#but i'm here to say it's not that crazy and not necessarily bad writing or characterization

[slightly-knot-insane]

Loving your writing and saw that you’re accepting asks!

I have this thought about monster boyfriend of some sort who is desperate to have sex but you’re hesitant/nervous because he’s so big/will knot you. He reassures you and says that he’ll put in just the tip to ease you into it and then you’re both going crazy for it and he goes feral and thrusts the whole thing in/pops his knot in you

I'm so happy to hear this! Especially since English is not my first language (if that isn't painfully obvious lol). Thank you for this incredibly excellent ask!

Hidden in the Basement

[ m!monster x fem!reader ]

You could hear him in the basement. It was that time of the year - he goes into rut and he simply... needs his alone time. He always kisses you, lingering just a tad bit longer than usual, and retreats downstairs.

You stand outside the door. He is trying to stay as quiet as he can, muffling his groans and heavy breathing, but he's too loud. Too pent up.

You want to help him. He is almost frenzied when in rut and sometimes hurts himself or the others. He recognizes you, of course, but there is something in his behavior that scares you. Although - you bite your lip - not in a necessarily bad way.

You notice the basement is too quiet. Is he okay? You try the door handle - surprisingly, he didn't lock himself in. Perhaps he forgot? You go downstairs, as quietly as possible. It is almost too dark to see, but you can't turn on the light - you shouldn't be here after all.

He is kneeling on the floor, his huge pulsating cock in one hand as he is trying to get off. It is out of the sheath, a big bulbous knot at the base, and leaking glans on the top. His other hand is holding your panties. He is sniffing and biting them while jacking off. The fabric is completely damp.

Your face burns from embarrassment. Somehow you feel you shouldn't have seen this. Maybe you could sneak outside without him noticing? But... do you want to? You've never seen him like this, barely human, his limbs different and longer and stronger, his neck wider, his tail more flexible. It was him, but not completely. Also his cock... it changed in a rather interesting way.

He finally senses you and his eyes snap open, his pupils dangerously dilating.

"I'm sorry!" You panic and try running upstairs. You barely climb two steps before he grabs you from behind and lifts you. You yelp in surprise. He carries you downstairs and, without letting you go, kisses you. Everything about him is different, even his embraces. They are so intense, more consuming, needy. More feral. His hands quickly remove all your clothes and his fingers find your breasts.

"Wait," you gasp. "You are so big. I can't..."

He nibbles your neck, his large hands cupping your ass cheeks. "I need you. I will be careful, I promise. Let me have you a little bit or I'll go mad." His voice mutated into more dominant, animalistic one. You whimper as his finger finds your pussy and pushes against your entrance. "Not wet enough."

In one easy move, he lifts you up in front of his face and places your knees over his shoulders. Once your pussy is perfectly leveled with his large mouth, he proceeds to eat you out like a starving animal.

"Aaaah... aaah..." You wiggle and pant, sensations too overwhelming. But he firmly holds you in place. His tongue reaches places no toy or his human form ever reached. It circles around your clit and pumps into your entrance, swelling and pulsating. Your boyfriend pleasures you until you're soaking wet and trembling, and then lowers you just above his massive cock. "Please!" you scream, intimidated by the knot. "I can't do it..."

"I will put just the tip in," he reassures you. "I would never hurt you."

He sounds like your old wonderful boyfriend and you slightly relax in his arms. The way he kisses you by biting your lips, licking your face and sliding his long tongue deep into your throat is truly something special. Distracting you with his mouth, he slowly forces his glans into your pussy. It glides easily, and you both moan.

"You are so..." he whispers under his breath. "So tight. So amazing."

He barely enters and immediately lifts you up again. He is breathing heavily and sweating, his muscles trembling. You know it's not because he can't hold you like this - he is barely controlling himself, trying not to impale you on his massive cock.

"More..." You whine, his monster phallus rubbing against your wet walls. "Give me more."

He grunts happily and let's you slide down. He fills you completely, holding you safely with his arms. "Fuck... Can I go faster?"

"Yes please." Your blood is already boiling, nerves vibrating from incoming orgasm.

He starts bouncing you up and down, only pushing the half of his length inside. It doesn't feel uncomfortable. He is stretching you bit by bit, and immediately pulling out. His grunts and panting, and your moaning surround your sweating bodies. "Fuck... Fuck..." you both pant into each other's ear.

"Harder," you moan and his hips start jerking upwards when his arms lower you down. The impact is so much stronger, more intense, more ecstatic. After just a few thrusts, you climax and scream into your hands. You are so loud, it's embarrassing.

"No, let me hear you. Scream more for me. "

He speeds up, your pussy contracting around his cock and you can only moan and whimper from your overwhelming prolonged orgasm. He presses you against his chest, growling like a beast, and jerks his hips upwards. There is some sudden pain, but pleasure too, and you cry out.

His low moans become louder as he pounds you. Your entire body feels his body, all around you and inside you. Finally, with a hard thrust, he grunts into your hair and forces you even harder against his body. Hot liquid enters deeply into your womb. It feels amazing.

With panting and drooling all over you, your boyfriend lets your torsos separate. But nothing else.

"I knotted in you. I can't pull out." He sounds both happy and worried. You look down and see a big bulge from your swollen pussy all the way to your navel. And finally you realize his whole monster cock entered you including the knot. "I'm sorry," he says.

It doesn't hurt too much. It's a bit sore, sure. With little practice, you are sure you could do this every day. The thought makes your pussy throb. He feels that and looks at you curiously.

With a sly smile, you rub the tip of his cock through your skin and it twitches. "Sorry? I'm upset we haven't tried this sooner. No need to hide in the basement from me ever again." Realizing what you said, he happily purrs and embraces you.

[cheriladycl01]

I loved Lando x Actress reader. Can I have Lando x singer reader? Thank uuuuu 🫶🏻

Sing your heart out because he ripped your heart out! Lando Norris x Singer! Reader

Plot: You are a famous singer who was in a pretty toxic relationship and have been single and 'off the grid' for 2 years since your breakup. You come back online dropping a new album that gets people stirred from the tea but the tease at your new relationship.

"Today here on Off Camera with me Sam Jones we have Y/N Y/L/N here to talk about everything, from her new albums and songs, to her hiatus, to her sightings, to her relationships" he smiles looking over at you.

"Thank you for having me, it feels great being back and you know talking and meeting new people and I've always wanted to be on a podcast like this so I'm very excited!" you smile and get comfier into the nice seats you guys are in.

"So i think we've got to ask how are you feeling after your time away from the media?"

"So refreshed it was really healing to take myself away from everything. I think a lot of things were being said about me when I first deactivated everything. A lot of them being outright lies, and you know I didn't want to be aware of what people were saying... naturally" you starts and he nods for you to continue.

"But everyday I'd have my friends coming to me saying... have you seen what Taylor Swift has tweeted about you, have you seen what Beyonce and RiRi said. And I'd be like no and I don't even want to know. But when she showed me the love I was getting from all of these amazing people I've worked and collabed with over the years, movie stars who I've walked red carpets with and been in cameos of their movies, models who I've walked runways with all sticking up for me saying how they couldn't imagine anything said about my relationship to be true" you explain and he nods again.

"Yeah, it was actually really moving seeing all these people coming together for you in support! I think even after what certain people said about you the large majority had your back..." he admits to you.

"Yeah, I mean i have some great friends in the industry that you know would message me and always check up on me, so its nice to know that I have people in my corner, after everything that happened!"

"Yeah of course, and I think your new album really shows your raw emotions and I think a lot of people have easily related. So lets go through the album, we have Vicious, which talks about obviously Y/E/B and the emotional scars he's left on you. One of my personal faves is 'bet u wanna' where you talk about being mistreated in relationship and calling it off only for them to want you back. Nonsense which obviously has made your fans go stir crazy- wondering whose got you feeling this way. Bad for Business which obviously has a similar tune to Nonsense in whoever you are talking about, and may i just say people will listen to the happy songs because they are incredible! But talk us through the creative process and how your time away released all of these on the album and more!"

"I think, when you go through something like i did. Where you don't necessarily see and end you have these raw emotions that just tend to write themselves on the paper. I had many nights where I'd be sat in the studio hair pulled back, a massive slice of Pizza on my left and a bottle of water on the other and it would honestly just write itself. There were some nights where I'd just cry and sit there. I think things really sped up when I met my current partner" you blush, thinking how much that silly vroom vroom man had helped you.

"Who is he, and how did he help, how did you both meet if you can tell us!" he asks leaning back a little.

"Well, I'm currently dating F1 driver Lando Norris which when this podcast airs and sure will be a shock to everyone. We met when I was in a really weird patch. I think it had been about 8 months I want to say of being single and dealing through my grief and not really knowing what to do with myself. My ex of 5 years was now dating and having a child with the girl he cheated on me with, and honestly I was a mess. My dad decided to take me to a race, it was the one in Austin, we had paddock passes and that's where I met him" you grin thinking back to the day.

*Flashback*

You were at the Circuit of the Americas for race weekend, you were tucked behind your dad who had found some mechanics he was animatedly talking too. Your dad always had a real love for cars, and when you'd made it as a musician you brought him and your mother a larger house with a big garage for a car collection you'd help him grow.

"Damn you've got loads man. How's your girl affording all of this?" the mechanic asks not having seen you as you were wearing both sunglasses and a Ferrari cap.

"I have a ... lucrative job" you croak out a little, if you were being honest with yourself this was probably the first interaction you'd had with a stranger in months, even just any human at that as your contact had been very limited over the past 8 months even to friends and family.

"Ahhh, so what's your fav car in the collection Mr Y/L/N?" the mechanic asks, and some nods from his pals also tells you guys that their interested.

"Oo that's hard it's got to be a toss up between my Mclaren 650S, the Ferrari F8 Spider, or my Rolls Royce Ghost" your father admits trying to think to his collection.

"Not the Porsche?" knowing you'd got that for him for his 50th.

"Mmmmm I forgot about the Porsche" he admits with a chuckle. The mechanics just all looked very shocked at the sheer amount of cars your dad has in his collection.

"Give me a second, I want to see if I can get you guys a garage pass upgrade. I bet you'll want to check out the car's yeah?" he asks making your dad nod very quickly.

You pull your glasses off to give them a wipe as the heat was making them fog up a little and the mechanic gasps, you cock your head realizing he's recognized you.

He scurries of, running back to the Aston Martin garage, he tells all of his friends but says to keep it quiet as he could tell you'd been going through it. Aston Martin didn't have any passes left, so he went to the other garages begging to give you a pass.

"Who did you say was here?" Lando had asked from beside his team mate Daniel Ricciardo.

"Y/N Y/L/N but don't make it public knowledge she's clearly just here to watch the race with her car enthusiast dad. Who did you know owns over 10 super cars that Y/N has brought for him, he was telling me all about his Ferrari" the mechanic starts to ramble before Lando gets him to stop.

"Take me to her, and I'll give her the pass" Lando had offered, wanting to meet you, it wasn't uncommon knowledge that he liked both you and Taylor Swift and had even DJed some of your 'nightcore' remixes.

"Okay! Okay come with me" the young mechanic said, darting of making Lando run after him asking him to slow down a little.

"Hello, this is a Mclaren Driver he's ..." the mechanic starts before you offer him a small small.

"I know who he is Dean, thank you for introducing us" you smile, and he grins at you. You and your father get handed the passes and your walking back to Mclaren at Lando's side.

He was attractive and most certainly your type. He had that goofiness about him that had you laughing for what felt like the first time in 3 years. Yet a seriousness and passion for his sport when talking to you and your dad about the car he was more than happy to show off to you.

"So you'll only be cheering for me right?" Lando flirts as your dad introduced himself to Daniel Ricciardo and Zac Brown.

"I think that depends Mr Norris, are you going to give me a cheer worthy race?" you question looking up him. His face lights up and a big grin comes onto his face.

"Always, you'll see the Papaya on a podium today I'm sure of it!" he offers and you smirk.

"You get that podium and I'll take you out afterwards"

"On like a date?" he asks a little cautious with his tone.

"Yes a date" you nod and his face lights up.

"Yeah alright, your on" he smirks, he turns away to get ready for his race, but turns back placing a cheeky kiss on your cheek making it your turn to blush.

True to his word, Lando came second on Sunday. You took him out on your guy's first date and the rest is history.

*Back to the podcast*

"Wow, that really is such a beautiful story. And from how you talk about him we can tell that you are really happy" he smiles genuinely.

"I don't think I've ever felt so secure with a person. I think it's safe to say I've found my person. I went through a lot with Y/E/B and Lando has helped me overcome a lot of the trauma from that relationship, and I cannot thank him enough for how patient, caring and loving he has been for the past year" you smile, before turning your gaze to the side to look at a teary Lando who had come to the podcast with you, you were scared and didn't want to go alone.

"Well I think it's safe to say we are all so happy you are back, thriving making music and doing what you do best!" he smiles.

After that your asked a few more questions which you happily talk through and answer, before it's wrapped up and time to leave.

"How was that baby?" he asks knowing this was your first media thing to help ease you back into that 'lime-light' life.

"It felt good to just vent, and talk about everything" you smiled at him. It was truly healing for your soul.

"I love you so much, and I'm so proud of you for today!" he grins at you, pulling you in for a kiss. He holds you close, while another hand travels up to caress the side of your face.

"I love you most, which is why I need you to help me announce the 2023 tour... and my new album!" you grin, and he grins back.

"What are they called?" he mumbles into your neck that he'd found retirement in.

"The Grid!" you grin, Lando didn't know but you planned your next tour for 2023 around the 2023 races.

"Hmmm and what does that entail" he smirks.

"Well, I'll get to come to every race weekend with you this year, my tour is roughly going to follow the races. I'll venture out as well when you have breaks and stuff but I don't want to be away from you for too long, and I want to get back on the scene. I'm ready!" you admit and he smiles at you softly before lifting you up into a huge bear hug.

"Did i mention how much I love you?" he asks.

"Every day Lan, every day" you smile at him, pulling him in for another bruising kiss.

It was safe to say, that even though you'd been treated like shit in the past, Lando Norris was the love of your life. Your soulmate that held the other end of the invisible string that had kept tugging you both closer together.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @the-fem1n1ne-urge @21stcenturytaegi @dark-night-sky-99 @spideybv28 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog @ilove-tswizzle @kapsylia @laneyspaulding19 @lazybot @malynn @cassielikereading @viennakarma @teamnovalak @landosgirlxoxo @marie0v @jlb20416 @yourbane

[magics-neptunes-things]

Hate and love

Hello!

This one is from a request, you still can ask me to write something if you want to :)

I have to say that I'm not really sure about this one, but here it is.

Enjoy ♥

TW : Angst, harassment, divorce, loneliness.

______________________________________________________________

Your arrival in Barcelona at the winter transfer almost a year ago has gone rather well. You quickly bonded with most of the players and you didn’t have any trouble becoming a part of the FC Barcelona family. You maybe wasn't in the Top 3 of the public favorite players, but you don't really mind. You were a bit sad about the departure of some of them this summer, especially Jenni and Ana who were kind of mentors for you during these few months. And even if you continue to exchange news with them, you must admit that it is not the same.

Playing previously in Seville, you already knew quite well some of the players of the team, usually staying on the pitch after the matches to chat a little. You were separated during the World Cup, your national team not being strong enough to pass the qualifications you were in the first to return to training in Barcelona. This did not prevent you from making the trip to Australia to support your friends and obviously the Spanish national team.

You celebrated their victory from the VIP party with friends and family before returning to Barcelona in your daily routine. The world champions have gradually returned to training and you have welcomed new players to the team, always in a good mood.

Everything seems perfect told like that, yet there is something that bothers you since your arrival in Barcelona.

Aitana Bonmati.

She never seemed very happy to see you arrive and you never understood why. At first you said to yourself that she was perhaps afraid that your arrival would cause an imbalance in the group, as can happen sometimes when an element has a too strong personality. Some are afraid of change and you have not asked yourself more questions than that, letting this information slip into a corner of your brain. She wasn’t necessarily part of the small group of girls you trained with regularly anyway since you don’t play in the same spot on the field.

But this summer, you could see that the new arrivals had the right to a big smile and other privileges to which you were not entitled. It’s not really a question of ego, but you don’t understand what you did to her to make her react this way with you. And that's hurt.

You have even noticed with the passing of time that she tends to be rather unpleasant with you, not responding to your hello when you arrive in the locker room for example. It happens to her to roll discreetly her eyes when you speak and you even surprised once Ona throwing her an elbow in the ribs while making the big eyes. It was a relief to see that you were not crazy and that your teammates were taking your side, but it also confirmed what you thought.

And gradually, it plunged you into a kind of constant anxiety, reminding you of some of your traumas during your childhood and adolescence. During which you were often mocked, the girl who preferred to play football rather than dance. Your father always supported you in your choices, unlike your mother, your big brother and your big sister. When they separated you went to live with him and he sacrificed a lot so that you would be where you are today, but you never had the heart to tell him about the harassment you were experiencing at school.

**********

"Can I talk to you?"

Alexia’s voice surprises you while you were focused on the laces of your Converse, making you jump a little. Lost in your thoughts, you were ruminating about the disaster you were during this training. You didn’t put a single ball in the net, you got so distracted that you got a remonstrance from Jona and you almost kill Mapi with a bad pass. Mapi preferred to laugh and quickly came to reassure you by giving you a friendly slap in the back and a hug, to your greatest relief. You would have been horrified to be hated by another of your teammates.

"Sure" you mumble without looking at her.

Alexia’s voice was sweet when she offered to follow her to one of the conference rooms and you complied after picking up your bag and stuff. All the other girls have already returned and the corridors now seem deserted.

When you arrive in the room, you watch Alexia open the blinds slightly as you stand against the wall, very close to the door. You’re anxious and just waiting to be scolded. It often happened like this, teachers taking you aside to say that you weighed on the morale or level of the class. That you had to work on it if you wanted to be accepted and have good results. But no one ever seemed to wonder why you didn’t get along with your classmates. No one ever noticed or understood the harassment you were experiencing. You never mentioned that either, but you would have given ten years of your life for someone to notice. Anyone.

So when Alexia turns to you with an almost maternal expression, it completely disarms you. Her eyes were soft and you can easily detect a form of concern in it.

"You can come closer, I won’t eat you" Alexia gently smiles before sitting on one of the tables, probably to make this conversation less formal.

After hesitating for a second, you settle down in front of her playing nervously with your hair.

"What can I do for you?" you ask, instead of "How are you gonna let me know that I’m gonna heat up the backup bench over the next few weeks?"

"I just wanted to make sure that everything was fine. You seem a little out of place these last few days and it’s starting to worry us. I talked with Jona about it today"

She seems embarrassed to tell you that she told someone else about you without you knowing, making you frown. Your facial expression is probably misunderstood by your captain as she hastens to add

"Don’t take this the wrong way. we’re just worried about you"

"I... I'm fine"

You shrug before biting your lip. You are a bad liar, you know it. And it didn't fool Alexia.

"You don’t have to tell me if you don’t feel comfortable with it. But there are other people here who will listen to you with pleasure."

"Don’t worry about me. It was just a time like this, but I’ll be fine"

Because it's what you always did. Figuring and fighting things alone, even if you have now friends who you trust and who you know you can count on.

"You don't have to do that alone, you know"

"Why do you even care?"

You roll your eyes. Sur Alexia is a great captain, and you like her a lot. As a friend of course, but you can't denied that she deserve her title. Like most other girls she is sincerely kind and knows how to distinguish between competition and friendships in the locker room. This is an example for you, as it is for many other girls. And even if she knows all this, she remains modest and does not take the big head. Pretty impressive, in your opinion.

"Is that even a question Y/N?"

Alexia laughs, but it’s a surprise laugh. She seems surprised at the sincerity of your question. And, seeing that you don't answer, she gently shakes her head before answering you.

"Because we care, you're part of this family and even if half of us are totaly crazy, we care for each other. Whatever your problem is, you don't have to figure out alone."

And these sentences, even if it seems to be the most natural thing for Alexia, break down the barriers you have put up until now. You feel tears wet your cheeks without being able to do anything to stop them. As if the dam that you had formed all these years had broken and all the tears that you had retained until today finally decided to come out. And obviously, it bothers you terribly.

You mumble excuses between two sobs, but after more or less calling you an idiot, Alexia breaks the distance between you two to take you in her arms and rock you against her. You don’t know how long you stay like this, but you still stop crying.

So you tell her everything.

The harassment when you were little, from part of your family and the children in your classes. The divorce of your parents which you feel responsible despite everything, this feeling of loneliness that you have since you were born certainly. This feeling of never being fully understood by anyone, until you arrived here. And then you talk about your teammate who reminds you of that, without giving her name. You don’t want to be a problem and Alexia doesn’t ask you to name her. Maybe because she already knows who she is?

The blonde listens to you without saying a word, patiently wiping the tears that continue to roll on your cheeks. When you are silent, exhausted by these confessions and your tears, she speaks again in a calm and soothing voice.

"I’m not going to pretend that I understand you because I was lucky enough to have a family that always supported me. I wouldn’t be here without them, honestly."

The bond between Alexia and her mother, even her sister is know by anyone. You nod, still looking at her.

"But you, you made your way all by yourself. You're only 21 Y/N, you don't realise how strong you are. But being strong doesn't always mean you have to be alone. You have friends here, people who love you and care for you. You are not alone anymore."

With that you smile at her, feeling relieved. As if the weight of all these years were coming off your shoulders. You even feel like you can breathe better. So you thank Alexia, with simple words but you couldn’t explain how much you think about them. As she lays a kiss on your cheek, you put your arms around her neck to hug her and press your words. She gives you your hug back before training you out of the room. Tomorrow is another day and you promise to do better than that.

**********

The rest of the workouts of the week are much better and you decide to completely ignore Aitana. You remain polite nevertheless, but you act as if she's not there. And this seems to annoy her even more but you decided that's not your problem. Many times you feel her look burn your back and you have time to see her black look before she realizes that you are looking at her and she looks away.

But your morale and your game are back to normal and it’s a great relief for you. For Alexia and your coach too, the man simply slips you a short compliment at the end of a session. No need to make tons and that’s enough for you.

The last practice before the next game goes as usual. You do your warm-ups with your fellow defenders, then you are shuffled for courses and drills before a five-player mini-team tournament is organized. You feel a form of anxiety that makes your heart beat when your team is against Aitana, but you decide to focus on the game.

It goes pretty well until you are tackled a little too ferociously by someone from the opposing team. The pain in your ankle and instantaneous and you can’t hold a cry of pain as you collapse to the ground.

"What the fuck Aitana?" Mapi snaps, but you don't really care for now.

The second duel that took place next to you seems to have stopped too, but the tears of pain that fill your eyes prevent you from seeing it for the moment.

"You're ok?"

Irene has knelt beside you and you feel a compassionate hand behind your back. Long black hair obscuring part of the view informs you that it's Ingrid. You answer a simple no with a nod and a few minutes later you are transported to the infirmary. Ona offered to accompany you and you agreed, realizing that you didn't want to be alone.

**********

"Sprain" informs you the nurse and you let yourself go against the file of the infirmary bed on which you are. "It means rest for two weeks."

You pout, but turn your attention to Ona when she places a friendly hand on your arm. You are so used to spending this kind of time alone that you sometimes forget for a few seconds that she is with you. You must be able to easily win the worst friend award.

"At least it’s not the ligaments" Ona said softly.

"You’re right" you sigh.

She gives you a compassionate smile and you assure her that she can take a shower and change. You still have the prescription to wait and the nurse must come back with your brace and crutches. After making sure you weren’t going to go home with an Uber but with her and Lucy, she eventually left the room. She even offers to inform the rest of the team of your injury and you accept willingly, not wanting to go to put a show there downstairs.

A few minutes pass and you always wait when someone knocks on the door.

"I still haven’t finished Ona, but you can come in."

Except that it is not Ona who enters, but Aitana. The look fixed on her shoes and the air of someone who goes to the torture room. And this time, the anger you had not yet felt takes hold of you.

"I came to apologize" Aitana mumbles without turning her eyes towards you.

"Well, it's done" you answer coldly, turning your back on her.

You don’t want to look at her. You’re mad at her, at her behavior. That she doesn’t like you is one thing, but that she makes you unable to play for two weeks is another.

"It wasn't voluntary"

You hold a sarcastic laugh and slowly shake your head.

"Ok."

Aitana seems surprised at your reaction, but you don’t care. It's true that usually you are more the one who flees the conflict and who prefers to go with the idea of the person in front of you to please her. She stands there and it annoys you. So you suddenly turn your head in her direction and you talk to her dryly.

"All right, you can go now. Just leave me alone."

The tone of your voice seems to make her react since she frowns and steps in your direction.

"Don’t talk to me like that."

You feel your heart racing, you have never been very good at dealing with disputes and emotions. Until now you had managed to buried them deep inside when they became too powerful but it seems that since your confessions to Alexia you are no longer able to do so. She says it’s a pretty good things, but you're not really sure about that.

"Don’t tell me how to talk to you when you’ve been treating me like shit since I got here, Aitana."

Aitana is stunned. She never saw you angry and expected you to accept her apology so that she could get out of this room as quickly as she got in. Her lost look irritates you a little more, she knew very well what she was doing by behaving as she did since the beginning. And you gradually realized that you didn’t deserve this.

"Who made you come here? Mapi, Alexia, Jonatan?"

She blushs and it's enough for you to understand that you are right. If she had the choice, she would never had been here, begging for your forgiveness.

"Get out" you groan, turning your back at her once again.

She didn't and you sigh before getting up as you can. It may not be the most graceful way to do it and it may take some drama off the stage, but you don't care.

"I said get out" you say, raising your voice now. "You don't want to be here and I don't want you here."

But she’s still not moving and your patience is coming to an end. From now on there is nothing else that separates you, except the bed on which you were lying a few moments ago. The nurse still hasn’t come back, but this might be the time to do it please.

"I- " began Aitana, without saying anything more.

"What do you want? Two weeks without me aren't enough? Want to break my other leg too?"

The frustration you feel about not understanding Aitana’s reaction and behavior may be pushing you a little to say things you never had the courage to say before. But it was less positive to return the floor to your interlocutor, whose face and eyes finally come alive again.

"I told you I didn't mean it" she half-screams and you snort. "Maybe I was wrong for acting with you like I did but..."

"Maybe?!" you interrupt her coldly.

"You made my life a living hell! You came here with your damn smile and skills and all my life fell appart!" Aitana is clearly shooting now and you blink, surprised by her rage. "I was in an healthy relationship, happy in my life and with this team. And you came along and everything fell apart! I am straight ok, I am so fucking straight but all I can think about all the time is you! I hate you for the way you make me feel but I'm not fucking able to change it even if I tried since you are here"

It is your turn to remain silent, your brain analyzing each of the words that she just said. And all this has absolutely no meaning for you, except the part where she confesses her hatred to you perhaps. Aitana’s breathing is fast and noisy, you can’t tell if it’s that or your screams that didn’t allow you to realize that you were no longer alone in the room.

"Hmm."

You look over Aitana’s shoulder and you realize that Ona has returned to the room with Lucy holding your crutches and a sheet of paper while she herself carry your bag.

"Maybe it’s time to go home"

Lucy’s perfectly expressionless face keeps you from knowing how long she’s been here. Two steps behind her, Ona makes her look between you and Aitana without saying anything. You nod and pass in front of Aitana with a limp, Ona reacting by breaking the last meters to help you take your crutches in hand.

You follow them silently to Lucy’s car and after some arguments with Ona you finally agree to sit in the passenger seat. By taking your phone out of your pocket, you realize that you have received some messages from your teammates wishing you a good recovery. And you quickly understand that they have created a tournus between them so that you are not alone at home. There will apparently be only during the trip next weekend where you will not have peace. But it makes you smile and a little forget what just happened.

"You want to eat with us tonight?" Lucy asks.

"Nah I'm good thank you. I usually watch some crap TV show on friday night."

You see Lucy peeking at you to make sure you’re not playing superhero and you feel the way she’s measuring you. You look up and sigh.

"I assure you it’s okay. Enjoy your Friday night, I’ll probably go to bed early anyway."

This time it's Ona that Lucy looks through the rearview mirror but neither of them insists, to your relief. Being alone doesn't bother you. Once at home, Ona helps you get out of the vehicle and before she can open her mouth, you speak again.

"I promise, i'm fine Ona."

"All right. I’ll leave you alone on the condition that you swear on your cat’s head that you will write me if you're not okay."

"Leave the poor cat alone" you joke, making her smile. "I promise."

**********

The doorbell on your front door makes you frown. You’re sitting on your couch, a blanket on your legs and your cat on your stomach. Your sprain is better, it must be said that after a week and a half of rest it would be dramatic that this is not the case. You have resumed muscle training, but it is obviously out of the question that you start running again for now. You can now move without your crutches and it was a great relief to be able to get rid of them. Your ankle is still carefully immobilized but you are now doing quite well.

Salma left your apartment half an hour ago, and you’re supposed to stop receiving visitors. Your father phones you every day and hasn’t done it yet, but he has no reason to show up here unannounced. That’s really not his style.

The bell rings again, waking up your cat who is rustling a little before going to eat croquettes in the kitchen. So you get up from the couch and go to the door, opening it without removing the safety chain to see who it is. And almost immediately you close the door, but the fingers of Aitana who slip into the opening prevent you to do so.

"Don’t make me break your fingers"

"Just let me in"

"No? What the hell"

"Y/N, please…"

The despair of her voice makes you flinch and you press your forehead against the door. You’re too sensitive to people’s distress to leave someone with that feeling. Even if it was Aitana herself who put you in this emotion there a few weeks ago. You sigh and, already regretting your gesture, you open the door to let her in. You avoid looking at her when she enters your home, closing the door behind her.

"You have a cat?"

You refrain from pointing out that if she had been interested in you instead of making you regret your arrival, she would know. If you don’t talk about your cat several times during the day, there is a problem.

"How do you know where I live?"

Aitana stop looking at your cat who spread out on your plaid to turn to you. With your arms crossed, you wait for his answer with a certain hint of curiosity. Aitana has never set foot in your house and if you are not mistaken, she does not really live in the neighborhood.

"I asked Irene"

She shrugs and you signal her to settle down on the couch. You go back to your place, gently pushing your cat to be a little more comfortable. With a simple look he made you understand that you're annoying, making you smile gently. You caress him to apologize as he stretches, rolls into a ball and closes his eyes.

"I came to apologize"

Sitting on the edge of the couch, Aitana looks at you with the same suspicion as if she had been the last piece of meat in the middle of a horde of hungry lions.

"I’ve already heard that before" you answer by arching an eyebrow

"I know. But I just... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, really. My problems shouldn’t have affected you. I should have handled things differently, but I was confuse and scared."

She looks sincere and does not look away when you judge her with yours. Next to you your cat stretches lazily before turning around on the other side and continuing his nap.

"Ok. Apologizes accepted"

She looks at you so long it makes you uncomfortable. You have never been in her presence for so long and you find yourself nervously wrapping your hair around your finger.

"If I could, I would do things differently, you know? I understand it’s out of the question that something is happening between us now, but I would like to start all over again. Get to know you, possibly offer you a date and then two if things go well."

You’re slowly biting your lip looking at her. You’d be lying if you said that the words she said in the infirmary didn’t mark you. You were far from imagining that the reason for his behavior was related to an attraction to you. You think it’s pretty toxic, but you like to think people deserve a second chance. After biting your lip, you bend over and reach out to her.

"Well... Hi. I'm Y/N, nice to meet you."

[bimobuddy]

"Would you..."

I'M BACK FINALLY, BABYYYY

JUST HAD TO GET HAPPY AGAIN AND FIND A FIXATION

Anyway this is a Maxley tickle fic

Max Goof x Bradley Uppercrust III

I will also be writing Tank x Bradley, I like both ships

Lee! Max, Ler! Bradley

Don't worry, Bradley is gonna have plenty of lee moments in the future, he needs his shit wrecked

I gave them tails (._.) They're dogs, they get tails

Summary: Max and Bradley are having a horror movie marathon, and it starts a little game between them, which eventually turns into a much different, more one sided game

*cl-click... whiiiirrrr*

Max popped the tape into the player, and scooted back, sitting against the couch on the floor, while Bradley sat on the couch with his legs draped over his shoulders. He rested his chin on his head and fixed his eyes on the screen.

Everybody knew Max loved horror movies, but most people didn't know Bradley was much the same, on one condition.

"Does the-"

"No, I talked to Bobby, no animals die on screen in this one, just a pet bird that's already found in its cage, but they have a funeral for it."

Satisfied, Bradley rested his chin back down on Max's head as the movie started. He didn't like animal death scenes, but he was perfectly fine with people.

About half way in, he broke the silence between them. "If I got sucked into an alternate ghostly plane, would you come in after me?"

"Absolutely." Max's answer was immediate. He leaned his head back to look up at his boyfriend. "If I told you a man with knives for fingers was terrorizing my dreams, would you fall asleep and fight him for me?"

"Absolutely not," Bradley answered, earning a snort from Max, "The dream world was his world, and he had more power there, are you crazy? He'd obviously win. That's not even how it worked in the movie, they pulled him out of the dream and killed him in the real world."

"Okay well would you kill him in the lore accurate way?"

"Realistically, no I'd send Tank to do that, but for the purpose of this game, I'll say yes." He responded, his tail thumping against the couch, causing Max to start wagging his as well.

"My hero." Max mumbled sarcastically, looking back at the TV to finish the movie.

Sometime during the movie, Bradley started to twirl Max's ear around his finger and just mess with it, oblivious to the blush that had spread across his partner's face, or the way he tensed up and grinned nervously.

"Maximus, if I were a skeleton in your attic, would you help me rebuild my body to become alive again?"

Max normally would have rolled his eyes at the name 'Maximus' but he was a little too focused on the ticklish feeling in his ear. He opened his mouth to reply, but ended up pushing Bradley's hand away with a giggly, "Quihit-"

Now this caught the fraternity leader's attention. Any chance he got to mess with Max, he took. "Oh? Ticklish, Goof?" He practically purred, tightening his legs over Max's shoulders to keep him in place.

Max's cheeks reddened. He didn't have an issue with being tickled.. It was his laugh he was self conscious about, since he inherited it from his father. Ever since he could remember, he'd practiced his laugh to make it sound normal, and not... Goofy.

"Bradley wait, my laugh-"

"I know, I've heard you before."

And with that as his warning, Bradley started to play with both ears, gently rubbing them between his fingers, while Max just giggled and tried to shake his head.

"Nohohoho, Brahad- Nohot my ehehears-" He tried to duck his head but that didn't do much, since Bradley just followed. His ears weren't necessarily 'bad,' but more of a 'sweet spot,' in the way they always got him giggling, blushing, and fumbling like he didn't know how to react.

"Oh not your ears? Would you prefer I move down here then?" He teased, releasing Max's ears and slipping his hands down under his arms. Max arched his back and squeezed his arms down against his sides, his tail going wild slapping the floor.

"Brahahahadley nohohoho!"

"Max, I can't hear the movie, calm down~ Why are you laughing so much, it's not a comedy~" He teased.

He released Max from his legs and got down on the floor with him, briefly wrestling with him to get him down, delighting in the way he giggled in anticipation.

"Brahadley my laugh, ihit's-"

"Shut up about your silly little laugh, I like it~ In fact, I want to hear the original, unpracticed version."

Bradley latched his hands onto Max's sides, his fingers wiggling into his sides while his thumbs dug into his belly.

Max tossed his head back and started to kick his feet against the floor, trying to shove at Bradley's chest, his laughter kicking up and becoming more boyish.

Finally, playful hands found his knees and squeezed.

"Nohoho! Hahahahahahyuck-" He slapped his hands over his mouth, his face going red. The only noise that came from him was his tail continuing to thump against the wooden floor.

Bradley stopped and laughed so hard, he had to lean down, pressing his head into Max's shoulders.

Max huffed, slightly amused by Bradley's reaction. "At least one of us enjoys it."

Bradley sat up, calming down, yet his grin stayed. "Would you relax? It's not as bad as you think. I can see why Roxanne liked it when you guys met."

The younger of the two groaned and covered his face. "It sounds so silly though."

Bradley grabbed his wrists and pulled them back to uncover his face. "That's what makes it so great, you goof."

--

I'm not gonna lie, it took me a while to type the "hyuck" into the dialog because anytime I got close to it, I started laughing bc it's silly /pos

I think unique laughs are cute

Y'all get bonus points if you can name the horror movies I was referencing

[dr-spectre]

So brainwashed Callie in official content is cringe. Do you feel the same about it in Fanfiction? Have there been any takes on Hypno Callie that you enjoyed?

Honestly? I don't feel the same way about it in fanfiction. There's a lot of information and different takes floating around about certain things in the franchise so I dont necessarily blame people for using the word "brainwashed" for Callie in their fanfiction. The English localisation of Splatoon has said she was brainwashed despite other languages and the original Japanese version not using the word. At least from my own knowledge. So I get why most fans would take that information and immediately believe it's true.

Plus there's more people talking about what actually happened to Callie on twitter and tumblr which is really incredible to see!!! Im so happy to see Callie being treated with more respect!!!!! It is a night and day difference compared to the treatment in 2017 to 2020.

Surprisingly enough I don't actually consume a lot of fanfiction. I can read my own writing easily but I can't read others that well and... I feel really bad about it... but I have read a bit of this one fanfiction that got Hypno Callie 99% right. I fucking forgot the name but i was recommended it by someone in the past, it had "dome" in the name? It was about DJ Octavio and the Octarian domes.

The way they explained the shades was actually really interesting and unique! It's basically shades that play catchy music and that's how Callie got hypnotised. It fits in line with DJ Octavio too as he's well... a DJ. Plus daydreaming and listening to music goes hand in hand so it has some basis in reality too. Everyone at some point has been put into a daydream state when vibing out to music.

Although I say 99% because there's this one line that Callie says, "Are these shades brainwashing me?" And it was so clunky I'm sorry LOL. And there's this implication that its also doing something further to Callie's brain but it's not that explained well, which i really dont like. Other than that, my Hypno Callie content is mainly fanart and 99% of that has been phenomenonal and powerful stuff.

However.... my biggest fucking gripe in "fan content" if you wanna call it that is... timeline videos and people going over plot details and stuff like that.

These people actually do RESEARCH and spend a lot of time analysing the story of Splatoon and trying to put the pieces together. Yet for Callie it feels like they just do a quick read through of Inkipedia and that's it because they dont give a flying fuck about her character. It drives me fucking psychotic and i cant be safe watching Splatoon videos anymore. How hard is it to say hypnotised? HOW HARD IS IT?!?!?! JUST USE THAT WORD!!! THATS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO!!! GOD DAMN!!!! DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD BRAINWASHED AT ALL?!?!?!

It's really disappointing to me that this outdated timeline video is the ONLY VIDEO to say Callie was hypnotised and not "brainwashed." And that... makes me kinda pissed off.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!

YOU TOO!!!!

I can't even watch these videos anymore man. I'm sad. I'm not even trying to send hate over to them, they put in a lot of work... except for a character I really care about....

Imagine you like a particular character and you feel really strongly about them. Now Imagine people saying wrong or yucky things about that character and treating it as fact despite you knowing "Hey something is not right here. I think there's more here than people realise." And all the most popular and well liked content is spreading that kind of information around about your favourite character. It would drive you crazy yeah? I'm sure everyone has that one character in every fanbase.

Anyways, thanks for the ask! Sorry if it was long... I tend to ramble about Hypno Callie LOL! (Autism)

[respectthepetty]

Color analysis is your big thing around here. Have you always been into colors in shows and movies, or was this new for BL? What are some of your favorite examples of color use from some of your formative works?

@bengiyo, I would like to believe hysteria is my "big thing" but I can see how the colors label would come up every now and then regarding me. I've been seeing you and the smart people squad asking origin questions, so I appreciate the inquiry! However, you already know this is gonna be long, so . . .

Have you always been into colors in shows and movies, or was this new for BL?

When you read the following statements, you can't read them like a tragedy. You have to read them with an air of whimsy because this shit is funny.

My mom thought I was crazy when I was little. Like, thought I needed medication because I kept rambling about seeing patterns in colors. But this wasn't like Care Bears or Strawberry Shortcake kind of colors where each color aligns with a character and emotion. No, this was like I wouldn't eat foods of a certain color or foods served on plates of a certain color because there were good colors (blue, yellow, white), and bad colors (red, green, black), and I got this idea from movies and church. For example, the devil is bad. The devil is red. Therefore, red is bad. Death is bad. Death is black. Therefore, black is bad. Angels are good. They are white. Therefore, white is good.

As a less creepy religious example - If Heather Duke was green because she was envious of the devil aka red Heather Chandler

When Heather Chandler died and Heather Duke took her place as the new queen bee, Heather Duke would naturally start wearing red because she was the new devil, right? Made sense to me!

But my poor mother was stressed. She brought in all of the professionals, and although none of them truly understood what I was saying, they assured my mom I'd grow out of it.

LIES!

I kept seeing patterns, so I was tested when I started school and was promptly placed into the gifted program, where I was shown that green and red weren't necessarily bad. Like when Amélie wore green because her father forced her to live a calm and peaceful life since she was such a rambunctious child.

Only to start wearing more red as she rediscovered her passion for life.

So I remember that pattern of safety and peace versus passion and courage as I'm watching I Feel You Linger in the Air.

What are some of your favorite examples of color use from some of your formative works?

Since I've always noticed colors, nothing really stands out to me as my favorite since it all seems normal to me, so I'm going to flip your question - What was my least favorite example of color use:

The gay(er) one is red.

Remember that I associated red with negativity as a child, so it would really bother me to see the character who knew he was gay and couldn't hide it be colored as red as if he was the mischievous one.

As if the red character was a temptress leading the loyal blue character to hell.

However, using the (coping) mechanisms I learned in school and life, I now see why the characters who can't hide their queerness would have to be more bold, not just in personality, but in color as well.

Their queerness doesn't allow them to hide, and their color depicts this.

How you write about liking characters who "know," I like that the colors reinforce the "knowing."

So "the gay(er) one is red" doesn't bother me at all anymore. I now openly advocate on behalf of these Red Rascals and named them such because much like me telling countless counselors and doctors that the way I see the world comes naturally to me, I understand their refusal to fit into the norm to make others comfortable.

It isn't bad to stand out, mostly because we cannot hide who we are. How we are feels normal.

And the colors helped me see that.

[starsurface]

Hello! I'm really loving your content so far, and I think you're a really good writer! Would you mind doing some age regressor headcanons for Rain (MK1)? Thank you so much in advance! Again, I really love your work!

🥺🥺

AWH SHUCKS REALLY?? I was actually so nervous writing headcanons because I've never done it before and have only ever written stories, but I'm so glad you enjoy them!! :3

Thank you so much!!! <3

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Regressor Rain Hcs

💧 Regresses to about 3-5

💧 Ngl, I could also totally see him middle regressing too

💧 ^ Maybe to like 11-14?? Claims he doesn't need a babysitter when he's in this headspace but absolutely does

💧 Mr. Bossy Pants over here 😒 (joking, I love him

💧 If we ignore canon, Tanya and him will hang out and find little froggies that are totally in the castle's garden!! :D

💧 Adores being read to but will demand it being a big kid book

💧 Although will very quickly get upset over his own decision and silently pout until you notice him

💧 CG’s would probably be Kitana, Mileena, Tanya, and maybe Reiko (I'm delulu, leave me alone)

💧 They're all his Sissy’s and the dog that never stopped following him, fr 😒 (joking, I love Reiko

💧 Not incredibly open to being watched by others

💧 Maybe if he's extremely close to the person

💧 Or accidently slipped around them

💧 ^ When Syzoth comes to be an ambassador, the first time Rain slipped around him was when he was in his reptile form because ‘’Anya! ‘Anya! It's a big froggie!! :D’

💧 No one had the heart to tell him otherwise and it made Syzoth incredibly happy (he'd probably become a babysitter or big brother or sorts later because of it)

💧 Favorite activities have to be playing outside or reading books

💧 His reading ability isn't the best when he's small but the proud little smile he has when he tries to read something to you is so worth it!!!

💧 Can and Will use his powers while small

💧 Please remind him that he has to be careful (he has definitely, accidently, flooded more than one room before trying to show off a new spell to you when he was a tiny bit too little to do it correctly)

💧 It might just be easier to set his staff to the side for the time being, even if he gets huff and puff about it

💧 I wouldnt say he's necessarily a brat??

💧 Looking at MKX/11 Rain (whose totally a brat), I like to think this Rain got some of his ego

💧 So he's definitely a bit bossy at times, but not necessarily a rule breaker

💧 It is HIS way or the high way!! >:/

💧 Not really, but he likes to pretend it is, he's actually mostly easy to watch over of you play your cards right

💧 Does not do well with punishments

💧 Honestly most times he probably would not even realize he broke a rule until after he's done it

💧 And will look at you all teary eyed because now he believes he's all naughty and he's going to get yelled at or sent somewhere away from you 🥺

💧 He normally doesn't do anything too too bad, so a small chat about it usually works

💧 If he does something bad like hitting or hurting someone, then it might require a small timeout

💧 (^ You do have to hold his hand through it, please do not leave this man alone :( )

💧 A little (lot) guliable at times

💧 You could firmly tell him that the stars are fish and he'd 100% believe you

💧 (^ Although big Rain will be incredibly grumpy afterwards for you tricking him)

💧 Praise! This! Man!

💧 He loves any kind of compliments!! Whether its about his drawings, or an easy spell he wants to show you, or he's trying to act all cute and get your attention, tell him he's a good boy and he will melt

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I'm not gonna lie I don't actually know a lot about Rain!! So I could totally redo these if you'd like!!

Also, y'all, the struggle to find ANY MK1 gifs of Rain??? Only found this pic (an amazing gif), but it was crazy!!

[1902touyatc]

(Headcanon) Officer!Dabi • If he works in the office •

I'm not joke, i really have a obsession about Dabi quirkless, so yeah, we have this shit piece! Yippieee!

Warning: Quirkless AU, officer!Dabi, f!Reader, Dabi is a bastard

Don't ask why his arrogance came from, it's all thanks to his own "unusual" background: His father is the CEO of this damn company.

The type of person: "Do you know who my dad is?", "Be careful, my dad will fire you now!"

Goes to work because he likes to defy his father (Or is forced to come here because Todoroki Enji is afraid that if he opens his mouth, the company and business he built will be ruined)

He hates being directed by someone, but because his dad said "Before you can be a master, you must be a servant", he is forced to be a normal office worker, also having to make coffee, print, and staple documents. ,…

Defaming, humiliating and secretly degrading employees in the company because they don't do a good job (Actually, if it were me, I would also judge)

He's not the type to have a relationship easily, let alone fall in love. That's why women in the company (or not) are not on his radar. That means not dating. Even Touya himself will realize there is no need to search, his dad will do it.

Ready to grab the remaining hair of bosses, and shareholders or grab other employees' collars because they dare to look badly at the plans and projects he proposes. And again, who needs Dad? Todoroki Touya.

Not go to lunch with other employees in the company because he has a lunch box that his mother made or eats out alone. Sitting at the same dining table with his old man, he would probably choke to death.

Will send an email to anyone who looks at/glares at him in the company: "If you want to survive in this barren company, you'd better be reasonable!"

(*) How did he meet you in the company?

In a situation, you are his subordinate, he will not hesitate to order you around like a cheap servant. If you ask how bad it is on a scale of 1 to 10 it's a 9, the other 1 is when he shuts up or hasn't seen you anywhere.

Is the only person who can endure his taciturn, sometimes crazy, incomprehensible temperament.

Even though you're a subordinate with a low salary (I mean when you are a trainee), you're still not very satisfied with being with someone like this, let alone establishing an official relationship. (Sorry doll)

With him, the best thing you can do is do your job well, don't go against his wishes. That's right, of course even flirting with him is in the "No Doing" box.

(*) What if he likes you?

I didn't know what to say. If he likes you because of the romance, it's not necessarily a healthy thing, or if he likes you just because you do a good job at your assigned tasks, then congratulations, there's no salary increase here, you can only exchange for peace when living in this life.

If he likes you romantically, then you're 100% sure you don't know a damn thing. The only thing you feel is the eyes staring at you for 8 hours working at the company.

He won't be someone who can confess his love early, he will come and tell his old man that he wants to meet a girlfriend from the same company and Enji is like: "I'm a dad, not a joke." Please don't ask about the 40 PowerPoint slides he brought along. And somehow (based on the power of course), he will arrange a blind date between you and Touya.

I think that's enough, happy delusions, I love you doll!

Oh well, if you're interested in what I write why not try sending me requests, I'll do my best!

[frogadir]

Okay I'm literally falling asleep as I type this so I just want to get my point out there while it feels immediate to me... 03 moment

Episode 1

The famous atheist speech we all know and love... never mind that ed has come as close as any human can to staring god in the face <3 his bad attitude and cynicism are all over this, so it's funny to hear al call it out by name at the end. Especially remarking on the fact that he's trying to push his beliefs onto someone who's fighting them...

Episode 50

So obviously a lot happens between episodes 1 and 50, and this increasingly difficult journey culminates in ed finding himself on the other side of the gate, disturbed by the revelation that equivalent exchange, the foundation of his belief system, might not be real. Ed's found himself in a similar position to rose in episode 1, whose beliefs he tore apart... now it's hohenheim telling ed what he doesn't want to hear, and ed fighting against it. Compare the first highlighted line in the episode 50 scene to the first highlighted line in the episode 1 scene... he goes from mocking rose's dedication to... more or less earnestly saying he believes in an idea he once made fun of... and the highlighted line at the end has been one of my favorites for a long time. cynicism is crucial to ed's character, so what does it mean for him to give up on it? to stop acting like he doesn't care about anything? because that was never true. He was protecting himself from getting hurt again. He put his faith in something that seriously did not work out for him lol and it changed the course of his life... and then he watched a lot of bad things continue to happen... it's no wonder he developed the attitude that he did. But at what is perhaps his lowest point he turns around and says actually I want to believe in something good... it's better than writing off the world

and I don't think faith is purely religious and/or spiritual. There are a lot of things we can believe in as ways of centering ourselves in this world. We're losing the plot here a little sorry just stay with me but like so many times growing up in hebrew school we would talk about whether or not we believed in god. and I didn't have an answer to that as a kid because if I spoke I knew I would say I don't think I do and I was too embarrassed to admit that to everyone. I would think why would god let bad things happen. and as I got older I decided that life wasn't that simple. I always think about the george costanza quote where he's like "I only believe in god for the bad things" lol. because sometimes when life gets hard and you don't understand why things are happening it's easiest to blame some higher power for fucking you up. but no one really knows if god is real and that aside ultimately our lives are our own. so you can believe in god you don't have to though but either way it helps to have a little faith that things will be okay... not necessarily in a religious way but in a like... I made it this far I'm still here and I can keep going as long as I believe in myself way... Okay so I literally don't know what I'm talking about anymore actually I do but like I am definitely saying some bullshit rn but yeah. That line. I think about it a lot and watching that clip from episode 1 over a few times because I put it in my presentation got me thinking about how these scenes reflect each other... and also I think it's awesome that after he says that a flaming zeppelin falls on him and he gets trapped under the rubble. Crazy stuff

[treasure-mimic]

Okay, I feel like I have to get these thoughts about Deadpool and Wolverine out or they're gonna drive me crazy. I saw the movie last Thursday and it's not left my mind since then and I kinda wish I could just blurt it all out in response to the dismissal of the movie but like it's so specific to me that I don't even know if it's a valid rebuttal to that kind of thing so I just. I'm just gonna say it now as its own thing and we're gonna run it. Okay? Alright.

Major spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine, btw.

It's kind of hard to know exactly where to start on this thing that D&W does that really captivated me, so like, bear with me, this is gonna start in a weird place.

I have a mild fascination with the concept of continuation in fiction. On its face that's not so strange, most fiction, especially nowadays in an age where the goal is almost always to become an ongoing franchise, one of (not necessarily the) central goals of a fictional work is to immerse the viewer into its world to the point where they believe that it exists within context. There is the work itself, there is backstory which establishes the context of its setting and characters, and barring situations where the ending of the work is that the world ends, something of it is presumed to continue to exist after the fact whether that be the characters or the world in context of the characters. While the band of fictionalized time composing the work itself strictly "exists" in the same sense that the pipe in Treachery of Images "exists", the before and after periods don't even under such loose definitions of existence, they are pure implication under the notion that events tend to have context, a gap that the brain intuitively fills in. At least until the work has a sequel, which itself will have an implied context of before and after which itself will vary in its level of existence depending on the distance between it and the previous work and if it too has a sequel.

That's a really long and complicated laying out of a concept that I think most people intuitively get, right? It's one of (again, not necessarily the) founding motivations behind fanfiction. When a work ends with "and the adventures continue" we seek out ideas of what those adventures could be and some people will naturally be drawn to filling it out with their own ideas. If I can be allowed a quick plug here, I'm currently writing a novel that's partially about the after of a character trying to bring about the end of the world. But, like I said, I think most people intuitively get the appeal of that, what I find most interesting about this subject isn't just exploring the surrounding context of a work of fiction, that can be done with a sequel or a prequel or a spin-off.

What fascinates me most, what I'm just enamored with, is the implied continuation of existence in bad media.

How many godawful movies have ended with a "To be continued..." even til today. And how many times has the predominant criticism to that decision been, "who cares?" We, the consuming public, are uninterested in the continued investment in this world and these characters and whatever conflicts may remain. But, the work still exists, it was made and cannot be unmade, and in that is the implication that no matter how you feel about it, through implication, so too exists a continuous existence in both the directions of before and after.

A few years ago I wrote a massive crossover multiverse fanfic which had a really complicated selection process for what characters would be involved that isn't relevant to my point, but one of the flourishes at the very end was replacing the intended inclusion of Lancelot with a hypothetical version of the character from Guy Ritchie's ill-conceived and incomprehensible attempt to kickstart a King Arthur Cinematic Universe in 2017, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (seriously, this is one of my favorite bad movies of all time, it is a bizarre combination of elements from superhero movies and gangster heist films and loose, untethered understandings of English antiquity). To be clear, this character does not exist in the work itself, Lancelot never appears or is even implied to appear in the work itself, likely planned for an eventual sequel or spin-off that never occurred due to how much the movie underperformed financially. But the eventual existence of a Lancelot is nonetheless an implication by the very nature of the work's existence, regardless of how little anyone actually wanted to see it. I find that fascinating, and seemingly I'm not the only one, considering I wasn't even the first person to write fanfic of this hypothetical non-existent version of Lancelot.

Let's bring it back, shall we? The promise of the Marvel multiverse as of right now, regardless of whether you like it or not, is not (at least wholly) an exploration of the cascading effects of character choices and outcomes of natural chaos, but an exploration on the notion that every story has continuation. The turning point, in my opinion, was Spider-Verse, not the 2018 animated film, but the 2014 comic series it's loosely adapted from. That's not to say the concept had never been applied before, the run itself took inspiration from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and the finale episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, but 2014's Spider-Verse was what ultimately codified the concept of a multiverse of adaptations rather than variant outcomes. It was an exploration on if 616 Spider-Man met 1610 Spider-Man met Noir Spider-Man met 2099 Spider-Man met cartoon animal Spider-Man met animated Spider-Man met video game Spider-Man met manga Spider-Man, pre-existing works which were created by disparate creators whose only intentions were only to make standalone entertainment, recontextualized by interaction with one another and by the newfound confirmation of their continued existence. Spider-Ham didn't stop being when the run of Marvel Tails ceased, he continued to exist in the same context and continued consistency of that appearance and now he's capable of talking to a version of himself that kills people.

But Spider-Verse also showcases the other end of that concept, the continued existence of bad media, the "who cares" mentality. Quick primer if you're unaware, the original comic book Spider-Verse run was not predicated on a well-meaning Kingpin using the multiverse for personal reparation but a race of interdimensional energy vampires who feed on the souls of Spider-Man variants. This is where most of the bad media Spider-Men are sent, killed by these Inheritors, in many case in comedic fashion, with their mere existence as the source of comedy, contrasted against such dark themes.

For example, here's the Spider-Man that only exists in custom print ads for Hostess sponge cakes.

Killed unceremoniously because, nobody's favorite Spider-Man is the Hostess sponge cake ads Spider-Man, but by bringing him back decades after these ads quit running it implicitly asks the reader to understand that this Spider-Man and his context and his consistency continued even when the ads don't.

Now, this is a reason why I honestly, personally really dislike the original Spider-verse run, dark comedy is obviously the tone Dan Slott is going for, but I think the overall effect is so much more grim than I ever wanted because, like, I do care. Even if I don't like the story, I do care about this version of Spider-Man being killed while on his way to a date with MJ. I care about the implication of continuation of bad media.

To finally, finally bring it back to the ostensible subject of this post, what I find so enticing about Deadpool and Wolverine's story is that it's able to explore both sides of this concept. Within the framework of the movie, the Void is a very implicit metaphor for discontinuation, both in the sense of corporate media distribution rights but also want for continuation. Rather than the victory lap of Avengers: Endgame, rather than returning to the Captain America and Hulk of of 2012's Avengers or the Gamora and Nebula of Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool and Wolverine asks us to remember and revisit bad media. Tim Story's Fantastic Four, X3, the Elektra not of the Netflix adaptation, but of the delightfully edgy Daredevil and Elektra films (another of my favorite bad movies of all time). Deadpool explicitly asks, hey, can we get help from the cool character that people like, and gets told no. They aren't here. You get us.

Now, obviously this has some qualifications, because it's not all that. While Blade 3 is universally reviled, Blade is obviously the point of reference for this depiction as evident from the visual and textual callbacks, it is ultimately a Disney product, nostalgia is still a major driving force.

Still, this depiction allows the film to explore both ends of it. The Void as a metaphor for discontinuation and lack of interest, similar to the killing of pointless Spider-Men that nobody likes in Spider-Verse, their existence within the context of their stories is over and cannot be returned to. But it also implicitly asks the viewer to consider their continued existence, to process that they didn't just go from the existence we saw to the non-existence of now, that regardless of how much people cared about these products at the time, the characters do still exist and can't not exist in the context of an all-canon multiverse that Marvel has now. That all-canon is not exclusively composed of that which is still profitable and endearing to general audiences.

This paratextuality comes to a head with the credits sequence, a surprisingly loving tribute to the entire breadth of Marvel properties under Fox. Not just the ones universally liked, not even just the ones brought in for this film, not even just the ones in the band for newly forming 00s nostalgia, but films like Fant4stic and Dark Phoenix. You can't pick and choose, you must acknowledge everything. And by showing behind-the-scenes footage rather than finished film, it asks the viewer to understand these movies, these universes, this whole completed fiction with implied context, not as the product of a studio simply deciding to put something out but of the effort of hundreds, sometimes thousands of individual people. There was an attempt, failed or no, to create a story here, and inarguably, it succeeded.

That is why I've been enamored with Deadpool and Wolverine since seeing it several days ago, beyond the jokes and the homoerotic subtext and the excitement of seeing new things from the source material brought to the big screen in the last moments that they're still possible to bring back, it struck at me specifically because it shares my fascination with the continuation, the irreversible existence, of bad media.

[chuckwon]

Here's Why I Want A Chuck Won Plot For The Sequel

Not to go the off about this on a random Saturday night or anything, but I have not stopped internally vibrating since the SPNWIN finale because the potential for a Chuck Won sequel plot line feels so implied and therefore so close I can taste it. I know that there are several people who don't like it as an explanation for the ending of season 15, and/or several people who don't like the idea of it being used as a sequel plot in the future. So I would just like to talk about why I, personally, am passionate about wanting them to use this particular avenue to move forward.

I'll likely unavoidably repeat some of the things I've said before elsewhere but... fuck it, I'm in my feelings, I want to get this out. Rambling on or whatever.

For the sake of clarity, here's a reminder of the POV I'm writing from: A) that Chuck's victory is canonically what was deliberately written as the plot of season 15, B) that it's meant to be noticeable and pointed out as tragic, and C) that even if you argue about the semantics of the literal order of events in the plot that add up to that result, Chuck's victory in some fashion is still the byproduct of the story's final execution.

The thing that I feel can and does get lost in a lot of fandom discussions about this concept is... D) the fact that Chuck winning is an allegory for and commentary on censorship.

I will go back to that. Follow me here.

With SPNWIN as a whole and especially the season one finale, we have already gotten step one of something incredibly subversive: it culminated very loudly in making it clearly canonical that Dean is some semblance of trapped. He is not happy, he is not at peace, he is not done. These are things that many of us in fandom who have brains all already kind of knew and took for granted, because we understand this story and this character and so we understand that 15x20 was not a good ending. But when you step back, what SPNWIN just established is actually a Big Deal in comparison to the fake veneer of happiness that 15x20 was (supposedly) trying to sell to us–and that it did indeed effectively sell to a large number of casual viewers.

Now, here we have canon openly demonstrating that Dean's ending was not okay, in general or to him. Objectively that wasn’t necessarily the case previously with 15x20 alone, but now it is the case.

That is a how-the-turntables level of redefinition of 15x20 in canon. Those crazy bastards fucking did it. They gave Dean Winchester back his agency and had him tell us for 13 episodes that the finale was inarguably Bad, and then they showed his sad grieving self still pining for his happy ending and his angel. That's fucking wild!!! Oh my God!!!

Whew. Okay, anyway:

So SPNWIN has made it clear that The Finale Was Bad, that Dean still needs and wants his happy ending, and that he knows what that happy ending should look like–as demonstrated in this whole hall of mirrors show, through the healing/romance/hope/future we witness the cast of The Winchesters getting to have.

If they stick with that vibe moving forward (which they may not. Continuity could get tossed), to me it then wouldn't make sense if they tried to move forward with any kind of sequel plot or angle that tries to say "okay, now Dean really will Find Peace And Be Done In Heaven." Because they seem to have made it clear that Dean doesn't want that. He wants out! He is fucking around and finding out!

To me, the next logical question to tackle in the plot as part of getting Dean back in the game would be this:

Why did those bad things happen to Dean in the finale?

Look, they don't have to answer that question with a plot-driven reason, obviously. They can go with the (boring) angle of nihilism that's basically like "Yeah Dean died and it sucked, but shit happens and that’s part of free will. It was an unlucky situation :/ he should get another chance at life though!" Or they can absolutely do something totally wacky and out of left field to explain lmfao. (I mean, hell, the Akrida were out of left field and that was only lessened when they tied them back to Chuck.)

Orrrrr.

They could go with a plot that's SOMETHING along the lines of explaining how Dean’s death and the fracturing of their family feels like an injustice to him because it is, and that shit did not just Happen, and that it wasn’t just arbitrary bad luck but rather he didn’t get his happy ending because Something Else was going on pulling the strings at least a little bit.

In that sense, Chuck- / Jack-related fuckery feels like the next natural through-line to me. I'm aware I'm heavily biased, but I want them to go all in on that angle so badly, and the point of this post (yes, there is a point!) is that I want to tell you why I want that.

The strength in the potential of an explicit Chuck won storyline in a continuation–other than the fact that it would be damn good television–is that, if done correctly, it would explain why the ending of season 15 sucked in the first place. And it would explain it not only in-narrative but also out-of-narrative.

Chuck exists to act as allegory, and that's what has always made this concept so significant, subversive, and compelling. Chuck's function and purpose is to be an allegory for producers and/or network executives, and thus the function and purpose behind a Chuck won storyline is to reveal the controlling forces of those figures. And because Chuck is the personification of the Original Creator's intentions that the characters are trying to supersede and defy, the fact that at the end of season 15 they do not get to grow beyond those intentions–aka the fact that Chuck wins and they don't get their full freedom–is indicative of the fact that the characters were not "free" or allowed to defy the Original Creator's real-world intentions either.

The idea that Chuck won is not simply a fun view on why the finale sucks or a fun plot idea for the future. It's because Supernatural is a censored queer text and higher forces won largely because Destiel was not allowed to be explicitly reciprocal. A pillar of the argument is that there could be no happy ending without Destiel; reciprocal Destiel was not allowed, and so the characters had to lose.

That is still the state of canon right now. Chuck's victory is amongst the many threads season 15 left dangling to potentially pick up and play with moving forward, and they don't HAVE to pick that thread up and make it into a central plot for a continuation. But if they do... Man. If they do, it would open the ending of season 15 to further examination for anyone who cares enough to pay attention to it, and that would also open up commentary on the censorship that caused it in the first place.

Here's what I mean:

SPNWIN has left us in a place consistent with 15x19, seemingly further highlighting that something is wrong with Jack. That's huge. Whether that "something" is Chuck possessing him or–potentially more likely–that the God power Jack absorbed has corrupted him, the point is that Jack needs to be freed because Chuck's influence endures.

Making the Akrida into a Chuck fail safe has already leaned into that idea, in a way. Even if Chuck is "gone," his influence wasn't gone entirely. The characters were not fully and entirely free from Chuck's lasting effects on the universe that they inhabit.

But now with the destruction of the Akrida, those effects are supposedly gone. But what if they actually aren't gone completely? What if something is wrong with Jack? What could that mean for Dean's story specifically and the happy ending he still wants and needs?

Apply that to the allegory: if Chuck's power has possessed or corrupted Jack, then Chuck's enduring influence that the characters still have to wrestle with becomes about the enduring influence of industry censorship.

It's then about the insidiousness of the forces that make it difficult for writers to let their stories and characters grow out of what was originally meant for them, especially when those stories are not meant to be queer narratives and yet are molded to have queerness centralized. It's about saying... you (the writers + characters) thought you'd be able to get free but you couldn't; you thought you could write the happy ending but you still haven't gotten to. How have higher forces twisted and shaped things into something unrecognizable? How do you make it back from that and rid the story of that negative influence once and for all?

Hypothetically, examining what Chuck's enduring influence fucked up in the story would then have to examine what censorship fucked up in real life. If they have to break out and return to reality, what does that look like? What is revealed? Dean and Cas could not reunite because their love was real and threatened Chuck's enforced unreality. Dean died and Sam got an apple pie life because that was always part of the ending Chuck wanted to see. Jack was taken over and/or corrupted by God power as part of Chuck's plan because he was powerful enough to help unite them all as a family, which threatened the classic "brothers only" focus of Chuck's story. Chuck's power was still personified in Jack and influencing the outcomes and that's why all of this tragedy occurred. They have to reunite, break the cycle, heal their family, and save Jack while getting rid of that personified God power once and for all, releasing it back into their universe so that power is now in everyone/everything rather than concentrated in overseeing forces threatening their freedom.

And when Chuck is an allegory for the censoring forces in real life... for anyone who cares to engage their brain cells, this could then make it abundantly clear(er) that the end of season 15 was not simply ~bad writing~ or ~cowardice~. It would retroactively redeem, explain, and redefine Supernatural's original "ending" as a backed-into-a-corner narrative gamble embedded with the ability to shine light on the source of its problems, the hope that in the future the story could be continued, and the keys to give the characters justice especially in regards to the queer narrative.

You can look me in the eyes and tell me you don't think that would absolutely rock, but then I will have to simply agree to disagree with you.

Because I would very much like to fucking see it.

It is literally ALL RIGHT THERE. It's THERE, it's so close, and this story could reach its highest potential and make several lasting, impressive points in the cultural realm for anyone who gets their heads out of their ass and stops ridiculing it or stops layering their interest in it under 1000 levels of irony long enough to look at how special it is!!!

[shakes the table with my hands]

AAAAAAAA

Okay, sorry, I'm devolving. But in conclusion: I want this. And though the prequel seems to be hinting towards it (QUITE LOUDLY), there is of course absolutely zero guarantee that any mysterious future sequel would go in that direction for several reasons, let alone the fact that it's objectively a ballsy as hell approach to take.

I still want to write a very long meta about The Winchesters' overall themes and its Chuck won propaganda (lol), so uhhh I reserve the right to plagiarize myself in the future from this post for that purpose. But I had to get this specific thought out sooner rather than later because, to be honest, I am simply going bananas.

JENSEN ACKLES, GIVE ME ONE PHONE CALL WITH YOU LOCKED UNDER AN NDA. PLEASE. PERCEIVE THE VISION.

[we-out-here-simping]

i wanna know how you wrote kiss it away honey, because i read it twice and there's something in the writing that fucks with my brain so bad, i don't really know how to explain it but it confuses the hell out of me and it's just so good

oooo i LOVE this question!! tysm for asking and i'm sorry this took me a while to answer

i'm so so sooo glad people really like this fic bc its so special to me! i feel like i really hit the jackpot when i wrote i really am so so proud of it!

i'm not quite sure if this is an answer but here have my ramble <3

to a certain degree its supposed to be a take on a general x reader fic, where the reader is worried or going through something and the character just does everything right and fixes everytging. so i guess, reader really is a self insert for me because when i first thought of this fic i was having an awful time and just wanted to cry in this guys arms. but somehow that got demented into the monster it is now!

it really is just one of those fics that gets better with on the second read, if i do say so myself. when i do put the part 2 out, i think re reading this will i think give u a lot of 'oh shit' moments (again, if i do say so myself)

the writing style is so fun to do. actions/emotions are written in very concise, short sentences. theres a lot of repetition for impact ofcourse we love her. both sort of add to the vagueness and ambiguity of it all that messes with your brain.

theres this juxtaposition of their more mundane and domestic moments as well as the very fucked things happening behind the scenes yk like murder and what is practically gaslighting your partner and yourself. Fun!

i feel like the way steve is written in this fic is so interesting. his devotion towards the reader is unparalled and unending. when @procrastinationprincesses was reading this fic for the first time, she mentioned how crazy it is that steve is dating what is practically his god, because the reader created him. and i think about that a lot lol

this is a bit embarassing to admit but around the time i was writing it, i was hyperfixating on a lot of the five nights at freddy's lore lmaoo like i was watching video essays that were multiple hours long so, many of the sentiments seeped from it. one particular one is one of the characters promises one dying character that he wil 'put him back together' which paralells 'he's the only one who could ever fix you' in the fic if that makes sense?

another thing that affected the tone of this fic was the fact that i always had to listen to mitski's "my love mine all mine" everytime i sat down to write. and i still have to do that when i try to get into the mood for part 2. the fic isnt necessarily based on it but the vibes are very much there

another thing i might have subconsciously taken from def was wandavision. i think that is self explanatory in of itself.

one of my fave lines i've ever written def has to be "silence was unbearable when it wasn't mixed in with your heartbeat" :( bc thats crazy i ate that i fear

[etrange-fleur]

So y'all (y'all = nobody) might be wondering why am I always talking about some guys who share names with artists that existed in real life. Is this girl crazy? Maybe, but she has her reasons

SO LADIES, GENTLEMEN AND NONBINARY FOLKS, LET ME SAY:

A very long ass intro about "Welcome to Sinclair City!", one of my oc projects and the one I love the most because my brain is too crazy about it. It will be VERY long, so buckle up, get on the train and let's go to Sinclair City!

Warning: I suck at explanations and after this you won't get absolutely anything other than very long ass rants and posts from yours truly

So... WHAT is "Welcome to Sinclair City!"?

Have you ever encountered medias where all the characters are inspired by historical figures? Whether they are accurate representations of said historical figures or anime-fied representations, sometimes genderbent ones (eg: B.ungou Stray Dogs, the F.ate s.aga etc). Well, "Welcome to Sinclair City!" is exactly that! Almost all the characters are inspired by real life artists and other important figures in art history, but they're all more anime-ish and they live in a modern setting. I need to get back to this point later.

"Welcome to Sinclair City!" was born as a possible visual novel I dreamt about, I wanted to make it real but 1) I'm not that good at art and literally everything else (apart from drawing very bad sprites with the symmetry tool and writing) 2) I'm lazy 3) I didn't really want to ask anybody's help because I suck at managing stuff, would be worse with a team, I wasn't born a leader after all 4) I'm lazy as fuck, so it became a writing project (I'm only writing it in italian). It's divided into two books, the first one (Welcome to Sinclair City/WtSC/SC1) has been done for a long while but I think I should rewrite it, while the second one (Welcome 2 Sinclair City/W2SC/SC2) is still a wip that gets frequent changes because god knows where I'm going with it. The sequel wasn't planned but I got insane and nobody locked me so here we are. Jokes aside, this project is a huge comfort to me and I'll always treasure it, even after the ending. Everybody is sad and needs to go to therapy INCLUDING the doctor and the psychologist, but it's my comfort project❤️ Also I'm writing some oneshots that are still part of the lore, but like. I only completed one. Yay

What inspired you to make this... thing! ig

Y'all know me (no), I'm obsessed with P.alette Pa.rade, of course my main inspiration was that. Girl it's obvious!

This project started in 2020, so plpr was near its end. Of course I was sad, I also had ocs for that game and I didn't want to let them go SO I had a crazy ass dream where my ocs were there but there were other characters, like there were Michelangelo, Van Gogh and Gauguin but they were different from the plpr ones, like REALLY different. So little Lotte had an idea, got some random names also thanks to her irls aaaaand here we are! And I still don't have a job! Girl you better work on more important stuff!!

Moving on to the characters, I need to say this out loud PLEASE DON'T ASSUME THAT MY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS = THEIR IRL COUNTERPARTS!! Get the good ol' "this is a product of fiction, any reference to real life is casual, a coincidence and not wanted" because THAT'S THE THING!!! If an artist was kinda problematic irl it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the same in my project (usually I'm not writing racist/homophobic/etc fucks in general, if they end up as bad/problematic people I'm certainly not "romanticizing" them or making them good) and if a character in my project is problematic it doesn't necessarily mean that they were the same irl. I get inspirations from their biographies to get infos for their backstories or other stuff because I've got no creativity, but it's all a coincidence. That said, I wrote Gauguin as a piece of shit nobody cares about and Picasso is only mentioned to be made fun of because I hate those guys and they deserve the treatment, they can rot in hell!

Anyways, most of the characters are based on irl artists, but there are also original characters made by yours truly. Here are the lists for both the books:

Long ass lists! What the sigma

Ok good to know... But once again, what is "Welcome to Sinclair City!" about?

Ok soooo you know the thing about San Marino being a nation inside another nation (Italy)? Ok, now imagine that there is a fictional small nation inside of France, specifically towards the north and near the sea. What's its name? I don't know, ask another Lotte. What you should know, though, is that in this state there are two notable cities. One of them is the capital, Saint-Auburn, which is a pretty big religious city that fucKING SUCKS. Before attacking me, I'm catholic and the real religious evil is in another city, we don't talk about that. Saint-Auburn sucks because it sucks, that's it.

The other one is *drum rolls* Sinclair City! Even if it's much smaller than Saint-Auburn, Sinclair City is known to be a city of art, where lots of artists live, and it's also the city where the Palette Academy is situated. The Palette Academy is a huge school complex (there's elementary school, middle school, high school and the university) and it also has dorms, so a lot of students live in this city and they study to become artists. Some of them are already well-known artists, they're just studying more for the experience and in order to improve themselves. The Palette Academy is for everybody! You can either be a student or teach or just work there. If you're a student you can become a painter, a sculptor, an architect, but also a photographer, a fashion designer and more (in w2sc there are more courses), you can choose whatever you want! Will your school life be easy? Errrrrrrrrrrm it depends, it's for the plot chat

Ok interesting (no), I kinda get it (again, no). Now, what's the plot?

I know this might be shocking, but I think there isn't actually a plot. At least for sc1 there isn't a full plot where all the chapters are connected. Let me explain it.

The main character for sc1 is Giorgio Vasari ofc the main character is the guy who's obsessed with artists and their personal lives and he got invited to attend the Palette Academy, so he's travelling to Sinclair City with his friend, Michelangelo. It should be a really easy uni life for them, but here's the thing: Vasari can't mind his own business AT ALL, so whenever there's something going on in the academy he has to intervene. Who called him? Bitch nobody! So basically all the chapters deal with different characters and their problems, Vasari doesn't always solve their problems because some people are just too far gone, but it's okay we're making friends and we want to know everything about everybody! ... let's ignore the fact that Vasari himself is hiding secrets!!

Now onto sc2. Welcome 2 Sinclair City is a sequel and it's 8 years later the events of sc1. Many new characters, the old cast grew up, some started living/working in the capital for reasons and etc. There are two main characters: Cleope Darwish (and his friendgroup), a guy who has been living in Sinclair City for 2 years and is a uni student. If you got used to Vasari, lower your expectations. Cleope doesn't give a damn about anything nor anybody, he even questions his bond with his friendgroup and how useful it is to him. He hates telling people stuff about himself and finds it useless, after all "he won't stay there for too long". At some point he starts having dreams where he keeps meeting [REDACTED] (censored because I can't really spoil) and [REDACTED] kinda makes him more aware about the fact that the way he's acting and lying, his whole idgaf behaviour is actually hurting people and it will only bring him misfortune. Cleope becomes more self-aware so all the chapters are about him finally discovering the people who lived with him for all these years and yeaaaaaah I wonder how this could end. Spoiler if this was a videogame you'll have to make very specific choices and things to get the true ending, the only happy one, otherwise you'll doom Cleope for life. But I mean, that's what he wanted, right?

On the other hand there's Vasari, who's now a famous museum curator in Saint-Auburn and just opened his own art gallery! Life is always fun in the gallery, the people he works eith are trustworthy and admire him, everything is okay! Until he starts becoming more aware of the fact that he needs to be more professional, he's a serious worker and a member of society now. So he starts changing. and changing. and changing. and changing. changing until the person in front of you might not be recognised as Giorgio Vasari anymore. Is it worth it? Can we go back? Who knows if the people who loved him will still be proud of him

BY THE WAY THEY ALL HAVE HAPPY ENDINGS (even if sc1 has canonically a bad ending and sc2 has two negative endings but I'll never write them) DW!!! I'M JUST A BITCH!!!!

Well damn that's deep. Speaking of deepness, do they have messages, themes or did you just throw random bullshit?

The latter. No actually both have themes, even if all the characters have different backgrounds and situations they live in maybe something makes them all the same.

Sc1 is about identity. It might not be a common theme for everybody, but most of them deal with identity, especially Vasari. Who are you? Are you who you really should be? Are you a façade that hides your true essence? Are you one, three, seventy different people depending on the situation? Are you what your family would like you to be? Are you what the person you love most would hate? Are you satisfied with who you are or are you restraining yourself? Is it right for you to follow your own path and be what you really want to be? Just who are you?

Sc2 is about change. Eight years have passed, new people arrived and the old cast grew up, but have they actually changed? Do you have to change for the better to feel more loved or change for the worse to feel more powerful? Do you want to change? Are you afraid of change? No matter how much effort you make, do you feel that your situation will never be able to change? That you will never be able to change? Have you changed, but do you happen to return to the toxic habits or flaws you once had? Maybe in the end we stayed the same, maybe there was no change. Maybe no change was needed, maybe we were good and valid people all along. Maybe we will never change, maybe we have changed too much and can never go back. Maybe we can go back, maybe we can't. Again, who knows.

Do we talk about art? No, because I'm not an artist and I don't get art at all. Art is relevant, it's vital for some characters, for others you can see that their art ideals are reflected in their usual behaviour (idk how to explain this), but art isn't always mentioned. The uncertainty of future is mentioned, the fact that sometimes you just can't let go of the past is mentioned, all the doubts regarding life, school and anything in general, fatal miscommunications, the ways you process grief, literally anything is mentioned. In fact if you ever kin a character from this project I swear to god I'll pay the therapist for you. Really. Don't do it. Pray god, have fun, DON'T KIN A SINCLAIR CITY CHARACTER OR YOU'LL GET DOOMED (note: I don't mind people kinning my characters, this is a joke because I made all of them mentally ill ↓)

On another note, about them being yumed, I mean yes all of my ocs are yumeable in general, SC ones are on an extreme level because they either don't experience love at all (because of me) or they have a strange/sick/twisted relationship with love (because of me) or maybe they're in a happy relationship (not because of me). Most of the characters are doomed by the narrative sooooo good luck!

Conclusions

So... Now what? Now... That's it. We're done. Bye.

Seriously speaking, I'm writing this project in italian, so if you ever happen to fully understand italian (not with a translator because the translator will never translate you "grazie graziella e grazie al cazzo" in an accurate way) then good luck, otherwise never read it. Which is better! So yeah since I'm not an artist and I don't do anything else that's it. BUT I'm a professional yapper, so if you're interested in these fuckheads then you'll hear me talking about them more and more here. I'll also post their character cards I made, so you can start getting some infos abt them!

If you got this far, congrats! If you have any question regarding the project or the characters, don't hesitate to ask me anything! You can either comment it down here, ask it in the inbox or dm me!

That's all from me, enjoy your stay at Sinclair City!

[signed-sapphire]

Hiiii! I was gonna post this under your question about Asha in your AU, but I wanted to send a more personal one here.

As someone who was inspired by your rewrite, I think Princess Asha is a great take! (Definitely has more personality) Its hilarious how she's like Kuzco and she works great with Cielo! I never found her to be a stereotype when reading it, I always considered her to be a more arrogant version of Canon Asha, since a lot people considered her to be a jerk. 😂 (But I can understand your concern)

Part of what I was most worried about in my rewrite was if I made Asha interesting enough compared Star being a ball of energy and she's the opposite. I wasn't sure if I made her boring or not as interesting compared to other AUs or characters in Wish Granted. I just had the idea of making Asha the only sane person while everyone else is kind of eccentric or crazy would be funny contrast. (Like with Shrek being normal compared to the other characters) So hearing you found her backstory compelling and love her sarcasm with Star made me so happy!

Princess Asha is hilarious, she's got sass, there's great banter with the Teens (calling them by their dwarf names was perfect) she's got an interesting backstory, I LOVE WHEN SHE TALKS TO CIELO AND SHE HATES FEELINGS THINGS!!! 😂😂

Heck, I'm even amazed WG!Asha mostly gets along with her (which is hilarious) even though TFS!Asha was raised by the royals! And trust me, it takes time for WG!Asha to make friends in both my rewrite and the Wishverse! (Cause you know, trust issues due to trauma)

So anyways, I say keep writing the sassy princess! We love her even if she think we're peasants. 😅 (SHE KEEPS CALLING ME MUTT, WHYYYYY 😭)

Ahhhh thank you Rascal 😭

(The post Rascal is talking about is right here, if you're curious.)

The thing is, when I first watched Wish, I was a bit of a sheep in that whole "Asha is selfish, Magnifico was justified" train. But then I rewatched the movie and read other rewrites and thought about how I wanted to portray Disney in my rewrite, and I realized Wish just did a shitty job at making character motivations clear. Everyone is morally grey, which isn't necessarily a bad thing! But with how little time the movie devoted towards character arcs, it was for its own detriment

What I'm trying to do in The Fallen Star is make everyone's character arc clear, so I'm upping the extremes in their personalities. Asha was a young kid and didn't think about saving an entire kingdom by herself at first? TFS!Asha purposefully doesn't think about anyone except her family. Let her grow as a person by understanding other people's stories and letting others in.

Magnifico is scared of Stars because of some vague childhood trauma? Lean into that and make TFS!Mag see Stars almost kill his family so he believes he's justified in doing wrong, even if he knows it is! Let the dark magic corrupt his mind, make it a tragic story.

I was mainly worried that TFS!Asha would be too much, you know? The Sapphire stereotype that may have overshadowed her growth as a person. But I'm glad you and @oh-shtars never saw her that way! (If anyone else had, please let me know and tell me what you think I can do to improve Asha's character!)

[zukkacore]

you reblogged that director's cut ask meme and i KNEW exactly already the scene. towards the end where it starts with:

"Disappointment. “Look. Whatever fantasy you’re trying to cling to, I don’t want any part of it. If you need anything, get another me to do it for all I care. I’m just—done playing house, Porter.” to "How ridiculous."

OR anything about the pomegranate tree which. i put my phone down to stare at the ceiling when the pomegranate tree was mentioned.

HIiiii!!!!! Thank you so much for sending me this honestly you picked a good one.

Ok. this scene is crazy bc i think it was the flashback scene that felt the most necessary to include. Not the one i fought the hardest for (jace good/bad teacher you have my heart ended up making sense but for a long time i was like cut that shit. You know you just want to be indulgent. Until i realized the ratgrinders haunt the narrative). Nor the one that feels the most. Obvious I guess? Or the most evocative? (The one where they're at Porter's house feels like so vivid and real to me not like necessarily bc of my writing its just like real in my mind like if Jace is reading Porter's memories there's definitely something in there that is just Precious and Heartbreaking and Deeply Ironic and almost simplistically affectionate in its portrayal of the Old Jace.

Anyway. This scene in the backyard felt. Necessary I guess? But i also worried i was trying too hard to make it work. It actually wasn't even really originally about Frosty Fair. Like. Jace still was walking out bc of a fight abt the ratgrinders but it was more abstract? I think the fact that its like ruben was getting attacked by grix is a throughline though for jace taking damage for TRGs in the forest. The ratgrinders were not originally going to be this like chekovs gun and like i honestly felt kinda bad that i was like. hm. awfully convenient for Jace to forget abt them so quickly in favor of getting. some dick but also like that's the whole POINT. I was like. Well i can at least highlight how absurd that is by making him ashamed but not really altruistic enough to do anything about it. But its like. Kinda the throughline now.

Originally I was like. Honestly rly embarrassed bc i felt like Jace taking damage in the forest was such a contrived way to get him and Porter to hook up like oooooh patching up injuries how original. But I feel like. There's a whole subplot kinda ABOUT jace taking the damage now. Now the whole story is about how he cares.

And post-Jace HATES that that's the reason Porter brought him on b/c he's so alienated from that version of himself, and he's disgusted with himself for feeling like he's never doing enough or caring enough. For being neglectful and running away. So when Porter grabs his wrist in the memory,

“I don’t think so, Stardiamond. You want this to work. You care, you always have. I know that’s who you still are.”

it's like. He's not seeing Jace for who he is. He's still clinging to the past. But also don't think he's completely wrong. Because jace does take that damage in the forest. He always had that capacity to care in him.

Anyway. I'll backtrack to the. Top of the scene tho.

Disappointment. “Look. Whatever fantasy you’re trying to cling to, I don’t want any part of it. If you need anything, get another me to do it for all I care. I’m just—done playing house, Porter.

Ok so this comes right after the whole. Jace wants Porter to acknowledge what he means to him. & Porter only mentioning his utility to The Plan. So. In my Mind the fantasy that Porter clings to about Jace and the fantasy Porter clings to about the house of sunstone heir of the cliffbreakers thing is made of the same stuff. It's all a glorious past that has been lostt to him. It's all something he's desperately trying to cling to.

There's also the fact that Jace says "I'm done playing house, Porter" (which i know is epilogue coded what can i say we get metatextual up in here). But. To me that's about. This idea of family. Porter feels he's been denied something of his lineage. In his mind he's doing this for his family as well as himself. I really wanted there to be something in there about Jace basically saying like. Why do you need to do this for your family. I'm your family. But it felt too on the nose and maybe not true to the character. B/c like. What family? The whole Jaceporter and the ratgrinders make up like a shitty fucked up fall of the house of usher type family is so real to me. But the thing is. That's a fantasy. Most of the ratgrinders are shatterstarred. Porter is clinging to something that doesn't exist.

And he says "if you need anything, get another me to do it for all I care." which. I think I needed to justify something within the text... But besides that. "get another me to do it" is so like. I think there's two things in there. 1) Jace is talking about his own replaceable nature within the plan. Calling attention to the fact that Porter actually COULD replace him, he just doesnt want to because he wants it to be jace. He just won't say that he'll say i need you you're so important blah blah. 2) obviously that's a bit of a jaceclone reference. He's saying literally another me, and long as I personally get that distance from you idc.

already talked abt the you care line so I'm gonna skip past it.

Another swing of Bigby’s Hand. This time, it’s a miss, and it dissipates—too rattled to concentrate. Jace seethes. “I don’t give a fuck what you think of me, or about who your Jace was. I’m —”

Ok. So like. I've talked about this a little bit, but I actually I do have a soft spot for the guardians of the galaxy 3 i actually think its pretty good and i don't like peter and gamora really but i think gotg3 uses them in very interesting ways b/c Quill keeps trying to insist that this gamora (a gamora from another time who never experienced the movies) should live up to the gamora from his memories. The line i actually really like is "What are you so afraid of within yourself that you need me to be something for you" which AAAAGGGGHHHH i feel sick about is very jaceporter to me. (The other scene that is very them is gamora saying “you know. I’m still not who you want me to be” and him going “yeah but who you are ain’t so bad” “I bet we were fun” “like you wouldn’t believe.” PORTER YEARNS FOR OLD JACE BUT ALSO ?? DID OLD JACE LOVE HIM TO THE POINT OF INVENTION?)

I don't think Porter would ever refer to the old jace as His Jace but I definitely think this jace conceives of it that way. & this is even more fucked bc PORTER put him here. That shit just happened to Gamora. PORTER is the one that wanted to actualize and use Jace but also misses who he used to be. And porter isn't wrong that this jace has the capacity to be as "good" at the old jace, but he's definitely not willing to acknowledge the harm he's caused or the pain this jace is in. I almost ended the exchange with "I'm Jace" but i felt like that also would be too on the nose. The fact that the name Jace is inherently a little bit silly does take a bit of the bite away. Sorry bestie beloved but its true ur name is ridiculous.

I think so much of this fic is Jace reconciling that he wants to be loved but he doesn't know in which way. Like. On the one hand he's saying please love as I am—as a person who has undergone irreconcilable trauma, different and the same. On the other hand he's saying please love me as I am— as the doggish, devoted frankenstein's creation that can't help but love his creator. And I think there's a little bit of both here. A little bit of Why are you asking for the old jace when i am what i am, the person you made, someone else, and i'm RIGHT HERE. And its a little bit of Why are you asking for the old jace expecting me to be something i no longer recognize, can you at least acknowledge that this trauma has changed me, that i feel different, that i feel as if i can never go back. But maybe those are the same thing

I also want a brief sec to talk abt that bigby's hand. I just wanted something that would leave a large impact i think? Like. this is such a WEIRD pull but i was watching that dirty laundry w/ brennan in which he talks abt getting in a car crash where the car trenches a hole in the grass and stops just shy of a woodchuck hole and he starts laughing in shock. I thought abt that a lot in the scene with the Motivational Poster bc of the laughing of shock but i also liked that imagery i guess of trenching a crater.

Pain, as the rage crystals and untamable arcana course through his veins—he can feel it in the present, too—and then the Jace in the memory surges so bad that he passes out on the lawn, but not before frying the nearby pomegranate tree to a crisp with a jolt of lightning. Jace turns away from that one as if flinching from a raised hand. Despite everything, he wishes most of all to apologize about the tree. He could laugh. How ridiculous.

Im playing a little loose with sorcery stuff but aint that the sorcery way i guess. Anyway I like in other fic when Jace has a hard time controlling his sorcery due to being shatterstarred as a way of being like yeah he's discordant with himself. Its sooooo good. I think the rage here is a little bit his and Porters. I don't know if thats how it works in the text but i made the call that jace's rage can also incite the crystal to act up.

OK SO lastly. THANK YOU FOR BRINGING UP THE POMEGRANIT TREE JUST BC ITS FUN even tho its literally is like. Yeah I love Hadestown and Jaceporter are soooooo persephades / orphydice coded. I liked the imagery of his surge being so bad that it kills the something dear to Porter in the garden, and I was like. Frying a tree sounds cool. And I was like. Well if its gonna be a fruit tree of COURSE it can't be any old tree it has to be a pomegranite tree. OF COURSE. And it's not stated but i do think it kinda was the centerpiece of that garden. And of course like. A pomegranate on its own already means a lot. In terms of like. Death n rebirth Persephades and this idea of the cycles of the seasons and leaving n returning and the overlap with this idea of like, corruption and a Fall from grace

Also a shoutout to my ability to neglect real world facts. "Lily, white, and Poppy red. I trembled as he laid me out. " Yeah, Porter decimated the poppies in the fight. They're completely out of season but we can play pretend.

I do think him wanting to apologize for the tree is like. Such a funny moment. I think after i wrote what happened to the tree i felt bad for said tree. There is something really sad abt that. So i think Jace would feel bad about destroying something that takes so long to grow, that Porter cares about, and find away to blame himself even tho Porter is the one who started everything.

Anyway. This scene felt. Necessary bc i think there needed to be some semblance of showing them in like. Actual conflict. at the time i actually did NOT know that THIS would be THE FIGHT in the exhange that Porter was talking about earlier. When he said "i thought you meant it this time". i mean. its not explicit but I do think there's a finality to the interaction that implies that yes. Jace was fucking serious this time. And again there's that throughline of the ratgrinders haunting the narrative. About Jace caring and feeling like he's never caring enough.

Like, so much of the story is ABOUT Porter looking right past jace and i felt like there should be scene that. Says it outright. But also. Not being completely wrong. IMO. B/c I also think Jace was threatened by the version of himself that porter sees. And he thinks he doesn't live up to that. he COULD never live up to that. (And in some ways he does. In some ways. He's might even be perfect in his own way. He kinda loved Porter to the point of invention so)

[mesaprotector]

I watched Lain over the past two weeks. Twice.

The first time I saw it I didn't have a clue in heck as to what was going on, but I had a pretty strong feeling of what the show was saying. The second time I understood all of the secrets of Lain and am here to preach her gospel. Haha, just kidding. But I do feel strongly that of all the possible interpretations, the literal canonical one is the only one I've heard that isn't satisfactory.

In addition to all the crazy theories I've seen people come up with (Lain is Jesus, Lain is Shinji from Evangelion, all of Lain is about aliens, etc.) - and god bless the lovely people who write those - there are two common interpretations. #1 is that Lain is a program constructed to break down the barrier between the Wired and the real world. #2 is that Lain is schizophrenic and by the end of the series has gone completely nucking futs. You can think of these as the literal interpretation and the meme interpretation, maybe.

My problem with #1 is if you accept it, the finale is deeply troubling. One key theme in Lain is that Lain despises being observed, but she loves observing others. Notice how panicked she gets any time the Men in Black train their sights on her in the early episodes, or the repeated scenes of her family members opening her door to stare at her, say nothing, and leave. And this gets discussed explicitly in the finale, where Lain tells herself that maybe she prefers to be a god because it's easier to be a god than a human being - you don't have to be seen but you can see everything. It's very clear that the point being made here is that Lain, if given the choice, would choose to be human after all she's been through. As such, her decision to remove herself from the world feels like a defeat, a hollow tragedy, and a betrayal of her own arc. It's not bad writing, necessarily - it just feels bad.

#2, by comparison, sits okay with me, but it does feel a bit silly. You can wave away the entire show as a meaningless hallucination, and its ending as a complete break with reality. So why were we watching this again?

During my second watch of the show, after the ninth episode (the alien one featuring the ultimate husbando Vannevar Bush), I wrote down two possibilities that I still thought were plausible at that stage. My ideas were fairly similar to #1 and #2 above, but with a couple crucial differences, so I'm going to call them #1A and #2A.

#1A: Lain is the emergent consciousness of the internet, and this is the story of her trying to figure out her place in the real world.

The key thing separating this from #1 is that I never took seriously the idea that Lain was deliberately constructed. Rather, I saw her (in this version) as a being nobody wanted or expected, but one who learned to exist with reference to other people.

There's one scene that makes me dismiss the "constructed Lain" interpretation out of hand even before the ending - it's the scene where her dad says goodbye to her on the stairs, and expresses that he "enjoyed playing house". It seems very obvious to me that the scene isn't meant to be taken at face value, being that it follows up the increasingly weird but oddly human behavior of all of Lain's family members. But if you think Lain is literally a program, you have no choice but to take this at face value, along with everything else her family does. Instead, I immediately took their behavior as Lain's perception of them. To Lain, her mother is basically a nonentity whose only emotional act is to kiss her father on occasion. This isn't the behavior of a paid actor - it's Lain's vision of how her human mother would sincerely act.

With #1A, the ending of Lain is her recognizing herself as the goddess of the internet, and recognizing that she cannot participate in the real world - but she loves everyone in it all the same. They are no longer NPCs and simulations to her, but real people. I like that version of her arc, but my other construction is the one I find even more compelling.

#2A: Lain is a human girl. She isn't schizophrenic, but lonely, isolated, and prone to fantasizing. The majority of what we see is her playing out a fantasy where she doesn't have to give up her privacy and finds her secret desire for attention and love - on the internet.

I already mentioned above that all we see of Lain's family seems to me like it's filtered through Lain's eyes. According to this interpretation, that also applies to the rest of her life. In class the other students appear as gray statues in the background because she doesn't care about them. The Knights are people she talks to on the internet, but what they really do we never find out. Instead she lives an elaborate fantasy including secret organizations, aliens, and of course - herself as a god-like figure at the center of it all.

I wasn't sold on this interpretation until I thought in depth about the ending to the story, and specifically Lain's "reset". It was always very hard for me to explain the reset, in conjunction with Lain's apparent affirmation to stop living as a god and start living as a human. But then something clicked - if nearly the entire story is Lain progressing her own fantasy, then the reset is her decision to go back to the real world, not to leave it. She chooses to live as a human again after a very, very long period of dissociative introspection.

#2A gives rise to the question of what the final scenes with Lain's dad and with adult Arisu are. The more comforting and to me, less fitting sub-interpretation is that those too are "memories" - fantasies of the future - and the real Arisu is Lain's classmate. But my favorite of all is this: the real Lain is 14. Her father is dead. The real Arisu is 24 or so. Lain deeply admires Arisu but has not seen her in a long time - the version of Arisu Lain remembers was a middle schooler. Perhaps Arisu was her babysitter when she was a small child. And in this version, the final scene with Arisu is just reality - a meeting after so many years.

The only qualm I have about this version - call it #2A2 - is that Lain's crucial statement in the finale that "memories can be of the present or future, not just the past" isn't used to full effect. But emotionally it seems to fit better than anything.

Anyway, I think I've thought enough about Lain to earn myself the right to take part in discussing it. It was in case a wonderful atmospheric anime I'll probably remember for a long time still.