore it, and focus instead on the fact that somewhere in the back of your mind you were at least marginally aware of what he’s told you– that Beck had a lab, he did research, he wasn’t just teaching faculty. 

“It’s really not worth asking, though,” Dr. Banner continues; if he’s at all cognizant of the way you’d gone suddenly and uncharacteristically silent, he doesn’t make mention of it at all. “He’s– I mean, you know how he is.”

Yeah, you think; yeah, I do. 

“What does he– um, what’s his research area?” you ask, kicking yourself internally at the way that you stumble through the question, awkward and stilted and uncomfortable, trying to focus instead on stacking the little sachets of pipette tips into the cardboard box in neat, orderly rows. You only need forty-two– one of each of three sizes, for fourteen lab benches– but somewhere along the way you realize you’ve lost count and just mindlessly filled the entire thing.

“You’re not seriously considering it, are you?” Dr. Banner’s voice, incredulous, drifts from somewhere in the lab room proper.

“I’m seriously considering needing a backup plan,” you reply, bringing the too-full box of pipette sachets back into the lab classroom and beginning to lay those out, too. 

That much, at least, is true.

He makes another sound that could best be described as the wordless equivalent of the phrase your funeral, which is distressingly appropriate. “I think he mostly does biologics. Developing new immune regulators, monoclonal antibodies, stuff like that.”

Right. 

It would work out that way, wouldn’t it– that Beck’s research aligns so neatly with the only ideas about your future that aren’t ill-defined. You’re sure of at least one thing; that being you wanted to go into industry after this, private research and development for some pharmaceutical company, ideally; something that pays well and that’s far outside the bureaucracy and tedium and bullshit that is academia. Dr. Stark’s research is in a similar vein, but focused more on exploratory models of immune systems than the development of novel treatment strategies for, like, humans ; the difference, while small, is meaningful in the grand scheme of considering how well your PhD experience would translate to valuable skills in industry.

“Look at it this way,” Dr. Banner says, having finished filling up the primer tubes, moving past you to the storage room ostensibly to start on whatever the next menial, repetitive task needed to be accomplished, “At least you have time to figure it out. And who knows, you might get into Tony’s lab, and then you won’t have to worry about it.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, “I guess,” staring down at the box of pipette tips, still half-full even after all the lab benches were stocked, mind racing and thoughts elsewhere and not feeling all that much better about it.

---------------------

Your rotation in Dr. Cho’s lab goes fine. That is the best descriptor because it is itself the most nondescript; nothing special, but nothing bad, either.

You become gradually acquainted beyond a vague theoretical understanding with stuff like x-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and cryoelectron microscopy, familiar with the weird and kind of janky processing software that analyzes the data and renders the images of the molecules and the cell receptors and essential enzymes and whatever else, and eventually you become friendly with a new set of labmates. It’s not boring, it’s just that it’s not what you think you want to do for the five (but, really, in life sciences it’s always more like six or seven) years of your PhD, and markedly less adjacent than the work you’d done in Dr. Banner’s lab in your rotation last semester. 

A not-insignificant part of your uneasy ambivalence might be attributable to just how goddamn much you hated organic chemistry. 

Nonetheless, you do the work, and the semester does the same things all semesters always do– it starts off slow, and then sometime after the third week it starts to pick up, until around the fifth or sixth it’s just this never-ending stream of assignments to complete and projects to finish and responsibilities to fulfill; an endless march towards some nebulous, ill-defined end.

Somehow through all of it, for reasons that you could not explain, you still end up seeing Beck.

A lot.

---------------------

Well, no-

The reasons are not that difficult to explain. They are, actually, extremely simple.

The sex is really good. 

End of story.

---------------------

Dr. Banner gets the flu towards the end of February.

This is important only because it means his intro microbiology laboratory class falls a week behind. Normally, they’d have done the first few baby steps of their extractions that week, and you and the other TAs would have handled the rest of the process the following week. With him out, the lab gets pushed back, meaning the kids do their part the first week in March, and somebody would need to do the rest of it over the week of spring break, or the entire course would fall even further behind.

Dr. Banner explains this to you in his office on Friday morning in that still-kind-of-sick voice that sounds like somebody’s forcibly holding his nose shut, growing increasingly dismayed.

“Please,” he says finally, slumping in his chair, looking far too pale and far too wan to be even out of bed, much less back to work yet, “If you could. I know you always get stuck doing it, but everyone else has plans for spring break, and I’m supposed to be giving a presentation at a conference in Toronto, and–”

“It’s fine,” you reply, “Don’t even worry about it. I haven’t done anything for spring break since, like, sophomore year.”

“Thank you,” he says, visibly relieved. “You are a lifesaver. Really.”

Later, as you’re leaving his office after stressing to him that he really should go home and rest if he’s insisting on still going to a conference he’ll have to leave for in less than six hours, you allow yourself to think about the things that usually tended to happen last semester, all the other times you stayed late.

And then you think about it for what amounts to basically the entire day. Which, you know– fine. It’s the Friday before spring break. It’s not like you’re actually doing anything.

You’re still thinking about it when you’re in lab, as you work mindlessly through the familiar task of the extractions, as you siphon pungent ethyl acetone off from the bottles you’d done last week, the smell like drug-store nail polish remover still making your nose burn despite the fume hood; as you wait, otherwise unoccupied, for the rows of neatly-labeled glass bottles to finish steeping in the steaming vat of dry ice. It’s perhaps slightly– perhaps more than slightly– embarrassing, how much time you actually spend thinking about it– him– but by now when you’re by yourself you don’t even bother warring with the thoughts anymore. Whatever you think about when you’re alone stays between you and god– it doesn’t count.

(That, the still-rational piece of you thinks– the piece that hasn’t been reduced to a hormone-addled perpetually-horny teenager, however small it might be – that’s a terrible excuse.)

You’re still thinking about it as you clean and lock up the lab, though, right up until the moment that you’re not.

 In the hallway, you fumble for your car keys in the pockets of your coat, outside ones first, and then the inside pocket, anxiety starting to prickle, and then your jeans, and then your backpack— and come up empty.

Oh, fuck.

You try to peer through the little rectangular frame of glass in the door to the lab to see if you’d left them on the stainless steel tabletops or the back counter, squinting into the dark of the room. In your head you’re already retracing your steps, the pace of your thoughts rapidly bordering on frantic, trying to figure out where you had–

“Hey, honey. Long day?” 

You nearly jump out of your skin, the mounting stress having already done a number on your startle response– Beck is standing there, watching you quizzically, hands in his pockets. For once, you’re too focused on something else for the immediate, instinctive pang of warmth that flares at the sight of him to be anything more than an afterthought, and you’re kind of glad for that, unfortunate circumstances aside– that you’re at all capable of prioritizing this.

“I think I just locked my car keys in the lab,” you tell him in lieu of returning his greeting, a frown worrying at the corners of your mouth. 

“Oh yeah?” His bark of answering laughter grates on your nerves, and, god, isn’t that just like him, you think sourly, already pissing you off. “Amazing job. Really proud of you.”

“Fuck off,” you tell him, acerbic and sharp and so not in the mood, even as that stupid impulsive part of you remains painfully aware of the shrinking distance between you when he moves closer, your pulse stubbornly ticking up, your autonomous nervous system incapable of caring whether you want it to or not.

“Relax,” Beck says, unaffected, “I have a key.”

You’re too irritated to thank him, and he looks at you with amusement, because he knows that, presumably, and because it’s funny to him. That heat you’d felt at the sight of him you think must be mostly frustration, now;  it should maybe be a little concerning how difficult it is to even tell the difference in the first place, but you’re still too anxious to care.

He unlocks the door for you and flicks on the two rows of industrial overhead lights, which buzz to flickering life, bathing the room back in artificial brightness. You know within the first few seconds of glancing around that they’re not there, a realization that triggers a panic that lurches through your stomach like a cold stone.

“God damn it,” you grit out, dragging your hand over your face, the other clenching into a fist at your side, not even wanting to say out loud what you’ve realized– wishing more than anything that he wasn’t here, his particular brand of smug, condescending bullshit the exact opposite of what you needed right now.  “They’ve got to be in Dr. Banner’s office, because they’re not here.”

You wait for another bordering-on-insulting remark, but it doesn’t come, even as the silence stretches on, pointed and expectant.

“Well, I can’t get you in there,” he says, trailing behind you as you leave the lab, flicking the lights back off and pulling the door shut behind him as you rifle through your pockets again, the pockets of your coat, too, anxiety driving the search to be disorganized and frenetic as your desperation ramps higher. “The master keys only work on the rooms with hazardous materials, for emergencies. Labs and storage, mostly.”

He watches you, impassive, as you tear your backpack apart, find nothing, and then dejectedly put everything back together again. “You should call Bruce, you know he’d come back.”

You slump forward, defeated, burying your face in your bag where it’s still hanging on the wall hook. “He’s in fucking Toronto,” you mutter into the fabric, muffled, “For three days.”

At a loss for what else to do, you eventually right yourself and take your backpack up off the hook, slinging it over your shoulder with a long-suffering sigh. When you turn in the direction of the door, Beck follows after you; you’re not really thinking about what he’s probably thinking about, not right now, too concerned with how you’re going to get home, but– and this triggers a wince and a flicker of shame, a feeling that has become a lot harder to elicit in you as of late– you could probably be convinced to stop thinking about that for some indeterminate length of time, if he were to try. 

“I can give you a ride to your apartment,” he offers.

Somehow, the realization hadn’t struck you until then, but– “Oh my god, my house keys. I can’t even get in.”

“Wow,” he says dryly, “You’ve really fucked up, huh?”

“Shut up.”

There’s a pause, as you near the doors; your mood somehow sinks even lower at the state of the sky outside, already an absolute pitch black. It’s only six, but it’s still somewhere between spring and winter; the time hasn’t changed yet and a late cold front had swept in earlier in the week, so not only is it dark, it’s freezing. And you still had no fucking idea what you were going to do. 

The lights are still on in the biology building, and because of the contrast you can see both yourself and Beck clearly reflected in the glass of the door; he’s looking at you, expression unreadable.

“You have a friend you can call? Roommate?”

“No roommates. I don’t even have a spare key.”

You chew on your bottom lip for a moment, and then turn to look at him– really look at him, not just his reflection, pointedly ignoring the way you have to squash down the rise of something warm up through your abdomen just to do it. “Look– I appreciate it, but I’ll be all right. It’s my fault I got into this stupid mess anyways, I’ll figure it out. You don’t have to stay any later.”

He looks at you a moment longer, eyes steady, and then his mouth twitches up at one corner, more of an acknowledgement than a proper smile. “No, I guess not, huh?” 

Part of you is more than a little irritated at that, at the implication, because, seriously, did he think you would just, what, decide to put off figuring out how you’re going to get home– where you’re even going to sleep– because he wanted to get laid? 

(A smaller part of you is angrier still at the fact that, yeah, you probably would, if only he were capable of being more empathetic and less of an asshole for all of a meager five fucking minutes –)

“You could come with me.”

Your brain stalls, grinds to a halt and then stutters and rights itself enough for the words to process and the meaning to crystallize– and, yeah, okay, there’s a spark of electricity that strikes up in your belly at the idea, the precarity of it, even just the notion triggering that spiraling, panicky, adrenaline-infused sensation of being wildly out of your depth-- but that same small idiotic impulsive part of you, though, likes that feeling. Wants to chase it, past the point of reason or excuse.

“No,” you blurt out, before you can think about it for any longer, resolutely ignoring the part of you that’s kind of disappointed in your response. You’re not going to his fucking house, that sounds like a horrible, horrible idea.

Beck looks at you a moment more, and then his expression seals off– you wonder absently if you’d upset him. Hurt his feelings, maybe? Did he even have those?-- and he moves towards the door. When he pushes it open there’s a blast of dry and frigid air that still tastes like winter, a mixture of wood smoke and car exhaust, and he looks at you one last time, his eyes tracking back and forth across your face like he’s searching for something. “Suit yourself,” he says finally, and then he’s gone.

You stand there for a while just staring at your solitary, sullen reflection in the glass, before you pull out your cell phone and try to call someone– anyone, really, family, a friend; you even consider the merits of calling the campus police until a cursory google search reveals that all available master keys for buildings lie with the corresponding department head and are then disbursed at their discretion. The department head, of course, being Dr. Banner. Who was in Toronto. For three fucking days.

No one answers their phones; you send a few text messages out to make sure they’re not just avoiding answering calls, and after that, having realized you’ve run out of Useful Things to do, you settle for just trying to not panic. It’s admittedly a task that requires most of what limited attention you still possess at six-thirty at night, and for that reason you don’t notice the car when it appears outside; not until the driver lays on the horn for several uninterrupted seconds.

The sound jolts you, violently, out of whatever dissociative trance you were in; you register beams of light from those obnoxious, blinding-bright LED headlights and the steady rumble of an engine, the car itself parked at such an angle that you can’t make out the model from inside for the glare. You hesitate for a while, squinting at the shape of it in the darkness and trying to make out the details from the nice comfy warmth of inside, until the driver punches the horn again, three times in quick succession.

“Okay, okay, Jesus Christ,” you mutter to yourself, zipping up your coat and bracing for the solid wall of cold air that rushes to meet you when you open the door. 

You have your arms wrapped around yourself as you approach the passenger side of the car— newer-model BMW, sedan, black, tinted windows, expensive— trying to ward off the cold and not succeeding. The window rolls down as you get close; without a light on, it’s still too dark for you to make out anything inside, but you know the voice when it calls out to you.  

“Come on; I’m not gonna just leave you here, honey.”

Beck must have reached out to pull the latch for the door, because it swings wide open. The interior light flicks on with it, illuminating his face and the inside of the car, which is spotless and leather-upholstered and warm, the glow rendering the heat visible, rising out of the cabin in wavering lines. Standing as close as you are you can feel it, radiating outwards, and you sway towards it without meaning to, drawn instinctively away from the cold.

“I said I’d be fine,” you protest, with far less conviction than the first time. 

“Yeah? You didn’t prop the door open, and you don’t have your keys,” he says, lips pressed together in a way that tells you he’s trying not to laugh, “So now you can either wait there or you can wait in my car, because I’m not getting out just to let you back in again.”

“Oh my god,” you reply, equal parts indignant and alarmed, glancing back to check— god damn it, you really had just locked yourself out. “I wouldn’t even be out here if you didn’t–”

“I know,” he says, cutting you off, properly smiling now– and of course he’d only been fucking with you, and of course you’d just headlong and blindly let him get you riled up. Again . “Look– were you even able to get ahold of anyone?”

A lengthy beat of silence passes; the wind picks up, the door sways on its hinges, and you try– fail– to hide a violent shiver.

“No,” you admit, reluctant.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, tone long-suffering but that stupid fucking smile still playing at his mouth, “Quit being so stubborn and just get in the car.”

You weigh your options for a moment, again, thinking about all the ways in which this is a spectacularly bad idea– there was probably somebody still inside who’d let you in the main door if you walked around to the front of the building, and once there you could wait and maybe somebody would respond to your texts– but it’s half-hearted. You don’t actually want to do any of that. When he’d first asked, there had been this part of you– stupid, impulsive, impetuous part of you– that wanted to just say yes , without forethought or consideration, interested only in the way that the offer had brought back the same feeling as when he had first cornered you in his office, like something inside of you had melted, turned liquid and pliable and hot . 

That part of you is an unabashed and committed hedonist, apparently, and a sucker for being totally out of your depth— and the second time around, that part wins.

Buzzing with adrenaline, you reach for the grab handle on the ceiling of his car and, wordlessly, you pull yourself into the passenger seat, yank the door closed behind you, and stow your backpack at your feet. 

The light shuts off as soon as the door closes, the process entirely automatic, and for a second you can’t make out much more than the outline of him, pitch black. You can’t breathe, at first, and you tell yourself it’s because of the heat shock, your body adjusting from the cold, but a not-significant part of it might just be you freezing up at the immediate reality of being somewhere that’s his . The office was one thing, but the inside of his car– maybe because it’s so small, too personal — it’s different. It makes you feel like you’re drifting, unmoored, beyond the realm of plausible deniability or excuse; where you could justify being in his office, technically justify being really anywhere in the building, there’s no justification here, and that awareness thrums, electric, just under your skin.

He shifts the car out of park, and something inside of you trembles. 

“I thought we were going to wait for–”

Beck chuckles, and there’s that familiar biting edge to it again. “No you didn’t,” he says blithely, eyes straight ahead as he pulls out of the lot.

The words are matter-of-fact and a little bit mean and the sound of them makes you feel like you’ve dropped ten stories–the floor pulled right out from under your feet, that weightless, shivery feeling pulsing in the pit of your stomach. Of course he knew that. You don’t bother trying to deny it. 

“D’you think we’ll pass a drugstore?” You ask instead, carefully and pointedly ignoring what he’d said– there was an insinuation inherent in that, too, though, an implicit admission that he’d been right, and you can see when you glance at him that it registers, the corner of his mouth twitching up. 

“Yeah,” he replies, shifting gears as he turns out of the university entrance and onto the main road– the fact that he drives a stick is unsurprising. You’d kind of figured he was the type. “Why?”

You stretch out in the passenger seat just to give yourself something to do, warm enough now to uncurl your shoulders and unwrap your arms from around yourself; you stretch your legs and reach up to stretch your arms, too, for good measure, the movement long and languid and so much more relaxed than you feel. Out of the corner of your eye you catch the glance he casts at you, sidelong, and feel an immediate rush of satisfaction.

 “I need to get a toothbrush,” you say eventually, working to keep your voice casual.

He makes a noncommittal noise in response. “You can use my toothbrush.”

You don’t reply, but the face you must have made at that, unintentional and reflexive, it makes him laugh– really laugh, something that seems like it isn’t entirely on purpose, a sound that’s softer and rougher around the edges than the ones you’ve heard him make before, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a way that so utterly disarms him that for a second it’s like you’re looking at a totally different person. 

Whatever you feel at that sight, as strange as it is, is so fleeting that you don’t get the chance to examine it in any amount of detail.

“The things that you’ve let me put in your mouth and you draw the line at my toothbrush,” he says, grinning, shifting gears again with a familiar efficiency as the car picks up speed. "Really, just-- illogical."

You can feel yourself flush, the sensation running from your face right down to your toes; you’re glad, now, for how dark it is, the only light the rhythmic flashes of passing streetlamps that flicker through the cabin.  “Oh my god, don’t be fucking gross.”

“I’m being scientific,” he replies, humor still suffused into his expression, “It’s basic biology; do you know how many germs a person has on their—”

“Yes, oh my god,” You cut him off before he can finish the sentence, fighting back the admittedly childish desire to cover both your ears. “ I also majored in biology, asshole, I know about microbiomes. I draw the line at societal convention, which pretty much never has anything to do with science, anyway, so--"

“Okay, well, no, that’s definitely bullshit,” his voice has gotten lower, and while he’s still smiling, it’s not the same lighthearted one from before, that smug, self-satisfied edge back in it, “You don’t give a shit about societal convention, honey, you’ve spent the last four months proving how little you care about that.”

You don’t need him to elaborate to know what he’s talking about; the implication is clear– god, four fucking months, you think, how had that even happened?-- though you get the feeling if you don’t respond he’s going to say it out loud, and that would be worse. You know that this is something that you shouldn’t be doing– he was your professor, for fuck’s sake, he’s still technically your superior, you’re still technically a student, even if you’re not his– and you don’t particularly need or even want him to say any of that, especially not the way he is now; like he’s found some hole in your reasoning, a fundamental logical misstep. 

He used to do this when you were in class, too, when you’d argue then; pull these bizarre non-sequiturs that gave you whiplash, poke holes in arguments you hadn’t even made. And god, you hated it then and you still hate it now— how he twists the conversation, twists your words, often at random, pushes and prods and needles you until you’re made to be defensive, forced to justify the most pointless, insignificant bullshit that you’d never even said in the first place.

“Yeah, well,” You fold your arms over your chest, suddenly more irritated than anything that you’re in his car and not someplace where you can just tell him to fuck off and walk away. “I pick and choose which conventions I give a shit about. Like most people do. Happy?”

He’s gotten under your skin, again, so much so that you don’t realize he’s pulled into a space in the otherwise-empty parking lot of a Dollar General until he turns, pointedly, to look at you, mouth still twitching like he wants to smile but realizes that would just piss you off more. You stare right back, stubborn, irritation prickling hot at the nape of your neck— irritated both with him for always being such an unrepentant bastard but also with yourself, too, for the fact that you can’t ever seem to stop reacting to it.

When he leans over the car console and takes your face in both hands and holds you still so can kiss you, just for a moment, you’re dizzy with vertigo and burning up with frustration and playing desperate, disorganized catch-up with whatever the fuck is going on to the point where you never really get the chance to respond– but there’s still that heat that brims up inside of you, the spark of adrenaline, and it sucks, actually, how easy it is for you to forget that you were even angry in the first place. Or maybe it’s just that he’s gotten the wires in your brain crossed so completely that you can’t even tell what the difference is, anymore. When he lets go and pulls away, you have to fight the urge to sway forwards, and that sucks, too, the way that he doesn’t even really have to try to get this from you, the wanting; it’s just always there, right under the surface, and all he ever has to do is remind you of its’ existence and everything else in your head is gone.

 “Am I happy with which conventions you choose to ignore?” Beck clasps his hands behind his head, and reclines back in his seat, eyes closed. He’s still smiling, an arrogant and self-satisfied thing that fills you with frustration and want and shame, all in equal measure. “Take a guess. And then go get a toothbrush, before I decide I’m just going to leave.”

A muscle in your jaw ticks as you unbuckle your seatbelt and crack the car door. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

“See, if only you were brave enough to ever say that during your undergrad,” he calls out after you as you’re rounding the front of his car, having rolled down his driver’s side window to do so, leaning forwards so he can hold eye contact through the windshield. It’s kind of funny, actually— how willing he is to abandon that illusion of calm disinterest, dismissal, that he’d constructed only moments earlier, if it meant even just one more chance to get a rise out of you. 

You wonder if that’s new, or if he’s always been that way, and you were just too caught up in being angry to notice.

“I said it a lot, ” you inform him, unable to suppress the beginnings of a small, reflexive grin at the thought–that maybe it’s not just you. Maybe he can’t really help himself, either. “Just not to you.”

You don’t look back, after that, but you don’t need to; you can hear him laughing.

---------------------

A friend responds to your earlier frantic text as you’re waiting at the checkout for the solitary employee to return from where they’d been stocking product somewhere within the haphazardly-organized, labyrinthine maze of the local Dollar General. 

She’s back home in Connecticut for spring break, so it would take her two hours, maybe more, just to get here, and you had already set it up with the janitor to be let back into the lab to check on the extractions over the weekend, anyways– so there are plenty of perfectly rational, perfectly objective reasons for you to respond with a “ dw lol, figured it out already. thank u tho!! ”. 

Logistics, for one. Efficiency, for another. That winding, precarious sensation of anticipation creeping up inside of you– it’s not a factor, you tell yourself reasonably. If it had been any of your friends nearby, you’d have taken them up on the offer, because of course you would have.

(You don’t even know for sure if that’s true. Deep down, you might be a tiny bit relieved that it was her who answered, and not anyone else, not someone who lived within the general vicinity of campus–  you don’t really want to know what you would have done, then, what you would choose, and this way you don’t have to find out.)

You return to his car with the toothbrush, still in its flimsy cardboard and plastic packaging, and a crumpled receipt; you think you might see something in his expression that brightens at the sight of you, but maybe it’s just a trick of the light. The toothbrush goes immediately into one of the pockets of your backpack– you’re not really thinking all that much right now, and you don’t trust yourself not to lose it otherwise– and by the time you sit up again and reach to pull the seatbelt on, he’s already peeling out of the lot. 

Beck drives like an asshole, accelerates too fast and maneuvers around other cars and egregiously violates the speed limit– huge surprise– but it’s not distressing, which is to say, begrudgingly, that he’s good at it. It’s clear that he knows the car, what it can do, shifts through the gears to bring it humming from ten to thirty to sixty miles an hour over the span of a handful of seconds in a motion so smooth that it seems effortless. You know that it’s really not, if only because the one time you’d ever tried to drive stick– a friend’s car, an already-beat-to-shit Pontiac Firebird– you couldn’t even figure out how to time the clutch right. Never so much as made it out of the parking lot.

“You drive like a fucking maniac,” you say instead of admitting any of that, and then you ignore the way that his answering laugh makes something bright and warm and weird bloom in the general vicinity of your chest, and you ignore, too, how his immediate mocking of your proclivity towards using the word fuck and its’ derivatives as if it were the world’s most liberal and universal adjective doesn’t, actually, make you angry or irritated or anything even close. Not even when he says in that too-sweet patronizing tenor something about how it’s unbecoming behavior for a PhD student, inappropriate and far too unprofessional, evidence that, well, y’know, maybe you’re just not cut out for this after all, honey–

You tell him to shut up, kind-of-not-really meaning it, finding it probably a little too easy to ignore all those things, the same way you ignore everything else that’s ever inconvenient or uncomfortable about any of this– knowing, in some distant and far-off part of your brain, that you will probably have to deal with it eventually. 

Eventually, though–

The thing about instant gratification is that it always makes that eventually seem like it’s some meaningless, incomprehensible distance from you, miles and oceans and light-years away, and while you know, logically, intellectually, that that won’t always be the case, that it isn’t, technically, even the case now–

It doesn’t click. 

It doesn’t stick.

Beck turns into a concrete several-story parking garage attached to a mid-rise tower block of apartments– condos, actually, you catch the sign on the way in, large and deliberately eye-catching and illuminated brighter than anything around by a row of obnoxious spotlights– and when he pulls into a spot marked with the stenciled number 34 in white spray-paint and parks and shuts off the engine–

It doesn’t really matter, then, what clicks or sticks or even registers at all. The surge of adrenaline, of want and anticipation and warmth and whatever else–  as soon as he moves to get out of the car, it thunders back in like the rush of high tide, like something inevitable, and the ferocity of it has you wondering as you shrug your backpack over one shoulder and close the passenger door if there might actually be something wrong with your nervous system, if something inside of you was misfiring that would explain, logically, why you still fucking feel like this–

You decide, abruptly, to stop thinking about it.

(You’ve gotten really fucking good at that.)

“Got your toothbrush?” he says, grinning, sly, somehow managing to make an otherwise–innocuous phrase sound like it’s meant to be an insult.

You roll your eyes and he just smiles wider. “Yes, I have it, asshole.”

[elspethdixon]

Okay I’ve thought about this for another five minutes and now I want the MDZS/SVSSS crossover where WWX still invents his own unique ghost cultivation path, but where Madame Yu does traditional demonic cultivation because she’s a literal demon from the Abyss (the Violet Spider because she’s an actual spider demon, maybe). She fell in love with a human cultivator and entrapped him into marriage against his will and is now going to make her dissatisfaction with the human realm all Jiang Cheng’s problem.

Everyone is sure that Wei Wuxian was making all those heretical suggestions in class at Cloud Recesses because the Jiang sect are literally in bed with demons. The Jiang heir is even half-demon! And since both JC and WWX lack LBH’s magic stallion-novel protagonist halo, it means they’re both subject to extra scrutiny. JC had better be the most conventional righteous cultivator ever to overcome the suspicion caused by having demon blood and a demon mom and WWX and his “but what if?” questions aren’t helping!

This situation only heightens JC’s issues about his father favoring WWX, of course. Of course his father wishes he had a non-demonic heir. Madame Yu’s talk about how Jiang Cheng isn’t good enough for Jiang Fengmian sounds even more plausible when there’s an actual objective reason for it.

The Jiang sect leader being married to a demon/potential demonic influence in the Jiang sect is the excuse the Wens use to go after them. Jiang Cheng’s core built up by years of righteous cultivation is crushed, but luckily for him, his demon heritage means there’s another way for him to form a core.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to make his dramatic sacrifice, though he still does all the research hoping that he can prevent Jiang Cheng from having to resort to the demonic path. But this time around, Wen Qing isn’t willing to do the transfer, because Jiang Cheng’s half-demon body might not even accept a fully human core - his body might just consume it demon-style and then he’d be doing demonic cultivation anyway and WWX would have made the sacrifice for nothing.

Wei Wuxian still ends up captured by the Wens, gets his core crushed, and the whole burial mound + cultivating with resentful energy to survive series of events happens just like in canon. Except this time Jiang Cheng doesn’t have Wei Wuxian’s golden core. He has his own core, reformed and regrown one defeated enemy at a time, and with each battle in the Sunshot Campaign he grows more powerful.

When Wei Wuxian returns from the burial mounds, he knows what his brother has been doing as soon as he sees him, and there’s no reason not to tell Jiang Cheng and Yanli all about it. Instead of demonic cultivation driving WWX and JC apart, they bond. They’ve both taken the “wrong” path to survive, even though their paths, both called “demonic cultivation,” are very different at base, they’re equally unacceptable and tainted in the eyes of the cultivation world and there’s no reason for Wei Wuxian to separate himself from the Jiang sect. He and his ghost general become the Lotus Demon’s left and right hands.

Shijie has always been very empathetic, and her demonic heritage means she’s sensitive to resentful energy, too (said heritage is why Jin Zixun originally rejected her). She was never able to properly cultivate the righteous human way, her demon traits were too strong, and forming a core the demonic way wasn’t allowed, but for a demon it’s never too late to start - WWX has his first necromancer apprentice.

Lotus Pier will never be accepted among the other sects again, but it doesn’t matter. The Demonic Sect Leader and his necromancer siblings are unstoppable.

[sneezemonster15]

I once read a fic where sakura was written exactly in character and when she discovered n and s relationship she immediately got angry at naruto ( like I think she would in canon), but then some people started to flame the author about why are they writing sakura like that, like they're being too harsh on her.

So yeah, I think in some cases authors write H and S more likable so they don't upset anyone and get bullied.

Hmm it's plausible. However, writers usually write what rings true to them, what seems believable to them, otherwise it reads insincere and it shows in their writing. I can't say much in relation to fanfic writers given most of them aren't professional writers, they mostly just write for fun or self comfort.

What I do know for sure is that if one is sincerely writing a canonverse divorce SNS fic in Boruto era, one has to pay attention to the granular nuances that Kishi himself so shrewdly wrote and drew himself in Gaiden and Boruto the movie. He insistently puts repeated emphasis on how Sasuke mindfully keeps physical and emotional distance from Sakura. Their relationship looks dysfunctional, stilted and forced. While Sakura still tries to establish/force intimacy with Sasuke like usual, he still consistently keeps her at a distance, even now when they are married and have a child together, to the point he doesn't even know what his own daughter looks like. Sarada suspects her own mother is hiding something from her about her own father. Kishi succeeded to do one thing that he definitely wanted to achieve with Gaiden. To create doubt, suspicion. To make SS look shady and phoney. Because it just wouldn't have been in character for Sasuke to be happy or content in this sham of a marriage. Because he is a gay man stuck in a het marriage with a woman he doesn't like or respect. He is unhappy and displeased to see her, doesn't even crack a smile, hasn't seen her in years btw. They talk to each other in such a cosmetic manner, calling each other my husband and my wife. Never kissed, to Sakura's great dismay. Does this look like a dynamic that would facilitate Sasuke canoodling casually with Sakura?

Kishimoto insistently shows Naruto idle away his time at his office, counting headbands, even when there's nothing significant keeping him there. Like he purposely doesn't wanna go back home. He sends his clones to attend important ocassions with his family. But for Sasuke, he is always, always there in person. He sleeps anywhere but in his own master bedroom he shares with Hinata. His wife knows nothing worthwhile about him that she can tell to comfort her son about his own father. Instead, Kishi makes Sasuke satisfy Boruto's curiosity that Hinata wasn't able to. Naruto thinks of Sasuke when receiving the love bento and not Hinata who made it for him. His own son reminds him of Sasuke and not his spouse who birthed him.

Both these families are pointedly portrayed as highly dysfunctional. The husbands aren't there more than 90 percent of the time, the women know nothing of worth about their husbands. Sakura doesn't even know if Sasuke wears glasses. They have been married for over 12 years, happy families who have been together for such a long time don't behave like this. Naruto and Sasuke look perennially tired, wretched, and downright miserable.

If two gay men were forced by circumstances to keep appearances, by being married to entitled and self absorbed women they have no love for, wouldn't this be exactly how they would behave? These women who were only motivated by what the boys represent and not by who they really are. Hinata and Sakura don't know their own husbands. And it's in character for both of them. A spouse who wants to possess their object of desire without any concern for anyone but their own selves, wouldn't they behave exactly like Sakura and Hinata? They would.

And thing is, when the boys are with each other, they clearly look like their older selves. Spirited, lit up. Happy. Never with their families.

When writing a divorce SNS fic, one has to at least try to write a believable narrative. And no one has to even look anywhere else, just look to Kishi, he has already given us a lot of material to judge and interpret the characters the way it would be, realistic, believable. Kishi's writing rings true.

Naruto and Sasuke are akin to two outsiders living in a world that doesn't or wouldn't acknowledge their truth. A world where they can't be their true selves. An unfair and prejudiced world. A reflection of the real world as understood by Kishi. Naruto and Sasuke are driven to live in the shadows, having secret meetings. So if one decides to write a fic where they are made to officially unite, they will need to acknowledge the reality of world that had been stopping them until now. Hinata and Sakura are not only part of this world, but are also complicit in Naruto and Sasuke's suffering. So if one wants to portray a narrative that culminates into Naruto and Sasuke taking a stand against the world that had been the reason they were apart till now, then one will need to portray this world in character, including Hinata and Sakura. Otherwise, the narrative will not only not ring true, it will be disrespectful and unjust to Naruto and Sasuke's characters.

And then and only then, will their union look justifiably and accurately portrayed. If Kishi's worldbuilding depicts Konoha to be unsupportive of same sex relationships, and Naruto and Sasuke are a part of this world, then one will have to develop the narrative accordingly to justify their official union. If you write this world, which includes Hinata and Sakura, out of character, then you aren't really doing justice to SNS canon narrative, nor to Sasuke and Naruto's own characters.

Before anyone leaves some whiny, non-sense comment or remark about subjective interpretation on this post, please know that I don't have the energy nor the patience to deal with such comments kindly. Please really think about what I am saying. Deconstruct canon narrative, peel the layers, see what lies underneath. The issue I am talking about is bigger than some sorry ass fic. If you don't depict the challenges and conflicts of the characters in a well rounded way, you will never be able to write a believable or just narrative. Characters are not written in abstraction, they don't come out of oblivion. They are shaped by their surroundings, people around them, their world's weltenschaung, their accepted way of life, a certain philosophy, a belief system. Without taking that into account and building the narrative accordingly, one simply can't write a story or characters that ring true. And Kishi KNOWS this, given he is a master writer. Look to him, be guided by him, if one can't figure it out by themselves. Do your due diligence. Put some effort and understanding in it. Watch other gay media for research, see how these dysfunctional relationships are portrayed. Try and stay true to gay narratives, establish the gay characters' conflict, their struggles, their compromises, their woes, their bitterness with respect to the world they live in. If you wanna write a fic that does justice to SNS and Sasuke and Naruto's characters ie.

[shwoo]

Day 31 of @flooftober! Thanks a lot to everyone who read/interacted, and especially @flooftyfizzlebeans for creating the challenge, and saying such nice things about these stories.

I would also like to thank antihistamines. They really... anted those histamines. And unclouded my brain a little.

Anyway, this story involves Gramble, and I'm using both the "Trick" and "Treat" prompts. Also it's double length since it's the last one. I considered making it much longer, but my brain's not quite that unclouded.

(Prompt list)

Title: Has many discipline-specific uses Summary: Floofty notices a sleepwalking Gramble about to make a mistake. (Also on AO3)

.

Floofty had released what was happening too late, and Gramble was too far away. They yelled "Wake up!" as they crossed the rest of the distance.

Gramble opened his eyes all the way. "Wh…" He noticed the Grapeskeeto in his hands, which were raised to his mouth. "Ah! Igrapetius!" He lowered his arms and hugged it, as it struggled.

"One of your pets, I assume?" said Floofty. They hadn't seen it get out, but these days, any loose Snak generally belonged to Gramble.

Gramble jumped. "Floofty?! Why're you here?" Floofty wasn't good at judging tone, but they knew suspicion when they heard it.

"As we both reside in the same town, I assume you are asking why am I in this particular spot at this particular time," said Floofty. "I merely observed you come across this Grapeskeeto in your sleep, and prepare to eat it. Knowing your views on this subject, I awoke you before any consumption could occur."

They were too tired to bother trying baby language. Gramble would just have to take what he could understand. Maybe he'd end up being yet another Grumpus who turned out to be smarter than they looked.

"You… saved Igrapetius?" said Gramble. He looked down at the Grapeskeeto in his arms. "I… I didn't know you cared… But why were you watching me in the middle of the night in the first place?"

"I often watch you," said Floofty. They knew Gramble might find that creepy, but that was his problem, because they weren't actually being creepy. "There is precious little else of interest occurring at this time of night."

Gramble didn't run away screaming, but he did frown. "A-are you running some kind of experiment on me, Floofty? Wait. Are you the reason I've been so tired lately?"

Floofty's tired brain took a second to catch up to what was happening now. "What? Your sleep difficulties are clearly the result of stress! I, too, am prone to sleep difficulties. Believe me, I would much prefer to be asleep in my hut right now. Alas, my brain chemistry will not allow it."

"Oh, you just can't sleep?" said Gramble. "I guess I have been a little stressed lately, what with having so many little ones to take care of, and Wambus, and I still got a couple Grumpuween decorations to finish…"

"What?" said Floofty. "Grumpuween already?" Last they'd checked, it had been July. That meant they'd already missed their birthday.

"Um, yeah, it's tomorr--" Gramble looked up at the sky. "Today," he corrected himself. "Wiggle's been real excited, and I thought… Maybe I could knit some little Fryders, or some bats, and hang them up around town. I dunno if the little ones would appreciate it, but I think the others might…?"

Floofty didn't know why he was asking them. "Potentially." They decided they might as well tell him what they did know. "I, at least, would be… disposed toward that concept." They'd always really liked the idea that boundaries between the living and the dead were thin at this time of year, although it was obviously not plausible from a scientific view.

"Y-you would?" said Gramble. He squeezed his Grapeskeeto. "Just goes to show. You never know what someone's gonna like until you talk to them!"

"Yes, I am beginning to see that," said Floofty. If Gramble had seriously believed that Floofty might be experimenting on him without his consent, then it was surprising that he hadn't expected them to like Grumpuween. Maybe they could lean into that. "Perhaps I, too, will create some seasonal decoration," they added, "if my work allows. Yes, some fake blood, perhaps some green lights inside test tubes… It may be quite entertaining."

"Ooh, the more the merrier!" said Gramble. "Just so long as the blood is fake." He almost laughed.

"I shall make every effort to ensure that it is," said Floofty. Gramble had sounded like he was about to laugh, so he was probably joking. Apparently that was something he could do, sometimes.

[darkfictionjude]

Hi there, etymology anon here!

I think it's really funny I have written a lot about language, the RO's and the Crown family (both present and past); and yet I had not said a word about the mystery, when this is a mystery IF first and foremost.

I realized this because I began to wonder what season 2 could be about. And then I noticed I had not theorized much about what's going on season 1 yet, and, therefore, it's impossible for me to think about what's going to happen in season 2. While I'm sure the main mystery is going to be different, or is going to have a major twist that basically makes the mystery into something greater, I also suspect there is going to be some minor mysteries storylines that could continue into season 2.

That said, what's the mystery in season 1? The identity of who is the one killing the girls. As well as why.

Well, is common knowledge that mysteries present us with the culprit early in the story, even if they are not a major presence. But they must have a role of enough importance the reader is able to think of them as a suspect. Therefore, so far, we must have confronted the person/entity/thing that is responsible for the murders. This, however, is not set in stone. When the supernatural is involved, mystery writing is a bit more flexible in this regard, since the supernatural required explanation. Yet, for the purposes of this ask, I will just going to go with the possible suspects we know of so far.

1. The Crown Family:

While they are not my main group of suspects (based on the fact Orla was murdered), they are not exempt from suspicion. On the contrary, it seems possible some are, unwittingly or not, involved in the matter.

Victor and Prudence: They are, in my opinion, the least likely to be the culprits. Or, more correctly, the least likely to be the only culprits. After all, the only possible motive they may have is the trauma of losing Orla, and that's assuming Orla was the first girl who was murdered. Of which I have the impression she wasn't, but I may be wrong. Other than that, while they are very reserved, they have not made a major act of presence. Prudence seems almost incapable of leaving her room most days, not to say the house. And Victor, for what we are concerned, may be secretly dead. He is simply to absent to be considered a real suspect, at least so far.

Salvatore: Actually, they have a higher level of suspicion than I would have guessed. Not only they have a major role in the story, they are also someone who appears to have good intentions and be mostly put together, but has cracks that have slowly been showing. It does not help he is so secretive, and so alone. The problem is the motive. So, for me, Sally only can be guilty if he is doing this because of someone else. Or, that is, for him to be really viable we have to assume there is more than one killer.

Percy: Actually, I think he is the most likely to be innocent of the whole family. While he is less principled, at a glance, than Sally, he is mostly centered on his own pleasure and desperate for his family attention. The murders are being mostly ignored by the household, so they are not useful as a call for attention. And it doesn't fit Percy's character anyway. I think that he assumed immediately that MC was accusing him was more of a red herring than an actual reason to suspect him.

MC (I'm going to go with a male MC because I default to that, apologies): MC is only possibly guilty if we go for the theory there is more than one killer. After all, at least one murder was done when MC was in the hospital. That said, MC can very easily be a culprit of at least two murders: Orla, and the girl that was found during the welcoming party (whose name I forgor 💀). I'm not going to focus on Orla's murder because we know too little as of yet. But the other murder is plausible if we assume that MC blacked out how it happened. Now, there is a space of time between his arrival and the party that is not narrated, so it's possible to assume that he committed the murder while he wasn't in control of his body, and forgot about the whole thing. We have evidence MC forgets, or says he forgets, about this violent episodes. As well as Jude's declarations that MC is an unreliable narrator. That said, MC does count with obvious alibis, mostly the fact he was inside the Crown mansion and was never seen covered by blood by anyone. Or, at least, no one has mentioned it. Of course, there is a murder that MC simply wasn't present to be able to commit. In most circumstances, this would mean MC is innocent. However, is also possible there is more than one murderer. In fact, if MC is guilty, of at least one of the murders, I see the possibility of Sally also being guilty going higher, specifically.

2. The Staff:

So far, there is only one member of the staff of the Crown family who is named: Arthur.

Arthur: He is surprisingly suspicious, although he also doesn't have a clear motive, except perhaps being loyal to the Crown family to a fault (or the contrary). That is, to assume Arthur is guilty, we have to assume either that one of the Crowns (probably MC, or MC/Sally) is guilty, and Arthur acts to clean their name; or, we have to assume Arthur wants to bring down the family. So far, both can be true (although there is a possibility he does have another motive we don't know anything about, as of yet). After all, Arthur is a chauffeur. And, other than MC, he doesn't seem to be someone who is required much to actually drive, but more to take care of the cars. Sally never let's Arthur drive him. The same goes for Percy. And given than the Crowns are not very wealthy as of now... Well, is a little suspicious. It does not help he was present at one of the murders.

3. The RO's:

They obviously are a suspect. However, because of season 2, we know they either are most likely to be innocent. Or, that they are able to go without a punishment. Unless, of course, a reason for the time jump was that they (or MC) got imprisoned. I'm just saying we cannot say yet. Also, I'm not entirely sure when the murders properly began, so it's possible most of the people here are too young, or that there had been multiple killers one after the other.

Imre: He is suspicious because he is a master manipulator, is obviously planning something they are not sharing, and they benefit from making himself appear a hero by playing as the detective. Yet, being a detective allows him also to be able to deflect suspicion from him, since he knows where to look at and what to manipulate and erase. On the other hand, what's the motive? We don't know for sure. (I'm saying this as an Imre devotee, so I truly don't want him to be murderer, but he is suspicious as hell).

Nia: She is less suspicious than Imre. But not by much. On one hand, not wanting to get involved in the investigation may be a way to deflect her own guilt. Obviously a girl that fits the victims' profile doesn't want to make herself a target. But she decided to distance herself from MC, who she believed committed murder. So it's possible she truly doesn't want to be involved, and is innocent. However, she has access to the morgue, and, perhaps, enough medical knowledge to make herself to appear more innocent than she is. That said, I don't think she is truly guilty. She doesn't have a clear and logical motive, unless she wanted to clear MC's name. Which she doesn't, because why would she of she believes MC to be guilty?

Lorcan: I don't think he is guilty. While I believe he is capable of murder, I only see it as something personal and passional. Something more emotional, and yet significantly less savage than what the murders have been. Also, if Lorcan is guilty, we have to assume he is crazy and killed Orla, and is in denial about it. Or, that someone else (like MC) killed Orla and he is so traumatized by her death he began killing teenage girls. But that doesn't fit his personality, in my opinion. He wouldn't go for girls, he would go, rather, for people he deems responsible for Orla's death. And even then, I don't think he would go to murder as a first choice.

4. The town:

Not the town as a whole, but some inhabitants of it. Like someone who went to the party, or someone who assists the school (either as a student or as teacher). However, no one other than the ones mentioned above are given enough importance (so far) to be considered good suspects. We simply don't know enough.

Also, there is the theory of multiple murderers. Not necessarily in a "everyone is involved" way. But following the idea I put above of multiple murderers following each other. For example, it's not just Imre, but the Durans through generations (this is just an example, I'm not saying I believe they are the culprits).

5. The supernatural:

Is possible something supernatural is involved. Either related to the Crowns (as the Prologue and the possible second identity inside of MC seem to point at), or not (as the entity in the morgue, that is not identified entirely as of yet).

Conclusion:

I have no idea who may be responsible yet. But, so far, I like the following ideas:

1. MC is guilty, alongside a member of the Family (most likely Sally).

2. Arthur is guilty, and MC probably is too.

3. There is more than one murderer (this is necessary if MC is guilty, otherwise, it can be debated).

4. Depending on how early the murders began, there may have been multiple generations of the same family or of unrelated murderers going for the same kind of victims. If that's the case, there must be a tradition, either purely of a ritual nature, or of some supernatural kind.

5. The most boring possibility (at least for now), but very likely, is that something supernatural is going on that we don't understand yet. That may or not be related to MC, or the Crowns.

After all of this, however. I know you cannot say who is the guilty one, or what you think of my theories. Except maybe point out a very obvious mistake that came from me forgetting an important detail (which is possible and likely, since I did this all by memory and without consulting the game).

Also, sorry for the length.

Speaking of use of language, I find it so interesting how for Sally you go back and forth between using they pronouns and then him 😉

So the the thing is girls have been disappearing for decades (the wall at the police station). The problem is are they are gone due to the same thing? The scooby gang kind of assumes they are, because it just seems so odd that only young girls en masse have been going missing for a very long time. With the belief that Orla might’ve of been the first of her kind to have ever been found. That between two years more disappeared but were never found either and lately two were found close together

I like the multiple killers theory that just means that you can’t ever trust your own shadow.

Very nice breakdown 😌

[cobragardens]

Emmet Asher Perrin says some things in this Good Omens essay that I want to say, but better than I'd be able to say them.

Quotes below the cut are for my own benefit. You should read the whole thing. The ending is what I mean when I say this was my generation's Kirk/Uhura kiss.

I remember the LJ fandom. I never knew it was small, or that it had any contact with Gaiman or Pratchett. I didn't know it was the majority of the fandom who thought Crowley and Aziraphale were deeply in love; I thought it was just that every fandom has its slashers, ever since Kirk/Spock. I was relieved that I wasn't the only one slashy-minded enough to read Good Omens and think "Oh, they're a lovely couple, I wonder if they've noticed yet"

Our wedding bouquets were flowers assembled from the pages of Good Omens, and an astronomer’s atlas.

***

What I didn’t anticipate were changes that rendered a certain relationship between one angel and one demon in a light far more attuned to the writings of my teenage self. The cues were all there, though no one said the word “love”—longing stares, swelling music, ages of pining, a break up at the end of the world. It was done with such clarity, my word, it was, but we don’t really live in a day and age that wants “crystal clear but soft around the edges.” We can’t afford it, can we? Everything must be stated out loud with vehemence, else someone can deny it. And they will, vocally, angrily, and with an eye toward removing a few more of those pesky human rights I mentioned from before.

Good Omens the series, being the first season, showed us that Crowley and Aziraphale loved each other—but it wasn’t enough.

And that sounds mad to me, as I’m saying it, because I’d never been allotted even a sliver of this previously in the things that I loved.

[...]

But none of that changes the fact that most of my formative texts, the ones that molded my brain into the current shape I use day in and out, generally didn’t make room for me. I had to make that room myself, with others who wanted that same room. And contrary to certain very narrow opinions, that place wasn’t pathetic or delusional.

It was glorious. It was endlessly strange and it was mine.

I don’t know what changed in the process of taking Good Omens from novel to television series, from one season to the next, but I have a sneaking suspicion of the factors involved: A fandom that exploded with ever more queer kids and odd ones who felt seen and loved in that same space; the constant legislation against queerness, transness, disability, and healthcare; a global pandemic that isolated us from one another. Those are the big ones, but there are smaller ones at play, too: actors who were more than happy to play those roles and those stories; the increasing homogenization of blockbuster media providing a backdrop to counteract; an ugly surge from groups who tried to insist that one of the book’s authors was against trans rights.

***

There’s something precious in seeing what other people might not see. It deserves confirmation, construction, the tenderness of depiction—at least some of the time.

At least once.

I’m not sure I believe it happened, even now. That I watched season two and Crowley managed to say in words that “our side” was far more than a work agreement or a friendly contract. That he kissed Aziraphale right on the mouth, and we all saw it. That it’s real and irrevocable. That a story about a botched Apocalypse is morphing into a tale about how we cannot place our sacred trust in institutions (even celestial ones), only in the people who love us. I’m not sure I believe that it’s happening. But I always knew it, you see.

And this feeling of watching it come to life when it wasn’t remotely plausible even ten years ago… I’m not sure I have words to describe it. I imagine it’s close to one of those eureka moments that scientists are supposed to have. When inspiration coalesces into something infinitely more divine and a couple pieces of the universe puzzle snap together to give us a fragment of what we’re missing.

Stories change in the telling.

But they’ve never changed like this, not for me. And if that’s possible when I was so certain it would never be, then maybe there’s a little more possibility to go around. Everywhere.

Every day…