#deferred applications

[officialbabayaga]

when i visited my cousin after a christmas party he had 18 bottles of champagne left over so his mom made me take like 4 of them, anyway i finally opened one for the first time today because i got a 3.93 semester gpa, which has bumped my cumulative gpa up enough to be a competitive candidate for PhD programs i’m applying to in the fall. and it’s great champagne

[timehascomeagain]

im in such a bad mood. told my dad about my college putting me through as an international student not a home student just so he’d be on the same page bc i’m going to have to sort it out this week and he was like “you need to get on that you dont want to be in x3 the debt than you would be otherwise like you’re just not going to be able to go if you have to go as an international student” and it’s like really dad i hadn’t even considered the fact that i’d be in three times the amt of debt i’d be in otherwise. that had literally never crossed my mind. thank you so much for your enlightenment i feel so enlightened. thanks so much for real

[beemovieerotica]

struggling with how to word this, but putting it out there anyway:

i can fully understand the posts on here from a lot of americans being tired of "vote blue no matter who" posts when the #1 thing that people are constantly (and sometimes only?) addressing is how the republican party is going treat trans/queer people if elected.

it's part of an unfortunate pattern of prioritizing the effects on a demographic that includes white + upper class people, when people of color and those in the global south are actively and currently being killed or relegated to circumstances in which their survival is very unlikely

it is genuinely exhausting to witness this, and i was also on the fence about even participating in voting because i a) felt like it didn't matter and b) every time i voiced being frustrated with the current state of the country, white queer people would immediately step in with "but what about trans people!" -> (i am mixed race trans man)

and i say this with unending patience toward people who do this, because i know that it's not something they actively think about. but everyone already knows how the republican party is going to treat queer people. you are probably talking to another queer person when you bring up project 2025. the issue is that, for those of us who aren't white, or for those of us who are but who are conscious of ongoing struggles for people of color worldwide, the safety of people around the world feels more urgent than our own. that is the calculation that's being made.

you're not going to win votes for the democratic party by dismissing or minimizing these realities and by continually centering (white) queer people.

very few people on here and twitter are actually talking about issues beyond queer rights that concern people of color, or how the two administrations differ on these issues instead of constantly circling back to single-issue politics. this isn't an exhaustive list. but these are the issues that have actually altered my perspective and motivated me to the point of committing to casting a vote

the biden administration has been engaged in a years-long fight to allow new applicants to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that allows undocumented individuals who arrived as children to remain in the country) after the Trump administration attempted to terminate it. the program is in limbo currently because of the actions of Trump-backed judges, with those who applied before the ruling being allowed to stay, but no new applications are being processed. Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of just deporting the 1.8 million people, but he continues to change his mind depending on whatever the fuck goes on in his head. he cannot be relied on to be sympathetic toward people of hispanic descent or to guarantee that DREAMers will be allowed stay in the country. biden + a democratic controlled congress will allow legal challenges to the DACA moratorium to gain ground.

the biden administration is open to returning and protecting portions of culturally important indigenous land in a way that the trump administration absolutely does not give a fuck. as of may 2024, they have established seven national monuments with plans to expand the San Gabriel Monument where the Gabrielino, Kizh / Tongva, the Chumash, Kitanemuk, Serrano, and Tataviam reside. the Berryessa Snow Mountain is also on the list, as a sacred region to the Patwin.

i'm recognizing that the US's plans for clean energy have often come into conflict with tribal sovereignty, and the biden administration could absolutely do better in navigating this. but the unfortunate dichotomy is that there would be zero commitment or investment in clean energy under a trump-led government, which poses an astounding existential threat and destabilizing force to the global south beyond any human-to-human conflict. climate change has caused and will continue to cause resource shortages, greater natural disasters, and near-lethal living conditions for those in the tropics - and the actions of the highest energy consumers (US) are to blame. biden has funneled billions of dollars into climate change mitigation and clean energy generation - trump does not believe that any of it matters.

i may circle back to this and add more as it comes up, but i'm hoping that those who are skeptical / discouraged / tired of the white queer-centric discourse on tumblr and twitter can at least process some of this. please feel free to add more articles + points but i'm asking for the sake of this post to please focus on issues that affect people of color.

[jarofstyles]

Sea View

Hello my lovely babies. Here is a sugar baby!H one shot. 

I hope you enjoy them. 

Check out our Patreon for early access and 100+ exclusive writings!

WC- 3.7k

Warnings- public sex/exhibitionism, unprotected sex, slight degrading but also praise kink, soft!dom H

---

The Italian sun was turning his skin golden. He knew that it was definitely time for a sunscreen application again, but the beams of warmth felt too damn good on his body to be assed to get up.

Besides- he had Y/N’s leg hitched over his as she napped in the familiar sunbeams he was soaking in.

After a particularly stressful week, Y/N had had enough. She chartered a yacht, called her assistant to defer her calls and woke Harry up from his meditation nap to pack his bags. They were on the private plane before he even properly woke up, but he couldn’t complain.

The water was impossibly blue, the weather was perfect and their boat was heavenly. He’d never been on a vacation quite like this. He’s actually been to Italy for a bit when he did an exchange program, but he hadn’t been able to just relax. He’d spent his time exploring and studying when he was here, picking up the language, learning the people, his surroundings. There wasn’t time to just… be

A week back in Italy with the best food, a private boat and villa and the most beautiful woman he had ever met, all expenses paid? He would be a fool to turn that down. All he needed to do was help her unwind. That meant hiding her work phone from her, massaging her shoulders, letting her sleep on him like she was now, and giving her every bit of affection and sex that she could possibly want.

‘You work so hard, darling. Deserve a break. I’ll take care of you.’ Was what he had told her when they boarded the boat, kissing her lips as he felt her hands grip his shorts. They had been particularly slutty this trip, something he really liked. His new brand of shorts were cut closer on the thigh, in a variety of colors. Y/N had appreciated them greatly.

It was after the first round of sex that day that Y/N requested they spend some time up on the deck. The warmth was welcome to her, he could tell. It was his job to relax her, to keep her sane, and he liked to think he did a pretty good job of it- both with his words and his cock. This time, though, he could tell she had been particularly drained from work and he made it his mission to keep her as relaxed as possible. Their drinks sat on the ledge behind them, condensation sweating the glasses. Y/N’s book was abandoned with a bookmark haphazardly placed in it, her cheek pressed against his bicep.

The concept of a midday nap for her was unheard of. Harry had been with her for a while now, and in his time knowing her he had never experienced it. That’s how he knew she was really exhausted. Fingers stroked the hair from her face with his opposite hand, simply observing her as she slept. A soft vulnerability was painted on her features as her guard was completely down. In her sleep, Harry could see just how sweet she could look. In everyday life, she was a very powerful and merciless businesswoman. She was wealthy beyond his comprehension and she had gotten to that point because she took no prisoners. She had to, in order to get what she wanted. He’d seen firsthand her cold demeanor and her stoic, practiced words when she was at work and they’d be interrupted.

No one besides Harry had ever seen the woman beg for anything. No one had seen tears drip down her face when she was overstimulated, no one had seen how mushy she got after an entire night of hot sex where he took care of her. Despite the fact that they switched around who was in charge and he very much loved being a good boy for her, Harry liked seeing her soften up for him. Being exposed to a side of one of the country’s most powerful people that no one else had gotten the chance to see? It made him feel powerful all in himself.

When their arrangement had started, she had taken the reigns for the most part. She’d needed to get comfortable with him, which had taken some time. The first night he had taken over control had been a bit of a power struggle, but she took to it well after getting a real taste of what Harry could do.

Being able to comfort her, even in moments like this, made him smile.

“I can feel you staring.” Y/N voice slurred against the skin of his arm, rubbing her nose against it as she shifted to tuck her face into his neck. “Rude.”

Harry’s heart warmed with the rays of the sun, turning slightly so he was facing her before gathering up her sleepy form in his arms. “How could I not stare? When the lioness is asleep, it’s the best time to observe the beauty.” Lips pressed against her warm forehead, letting her leg tighten around his waist. Looking down, he could see some of the bruises he had left on her silky skin. Fingerprints on her thighs, a few on her hips. A sense of satisfaction went through him as he felt her lips give a chaste peck to his throat, exhaling heavily. He had done this. He got to experience this woman fully.

“Lioness? I’d say Tigress, if anything.” Her sleepy laugh made him smile. “How long was I out?” Stretching her body out, she shook for a second before curling back up against his side. It did things to his heart that he didn’t want to talk about.

“An hour.” His fingers returned to her waist, rhythmically dragging up and down the curve of it. “Passed right out. You’re exhausted, love.” It was a bit concerning. Y/N handled pressure very well, stress even better since Harry had entered her life- but he could see some cracks forming before they’d left. “M’glad you took us here. You needed a break. I worry about you.” He spoke against her hair, knowing she didn’t like it when he worried.

“I’m okay.” Her voice was soft. “I… I remembered what you’d said about feeling a breaking point coming and doing something about it before you reach it. I was there.” Opening up wasn’t easy for her in the slightest, but Harry had been her confidant for a bit now. He never judged her, always stressed the importance of mental health along with her physical. “I just wanted to go somewhere we could just relax. It’s still hard for me.”

That much, Harry knew all too fucking well. Y/N was always wound up tight. She was coiled like a snake for most of her day. Being a woman in her position, unfortunately she had to be. She had to work twice as hard and be twice as defensive because men were awful and believed they deserved her position, her success more simply because they were men. It was sick and wrong but Harry understood why she had to feel on the guard all the time.

“I know it is.” The reply was soft. “But m’teaching you, aren’t I?” He was a very relaxed person now that he didn’t have to work at the bar. He was able to work on his music, do his yoga, bake his treats, and focus on this fucking gorgeous woman’s pleasure. For some, it wouldn’t be fulfilling. For Harry? It was a dream come true. He loved teaching her how to relax.

“You’re doing a good job.” Y/N chuckled, pulling her face from the refuge of his neck. “Got a pretty boy with equally as pretty words to help me with that.” Her own fingers came up to stroke the facial hair sprouting on his face. She was a very big fan of it, he was finding out. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and she seemed mesmerized.

“Just pretty?” He smiled, feeling her finger pop into his dimple. “I’d prefer… beautiful. Gorgeous. Ruggedly handsome, even. Sexy is acceptable too.” The quips were met with a laugh from the woman, face tilting up and catching his lips.

Harry was pleasantly surprised. Y/N was shy with her kissing at times. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it- she reacted with her whole body when he kissed her- but she didn’t initiate it too much. The opportunity was not going to be wasted. His mouth responded immediately, a happy hum leaving his throat. Fingers gripped her thigh and pulled her tighter against him as she shyly brushed his tongue against hers. Impressive. She was making a lot of the first moves, and he was ecstatic about it.

She tasted like orange juice, the mimosa’s from breakfast back on her tongue. Harry was taking in every bit of it, one hand curled around the back of her neck while the other kept her thigh against his hip, languid greed encompassing the kiss as he took a bit of the control away from her. There was that buzzing in his stomach, cock thickened as her body heat outshined the sun. In the middle of the boat, he didn’t have a care in the world other than keeping her satisfied.

“Mmm.. S’sweet.” He mumbled against her lips, going back in for more. “Open that pretty mouth f’me. Don’t be shy. I want everything from you.” He was going to milk this for everything he could. Her fingers slid into his hair, the manicured nails gently grazing his scalp and making him groan loudly. Chills flushed on his skin as he pulled her closer, cock pulsing in the shorts as he felt her arch into him. She knew what that did to him, the minx.

His tongue found hers before he sucked on it lightly, fingers diggling into her thigh as he pulled back just a bit. He felt her fingers tug on his hair again, trying to pull his mouth back to her own. It was refreshing to feel her need for him. “You’re starting something, darling.” He warned slowly. “M’not going to stop it if you continue.”

“Don’t.” Was her reply, pushing herself further against him. “We can do anything.”

Harry was surprised by her response. They definitely weren’t fully alone, but no one would come out on to the deck if they weren’t requested. Y/N had asked for privacy beforehand. The crew of the large boat stayed below deck… And honestly? Harry didn’t give a fuck if someone from another boat saw them. He was going to take this opportunity to pleasure his woman.

Rolling them over, he heard her squeak as he hovered on top of her. Eyes opened, the lusty haze making her grin as his body was backlit from the sun. He looked like her own personal angel. Swollen pink mouth and scruffy face, he was sent directly from wherever wet dreams originated from to be the one that took care of her.

“Filthy girl.” He whispered. “S’that what you want? Do you want me to do whatever I want to you?” He leaned his nose against her nose, brushing the skin as she nodded.

“Yes.” The word was breathy, unlike her normal cadence.

Harry grinned that filthy grin that made Y/N’s cunt clench around nothing, the promise of more in his eyes making her blink up at him. She had worked so hard, kept it together so well.. All she wanted to do was fall apart under him. Be dirty, take a risk for once in her controlled life. They’d fucked around many places, but she could see other boats not too far away. She knew it was risky.

“Oh, sweet fucking girl. You’ll let me tug this top off?” He questioned, tugging the cups of her bathing suit down slowly to give her a chance to say no. She didn’t. He pulled the fabric over her pebbled nipples, grunting in his throat as he took a look at her beautiful tits on display for him. “Hm.. Beautiful girl. That’s what you are.” Dipping down her body, he showed no hesitation taking one of her nipples into his mouth.

Sucking on the bud, he heard her gasp and fingers grip his hair as he methodically pulled the sensitive nipple into his mouth, brushing his tongue against it. So warm, her skin smelled like her body wash and salt from the ocean as he lathed his tongue over it again. Teeth brushed it ever so slightly as he pulled back, eliciting a gasp from her before he switched breasts with a satisfied groan.

Yes. This is what his girl needed. His sweet, overworked, filthy minded girl. His cock was dripping into his shorts, the risk of the situation and her need for him arousing him more than he had been in a long time.

“More.” She whimpered. The one word was enough to get him to pause, looking at her with his blown out eyes. Mournfully releasing her nipple again, his wet lips opened to speak to her.

“More? Are you asking for me to fuck you, pretty baby?” His low tone made her clit throb, nodding frantically as she felt him press his fingers against her covered cunt. The bathing suit did little to hide her arousal. He could feel her heat, feel the slickness of her, and he knew he needed to take her. Now. “Yeah? Y’want me to tug this to the side and slip right in?” He spoke against her lips, pressing a kiss there before moving to her jaw. “Want my cock tucked up inside you, nice n’snug?”

Fingers tugged the fabric to the side, leaving her slick cunt exposed to the ocean air. To him. She shuddered under him as she peeled her eyes open, watching in anticipation as his hand went for his shorts between them. Slipping them down just enough to expose himself, he grit his teeth. “Hm?” His voice prodded her. He was covering her body, sure, but it would be obvious what they’d be doing.

Her body jolted when he tapped the ruddy tip of his leaking cock against her cunt, nestling it between her slit while he got himself wet.

“Yes.” She had been reduced to a beg. Y/N was usually much more talkative, much more of a tease, but she couldn’t be right now. This was exactly what the woman wanted. She wanted Harry to take over and make her forget all of her troubles. “Please. Just do it.”

Harry didn’t need much convincing.

She was still a bit sensitive from their sex when they’d woken up, a broken whimper leaving her throat as she felt the tip press into her. It was embarrassing how wet she was just from this. The man had made it near impossible to not be affected by his presence and she was too tired to pretend she wasn’t.

Harry’s cock was thick and long and the perfect size to fuck her dumb. To make her mind shut up about anything other than how good it felt. After long days in the office, it’s exactly what she’s needed. It was no different now, eyes falling shut as her head rolled back, legs closifn around his hips to urge him deeper. There was no need to fake that she wasn’t greedy.

“Fuck.” Harry grunted, feeling himself bury into her. “You needed it again. My poor girl. Needed me to take care of you.” He pressed his mouth against hers again before slowly moving, grinding inside of her as her fingers tugged the hair at the nape of his neck. It was a tight, wet paradise being locked inside of her. Shallow thrusts, feeling her clench up around him, he slipped a hand under her head to hold the back of her neck.

“Needed me so bad that you’re taking my cock right in front of everyone. What a filthy, nasty girl you are. So desperate for my prick to be buried in that sweet little pussy all over again that… you don’t even care if you’re caught.” He was working her up. Dirty talk got to her. Stimulated her in a way that he knew she wouldn’t admit to loving when she wasn’t hanging off his cock, but when she was?

She ate it up. Every crumb.

Legs stayed tight around him as he moved slowly, so fucking deep that she could cry. This was what she needed. Harry was right. She was desperate and dirty and she didn’t care if people were even right next to them, she had wanted him to be inside of her more than anything. This was her escape.

“No, my dirty girl just wants to soak me again. You want people to see how wet you get around me? How filthy and sticky you leave my cock every time I pull out? It goes right down to my thighs, you know.” His velvety voice was wrapped around her head. “You’re not happy unless m’balls deep inside of you. Greedy thing.” He crooned, feeling a bit more of her slick coating his cock. Fuck, he was obsessed. “ But this is a newer development. You’ve always like the idea of someone seeing but… they definitely can right now.”

It got to him, too. His dick was swallowed in her sweet relief, but he knew he wouldn’t last too long. Despite the slow thrusts, they were deep and a bit rough, moving her slightly when he bottomed out. Each thrust was rewarded with a squeak, a moan, a whimper. He was addicted to hear what noise he got next.

“They can see it, baby. If they turn their heads, if they look over, they can see you being fucked. Clinging to me, keeping me close. There’s no way they will be able to mistake it.” Despite the fact he eas covering her and his shorts weren’t fully down, the movements made it obvious. Harry’s always been into adventurous sex, always been into exhibitionism, but it was different here. It sent a heady zing right to his cock. Being a show off, an attention whore, he was in his prime.

“Harry…” she whispered, head tilting back as he bit down on the lobe of her ear. “I can’t. M’gonna cum if you t-talk like that.” She was going to regardless. The sweet press into her spot, his spot really, was perfect. There had been worry that maybe he wouldn’t be able to get her off at the beginning of when they met- no man had properly done it before- but he had exceeded all expectations. He was hers. She was keeping this man as long as she possibly could. He was perfection. Indulging in her like this was just one of the many reasons.

“You’d cum if I was silent. Your cunt loves my cock. Doesn’t she? Loves to be fucked in any way. On your knees, your stomach, riding me… but especially when people can see it.” He licked over her neck, the filth of it making her nails dig into the back of his neck. The stab of pain made him moan, moving a bit harder. It wasn’t fast, wasn’t hurried in the slightest. It was lazy and hot and so goddamn good.

“Yes. I love it. I-I want them to see.” She admitted in a slightly slurred voice, the pleasure already building up with his thrusts. Like sparks over her body. “Want them to watch. I’m gonna-“ she couldn’t finish the word, one of the thrusts stealing her breath.

“I know you want that, my filthy slut. Such a little whore for me.” He laughed, breathy and hot as he covered her lips back with his own. He was about to cum. He could feel her begin to quiver around him. “Going to soak my cock and let them see? So fucking dirty. Letting me fuck you out on this deck, not a care about anything other than getting filled. S’gonna make me cum too.” He looked at her with hazy eyes. The sweat on her forehead, the stickiness of their skin under the hot Italian sun.

All of this was erotic.

“Let go for me, angel.” He decided to pull out the language he knew she loved, nestled against her lips. “Voglio sentirti Bella ragazza. sempre così perfetto. Lascia che mi prenda cura di te, sempre.”

Y/N couldn’t stop it. The rasp of his voice, the Italian falling off his tongue, she came with an intensity she didn’t expect. Mouth falling open as he stole her breath, she finally expelled a moan as she came all over him. Slicked up, creamy and hot, she pulled him in and tried to push him away as the orgasm was worked through.

Harry wasn’t far behind, gritting his teeth as he cursed. His balls tight, he released the heavy load into her cunt, stuttered movement of his hips making him grunt with each finishing stroke. He painted her walls white, pushing it in deep as he groaned against her mouth. Breathing each other in, the movement stopped.

Y/N was full in every sense of the word, legs loosening but staying wrapped around him as her body loosened all its limbs. It was exactly the thing she had needed.

“You okay?” He asked softly, nudging his nose back against hers before pressing chaste kisses to the corners of her lips and the heated cheeks. “Did so good. Fucking perfect, as usual.” His praises made her lips quirk in a smile, returning a chaste peck before falling back to her blissed out features.

“Mhm. Perfect, actually.” Her response was a giggle, the relaxation back on her face. “But I’d like you to stay inside me for a bit.”

Harry rose a brow, trying to keep his softening erection at bay. “Will you behave? I need the nap now.” He needed a bit of time before going again- though keeping himself warm on her cock was a very nice addition to the day.

“Probably not. But I’ll let you sleep for a bit on my chest before I bother you for some more.” She replied, carding her fingers through his slightly sweat damp hair. His forehead fell against her shoulder, shaking in a laugh as he kissed the skin.

“Anything for you.”

[celestemagnoliathewriter]

Sirius Black Appreciation Post

Time to celebrate Sirius Black's birthday by highlighting my favorite canon facts 🥳

Sirius is tall. We're talking at least 6'.

He's intelligent AF. He became an Animagus at 15. He charmed a Muggle motorbike to fly (Arthur couldn't do that with a car, Sirius did it in his late teens, latest at age 20). He escaped from Azkaban. He got a cat to order a racing broom. My man is brilliant, no doubt about it.

Sirius has a complicated relationship with his mother and it is *not* merely hatred. Note that he did not destroy his mother's portrait, or slash it as he did with the Fat Lady's. I'm confident that he could've figured out a way to destroy it or otherwise get rid of it, but he doesn't. His refuge is in his mother's old room with Buckbeak. There's something very complicated in his relationship with his family that can't be labeled as simple loathing. Sirius may have run away from home at 15/16, but his background 100% shaped him and left its mark on his personality and psyche.

Sirius was good friends with Lily. The letter from Lily to Sirius is great proof of that - it wasn't James who wrote that letter, but LILY. Sirius was smiling and genuinely happy at Jily's wedding.

Sirius is emotionally driven, and lashes out *with good reason.* When he goes after Wormtail the night the Potters died, it's because Harry is taken away from him. He has nothing to hold him down - and even gives his motorbike to Hagrid. When he tries to get to Wormtail in PoA, he slashes the portrait but doesn't harm a single boy in his search for the rat. When he goes to the Department of Mysteries, his focus is on Harry. These are good reasons, even if it puts him in danger.

Sirius has a great sense of humor. He puts little Santa hats on the decapitated elf heads. He chases pigeons as Padfoot just to make Harry smile. He sends a good luck note with a muddy paw print. He is scathingly funny, when he derides Peter's hero worship of James in Snape's Worst Memory. He's bitter and sarcastic. We love to see it.

Sirius is a baby boomer. He was born in 1959. "Ok, boomer," is an applicable retort.

Sirius is not misogynistic. He does not hate women. He is often kinder to women than men. He helps Ginny up in OoTP. No matter how angry he gets at Molly, he is never, ever physical with her (unlike the way Sirius is with snape, who he does get physically aggressive with). He is kind to Hermione. He had a great relationship with Lily. Even in the end, his last words to Bellatrix are 'you can do better than that.'

Sirius does not have a canonical love interest.

Sirius is willing to challenge Dumbledore. This is an important point - with so many people deferring to Dumbledore's judgment, including Remus, the Weasleys, and Harry - Sirius will challenge him and his decisions. He may not get his way, but Sirius has the personal strength and confidence to challenge one of the greatest wizards of all time.

Sirius was great with animals. Crookshanks and Buckbeak are prime examples of this.

Sirius is deeply flawed: he can get very intense. He can be rash, even if he has good reasons. He can be bitter to the point of hurting others ('the risk would've made it fun for James'). He can be cruel and condescending (my robes have enough filth without you touching them/wormail will piss himself with excitement). He can be callous (wishing it was the full moon, sending Snape on a potentially deadly adventure). He's a hurricane of deep, complex emotions.

Canon Sirius would obliterate fanon Sirius.

Happy birthday, Sirius. You would've loved James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. You'd have had the time of your life at Hinny's wedding. You are an absolute king.

[signanothername]

i'm so glad you made killer smart, as not a lot of people do that. also, i totally agree with you on the fact that nightmare is smart, but not smarter than killer.

I personally think nightmare only cared to study very specific subjects like history, theater, and especially botany and dendrology (the study of trees and plants)

also he isolated himself from all social interaction for 500 years, so he wouldn't even know how to carry on a proper conversation, and might defer to things he read in his books.

Thank youuuu <333

No like i shall forever die on the hill that Killer is the smartest in the entire gang even dhdhdhhd

Like all of them are smart to me in different ways but how the fandom makes Killer out to be a stupid bitch (and even sometimes make him act like a child) makes me wanna punch the wall

That’s why I take it upon myself to portray him as the clever bitch he truly is just like in canon <333333

And omg I absolutely love your Nightmare hc!! I absolutely especially adore the fact he’d be interested in studying botany and dendrology!! Like I always loved to think Nightmare has an emotional attachment to trees but I never really thought about him studying it as a field!! That’s honestly so fucking cool hell yaaaa!!!

To me I like to think he studies almost everything, he just loves to learn new things, as long as he gets to read a new book he’s up for it, that’s where I think Nightmare’s smarts lie, in his ability to store so much information in his head, and a vast knowledge of a variety of things and how to apply them in his daily routine that’s applicable to himself

But yeah socially?? No luck at all wheeze, like to be able to be strategically and socially intelligent you need to actually interact with the outside world, which Nightmare never does in his entire damn existence

Like to me Nightmare can be good at planning missions and whatnot IN THEORY, but I wholeheartedly believe he never does it alone without Killer in the picture, cause listen he might not be socially intelligent but he’d definitely realize how smart Killer is in such things, and Killer would be able to tell whether such plans can even be applied in the actual field and be put into practice/action, plus Killer would definitely know how to give ideas that can give them the element of surprise, Killer’s always been pretty unpredictable and I think that unpredictably has definitely taught him a few tricks, and like can we talk about his meta knowledge?????? *flashbacks to that one Core Frisk comic where Killer basically says some insane shit that’s literally impossible to know that even Nightmare questions it*

And no like “defer to things he read in his books” is so real shhzhxhhz, that’s how I think Nightmare lives on a daily basis, he just tries to apply his theoretical knowledge to the real world, but the thing is, no matter how much knowledge you hold, you won’t be truly good at something until you put it into actual practice, and that practice needs to be constant, Nightmare never carries any convos or even gets social with anyone, there’s no way he actually genuinely understands how to communicate with people xhxhhdh

Like any social intelligence Nightmare has to me is more associated with his fear of the world around him, his fear of becoming helpless/ defenseless again, so he might look out for anything that might pose a threat to him, but even then he’s still bad at understanding how to apply such knowledge in the real world

Anyway, Killer is just way smarter than Nightmare and the fandom needs to start acknowledging it 😔✌️✌️

[light-yaers]

Take Care: Chapter One

Fic Masterpost | AO3 | Chapter List

Warnings: swearing, eventual smut, emotional themes. 

Word Count: 13k+

Chapter One

“Thank you so much for accepting me,” you said, stepping into Shannon Hart’s office, Head of Applications at Richmond university. “I’ve been so looking forward to finally getting into publishing and writing.”

Shannon gestured for you to sit opposite her. You dropped yourself down into the swivel chair facing her desk, as she cleared her throat and adjusted her sleeves. You stared at her thoughtfully, taking in the slight twitch of her brow and the vein popping out on her forehead.

“Are you okay, Shannon?” You frowned.

She intertwined her fingers and placed them on the desktop before her. “We’ve asked you here today to let you know, with great regret, that your placement at Pluto Press has been… mixed up.”

“Mixed up?”

“Royally.” Shannon stared you down.

“Royally how?” You leaned forward, all decorum going out the window immediately.

“Our paperwork was sorted wrong. It’s an internal admin error, one that’s– frankly– deeply embarrassing–”

“Just tell me what the deal is, okay, Shannon?” you said, trying not to yell at her to just say it.

Shannon cleared her throat again. “You weren’t the name that we sent to the Pluto Press administration. Which means… well, it means–”

You smacked your hand upon her desk, making her flinch. “I mean this in the nicest way, but for the love of God, spit it out.”

“Your placement at Pluto Press was filled by someone else.”

You squinted at her. “Someone else?”

“Yes.”

“But, I can still get a spot, right?” you asked.

“Regrettably not.”

“Not?”

Shannon nodded. “Not.”

You toyed between the urge to scream at the ceiling, or round-house kick the woman sat in front of you. Both seemed appealing, both seemed necessary, but instead you did nothing. You sat like a rock before her, ignoring the upbeat dump-dump of your heart beneath your ribcage. You weren’t an angry person, no, but this was the closest you’d been to booking into a rage room.

“So… you’re saying, I won’t be an intern at Pluto Press starting next week?” you said, trying to comprehend it fully yourself.

“Correct.” Shannon stayed frozen.

“So…” You leant forward, fully, leaning down on your arms and looking Shannon directly in the face. She gulped anxiously, with nerves, and for good reason. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now, Shannon?”

“Ah, well.” Shannon squeaked out. Sweat dotted her brow and as quickly leaned back in her chair. “This is what I wanted to discuss. Your options.”

“My options,” you repeated.

“Of which there are a few. One, you could defer the year and be ensured a space on this masters next year, with your original placement at Pluto Press–”

“Fuck no,” you said immediately. “Listen, Shannon. I’ve put off this masters for four fucking years. I’m not waiting another year. I mean, I’ve already moved to Richmond. I’ve taken out my student loans. So, abso-fucking-lutely not.”

Shannon’s eyebrow twitched intensely. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” she whispered. “So, your second option.”

“How many options are there?”

“...Two.”

“So, this is my final option?”

“If you don’t wish to drop out completely, yes.” Shannon was a stone-cold fox, you could tell. As much as her eyebrow twitched and her brow glistened, she was certainly blunt and to the point. It was something you could admire, despite the want to storm out of her office.

“So, my final option is?”

Shannon leaned forward again, strongly. “There is one other placement available for this course. They’re new, and we were originally going to try them out with a student who wished to be a sports journalist, but…”

“But?”

“He changed his mind about the course and went into the fried chicken industry, instead.” You squinted at her quizzically. Shannon’s face stayed as still as a gargoyle. “It’s a social placement. You do Instagram uploads, copywriting, player profiles and articles, things like that.”

“Player profiles? For what?”

“Football.”

“Football?”

“AFC Richmond, to be exact.”

The day had gone from bad to worse within a matter of seconds. Not only had you been wrongfully pushed out of your publishing placement, but now your only option was to work for a fucking football team. Football had been something that went over your head from the start. If it wasn’t the fact that boys from the school football team, when you were twelve, laughed at you incessantly, then it was the visuals of grown men clutching their knees and whining on a pitch that made you hate it completely. Football was not your thing. Football wouldn’t allow you to publish your first novel.

You widened your eyes. “A fucking football team?”

Shannon winced, and it was like a layer shed off her in an instant. “Can I be utterly transparent with you?”

“Please.”

“I know it’s shit,” she said bluntly. You let out a huff in agreement. “But, you still have the opportunity to network. Big name footballers have connections, as does Rebecca Welton, the club owner. You’ll still have all the access to publishing opportunities that you’d get through Pluto Press, just… in a slightly unorthodox way. Your coursework will be slightly changed, and the term structures will be different to match up with the league, but.” Shannon shrugged. “This is still something worth doing. You can write on the side, too. And who doesn’t want to be around some attractive footballers?”

“Me,” you said plainly.

“Scratch that last part, then,” Shannon replied. For the first time since entering her office, she attempted to smile at you. It was almost frightening to look at.

So, it was fuck all. You had no choice. You’d moved into your flat two days before, a tube ride away from Pluto Press, and coincidentally a walk away from the Dogtrack. There was no way you were backing out now, not when you’d been deferring your application for years. This was a time where you had inspiration, motivation, and wanted to succeed. You had to strike while the iron was hot, even if that meant dealing with footballers, of all fucking people.

As much as you’d batted away Shannon’s comment about them, you had already heard of a few players that Richmond. Jamie Tartt was well-known, and you’d be lying if you hadn’t thought he was fit when you’d seen him on his girlfriends’ socials a while back. They were a different breed, though, so entirely excluded from the world that you existed in; far away from the stoicism of footballers and their swinging dicks that fell into one too many vaginas. You didn’t want to be another working woman in the background, especially in an industry that you knew fuck all about. But– this was the best option. It still got you the same opportunities, still gave you the time to write and work on your own novel.

You inhaled sharply and sighed deeply. Shannon stayed put, eyeing you up as she pursed her lips.

“Fine,” you said. “I’ll do it.”

You had less than a week to prepare. Not in terms of your masters or education, but mentally. You were thrusting yourself into the proverbial belly of the beast, a football club full of men who, most likely, smelled really fucking bad. You made a list in your head– Febreeze was right at the top. It wasn’t just about the uncertainty and horror of it all, it was also something that transcended that. What if they didn’t like you? What if this entire experiment went drastically wrong? You knew fuck all about football, and would be surrounded by those whose literal entire lives revolved around the sport.

You felt like an imposter more than anything. More than the rage of the fuck up. More than the fear of things going wrong with your degree. You were an imposter, entering into a world that wasn’t your own, being handed opportunities that others would die for.

That’s all that went through your head as you stood outside AFC Richmond, just off Nelson Road. It looked like a typical football ground from the outside– a green and vibrant field directly to the right, where someone on an industrial mower was cutting the grass. The car park was full of expensive vehicles; Lambos, Jags, Martins. As you focused your breathing, a hulking pitch black Jeep came careening around the corner. You flinched as the driver parked it in one of the top spots, next to a bright green monstrosity, so low to the ground that your knees felt weak just looking at it.

The driver side door of the Jeep burst open, and a man, dressed exactly like his fucking car, jumped out. His jeans were black, his t-shirt black, his leather jacket– black. Atop his head sat a close cut mop of black hair, and his beard was trimmed to absolute perfection, almost to the point of robotism. It was, you guessed it, black.

You stared at him with a mixture of confusion and utter amazement. Was this the Grim Reaper, come to take you away for your sins and tell you your life was all but over? He looked back at you with an indifferent sort of stare, one that penetrated deep into your chest and made you want to violently throw up, or run away immediately.

As he approached the double doored entrance, his back to you, he stopped suddenly. He turned around slowly and laid his dark eyes upon you. “You a fan?” he asked.

“What?” you stuttered out, taken aback by the deepness of his voice. There was a scratch to it, one that resembled a growl. Was this man actually real? He came across as some kind of mythical creature that represented a bad omen, or someone gruff enough to mend the goalposts with his bare hands.

“Meet and greets only happen after games,” he continued. Your face soured with amusement.

“I’m not here for a bloody meet and greet,” you let out. “Do I look like a football fan?” you added quickly, suddenly afraid that you looked like the kind of person to wait outside football stadiums, just to see players.

He shrugged. “I don’t fucking know.”

You took a step forward. “I’m here to see Rebecca Welton, actually. I just…” You glanced around the car park, trying to find the right words to say that you’d been afraid to go inside. “I just didn’t know whether to wait outside or not.”

He followed your eye movements, looking around at the cars alongside you. “Well, she doesn’t seem to have an office in the car park, does she,” he stated. You let out a small huff, embarrassed.

“No, I guess not.” You looked into his eyes, tracing the outline of his stoic face. He was sort of… soft around the edges. If that was even possible. “Do you know where her office is?”

“Do I look like a fucking tour guide?” he said bluntly, and you flinched backwards. Your expression dropped, replaced with something other than the tinge of softness you had before. This guy was an arsehole. An utter arsehole, wearing leather and too tight jeans. When it rained, you bet droplets trickled off him in grey washes, picking up the black dye off his stupid fucking clothes.

“Well,” you said, regarding him. “No, not a tour guide. Maybe the caretaker?”

He raised his brows. “The fucking caretaker?”

“Yeah.” You squinted at him. “I can picture you mowing some grass, fixing some posts, DIY and all that.”

He shuffled on his spot. “Who the fuck are you?”

You crossed your arms. “Someone who’s trying to find Rebecca Welton’s office. And you are?”

“Not the fucking caretaker,” he said, before he turned on his heels and headed to the door.

“Hey, wait!” you yelled. “Hold on!” You rushed towards the door, flashing him a vaguely apologetic stare, but you didn’t dare say one outloud. He didn’t deserve one.

He peered down at you, letting out a literal growl. You backed up slightly, looking at him in absolute awe. “Did you just growl at me?”

“I growl at everyone,” he said.

“Has anyone ever told you that’s a bit weird?”

“All the time. I don’t fucking care,” he said bluntly.

You shrugged. “Fair enough.”

A moment of awkwardly comfortable silence followed. He continued to peer down at you, flicking his eyes across your own, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate you. It didn’t work, not after you’d got under his skin by mistaking him for the caretaker. You raised your brows at him silently, pleading with him to just fucking tell you where to go. You understood that they probably didn’t have many mid-twenties girls around the club, but the least he could do was help, just this once.

He rolled his eyes quickly. “All the way down the corridor, up the stairs. Her office is right there.”

He pulled open the door, reluctantly standing to the side for you to go first. You smiled. “Thank you!” you exclaimed. You rushed inside, fast-walking down the corridor until you found the set of steps up to Rebecca’s office.

He stayed back, peering at you as you went on your way. Before he turned to head down the stairs, he found himself subtly smiling at the scene that played out priorly. You had guts, that’s what he gauged. You had guts and you weren’t afraid to use them.

Rebecca Welton was the most intimidating, yet beautiful, woman you’d ever laid eyes upon. As you sat opposite her in her office, cup of tea in her grasp and hand moving through the air as she talked, you couldn’t take your eyes off the alarming look on her face. She was glowing, talking smartly and confidently, while you all but cowered before her like another male suitor.

“Did you catch any of that?” she asked abruptly, bringing you back into the room. You’d heard nothing, not when you’d been looking at the almost perfect way her face moved when she spoke.

You widened your eyes. “Yes. All of it. In perfect detail.”

“Great.” She stood up quickly, downing the remaining contents of her teacup. “I’ll introduce you to the team. Come on,” she said, rounding her desk.

You scrambled up from your seat and followed her immediately. Her shoes clicked upon the floor dramatically, as you made your way down the stairs and back through the corridor you came from. She took you down another set of stairs to the lower portion of the stadium. You passed multiple offices, and a gym, before she whisked you past a few back rooms.

“Locker room here.” She pointed to her left as you passed. You stuck your head around the corner quickly, taking in a wave of red and blue. “Manager’s office,” she added from a bit further up. “Beyond that is the kit room, and physio on the right.” Rebecca stopped in the corridor suddenly, making you gasp. She let out a breath, before turning on her heels and heading back down the way you both came.

You followed her without question, clutching onto your tote bag for dear life as she whisked you through the grounds. Her legs were too long to keep up with fully, so you were forced to partially jog behind her every few seconds.

“Um, Rebecca?” you asked.

“Hmm.”

“Do I get an office space?”

She stopped again, next to the gym. “Of course,” she said, peering down at you. “It’s there.” She pointed to the right, further away from the gym. A small room is all you saw, devoid of windows, with nothing more than a desk sat in the partial darkness. “I’m sure you can make it… homely.”

“Yes,” you said, smiling up at her from fear. Now wasn’t the time to be criticising your workplace amenities. Maybe when you’d paid your dues, or done a good job, could you ask for something more.

Besides, Rebecca seemed incredibly eager to be done with this tour. She hadn’t exactly been enthralled at your arrival, nor did she seem keen to talk to you for longer than she had to. You’d heard things about her before– a cheating husband, enough money to buy a skyscraper in Dubai, probably. You did your best to keep up with her, avoiding personal questions and trying to retain everything she told you.

The two of you turned the corner, headed for a long corridor, with daylight streaming in at the end. This was obviously the tunnel where players entered onto the pitch. You’d never stepped foot in a stadium of any kind, let alone been on the under-layers like the players themselves. As the both of you made your way to the doors, you imagined what it would be like for them– anticipation, nerves. You’d be shitting yourself, probably.

“I’ll take you to the team, now,” Rebecca explained. “Do you like football?”

“No,” you said immediately. From the look on her face, she wasn’t mad. Maybe this was as good a time as any to explain that you knew fuck all about all this, and actually didn’t want it.

Rebecca peered back at you. “Not at all?”

You sighed. “I know nothing about football, if I’m being honest. I’m a writer, not a sportswoman. I don’t care for sweaty men, or their reasons for fighting one another on a field. I’ll do my job, that I can assure you Ms. Welton, but I won’t deny that I couldn’t give a shit about this game.”

Rebecca slowed her speed, letting you catch up with her. Her quizzical expression quickly turned into a triumphant smile. “Fantastic,” she said. She was being genuine, and you had no idea why. “Well, come on!” she exclaimed, as the two of you burst through the double doors and onto the pitch.

The players bundled up and down the pitch with speed, kicking about a ball as they were split into two teams. You watched them for a few moments, following their movements as they scrambled up and down, kicking the ball between them, until someone finally went for a shot– he got it, but no one seemed happy about it. That was number nine, Jamie Tartt.

“I was wide open!” number twenty-four exclaimed.

“Well, so was I. So, I went for it. Sue me,” Tartt replied, in his staunch Mancunian accent. He stuck out his tongue like a schoolboy as he walked away, leaving number twenty-four with a sour expression on his face. He was comforted by a few others, telling him to brush it off.

You and Rebecca approached the coaches. “Coach Lasso,” Rebecca began, prompting the men to turn around. “This here is our new placement from Richmond university. The one I told you about last week.”

A man with the largest moustache you’d ever seen regarded you. “Oh, yes! I remember now. Welcome!” he said happily, shaking your hand abruptly. You shuffled your falling tote bag back onto your arm, smiling at him awkwardly as he kept shaking your hand.

“Great to be here,” you muttered.

“Call me Ted. You and I are both newbies, you know. Same as Coach here,” Ted said, gesturing to a man beside him. He wore mirrored glasses and crossed his arms intimidatingly. He said nothing, only sent you a nod in hello. “So, what brought you to us, huh? Got a love for football? Got a burning Tobey Maguire for the beautiful game?”

Tobey Maguire?

You looked to the other coach for help. “Burning desire,” he said bluntly.

“I’m trying out my own version of Cockney rhyming slang. Tobey Maguire, desire. Sylvester Stallone, the phone. So far it’s all actors, but we’re getting somewhere.” Ted peered down at you with a cartoonish smile. He was like no one you’d ever met before, someone so overly happy that you could hardly believe it.

“You’re doing… great,” you let out, from lack of what else to say. “But, well– I don’t know a lot about football, but–”

“You and me both, sister,” Ted interrupted.

You laughed awkwardly. “But, I’m happy to be here, and excited for the next year.” A lie, but one that needed to be said. You weren’t here to fuck up this club, or get overly buddy-buddy with its players. You were going to do your job, get your degree and use it afterwards. That was the goal, but during that, you had no Tobey Maguire to upset the team or the management.

Ted and his second in command, Coach Beard, turned around to the pitch. You stood next to Rebecca, who stood next to them, looking out at the players like they were being judged for the next season of So, you think you can dance?

Ted blew on his whistle shrilly. “Gather around, boys!” he yelled. The men obeyed, halting play as they all gathered before their new coaches, with some of them looking more than exhausted.

You couldn’t imagine the physical damage all of them went through, or how fit they had to actually be. You could hardly reach a level six in your bleep test at school, let alone be able to sprint up and down a pitch for two forty-five minute halves.

“Where’s Roy?” Ted asked, prompting one player to appear through the hubbub. When you met his eye, you almost choked on air. It was the guy, the not caretaker. The one that growled at you not an hour ago. “Ah, there he is. Listen up fellas! This little lady here is the placement from Richmond college–”

“Uni!” one of the players yelled.

Ted shot him a wide-eyed look. “God, you call college something different, too? Anyway, yes. Richmond uni. She’ll be doing a few things around here for us. Not PR, but keeping up with player profiles on the website, small updates, and all that jazz about the season coming up, maybe an article or two.”

As Ted spoke, you forced yourself to look anywhere but at number six– Roy Kent. He was staring you down like you’d done something ungodly, like you’d burned down his house or kicked his dog. His stance was one that you’d never seen either, like he was constantly on high alert and ready to strike a punch if needed.

“This here is Roy Kent, the captain of the team.” Ted gestured to Roy. He growled at you. You frowned at him. “You’ll be working with Roy for the next week on player profiles–”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Roy stepped forward. I’ve told you all before, I don’t get involved in PR or website shit,” Roy spoke up. “Get one of the other lads to do it.”

“It’s just for the time being, Roy. Just until she gets acquainted with the grounds.” Ted tried. “As much as I’m happy not to have you in front of a camera– believe me, that’s up to you– as a captain, and as your coach, I’m asking you to do this for the newest member of the Richmond family. Okay?”

You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All you wanted was to start and not stop for a year, so time could go faster. All you wanted was twenty pairs of eyes to stop looking you up and down like something shiny and brand-new.

Roy’s fists balled tightly, until his knuckles went white. “Fine.”

You let out a long breath. “Great,” you muttered. Roy’s eyes found your face, and you looked at him with no effort to be nice. You and he both knew that this was going to be long and annoying. It was better to get it out in the first place than to keep it all in for a year.

After meeting the team, you headed to your shoebox of an office. You had the day to set it up and make your own, before things kicked off. Ted and Beard were still running coaching for the rest of the day, so you were effectively on the lower floor by yourself. You set up your office, popped down your laptop and made a new folder in your documents. You went through your upcoming assignments, and started planning for what you could do. Rebecca gave you the various passwords for the social accounts, which you started filing through to get a sense of what they posted.

It was all the type of shit that your mum would like on Facebook. Brilliant.

If this was what you had to do to get to where you wanted, then so be it. It would all be worth it when you had connections and a network around you. That was the goal.

You opened your ongoing novel on your computer and scanned the pages. This was the endgame; to get the baby published. It was fiction, not once mentioning any sport, but it was all you wanted. Years of delay had led you here, so you had to embrace it while you had the chance to. Downtime was something that you’d have an abundance of, which was another perk, you supposed.

By four in the afternoon, the players tickled back inside. They passed your office with subtle curiosity, peering around the corner as you sat at your desk, filing through emails and starting on a subtle plan for your first assignment, due in at the end of the week. As soon as you’d got the courage up to grab Roy for a quick chat, you could get started.

When the players began filing out of the locker room to head home, you packed up your own belongings. You passed a few of them in the corridor, smiling sweetly and saying subtle hellos as you made your way through, until you almost slammed into one of them.

“Oof!” you exclaimed before him; it was number twenty-four, the one you’d seen before on the pitch.

Gently, he held you steady by your shoulders to stop you falling. “My apologies,” he said kindly.

“Don’t worry. I’m still getting used to this place.”

“It can be a lot to begin with, but I’m sure you’ll get used to it very soon,” he reassured you. You smiled up at him, before he stuck out his hand. “I’m Sam Obisanya. It’s nice to meet you properly.”

You took his hand. “You too. I’m excited to get to know you all.”

“Well, if you want, come and join us later this week. It’s Isaac’s birthday, so we’re all going out to celebrate.”

“Oh,” you said bashfully. “I don’t know, I don’t want to intrude.”

“It’s fine, bruv,” another player turned the corner from the locker room. Isaac McAdoo. “Come along. The more the merrier, you get me.”

Player Colin Hughes appeared in the doorway after him. “Definitely. Come and join in on the fun.”

“Especially before the season starts next weekend,” Isaac added. “Gotta get our freak on while we still can.”

McAdoo and Hughes left together, and you got the sense that they were two players who had a long history of friendship. You turned back to Sam and shot him a smile. “Count me in, then,” you said.

“Brilliant. I’ll put it in our group chat,” Sam said sweetly, before he made his leave.

You turned to the locker room, pleasantly surprised at how that had all gone. If all of the guys were like that, then you’d have no issue with them whatsoever. But, then came Roy. You entered the locker room hesitantly, scooting out of the way as other players said their goodbyes for the day. To the right was the manager’s office, where Ted and Beard still sat at their desks. Directly opposite the door, however, was exactly who you wanted.

You approached Roy, as he pulled on a pair of shoes, and cleared your throat. He looked up at you slowly, resting a hand on his thigh as he lazily skittered his eyes across you.

“So, you’re definitely not the caretaker,” you said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

“The last lawn I mowed was my grandad’s when I was nine,” he replied bluntly.

“Noted. I can put that in your player profile, if you wanted.” Sarcasm fell from your mouth, but you got the sense that Roy didn’t appreciate it. He growled, going back to doing up his laces. “I just wanted to talk to you about that, actually. About what Ted said.”

“If you think I’m going to gab with you about the team for the next week then you’re a lot dumber than I gave you credit for in the car park,” he said plainly.

You waved at him in dismissal quickly. “No, no, that’s what I meant. I really don’t need you to do that,” you said transparently. Roy looked up at you with interest, waiting for you to continue. You let out a sigh. “I’m not going to pretend that all this is a dream come true for me, the same way that you won’t pretend it’s something you give a fuck about helping me with. I can go around the players on my own, don’t worry.”

Roy finished tying his laces, before he stood. He towered over you, but the intimidation he’d displayed priorly was starting to wear off. You got a sense that he was just like this, all of the time. You’d read a few articles about him earlier, about his start at Sunderland and his triumphant years at Chelsea, before he moved to AFC Richmond. Roy Kent seemed like a player entrenched with respect. He was one of the greats, that’s what every article had said. You wouldn’t admit it out loud, but you were intrigued to see it all for yourself.

“Fair enough,” he finally agreed.

You let out an innate sigh of relief. “Great. Thank you,” you said, before you turned and headed for the door. Before you left, however, you stopped abruptly. The locker room was empty now, bar the coaches in the other office. It was just the two of you, and you had a nagging feeling within your gut. “You can tell, can’t you?” you asked.

You turned back to Roy. “Tell what?” he replied.

“That I don’t want to be here.”

“You were stood outside the building this morning like you were walking to your fucking death,” he said. “Of course, I could fucking tell.”

“Just double checking,” you muttered, subtly embarrassed.

“Why are you here then? If you don’t want to be,” he asked, grabbing his bag from the bench. He stood to full height again and took a few steps toward you. It was only then that you realised he was assuming for you to both walk out the building together.

You stepped out of the locker room, falling into step next to Roy in the corridor. “The university fucked up. This was the only placement they had left,” you admitted.

“That’s fucking shit.” Roy’s candour was something you were growing to appreciate, almost. “So, you don’t like football?”

“I don’t know a single thing about it, besides it being people kicking a ball on a field.”

Roy let out a long, low whistle. “Fucking hell. No wonder you didn’t want to come inside.”

As the two of you emerged into the car park, you felt lighter than you had all day. Roy headed to his Jeep, and you stayed a few paces back. “It’s not… ideal.”

“That’s an overly nice way to put it,” he said, looking back at you. “And it’s a fucking lie. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

You shrugged. “I want to publish my book. This is a way to make it happen.”

“Fair enough,” Roy said, jumping into his Jeep. He rolled the window down and switched on the engine. “Just don’t fucking include me in it, alright?”

You scoffed. “You think I want to write about you? Don’t flatter yourself, Captain.”

Roy winced. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he muttered, before he put his car in gear and sped out of the car park. He left you without a second glance, turning onto the street and careening down the road as fast as he could, just to get away from you.

You found yourself walking home with a strange sense of peace. Yes, the situation wasn’t in your favour. Yes, you’d already fucked up and called the team captain the caretaker before you’d even stepped foot in the club, but things didn’t feel bad. The boys were nice, the coaches were welcoming, and even Rebecca Welton didn’t give a shit that you knew nothing. Things were slotting into place faster than you expected, but you were happy about it. As you made your way through Richmond, back to your flat, you realised that you didn’t feel awful. You felt almost happy, content, ready to take on the remainder of your first week and bosh out your first piece of coursework.

You spent the evening on Google, looking up the history of the Dogtrack, of AFC Richmond, of their star players. You learned that Jamie Tartt was on loan from Manchester City for a season, which made things all the more interesting when it came to his sportsmanship with the rest of the current team. You watched old game highlights, not understanding a single thing they were doing on screen. You gave up after a few hours of them kicking a ball around, too tired from the prior stress of last week to stay awake any longer.

The next morning, you got to work. You made an announcement to the locker room, while the guys pulled on their shin pads and football boots. “Over the next few days, I kindly ask that you all fill in a small worksheet for me. A bit about your backgrounds, your current positions, your birthdays, even. It’s for the updated player profiles on the website, and I’m on a deadline, so please do this as soon as you can!” you explained.

Sam was the first to hand his in, doing it almost immediately after you made your announcement. He dropped it into the small basket on your desk before he headed out to training, shooting you and a small smile as he left you at your desk. Soon after, McAdoo, Hughes, Bumbercatch and Zoreaux followed suit. You had enough information to start.

By the end of the day, you had almost half of the profiles written. You’d expected the workload to be more, or something intensely focused on football plays, but this was piss. You’d definitely be done by the Sunday deadline, just a few days away.

As the days flew by, you got better at approaching players on their own. You made yourself known and didn’t pester (unless they needed it), just reminded them of the task at hand. Isaac's birthday celebrations loomed ever closer, which meant the guys were in a boisterous and excitable mood for the final half of the week. They would play games in the locker room after training, laugh in the gym during work out hours, and pass by your office, waving at you with chuckles on their lips.

By Thursday, you’d cornered Jamie after training.

“Come on, man. It’s not hard to do. I just need it done by tomorrow, so I can write them all up for Sunday, is all,” you pleaded with him.

He took off his football shirt swiftly, making you roll your eyes. “I don’t have the time this evening. Got a prior arrangement, you get me.”

“I really don’t care about your prior arrangement, Jamie. I need this done. It’ll take you two fucking minutes, literally.”

“Sorry, love,” he said, and the patronising tone in his voice was one that you couldn’t stand. You were older than him by a few years, yet he was acting so inherently high and mighty. “I can’t change what evening I get waxed or the lady gets upset.”

“Waxed?” You grimaced.

Suddenly, a shrill high-pitched voice rounded the corner into the locker room. “Alright, boys!” it yelled, and when you turned around, you almost collapsed to the floor. Keeley fucking Jones stood in the middle of the locker room, beaming at all the boys with a genuine smile, and wearing an outfit that you’d never think would work on paper, but it absolutely worked in practice; on her.

You froze where you were, as she peered around the room and met Jamie’s face. “Ready to go, babe?” she asked, before she caught your eye. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders in greeting. “Who’s this?”

Jamie shrugged on a new shirt, packing some of his belongings. “New social person, or somethin’.”

“Social placement,” you corrected him, looking only at Keeley. “Sorry to stare, it’s just… you’re Keeley Jones, aren’t you?”

“The one and only!” she exclaimed. “You’re a newbie, are you? Welcome to Richmond.” She leant towards you warmly, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder in greeting. “Now, I’ve gotta get this one here to his waxing appointment.”

“Oh, sure,” you muttered, peering back at Jamie and trying not to imagine exactly what needed waxing. It was almost traumatising. “Before you go, take this, though,” you added, before you handed her one of your worksheets to her. “I really need him to fill this out by tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry,” Keeley said, folding it neatly and putting it in her bag. “I’ll make sure he gets it done.” She winked at you, making you blush.

The final lads trickled out of the locker rooms, while you reminded each of them to get the worksheet done. A few picked up a new copy, others nodded at you in agreement, but Roy Kent– he didn’t so much as growl as he passed you for the door.

You followed him immediately, rushing down the hallway to meet him.

“Are you giving me the silent treatment or something?” you asked. He growled in response. You scoffed. “You definitely are.”

“Excuse me if I’m not used to nagging uni students getting on my back,” he replied.

“It’s been years since I stopped being a uni student, Roy. I’m in bed by ten thirty every night, I’ll have you know.”

“A boring, nagging uni student, then.”

“Ouch,” you muttered, feeling a slight sting, but you weren’t going to let him phase you. “Have you done the worksheet yet?” you asked. He let out another growl, to which you peered up at him with a blunt expression. “Please, just get it done by tomorrow.”

“Only if you piss off and leave me alone.”

You stopped in the hallway abruptly. “Done and done,” you said from behind him. He kept walking towards the car park, looking back when he realised you weren’t doing it just for show.

You walked back down the hallway, the way you came, as you went for a different exit. Roy stopped walking without your knowledge, furrowing his brows at you as you turned a corner and disappeared. He readjusted his grip on his gym bag, sighing out of his nose.

“Fucks sake,” he whispered harshly, before he entered the car park, door slamming behind him with an echo.

You woke in the morning feeling anxious. It wasn’t just because today would be the first time you socialised with the lads outside the club, but today was the last, easy day that you had to get the remaining worksheets. Your deadline was in two days, and you wouldn’t see the players after today for the entire weekend. It was crunch time, and as much as you wanted Roy and Jamie to be easy and mouldable, you expected the absolute opposite.

Your anxiety dimmed when you arrived in the morning to a full tray of completed worksheets in your office. All but one had been filled out and left for you– and by no surprise, Roy Kent was the last.

“Fucks sake,” you muttered under your breath. You hoisted yourself from your chair and made your way out the office, headed for the locker room. There was a certain confidence in your walk, reserved only for when you were at the end of your tether.

Roy was a grown man. Was he really incapable of filling out a simple worksheet? It drove you insane that he was one of those people who intentionally didn’t do something, even when he’d been explicitly asked to multiple times. Like a child who did the opposite of what their parents said, or when your mum tells you to do something that you were planning on doing yourself, but now don’t want to because she asked you herself.

As you approached the locker room, you let out a whining “Roy!” loud enough that everyone could hear you. You turned into the room, flickering your eyes across the players.

Roy wasn’t there. “Where the fuck is he?” you asked Isaac.

Isaac shrugged. “Think he’s already out on the pitch.”

You made your way out to the pitch, filling the hallways with the same whine that you’d released previously. If this was what it resorted to, then so be it. If you had to make Roy hate you even more just to do this damn worksheet, then you’d fucking do it.

Ted turned to you as you stormed onto the pitch. “Howdy!” he exclaimed. “Jeesh, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? I did that once, too, when I first moved here and slept on the opposite side of the bed. It was crazy, like the universe was all mixed up and upside down. I almost threw up.”

“Where the hell is Roy?” you asked, ignoring him as you looked out to the pitch. The boys were milled around, waiting for the others to come out so they could start warming up properly.

“Well, he’s right–” Ted began, pointing out to the field. He shimmied his finger around, like a cat obsessed with a laser pointer, before he dropped his hand in defeat. “He was right there before.”

“He’s avoiding me,” you let out with a scoff. “This is fucking unbelievable. He’s a literal child.”

“Hey now,” Ted said. “When I see him, I’ll send him to your office, okay?”

You nodded, pissed off beyond comprehension. “Okay.”

The day went by too quickly, but you managed to get all the other profiles written. Not once did Roy come to your office, and when the guys came back in at the end of training, he was nowhere to be seen. You approached Colin, who said that he’d been right behind him, last he’d seen. That was the same as Sam, as Isaac, as the rest.

Roy Kent’s back up career should have been a magician’s glamorous fucking assistant with how much he’d been able to disappear without a fucking trace.

“That’s it. I’m going to kill him,” you said, leaned against the locker room frame as the guys got themselves ready for the evening.

Sam turned to you reassuringly. “He might come tonight, who knows?”

“I can give you his number, if you want?” Isaac suggested. “Can track him down and make him pay, and that.”

You smiled. “Please do. I don’t care if I have to call him twelve times, I’ll fucking do it.”

“Why do you need it done so badly anyway?” Jamie chimed in, shaking out his football shirt.

You copied Roy’s number into your phone from Isaac’s, sighing as you looked back to the room. The boys stared at you expectantly. “You guys know how this placement is for my masters degree, right? Which means I have certain assignments and coursework to get done. This is my first one, and I need all the players to participate, or it’ll be a big, fat fail.”

“Oh shit,” Isaac said. “So, you get graded for this?” You nodded sullenly. Isaac puffed out his chest abruptly. “Listen here, boys! Any of you see Roy, you get him to fill out this fucking sheet, kapeesh?”

You smiled, feeling bashful. “Thanks, Isaac.”

“No problem, girl. Now, turn that frown upside down. We’re getting drunk tonight!”

The locker room erupted into cheers. Jamie sprayed far too much Lynx in the air, and Colin almost cracked his head open as he jumped up and down on a bench, but even you couldn’t deny the atmosphere was electric. They were all good in their own ways, just some were a lot harder to let their walls down.

As the guys filed out of the room, you peered over at Roy’s cubby. Gently, you walked over and placed an unfilled sheet on his shelf. You stuck a small post-it to the paper– do this for me and i’ll never come to you for anything else.

You left the locker room in silence, trying not to worry too much about having incomplete work for your deadline. You had Roy’s number now, anyway, so even if it was something small over text you were certain you could get something. A crumb, maybe. You didn’t panic, not yet. Panicking would be for the Saturday scaries, and the remainder of your Sunday. Panicking wasn’t for now, as you followed the boys out to the car park and piled into the front seat of Sam’s car. A convoy of you left for Isaac’s house, before you all hit up the club later in the evening.

By the time the sun had set, your legs were jelloid from dancing, and your abs were coming in from laughing. You’d gabbed with Keeley for hours at the house, and were still gabbing now on the way to the club.

“What is it with Roy? I just don’t get it,” you asked.

“What, you mean his rugged good looks, or the fact he’s emotionally constipated to the max?” Keeley replied, and you let out a scoff.

“Definitely emotional constipation. He’s not that hot,” you let out. Keeley’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh, please. I know you don’t like him, but you have to admit that he’s gorgeous.”

“I won’t admit that, because all he’s been to me is ugly.” You stuck out your chin stubbornly.

Keeley smiled deviously. “Call him.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, shaking your head. “Hard pass.”

“Just call him. As soon as you get him on the phone, he can’t avoid you. And if he does, he’s a real arsehole. This is for your degree, for fucks sake.”

“I don’t think he knows that,” you said timidly.

“Then tell him! Yell it at him! Get him to do it.” She urged you, and you had no choice.

As the guys strolled forward towards the club, you and Keeley found yourself leant against a wall in a quiet corner. You found Roy’s number in your phone and dialled before you could chicken out. You tried not to vomit when it rang, and with each dial sound you were close to calling it a day.

After five or so rings, he actually picked up. “Who the fuck is it?” he asked, his voice gravelly over the line.

“Roy!” you and Keeley let out in sync, both equally surprised that he’d actually answered.

“Yeah. Who the hell is this?”

“Roy.” You took over, letting out a shaking breath. “It’s–”

He sighed, cutting you off. “I know who it is, now. I swear to God, if you’re asking me about that fucking sheet again, I’ll blow my top.”

All of your fear dissipated. It turned into immediate rage. “Oh, you fucking arse, Roy Kent,” you let out harshly. “I asked you to do this one thing, something that’s important, and you chose to avoid me all day instead.”

“I wasn’t avoiding you!” he yelled back. “I was busy, and I didn’t need you breathing down my fucking neck even more!”

“Oh, fuck you!” you screamed. “Just fucking get it done– please!”

“Why do you even fucking need it?” he asked, booming his voice over the line. You sucked in a deep breath, trying to control yourself.

“I need it for my d–”

“Know what, I don’t actually care,” he cut you off. “I don’t fucking get involved in club PR shit.”

“This isn’t just for the club, Roy–” you pleaded angrily, but he wouldn’t listen.

“The other guys do, but I don’t. I don’t want the fucking marketing collaborations, the articles, the profiles, whatever the fuck else your job actually is. I’m too old to fucking deal with this shit.”

“Are you fucking serious?” you exploded. “Do you hear yourself right now? You’re a professional footballer, Roy. This is part of the fucking job!”

“Good-fucking-bye,” he said.

“Hey, wa–!” you yelled, but the line went dead before you could get another word in. You called back, but the line went to voicemail immediately. You assumed he’d blocked your number. “I’m going to– I’m going to fucking–”

“Use your words, babe,” Keeley said, trying to calm you down. Soon, though, your anger turned to tears. Your eyes started watering, and you sniffed back snot. Keeley quickly wrapped her arms around you. “Hey now, hey, come on,” she crooned sweetly. “It’ll be okay.”

“My first assignment and I’ve already fucked up. It’ll be docked at 40% for being incomplete,” you explained. Keeley pulled back, looking at you softly.

“I’m sorry, babe. Can you tell them he was being an arse?”

“I don’t know. They might not believe me.”

“It’s Roy Kent. Everyone knows he’s a prick.” Keeley gently brushed a few strands of hair behind your ears. “Come on. Let’s have some fun and try to forget about this tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” You sniffed, breathing out to try and expel the anxiety from your stomach. “I need a drink,” you said.

Keeley twisted her arm in yours. The two of you walked down the street together, with Keeley cracking jokes to cheer you up. “I think you need more than one drink, to be honest,” she whittled on, and you allowed yourself to relax. Just for the evening, just for then.

When you got home, you sent Roy a drunk text. It was short and to the point, and when you woke up, you didn’t have a reply. You weren’t expecting one, not after that phone call. You read over the text, over and over, imagining what Roy must feel like.

This was for my degree, my first assignment is due on Sunday. It’ll be incomplete without you.

You didn’t even know if he’d read it, but you were past the point of trying. You’d done all you could, and still he’d denied you. This was on him, not you.

Roy spent his Friday evening in anguish. Sat at his dining table with a beer, he got out a crumpled version of your worksheet from his gym bag. He looked over the questions he’d already answered– his birthday, his prior positions through the years, but the one question that made him want to rage was still unanswered: What do you want from your career in the future?

The future for Roy was different to that of McAdoo, and Tartt, and Obisanya. Roy Kent’s future was up and coming, and he knew it wouldn’t involve running around a pitch anymore. Seeing that question hadn’t just made him upset, it had ruined his entire week. So, he’d avoided you like the plague, he’d spent every night doing the same thing; trying to fucking answer it and getting nowhere.

So, he’d decided to say fuck it, and not do it at all. After he’d hung up on you that night, his anger at you quickly turned to guilt. On Monday, he’d apologise and hand it in, just without that question answered. But for now, he wanted to sit in silence, read the latest Dan Brown novel he had, and drink beer until he fell asleep on the sofa.

Roy turned off his phone for the rest of the weekend.

You slept with yours the entire weekend, but still got no reply from Roy. You wanted to scream at him, tell him that he was an entitled arse, but you knew it’d be useless. Roy Kent obviously didn’t give a shit about you, so why would he care about your insults? You spent your Sunday compiling the profiles that you had already, putting them together to make something coherent. On the front page, you had to specify that one player had not completed the task, which would be your downfall. When you submitted your assignment, you slammed your laptop shut and immediately went to bed. You didn’t want to stay up thinking about it, or think about the email that you’d have in your inbox tomorrow, saying how it would be docked at 40% for being incomplete.

You slept like shit, but still you rose on Monday morning. The walk to Nelson Road was particularly bleak, with black clouds bustling over Richmond and rain on the forecast for the next few days. The atmosphere at the stadium was tense, too, what with the first game of the season being that weekend. The boys were all conserving their energy, all working hard. When you arrived at your office, you flicked on the light– a crumpled worksheet lay on your desk.

The name at the top– Roy Kent.

He’d done the majority, but crossed out the final question. You wondered if he’d done that as an apology, or as an attempt to piss you off further. You’d texted him about your deadline, told him that it was on Sunday. Had he not even opened your message? You picked up his sheet and read it through, trying to keep at bay the anger that you felt in your chest. Maybe he hadn’t meant it to be, but this was cruel. He’d given you enough to make a decent profile, but a day late. It came across like he was laughing in your face.

Quickly, before you lost your nerve, you picked up the worksheet and booked it to the locker room. You stormed down the corridor, turning into the room strongly. You didn’t look at anyone else, just eyes forward, and latched upon the number six at the top of Roy’s blue cubby opposite the door. The boys stopped talking, going utterly silent at your arrival.

Roy turned to you, shooting you a quizzical look. He peered down at the worksheet in your hands, then back up at your blunt and glassy-eyed expression.

“What?” he asked plainly.

You responded by thrusting the worksheet into his chest. He grabbed hold of it, not expecting an altercation this early in the morning. You stepped back, exhaling from your nose, looking at him with such disappointment, before you left them to it.

Roy looked at the worksheet in his hands, utterly confused as to why you gave it back after trying so hard to get it in the first place. He glanced around the room, taking in the pursed lip expressions of his teammates.

“What the fuck just happened?” he asked them, booming.

“Her deadline was yesterday, bruv,” Isaac said. Tension descended over the room.

“Deadline for what?” Roy asked.

“Her degree, Roy. This was her first assignment,” Sam added.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that?” Roy said, furrowing his brows.

“She tried to tell you, man,” Colin joined in. “On the phone with Keeley.”

“And in a text.” Jamie pointed to Colin, before looking at Roy. “Keeley told me that she sent you a message that evening, explaining why she needed it.”

“Got docked at 40%, innit,” Isaac added, pulling up his socks.

Roy’s eyes found a spot on the wall and zoned out in realisation. He’d turned his phone off all weekend. “Fuuuuuuuck,” he breathed out.

As much as Roy wanted to be left alone, he wasn’t cruel. If he’d known it was for your degree, he would have grown the fuck up and handed it in sooner. Now, as you sat at your desk and read over the reply from your professor, probably over and over again, he felt awful. It’d only been a week, and he knew you didn’t even want to be doing this specific placement. He felt like an arsehole, a real, fucking arsehole.

At training, he could hardly focus. The thought of you, sat at your desk, pissed off, upset, writing another Instagram caption or article that you couldn’t give a shit about, made him angry at himself. Roy had never gone to uni, or done a masters. From the age of nine, he’d been destined to be a professional footballer. He’d got lucky, alongside working hard for the entirety of his career. He knew you also worked hard, just from the fact you put yourself in a shit position to get what you wanted. That took guts, even Roy could admit that.

When he missed another assist during training, his third miss for the day, he stomped his feet on the pitch and let out a loud, “Fuck this!”

Roy pulled off his bib, throwing it at Nate, the kit man, before he stormed off the pitch. His boots clattered against the concrete floor as he skidded his way through the stadium, all the way to your office. He didn’t knock, but instead bombarded his way inside.

You let out a small gasp at his arrival, but stayed sat down, glued to your spot.

“Why didn’t you fucking tell me it was for your degree?” he boomed. “I would have fucking handed it over sooner if you had.”

“Why would that make any difference?” you said, keeping your voice steady.

“Because it’s not just for the club, it’s for something you’re working towards.”

“So, you’re saying, if it was only for the club and not myself too, you wouldn’t have done it at all?”

“Fuck no. I don’t do PR shit,” he said bluntly.

“Even if it was my job to do it? Even though it was something you had a responsibility to contribute towards?” you said, raising your brows at him. “That’s no fucking better, Roy.”

“I just–” he stuttered. “I didn’t mean to fuck this up for you, that’s what I mean.”

“It is what it is.” You shuffled some papers on your desk, rearranging your notebooks just to keep yourself busy.

“Isaac told me you’d get a bad mark,” Roy said.

“Isaac is right,” you confirmed.

“Well, now I feel like an arsehole.” Roy breathed in deeply, and exhaled sharply.

“You were an arsehole, Roy,” you said immediately, strongly. “But, it’s done now. This was the only assignment I had that included the whole team, anyway. So, from now on, I’ll be sure to stay far far away from you.”

Roy short-circuited for a moment. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, he balled his fists, he shuffled on the spot. He looked like a robot that had lemonade poured on his circuit. His jaw clenched, and you watched in awe at the sheer skill he used to tense his body in such a way.

“Roy?” you asked, concerned.

“Fucks sake!” he exploded, before he left your office immediately. You got up from your desk and zoomed to the door, watching him walk away from the field and to the locker room instead, muttering to himself all the same.

You didn’t see him for the remainder of the day. You bumped into Ted on your way out the stadium, to which he shot you a perked brow look. You let out a long sigh, followed by a slightly awkward chuckle.

“Well, what a day,” you said.

“You could say that again,” he agreed. “The first match is on the horizon, and our captain walked out mid practice session.”

You winced. “Sorry about that,” you apologised.

“Oh, please, it’s not your fault,” Ted reassured you. “Gotta say, it’s not the first time a player has abandoned us halfway through the day, but at least it was today instead of on Saturday.”

“Wait” You stopped in the corridor, right before the doors to the car park. “He didn’t come back afterwards?”

Ted squinted at you. “You didn’t know? He flew off into the wind like one of the Wicked Witch of the East’s monkey henchmen. One second he was yelling obscenities on the pitch, and the next he’d driven off in his Jeep.”

You let out a stuttered breath, trying to compute Ted’s words. Roy had vanished after storming into your office, and no one knew where the fuck he’d disappeared to. It didn’t make sense, and you didn’t think this ordeal would mean that much to him in the aftermath. You weren’t trying to beat him up after what he’d done, as much as it had hurt you and pissed you off about your mark. This was odd, though, and incredibly out of character for Richmond’s captain.

“Weird,” you let out.

“Really weird,” Ted repeated. “But, who are we to question a football star?”

You squinted at him. “Isn’t that your job?”

Ted shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

You walked home, stunned into silence, trying to figure out what was actually going through Roy’s skull. You were half-tempted to text him, but you still didn’t know if he’d blocked you or not. You almost wanted to reassure him that it was fine, even though he was the one that fucked up your assignment. It was odd how that worked, wasn’t it? How those who had been done wrong felt the need to check in after the wrongdoer realised their actions. You had no reason to tell Roy it was fine, but you still wanted to. If his outburst had told you anything, it was that he felt bad about it all. That was good, you supposed. That meant he wasn’t as emotionally constipated as you’d thought.

Roy ignored you for the next three days. It was blindingly obvious to everyone at the club, even including Rebecca, who you met with for lunch on Thursday in her office.

“I think he feels bad,” you explained.

“I suspect he does. That’s no reason to be behaving like a child.” She ate a mouthful of salad.

“I suppose not… but other than that, it’s all going very well!”

Her face soured. “Oh?”

“I’ve given the Instagram captions a revamp, and I’m in the process of updating the website, too. I had this idea to do articles about the employees and why they wanted to get involved with AFC Richmond, and their passions outside of work, too–”

“That all sounds very interesting,” Rebecca cut you off. “But, unfortunately, I have a meeting to attend.”

“Oh,” you said, as she stood up. You followed suit, picking up your salad and juggling the rest of your lunch in your arms. “Well, this was really nice!” you said, as she started herding you out of her office. “Maybe we should do this again–?”

“Maybe,” Rebecca said. “Bye bye, now!”

You stood outside her closed door. It almost touched your nose from where she’d slammed it, your arms full of your belongings. You let out a sigh, and headed back down the stairs to your office sullenly. You found that what you missed the most out of everything– not the sunlight, or the decor– was having a woman work friend. You felt almost isolated being one of the only women who worked in the building. It was lonely sometimes.

You shuffled your belongings back into your bag on the walk down. You passed the gym as you approached your office and took a peek through the window. On the treadmill, facing the corridor by your office, was Roy. He read a book as he did an incline walk, reading the words thoughtfully, before he turned the page.

Suddenly, he looked up and caught your eye. You flinched, but stayed frozen in your spot. Roy’s face flattened into an unreadable expression. You gulped away the shock, and instead raised your hand and waved at him awkwardly.

Without warning, Roy fell off the treadmill. You gasped immediately, letting out a “Roy?!” as you dropped your bag to the floor and made your way to the gym.

You careened through the door and peered at the floor. Roy was there, crumpled, book thrown under a weight bench on the other side of the gym. “Are you alright?” you asked quickly, offering him your hand.

The other boys stopped what they were doing to witness the scene. Not one of them helped Roy up themselves, but instead waited for you to rush to his aid. It was beyond odd. Roy couldn’t even meet your eye, let alone take your hand.

You frowned at him, hurt. “Roy,” you tried again. “You know you can look at me, right?”

“I’m fine,” he croaked, and forced himself to look up and meet your gaze. “Just tripped.” Knees clicking, he got himself up off the floor. That’s when he caught your eye properly, frowning sullenly. You’d never seen him don such an expression, let alone this close.

You stepped back a little, confused as hell. You looked around the room at the others, their silence descending upon the entire stadium floor, not just the gym. They were all acting strange, making you feel like you were on the outside of an inside joke that they all knew well.

You scoffed, annoyed, as you reversed towards the door. “Okay,” you let out. “You’re all acting so fucking strange this week.” You reached the door frame, and went to leave, but stopped. You looked back at them all, before your gaze landed on Roy strongly. “I don’t like it.”

You left, walked back to your office, and shut the door with a bang.

Roy turned to the guys in the gym, still catching his breath from before. The guys looked at him like he was wounded, almost, and not just from the abrupt fall. Roy breathed out deeply, taking in their pitying faces.

“Stop fucking looking at me, alright!” he burst.

“Sorry, Roy,” Isaac said first, followed by some mutters from the others.

“I’m not some fucking baby bird that’s fallen out a fucking tree, alright?”

“Then why are you acting like one?” Jamie said suddenly. He sauntered forwards, and the rest of the team held their breath. “What, am I wrong? You haven’t said two words to her in days, not since you went AWOL on us earlier this week.” There were nods of agreement, some shrugs of confusion. “Where did you even go, like? You just took off.”

The yeah’s of agreement are what made Roy lose it. Everyone wanted to know where he’d gone, why he’d left, but he hadn’t been able to get it out since he’d done it on Monday.

“I went to her fucking uni!” he bellowed over their mutterings. “I went to her uni and spoke with her fucking lecturer, and said how much of a fucking arse I was.” The room went utterly silent. Roy looked to the floor. “That’s why I haven’t said a fucking word, because I don’t know if I made it better, or if I fucked it up even more.”

Roy balled his fists. He’d been feeling ashamed since Monday, more than he’d expected to feel. Guilt was his least favourite thing to feel, even though he often faked being unbothered.

Colin took an abrupt step forward, snapping the tension. “That’s fucking badass.”

Roy sent a confused arch of his brow at the Welshman. “Really?”

“Hell yeah, that’s badass. That’s a proper grand gesture, boyo. One that shows how bad you truly feel about it all,” Colin reassured him. The lads nodded in approval, sealing the deal that Roy had done the right thing. “She doesn’t know?”

Roy shook his head. “She hasn’t said anything. I don’t know if anything’s come of it.”

“Tell her tomorrow,” Sam spoke up. “Tell her tomorrow and I assure you, she will be okay about it all. I do not get the sense that she holds a grudge, you know? She is a kind person.” More hums of agreement filtered around the room. “Also, you cannot do it today. Not after that display on the treadmill,” Sam added, wincing.

“True,” Roy agreed reluctantly.

Isaac approached his captain then, placing a huge but reassuring hand on his shoulder. “She’ll forgive you, bruv. I’m sure of it.”

Roy nodded. “Thanks, Isaac.”

You locked yourself in your office for the remainder of the day. It was too odd out there, both on Roy’s and the guys’ part. You had no idea what had them acting so off-puttingly, but you wanted no fucking part of it. You dived into work, completing a plan for a new article on the website, before writing your novel for the rest of the day. Shannon Hart had been right– you had so much spare time to write that you already felt like an author already. You were on the clock while tapping away, getting paid for writing your book already, it seemed.

Near the end of the day, an email was pinged into your inbox from your lecturer. You had the jitters every time you received an email from him now, after reading what he had to say about your incomplete first assignment. You’d come to accept the 40% outcome over the past few days, but it still stung. You didn’t want to be considered a failure in your course, especially when you’d only just started.

You opened it up nervously, skimming the contents quickly until you realised it was nothing bad– in fact, it was something very good. “Shut the fuck up…” you let out, trailing off as you read it properly.

An impromptu visitor graced the halls of the Richmond university faculty building on Monday in the form of Mr. Roy Kent, number six and Captain at AFC Richmond. He had a lot to say about you, and about your recent assignment, most notably that he’d ‘massively fucked up’ and was a ‘gigantic arsehole’.

He explained everything about why you submitted your work incomplete, and assured us you were not to blame. I’ve taken this into consideration, and have remarked your work today on my own time. When before you were capped at 40/100, I have remarked your work at 87/100; a grade A1.

Congratulations. You must be doing something right for those footballers.

“Shut the fuck up!” you screeched, jumping up from your desk at lightspeed.

You could hardly believe it. This was what Roy had done on Monday, after he’d left training for the day? He’d gone and knocked on the door of your fucking lecturer, not leaving until they understood that he’d messed up the assignment for you. This was immense, and not at all what you’d been expecting. That explained Roy’s aversion to you over the past few days, and the abrupt fall in the gym today.

You let out a shocked cackle. It reverberated around the walls of your square office, bouncing back into your ears and only making you laugh more. This was hilarious– a footballer such as Roy Kent taking it upon himself to do something so rash was incredibly comical. But, it also warmed your heart. He’d felt so bad that he’d taken matters into his own hands.

This was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever done for you, if you thought about it too hard. This was a grand gesture, a proper apology, if you’d ever seen one. It made you smile like the fucking sun in the sky.

Roy left the stadium after everyone else, taking extra care after his fall in the gym. He’d scraped his knee up pretty bad, and even gone to the resident first aider for a knee brace to make sure he was fine before the first match of the season that Saturday. He made his way out, entering into the car park. He was expecting his lone Jeep to be there, but was surprised to find you leaning against the hood. Your arms were crossed, bag on your shoulder, as you looked out at the setting sun over the green grass of the Dogtrack. He slowed to a stroll, tightening his grip on the straps of his gym bag. You turned your gaze and met his eye, shooting him a knowing look.

“Working overtime?” you asked. It was a redundant question. You had a look in your eye that Roy could sense from a mile off– you knew.

“Just making up for lost time at the start of the week,” he replied, coming to stand opposite you.

You stood up straight, and peered up at him. “Ah, yes. I heard you disappeared on Monday.”

“Did you now?” he said. “Who said that?”

You shrugged, stalling to get the point. You were enjoying the silent amusement between you. Both of you knew what was up, but you had to admit you liked the subtle tension. “Just Ted.”

“Oh,” Roy said, his tone the slightest bit sunken.

“And my lecturer, actually,” you said finally. “He emailed me an hour ago to tell me that you popped in for a visit the other day.”

“Really?” Roy faked confusion.

“Mhm.” You tried not to laugh. “He remarked my assignment. I got an A.”

Just like that, all the stress and tension in Roy’s chest dissipated. It flew into the sky and was caught by the breeze instantly. You smiled at him knowingly, regarding him thoughtfully. He shuffled on his spot awkwardly, looking out towards the setting sun on the horizon, over the pitch.

“That’s great,” he let out genuinely.

You stepped forward. “You didn’t have to do that, Roy.”

He snapped his stare on you. “Yes, I fucking did. I was an arsehole.”

You shrugged, scuffing the ground with your shoe. “You were an arsehole, yeah. But arsehole’s don’t go to my fucking uni and ask my lecturer to remark an assignment.” You scoffed.

“It was the least I could do,” he said, and there was a softness in his tone that you didn’t think he’d been capable of. Roy Kent left you with more question marks the more you spoke to him, but you liked a mystery.

“Well, thank you,” you said, peering up at him sweetly. There was a section of yourself that was different, softer, sweeter, reserved only for those rare moments where people fully exposed themselves to you. Their true intention, their true selves. This was one of those moments. “Really. Thank you, Roy.”

He nodded at you, not knowing what to add. The sun cast an orange glow over the car park, reflecting off his Jeep vibrantly. It looked like the car itself was bright orange, so different from the black paint that stuck out like a sore thumb, usually. His car was so big and bulking, the same as the man that stood before you. But you knew that wasn’t all he was, not after what he’d done for you.

“Heading home?” he asked, changing the subject.

You nodded. “I’m exhausted.”

He scoffed. “You and me both.”

“How are you feeling about Saturday? The Arsenal game?”

Roy shook his head. “Let’s not even go there today,” he said, and you immediately backed off. You knew it was a lot of the team, having both a new management team, in the form of Ted and Beard, on top of someone new skulking around the building– you.

“It’ll be the first football game I’ve ever gone to, you know?” you added.  

Roy perked his brow at you. “You really know fuck all about football, don’t you?”

You scoffed abruptly. “Fuck all indeed.”

The smallest smile graced Roy’s face, and you found yourself savouring it. You didn’t want to jinx it, but after almost two weeks of headbutting, you wanted to believe it was over. Perhaps, you and Roy would coexist happily now. Without the meanness, or the miscommunication, or all of the inbetween. In terms of the team, you’d done well with the crew and the boys, bar Roy and Rebecca, but things were looking up.

You felt content again, like you could actually do this after all.

“Need a ride?” Roy asked suddenly.

“Oh,” you let out, looking back at his Jeep. The orange was fading from its reflection. “Sure, I could use a lift.”

“Hop in,” Roy said, as he made his way around to the driver’s side.

He shoved his bag into the backseat, as you opened the passenger side door and jumped in. You slammed it behind you, getting comfortable, as Roy jumped into the driver’s seat next to you. There was a comfortable silence that settled over the car, as the two of you buckled yourselves in. Roy turned on the engine, and the radio turned on harshly, blasting you with an 80s song far too loudly.

You both flinched back, wincing, and Roy clicked a button quickly, turning off the sound. “Fucking hell,” he said. “I think Heart are trying to deafen us.”

You let out a chuckle. “I’ll listen to 80s music over the charts any day.”

Roy perked his brows at you, putting the car in reverse. “Good on you.” He reversed out of the car park and turned onto the main road.

You didn’t talk much, just small talk here and there. It felt oddly intimate being driven home by Roy Kent, but you tried not to let it rattle you. Acquaintanceships always started off patchy, with neither wanting to step over a line, until something resembling friendship ended up shining through. You told yourself that, maybe, a few months down the line, it would be normal for you to catch a lift home with Roy in the week.

You directed him to your street, pointing at your door with a smile. Roy pulled up to the curb, cutting off his engine as you unbuckled your seatbelt. You weren’t expecting him to fully kill the engine, but you didn’t pay it any mind. You jumped out of the car onto the road and rushed onto the pavement, peering up into his, now open, window.

“Thanks for the ride,” you said with a smile.

“It’s fine. I live just around the corner, actually.”

“Don’t tell me you live in one of those big fuck off houses down the street,” you said, pointing down the end of your road. To the left beyond was an array of giant houses, all with blossom trees outside and large gates guarding them. They were gorgeous, huge and expensive.

Roy squinted at you. “I’m a professional footballer. Of course, I fucking do.”

You huffed in amusement. You were about to say I can’t wait to see it in person one day, but stopped yourself short. Was that a weird thing to say, even to a colleague? You bit on your tongue instead and stepped back towards the steps that lead to your door. There was something unsaid in the air, mostly from Roy. You got the sense he wanted to say something more, as his fingers tapped anxiously on the steering wheel.

Instead, you sighed. “See you tomorrow,” you settled on.

Roy inhaled deeply, and raised his hand in goodbye. “See you.”

His window ascended and he started the engine again. He sped off down the road, before he took an abrupt left at the end and disappeared from view. You let yourself into your building and stepped into the hallway. You sighed once more, contentedly, before you closed the door on another interesting day at AFC Richmond.

CHAPTER TWO

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Okay, since nobody asked and to celebrate them having a DUO: Egg raising exercise, but with Deuce and Sebek

[Referencing this post, this post, and this post!]

Again, going to keep this brief (a little longer than usual in honor of Deuce’s birthday though)! Else, I could ramble on forever and at that point it basically becomes a formal headcanon request 😂

“Looking forward to working with you, Sebek!” Deuce tries to put his best foot forward and offers a handshake.

Sebek loudly and stubbornly declares that he REFUSES to rear a child with a human. (… He quickly does a 180 once that egg is in his hands, declaring that it shall be named “Malleus the Second” in dedication to his liege. Sebek demands that Deuce show it “proper deference”.)

Deuce tells Sebek about this cool new fun fact he picked up (all the way back in book 1, lol): “Eggs you buy from the store are unfertilized! They won’t hatch!” He speaks of it like he just discovered the meaning of life. “It blew my mind when I learned that.”

Deuce has to repeat a mantra in his head to remind himself to NOT eat their egg child. It looks so much like the other eggs, how is he supposed to remember not to crack it open and scramble some for breakfast?

Together, they’re a pair of overly enthusiastic but bumbling caretakers. Deuce tries his best but screws up in the practical applications (“Er… Does an egg need a diaper…?”) whereas Sebek is more technically proficient—he has picked up homemaking skills in his efforts to please his young master—yet lacking in social awareness.

Sebek is too loud his voice or too harsh with his motions, while Deuce tries to moderate himself and act in a way that befits an honor student. In that sense, they sort of make up for one another’s deficits.

They’ll both kick your ass if you lay a finger on their kid 💀 Watch out, delinquent mode Deuce and an angry Sebek are a force to be reckoned with…

[douglysium]

In Defense of Smirke's 14

This is an exerbt from a larger article discussing episode 13 of TMAGP. So if you want to understand the full context you can do so here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_bKOpD_Ffic1yTDNEJGb2UlN2oUnSQn5lLKKnDCtMU/edit#heading=h.uwedvf2nuk5c

Why Smirke’s 14?

I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.

A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.

The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.

It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”

The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.

While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.

Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.

For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.

Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”

However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.

However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”

At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.

So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).

Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”

We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).

So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.

This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.

There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.

Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who's to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.

However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.

That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).

There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.

Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.

As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”

[mageknight14]

One of the coolest things about Neku and Sho’s respective dynamics with Rindo in NEO TWEWY is how they twist around expectations with Sho, one of the main antagonists from the previous game, being the one who gives genuinely helpful advice towards Rindo while Neku, the enlightened protag, gives him the wrong kind of advice.

While is it true that Sho is mainly using Rindo and the Twisters in order to further his own goals/agenda, every single piece of advice/information he gives them ends up being helpful in some way and stays relevant up to the end

-Don’t just overly rely on me, actually reach out and recruit others (Nagi and Shoka, who end up being incredibly important and useful)

-Synchronize all your powers/talents together in order to achieve a greater goal (Nagi’s Dives, Operation Awakening in its entirety)

-Get the jump on the other teams and take them out before they become a problem later on (W1D5 with Rindo using his time travel powers to reroute the DRS, W2D6 where he uses his time travel again to find out more about Motoi and discover the truth about him, etc)

And last, but certainly not least, warning Rindo about the dangers involved in using his powers and giving him exactly the information he needed to relay back to Kaie and Rhyme in order to save Shibuya.

On top of that, there’s a distinctive pattern where everytime Rindo/the team shows signs of trying to overly rely on Sho, he immediately threatens to leave and pushes them to achieve more for themselves via sink-or-swim. He’s the face of the game’s Hard mode for a reason.

By contrast, when Neku shows up to join the party on W3D4, he starts to unintentionally take Rindo’s place as the leader, with the Reports themselves noting how Rindo is starting to stagnate with his growth once again when he has someone to overly rely on.

This continues on up to W3D6, where Rindo actually goes against Neku’s order to not time travel in order to not fall for Susukichi’s trap.

I think what’s most impressive about this is how it’s all in character for them. While Sho has been noted above, what Neku’s advice towards Rindo is a logical extension of the lessons Hanekoma passed onto him.

Mr. H’s words is generally great life advice that still applies to the themes of both games but Neku’s specific application of it boils down to telling Rindo that no matter what happens, he needs to just let the chips fall where they may. To make the most out of a bad situation.

And while that works great for someone like Neku, his application of Mr. H's advice is exactly the sort of excuse to defer to authority that Rindo has been blindly grasping for over and over the entire game, which is shown prominently in his convo with Haz.

That he should just move on and try to accept the outcome but Rindo actively rejects that to take the ultimately harder but better road for everyone involved. To take responsibility for his actions and fight hard for what he wants instead of just letting things just pass over.

Rindo is a deliberate inversion of Neku as a protagonist. What works for the latter isn’t going to work for the former and vice-versa. And that’s perfectly okay. There’s a reason why Rindo’s theme, the World is Yours, has this as an opening line.

[thenukacolachallenge]

In defense of the One Piece Live Action Adaptation’s stylistic choices: A Cosmetologist’s Perspective

Hello! My name is Dia, and I’ve been a licensed cosmetologist since 2015(almost a decade now!). For those unaware of what exactly that entails, cosmetology is traditionally defined as ‘the professional skill or practice of beautifying the face, hair, and skin’. For me specifically, I have worked in the fields of hairstyling/haircutting/hair coloring, skincare, nail care, and makeup application(both traditional makeup and FX makeup) in my eight years of being licensed to work in these industries.

The reason I’m making this post today is to talk about the Netflix adaptation of the hit manga/anime One Piece, and specifically to address a lot of complaints I’ve seen about the wardrobe, makeup, and hair choices of the main cast thus far. I’ve seen quite a bit in the way of complaints, and a lot of it seems to be, to put it as politely as I can, not based in reality of how makeup, hair, and acting in general works, and I’d like to address some of it to possibly explain why certain choices were made, to maybe help people come to a better understanding of the why and how of these sorts of decisions.

I’d like to also, before I dive in, note that I am not in any way, shape, or form affiliated with this production! These are merely my personal thoughts and speculation as someone with some experience in this field. None of this is set in stone unless I provide evidence from the cast and crew to back my claims up. As well, I’d like to point out that I have next to no experience working on film sets(I have worked on VERY small productions in the past, for things that go up on sites like Youtube and not Netflix lmao), but I am married to a person who has a degree in film and has worked on live production sets before, and I did defer to them for a lot of the knowledge that I lack with live action production specifically.

I’d also like to point out that while I’m not mad at anyone who has the critiques I cover in this post, I may come across as a bit exasperated. I promise this isn’t me being angry at anyone, but more of just.... I’ve seen the same critiques over and over again, and to me, a lot of the choices seem fairly obvious as to why they were made, and some of the critiques come across as extremely silly to me. This is of course due to my own background related to these sorts of things. I promise I mean no offense or disrespect to anyone saying these things! I just want to make this to be able to help others understand why production may have made the choices they did.

Now, under the cut, I’ll be discussing some common complaints I’ve heard with regards to this production, and provide some potential explanation as to why these changes were made. On to the post! It is quite hefty, so please bear with me.

~

First and foremost, the most common complaint I’ve seen thus far is some variation of the phrase “I’ve seen cosplayers that look more accurate to the characters than this show does,” and I’d like to address this one first, as I think it’s the one that probably frustrates me the most. It specifically frustrates me because comparing cosplayers to actors feels like an apples to oranges situation. The two groups are designed to do entirely different things! Cosplayers do typically look more like the characters they portray than a live action actor will, and that’s a very common occurrence, but there’s a reason for that: the two groups are not doing the same thing. 

Both cosplayers and actors put a huge amount of time and effort into their work, and I love cosplay personally. However, cosplayers are typically in their outfits for 8-10 hour days at most for a weekend, doing things like photoshoots where they have to pose, walking around conventions, and maybe filming a small amount of video(Not to say that this takes no effort! Please do not take this as such, I have helped friends with cosplays and I fully understand and appreciate the level of dedication and hard work that goes into it!). Actors, on the other hand, are in hair and makeup on set for 10-12 hours a day(if not longer) for weeks to months on end, and have to be fully in character while filming, as well as(specifically for a show like One Piece) doing things like stunt work, being submerged in water, and being on boats with lots of wind and ocean spray. There are certain things you simply cannot do, hair/makeup/costume-wise as an actor that you can as a cosplayer, so I really don’t think this comparison in specific is being very fair to the actors and the crew who are in charge of makeup, hair, and wardrobe in this case.

I’ll be getting into a lot more specifics below, but I will be deferring to my main point here very often, which is this: The safety and comfort of the actors is far more important than 1-to-1 accuracy in the way cosplayers can do, especially for minor changes in appearance.

Now that I’ve addressed that specifically, I’d like to move onto some common complaints I’ve heard for each specific main cast member, and my opinion on these complaints, as well as listing potential reasons as to why these things may have been changed!

~

We’ll start with everyone’s favorite funky little pirate king, Monkey D. Luffy:

For Luffy, the number one complaint I’ve seen is the live action’s choice in shoes. in the manga/anime, Luffy wears and fights in flip-flops, but this was changed in the live action. This was changed for a very simple reason, and Emily Rudd, the actor that portrays Nami, actually addressed this on Instagram while being asked by a fan:

Simply put, trying to do the kind of stunt work that Luffy has to do is not safe in a shoe like a flip flop. This is something that falls very completely under my original point of the comfort and safety of the actors being more important than 100% accuracy. It would be entirely too easy for Iñaki or someone he’s in a scene with to get hurt if he weren’t wearing the proper footwear. Fairly simple explanation there!

This is really the only gripe with Luffy costume-wise I could find, to be honest! I have seen a few people saying that he doesn’t have his signature undereye scar, but he does, although it’s not as visible as it is in the original work:

They kept him fairly true to the spirit of his original character, and although I don’t know why they chose to give him this specific potato shoe footwear, it is what they went with, and the main takeaway is that it was for safety reasons.

~

Onto our favorite wayward booze-loving swordsman, Roronoa Zoro:

Similarly to Luffy, I’ve only seen one main complaint regarding Zoro, and it involves his use of swords. In the anime/manga, Zoro has pioneered a specific fighting style called “Santoryu”, known in English as “Three Sword Style”: one sword in each hand, and a third in his mouth.

I’ve seen several people wondering where his third sword(the one that goes in the mouth) is from the trailers, and I was initially wondering this as well, since in most of his action scenes that have been revealed so far, he seems to only be holding either one sword or two. However, there was a brief clip(I’m talking, like, maybe one second) of him utilizing his three-swords style in the teaser trailer released in mid-June:

Now, as to potential reasons as to why this seems to be the only clip of him thus far using all three of his swords:

1. Again, this could be for the safety of the cast. Obviously being a cartoon character, Zoro wouldn’t have to worry about potential damage to his jaws and teeth, but Mackenyu, Zoro’s actor, is a real person who does have to worry about such things, especially as an actor who relies on(among other things) his facial expressions to earn a living. Carrying something like a sword, even a prop sword, in your mouth for long periods of time cannot be good for the health of your jaw and teeth, and I could understand if they chose not to film him with a sword in his mouth very often for this reason alone. 2. It could also be he uses all three swords less often so he can still deliver lines while fighting. In an SBS(”Shitsumon o Boshū Suru”, when translated means “I’m Taking Questions”, essentially an AMA for mangaka to answer questions their readers may have), Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, once answered a question about how Zoro was able to talk with a sword in his mouth with quite a funny answer:

Sadly, in real life, Mackenyu cannot speak through his heart as Zoro does, so it’s possible that some of the scenes have been changed for ease of dialogue. 3. It’s also entirely possible that he uses his three-sword style as often as he does in the anime and manga, and the small amount of what we’ve seen in the trailers isn’t necessarily the full picture. I imagine this is something we’ll have to wait for the full series to drop to find out definitively one way or another!

~

Now, onto our lovely citrus-fruit-loving navigator, Nami!

I have seen two main complaints with Nami’s looks, and I’ll start with her hair, as it’s the more common one I’ve been seeing. I have seen a large number of people saying that her hair looks like(and I am slightly paraphrasing here) “a bad cosplay wig”, and honestly? I think this is just not true, and either comes from unrealistic expectations or just plain being mean-spirited.

First and foremost, this is very obviously human hair:

Now, I don’t know what kind of bad cosplays y’all have been seeing, but the ones I’ve seen start with synthetic hair wigs, not human hair ones(This is not to say synthetic wigs are inherently bad for cosplay! Simply that they are much harder to work with, though they are cheaper than human hair wigs). As well, I know for a fact Emily Rudd got her hair done similarly to this, to the point where I wasn’t actually sure that this WAS a wig at first(this picture comes directly from her Instagram account):

This is very obviously almost the exact same haircut as the wig chosen for Nami, save with more layers, and even the color choices are similar. To say that this wig looks like a “bad cosplay” is honestly just flat-out wrong in my professional opinion, and moreover, it’s quite rude. In addition, to me at least, it really looks like the wig was styled to resemble anime-esque hair, which is actually quite common among cosplayers. If anything, I have the same complaint on Nami’s wig that I also have with Sanji’s(which I’ll definitely be touching on later): it’s not thick enough. Both Nami and Sanji’s wigs just seem like they could use more hair attached to the cap in general, but especially for Nami’s, I really don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying.

I think this “bad cosplay wig” complaint specifically is mainly coming from people who only see the tail end of cosplay productions, which tends to be photos that are often times edited to look a certain way, which can often include doctoring the hair. There’s nothing wrong with a cosplayer editing their photos, for the record, but it can absolutely give unrealistic expectations to those who aren’t familiar with this practice, and I personally think this may be where these comments are coming from. Obviously you cannot photoshop every frame of a live action production, at least not without a lot of time and effort on the behalf of the post-production team, and I highly doubt Netflix would have greenlit something like that for such a small detail. It’s simply not realistic.

As well, I do find it quite interesting that I have seen far less complaints about the wigs of characters such as Zoro or Sanji(played by Taz Skylar(as stated previously, I have seen complaints about Sanji’s wig and I will be speaking on that later)) than I have about Nami’s. I’m not saying it’s outwardly misogynistic, but it does make one consider such things.

The only other complaint I’ve seen directed towards Nami’s live action look(and truth be told, I’ve seen this one far less than the comments on the hair) is the discrepancy between Emily Rudd’s eye color and Nami’s. As you can see from the above photos, Emily Rudd does not have brown eyes, which are the color of Nami’s eyes:

Now, I didn’t actually see this complaint until after the first full trailer dropped on July 21st. Specifically, I saw someone saying that it seemed strange that Steven John Ward, who portrays Dracule Mihawk in the series, is wearing colored contacts to better resemble his character, while Emily is not.

Now, there could be a lot of potential reasons for this, including that Emily may simply be not wearing colored contacts because they irritate her eyes(going back to my original point of the comfort and safety of the cast). But more importantly, I think, is that Mihawk’s unique eyes are directly related to his character, specifically through his epithet: Hawkeye. This is a seemingly important enough part of his character, to the point where it’s directly mentioned in his title. Nami has no such distinctions with her eye color, so I really don’t think it’s as important, and at the end of the day, it takes nothing away from her character to have a different eye color. So, while I don’t know the particular reason she doesn’t have brown contacts, I also don’t think it’s nearly as important for that detail to be as canonically correct as it is for Mihawk. To me, this particular comparison is another apples to oranges situation.

~

Onto our beloved liar, God Usopp himself:

Of course, the number one talking point I’ve seen about the live action Usopp is that Jacob Romero Gibson, Usopp’s actor, is missing his trademark long nose.

As One Piece fans know, one of Usopp’s characteristic traits is his tendency to lie. His name, Usopp, comes from a portmanteau of the Japanese word “uso”, which means lie, and Aesop, the famous Greek storyteller and the namesake for Aesop’s Fables. Because of his propensity towards tall tales, Usopp’s anime and manga character designs also added a reference to another character who’s known for lying, Pinocchio, whose nose grows when he lies. Thus, Usopp in his cartoon form has a long nose!

Considering how many gags in the story involve Usopp’s nose, a lot of fans were surprised to see that aspect of him not carried over into the live action. After the drop of the official trailer, seeing that the character Arlong had his signature sawshark-esque long nose in prosthetic form, there was even more confusion about this choice.

(As an aside, Arlong’s costuming choices will not be discussed in this post, as it’s long enough with just the main cast, but believe me, I do have Opinions on it lmao)

Now, as to why the show chose to not give Jacob a prosthetic long nose to better match Usopp’s appearance, I don’t know the specifics. I can only speculate, and really, the only things I could feasibly come up with are the following:

1. It’s entirely possible that for whatever reason, Jacob is unable to wear a prosthetic nose. This could be due to several things, including allergies to either the prosthetic material itself or the adhesive used to attach it, or the makeup required to blend the prosthetic into his skin. If this is the case, then it of course goes back to my main point here that the comfort of the cast takes precedence over accuracy to the source material. 2. The only other explanation that really makes sense to me is that they did in fact attempt the nose in costume fitting, and either the absurdity of it was just either too distracting to audiences/the crew/Netflix execs/possibly even Oda himself, or it could have potentially been a problem during stunt work. Usopp primarily fights with a slingshot, and I have no experience with slingshots so this is just me taking a stab in the dark, but it’s possible that the extra length on the nose could have possibly messed with the actor’s depth perception while attempting to act out Usopp’s fight scenes.

Overall, I genuinely don’t know why they decided to axe Usopp’s long nose. But at the end of the day, I know that for me specifically, this is a minor detail, and not something I see as a genuine problem, nor will it ruin the immersion for me. That being said, I can definitely understand the criticisms here. I’m hoping that a lot of these changes will eventually be answered, perhaps in some behind-the-scenes footage that comes out after the show’s release.

The only other comment on Usopp’s costuming that I’ve seen is much more easily explainable, and I also haven’t seen nearly as much in the way of commenting on it: Usopp’s hair is not in dreads in the anime and manga, and instead is kept natural, especially before the timeskip.

As we can see in the above picture, Usopp seems to keep his hair fairly natural, whereas Jacob, Usopp’s actor, sports dreads in his portrayal of Usopp, as seen in the above photo.

Luckily, I haven’t seen very many comments on this, and I think that’s a good thing, since the explanation seems fairly simple to me. Usopp in canon is based off of (mostly unused in this day and age, for good reason: a lot of the design is highly based off racist blackface caricatures) old-school anime portrayals of Black/African people. As well, in an SBS, a fan asked where the Straw Hats would be based out of if One Piece was set in the real world:

As stated above, Usopp would come from Africa! As well, if I recall correctly, Oda had a hand in casting the live action adaptation, which all points to the undeniable proof that Usopp is and has always been intended to read as Black/African in some form.

The reason I bring this all up specifically, is because of the way African hair grows. Obviously not all Black/African people are a monolith, and even among curly haired people there are different curl tightness and growth patterns, but for a large portion of people of African descent, their hair would not grow similarly to the way Usopp’s is portrayed in his cartoon form. His hair is indeed curly, but it grows down, similar to most wavy or straight hair types. This is especially evident in his post-timeskip hair growth:

Usopp’s hair, which was once above his shoulders before the two year time skip, now extends down past his shoulders. This is not necessarily inaccurate to Black/African hair types, as, since stated previously, different curl patterns and tightness exist, and even with super tight curl patterns, if grown out long enough, the hair will eventually grow down, due to the weight of the hair strands. But for a lot of Black/African hair types, the natural hair tends to grow outwards, instead of downwards(or at the very least it grows outwards before it begins to grow downwards). This type of hair is typically referred to as afro-textured hair, and is the namesake for the afro, a hairstyle wherein someone with afro-textured hair combs out their natural hair growth in the shape it naturally grows.

Now, I’m not familiar with Jacob Romero Gibson’s work prior to One Piece, and I have never seen his hair without his dreads, therefore I can’t say with 100% certainty how his hair grows naturally. However, he does have an Instagram account, and on this account he has photos of himself. I looked through his account, and although he doesn’t seem to have any photos of himself without his dreads(indeed, they seem to be his signature hairstyle) as an adult, he does have a few photos of himself from his childhood. I don’t personally feel comfortable linking his baby photos to this post, so I’m not going to do so here. However, they are visible there, and from what I can see from those photos, he does indeed have afro-textured hair. This may not be 100% accurate to how his hair grows now as an adult, as lots of things can change hair growth types and curl patterns, including things such as hormones, medications, stress levels etc. In my professional opinion, I feel fairly confident in saying that Jacob most likely has afto-textured hair, and therefore his natural hair likely wouldn’t fully grow in the exact same way that Usopp’s does. 

Overall, I only bring all of this up to say that if Jacob did have his hair in a natural, non-protective style in his portrayal of Usopp, I feel that the same people who are complaining about the dreads now would likely complain that his natural hair doesn’t match Usopp’s exactly. Either way, Usopp’s hair is not a huge characteristic that defines who he is as a character(especially not in the way that his nose is), and therefore I don’t think that him having dreads in the live action takes away from the character in any way.

~

Finally, we’ll discuss the Straw Hat crew’s first-rate cook who attacks through kicks, Black Leg Sanji:

Sanji has the unfortunate position of being the character who’s had the most changes to his design from his cartoon to the live action, and there’s a lot of criticism that’s been lobbed his way. Some of it I think is fair, but there’s also quite a bit that I think is honestly quite silly. So without further ado, I’ll go through the four main critiques I’ve seen, and my opinions of each.

Let’s start with the one I’ve heard the most often, and the one that’s easily my least favorite to hear about at this point: the missing eyebrow swirl. Maybe it’s just because Sanji is personally my favorite on the crew and I’m just paying the most attention to him, but my god, the way some people are going on about the eyebrow, you’d think the showrunners made the decision to axe his signature curly eyebrow specifically to spite the Sanji fangirls. I think a lot of the complaining about the lack of eyebrow swirl would simply be changed to complaining about how bad the eyebrow swirl would look if they’d tried to keep it, and I’ll explain why below.

Like many of the costuming changes made to the live action adaptation, I don’t know the exact reasoning as to why they decided to get rid of the eyebrow swirl. As someone who has worked as a makeup artist, however, I do have a theory as to why they got rid of it, and my theory is fairly simple: it is just not really very possible to create a realistic-looking eyebrow swirl that reads well on a film camera.

Yes, the makeup team could have very easily drawn on a swirl with a brow pencil or some pomade and called it a day. However, it would have been fairly obvious that it was in fact drawn on, especially on a film shoot. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the missing swirl point to both cosplayers and stage actors as “proof” that it could be done, but again, this is an apples to oranges situation. Stage makeup(like that used for stage actors), photoshoot makeup(like what cosplayers would employ), and live action film makeup are three entirely different types of makeup application, and while they each have their own merits, that doesn’t inherently mean they translate into other mediums, and this is something that you have to learn fairly early on as a makeup artist if you want to continue getting work. If you are doing makeup professionally, you have to keep a lot of things in mind, one of the biggest things being how your work will read on camera, specifically the camera your canvas will be in front of. You have to keep in mind things like flash photography, shine versus matte, whether or not post-production editing will be involved, and the like. A fairly popular example of this is makeup influencer James Charles’ old meet-and-greet photo, which has become a meme since surfacing. Charles was used to only doing makeup and being photographed a certain way, leading to him using a setting powder that didn’t lend well to flash photography, and made him look like he was wearing makeup that was far too pale for his skin tone, when in reality it was just a makeup product that didn’t work for the kind of camera it was in front of:

Another example is basically the entire Cosmo Queens video series done for Cosmopolitan magazine’s youtube page, and I’ll use Kandy Muse’s video as a specific example, since she uses her natural brows in addition to her makeup. This series focused on the makeup of drag queens, and it’s very obvious when watching these videos that there’s a huge discrepancy between makeup meant for the stage and makeup meant for other avenues. Drag queens typically are live performers, and there is a common saying among drag artists, which is to “paint(apply makeup) for the back of the house(so that even those in the back row can see your makeup)”. On stage, Kandy Muse’s makeup is quite stunning, but it’s very clear that it’s not fully meant for the editorial style that Cosmo uses during these videos:

Even from a distance, you can very clearly see where Kandy’s real eyebrows sit versus her makeup. And while this is obviously an extreme example, it’s even more obvious when zoomed in, which film cameras have to do often in order to capture the expressions of their actors:

In a similar vein, film cameras, which are typically designed to catch a lot of definition and lend better to a more realistic look, likely would not be very kind to a drawn on part of an eyebrow. Without any hair growing there naturally to make the eyebrow makeup look more realistic, it would be very obvious that it was makeup, and would likely be more distracting to audiences(especially first-timers to the series; it’s important to keep in mind that Netflix would want to cater to those people as well as long-time One Piece fans) than omitting it entirely would. In addition, we have to take into account the actor, Taz Skylar, and his natural hair growth and the direction of his brows.

As is visible from the photo, Taz Skylar’s natural brow grows downwards at the end, whereas Sanji the fictional character’s brow grows upwards into his swirl at the end. In order to match the character 1-to-1 and change his own natural features, Taz would have to either shave/pluck/wax the entire outer half of his brow(which for an actor would be extremely inconvenient for other projects and would be an absolute pain to grow back out), or he would have to sit longer in the makeup chair to have his brow covered by FX makeup, which takes extra time and effort and could throw off the timing of the entire shoot. In addition, neither of these potential fixes would necessarily make the obviously-drawn-on swirl look good and read well on film. Add on the facts that Taz’s character is fully submerged in water in at least one scene, if not more, and has several fight scenes, and it’s not even a guarantee that the makeup swirl would even last throughout the shoot.

I’ve also seen people say that they could have added the swirl in post, but I think that’s it’s very unrealistic for Netflix to greenlight that for a minor detail such as a singular visible eyebrow.

While I am very sad that they weren’t able to translate Sanji’s signature brow to the live action adaptation, I think a lot of the complaints regarding him not having it and insistence that the production should have included it are entirely overblown, and are mainly being made by people who don’t have a lot of knowledge of what goes into film makeup versus other types of makeup. And while Sanji’s brows are fairly important to his character, this fact doesn’t actually come into the story until far after the timeskip, and we don’t even know if the live action will get another season outside of this one. I really hope this can help explain why they may have made the decision to nix the brow swirl for people who are still concerned about it, since from what I’ve seen, it seems to be the number one point of contention when it comes to live-action Sanji.

Next, I’d like to speak a bit about Sanji’s hair. Now, I have some complaints of my own about the wig used on Taz, but most of the criticism I’ve seen regarding the wig actually revolves around why it doesn’t cover his eye completely, as Sanji’s hair does. This is something that seems fairly obvious to me: Taz has to do a lot of stunt work, and he needs to be able to see! This is a potential safety issue more than anything else, and therefore goes back to my main original point. As well, there’s no real way to make the hair not move without completely overloading it with product, which, again, would be very obvious on a film camera, and likely wouldn’t read nearly as well as people think.

As for me, my personal critiques around the wig are just how sparse it is. Sanji has a lot more hair than is in the wig, and I really think a wig that had a little more hair attached to the base would have looked better. As well, I don’t know if the styling of the wig works for me personally.

I was actually really hoping that the live action adaptation would take cues on Sanji’s hair from the character who Sanji was modeled after. A lot of people still to this day think that Sanji’s appearance is based off Leonardo DiCaprio, specifically his role as Jack Dawson from the hit movie Titanic or his role as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, but Oda has actually explained in an SBS that this isn’t the case:

Sanji’s looks and his “vibes” are based off of Steve Buscemi’s character Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, and personally I would have loved to see his live-action hair more closely resemble that, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Another critique of live action Sanji is that he hasn’t been depicted with his trademark cigarette, and I kind of knew that this would happen from the moment I found out about the live action adaptation. This is not the fault of Tomorrow Studios(the production company), or even Netflix at large, but instead this is largely based off backlash from anti-smoking lobbies. 

(As a former smoker myself, I have a lot of opinions on the ridiculousness of anti-smoking groups going after smoking in fictional scenarios like films and shows, but that’s a gripe for a whole other post lol) 

Netflix notably caught a lot of flack for the depiction of commonplace cigarette smoking in other series, such as Stranger Things, even though the series takes place in the 1980′s, where smoking was incredibly commonplace. The major backlash even got to the point where you can actively see the drop in depictions of smoking between each season. I am hoping they at least give Taz one scene with Sanji’s iconic cigarette, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. I doubt Netflix wants to deal with that backlash again.

Finally, the last big complaint with Sanji’s wardrobe I’ve seen is his signature suit, specifically regarding the fitting of it. Sanji’s suits in the anime/manga tend to be fairly fitted in nature, while the live action once Taz wears, while still having a slightly tapered fit, is a bit baggier than what Sanji typically wears.

This is a fairly straightforward change, in my opinion: if the suit was as form-fitting as Sanji’s are, Taz(and his potential stunt double(I don’t know if he did all of his own stunt work or not)) simply would not be able to move the way Sanji does! This is an issue of cartoon versus reality: Oda is able to depict his characters doing whatever they want in whatever clothing they want. However, real life is sadly not as accommodating, and because of that, Taz’s suit has to be a bit less form-fitting so he can still do all of Sanji’s signature footwork. Going back to my original point, the sacrifice of the fitted suit had to be made so the production could actually work.

~

I tried to touch on all the biggest differences I’ve seen people talk about, and I hope this was helpful to anyone who may have been curious as to why some of these changes were made. Please let me know if I missed anything big or if you have any additional questions/need me to explain anything further, I love what I do and I love being able to have insight like this. Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, and please reblog if you found this post helpful or informative <3

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I had previously been under the impression that AZA accredited zoos and aquariums in the USA are more likely to take good care of animals than those that lack this accreditation. Is this incorrect?

It's... really complicated. The short answer is: maybe? Which doesn't help at all, I'm sure. I'm working on a huge project to try to quantify a bunch of accreditation stuff, so I don't want to say anything concrete from preliminary data, y'know?

Accreditation at a facility tells you, basically, what standards they are supposed to meet and what political group / industry club they're part of. But there's a lot of issues with all of the five zoological accrediting / certifying bodies where oversight during the accreditation cycles doesn't really exist in a functional way? Either reporting systems are in place that highly disincentivize reporting (because they aren't anonymous and could be tracked back to a staffer) or just don't have formal protocols for it all.

So being AZA accredited tells you the type of expectations they're trying to live up to, and what standards they met at the time they were inspected. I have some concerns about whether the standards for certain aspects of accreditation (like aesthetic stuff, not animal care) are really sustainable for duration given how you're constantly hearing about how zoos scramble to get all the little deferred things fixed prior to the next inspection. But, that's not necessarily an issue with the zoos, and more the program - and that's something that AFAIK happens with every accrediting group, not just AZA.

There's also an aspect of how the requirements of each accrediting program kind of... self select for the type of zoos they want? AZA's application and annual fees are incredibly high, which isn't necessarily a good use of money for many smaller facilities; they also require compliance with a lot of things not related to animal care and welfare, like internal staffing structure and facility aesthetics. Again, something that either smaller facilities just can't afford - do you spend money on the animals or on paving all your pathways? - or aren't interested in getting involved with because of how intrusive it is. So most of the AZA zoos you see are the bigger, well-funded ones with city-type aesthetics, because that's what who the program is set up to encourage to apply. (There are definitely exceptions to this, but find me a big city zoo that isn't AZA or in the process of becoming AZA).

To try to answer your questions, AZA zoos are more likely to be high quality because in order to be accredited, they have to have a certain amount of cash flow. Having more funding / income tends to make regular operating issues easier to solve. AZA zoos are certainly more heavily scrutinized every five years by their accrediting body than a group like ZAA, which is mostly focused on animal care / education / conservation and isn't going to meddle in a zoo's business operations. But AZA zoos aren't perfect. Most of them don't even meet all of the AZA standards completely at the time of inspection: there was an article a couple years back about how rare it was that Cheyenne Mountain Zoo met all of the AZA standards at the time of inspection - only the 4th zoo to do so in AZA's 50-something year history. (How that works is that zoos that don't meet all the standards but are close get provisionally accredited, and then have to fix or improve some stuff within the first year to keep it). And believe me, AZA zoos can and do have problems too - look at the embezzlement conducted by the previous leadership at Columbus, or the sexual assault and conduct issues with the Director at Henry Vilas. They're just less often covered in ways that are visible to the public.

Accreditation is a good indicator what a zoo intends to be, and what animal care / conservation ethos it participates in. It isn't, however, always a guarantee that the facility is good or that the animal care (or staff welfare!) is better than at an unaccredited or alternately-accredited place.

[champion-prism]

you say I killed you (haunt me, then)

Living, breathing, feeling, and yet an extension of another. When did you realise they all thought of you as Satoru’s possession?

And when did you realise you thought of yourself as a part of Satoru?

Brought into the Gojo clan as a young child, you realize you cannot think of a time before the young heir declares you to be his.

Chapter 1 of 4

Gojo Satoru is only four years old when he comes to understand that his father is a coward. 

Quiet, self-possessed, and acutely aware of the tensions in the room, Satoru sits with his legs folded underneath him, hands placed palms down on his knees. His chin is tilted downwards. He would be the model of a respectful child, if his uncommonly bright blue eyes were focused on his lap rather than the adults in the room. As it was, his defiance shines through his glare. 

His father is too busy cowering to notice, but Satoru knows his father lacks the ability to punish him, anyway. That exclusive right seems to belong to his uncle, the solemn and stately figure that his father is currently prostrating himself to. 

Gojo Satoru is four years old when he comes to understand that he dislikes his grandfather, the uptight, power-hungry head of the Gojo clan. 

“It must come to pass, ultimately,” his grandfather says. “The child has to manifest Limitless. The world anticipates it, but to have it come to pass will make them bow before us.”

 “Perhaps we should have this conversation later,” says his uncle.

Satoru lifts his chin, then, turning his head to fix his uncle with a straight stare. The implication is clear; his uncle doesn’t want him in the room.

“I want to hear,” he says, and his will be done, for whatever Satoru wants, he needs only speak it into existence. 

“There is not much to hear but that you are strong, Satoru,” his grandfather murmurs in a way that exposes him for a moment. His father makes no comment, head still bowed. 

Satoru’s father is afraid of his older brother, and afraid of his own father. He is afraid of the smallest possibility of Satoru not manifesting Limitless, and having nothing but raw cursed energy and the Six Eyes. Satoru privately thinks his father is being an idiot. His cursed technique will come. His grandfather and uncle discuss it regularly, and Satoru is unscrupulous enough to eavesdrop. No, the elders’ concern is inciting the cursed technique to show itself as soon as possible. To assert their trump card, to have the promise of his immense power fulfilled as soon as possible. 

For what, he doesn’t know. What he does know is that his uncle makes the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

His father is a coward. Of all the people in the room, Satoru can literally see that he has the least amount of cursed energy- as opposed to the massive reserves of cursed energy that Satoru himself possesses. His father does not have enough cursed energy to power even the most neutral, simple application of Limitless that his clan members can channel. To make up for it, Satoru’s father cleans his own father and brother’s boots with his tongue. 

His nose wrinkles in disdain as he listens to his father mumble about deferring to the better judgement of all the clan elders. His uncle sighs in exasperation. Of everyone in the room. Satoru dislikes his uncle the least. Momentarily, they are united in derision, before his uncle breaks eye contact to address the others. 

Satoru listens to them discuss ways of accelerating the manifestation of his technique, and the best ways to showcase his power to other clans. He listens to his grandfather congratulate his father on having redeemed his own uselessness by bringing such a powerful child into the world, something he has heard too many times to count.

Counting reminds him of his lessons, and the thought of his lessons irritates him. Not that he dislikes counting. Numbers are his favourite part of lessons- no, Satoru is only strongly disgusted by his tutor’s insistence that he focus more on learning his letters. 

Why should Satoru have to learn to read when he could easily have someone read to him? He sees no point of it. For someone as powerful as him, spending time learning to read seems like a waste of precious time. 

“Again, this is not a conversation we should be having in front of the child,” his uncle says in a whispered hiss. Satoru regrets being distracted from listening to them, but then again, it’s not like they often say anything truly worth listening to. 

“Satoru, you are dismissed,” his grandfather says.

“Go play, Satoru,” his father immediately nods along. 

Satoru fights to urge to stick his tongue out at the old man. He doesn’t care enough, though, so he stands and exits the room soundlessly. 

As he shuts the sliding door behind him, he can hear his father still agreeing with everything that his grandfather says.

Pathetic man. 

But the morning is bright and sunny, and the big house has a pretty back garden that he can dig for bugs in, so he forgoes his bad mood in favour of ruining his pretty blue yukata in the mud. His nurse, Aoki, always dresses him well for any visits to his grandfather’s house, and is more often than not completely dismayed by the state of his clothes when he returns. 

He grins as he digs through the mud with his pale little hands.. There are enough maids here for him to torment by bringing in fat, juicy beetles and shoving them at the women as they scream. Satoru enjoys that very much. Most of all, he likes to chase them with bugs in his hands. Aoki has largely gotten over her disgust for bugs, but the big house is populous enough for him to find fresh victims. 

He watches the ebb and flow of cursed energy as he plays in the dirt with his four metaphysical eyes, his two physical ones trained on his task in the mud. It seems as if the elders are all starting to disagree. Of all the cursed energy signatures, his uncle’s flares the easiest, impatient with his father. 

Something has happened. He sits up straight, blinking as the sun hits his eyes. The Six Eyes follow the flared trail of his uncle’s cursed energy leaving the room where his father and grandfather are. He seems to be rushing to leave the house, but abruptly changes his mind, heading instead towards the back garden where Satoru plays. Satoru’s back is turned towards the patio, but that doesn’t matter. His spatial awareness is the best in the entire world, of course.

“What is it, Ojisan?” he asks, not bothering to turn. His uncle’s shadow looms over him as the man approaches, then takes a seat in the dirt beside his nephew. 

He is formally dressed, as Satoru is. His much larger hands mimic Satoru’s, digging in the dirt. 

“Satoru-kun,” he says, “do you like your training?”

“Mostly,” Satoru replies. “I don’t like learning letters.”

He gets a chuckle for a response. 

“You are still a child,” his uncle says, more to himself than to Satoru. “You are strong, you are, but your childhood is your own to have. Do not let your father or grandfather take that from you.”

Gojo Satoru is four years old when he decides he likes his uncle best of everyone in his clan. Not that this decision has anything to do with what his uncle says to him, which to a four year old sounds like the typically meaningless ramblings of an adult. Satoru likes his uncle for not being above digging in the dirt, and not arguing with him about the virtues of learning letters. 

Beside him, his uncle sighs. 

“Sometimes, I think it would have been kinder for you to have been born a little less powerful.”

“That’s silly,” Satoru retorts. “I would hate to be weak. I hate the weak.”

“That is not very fair, child,” his uncle replies. “Not all our clan is perfectly strong, but we respect them all the same, don’t we?”

“No,” says Satoru, curtly.

His uncle sighs again. 

“You’re a good boy, Satoru,” he smiles. “You will be kinder when you are older.”

There isn’t much more conversation before his uncle gets up, trying in vain to dust off his clothes. 

“Be good for your father, won’t you? I have to go fetch your aunt from Tokyo. Don’t let anyone train you too hard.”

There’s a smile on his uncle’s face that crinkles his eyes, a smile which Satoru returns. His aunt likes to cook food and make sweets. Her return from Tokyo undoubtedly means fresh, homemade daifuku for Satoru. 

A few hours into the day, Satoru’s father finds him chasing around the maids with two beetles clamped in his fists. It ends up being a good day for Satoru, who is able to release the beetles on the maids’ arms before going home. His father can only laugh at his antics, much to the chagrin of his victims. 

The multiple houses in the Gojo estate are all within walking distance from each other. It is early evening as Satoru walks beside his father in the direction of their home, after having turned up his delicate little nose at the notion of holding his father’s hand for safety.

“When’s Ojisan coming back from Tokyo?” he asks, all of a sudden. 

“It should be at least a few weeks,” his father answers, and Satoru wilts a bit. “Your aunt is close to having her baby, and I daresay she won’t want to travel immediately after the birth.”

Ah, his aunt is close to having her-

“Huh?”

“Your aunt is close to having a baby, Satoru, that is why she’s in Tokyo. Did your uncle not tell you?”

Satoru takes a few seconds to process this information. Sure, he hadn’t seen his aunt in a while, but last he did, she never mentioned a baby of any sort. Neither did his uncle. 

“Ojisan didn’t tell me,” he says, his mouth turning sulky. 

“Probably because he’s afraid to jinx it. Your aunt has had trouble with having babies before,” his father shrugs, heart clearly not in the conversation. But Satoru is contemplating. He’s only seen babies from a distance, before, and he mostly remembers them being loud lump-like creatures. 

“Do you think she’ll have a strong baby?”

“Not as strong as you, that’s for sure!” his father crows in reply, and that’s the end of that. They’re home, and he is handed over to Aoki, who fusses over his dirty yukata. She chides  lightly for having dirt under his fingernails, then takes him upstairs to draw up a bath. 

“My aunt is having a baby,” he says, as the water runs. 

“Oh?” says Aoki, mildly interested. “Poor woman, I hope this time works out for her.”

Odd choice of words, but Satoru isn’t too interested in Aoki’s thoughts on the subject, so he stays silent while she helps him peel off his clothes and get into the bath. He thinks back to his aunt’s absence from home for a while, and longs for warm daifuku. Not the kind their cook makes, but specifically his aunt’s. 

He wishes he’d brought back a beetle to bother Aoki with.

—

A few weeks turn into a few months into very close to a year. His uncle does not make an appearance. Satoru is being forced to learn to read both Japanese and English. His grandfather has him instructed on the history of the Gojo clan, which he likes to tune out in favour of daydreaming about being a swordfighter. His lessons are all brief, thankfully, after which he is released into the gardens to entertain himself as he wishes.

He likes running around in the grass, and peeking into the edges of the wood that borders the estate in all directions but one. Sometimes, he’ll find a long stick which he can brandish as a sword, and pretend to be a knight. 

He is to turn five soon. He wonders idly what to ask for on his birthday. He gets whatever he asks for on any given day, and so far, none of the ideas he has seem birthday-worthy in the slightest. He decides to ask for snow, since it hasn’t snowed yet and he’d like to be able to pelt people with snowballs. 

He can feel cursed energy from the woods, can trace the flares of older kids from the Gojo clan exploring the place. He has the misfortune of being the youngest in the clan, with no peers to associate with. He doesn’t particularly care for the older kids, either- they’re nervous around him, and he disdains them for it. 

So his companions are his sticks and bugs and occasionally Aoki. He wonders about his aunt and her baby. Would it be large enough for him to play with? He entertains himself briefly with the image of a small cousin minion to follow him around and do his bidding and play sword-sticks with him. He wonders if he could ask for a minion on his birthday. 

It is the twenty second of November, and preparations at the Gojo estate are already in full swing. Every year, there is a massive party to celebrate the birth of their little prince, complete with mountains of presents brought by the families of the most prominent jujutsu clans in the country. Offerings range from books and toys to actual gold and diamonds, trying to curry favour with a spoiled little boy who scarcely pays attention to who got him what.

Most of the preparations take place in his grandfather’s house, where the party takes place. It has several components to it, but for most of it, Satoru is to be dressed up and sat beside his father and grandfather, polite and pretty until the guests leave, when he tears into his presents and gorges himself on sweets till he gets sick. 

When he marches into his house and sees Aoki, he makes his demands known immediately. 

“Tell my uncle to bring my baby cousin for my birthday,” he says, without preamble. “I want it to play with me.”

Aoki, who has been embroidering the Gojo family crest into a pair of Satoru-sized socks, looks up at him in surprise. 

“Oh, Satoru-sama,” she says, softly. “Your aunt lost the baby.”

He frowns in response. 

“Can’t she find it?” he questions. Aoki makes a face, then goes on.

“What I mean is, the baby… Well, she couldn’t have the baby. There is no baby,” she says, trying to explain the concept of stillborns to the young master without upsetting him. 

“Then tell her to get one,” Satoru responds. “I want one for my birthday.”

“Satoru-sama,” Aoki protests weakly, but he’s already on his way back out into the gardens. He makes a mental note to repeat his request to his father and grandfather, and feels nothing short of certainty that he will have a loyal follower sooner than later.

—

On his birthday, Satoru is less bothersome to dress than he is on other days of the year. Even as a small child, he senses the seriousness in the air when it comes to this event, this large scale gathering held by his clan. He knows in fact that it has mostly to do with him, but fortunately for Aoki, he is cooperative whilst she bathes him, sprays him with a mild, child friendly scent, and dresses him in beautiful, expensive clothing.

On days when he is so excessively docile, she rather adores being his nurse. Gojo Satoru is an angelic (looking) child. She enjoys dressing him up- it feels like playing dress up with a life-sized doll, only far more beautiful. She has always had the liberty to choose his clothing.

For this event, she picks out a silk haori and hakama set in blue and silver, and fawns over how lovely he looks. She is not older than twenty five, herself, and she thinks that if she ever has a child, she should be lucky if it looks anywhere near as beautiful as Gojo Satoru.

“Do you think Ojisan will come?” he asks, innocently, and Aoki melts.

“I don’t know, Satoru-sama,” she tells him. “I hope he does. You miss him, don’t you?”

“I want my present,” he says, dreamily, and she supposes that’s the five year old child equivalent of admitting to missing someone. 

It is early afternoon, and they are at the big house. Aoki has heard whispers off late, concerning moving her young master to his grandfather’s residence. It is where the heir should reside, and be trained. She hopes it comes to happen- she does not like dealing with Satoru’s father. He is widowed, and has no wife to keep his wandering eyes in check.

“Satoru-sama, will you promise me not to get your clothes dirty the first chance you get?” she asks him, crouching down to his height. “I’ll sneak you some extra mochi from the kitchens.”

He mulls it over, then shakes his head. 

“I can’t promise that,” he says. “I can’t promise that at all.”

She sighs- it was worth a shot, atleast. 

She takes him by hand and repeats all the instructions she has been giving him for the past two years. To sit quietly by his elders, to remember to have his back straight, to be a good boy and think of all the mochi he’ll be allowed to have afterwards. 

Of course, being as young as he is, he is given a break every half an hour or so, when his father takes him around the room to nod to the bows of several groups of adults. 

Satoru is seated on a soft cushion beside his grandfather, feet tucked neatly underneath him. His gaze is calm, but every person it lands on feels a shiver go up their spine. The amount of cursed energy in the room makes him blink his eyes more rapidly, an uncomfortable pressure on his head. As the afternoon progresses into evening, he longs to run into the gardens, to feel the cool winter air on his cheeks. 

That is, until his uncle’s cursed energy enters his radius of perception. It holds his attention for less than a second before he senses another presence- an amount of cursed energy so bright he wishes he could shut all six of his eyes. But the sensation is only uncomfortable for a few moments. Most of all, he feels a restless curiosity. 

He turns to his grandfather.

“I wish to be excused,” he says, with a glare so pointed he would not be refused. Not at the risk of a very public tantrum. His grandfather nods at him, privately grateful at having gotten the child to behave for the past few hours. 

The bright cursed energy beside his uncle has split from him, and now lingers somewhere in the gardens. His uncle is approaching the house from one of the back entrances, he senses- he doesn’t care. He weaves through several crowds of adults and darts into the kitchens, from where he escapes to the gardens. 

The sky is darkening rapidly. Satoru’s cheeks flush in the cold, but he quickly pinpoints his target, playing by herself in the grass. 

He’d hoped his uncle would bring a boy. 

He isn’t disappointed for long, though. Although it is dark, his bright eyes can see her face perfectly. 

It’s a nice face.

It’s actually a really nice face- he finds himself content to simply stare. She looks around his age, which is good. She has a lot of cursed energy. She also seems to have a curse with her. 

Curious. 

He walks up to her as she turns to stare at him with wide eyes. 

“You must be my present!” he says as a way of introduction. 

“I’m Satoru,” he grins.

The girl just stares. Then she frowns a bit, and starts to walk away. 

“Oh,” he says, following her. “You’ve got it wrong- you’re supposed to follow me, not lead!”

She gives him another strange look, and quickens her pace. As she walks towards the back patio, Satoru’s uncle emerges from inside, eyes lighting up when he sees her. 

“Gojo-sama!” she exclaims when she sees him, breaking into a run towards him. Satoru follows, only for her to grab onto his uncle’s legs and turn towards Satoru accusingly.

“This boy is trying to talk to me!”

She’s scowling and she looks quite upset- not that she has the right to, Satoru thinks. He scowls, too. 

“Oji-san, tell her she’s my present!”

“I am not!”

“Children!” his uncle laughs, crouching down to their heights. “This is my nephew, little one,” he says to the girl, tone gentle. “Please be kind to him.”

Satoru nods in agreement. 

“And Satoru, the present I bought you is with the other presents- it is not a child.”

Satoru squints at him quizzically. 

“Isn’t this your baby, Ojisan? The one you went to Tokyo for?”

He must have said something wrong, because his uncle’s face falls. 

“Ah, Satoru, did your father tell you I went to get a baby? It is all a bundle of confusion, but I don’t have a baby.” His uncle then puts an arm around the little girl, bringing her forward.

“But I’m hoping that the clan will be alright with my taking care of this little one, here. Will you be nice to her, Satoru?”

“Will she play with me?” Satoru retorts. “You should be my friend,” he tells the girl, forgoing resentment for a broad smile. He likes looking at her, he really does. 

She glances at his uncle for confirmation, and abruptly bows to Satoru. She says her name, and Satoru repeats it with fascination. 

“Very good,” grins his uncle, his smile very like Satoru’s. He takes her hand in one of his, and Satoru’s in his other, bringing them together in a shake. Her hand is cold, but Satoru holds onto it, not wanting to let go. His eyes are fixed on her face, not in the slightest bothered by the curse he can see lingering around her. 

“I like mochi,” he says, pulling at her hand to drag her away from his uncle, who only calls out for Satoru to be nice to her. 

He doesn’t need to be told. For all his faults, he’s not the sort of child who likes to mistreat or break his toys. He sing-songs your name as he takes you to the edge of the gardens, near where the woods start. 

“Do you wanna play sword fights?” he says, not bothering to wait for an answer as he begins to scrounge about for sticks. You drop to your knees beside him.

“You can play a villain,” you tell him. He frowns in response, this strange blue-eyed boy, and shakes his snowy head.

“If you’re not nice, I’ll make you play a princess,” he warns, pale face all red. 

“What’s wrong with playing a princess?” you ask confused. 

“They’re weak,” Satoru says.

This is news to you. But you don’t want to be stuck playing a princess if they’re weak, so you decide to be a little nicer to Satoru. Gojo-sama did say it was his birthday, and you know one of the rules of birthdays is to be nice to the person whose birthday it is. 

“You’re cursed, aren’t you?” says Satoru. “Did my uncle bring you here to break your curse?”

You find a suitable stick, and use it to poke at the ground.

“I don’t know,” you say, softly. “I don’t remember much before Gojo-sama found me.”

“You’re cursed,” says Satoru, nodding as if he knows the secrets of the universe. “I can see it. I have six eyes.”

You frown at him. 

“You’re a little weird, Satoru,” you say. He only grins in response. 

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t be upset with you for saying that. I’m nice to things that are mine.”

He keeps saying that. You feel intense irritation bubbling up inside you, so you do the first thing that comes to your mind. You’ve been poking at the ground with your stick for a while, and a good amount of soil has come loose. You bend down, ball up some soft earth in your tiny fist, and chuck it at him. 

Satoru laughs merrily as the mud strikes his cheek. He’s not to be left behind- he grabs fistfuls of grass and dirt and flings them at you, and soon enough, you’re having a full-fledged mud war. 

At some point, a woman comes to fetch Satoru and is completely horrified at the mess of both your clothes, but especially his. She addresses you with formality and introduces herself as “Satoru-sama’s” nurse. Satoru is sitting in the dirt beside you, giggling and poking at your cheek. You giggle back, and push into him a little. 

“She’s my present,” Satoru says happily, and you wonder if he’s a little stupid. 

[beardedmrbean]

The former top prosecutor in Baltimore, convicted of fraud for lying about financial hardship during the pandemic in order to buy a beach house with money from the federal government , will serve no prison time.

Marilyn Mosby, 44, was sentenced to 12 months of house arrest, 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release Thursday, Erek Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland announced.

The ex-prosecutor was found guilty of multiple felony charges in two separate trials, one that took place this year and one last fall.

During the sentencing hearing in Prince County, U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced Mosby to home confinement with electric monitoring and also ordered forfeiture of 90% of the property Mosby bought with the fraudulently obtained mortgage.

Mosby garnered national attention in 2015 when she charged six Baltimore police officers in connection to the death of Freddie Gray. A Black man, Gray, 25, died in police custody  a week after he suffered a severe spinal injury while traveling without a seatbelt in the back of a van on the way to the police station.

Prosecutors had asked for a 20-month sentence

Under the law, Mosby had faced up to 35 years in prison for her fraud and perjury convictions.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean R. Delaney and Aaron S.J. Zelinsky prosecuted the federal cases. Federal court records show they had argued for a 20-month prison sentence.

“The court agrees these are very serious offenses and that this conduct displays a pattern of dishonesty,” The Baltimore Sun reported Griggsby told Mosby in court. “This dishonesty also occurred when you held the highest office for a prosecutor in the City of Baltimore.”

While Mosby’s crimes didn’t have “victims in a traditional sense,” the outlet reported, Griggsby said Mosby "betrayed people who looked up to her in the community."

The judge went on to acknowledged the former head prosecutor's record of public service, the Sun reported, and said Mosby’s two daughters "weighed most heavily" in determining the sentence.

What was Marilyn Mosby convicted of?

In February, Mosby was convicted of making a false mortgage application when she was Baltimore City State’s Attorney, relating to the purchase of a condominium in Long Boat Key, Florida. The jury acquitted Mosby of making a false mortgage application related to her purchase of a home in Kissimmee, Florida.

Several months earlier, in November, a jury found Mosby guilty of two counts of perjury, in connection to the withdrawal of funds from the City of Baltimore’s Deferred Compensation Plan claiming "she suffered adverse financial consequences" during the pandemic while she was the city's prosecutor.

n a statement released by his office, Barron commended the FBI and IRS-CI agents for their work in the investigation and thanked the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General for its assistance in the case.

[the-library-of-forgotten-endings]

Ink-Stained Love is Not Ideal, Part 1: Love of the Ink-Stained Tyrant

Overblots x reader

Reader pronouns used: not applicable

Content warnings: kinda yandere OB Riddle, and reader almost gets hit by a rosebush, but no harm comes to reader, don’t worry.

“I’m not saying that I don’t want to date you, but also, I can’t date you.”

It’s absolutely not fair, in your opinion. Once an Overblot is defeated, it should stay dead, because they’re all pains in the ass that you should only have to deal with once in a lifetime.

But no, the universe decided that you hadn’t gone through nearly enough bullshit, and so through some sort of magic phenomena, brought all the Overblots back to life and chucked the lot of you into some alternate realm.

You hate it here.

But hey, at least most of the OBs (as you like to call them) are kind of pretty in a oh my god I’m terrified and shitting my pants way.

Except for OB Jamil. That beard is not it.

“What do you mean, you can’t ‘date’ me?” fumes OB Riddle. “I am the most righteous in the land! All must defer to me! Surely I am the most suitable one for you?!”

Oh, and did you mention that OB Riddle is in love with you, for some reason? God, this is really your day, isn’t it?

“No no no!” you reply nervously, feeling the ground start to shake. “It’s not like you’re not boyfriend material!”

“Then what is it?!”

You swiftly dodge a flying rosebush, and delicately touch OB Riddle’s face, trying not to cringe at the sticky ink running down your fingers.

“Look, babes,” you begin, and OB Riddle’s greyish cheeks flush a gentle pink at the nickname. What the fuck. Don’t tell me he likes that nickname. “Today is Valentine’s Day, yeah?”

“Valentine’s… Day?”

“Yep. And today, people who want to confess to their crush give their crush chocolate and flowers! It’s like, a rule!”

“Rule, you say?”

“But… I haven’t got you any chocolate! So, I need you to let me go so I can get you chocolate to confess my love to you, alright? I’ve got to follow the rules.”

“…Well… if it’s to follow the rules…”

OB Riddle waves a hand, and a portal opens into a savannah, completely drained of any life. You suppose that’s where OB Leona is, just your luck. Does this mean you’re gonna have to get through him, and OB Azul, etc, etc, etc in their respective dimensions or something, like a stupid video game?

You are not looking forward to this.

“Come back quickly, okay?” whispers OB Riddle, clasping your hands tenderly. “Or I’ll get worried…”

And yes, he does look so genuinely upset at you leaving, so much like Real Riddle, that you do actually feel a bit sorry for him. So, you give him a quick kiss on the cheek, the bitter taste of ink almost making you cough.

“Be back soon, babes!”

And thus, you leap through portal into the savannah, leaving behind the lovesick Overblot.

PART 2: COMING SOON

[fanby-fckry]

Actually, the more I’m writing Alastor and Lilith interacting post-Metamours, the more I realize that Alastor has a soft spot for her. Lucifer would never get away with this shit.

It’s not unpressidented, either. From the moment the switch flips in his mind from, “this woman secretly wants to kill me,” to “oh she actually, genuinely does want to be my friend,” there is a noticeable difference.

He’s quicker to warm up to her, to open up and allow himself to express vulnerability. And while some of that is probably because Lucifer loosened the lid on Alastor’s bottled up emotions, I don’t think that’s the whole picture.

He defers to her in a way he doesn’t for Lucifer, even in subspace. He’s willing to let her take the lead in conversations and trusts that he’ll like where she brings them.

He uses her title as a term of endearment and continues to indulge her in her more royal rituals. Mentally, he refers to her as “the Queen of Hell,” where Lucifer is “the Devil.” Lilith could just as easily have been, “the First Woman,” or simply, “Lilith,” but no, he picked the royal title.

He sees her on her throne for the first time in Metamours and thinks she looks, “every bit like the Queen of the Damned.” Then on the Survey Fic epilogue, she’s “as regal and dangerous as the day he’d first seen her there,” and Alastor experiences, “All of the awe and none of the fear from that day fifty-five years ago […] along with a fondness that had been given fifty-five years to take root and flourish.”

I haven’t written Alastor’s reaction to Lucifer on his throne yet, but something tells me it’d be a lot less awe and a lot more wanting to knock him down a peg. Either by fighting, biting, or intentionally being such a brat that Lucifer physically leaves his throne to go punish him.

I know he tells Lilith that he views her as outranking Lucifer because, “your husband spent six years making a fool of himself trying to seduce me while I kept a running tally of his failures,” but I doubt Alastor ever called Lucifer “your Majesty,” with the same reverence he uses for Lilith.

I do kind of have to wonder if it’s a gender thing; if I unintentionally gave Alastor a preference for women before it was even shown on screen.

Like, I had heard Viv’s thing about how he tends to get along better with women than with men, but I cannot stress enough that I didn’t think this aspect of his character would be applicable to this AU.

Especially since Lucifer isn’t even firmly in the ‘man’ category of Alastor’s mind; he’s in his own category because even without knowing the term ‘nonbinary,’ UH3!Lucifer is a shapeshifting Fallen angel who has never been shy about the fact that he does not fit within the human social construct that is gender.

It wasn’t intentional, but I think I’m gonna keep it in mind when writing UH3 Alastor from this point forward.

So, anyway, I had an incorrect quotes idea that wouldn’t leave my head about the dichotomy in the way he views the Morningstars, despite deeply caring for them both:

Alastor, about Lilith: All women are queens.

Alastor, about Lucifer: If he breathes, he’s a thot (affectionate).