#but at least back at launching the game so here's that

[themissinghand]

Mind if I could have a SAGAU request? So the player is burnt out from the game. Like completely. Some characters find a way to your desktop and ask "Why haven't you entered Teyvat lately?" After explaining that you still like/love them, they are disappointed but understandable. Problem is, they can't go back until you launch the game. So the characters sort of become desktop buddies (Showing my age aren't I?) and perhaps helping you out in the various other games the player would play or just vibing as you surf the web, make arr, write stories, etc. As for the characters... Aether and Paimon at least, though adding Kazuha, Yanfei, Freminet, Bennett, Fischl, Childe, and Collei would be cute too.

Genshin Impact Desktop Buddies

Summary: In which your favourite Genshin characters miss you. 

Or now you have them as your desktop buddies until Genshin Impact is fixed.

Pairings: Aether & Paimon, Kazuha, Yanfei, Childe and Fischl x Neutral! Reader! 

Note: Desktop buddies are ancient now lol, but honestly such a cool thing to have back then. Hope you enjoy! 

Warning: None, just fluffy goodness. 

★・・・・・・★

You’re tired. Like really tired. 

Grinding for artifacts, ascension and weapon materials has worn you out. That includes your wallet too.

They were worth it, no doubt about that, but staring at a screen all day every day could tire anyone out. 

And yea, you need sleep. 

For the first time in a long time, you decided to shut down the game, and take at least a few day break. 

It’s not like it would make a big difference right? 

Little did you know, it most definitely would. 

Just a few days later, not only did your laptop started acting weird to the point where you thought of buying a new one, Genshin also disappeared from your desktop. 

Before you knew it, you see little figures that look oddly familiar on your screen…

“Why haven’t you entered Teyvat lately?”

Aether & Paimon

The player spun around, eyes widening at the sight of Aether and Paimon now out of the game, and...hopping around on your screen.

"Aether? Paimon? How... how are you here?".

Aether stepped forward. 

"Our Creator, we've missed you. The others are worried. Why haven't you been to Teyvat?"

You sighed, has it already been a couple of days? Also, since when were you their creator? 

"I'm just a little tired-” There was a dramatic gasp from Paimon.

“Tired of us? Aether! Our Creator is tired of us!” 

“No! I mean, I still love Teyvat and all of you, but I needed a break and I will go back soon." You quickly responded with reassurance, which luckily appeased the floating companion. 

Paimon floated closer, which was like a weird zoom on her face, her eyes softening with understanding. 

"We get it, but... we can't go back to Teyvat until you' launch' the game." She says robotically, but appeared confused right after.

“Ah, okay. Give me a minute.” 

When you tried to download the game via the Genshin website, it stated that there was a website maintenance. 

“Creator! What is happening? The world is changing!” While you were frustrated, Aether and Paimon were jumping and flying everywhere around your screen, exploring how tabs open and following your mouse as you click and hover.

Their curiosity made you smile, and you slowly explain how everything works slowly as with each passing second, they marvel at how advanced your world is. 

“No wonder you’re our Creator!” 

“What’s this!?” Before you knew it, you pulled up multiple websites, and the one you landed on was Disney+.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” 

“What’s that?” Aether asked, curious, followed by Paimon’s cute little head tilt.

(You wished you could just squeeze those cute little cheeks-)

“It’s like telling a story, but you get to see it unfold right before you. Here.” You pull up ‘My Little Mermaid’ and they jump seeing the video move, with everyone inside move. 

“Woah…it’s like another world!” 

Aether seemed to marvel over it, and for a moment, he wondered, maybe, you could traverse worlds too. 

Seeing the stars in their eyes made you feel guilty, as if another misunderstanding arose, but you let them be, as their cute little figures sat down and watched the movie. 

You too, watched it with them, and for the first time in a while, you didn’t feel lonely. 

Throughout the movie, you patted them on the head with your mouse, which the two seemed to like very much. 

(And yes, you did pinch those cute little cheeks)

Kazuha 

“I’m glad that you didn’t abandon us, Your Highness.” 

Never in your wildest dreams did you expect to see THE Canadian Aether, Kazuha, on your screen, bowing respectfully to you.

“Let me know if I can help you in any way. Although my form is…not in the most helpful form, I will do my best.” 

You held back a giggle when you saw a shy little Kazuha looking at himself and then at you shyly, and you really wanted to tease him, but you chose not to. 

Instead, you pull up your incomplete art project. 

Might as well since you can’t download Genshin now and might have to wait for a few days.

“Actually Kazuha, I was hoping you could help me finish my art.” He immediately perked up, a serious expression overtook his shy one.

“Of course, Your Highness, let me know what you want to draw and I can help you!”

“Great! I’m trying to draw a handsome and cute man, he has platinum blond hair…” Slowly, you list one by one, the characteristics of the person you want to draw. 

Kazuha learns fast. Soon, he was able to figure out how your art platform worked. 

At first, he hesitated, and didn’t want to interrupt your drawing, but slowly, he learned to add in his thoughts and feedback, and guided your mouse to smooth out the lines, and perfect the colouring.

“He has red eyes…” 

Calming and soothing, his voice made you feel at peace, just like how you would hang out with him at the top of a mountain somewhere and listening to the game music. 

But this time, he was a little closer, where he felt more real albeit still in your screen. 

“Your Highness…isn’t this…me?” His little cheeks was dusted with pink as he quickly covered it with his hands. 

“It is you.” 

“But why…”

“Because you’re one of my favourites, Kazuha.” 

It was all it took for him to become shy again, and he began to cough awkwardly as if to mask his embarrassment. 

“Thank you…Your Highness.”

Yanfei

“Phew! We were so scared that you left us Your Eminence! But…I suppose we can’t do anything until you open up Teyvat again, until then, let me know if I can help you!” 

Yanfei's cheerful voice made you smile as you leaned against your palm. 

Then she turned around, as if taking in her surroundings before looking back at you. 

“Your Eminence, if I may, may I help you organize your…space?”  You blink, and that was when you notice the amount of files littered across the desktop screen, and you realized that from Yanfei’s view, it must’ve been very unorganized.

“Sure.” 

Yanfei brightens at your acceptance, and hopped a little to show her excitement. 

“Okay! I’m good at this, so leave it to me! Just follow my lead.” 

You were gonna clean up your PC eventually, though you did not expect it would be today. 

Either way, Yanfei was like a referee and a police, asking questions but also making sure everything was organized correctly. 

In a way, Yanfei felt like a Mom asking her child to clean her room.

Even so, it was so cute to see her marching everywhere like a soldier and asking you to organize it in a neat manner.

“Okay, next, let’s organize this folder!” 

“Okay-” Before you knew it, you immediately hit backspace. 

“Your Eminence…who was that-”

“Let’s move on.” But Yanfei stared at that folder with an intense stare. Did she see it? 

With a little nudge and push with your mouse, Yanfei eventually moved on, but she constantly had a smile on her lips. 

It was you cosplaying as her for an event. 

Yanfei would be sure to tell her friends back home. 

Childe

“Well, I’m happy to hear that, Your Highness! But…what were you doing? Away from Teyvat?”

Childe’s smile was a little bit menacing to look at, so you pull up what you were doing before to distract him.

And it did, surprisingly. 

“What is this?”

“It’s a game called Valorant.” 

You start the game, and once you get prepared, he too was locked in. 

With each attack and maneuver, Childe slowly became hyped up by your skill and admired it. 

“Your Highness! Why didn’t you tell me before?!” He became to gush, albeit trying to remain civil as he looked between you and your character in game. 

“Again.” In the end, he asked (begged) for another show. 

This time, you changed your agent to someone else, and once again, showed how skilled you are even in melee, which Childe initially advised against. 

But you blew his expectations away. 

“Your Highness, can I duel you?” 

You blink, before you laugh jokingly, but you knew in real life, Childe would absolutely crush you.

But you leave him be, and instead start another game. 

Honestly, Childe would be a great hype man. 

Fischl

“Ah, of course! How the stars seem to be against us this time…regardless! With me, Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort here, there is nothing you need to worry about!” 

As expected, Fischl is quite the actor and storyteller as she spews on about how she faced something similar before, something just as interstellar as this. 

You don’t mind it, after all, if you did, you wouldn’t have Fischl on your team the entire time would you? 

Fischl deserves more love is what you find in the fandom, and while she may be annoying at times, you found her passion admirable, and even a little sad when you think this is her way of happiness. 

So you respected that, and listened as she rambled on, and moved as if she was on the stage. 

Perhaps…she would do good on stage with Furina in Fontaine. 

“Fischl, I do need your help on something.” You asked when she finally finished, and she straightened herself with grace as expected from the Prinzessin der Verurteilung. 

“I need your help with my stories. I want you to create elaborate and dramatic narratives for everyone to love.” She froze for a moment, but her grin immediately hid her surprise. 

“Why of course, I would be delighted. Allow me!” With just a few seconds to think, she immediately began her storytelling. 

With her little graceful steps and hops, she almost dances away, but she doesn’t stop sharing her fantasy story full of magic, fate, and stars. 

It was hard to keep up, but you didn’t want to disappoint her, so you did your best to type her word by word. 

Luckily, she seemed to slow down to match your pace, as if the two of you were a duet with the piano and violin. 

When she stops, you end off the story with a dramatic click, and you match her prideful smile. 

Truly, Fischl is a character not everyone can handle, but that’s alright.

After all, you love her for who she is, and maybe, Fischl appreciated that more than anything else.

[alsopartgekkos]

accidentally and bc of @gufu-vire its them

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

bruh they did not release coral island ("full" version) without even finishing a main storyline and slapping WIP in your fucking journal 💀💀💀💀💀

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[ham1lton]

glue song.

pairings: oscar piastri x childhood gf!reader.

faceclaim: rayan.xasan on ig <3

summary: after looking at some old photo albums, you stumble across an old photograph of your first love. you post it online and internet sleuths attempt to track him down.

author’s note: this was based on the interaction between that one girl and the other girl she met on the cruise. if you know, you know. i thought that would be a cute smau. ignore any spelling mistakes pls 😁😝

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liked by user1, oscarpiastri and 124,893 others.

yourusername: jetlag isn’t too bad when your besties takes you straight from the airport to your favourite restaurant.

user19: omg is she going to meet oscar?

-> user2: she had a life before oscar lmfao. it could be a brand trip or a holiday.

bestie1: girl u almost fell asleep into ur ramen. how embarrassing 😬

-> yourusername: don’t expose me !! i was tired and the ramen looked comfy.

-> bestie2: it’s okay!! that’s why we’re here to stop you being enticed by sleepy noodles. <3

user9: where did u get ur hat!! so cute!!

-> yourusername: i made it myself!! i can send u the pattern if you’d like?

-> user9: yes please!! :)

-> yourusername: dmed u the pattern love! 🫶🏾💕

user6: she’s actually so cute. her and oscar need to date.

*liked by oscarpiastri*

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liked by landonorris, bestie1 and 173,928 others.

yourusername: shout out to oscar from australia. ig he isn’t too bad of a date.

oscarpiastri: not too bad? high praise from you.

-> yourusername: you know it 🤭

-> oscarpiastri: i’m assuming this means date 2 is on the cards?

-> yourusername: … perhaps

-> oscarpiastri: text me :)

-> user67: i feel like we’re intruding on a moment here…

user1: NOOOO WE LOST HER

user7: at least oscar is a good photographer.

-> user8: i think she’s just insanely photogenic 😭

user9: curly haired y/n is my fav y/n!!!

bestie2: orange is cute but the red top would have been cuter.

-> yourusername: i’ll wear it tomorrow just for you <3

-> oscarpiastri: not even for me?

-> bestie1: back off koala 🤨👎🏼 she was ours first!

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liked by landonorris, logansargeant and 308,789 others.

oscarpiastri: a quick update on oscar from australia and y/n from (your country).

landonorris: not you soft launching?!

-> user1: you wouldn’t know what thats like would you? chronically online and single 🤣

-> landonorris: HELLO???? 😭😭

logansargeant: where is my thanks for letting you know about the tweet 🤨

-> oscarpiastri: thanks.

-> logansargeant: not good enough. i was thinking maybe a mansion? or at least a private jet. perhaps even a small country….

user7: THE LAST PIC!!)?2&292!

-> user12: do i wanna be him or her….

bestie2: told u the red was the best option yourusername 💕 ur glowing!!!

-> bestie1: BOOOOOOO 👎🏼 (u look good!!)

yourusername: when did you even take the first pic? i didn’t even notice 😭

-> oscarpiastri: when you were explaining the lore behind the hunger games series. you’re cute when you’re passionate.

-> user98: ‘YOU’RE CUTE WHEN UR PASSIONATE’ IM SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES TONIGHT 😭😭😭

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taglist: @23victoria @alexmarie29 @mxdi0 @booksandflowrs @cuteskz @luckyladycreator2 @purplephantomwolf @casperlikej @nichmeddar @decafmickey @evie-119 @moviecritc @wildflowermarns @lichterfee @d3kstar @f1kenzzz @ravisinghs-wife @blupblupfish @demvnsriot @ajvaix @au-ghosttype @thehistoryone @raevyng @colmathgames2 @iloveyou3000morgan @namgification @formulaal @firelily-mimi @lemon-lav @67-angelofthelordme-67 @snapeeballsack @bernelflo @mehrmonga @hiireadstuff @c-losur3 @lavisenri @leaderofthebadbitchbrigade @seokjinkismet @dhanihamidi @tallrock35 @f1fan676 @imsiriuslyreal @samantha-chicago @f1withleire @kamabokogonpachro (wanna be removed? let me know via ask! want to join? taglist is in my bio!)

[leviismybby]

Cat and Mouse

Levi Ackerman x fem!reader, mdni, nsfw 18+, fingering

Levi's eyes scan the rooftops, he can hear you, hear your footsteps. He launches his gear at the nearby building wall and steps on the rooftop, spotting your figure he hides behind a wall and waits for you to pass by. This time, he won't let you off the hook easily, you were gonna rush past him but Levi surprises you, spins you around and pushes you against the cold surface harshly. You grunt as your back hits the concrete, your eyes narrow immediately before they meet his grey ones. He will never learn.

"Captain." That sarcasm in your voice isn't something Levi appreciated, he jas had enough of your games. Before he speaks, he pins your hands above your head, last time you pulled a stunt, he isn't letting that happen again. "What the fuck is your problem?" You know why he is mad, you've caused him quiet the trouble, not that you regret it. "My problem? I don't have one. You clearly do." A brat, you were such a brat and he couldn't fathom what keeps him so infatuated with you. Maybe it's the fact that you're a thief that the MPs can't seem to catch or maybe is the fact that you outsmarted him both time he caught you. Either way, Levi wants it to stop.

"You have to stop. The military police will get a bounty on that shitty head of yours. You fucked it up badly this time." He was right, you did fuck it up, stealing from the Garrison just for the thrill of it. If Levi didn't know any better, he would say that you're crazy, than again, he isn't exactly normal either and he is the last person to judge you given his past as a thug. "Aww, thanks for caring, I don't care." You try to stir out of his grip and he only tightens it, keeping you still. "You're fucking insufferable you know that?" It was true, you were an annoyance for him, he had better things to do than to chase a petty thief around Trost but there was something about you that kept him coming back. He hated himself for always giving in.

"I can only say the same, Captain. Why do you care so much?" You roll your eyes, trying to find a way out of his grip but nothing seems to come to mind. He is too close to you, you can feel his breath on your cheek, this is getting dangerous. "I don't dammit. I will be the first to celebrate when your ass gets thrown in jail." Maybe he should do it, bring you in and let the militray police do as they please with you but his inner turmoil isn't letting him, he hates to admit it but he enjoys this, the chase and the games between you. His comrads would be disappointed if they knew, he knows your face, knows how you work so why doesn't he just report you? It's a problem that he can't slove tonight.

You don't say anything, the words coming out of his mouth were harsh but true, you did keep him on his feet and you enjoyed the attention. "So report me. Or is your ego not letting you." He hides things well behind that indifferent expression but his eyes tell you a different story, there is hate there, of course there is, you two hold mutual hatred for on e another however there is desire there too, it shouldn't be. It really shouldn't. Levi scoffs at your words, his fingers wrap around your neck and he squeezes, his other hand still firmly holding your wrist together. "You're the egotist one here. You and your shitty criminal jobs. How much money did you earn by selling sealed information huh? What is your game here?" That was his main problem, you stole from the survey corps too and he doesn't appreciate it one bit.

His fingers squeeze your throat again, he wants you to answer but he won't approve if you lie to him. "Enough and I enjoy the chase. Noel matter how big or minor my crime is, you always comr running after me. Why is that captain?" Now there is a question he wants answer at least not with words. Hos face inches closer to you, your noses touching. "Fucking annoying brat." You smirk, your eyes drifting to his lips, will he finally do it or will he run away from it like all those other times? You don't move away or lean in, you simply wait, eager to feel his lips agsint yours.

And just like that, a groan leaves his lips, his hand moving down to your hip and his lips crashing agsint yours. Returning the kiss immediately, you feel his grip on your wrist loosen and insted he interlocks his fingers with yours, his kiss getting more passionate. You let your hand fall to his hair, pulling him into the kiss even more, his body presses up agsint yours, the heat between you making a shiver run down your spine. You moan as his hand moves to your ass and he squeezes, loving the sounds that are leaving your mouth. He needs to hear more and he plans too. His grip gets more and more possessive, his hands start to roam your body, feeling your every curve. You can't go all the way put here, both of you know that but Levi is letting his desire for you cloud his judgement and he can't keep his hands off of you even out here.

The two of you keep kissing for some time until Levi pulls away, a string of saliva connecting your mouth to each other. Levi's eyes look you up and down, he wants to fuck you here and now but it's too risky, so he will simply have to do something else. His mouth starts kissing your neck, each kiss more sloppy than the other, you throw your head back, giving him more space, you're enjoying this more than you thought you would. A gasp leaves your swollen lips when he bites into your skin leaving marks behind. "You smell so fucking good." He says against your skin before biting again, this time he hits your sweet spot directly, making a shiver run down your spine. You grab onto his shoulders, your body pulling it self closer to his. "Desperate are you? Fucking brat." He turns you around, your hands on the cold wall, he bucks your hips sligthy and gives your ass a firm slap, fuck the things he would do to you.

He lands another slap on your ass, his body pressing fully into yours, you can feel how hard he is for you. You bite your lip and reach out for his bulge but he slaps your hand away. "No. Keep your fucking hands on the wall understood?" You nod at his words, as much you want to talk back to him, you don't want to ruin this moment so you keep quiet and listen to what he says. You keep your hands on the wall feeling his run up and down your sides before the reach your pants. His hand slides in and you gasp at his cold fingers as they reach your core, he rubs you over your panties making soft moans come put of you. "Wet aren't you? Is this waht this whole thing is about? You want me to fuck you don't you?" Bingo, thats exactly what this whole thing is about, him finally breaching his breaking point and taking you.

Your hips buck into his hands, you want more. Levi chuckles, sending another shiver down your body, this is the first time you hear him chuckle and it's making you feel things. "Yeah? Oh you would love to have my cock deep inside of you right now. Too bad you're not getting it." He nibbles on your ear as he says that, his voice horase and rough, he is turned on beyond belief. He starts to rub you again, feeling the way the fabric of your panties is getting wet, you're phehetic, acting all though while all it took is a single touch for him to get you under his control, you melt so easily, he will indulge in that. Finally his fingers slip into your underwear and feels your pussy, his fingers runs down your slit, feeling your slick and walls, you're so wet for him, fuck he really is in trouble.

He kisses your shoulder, his fingers finding your clit, you thighs close against his hand, whimpers escape your mouth. "How cute. You're phehetic, so fucking easy to break." His fingers enters you without warning, it starts of slow, he loves teasing you but as soon as he feels your warm walls clench around his finger, he starts to finger you faster. "Fuck Levi." You say, your hands steady on the wall, he knows what he is doing. As soon as you said that, he adds a second finger keeping the fast pace, your eyes start to water as he curls them hitting that soft spot. He keeps pumping his fingers in and put of you, your actions are getting him more drunk, he loves how your body shakes just from him fingering you. He needs to control himself or else his cock will be buried deep inside of you and he can't afford that.

The more you react, the faster his pace gets, you forget completely where you are. That people can see and hear you but that's the last of your worries right now. You have Levi, the captain of the survey corps, humanity's strongest soldier fingering you on top of a building. This isn't how you wanted your afternoon to go but its far better than you ever imagined. His fingers keep moving inside of you, his other hand runs under your shirt and he grabs your breast, massaging it in his hands. "Are you gonna cum for me out here?" That makes your pussy clench aagsint his fingers again, you're getting close, that pit in your stomach starts to build up but you're not queit there yet. Levi knows how to push you over the edge, his thumb adds pressure on your clit and he keeps fingering you in a fast pace, the moan that leavs you is something you should be ashamed of, oh someone definitely heard you now, not that you care. "That's it. Good girl, cum for me, let me see you fall apart."

You can't keep your hands on the wall anymore, your grabs onto his arm with both of your hands, digging your nails into his shirt as you cum. You roll your hips, riding out of your orgsam against his fingers, he keeps them inside of you even after you cum. You catch your breath, your head falling back on his shoulder, he kisses the side of your face, he removes his hand from your underwear, his fingers are soaked. "Took about two fucking minutes to make you cum. Aren't you embarrassed?" He asks you as you open your eyes, your cheeks flushed, his hand is still on your breast and he squeezes it once more before letting go and setting both of his hands on your hips. He kisses you on the lips again, the kiss is quick and sloppy.

Eventually, Levi pulls away from you, cleaning his fingers with his cloth. You turn back around, leaning against the wall. The sun is starting to set and you don't know what to say. Levi looks your way again, he fixes his gear. "Stay out out trouble or next time I am fucking you on the wall for all to see. Understood?" That makes you laugh, he had a way with words but you wouldn't mind at all. "Oh captain my captain, if that will be the outcome, I will be gladly robbing the bank next." Your words make his eyes roll, you really were a brat. You fic yourself, fix your hair and look at him again. "See you around, Captain." You wink and get off the rooftop. Levi is left there, staring at the distance until he realised something, his wallet was missing. Damn you.

[ellatoone7]

❄︎ My Mami ❄︎

Alexia's favourite girls series

Isabella doesn't like sharing

It had been a relatively easy morning, Emilia didn’t put up too much of a fuss and Isabella had helped you all morning. You had called Alexia when you were on the road letting her know that everything was fine and allowing her to wish her daughter the best of luck and give her a little pep talk. 

Isabella was disappointed at first when she found out Alexia wouldn’t be able to make the whole game but she calmed down when she was promised to go to Alexia’s next training and even maybe step in on a few drills. 

After making sure you had absolutely everything and making Isabella recheck that she didn’t leave anything in the car, you were now settled on the side of the field with Emilia sitting on your lap happily. “Mama Issy running with the ball just like Mami.” You chuckled at her little babble, quietly cooing your praise as you to watched your wife’s twin race up and the down the field with the same sparkle that Alexia had at her age.

When Emilia got wiggly you let her roam a little, knowing that she couldn’t wander off and letting her burn some energy off would do you all some good in the long run. Isabella had assisted two goals already and it was just half time, she waved at you excitedly and you were filled with the same feeling of pride that you always got when you watched your wife. 

Alexia had been so excited for the game that nothing in the world was going to stop her from seeing at least a little bit of it. The Captain was quick to say goodbye to her team with the promise of photos and videos of Isabella’s game. Luckily she had arrived just as the second half started. She took a moment to take in the life she had managed to create as she spotted Emilia stomping around the sandy part of the pitch and you were only a few feet away sitting on a blanket you brought. 

The sound of the whistle pulled her out of her trance as the game commenced and she was quick to join her little family. You didn’t even flinch when a body threw itself down next you, knowing your wife would show up a soon as she possibly could. Emilia was absolutely thrilled at the sight of her mother and launched herself onto the footballers lap. Alexia grunted in surprise as she smiled happily at the sight of her blonde, giggly daughter. “Hola mi princesa.” The three year old squealed excitedly as fingers pressed against her side teasingly.

Alexia then turned to you, “Hola mi Reina.” You kissed her soundly as she gratefully reciprocated, arm sliding around your waist as she smiled softly at you. Emilia sat happily between her legs as she leaned back into her mothers strong body. You decided to follow suit as you put your weight on her. 

It was only when you really looked at her did you realise she was still in her training kit. “Did you run here straight from training.” Alexia looked surprised at your question before huffing, “No, I drove here…straight from training.” Emilia was distracted with playing with her mother’s wedding ring and Isabella had yet to see Alexia arrive, so you took your opportunity. “This training kit always looked so good on you.” Alexia’s eyebrows rose immediately, catching the suggestive tone of your voice immediately, “Sí?” you bit your lip and nodded, rolling your eyes amusedly as her signature smirk made its appearance. “I have to do something about that, huh?” You nodded as her eyes stayed glued to your lips, “Why do you think I was trying to tire Emilia out.” Alexia kissed you softly as it took everything in her to control herself.

A football interrupted the two of you as you quickly separated, cheeks burning red as the referee giggled at the two of you. Isabella was bright red until she caught sight of her mother. Her eyes lit up and she shyly waved at the Captain. Alexia smiled softly at her eldest and gave her a wink which instilled a fire into her daughter who immediately scored a goal. Alexia was now on her feet, shouting words of encouragement and you saw the future of Alexia’s coaching career ahead of you. 

Emilia was giggling and repeating the words that her Mami was saying until she shivered. You were quick to grab the jumper you brought for her and Ále cooed as she passed her onto you. 

The final whistle sounded with your daughter scoring another two goals. Isabella ran straight for her mother who wasted no time in throwing her up and over her shoulder as she showered her in kisses and praises. Even though Isabella was seven and getting way too old to be picked up but it never stopped Alexia from ignoring that rule and doing it quite often. Isabella seemed settled in her arms as she retold Alexia all about the match that she just watched.

Isabella was on her feet again when her coach came over to talk to the Barcelona star. The kids from the other team were in awe of the fact they had ‘La Reina’ at their match. Your wife always had time for pictures which is what she was doing currently as Isabella wandered over to you to give you a big hug and a recap. “That’s my Mami!” Isabella grunted as she hid her face into your neck, much like your wife Isabella didn’t like sharing. 

“Yes and you get to go home and cuddle her all night, they only get a picture.” You laughed softly as she whined gently, “My Mami.” You sometimes wonder whether your eldest is really seven or actually just four. Alexia started heading back to where you were sitting with your daughters, she caught your amused glance and immediately knew that something was wrong but it wasn’t anything serious. 

“¿Todo bien?” She asked as she hauled Emilia up into her arms, the three year old after successfully tiring herself out as she drowsily blinked from where she was laying against her Mami’s strong shoulder. Isabella peeked out at her Mami before remembering her arm around the other girls and she hid herself again. 

Alexia frowned but you sent her a reassuring look as you coaxed the brown haired girl from her hiding place, “Tell Mami what’s wrong.” You whispered as she groaned but turned to face your wife anyway, “My Mami.” Her forehead met with Alexia’s leg as she mumbled out the words, arms intertwining around her thigh. 

Alexia chanced a glance at you and you just ran a hand through her hair. “Sí, I am your Mami. ¿Quién dijo que yo no era mi vida?” Isabella didn’t even lift her head just pointed to where the crowd of girls were taking pictures with Alexia a minute ago. “Ay Ya veo. Vamos, vamos a casa para que pueda abrazar con mis chicas favoritas sí.” Isabella nodded and kissed her Mami’s hand before taking it and walking back to the car.

You placed your hand on your wife’s back along with a kiss to her shoulder as you took Emilia and placed her in her car seat with a kiss to the cheek. “I’ll take Is.’ You agreed before giving your daughter a kiss on the cheek and a hug. “See you at home.” You smiled wrapping your arms around your wife’s neck and kissing her deeply as a reminder of your previous conversation. She chased your lips before remembering where you were and leaving one final one against your cheek. 

Once she watched you drive off she looked into the mirror making eye contact with your daughter and flashing her a mischievous smile, “I think we’ve earned ourselves some McDonald’s.”

[ellecdc]

Hello I’m new here (tumblr) and idk if I’m doing this right but hi!

Your fics first came up with regulus and moon water so I’ve been binge reading your fics :), I was wondering if you would write Sirius x reader?

Where like Sirius is like head over heels for reader and it’s just him talking to the marauders about her because she’s like on prefect duties so he misses her.

If not that’s fine.

hahaha lovesick Siri is my kryptonite - thanks for your request; here's a cute little baby blurb <3

please note: my requests are currently closed as I finish exams and work through the requests that I currently have.

lovesick!Sirius Black x fem!reader who's on prefect rounds and he's upset about it

“So….why exactly is Padfoot pouting right now?” Peter asked cautiously as he shed off his bookbag and sat down to watch James and Remus’ game of wizard chess as Sirius hung upside down from a grandfather chair looking awfully contemplative. 

“His bird ditched him for some other bloke.” James muttered without raising his head.

Sirius scoffed dramatically and shot James what was probably supposed to be a withering glare, but was significantly diminished from his current upside-downness. 

“First of all, do not call my darling girl a bird. Second of all, she did not ditch me for another man, she has prefect rounds with Regulus.”

“The better of the Black brothers; good for her.” Remus commented; dodging a throw pillow lobbed at him from Sirius without moving his attention from the board. 

“What? You think you’re going to die if she’s not here to stroke your ego, Pads?” James asked teasingly.

“I might.” Sirius responded earnestly.

The other three Marauders groaned.

“You’re all just jealous you don’t know what it’s like to be in love.” Sirius accused as he repositioned himself upright in the chair.

Remus and James both turned to give him unimpressed glares.

“You’re nearly as bad as Prongs now.” Peter muttered, earning him indignant “oi!”’s from both James and Sirius.

“I can’t help it if she’s the best thing to ever happen to me, Wormy.” Sirius pouted.

“I am sitting right here.” James grumbled. 

Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’re a close second, Prongs.”

“She can’t be that great if she willingly puts up with you.” Remus commented, causing Sirius to launch himself out of the grandfather chair and onto Remus’ back.

“You take that back right now! My girl is the sweetest, most angelic, lovely person in the whole wide world and we’re all better for it.”

“Oh my gods, okay, okay. Merlin’s tits you’re wild.” Remus muttered as he bodily shoved Sirius off of his person.

“I can’t believe she puts up with you if this is what you’re like around her.” Peter commented, earning him a laugh from James.

“Oh, you should see it, Worms. She reduces him to nothing but a soppy lovesick smile whenever she’s around; no more feral Pads, he’s right docile with her.”

Sirius stared between his three friends with his mouth hanging open, face painted in a look of pure betrayal.

“See, this is why I spend so much time with her; she’d never treat me like this.”

“And yet, here you are.” Remus taunted.

Sirius stood quickly as he scoffed derisively. “Fine. I’m going to go hang out with her; at least then I’ll know I’m wanted.”

No one said anything as Sirius dramatically stormed out of the portrait hole and the Gryffindor common room once again returned to its appropriate volume.

“His logic is flawed if he thinks Regulus wants him anywhere near them during their rounds.” Peter commented, causing James to groan.

“Reg’s gonna hex him into oblivion if he disrupts their prefect duties again.” The Headboy groaned.

Remus let out a long suffering sigh as he stood from his long since abandoned chess game and made for the portrait hole.“I’ll go play interference…again.”

[hazybisou]

❛ HYBE BOY ❜

🧸🩰 i’m a lucky fella, i’ve just got to tell her that i love her endlessly

summary - quinn hughes, captain of the Vancouver Canucks, is dating model, y/n y/l/n and hard launches his relationship leaving people shocked at how beautiful she is and making his brothers question how he managed to pull her.

pairing - model!f!reader x quinn hughes

side note - miranda kerr will be used as a faceclaim for the ig posts. but like she’s so beautiful omgggg 😻😻 *careless whisper starts playing* anyways uni is going so well. my professors are so chill like literally it’s amazing. i barely know anyone here (yes after a whole month here, i only know like 6 people). but uni is amazing my roommate is the best and it’s js a great experience!!

✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫

_quinnhughes

liked by lhughes_06, user01, trevorzegras, and 81,920 others

_quinnhughes i’ll keep this one, thanks. 😃

tagged: @/y/n.y/l/n

view comments

colecaufield found in the wild 🐗🕵️

_quinnhughes ❌

user81 Y/N Y/L/N DATING A HOCKEY PLAYER??!! MY WORLDS ARE COLLIDING 🥲🥲

jackhughes 👁️🌊🫵

user17 jack what is this??! 😭😭

user38 he’s weird

user82 he js built diff

trevorzegras quinnifer got (no) game??!

_quinnhughes at least i have a girl where’s yours *looks around* oh i forgot 🥲

trevorzegras you’re my girl @/_quinnhughes don’t worry 😘

jackhughes AYE!!

_quinnhughes @/jackhughes @/y/n.y/l/n idk what he’s talking abt 😥

y/n.y/l/n trev wishes 😔😔

user93 NOOOO😭!!!!

user72 sad day for us quinn girlies 😔

user57 trevor and quinn are umm…

y/n.y/l/n weird and not okay i know and also very much in love with each other???

user57 yes

y/n.y/l/n have you fixed the bed yet??

_quinnhughes no..

lhughes_06 the beds broken?? oh 😐

y/n.y/l/n he jumped on it to hard and made a leg break

jackhughes YO WHAT

_quinnhughes @/jackhughes in my defense she was chasing me

y/n.y/l/n @/_quinnhughes you caused that to happen when YOU THREW A PILLOW AT ME

_quinnhughes @/y/n.y/l/n IM SORRY TAKE ME BACK

y/n.y/l/n @/_quinnhughes YOURE NEXT TO ME STUPID

trevorzegras ☕️☕️

user92 SHES SO PRETTY OMGGG 💕💕

user29 new wag alert!!!

user69 girlie so fine 😻😻

bradytkachuk emma said to stop forcing her to say you guys are together

ehtkachuk yea bc she’s MY wife not YOUR gf

y/n.y/l/n @/_quinnhughes ^^

_quinnhughes @/bradytkachuk @/ehtkachuk @/y/n.y/l/n why are you all after me 😔😔

colemcward mama y papa? mama. papa.

y/n.y/l/n my son is all alone 😭😭

_quinnhughes he’ll live

colemcward @/_quinnhughes no i won’t

lhughes_06 @/y/n.y/l/n why is he your son and not me???

y/n.y/l/n @/lhughes_06 bc you’re the annoying little brother i wished i had growing up

elblue6 my beautiful daughter 💕💕 and her interesting bf

_quinnhughes i’m your biological son??!

y/n.y/l/n quinny shh 🤫 ALSO MAMA EL 😘😘♥️

user48 parents so cute 🥰🥰

✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫

y/n and quinn had been together in michigan for a week now and his brothers were yet to meet her. she had met his parents a couple months before and they’ve loved her ever since. ellen treated her as if she were her own daughter. they would talk about quinn and his behavior and quinn would be in the back, getting offended. jim was like her second father. he was protective of her and was his little girl even if they weren’t blood related.

the couple were on the couch, all cozy and cuddling when they heard a car pull up outside. quinn looked down at y/n who had her eyes closed, trying to go asleep after being out that day. “babe,” quinn heard a mumble come from the girl, “they’re here.” she grumbled in response.

quinn had told her last night that they would arrive at the lake house tomorrow evening. she was half asleep when he told her so all he got from her was an “okay,” before he began to hear soft snores come from her mouth.

“quinny, let me sleep please,” y/n whispered, “i’ll meet them later.”

quinn just smiled and leaned down to kiss her temple. he rested his head on top of hers and closed his eyes, hoping to sleep as well.

unfortunately, in this household, a good nights sleep was never a thing. that was proven as the front door suddenly burst open which quinn jumped slightly at the action and caused y/n to stir in her sleep, letting out a small whine.

“honey, we’re home!” an, oh, so familiar voice announced.

quinn turned his head to the side and peaked over the couch. as soon as he saw his brothers, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at their antics and go back to trying to go to sleep.

he heard chattering and the padding of footsteps get closer, indicating they were coming his way. he began to think of a way of how he would get up without waking up y/n. there was no way.

quinn reopened his eyes and saw two figures standing in front of him. “what the fuck?” he questioned and his brothers laughed at his face.

“i see you’ve been having fun.” luke said and his eyes traveled down to y/n’s sleeping figure and he raised an eyebrow at quinn. “like i knew you had a girlfriend but she’s way out of your league.”

quinn let out a fake chuckle. “get the hell out and let us sleep.” he commented and wrapped his arms around y/n, his arm covering her face from jack and luke.

“but we just got here.” jack pointed out and luke murmured in agreement.

“then go up to your rooms.”

“but we want to meet your girlfriend.” luke stated with a fake pout.

quinn glared at the pair. “she’s sleeping so leave,” he stated and closed his eyes, protecting y/n from their view.

“we’re coming back when you’re both wide awake.” jack pointed a finger at quinn before he and quinn went to the front to get their bags and head upstairs.

quinn shook his head and went back to sleep, awaiting the moment of when y/n wakes up.

the couple had surprisingly slept for an hour and a half. it surprised quinn since he knew his brothers and the amount of noise they made whenever one of them were sleeping.

y/n had begun to wake as she had begun to squirm in quinn’s hold. he let out a groan and held her closer to his body, her squirming subsiding. “q, let go.” she mumbled into his chest. he held her tight. “quinn.”

“go to sleep, princess.” quinn whispered, his eyes still closed.

y/n started to squirm once again. “no, i have to meet your brothers as i said before.” she really wanted to meet luke and jack but with quinn’s hold keeping her restrained, it was impossible.

“they can wait.”

“no we can’t.”

quinn snapped his head towards the voice and y/n lifted her head and looked towards the boy. “why are you everywhere luke?”

luke shrugged, “i don’t know,” he sat at the end of the couch, “i just am.”

quinn rolled his eyes and looked down at y/n. “well you’ve met luke,” he told her.

“and the other?”

“i have a name.” jack.

y/n turned towards the boy, “yeah i know. sorry jack.”

jack shrugged and sat next to luke who gave jack a look. “what?” luke stared at him for a second before using all his force to push jack off. he fell with a thud and quinn, luke, and y/n laughed. “asshole.”

“man whore.”

jack looked up at luke. he got up within a second before he pounced onto luke. the two began to fight, jokingly, of course. jack had an arm wrapped around luke who let out a scream. “get off of me.” luke managed to get out despite jack’s arm suffocating him. luke continuously slapped jack’s arm in an effort for his older brother to let go.

“no.” the two continued to fight and quinn and y/n just stayed there laughing at the two.

“well you’ve met thing 1 and thing 2.” quinn said as he looked down at y/n. “i don’t know how they haven’t killed each other in jersey yet.”

y/n looked up at him. “you have a wonderful family.”

“aren’t we just lovely?” luke asked as he wriggled under jack’s hold. “also one more question,” y/n and quinn looked at him, “did quinn force you to get with him?”

jack’s head perked up at this. “oh yeah, did he?” he let go of luke as he turned towards his older brother and his girlfriend.

y/n only chuckled and quinn gave them a death stare. “no, i didn’t. she simply fell in love with me.”

jack and luke looked at each other. suddenly, the two bursted out laughing. both quinn and y/n were confused. they had a look on there face as the younger pair continued laughing. “what?”

“oh, we’re sorry but how is it that a girl like her, take this in a good way, would fall in love with a guy like you?” jack said and luke was still too busy laughing.

quinn looked at them, offended, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“she’s beautiful! and you’re just..you.” luke exclaimed. “like let’s be real here.”

y/n turned to them, “i didn’t fall in love with him because of his looks, i fell in love with him because of his personality,” she looked towards quinn before looking back at the younger brothers, “although sometimes he’s a little interesting.”

“what do you mean interesting?”

“a wet cat.”

✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫ ✫

i fucking hate this so much like actually wtff 😭😭 anyways here’s my monthly post and hopefully some of you enjoy it. uni is my new home and umm it’s great!! now my roommate and my friends are making go to a frat tmrw so uhh hopefully it goes well (ik it won’t) wish me luck 🤞

[youkissedareaderinthedark]

Don’t Expect the Expected

Synopsis: Formula 1’s only and most successful female driver and Real Madrid’s star midfielder. It’s too good to be true. Right?

social media au

female driver reader x jude bellingham

A/N: for this one, reader will be 20 and drive for mercedes with george. also im so sorry but some of the photos might be blurry/hard to see

y/n_l/n

august 19th

liked by carlossainz55, realmadridfc, and 687,984 others

y/n_l/n carlossainz kidnapped me to convert me into a real madrid fan

carlossainz don’t lie you loved it

realmadridfc no need to pretend y/n! we know you’ve always been a fan ❤️

user1 omg I wonder if she met the players

user2 need more carlos and y/n content immediately they’re such an underrated friendship

user3 yesss y/n and real madrid my two favorite things

y/n_l/n

september 20th

liked by carlossainz, judebellingham, and 737,421 others

y/n_l/n guess they did something right because im back for more

carlossainz I knew you liked it

y/n_l/n shhh

judebellingham glad to have you back

y/n_l/n glad to be back

user4 ariana what are you doing here

user5 look at y/n and jude 😭

user6 wait what I didn’t even think of them together

user6 im not complaining tho they’d be cute together

user7 omg is that jude in that photo with her??

user8 imagine

y/n_l/n

october 10th

liked by mercedesamgf1, judebellingham, and 624,178 others

y/n_l/n this week so far

user9 IS THE SHADOW PHOTO Y/N AND JUDE???

user10 OMG THEY’RE TOTALLY A COUPLE

user11 these two were not on my 2023 bingo card 😭

user12 my favorite couple fr

user13 is this a soft launch or hard launch I can’t tell

user14 usually I advocate for people just being friends but I ship these two way too hard for that 😭

y/n_l/n

november 8th

liked by jobebellingham, judebellingham, and 987,541 others

y/n_l/n this man said “let’s play mermaids”

judebellingham don’t know what you’re on about mermaids is the best game

y/n_l/n I didn’t say it wasn’t??

jobebellingham he can’t even pose 🤦‍♂️

y/n_l/n cant even pose 🤦‍♀️

judebellingham that’s not fair you two can’t gang up on me

y/n_l/n jobe only speaks the truth 🤷‍♀️

jobebellingham facts

user15 caption should’ve said jobe and his parents

user16 family day fr

user17 Y/N’S MET JUDE’S FAMILY IM GONNA CRY

user18 ENOUGH of this soft launch you guys are too cute to stay secret 😭

user19 half of me still can’t believe they’re basically together but the other half of me is so happy they are

user20 my parents

user21 them >>>>

judebellingham

november 20th

liked by y/n_l/n, eduardocamavinga, and 690,357 others

judebellingham let’s stay in vegas

user22 JUDE WENT TO A RACE AHHH

user23 jude’s in his wag era!!

user24 “let’s stay in vegas” 😭 he’s so sweet im crying

user25 both mercedes on the podium AND a jude/y/n post?? it’s a good day

user25 i just know jude was cheering like crazy for her in the merc garage

user26 no more soft launch please i want my parents to be together and proud 🙏🙏

y/n_l/n

november 27th

liked by judebellingham, mercedesamgf1, and 619,926 others

y/n_l/n a great end to a fantastic season ⭐️ so proud of everything we’ve accomplished this year, can’t wait till febuary 🫶

mercedesamgf1 🩵

y/n_l/n 🩵

judebellingham 🫶

user27 can’t believe it’s over already

user28 y/n owned this season she did so good 🙏

user29 i don’t know what im gonna do without y/n’s weekly race photo dumps 😔

user27 especially with jude 😞

user30 wish this season could’ve gone on forever

user31 at least we’ll get some winter break content

y/n_l/n

december 1st

liked by judebellingham, jobebellingham, and 801,645 others

y/n_l/n home

judebellingham you couldn’t have chosen a better photo?

y/n_l/n wdym? you look fantastic in that one

user32 omg she called madrid home 😭

user33 or jude home

user34 either are so cute I might die

user35 im so happy they got together

user36 they’re actually perfect for each other

user37 fuck romeo and juliet I want what these bitches have

y/n_l/n

december 7th

liked by jobebellingham, judebellingham, and 845,139 others

y/n_l/n jobe > the other random one on the right

jobebellingham 💪

judebellingham you need to stop with these photos it’s getting out of hand

user38 jobe’s parents

user39 family day pt 2

user40 no but fr where did she get that picture of jude

user41 omg 💀

judebellingham

december 14th

liked by y/n_l/n, jobebellingham, and 987,609 others

judebellingham behind the scenes- “this is our second cart, we do not need a 3rd christmas bush” “it’s a christmas tree jude” “dont look like one” “you look like one” “what was that?” “nothing”

“why in the world do we need 4 gingerbread houses? no one even eats them” “so? they look nice” “yeah, 1 looks nice, 4 looks like we’re crazy”

and after we set the timer to get the third photo, y/n slipped and fell. I laughed

user42 LMAOO

user43 jude 💀

user44 im deadddd

user45 holidays with the bellinghams

user46 if she wants 3 christmas bushes let her get 3 christmas bushes??

user47 I would pay sm money to watch this all happen

user48 they bicker like an old married couple I love it

user49 my parents

user50 they’re everyone’s parents atp

user51 im so in love with them

user52 is this still a soft launch??? are they even dating or are they just besties 😭

user53 girl there’s no way they’re just friends

user54 but like they haven’t even called each other girlfriend/boyfriend

user55 they’re 100% dating…. I think

user56 now that I think about it, their posts could very much be platonic 💀

user57 omg no way they haven’t even confirmed their relationship

user52

december 23

liked by y/n_l/n, judebellingham, and 989,876 others

user52 💀💀

user58 all this time we were trying to get them to reveal their relationship but they weren’t even intentionally hiding it

user59 we’re actually so dumb 🤦‍♀️

user60 I can’t believe we didn’t think of a private relationship sooner

user61 omg seriously

user62 well at least (I have nothing, im still shocked)

*I don’t take credit or own any of these photos*

[iamasaddie]

one more night in Dorne

paring: Oberyn Martell x fem!afab!Reader rating: explicit word count: 1,6k summary: when the Prince came back from his trip overseas, he went straight to the thing he desired most warnings: explicit sexual content; extreme overstimulation; oral F receiving; begging (to stop but you don't really want that); NO USE OF Y/N

Arabian Nights

Like Arabian Days

More often than not

Are hotter than hot

In a lot of good ways

Your body was splayed upon a massive bed covered in the softest silks, and the most magnificent blankets. The thin, almost transparent fabric of the canopy moved with the occasional breath of wind. Heat overwhelmed your body, sun found a way to seep under your skin and travel down your veins even when you were in the shelter of one of the most lavish rooms of the palace. Tired muscles of your quivering thighs were covered in sweat, while your eyelids could barely contain the salty rivers of tears that desired to escape your eyes.

You were in the gentle, but firm clutches of your Prince, Oberyn Martell. The Red Viper. The Insatiable Lover. The Best Cock in All of The Seven Seas. Your royal lover found you first thing when he returned from one of his trips his brother sent him to. You were just finishing cleaning up the kitchens, sweat and grime unpleasantly sticking to you as a middle layer between your skin and the billowy tunic you wore on the particularly hot days. You jumped and were ready to scream when strong hands circled your waist, one strategically going to shut your mouth so you couldn't make a noise, and a low, honey-thick sound of his voice filled your ears. "I think these kitchens look as clean as my dear brother's ass on a wash day. You're done here, my little one."

You didn't reply, and didn't try to fight him when he practically dragged you to his chambers through all the tiny corridors that intertwined like ivy vines. From what you could say, that was 4 hours ago. Sometimes your Prince liked to fool around, play the game of cat and mouse, teasing you to the point where you'd cry out of frustration praying to all the Gods, old and new, so he would just take you already. Today was not that day. As soon as he locked the massive wooden doors - something he didn't do all that often - Oberyn launched himself at you, claiming your mouth and then laying you on the bed. It wasn’t the first time you found yourself between the silken sheets of the man that unknowingly stole your heart but every time it was a thrill. You never knew what would happen, but you were ready to let him do anything his heart, mind, and cock desired. The only thing you were afraid of was that your body was too weak to handle all the strength of his undying passion.

By now you felt as if you were being flayed alive, your body shivered violently, exhausted from pleasure he insisted to give you with his mouth. He loved doing that, usually bringing you to at least one peak before claiming your cunt with his cock (you still gasped every time he slid inside you like you did that first time, when he took everything you begged him to take). Today was different, though. You came four times already, but still he wasn’t moving away. He was growling into your cunt like an animal, the hot swipes of his tongue persistent and insatiable. You’d lost count of the times you tried to pull on his short hair. In your attempts to get him to stop the unstoppable caresses of his tongue, you begged him to just fuck you, moaning how empty you felt without his gorgeous cock, but he didn’t even bother to answer you. Oberyn continued relentlessly abusing your raw flesh, letting his fingers slide inside you from time to time when you were thrashing in ecstasy.

“My Prince, I beg of you. I am going to die. I can’t take it anymore.” You prayed he’d stop, even though the tiniest part of you hoped he’d ignore you once again, and continue using your willing body for his pleasure. “Don’t you want to fuck me? Don’t you want to slide your cock in me? Or am I not worthy of your cock anymore?”

He unlatched his lips from your swollen cunt, showing you his pristine mustache covered in your cum and arousal, and smiled the most innocent of smiles. “Oh, my dear little serpent, don’t be so foolish. You know I want that." Giving you some reprieve from his mouth he still didn't let you relax, tracing his index finger up and down your swollen, drenched lips. "There’s nothing more divine in this world or any other than the feeling of my cock piercing your wet cunt, like the sun piercing the sky. But I have been thirsty for so long that I can’t refuse myself a generous fill of your nectar.”

Your lips trembled, eyes spilling tears shamelessly. He was stubborn, your Prince. You joked once that one day it would get him killed. Maybe it'd kill you first, though.

“My Prince, I can’t take it anymore," you shook your head, calling to his senses. "I don’t think there’s any more liquid left in me.”

Oberyn tsk'd and brought his lips to your skin, and you jolted a little, almost afraid of his touch. He chuckled lovingly, murmuring in your thigh.

“But if there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be wetting these beautiful silks.”

Your whine was pained and pleasured at the same time when he swiped his fingers through your slit, gathering the embarrassing amount of your slick and showing you his glistening fingers as to prove his point. You closed your eyes, unable to continue looking at the still prominent hunger in his eyes as he licked his fingers clean. 

“Give me one more," he whispered, but it didn't sound like a plea, more like an order he loved giving out. "And then I’ll bring you as many glasses of your favorite Dornish wine as you can drink.”

You snapped your eyes open incredulously. As if you'd sell your cunt for a glass of wine, even the best wine in the world. “You'd only bring me wine because you want to torture my cunt with your devilish tongue again. And you need me full of liquids for that.”

He laughed and you couldn't stop from letting out the same joyful sounds yourself. You loved that man, and even though he didn't know that, it didn't take away from your feelings. His smile nurtured you, the way his eyes roamed your body made you feel like the prettiest creature among the gods and mortals. And when he laughed, you felt ready to sacrifice not only part of your body but your whole being to hear that again.

“You knew how selfish I was when you laid your generous body on the Prince’s bed, little snake. Do not become greedy on me now.” He bit the place on your thigh that he was just kissing, leaving the perfect mark of his teeth that you knew you'd treasure and caress when left alone for the dozenth time. “Will you spread your legs or should we find use of those beautiful ropes?”

You smiled at him, your face a bit tired but accepting and grateful for your fate. With barely working fingers you reached out and traced his big aquiline nose, that made his profile more royal than his heritage did. You stopped on his lips and he kissed your fingertips as you just stared in the depth of his eyes. “You know I will do anything for you, my Prince.”

“I know, serpent.” He licked and kissed the bite mark he left on your skin, slowly returning to the place that was burning both from being used and the desire to be used again.

He must have found some empathy inside himself, because this time he wasn't as violent in his movements. His tongue was flat as he swiped it from your entrance and to the top of your mound, either preparing you, or trying to get all of your tastes trapped inside his mouth. The broad licks were exchanged for a more passionate lapping at your entrance, as he curled his arms beneath your legs, pressing you closer into his face. With every thrust of his slick muscle inside your entrance you felt the now familiar burn of desire. With each orgasm he gave you it was easier and easier to bring you to another peak. 

This time, as soon as the tip of his nose bumped your twitching bud of pleasure, your back arched as a sea wave during the strongest of storms. Your moan was hoarse and loud, throat parched and almost as abused as your cunt.

You knew he'd say something about you sounding prettier than the most talented musician in all the lands, if only he wasn't so consumed by licking, smelling, and drinking you up.

Blackness creeped at you from the corners of your eyes, and you squeezed them shut, adding bright colors to the mix. Oberyn's tongue started speeding up returning to your clit and circling the bud with tight movements. He growled in your cunt as he felt your thighs squeezing around his head, deafening him in the most erotic of acts. The vibrations he sent through your sensitive skin and straight to your core were the final straw of not only your sanity, but your conciseness. Your scream was violent, and your back arched so hard that on the periphery of your mind you thought you'd broken your bones. You felt thoughts and senses leaving your body with every drop of liquid squirting out of your core and into your Prince's greedy mouth. You smiled, thanking Gods and your lover for releasing you from the torturous feeling of being awake as your mind drifted into euphoric blackness.

“Oh, well,” Oberyn's eyes were darker than a starless night, puffy red lips curved in a satisfied smirk. Licking his own swollen and sensitive flesh he caressed your sweaty thighs with a gentle touch, not taking his eyes off your rising and falling chest. “Someone leaving the feast is not a reason to stop it.”  The prince whispered to himself, before disappearing between your thighs once again.

________________

hope you enjoyed it, leave a comment if you did!

_________________

tag list (bc you looked interested in the comments <3 sorry if u didn’t want to be here lol): @bearsbeetsbeskar ; @northernwindd ; @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog ; @milla-frenchy ; @worhols ; @djarin-dreams ; @hellishjoel ; @jupiter-soups ; @pattwtf ; @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin ; @wannab-urs ; @ghoulettesinspace

[ganondoodle]

more ideas for the new totk rewrite (rewrite + villain rauru);

(zelda has the shiekah stone, link has an imperfect imitation of it that lacks its abilities from botw but can still make photos, has the map and teleport- since they lack the knowldge of how to make shiekah stones they tried to make one that at least has these basic function for you- it explains you not having its abilites anymore and works with zelda being gone for the first half of the game)

once you aquire all normal engima stones, the last one before the mid point unlocks, its the yiga one bc you gotta figure out first that they have one and since you can do the others in any order its to prevent you from doing the gerudo one last bc

once you are only missing zeldas and ganondorfs stone, rauru tells you to go back to the starting area bc from there he can get enough power to seek out exactly where they are- you do it and its ... in gerudo town

when you go there, the gerudo are suddendly hostile towards you, and are telling you that you are helping the wrong one- rauru of course says that ganondorf must have went to them and riled them up against you, they are his people after all (and evil stays in the family, right?), at the very least here youd notice something is off-

so he tasks you with infiltrating the city, you fight the gerudo until you reach Riju and Ganondorf (who is now in restored gerudo appearance), Riju again tries to tell you to not fight and listen to her but at this point raurus influence is too strong, he makes you keep going until she is forced to draw her weapons on you, but Ganondorf takes her to the side and says he will confront you, bc you will not listen- she begrudgingly agrees and ganondorf takes you to an arena to fight;

the fight is like an actual boss battle, once you defeat him the second phase takes you to the underground (still working on the details as to how) once you beat this one too, a cutscene starts, as you land the last hit and he gets staggered rauru takes control over your hand and throws the master sword (it wasnt broken at the start) to land the final fatal blow, rauru apologizes and says he only did it bc the moment was too perfect-

then, either that laserbeam thing or a shiekah stone ability breaks the wall and zelda storms into the arena, yelling at you to stop what you are doing (gan didnt want her to be in the same room when he fights you bc then rauru had both missing stones right there- but she couldnt not intervene once it was clear ganondorf was losing) she starts to try and explain what is happening but rauru takes ahold of you and you attack zelda to get her stone, she draws her dagger she carries for self defense but stops bc its .. link shed have to attack, at the same time ganondorf rips the mastersword out of his chest and lunges to intervene but rauru uses the hookshot like ability of his arm to stop him and grabs onto the stone on his forehead, his claws ripping both stone and its golden socket violently away- he has aquired both of their stones now- ganondorf falls to the ground and his body start to disintegrate into green magic, your tattoos start to disappear and your arm too as rauru quickly rebuild his own body, he throws zelda to the side of the arena and takes you to a strange dimension of nothing but another arena lined with statues of rauru, floating in a greenish void with sonau magic patterns slowly moving around

a fight starts, the mastersword lies on the ground here and ccan pick it up, but you have lost your right arm, and are hurt, your hearts empty and you cannot heal, you cant wield it with your left arm, much less in this condition, rauru gives a little villain speech, thanking you for what you did and telling you his grand idea to make your world into the one he had back in the day, a world full of light with no shadows to be found and no fights to break out as all are united under him and his holy rule, you he launches an attack every now and then but does so jokingly, you are much too weak to properly fight him, you can try to attack but the end of his health bar isnt even visible; once his speech ends you are throw out of his arena, you have served your purpose

back to were you were, you see zelda running to you, the room in which you are in starts to crumble in green light, changing form into something else, but black out

once you reawaken you are in a bed with zelda and purah in the room, a bodiless voice greets you, but its not rauru, you have a shiekah prosthetic arm now, still a little malfunctioning as you dont know how to use it yet, zelda comes over and a longer cutscene starts in which she tells you what happened in the time you collected the enigma stones

after you woke both rauru and ganondorf up at the start of the game gan took her away, she tried to fight him, scared by what just happened and by his withered look, but he i able to explain that rauru was attempting to get the stone she now has, and his too, in this condition he cant fight, his stone has been drained of alot of power over the centuries of shiekah tech drawing power from it first, the one rauru had- and now zelda, isnt as drained, rauru wont confront them immediately either as he is surely planning to reclaim all his lost power now- they both stayed in the underground, swtiching places over and over to prevent rauru from locating them vie zeldas shiekah stone, which is harder for him to do when in the udnerground too- they form a plan to counter raurus, ganondorf takes time to regain his strength (the roots all in the underground are him reaching around to regain it faster) since in this mummy like appearance no one would even try to listen to anything, and he will not let zelda out alone, the risk would be too great by the time link aquired the last stone that wasnt theirs, ganondorf had regained enough to rebuild his former body, they both approach gerudo town, where else would they go, these are his people and with zelda surely they will listen- and after alot of shock and confusion (zelda is fine and saying link is helping the wrong one?? there is a GERUDO MAN THAT SAYS HE WAS ONCE THEIR KING????) they do listen and agree to help them out- which is why they were hostile towards link at the end there

the land, your home, is slowly changing into something else, like its ground is reversing in time and sprouting strange structures you hadnt seen before, monsters are less now and those that persists are not hostile, there are new hostile creatures you have never seen before

rauru is reforming the land into what he beliefs it should be, and it needs to be stopped

purah and the gang tm explain to you what your new shiekah arm can do, its mostly the same as raurus did as they tried to imitate it, you are having trouble adjustign to it though and wielding a weapon is hard, this is way different after all- and then suddendly ganondorfs spirit appears (scaring the shit out of anyone but zelda whos just happy he isnt fully gone .. even if he lost his body) who says hes gonna help you out with it, he resides in the shiekah arm now bc he wont just let rauru do whatever he wants after spending such a long time being held captive and trying to break free; hes helping you to work with it (so you dont have an actual big set back in progress) and helps out as another ally- you can call him for help or advice and joins cutscenes or when interesting things are discovered, and also convinces the yiga to side with them for now too

zelda is now your permanent companion while ganondorf is another but it spirit form

(theres a bit of trouble when zelda learns he is responsible for the calamity and what it did, after which he refuses to appear when called for a while, but they both agree they need to work together if rauru is to be stopped)

[358jours]

Dan Heng x GN!Reader⎢Under your charm

Word Count⎢2163

Genre/Tags⎢SFW, fluff, Dan heng has anxiety, first meetings, pining, written and posted before game launch⎢Crossposted on AO3

Though reserved, Dan Heng is completely in tune with his body, his emotions, and most importantly– his intuition. His instincts are what made him run from Xianzhou, what made him run from the IPC, what got him boarding the Astral Express. It kept him away from the wrong people, it’s what made him join the ones worthy of trust and he’s now in an environment that doesn’t force him to face his past. His intuition is the reason he is still alive this far, so he never doubts any of it. 

Or had, until this very moment where he’s not so sure of himself anymore.

You seem like a loving soul, so caring in every way you exist. Your soothing aura only makes the beating of his heart more erratic. That’s what he blames this odd feeling on, your kindness. 

Dan Heng has laid his eyes on plenty of beautiful partners in his life, he knows what lust entails. The way he’s drawn to you? it’s something deeper than simple attraction, something instinctual. Something that has never happened before. Something he’s scared of. 

He wishes he wasn’t on babysitting March Seventh duty so often so he could approach you and yet — even in his free time, his apprehension keeps him a distance away from you. That’s the best he can do, look at what you do, listen in on any conversation you’re having, gaze at your form, avert his eyes when your face turns in his direction. It’s a bit like dancing: one step forward, two steps back, except the steps are very very small. 

He thinks he’s slick about it but his self-doubt makes him second guess himself. He hopes nobody has noticed, and especially not you. (Though he secretly wishes you did, so you would take the leap he’s so scared of, so you would approach him. Until then he’ll keep away, waiting.)

Dan Heng stares at the charm in his hand, lost as to what to do. It’s not from a passenger, as it’s been lost in the private lobby of the Astral express. But the place is completely empty now, except for himself. It’s obvious it’s a cherished item, as seen by how used it looks. It has a bit of a weight, despite being made of fabric. He’s dubious on who would own such a keychain however. It doesn’t seem like something March would own, neither Welt, nor Himeko…

His mind halts when he realizes it’s probably yours. 

What should he do? Leave it here? He’s not too sure about which places are considered ‘yours’, where would only you find it. March is a troublesome girl, if she found out anything the whole Astral Express would know of it by the end of the day. Himeko is a perceptive woman, if she had any idea of his inner turmoil about you, she would probably chastise him about it. Welt is a bit more respectful, giving it to him would have lesser consequences unless you asked who found it back…

“Dan Heng, you’re here!” The boy closes his fist at the sound of March Seventh’s voice. Defeated by the circumstances, he pockets the charm. The girl grabs his arm, full of energy as always. “Come on, Himeko called for us in the control room.”

He’ll deal with the keychain later, if he doesn’t forget about it.

He forgets about it. Well, not completely at least. His subconscious reminds him of it when he can’t sleep at night, when all his worries come for his throat. Otherwise, it doesn’t cross his mind unless you’re in the same room as him, which isn’t too often. Whenever that happens, you’re usually busy with someone else, occupied with your phone or the time simply isn’t right (read: he didn’t have the courage to approach.). He carries the charm with him most of the time, unless he’s out of the Express. 

He blames it on being occupied, on not being sure it’s yours. Of course, fate has other plans.

Dan Heng follows March Seventh into the private lobby of the Astral Express. He’s a bit tired, his step quieter than the pitter patter of his companion. “We’re back! Everything went well we got– what’s wrong?” 

Three ‘welcome back’ rings out in response. Welt and Himeko are, as usual, sipping tea as they sit facing each other. What caught their attention is you– who’s under a table searching for something. You shift around to look at them. “Ah, the strap of my phone charm broke earlier and I don’t know where the keychain ended up. I’m hoping it’s somewhere here, but I can’t find it.” 

“Oh no! I’ll help you find it!” March jumps out to join you. 

“Really? You don’t have to, but thank you. We will definitely get it back if there’s two of us. You’re kinder than the elders.” 

Himeko snorts at the jab. “Think about our poor old backs. Besides, we have to finish our tea while it’s still warm.” Welt smiles as you laugh. 

Dan Heng averts his eyes. Of course it’s yours, of course. He should’ve known better, that right at the perfect opportunity to give it back to you, he doesn’t have it on himself. March will definitely talk about the mission in high detail, there’s no need for him here. He sighs quietly, opting to go back to his bedroom.

The next time he’s out of the Express, he’s accompanied by you and March. It’s a simple errand run, nothing as strenuous as some other missions. He’s not really needed but Welt insisted, “You’re more perceptive than March, it’s simply so she doesn’t get in trouble.”

Said girl has her arm linked with yours as she blabbers endlessly. You don’t mind, commenting here and then to show you’re listening. Dan Heng keeps to himself trailing behind you both, simply making sure you’re going the right way. 

Despite the anxiety of running into someone from his past, he’s content being present. He could count the times you were out of the Express on a single hand, and never with him. It’s nice to see you out, how you react outside, how you interact with March, what shops and items catch your attention. You’re relaxed in the way you walk, and— Dan looks up to the sky. He’s only a man after all.

“We better find you a new charm before we get back!” March exclaimed. The boy curses under his breath, ‘not this damn charm again…’ He left it in his bedroom this time.

“But why? There’s no need if it doesn’t mean anything special.” Your face expresses your confusion. 

The girl shakes your form with all her strength, faking anger. “Aw come on, don’t you buy things just because you like them? Take it as a gift from me, that’s special enough. Besides, you seemed really bummed out about losing your old one.” 

You only chuckle awkwardly but Dan is sensitive to your unease. You’re kind, and you enjoy caring for others but it seems you dislike when someone helps you in return. He sighs when he feels his heart warming up. “March, you need to stop making people uncomfortable. That charm held a lot of dear memories, replacing it with a new one just like that won’t cut it.”

You both turn around, surprise on your faces (he wonders, did you forget about his presence?). The girl’s gaping mouth turned into a pout. She protested, but all went from one ear to the other when he saw your smile. You nod in gratefulness, your eyes softening. His lips curl up ever so slightly. 

March’s voice shakes him awake, he’s forced to look away. “Hey come on, are you listening to me!? You’ve been so quiet this far, somehow quieter than usual!” 

“You’re so loud, it’s hard not to. Besides, you talk enough for the both of us.”

As she lets out an astronomically comical gasp, your laugh rings out.

He makes his way out of the lobby, toward his bedroom. The Express won’t arrive at its next destination anytime soon. It means he gets some time for himself, to think, and to decompress. 

He reminisces about his past, what he has accomplished since he got on the express, where he would go if he had to leave again. He ponders about his companion… It’s been a while since he last saw you. The weight of your charm is almost none in his pocket, but it’s still there. It’s probably better to give up at this point. 

He should think about something else.

His steps are quiet as he walks through the train. The cabins to his right look all the same: classic green seats, light brown and black walls, dark gray floor, completely empty. One, two, three, four, five, six cabins per wagon. He opens the door connecting to the next car, and goes in. One, two, three, four, and— he stops. 

This cabin door is open. He didn’t expect for you to be there. Seems like thinking about the wolf got him seeing the real one. You’re reading a book, sitting sideways with your back against the window. Your current outfit is more casual (and probably comfortable) than what he usually sees you in, but it fits you just as good. 

You turn the page, look up, then back to your page and— you do a double take when you notice him at the door. You’re a bit surprised, but your smile tells him it’s not the bad kind. “Dan Heng, hello! Please don’t simply stand there, come sit down. How are you, is there anything I can do for you?”

“Hello. I’m fine, what about you?” His steps are just the slightest bit uncertain, smaller than his usual walk. He comes to sit down on the opposite couch. 

“Really? You seem a bit tired though, are you sure you’re getting enough rest?” There’s something in your smirk, as if you know what he does not. Your eyes have a glint of mischief in them, and he wonders if you see right through him. 

He avoids your stare, opting to close his eyes for a moment. “Nothing a couple nights cannot fix.” 

“Hm.” You look at him a bit longer, your expression relaxing. Your head turns sideways, akin to a dog. A moment passes, until you shift back to continue your book. “If you have trouble sleeping, I have medicine and concoctions from Xianzhou that are rather effective. Don’t be a stranger, I’ll give you some whenever you ask.”

Dan Heng doesn’t answer. All people aboard the Astral Express are kind, but your kindness is not something he’s used to. Your care seems so familiar, something he hasn’t felt in a long time. He stopped getting too close to those generous-types, sheltering himself was a matter of survival. But you’re a part of this crew for a reason, he reasons. 

And suddenly, he’s not too sure of himself. He’s lost on what to talk about. He really would like to rest, get back to his room, but he doesn’t get up. His instincts scream at him to stay with you longer, and leaving now would be pretty awkward. The air is slightly stuffy between you two, or perhaps it’s just him given how deep in your book you are.

His hand goes into his pocket, grasping at the cause of all of this. The weight of the charm is almost none in his hand, but the weight of what it implies sparks up his anxiety. “Excuse me,” You look up at him curiously. He slowly extends his hand toward you. “Is this… yours?”

“My charm! You found it back!” The happiness on your face is something he doesn’t get to see often. Your grin, the light in your eyes, the way your attention is on him, it’s all a bit much. Your hands touch his to grasp the keychain. There’s sparkles on your face as you inspect it. “Thank you so much. You’re really a reliable person, Dan Heng.” 

“It’s nothing.” His hand scratches at the back of his neck, ears blushing at the compliment. All the pressure on his shoulders evaporates, perhaps it was all him from the very start. You’re easier to approach than what his apprehensions told him, always returning each gesture no matter how small. Your consideration of others is a virtue he has always liked about you. He was wrong to count himself out because of his past, you’re ignorant of who he used to be.

He exhales, his first attempt at a conversation starter. “That keychain seems to mean a lot to you.” 

“You noticed? This lil’ guy’s got quite the story.” You look at him kindly.

 And as you start explaining why that charm is so special to you, as he listens to it all, Dan Heng realizes it was wrong of him to dub you as a stranger. You were more than that since the very start. 

[disneyprincemuke]

the summer seemed to last forever

alternatively: how bad would it be if we just hard launched?

in which they didn't want summer break to end because that meant having to sneak around again

(series masterlist)

“i don’t wanna go back, i just wanna be here forever,” she hums, her cheeks pressed into her palm as she stares out at the calm waves. she lies on her stomach as she kicks her feet in the air, her sunglasses resting on her nose as her hair flew in several directions from the contrasting winds.

they find themselves on a private and discreet resort. one where there’s not many people, the younger girl really made a valiant effort to find one that’s not too famous to avoid any pictures leaking.

“you don’t mean that. you cried last night because you said you miss racing!” logan laughs, lying on his back next to her. he turns his head and holds his hand up above his eyes to shield himself.

“i lied, i don’t know,” she sighs tiredly, dropping her forehead on her forearm. she peeks through an eye and is genuinely confused. “how about you just… wear your sunglasses?”

“i wouldn’t be able to see how pretty you are,” logan frowns as a smile slowly stretches his lips. he pinches her cheek before rolling to lie flat on his stomach with her. “i don’t really wanna go back either.”

“if i had to be teammates with alex, i’d share the same sentiments.”

“no, not like that!” logan laughs. he moves closer to her, resting his head on her shoulder. “i don’t wanna have to go back and pretend like we’re not together.”

“i literally know what you mean,” she sighs. “i don’t think i can take another ‘are you with logan’ investigation from those losers.”

“hey, one of them’s my teammate!”

“he’s the biggest loser out of them all!”

“apologise!”

“sometimes i think we should just hard launch our relationship,” she rests her head on top of his, her feet swaying to hit his feet that are also in the air. “honestly, how bad could it be?”

“i fantasize about that sometimes,” logan agrees. “i just get so tired pretending like i don’t wanna hold your hand everywhere during the weekend. i also want to be able to kiss you after a race! do you have any idea how sexy you look after a race?”

she rolls away from him with a groan on her lips. “logan!”

“what?”

“it’s just the adrenaline that makes you wanna do that!” she laughs, shoving him back gently on the shoulder. “we figured that out last year when you were on the top of the podium.”

“i looked hot right? it’s not often you have to look up to see me on the podium when i’m next to you.”

“please! i let you win that race.”

“oh, how very generous of you,” logan smiles, resting a hand on the exposed skin of her waist. “is there any way i can thank you for that?”

“give me all your money,” she smiles sweetly, hanging her head to the side as she moves towards logan. “let’s hard launch our relationship. let’s tell the world — to hell with the people that will talk shit about me. i’ll get over it.”

logan raises an eyebrow. “you will not get over it. be realistic, my love.”

“i’ll get over it just to be able to kiss you in parc ferme. you’re right — i’m too sexy to not be kissed after a race.” logan frowns, making her giggle. “you’re hot too, i guess.”

“you guess,” logan trails off, shaking his head. “it’s like you don’t even love me anymore.”

“absurdity!” she shrieks in shock. “seriously, though. let’s tell everyone? i’m so tired of sneaking around and playing into their games.”

“let’s just keep it to ourselves for as long as we can,” logan mutters, pressing his lips against her shoulder. “we won’t ever get a moment of peace if we tell everyone now. i know i would hate that.”

she hums, goosebumps covering the area that his lips touch. “i guess you’re right. i just hope the summer would last forever — i’m having the best time with you here. i almost forgot we’ve got a job to return to in a couple of days.”

“we’ll have fun. we’re at least doing one of the things we would talk about,” logan smiles on her skin. “traveling together everywhere. sneaking into each other’s hotel room just makes it so much more interesting. how many times has james walked past you outside my room again?”

“i’ve lost count. i swear he knows about us but is saving us the embarrassment,” she giggles. “but i guess he’s got bigger things to bother about than figuring out his driver’s relationship status.”

“oh, he cares. he asks me about you every weekend.”

“shame he’s already married.”

“if i could throw a question mark in your race right now, i really would.”

“you’re just mad you’re not james vowles.”

“true.”

“hey!” lily squeaks, dropping herself into the mat next to the girl. “we found the brochure for water activities! and no,” she glances at logan, “they don’t have spots for fishing.”

“thank god,” she mutters in relief while logan sulks next to her. “do they have one where i can beat my boyfriend up?”

“if they did, i’d have already signed us up.”

kidy/n

🎵 zack tabudlo - give me your forever

👤 tagged lilyzneimer

liked by lilyzneimer, oscarpiastri and 46,927 others

kidy/n i totally didn’t drown in the sea wdym?

view all 7,399 comments…

user1 no logan dump? my entire summer is ruined

user2 omg maybe she thirdwheeled oscar n lily?

user3 no way,, logan was definitely with them 💀

oscarpiastri is it me or y/n that’s the thirdwheel 😐

oscarpiastri can you PLEASE go to your boyfriend and get your own boyfriend???

edited 2m ago.

user4 i saw that osCAR JACK PLS EXPLAIN URSELF

user5 whAT DID HE SAAAAAY

alex_albon wowwwwwwww where did u guys go

kidy/n .

alex_albon good talk 🤝

lilymhe my girlfriends are soooo pretty 😚😚

lilyzneimer no u

kidy/n no u!!!!

logansargeant actually me

user6 BOOOO WHERE’S THE LOGAN DUMP

user7 weekly dose of loscar where?

user8 wow song choice

user9 sounds like someone’s down bad

kidy/n

liked by logansargeant, oscarpiastri and 67,492 others

kidy/n i love cosplaying and driving people crazy

view all 5 comments…

comments on the post have been limited.

logansargeant stop acting like i’m ur stand in boyfriend

kidy/n ur literally the rzn i cant find a bf

logansargeant excuses for the biggest skill issue

ciara_yln going to the beach without me is crazy

lilyzneimer babysitting was tiring

logansargeant

🎵 lily allen - fuck you

liked by kidy/n, sebastianvettel and 38,592 others

logansargeant being the rzn she doesnt have a bf 🤝 being the rzn i dont have a gf

view all 476 comments…

user10 ok? then just date each other

user11 u might just be the one to solve world hunger my bro

user12 they’re stubborn

user13 THESE ARE MY PARENTS, YOUR HONOR

kidy/n honour*

logansargeant omg we got a daughter?? kidy/n

kidy/n idw kids with u ew

alex_albon ???

landonorris ???

georgerussell63 ???

lilymhe !!!

alexandrasaintmleux !!!

charles_leclerc ???

kidy/n omg shut up

mickschumacher is this what people consider just friends or did i miss the revised version of some new dictionary?

user14 U KNOW WHATS UP

user15 i’m in love with you (tell us what you know)

user16 *slams credit card on the table*

user17 please speak the truth and nothing but the truth 🙏🏼🙏🏼

taglist: @myxticmoon

[jamesandthedog]

"She's cute, right?" James asks.

He's staring across the room.

Sirius moves his knight on the chess board and follows James' gaze. He laughs when he sees the red-head Lily Evans chatting with her friends on the other side of their common room.

"What?" James asks.

Sirius glances at him.

They're thirteen and it's the first time James really talks about girls. And even if girls and dates and kisses are new and not particularly something Sirius is interested in, he knows the rules. He was taught before he even understood what dating a girl meant.

"She's a Muggleborn," Sirius shrugs as he states the obvious.

"So?"

There's defiance in James voice, it reminds Sirius of the times he used to refer the likes of Lily Evans with much worse vocabulary. It was James and their friends to make him change his ways.

Sirius sighs.

"It's fine by me," he says, honestly. "But I doubt your parents would approve."

James frowns. At first Sirius thinks he's acknowledged the problem and trying to come up with a way to pursuit his crush without his parents ever finding out. And really, how could they, James doesn't have cousins to tell on him.

But it's not that. James looks at him the way he does when he's trying to read deep into his mind. Like James did when they had their first discussions about blood supremacy. Or when Sirius was walking funny after last summer break. He had hurt his back falling down the stairs after an argument with his mother, but that wasn't the sort of thing to discuss with... Anyone really.

James' expression clears, he leans back and makes his move on the chess board.

"Your parents want you to marry a pureblood," James states.

Sirius shrugs.

"Of course. Yours don't?"

"Dad would probably prefer if I'd marry a Muggleborn. She could teach him how to use the Muggle box he bought for warming up food," James says.

Sirius stares at him, and it has nothing to do with the said Muggle device. He'd look more surprised, but he learned to hide his feelings years ago.

He knows James' family thinks Muggleborns can do anything a pureblood can. But it's one thing to treat people equally on the streets, another to break something as holy as the pure bloodline.

Sirius had thought marrying a pureblood was given, a duty, a fact, something every pureblood did. But here he is, looking at the heir of the Potter family - an heir who clearly doesn't follow any of the rules Sirius had been taught since the day he was born.

As Sirius looks at James, he realises it looks like freedom. Not that Sirius even really cares about girls and marriage, but for the first time he sees that James truly has everything. Money, brains, parents who send him sweets and chocolate even when he doesn't ask for it. But more than that, James has options. He can choose his future.

"Are you ok?" James asks bringing Sirius back from his thoughts.

"Yeah." He answers before focusing on the chess board again. "But if I have to marry someone like Carrow and you get to choose, the least you can do is to lose the game!"

His knight eats James' horse.

"Hey, it's not that bad." James says comfortingly and moves his queen out of the way. Then he grins and Sirius knows he's up to no good.

"You can choose too. If you don't want Carrow you can always take one of your cousins," James suggests as sincerely as a mischievous pre-teen can.

The sofa cushion hits James before he has time to dodge, and then the chess pieces fly around as Sirius reaches over the sofa table to James.

When Remus Lupin descends to the Gryffindor common room a few minutes later, his two friends are a messy, wrestling and laughing pile of loosened ties and wrinkled ropes on the floor.

He shakes his head and sits on the sofa after removing a few misplaced chess pieces. He takes a fat book out of his bag and continues his day as if two wrestling thirteen-year-olds in his feet were nothing but an ordinary day.

As he reads Sirius launches from the floor to find a safe haven next to him - James knows better than to bother his reading. When the long haired boy leans his head against Remus' shoulder and shows his tongue at James, something extraordinary happens. Nobody notices, but the corners of Remus Lupin's lips turn into a smile behind his book.

Sirius Black has many things to learn and unlearn during his Hogwarts years. And dating girls - or not dating them - is definitely one of those.

[buckttommy]

i don't think i really understand pr and what actors should and shouldn't say. why is what oliver's saying so wild?

Hi, it's okay. I'll walk you through it. The tl;dr version is written in bold.

So. PR, or, Public Relations, is the dynamic between the general public (us) and any entity that has interests to protect (in this case, that would be the network + 911). PR teams are designed to ensure the relationship between the public and [their entity] is as harmonious as possible. Happy relationship, happy consumer, happy company.

Because keeping the peace is the intention of good pr, pleasant ambiguity is the name of the game. People can speculate, and people can guess, but no one should ever be able to look back at your words and claim that you've given a definitive answer on anything—good or bad—because definitive statements can harm the entity's bottom line, whatever that may be.

Oliver is very good at keeping the peace between the network and the public. We know this because we have seen evidence supporting this fact for years. He always says a little bit of what everyone wants to hear—he'll keep things vague (plausible deniability) for the sake of the network, while also giving nods of support and encouragement to the fandom without promising anything. You know how he's talked about being cautious and aware of what he's saying in interviews because he knows the impact it could have? Okay, well, aside from wanting to avoid "queerbaiting" allegations, this is part of the reason. PR is a very delicate game and he plays it very well.

Or at least he did.

Right now, Oliver is using binoculars to identify the line, making sure the line is exactly where he left it, and then taking a giant wrecking ball to it. Because now, Oliver is saying things that should absolutely not be said in interviews, or to anyone in the general public, at all. Now, he's elevating the conversation from pure speculation, to actively confirming and placing the blame at people's feet for things that have gone on behind the scenes.

Saying that Buck's Queer storyline was floated years ago? Huge no-no. Why? You were on tumblr yesterday. You can see why. People were angry, and people were hurt, but most importantly, people started to ask questions. We started to look at past arcs, past moments in Buck and in Buck and Eddie's relationship (because, whether you like it or not, Buck's queerness is and always has been tangentially linked to the existence of Buddie) to try and pinpoint when/how his queer arc could have launched. Now. Most of us have been here for years, so we can easily look back at the show and see where it's pretty damn obvious how Buck's Queer arc could have launched, depending on the arc(s), the characters at the time, things that were going on outside of the show (re: Oliver liking Buddie edits before/after the shooting), etc.

But we're not the only ones who are reading these interviews. Other people—casual fans, new fans, people who don't give a damn at all and are just clicking around on the internet—are going to look at these interviews, they're going to look at the things Oliver is saying, and they're going to have the same questions that we had. When could this have happened? And, more importantly, why didn't it? To keep it simple: everyone is going to start looking a little closer at the man behind the curtain, and the network does not want that.

Now, sure, it could be argued that, "hey, 911 isn't with FOX anymore, so maybe Oliver is allowed to say these things." But that's not really how it works. Sure, he might have a bit more leeway (as in, a microscopic, so-small-it-might-as-well-be-insignificant amount of leeway) to say whatever it is he wants, but this isn't the first time a major transfer/acquisition has occurred, and there are safeguards in place (such as NDA's—Non-Disclosure Agreements—which often do not expire for years post-acquisition, depending on the entity they're protecting) to prevent him from harming FOX's bottom line. So, that reasoning rings hollow. Especially because, now, it's not just FOX he's pulling into the fray either.

In the article that dropped today, he openly acknowledges this thing between Buck and Eddie in Season 7. And at this point, we're well into ABC's era. So the fact that he's saying, "I went to Tim and asked if there's something I can play with when Eddie says he's going on a date"—that's odd behavior from him. Not necessarily bad, just odd. And after years of toeing the line, the question that has to be asked now is why? And, more importantly, why now?

Does this mean that Buddie is going canon? Not necessarily (and, before anyone freaks out, I'm not saying it's not going canon either; I'm just saying this isn't an indication). But The Buddie Problem, at least, in the way Oliver is addressing it, is something the Higher Ups would want to keep quiet for as long as possible, for whatever reason. Maybe because they intend to go forward with it. Maybe because they don't. But the fact that he's cracking the shades open and letting light through is deeply fascinating.

But, despite all this, it's important, also, to realize that, even with demolishing the good PR line he's always walked so carefully, Oliver still isn't promising us anything. He's still treading carefully regarding how we, Buddie shippers, will interpret his words. He's not claiming Buddie canon is a go and it'd be remiss to think that's the implication here when it's not. He's not that stupid, and he's not that cruel. But all of it is very curious.

So that's why a lot of us are looking at each other, and then looking at Oliver, wondering what the hell he's doing. Because he knows better, and we know he knows better. We know he's very good at playing this delicate game but right now, he's making moves that are... intriguing... to say the least. And it's not just him, even though he's the main culprit. 9-1-1's move to ABC—and this entire press junket since 7x4—has been rife with sensitive information being released to the public, starting with Lou's untrained self revealing that it was supposed to be Eddie and Tommy that were going to get together, and circling back around to... literally every single word Oliver has uttered in the past three weeks.

So. It's odd! As you can see. So I'm sitting back, and I'm waiting and seeing because something is happening behind the scenes, and I don't know what it is (and I don't even think it's bad!) but it is still very much happening. So.